65 m. ago Roblox steps up age checks and groups younger users into age

Roblox is stepping up its age verification system for users who want to privately message other players and implementing age-based chats so kids, teens and adults will only be able to message people around their own age

Politics

70 m. ago Mum and three kids killed in house fire 'by sister's jealous booze

Sharaz Ali, 40 and Calum Sunderland, 26, are accused of murdering Bryonie Gawith, 29, Denisty Birtle, nine, Oscar Birtle, five, and 22-month-old Aubree Birtle and attempting to murder Antonia Gawith

Events

2 h. ago Israel needs to face accountability for our genocide. And so does the US | Yuli Novak

The international community allowed all of this to happen. We must not look away or move onGenocide is a process, not an event. When genocide happens, its roots, and the conditions that allowed it, often become visible only in retrospect. If those conditions remain unchanged and there is no accountability, there’s every reason to believe the violence will return, perhaps even worse, especially if it was never fully halted. This is exactly what we are seeing in the case of Gaza. Demanding accountability from Israeli leaders isn’t just about the past, it’s the only way to challenge a system designed to repeat such violence.A strange kind of calm has settled over Israel in the weeks since the Gaza ceasefire was declared. The sirens stopped. The hostages who survived the 7 October attack and nearly two years in captivity came home. But this calm – which has not been extended to Gaza, where more than 200 civilians have been killed since the ceasefire supposedly went into effect is built ...

Politics

2 h. ago The Congo basin may be the world’s most important rainforest – why is it the least researched?

It is the second-largest tropical forest on Earth, and one of the most vital carbon sinks, but is losing out when it comes to climate policy and fundingIn October 2023, leaders, scientists and policymakers from three of the world’s great rainforest regions – the Amazon, the Congo, and the Borneo-Mekong basins – assembled in Brazzaville, capital of the Republic of Congo. They were there to discuss one urgent question: how to save the planet’s last great tropical forests from accelerating destruction.For those present, the question was existential. But to their dismay, almost no one noticed. “There was very little acknowledgment that this was happening, outside of the Congo basin region,” says Prof Simon Lewis, a lecturer at the University of Leeds and University College London, and co-chair of the Congo Basin Science Initiative (CBSI). Continue reading...

Politics

2 h. ago Teen killed in M66 crash 'after cop chase' as pals set off fireworks at scene in tribute

Kade Hughes has been named as the teenager who died in the collision on the M66, near Simister Island, in Bury, on Sunday night (November 16) - he was on foot when the incident happened

Events

3 h. ago Best kids’ snow boots to keep little feet warm and dry all winter

With help from my mini testers, I’ve found options for a range of ages, styles and budgets

Events

3 h. ago ‘Do we live in a war zone?’: how US schools prepare for a shooting

In the troubling HBO documentary Thoughts and Prayers, the $3bn active shooter preparedness industry shows the bleak reality of being a child in the USTalking about changes experienced by kids Ttday often runs the risk of sounding reactionary, not to mention naive. No, there wasn’t as much talk about autism, or transgender kids, or any number of topics growing up in the ‘80s and ‘90s, because they weren’t understood or discussed in the same way – not because they didn’t exist. But it’s striking, watching the new HBO documentary Thoughts and Prayers, the degree to which it shows a demonstrable change from the experiences of someone growing up 30 or 40 years ago versus today: the absolute universality of emergency action plans that go beyond the scope of the fire drills you might remember. Thoughts and Prayers surveys many of those lockdown drills, and the many supplements available to contemporary schools designed to offer further protection from an active shooter: bulletproof backpa...

Events

3 h. ago Death threats and accusations: the professor targeted by the US far right

Mark Bray has become one of the highest-profile people caught up in Donald Trump’s efforts to target AntifaBaggage dropped and boarding passes in hand, Mark Bray and his family cleared security at Newark airport in early October. Their flight to Spain was meant to ferry the family of four to safety after days of mounting threats; instead, as they waited at the gate to board, they were told that someone had cancelled their reservation.“It felt like I was being watched and laughed at,” said Bray, a professor at Rutgers university who teaches a course on the history of antifascism and in 2017 wrote a book on Antifa. “I knew it was politically motivated one way or the other.” Continue reading...

