Eighteen-year-old Bo sent me a selection of exam paintings. I think you will agree she has a successful future ahead if she decides to pursue art as a career. 6-year-old Elias is a very outdoor adventurous boy but enjoyed an afternoon in my studio trying out new painting techniques to produce this exciting landscape.

Our consumer champion, Jane Hawkes, shares essential guide to using AI effectively when making a complaint - and reveals the mistakes consumers must avoid. Consumers are increasingly turning to artificial intelligence to help them make complaints against companies but there can be significant pitfalls.

Having attended the Scottish launch of Mazda’s new CX-5, I was keen to try in on my home patch. I didn’t manage to drive an all-wheel-drive version, so the press office kindly sent one north for me to try over an extended period.

I’d worked with Leanne for several years when she lived in the UK so, when she said ‘we’ll hang out together’ when you visit me and Gorm in Denmark’s Roskilde, I hadn’t expected to be proving myself on the battlefield with sword and shield in hand!

As the veteran political comic takes a new show on the road, he talks to Andrew Palmer about tax law, wrongful convictions and a swim in a peer's moat Mark Thomas has been "standing up" for forty years, which is impossible and also true.

The UK has seen cases of the deadly Bluetongue virus steadily increase this year, with dozens of new cases reported. Bluetongue virus is an insect-borne viral disease that affects sheep, cattle, goats, deer and camelids such as llamas and alpacas.

Andrew Palmer finds a play that trades on nostalgia, then quietly detonates it, as two men's secrets collide on the eve of the Brighton bomb. There is a particular kind of dread that arrives dressed as nostalgia.

Appleton Side By Side Tracks: Ready To Begin, Falling Into You, Strange Kinda Paradise, Monster Label: Appleton Recordings Back in 2002, after the dissolution of All Saints, sisters Nicole and Natalie Appleton decided not to take the solo route. Instead, they paired up and released the driven anthem Fantasy.

Mahler's Symphony No. 3 in D minor is a work that dares almost too much. Six movements, the best part of a hundred minutes, and a programme that runs from the awakening of Pan to a final movement of wordless, all-embracing love: it asks a conductor to hold together a vast orchestra, a mezzo-soprano soloist, a boys' choir and a women's chorus without the whole edifice splintering into episodes. I went into this recording expecting admiration. I came out with something closer to reappraisal as Petrenko unlocked Mahler's cosmic Third and the RPO, and Harmonia Mundi's engineers are on inspired form

It is, as they say, the gift that keeps on giving. The Doric String Quartet continue their sublime traversal of Beethoven's quartets with a third volume that ranges across the composer's early, middle and late periods – from the youthful high spirits of Op. 18 No. 3 to the visionary strangeness of the final works.

One UK-grown seasonal crop, one wild-caught protein, and one fully imported commodity. Though seemingly unrelated, in fact, strawberries, mackerel and coffee beans help to illustrate what the future of UK food supply could look like, and some of the looming challenges in the years to come.

It would be easy to file Brouček away as a Janáček footnote, the one even his admirers tend to skip. Rattle and his forces make a compelling case that it shouldn't be. A comic opera, treated with real seriousness, and all the better for it.

More than one in two Brits will take the risk of skipping travel insurance when travelling to countries with a relatively short flight home.

Ruby’s Law, which is striving to protect pets in domestic abuse settings, has its second reading in Parliament in October. Ahead of that, campaigners are inviting MPs to a drop-in on 8th September so they can learn more about the proposed legislation and the positive impact it will have on victims of domestic abuse and their companion animals.

As summer heatwaves and dry spells become more common, UK gardeners are turning to tough, low-maintenance plants that deliver high impact with minimal effort. A drought doesn’t necessarily mean a parched or dead garden, and the team at British Garden Centres has put together a guide to the best plants that will thrive in hot weather as we go into the autumn season.

A Yorkshire social housing consortium has helped shape new guidance for housing associations and local authorities on using retrofit procurement to create local jobs, tackle green skills shortages, strengthen supply chains and diversify the workforce.

If you ask someone what makes their neighbourhood special, they won’t list the square footage of the local buildings. They will tell you about the independent shop where the barista knows their order, the park where they walk their dog, or the square where the weekend markets come alive.

When it comes to sculpture, nowhere in the UK compares to Wakefield. Home to Yorkshire Sculpture Park, The Hepworth Wakefield, and a thriving community of contemporary artists and makers, the district has earned its reputation as the UK's Capital of Sculpture. Yet art is only part of the story.

