business

Unless you haven’t been paying attention, you’ll know that knitting is having a serious moment. Thanks to knitfluencers such as Katie Jones, Stephen West, Ella Emhoff and, of course, Tom Daley, the meditative hobby is riding a new wave of popularity. A big part of its appeal is making clothes and accessories – from waistcoats … Read more

Kelly Sempels’ dad was a builder, most of her five brothers are builders, and, until leaving her last job, she too was a builder. Now, after a career fixing roofs and laying bricks Sempels is plying a new trade: “urban mining”. She and her crew of six still dress and talk like builders, but their … Read more

If your eight-day work trip was unexpectedly extended by nine months, you might expect to rack up some overtime pay. Not so for Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, the NASA astronauts who spent 278 extra days on the International Space Station after their spacecraft malfunctioned. On Tuesday, they splashed down off the Gulf Coast of … Read more

An international team of astronomers on Wednesday unveiled the most compelling evidence to date that dark energy — a mysterious phenomenon pushing our universe to expand ever faster — is not a constant force of nature but one that ebbs and flows through cosmic time. Dark energy, the new measurement suggests, may not resign our … Read more

Name: Doggie bags. Age: According to the Smithsonian magazine, about 85 years. Appearance: A box of old food. Oh, I love a doggie bag. Well, you’re just about the only one. What? But there’s a grand tradition of leaving a restaurant with your leftovers. Maybe in the US, where portions are traditionally larger. But they’ve … Read more

Hi Ugly, I haven’t worn makeup in years but my wedding is coming up in November and I’m facing a lot of pressure to wear it (from friends, my mum and my sisters – not my partner). I want to stand by the idea that my natural face is formal enough. I really want to … Read more

“Few dishes,” according to food writer Zeynep Betul, “embody the spirit of Turkish cuisine as perfectly as börek”. This family of crunchy, flaky pastries in various shapes and fillings are “immensely popular” throughout the country, says award-winning author Özlem Warren: “Even the fussiest child,” she assures readers of her book Özlem’s Turkish Table, “will … … Read more

Arriving in Belgium on the Eurostar, it is always tempting to continue on to a popular weekend destination like Bruges, Ghent or Antwerp. But this time I hop on a local train at the Brussels Gare du Midi for the 30-minute journey to Mechelen, a surprisingly grand and opulent city that in the 16th century … Read more

I saw the light at 22. Since my teens, I had been dyeing my naturally mousy hair very dark brown. Shades such as “mahogany” and “praline” were unforgiving against my pale skin, but that wasn’t important to me. As a teenager, I was desperate to be taken seriously and thought of as smart, maybe even … Read more

Name: Tiny seats. Age: If you look at pictures of the Wright brothers’ first flights in 1903, it looks as if they had plenty of legroom. It’s been downhill ever since. We’re talking about legroom on planes, right? Right. Or the lack of it, to be precise, as airlines push to increase profits. But Orville … Read more