Vincent Chan, 45, is already facing years behind bars for molesting girls aged three and four at a nursery in London A paedophile nursery worker has admitted a series of new charges including filming up the skirts of girls as they sat in a classroom. Vincent Chan, 45, is facing years behind bars for molesting girls aged three and four while working at Bright Horizons nursery in West Hampstead, north London. Continue reading...

Despite an estimated outlay of $6bn since 2022, LIV appears to be far away from establishing itself in the the manner of PIF projects in other sports In one sense, it is difficult to detect anything warm and cuddly in all of this. Elite golfers, who were already obscenely rich, take the bounty on offer from a Saudi Arabian-backed disruption model before shuffling back whence they came – essentially for a trivial penalty – when the novelty wears off. This is hardly sport at its purest. Instead, an admission by Brooks Koepka and Patrick Reed that they blundered in believing the fairways were greener on the LIV side. The PGA Tour, desperate to portray themselves as the big boys in the playground, welcome one-time pariahs back with open arms. Other golfers who spurned LIV’s fluttering eyelashes scratch their heads, wondering why they bothered. There is, however, an underlying and endearing point. All the petroleum pounds in the world are no substitute for legacy. Trying to match the achievements of Arnold Palmer, Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy carries significance. LIV golf has no relevance beyond its own domain. Saudi Arabia has made inroads into various sports but, in golf, the kingdom is unquestionably doomed. LIV is on the road towards oblivion, far earlier than most had anticipated. Only those who will gain financially from its continuation can try to spin an alternative story. Continue reading...

David Zwirner, London Though they were created for comic books, the artist’s horny and hilarious drawings of his own neuroses, and of glamazons in thigh-high boots, are unnervingly powerful on gallery walls It is unnerving to walk into a gallery and see all your deepest fears and anxieties splayed out across the wall, but that is the power of Robert Crumb. For more than half a century, the wiry, weird, difficult and awkwardly horny artist (now in his 80s) has been churning out underground comics that lay bare his deepest neuroses, and reflect yours back in the process. Now he is being celebrated in an ultra-high-end London gallery, with pages ripped from his notebooks and framed up like the finest of fine art. Except this isn’t fine, it’s filthy and angry and paranoid. It’s classic Crumb: skinny men quivering with worry and fear and hormones in a cruel, uncaring, senseless world – filled with towering women in thigh-high boots, obviously. Continue reading...

The actor was promoting her new lingerie line – and in 2026, marketing requires more than a glossy ad I would hate to have to launch a new product in 2026. Imagine a scenario where you’ve developed some ingenious new widget that costs millions of dollars to design, produce, and bring to market. You could have quit numerous times. You probably wanted to, because there’s a new season of The Traitors and you have to catch up. But you never surrendered. You persevered, and your brilliant invention is ready for the world. All you have to do now is convince a society besieged by a nonstop cavalcade of crises to care. If the US government could kindly stop sending paramilitary forces to occupy major cities, that would be great for my brand. This is the predicament faced by poor Sydney Sweeney, the actor best known for HBO’s Euphoria and the recent film The Housemaid. This week, Sweeney debuted a new lingerie line called “Syrn”. I presume it’s meant to be pronounced “siren”, since that’s a suitably sultry sounding name. Also, confusing, which might be part of the brilliant marketing plan behind the launch. If you baffle enough people, they’ll be sure to Google you to see what your damn problem is anyway. If I was the marketing lead on this project, I would have suggested “Syren”, since that at least has a real vowel in it, like most actual words. Unfortunately, “Syren” was the name of a Confederate blockade runner during the civil war, which we (and very particularly Sydney Sweeney) would probably want to avoid associating with. Dave Schilling is a Los Angeles-based writer and humorist Continue reading...

