News
Miranda Bryant
News and features journalist based in London, previously New York
Miranda.L.Bryant [at] gmail.com
News and features journalist based in London, previously New York
Miranda.L.Bryant [at] gmail.com
News
Four pounds for an entire month. That was all Paul Taylor, 53, had been left with. He had already been skipping meals to feed his two daughters, nine and 13, but now he was faced with the impossible. Four pounds to cover all his family's living costs for more than four weeks, including rent, gas, electricity, food and transport.
In the Stockholm neighbourhood of Tensta, the pandemic has left many feeling hopeless and disenfranchised, says Fatuma Mohamed. While much of Sweden - including politicians - appear to have forgotten all about Covid, the health communicator and longtime resident said that many in the area are still grappling with its impact.
Jessica Rebeschini was advised to take at least six weeks off work to recover from an emergency C-section surgery and bond with her newborn child, Karter. But with no paid maternity leave and bills due, the 26-year-old had no choice but to immediately start looking for a job.
After five years studying to become a qualified dentist in his home country of Sudan, Omar (not his real name)spent seven years mainly treating children in Khartoum. But since arriving in Britain last June - despite a desperate shortage of NHS dentists - the 32-year-old has not been able to put his skills to use.
The physical and mental health of Ukrainian refugees living on ships in Glasgow and Edinburgh - branded "floating refugee camps" - are being put in danger, amid reports of residents being quarantined with scarlet fever.
Sweden's Social Democratic prime minister, Magdalena Andersson, has said the country is at a pivotal moment as it prepares for its most critical election in years, in which rightwing populists with neo-Nazi roots are likely to become the second biggest party.
It was little more than a year ago that Oliver Dowden stood up at Conservative spring conference to praise the "calm suburbia of Hertfordshire", home to his own Hertsmere constituency, and vowed to defend the "privet hedges of a free people". But after Thursday's local elections, the deputy prime minister's proverbial privet hedges now have gaping holes in them.
After 48 days under Russian occupation, they were so used to seeing enemy soldiers on every street corner that they thought the first Ukrainian checkpoint out of Kherson could be a trap.
As a global bestseller with rave reviews, set in New York, and with a cult following, A Little Life appears to have all the ingredients for a hit television show.
Renters are being subjected to extreme vetting procedures by letting agents and landlords who are demanding personal statements - and even photographs - to choose between prospective tenants. Amid the worst rental market conditions to date, campaigners say that letting agents and landlords are increasing the potential for discrimination by telling renters to submit personal biographies to try to sell themselves as desirable tenants.
Sweden has said it is on "high alert" for outside intervention in its upcoming election amid increased tensions with Russia. The Scandinavian country's recently re-established psychological defence agency said it had seen heightened activity from foreign sources following its application to join Nato and it was prepared for the possibility of "something exceptional" in the lead-up to polling day on 11 September.
The poorest and most vulnerable people in the UK risk missing out on the energy bill support and cost of living payments they are entitled to, because of a lack of clarity over what is available from the government and how to get it, charities have warned.
An event at the heart of the king's coronation festivities is at risk of being a "damp squib" because of a volunteering crisis across Britain, the government has been warned.
he Formula One driver Lewis Hamilton, the author EM Forster and composer Elizabeth Poston are all featured on Stevenage's wall of fame along the walkway between the station and town centre. But missing from the Hertfordshire town's dedication to its famous residents is anyone by the name of "Stevenage Woman".
Donald Trump was branded the Republican party's "biggest loser" following the US midterms on Tuesday, while his party rival Ron DeSantis swept to victory in a landslide in Florida, giving him a strong platform to challenge the former president in 2024.
More than eight months after Kherson's capture by Russian soldiers, the city is heavy and gloomy. Everything is frozen, hidden. After 3pm, there are no people on the streets. In the morning they go out to buy groceries and then they sit at home. Kherson is being robbed by the Russians.
