PA Media By Becky Morton Political reporter The Conservatives have suffered two heavy defeats, but have narrowly held on to former PM Boris Johnson’s old Uxbridge seat, after a night of three dramatic by-election results. In Somerton and Frome, the Lib Dems overturned a majority of more than 19,000, with a 29% swing. And Labour…

Getty Images By Max Matza BBC News, Seattle The US Department of Transportation is investigating Delta Air Lines over reports that passengers were forced to wait on an idle plane in extreme heat. The plane in question sat on the tarmac at the Las Vegas airport for at least three hours on Monday as temperatures…

Reuters By Max Matza BBC News Venezuela’s former spy chief has pleaded not guilty in a New York court to US charges of drug trafficking. Hugo Carvajal, 63, was extradited from Spain on Wednesday after an over-ten year effort by prosecutors to bring him to the US to face the charges. Mr Carvajal, who was…

Scientists say they have completed the world’s largest release of seahorses into Sydney Harbour to boost population numbers. The White’s Seahorse is endemic to Australia’s east coast and became endangered in 2020 due to pollution and habitat loss. Earlier this year, the Sydney Institute of Marine Science captured three pregnant males and helped raise their…

Eve Air Mobility By Emily McGarvey BBC News The Brazilian plane maker Embraer says a new factory will be built near Sao Paolo to produce electric flying taxis which it hopes will take to the skies from 2026. The aircraft, to be made by its subsidiary Eve, will resemble a small helicopter with enough space…

Getty Images By Chloe Kim BBC News The National Football League (NFL) has fined former Washington Commanders owner Dan Snyder $60m (£46.6m) after a 17-month long investigation. The investigation concluded that Mr Snyder sexually harassed a former employee and that the team intentionally underreported revenues to the NFL. Mr Snyder has called the misconduct allegations…

Students, lawyers and others are passing off writing drafted by artificial intelligence as their own. Alex O’Brien investigates the technological tools and critical thinking skills needed to identify if AI is the real author “Labyrinthian mazes”. I don’t know what exactly struck me about these two words, but they caused me to pause for a…

From compelling stories about family dynamics to a satire of chaotic 1970s Harlem, these are BBC Culture’s picks of the best fiction of the year so far. (Credit: Penguin Random House) After the Funeral by Tessa Hadley “It is hard to imagine stories more skilfully paced and polished than these,” writes The Observer of After…

charisma.ai By Steffan Powell Gaming correspondent Artificial Intelligence will lead to more jobs in the video game industry, one of the bodies representing games developers has told the BBC. Dr Richard Wilson, boss of TIGA, says AI will “reduce the cost of making games and speed up the process”. Video games have been using forms…

Reuters Lebanon’s central bank governor Riad Salameh is about to step down from the top job after 30 years. But he leaves behind an economy in a state of collapse, and a country in the grip of one of the world’s worst financial crises, as our Middle East correspondent Anna Foster reports from Beirut. It…