Category: News

  • How Darwinism is changing medicine

    How Darwinism is changing medicine

    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,…

  • California is first US state to pass ban on caste discrimination

    California is first US state to pass ban on caste discrimination

    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…

  • People in UK least likely to say work is important to their life

    People in UK least likely to say work is important to their life

    By Vishala Sri-Pathma & Michael Race Business reporters Dean Holden is one of many people thinking there is more to life than work, hanging up his mic as a railway station announcer after 16 years. “Life is too short. That’s always been my saying – live it,” he told the BBC. His early retirement comes…

  • Palestinians set out terms for agreeing to historic Saudi-Israeli deal

    Palestinians set out terms for agreeing to historic Saudi-Israeli deal

    By Tom Bateman BBC News, Jerusalem A cash boost of hundreds of millions of dollars and more control of land in the occupied West Bank are among Palestinian demands in the event of a three-way deal involving the US, Saudi Arabia and Israel, the BBC has learned. Officials from the Palestinian Authority (PA) held talks…

  • Biden cancels all leases to drill in Alaska’s largest wildlife refuge

    Biden cancels all leases to drill in Alaska’s largest wildlife refuge

    By Max Matza BBC News, Seattle US President Joe Biden’s administration has cancelled oil and gas leases in an Alaskan wildlife refuge. The interior department said revoking the drilling leases granted under ex-President Donald Trump would preserve 13 million acres of wilderness. But Mr Biden has not reversed his recent approval of an $8bn (£6.4bn)…

  • The 82-year-old who plays cricket wearing an oxygen tank

    The 82-year-old who plays cricket wearing an oxygen tank

    By Sean O’Neil BBC Scotland Alec Steele is 82 and has been diagnosed with a terminal illness, but he is determined to carry on playing cricket, even with an oxygen tank strapped to his back. Alec has idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis – a disease that destroys lung function and comes with a life expectancy of between…

  • Watch: Inmate escapes by scaling prison walls

    Watch: Inmate escapes by scaling prison walls

    Pennsylvania State Police released footage showing inmate Danelo Cavalcante escaping Chester County Prison on 31 August. The 34-year-old man climbed the same walls scaled by another prisoner earlier this year. Officials thought that the issue was solved after they installed razor wire. Authorities will investigate the circumstances of the escape as the search to locate…

  • Danelo Cavalcante: Security lapse let killer ‘crab walk’ out of US prison

    Danelo Cavalcante: Security lapse let killer ‘crab walk’ out of US prison

    By Max Matza BBC News A killer who escaped a Pennsylvania prison last week climbed the same walls that another prisoner scaled earlier this year to get away, officials say. Danelo Cavalcante, 34, whose escape on 31 August has made headlines in his native Brazil, remains at large. Newly released prison footage shows the inmate…

  • Slums hidden as India puts on its best face for G20

    Slums hidden as India puts on its best face for G20

    By Zoya Mateen BBC News, Delhi On any given day, strolling down an Indian street, you will encounter billboards featuring Bollywood stars endorsing various products. But over the past year, posters for the G20 summit have cropped up in every corner of the country. They are taped to electricity poles and stuck behind tuk-tuks, and…

  • The ancient civilisation that inspired US democracy

    The ancient civilisation that inspired US democracy

    A 540km trail along Turkey’s Mediterranean Coast introduces hikers to the rich heritage of Lycia, an ancient maritime republic that’s recognised as the world’s first democratic union. “The Lycians? But who were they?” said Iskender. “When we Turks came here, all we saw was ruins, and – how do you call them? Where the dead…