X FACTOR and Strictly Come Dancing have come to mean it's nearly time for Father Christmas to fall down the chimney of TV addicts.

A NEW digital publication will allow Hampshire Cultural Trust to keep its doors open online.

Pumping of water from a car carrier stranded close to a busy shipping lane has completed as salvors prepare to tow the ship back to port.

A MAN who fell from a cruise ship and gouged his leg open on a propeller has been airlifted to hospital.

Upper Shirley High School prepares for this year's Rock Challenge.

Valentine Primary prepares for this year's Rock Challenge.

Wellow Primary prepares for this year's Rock Challenge.

Wildern School prepares for this year's Rock Challenge.

Woodlands School prepares for this year's Rock Challenge.

Wordsworth Primary prepares for this year's Rock Challenge.

Colden Common Primary School prepares for this year's Rock Challenge.

Video from the first night of the Rock Challenge 2015.

Video from the second night of the Rock Challenge 2015.

Video from the third night of the Rock Challenge 2015.

MAJOR opera and ballet shows due to take place at Mayflower Theatre this month have been cancelled.

FORMER Strictly Come Dancing champion Kevin Clifton is to star in the 2020/2021 UK & Ireland tour of Baz Luhrmann’s smash hit Strictly Ballroom The Musical, which comes to Mayflower Theatre next summer.

JUST a few short weeks ago it was pointed out to the Saints squad that plenty of them still had a lot to play for.

So now it’s officially confirmed by the man himself! After various celebrity sightings in the New Forest, Mayflower Park and Overdraft Craft Ale Bar Shirley, soul man of the moment Michael Kiwanuka dedicated a heartfelt rendition of Home Again to a sold out audience at the O2 Guildhall last night.

TWO HAMPSHIRE based, community football teams will soon be facing off in a charity game analysed by top ex-professionals.

A FOOTBALL league in Hampshire has suspended pre-match handshakes due to the threat of coronavirus.

Ricky Little is coming home to defend his Southern Area super-flyweight championship.

TODAY the Daily Echo launches a campaign to persuade the government to scrap university tuition fees for student nurses risking their lives on coronavirus wards.

PLANS for the £450m redevelopment of Southampton's Royal Pier have taken a step forward after plans for a new ferry terminal were approved.

ONLY a small number of mass cycling events would be affected by the proposed cap on cyclists in New Forest events.

As a penniless wanderer making landfall in The Trail: Frontier Challenge, you have one thing to do: push the thumbstick forward and hike to the next camp.

WITH just under a fortnight to go more companies are signing up to take part in the Echo Jobs fair.

The Alliance Hotel is now known as The White Star Tavern, a bar and restaurant.

A small, corroded key for a locker on the Titanic has sold for £85,000 at auction.

Handheld gamers are treated to an enjoyable on-track romp around the Sega world, in an effort to catch up with the race-leader Mario Kart.

Hitman developers IO Interactive have made it clear that they intend for all seven episodes of their new stealth assassin game to be available "by the end of summer."

It's been a long time coming, but Heavy Spectrum has finally announced the release date for Shadow of the Beast.

PEOPLE in Wales are being asked to act responsibly and to avoid unnecessary travel until coronavirus restrictions have been lifted by the Welsh Government.

THE continued success of the Allied forces was being acknowledged on the pages of the Daily Echo 100 years ago this week following the latest communications from the various theatres of conflict across Europe.

WITH 70 activities at 16 venues there was plenty of chance to burn off the calories during Southampton’s 30-Minute Sportathon.

MOVES to put HMRC near the head of the queue for money when businesses become insolvent could damage small businesses and the economy, it is claimed.

ANYONE looking to get into the Christmas mood in style this year need look no further than Tylney Hall.

When in-person classes were cancelled for the semester at Wake Forest University, Professor Justin Catanoso knew he would have to break some of his own rules.

As death tolls rise, new testing information surfaces and doctors race to find a vaccine for COVID-19, breaking news is not in short supply.

In this podcast, Thomas Domville shows us how to check a battery status of all of your iPhone bluetooth accessories.

In this podcast, Thomas Domville shows us how to enable Reader View in Safari automatically for iOS.

In this podcast, Thomas Domville shows us how to send and receive phone calls with your iPad.

In this podcast, Thomas Domville discusses and explores some of the changes made to the App Store in iOS 13, in particular the new location to manually update apps.

In this podcast, Thomas Domville introduces us to “silence unknown callers”, a new feature in iOS 13 that helps you block unwanted calls without having to block callers one by one.

