The long-delayed trial of a Libyan man linked to the 1988 Lockerbie bombing has been postponed again, after new evidence emerged days before jury selection was due to begin in Washington, D.C.

What happened in 1988?
On 21 December 1988, 259 passengers and crew, as well as 11 people on the ground, were killed when Pan Am flight 103, from London to New York, exploded over Lockerbie, southwest Scotland. Almost 200 of those killed were American. It remains the UK’s worst terrorist attack.

Who was behind the bombing?
Thousands of interviews and painstaking analysis of 319 tons of wreckage eventually led Scottish and American investigators to two Libyan intelligence operatives: Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi and Lamen Khalifa Fhimah. After a lengthy legal process, al-Megrahi was found guilty in 2001 and jailed for life. Released on compassionate grounds in 2009 after being diagnosed with terminal cancer, he died in 2012. Fhimah was acquitted at the trial and returned to Libya.

In 2003, the Libyan government formally “accepted responsibility for the actions of its officials”, said STV News. But questions over the extent of the involvement of the Libyan state have “persisted for decades”.

In December 2020, 32 years to the day after the bombing, the US charged Abu Agela Mas’ud Kheir Al-Marimi as a “third conspirator”, allegedly responsible for building and priming the explosive hidden inside a suitcase on board. He was taken into custody in the US two years later and has been awaiting trial ever since.

What’s going on now?
The trial was due to start in May 2025 but was delayed until this year, after Al-Marimi’s lawyers said they needed more time to work through more than 400,000 files of evidence. This week, it was again pushed back. The presiding judge “would have been extremely reluctant to allow an 11th-hour postponement, after months of preparation and marathon pre-trial legal battles”, said the BBC. This underlines “the potential importance of the new evidence”. The trial is now scheduled to start early next year.

Earlier this month, a video showing a hiker being heckled for “queue-jumping” at the top of Yr Wyddfa, or Mount Snowdown, went viral. “I haven’t endangered anyone or ‘shoved or barged’ past anyone,” the hiker said. “Imagine queueing on a mountain.”

The incident has highlighted an etiquette row that’s been dividing climbers for years – with some very different views the right way to reach Wales’ 1,085m summit.

‘Like insulting Paddington Bear’
The queue on top of Snowdon may be “frustratingly long”, said The Guardian, but what do you expect? It’s one of the “most beautiful parts of the UK”, so it’s “bound to attract crowds”. Cutting in line “is the least British thing of all time. It’s like insulting Paddington Bear.” Blame over-tourism and social media all you like but, “if you want to climb a mountain in 2026, expect to join a line”.

There are those who say it should be “different strokes for different folks”, said Alice Murphy in Metro. Yes, if you are just wanting to touch the top to complete the hike, “fire ahead” but, if you’re “doing it for the ’gram”, then “get in line”.

‘Docile queueing’
Sorry, this is “Snowdon, not Chessington World of Adventures”, said Carol Midgley in The Times. We’re in danger of “taking docile queueing too far”. “Yes, it’s nice to be polite and wait your turn, blah blah, but what next? Waiting in line to enter the sea at Bridlington?”

Mountain summits have traditionally been associated with “achievement, community, and endurance”, said Portia Jones on Wales Online. But, in recent years, they have become “a tourist attraction, subject to queueing rules and hostile public policing”. That’s “absurd”. The “real achievement” is reaching the summit, not taking a “staged photo”.

“Standing in an orderly line is the closest thing we have to a national hobby,” said The Times’ editorial board. But it “has its limits”. There are many other viewing points from which to “admire” this mountain’s “majesty”, instead of waiting an hour at the top on a “mindless quest for social-media fodder”.

Visitors queue outside the Yayoi Kusama Museum in Tokyo, after it was announced that the avant-garde “polka dot artist” had died at the age of 97. Kusama – the biggest-selling female sculptor and painter in history – passed away on 14 August, her company confirmed today.

Andrew Caballero-Reynolds / AFP / Getty Images

Autumn is the busiest season of the publishing year and, with so many authors keen to publicise their latest offering, it’s also the perfect time to visit a literary festival. Throughout the UK, there are many events where you can meet your favourite writers, discover rising stars and, of course, come away with plenty of books to keep you absorbed all winter.

Cheltenham Literature Festival
Launched in 1949, Cheltenham Literature Festival is still going strong. This year, “Empire of Pain” author Patrick Radden Keefe will be discussing his new book, “London Falling”, and classics guru Mary Beard will be examining the surprising ties between antiquity and the present. Budding writers can also enrol in a “How to Start a Novel” workshop.

Dorchester Literary Festival
This week of star-studded talks, debates and live events includes Julian Fellowes, creator of “Downton Abbey”, reflecting on his glittering multi-decade career, and bestselling author Victoria Hislop discussing her new novel, “The Wine-Dark Sea”, set in post-war Greece.

London Literary Festival
Dua Lipa has curated this year’s line-up at the Southbank Centre, and will be hosting a series of conversations with some of her favourite writers, including Zadie Smith. Other literary stars to look out for include “Noughts & Crosses” author Malorie Blackman and Sudanese-Canadian poet Mustafa.

Stratford Literary Festival
The festival’s always-jam-packed line-up this year features talks by Celia Imrie, Greg James, Marina Litvinenko. Bonnie Garmus and Neill Cameron. And veteran politician Margaret Hodge will be discussing her memoir, “Battle Axe”.

Why J.D. Vance sounds like a left-wing firebrand
James Kanagasooriam in The Times
America’s vice president “stood before construction workers this week and invoked” a 1930s Democratic populist called Huey Long, writes pollster James Kanagasooriam. “An unlikely inspiration for a potential Republican president”, you’d think, but I believe J.D. Vance “knew exactly what he was doing”. Polls suggest “economically precarious working class voters” will abandon Republicans in the midterms. Vance needs to establish “that America’s still booming economy doesn’t just” enrich finance and tech elites; Long’s movement was called “Share our wealth”.

In Poland, compassion for Ukrainians has turned to contempt. The consequences could be dramatic
Mateusz Mazzini in The Guardian
When Russia invaded Ukraine, “ordinary Poles rushed to help” those who fled, writes Polish journalist Mateusz Mazzini. Our government “should have prepared” us “for accepting refugees as fully fledged members of society”; instead, misinformation about “Ukrainian ‘welfare queens’” scrounging benefits or Ukrainian businesses outcompeting locals is “fuelling tensions that, increasingly, turn to violence”. Poland failed to see that “Ukrainians are more than victims, and Ukraine is more than a country at war”; “the rest of Europe still has time to prepare”.

The manosphere has a new dating hack: stop showering and let yourself stink
Esme Gordon Craig in The Independent
“Ladies, prepare yourself, ‘pheromone-maxxing’ is coming to a set of nostrils near you,” writes Esme Gordon Craig. This “bonkers” social-media trend for “prioritising your ‘natural musk’” requires men “to skip showers, avoid deodorant, wear sweaty clothes, and even drink their own urine, before dates”. This makes them “biologically irresistible”, apparently. “Fellas, I hate to disappoint” but I don’t think that makes you sexy; “just smelly”. “And I know most – if not all – women will feel the same.”