The US’s first literary obscenity trial dated back to 1821, when John Cleland’s 1779 novel Fanny Hill: Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, about the life of a sex worker, was banned. Since the 19th Century, US obscenity law had been modelled on that in Britain, which itself was founded …

This 40,000-sq ft resort occupies a sloped terrain, and one of its aims is to minimise its impact on the landscape. The complex, designed by Aslam Sham Architects, comprises closely grouped buildings, and fills a plot with a curving perimeter. Its buildings include villas, a restaurant and swimming pool, and …

A 1978 killing is one of the great unsolved mysteries of the Cold War BBC News

The film is inspired by the true story of Chris Hansen, an Emmy-winning American journalist, and his most famous / notorious television show, To Catch a Predator, which ran as part of Dateline NBC from 2004 to 2007. The programme staged sting operations aimed at would-be paedophiles. Its staff would …

Art history proves the point. More than 400 years ago, Caravaggio split the opinions of his contemporaries with the groundbreaking levels of violence, sexual tension and darkness of his religious paintings, factors that brought him to international prominence. The artists of the 19th Century who are nowadays most valorised, such …

The new film by Irish director Martin McDonagh is a 1970s spy yarn with bite BBC News

The new film by Irish director Martin McDonagh is a 1970s spy yarn with bite BBC News

Articulate, energetic and committed, she had carved out a name for herself in the 1960s and ’70s through her journalism, which included going undercover at the New York Playboy Club to expose exploitative working conditions. She was also a passionate activist, having founded, along with Brenda Feigen and Dorothy Pitman-Hughes, …

The time in question is 1969. Having made his mark in Australia, Murdoch moves to London, buys an ailing British daily tabloid newspaper, The Sun, and appoints a working-class northern editor, Larry Lamb (Jack O’Connell), to reinvent it. Initially the film is staged as a high-octane heist movie, with the …

The plot thickened when further details of the book emerged. We learned Life of M features two main protagonists – a nameless (and genderless) writer and a famous movie actress, M. “A little while ago, I told the actor M that I was thinking of writing her autobiography,” begins the …

The meaning for those who built Stonehenge was, he believed, significant. “Eclipses are spectacular events that surely aroused the deepest emotions of our primitive ancestors,” said Hawkins. “The light of the Moon, which is, of course, borrowed from the Sun, is cut off. It passes into the Earth’s shadow. The …

There’s been Mindy Kaling’s Not Suitable For Work, about five recent graduates in Manhattan, while the second season of FX’s chaotic but cosy Adults premieres today, centring on a house-share of another quintet across the water in Queens. Beyond the Big Apple, other shows following a similar Friends-style template have …

Alone in his girlfriend’s apartment as the full moon blooms, David suddenly screams that he is “burning up”, falls to his knees in agony, and rips his clothes off. His hands elongate, his body gets hairier, his teeth and nails sharpen, and his face twists and warps. The soundtrack is …

In recent years, however, the two lanes converged, and ascended to a higher plane of celebrity. Fuelled by her Glastonbury triumph, her 44th album, 2014’s Blue Smoke, became her most successful ever in the UK, while Netflix followed a drama series based on her songs, Dolly Parton’s Heartstrings, with a …

From the return of The Gentlemen to a drama about the Lizzie Borden murder case BBC News

In the iconic artwork virility is equated to power – and the largest appendage BBC News

The latest cartoon from DreamWorks Animation (The Wild Robot, Dog Man) is a psychedelic fantasy adventure – but it’s also the first major Hollywood film to draw on Filipino folklore. Grammy-winning singer H.E.R. and Liza Soberano provide the voices of Jo and Raissa, two schoolgirls who become best friends in …

The US east coastal town of Nantucket, Massachusetts, where Moby Dick begins, became the whaling capital and earned its nickname, “The City That Lit the World”. The whalers learnt about whales through direct observation, while scientists had specimens to dissect. Taxonomy divided whales and other animals into neat categories based …

As evidenced by the titles in the trailer and on all the posters for the first film, this is “Namit Malhotra’s Ramayana”, a visually splendid epic that places Malhotra’s expertise in visual effects front and centre. The son of a Bollywood producer and grandson of a cinematographer, Malhotra started a …

From a dazzling ancient temple to a multi-coloured loft and a vibrant library BBC News