Big British employers must publish their gender pay gap
Employers in Britain with 250 or more staff must file and publish their gender pay gap each year. From 2027 they must also publish an action plan.
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Every news in the edition.
UNESCO stopped updating its atlas of endangered languages
UNESCO's atlas of endangered languages stopped updating in 2017, and the broader atlas meant to replace it is still not live.
Africa's free trade area was first tested with batteries and tea
The African Union launched the AfCFTA in 2018. It took effect in 2021, and its first pilot trades in 2022 showed how slowly a single market gets built.
Norway owns Svalbard, but a 1920 treaty lets others mine it
The 1920 Svalbard Treaty gave Norway sovereignty over the Arctic islands while letting citizens of every signatory live, fish and mine there on equal terms.
NBC asked up to $10m for 30 seconds of the US Super Bowl
NBC sold out every 2026 Super Bowl ad slot months early. Semafor and MediaPost put 30 seconds at $7m to $10m, and one drugmaker bought 90.
Philae touched comet 67P three times before it stayed put
In November 2014 the Philae lander reached comet 67P, but its harpoons failed and it bounced twice. How the first soft landing on a comet actually happened.
Offa's Dyke still shadows the border between England and Wales
A Mercian king raised an 80-mile bank and ditch after Welsh raids. The border still crosses it, and a 2022 survey found only 8.7% in good condition.
A self-taught US engineer built truck refrigeration from scrap
Frederick McKinley Jones left school at 12, then designed a truck cooling unit from junkyard parts. It closed the last gap in the cold chain.
Hundreds of thousands of brass fans fill a small Serbian village
Guča, a Serbian village of a few thousand, hosts what the BBC called the world's biggest trumpet festival. It began as a contest under Tito.
Bangladesh's Grameen Bank grew from loans made in a famine
Muhammad Yunus lent his own money to villagers in the 1974 famine. By 2013 his borrowers owned 97 percent of the bank, the New York Times reported.
What Greenland's 1979 home rule gave it, and what Denmark kept
A 1979 referendum gave Greenland its own parliament for internal affairs. Denmark kept defence, foreign policy and the constitution, and still does.
A lunchtime joke about flying saucers became the Fermi paradox
In 1950 Enrico Fermi asked 'Where is everybody?' over lunch at Los Alamos. How a talk about a New Yorker cartoon became a puzzle SETI still argues over.
How psychologists study the flow state
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi found flow by interviewing climbers, dancers and writers. Fifty years on, labs still struggle to catch it.
Store the Picasso, defer the tax: how art freeports work
A freeport lets goods sit in customs limbo, untaxed until they leave. How Geneva, Luxembourg and Singapore turned that rule into vaults for art and gold.
Deutsche Welle: Germany's broadcaster for audiences abroad
Deutsche Welle broadcasts Germany to the world, not to Germans. That job has led it to hire a British transmitter firm and cost it its Moscow bureau.
A 1977 Black feminist statement coined 'identity politics'
The 1977 Combahee River Collective Statement called oppression interlocking. A co-author says it coined 'identity politics'. It inspired intersectionality.
California water budgets: a pinhole disc for the overspenders
In California's drought, the Las Virgenes Water District gave each home a water budget. Ignore five warnings and a pinhole disc cuts the supply to a trickle.
The Maya built a year into Mexico's El Castillo pyramid
El Castillo at Chichén Itzá in Mexico has 91 steps on each side plus a top platform, making 365, one for each day of the solar year.
Belgium's loot box ban: strict on paper, unenforced
In 2018 Belgium ruled loot boxes in FIFA 18, Overwatch and CS:GO were illegal gambling. Its regulator has struggled to enforce that, but firms still comply.
A Pentagon-funded radar became Puerto Rico's Arecibo telescope
The US military funded Arecibo in Puerto Rico to study the ionosphere and perhaps track missiles. Astronomers turned it into a famous radio telescope.
The gap in Andrew Wiles's proof of Fermat's Last Theorem
Wiles worked in secret for seven years, then a reviewer found a flaw. Quanta and Nautilus trace how he got round a 350-year-old problem, and nearly lost it.
Costa Rica's forests returned once cattle stopped paying
Forest fell to 41% of Costa Rica by 1986 and now covers over half. WRI credits the end of ranching subsidies and payments to landowners who kept trees.
Direct air capture: a fan, a filter and a lot of heat
A plant blows air past a material that grabs carbon dioxide, then heats it to get the gas back out. NIST and the BBC explain both main designs.
Carbon capture buries a sliver of the CO2 the world emits
Carbon capture and storage takes about 45 million tonnes of CO2 a year, the BBC reports, against emissions above 40 billion. Britain regulates the pipes.