In 1960 Heinz von Foerster and two colleagues at the University of Illinois published a paper in Science calculating that the world would end on Friday 13 November 2026, which would have been his 115th birthday. Population, they said, would grow ever faster until it became infinite and people were 'squeezed to death'. The result was baked in: the equation was built to blow up at a finite date, then fitted to two thousand years of population data to name a precise day. The paper was a joke with a point, arguing that population growth was unsustainable, and its proposed fix was birth control on a massive scale.

Indonesian Vice President Gibran Rakabuming Raka handed his resignation to parliament after questions were raised about his eligibility for office and his academic credentials. Gibran is the son of former president Joko Widodo, and his resignation came as Widodo publicly backed the president, Prabowo Subianto. Gibran had been elected vice president in 2024 as Prabowo's running mate. His candidacy was made possible by a 2023 Constitutional Court ruling on the minimum age for candidates, which was itself controversial. Parliament will now consider the resignation.

Angkor, near Siem Reap in northern Cambodia, was the capital of the Khmer Empire, which ruled much of mainland Southeast Asia between roughly the 9th and 15th centuries. At its height the city spread across about 3,000 square kilometres, making it the largest pre-industrial city on Earth by area. Its growth depended on water: huge reservoirs called barays, along with canals and embankments, stored monsoon rain and carried it to rice fields. That system let farmers harvest more than once a year and fed a very large population through the dry season. The temple complex of Angkor Wat, built in the early 12th century, is the best-known monument and still stands at the heart of the park.