By Jonathan Head South East Asia correspondent One of Vietnam’s best-known environmental campaigners, Hoang Thi Minh Hong, goes on trial in Ho Chi Minh City this Thursday. She has been charged with tax evasion. If convicted, she faces between four and seven years in jail. Similar charges have been filed against four other activists involved…

Private Travis King is now in US custody after being detained in North Korea. The 23-year-old soldier, who had illegally crossed into the country from South Korea, had not been seen or heard from since his detention in July. His release has wider implication on US ties with North Korea and even China.

Hundreds of thousands of US workers have walked off the job this year. Instead of the exception, labour shortages could become the norm. On 14 September, when members of the United Auto Workers (UAW) union walked off the job at three Midwest auto factories owned by General Motors, Ford and Stellantis, it seemed a fitting…

By Pete Allison BBC Newsbeat When Drag Race UK series five starts later, you’ll see two queens hitting your screen who were actually born and raised abroad. Alexis Saint Pete, from Poland, and Cara Melle, from the United States, both moved to Britain after spending their childhoods in their home countries. RuPaul’s award-winning Drag Race…

By Tim Mansel BBC News One day in late 2021, Arne Semsrott set out with €20,000 ($21,200; £17,000) stuffed into his pockets. Some of it was his, some he had borrowed from friends. He admits to having been a little nervous. “I had no idea if this was going to work,” he says. His destination…

By Megha Mohan and Yousef Eldin BBC World Service “I’ve never talked about this in any other interview,” Rina Sawayama says, her voice steady. She keeps eye contact, ready to share the painful inspiration behind her second album, Hold the Girl, which she wrote after several sessions of sex and relationship therapy. A few hours…

By Max Matza BBC News The judge in Donald Trump’s federal election meddling case has said she will not recuse herself, despite the ex-president’s requests she step aside. His legal team argued some of her past comments create a perception of bias against the former president. She has now ruled his lawyers failed to present…

BBC Travel talks to residents in four of the best-rated nations to find out what it’s really like to live there. How is the world doing on gender equality? According to the World Economic Forum (WEF), the picture is mixed. The needle is moving in the right direction, according to its latest Global Gender Gap…

By Richard Baimbridge Business reporter The developers of self-driving trucks don’t usually like to see them crash in testing – there would be a lot of mangled metal and the risk of causing serious injury or worse. Instead the hope is very much that they don’t have an accident. Yet one company at the forefront…

By Mike Wendling BBC News She claims to be the Queen of Canada, and now she’s holding court in an abandoned school. Romana Didulo, a QAnon-inspired conspiracy theorist, leads a group of supporters who have spent the last few years traveling around Canada in motorhomes and other vehicles. Recently, the group moved into Richmound, a…