Expedition was drawn to Nikumaroro after spotting what was described as a metallic glint in waters off uninhabited island

A US expedition that voyaged to a remote Pacific island in the hope of solving the mystery of what happened to pioneering pilot Amelia Earhart has said an object they suspected to be her plane was a clump of washed-up trees.

“Unfortunately, we weren’t able to find that smoking gun,” said Steve Schultz of Purdue University, standing on the sand in front of a blue lagoon on the atoll of Nikumaroro, about halfway between Australia and Hawaii.

Images from New Zealand aerial survey of Nikumaroro in 1938 offer new clues over aviator’s disappearance

A New Zealand museum has released nearly 50 photos from a 1938 aerial survey of the island where Amelia Earhart is believed to have crash-landed, offering amateur sleuths new evidence to scour for traces of the pioneering aviator and her plane.

The black-and-white images were published by the Air Force Museum of New Zealand after renewed interest in one of the biggest mysteries of the 20th century, spurred by a US expedition to the Pacific atoll of Nikumaroro in search of new clues.

Chip makers and tech investors such as Samsung and SoftBank plunge as potential interest rate hikes spook markets

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• Larry Elliott: the global economy is muddling through. But a storm is coming

An accelerating sell-off of AI-linked shares has hit global markets, as fears over rising inflation and future interest rate hikes spooked traders already wary of the heavily indebted sector.

South Korea’s benchmark Kospi 200 index, which is heavily skewed towards the companies that make memory chips, fell more than 8% overnight to a six-month closing low, triggering circuit breakers that brought trading to a halt at various points.

Finance ministers gathering for the IMF annual meeting know the need for multilateral cooperation to deal with many crises. There is little chance of that

Not much has gone right for the global economy this year, and plenty has gone wrong. Two big regional wars are destabilising prices and supply chains everywhere. Businesses and consumers are feeling the effects of a serious energy shock. Rising inflation has made it a lot more expensive for governments to finance their debts. China and the US are at loggerheads over trade.

Yet, so far, the impact has been modest. It is something of a miracle that the finance ministers and central bank governors gathered for this year’s annual meeting of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in Bangkok are not having to deal with a full-blown crisis. This is not like the autumn of 2008, when the meetings took place during the worst of the global banking meltdown.

Larry Elliott is a Guardian columnist

Microbiologist Aili Wang, 32, poisoned tea of colleague in Wyoming who had pending patents, prosecutors allege

A Wyoming microbiology graduate student from China has been arrested on accusations she poisoned the tea of a colleague who had pending patents and with whom she did not get along, then tried to flee the country after police questioned her.

Aili Wang, 32, was arrested 6 October at Los Angeles international airport, where prosecutors allege she sought to return to China. With her were laptops, electronic storage devices and documents now in the possession of police, who allege Wang was seen on surveillance video rummaging through the desk of the victim who specialized in technology for disease treatment – research similar to work she had done in China.