Venezuela's rulers and their rivals sit down to talk, each boxed in at home

World

Seven months after US forces seized Maduro, Venezuela's interim chavista government and its opposition held six days of talks, agreeing to free political prisoners and reform the courts.

Finance

The S&P 500 closed at an all-time high on cool inflation data, yet the credit market that funds companies day to day is flashing the opposite signal.

Tech

Meta, Nvidia and DeepSeek all pushed open AI models this week, while OpenAI and Anthropic keep theirs locked - a fight over who controls the technology everyone is about to build on.

Mind & body

Your body runs on a fast engine and an efficient one, and it cannot be the same engine.

Climate

A fifth summer heatwave spiked electricity demand across Europe while curbing the cheapest plants - French nuclear, German wind - so the grid leaned on dear gas, and spot power prices rose more than 20%.

Space

A striking new Webb picture of the Lion Nebula lands the same week a Chinese rocket explodes, a daring orbital rescue steadies itself, and Europe gets its first total eclipse in 27 years.

Biotech

Trump ordered fewer childhood shots and the MMR vaccine split into three, as US measles reached its worst level since 1991 - a week where the science of collective protection ran straight into policy.

Money

A loss and a gain of the same size are not felt the same.

Sports

England's Championship set a record 903 million pound wage bill chasing promotion to the Premier League - a prize so steep it pulls clubs into reckless bets, the same pattern of rank-based rewards driving record team sales worldwide.

Gaming

Aliens: Fireteam Elite's Switch version was switched off with no refunds, one of several games and services that died on schedule this week as the industry moves from selling copies to renting access.

Food

The USDA's first survey-based read on the 2026 harvest cut the corn yield below what traders expected, and corn and wheat both surged - the latest sign of a heat-squeezed season worldwide.

Cyber

This week's worst breaches came down to one thing - a leaked key.