The author and spoken word artist’s delivery is full of tenderness and humour as she confronts the outdated notions of innocence that surround women The latest collection by the poet Hollie McNish is dedicated to anyone who has been “blamed, shamed, pressured, tortured, dehumanised, de-mothered over a man-made concept about your own body”. Virgin is a series of poems and prose stories aimed at busting myths and challenging stereotypes about sex and the body. McNish tackles the persistently weird and outdated notions of innocence and purity around young women: “Do not tell me which touches have mattered the most / This is your obsession not mine.” In Send Nudes she notes how any shame about those who have sent “a snapshot of your body stripped autumn bare” lies with the person who broke trust by sharing or mocking it, and not with the sender. Continue reading...

The actor on manifesting the part of Hagrid in Harry Potter, struggling with his looks and his issue with Strictly You’re big on pies on your Insta. What’s your go-to pastry recipe and, briefly, your favourite filling – savoury and sweet? TopTramp Well, as much as I can make it, I like to have a little block of shop-bought shortcrust or flaky pastry in the fridge. It’s so much easier to just roll it out and stick it on top. The pies have to be double crust. The one I make the most is slow braised, tiny chunks of steak with minced beef and roasted shallots, like a minced beef and onion pie. The kids love that with chips for Saturday night dinner. I like making chicken and mushroom with leek, although my partner’s a veggie, so she would probably say fish pie, with boiled eggs, which is a real labour of love, so I tend to save that for special occasions. I like a nice apple and cinnamon pie with a Demerara sugar crust, and cherry pie made with that really shit fake filling. What happened to your live-action remake of Captain Pugwash? keithrickaby That was nearly 10 years ago. There was quite a good script. I think the money was coming from China, and I’m not sure they’d seen Captain Pugwash before. I think it was one of those things that never quite reached escape velocity. I do remember they just had normal names, and not the double entendres like Seaman Staines or Master Bates that everyone thinks were in the cartoon. Continue reading...

The star’s urgent and to-the-point protest song is not subtle about its target and right now that’s why it works so well Bruce Springsteen’s new protest song isn’t open to interpretation. In Streets of Minneapolis, the Boss condemns “King Trump’s private army from the DHS” that “came to Minneapolis to enforce the law – or so their story goes”. He names Renee Good and Alex Pretti, both killed by federal agents amid protests. He rages against “Miller and Noem’s dirty lies”, referencing the faces of the Trump administration’s onslaught against immigrants. Continue reading...

Sundance film festival: comedian Iliza Shlesinger’s nonsensical misfire is a swirl of cliches, unfunny comedy, stock characters and bizarre direction from Josephine Decker I will give Chasing Summer this: there’s something inherently interesting about its unexpected union of two opposite forces. On one side there’s Josephine Decker, an unusual film-maker whose genre-challenging work spans experimental theater (2019’s Madeline’s Madeline), claustrophobic psychodrama (2020’s perversely thrilling, woefully underseen Shirley) and magical realism (the 2022 YA grief flick The Sky Is Everywhere). On the other, comedian Iliza Shlesinger, whose brand of fast-paced, ribald, sometimes hilarious (and sometimes too gender-essentialist) standup is both subverted and enhanced by her own white, blond conventional attractiveness. I can’t imagine many saw the former choosing to direct Chasing Summer, a Hallmark-esque comedy written by and starring the latter. Theoretically, the collision should generate sparks. It does, though I can’t imagine in the way the odd couple intended. The 98-minute film, which premiered this week at Sundance, is one of the most bizarre combinations of director and material I’ve ever seen, more curious car crash than collaboration. It is almost worth it to watch a sensitive and surprising director, so attuned to inner turmoil and unreality, wrangle anything substantial out of razor-thin characters and a boilerplate set-up. Chasing Summer is screening at the Sundance film festival and is seeking distribution Continue reading...

