A sequel to Tracy Beaker Returns, and the third instalment in the much-loved Tracy Beaker franchise, The Dumping Ground first aired in 2013 and remains one of CBBC’s most successful and longest-running shows.

The series focuses on the lives of children living in care, tackling themes such as friendship, family, mental health, identity, racism and LGBT parenting.

The Dumping Ground (Image: CBBC)

For over 12 years, the production has maintained a strong presence in the region.

Its current base is the former Hexham Middle School Fellside Building in Northumberland, which has doubled as the fictional Porter’s Lodge home since series 11.

Recent episodes, including series 13, have also featured recognisable landmarks such as Hexham Abbey, the town’s local bowling alley and Tyne Green park.

Before the move to Hexham, the show filmed extensively in Rowlands Gill, Gateshead, between series two and ten. Hookergate School in High Spen was used for interior scenes, while a nearby children’s respite care home, Kites Rise, served as the exterior of the fictional Ashdene Ridge.

Residential streets in Rowlands Gill and Consett also appeared regularly, standing in for the show’s fictional setting of Pottiswood.

The earliest series of The Dumping Ground, as well as Tracy Beaker Returns, were filmed at the former La Sagesse convent school in Jesmond, Newcastle.

However, plans by developers to convert the site into housing forced production to relocate, prompting the show’s gradual move further into Northumberland.

Other North East locations have included Consett and Morpeth, with interior scenes for later series filmed at the former Loansdean Fire Station before production returned briefly to Hookergate School.

Filming for the show in Consett (Image: NORTHERN ECHO)

A dramatic storyline at the end of series 10, which saw Ashdene Ridge destroyed by fire, neatly coincided with the real-world move to Hexham and the introduction of a new care home setting.

In 2024, the eleventh series marked a major creative refresh for the programme, introducing a new house, updated title sequence and logo, and removing the animated segments seen in earlier series.

A fourteenth series began airing on CBBC in January 2026.

The production has worked closely with North East Screen, helping to support regional talent through paid traineeships and shadow director roles.

Former lead actor Dani Harmer, who played Tracy Beaker, has returned to the franchise in recent years both on and off screen.

For most young people, learning about social and political issues doesn’t start with a textbook. It starts with a phone.

While debates intensify about whether to impose a social media ban on under-16s in the UK, it’s important to consider how social media can be a route for learning as well as potential harm.

Young people aged 14-15 are at a crucial stage in terms of their developing awareness of and engagement with political issues. Our research with more than 3,000 young people in year ten (ages 14 and 15) in schools across England found that 75% said they learned most about social and political issues online, including on social media.

This is far more than the 47% who (also) said they learned most about this at school. At the same time, though, only 21% said they were comfortable sharing their views on such issues online: 60% don’t share their views online.

Learning about race and faith equality doesn’t just mean learning about anti-racist movements like Black Lives Matter, for example. It also refers to the ways that young people, including those from diasporic and global majority backgrounds, develop their identities and values as citizens of the UK and the world.

Young people in our study described various ways they used online spaces to engage around race and faith issues. These included looking things up on established news sources like the BBC, and using news alerts on their phone. Apps like Instagram and TikTok were useful to some for updates from their extended family abroad, or to get direct information. This could include information from Gaza, for instance, where outside journalists have not been allowed in.

Some were wary of getting information from apps such as TikTok and YouTube, because they were regarded as potentially spreading false information and stereotypes about particular migrant communities, or presenting extremes. This wariness led them to crosscheck what they had seen on social media with news journalism that verifies its sources.

Further analysis of the survey – to be published in our forthcoming book – showed that most were cautious about sharing their views on social issues online. Statistically speaking, girls were also less comfortable than boys, and young people with Black, African and Caribbean backgrounds were less comfortable than their white peers sharing their views online.

But social media could also act as a sounding board for critically reflecting on, and emotionally processing events. For instance, a south-Asian Muslim girl felt that hearing other people’s opinions on an experience of discrimination can allow one to have multiple perspectives on what happened.

