4 h. ago A Tooth Fairy Tale review – animated adventure with a sprinkling of family

A child-suitable romantic subplot underpins this enjoyable story of fairies putting their long-standing differences with goblins aside to defeat a common enemyIn this animated adventure for preteens, the fairy community’s mission in life is to gather teeth from slumbering children and leave gold for the kids to find under their pillows. (Gold? In my day it was 10p! That’s inflation for you.) Skateboarding teenage rebel fairy Van (voiced by Booboo Stewart) is less than thrilled by the prospect of spending the foreseeable collecting baby teeth and, to be fair to him, this is entirely reasonable. He’s only a tiny bit more interested in the underlying economics of the situation: the fairies deliver the teeth to unseen goblins, who provide metal in exchange. But Van’s curiosity is piqued when he lays eyes on a goblin (voiced by Larkin Bell) and she turns out to be far from the hideous gnome he had been led to expect.The stage is set for an adventure with a light sprinkling of teen romanc...

Society

31 h. ago The Book of Revelations by Juliet Nicolson review: Family secrets, universal histories

Vita Sackville-West’s granddaughter plots family secrets against British society’s changing system of taboos

Society

5 d. ago Review: I experienced the perfect mix of family fun and fiendish frights at this year's Alton Towers Scarefest event

The popular Staffordshire resort is decked out for the Halloween season and makes sure it ticks all the right boxes for the entire family

Politics

6 d. ago Labour to reintroduce grants axed by Tories for poorest university students

Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson said universities shouldn't 'just be for the wealthy few' as she vowed to take action before the end of the Parliament

Politics

6 d. ago Students on ‘priority courses’ will receive maintenance grants, says Phillipson

The grants would be funded by a new levy on international students.

Politics

9 d. ago How the Queen was reduced to tears by Prince Philip's blazing row with Churchill: Bitter feud revealed in new book by royal blockbuster author ANDREW MORTON... and the revelations don't stop there

Winston Churchill sat up in bed, scattering sheafs of state papers, his prominent blue eyes welling with tears. He had just been told that his wartime friend King George VI had died.

Politics

9 d. ago MOVIE REVIEW: We check out family frights in horror 'The Dark and the Wicked'

Director Bryan Bertino's fourth stab at horror is dripping with dread and atmosphere.

Events

2 w. ago DWP health benefits blow as new secretary 'not ruling out' changes to universal credit

Pat McFadden did not rule out ending health-related universal credit payments for some claimants based on age

Society

2 w. ago Britain's benefits culture is 'unhealthy' and they must be curbed, admit Labour as the areas where more than one in ten residents are on jobless hand

Work and Pensions Secretary Pat McFadden hinted at tightening eligibility for universal credit.

Society

2 w. ago Cursed Daughters by Oyinkan Braithwaite review – a family doomed in love

This intense follow-up to My Sister, the Serial Killer is a haunting story of heartbreak, grief and intergenerational traumaRepeat a family story often enough, and it becomes a kind of legend – or a curse. The Faloduns at the centre of Cursed Daughters share tales of heartbroken women across the generations who just can’t seem to hold on to a man. There’s Fikayo, whose husband left after he tired of tending to her chronic illness; Afoke, who seduced her younger sister’s boyfriend; Feranmi, the matriarch of the family, who got pregnant by a married man and received the curse from the man’s first wife. Again and again, the narrative is interrupted by these tales about grandmothers and great-great-grandmothers; eventually, it feels almost as if the novel is haunted by the stories themselves.Nigerian-British novelist Oyinkan Braithwaite splashed on to the literary scene in 2018 with My Sister, the Serial Killer, a taut debut about sisterhood, jealousy and murder. Cursed Daughters, her s...

Politics

2 w. ago New Work and Pensions Secretary will not rule out tougher universal credit rules

‘Look, I’m not ruling anything out. Welfare reform is really important,’ Pat McFadden told the BBC.

