The Joy of Six 1204

Paul Browne heard Oleksandra Matviichuk, the Ukrainian winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, address the Cambridge Union: "Perhaps the most chilling aspect of Russia’s occupation of Ukraine she described is the tens of thousands of Ukrainian children who have been abducted and sent to Russia for adoption and re-education. This makes Russian President Vladimir Putin, in her words, 'the biggest child kidnapper in the world'." 

Sian Norris and Sophia Alexandra Hall speak to a whistleblower about the impact on vulnerable young people of the increasing privatisation of foster care: "Andrew (not his real name) told us that, during his time working at a number of Independent Fostering Agencies, he was alarmed by their business model approach, with carers seen as profit generators and staff incentivised to get more children into care. Foster carers were referred to as 'gold bars', while children were 'treated like commodities'." 

Better the United Arab Emirates owning the Telegraph than Paul Marshall, argues Peter Oborne.

Maria Popova introduces us to the pioneering Scottish mountaineer and poet Nan Shepherd: "Shepherd does for the mountain what Rachel Carson did for the ocean - both women explore entire worlds previously mapped only by men and mostly through the lens of conquest rather than contemplation; both bring to their subject a naturalist’s rigor and a poet’s reverence, gleaming from the splendor of facts a larger meditation on meaning."

Caroline Davies enters a Dickensian world and talks to those who recover bodies from the Thames

"I investigate reports of big cats in Suffolk, I've received over a hundred of these over the past seven years. But while seeking testimony on Suffolk big cat sightings, a surprising number of unsolicited accounts of encounters with the phantom East Anglian hellhound Black Shuck seem to come my way." Matt Salusbury on the persistence of folklore.