Learning from social media

Arguably, the fact that young people are often sceptical about what they see online is a positive outcome of their secondary online and media literacy education. But our research suggests that young people go online because they can’t get the information they need at school. Young people in rural areas, as well as those with Black, African and Caribbean backgrounds, raised particular concerns about school as a place to discuss race and faith issues. Those in lower-income areas also showed lower expectations that such issues would be discussed at school.

Government policy has for many years made it hard for schools to teach about race and faith equality in particular. One reason for this is that exam pressure in years ten and eleven (aged 14-16) leads schools to consign direct teaching about equality issues to years seven to nine.

But more fundamentally, the content of the curriculum, including history, is heavily geared towards a white British and European worldview. Citizenship education has been neglected in favour of traditional academic subjects, and so equality issues are addressed in occasional Personal, Social and Health Education (PSHE) lessons.

More problematically, schools have had to walk a delicate line when it comes to talking about political issues. In recent years, schools have been warned that teaching white privilege as a fact in schools is unlawful, and that they must ensure they teach topics relating to Israel and Palestine neutrally.

We found education stakeholders including local authority advisers, teacher unions and community organisations are concerned about the lack of support for teachers to engage these and other issues accurately. This concern is something current policymaking, including the curriculum and assessment review, has not meaningfully addressed.

It’s not surprising, then, that only 38% of young people felt comfortable sharing their views at school. While this is a higher proportion than shared their views online, we would expect a much higher result from school if obstacles to sharing views there were removed. Such obstacles include concern about peer judgement, being disciplined, or because they felt they had to sideline their feelings, have a “thick skin” and focus on their studies to – paradoxically – get ready for “the real world”.

We need to carefully consider and balance young people’s rights both to protection and to information in school and online. Our recommendations call for much greater support for schools to negotiate race and faith issues, as taking away under-16s’ access to social media without greater school-based support could be more counterproductive than protective.

​Tin Man Financial Services’ application proposes constructing two end-to-end outdoor padel tennis courts at Cayton Playing Fields in Cayton, Scarborough.

​“The proposal aims to enhance the sporting facilities available to the local community by introducing a fast-growing, inclusive sport that complements the existing recreational offer provided at the playing fields,” a plan states.

​If the scheme is approved, the floodlit courts would be built on a “currently disused, derelict and inaccessible area of the existing site” and would create an additional revenue stream for Cayton Playing Fields Association, which owns and maintains the facility.

​Players would be able to book their sessions via an online app, and this “autonomous operation would allow access to the courts between proposed operating hours of 7am to 10pm”.

​The applicant said there is currently no padel court provision for the southern side of Scarborough, noting that with recent and planned residential development in and around Cayton, the area “lacks sufficient recreational facilities for its growing population”.

​The development has been designed in accordance with Lawn Tennis Association (LTA) guidance on padel court design, layout, and lighting standards, in order to ensure high-quality and safe facilities that are suitable for both casual and competitive use.

​Padel tennis is the “fastest growing sport in the UK”, and according to the LTA, more than 230,000 people play it on an annual basis.

​“The racket sport, which combines elements of tennis and squash, has seen a significant increase in popularity due to its social, inclusive and easy-to-learn nature.”

​The courts would include energy-efficient LED floodlights, mounted on columns up to 6m high, with four lights per court.

​The floodlights would be used when it is dark and “only when courts are booked and paid for through the booking app”.

​North Yorkshire Council has not set a date for deciding on the application which is open to representations.

​

Available for over a year

The paper that contributed to the resignation of President Nixon over Watergate and the Vietnam war is now having to rethink its future. The Washington Post’s owner – Amazon boss Jeff Bezos – has announced mass layoffs at the newspaper, which will fundamentally change how it covers the news.

When Bezos bought the paper in 2013, he reassured staff about a “new golden era for the Washington Post”, and later adopted a new slogan for the Washington Post “Democracy Dies in Darkness”.

Justin and Anthony discuss why the cuts have happened and what the wider impact may be on US media. With Bezos defending the cuts as “the data tells us what is valuable and where to focus”, we look at whether the role of money, influence, and closeness to President Trump could also be at play?