Women are increasingly being forced to engage in "survival sex" because of the cost of living crisis amid worsening conditions for Britain's most vulnerable. Charities warn that rising costs paired with years of underfunding mean women, including those with trauma and mental health issues, are having to turn to sex in exchange for housing or to meet other basic needs.
When American nurse Dawn Wooten started asking questions about the alarming number of unwanted hysterectomies and gynaecological procedures being performed on detained immigrants at her workplace in Georgia, she was unfamiliar with the term whistleblower.
elfish career-driven women. Gullible dupes of the fertility industry. Victims of the patriarchy. When leading anthropologist Marcia C Inhorn first embarked on her decade-long study of why women freeze their eggs, the popular narrative was largely one of derision.
Having waited hours in line to see the Queen lying in state - and with hours more left to go - well-wishers gave the new King Charles and Prince of Wales an upbeat reception during their surprise visit to the queue that in just a few days has become a London landmark.
A "shocking" 50,000 Ukrainian refugees in the UK could be made homeless next year, the government has been warned, but ministers are refusing to offer a fresh package of support to offset the impending crisis.
Growing numbers of refugees are being made homeless, and in many cases destitute, after relationship breakdowns with their Homes for Ukraine hosts in the UK, community organisations have said.
The Home Office was accused on Sunday of asking newly arrived Ukrainian refugees how long they plan to stay in the UK as the government came under mounting criticism for its response to the victims of the humanitarian crisis. The home secretary Priti Patel was, on Friday, again forced to change visa rules for Ukrainians with relatives in the UK.
Twelve years of Tory government have had a disastrous impact on girls' sport in schools, experts have said, warning that last weekend's women's Euro victory will be squandered unless drastic action is taken. In the past 10 years, 42,000 hours of PE lessons have been lost in secondaries - with girls the most affected - and the situation is getting worse, according to the Youth Sport Trust.
A concrete-covered, brownfield industrial storage site does not scream out wild swimming haven. But a community group is hoping to transform the east London plot - currently used by Thames Water - into what is believed to be the capital's first new wild swimming ponds since Hampstead Ponds were created in 1777.
This time last year, Sarah (not her real name) was a regular donor to the food bank drop-off point outside her local Sainsbury's. But in March 2021 she had to stop. Despite working full-time and being on universal credit, the mother of two has for the past few months had to rely on food banks.
A chef and humanitarian who has been serving millions of meals to Ukrainians has accused the UN and the EU of a lack of leadership in response to the refugee crisis, warning of a "huge humanitarian emergency at the doorstep of Europe".
Britain's welfare system is "unfit for purpose" and in urgent need of reform, experts warned on Sunday amid fears that millions more families will struggle to make ends meet amid the dual pressures of the pandemic and the spiralling cost-of-living crisis.
The concept of the "metaverse" first came from the 1992 sci-fi novel Snow Crash as a place that people flee to escape a dangerous corporation-dominated world. It has since come to refer to a range of virtual experiences that have gained popularity during the pandemic - including video games such as Fortnite, non-fungible tokens or even online meetings and events.
There are only two smokehouses with the right to sell London Cure smoked salmon and they are less than two miles away from each other. In one corner of east London, tucked in an archway just off London Fields, is the relative newcomer Secret Smokehouse, which was originally started in founder Max Bergius's shed.
The bestselling author Leïla Slimani says the knife attack on Salman Rushdie has left her and other writers afraid, but that they have a "duty" to keep making public appearances and resist censoring themselves, despite the dangers.
Ivo van Hove, one of Europe's most in-demand directors, says Britain's politicians should learn from its theatres how to behave post-Brexit, claiming they are setting a "very good example". The Amsterdam-based Belgian director, who regularly works with British theatres and next weekend is taking his production of A Little Life to Edinburgh international festival, said he believes Brexit was "historically a mistake".
