Where can you score 12 points for killing a Russian soldier in a drone attack, 20 for damaging a tank and up to 50 for destroying a mobile rocket system? Not on the latest video game, but rather through Ukraine’s Army of Drones Bonus (ADB) programme.

Launched shortly after Russia’s full-scale invasion began in 2022, before being revamped in 2025, the ADB programme is where points win prizes. Military units can use the points and virtual tokens they have accrued to buy drones and other frontline equipment to use in the conflict from the Ukrainian government’s Brave1 website.

By August 2025, military equipment worth over US$5 million (£3.7 million) had been delivered via this marketplace as digital rewards for “playing” ADB. The scheme has since extended to reconnaissance and logistics operations, while capturing a Russian soldier now grants ten times more points than killing one.

The ADB programme is an example of what researchers call the “gamification” of war – where video game-like features are integrated into military training and combat operations. Ukraine’s former defence minister, Mykhailo Fedorov, who was removed from his post in July, has said “motivation” is a key rationale for the ADB programme.

“When we change the point values, we can see how motivation changes,” he stated in 2025. Ukraine’s government has described the ADB programme as “delivering results”, with submitted video evidence confirming nearly 820,000 Russian targets were hit in 2025. Increased numbers of Ukrainian military units are also now participating in the competition.

Other schemes in this conflict have also used elements of video game design. These include Play for Ukraine. Developed by Ukrainian IT specialists in 2022, this scheme is designed in the form of a numerical puzzle game where every move a player makes helps stage a cyberattack against Russian government and media websites.

As players make moves in the game, Play for Ukraine sends requests to targeted Russian servers. They eventually become overwhelmed, causing websites to slow down or crash. Play for Ukraine’s developers say 2,048 players had helped attack more than 200 Russian websites in the first month of the scheme alone.

Gamification is neither exclusive to Ukraine or war. Our own research on the gamification of citizenship shows how mobile apps use digital rewards, points and leaderboards to incentivise good civic behaviour, such as picking up litter, recycling and community volunteering.

For example, since launching in the UK in 2021, over 10 million items of litter have been logged as binned through the LitterLotto app. Every time a person takes a photo of themselves binning litter, they earn entries into cash prize draws. The Equiwatt app also encourages UK citizens to reduce their energy usage at peak times in exchange for gift vouchers and points while competing on leaderboards.

Gamification is a popular feature of many other mobile apps too, such as Duolingo and other digital learning platforms. These apps commonly use streaks to maintain user consistency, as well as points to help users climb weekly leaderboards and progress to higher levels. The point scoring used in modern digitised warfare is a darker side to this trend.

Whose lives count?

As well as helping entrench video game features on the battlefield, the ADB programme highlights the role of foreign fighters in the Ukraine conflict and the complexities of whose lives “count”. It is well known that both Russia and Ukraine have been recruiting foreign nationals to fight in the war.

This has sometimes been state sponsored. Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, recently warned that the North Korean government was sending as many as 50,000 soldiers to fight with Russian forces in Ukraine. Foreign fighters have also been recruited by more unofficial means.

Russia has set up a global network for recruiting foreign nationals, targeting economically, socially, legally vulnerable people from countries such as Bangladesh, Nepal, Cuba and Kenya. The means used to recruit these people have ranged from enticement through high salaries to deceit and coercion.

So the “Russian” personnel worth 12 points for Ukrainian troops are not always Russian. Foreign fighters are also often the ones who are used as human shields, as one Bangladeshi recruit described it in a 2026 interview with DW, a German broadcaster, or pushed to the front while the Russian troops stay behind. Even in a warzone where lives are not valued, some remain less valued than others and are therefore more likely to be killed.

The theme of gamification has continued despite these extreme conditions. Some Bangladeshi soldiers fighting in Ukraine have created huge online followings, ranging from several hundred thousand people to around 1 million, by vlogging from the frontlines. They share live videos of combat from a first-person point of view, narrating everyday life in battle and providing often dramatic footage of drone attacks and near misses.

Warfare itself is clearly changing. But whether gamified or not, the lives that are lost are very much real.

Millions of people across Europe and the UK witnessed the most significant solar eclipse since 1999 on Wednesday.

For the UK, more than 90% of the Sun was covered by the Moon, whereas in some parts of Europe, a rare total eclipse could be seen.

BBC science correspondent Pallab Ghosh was in Burgos, Spain, and said he got goosebumps from the spectacle.

