This café has been named the world’s best coffee shop for 2025

A cafe in Australia’s Sydney has been ranked as the world’s best coffee shop, with those in the US, Austria, Norway, and Singapore following close behind.

According to the World’s 100 Best Coffee spots announced at the Madrid Coffee Festival in Spain, Toby’s Estate Coffee Roasters in Sydney landed at the top, beating constant rival Melbourne, which found itself in the fourth spot with Proud Mary Coffee. Founded in 1997, the specialty coffee brand is known for its high-quality beans and focus on ethical sourcing.

“Not every day you get to say you’re #1 in the world at something, but here we are – Toby’s Estate has officially taken the crown!” the brand wrote on Instagram.

“We’re beyond stoked to top the list – and to represent Australia alongside some of the best cafés in the game…We designed the space to break down barriers – literally – with an island brew bar and overhead mirrors, so you can get up close, chat with the team, and watch the magic unfold.”

In second spot is Onyx Coffee Lab, which has several locations across Arkansas in the US. Closing out the top three is Gota Coffee Experts in Austria’s Vienna, known not only for its coffee, but also its interactive coffee workshops.

The list is created after careful consideration of the quality of the coffee and food, customer service, cafe ambience, sustainable policies, barista experience, and overall consistency and innovation. Public opinion and expert evaluations were both included in the final ranking.

In the top 10 are also cafes from Singapore, France, Malaysia, and Colombia.

With a total of nine Australian cafes on the list, it’s safe to say the country is doing something right with their coffee, even if they can’t agree on whether Melbourne or Sydney does it better.

Coffee first became popular in Australia in the 1880s after the emergence of the Temperance Movement in Melbourne, which lobbied against alcohol, claiming it led to antisocial behaviour. This, along with the rise of chic Parisian cafes, led to the creation of coffee palaces, to give people a place to meet and socialise over food and a drink.

Melbourne saw the biggest growth, with lavish multi-storey coffee palaces that offered an alternative to pubs. Elegant and grand, the coffee palaces served as vibrant social hubs for Australian society, with their popularity swiftly reaching cities like Sydney.

Espresso arrived in the 1930s with Italian immigrants, but it truly found a home in the 1950s, when post-World War II European immigrants brought the continent’s cafe culture with them.

Over the years, Australia has developed its own culture and in fact, created its own version. Alan Preston, of the Moors Espresso Bar in Sydney, claims he was the first to coin the term “flat white” in 1985, drawing inspiration from a type of espresso popular in Queensland in the ‘60s and ‘70s, described as the “white coffee – flat”.

However, New Zealand’s Frank McInnes, contests the claim, and says he accidentally invented the flat white when the milk needed for a frothy cappuccino refused to rise. “Sorry,” he said, “it’s a flat white”.

“I think our win is a win for the country. Australian coffee is, I think, the best in the world and so it doesn’t come down to Sydney and Melbourne,” Jody Leslie, general manager for Toby’s Estate, told CNN Travel. “We want to be strong as a country, and that helps everyone.”

Romance scam victim loses £22,000 to AI ‘girlfriend’

A man in China lost nearly £22,000 to a dating scam after getting into a “long-distance relationship” with an AI “girlfriend”.

The victim, identified by his surname Liu, thought he was in a relationship with a girl called Ms Jiao, who sent him pictures and videos online. Little did the man from Shanghai know that Ms Jiao was merely a fictional character being used to dupe him out of his money.

The scammers used generative artificial intelligence to create the fictional persona of Ms Jiao and then convince Mr Liu that the woman needed money to pay medical bills and fund a business, CCTV News reported. They scammed him out of 200,000 yuan, or about £21,720.

A police investigation revealed that the “scammer team” sent Mr Liu “videos and photos that were all created through AI or made by combining multiple images”.

They also created fake medical and reports bills to manipulate the victim into believing his “girlfriend” was in urgent need of financial assistance.

“Throughout the process, Mr Liu never met Ms Jiao in person,” the report noted.

AI scams have become a growing global concern, with criminals exploiting the technology to impersonate real individuals or create entirely fictional personas for financial fraud.

In January, scammers conned a French woman out of more than £670,000 after convincing her that she was in a romantic relationship with Hollywood actor Brad Pitt. The scammers used fake messages and AI videos to dupe the woman, claiming ‘Pitt’ needed money to pay for hospital treatment.

In November last year, a British woman in her 60s gave around £19,750 to a scammer posing as a US army colonel named “Mike Murdy” on Tinder. The fraudster used AI videos and images, persuading her to send substantial funds under various pretences.