HOSTS:
• Justin Webb, Radio 4 presenter
• Anthony Zurcher, North America Correspondent

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This episode was made by Rufus Gray, Grace Reeve and Kris Jalowiecki. The technical producer was Mike Regaard. The series producer is Purvee Pattni. The senior news editor is Sam Bonham.

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Yale University announced that a prominent computer science professor will no longer teach classes while the university reviews his conduct. This follows the release of documents showing he emailed Jeffrey Epstein describing an undergraduate as a “good-looking blonde” while recommending her for a job.

The communication between David Gelernter, who gained national attention in 1993 after being injured by a mail bomb sent by “Unabomber” Theodore Kaczynski, and the late, disgraced financier was part of the Epstein-related documents released by the U.S. Justice Department at the end of last month. The documents reveal that Gelernter and Epstein exchanged messages on a range of topics, from business to art.

In one email to Epstein in October 2011, years after Epstein pleaded guilty to soliciting prostitution from an underage girl, Gelernter wrote that he had an “editoress” in mind for a job, a Yale senior whom he described as a “v small good-looking blonde.”

Gelernter defended the email last week in a message to Jeffrey Brock, dean of Yale’s School of Engineering & Applied Science, according to the Yale Daily News. The professor also reportedly forwarded the email to the student newspaper.

He noted that Epstein was “obsessed with girls” — “like every other unmarried billionaire in Manhattan; in fact, like every other heterosex male” — and he was keeping “the potential boss’s habits in mind.”

“So long as I said nothing that dishonored her in any conceivable way, I’d have told him more or less what he wanted,” Gelernter wrote to Brock, the paper reported. “She was smart, charming & gorgeous. Ought I to have suppressed that info? Never!”

He added: “I’m very glad I wrote the note.”

Students in Gelernter’s computer science class were notified that he would not be teaching on Tuesday.

“The university does not condone the action taken by the professor or his described manner of providing recommendations for his students,” Yale said in a statement. “The professor’s conduct is under review. Until the review is completed, the professor will not teach his class.”

Gelernter, 70, did not immediately respond to emails and a message left at a phone listing for him in public records. A message to Brock was returned by Yale’s Office of Public Affairs & Communications, which provided the statement by the university and a letter to students by Brock. Yale declined to provide a copy of Gelernter’s email to Brock.

Gelernter joins a list of people in the U.S. and Europe, including prominent politicians, facing scrutiny because of the Epstein files.

In a message to students on Tuesday, Gelernter again defended his emails to Epstein and said they were the reason he was suspended from teaching the class. The message, sent on Yale’s course management system, was first reported by Hearst Connecticut Media Group.

In the message, Gelernter discussed his 2011 email to Epstein about the undergraduate student, saying he was recommending the student for a job with Epstein’s private bank and the student wanted the recommendation, Hearst Connecticut Media Group reported. He said he and the student did not know at the time that Epstein was a convicted sex offender.

“The university’s Smoking Gun is a personal, private email, dug out of the dump of Epstein files,” Gelernter wrote, according to Hearst. “(If someone handed you a stack of other people’s private correspondence, would you dive in and read them? Of course not. Gentlemen and ladies don’t read each other’s mail. (Courtesy 101.)”

In 2008 and 2009, Epstein served jail time in Florida after pleading guilty to state charges of soliciting prostitution from someone under the age of 18. He died by suicide in a jail cell in 2019, while awaiting trial in New York on U.S. federal charges accusing him of sexually abusing dozens of girls.

On the Yale faculty since 1982, Gelernter is known for his work in parallel computation — the use of multiple computer processes to solve complex problems — and for helping develop the Linda computer programing system, beginning when he was a doctoral candidate in the late 1970s. His 1991 book “Mirror Worlds” foreshadowed the World Wide Web and inspired the Java programming language, according to his biography on the Yale website.

