You can’t buy happiness, they say. But we “buy” dopamine fixes all the time. Just whip out the smartphone and we easily go down that rabbit hole of endless doom scrolling, falling into the addictive trap of instant gratification, chasing likes, shares, comments and followers as rewards. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that plays a key role in our experience of pleasure, focus, reward and motivation. It propels us to put in effort, devote time and feel good about our achievements. Before the...

Israel’s next election campaign is well under way, with political defections, fractious coalition-building and naked appeals to ethnic exclusion marking its opening salvoes as a crowded field of challengers queues up to try Benjamin Netanyahu for the security catastrophe of October 7, 2023 and the wars that followed. The vote, constitutionally set for this October, is shaping up as a referendum on the prime minister’s central claim to power: that only he can keep Israel safe. But after two and a...

Nobel Peace laureate and activist Narges Mohammadi has been transferred to a Tehran hospital more than a week after collapsing in prison, her foundation said on Sunday. Her transfer comes after days of pleading by her family and others who described her condition as critical. Her foundation said she has been granted a prison sentence suspension on bail. It was not clear for how long her sentence is suspended, the foundation said. Mohammadi had been imprisoned since December in Zanjan prison. She...

On April 28, the United Arab Emirates informed the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) it was leaving. Three days’ notice. No call to Riyadh beforehand, apparently. The grievance about production quotas was years old: Abu Dhabi had threatened to quit in 2021. What’s changed has nothing to do with the barrel count. It is about who underwrites Abu Dhabi’s security when it acts on a decision Riyadh opposes. After Iran struck UAE infrastructure, Abu Dhabi sent only a foreign...

Iran sent its response to the latest US ceasefire proposal via Pakistani mediators and wants negotiations to focus on permanently ending the war, but President Donald Trump quickly rejected it as “TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE!” with no details. Iran seeks to end the war on all fronts, including in Lebanon, where Israel is fighting the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militant group, and to ensure the security of shipping, state television said. Washington’s latest proposal addressed a deal to end the war,...

Russian attacks wounded at least nine people in eastern Ukraine on Sunday, the second day of what was supposed to have been a three-day truce with Russia, Ukrainian officials said. Russia also conducted assault operations on the front line, although it did not launch any “large-scale” air raids during the day, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his evening address. “On the front line, the Russian army is not complying with the ceasefire and is not even really trying to,” he added. US...

One of five French people flown back to France on Sunday from the cruise ship struck by a deadly hantavirus outbreak is showing symptoms of the illness, French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu said. “On of them showed symptoms in the repatriation plane,” he posted on social media. “These five passengers have immediately been placed in strict isolation until further notice. “They are getting medical treatment and will have tests and a medical check-up,” he added. Lecornu also said he would issue...

Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium must be “taken out” before the US-Israeli war against Iran can be considered over, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in an interview on Sunday. “It’s not over, because there’s still nuclear material – enriched uranium – that has to be taken out of Iran. There’s still enrichment sites that have to be dismantled,” Netanyahu said in an excerpt of an interview due to air later Sunday on CBS’s 60 Minutes programme. “You go in and you take it out,” the...

When US President Donald Trump announced that 5,000 US troops would leave Germany, the immediate reading in Western capitals was political: another round in Trump’s running quarrel with European allies, triggered by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s criticism of Washington’s handling of the war with Iran. For Beijing, the more interesting reading is structural. The drawdown coincides with a period in which Foreign Minister Wang Yi has spent much of 2026 cultivating a “partners not rivals”...

Israel deported two activists on Sunday after being detained near Greece for slightly over a week for leading an aid flotilla attempting to break the Israeli naval blockade of the Gaza Strip. The two, Spanish-Swedish citizen of Palestinian origin Saif Abukeshek and Brazilian citizen Thiago Ávila, were among dozens of activists intercepted by the Israeli navy off the coast of Crete. Both are members of the Global Sumud Flotilla’s steering committee, whose mission is to break Israel’s naval...

Tired of petrol shortages and skyrocketing prices, Simón Huanca took matters into his own hands. The 53-year-old Indigenous artisan imported a Chinese electric car to navigate El Alto, Bolivia’s highest city, using the vehicle to transport both his family and the alpaca wool for his weaving workshop. He also installed a dedicated charger in his own garage, mainly for convenience, but also because there are only three public charging stations serving the vast metropolitan area of El Alto and...

Iran has sent its response to a US proposal to begin peace talks to end the war, Iranian state media reported on Sunday, as two carriers were allowed to pass through the blockaded Strait of Hormuz. The response, sent to mediator Pakistan, focused on ending the war on all fronts, especially Lebanon, and on the safety of shipping through the strait, Iranian state television said, without indicating how or when the vital waterway might reopen. It followed a US proposal to end fighting before...