Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.

Rushdi Abualouf Gaza Correspondent Reuters People mourn Palestinians who were killed in an Israeli airstrike in Deir al-Balah At least 18 Palestinians have been killed after an Israeli drone strike targeted a Hamas police unit attempting to assert control over a market in the city of Deir al-Balah in central Gaza, a doctor and eyewitnesses…

Laura Gozzi and Zhanna Bezpiatchuk BBC News, London and Kyiv Getty Images A soldier prepares to fire artillery in the Sumy region of Ukraine, bordering Russia The head of Ukraine’s army, Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi, has said his troops have stopped Russian advances in the northeastern border region of Sumy. During a visit to the front…

A large wildfire swept through the coastal towns of Palaia Fokaia and Thymari 40 km (25 miles) southeast of Athens, destroying homes and forcing evacuations as it neared the beach. The flames erupted in low vegetation but quickly spread into residential areas, as Greece experienced its first heatwave of the summer. At least 20 homes were…

Rayhan Demytrie BBC South Caucasus correspondent Getty Images Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan faces pivotal elections next year A bitter standoff between Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and the Armenian Apostolic Church has seen mass arrests, allegations of a coup plot, and an extraordinary offer by Armenia’s leader to reveal his private parts to prove he…

One of the two charismatic criminals involved in the kidnapping that gave the world the term “Stockholm syndrome” has died aged 78, his family has said. Clark Oloffson – who rose to global notoriety in 1973 following a kidnapping and bank robbery in the Swedish capital – died following a lengthy illness, his family told…

Issa Tchiroma Bakary – a prominent minister and long-time ally of President Paul Biya – has quit Cameroon’s government, in the hope of ending 92-year-old Biya’s four-decade grip on power in upcoming elections. Just four months before the central African nation goes to the polls, Tchiroma said the Biya administration he belonged to had “broken”…

Jacqueline Howard & Adam Durbin BBC News Watch: Iran dealt “heavy blow” to US, says Khamenei Iran’s supreme leader has insisted the US “gained no achievements” from strikes on its nuclear facilities, in his first public address since a ceasefire with Israel was agreed on Tuesday. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said the strikes did not “accomplish…

Axiom Space Ax-4’s multi-country crew, led by former Nasa veteran Peggy Whitson, includes India’s Shubhanshu Shukla, Poland’s Slawosz Uznanski-Wisniewski and Hungarian Tibor Kapu Astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla has created history by becoming the first Indian ever to set foot on the International Space Station (ISS). A live broadcast showed the Axiom-4 (Ax-4) mission docking with the…

Twenty-nine children who were taking their school exams in the Central African Republic have been killed in a crush after a nearby explosion caused panic, a hospital director told the BBC. The blast, on the second day of the high-school finals on Wednesday, occurred at an electricity transformer, said Abel Assaye from the Bangui community…

Vanessa Buschschlüter Latin America editor, BBC News Online Reuters Hugo Carvajal was once one of the most powerful and feared officials in Venezuela Venezuela’s former head of military intelligence, Hugo Carvajal – also known as “El Pollo”, or The Chicken – has pleaded guilty to drug trafficking and narco-terrorism charges in the US. US officials…