Scrutiny committee looks into financing of Manchester Life project as PM promises ‘full transparency’

A £55m loan to Manchester City’s Abu Dhabi owner will be investigated as part of a review into a fund for housing projects while Andy Burnham was mayor.

The prime minister has faced weeks of scrutiny over his links to Manchester City’s super-rich owners after the club was found guilty of boosting its income by £900m in a nine-year breach of financial rules.

The racist murder of a British Bengali schoolboy was a landmark moment. Now campaigners seek to build a multiracial alliance to combat the challenges of today

“For my brother Ahmed, British values meant standing up for others. It was doing right. It was supporting and looking after the underdog, whoever that may be, regardless of their colour or background,” Selina Ullah says, of the brother she lost to a senseless act of violence 40 years ago.

Ahmed Iqbal Ullah, a British Bengali schoolboy, was 13 when he was murdered in a racist attack in the playground of Burnage high school, in south Manchester, in 1986, after defending young pupils from bullying.

A daring, rich and funny study of the ordeal of having to invent and reinvent your own teenage sense of self amid confounding changes

Carol Morley’s self-portrait of the artist as a young woman is rich, tender and terribly funny and sad: a study in the chaos of being young and a triptych of childhood, girlhood and youth, with some daring touches of Terence Davies. It is about the ordeal of having to invent and reinvent your own teenage sense of self, even as the things you thought permanent suddenly collapse – including the background stability of your poor old mum and dad. And it’s also about the untold, unacknowledged story of sadness that lay behind the angry blaze of punk and new wave. Watching this I thought of something I’d assumed lost for ever: my own feelings, aged 17, on hearing Buzzcocks’ Sixteen: “… I wish I was 16 again / Then things would be such fun / All the things I’d do would be the same / But they’re much more fun / Than when you’re 21.” Could it be, I thought, that I’m already sad about not being 16?

7 Miles Out is based on Morley’s autobiographical novel of the same title, the once-upon-a-time-in-Stockport story of Ann, played with charm and zing by Lucy Halliday, and as a sweetly innocent young girl by Amelie Hughes. Young Ann pretends to be making a radio programme with her cassette recorder the way so many did in the 1970s, and hero-worships her would-be rock journalist elder brother Scott (Kasper Hilton-Hille) – based on Morley’s brother Paul – who is already plugged into the burgeoning post-punk and new wave scene.

Speaking at live UK event, former US president expresses hope rooted in the past and discusses the modern challenges to democracy

Barack Obama cited the “wonderful” story of how Manchester cotton workers stood in solidarity with enslaved African Americans as an inspiration for our times in a live appearance in the city.

Tens of thousands of people packed Co-op Live in the city on Thursday for An Evening With Barack Obama, where the former US president was interviewed by the writer and broadcaster Afua Hirsch.

Exclusive: Greater Manchester mayor Bev Craig invited City representative on trade trip organised by business secretary

A club representative from Manchester City was invited on a government-backed trade delegation to India this week, despite the club being found guilty of 114 breaches of Premier League rules.

Andy Burnham’s successor as Manchester mayor Bev Craig took a representative from the club to Delhi and Mumbai on a trip organised by business secretary Jonathan Reynolds, where she and other northern mayors have been promoting British trade and tourism.

Company hails first step in rolling out technology across UK as first autonomous vehicles take to city’s streets

Uber has begun a trial of autonomous vehicles on the streets of Manchester as it looks to bring robotaxis to cities around the UK.

The first self-driving cars are operating, using the technology of its partner firms Pony and Verne, with whom Uber recently launched Europe’s first autonomous taxi service in the Croatian capital, Zagreb.

Move comes after criticism of remarks in support of football club’s owners following financial regulations breach ruling

Andy Burnham has said he will publish all details of his dealings with Manchester City in his previous mayoral role after his intervention in support of the football club’s owners raised eyebrows.

Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative party leader, had urged the prime minister to publish everything related to his work with the club as Greater Manchester mayor and the Liberal Democrats wrote to him asking him to release minutes of meetings and declare all hospitality gifts received from owners of Manchester City.

Bev Craig pledges £2m in funding to nurture local artists by improving access to rehearsal and production space

The Manchester mayor, Bev Craig, has said the city’s music scene is about more than just Oasis, as she announced funding to nurture a diverse range of local artists, be they “guitar bands or not”.

Craig pledged the £2m investment funding in Greater Manchester, as the city region hosted a conference for the creative industries at MediaCity in Salford.

Sean Peers admits offence against woman who was drugged and attacked for more than two decades

A man has pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting an unconscious woman, whose husband had drugged her and invited other men to abuse her.

Sean Peers, 38, had been due to stand trial alongside 11 other men, but admitted one count of assault by penetration on 15 September 2024 when he appeared at Manchester Minshull Street crown court.

Rereleased for its 24th anniversary, Michael Winterbottom’s freewheeling film about a journalist who championed post-punk bands couldn’t have starred anyone but Steve Coogan

Michael Winterbottom’s intriguing, daring, freewheeling movie is being rereleased for its 24th anniversary. It is about Manchester legend, Factory Records impresario, club owner and Granada TV journalist Tony Wilson, played by Steve Coogan, who was a driving entrepreneurial force behind the city’s music scene and guide to bands such as Joy Division, New Order and Happy Mondays.

Looking back to my original review I see that I was in some ways unconvinced, perhaps by the almost flippant, throwaway tone that is somehow evenly established from first to last, with Coogan’s Partridgean lead performance – very good though it undoubtedly is – delivering all the lines as if doing a wry piece to camera. He was arguably the only possible casting for a minor TV personality who was also a major player in the real world beyond the camera, a postmodern combination that Wilson, a sophisticated and intelligent man, himself surely savoured. Winterbottom’s A Cock and Bull Story, adapted from Laurence Sterne, is sometimes described as his postmodern work, although this film, with its fourth-wall breaking, real-world cameos and docu-realist sense of itself, is probably even more metatextual.