Full list of one-off payments for people of State Pension age due before end of this year

More than 50 Wilkos stores are to close with the loss of 1,016 jobs, administraors have confirmed.

The winners for the 2023 National Television Awards have been announced at a star-studded event in London. Happy Valley was the big winner of the night, picking up two awards, along with a special recognition gong for its star Sarah Lancashire.

Millions of households across Great Britain are set to receive the next instalment of the £900 cost of living payment support, worth £300 this Autumn, with a further £299 due next Spring. No confirmed details about a payment window or the qualifying period have been announced by the UK Government yet, despite widespread online speculation.

Hundreds of schools across the UK may need to close due to potentially dangerous building materials.

More than 34,000 people have signed an online petition calling for the State Pension to be paid to everyone in retirement at the same rate as the National Living Wage, despite an official response rejecting the proposal. According to map data on the petitions-parliament website, 34,062 signatures have now been recorded from every parliamentary constituency across Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

– and, naturally, just turned up looking sensational. Amal touched down in the Italian city on Tuesday, the eve of the annual festival.Aside from her slinky emerald dress, it was Clooney’s beauty look that really turned heads.

The Scottish Government recently announced that a new devolved disability payment designed to provide additional financial support for people of State Pension age will not include a mobility component. However, it has also confirmed that the new benefit will not involve any face-to-face assessments as part of the application process.

The SNP’s Patricia Gibson has tabled an Early Day Motion in Parliament for MPs to debate the “devastating impact of continuing unfair pension treatment of 1950s-born WASPI women (Women Against State Pension Inequality). The North Ayrshire and Arran MP is also urging the UK Government to “respond promptly” to the findings from the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman’s (PHSO) report into the way the changes to the State Pension age were communicated.

There are 22 million people across the UK claiming at least one benefit from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). That number includes 12.6 million older people in receipt of State Pension payments, a contributory benefit only available to those of retirement age with at least 10 years’ worth of National Insurance Contributions.

There are more than 20million people across Great Britain claiming benefits or State Pension from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). Some benefits such as Universal Credit can be a lifeline for those out of work or on a low income, providing crucial financial support to cope with daily living costs.

The last bank holiday of the summer falls on Monday for people in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. However, it will also affect people in Scotland expecting payments from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) or HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) on that day.

Newly updated figures show that during the ongoing cost of living crisis, people in the UK claiming their State Pension entitlement only just break even despite a record-breaking increase to weekly payment rates in April. The research, conducted by pension advisors Almond Financial, looked at the State Pension in comparison to the average cost of living in the UK.

The cost of living crisis continues to squeeze millions of household budgets this year, despite the lower energy price cap and inflation finally starting to drop. The UK Government’s cost of living payments have already provided lump sums of £301 for families on means-tested benefits and £150 for those claiming disability benefits.

An estimated 188,000 people in Scotland are affected by some form of sight loss with that figure expected to double by 2031, according to the charity, Sight Scotland, formerly known as Royal Blind. Three out of four people with a visual impairment are aged over 65, with around 8,000 adults of working age registered blind or partially sighted.

Pension experts are urging older people to check the interest rate they currently have on their savings accounts after new research indicates that at least half of retirees could be missing out on hundreds of pounds each year. Pension Bee warns those missing out most are people with an interest rate of three per cent or less.

The Triple Lock will determine the level of uprating to be applied to the State Pension for the 2024/25 financial year and pays the highest between September’s Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation rate, earnings growth, or 2.5 per cent. The frontrunner for the uprating is currently earnings growth, which came in at 7.8 per cent (excluding employee bonuses) for the period between April and June.

The last bank holiday of the summer falls on Monday, August 28 for people in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. However, it will also affect people in Scotland expecting payments on that date from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) or HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC). No changes to payments due from Social Security Scotland have been announced and are expected to be made as planned.

State Pension currently provides essential financial support for 12.6 million older people across the country, including more than one million retirees living in Scotland. This regular payment is available for those who have reached the UK Government’s eligible retirement age, which is now 66 for both men and women, and have paid at least 10 years of National Insurance contributions.

Supermodels Cindy Crawford, Christy Turlington, Linda Evangelista and Naomi Campbell dominated magazine covers and media in the ‘80s and ’90s. But now, they say, they’re happy to step away from the spotlight. The four women share the cover of the September issue of American and British Vogue, promoting a new documentary "The Super Models" on Apple TV+ and sharing insight into their off-duty modeling lives.

Owen Gleiberman Chief Film Critic We all know what a MacGuffin is (and in case you don’t, here’s what it is): an object or event that the plot of a thriller hinges on, and which everyone onscreen keeps talking about, yet it has no intrinsic interest apart from how it serves the structure of the movie. The term was mythologized by Hitchcock, and as shorthand for the way a certain kind of movie works it has never gone out of style. But what do you call a MacGuffin that’s so boring the audience can’t pretend to care about it? Let’s call it a MacMuffin.