Across the Dales and North York Moors, more than 180 businesses are asking visitors to put down their phones, pick up a pen and send somebody a little piece of their holiday

A big HELLO to Northern Auntie. She is MagNorth’s new resident authority on modern manners, minor outrages and the ongoing collapse of standards. We've mocked-up her profile pic, so she doesn't get lynched in Booths in Ilkley

No auditions, no experience and no need to read music. Bolton Cancer Voices is inviting more people to discover friendship, confidence and the joy of singing together

A new poll suggests strong public support for breaking up concentrated media power and funding independent journalism. For small publishers trying to report the North with care, the question is not abstract. It is about whose stories are heard - and whether those telling them can afford to carry on

At Blackpool’s Winter Gardens, darts is doing far more than creating champions. It's helping children discover numbers, confidence - and a game that really can include everybody

As Andy Burnham carries a northern model of public service into Downing Street, Greater Manchester’s Festival of Libraries offers both inspiration - and a test of what his promise to return power to every postcode might mean

We went to photograph a seaside town in the middle of summer. Instead, we met dancers, pirates, treasure hunters, sisters, surfers - and two box-office stars with only one fan between them

Ember & the Vixens return to Salford this August Bank Holiday - with every ticket helping Independent Choices support people affected by domestic abuse

A Yorkshire Dales charity has helped build a national recycling network for redundant tree shelters. But with millions of plastic guards still scattered across Britain’s woodlands, campaigners say their eventual removal must be planned - and paid for - before the first tree goes into the ground

At Yeavering, one of early medieval Britain’s most important royal centres has almost vanished back into the Northumberland landscape. This summer, archaeology, storytelling, food and communal celebration will bring it vividly into view again

The curlew’s cry remains one of the defining sounds of the Yorkshire uplands. Keeping it there will require communities, conservationists and farmers to begin working together long before next year’s mowing starts

Former Green Futures participant Willow Driscoll-Duke returns as a filmmaker with a documentary about nature, belonging and young people’s environmental hopes

Eight young people are being offered the chance to earn, learn and begin a career caring for some of the North’s most important landscapes.

The people who know Nidderdale’s rivers, becks and footpaths best are being asked to help identify invasive species before they spread further. A few minutes spent recording what we see could contribute to years of better-informed conservation work

A landmark DNA study suggests Nidderdale could be one of England’s most important strongholds for adders - and a powerful reminder that healthy landscapes are connected landscapes

Helmsley Walled Garden began life feeding great houses. Today, beneath the castle and inside old brick walls, it is doing something quieter, deeper and perhaps more necessary: feeding confidence, companionship, memory and belonging

From Brian Eno in an airport terminal to Northern Soul in Wigan and music-making with people living with dementia, Manchester Camerata is spending six days showing Greater Manchester what a modern orchestra can be

Ahead of next month’s Yorkshire Proms, conductor Ben Crick explains the significance of Bradford and West Yorkshire on European culture and how the region help build significant connections to the continent during Victorian times

The Royal Exchange has assembled an outstanding cast for Shakespeare’s great family catastrophe, with David Threlfall returning to the theatre after 27 years and Nadine Shah taking on both Goneril and the music

Created in two months, funded from one animator’s pocket and built to travel between grassroots venues, LED ON brings an hour of original animation and independent northern music to Newcastle’s Cumberland Arms. Its modest beginnings conceal a rather audacious idea

A free celebration of Bowie brought world-class performers, homegrown talent and 2,500 people into the Opera House. But behind the standing ovations was a more consequential idea: that culture can help Blackpool reshape its economy, strengthen its communities and determine how the town is seen

More than 60 authors are heading to the Baltic Triangle for a fab summer celebration of books, music, storytelling - and one or two things you probably won’t find at your local library

After a lifetime shaped by rules, artist Joe Giles discovered abstract painting at 34. One remarkable year later, his work is selling, exhibitions are taking shape - and the colour is refusing to stay inside the lines

Liverpool Artists’ Network has rebuilt its digital home - but behind the new website is a decade-long attempt to make artistic life in the city less isolated and more visible