What happened
The UK will cover the cost of transporting asylum seekers to and from France under a new "one in, one out" deal struck between Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron. The agreement, which allows Britain to return one irregular migrant to France for each approved UK asylum applicant in France, will initially apply to about 50 people. It must be renewed by 11 June next year and can be terminated with one month's notice.

Who said what
Government documents released yesterday reveal that "all transport costs incurred in connection with readmission pursuant to this agreement shall be borne by the United Kingdom".

There have been "no details released on how the government will select who is returned", said Sky News, but the "initial focus will be on adults, with no plans to split up families".

What next?
The deal, which came into force yesterday, was struck amid mounting pressure to reduce small boat crossings, which had brought in a record 25,436 people as of 30 July, up 48% on last year. The agreement bars the removal of people with active asylum claims and allows France to block transfers on security or public health grounds.

What happened
The acting head of Nasa is fast-tracking US efforts to build a nuclear reactor on the Moon by 2030, according to documents seen by Politico. US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy is calling for proposals from commercial companies to build a reactor that could power a human settlement.

Who said what
To "properly advance this critical technology to be able to support a future lunar economy" it is "imperative the agency move quickly", the former Fox News host reportedly wrote in a directive to Nasa.

The idea is "not new", said the BBC. But "questions remain about how realistic the goal and time frame are" given the Trump administration's "steep Nasa budget cuts". Scientists are concerned that this announcement is "a politically motivated move" in the space race to the Moon.

What next?
The move is a sign of the space agency's "concern" about a similar project between China and Russia (announced this year) to build a nuclear reactor by 2035, said Politico. The first country to do so on the Moon could "declare a keep-out zone that would significantly inhibit the United States", according to Duffy's directive.

Just when you thought it was safe to go out in wet weather, acid rain "may have a sequel", said Popular Mechanics, and "like most sequels, it's arguably worse".

And it might not have a happy ending because dealing with a "forever chemical", which is now coming down in rain and being found in "everything from drinking water to human blood", may be an "impossible task".

Scientists started studying acid rain in the 1960s and by the 1980s it had become the most discussed environmental issue of the time, in both news media and popular culture. "At its worst", the first era of acid rain "stripped forests bare in Europe, wiped lakes clear of life in parts of Canada and the US" and damaged human health and crops in China, said the BBC.

It came from rising concentrations of sulphuric acid produced mostly by petrol-driven cars and coal-fired power stations. Acid rain became less of a problem as power sources evolved, but now there's a "new anthropogenic source" that is "possibly more pervasive, more persistent and more sinister". When rain, or snow, falls, a human-made chemical called trifluoroacetic acid (TFA) is falling with it.

And there are other imposters in rain, including "plastic rain", which is the "new acid rain", according to Wired. In 2020, researchers found that more than 1,000 tonnes of microplastic fell on 11 national parks and protected areas in the western US each year – the equivalent of more than 120 million plastic water bottles. This "could prove to be a more insidious problem than acid rain".