New research finds half of over-50s are planning a 'Golden Gap Year' focused on personal growth and long-awaited travel, with popular destinations including Dubai, Australia, Thailand, Mauritius and the Maldives.
The partially completed South Lakes Islamic Centre in Dalton-in-Furness is hosting nightly congregational prayers ahead of Ramadan while its official opening is due in July, and organisers report concerns about far-right protests.
First-look images have been released for Two Weeks in August, an eight-part drama written and created by Catherine Shepherd and produced by Various Artists Limited; it will be shown on BBC iPlayer and BBC One.
Two Greater Manchester bookshops — House of Books & Friends in Manchester and Simply Books in Stockport — have been shortlisted in the Northern category of the 2026 British Book Awards, part of a record 76 regional and county finalists.
Ramadan is expected to begin around February 18–19 depending on crescent moon sightings, and it marks a month of daytime fasting, increased prayer and charitable giving.
Lidl will open five new supermarket stores within 24 hours and plans 14 more in the coming weeks, a roll-out the article says could create up to 640 jobs.
Bear Grylls' Wild Reckoning follows couples taken into the Welsh countryside for two-day outdoor challenges that pair survival tasks with relationship therapists, and the series is available on BBC iPlayer.
Officials report about 1,000 arrests of suspected paedophiles each month in the UK, and the government says it will press tech companies to remove illegal content while considering measures such as an age limit on social media.
Ramadan fasting involves abstaining from food and drink from dawn until sunset and typically shifts the body from using glucose to burning fat and producing ketones; studies cited report short-term reductions in weight, inflammation and some blood pressure measures.
The DWP pays £25 for each seven-day period of very cold weather when the local average temperature is zero °C or below; the scheme has reached nearly 1.5 million households across England and Wales this winter.