A top official from Sweden's new "psychological defence" agency said the country had decided to bring back the cold war-era government body amid fears over Russian aggression against Ukraine. Magnus Hjort, deputy director of the agency, which was re-established last month to combat foreign disinformation, said concerns were especially heightened ahead of Sweden's general election in September, against the backdrop of Europe's "deteriorating security situation".
Protesters in New York have been unnecessarily arrested and detained for as long as 48 hours in "abysmal" conditions without access to masks, food and water, according to legal experts. Since the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis just over two weeks ago, tens of thousands of people have taken to the streets of New York City in protest over police brutality.
It was over the Thanksgiving holiday, catching up with old high school friends, that Frances Beal heard that Cordelia had died. Like the now 82-year-old Black feminist and activist, her friend had left home to go to college, but she didn't make it through her first year because, like anybody who wanted to terminate a pregnancy in America in 1958, she had been forced to undergo a backstreet abortion.
Plans for the weekend. Comments on the weather. Observations about a colleague's new coat. With offices across England (and, from Monday, in Scotland) opening up to workers, casual conversation starters like this will once again become the norm.
For those in the business, the role of head bartender at the Savoy's American bar in London is much more than a job - it's the chance to join a prestigious club of just a handful of people and to earn a place in history.
Amid soaring appetite for non-English-language shows and a growing global streaming market, it ought to be a golden time for subtitle translators. The popularity of shows such as the Korean megahit Squid Game, which attracted 111 million viewers in its first 28 days to become Netflix's most watched series ever, the Spanish series Money Heist ( La Casa de Papel) and the French drama have proved that subtitles are no block to pulling in huge global audiences.
When Kamala Harris raises her right hand and takes the oath of office on Wednesday she will realize a multitude of historic firsts - becoming America's first female, first Black and first south Asian American vice-president.
When big white field hospital tents appeared in Central Park in late March, they became a potent symbol of the scale and severity of New York's coronavirus crisis.
The reopening of the Museum of the Home in London was met with protests on Saturday calling for the removal of a statue of slave ship owner Robert Geffrye following an intervention by the culture secretary to keep it in place.
Under the threat of imprisonment, interrogation and the constant pressure of searches by Russian soldiers, six artists secretly met in a basement studio in the occupied Ukrainian city of Kherson. In the months after their homes were taken over by Putin's forces, the artists formed a residency during which they created dozens of works, including drawings, paintings, video, photography, diary entries and stage plays.
Pauline Binam asked to see a doctor because she was having abnormalities with her period. After nearly two years in immigration detention, she was worried that it was having an adverse effect on her health. The doctor told her that she had a cyst on her ovary and she agreed to a dilation and curettage (D&C) procedure, her lawyer said.
Motorcycles revved, waiters served drinks, and food in busy outdoor street seating areas and, on the pavement, people gathered to sip to-go drinks. On Saturday night in Astoria, in Queens, it was almost as if coronavirus had never hit New York City. "We were inside for such a long time, and people are getting tested.
New York faces enormous challenges in its attempts to implement one of the largest contact tracing schemes in the US, as the city prepares to reopen after nearly two months of coronavirus lockdown. The New York governor, Andrew Cuomo, has said the state is recruiting an "army of people to trace each person who tested positive" for an "unprecedented, nation-leading contact tracing programme".
In the middle of Redbridge central library in Ilford, among all the bookshelves and displays, is a phrase that may surprise some visitors: "The death-positive library." The sign sits above a collection curated to help people deal with death, dying and loss, including books by former England footballer Rio Ferdinand, the late American novelist Toni Morrison, and anthropologist Sue Black.
Rocket lollies, Screwballs, Twisters, Feasts and, of course, Mr Whippy: the menu of a typical ice-cream van has been etched into our memories since childhood and has barely changed since. But amid soaring inflation and record fuel prices, ice-cream sellers are quickly learning they must adapt to survive - or face the rocky road to ruin.
Little more than six months ago, Paul and Anthony Smith-Storey were still living in a three-bedroom semi-detached house near St Helens in Merseyside. But now the couple - and their dog, Dexter - have traded it all in for a life afloat in a two-metre-wide narrowboat on Peak Forest Canal in Derbyshire.
