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A cat who alerts his deaf owner to visitors and phone calls is in the running for a national award. Zebby, a two-year-old black-and-white cat from Chesterfield, in Derbyshire, taps his owner Genevieve Moss’s face to alert her to put on her hearing aid. Ms. Moss said: “Without my hearing aid, I can’t hear anything, but now I have Zebby to help me.”

A wheelchair user said pharmacy chain Boots “should know better” after erecting a sign labelling parking spaces for “less abled” customers. The nationwide company has been forced to issue an apology – and hastily change the sign – following a public backlash on social media. The signage, beneath the symbol of a person in a wheelchair, was installed in the car park of the store at Riverside in Norwich.

Wearing hearing aids could help cut the risk of dementia, according to a large decade-long study, which suggests that tackling hearing loss early may help reduce the global burden of the disease.

Almost half of all respondents to the Changing Faces survey said they faced hostile behaviour such as staring, comments and intimidation, up from 34% in 2019 and 43% in 2021, while 33% said they had been a victim of a hate crime.

A Derby woman is heading to Australia to represent the United Kingdom in the World Transplant Games. Diana Higman is to compete in the event where all the athletes are recipients of organ transplants.