And in 2023, an Arizona mother reported that scammers had used AI to replicate her daughter’s voice in an attempt to extort $1m (£790,000) from her.

Teenager’s 16kg ‘parasitic’ twin removed by doctors in rare surgery

Doctors in India have carried out a rare and life-changing surgery to remove a 17-year-old boy’s “parasitic” twin.

Parasitic twins occur when one foetus stops developing but remains attached and dependent upon its twin, with such cases thought to occur in just 1 in 100,000 births.

As few as 50 such cases have been documented in medical literature worldwide and in those cases the surgery had been attempted on younger children, Dr Asuri Krishna, who led the team which carried out the latest “breakthrough” surgery in Delhi, told the BBC.

Prior to the surgery, the teenager from a remote village in Uttar Pradesh had lived with two fully formed legs, buttocks and external genitalia protruding from his abdomen, in which doctors said he was capable of feeling pain, touch and changes in temperature.

The teenager, who is said to have faced stigma as a result of his condition, said “a new world has opened up” to him following the surgery on 8 February, telling the Indian Express: “I couldn’t travel anywhere or do any physical activity.”

He added: “I hope to study and get a job. A new world has opened up to me.”

Dr Krishna, of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), said that his team had to rely on their “intuition, skill and knowledge” given the lack of existing medical literature to guide them during the surgery.

The doctors first carried out scans which revealed that the parasitic twin was attached to the teenager’s breastbone and was receiving blood from a vessel in his chest – but did not have a significant connection with other major organs such as the liver or kidneys, Dr Krishna told the BBC. A cyst was also discovered in the teenager’s abdomen.

“The biggest challenge was the rarity of this condition. No one had seen this prior to this. However with meticulous planning and imaging we were able to construct a surgical plan,” he told The Independent.

The surgery was carried out in two parts, the first of which involved removing the parasitic limb, which required the surgeons to meticulously separate a mesh of shared blood vessels, nerves and tissues.

“One of the major concerns was possibility of involvement of the host kid internal organs which fortunately there was none,” said Dr Krishna.

The second part of the surgery involved removing the cyst in the teenager’s abdomen, extracting it from his abdominal wall, bowel, and liver.

While the teenager’s blood pressure dropped dangerously, as 30 to 40 per cent of his blood flowed to the parasitic twin, the doctors said they were prepared for this and were able to swiftly stabilise him.

“Seventeen years of stigma and suffering – ended in just two and a half hours,” Dr Krishna later wrote on social media.

“Our team at AIIMS Delhi successfully removed a 16 kg parasitic twin from a young boy from Unnao, freeing him from a rare and challenging condition.”

He added: “Four days post-surgery, he walked out of the hospital – ready to reclaim his life. This is the power of medical science and teamwork, transforming not just a body but a future.”

Japan’s birth rate plummets to lowest in 125 years

The number of babies born in Japan has dropped to the lowest the country has ever seen since records began 125 years ago, falling ninth straight year despite the government’s efforts to reverse the decline.

Japan recorded 720,988 births in 2024, five per cent down from the previous year, the health ministry said on Thursday.

The year-on-year decline underscores Japan’s long-standing issues of a rapidly ageing and shrinking population, which has serious fallout for the country’s economy and national security.

The country saw a record of 1.6 million deaths last year, causing the population to shrink by almost 900,000 people, including those who immigrated out of Japan.

It means that two people died for every new baby born.

Reacting to the development, prime minister Shigeru Ishiba accepted that the trend of declining births has not been reversed yet.

“We need to be aware the trend of falling births has not been arrested. But the number of marriages posted an increase. Given close ties between the number of marriages and the number of births, we should focus on this aspect as well,” he said.

Japan’s demographics have alarmed policymakers and researchers as it is also the fastest ageing country with nearly 30 per cent of population already over 65.

Experts blamed fewer marriages in recent years due to the fallout of the Covid-19 pandemic and the decline is set to continue despite improving the marriage rate. Takumi Fujinami, an economist at the Japan Research Institute, told Reuters: “The impact could linger on in 2025 as well”.

The number of marriages edged up 2.2 per cent to 499,999 in 2024, which came only after steep declines, such as a plunge of 12.7 per cent in 2020.

The former prime minister Fumio Kishida‘s government used measures to boost child-bearing, including expanding childcare facilities, offering housing subsidies, and even launching a government-run dating app to encourage marriage and childbearing.

