From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
If you're smoking three packs of cigarettes a day, should you expect society to pay when you get sick?" He added that while Americans would always have the right to "eat donuts all day," nevertheless, "should you then expect society to care for you when you predictably get very sick at the same level as somebody who was born with a congenital illness?
Mr Boland told the Irish Independent it was "an extraordinary honour" to meet with the Pope, who he said expressed empathy across the range of topics they discussed. "I met a very human Pope, a very human person, a person who seriously cares about people in disadvantage," he said. "He clearly had empathy with my mandate, which is to bring civil society to the heart of Europe in terms of policy making."
This was not the Christmas that Mariela Gomez would have imagined a year ago. Or the one that thousands of other Venezuelan immigrants in the United States would have thought. But Donald Trump returned to the White House in January and quickly ended their US dream. Gomez found herself spending the holiday in northern Venezuela for the first time in eight years. She dressed up, cooked, got her son a scooter and smiled for her in-laws.
Author's experience as a child labourer shaped his novels and social commentary within his works For Charles Dickens, his distaste of poverty and inequality was not born out of some distant observations of the society of his time, but from his lived experience within it. At the age of only 12, he was employed at Warren's Blacking Factory at London's Hungerford Stairs, fixing labels to bottles of boot polish.
According to the FBI's Crime Data Explorer (CDE), in 2023 there were 1,201,857 violent crimes committed in the United States. Violent crimes include homicide, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault. 945,601 of those crimes were committed by people in the age group of 20-29. The largest demographic of offenders based on race, sex, and ethnicity are white. This post was updated on December 19, 2025 to include an overview of the disparity that exists across America in terms of crime,
Flophouse America is the unnervingly intimate feature debut of Monica Strømdahl, an internationally award-winning photographer who spent 15 years documenting the impoverished communities that have sprung up in rundown motels throughout the US. Which is how she met Mikal, an energetic, 11-year old boy who's called home the hotel room he's shared with his parents since the day he was born.
While there are no "biggest" issues facing District 4 residents at the moment, there are numerous issues equal in priority - some of which are life-threatening. Many of the residents with who I have spoken recently say they are struggling financially, unable to meet their most basic needs, such as, food, housing, transportation. Available data suggests 1-in-3 live below the mean poverty level - I would argue the number is greater.
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging. At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground.
The human condition includes a vast array of unavoidable misfortunes. But what about the preventable ones? Shouldn't the United States provide for the basic needs of its people? Such questions get distinctly short shrift in the dominant political narratives. When someone can't make ends meet and suffers dire consequences, the mainstream default is to see a failing individual rather than a failing system.
Is our system too generous to older people? The generational debate in Spain has intensified, mixing reasonable arguments with false claims and misunderstandings. My position: the concern is valid, even though the problem has no simple solution. First, let's put one point aside: it doesn't matter if young people have lived better than their parents. My generation (1981), lives better than the one before it (1950), and I hope my daughter, born in 2023, will have an even better life.
Madagascar's President Andry Rajoelina dissolved his government on Monday following days of deadly unrest which the United Nations says left at least 22 people dead. "I have decided to terminate the functions of the Prime Minister and the government," Rajoelina said in a televised national address. He said that Prime Minister Christian Ntsay and other ministers would stay on an interim basis until a new government could be formed.
MASERU, Lesotho Puseletso Seema is musical royalty in the tiny African mountain kingdom of Lesotho, where she's known as "the Queen of Famo" - a popular genre of pastoral accordion music beloved by the country's people, the Basotho. But for all her fame, she never got rich, and the 77-year-old grandmother's living conditions these days are far from regal. She resides in a small, run-down home along a dusty road in the rural
If Blackpool was a stick of rock, Little Layton would be a ribbon of pink in the middle. To its left, the deep red of rundown bedsits near the promenade. To its right, the plush green streets of Poulton Le Fylde, where 1m mansions overlook a well-tended golf club. That is to say, Little Layton is one of the nicer parts of Blackpool.
The scramble to replace Angela Rayner as deputy leader of the Labour party is well under way. Apparently, it's inevitable the role will go to a candidate with similar claims to Rayner in terms of that much-vaunted quality, authenticity. Whether Bridget Phillipson or Lucy Powell, the next deputy leader will also be a woman from a working-class family from the north of England.
Here, the author talks about the fears she had about sharing her story, the emotional rollercoaster of her book being adapted for the stage and why she said no to running for office Just over two years ago, I interviewed Katriona O'Sullivan - then a senior lecturer, but now a professor in Maynooth University's department of psychology - in her sparse on-campus office.
Just over two years ago, I interviewed Katriona O'Sullivan - then a senior lecturer, but now a professor in Maynooth University's department of psychology - in her sparse on-campus office. We talked, and cried a little, as she detailed the story that would become her memoir, Poor. A remarkable and powerful account of poverty, addiction, neglect, homelessness and trauma, O'Sullivan recalled how she was born in Coventry to parents battling addiction.
Tariffs aren't just bad for business and consumers: They will also increase the number of Americans living in poverty, according to new research. An analysis out this week from The Budget Lab at Yale University found the Trump administration's new 2025 tariff hikes will increase the number of Americans living in poverty by somewhere between 650,000 and 875,000 in 2026-that's 0.2% to 0.3% of the U.S. population-including some 150,000 to 375,000 children.
In a dimly lit, suffocatingly hot gym in Yemen, bodybuilder Saleh Hussein al-Raidi wraps his hands around rusty barbells, training with steely-eyed resolve for his dream of entering major competitions abroad. But the 24-year-old, who works two jobs to support his family, lacks the means to buy the supplements and protein-rich foods he needs to build bulk, setting him up for a more gruelling fight than many of his opponents.
"These support programs are being cut amid an increased environment of hostility towards LGBTQ+ people. We're really seeing this coming together ... of different pressures that are going to lead to poverty and unemployment among LGBTQ+ people."
"These support programs are being cut amid an increased environment of hostility towards LGBTQ+ people," said Brad Sears, distinguished scholar of law and policy at the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law. "We're really seeing this coming together ... of different pressures that are going to lead to poverty and unemployment among LGBTQ+ people."