On June 24, 1993, he suffered extensive wounds to his abdomen, chest, face and hands when he opened a package that exploded in his Yale office. Authorities later determined the package was mailed by Kaczynski, who ran a 17-year bombing campaign that killed three people and injured 23 others.

The last confirmed sighting of Neil Kendrew, 63, from Northallerton, was on December 7, 2025.

Neil Kendrew, 63, from Northallerton, was last seen on December 7, 2025. (Image: North Yorkshire Police)

North Yorkshire Police is appealing for help to find Neil and is urging anyone to get in touch on 999 if there are any immediate sightings of him.

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A spokesperson said: “We are growing very concerned for his welfare.

“Neil is described as white with brown hair, around 6ft tall and walks with a walking stick. He is of medium build and wears glasses.

“It is not known what he was wearing when he was last seen or what he may be wearing now, however he usually wears jeans and a padded green coat with stitching in a diamond pattern.

“Neil is likely to have travelled on public transport and may have links to Darlington. If you have seen Neil or have any other information that could help find him, please call us on 101.”

If you have an immediate sighting of him or know where he is now, please call us on 999. Please quote 12260022754 when sharing information.

Robert Hayton was spotted by police as he drove around Hartlepool 12 hours after the car was stolen, after the owner had their keys taken from a Yarm pub.

The 36-year-old clipped a police car and raced around residential streets in a desperate attempt to shake off his pursuers, Teesside Crown Court heard.

Lucy Todd, prosecuting, said Hayton reached speeds in excess of 60 mph in 30mph zones and regularly went head-on with oncoming traffic to avoid arrest, even leaving the road at one point and going around a roundabout the wrong way.

“A stinger was deployed, causing a deflation of one of the tyres, causing it to slow down,” she said. “A police vehicle overtook the defendant and blocked its path but he has collided with the vehicle causing damage.

“The police vehicle prevented the car from passing and caused it to stop in some bushes.”

Miss Todd said a breathalyser test was carried out and the defendant was found to be over the drink-drive limit.

Robert Hayton (Image: Cleveland Police)

Hayton, of no fixed abode, pleaded guilty to dangerous driving, driving with excess alcohol, driving without insurance, driving without a licence and a bail act offence.

Kelly Clarke, mitigating, said her client was on a ‘perpetual wheel’ that he doesn’t seem able to get off.

She added: “His offending behaviour appears to be influenced by the fact that he consumes way too much alcohol and misuses drugs.”

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Judge Nathan Adams sentenced Hayton to 19 months in custody and banned him from driving for three years and nine months.

He said: “There was a high-speed police chase through residential areas involving multiple police vehicles and your utter unwillingness to stop or to have any regard to risk you were posing to other motorists or pedestrians.

“You were going at double the speed limit at times, you were swerving all over the road and there were members of the public who had to get out of your way.”

MANCHESTER CITY 3-0 FULHAM: Erling Haaland made the game safe before half-time with an exquisite finish after Antoine Semenyo and Nico O’Reilly had put City in control

For a good 20 minutes, nothing much went right for Antoine Semenyo. He was involved in some promising moves but, unfortunately, his involvement generally meant those moves came to an unproductive end.

He is that type of player, Semenyo. For lengthy spells, he can look out of sorts. He can look out of rhythm with his team-mates.

But this is a player Pep Guardiola needed – a player to share the attacking strain with Erling Haaland.

A player who can sense areas of vulnerability, a player who is skilful without being over-elaborate, a player always alert to the defensive mis-step, a pain for full-backs and centre-backs alike.

He can play wide, he can play central, but, above all, he is a bona fide striker.

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He is predatory, anticipating the misdirected header from Sander Berge to open the scoring after those ineffective 20 minutes.

He can pick the simple, effective pass, as he did to enable Nico O’Reilly to round off a real whip-crack of a counter-attack with Manchester City’s second.

And he can make a diversionary run, the type of which gave Haaland the space to collect Phil Foden’s clever short pass and fizz home his first goal from open play in the Premier League in almost eight weeks.

