New call for UK Government to commit to not increasing State Pension age to 71

The most affordable areas in the UK for first-time buyers have been revealed, and Scotland dominates the list.

A pharmacist has alerted folks about three key signs of cancer that can first appear in the morning.

BBC Studios is increasing its debt facility by £250M ($318M) — a move that closely follows the acquisition of BritBox International, its biggest ever single transaction.

Millions of people claiming their State Pension can look forward to an inflation-busting boost next month when payments rise by 8.5 per cent from April 8, 2024. Under the wages growth measure of the Triple Lock policy, those on the full New State Pension can expect an annual increase of £902, while those on the full Basic State Pension will see an uplift of £692.

Ten projects have been selected for the second edition of Seriesmakers, Series Mania’s development lab for feature film directors sidestepping into series production. 

The appointment of a key community figure to head up a new town board that will implement a massive £20m injection in Dumfries has been slightly delayed.

K.J. Yossman BBC Studios has tapped Nicola Pinn for the newly-created role of chief operating officer of factual productions. BBC Studios factual managing director Kate Ward unveiled Pinn’s promotion.

Naman Ramachandran BBC Studios has bought British broadcaster ITV‘s 50% stake in streamer BritBox International for £255 million ($322 million), the companies revealed on Friday. The streamer was founded in 2017 as a joint venture between BBC Studios, which is the commercial arm of the British broadcaster, and ITV. “The transaction will provide net proceeds including loan repayments and accrued dividends and after tax of around £235 million,” the companies said.

BBC Studios has paid £255M ($321M) to acquire ITV‘s shareholding in their joint venture streamer, BritBox International — the biggest ever single transaction for the BBC’s commercial wing.

This year’s Hong Kong International Film Festival will feature a masterclass and career retrospective of UK-Irish writer and director Martin McDonagh.

Drishyam,” a hit Indian thriller in which an ordinary man confounds the police in order to protect his family, is to be re-made in English. Production is by India’s Panorama Studios with U.S. companies Gulfstream Pictures and JOAT Films.

Selome Hailu Tubi has released a trailer for “Boarders,” a British teen dramedy series the service acquired from BBC. The series will be branded as a Tubi Original in North America and premieres with all six hour-long episodes on March 8. Per the official description, “‘Boarders’ is a high energy, warm and funny coming of age drama which follows lives of five Black inner city school teenagers who find themselves on scholarships to one of Britain’s oldest and most prestigious boarding schools, St.

Jennifer Salke, head of Amazon MGM Studios, and James Farrell, the L.A.-based VP of international originals at Prime Video, flew to Madrid this week, with the world premiere of “Red Queen” (“Reina Roja”), the series adaption of the first book in Juan Gómez-Jurado’s hit trilogy, taking place on Monday night. The streamer is rolling off the record-breaking finale of its first weekly live entertainment show “Operación Triunfo,” and has revealed that the top three of the the ten most-watched Spanish Originals of 2023 – “My Fault,” “Awareness” and “Los Farad” – have received on average 80% of streams outside of Spain, reaching a milestone for the international reach of Prime Video’s non-English language content.

Cancer patients in Scotland receive less cancer care than in other comparable countries, a new study has shown.

Mary Poppins has had its age rating increased in the UK due to the use of “discriminatory language”.The Disney film, which stars Julie Andrews as the titular nanny, was originally released back in 1964.However, last week (February 23) the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) upped its original rating to PG from U due to two uses of a racially insensitive term.A spokesperson for the organisation told Variety that Mary Poppins “includes two uses of the discriminatory term ‘hottentots’”.“While Mary Poppins has a historical context, the use of discriminatory language is not condemned, and ultimately exceeds our guidelines for acceptable language at U.

The SNP is set to heap pressure on Keir Starmer by challenging Labour MPs to vote for a ban on arms sales to Israel.

EXCLUSIVE: The Kumars are plotting a return — this time on American television. Fox has ordered a presentation for multi-camera comedy Meet The Kumars, a followup to the award-winning 2001 BBC series The Kumars At No. 42. Most of the original cast is back for the U.S.-flavored revival of the family sitcom/talk show.

Welcome to Deadline’s London TV Screenings list, our definitive look at next week’s buzzy event taking Soho by storm. If you’re wondering who’s exhibiting, what’s on offer and want to dive deeper into the distribs’ strategy, we’ve done the hard work for you, presenting profiles from nearly 30 exhibiting sales houses. Below, check out profiles for the companies headed over from the States and other nations around the globe. Read on, and find all our London TV Screenings content throughout the week here.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Saudi Arabia’s General Entertainment Authority (GEA) has launched a new film fund called Big Time Investment to boost production of quality Arabic movies and announced a slate of Egyptian feature films toplined by a biopic of Egyptian icon Umm Kulthum who is considered the Arab world’s greatest singer. Prominent Egyptian director Marwan Hamed, whose epic “Kira and El Gen” about local resistance to British occupation, is recent hit, will direct the film titled “El Set.” Egyptian star Mona Zaki will play Kulthum who from the late 1920s onwards became the first prominent Arab singer to disseminate her work to the masses via the new technologies of the times: radio, the phonograph, cinema and television.

Skyrocketing demand for children and adolescent mental health services is leaving youngsters facing long waits for help. There has been "an increased demand for child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) to assess and treat young people with emotional, behavioural or mental health difficulties", says a Greater Manchester patient watchdog.