Events

3 h. ago Tom Cruise's brutal response to Nicole Kidman's divorce as he thanks 'karma'

Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman were married for 11 years before their split in 2001 with the actor 'closely following' her recent divorce from Keith Urban.

Politics

4 h. ago I’ve known David Moyes since we were kids and he was made to manage Celtic but here's why it's never happened

Pat Nevin has known Moyes since they were kids in the Celtic academy and reckons he was 'made' for the top job at Parkhead

Politics

4 h. ago Save up to '£200 a year' on energy bills by turning 1 switch on boiler

As temperatures plummet and Brits crank up their heating, one expert has shared a simple trick that could save you hundreds of pounds on your energy bills every year

Economics

5 h. ago Washing machines will stop smelling with 1 free item you already have at home

No one wants to have a smelly washing machine but sometimes it happens. Luckily you can solve the issue by using an item you more than likely have in your house

Politics

5 h. ago Mum hit by lightning says what happens in death is nothing like she imagined

Elizabeth Krohn was struck by a bolt of lightning outside a synagogue in Houston, Texas, in 1988, and she claims she was briefly transported to heaven after her accident

Events

5 h. ago The 27 signs you're officially 'past it': Pop culture expert REBECCA MAY reveals the lifestyle habits that prove you're showing your age

British brand expert Rebecca May has revealed the 27 passé lifestyle habits that indicate you're no longer ahead of the curve.

Politics

5 h. ago Met Office say exact time snow is forecast in Greater Manchester as freezing blast hits

Temperatures are plummeting across our region and other parts of the UK this week

Events

5 h. ago Mum hit by lightning makes startling discovery about what happens when we die

Elizabeth Krohn wants to stay alive to see her granddaughter get married and have kids one day but she revealed she is no longer scared to die after her near-death experience

Events

6 h. ago Tom Cruise breaks silence on Nicole Kidman's divorce with brutal response

Tom Cruise feels 'vindicated' by Nicole Kidman's devastating split from Keith Urban

Politics

6 h. ago The Wax Child by Olga Ravn review – a visceral tale of witchcraft

The author of The Employees goes back to 17th-century Denmark for an intensely poetic portrait of everyday sorcery and female solidarityOn 26 June 1621, in Copenhagen, a woman was beheaded – which was unusual, but only in the manner of her death. According to one historian, during the years 1617 to 1625, in Denmark a “witch” was burned every five days. The first time this happens in Danish author Olga Ravn’s fourth novel, the condemned woman is “tied to the ladder, and the ladder pushed into the bonfire”. Her daughter watches as she falls, her eye “so strangely orange from within. And then in the heat it explodes.”The child is watched, in turn, by a wax doll who sees everything: everything in this scene, and everything everywhere, through all space and all the time since it was fashioned. It sees the worms burrowing through the soil in which it is buried; the streets of the world in which it was made. It inhabits the bodies that walked those streets: “And I was in the king’s ea...

Politics

6 h. ago New £120,000 bank rule from December in first update since 2017

Customers won't need to do anything

Economics

7 h. ago Now is not the time for a Labour leadership election | Polly Toynbee

The focus should be on talking up this government’s achievements so far – and preventing a Reform victoryThe dominant political force sweeping across Europe is the “throw the bastards out” party, whoever happens to be in power. Discontent and distrust spread as global democracy declines. Only 6.6% of the world’s people live in a full democracy, according to the Economist’s global index, down from 12.5% 10 years ago. Europe is still the most democratic place, but it’s turbulent.Britain is an insular country that needs reminding it is not alone in its political turmoil after an omnishambles week for Keir Starmer’s government. The rumbling earthquakes beneath No 10 also shake the ground under the Élysée Palace and other official residences. A number of European countries have thrown out old governments in the past three years, including Finland, Germany, Italy, Latvia, the Netherlands, Poland, Slovakia, Sweden and the UK (Starmer is Britain’s sixth prime minister in less than a decade)...

Politics