Used over several thousand years, these engraved sticks hold the memory of the world’s oldest continuous living culture, but few today can understand their meaning. The continent of Australia is home to more than 250 spoken Indigenous languages and 800 dialects. Yet, one of its linguistic cornerstones wasn’t spoken, but carved. Known as message sticks,…

Sea-Watch/Karolina Sobel By Alice Cuddy BBC News In grainy photographs shot from a plane circling overhead, four people adrift in an iron boat in an expanse of the Mediterranean Sea wave their arms in distress. It later emerges that the group – a 13-year-old boy, two men and a woman – are the only survivors…

Getty Images By Zoe Kleinman Technology editor It was difficult to maintain a poker face when the leader of a big US tech firm I was chatting to said there was a definite tipping point at which the firm would exit the UK. I could see my own surprise mirrored on the faces of the…

Matt Wright By Allen Cook BBC News, West Midlands Mystery surrounding the destruction of The Crooked House in the West Midlands has prompted a sense of anger and grief, and not only in the local community. Many stories have emerged, sharing sometimes very personal connections with what was once dubbed the UK’s “wonkiest” pub. “I…

Raw Power Management By Iqra Farooq & Riyah Collins BBC Newsbeat Hip-hop is 50 years old, and over the last few decades the genre’s created a long list of icons who’ve changed the face of music. It started in the Bronx, in New York, in August 1973, when funk and soul DJ Kool Herc mixed…

AFP By Shingai Nyoka BBC News, Harare Known for his tailored suits and designer jewellery, Zimbabwe’s main opposition leader Nelson Chamisa can work a crowd with all the drama of the Pentecostal preacher that he is. He will now put that charisma to the test in the general election on 23 August when he will…

Chef Mohsin Qureshi By Priyadarshini Chatterjee Food writer It’s a chilly evening in the northern Indian city of Lucknow, the erstwhile seat of the Nawabs of Awadh. We are in the courtyard of Lebua Lucknow, Saraca Estate, a 1930s estate-turned-boutique-hotel, seated around a table groaning with excess. There are flatbreads sprinkled with poppy seeds or…

By Ellie House BBC Long Form Audio After BBC reporter Ellie House came out as gay, she realised that Netflix already seemed to know. How did that happen? I realised that I was bisexual in my second year of university, but Big Tech seemed to have worked it out several months before me. I’d had…

This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. By Kathryn Armstrong BBC News Additional expert support has been deployed to Hawaii, where forensic work is continuing to find victims of the devastating wildfires. At least 80 people are known to have died but there are…

EPA By Frances Mao BBC News A knife darting out in a packed subway car. An assailant, chasing shoppers, stabbing wildly in the street. These nightmares have played out in the minds of many South Koreans following a mass stabbing attack last week – the country’s second in as many weeks. On 3 August, 14…