Beyond Today

When the British teenager Shamima Begum ran away from East London to join IS, the caliphate was at the peak of its powers. It waged war with the West by beheading hostages and carrying out deadly attacks on European soil, while establishing a sophisticated state infrastructure in Syria and Iraq. IS at one point controlled an area the size of Britain. But now, as Shamima Begum waits in a Syrian refugee camp to see if she’ll be allowed home, IS is on the brink of military defeat. Does that mean that the threat is over? In the first of two special episodes, the BBC’s Quentin Sommerville takes us through the rise and fall of IS.

Producers: Harriet Noble and Duncan Barber

This week BBC cameraman Ron Skeans was attacked at a rally for President Donald Trump in Texas. A man in a Make America Great Again hat pushed him over and shouted “F*** the media”. It was a shocking incident for Ron and his colleagues but, given the frequency and ferocity of the President’s criticisms of the mainstream media, perhaps not unexpected. Correspondent Gary O’Donoghue and producer Eleanor Montague were with Ron in El Paso and explain what happened and why it matters.

Producers: Harriet Noble and Jaja Muhammad

It’s 14 February, in theory the most romantic day of the year, but not so fun if you’re single. Is there a rational way to find love in the era of big data? Justin Rowlatt presents Business Daily on the BBC World Service and has spoken to a multi-millionaire Ed Conard, who says he has the business-like answer. We also hear from Dr Helen Fisher from the Kinsey Institute, who is also the scientific advisor for the dating site Match.com. She tells us about the science behind attraction.

Read more about Ed Conard here:

This week we heard that we are in the middle of a biodiversity crisis, but are we in a position to save the bugs, and ourselves, from extinction? We hear from biologist Adam Hart and go back to the grandma of environmentalism, Rachel Carson, to find out why we need bugs to survive and what we can do to save them. Thanks to Audible and Recorded Books for allowing us to play Silent Spring.

Mixed by Nicolas Raufast

Hungarian women with four or more children won’t have to pay income tax for the rest of their working lives, according to a plan announced by the country’s prime minister Viktor Orban. He says it’s to reverse Hungary’s falling population rate, critics argue it’s a way of controlling immigration. We speak to the BBC’s Nick Thorpe, who lives and works in Budapest with his 5 children. And we also hear from author Thomas Chatterton Williams who is writing a book on racial identity, about what links this Hungarian policy to the global far right.

Producers: Philly Beaumont & Georgia Coan

The fact that a rich, powerful man had an affair and is getting divorced shouldn’t be of more than passing interest. But with the Amazon boss Jeff Bezos things are a bit different. Not only is there the eye-watering amount of money involved, he’s worth around $130bn, but the story took a remarkable turn last week when he published a blog post revealing he was being blackmailed with dirty photos he’d sent his mistress. If the world’s richest man can’t protect his privacy, what hope is there for the rest of us? The BBC’s Kim Gittleson talks to us about extortion, divorce and “below the belt selfies”.

Producer: Harriet Noble

With the trend in anti-Semitism and the growth of far-right politics sweeping through Europe, it’s a worrying time to be Jewish. But young Jews in Germany have found a place to celebrate Jewish culture. Last weekend in Frankfurt, Jews from all over Europe flocked to ‘Jewrovision’ to celebrate their identity in the most joyful way. Lucy Hancock and Amie Liebowitz joined the party.

The impact of social media on our mental health has been creeping into the news headlines. Politicians have been quick to challenge tech companies, calling for better regulation following the suicide of 14 year old, Molly Russell. We talk to Dr Bex Lewis of Manchester Metropolitan University, Dr Cal Newport of Georgetown University and an experimental psychologist from the Oxford Internet Institute, Prof Andrew Przybylski, to find out what effect all that unlimited and unregulated content really does have on our mental health.

Producers: Philly Beaumont and Seren Jones

How far are you prepared to go to stand up for your beliefs? Two years ago, Ruth Potts and Mel Evans were part of a group that cut through an airport security fence and chained themselves to a Boeing 767. They did it to stop the Home Office deporting 60 people on a flight to Nigeria, Ghana and Sierra Leone. Along with the 13 other people they did this with, they became known as the Stansted 15 after being found guilty of endangering the safety of an aerodrome. They were sentenced today, following a judicial process that has been hanging over them for almost two years. They tell us whether it’s all been worth it and BBC Home Affairs correspondent Dominic Casciani helps us to decide whether they made a difference.

Producer: Duncan Barber.

It’s been called the trial of the century. The Mexican drug kingpin El Chapo has been in court in New York for the past few months accused of smuggling hundreds of tons of narcotics into the United States. The trial has given us the best glimpse yet into life inside one of the world’s biggest drugs gangs - the Sinaloa Cartel named after the state in Mexico where it was founded. If you wrote a Hollywood movie about a notorious drug lord it wouldn’t be far off what we’ve found out about the life of El Chapo through the evidence presented in court. The BBC’s New York reporter Nada Tawfik has been covering the trial since it began.

Producer: Harriet Noble