CATEGORIES

Finn family murals

The optimism that runs through Finnish artist Tove Jansson's Moomin stories also appears in her public works, now on show in a Helsinki exhibition

I hoped Finland would be a progressive dream.I've had to think again Mike Watson

Oulu is five hours north from Helsinki by train and a good deal colder and darker each winter than the Finnish capital. From November to March its 220,000 residents are lucky to see daylight for a couple of hours a day and temperatures can reach the minus 30s. However, this is not the reason I sense a darkening of the Finnish dream that brought me here six years ago.

A surplus of billionaires is destabilising our democracies Zoe Williams

The concept of \"elite overproduction\" was developed by social scientist Peter Turchin around the turn of this century to describe something specific: too many rich people for not enough rich-person jobs.

'What will people think? I don't care any more'

At 90, Alan Bennett has written a sex-fuelled novella set in a home for the elderly. He talks about mourning Maggie Smith, turning down a knighthood and what he makes of the new UK prime minister

I see you

What happens when people with acute psychosis meet the voices in their heads? A new clinical trial reveals some surprising results

Rumbled How Ali ran rings around apartheid, 50 years ago

Fifty years ago, in a corner of white South Africa, Muhammad Ali already seemed a miracle-maker.

Trudeau faces 'iceberg revolt'as calls grow for PM to quit

Justin Trudeau, who promised “sunny ways” as he won an election on a wave of public fatigue with an incumbent Conservative government, is now facing his darkest and most uncertain political moment as he attempts to defy the odds to win a rare fourth term.

Lost Maya city revealed through laser mapping

After swapping machetes and binoculars for computer screens and laser mapping, a team of researchers have discovered a lost Maya city containing temple pyramids, enclosed plazas and a reservoir which had been hidden for centuries by the Mexican jungle.

'A civil war' Gangs step up assault on capital

Armed fighters advance into neighbourhoods at the heart of Port-au-Prince as authorities try to restore order

Reality bites in the Himalayan 'kingdom of happiness'

High emigration and youth unemployment levels belie the mountain nation's global reputation for cheeriness

'It's better not to try our luck again'

Why voters back political forces that favour closer ties with Moscow, despite seeing their nations' future in the EU

A new enemy Inexperienced North Korean troops prepare to enter conflict

Depending on whom you ask, they are the boost that Russian forces need to make a significant breakthrough in Ukraine, or they are simple cannon fodder, destined for repatriation in body bags.

Deep blue Badenoch faces multiple challenges as Tory leader

Kemi Badenoch might have avoided the cursed 52%-48% ratio that has riven the Conservative party before, but the nevertheless close-run nature of her 56.5% tally in the members' vote for the party's new leader shows the scale of the task before her.

A brave investment? Rachel Reeves's first budget is a radical departure after years of constraint

Labour's first UK budget in almost 15 years marked a radical departure with past constraints on investment spending.

Total siege Fears Israel plans to seize land in Gaza

Israel has tightened its siege of northern Gaza in the face of warnings from the UN and other aid agencies that hundreds of thousands of Palestinian lives at are risk, raising questions over whether the Netanyahu government’s ultimate war aims include territorial expansion.

Ban on vital Unrwa aid could spell disaster

Bin bags were piling up at one end of the chaotic main thoroughfare in Shuafat refugee camp last Friday morning as shoppers walked by, stepping over a stream of wastewater trickling from a nearby drainpipe. Poor sanitation is just one of the UN-administered Palestinian camp's problems - but things will get much worse.

Hey big spenders This election at least solved the riddle of how to fritter away $1bn

It was one of the most striking images of the final full week of the presidential election campaign: a giant projection of Kamala Harris's face on the 111-metre-tall Las Vegas Sphere.

A predictable result Here's how the winner of the election did it

Whether Donald Trump or Kamala Harris prevails in the contest, it won't feel hard to explain why the outcome was inevitable

An'everyday apocalypse' Cop must face up to climate car crash

Move on. Nothing to see here. Just another ordinary, everyday apocalypse.

A tide of horror

Residents of Utiel in the Valencia region describe how they escaped rising waters, and the devastation left behind by unprecedented rain

Putin's Call To De-Dollarise Alarms Some At BRICS Talks

Vladimir Putin opened the expanded Brics summit last month by issuing a call for an alternative international payments system that could prevent the US using the dollar as a political weapon.

Power in the darkness

Wolf Hall is back. As the extraordinary epic about King Henry VIII and his vengeful entourage edges to a climax, Timothy Spall reveals what it was like to play Cromwell's nemesis

It's time for Trump's instincts to be called what they are: fascist

There is a good chance that on 5 November, Americans will elect the first fascist president of the United States.

CASTLES IN THE AIR

It was meant to be a dream development of mansions in the Turkish hills. But 13 years on, Burj AI Babas is a half-built ghost town, and a microcosm of the scandal-hit construction sector under Erdoğan. Will the buyers ever get to move in?

Using cutting-edge methods, Alexandra Morton-Hayward is unravelling the mysteries of grey matter – even as hers betrays her The brain collector

ALEXANDRA MORTON-HAYWARD, a 35-year-old mortician turned molecular palaeontologist, had been behind the wheel of her rented Vauxhall for five hours, motoring across three countries, when a torrential storm broke loose on the plains of Belgium.

Dark times Blackouts spark fears of wider collapse

Maria Elena Cárdenas is 76 and lives in a municipal shelter on Amargura Street in Havana's colonial old town.

Washington Post sparks fury over decision not to endorse

Fury and shock ripped through liberal America last weekend after news that the Washington Post, home of the Watergate scandal exposé, will not endorse Kamala Harris for president.

The great space waste

From chaotic collisions to depletion of the ozone layer, the thousands of satellites in orbit around Earth have the potential to wreak havoc

New heights Teen Sherpa's fight for climbing equality

Growing up as a sherpa in Nepal, Nima Rinji Sherpa was used to his relatives performing superhuman feats on the mountains.

Plastic cave made in Spain keeps Amazonian culture alive

It is not yet dawn in Ulupuwene, an Indigenous village in the Brazilian Amazon, but the Wauja people have already risen to prepare for the festive day ahead.