Tottenham eased into the last 16 and the midfielder trusts their uplift will provide ‘a big jump’ in the Premier League It was a question most assuredly in keeping with the overall craziness of the situation. Tottenham: 14th in the Premier League, with two wins out of 14 some of their fans beginning to fret about relegation. Also out of both domestic cups. Tottenham: the fourth best team in Europe after the conclusion of the league phase of the Champions League. On a fast-track to the last 16. So, of course, it was put to João Palhinha as he left the stadium after Spurs’s convincing 2-0 win at Eintracht Frankfurt on Wednesday night. Can Spurs win the Champions League? The midfielder’s response was to chuckle. And then laugh a little more. “I know what you want to hear from me,” he said. Continue reading...

The Guardian’s picture editors select photographs from around the world Continue reading...

Turkey hosts urgent mediation as Trump’s threats mount and Tehran weighs painful compromises to avoid conflict Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, will travel to Ankara for talks aimed at preventing a US attack, as Turkish diplomats seek to convince Tehran it must offer concessions over its nuclear programme if it is to avert a potentially devastating conflict. Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, proposed a video conference between Donald Trump and his Iranian counterpart, Masoud Pezeshkian – the kind of high-wire diplomacy that may appeal to the US leader, but would be anathema to circumspect Iranian diplomats. No formal direct talks have been held between the two countries for a decade. Continue reading...

Border czar Tom Homan in Minneapolis says ‘no agency is perfect’ and acknowledges improvements that need to be made to federal immigration enforcement ‘Nothing has changed’: Minneapolis on edge despite Trump’s de-escalation vow “I do not want to hear that “everything that’s been done here has been perfect”, Homan said, without referring specifically to the fatal shooting of Renee Good and Alex Pretti. Homan noted that while no “agency is perfect” he did not come to Minneapolis to create “headlines”. The federal immigration enforcement surge is “going to improve because of changes we’re making”, he said. Continue reading...

Giving passengers right to additional carry-on baggage would be ‘terrible for the consumer’, warns airline’s CEO EasyJet said proposals to enforce free additional cabin bags on planes across Europe are a “lunatic idea”, warning of fare rises and flight delays if legislation goes through. The European parliament last week voted overwhelmingly to give all passengers the right to carry on a small case, as well as the free underseat bags currently permitted. Continue reading...

Paul Patterson, who represented the firm at the public inquiry, will become non-executive chair in March The European boss of Fujitsu, the company behind the Horizon software at the heart of the Post Office IT scandal, is to step down from his role in March. Paul Patterson, who is the chief executive of the European division of the company, will become non-executive chair of Fujitsu’s UK business, where he will “continue managing the company’s response” to the inquiry into the scandal. Continue reading...

A unit of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents will join a US delegation to the Winter Olympics in Italy, sparking confusion and uproar in the country. Guardian reporter Jakub Krupa looks at what role the agency, which is embroiled in a violent US immigration crackdown, might have at the Milan-Cortina Games. ICE said agents would 'vet and mitigate risks from transnational criminal organisations' but not run enforcement operations. Milan’s mayor, Giuseppe Sala, said the the agents would be unwelcome in the city. 'This is a militia that kills,' he said Continue reading...

Our cartoonist previews the A-League Men’s Sydney derby at Allianz Stadium where two stinkball teams converge this weekend Continue reading...

Projects this year expected to triple global gas capacity, forecast finds, as concerns grow over impacts on planet The US is leading a huge global surge in new gas-fired power generation that will cause a major leap in planet-heating emissions, with this record boom driven by the expansion of energy-hungry datacenters to service artificial intelligence, according to a new forecast. This year is set to shatter the annual record for new gas power additions around the world, with projects in development expected to grow existing global gas capacity by nearly 50%, a report by Global Energy Monitor (GEM) found. Continue reading...