In more drastic measures the government agencies launched an experimental four-day work week for employees of Tokyo Metropolitan Government, one of the country’s largest employers.

Mr Kishida last year said it was a “now or never situation”.

“Japan is standing on the verge of whether we can continue to function as a society,” he had said. “Focusing attention on policies regarding children and child-rearing is an issue that cannot wait and cannot be postponed.

Japan’s data is in contrast to South Korea’s development of rising fertility rate for the first time in nine years on Wednesday. It was the glimmer of hope for the country which has the world’s lowest birth rate.

Experts believe South Korea’s positive turn resulted from government support in the three areas of work-family balance, childcare and housing, as well as a campaign for businesses to nudge employees towards parenthood.

US sanctions more Hong Kong firms for aiding Iranian drone makers

The Treasury Department imposed sanctions on six firms in Hong Kong and mainland China for allegedly supplying components to Iran’s drone and missile programmes in violation of US bans.

The firms acted as fronts to acquire American parts for Iranian military companies, which in turn supplied weapons to Russia and militant groups, it said in a statement on Wednesday.

The US had already sanctioned two other Hong Kong firms earlier in February.

The sanctioned firms could face asset seizures, visa restrictions and penalties while any financial institution dealing with them could risk secondary sanctions.

“Iran continues to try to find new ways to procure the key components it needs to bolster its UAV weapons program through new front companies and third-country suppliers,” treasury secretary Scott Bessent said.

China denounced the sanctions as illegal and insisted that its cooperation with Iran was legitimate.

The Treasury claimed that the Hong Kong entities procured components for Iranian firm Pishtazan Kavosh Gostar Boshra and its subsidiary, Narin Sepehr Mobin Isatis, which were known for supplying Iran’s drone and ballistic missile programmes and remained under US sanctions.

“Today’s action, which is part of President Trump’s maximum pressure campaign on the Iranian regime, aims to disrupt efforts by the Iranian entity Pishtazan Kavosh Gostar Boshra to reconstitute its procurement network and continue obtaining critical parts from foreign suppliers,” a statement by the State Department said.

The US, it said, “will use all available means to expose and disrupt Iran’s growing UAV and missile development and proliferation, which destabilizes the Middle East and beyond”. “We will continue to act against the complex schemes Iran employs to conceal its acquisition of sensitive technology for its missile and UAV programs. These programs produce missiles and drones that Iran uses against our allies and exports to its terror proxy groups and Russia.”

The Chinese embassy in Washington said Beijing’s relations with Tehran did not harm other countries but did not directly address the alleged use of front companies.

“China and Iran’s normal cooperation within the framework of international law is reasonable and legal,” Liu Pengyu, embassy spokesperson, said. “China has always firmly opposed the illegal unilateral sanctions imposed by the United States and will firmly safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of its enterprises and citizens.”

Earlier this week, the US sanctioned dozens of individuals and oil tankers across China, the UAE, India, and other countries for allegedly financing Iran. The sanctions targeted more than 30 individuals and vessels involved in brokering and transporting Iranian oil.

Hiker lost in China’s frigid mountains survives by eating toothpaste

An 18-year-old hiker was rescued after surviving 10 days in the frigid mountains of northwestern China.

Stranded without food, Sun Liang relied on river water, melted snow, and even toothpaste to survive, local news outlet Jimu News reported.

Mr Sun set out on 8 December on a solo trek along the Ao-Tai Pass, part of the Qinling range in Shaanxi, northwest China. Two days later, having reached an altitude of 2,500 metres, he lost contact with his family when his electronic devices died.

Stranded in the freezing wilderness, Mr Sun attempted to find a way out by following a stream but suffered multiple falls, breaking his right arm, the outlet reported. With no food, he survived on stream water, melted snow, and toothpaste.

To escape the biting wind, he took shelter behind a large rock, using dry leaves as bedding.

On 17 February, after 10 days lost, he smelled smoke from a rescue team’s fire and shouted for help.

The Ao-Tai trail, spanning 170km, is among China’s most dangerous trekking routes, with over 50 climbers missing or dead in the past two decades.

Authorities closed it to travellers in 2018, but adventurers continue to take the risk. Mr Sun is believed to be the first to be rescued after getting lost in the area.

“I didn’t know Ao-Tai was banned, I came here just to challenge myself,” Mr Sun reportedly said after his rescue.

“After the incident, I was very scared. Ao-Tai is completely unsuitable for trekking – the weather is very harsh, there is no beautiful scenery. I call on everyone not to conquer this route because life is priceless.”