With this feature enabled, unknown callers will automatically be sent to voicemail, meaning that robocalls, spam calls, and other unwanted distractions will no longer be able to bother you.

In this podcast, The Evil Chocolate Cookie gives us a demonstration of the Tap Strap 2, a single handed all-in-one wearable keyboard, mouse & air gesture controller.

Tap is a wearable keyboard and mouse that enables you to type, mouse and control any Bluetooth enabled device, using any surface and in any position. Tap has accelerometers built into each finger ring, which register which fingers you are tapping and sending the associated letter, number, symbol, or macro to a paired Bluetooth device.

Tap is the only ergonomic solution that allows you to type in any position that is comfortable to your specific body without being bound to a desk. Tap’s design takes stress off your median nerve, allowing for hours of typing without strain. Tap also allows you to write without hunching forward, which causes posture problems as well as neck, shoulder and back pain.

Learning to Tap takes about 2 Hours – which is approximately 10 times faster than it takes to learn to QWERTY touch-typing. You learn to Tap using finger combinations, not key locations, making it usable in a variety of situations where you could not use a QWERTY. The fastest way to learn is by playing our free TapGenius Learning Game, which takes you through the Tap Alphabet using a series of fast, engaging challenges.

Haywood Street Church in Asheville continues to break bread that helps break barriers with its Downtown Welcome Table. A place where a person in need can come to the table for a delicious and quality meal prepared by some of the top restaurants the city has to offer. This unique relationship between culinary experts and the church continues to expand - that supports the statement, "There's always a place for you at the table." Interviews during this feature are many, including Haywood Street Rev. Brian Combs and Katie Buttons of Katie Burrons Restaurant. This segment first aired Dec. 6, 2019. Posted by Host and Producer of WNCW's Friday Feature Interview of the Week- Paul Foster, Senior Producer, News Director, and Morning Edition Regional Host

Facebook will be awarding financial support to over 30 local small businesses impacted by COVID-19. Policy Manager Diana Doukas was interviewed during this edition of WNCW's Friday Feature Interview of the Week to talk about this exciting news. Facebook, with a center located in Rutherford County, NC has partnered with groups across North Carolina to lend support in this crucial time of need. This discussion first aired on 88.7 FM on April 10th. Posted by Host and Producer of The Friday Feature- Paul Foster, WNCW Senior Producer, News Director, and Morning Edition Regional Host

Legislation introduced in New York this week expands tax exemptions for small businesses.

There are celebrations of Beethoven's 250th birthday all over the world this year, but close to home, Musical Masterworks in Old Lyme is presenting every string quartet by Beethoven in two sets of three evening performances by the Ehnes Quartet beginning on Friday, March 13th. Kate Remington talks with series Artistic Director Edward Aaron about the concerts, which he'll be experiencing from the inside out as the cellist with the Ehnes Quartet.

It’s a matter of fact that between 1840 and 1882 there were eight assassination attempts on the life of Queen Victoria, but in his suspenseful novel “The Darwin Affair,” Tim Mason adds a ninth, in 1860, and makes the target Prince Albert. The date is important: it’s just months after the publication of Charles Darwin’s “On the Origin of Species” and concomitant with the Oxford University Museum debate on evolution featuring those famous antagonists – biologist and anthropologist Thomas Huxley and Anglican Bishop Samuel Wilberforce. Prince Albert wants to give Darwin a knighthood. No way say fierce evolution deniers in Parliament and powerful members of the clergy, and so they conscript a sinister anti-evolutionist to kill the prince and thus head off what would otherwise be seen as royal approval of a theory that threatens The Great Chain of Being: the way things are, have been, and must be forever. Little do they know that their hired man, the wraith-like creature with the disturbing

Early in her musical career, in the ‘90s, Diana Krall played a regular gig on Saturday evenings in Boston. When she drove down to New York City on Sunday mornings, she’d plan the trip so she could get close enough to hear the FM signal of WBGO in time to hear Singers Unlimited. She’s been hearing herself playing piano and singing ever since on WBGO. Diana Krall performs live in-studio, and speaks with Michael Bourne. Recorded 5/5/17. Nowadays, she can listen to wbgo.org during her travels around the world or in her hometown, Nanaimo, British Columbia. “I listen to you all the time,” she said when she came in for a recent session with a killer band, featuring frequent quartet-mate Anthony Wilson on guitar, along with bassist Robert Hurst, drummer Karriem Riggins and violinist Stuart Duncan.