Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.

After nearly two years of war, Hamas’s military capability is severely weakened and its political leadership under intense pressure. Yet, throughout the war Hamas has managed to continue to use a secret cash-based payment system to pay 30,000 civil servants’ salaries totalling $7m (£5.3m). The BBC has spoken to three civil servants who have confirmed…

Ghana’s ministers of defence and environment have died in a military helicopter crash in the central Ashanti region, along with six other people, a government spokesperson says. Defence Minister Edward Omane Boamah and Environment, Science and Technology Minister Ibrahim Murtala Muhammed, 50, were killed in the crash, which Chief of Staff Julius Debrah described as…

Rome has given final approval to a €13.5bn ($15.6bn) project to build the world’s longest suspension bridge, connecting the island of Sicily to the region of Calabria, on the tip of Italy’s boot. The designers claim the bridge – which is due to be built on one of the most seismically active areas in the…

Watch: Hazy skies return to US as wildfires rage in Canada More than 400 additional deaths are estimated to be linked to the wildfires that ravaged Los Angeles earlier this year, according to a new study. The figure, published on Wednesday in the medical journal JAMA, looks at deaths that have been attributed to factors…

Twenty people have been killed and more than 30 injured in central Gaza after four trucks overturned on a crowd, the Hamas-run civil defence agency says. Crowds rushed to the vehicles on a road south east of Deir al-Balah on Tuesday evening. They climbed on top of the trucks, causing the drivers to lose control,…

A British man has been charged with attempted murder after allegedly trying to drown his daughter-in-law in a Florida swimming pool. Mark Gibbon, 62, was on holiday with his family at the Solterra Resort in Davenport, near Walt Disney World Resort, when the disagreement over his grandchildren erupted, Polk County Sheriff department said. Mr Gibbon,…

Thomas Mackintosh BBC News Family Fiongal Greenlaw-Meek, left, and his husband Jamie “lived together, married and died together”, his sister says A woman whose brother died in the Air India crash and then received the wrong body says it has “added trauma” to her family. Fiongal Greenlaw-Meek, 39, and his husband Jamie, 45, were among…

Jonathan Beale Defence correspondent in Kharkiv Lee Durant/BBC Dymtro Chubenko collects and documents evidence of Russian attacks Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Western nations have imposed far-reaching sanctions on the aggressor, in a bid to stymy its war effort. But on the ground here in Ukraine, these sanctions seem to have limited…

Apple plans to boost investment in the US by another $100bn (£75bn) as the tech giant comes under pressure from President Donald Trump. The White House said the money would be used to encourage firms to make more Apple parts in the US and would add to the company’s previous pledge to spend $500bn in…

Getty Images “I used trade for a lot of things, but it’s great for settling wars”, President Trump has said Despite being the world’s most sanctioned country, Russia has continued to use its vast energy wealth to bankroll its war in Ukraine. US President Donald Trump is hoping to change that. He has announced that…