People were out across Bolton to capture the rare celestial event, with ‘watch’ parties taking place across the borough.

Partial solar eclipse (Image: Amy Nolan-Podmore)

Those without specialist glasses found creative ways to observe the phenomenon, using colanders and homemade pinhole cameras. Others simply noticed the sudden dimming of the evening light as the Moon covered part of the Sun at its peak shortly after 7pm.

Partial solar eclipse (Image: Amy Nolan-Podmore)

Members of Bolton News Camera Club captured the once-in-a-generation event.

In an added bonus for stargazers, the annual Perseid meteor shower is set to reach its peak on the night of August 12-13, hours after the eclipse.

Partial eclipse (Image: Tracey McGrath.jpg)

The shower is produced as Earth ploughs through a stream of dust left behind by Comet Swift–Tuttle.

Each tiny grain strikes Earth’s atmosphere at about 60 kilometres per second, burning up in a brief flash that takes the appearance of a shooting star.

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Donald Trump‘s press secretary Karoline Leavitt has announced that she is quitting the White House at the end of the month so that she can devote her time to her young family.

Leavitt, 28, who gave birth to a second child in May and had only returned from maternity leave on July 16, admitted it was a ‘bittersweet decision.’

‘Being a mother and welcoming a new baby while working in one of the most demanding jobs in the world has been the most rewarding yet challenging season of my life, to say the least,’ Leavitt wrote on X on Wednesday.

‘The truth is since returning to the White House after the birth of my daughter, I have felt in my heart that I cannot be the best mom my two young children deserve while devoting the constant time, energy, and attention required of the White House Press Secretary – and that is why I have ultimately made the bittersweet decision to depart the White House and embark on a new chapter in my life.’

Trump posted on Truth Social that it was ‘a decision I totally understand and respect,’ calling Leavitt ‘one of the best White House press secretaries in the history of the office.’

The President said that Leavitt would remain a ‘top outside adviser’ and an ‘influential voice’ at the top of the Republican Party as the White House gears up for crunch midterm elections in November.

Leavitt has been one of Trump’s closest confidantes, attending classified briefings in the Situation Room and counselling over major crises including the Jeffrey Epstein scandal – an unusual distinction for a press secretary.

Her exit leaves a glaring hole in the White House as Trump braces for a bloodbath at the ballot box amid the Iran war and sky-high gas prices. Leavitt’s replacement remains unclear and there was no official stand-in while she was on maternity leave.

Leavitt has a two-year-old son Niko and three-month-old daughter Vivi with her real estate developer husband Nicholas Riccio, 60, who she married in January 2025

Leavitt speaks to Trump at the White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA) Dinner at the Waldorf Astoria hotel in Washington, DC, July 24

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Leavitt with her spouse Nicholas Riccio and son Niko attend the White House Easter Egg Roll on the South Lawn of the White House on April 6

Leavitt is known for her tenacity at the podium in the White House briefing room, frequently mirroring the behavior of her boss in attacking ‘fake news’ journalists and dishing out tongue lashings to any reporter who dares to cross the administration. 

She entered Trump’s orbit in 2018 during the first administration, first as a presidential writer and then as an assistant White House press secretary.

Leavitt worked as communications director for Elise Stefanik, a close Trump ally, from 2021 to 2022.

She joined Trump’s reelection campaign as a national press secretary in 2024 and was announced as White House Press Secretary on his return to the Oval Office. 

When Leavitt does decide to return to work, she is likely to have her pick of high-profile roles in Republican politics, conservative media and political communications. 

Leavitt has a two-year-old son Niko and three-month-old daughter Vivi with her real estate developer husband Nicholas Riccio, 60, who she married in January 2025. 

Leavitt’s resignation comes just two weeks after one of her top deputies, Abigail Jackson, left the White House for the private sector.

It remains unclear what role Leavitt will take on, or which company she may join, as she continues advising the president from outside the White House.

Leavitt looks on as US President Donald Trump speaks to reporters after stepping off Air Force One on August 11 in Joint Base Andrews, Maryland

White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, White House communications advisor Margo Martin and executive assistant to US President Donald Trump Natalie Harp walk to board Air Force One on August 11

Leavitt and her husband Nicholas Riccio arrive at The Mar-a-Lago Club, February 1

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Karoline Leavitt walks toward Air Force One, en route to Geneva, Ohio, at Joint Base Andrews

Leavitt and her husband Nicholas Riccio, 60

Leavitt launched her own political career in 2022, winning a crowded Republican primary for New Hampshire’s 1st Congressional District.