The PWR returns with Gloucester-Hartpury on an epic winning run and a tight battle for the semi-final spots Gloucester-Hartpury will take to the pitch this weekend when the league returns from a six-week break looking to sustain an enviable record in Premiership Women’s Rugby. The West Country team are unbeaten since a defeat by local rivals Bristol Bears in November 2024 and have since won 18 PWR games on the bounce, including their third successive final. If Gloucester manage to beat Loughborough at Kingsholm on Sunday they will leapfrog Saracens, who are currently top of the table despite losing to the champions this season, and who have a bye this weekend. The top two are 12 points clear of the rest of the league and the clubs who finish in either of those spots host their semi-final. So does being top even matter if second gets you the same result? Saracens second row Georgia Evans believes so: “We want to be top all of the time. This league has stepped up, you’ve seen how competitive and close some of the games are. Top of the table means a lot.” Continue reading...

Report into actions of Yaser Jabbar from 2017 to 2022 says 36 of the patients suffered severe harm under his care Nearly 100 children suffered harm at the hands of a Great Ormond Street orthopaedic surgeon, a report has concluded. Great Ormond Street hospital (Gosh) published a review on Thursday into the actions of Yaser Jabbar, who treated hundreds of children from 2017 to 2022. Thirty-six children suffered severe harm while under the care of the surgeon, who worked on lower limb reconstruction. A further 39 patients came to moderate harm and 19 patients came to mild harm. Overall, 94 patients were found to have been harmed. Continue reading...

Government to lend up to £10,000 to worst-affected new retirees as minister admits there is ‘unacceptable’ backlog Newly retired civil servants say they are struggling to pay bills and buy food because delays at their pension scheme have left them without an income for months. Pensioners have reported being forced to borrow money from family to pay for food and heating, with some saying they feared losing their homes because they could not afford their rent or mortgage. Continue reading...

Universal credit to rise faster than inflation, benefit hurdles eased, extra help for children and young people … I bet you had no idea It’s the good this government does that can make you hold your head in your hands and sigh. Ask people what they think of Labour policy on benefits and they will probably talk of seizing the winter fuel allowance from freezing pensioners. Or that £5bn snatched from disabled people, until Labour’s own MPs prevented it. These were the signifiers that set the wrong tone early on. Late, far too late, abolishing the two-child limit has not made the same impression on public perceptions, despite the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) this week reporting it as being behind what could be the greatest ever fall in child poverty in a parliament. The government fails to herald its progress in reversing the worst the Tories did to benefits. Why? I’m not sure if it is ineptitude or a political decision not to trumpet its many progressive policies. Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

Leo Ross was stabbed to death in knife attack as he walked home from school A 15-year-old boy has pleaded guilty at Birmingham crown court to the murder of 12-year-old Leo Ross in a knife attack as he walked home from school. More details soon … Continue reading...

Latest ruling affects up to 3.6m women born in 1950s who say they have lost out in way UK pension age changed Millions of “Waspi women” will not receive any compensation, the government has again decided in its latest ruling on the case – but campaigners say they will fight on to secure the justice they say they have been “shamefully denied”. As many as 3.6 million women born in the 1950s are said to have lost out because of government failings in the way changes to the state pension age were made, prompting the launch in 2015 of the Waspi (Women Against State Pension Inequality) campaign. Continue reading...

Manchester mayor took aim at House of Commons briefing culture and said he would continue to call out liars Westminster insiders “do not get a licence to lie”, said Andy Burnham on Thursday, in an angry swipe at the political briefing culture in the House of Commons. After a week of political antagonism over the Labour party’s national executive committee’s decision to block Burnham from standing in the Gorton and Denton byelection next month, the Manchester mayor said he would call out liars in Westminster in the aftermath of the dispute. Continue reading...

Killings involving knives or sharp implements dropped by 23% year on year, ONS figures show The total number of homicides in England and Wales has fallen to its lowest level since records began after a dramatic drop in killings involving a knife or sharp implement. Figures released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show 499 homicides were recorded by police in the 12 months to September 2025, a drop of 7% year on year from 539. These are the lowest overall homicide figures since records were first recorded in 2003. Continue reading...