The world's most powerful magnetic field and other news

Cloud-based software which enables digital characters to be created quickly and by anyone has been released by Epic Games. MetaHuman Creator allows digital renderings to be produced in a process which would have previously required professional digital artists and taken weeks or months to complete. BBC Click’s Alex Humphreys reports. See more at Click’s website…

Deaths from opioid use in the US have skyrocketed over the last year. Provisional data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) showed that 88,000 people had died from drug overdoses in the 12 month period ending in August 2020 – an increase of 27% on the previous year. The US authorities say…

A plane bound for Lithuania has been forcibly diverted while flying in Belarusian airspace. Opposition journalist Roman Protasevich was on board the plane and was arrested when it landed in the country’s capital, Minsk. Franak Viacorka, adviser to Belarus opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya and friend of Mr Protasevich, said it showed the risk of flying…

Investigative journalist Rana Ayyub has said that she will not be silenced by the Indian government, despite a series of legal cases against her. She told BBC Hardtalk’s Stephen Sackur, the Indian government has “tried every tool in the book to silence my voice and my journalism”. “That’s the cost of speaking truth to power…

The country was too complacent in preparing for a second Covid-19 wave, journalist Barkha Dutt says.

The former UK foreign secretary Sir Malcolm Rifkind has condemned the sentencing of pro-democracy media tycoon Jimmy Lai to 14 months in prison after being found guilty of unauthorised assembly. Sir Malcolm told BBC World News: “It can best be described as rule by law, not rule of law. This is essentially Beijing justice. Not…