Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.
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Why there’s no song and dance around India’s killer air
Screengrab from Pink’s trailer Amitabh Bachchan wore a mask in some scenes in the 2016 Bollywood film Pink In the 2016 Bollywood hit Pink, a scene introducing Amitabh Bachchan’s character shows the actor emerging from his home on a winter morning into Delhi’s smog-filled streets, wearing a mask. The mask and Delhi’s smoggy air feature…
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Three climbers feared dead on New Zealand’s tallest mountain
Police in New Zealand say they believe three men who went missing days ago on Aoraki Mt Cook – the country’s tallest mountain – are dead. Americans Kurt Blair (56) and Carlos Romero (50) and an unnamed Canadian national were reported missing on Monday when they failed to meet their flight out from the mountain.…
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Biden considering pre-emptive pardons for Trump critics
Outgoing US President Joe Biden is considering pre-emptive pardons for prominent critics of his successor Donald Trump, multiple people familiar with the discussions have told CBS, the BBC’s US partner. That is in a bid to shield them from potential retribution after Trump – who has vowed to take revenge against those who have opposed…
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Mahamudu Bawumia’s ‘digital economy’ versus John Mahama’s ’24-hour economy’
Ernest Ansah / BBC Unable to get a job as an accountant since graduating five years ago, Ghanaian Nathaniel Qainoo has been forced to swap his calculator for a spanner. The 29-year-old was busy repairing a taxi under the shade of a mango tree when the BBC met him at his home in the small…
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California shooting suspect used fake story to gain access to school
A gunman in the US state of California who shot and injured two children aged six and five at a school before fatally shooting himself used a “guise” to gain access to the school. The children are in critical but stable condition and were being treated at a trauma centre, officials said on Thursday. The…
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Worshippers flee arson attack at Melbourne synagogue
Worshippers have been forced to flee an Australian synagogue after it was set on fire in what the prime minister has condemned as an “act of hate”. Firefighters were called to Melbourne’s Adass Israel synagogue just after 04:00 local time on Friday (17:00 GMT Thursday), finding the building fully ablaze when they arrived. Community leaders…
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Citizens may be in danger if Yoon Suk Yeol stays: PPP chief
South Korea’s ruling party chief has called for President Yoon Suk Yeol to “suspend his duties soon”, saying that citizens could be in “great danger” if he remained in power. Han Doong-hoon, the leader of the People Power Party (PPP), added that his party had received “credible evidence” that Yoon had ordered the arrest of…
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Citizen scientists in Timor-Leste help research
Drone footage of pygmy blue whales off Timor Leste coast For about two months each year, fisherman Faustino Mauloko da Cunha and his son Zacarias spend most of their days in a dugout canoe out at sea in the South Pacific Ocean. Armed with binoculars and a telephoto camera, they watch the cobalt waters for…
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Astronaut shows students how they drink liquids in space
Students from Sunita L Williams Elementary School in Needham, Massachusetts were given the opportunity to virtually speak to Nasa astronaut Sunita Williams. One student asked if it was difficult to drink from space, prompting Williams to demonstrate how they do it. Williams and Barry “Butch” Wilmore have hit the six-month mark in space after becoming…
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Boeing plea deal tied to two fatal 737 Max crashes rejected
Getty Images A Boeing plea deal intended to resolve a case related to two fatal crashes of its planes has been rejected by a US judge. The plane maker had originally agreed with the US government in July to plead guilty to one count of criminal fraud, face independent monitoring, and pay a $243m (£191m)…
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