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…