She ultimately lost the general election to Democratic incumbent Chris Pappas.

Leavitt’s replacement remains a mystery, and it is unclear who will lead the briefings in the coming days as Trump weighs a permanent successor.

The disease, which affects ruminant livestock like sheep and cows, was first detected in a farm in Scotland on August 8.

Bluetongue has been detected on a second farm in south-west Scotland, the chief veterinary officer has confirmed.

The disease, which affects ruminant livestock like sheep and cows, was first detected in a farm in Scotland on August 8. A single sheep was affected.

A second case of bluetongue serotype 3 (BTV-3) was confirmed in two sheep on a different farm on Wednesday.

The Scottish Government confirmed both farms have been put under restrictions, and all affected animals have been euthanised.

Chief veterinary officer Sheila Voas said: “Bluetongue has been detected on a second farm in south-west Scotland involving two sheep.

That could change by Friday, however, with City still interested in the player despite landing Elliot Anderson from Nottingham Forest for a (then) British transfer record of £116million, and Enzo Maresca’s side remain in talks with Lille over a deal to sign Ayyoub Bouaddi, the 18-year-old Moroccan, who starred at the recent World Cup, while Fernandez himself was sent off in Argentina’s 1-0 defeat by Spain in the final.

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Whitby Lit Fest is set to return this November, promising more than 50 author events, in a packed programme featuring bestselling authors, broadcasters and performers.

Among the headline guests is Si King of the Hairy Bikers, who will appear with his first solo cookbook, Proper Home Cooking, sharing stories from his career on screen and on the road.

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Internationally acclaimed novelist John Boyne, author of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas will also appear with broadcaster and novelist Steph McGovern for a conversation about his latest novel, The Weight of Angels.

John Boyne, author of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, will appear with broadcaster and novelist Steph McGovern for a conversation about his latest novel, The Weight of Angels (Image: Supplied)

Louise Minchin, former BBC Breakfast presenter, will discuss her forthcoming thriller, while Dr Sian Williams, journalist-turned-psychologist, explores themes from her new book The Power of Anxiety.

Channel 4 news presenter Alex Thomson will interview political commentator Peter Oborne about his latest work, Complicit.

A wave of crime fiction will arrive on the coast with one of the genre’s biggest names, Ann Cleeves.

Other guests include this year’s Crime Writers’ Association Diamond Dagger winner Mark Billingham and Elly Griffiths, who will discuss her novella The Case of the Christmas Card.

The Whitby Lit Fest’s patron, novelist and former BBC radio producer Kate Fenton, said: “We always suspected the quirky, gothic charms of Whitby would attract bookworms.

“Even so, no-one could have predicted the instant, sell-out success of our very first Lit Fest last year.

“And this November’s line-up is, if anything, even more exciting.

“Four days crammed with gripping stories, sparky conversations and revealing interviews.

“Entertainment, inspiration, wit, wisdom – and fish and chips.

“What more could any book lover want?”

The festival will also explore the world of screenwriting.

Matt Baker will be in conversation with Emmy-winning writer David Quantick.

Baker is the creator of Channel 4’s Patience and ITV’s A Taste for Murder, while Quantick’s credits include Veep, The Thick of It and The Book of Love.

Elsewhere, actor Greta Scacchi will reflect on the books that shaped her career in conversation with arts journalist Jasper Rees, who will discuss his new official memoir of Michael Gambon, who she shared the stage and screen with.

Other highlights include royal biographer Andrew Lownie’s talk on the fall of the former Prince Andrew, and appearances from travel writers Ben Aitken and Tom Sykes.

The gothic spirit of Whitby will be celebrated with appearances from leading writers of gothic fiction and folk horror including Joanne Harris, Laura Purcell, Jess Kidd, Amanda Mason, Lucie McKnight Hardy and Essie Fox.

The festival will also showcase Whitby’s Heritage Sculpture Trail and the Wirefolk of Whitby, featuring sculptor Emma Stothard and writer Tim Kelly.

For younger readers, there will be a special family event with Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter Corinne Bailey Rae, who will help announce the winners of the festival’s children’s writing competition.

Lois Kirtlan, chair of Whitby Lit Fest, said: “Following the huge success of our inaugural Lit Fest last year, I’m delighted that the team has once again pulled together such a fabulous and diverse line-up for this year’s festival.