On a hot and sticky evening in a Brooklyn park, the so-called "Cynthia effect" was on full display. "This is a David and Goliath battle, but there is a path to victory," said a defiant Cynthia Nixon, 52, to cheers and applause as the Sex And The City star addressed supporters at a canvassing event for her campaign to become the next governor of New York.
New measures to close the New York subway for nightly coronavirus cleaning will have "devastating" consequences for the thousands of homeless people who regularly sleep there, experts have warned. Starting on Wednesday, for the first time in its history the usually 24-hour service will shut down every night between 1am and 5am to be disinfected in a bid to improve travel conditions for essential workers during the Covid-19 outbreak.
From the Watergate investigation that brought down Richard Nixon to Bill Clinton's affair with a White House intern, presidential impeachment inquiries have marked some of the most scandalous moments in modern US history. Echoes of the Nixon tapes?
On New Year's Day 2014, the New York City mayor, Bill de Blasio, entered office promising to end the "tale of two cities" with a progressive agenda that he said would address the economic and social inequalities that "threaten to unravel the city we love".
Slave Play does not officially open on Broadway until next month, but just a few nights into previews the ground-breaking drama is already sparking an animated debate over race, drawing queues down the street and the attention of some of the biggest names in theatre.
As the first female vice-president and the first woman of colour to be nominated for the role, Kamala Harris has made history with her journey to the White House. Jill Biden, wife of president-elect Joe Biden, is expected to assume the title of first lady.
Shayla Avery texted a friend after the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, nearly 2,000 miles away in Berkeley, California. "We should do something," wrote the 16-year-old high school student, frustrated that her teachers were not talking about it. So they started planning and a few days later, Avery, together with two school friends, had organised her first protest.
Jill Biden has gone to great lengths to keep her status as a political spouse under the radar from her students, to whom she is known simply as "Dr B".
First-time independent voter Benaja Richardsontuned into Tuesday's now infamous debate between US presidential candidates Donald Trump and Joe Biden hoping to be presented with a vision of the future and unity amid the turbulence of the current climate. Instead the 18-year-old student from Winston-Salem, North Carolina, a potential swing state, said it opened her eyes to "truly what catastrophic times we're in".
Running through Manhattan from the Battery to the Bronx, Broadway is New York City's lifeline. So in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak - and the raft of restrictive measures being implemented across the city and the state in an attempt to contain it - it seems like a good place to check the prevailing mood.
New York's Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) unveiled its new $450m expansion on Thursday in a revamp of the gallery - including a radical "remix" of its permanent collection, which will see famous works exhibited alongside those of lesser-known artists.
Yossi Steinmetz was still in shock when he returned to the scene 24 hours after narrowly escaping with his life during Tuesday's attack that killed six people in Jersey City. Just seconds before the shooting started, the 30-year-old had been inside JC Kosher Supermarket - the grocery store where five people, including the attackers, were killed - before going to the synagogue to worship next door.
Wanda Coker has life-saving dialysis every Monday, Wednesday and Friday morning. Despite feeling tired, nauseous and suffering cramps from the four-hour treatments that do the job her kidneys can no longer can do, the 52-year-old rushes back from the clinic to her home in Durham, North Carolina.
The death of Jeffrey Epstein over the weekend has put renewed focus on the British socialite and heiress Ghislaine Maxwell, who has been accused in civil court documents of conspiring with the disgraced financier to recruit and groom underage girls for sexual abuse.
For a capital still showing the physical and emotional scars of a deadly earthquake, it has brought a welcome dash of brightness and glamour
When Courtney Buckman made the difficult decision to have an abortion, the obvious solution should have been to go to her nearest abortion clinic in Montana.In fact the most practical option for Buckman was to have the procedure nearly 2,000 miles away from home - in New York.
