An Islamic State fighter waves the group’s flag during a military parade in Raqqa, Syria, in 2014.
Handout / Alamy Stock Photo
Islamic State may have lost all of its territory, but the group’s ideological and operational capabilities are far from eradicated.
DGX RB.
Greg Balfour Evans/Alamy Stock Photo
Booksellers are weathering the high street storm partly because they offer consumers more than just retail.
Richard (Matt Smith) and Juliette Willoughby (Morfydd Clark) in Starve Acre.
Chris Harris
It’s a beautifully realised adaptation that’s just too nice to really scare.
DanieleGay/Shutterstock
The belief in aliens is now rising to the extent that politicians, at least in the US, feel they have to respond.
Rido/Shutterstock
Schools will no longer get a headline grade of outstanding, good, requires improvement or inadequate.
Not even the Rose Garden blooms could lift the mood after Starmer’s speech.
Stefan Rousseau/Associated Press/Alamy Stock Photo
The PM is managing expectations ahead of tough decisions in the budget in October.
A nurse administers polio vaccine drops to a Palestinian child at a UN school in the Gaza Strip.
Mohammed Saber / EPA
Fighting in parts of Gaza has paused to allow young children to be vaccinated against polio.
BalkansCat/Shutterstock
A beautiful building means that someone cared to do that little bit extra, which can be meaningful for its inhabitants.
Henry Allen
Diary entries revealed people’s strong appreciation of Scotland’s freshwater environments.
Faber/4th Estate/Granta
I invite you to sample four tasty literary courses that present, for your delectation, the trials and travails of post-war Japanese women.
FlixPix / Alamy
In his search for God in the apocalyptic world of a post-pandemic landscape, a theologian examines the idea of redemption in The Last of Us.
EPA/Tolga Akmen
The prime minister doesn’t have to mislead the public by pretending that everything is fine when it isn’t, but they need a reason to buy into his project.
David Cliff / EPA Images
Semi-automated offside technology tracks players at very high speeds and levels of detail.
New Africa/Shutterstock
The second of two episodes on geoengineering from The Conversation Weekly podcast examines the case against solar radiation modification.
The Boeing Starliner docked with the International Space Station on July 3 2024, during the latest mission.
Nasa
Nasa’s decision to prioritise the safety of the astronauts, and to work with another commercial partner in finding a solution, is a triumph of wisdom and caution.
When it realised its mistake, Qantas made the best of a bad situation.
rafapress/Shutterstock
Qantas sought to keep all passengers happy and on-side, while not costing the airline a fortune.
The Harris-Walz campaign has re-energised the Democratic bid to return to the White House in 2024.
Carefully chosen music encourages a sense of unity, sending important messages to the wider electorate that reinforce and differentiate the identity and values of the party and its leaders.
One blue health study shows that virtual reality experiences that involve being by the sea can reduce experience of dental pain more than inland walking experiences.
Elizaveta Galitckaia/Shutterstock
Looking at, listening to, and immersing ourselves in inland and coastal waters can directly benefit our physical and mental health - here’s how the study of blue health has evolved.
Project 80
We interviewed people living in new net-zero homes to see what the construction industry could learn.
Olivia Washington as Kaneisha and Kit Harrington as Jim in Slave Play.
Helen Murray
If policing the audience during the play is necessary, perhaps the casting or the nudity needs reconsidering, otherwise both simply read as gimmicks.