5 h. ago Young and old can get along to Dobbies in Livingston and discover the joys of gardening

Free workshops are taking place for children and adults

Politics

13 h. ago Dark secrets adult Disney addicts are hiding: Sex, betrayal and bankruptcy... told by woman who escaped

Grown adults fight over limited-edition merch, push past children, and plunge into debt for their addiction. And that's just the start of it...

Politics

18 h. ago When I moved in with the author of Mr Ripley, friends said they thought she was in love with me. But I was afraid this ill

I first read Patricia Highsmith's novels in the autumn of 1994. I was 20 and living in a room in her house in Tegna, Switzerland, that was plastered with bookshelves.

Culture

28 h. ago Fake Labubu dolls are a choking risk, warns UK standards body

Thousands of the viral toys are poorly made while genuine dolls ‘are almost impossible to find’, CTSI saysGrowing numbers of counterfeit Labubu dolls being sold in the UK are poorly made and pose a choking hazard to young children, a trading standards body has warned.The toothy, fluffy monster doll figures, made exclusively by the Chinese toymaker Pop Mart, have surged in popularity among children and adults after going viral on social media. Celebrity fans include Rihanna and Lisa from the K-pop group Blackpink, while many owners like to attach the dolls to handbags or backpacks. Continue reading...

Events

35 h. ago The Magician of Tiger Castle by Louis Sachar review – whimsical fantasy in a kingdom long, long ago

In this first adult novel from the acclaimed children’s author, an immortal magician returns to tell the story of a royal court where he cast his spells some 500 years beforeThe American author Louis Sachar’s most celebrated book, 1998’s YA novel Holes, was a huge word-of-mouth success on both sides of the Atlantic. Its short, punchy chapters tell the story of plump, hapless Stanley Yelnats, sent to a summer camp for wayward boys, where a terrifying Warden has peculiar ideas about character reformation. The 5ft-deep holes the boys are required to dig turn out to have a surprising purpose. Shifts of time, register and perspective render a simple premise mesmerisingly intricate. It has peril, love, crime, wickedness, redemption and friendship in, well, spades.A quarter of a century later, Sachar has written his first supposedly adult novel, in which many of the same ingredients reappear. A man “dressed like a typical American tourist”, but with an odd habit of storing cake crumbs in t...

Politics

52 h. ago Amazon's 'massive and brilliant' garden pool perfect for adults too for less than £40

The Intex Easy Set Up 10 Foot Pool is selling fast as Brits endure another summer heatwave and can be used by children and adults alike

Economics

3 d. ago 4 children and 2 adults are killed when fire rips through a house in Maryland

Authorities say four children and two adults were killed when fire ripped through a house in Charles County, Maryland

Events

3 d. ago 'We visited the family friendly pub where two kids eat free this summer and were seriously impressed'

For the price of just one adult meal, two children get to eat free and get ice cream too

Politics

3 d. ago Maryland house fire: Six dead, including four children, after horror fire

Authorities confirmed two adults and four children sadly died in the house fire. One adult escaped, and two more were not home when the fire broke out on Sunday morning

Events

5 d. ago FBI and NSPCC alarmed at ‘shocking’ rise in online sextortion of children

Snapchat logged about 20,000 cases last year of adults grooming children online, more than other social media platforms combinedTech companies including Snapchat and Facebook reported more than 9,600 cases of adults grooming children online in the UK in just six months last year – the equivalent of about 400 a week.Law enforcement agencies, including the FBI and the UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA), have grown increasingly alarmed about the growing threat from sextortion and other crimes targeting teenagers. Continue reading...

