This week's UK news: 1 March 2016
j0314269
1 March 2016


Find Freddie Mercury's old house, Adele wins the Brits, new daily newspaper and a famous painter's house is being restored

Every week, we summarise the UK news to give you some insight into what is happening in Britain, and what people are talking about.


Look out for blue signs on buildings

Do you like to know where famous people lived? In London we have a special scheme which puts round blue signs (called plaques) on the homes of people who have been famous in the past. 

English Heritage has been putting blue plaques on buildings since 1866 and there are around 900 currently. This year's new additions include Freddie Mercury from Queen (his plaque is going up on his old childhood home in Feltham. Other new plaques are for ballet dancer Margot Fonteyn, cookery writer Elizabeth David and film star Ava Gardner. 

 

Adele wins the Brit Awards

Singer Adele took home four prizes from the Brit Awards last week. The Brits are the British music industry awards. Adele won best British Album for 25 (she won the same award in 2011), best British female solo artist, best single for Hello and also the global success award. 

Coldplay won the Best British Group award for the fourth time, beating the previous record. Other winners included Bjork, Justin Bieber and Tame Impala.

Adele goes on tour this week. She has tried to ban people from buying tickets to sell on at very high prices. However, tickets are available on resale websites for as much as GBP24,000.

 

New daily newspaper launched

People think that paper newspapers are less popular because of the internet - but a new newspaper started in the UK this week. The New Day will be available throughout the UK and will be cheap to buy. The editor says it plans to be optimistic and not biased towards any political party. 

 

Painter's house will be open to public

JMW Turner's paintings are some of the most famous UK works of art. His best-known pictures are often of sea scenes or railways in mist and sunset, with lovely colours and a very distinctive look.

Now the house that Turner created, just outside central London, is being repaired and will open to visitors when it is complete. So far volunteers have dug out drains, cut down trees and cleaned damaged walls. Now money has been given by a Lottery fund to repair the worst damage to the house and restore it to the home built by Turner in 1813.

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