A pro-Russian separatist wins a leadership vote in eastern Ukraine, in an election which has been widely condemned.

Ideal growing conditions means British fruit farmers are still harvesting strawberries into November.

'Ugh, cash only—I'll have the special.' Flickr user: jeanclaire

I live one block away from a McDonald’s that, up until this year, I never patronized. My neighborhood technically counts as a part of Seattle, but it’s just far enough away from the denser, hipper parts of town that it has room for big parking lots and giant chain stores—prime real estate for your Home Depots, your malls, your Mickey D’s. I’m not as chain-averse as many in the Northwest, but I still rarely heed the call of the golden arches.

Things started to change when I upgraded my personal smartphone to an LG Nexus 5 and started fiddling with the options menus. Since I never owned an NFC-equipped smartphone before, I took a deep dive into Google Wallet, wondering if the app would work at any nearby tap-and-pay kiosks. Ultimately, I loaded my credit card information into the app months ago then forgot about it.

Fast forward to a random, sunny day in which I went on a much-needed jog, the kind that lasted long enough to work up an appetite. I was close to finishing, and all I had on me were my phone and a pair of headphones—yet I knew I’d be returning to a house sorely lacking in food. Suddenly, there was that McDonald's. I had a hunch that a giant restaurant chain might be the perfect place to find an NFC-compatible payment kiosk, so I made the one-block-away pit stop. A crowd of teens watched as I tapped my phone on the McDonald’s register and paid $1.63 for a chicken sandwich.

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Shumaila Jaffery reports from Lahore hospital after a suicide bombing close to Pakistan's only border crossing with India.

The Woodland Trust asks for votes to choose England's first Tree of the Year to compete in a Europe-wide contest.

At least 24 people are killed and scores are missing after a boat believed to be carrying refugees sank off the north coast of Istanbul, officials say.

Virgin Galactic owner Sir Richard Branson tells BBC News claims in the media about an explosion were "quite hurtful".

A safety device on the Virgin Galactic spacecraft that crashed on Friday deployed early during the fatal test flight, US investigators say.

Jiyar Gol visits a Turkish border village and hears from refugees from the besieged Syrian city of Kobane.

Activists are offering the world a look at events in Syria through the eyes of children in the form of a giant canvas covered with their original art work.

A project in London is trying to stop the number of young people going to fight in Syria and Iraq by tackling extremism.

Burkina Faso's military has said it will install a transitional government, days after it seized power as President Blaise Compaore's resigned.

The president of Guinea, where the first case of Ebola was recorded in West Africa, has welcomed the rush of international support for the three countries at the centre of the outbreak.

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There are calls to scrap plans for Japan's 2020 Olympic Games stadium, as Rupert Wingfield-Hayes explains.

Journalist Mary-Ann Astle on Twitter (@mary_annastle)

Visitors to a number of UK libraries and museums—including institutions as large as the National Library of Scotland—were disappointed this week, met with empty display cases or blank pieces of paper where historical cultural artifacts should be. It's all part of the "Free Our History" protest organized by the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP), a response to copyright laws that make it difficult to display unpublished works legally.

"At the moment the duration of copyright in certain unpublished works is to the end of 2039, regardless of how old the work is," according to CILIP's change.org petition. "No other country in Europe has such restrictive provisions. European institutions are able to use such important historical material freely and lawfully, but in the UK we cannot." The copyright duration CILIP is referring to applies to unpublished works created before 1989 according to the BBC. CILIP's says an example might be a young girl's note to her soldier father during WWI.

The protest comes days after the UK's Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) launched a new copyright licensing scheme aimed at fixing issues around "orphan works," or creative works where the rights holder can't be identified or traced. With that change, the government's Intellectual Property Office (IPO) can grant licenses so orphan works can be "reproduced on websites, in books, and on TV without breaking the law, while protecting the rights of owners so they can be remunerated if they come forward." (CILIP estimates up to 50 percent of archival records in the UK are "orphan works," and the BBC says 91 million such items exist in country.)

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David Willis reports from the ground at the scene of the Virgin Galactic spacecraft crash in California's Mojave Desert.

At least 50 people have been killed and 70 hurt in a suspected suicide bombing at a Pakistan-India border town near the city of Lahore, officials say.

The unrestricted use of fossil fuels should be phased out by 2100, if the world is to avoid dangerous climate change, a UN-backed expert panel says.