COLU @ CONCEPTS

Image copyright STEVE AND PAULA BOONE Image caption Steve and Paula Boone have run more than 1,000 marathons between them Why are more people running marathons in all 50 states - and what does it say about modern America? In 1988, Steve Boone was a computer systems designer who played football in his spare time. One of his customers was training for the Houston Marathon. He bet Steve - a 39-year-old who had never run 26 miles - that he couldn't finish the race. It's safe to say Steve won that bet. He finished the 1988 Houston Marathon, and has returned to the race every year since. The 2018 event will be his 31st in a row, and his 700th marathon in total. The only downside? "It was a principle bet," says Steve. "No money at stake." In 1997, Steve was at the Boston Marathon, waiting outside a hotel for a bus that didn't turn up. By this point, he had run more than 100 marathons, including one in all 50 states. He had the idea after...

Image caption A view of Muzaffarabad, where the Neelum River divides the main city from hillside settlements Towering some 550 metres (1,800 ft) above the Pakistani town of Garhi Habibullah to the west, and the Kashmiri city of Muzaffarabad to the east, Dub Gali looks serene on a cool October morning. Some two dozen shops sit quietly on both sides of a security barrier that marks the border between Kashmir and the Pakistani province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. There is nothing to suggest that hordes of militant Pathan tribal warriors who invaded Kashmir exactly 70 years ago to start one of the world's most enduring territorial conflicts actually broke into the region through this very point. But a local villager, Mohammad Hasan Qureshi, 86, clearly remembers those stormy days. "A week before the Pathans came, there were rumours that Kashmiri Sikhs [who had a significant population in this area] were planning to attack Muzaffarabad," he says. "A couple of days ...