The mayor of a southern Philippine town that was devastated by a powerful earthquake pleaded on Thursday for helicopters to transport food to stave off hunger in several landslide-isolated villages. The 7.8 magnitude offshore quake, one of the strongest to hit the archipelago in half a century, struck on Monday off the southern province of Sarangani and has left at least 47 people dead and 688 inj...
The mayor of a southern Philippine town that was devastated by a powerful earthquake pleaded on Thursday for helicopters to transport food to stave off hunger in several landslide-isolated villages. The 7.8 magnitude offshore quake, one of the strongest to hit the archipelago in half a century, struck on Monday off the southern province of Sarangani and has left at least 47 people dead and 688 injured, with 31 still missing. More than 45,000 people remained displaced, about half in emergency...
Robotic snakes have been deployed in southwestern China to inspect power lines and ensure a stable power supply during the country’s high-pressure national college entrance exam. The snakelike robots spiral around power lines in Kunming, the provincial capital of Yunnan, to detect hazards such as broken wires, worn components and abnormal temperatures. The device’s developer, the power supply bure...
Robotic snakes have been deployed in southwestern China to inspect power lines and ensure a stable power supply during the country’s high-pressure national college entrance exam. The snakelike robots spiral around power lines in Kunming, the provincial capital of Yunnan, to detect hazards such as broken wires, worn components and abnormal temperatures. The device’s developer, the power supply bureau of Kunming’s Guandu district, said the robotic snake had checked more than 130km (81 miles) of...
Follow the folklore and you will discover a landscape full of wonder and powerful women – from a fearsome Scottish warrioress to the first queen of a united England It’s just past midday and I appear to be inside a rain cloud. Soaked to the skin, my walking boots squelching through tufts of grass and black bog mud, I can hear hundreds of streams rolling off this wide mid-Wales peak, each vying to ...
Follow the folklore and you will discover a landscape full of wonder and powerful women – from a fearsome Scottish warrioress to the first queen of a united England It’s just past midday and I appear to be inside a rain cloud. Soaked to the skin, my walking boots squelching through tufts of grass and black bog mud, I can hear hundreds of streams rolling off this wide mid-Wales peak, each vying to be the fastest. I’ve hiked around more than 8 miles (13km) of Hafren Forest trails to the top of Mount Pumlumon Fawr (Plynlimon), to reach a wooden post carved with the words Source of the Severn. And I’m here, alone, because I’m hoping to meet a river goddess. It’s perhaps not as strange as it first sounds. Starting about 150 years ago, the folklorist John Rhys travelled across Wales to archive as many local myths as possible, and among them was the very tale that brought me to this peak: the story of the birth of the River Severn, in which three sisters – Hafren (Severn), Rheidolyn (Rheidol) and Gwy (Wye) – each choose their own route to the sea. My trip to the river’s source was itself a moment of mythically inspired travel, something that has been common practice in the British Isles for as long as we’ve told stories, not least as a means of passing them on. Continue reading...
This impressive and charismatic debut novel revisits an actor and a director over various collaborations The central characters of Frida Slattery As Herself, Ana Kinsella’s debut novel, are the eponymous Frida, 23 when the novel opens, and John Reddan, five years older. Both live in Dublin. Frida loves acting but has never had a significant role, and didn’t even get into drama school. John is a wr...
This impressive and charismatic debut novel revisits an actor and a director over various collaborations The central characters of Frida Slattery As Herself, Ana Kinsella’s debut novel, are the eponymous Frida, 23 when the novel opens, and John Reddan, five years older. Both live in Dublin. Frida loves acting but has never had a significant role, and didn’t even get into drama school. John is a writer-director who has just had a play put on at a “real theatre”. What’s compelling about Frida is not necessarily what she says, thinks or does, but the way she is, and a large part of that lies in the physicality Kinsella writes into her. Frida, we learn, is “addicted” to the theatre. “Every time she came off stage she felt like a prizefighter. The curtain fell in the community theatre and there she was, rolling her neck, bobbing on her feet.” However, Frida’s acting aspirations are going nowhere. She eventually confides in her friend Catherine, who at university was a much more successful actor in student productions, but now has a proper job (“She owned an espresso machine and Frida lived in a bedsit”). “I just want something to happen,” Frida says. Catherine introduces Frida to John. They meet in Kehoe’s pub, then he asks Frida to accompany him on an errand which turns into a long, mystifying walk through Dublin, during which he interviews her. She asks in return what he is working on: “Are there any roles for women in their early twenties?” To which he responds, “Is that how you think of yourself, Frida? As nothing more than ‘a woman in her early twenties’?” Continue reading...
In Mexico, football is played wherever space permits. The Reuters photographer Raquel Cunha spent three months taking photos of amateur matches across Mexico City and beyond Across Mexico, a co-host of the 2026 World Cup, football pitches are laid out wherever communities can find the space. On the edges of towns, on highway underpasses, and even in a volcano crater, spaces are cleared that allow ...
In Mexico, football is played wherever space permits. The Reuters photographer Raquel Cunha spent three months taking photos of amateur matches across Mexico City and beyond Across Mexico, a co-host of the 2026 World Cup, football pitches are laid out wherever communities can find the space. On the edges of towns, on highway underpasses, and even in a volcano crater, spaces are cleared that allow people young and old to share in the dream of the beautiful game. In an impoverished neighbourhood in Monterrey, northern Mexico, 14-year-old Humberto Guadalupe, nicknamed “Messi” by friends and family, spends his weekends on the community’s only football field, surrounded by abandoned cars and dirt roads. Humberto Guadalupe (left), 14, and Eduardo Reyes, 12, play football, followed by snacks organised by evangelists, in Monterrey Continue reading...
As China’s gaokao, or national college entrance exam, fell on June 7 to 10 this year, the bigger challenge that female candidates face during the test is receiving increasing attention online. Gaokao is an exam that most Chinese secondary school pupils take to further their study. According to data from the National Bureau of Statistics in China, females account for around half of the secondary sc...
As China’s gaokao, or national college entrance exam, fell on June 7 to 10 this year, the bigger challenge that female candidates face during the test is receiving increasing attention online. Gaokao is an exam that most Chinese secondary school pupils take to further their study. According to data from the National Bureau of Statistics in China, females account for around half of the secondary school pupils in recent years. Of all the female gaokao candidates, around 30 per cent might have...