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It took more than 10 years to design and build Europe's four identical Cluster satellites for launch; and just 39 seconds to lose them all in an enormous fireball. Their remains rained down over the South American jungle as the Ariane 5 rocket veered off course and exploded.

The woman, who was named only by the initials DL in court documents, filed a harassment lawsuit against her former boyfriend in 2022. The suit alleged that he posted intimate pictures of her online to "publicly shame" her after a break-up.

"We are going to allow women to study and work within our framework. Women are going to be very active in our society," the Taliban announced in their first press conference shortly after seizing power on 15 August 2021.

Two years since the Taliban swept into power in Afghanistan, not a single country has formally recognised their rule. Even engaging with the Taliban government remains deeply controversial.

The path began to descend into the earth as if burrowed out in ancient times by the slithering of a giant worm. As we followed it downwards, the atmosphere changed: the wind became still, the air warmer. The plant life changed, too, the verges of the path becoming a jungle of curling ferns.

Four Nigerian stowaways set out for Europe on the rudder of a tanker. They had no idea they were bound for Brazil, and a two-week ocean voyage that would nearly kill them.

Science correspondentA big freeze previously unknown to science drove early humans from Europe for 200,000 years, but they adapted and returned, new research shows.Ocean sediments from 1.1 million years ago show temperatures suddenly dropped more than 5C, scientists say.

Scientists near Chicago say they may be getting closer to discovering the existence of a new force of nature. They have found more evidence that sub-atomic particles, called muons, are not behaving in the way predicted by the current theory of sub-atomic physics.

The six-year-old student who shot his teacher in the US earlier this year, boasted about the incident saying "I shot [her] dead", unsealed court documents show.

BBC NewsA Texas woman was attacked by a hawk and a snake at the same time after the bird - which eats snakes - accidentally dropped the wriggling serpent on her.

There is no evidence the global spread of Facebook is linked to widespread psychological harm, an Oxford Internet Institute (OII) study suggests. The research looked at how wellbeing changed in 72 countries as use of the social media platform grew.

Nuclear weapons tests in the mid-20th Century left a hidden legacy within our cells – along with most living things on Earth. This "bomb spike" has proven surprisingly useful to scientists, helping them crack police investigations and bust brain myths.

Sipping black tea with milk from a blue-and-white piala ceramic bowl, I felt like a child again. We'd arrived at Saty, a small village in southern Kazakhstan, after driving all day from Almaty through an otherworldly terrain of wide steppe grasslands, narrow gorges and snow-capped mountains.

New York City closed its popular Rockaway Beach on Tuesday after a 50-year-old woman was bitten by a shark Monday evening, officials said. The woman was swimming near Beach 59th Street when a shark bit her leg, New York City Parks officials said.

The makers of Wegovy say it cuts risk of a cardiovascular event in overweight people with heart disease by a fifth. The injection is popular in places like the US and was approved for weight loss in the NHS in England in June.

Two Saturdays ago, five people sat down for a family meal in a tiny Australian town. Within a week, three would be dead, a fourth fighting for life, and the fifth under investigation for potentially poisoning her guests with wild mushrooms.

Spiritual healing, also known as "Quranic healing", is a popular practice in the Arab and Muslim world. It is mostly women who visit healers - believing that they can solve problems and cure illness by expelling evil spirits known as "jinn".

According to the rhyme and song, the unfortunate woman swallowed the arachnid to catch a fly she had previously eaten - followed by a number of other creatures in an attempt to solve the original issue. But... let's concentrate on the spider.

One of Italy's most dangerous fugitives has been caught in Corfu after a photo of him cheering on his football team gave away his whereabouts. Vincenzo La Porta, 60, is thought to have close ties to the Camorra organised crime gang in Naples.

With reports of a sharp increase in the number of men in Uganda seeking paternity tests, fears are growing it could break up families and leave children psychologically scarred.

Nasa is back in full contact with its lost Voyager 2 probe months earlier than expected, the space agency said. In July a wrong command was sent to the spacecraft, sent to explore space in 1977, changing its position and severing contact.

Located 125km north-east of Erbil (the capital of Kurdistan, an autonomous region of northern Iraq), lies the hamlet-sized shrine complex of Lalish, the holiest site of Yazidism, an ancient religion with an estimated 700,000 followers worldwide.

As the world continues to grapple with extreme heatwaves, which are becoming ever more regular thanks to climate change, the clothing we wear is a vital component in how we stay cool. Researchers have found that by wearing appropriate clothes, it is possible to turn the air-conditioning up by 2C (3.