Economics

2 w. ago Inside China's secretive lab rewriting our understanding of the UNIVERSE: $300 million detector 2,300ft underground is being used to sniff out mysterious ghost particles

Deep underneath a granite hill in southern China, an enormous detector is sniffing out the secrets of the universe.

Economics

2 w. ago Diplo: The Mighty Dinosaur review – family dino animation goes meta as it rebels against ‘cute’

A strange, not entirely convincing attempt to add conceptual depth sees an animator forced to erase his own mildly annoying cartoon creationsWe’re in familiar children’s entertainment territory at the start of this family animation featuring a tiny little sincere dinosaur: mildly annoying lead character, mildly annoying would-be wizard sidekick delivering all the requisite snarky asides, plus mildly annoying assorted other critters. But in an unlikely swerve, this Czech/Polish/Slovakian production (dubbed into English for this release) turns out to honour the more formally and conceptually interesting heritage of east European animation. A couple of beats into the story, we suddenly find ourselves in a live-action environment, with a real human sitting in a dark basement studio, working away, drawing cartoons – the self-same cartoon, in fact, that we’ve just been watching.The artist is then interrupted by an extremely grating woman – think Joan Cusack’s deranged hyper-girly Debbie J...

Politics

3 w. ago Horror king reveals tragic reason his daughter is involved in haunting theme park work

EXCLUSIVE: John Murdy is the creative horror genius behind decades of terrifying work in Universal Studios Hollywood, so I caught up with him to discuss secrets from this year's Halloween event

Events

3 w. ago Mysterious Christian symbols unearthed in biblical city reveal secrets of the Book of Revelation

Christian symbols in an unearthed Roman hall from 2,000 years ago have revealed new details of early Christianity in the ancient world.

Politics

3 w. ago Voices: Starmer is risking becoming mired in sleaze as he backs Mandelson over ‘best pal’ Epstein

Amid all the fallout from the Epstein ‘Birthday Book’, could the revelation that the US ambassador helped the late paedophile broker a $1bn deal, when he was Labour’s business secretary, be the point of no return, asks Sean O’Grady

Events

3 w. ago Voices: Starmer must ask Mandelson some serious questions about his ‘best pal’ Epstein

Amid the fallout from the Epstein ‘Birthday Book’, could the revelation that Peter Mandelson helped broker a $1bn deal for Epstein be the point of no return, asks Sean O’Grady

Politics

3 w. ago Voices: Starmer must ask serious questions of Mandelson and ‘best pal’ Epstein

Amid the fallout from the Epstein ‘Birthday Book’, could the revelation that Lord Mandelson helped broker a $1bn deal for Epstein, be the point of no return, asks Sean O’Grady

Politics

3 w. ago Holding Liat review – powerful study of a family torn apart by Hamas’ 7 October attacks

Brandon Kramer’s documentary complicates any simple view of the Israel-Gaza war in its portrait of one family’s agonising divisionsAt the present moment, for pro-Palestinian campaigners, mention of the hostages and victims of Hamas’s 7 October attacks tends to be greeted with indifference, or even contempt. And yet this powerful and complex documentary, directed by Brandon Kramer (a distant relative of some of the people involved) and co-produced by Darren Aronofsky, is a reminder that the situation now can’t be understood without remembering the Hamas massacre – how it was calculated to provoke a rage-filled reaction that would discredit Israel internationally, what it meant and continues to mean within Israel and how the political and ideological connotations of the hostages have themselves evolved.At first, the hostages’ images were widely seen as a focus for outrage and a casus belli. Posters put up in cities showing the hostages were ripped down - to the fury of their families....

Events

3 w. ago Jeffrey Epstein's 'assistant' met Prince Andrew and sat on Queen Elizabeth's throne during visit to Buckingham Palace, Ghislaine Maxwell's 'birthday book' claims

The unnamed woman made the revelations in the disgraced financier's 50th 'birthday book', which was compiled by Ghislaine Maxwell in 2003.

Politics