Estrangement is not binary, but a continuum of reducing contact. Support plays an important role, whether or not people seek to reconcile

• The modern mind is a column where experts discuss mental health issues they are seeing in their work

Despite media stories occasionally highlighting high-profile family estrangements, in many cultures estrangement carries a stigma, a direct challenge to deeply held values about what family should be.

People estranged from families often feel shame or a sense they’ve failed, and carry the distress silently, in private. However, research on estrangement suggests it’s far more common than most people think.

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As a uni student my pay went towards petrol and books, with little left for fun. But I never expected anyone to buy me a ticket

• Read more in the kindness of strangers series

I was a teenager – just a little kid, really. It was 2003 and I would often co-present the Youth Show on Brisbane community radio station 4ZZZ. Part of the job was to read out the weekly all-ages gig guide, at a time when there was lots of live music to discover.

Beck, one of my favourite artists, was coming to play at Festival Hall a few days before my 18th birthday. The show was all-ages, so when I read out the event details I cheekily joked that someone should buy me a ticket for my birthday. I was a uni student whose casual wages all went towards petrol and books for uni, with little left over for fun, so buying my own ticket was out of the question. Not that I actually expected anyone to buy me one – I was just being a brat!

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The destruction of homes and villages in southern Lebanon leaves a mark not just on those living there, but families watching on across the globe

For the last two years, much of the Lebanese diaspora – estimated to be about 15 million people spread across Australia, Europe, North and South America and more – has held its breath. Much of it watched from afar, helpless, during the latest extended conflict between Hezbollah and Israel as Israeli attacks on their motherland, and particularly its southern villages, resulted in widespread destruction. To date, more than 1.2 million people have been displaced, thousands killed, and roughly 14.3% of Lebanese territory ordered to be vacated. But while those within the country endure their own suffering, those in the diaspora face a different, emotional struggle: the loss of familial homes they may not be able to return to, and a severing of connection to a place that is a fundamental part of who they are.

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La Brea Tar Pits – the only urban, active ice age excavation site in world – gets a mammoth face lift for the first time in nearly 50 years

Los Angeles is known for famous museum such as the Getty and the Lacma, but perhaps fewer people are aware that – in the heart of the city – lies a museum that contains one of the world’s most remarkable fossil sites.

The La Brea Tar Pits and Museum is home to the remains of more than 2 million ice age flora and fauna, including mastodons and saber-toothed cats, that became trapped in oily pools that still bubble up today.

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Hij leve hoog, de grootste muzikant aller tijden is vandaag jarig. Niet de beste zanger - een boel van z'n hits werden beter uitgevoerd door anderen (All Along the Watchtower, Make You Feel My Love, Mr. Tambourine Man, Blowin' in the wind, Knockin' on Heaven's Door, enz.) - maar wel de meest invloedrijke van allemaal. Een kunstenaar, een artiest, een vernieuwer, die ging van traditioneel folk naar ongehoord elektrisch naar country naar het fenomenale Blood on the Tracks naar religieus en gospel naar een volledige bluesy wederopstanding met het gruwelijke Time Out Of Mind naar Sinatra-albums naar Rough and Rowdy Ways, het definitieve eindpunt van de popmuziek. Voor sommigen restte hierna alleen nog een ontdekkingtocht door jazz. Ondertussen eeuwig op tour voor de Never Ending Tour, altijd mysterieus en geniaal, Bob Dylan had en heeft het nog steeds allemaal. Hieronder in willekeurige volgorde een paar favorieten schrijver dezes, maar vertel vooral uw eigen herinnering aan His Bobness.

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Nu partijleider Özgür Özel door een Turkse rechter uit zijn functie is gezet, groeit de chaos binnen de Republikeinse Volkspartij CHP. De grootste oppositiepartij van Turkije, die bij de volgende presidentsverkiezingen een serieuze uitdager van Erdogan lijkt, dreigt ten onder te gaan aan een interne machtsstrijd.

faun070 has added a photo to the pool:

'Mirrorscape'- by Théo Mercier, MONA

faun070 has added a photo to the pool:

'Elektra' (2025) - by Anselm Kiefer, MONA