Reuters By Dr Alex Vines Chatham House Cradling a rifle, dressed in a military uniform and with a desert in the background, Yevgeny Prigozhin had a message for Africa. His Wagner group of mercenaries was “making Russia even greater on every continent – and Africa even more free”. “Justice and happiness for the African nations,”…

Getty Images By Paul Glynn Entertainment reporter at Leeds Festival Billie Eilish brought Barbie to life at Leeds Festival on Friday, performing her latest celluloid hit in the middle of a cathartic and career-spanning set. It saw her become the event’s youngest solo headliner, surpassing London rapper Dave from last year. At the age of…

Scott Morgan By Mike Wendling BBC News in Iowa A controversy over conspiracy theories that has engulfed a small Iowa county shows the continuing power of Donald Trump’s false claims about election fraud. Like millions of other Americans, David Whipple was enraged by the 2020 election. “The left has tried real hard to steal our…

A selection of powerful news photographs taken around the world this week. Fabrizio Bensch / Reuters Carl Recine / Reuters James Manning / PA Media Zinyange Auntony / AFP Tomas Cuesta / AFP Sakis Mitrolidis / AFP Bryan Woolston / Reuters R Satish Babu / AFP Hammad Al-Huthali / AFP Ernesto Benavides / AFP All…

Getty Images By Azizullah Khan, Farhat Javed & Kelly Ng in Battagram, Islamabad and Singapore It started out a routine Tuesday morning. Car mechanic Gulfaraz had planned to accompany his nephew to school and then go home. They made the journey as they had done for years – on a makeshift cable car that would…

University of Guyana By Joshua Nevett BBC News The descendants of former Prime Minister William Gladstone are facing calls to pay reparations to Jamaica for an ancestor’s role in slavery. The Gladstone family apologised for its slaveholding past in Guyana and pledged to fund research into slavery and other projects at a ceremony on Friday.…

By Ben King Business reporter, BBC News The UK’s second-largest vape company took down social media accounts after sending vapes to reporters in an online giveaway without age verification. Chinese government-owned SKE has seen rapid growth in sales of its Crystal Bar disposable vapes, which have been criticised for appealing to children. In an exclusive…

The Panama Canal is essential to global trade, but a recent drought has left large numbers of ships waiting to pass along it, raising questions about whether an alternative route between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans is needed. It is a traffic jam on a colossal scale. More than 200 ships, according to some estimates,…

Made with vanilla sponge, meringue, almonds, custard and whipped cream, Norwegians love this cake so much they nicknamed it “the world’s best cake”. In Norway, there is a cake for just about every celebration and event. For weddings, there is the tower-like kransekake, made of 15 to 20 ground almond-and-egg white rings stacked in concentric…

Getty Images By Alex Binley BBC News The French government is allocating €200m (£171.6m) to destroy surplus wine and support producers. It comes amid a cocktail of problems for the industry, including a falling demand for wine as more people drink craft beer. Overproduction and the cost of living crisis are also hitting the industry.…