Road closures and bike paths: Is Paris headed for a car-free future post-lockdown?

Unlike most other countries, the Philippines has decided to keep schools closed for another year to contain COVID-19. Rights advocates warn millions of children without internet access are missing out on an education.

Thirteen couples competed in the North American Wife Carrying Championship on Sunday in Newry, Maine, in which husbands run a 278-yard (254 meters) obstacle-filled course carrying their wives, in hopes of winning the wife's weight in beer and five times her weight in cash. The winning couple, Jerome and Olivia Roehm, took home the prize for the third consecutive time. "This year it was a really tough. We went up, I think, higher than we've done in the past, so running up that hill was tough," said Jerome. In addition to the beer and cash, the two were entered into the world championship held in Finland next summer.  

Four police officers have been arrested in Kogi following a viral video in which they were captured assaulting and extorting travellers while on patrol duty along the Adogo-Okene Road.⁣⁣ The police chief in Kogi has condemned the incident, adding that any of the officers found wanting after investigations would be dealt with accordingly.⁣⁣ ⁣

Here are a few reasons to pick up a copy of The Guardian on Friday. Find these stories and much more when you grab a copy of The Guardian on Friday.⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣ ⁣⁣

In Montenegro, the construction of a motorway to open up the Balkan nation – a project launched in 2014 – is now more than two years behind schedule. With its high environmental and financial costs (more than $1 billion), this pharaonic project has dangerously increased the debt of the country of 600,000 inhabitants. FRANCE 24 investigates. The work is being financed by a Chinese bank and largely carried out by a Chinese state-owned company and a local firm close to the previous government, which signed the deal. But if Montenegro defaults on its loan, the contract stipulates that the country must relinquish sovereignty over certain parts of its territory. This burden on the country’s new government has aggravated the strong suspicions of corruption around the building site.

Last weekend, the US was hit by a cluster of perhaps the most devastating tornadoes in its history. In Kentucky alone, more than 70 people are known to have been killed by the severe weather system, and deaths were also reported in Arkansas, Illinois, Missouri and Tennessee. US President Joe Biden, who has signed a disaster declaration for Kentucky, paid a visit to the region and called the situation there "an unimaginable tragedy". We take a closer look at the scale of the damage.

Some 15 million students could go back to the classroom for the first time since March 2020, amidst fears that irreparable damage has been done to their education.

After the first aid flights reached Tonga with more en route, the remote Pacific island nation, home to about 100,000 people, grapples with the aftermath of an underwater volcanic eruption and tsunami.

Nepal's ruling party has become increasingly wary of China's expansive Belt and Road Initiative amid Sri Lanka's financial collapse, fresh loans from the US and a shift towards India.

Although EU candidacy for Ukraine and Moldova has been hailed as historic, frustrations among other candidates years into their own membership bids should serve as a reminder that the path ahead won't be easy.

Every year approximately 200,000 abortions are done in France. Nearly 40 years after the practice was legalized in that country, the number of abortions is stable: fewer women are having abortions but repeat abortions (the same woman having more than one abortion) are increasing.

Despite repeated calls on the Taliban to allow girls to attend classes again, the group still has yet to answer. Netizens have taken to the web under the #LetAfghanGirlsLearn campaign to demand back the right to study.