Rachel Beck didn't set out to build a supplement brand. She set out to find work that actually meant something. Growing up in Steeton, a small village in Yorkshire, Rachel was the middle of three children and developing, early on, both the drive to push herself and the instinct to care for those around her.

BGF-backed Opus Safety has completed the acquisition of Preston-based Suresite Health & Safety Ltd, the latest in an ambitious buy-and-build growth strategy. The tech-enabled health and safety, HR and occupational health solutions provider has acquired the health and safety function of Suresite for an undisclosed sum.

Undoubtedly best know through the television drama series created by Sally Wainwright, Gentleman Jack is the story of a powerful Yorkshire businesswoman from the 1830s. The 19th century was not a time known for its liberal-minded, easy-going attitudes to women in general and certainly not women who preferred other women as their life partners.

New research from the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) by economist Julian Jessop examines two of the most widely blamed causes of the UK's poor economic performance over the past decade and a half: fiscal "austerity" after 2010 and the 2016 vote to leave the European Union. It concludes that the evidence for either being a major drag on growth is much weaker than commonly assumed.

Consumer confidence increased by 0.9 points movement in August 2026, according to the latest data from YouGov and the Centre for Economics and Business Research (Cebr). The Consumer Confidence index rose from 105.5 to 106.4. Any score greater than 100 indicates positive sentiment, while a score of less than 100 indicates negative sentiment.

The UK’s third tallest structure, Caldbeck transmitter station, is celebrating 65 years of keeping communities across Cumbria and South West Scotland connected through television and radio services. The transmitting station, which first went on air on 1 September 1961, serves around 280,000 homes and has become one of the UK's most important broadcasting locations.

Car tech computer confusion has become one of the UK’s top five causes of breakdowns, the AA reveals. Whilst people might be used to ‘computer says no’ at home or work, many are being flummoxed by the technical complexity of their vehicles.

Britain’s tax system has become more economically damaging since the financial crisis, says new IEA briefing. The worst may be yet to come. Taxes on investment have risen sharply on two occasions in recent years – immediately after the financial crisis, and once more after the pandemic. This time, there is little prospect that they will fall again.

Britain’s young people are being locked out of work by an entrenched driving test backlog, a leading think tank has revealed. Learners in England must now look around 21 weeks ahead to find an available driving test, more than four times the five-week wait in 2020, according to analysis of new Department for Transport data by the Centre for Social Justice.

West Yorkshire Police will deploy Live Facial Recognition (LFR) technology on the external perimeter of Leeds Festival for the first time this year as part of the wider operation to help keep festivalgoers safe, prevent crime and create a secure environment for everyone attending.

From blaming a twin brother to eating the evidence, TransPennine Express (TPE) has revealed some of the more unusual excuses its revenue protection team has heard from customers travelling without a valid ticket. Among them was a customer caught using a child ticket for the second time.

The government must be honest about the UK’s energy demand in its response to the public consultation on the Rosebank oilfield, says David Whitehouse chief executive of Offshore Energies UK The government response to the public consultation which closes today [Monday August 17th] will set the direction of the UK’s future energy policy, industrial resilience and its route to net zero.

Yorkshire Water is reminding customers to use water wisely as the UK’s fifth heatwave of the year arrives, with temperatures in the region set to reach more than 30 degrees. Yorkshire Water is preparing for the increased demand expected during the latest heatwave.

Devolution has just gained a scoreboard.

Younger savers increasingly feel the concept of ‘saving for a rainy day’ is outdated, and are focusing their efforts on saving for specific goals, new research from LHV Bank has revealed. The survey of more than 2,000 savers found 44% of respondents aged 18-24 felt the idea of rainy day savings was outdated.

Focus4Hope’s CEO and founder Louise Reed works with West Yorkshire’s most vulnerable people, including those who are homeless. Here’s her message for Andy Burnham. 1. Prevent homelessness – don’t just react to it. The fallout that follows homelessness, including addiction, plummeting mental health and exploitation, is far more costly in human and financial terms than prevention.

Four wins and two of them the coveted two-star kind — Altrincham-based Lovingly Artisan Bakery has enjoyed one of its finest showings yet at this year's Great Taste Awards. The Guild of Fine Food has revealed its 2026 winners, with the Northwest bakery — which operates across Altrincham, Manchester and Kendal in the Lake District — picking up two two-star awards and two one-star awards.

A 78-year-old Wigan man is urging others to act fast on sudden eyesight changes after a routine trip to his local optician uncovered a serious, life-threatening condition. Edwin Causey, of Warrington Road, Wigan, woke on Saturday, June 27, to find he had completely lost the vision in his right eye.