That made it three before the break, allowing Guardiola not to risk Haaland in the second half after the striker had taken a knock in playing his part in the build-up to O’Reilly’s beauty.

Haaland had been fit enough to carry on long enough to score his 22nd Premier League goal of the season, so the issue can surely not have been that serious but Semenyo’s signing at least reassures Guardiola that he has alternatives if the worst occurred.

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Anyhow, Haaland will need his minutes managed in the hectic finale to City’s season.

And the same goes for other key players. With the advantage still at three after an hour, Guardiola was able to give Bernardo Silva a breather and after his efforts over the past few matches, it was certainly deserved.

If City do push Arsenal all the way, no-one will have played a more important role than Silva has played.

Remarkably, Silva – at the age of 31 – seems to get more indefatigable with age.

For one half, he pretty much ran the show against a Fulham side that were pleasant on the eye without really threatening to cause an upset.

They should have troubled the scoreboard but found Gianluigi Donnarumma in decent form and wasted a couple of openings with surprisingly sloppy passes.

And in a second half when there were more substitutions than attempts on goal, the game became a complete non-event.

Although the outcome was settled, City were a touch disappointing in their attacking efforts but while they made little impact, the quality of the substitutes was significant.

With an increasingly healthy roster, this is a City squad that looks distinctly capable of keeping the pressure on Arsenal.

And in Semenyo, they have an asset that will lead the way.

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Events also include CardioSoc Colour Run, the Belfast Photo Festival, a Gospel Hall Outreach, and the Belfast 24 Hour Run.

A number of events have been confirmed for public parks across Belfast in 2026.

At a Belfast City Council committee meeting in City Hall this week, six events were confirmed for Ormeau Park, Botanic Gardens, Victoria Park, Waterworks Park and Dixon Playing Fields.

Elected members at the February meeting of the council’s People and Communities Committee approved events requests by the CardioSoc Colour Run, the Belfast Photo Festival, the Belfast Marathon, the Belfast Barrio Fiesta, Bloomfield Gospel Hall Gospel Outreach, and the Belfast 24 Hour Run.

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Queens University Belfast’s Cardiology Society will host a charity colour run event at Ormeau Park on Sunday March 28, at a cost of £5 for Adults, £3 for Children and £15 for groups of four. The council report on events states: “The paint that is used is washable and will not damage any areas of the park. They have requested permission to collect money on site to raise funds for Heart Failure Warriors NI and Braveheart NI with a shared 50 percent of all money raised being donated to them.”

The Belfast Photo Festival will run throughout the month of June in a host of venues, including Botanic Gardens. Launched in 2011, this now annual photographic event has been described by Capture Magazine as one of the “best photography festivals in the world.” It attracts upwards of 100 thousand visitors a year, celebrating some of the finest national and international contemporary photography across 30 museums, galleries and public spaces.

The 44th full Belfast Marathon will take place on May 4 incorporating a 26.2 mile course that will cover all areas of the city. The route for this year’s full marathon will take participants through the Waterworks and will once again have the finish line at Ormeau Park. In previous years the event has included an entertainment zone in Ormeau Park with food trucks, allowing participants and spectators to partake in the celebration with friends and family.

The Half Marathon will take place on September 20. The event organisers have requested permission for the race to begin in Ormeau Park with the route taking the race through Victoria park and finishing again in Ormeau.

The Barrio Fiesta event at Botanic Gardens was created to celebrate Filipino culture, and to boost the morale of Filipinos living away from home. The event this year will be held on June 27.

It will celebrate Filipino culture through music, food and dance, and will provide workshops and classes. There will be live music and traditional Filipino performers attending from all over N. Ireland. It will showcase 35 vendors.

The council report states: “This is the first time this organiser has applied to the council to deliver an event at a Belfast Park location. However, the organisation has run this event for a number of years and has experienced growth year on year. Last year’s event attracted 2,500 attendees and the group anticipates 3,000 attendees in 2026.”

