- Coldplay ticket scalping fiasco sparks backlash in India
- Droughts drive Spanish boom in pistachio farming
- Tokyo recovers some losses to lead Asian markets higher
- Rural schools empty in North Macedonia due to exodus
- US dockworkers launch strike after labor contract expires
- Thousands evacuated as Super Typhoon Krathon approaches Taiwan
- Kenya airport whistleblower fears for his life
- Sheinbaum to take office as Mexico's first woman president
- Scientists fear underfunded Argentina research on verge of collapse
- US port officials gird for strike despite last-minute bargaining
- With 118 dead from Hurricane Helene, Biden defends US government response
- Breeder who tried to create enormous trophy sheep jailed in US
- Qatar Airways seeking 25% stake in Virgin Australia
- US port officials gird for strike as labor talks stay stuck
- As toll crosses 100, Trump puts Hurricane Helene at election center stage
- US Fed Chair sees 'further disinflation' in economy
- Epic Games sues Google and Samsung over app store
- Officials see no shortages from likely US port strike
- UK families of Gaza hostages warn Lebanon attack 'takes focus away'
- Shares in Stellantis, Aston Martin skid on profit warnings
- Dali prints found in London garage sold at auction
- ECB chief backs bank mergers amid UniCredit, Commerzbank talk
- China stocks soar on stimulus, but US and Europe retreat
- 100 dead in storm Helene damage, flooding across US southeast
- China stocks soar on stimulus, Europe slides on automaker woes
- German antitrust watchdog steps up monitoring of Microsoft
- Nepal's urban poor count cost of 'nightmare' floods
- E.Guinea, Gabon clash at ICJ over oil-rich islands
- New blow for UK's Starmer as growth data disappoints
- China's top banks to tweak mortgage rates to boost housing market
- Muslim women break taboos navigating east London's waterways
- Nepal dam-building spree powers electric vehicle boom
- More than 60 dead from storm Helene as rescue, cleanup efforts grow
- Dozens missing, 9 dead in migrant boat wreck off Spanish Canaries
- Death toll from Hurricane John hits eight in Mexico
- Storm Helene's toll rises as rescue and cleanup efforts gain pace
- SpaceX launches mission to return stranded astronauts
- Storm Helene kills 44, threatens more 'catastrophic' flooding as cleanup begins
- SpaceX set to launch mission to return stranded astronauts
- Storm Helene kills 44, threatens more 'catastrophic' flooding
- Boeing strike grinds on as latest talks fail to reach agreement
- Iran 'news' sites, hackers target Trump ahead of US election
- US ports brace for potential dockworkers strike
- Japan's speedy, spotless Shinkansen bullet trains turn 60
- US hurricane deaths rise to 44, fears of more 'catastrophic' flooding
- Global stocks mostly rise, cheering Beijing stimulus
- Europe en route for Moon with new simulator, says astronaut Pesquet
- Fireworks forecast if comet survives risky Sun flypast
- Argentina judge orders dictionary to delete pejorative definition of 'Jewish'
- Global stocks rise on rate hopes, Beijing stimulus
In Ukraine's Lviv, war reaches even children's books
In the basement of the bookshop she manages in western Ukraine, Romana Yaremyn shows hundreds of books stacked half way to the ceiling after they were evacuated from the country's war-torn east.
Packed together in white parcels, the titles rescued from Kharkiv fill up what was once the children's reading room.
They are just a fraction of those at the shop's publishing house in the eastern city under Russian fire, she said.
"Our warehouse workers tried to at least evacuate some of the books. They loaded up a truck and all this was delivered through a postal company," said the 27-year-old, dressed in a yellow hoodie.
They started with these, their most recent and most popular publications, many of which are children's books.
The western city of Lviv has remained relatively sheltered from war since Russia invaded two months ago, with the exception of deadly air strikes near the railway last week.
Hundreds of thousands of people, mainly women and children, have fled to or through the country's cultural capital since the fighting erupted.
"I don't know how my colleagues in Kharkiv have stayed there," Yaremyn said.
"Those who fled and stayed with me said they felt that they wanted to level the city to the ground."
- Authors in the army -
Yaremyn said the bookshop swiftly reopened a day after the invasion, providing shelter in the basement when the air raid sirens went off, and holding reading sessions there with displaced children.
During the first wave of arrivals, parents who had left home with next to nothing flooded in seeking fairy tales to keep their children distracted in the bunkers.
A few parents bought "Polinka", the story of a girl and her grandfather, published just before the invasion and written by a man who is now on the front.
"He wanted to leave something behind for his grandchild," she said.
From the shelves in the adult section, Yaremyn pulled out a collection of essays on Ukrainian women forgotten by history. Its writer too is now fighting the Russians, she said.
"A lot of our authors are in the army now," she said.
- 'Kids want to read' -
As sirens wail across Lviv to signal the end of a morning air raid alarm, baristas return to their coffee shops to fire up their espresso machines until the next warning.
The sun pours down from a blue sky, and a young man and woman press their heads together seated on a terrasse.
The city's numerous bookshops are open for business.
In a pedestrian tunnel under a road in the city centre, several tiny stalls sell translations of foreign classics like George Orwell's "Nineteen Eighty-Four" or even manga titles.
Near the Royal Arsenal museum, a pigeon sits on the head of a tall muscular statue of Ivan Fyodorov, a 16th-century printer from Moscow buried in Lviv.
At his feet, when it does not rain and there are no sirens, a few second-hand booksellers wait for customers.
Dressed in a light blue coat and woolly hat, Iryna, 48, sat near rows of literature and history books for sale or rent.
Rentals for a small fee used to be popular with the older generation, she said.
Iryna, who did not give her second name, said she stopped working for more than a month after war broke out.
When she returned to the cobbled square in early April, many parents from the east came looking for books for their children.
"I gave them a lot, because kids want to read," she said.
A.Samuel--CPN