The Latest Breaking News from The Conversation

Israel launched an unprecedented airstrike on the Qatari capital of Doha on September 9, the first time it has directly attacked a Gulf state. The “precision strike”, as Israel has called it, targeted a building in which Hamas officials were reportedly discussing a peace proposal brokered by the US.

Fifteen pine martens were relocated from Scotland to Dartmoor, Devon, late last year in the first phase of a reintroduction to south-west England. This autumn, more of these domestic cat-sized mammals will be released into Exmoor as part of a long-term recovery strategy to restore pine marten populations.

You’re in the supermarket. Imported beef mince, shrink-wrapped vegetables and cleaning spray are already in your basket. Then you toss in some organic apples and feel a flicker of moral relief. Surely that small green gesture lightens the load?

Australia’s black wattle tree (Acacia mearnsii) has spread across South Africa, taking over millions of hectares of land and pushing indigenous plants aside. Economist Saul Ngarava researches agriculture and the connection between water, energy, food, social justice and land reform. He was part of a team who surveyed 1,184 homes…

How do you build 1.5 million new homes in five years without destroying nature? Housing is unaffordable for most people, so the UK government plans to build as many homes as possible, as soon as possible. Assuming this brings house prices down (which isn’t a given), how can it be…

Chemistry in the first 50 million to 100 million years after the Big Bang may have been more active than we expected.

Could an ocean – likely needed to sustain life – even survive on a planet orbiting close to a dead star?

“We are going to get all our oil and gas out of the North Sea”, Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch said recently. Her promise to “maximise extraction” sets up a clash between political ambitions, economic reality and geological limits.

This article was first published in The Conversation UK’s World Affairs Briefing email newsletter. Sign up to receive weekly analysis of the latest developments in international relations, direct to your inbox.

Summer 2025 was the UK’s hottest on record, the Met Office announced this week. The news somehow felt both inevitable and surprising. There may have been four separate heatwaves, but for many this summer felt pretty normal.

Standing before the Inquisition in Lisbon, Portugal in 1556, Mónica Fernandes, a woman from the coast of modern-day Ghana, was accused of casting malevolent spells and making pacts with demons. Her crime? Seeking a traditional Akan remedy for a simple cat bite.