National News

Healthy Start payments need to increase by 20% to compensate for increases in the cost of food, councils have said. The scheme, which helps pregnant women or families with children under the age of four with the cost of food and milk, does not currently cover the price of any available first infant formula, the Local Government Association (LGA) said. It has called for support for families with a baby

Strictly Come Dancing contestant Layton Williams has said he hopes his appearance on the show has “spread a little bit of light”. The film and theatre actor, 29, is partnered with Nikita Kuzmin and the pair landed in the second spot on the leaderboard after a dazzling week seven jive last weekend. Williams, who starred in BBC Three series Bad Education, said in October on X, formerly Twitter, that the

A report has branded it “disappointing” that the prison and probation service has not worked harder to understand why black prison leavers and women are less likely to find a job in the months after their release. Overall, around half of the work aimed at resettling prison leavers is not being routinely carried out, a committee of MPs looking into the issue across England and Wales found. The Public Accounts

Ange Postecoglou believes Tottenham have already passed plenty of tests this season – but he will not let the absence of nine first-team players at Wolves offer up an excuse for a dropoff in performance. Spurs suffered their first defeat of the Premier League campaign on Monday in a chaotic 4-1 home loss to Chelsea, which could have further consequences in the long term. Destiny Udogie and Cristian Romero were

Celebrity Big Brother will be returning to TV screens in 2024, ITV has announced. When the show airs on ITV next year a cast of famous faces will take up residence in the Big Brother house to take part in weekly nominations and challenges as cameras capture their every move. A spin-off show called Celebrity Big Brother: Late & Live will follow, where contestants will be interviewed for the first

Female musicians including SZA, Taylor Swift, Olivia Rodrigo and Miley Cyrus have dominated the 2024 Grammy nominations. Other nominees include Ed Sheeran, who appears in the best pop vocal album category for Subtract, and The Rolling Stones, who recently released their album Hackney Diamonds and are nominated for best rock song for single Angry. Australian singer Kylie Minogue, who last appeared as a nominee during the 2009 awards, features in

A portrait of the King will appear on the front page of the Big Issue next week, it has been announced. The portrait, by renowned photographer Rankin, will appear in the magazine on Monday, a day before the King’s 75th birthday. Charles writes in the magazine about the importance of finding practical ways to bridge the gap between food waste and food need. He explains that this has led him

Russell T Davies has said the new series of Doctor Who starring actors Ncuti Gatwa and Millie Gibson will be “thrilling” to watch. Screenwriter and producer, Davies, 60, who has returned as showrunner, compared the upcoming series with the 2005 revival of the long-running BBC show which starred Christopher Eccleston as the Doctor and Billie Piper as his companion Rose. The series starring Eccleston and Piper was filmed in 2004,

Six members of a drugs ring which smuggled more than £1.5 billion of cocaine into the UK in boxes of frozen chicken have been jailed. The gang’s plot saw 15 tonnes of the Class A drug hidden in pallets of frozen chicken and imported from the Netherlands before being repackaged and sold to dealers, West Yorkshire Police said. On Friday, six people were given prison terms totalling 58 years at