“We’re also incredibly proud to have been awarded charitable status, which gives Whitby Lit Fest a strong foundation for the future.

“We want the festival to continue to become an important part of Whitby’s cultural calendar for many years to come.

“We’re encouraging local businesses and individuals to get behind us and help make that possible.

“There are a range of sponsorship opportunities available, and donations can also be made through our website.

“Every contribution, large or small, will help us build on the success of the festival and secure its future.”

Events are scheduled from November 19 to 22. 

Tickets go on sale August 31. For more information please see here.

In 1906, the journalist W.T. Stead warned in A Plea for the Revival of Reading that Britain faced a reading crisis. People, he complained, no longer read books. Instead, they skimmed newspapers on trains, forgot what they had read by lunchtime and increasingly preferred distraction to sustained attention. His proposed solution? A national revival of reading.

One hundred and twenty years later, 2026 is the UK’s National Year of Reading. After years of concern about declining rates of reading for pleasure, the headlines are dramatic. The Times recently warned: “If humans stop reading, barbarians will live among us again”. Screens, smartphones and short-form video social media platforms like TikTok are regularly presented as the culprits.

So, reading Stead’s pamphlet (1906) today is an uncanny experience. While researching Stead’s journalism for my book The Americanisation of W.T. Stead (2026), I found that many of the arguments we assume belong to the digital age were already being made in Victorian Britain.

Stead begins with a distinction that still lies at the heart of debates about reading: “Millions have never yet found out that books were interesting,” he writes. “They can read, but they do not care for reading”.

This observation chimes with our contemporary moment. The problem is not literacy alone, but reading identity. Someone may possess the technical ability to read without ever coming to think of themselves as a reader. Current reading research makes a similar distinction. There is now broad agreement that developing a love of reading depends not simply on decoding words but on motivation, confidence and finding books that feel relevant.

Stead also rejected the idea that this love of reading could simply be imposed: “The love for the reading of books is an acquired taste,” he argued. Children might have to be compelled to learn to read, but learning to love reading required something quite different, “instead of coercion there is needed a good deal of coaxing”.

Again, this sounds very familiar today. Modern initiatives promoting shared reading, reading for pleasure and child-led book choice all rest on the principle: readers are made through encouragement rather than compulsion.

Stead’s advice began with children. He believed that one of the most effective ways of creating readers was simply reading aloud. Good oral reading, he claimed, was “the surest, simplest, and speediest way of awakening a love of reading”.

More than a century later, spoken language is once again moving up the educational agenda. The government’s proposed oracy framework, expected to be introduced by 2028, reflects a renewed recognition that speaking, listening and reading are closely connected – even if the framework’s primary focus extends beyond literacy alone.

It is in Stead’s discussion of attention, however, that the similarities with today’s debates become most apparent.

The attention debate

Stead worried that newspapers had fundamentally altered reading habits. Circulation libraries, newspapers and magazines encouraged “a habit of skimming rather than reading”. Newspapers, he complained, had become “mere rag bags of shreds and patches”. Readers looked through them “as we look into kaleidoscopes”, producing only “an evanescent effect upon our minds”.

Replace “newspapers” with “social media feeds” and the argument would sound entirely contemporary.

“Memory, judgement, the critical faculty are unexercised”, Stead lamented. It is difficult not to hear echoes of today’s debates about social media and, increasingly, concerns about generative-AI technologies. Critics now ask whether the use of AI assistants to process information and endless scrolling on screens fragments attention, weakens memory and encourages rapid emotional reactions rather than sustained reflection. While the technologies are radically different, the underlying concern is remarkably familiar: the way we consume information shapes how we think.

Where Stead relied on cultural observation, researchers today investigate these questions empirically. There is growing evidence that sustained, immersive reading supports concentration, reflection and aspects of mental wellbeing, while regular reading has also been associated with lower stress levels and, over the longer term, healthier cognitive ageing.

At the same time, experts caution against simplistic comparisons between books and screens. Different media support different kinds of reading, and much depends on what people are reading and how they engage with it.

Stead quotes the Liberal MP and editor John Morley, who argued that people needed to make time in each day – half an hour ideally, but even a quarter of an hour, if pushed – for what he called “good and disinterested reading”. The value of this practice, he suggested, lay not simply in acquiring knowledge but in cultivating “happiness, fortitude, wisdom and calm”. To translate those words into modern terms, we might say reading supports our mental health, emotional resilience and everyday wellbeing. The language has changed, but the aspiration is the same.

