Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.

Non-essential US embassy staff and their dependants in Baghdad are to be evacuated from Iraq due to heightened security risks, US government sources have said. Officials did not say exactly what prompted the removal, however, in recent days talks over Iran’s nuclear programme appear to have stalled. A US state department official told the BBC…

Victoria Gill Science correspondent, BBC News Masato Hattori An artist’s impression of Khankhuuluu mongoliensis, the newly discovered tyrannosaur ancestor Scientists have discovered a new species of dinosaur – in the collection of a Mongolian museum – that they say “rewrites” the evolutionary history of tyrannosaurs. Researchers concluded that two 86 million-year-old skeletons they studied belonged…

Carl Nasman, Ana Faguy and Gary O’Donoghue BBC News, Los Angeles, Washington DC and New York Watch: The BBC’s Carl Nasman explains how immigration raids sparked protests and unrest An uneasy calm has descended over Los Angeles after the first night of a curfew lifted on Wednesday, as cities across the US brace for more…

Madeline Halpert BBC News, New York Getty Images Miriam Haley has testified against Weinstein in two New York sex crime trials On Wednesday, 12 New York jurors found disgraced film mogul Harvey Weinstein guilty of sexually assaulting Miriam Haley in 2006, after his previous sex crimes conviction in the state was overturned last year. When…

Becky Morton Political reporter FCDO UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy and Chief Minister of Gibraltar Fabian Picardo met earlier on Wednesday The UK has agreed a deal with the European Union over Gibraltar’s status after Brexit. Talks on rules governing the border between Spain and the British Overseas Territory have been ongoing since the UK…

Israeli security forces operating in Gaza have recovered the bodies of two Israeli hostages, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says. He named one of them as Yair (Yaya) Yaakov, 59, who was killed inside his home at Kibbutz Nir Oz during the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023. His teenage sons, Or and…

Getty Images Bill Pallot was considered the top scholar of French 18th Century chairs Two French antiques experts have been convicted of forging historic chairs that they claimed had once belonged to French royals such as Marie Antoinette. Georges “Bill” Pallot and Bruno Desnoues were given four months behind bars as well as longer suspended…

Harvey Weinstein has been found guilty of sexual assault in New York, after a sex crimes conviction in the state was overturned last year. A panel of seven female and five male jurors deliberated for five days in the six-week trial before unanimously voting to convict the disgraced film mogul of one of three counts.…

Brian Wilson, the legendary frontman and co-founder of the Beach Boys, has died at the age of 82, his family announced. “We are heartbroken to announce that our beloved father Brian Wilson has passed away,” his family said in a statement shared online. “We are at a loss for words right now,” they added. “Please…

Syria’s Islamist-led interim government has decreed that women must wear burkinis – a swimsuit that covers the body except for the face, hands and feet – or other “decent” clothes at public beaches and swimming pools. The regulations, issued by the tourism ministry, were “aimed at enhancing public safety standards and preserving public decency”, Syrian…