Bloomfield Gospel Hall Gospel Outreach at Dixon Playing fields will include Sunday Evening Services from Sunday May 17 to Sunday September 27, Gospel Outreach Saturday from April 18 to Saturday May 18, and Summer Bible Time from Monday August 10 to Friday August 14.

The Belfast 24 Hour Run at Victoria Park will happen from Saturday July 25 to Sunday July 26. The race is in its 15th year, having moved to Victoria Park in 2017. It is estimated that around 200 to 500 runners will take part. The event will include a 24 hour 100 mile race, a team event and a 50k race all inside the 24 hour time period.

The council report states: “This event takes place throughout the night. In previous years there have been a number of reports of noise disturbances so Council officers will work closely with the event organiser again this year to ensure these disturbances are mitigated.”

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MILAN (AP) — Franjo von Allmen of Switzerland looks like a breakout star of the Milan Cortina Olympics after winning his third gold medal. Jordan Stolz has one gold and is targeting three more. And Chloe Kim and a bunch of NHL stars are just getting started.

Von Allmen won the super-G in Bormio on Wednesday to become the third man with three victories in Alpine skiing at one Winter Games. It hadn’t been done since 1968.

That’s not a priority for von Allmen, though. He said he’s just staying in the moment. As for history, “maybe in a few years it will be important for me,” he added.

Von Allmen won the downhill on Saturday and paired with Tanguy Nef to win the team combined Monday.

Skating and waiting for Stolz

Jordan Stolz won the first of what could be four gold medals at these Winter Olympics in men’s 1,000-meter speedskating.

The 21-year-old from Wisconsin set an Olympic record with his time but had to wait longer than usual for his victory to be confirmed because another skater was given a do-over after being bumped during his race.

When Joep Wennermars of the Netherlands failed to beat Stolz, it was time for the American to take a delayed victory lap.

Later Wednesday, there could be American gold in skating of a very different sort as Madison Chock and Evan Bates compete in ice dance.

NHL stars back on Olympic ice

The puck dropped on men’s hockey on Wednesday, marking the return of NHL players to the Games for the first time since 2014.

It started with the Juraj Slafkovsky show, part two.

The Slovakian forward who lit up the 2022 Olympics as a 17-year-old tournament MVP returned as an NHL star with the Montreal Canadiens and picked up where he left off.

Slafkovsky finished with two goals, including the tournament opener, and one assist as Slovakia upset 2022 gold medalist Finland 4-1 in the first game of the preliminary round. Sweden plays Italy later Wednesday.

The NHL opted not to participate in the Pyeongchang Olympics of 2018, and pandemic-related scheduling issues prompted the league to skip the Beijing Games in 2022.

Kim off to a flying start

The halfpipe three-peat attempt began promisingly for Chloe Kim on Wednesday as she finished first in qualifying while wearing a shoulder brace.

After a shoulder injury disrupted her buildup to the Games, Kim credited her muscle memory and a “very well-behaved” shoulder for getting her through to the 12-athlete final on Thursday.

Elsewhere in the mountains, Elizabeth Lemley and Jaelin Kauf won gold and silver for the United States in women’s freestyle moguls skiing. Host nation Italy picked up its third gold when Andrea Voetter and Marion Oberhofer were the surprise winners in a new event, women’s doubles luge.

Jens Luraas Oftebro of Norway overtook rivals and plowed through deep, slushy snow for gold in the Nordic combined normal hill event. And in the women’s 15-kilometer individual biathlon, Julia Simon became the first Frenchwoman to win gold and teammate Lou Jeanmonnot took silver.

Team Canada ‘heartbroken’ after shooting

The Canadian team at the Winter Olympics issued a statement saying it is “heartbroken” after waking to the news of a deadly school shooting in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia.

“Our thoughts are with the families who have lost loved ones, those who are injured, and the entire Tumbler Ridge community,” the statement said.

A standoff between Ukrainian athlete Vladyslav Heraskevych and the International Olympic Committee rumbled on as he again trained in a helmet decorated with portraits of Ukrainians killed in Russian attacks, many of them athletes. The IOC says it won’t allow the helmet in competition.

___

AP Winter Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics