Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.

Paul Adams BBC diplomatic correspondent Reuters A headline in Israel’s liberal daily Ha’aretz this week put it starkly: “Diplomatic tsunami nears,” it warned, “as Europe begins to act against Israel’s ‘complete madness’ in Gaza.” This week’s diplomatic assault has taken many forms, not all of them foreseen. From concerted international condemnation of Israel’s actions in…

Ian Youngs Culture reporter Getty Images Salgado dedicated himself to photographing nature and indigenous life in his later years Sebastião Salgado, regarded as one of the world’s greatest documentary photographers, has died at the age of 81. The Brazil-born photographer was known for his dramatic and unflinching black-and-white images of hardship, conflict and natural beauty,…

James Waterhouse & Amy Walker In northern Ukraine & London Volodymyr Zelensky/X Some of the released Ukrainians were pictured shortly after they were freed by Russia Russia and Ukraine have each handed over 390 soldiers and civilians in the biggest prisoner exchange since the start of the full-scale Russian invasion in 2022. They both returned…

Sofia Ferreira Santos BBC News NTB/Jan Langhaugvia via Reuters The huge ship crashed into a local resident’s front garden on Thursday The watch officer of a huge container ship that ran aground and crashed into a garden in Norway has told police he was asleep at the time of the incident. Investigators said the man,…

Maxar North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has called the accident a “criminal act” Satellite images have for the first time shown the extent of a shipyard accident in North Korea that damaged a new warship in the presence of the secretive state’s leader, Kim Jong Un. The image shows the warship lying on its…

Russian activist Lyudmila Vasilyeva, an 84-year-old survivor of the siege of Leningrad in World War Two, has been fined by a court after protesting Russia’s war in Ukraine. During her sentencing hearing in St Petersburg on Friday, Ms Vasilyeva was ordered to pay 10,000 rubles ($126; £93) for “discrediting” the Russian army. The charges related…

Getty Images Harvard is suing the Trump administration after it revoked the university’s ability to enrol international students, escalating a dispute between the White House and one of America’s most prestigious institutions. In the suit filed in Boston, the university called the administration’s actions a “blatant violation” of the law. It comes a day after…

BBC Trump threatens Apple with 25% tariff on iPhones made outside US and recommends 50% tariff on EU from June This breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly. Please refresh the page for the fullest version. You can receive Breaking News on a smartphone or tablet via the BBC…

Kelly Ng & Annabelle Liang BBC News Shreya Mishra Reddy Harvard is “the ultimate school that anybody in India wants to get into,” says Shreya Mishra Reddy When Shreya Mishra Reddy was admitted to Harvard University in 2023, her parents were “ecstatic”. It is “the ultimate school that anybody in India wants to get into,”…

The Nigerian government has pressed charges against a senator who accused one of the country’s top politicians of plotting to kill her. In April, Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan alleged that Godswill Akpabio, the senate president, and Yahaya Bello, a former state governor, wanted to “eliminate” her. Both have denied the accusation. Weeks before, Akpoti-Uduaghan had accused the…