Mr Sun’s rescue involved over 30 people and reportedly cost his family 80,000 yuan (£8,700).

The Ao-Tai trail runs along the ridgeline of Mount Taibai. While estimates of its exact length vary, the trail is known for its high altitude and steep terrain, with an average elevation of 10,000 feet and a total elevation gain of 14,275 feet.

The route takes hikers over the Qinling range’s highest peak, Mount Taibai, which stands at 12,300 feet, before crossing the ridgeline to Aoshan, the second-highest peak at 11,400 feet.

How groom’s drunken mistake sparked brawl and wrecked his wedding

An upset bride stormed off and cancelled her wedding after the drunk groom picked the wrong bride – three times.

The event in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh descended into chaos after the groom mistakenly put the ceremonial garland around the bride’s best friend before proceeding to garland a male friend and then an elderly guest.

What followed was a slap, a brawl, an abrupt end to the wedding ceremony, and the groom’s eventual arrest, The Times of India reported.

Ravindra Kumar, 26, had arrived late to his wedding at Naughwa Bhagwantpur village in Bareilly district on Saturday evening. He had reportedly been drinking with his friends before the ceremony.

He had been due to take part in the garland ritual, a tradition in Hindu weddings where the couple exchange a ring of flowers to symbolise their commitment to each other.

However, Mr Kumar mistakenly placed the wreath around the bride’s best friend instead of her. Realising his mistake, Mr Kumar removed it, only to put it on a male friend and then an elderly guest, leaving the attendees in stunned silence.

Enraged by the spectacle, the bride, Radha Devi, 21, slapped Mr Kumar and walked off and cancelled the wedding. This prompted a brawl between the two families, with chairs hurled around before police intervened.

The bride’s family later filed a police complaint, alleging that Mr Kumar’s family had demanded additional dowry despite already taking Rs450,000 (£4000).

Ms Devi’s brother, Omkar Verma, suggested the groom’s family could have orchestrated the drama to humiliate them. He also alleged that Mr Kumar had misrepresented his profession, claiming to be a farmer when he was actually a truck driver.

By 4am, Mr Kumar and his friends were in police custody. A medical test confirmed that he was intoxicated, and a case was registered against him under India’s stringent anti-dowry law. One person was also arrested on suspicion of supplying illicit liquor.

“The groom was intoxicated and misbehaved. His medical examination confirmed he was drunk,” local police officer Harsh Modi, overseeing the case, said.

Despite his family’s pleas to salvage the marriage, Ms Devi refused to reconsider.

Philippine police rescue kidnapped Chinese student after grisly ordeal

Philippine police have rescued a 14-year-old Chinese student who was abducted by a criminal gang led by Chinese nationals.

The gang had brutally murdered his driver and severed a part of his finger to pressure his family into paying a hefty ransom, officials said on Wednesday.

According to interior secretary Jonvic Remulla, the student’s parents refused to comply with the kidnappers’ demands.

As law enforcement closed in on their getaway vehicle, the gang panicked and abandoned the teenager on a busy street in metropolitan Manila on Tuesday night.

Some of the kidnappers were identified as former Filipino police officers and soldiers.

The abduction of the student on 20 February, shortly after he left his British school in Manila, had caused widespread alarm due to its violence.

Mr Remulla told reporters both the student’s family and the Chinese mastermind behind the kidnapping were reportedly involved in highly profitable online gambling operations, which thrived under former president Rodrigo Duterte but were shut down last year by his successor Ferdinand Marcos Jr.

The online gambling outfits, which operated in the Philippines, Cambodia and other Southeast Asian countries, catered to large numbers of clients in China, where gambling is prohibited.

“We know that this crime involved a Chinese against a Chinese,” Mr Remulla said, adding that the student’s family and the kidnappers communicated in Chinese via the WeChat app.

After the closure of illegal gambling outfits in the Philippines, some turned to other crimes, including kidnapping, Mr Remulla said. Officials said online cryptocurrency sites, love and investment scams remained a threat.

In a bid to pressure the student’s family to pay a ransom of $20m, which was later reduced to $1m, the kidnappers cut off the tip of the small finger in the victim’s right hand and sent a video of the gruesome act to his parents, Mr Remulla said.

The student’s driver was killed and later found in an abandoned vehicle, where crucial evidence, including cellphone numbers, were found. The suspects apparently tried to leave the vehicle in a haste, Mr Remulla said. The kidnappers have been identified and were being hunted, Mr Remulla and police officials said.