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BBC Judy Aleksalza bought her terrace house back in the 1970s for just $1 It was a regeneration idea that started half a century ago in the US, and has spread to other parts of the world. But can selling off empty, derelict properties for a nominal amount help solve urban blight? And who are…

US Supreme Court cases to watch A new nine-month term begins for the US Supreme Court on Monday with major cases that will shape many aspects of American life. The court’s nine justices are back after last year’s blockbuster term, which saw rulings that protected a widely used abortion pill or granting former President Donald…

Getty Images Millions of people in the Middle East dream of safe, quiet lives without drama and violent death. The last year of war, as bad as any in the region in modern times, has shown yet again that dreams of peace cannot come true while deep political, strategic and religious fault lines remain unbridged….

Maya Meshel / BBC A few metres from a charred home in Kibbutz Be’eri, Simon King tends to a patch of ground in the sunshine. The streets around him are eerily quiet, the silence punctuated only by the sound of air strikes that ring in the near distance. In this community almost a year ago,…

Luanda Peddie remembers the day her world shattered. In 2011, her 14-year-old son Jovanni fell to his death from the sixth floor of their family home in the Missenden block of London’s Aylesbury Estate. “It’s a place of horror, it’s a place of hell, it’s a place of trauma,” health worker Luanda says, describing the…

‘Time is right’ for assisted dying debate, MP Kim Leadbeater says Proposals to give terminally ill people in England and Wales the right to choose to end their life are to be introduced in Parliament this month. Labour MP Kim Leadbeater is putting forward the bill and said “now is the time” to hold a…

Alamy The UK has announced it is giving up sovereignty of a remote but strategically important cluster of islands in the Indian Ocean after more than half a century. The deal – reached after years of negotiations – will see the UK hand over the Chagos Islands to Mauritius in a historic move. This includes…

An around-the-world cruise ship which has been stranded in Belfast for months is still anchored in Belfast Lough. After more than four months of delays, Villa Vie Residences’ Odyssey set sail on Monday – but it only travelled a few miles. It had been expected to set sail again on Tuesday, then again on Wednesday…

“If these fires continue, we indigenous people will die.” Raimundinha Rodrigues Da Sousa runs the voluntary fire service for the Caititu indigenous community in the Brazilian Amazon. Their land is supposed to be protected under the Brazilian constitution. But it has been on fire for more than 15 days. For her brigade, their fight feels…