In its 92-year history, the Strand, a New York institution and one of the world's largest independent bookstores, has endured everything from the Great Depression to the explosion of Amazon. It is a cruel irony, then, that having survived against the odds, the latest potential threat to the third-generation family business comes from an organisation whose purpose is supposed to be to protect.
Outside Trump Tower, the New York home of America's divisive president, it is back to business as usual - on the surface at least. In the absence of Donald Trump, who has not been back to his hometown since his inauguration in January but whose wife Melania and son Barron remain, the 58-storey building on Fifth Avenue has ceased to be a focal point for his detractors.
EXCLUSIVE: A co-founder of Snapchat has denied that his app encourages children to exchange explicit photographs on their phones. CEO Evan Spiegel said users were more likely to send innocent "selfies" than offensive material. Spiegel, 23, speaking on his first visit to London, rejected accusations about the app, which lets users share photos that self-destruct within 10 seconds.
When the Indian Ocean tsunami hit the village of Lhok Nga 10 years ago this Boxing Day, it took almost everything with it. In the devastation caused by the 20-metre wave, less than a fifth of the population survived from the Indonesian village near the city of Banda Aceh.
Desi Yustina tenderly points to two tiny postage stamp-sized photographs tucked into a frame on the wall and says: "These are the only pictures I have of my parents."
"When you carry the torch you are the only person in the world carrying the Olympic flame," an official reminded me as I got on the bus with 10 other torchbearers in the Devonshire town of Okehampton this morning. And the people of Devon were today in no doubt about that.
Features and interviews
On 16 March 2020, the National Theatre, one of the country’s leading cultural institutions, went dark. For months the people who worked there fought to save their theatre in the midst of a crisis. Miranda Bryant meets the major players to discover how they found their way back towards the light
It's been roughly three years since Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian found out he was going to be a father, but he's still grappling with the profound awareness of his own mortality that came with it.
On the face of it, Brighton comes across as an environmentally friendly place. As well as having a Green-led council and being home to the constituency of Britain's only Green MP, signs of waste consciousness are everywhere. A coffee stand at the station promotes its "compostable" takeaway cups, and the steep streets nearby are dotted with big communal recycling bins.
They were just five words, separated by four tiny full stops and four spaces: "brother. do. you. love. me." But when, in November 2020, that text from Reuben Coe, who was alone in his room in a care home in Dorset, arrived on the phone of his brother Manni in Andalusia there was little else he could do.
Before the pandemic, Deborah Yewande Bankole was on what she describes as a "steady diet of short stories". She loved seeking out emerging writers and admired the work of Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Julia Armfield and Danielle Evans, but had not considered writing one of her own.
It was a fleeting encounter with the underside of a prominent author's shoe that got me thinking about my relationship with bookshops. Outside on the summer's evening streets of Manhattan, its inhabitants moved with their trademark unapologetic purpose towards post-work drinks, exercise classes, jobs, trains, parks, home, money, hope.
It was a landmark moment for women's football. Under the arch of Wembley stadium, to the soundtrack of Beyoncé's feminist anthem Run the World (Girls), more than 70,000 fans streamed in to watch Team GB take on Brazil in the London Olympics to result in what was then Britain's biggest ever women's football match.
Marianne Williamson, until recently best known for her Oprah-endorsed self-help books, got less than five minutes' airtime in the first round of Democratic presidential debates. But her contributions were memorable. Having instructed fellow candidates to "get deeper than the superficial fixes", she referred to the prime minister of New Zealand as "girlfriend" and issued a challenge to Donald Trump.
A lot of actors would "go into a tailspin" if they lost their director for two weeks during rehearsals for a big stage role, said director Dominic Cooke. But not Nicola Walker. When he returned to the National Theatre for rehearsals of The Corn is Green after a fortnight out with Covid, exclaiming how terrible it was that they had lost so much time, his lead actor put him straight.
When Marlee Matlin won the Oscar for best actress in 1987 for her performance in Children of a Lesser God, it was a landmark moment for deaf people. But it would be another 35 years before Troy Kotsur became only the second deaf person to be nominated for the honour, for his groundbreaking turn in .