Events

5 d. ago Mare’s Nest review – an opaque, challenging reflection on the end of the world

Locarno film festivalBen Rivers’s cine-poem, based on Don DeLillo’s climate crisis play The Word for Snow, follows a child’s strange encounters as she wanders in a postapocalyptic world devoid of adultsEnglish experimentalist Ben Rivers offers up another challenging, intriguing cine-poem, this time on the nature of existence and the end of the world. It is opaque but with flashes of strange brilliance, an adaptation of The Word for Snow, a one-act stage play by Don DeLillo from 2007 that reflected on the climate crisis.A child called Moon (Moon Guo Barker) wanders around a strange world, entirely peopled by other children, except for one eerie monochrome sequence in which Moon sees adult figures in some kind of underground tunnel, frozen in attitudes of dismay similar to the citizenry of Pompeii. In the course of her travels, bookended by clambering out of a crashed car and finally driving happily off, Moon has dreamlike encounters with these children who speak with the tongues of a...

Politics

5 d. ago The UK's Online Safety Act is a licence for censorship – and the rest of the world is following suit | Taylor Lorenz

From the US and Australia to France and Italy, those seeking to obliterate privacy and restrict content are on the move Over the past two weeks, the UK has reportedly blocked internet users’ access to everything from SpongeBob SquarePants gifs to Spotify playlists. Information about Joe Biden’s police funding plan has been restricted, along with a post about an up-and-coming political party. Gamers say they have been unable to tweak colours in games such as Minecraft. And it’s all because of a new age verification law.Since the child safety provisions contained within the Online Safety Act came into effect on 25 July, web service providers have been forced to institute “highly effective” age verification measures to prevent children from accessing “harmful” or “adult” content. The penalty for failing to adequately comply with the act includes hefty fines and potential criminal action.Taylor Lorenz is a technology journalist who writes the newsletter User Mag and is the author of the...

Politics

5 d. ago Relative of brutally murdered mum demands inquest as serial killer's identity 'revealed'

Catherine Eddowes was the fourth victim of the infamous Jack the Ripper serial killer, who stalked the streets of east London in 1888

Events

6 d. ago It’s a Laburglary! $7,000 worth of Labubu dolls stolen from LA store

Burglars broke into store after hours and swiped boxes of the trendy doll popularized by Rihanna and other celebsThe craze for a toothy, fluffy, mischievous monster doll and all its viral spin-offs is escalating into a potential crime wave.A group of burglars has broken into a Los Angeles store, taking thousands of dollars worth of Labubu dolls, which have surged in popularity this year among both children and adults, including celebrity sightings. Continue reading...

Politics

6 d. ago It’s a Laburglary! Thousands of dollars worth of Labubu dolls stolen from LA store

Burglars broke into store after hours and swiped boxes of the trendy doll popularized by Rihanna and other celebsThe craze for a toothy, fluffy, mischievous monster doll and all its viral spin-offs is escalating into a potential crime wave.A group of burglars has broken into a Los Angeles store, taking thousands of dollars worth of Labubu dolls, which have surged in popularity this year among both children and adults, including celebrity sightings. Continue reading...

Politics

6 d. ago School trip horror as 32 children and adults who went kayaking rescued from North Sea

The council has now launched an investigation

Events

7 d. ago Moment Orthodox Jews are attacked with water pistols in 'cowardly' social media 'pranks'

Two young men were seen in a video driving around Manchester and laughing as they sprayed adults and children wearing orthodox clothing who were walking down the street.

Events

8 d. ago Family's heartbreak as horrific fire kills pet dogs and rips through their home in scene of utter devastation

Dad Connor 'got a call nobody wants' as the family's lives turned upside down

Events

8 d. ago Verbally abused children more likely to have poor mental health as adults, study finds

Analysis suggests long-term damage to wellbeing can be worse than for children experiencing physical abuseParents who ridicule, threaten or humiliate their children risk leaving them with a 64% higher chance of having poor mental health as an adult, a study has found.The research also found physical abuse experienced among the research participants reduced over time, while verbal abuse increased. Continue reading...

Society

1 week ago 'Barely legal' pornography featuring adults dressed as children could be banned by new government taskforce amid fury over Channel 4's Bonnie Blue documentary

The proposed ban by the independent pornography taskforce - set up in July by Conservative peer Gabby Bertin - comes in response to 1,000 men and me: The Bonnie Blue story.

Politics