Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.

Sarah Rainsford Europe Correspondent Getty Images Just over 130 cardinals will gather later this week to vote for a new pope This must be the most secretive election in the world. When 133 Catholic cardinals are shut into the Sistine Chapel on Wednesday to choose a successor to Pope Francis, each one will have sworn…

Donald Trump has ordered his government to reopen and expand Alcatraz, the infamous former prison on an island near San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge. President Trump said that “for too long America has been plagued by vicious, violent, and repeat criminal offenders”, in a message on his Truth Social site on Sunday. The idea has…

Bernd Debusmann Jr BBC News, White House Getty Images The price to keep prisoners at Alcatraz was significantly higher than elsewhere in the federal prison system. US President Donald Trump has doubled down on his proposal to reopen and expand Alcatraz, the once-notorious prison island in the icy waters of San Francisco Bay. Alcatraz- popularly…

Thousands of people were left trapped on trains or stranded overnight after the theft of copper cables halted high-speed services between Madrid and southern Spain’s Andalusia region. Authorities opened an investigation on Monday after Sunday’s theft, which Transport Minister Óscar Puente called a “serious act of sabotage”. He added that the cable theft took place…

Ukraine said it hit a drone command unit in the Kursk region, amid reports of fresh attempts to cross into Russia. Sunday’s attack on the unit was located near the Russian village of Tyotkino, according to the Ukrainian general staff. Multiple Russian military bloggers also reported that Ukrainian forces had attempted to cross into the…

Hugh Schofield Paris correspondent Reuters France’s former interior minister has apologised for the first time for the 2022 fiasco at the Stade de France which saw Liverpool football supporters wrongly blamed for a riot. Gérald Darmanin admitted that security arrangements for the Champions League final between Liverpool and Real Madrid were wrong, and that his…

Romanian Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu has resigned and his Social Democrat party is to leave the government after a right-wing nationalist candidate won the first round of the presidential election. George Simion, a eurosceptic who has promised to put Romania first, won 40.9% of Sunday’s vote and is expected to win a run-off vote on…

Cherylann Mollan BBC News, Mumbai Roxy Gagdekar Chhara BBC Gujarati, Vadnagar Kushal Batunge/BBC The skeleton has been placed inside a makeshift tent for now A 1,000 year-old human skeleton buried sitting cross-legged in India is still without a museum to house it because of bureaucratic wrangling, six years after it was unearthed. Archaeologist Abhijit Ambekar…

Vanessa Buschschlüter BBC News Reuters Forensic teams gathered evidence at the site Prosecutors in Mexico have arrested the mayor of Teuchitlán in western Jalisco state as part of their investigation into a nearby cartel training site. The mayor, José Murguía Santiago, is suspected of colluding with the New Generation Jalisco Cartel (CJNG), which he has…

Tiffany Wertheimer BBC News Caritas Jerusalem The vehicle is being refitted and will be ready for when the humanitarian corridor is reopened into Gaza, Caritas Jerusalem said One of Francis’s popemobiles, which the late pontiff used to greet thousands of people, will be turned into a mobile health clinic to help the children of Gaza.…