Earthships, hemp and hay: the houses built for off-grid living

Through careful planning, a commitment to energy-efficient design and sometimes necessity, these Australians have embraced life off the grid

Kathy Menzel says she used to be completely oblivious to power bills, “just running along in the hamster wheel like everybody else, you know, busy, busy, busy, spend, spend, spend”. She and her husband Bob, both IT professionals, did have an inkling they wanted something different though, yearning for a serene country lifestyle with no neighbours.

When they finally found their dream block in the Adelaide Hills, reality hit home. “We’d been looking for five years for this great piece of land in the middle of nowhere but still easy to commute to the city,” she says. “But it was going to cost $450,000 to get on to the grid.” The cost of connecting was far more than the $238,000 for the 10 acre block, which was only 1.5km from a main road.

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This is what the EuroMillions couple could buy with their £105m

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Meet the activists bringing urban farms to one of America's most deprived cities

One in three people in Cleveland and surrounds live in a food desert. But the desperation for healthy food has kicked off one of the biggest urban farming movements in the US

• City Champions: read more stories in this series

Autumn foliage signals the end of the growing season across the rust belt states as farmers wind down for the winter chill.

Yet in Cleveland’s bleak “forgotten triangle”, bountiful crops of rainbow chard, collard greens and plump purple aubergines are blooming at one of the city’s urban farms.

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UK house price growth picks up speed despite economic uncertainty

Properties are becoming more affordable but economic uncertainty is still putting buyers off, say experts

House price growth in the UK has picked up despite continued economic and political uncertainty, but remains far below the levels seen before the EU referendum.

The average price of a home rose by 0.5% in November to £215,734, according to Nationwide building society. This is the biggest monthly rise since July 2018, and up from 0.2% in October. The annual growth rate picked up to 0.8% from 0.4%, the highest since April.

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Meet the activists bringing urban farms to one of America's most deprived cities

One in three people in Cleveland and surrounds live in a food desert. But the desperation for healthy food has kicked off one of the biggest urban farming movements in the US

• City Champions: read more stories in this series

Autumn foliage signals the end of the growing season across the rust belt states as farmers wind down for the winter chill.

Yet in Cleveland’s bleak “forgotten triangle”, bountiful crops of rainbow chard, collard greens and plump purple aubergines are blooming at one of the city’s urban farms.

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The nation is busiest home-hunting at 8.48pm on a Wednesday

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UK house prices rise despite general election uncertainty – business live

Rolling coverage of the latest economics and financial news

7.42am GMT

Good morning, and welcome to our rolling coverage of the world economy, the financial markets, the eurozone and business.

After months of being dampened down by economic and political uncertainty, Britain’s housing market may be flickering back to life.

“Annual house price growth remained below 1% for the 12th month in a row in November, at 0.8%, though this was the strongest outturn since April.

Indicators of UK economic activity have been fairly volatile in recent quarters, but the underlying pace of growth appears to have slowed as a result of weaker global growth and an intensification of Brexit uncertainty. To date, the slowdown has largely centred on business investment, while household spending has been more resilient.

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