Patrice Talon has transformed the west African country’s economy and infrastructure at the expense of political freedom

In recent years, a building boom has reshaped Benin’s largest city, Cotonou, and a shiny new coastal road has reduced journey times to Ouidah, the west African country’s spiritual and cultural capital.

In the last decade, Benin’s annual GDP has grown from 3% to 6%, a regional high, and an industrial zone has been launched north-west of Cotonou to help industrialise the relatively small nation’s largely informal economy.

Pédro Sanchez is an admirer of Zohran Mamdani. It’s time Spanish politicians emulated the New York mayor’s relentless focus on affordable homes

Maricarmen Abascal is a determined woman who uses a wheelchair to get around. She has needed her determination over the years she has spent fighting the real estate company that forced her out of her Madrid apartment last week. She had lived in the flat for more than 70 of her 87 years.

Police forced their way into her apartment after a judge approved Abascal’s eviction. By then, protesters had gathered around the building, including the actor Carlos Bardem, Javier’s brother. Teargas was used against them. Abascal was taken to a Madrid hospital, suffering from anxiety and extreme exhaustion, while her supporters chanted: “You are not alone.”

María Ramírez is a journalist and deputy managing editor of elDiario.es, a news outlet in Spain

Kalpana Nepali was seven months pregnant when the catastrophic flash floods hit last month, while Pooja Pariyal spent three days on a hospital roof waiting to be rescued. Now, they are living precariously in temporary shelters

For three days, Pooja Pariyal waited on the roof of Trishuli hospital with her three-month-old daughter, Ridhika. On the ground below and around the building, most of her town had been destroyed and churned into a sea of mud in the catastrophic flash floods that surged through the Himayalan border region of Nepal and Tibet in August.

“Those three days were living hell for me, with no food, no working toilet and no one to help with the baby,” she says. “I had nothing to clean my baby’s soiled clothes. My milk supply had reduced because I was hungry and this poor little thing would cry her lungs out.

National Trust says latest figures encouraging – with numbers of birds on the rise – but work still to be done

England’s most important tern colonies are showing signs of recovery after being hit by years of bird flu, flooding and increasingly unpredictable weather, new figures from the National Trust reveal.

The trust reported record numbers of little terns at Long Nanny in Northumberland, one of the UK’s most important breeding sites for what is the country’s second-rarest breeding seabird.

The musical powerhouse has spawned huge hits, but which do its troupers love to belt out – even for the 1,700th time? From Broadway legend Idina Menzel to composer Stephen Schwartz, they reveal all

Idina Menzel originated the role of Elphaba, the witch of the west who turns out not to be so wicked (but still very green). She won a Tony on Broadway, starred in the West End run and made a cheeky cameo in the recent film version

Figure cited by minister highlights trade-offs Kyiv faces as it tries to keep normal life moving amid Russian strikes

Missile alerts are costing Ukraine an estimated $45m (£34m) for every hour they bring business to a halt, according to the country’s economy minister, as Kyiv searches for ways to keep the economy running under an intensifying Russian bombardment.

Russia has increasingly targeted the infrastructure underpinning Ukraine’s economy, striking industrial sites, warehouses, logistics hubs and datacentres in what Oleksandr Kravchenko, the minister for economy and the environment, described as an effort to “destroy pretty much the entire economy”.

Exeter museum to host DJ’s ‘collaboration’ with woodland fungi and artist’s map of her own body’s mycobiome

For one of the installations, a musician spent hours in woodland “collaborating” with fungi to create a soundscape inspired by the electricity they emit.

Another is a kinetic sculpture of an extinct fungus that honours Beatrix Potter not for her tales of mischievous rabbits but for her lesser-known skills as a mycologist – a fungi expert.

Six months ago, Samba made a brave, unprecedented escape from Marwell zoo. Her life on the lam continues today. We join the team hunting desperately to find her in the Hampshire countryside

Samba the capybara is still at large. Along with her older sister, Tango, the intrepid rodent made her escape from Marwell zoo in Winchester in March. Tango all but gave herself up on day two; Samba broke for the marshy wetlands of the River Itchen. Word spread and within days the fugitive was an international social media star. But despite an intense search, the dense Hampshire countryside has afforded her a haven. Six months on, Samba remains elusive.

Marwell’s staff still aren’t sure how the capybaras escaped, although they have their suspicions. Tango and Samba were born on Jimmy’s Farm and Wildlife Park in Suffolk in the summer of 2025. They arrived at Marwell zoo on Monday 16 March, to great excitement. “They were a little bit shy when they got here, as you would expect,” says Laura Read, the chief executive of Marwell Wildlife. “But they were fine.” They were immediately placed in a quarantined habitat, as is standard procedure for new arrivals. The plan was to keep them there for 30 days.

De voorouder van de Paulinella-amoebes heeft ooit een bacterie opgeslokt die aan fotosynthese doet. Die amoebes leken behoorlijk zeldzaam te zijn, maar onderzoekers denken nu dat dat wel meevalt.

AMSTERDAM (ANP) - De Amsterdamse start-up Blue Health Intelligence heeft bij een investeringsronde 3,4 miljoen euro opgehaald. Het bedrijf biedt gezondheidschecks van een uur aan waarbij allerlei lichamelijke metingen worden gedaan, die achteraf direct worden besproken met een arts. "Het is ons doel dat een periodieke gezondheidscheck net zo normaal wordt als een bezoekje aan de tandarts", zegt medeoprichter en arts Leanne Verdonck.

Met het opgehaalde geld wil de start-up binnen Nederland en daarbuiten uitbreiden en het bijbehorende gezondheidsplatform verder ontwikkelen, meldt het bedrijf in een persbericht. De recentste kapitaalinjectie volgt op een eerdere investeringsronde van ruim 1 miljoen euro.

"In landen als Japan, Duitsland en Engeland zijn periodieke gezondheidschecks al onderdeel van het zorgsysteem, maar in Nederland helaas nog niet", licht topman en medeoprichter Onno Huyghe toe. Huyghe werkte eerder bij Swapfiets, de abonnementsdienst voor fietsen, en energieleverancier Tibber. Met de check willen de oprichters "preventie toegankelijker maken voor veel mensen". Een check bij Blue kost 299 euro.

De vorig jaar opgerichte start-up ziet ook mogelijkheden in het buitenland, waarbij Italië en Frankrijk de meest aantrekkelijke bestemmingen zijn. Het bedrijf verwacht in de eerste helft van volgend jaar een locatie te kunnen openen in Parijs of Milaan. Blue Health heeft op dit moment een locatie in Amsterdam.