Normally, when I look out of the window at London as the plane prepares to land I get an instant joyful rush of being home. But arriving during lockdown to move back after five years living in New York felt different.
Huge Ma first came up with the idea for his much-needed vaccination appointment-finding bot after discovering how complicated it was to book one for his mother. "You had to basically open three tabs, one for each major government vaccine portal, and then refresh all day until you got an appointment," said the 31-year-old software engineer from New York.
West Wing actor Anna Deavere Smith's one-woman play - soon to open in London - tackles a crisis in US schools
Scrolling through Airbnbs in Brooklyn, one listing stands out. "IMMUNE HOST," claims the heading in caps. Among photos of rooftop sunsets and interiors, lies something else unexpected - a picture of a positive antibody test. Host Martin Eaton says he got tested a few weeks after getting sick with what he suspected was Covid-19 in March.
Florence Welch first appeared on the south London music scene in 2OO8 in a haze of hedonism, red hair and glitter as the frontwoman of indie band Florence + The Machine. Now - a decade later - the band has three number-one multi-platinum albums and countless Grammy, BRIT and MTV awards, while the 32-year-old has several Gucci campaigns and a best-selling poetry book to her name.
When New York governor Andrew Cuomo became the poster boy for the American pandemic response, many long-time Cuomo watchers were puzzled. The brash, bullish New Yorker had always been divisive, known for being efficient and having good leadership skills, but not well liked, explains Monika McDermott, political science professor at Fordham University.
Before landing his dream job on Serial, arguably the world's most famous podcast, Emmanuel Dzotsi's audio experience consisted mainly of internships.
"I am invariably a big, big disappointment to people because they expect me to be something I'm not," Glenda Jackson says matter-of-factly over coffee in a sunlit corner of a tea house on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. If she is at all bothered by this, she doesn't show it.
Growing up in the New York suburbs, Mondaire Jones could not imagine himself running for public office. But after declaring victory in the Democratic primary for New York's 17th congressional district earlier this month, the 33-year-old progressive is now poised to make history as one of the first ever openly gay, Black members of Congress.
Heather B Armstrong participated in a study to see if a medically induced coma had an antidepressant effect - and felt dramatically different
Elina Berglund says her Natural Cycles app has worked for her. Now her focus is on the US, where women's healthcare is a political battleground
Before being cast as the star of Alfonso Cuarón's groundbreaking film Roma, Yalitza Aparicio's only acting experience consisted of telling fibs to her mother as a child. "I would say that I was going to go and do some work for my school and I was just having fun with my friends, but my mum is smart so she would always know that I was lying," she says, laughing.
Growing up in poverty in rural China, where her family collectively lived on as little as $0.44 a day, Kristy Shen learned to make decisions based on pragmatism rather than passion from a young age.
What is 'dream study', the new trend sweeping the creative world? I attended a class to find out
London theatre is in a golden age in New York, with hits like Angels in America and Harry Potter about to open. It's the real special relationship, says Miranda Bryant
Courses at Yale usually attract students in their dozens. So when Professor Laurie Santos saw that nearly 1,000 people had registered for her new course in little over a week, she was taken aback. Her first thought was, "That's weird", the 42-year-old primate psychology expert says with a laugh.
It's 9.30am. I am standing in a semicircle around a scented candle with a group of strangers in an office space in Manhattan, watching our problems, figuratively at least, go up in flames. "What's the one thing you're committed to not bringing into the space today?"
Review: Who is America?
Dominique Crenn is the first woman in the US to be awarded the top honor by the prestigious French restaurant guide for her restaurant Atelier Crenn
At New York's "high-vibration" restaurant abcV, pretty much everything on the menu is made from plants. To my right, a group of millennial women nurse wine glasses filled, not with booze but with luminous, cold-pressed carrot juice as they enthusiastically nibble crudités.