Spain’s Christmas lottery, a lucrative and much-loved annual tradition that often ends in the joyous detonation of cava corks and the hatching of big plans, took place on Wednesday amid soaring Covid infections and the first ever strike by ticket ...

Hong Kong’s oldest university erected security barriers around a statue mourning those killed in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square and posted guards at the site late on Wednesday, in a move that may signal the artwork’s imminent removal. The 8-metre-high Pillar of Shame ...

An analysis of DNA from a 5,700-year-old tomb has revealed the world’s oldest family tree, shedding “extraordinary” light on the importance of family and descent among people who were some of Britain’s first farmers. A research team has examined the bones ...

The heir to the JCB digger empire, whose father Lord Bamford is one of Boris Johnson’s biggest financial backers, is locked in a legal battle with a former close friend that has shed fresh light on alleged tensions inside one ...

Russia claims it has agreed to begin talks with the US early next year to discuss Moscow’s demands for “security guarantees” in Europe, including a ban on Ukraine’s entrance into the Nato military alliance. If confirmed, the talks would begin a ...

It was spring, and human excrement was pumping into our garden. I watched through the window as a perplexed young plumber with a long metal pole excavated the dark, gurgling drain. As if lockdown hadn’t been bad enough, our kitchen ...

I sent a mass invitation for our family Christmas party for Christmas Day. The next day my aunt invited everyone over to her house for our family Christmas party, the day after Christmas. I cannot find one person outside my ...

Christmas was always such a magical time for me when I was young, and the beginning of December 1970, filled with excitement and anticipation, was no different. I was six and though I had already figured out there was no ...