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Latest Trends

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Latest Trends

PISA 2025: Fifteen-Year-Olds Across the Rich World Read Worse Than Any Cohort the OECD Has Measured

Reading scores across the OECD have fallen 28 points in a decade, about a year and a half of schooling, and maths 22. One in five students is now a low performer in all three subjects. The largest PISA ever, and the sharpest fall came in the last three years.

Sep 10, 2026/3 min read

Junior high school students working at computers in a classroom in Taiwan, one of the ninety-one systems that took part in PISA 2025

Latest Trends

Britain, France and Canada Ban Settlement Goods, Nine States Follow, and Israel Closes the British Consulate

Ed Miliband told Parliament the trigger was the E1 tender for 1,200 homes east of Jerusalem, a red line Britain drew two decades ago. The ban covers settlement goods and the services that build settlements, not Israel itself. Twelve countries signed on.

Sep 10, 2026/3 min read

The E1 area east of Jerusalem seen from the air, with the Ma'ale Adumim interchange and the police headquarters built on the site, and bare hills around them

Latest Trends

Iran Says It Will Declare a Restricted Zone Beyond Hormuz, Names Oman as Corridor Partner, and Jizan Is Hit Again

Mohsen Rezaei says any ship entering a zone that starts at the American blockade line will be put on an Iranian sanctions list. The same day Aramco's Jizan refinery took a second strike in a month, Brent passed 97 dollars, and flydubai cut its schedule.

Sep 8, 2026/3 min read

A United States aircraft carrier and an escort transiting the Strait of Hormuz, in an official US Navy photograph

Latest Trends

A Crocodile Keeper in Port Moresby Was Held in the Water for an Hour, and Died the Next Morning

A handler at Adventure Park in Papua New Guinea was seized at feeding time on Saturday and died at 7am on Sunday. Witnesses say his legs were in the animal's jaws for about an hour before help arrived.

Sep 6, 2026/4 min read

A saltwater crocodile, Crocodylus porosus, lunging into shallow water beside mangroves. The species, not the animal involved, which has not been identified

Latest Trends

The American Alligator Recovered Forty Years Ago and Is Still Listed as Threatened, Because It Looks Like a Crocodile

In 1987 the alligator no longer qualified for protection on its own merits, so it was kept on the list for resembling species that did. A Florida congressman now wants that provision studied, after a woman was killed in June.

Sep 6, 2026/3 min read

An adult American alligator resting on a bank, head towards the camera with teeth showing along the jawline

Latest Trends

A Black Flower That Lives Underground and Eats Fungi Has Been Found on a Thai Hillside, and There Are Fewer Than Fifty

Thismia daemona has no leaves, no chlorophyll and no need for sunlight. It surfaces only to flower, black with horn-like appendages and two orange patches that look like eyes, in an area smaller than a football pitch.

Sep 6, 2026/3 min read

Sunset over the ridgeline at Khao Chang Phueak in Thong Pha Phum National Park, western Thailand, where the new species was found. The plant itself is not pictured

Latest Trends

A Drone With Military Explosives Sat on a German Runway, and Berlin Has Now Named Who Sent It

Germany has formally blamed Russia for an explosive drone found at Leipzig airport in August, and is closing the Russian consulate general in Bonn by 18 September. The target sat beside a Ukrainian cargo aircraft.

Sep 5, 2026/3 min read

Small quadcopters staged on the ground during a United States Army exercise. These are test aircraft photographed elsewhere, not the drone recovered at Leipzig

Latest Trends

The Exchange Stopped Being Between Two Countries and Started Landing in Four Others

American strikes on Revolutionary Guard sites drew missile and drone retaliation aimed at American assets in Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait and Iraq. Iranian officials report at least eleven dead, including five at a wedding in the south.

Sep 2, 2026/4 min read

A Patriot air defence battery during a training exercise at Osan Air Base in South Korea. Batteries of this type are what states under fire spend to intercept what is fired over them

Latest Trends

The Nepal Flood Toll Has Passed Nine Hundred, and More Than Four Thousand People Are Still Missing

At least 955 are confirmed dead and more than 4,400 listed missing after the glacier collapse of 26 August. It is Nepal's deadliest disaster since the 2015 earthquake, and the gap between those two numbers is the story.

Sep 1, 2026/4 min read

The Trishuli river running fast through a steep, narrow Himalayan valley in Nepal, with a footbridge crossing it

Latest Trends

Finnish Researchers Followed 260 Children for Eight Years Expecting to Document Screen Damage

The children who spent more hours on screens showed better cognitive processing as teenagers, which is the opposite of what the study was designed to find. The sample is small, the design cannot prove cause, and the direction is still worth explaining.

Aug 22, 2026/3 min read

Rows of laptops on desks in an empty school computer room

Latest Trends

Four Months After Its Founder Died, Nizam al-Tayyibat Is Bigger. That Is the Part Worth Studying.

Diaa al-Awady died on 19 April. Egypt banned his content on 3 May. The system spread faster afterwards. What that reveals about religious vocabulary, distrust of doctors and the cost of a health panic is more useful than another round of the argument.

Aug 22, 2026/5 min read

Bunches of fresh spinach stacked in a market crate