Cormac McCarthy, the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist who in prose both dense and brittle took readers from the southern Appalachians to the desert Southwest in such novels as “The Road,” “Blood Meridian” and “All the Pretty Horses,” died Tuesday. He was 89.

Congolese dancer Faustin Linyekula honours his beautiful and troubled country through dance. The prolific award-winning artist, who's been a fixture of dance festivals in Avignon, Brussels and Johannesburg since the early 2000s, is in France with two shows at the Chaillot theatre in Paris. He speaks to Eve Jackson about reconnecting with Africa's history – lost and forgotten because of colonisation – and why he returned to his homeland to create his company Studio Kabako after establishing an international career as a dancer and choreographer.

LGBTQ activists are trying to counter the conservative narrative that suggests homosexuality has no place in Muslim culture. There's plenty of evidence in regional history that says otherwise.

Find these stories and much more when you grab a copy of The Guardian on Friday.⁣

Find these stories and much more when you grab a copy of The Guardian on Saturday.⁣

Despite months of protests, the Israeli parliament has passed a crucial element of the government's controversial judicial reform which could change the balance of power and further divide Israeli society.

Child trafficking and exploitation is on the rise along the route that undocumented migrants take from the Horn of Africa to Saudi Arabia, the UN says. Boys and girls aged 13 to 17 are particularly vulnerable.

An undisclosed European government has bought dozens of second-hand tanks that once belonged to Belgium, according to the weapons dealer who sold them. The vehicles are to be stripped, repaired and then sent to Ukraine.

Find these stories and much more when you grab a copy of The Guardian on Saturday.⁣

The use of digital biometric identification — recognizing people by their unique features — is growing in the Middle East. There's concern it provides an opportunity for repression.

As Middle Eastern countries again accept Bashar Assad's control over Syria, India is beginning to renew its ties with Damascus in order to build strategic influence in the region.

China's largest property developer, Country Garden, warned that it is on the brink of default as it reported a staggering loss of almost $7 billion for the first half of the year, deepening a real estate crisis that threatens to unravel the country's already fragile economy.