By George Wright BBC News The US has announced it will supply depleted uranium tank shells to Ukraine as part of more than $1bn (£800m) in military and humanitarian aid. Russia condemned the move to equip US Abrams tanks with the controversial armour-piercing munitions. The announcement came as Ukraine accused Russia of killing 17 people…

By Mark Savage BBC Music Correspondent Loyle Carner, Young Fathers and Jockstrap are among the favourites to win the 2023 Mercury Prize, which takes place in London on Thursday night. Jessie Ware and J Hus are also up for the award, which recognises the best British and Irish albums of the year. And Arctic Monkeys…

By Nadine Yousif BBC News Texas has been ordered to move floating buoys that it placed on the Rio Grande River to stop migrants from crossing into the US from Mexico. A federal judge ruled the buoys were a threat to safety and diplomatic ties. He asked the state to move them out of the…

By Gerald Narciso Vancouver The grass in front of Sky Morfopoulos’ home in East Vancouver is barely grass at all. Although the strands are brown and parched, tiny sprinkles of weeds and clovers blend in with the decaying grass and present an illusion of a semi-green lawn. The lack of maintenance is deliberate and not…

For almost a decade a civil war has been grinding on in Yemen, pushing the Arab world’s poorest country to the brink of collapse. There has been less violence since a ceasefire last year but there is no sign of a deal to end the conflict. Ahmed is a charismatic 11-year-old blind boy the BBC…

Star Trek: The Animated Series defined an in-between era for the franchise, much like what we’re facing now, writes Swapna Krishna. And whether or not it’s deemed to be part of the Star Trek “canon”, it shares the show’s vision for a utopian future where humans coexist peacefully with aliens. On a remote planet, the…

By Nadine Yousif BBC News, Toronto After a three-week wildfire evacuation order, thousands of residents in Canada’s Northwest Territories are going home. More than 20,000 people were ordered to leave Yellowknife in mid-August as a fire burned 15km (9 miles) away from the city’s limits. The evacuation order was lifted early on Wednesday afternoon as…

By George Wright & Tom Bayly BBC News Mexico’s supreme court has decriminalised abortion nationwide. The judgement comes two years after the court ruled in favour of a challenge to the existing law in the northern state of Coahuila. It had ruled that criminal penalties for terminating pregnancies were unconstitutional. Mexico’s states and the federal…

The relatively new discipline of evolutionary medicine is making strides in the fields of cancer treatment and antibacterial resistance. At age 20, Randolph Nesse was puzzled about why we grow old. He couldn’t wrap his head around why natural selection had not eliminated ageing altogether. He spent months coming up with theories to explain it,…

By Chloe Kim BBC News California’s legislature has become the first in the US to approve a bill banning caste discrimination. Legislators said the measure would protect people of South Asian descent who allege unfair treatment. The governor must now decide whether to sign the bill into law. Seattle became the first US city to…