Issue 1342

Karima's right on cue
Warm-hearted but effortlessly cool, Karima Francis tells Antonia Charlesworth how she’s stayed true to her music through emotional and professional turmoil - and why she’s hosting a star-studded online festival to help Big Issue North vendors.

Supermarkets sweep
Photographers, teachers and waiters all felt compelled to change jobs because of the pandemic, some of them working for retailers. They tell Saskia Murphy about
the process of finding new employment so quickly and whether they’ll go back to their old positions.

‘Little Richard believed in me’
Maddy Brown-Clark, who used to sell Oregon street paper Street Roots, remembers her encounters with the music legend Little Richard, who died last month.

Plus
News, academic Jo Biglin on the need to change the country’s attitudes to immigration in the wake of George Floyd, art curator Leanne Green on statues old and new and their link to power, crossword, Sudoku and more.