Usually an appetiser before the main event, the virtual version of the famous steeplechase takes centre stage on Saturday after the famous Aintree race was cancelled due to coronavirus.

DOMINIC KING: It's the jarring sight of the Blue Anchor that first strikes you. This huge pub, a furlong from the Melling Road, is usually such a bouncing venue for the three days.

MARCUS TOWNEND: We've had the void Grand National, the bomb scare Grand National and dramas like Devon Loch collapsing on the run-in with the race at his mercy in 1956.

Laurie Lee died in 1997. A couple of years ago, David Parker, who made a documentary, found his recordings of Lee in a mis-labelled box and presented them to Penguin

Our book critic tests your knowledge of the best boosk released in 2019, with this fun, challenging literary quiz

The shortest sentence in this autobiography is also the truest. 'Brevity,' writes John Bercow, 'is not my strong suit.' You can say that again!

For the most part, Kate Fall regards her role as a memoirist as an extension of her job as gatekeeper: to present the polished face of the Cameron administration to the world

John Carey is a welcoming host, full of enthusiasm, and the opposite of crusty. He can throw sparkling light on a poet's method in a handful of words

With this, her first novel, Naoise Dolan proves she is a wonderfully sharp, comic writer, adept at making wisecracks in the caustic, knock-'em-off, knock-'em-down tradition of Dorothy Parker

Doyle follows an ever-increasing line of academics who attempt to sanctify pop music with stuffiness. In so doing, they extinguish its fire in a great whoosh of homogenous jargon

'Dangerous criminals are being released every single day', an ICE spokesman said. Sanctuary cities like NYC limit cooperation with U.S. immigration authorities.

Bernice A. King, Martin Luther King Jr.'s daughter, delivered speech at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia, on MLK Day. Thousands around the country celebrate his legacy.

Downing Street today gave a strong hint a government plan to impose a minimum earnings threshold on migrants who want to come to the UK after Brexit will be dropped.

Mexican authorities recaptured 100 of more than 200 that fled an immigration station on Monday in southern Mexico as hundreds more remained stuck on the Suchiate River's shore.

Boris Johnson's plan to scrap a minimum earnings threshold for migrants who want to move to the UK after Brexit has sparked a backlash among Tory MPs.

Shahab Dehghani, 24, an Iranian economics student at Northeastern University, was denied entry to the US and ordered to immediately fly back to his native country.

The Prime Minister will vow to 'mobilise the full breadth of our new freedoms' on Brexit night - as his Bill paving the way for Britain to leave the EU was finally passed by Parliament yesterday.

The Home Secretary apparently set out on Tuesday that there will be no so-called 'carve outs' under Boris Johnson's Australian-style points-based immigration system.

Downing Street has rejected a big business demand to allow low-skilled migration from the EU to continue after Brexit, telling companies to focus on training UK workers instead.

The Health Secretary sought to reassure the public today as he addressed MPs about the killer outbreak that has led Beijing to place a city larger than London in quarantine.

Priti Patel today launched a savage attack on big British business as she said companies had become 'far too reliant on low skilled' and 'cheap' workers from the EU.

SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon insisted it is vital that immigration from the EU is allowed to carry on after Brexit, saying the economy needs workers.

New Zealand expatriates in Australia have called on Russell Crowe to support their bid to change 'racially discriminatory' citizenship laws.

Dozens of foreigners who may have been exposed to the potentially deadly coronavirus are set to be secretly held in isolation at a hotel near the centre of Sydney, a source has revealed. 

HENRY DEEDES: I have spent two rollercoaster weeks watching Donald Trump at close quarters, and speaking to scores who voted for him in 2016 and who intend to do so again.

The High Court has ruled in a majority 4-3 verdict that Aboriginal people can't be deported from Australia because they are exempt from immigration laws under the constitution.

US Attorney General William Barr announced a new slew of sanctions against sanctuary cities, in what he called a 'significant escalation' against obstruction of US immigration laws.

Essex Police said a 22-year-old man was arrested in Northern Ireland on Sunday on suspicion of manslaughter and facilitating unlawful immigration.

The new Chancellor was beaming as he sat next to the Prime Minister despite the fact that yesterday he saw his boss Sajid Javid purged from the government.

Members of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection's (CBP) Border Patrol Tactical Unit will be among the officers deployed to cities to assist Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE.

Migrants will also earn 'points' for how well they speak English. In some cases migrants taking jobs paying as little as £23,000 could be granted visas, depending on their skills.

The chancellor insisted the UK's new border system would not be ready by December. Relations between No 10 and No 11 were stretched by the proposed extension.

DAVID GOODHART: The post-Brexit shake-up to Britain's immigration system, unveiled today by Priti Patel, should be welcomed on the grounds of politics, economics - and general fairness.

Priti Patel blasted rapper Dave's incendiary claims that Boris Johnson is a 'real racist' this morning on Sky News and BBC Breakfast, calling them 'utter nonsense' and 'highly inappropriate'.

The 47-year-old, who was born in London to Ugandan Asian parents of Gujarati descent, admitted they would not have made the cut were the system in place in the 1960s when they arrived.

Erick Diaz Cruz, left and right in hospital, was shot on February 6 by an agent who was part of a team trying to arrest his mother's boyfriend. He had been visiting NYC on a vacation. Scene inset.

The review into the Government's policy towards migrants has seen the claim edited out of the final draft. It was commissioned in 2018 after the Windrush scandal.

Jose Emanuel Garcia Sota, aka 'Zafado,' and Jesus Ivan Quezada Pina, aka 'Loco,' were convicted three years ago in the February 2011 murder of ICE agent Jaime Zapata in Mexico.

Odion Ighalo angered a student football team while he was participating in a solo training session over the winter break, according to The Sun. 

Priti Patel has been hit with new 'bullying' claims as it emerges immigration boss Mark Thomson was prompted to resign from his role following 'uncomfortable' demands by the Home Secretary.

Almost a third of Australians who took part in a survey expressed concern about immigration. The study commissioned by Real Insurance showed overcrowding as an issue.

Let's imagine for a second if a senior member of Vote Leave had tweeted about barring a senior black or Asian Labour politician from the country, writes DAN HODGES.

Lucio Delgado, from Mexico, took to Facebook last week to share that a letter he received informed him that he 'failed to successfully pass the reading test.'

Miguel Federico Ajqui-Ajtzalam was picked up by Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Monday after originally being arrested in New York last Thursday. NYPD released him despite ICE detainer.

The New York Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit against ICE claiming New York officers rigged algorithms to always recommend people arrested for immigration violations be detained.

The allies claim Sir Philip's live statement to the BBC - in which he said he was planning to take her and the department to court for constructive dismissal - had 'Javid's fingerprints all over it'.

Lucas Dos Reis Laurindo, a 26-year-old Brazilian national, was given a ticket for the fatal crash that left four family members dead near Disney World in Florida and was arrested trying to leave the U.S.

Ilaitia Cokanasiga, 48, from Fiji, said he felt 'immense pride' to have served with the UK armed forces but now feels 'betrayed' after he was let down by the government.

The official Treasury 'Red Book' predicts that cash saved from EU contributions will total £42.3billion over the next five years.

President Rodrigo Duterte announced strict immigration curbs and a halt on domestic land, sea and air travel to and from Manila to arrest the spread of coronavirus on Thursday.