Palestinian poet Ashraf Fayadh’s death sentence quashed by Saudi court
Panel of judges downgrades punishment for apostasy conviction to eight years in prison and 800 lashes
Pope Francis to make movie debut playing himself in children’s gospel film
The pope will be the first pontiff to appear in a feature film – though Vatican forewarns ‘he is not an actor’
Fifty Shades of Grey publisher ordered to pay $11.5m in royalties to teacher
Jennifer Pedroza of Texas sued former business partner Amanda Hayward for defrauding her of money Writer’s Coffee Shop earned from popular erotic novels
Eight words that reveal the sexism at the heart of the English language
As Oxford Dictionaries comes under fire for sexist definitions, the history of terms that refer to women shows how deep negative attitudes go
Artist’s ‘blank books’ project seeks to restock historic Baghdad library
Wafaa Bilal will send Kickstarter donors an empty white book and put real book on shelves of University of Baghdad library that was destroyed in war
A dictionary entry citing ‘rabid feminist’ doesn’t just reflect prejudice, it reinforces it
Objectionable phrases may be widely used, but Oxford Dictionaries has a responsibility to define them by other means
As The 5th Wave flounders at the global box office, YA sci-fi faces endgame
Search for successor to The Hunger Games continues, with latest YA franchise’s making weak start, while Daddy’s Home hints at global expansion for comedy star Will Ferrell
Dylan Thomas copyright claims thrown out by Irish court
Man suffers double blow after suing Welsh government over use of historic images and bringing libel case against photographer’s 93-year-old widow
The Guardian view on knowledge in an information age: take it to heart
Editorial: In the era of the smartphone, London cabbies are going to keep committing every last alley to memory. It might seem pointless, but we gain insight as well as information by exercising the memory
No trolls allowed: Seattle advertises a writing residency … in a bridge
The US city’s transport department offers $10,000 for a ‘unique’ residency in a bridge tower – in return for ‘an in-depth exploration’ of the space
Tolstoy’s Christian anarchism was a war on both church and state
Loose canon: War and Peace is not just a Russian Downton Abbey, it’s an extended argument for that most foolish of moral wisdom: pacifism
14 years a fugitive: the hunt for Ratko Mladić, the Butcher of Bosnia
The long read: The Bosnian Serb general is accused of killing thousands of civilians at Srebrenica and Sarajevo – the worst atrocities in Europe since the Nazi era. Julian Borger tells the inside story of how he evaded capture for so long and was finally caught
Fairytales much older than previously thought, say researchers
Study of fairy story origins traces some back thousands of years, with one tale dating back as far as bronze age
What happens when children’s books fail to confront the complexity of slavery?
We need literature that wrestles with the evils of slavery while confronting its complexity – especially when it’s written for children
Sean Penn’s El Chapo interview ‘horribly misguided’ says Cartel author
Don Winslow, who has written two books about the drugs war, has condemned the notorious Rolling Stone article and believes Penn needs to apologise