Falling apart The climate crisis met a failed state-and disaster ensued

When the climate crisis meets a failed state, the outcome is the kind of disaster that has unfolded in Derna.

'I expected to die'

Journalists on the ground in Derna say reporting on the flooding disaster has been a harrowing experience and one that has deeply affected people

Tangled up in blue

A former minister exposes the 'shameful state' of Britain's Tory administration in this brilliant account of dysfunctional rule

Is Elon Musk really the guiding force the world needs right now?

When Elon Musk posted a personally crafted 280-character “ peace plan ” for the war in Ukraine last October, a Ukrainian diplomat offered a carefully considered review. It ran to two words: “ Fuck off”.

Les mots perdus

Proust, ChatGPT and the case of the forgotten quote In search of a passage among the French writer's voluminous work, I turned to AI to help me find it. The results were instructive - just not about Proust

'Something happened'

FIRST THERE WERE THE BEWILDERING DNA TEST RESULTS, THEN THE LONG-FORGOTTEN FERTILITY BLOG-AND A DISCOVERY THAT WOULD CHANGE THE LIVES OF TWO FAMILIES FOR EVER

Activists hail abortion ruling but warn of lack of access

Human rights activists in Mexico have welcomed a historic ruling by the country's supreme court that decriminalises abortion, but warned that the historic decision will not automatically make terminations accessible for all Mexican women.

Swing shift Can workers' gains lift Biden's poll fortunes?

David Coxistryingtopersuade his union members that Joe Biden has done more for working-class Americans than any president he has seen in his decades as a construction worker and organiser in eastern Ohio.

Waste not...Can lab-grown fruit ease food insecurity?

In the face of growing food security concerns due to climate change, scientists in New Zealand are attempting to grow fruit tissue in labs.

How El Niño is putting world rice supplies in jeopardy

Normally by this time of year Thongpoon Moonchan-song's fields are submerged in still waters, with scattered rice plants reaching up to her knees. The waters are usually so abundant that if you plunge a net into the fields, you can draw out fish and crab to eat.

The rule that saved my little boy's life

Australian protocol giving patients and relatives the right to a second medical opinion may soon be adopted in the UK

A cry for help from the traumatised teachers living in fear

South Korea's teachers know why a colleague killed herself after being subjected to abuse from parents, according to Park Seo-yoon*. \"We've all had similar struggles,\" she said.

Rubiales quits A victory for feminism but questions still remain

News that Luis Rubiales had resigned, three weeks after his unsolicited kiss and defiant refusal to step down sparked outrage around the world, was welcomed as a win for feminism even as questions swirled about his decision to make the announcement in an English-language interview.

'Into battle' New generation of Indigenous activists rises

The medicine man flashed a mischievous grin as he dabbed his warriors' eyeballs with a feather soaked in malagueta pepper and watched them grimace in pain. \"They're going into battle and this will protect them,\" José Delfonso Pereira said as he advanced on his next target with a jam jar of his chilli potion.

Business beats a path to Labour's green door

Labour is turning away business leaders who want to attend events at its party conference in Liverpool next month because too many have applied in the belief that Keir Starmer will form the next government.

'A good week' Starmer's core team sets course for No 10

Labour is hotly tipped to win the next election. Can the reshuffled shadow cabinet deliver?

Diplomatic win Biden defers to Modi on Ukraine in sign of India's growing influence

It took Indian diplomats 200 hours of non-stop negotiations, 300 bilateral meetings and 15 drafts, but in the end the G20 countries reached a consensus on the war in Ukraine - one that largely retreated into generalised principles rather than the specific condemnation of Russia that the same group of leaders agreed upon when they met in Bali a year ago.

'The war came to us': the Danube ports in the firing line

With Odesa out of action, Izmail and Reni are now the only places vital grain and sunflower oil can be exported

Fading hopes Offers of help flood in amid desperate search efforts

Select foreign aid and rescue teams joined desperate efforts to find any remaining survivors high in Morocco's Atlas mountains this week, as the death toll passed 2,800 people after a powerful earthquake that rendered many villages inaccessible.

'Everything is gone' Despair in villages reduced to rubble

As the dirt roads leading to some of the areas worst hit in last Friday's earth quake in Morocco were gradually cleared, the full extent of the disaster was being revealed, including whole villages destroyed in Al-Haouz province.

'Bad' Apple? Smartphone ban may signal wider backlash against US tech

China's government last week reportedly expanded its ban of iPhones to local government workers and state-owned companies, soon after it had emerged central government employees were forbidden from bringing the devices to work.

Red alert Too few jobs, not enough tax receipts and a weak safety net

When finding a job feels as unlikely as winning the lottery, playing the actual lottery may seem like a more productive use of time. In the first half of 2023, faced with a struggling economy, Chinese consumers spent 273.9bn yuan ($37bn ) on lottery tickets, an increase of more than 50% on the same period in 2022.

Have we reached Peak China?

The world's second-biggest economy has long seemed set on an everupwards path. But amid a slowing economy and jobs market, the outlook may be changing for the country's people-and its leaders

The graduate

She was a TV child star - then became a pop phenomenon. With her new second album, the singer is trying to make sense of her young life

Politicians, not curators, are to blame for the British Museum's woes Charlotte Higgins

I can't help thinking of the title of that old David Lodge novel, The British Museum is Falling Down

Alabama under fire for 'human experiment' on death row

Kenneth Smith is one of two living Americans who can describe what it is like to survive an execution, having endured an aborted lethal injection during which he was subjected to excruciating pain tantamount, his lawyers claim, to torture

Quake fear A century on, Tokyo braces for the next Great Kantō

The earthquake that struck the Tokyo region two minutes before noon on 1 September 1923 was so powerful that it destroyed the Central Weather Bureau's seismometers

The battle to staunch the deadly rise in youth crime rates

In the small Swedish city of Örebro, guns are so easy to come by that social services say most of the high-risk young people they work with in relation to youth crime could get hold of one in a day

An'extinct' prehistoric bird returns to the wild

Tà Tipene O'Regan, 84 years old, leaned into his carved walking stick and reached down to a large wooden box

Is it time to stop using polar bears as climate icons?

The warming planet is causing steep declines among some of the world's 26,000 wild polar bears, but the picture is complex, say experts