Olivia Lee

5 days ago | theguardian.com | Josh Halliday |Olivia Lee |Mary Novakovich

It will take more than a TikTok trend to break Britons’ love affair with Mediterranean beaches. But latest figures show travellers are increasingly swapping Málaga for North Macedonia and Benidorm for the Balkans as part of a social media craze for “destination dupes”. Flights from the UK to Bosnia and Herzegovina soared by 284% in 2024 compared with the previous year, while trips to Montenegro increased by 164%.

6 days ago | charlotteobserver.com | Olivia Lee |Melissa Oyler

Small businesses in Western North Carolina, such as French Broad Chocolates, can still use help as the area rebuilds from Hurricane Helene. Although it's been months since Hurricane Helene devastated many North Carolina mountain towns, residents and local businesses are still struggling to get back on their feet in a region that relies heavily on tourism. With a decline in visitor numbers and travel dollars, and federal aid nowhere in sight, the future remains uncertain for many in the area.

2 weeks ago | theguardian.com | Josh Halliday |Olivia Lee

It’s lunchtime on St George’s Day and the Royal pub in Runcorn is a festival of flags, fags and Farage. “I’m sorry,” says Mike Kneale, a painter, as he explains which party he will back in this week’s crucial byelection: “But it’s Nigel Farage.”The Reform UK leader’s Cheshire cat grin leaps out from billboards and doormats all over this constituency, where his party is odds-on to win its fifth MP and deliver a blow to Keir Starmer.

1 month ago | msn.com | Olivia Lee

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1 month ago | theguardian.com | Olivia Lee

“To the Coffee-house, and there all the house full of the discourse of the great fire,” wrote Samuel Pepys of his trip to a 17th-century cafe – then the social nerve centre of London’s gossiping elite. Fast forward to the 21st century and the chattering classes have been replaced with the clattering classes – remote workers busily hammering away on their laptop keyboards and shouting on video calls to be heard over the mechanical grinding of coffee beans.