Two enemies who hate each other attack Mali together — and its army is running out of ground

World

A Tuareg separatist group and an al-Qaeda affiliate, whose goals are opposite, struck Mali's army in five towns on the same morning.

Finance

The US launched federally-seeded investment accounts for children, defaulting deposits into an S&P 500 fund.

Tech

A Guardian investigation finds two-thirds of the "£30bn" Stargate UK deal was hypothetical — and OpenAI never visited the key site.

Mind & body

Your gut runs a nervous system of its own, sends far more signals up to the brain than it takes down, and makes most of your body's serotonin.

Climate

A national mandate to mix ethanol into fuel now covers every pump in India.

Space

United Launch Alliance flew its final Atlas V 551, one of the most reliable rockets ever built, adding satellites to Amazon's internet constellation.

Biotech

Roche's late-arriving lung-cancer drug outperformed Amgen's and Bristol Myers Squibb's in a head-to-head trial — the week's clearest lesson that being first proves a thing is possible, but rarely means you keep the prize.

Money

Lose 30% and you need a 43% gain to get back to even — not 30%.

Sports

A record-shattering transfer summer is really a lesson in amortisation: the accounting move that lets clubs spend huge and still pass the spending rules.

Gaming

Meccha Chameleon, a cheap and janky hide-and-seek game built in about two months, has sold over 10 million copies and gone viral into the real world.

Food

A £6m food fraud went undetected for years because no customer could see what was in a kebab.

Cyber

As a record heatwave empties the shelves of cooling units, criminals have cloned Aldi's website to sell bargain air conditioners that never arrive — and the same trick is impersonating footballers to push illegal betting apps.