The Flow Country in Scotland is to become the world’s first peatland bog to gain UNESCO World Heritage status. It will also be Scotland's first natural world heritage site.
The area covers around 1,500 square miles in Caithness and Sutherland and is widely considered to be the largest area of blanked bog in the world.
The Flow Country will be the UK's 35th UNESCO World Heritage Site and Scotland's seventh, joining St Kilda and the Forth Bridge on the list.
Other natural world heritage sites include The Grand Canyon and The Great Barrier Reef.

A project to renovate and bring a former post office back into active use has received grant funding in Rhyl.

 
An independent review of the Care Quality Commission (CQC) has found significant internal failings which is having an impact on its ability to identify poor performance at hospitals, care homes and GP practices.
The interim report found inspection levels were still well below where they were pre-Covid, a lack of clinical expertise among inspectors, a lack of consistency in assessments and problems with the CQC’s IT system.  

Science secretary Peter Kyle has appointed Tech entrepreneur and chair of Advanced Research And Invention Agency (ARIA), Matt Clifford to lead work to discover untapped AI opportunities.
Clifford will deliver a new AI Opportunities Action Plan to identify ways to accelerate the use of AI to improve people’s lives by making services better and developing new products.  

Crown Commercial Service (CCS) has revealed that £3.52 billion (16.7 per cent) of central government spending went directly to 1,525 small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) over the last year.
CCS, the UK’s biggest public procurement organisation, has published its annual report and accounts for 2023/24.
72 per cent of the suppliers on CCS's commercial agreements are now either micro (37 per cent), small (23 per cent) or medium (12 per cent) sized enterprises.

Five new hubs to develop practical use of quantum technology in areas like medical scanners, secure communication networks, and next-generation positioning systems have received £100 million in government funding.