The Know Daily - Tuesday 7 April 2026

_{Read in 4m 12s ∙ Listening to Rascal Flatts ∙}

Since 2000, global school enrolment has shot up 30% – that’s 25 extra kids starting school every single minute for 25 years! 🎉 According to UNESCO’s latest report, completion rates are climbing and gender gaps in education are closing. Making school compulsory in parts of Africa has added over a year of learning, and places like Madagascar, Morocco and Turkey have slashed out-of-school rates by at least 80%.

🌊 River rights

Local councils in the UK are starting to grant rivers legal rights, a move aimed at cracking down on repeated pollution.

Tell me more.
Giving a river legal rights would change how the law treats it – not just as something people can use, but as an entity whose wellbeing must be considered. At the moment, if a company discharges sewage into a river in the UK, it usually counts as a regulatory breach and is handled with permits and fines. But if a river has legal rights, repeated pollution could instead be seen as a violation of the river’s “personhood”. Under this approach, the focus is on restoring the river rather than just punishing the polluter. 

Why is this in the news now?
Around 75 % of UK rivers are considered a “serious risk to health”, mostly because of sewage, farm runoff and other pollutants. In 2025, raw sewage was discharged into rivers and seas nearly 300,000 times, even in dry weather when there’s less rain to wash pollution in.

This is why some communities and councils are looking at giving rivers legal rights. They see traditional fines and regulations as not strong enough to prevent repeated pollution.

Where’s this already happened?
The River Ouse in Sussex was the first to have its rights formally recognised in a charter last year. Whilst the charter isn’t fully legally binding yet, it recognises the river’s right to flow, exist naturally and be free from pollution. Another council, Basingstoke and Deane, made a similar declaration last month.

Internationally, some rivers already have legal personhood. Colombia’s Atrato River has had this status since 2016, New Zealand’s Whanganui River since 2017 and Canada’s Magpie River since 2021, meaning they’re all treated as legal entities with guardians appointed to act on their behalf.

What’s the government doing about it?
There still isn’t a national law giving UK rivers full legal rights, so more action is needed to make local charters meaningful. The government is taking steps to tackle pollution, including targets in the Environmental Improvement Plan to halve sewage pollution and cut agricultural runoff by 12 % by 2030. The Environment Agency has also expanded its enforcement team to act faster on pollution incidents. On the regulatory side, the Water (Special Measures) Act gives regulators stronger powers and penalties for water companies that fail to protect rivers, while farming pollution rules are being strengthened with more inspections and guidance.

💷 Benefits and pensions have increased as the new financial year begins, with the end of the two-child cap meaning larger families can now receive extra support.

• The bigger story: Around 480,000 families are set to gain an average of £4,100 a year after the cap was scrapped, while most benefits have risen by 3.8% and the state pension has gone up 4.8%. There are a few trade-offs, like changes to some disability-related payments and continued freezes on income tax thresholds (meaning the amount you can earn before paying tax isn’t increasing with inflation, so more people may end up paying more tax over time). The updates are part of a wider reset of how support is distributed, aiming to better reflect the rising cost of living. The BBC has also created a handy calculator to help you work out how your pay might be affected.

🤖 Metaphors for AI have been circling the internet  – here’s a roundup of some of the best. (Tbh we had to Google what a “shoggoth” is!)

🚀 NASA has been releasing incredible pictures of the Moon and Earth taken by the astronauts aboard its Artemis II mission.

🦔 Germany is moving to ban robot lawnmowers at night so hedgehogs can wander safely through gardens undisturbed.

🌍 A survey for a readers choice award has opened where you can vote for your favourite hotels, countries and resorts. 

🏛️ Rome’s Colosseum has had a makeover meaning visitors can relive the experience of a Roman era attendee. 

🔗 Last week’s most clicked: The best of this year’s April fools, the UK’s best restaurants and Snoopy throwing shapes.

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