Group D features the US, who are co-hosts and under pressure to deliver on home soil. Australia are not quite the force they once were, while Turkey and Paraguay might be the group favourites.

After uncovering Antarctic prospecting by Moscow’s Akademik Alexander Karpinsky, Daily Maverick’s probing questions may have prompted a bizarre and lightning-fast escape at 97 knots.

Foreign nationals in the Western Cape town of Kleinmond describe being forced to hide from armed mobs. One said he was warned by his landlord to evacuate ‘because if they find us, they’re going to kill us’.

As anti-foreigner protests spread, migrants are faced with a choice: hope the protests, intimidation and violence subside or leave South Africa.

While a high court order has mandated the deployment of two ambulances to the remote Xhora Mouth area in Elliotdale, Eastern Cape, poor road infrastructure and stalled clinic construction could undermine the sustainability of the service. In the meantime, people rely on local nonprofit initiatives, such as home-based carers, to fill the critical gaps in primary healthcare.

The Algoa Park police flats in Gqeberha have long been an area of concern for the police and public, but in recent months the facility has reached a state of utter decay.

Crushed by a 60.9% unemployment rate and broken promises, young South Africans are opting out of the upcoming local government elections. They say the fix is simple: ditch the empty slogans, address the youth crises directly, and put young leaders on the ballot.

An emergency R2bn advance brings temporary relief, but fails to fix deep financial issues caused by cumulative budget cuts and poor management. As cash-strapped schools face a brutal struggle to survive on the ground, threats of a Section 100 national takeover continue to loom.

Three decades after their parents were evacuated to save them from the bullets of poachers, a group of black rhinos has returned home to Zimbabwe’s Matusadona National Park.

This is the first big public statement by the business community as the local government elections loom in November, and its tone and timing underline the mounting frustration within the private sector over the city’s pothole-ridden decay.

South Africa’s electric vehicle market is still small, expensive and short of the policy firepower seen in faster-moving countries. But the argument for EVs is no longer only about climate virtue or shiny motoring tech. Increasingly, it is about maths.

A major survey of Angola’s remote Lisima plateau has uncovered species unknown to science, including new dragonflies, grasshoppers, moths and butterflies, confirming the highlands as one of Africa’s most exciting biodiversity frontiers.

Having narrowly escaped extinction in the 19th century, the black wildebeest now faces a different threat: being genetically absorbed by the far more numerous blue wildebeest. Researchers are using cutting-edge genomic tools to determine whether hybridisation is quietly eroding the genetic identity of one of South Africa’s endemic species.

A Supreme Court of Appeal ruling in October 2025 cleared the way for specially trained and permitted pharmacists to dispense antiretroviral medicines without a doctor’s script. Seven months later, no pharmacists are providing these services yet. Spotlight explores the reasons for the delay.

What we spend on our pets has gone past R10-billion, and astonishingly, this economy is growing by 15%. But the reasons are obvious – and retail chains paying serious attention.