Councils in England have been given updated guidance and stronger legal powers to clamp down on litter louts.
The updated guidance has been put on statutory footing, meaning local authorities will have a legal duty to follow it.
Under the new rules, councils will have the power to issue on-the-spot fines of up to £500 for littering, including when litter is thrown from a vehicle. Unpaid fines will double after 28 days.
The guidance says that enforcement should be proportionate, so resources can be focussed on the worst offenders.

£10 million has been announced to generate local renewable energy and reduce energy bills in Wales.

The government has announced that some voters in May elections will be able to vote in a shopping centre and on weekends in a bid to make voting easier.
Four areas will take part in the trial, which will give people more choice over where and when they vote.
In Milton Keynes, people will be able to vote at centre:mk, instead of at a designated poling station.
In Cambridge, Tunbridge Wells and North Hertfordshire, people will be able to vote in person ahead of the election, including at the weekend.

The government has announced up to £150,000 of funding for public libraries to support the National Year of Reading

The Welsh Government will provide an extra £30.9 million to local authorities to deliver regeneration projects across Wales.
Since it launched in 2020, the Welsh Government’s Transforming Towns programme has awarded more than £484 million in grant and loan funding to support regeneration across Wales. This extra funding brings the total investment for 2025/26 to £56.3 million.

New statistics show that £7.53 billion has been saved thanks to a crackdown on public sector fraud.
The Counter Fraud Function has been working on prevention, recovery, and enforcement. Uniting specialists from across government, the Function works to identify and dismantle fraud across the public sector.
Working with local authorities and using data-matching tools like the National Fraud Initiative (NFI), fraudulent claims have been identified, by comparing records across the public sector.

Two developers have been selected to transform two industrial areas of Sheffield into new neighbourhoods with up to 1,300 new homes.
Sheffield City Council and Homes England have appointed Capital&Centric and Great Places Housing Group to jointly develop a neighbourhood at Furnace Hill and igloo Regeneration will work at Neepsend.
At Furnace Hill, a new neighbourhood including around 750 new homes, one third affordable, one third for home ownership, and one third for build-to-rent.

The Green Party's Hannah Spencer has won the Gorton and Denton by-election, taking the seat from Labour and recording the party's first ever Westminster by-election victory.
Labour won with a majority of more than 13,000 in the 2024 general election and this is the first time in nearly 100 years that Gorton will not be represented by a Labour MP. The result is the sixth largest Labour majority to be overturned at a by-election since the Second World War.

The government has published new guidance to help local authorities crack down on waste crime.
New statistics have revealed that there were 1.26 million incidents of fly-tipping last year.
Government guidance will, for the first time, advise local authorities how to seize and crush vehicles used to dump waste.

Councils and organisations working to tackle homelessness and rough sleeping are to receive £50 million of government funding.
The money will be split across two major programs - the Ending Homelessness in Communities Fund and the Long-Term Rough Sleeping Innovation Programme.
The government is working to halve long-term rough sleeping by the end of this parliament.