Nepal's Everest permits have no cap, only a price and a test
Nepal's government decides who may attempt Everest from the south. It sets fees and experience rules but has not fixed a limit on the number of permits.
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A 1943 report told England to scrap its elite school exam
A wartime committee recommended abolishing England's Higher School Certificate in 1943. Its replacement, the A-level, arrived in 1951 and is still sat today.
London's driverless taxis still carry a human safety driver
Waymo and Wayve are testing driverless cars in London, but a trained safety driver still rides along until regulators sign off.
Andy Ruiz Jr loses his comeback fight to Damian Knyba
Andy Ruiz Jr lost a unanimous decision to Poland's Damian Knyba in Newark, his first fight in two years, and says he wants a rematch.
UN votes to retire the Mercator map for Equal Earth
The UN voted 164 to 1 to phase out the Mercator map, which shrinks Africa to the look of Greenland, in favour of the 2018 Equal Earth projection.
Click beetles flip upright with a snap, not their legs
A click beetle stuck on its back loads a latched hinge behind its head, then lets it snap. That throws it into the air, with little control over the landing.
Ofsted in England: why no single lesson decides the grade
An Ofsted grade doesn't come from one classroom visit. It comes from a planning call, six tracked pupils, and evidence built across the whole inspection.
Booked an all-inclusive? It began in tents on a Mallorca beach
The first all-inclusive resort was a 1950 Club Med tent camp on a Mallorca beach, run by Gérard Blitz. Corsica's Calvi gave Europe the package holiday.
Cyrus Field failed three times before the cable held
Cyrus Field spent nine years and three failed cable attempts trying to link Europe and America by telegraph, before a fourth attempt in 1866 finally held.
Spain's 1697 cession to France began Hispaniola's split
Spain ceded western Hispaniola to France in 1697, and it became Haiti. The Dominican Republic later broke away from Haiti, not Spain, in 1844.
A Wimbledon broadcast named Emma Navarro's hypothyroidism
An ESPN commentator named Emma Navarro's hypothyroidism live at Wimbledon in July, months after unexplained absences derailed her season.
A Ubisoft employee's side project became Game of the Year
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 began as one Ubisoft developer's after-hours demo. A team found on Reddit and SoundCloud turned it into a Game of the Year.
Sabalenka reaches the US Open last 16 after a rocky summer
Aryna Sabalenka is into the US Open fourth round and chasing a third straight title, after a summer in which her Grand Slam form collapsed.
Two tricks bats use to leave a packed cave without crashing
Thousands of bats leave a cave at once and almost never collide. Tracking studies show they spread out and switch to short, quiet, high-pitched calls.
Miliband was tipped for chancellor. He got the Foreign Office.
Ed Miliband was tipped to replace Rachel Reeves as chancellor under Andy Burnham. He was made foreign secretary instead, succeeding Yvette Cooper.
Estonia sells a digital ID card, not a right to live there
Estonian e-residency lets a foreigner start and run a company in Estonia online. It gives no right to enter the country or the EU, and no tax escape.
Ottolenghi wants one big dish for weekend breakfast
Yotam Ottolenghi wants one big shared dish in the middle of the weekend breakfast table. The recipes come from his new cookbook, Simple Too.
Carl Sagan's committee raced to choose Earth's sounds
Carl Sagan's committee had six weeks to choose the sounds, images and music that speak for Earth on Voyager's Golden Record.
A pumped-hydro plant stores height, not water
A pumped-hydro plant stores energy as water lifted to a high reservoir, then lets it fall through turbines to give the power back when demand peaks.
Homebuyers sue UK housebuilders over alleged price collusion
Law firms want up to £4.5bn from Britain's biggest housebuilders, on behalf of 700,000 buyers, over alleged collusion on new-build prices.
Cryptic setters build most clues to work two ways at once
A typical cryptic crossword clue is a straight definition and a wordplay puzzle folded into the same sentence, each pointing at the same answer.
Europe's broadcasters borrowed Sanremo and built Eurovision
Eurovision began in 1955 as a plan by the new European Broadcasting Union. Its first contest, in Lugano in 1956, was an early live international broadcast.
James Martin cooks every dish on camera unrehearsed
James Martin's Saturday Morning cookbook collects dishes he cooked on ITV for the first time, with no rehearsal. He still never watches the show back.
Spotify pays rights holders by their share of a stream pool
Spotify pools its monthly subscription and ad revenue, keeps close to a third, and splits the rest by streaming share, so no play has a fixed price.