Biodiversity defenders have sounded the alarm about the United Kingdom government's Monday decision to provide another so-called "emergency" exception for the use of an outlawed neonicotinoid pesticide lethal to bees.

The Intellectual Property Office said the practice might break criminal and civil law.

A surgical team has used a new type of robot to remove a cancerous tumour from a patient's throat. Gloucestershire Royal Hospital surgeons Simon Higgs and Steve Hornby employed the Versius robot to remove a tumour from Martin Nugent's oesophagus.

Revised online safety bill proposes fines of 10% of revenue but drops harmful communications offence.

A hundred UK companies have signed up for a permanent four-day working week for all their employees with no loss of pay, a milestone in the campaign to fundamentally change Britain’s approach to work. The 100 companies employ 2,600 staff – a tiny fraction of the UK’s working population – but the 4 Day Week Campaign group is hoping they will be the vanguard of a major shift.

An asylum seeker who has spent almost 500 days stranded in a Berkshire hotel has thanked Observer readers for their generosity after he was inundated with books. Last week Ali featured in an article articulating life in limbo for the 37,000 asylum seekers living in hotels, with the Kurdish Iranian lamenting that the one thing he craved to relieve the tedium was a book to read.

New research has found that more than half of gamers asked (52%) are now sharing new gaming purchases with friends and 62% say they are not buying new games at all - instead focusing on secondhand purchases or freebies.

The Bank of England has warned the UK is facing its longest recession since records began, as it raised interest rates by the most in 33 years. It warned the UK would face a "very challenging" two-year slump with unemployment nearly doubling by 2025. Bank boss Andrew Bailey warned of a "tough road ahead" for UK households, but said it had to act forcefully now or things "will be worse later on".

In a matter of weeks – or even days – the UK’s free-range chicken sector is expected to be shut down. Any farms that had been giving their egg-laying hens or chickens access to the outdoors will be forced to keep them locked indoors. While the headlines are that bird flu is back after a surge of outbreaks over the past three weeks and fears of festive goose shortages, the reality is it never really went away.

Amazon shoppers in the UK could receive a share of £900m in compensation, once a legal claim is submitted against the technology giant. The proposed claim alleges the company breached competition law and caused customers to pay higher prices. It is being led by consumer-rights champion Julie Hunter, who says products sold on Amazon.co.uk and the Amazon app obscured better-value deals.

A majority of the public believe nature is under threat and needs urgent action to protect and restore it, according to a YouGov poll. The poll for the National Trust, RSPB and WWF comes as they and other mainstream green groups are mobilising their millions of members to counter what they say is the government’s attack on nature.

The cost of decommissioning the UK’s 20th-century nuclear waste could rise to £260bn as the aged and degrading sites present growing challenges, according to analysis presented to an international group of experts. As the government pursues nuclear energy with the promise of a new generation of reactors, the cost of safely cleaning up waste from previous generations of power stations is soaring.

The British government on Wednesday said it would cap wholesale electricity and gas costs for businesses at less than half the market rate from next month, helping relieve the pressure of soaring energy costs but adding to the government's fast-rising spending.

Britain is inviting a representative from North Korea to attend Queen Elizabeth's funeral on Monday, but Afghanistan, Syria and Venezuela will not be given an invite, a foreign office source said on Wednesday.

A protein implant could cure blindness, according to a new study. Researchers found no one who had the operation was still blind two years later and three people who were blind ended up with 20:20 vision.

Conservationists have called for ministers to ban the release of millions of gamebirds to prevent the UK’s wild birds being wiped out by a “catastrophic” avian flu epidemic this winter. The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) said there was a significant risk that pheasants, partridge and ducks released for shooting from 1 October could spread avian influenza into wild bird populations, wreaking havoc in farmland and garden birds.

The Prince of Wales received a £1m donation for his charity from relatives of Osama bin Laden, according to a report. The Sunday Times alleged that the future king accepted the payment from Bakr bin Laden, the patriarch of the Saudi family, and his brother Shafiq.

The rise in sea levels around the UK is accelerating and has reached a rate more than double that in the first years of the 1900s. A report from the UK’s Met Office found that the seas have risen by about 16.5 centimetres (6.5 ins) since 1990 alone, driven by annual increases of 3-5.2 millimetres a year.

The UK is set to become home to the world's largest automated drone superhighway within the next two years. The drones will be used on the 164-mile Skyway project connecting towns and cities, including Cambridge and Rugby. It is part of a £273m funding package for the aerospace sector which will be revealed by Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng on Monday.

A 2020 call for evidence on loot boxes, launched by the UK’s Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, found that players who purchased loot boxes may be more likely to experience “gambling, mental health, financial and problem gaming-related” harms. The risk may also be higher for children and young people, it was found.