The Latest Breaking News from Jill Mead

They clashed on net zero, diversity and fashion. Was the chocolate-chip ice-cream the only thing they did agree on?

Emily and Sophie were sent out to dinner in the grip of a heatwave. But 34C temperatures and even a scoring blunder couldn’t stop the romance …

From this week, development must result in more or better natural habitat than before, in a move hailed as one of the world’s most ambitious

Experts say boarded-up communal space illustrates crisis in social housing funding and need to protect play areas

It took 13 years of dreaming, peril and hard graft before the first residents moved into Cannock Mill – an eco-village that tackles both the climate crisis and loneliness

Government scheme, due to launch this month, promises to protect and enhance biodiversity, but remains dogged by delays and uncertainty

Sarah and Mick Dore, at the Alexandra in Wimbledon, maintain a tradition of welcoming those who find themselves alone

Are festive jobs a cut above the rest? And which is best: Santa, reindeer wrangler, elf, sprout farmer, snowman’s helper or rollercoaster tester?

The fourth instalment in a series of photo essays looking at the life on the Thames. From dawn sculls to a duck derby and container barges, Jill Mead, a longtime London resident and urban photographer, shares the stories of the many characters working on and enjoying the river