About this issue: Overview
Laura Marling’s new album Semper Femina – always a woman – contains the penetrating lyrics and intricate guitar playing we have come to expect from the British folk singer. But with its sonic adventurousness it’s the “least Laura Marling thing I’ve done”, she tells Doug Wallen.
With GCSE exams bearing down on them, many young people are undergoing stress like never before. Now students who have just been through the experience are offering tips and support to all who need them, reports Saskia Murphy.
A nine-year-old girl is taking on the Indian government over climate change, reports Rina Chandran. The country has four of the world’s 10 most polluted cities.
Photographer Seba Kurtis has drowned his film, suffocated negatives in plastic bags and used a heartbeat detector – all to add authenticity and meaning to his work documenting refugees, reports Steven Thompson. Kurtis is himself a refugee.
We report on the growing use of spice, a drug that contains a usually unknown cocktail of active ingredients that are creating havoc on Manchester’s streets.
Also on the news pages, a man in a wheelchair alleges he was assaulted by police while protesting against fracking at Cuadrilla’s site on Preston New Road near Blackpool.
Amy-Jo Mook, currently in care, asks why we don’t make it easier for foster parents to develop stronger relationships with those in their charge, Keeley Hawes writes a letter to her younger self, there’s arts and entertainment, crossword, Sudoku and more.