From cardiovascular disease and obesity to a weakened immune system, the side effects of stress can be life-altering. But there may be a way to prevent those outcomes.
ByYudhijit Bhattacharjee
Does meditation actually work? Here’s what the science says.
Research is finally catching up to the idea that meditation—which has been practiced for millennia—also provides many health benefits, including managing stress and anxiety.
Times Literary Supplement (May 17, 2024): The latest issue features ‘The future of sex?’ – Dating apps, virtual encounters and polyamory; An American Life; Ripley’s new game; Gurus and primal screams ….
This year’s RHS Chelsea Flower Show is poised to celebrate the unfolding freshness and energy of deciduous woods in May, as Kathryn Bradley-Hole discovers
Beneath the boughs
Garden designer Tom Stuart-Smith is returning to Chelsea’s Main Avenue for the first time in 14 years for the National Garden Scheme, reveals Joanna Fortnam
‘When the ass begins to bray, surely rain will come that day’
It’s raining ancient folklore and proverbs as John Lewis-Stempel relies on jumping trout, croaking frogs and chirping crickets to predict the great British weather
My art is in the garden
Carla Passino examines how the brushstrokes of Monet, Turner, Klimt and Canaletto are providing colour and inspiration at Chelsea
All I need is the air that I breathe
Cathryn Spence airs the story of how—250 years ago—Joseph Priestley ‘discovered’ oxygen at Bowood House in Wiltshire
Cindy Sughrue’s favourite painting
The director of London’s Charles Dickens Museum picks a classic snapshot of the capital’s skyline
The legacy
Bess of Hardwick was the first of many influential Chatsworth women, as Kate Green learns
A timeless view
George Plumptre admires the simple beauty of the gardens at Pusey House in Oxfordshire
Seating plans
What makes a comfortable garden seat, asks Tiffany Daneff
Sitting pretty
Amelia Thorpe seeks out crafted benches to suit every garden
The cutting-garden diaries
In the final part of her series, Anna Brown is focused on harvesting
A lily among weeds
Clive Aslet lauds the enduring influence of the prolific Victorian architect George Edmund Street
Slugging it out
Marianne Taylor is captivated by the curious beauty of molluscs
Mane stay
Deborah Nash visits the last British firm creating horsehair fabric
Out and About
The Royal Countryside Fund reception at Fortnum & Mason
Interiors
Amelia Thorpe takes a look at six of the best WOW!house creations
A brush with sparkles
Hetty Lintell is wowed by jewels celebrating the National Gallery
Kitchen garden cook
The arrival of new-season carrots is applauded by Melanie Johnson
Native herbs
John Wright is playing with fire as he investigates horseradish
Sweet chamomile, good times never seemed so good
Deborah Nicholls-Lee dreams of dainty white flowers and a fragrant lawn that never needs mowing
Falstaff reimagined
Sir Ian McKellen lends a ‘silvering dignity’ to Shakespeare’s famed roisterer, finds Michael Billington
The New Yorker (May 13, 2024): The new issue‘s cover featuresBarry Blitt’s “Class of 2024” – The campus tensions take center stage.
An Israeli Newspaper Presents Truths Readers May Prefer to Avoid
Haaretz consistently attempts to wrestle with the realities of what is going on in Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank.
By David Remnick
A British Nurse Was Found Guilty of Killing Seven Babies. Did She Do It?
Colleagues reportedly called Lucy Letby an “angel of death,” and the Prime Minister condemned her. But, in the rush to judgment, serious questions about the evidence were ignored.
This spring, Barbara and Joe, a retired couple in their 60s, sat down with me at a bistro in suburban Connecticut to talk about their relationship. That they were sitting there together at all was something of a triumph. In the past few days, they had hurled at each other the kinds of accusations that couples make when they are on the brink of mutual destruction. They were bruised from the words that had been exchanged, and although they sat close to each other, their energy was quiet and heavy.
Financial advisors who bring qualified children on board can set up their practices for long-term success and stability. Here’s what it means for clients.
At first glance, the world economy looks reassuringly resilient. America has boomed even as its trade war with China has escalated. Germany has withstood the loss of Russian gas supplies without suffering an economic disaster. War in the Middle East has brought no oil shock. Missile-firing Houthi rebels have barely touched the global flow of goods. As a share of global gdp, trade has bounced back from the pandemic and is forecast to grow healthily this year.
Elections for the European parliament are less than a month away and far-right parties are predicted to make significant gains in many of the bloc’s 27 member states. The dire shortage of housing, leading to rising rents and property prices, is becoming a unifying focus for voters’ discontent with their current political leaders.
The issue has sparked protests from Amsterdam to Prague and Milan, as the Guardian’s Europe correspondent, Jon Henley, reports. The data is undeniably worrying as young Europeans spend up to 10 times an average salary on rent and mortgage payments, and big cities from the Baltic states to the Iberian peninsula have registered average property price rises of close to 50%. As a result more EU residents live with their parents for longer and put off life-decisions later into adulthood.
While housing does not fall within MEPs’ remit, it is a visible locus for the sense of social unease that has beset the whole bloc and has become a pivot for the far right to turn on racialised minorities. But as European community affairs correspondent Ashifa Kassam discovers, it is those communities that are doubly penalised through discrimination from landlords who, research has shown, turn away potential renters with “foreign” surnames. The political and social ramifications of the housing crisis in Europe is mirrored elsewhere across the globe and is a subject we will return to in the Guardian Weekly in this year of elections.
News, Views and Reviews For The Intellectually Curious