Although Stead worried that newspapers encouraged superficial reading, he also recognised that books would have to adapt. “Books”, he wrote, “must struggle for existence by the use of the same weapons as those which have secured the ascendency of the newspaper”.

This is perhaps the most surprising insight in the pamphlet. Rather than defending books against modern media, Stead argued that they should borrow modern media’s strengths. Books should become cheaper, shorter, regularly issued and more accessible. Far from resisting new communication technologies, he believed reading could flourish by adapting to them. Today’s equivalent might be publishers embracing audiobooks, podcasts, readings apps and BookTok. The principle is the same: meet readers where they already are.

Of course, Stead did not get everything right. Like many of his contemporaries and forebears, he worried about the dangers of “habitual novel reading”. He discussed proposals from America that would have restricted children’s access to popular fiction in a similar way to how tobacco sales were regulated. Today, those fears seem excessive. Yet they offer a useful reminder that every generation identifies certain forms of reading as uniquely dangerous.

The recent resurgence of book challenges and bans reminds us that debates about reading have always been as much about what people read as whether they read at all. Whether such restrictions are justified or not, history suggests these debates often reveal broader anxieties about childhood, attention and morality as much as the medium itself. Each generation, it seems, has its preferred media villain.

That is not to say current concerns should be dismissed. Reading for pleasure has genuinely declined among children, and many adults struggle to sustain the time and concentration that long-form reading demands. These are important educational and cultural questions, but they are best understood as part of a much longer story. Every major communications revolution has prompted fears that serious reading was disappearing. Yet reading has repeatedly adapted rather than vanished.

Stead understood something that remains true today. The challenge is not merely persuading people that books matter. It is, as he put it in 1906, helping people who “can read” become people who “care for reading”.

Our readers sent in their best pictures of the solar eclipse tonight as they watched the once-in-a-generation event across the nation. 

From beloved pets wearing protective eyewear to children using homemade viewing devices to glimpse the spectacular illusion in the skies on Wednesday evening, our readers embraced eclipse fever in full force. 

The partial eclipse began shortly after 6pm in parts of the UK, with maximum coverage occurring at roughly 7.05pm to 7.13pm depending on location. 

The Moon gradually moved away from the sun and the spectacle ended shortly after 8pm, with huge crowds at prime viewing spots at Primrose Hill in London and Calton Hill in Edinburgh dispersing. 

Readers sent pictures from their homes and on holiday to share their view of the rare event, which had people staring in thrall at the heavens. 

A happy spaniel accompanied its owner in a field to watch the eclipse and carefully wore protective glasses to gaze at the solar display. 

In Leyton, east London, five-year-old Sonny pointed at the eclipse in awe through a special card, while Michael, 14, and Lottie, nine, watching the eclipse in Bexleyheath, London. 

Elsewhere in the capital, one man used a colander to watch the eclipse through the metal holes in a London park. 

Sonny, five, enjoyed the eclipse in Leyton, east London

One Daily Mail reader was on board the P&O Iona in the Bay of Biscay to watch the eclipse

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Michael, 14, and Lottie, nine, watched the eclipse using homemade lenses in Bexleyheath, London

This incredible pic was snapped at a rooftop in Salou, Spain

A pigeon in Blandford Forum, Dorset, was photographed with a perfect crescent above its head as the Moon passed over the Sun 

Maya and Maya, aged nine and six, watched the solar eclipse together through a pair of glasses in Bedfordshire

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One Daily Mail reader holidaying in Menorca snapped the eclipse alongside crowds on the seafront

The eclipse from a garden in Billingham, Durham 

Everyone was ready in Salou, Spain 

The sight of the kitchen utensil was not uncommon, with many others also deciding to opt for a colander or a sieve to view the eclipse through, although it is unlikely this offered much eye protection. 

On London Bridge, crowds lined the river to watch the eclipse over London’s skyline, with a beautiful shot taken at sunset over the Thames. 

A Daily Mail reader on board the P&O Iona in the Bay of Biscay watched the eclipse with 6,000 other passengers. 

A pigeon in Blandford Forum, Dorset, was photographed with the Sun peeking out from the Moon above its head in a perfect crescent. 

Friends Maya and Maya, aged nine and six, watched the solar eclipse together through a pair of glasses in Houghton Regis, Bedfordshire.