World Cup’s credibility in question after Fifa volte face following call from Donald Trump
After four weeks of dazzling action on the pitch, it may be an off-field scandal that comes to define this summer’s World Cup. Fifa’s decision to allow America’s star striker, Folarin Balogun, to play in a last-16 match against Belgium, despite having been sent off in the previous game against Bosnia and Herzegovina, is in […]
Community refugee sponsorship: how the Home Office can get its new safe-and-legal route right
Residents of Truro holding a vigil for Ukraine after Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022. Jory Mundy/Shutterstock As part of a package of reforms to the UK’s asylum system, Shabana Mahmood has laid out the details of a new community sponsorship route for refugees to come to the UK. The home secretary’s announcement draws on […]
Heatwaves: expert tips on redesigning UK homes to cope with hotter temperatures
As the UK prepares for the third heatwave of 2026, most people will be hoping to try and keep cool at home. Building regulations to protect homes from overheating were introduced in 2022. These require all new homes to be checked at the design stage to see if they might be at risk of overheating. […]
How the BBC’s Learn Cornish podcast could help boost this minority language
Cornish is part of the Celtic family of languages, traditionally spoken in Cornwall in the south-west of Great Britain. From the medieval period onwards, speakers in the region gradually shifted to English, leaving only a handful with knowledge of Cornish in the far west of Cornwall by the 18th and 19th centuries. The 20th century […]
New virus catalogue reveals which pathogens pose the greatest threat
In a typical year, scientists discover two or three viruses that have never been seen in people before. The number fluctuates, but the trend has been fairly steady since the 1960s. Most of these viruses attract little attention, and my colleagues and I have often had to search through old medical papers to find any […]
The UK government has kept its promises on parental leave, but they weren’t bold enough
Dusan Petkovic/Shutterstock When Labour won the 2024 general election, parental leave reform was one of its promises to working families. The manifesto committed to reviewing the parental leave system within the first year of government and making parental leave a right from the first day of employment. The Employment Rights Act 2025 has delivered on […]
Your summer reading list: five of the best non-fiction reads of 2026 so far, according to our experts
The best summer companion is a good book. This year has already given us some truly brilliant ones, making it really hard to whittle down the best. These five non-fiction reads will also transport you all over the world – from 1960s India and Afghanistan to Ancient Greece and Hitler’s Germany – without ever having […]
The new technologies in the UK defence investment plan
The MOD’s Lightweight Affordable Novel Combat Aircraft (LANCA) initiative aims to develop low-cost, uncrewed fighter drones. UK MOD / Crown Copyright Seventy years ago, Britain confronted a dilemma. It wanted to remain a leading military power but no longer had the economic resources to sustain all the conventional capabilities it had inherited from the second […]
The cooling divide: how air conditioning is creating a new climate inequality
For decades, people in the UK tended to view air conditioning as something that belonged elsewhere. It was associated with office buildings, hotels and hotter countries rather than their own homes. But as summers become warmer and heatwaves more frequent, that picture is beginning to change. Colleagues and I analysed data from the English Housing […]
Defence investment plan should make the UK more secure – but it will need to find the money from somewhere
The UK government’s defence investment plan (DIP) will guide the spending decisions of the Ministry of Defence and armed forces not only for the remainder of this parliament, but also for the five years from 2029. So far, the plan has been praised and criticised in equal measure. But one element that has attracted widespread […]