Single-word Ofsted judgments for state schools will be scrapped with immediate effect to be replaced by report cards aimed at improving standards and helping parents to better understand schools’ strengths and weaknesses. The four headline ratings currently awarded by the inspections watchdog in England – outstanding, good, requires improvement and inadequate – will go as … Read more
They might be grey, plastic and reportedly very dirty, but airport security trays are in demand. Online, a new trend called the “airport tray aesthetic” sees people carefully curating the contents of a tray, showcasing their shoes, scents, accessories, headphones, hats and reading material against a backdrop of polypropylene – and then photographing it to … Read more
BBC For the previous 72 hours, the menacing whirr above our heads has belonged to Russia’s suicide drones, passing over and then bearing down on their targets. Now the buzz comes from a Ukrainian unmanned aircraft which has not been sent up to kill, but to relay footage from the training ground to commanders back … Read more
Gail Porter says she doesn’t do jokes in her standup comedy. It’s all about the story. And the former children’s TV and Top of the Pops presenter’s story is very dark indeed. She tells me how she introduces herself. “At the start, I say: ‘Hi, hands up who’s been sectioned.’” How do people react? “Usually … Read more
During an average shift on the shop floor at Next, Helen Scarsbrook has to remain polite and keep smiling while she makes split-second judgments about which customers need help and which need to be tactfully discouraged from shoplifting and ushered out of the store. She and her mostly female colleagues are on their feet for … Read more
The delisting of ICICI Securities has become a speculators’ delight. Image: Bloomberg 6 min read Last Updated : Sep 02 2024 | 7:54 AM IST By Andy Mukherjee Amid the ongoing row between a New York-based short seller and the Indian market regulator, a completely different controversy is brewing. It involves the country’s second-most-valuable bank, … Read more
Grief is a thing with wings. It swoops in when and how it wants, often uninvited. When I think of my father, I think of sound. His laughter: a deep rumble from his slightly distended gut, ending with a sigh, as if he were reluctant to let it go. The gentle push of his windscreen-shaped … Read more
It is a sunny day in Norfolk and Peter Prinsley, the first Labour MP for Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket, is about to look up the nostrils of a 90-year-old man. But before he can get out his microscope to look for the cause of the man’s chronic nosebleeds, his patient has something to say. … Read more
Paris: Preethi Pal created history as she became the first Indian woman track and field athlete to win two medals at the Paralympics while Nishad Kumar clinched his second successive silver at the showpiece in the men’s high jump T47 category in the Paris Games here on Sunday. The 23-year-old Preethi bagged a bronze in … Read more
On 24 February 2022, workers at the Chornobyl nuclear power station in Ukraine woke to the sound of explosions. A battle was going on, not far from the contaminated exclusion zone. By late afternoon, the Russians had arrived. A column of military vehicles pulled up at a checkpoint and an officer got out. Moscow, he … Read more