The Latest Breaking News from The Conversation

Every few years, a familiar anxiety resurfaces in British public discourse: that sharia law is establishing a parallel legal system and threatening the sovereignty of English law. Those fears were reignited following Donald Trump’s recent speech to the UN, where he claimed that London wants “to go to sharia law”.

Nestled between the Caerneddau mountains and the Afon (River) Conwy, the small village of Dolgarrog in north Wales looks peaceful. But the huge hydro-electric pipes that run down the hillside are a constant reminder of the village’s history, and of how the same source of power that once brought prosperity…

Every product we touch has a footprint. A phone, a fridge, a hospital syringe. Each begins and ends in the same place: the planet’s resources.

This roundup of The Conversation’s climate coverage was first published in our award-winning weekly climate action newsletter, Imagine.

In the wake of the 2007-08 global financial crisis, green finance has been increasingly celebrated as a way to tackle environmental challenges. Banks, investment funds and insurers have rolled out a growing range of green products, from green bonds to sustainability-linked loans. This momentum is encouraged by international environmental efforts…

In the 16th century, witches and demons weren’t just for Halloween. People were terrified and preoccupied with them – even kings.

The origins and migrations of modern humans around the world are a hot topic of debate. Genetic analyses have pointed to Africa as the continent from which our ancestors dispersed in the Late Pleistocene epoch, which began about 126,000 years ago. Various dispersal routes have been suggested.

Despite international efforts to eliminate child marriage, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) continues to have high rates of this harmful practice.

Biologists often form deep bonds with the species they study. For some, that relationship begins early in their careers and shapes decades of research. The connection can be personal, even affectionate, but it can also create tensions when others set their sights on the same species.

For many African communities, the climate crisis is not a future scenario – it is a daily emergency. Irreversible losses, destroyed homes, failed harvests, vanishing ecosystems and lack of access to clean water are already happening.

The Halloween season has always been special for me. It’s the time when it seems the entire country shares the fascination with the dark side of human experience that has inspired me from my youth as a fan of horror movies to my current career as a professor of English…