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While Paralympic athletes have been capturing the limelight with feats of skill and endeavour over the past fortnight, theirs are not the only remarkable stories from the Games. Several photographers with disabilities have been creating striking images in Paris, defying mobility issues, visual impairments and societal expectations in the process. Here is some of their … Read more

Sipping pints of Guinness, swapping football shirts and purring about respect and new dawns, the British and Irish prime ministers seemed determined to inject long-absent warmth into the relationship between their countries when they met on Saturday. The thaw is overdue; Keir Starmer’s visit to Dublin was the first by a British PM in five … Read more

Kamala Harris and Donald Trump will arrive in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on Tuesday for their first (and potentially only) presidential debate. The event will mark the first time that Harris and Trump have ever met face to face, and it comes less than two months after Joe Biden withdrew from the presidential race following his own … Read more

Over breakfast this morning, I enjoyed a short chat with Mia, my new Spanish study buddy. I went over some of the stuff from my recent lesson and explained what I have learned about the psychology of happiness from a Spanish-language podcast. By the end of the 10-minute conversation, I felt that I had embedded … Read more

At 8.04am on 25 August last year, Darnell Alboudoor watched a plume of black smoke blanketing the sky and rolling in the direction of her family home. A stench like burning oil filled the air on that piping hot summer morning, as Alboudoor, 54, looked in the direction of the sprawling petroleum refinery, which sat … Read more

When the education secretary, Bridget Phillipson, vowed last week to get “tough” on persistent school absenteeism, you might have expected someone like me – a former teacher, a mother of five and a firm believer in education – to applaud. There is plenty to welcome in Phillipson’s announcement: she has pledged to support parents and … Read more

To some people, the nightclub smoking area offers a moment of relief from the ear-rattling speakers and clouds of dry ice inside. For others, it’s an opportunity to sit down and chew the fat with a friend, or to forge a connection with a new one. Rarely is it just about having a cigarette. Whatever … Read more

Donald Trump’s campaign is most concerned going into the debate against Kamala Harris with the former president’s mood, afraid that the mercurial Trump could engage in the kind of self-sabotage that turned off voters in the 2020 presidential election, according to people familiar with the situation. The campaign’s internal refrain is whether they get “happy … Read more

A British teacher has told how he is “sick” with nerves about returning to his home in Spain amid a three-year battle to get post-Brexit residency after being denied it because he was missing one month’s medical insurance in the first year after the UK left the EU. Mark Saxby, 56, said he felt “trapped” … Read more