Former Doctor Who star is also facing allegations of exposure and sexual assault by touching The actor Noel Clarke has been arrested over an attempted rape, which allegedly took place in 2007. The former Doctor Who star is also facing allegations of exposure and sexual assault by touching. Continue reading...

Tehran’s intervention comes as the Israeli prime minister heads to a hastily arranged White House encounter Tehran has told the US not to allow Israel to destroy the chance of reaching an agreement over Iran’s nuclear programme amid speculation that Benjamin Netanyahu intends to use a hastily arranged White House meeting with Donald Trump on Wednesday to divert negotiations. Iran’s intervention came as the Israeli prime minister flew to Washington to plead with Trump not to negotiate a deal with Tehran if it excludes limits the country’s ballistic missile programme, dropping its support for proxy forces in the region and curtailing human rights abuses at home. Continue reading...

When piloted, initiative that provided €325 a week to eligible artists recouped more than its net cost, study shows Ireland is creating a scheme that will give artists a weekly income in the hope of reducing their need for alternative work and boosting their creativity. The Basic Income for the Arts (BIA) initiative will provide €325 (£283) a week to 2,000 eligible artists based in the Republic of Ireland in three-year cycles. Continue reading...

⚽️ Premier League updates from the 8.15pm GMT kick-off ⚽️ Live scores | Tables | Follow us on Bluesky | Email Scott Both teams are in a good place right now, so changes to the starting XIs are thin on the ground. West Ham make one after their win at Burnley last weekend: Freddie Potts comes in for Callum Wilson, who drops to the bench. Manchester United meanwhile are again unchanged, naming the same starting XI for the third game in a row, after their home victories over Fulham and Tottenham Hotspur. West Ham United: Hermansen, Wan-Bissaka, Disasi, Mavropanos, Diouf, Soucek, Fernandes, Potts, Summerville, Bowen, Taty. Continue reading...

The wait for a first medal goes on but the camp believe they have several aces to play, especially in the skeleton Still the wait goes on. When Britain arrived in Milano Cortina there was heady talk of the country having one of its “most potent ever teams” for a Winter Olympics. So far, though, Team GB is still firing blanks. It is not for the want of trying. Kirsty Muir missed out on a freeski slopestyle bronze by 0.41 points. Mia Brookes came impossibly close to making the biggest trick in Olympic big air snowboard history. While Britain’s mixed curlers, having coasted regally through the group stages, found their mojo going awol when it mattered most. Continue reading...

Christos Flessas being detained in case seen as exposing Beijing’s strategy of infiltrating western military and security services A Greek air force officer arrested on suspicion of spying for China has been detained pending trial after appearing before a military judge in a case that is seen as exposing Beijing’s determination to infiltrate Europe’s security and intelligence services. Surrounded by armed escorts, a squadron leader identified as Col Christos Flessas emerged late on Tuesday from the court after giving testimony for over eight hours. Continue reading...

Restaurants face one-star reviews and less business in an already precarious industry. Some restaurateurs fear speaking out as immigrants themselves Amid calls for a national shutdown on 30 January, Anton Kinloch displayed a sign on the sidewalk outside Lone Wolf, his craft cocktail bar and restaurant in Kingston, New York. In large block letters he wrote: “WE LOVE ICE IN DRINKS. WE DON’T LOVE ICE IN REAL LIFE. SOLIDARITY ALWAYS.” Along with his wife and business partner Lisa Dy, he’d made the difficult decision to stay open, electing instead to donate a portion of the night’s proceeds to a local immigrant advocacy group. With frigid temperatures and inclement weather stymying business in the region this winter, he simply could not afford the lost revenue. But he refused to stay silent in the aftermath of the brutal killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) agents in Minneapolis. Continue reading...

Earl’s Court performance of Heroes in 1978 is among highlights of exhibition exploring singer’s life and work Rare “holy grail” footage of David Bowie performing Heroes at Earl’s Court in 1978 is to feature in a new immersive show about the singer’s life and creative practice. Extended footage of the performance has been pieced back together by the team behind the new Lightroom exhibition, who had access to new camera angles found on film reels discovered in the artist’s archives. Continue reading...

Newsmax was first foreign outlet let into country after US strike, a marriage of convenience for leadership trying to appease Trump In the days after Nicolás Maduro was abducted by US special forces, hundreds of journalists from as far away as Japan flocked to Colombia’s border with Venezuela hoping to witness the fallout from one of the most dramatic moments in South America’s recent history. None were granted visas to enter. Those who tried to do so anyway were detained and thrown out. But last weekend a team of reporters was finally allowed to visit Caracas. Continue reading...

Australia defended a detained journalist despite the risks. Britain’s muted response to a media mogul’s harsh sentence suggests a narrowing view of what confrontation is worth If the sentence handed to the media mogul Jimmy Lai was meant to surprise, it would have been shorter. Twenty years behind bars is not a burst of rage. It is a sentence designed to make repression routine in Hong Kong. The 78-year-old founder of the shuttered pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily is now likely to die in prison after being convicted of sedition. The court was telling Hongkongers what kind of place they now live in, and signalling to foreign governments what kind of relationship Beijing expects them to accept. China’s national security law, imposed on Hong Kong in 2020, was designed to dismantle the former British colony’s pro-democracy movement and to place freedom of expression under permanent political constraint by the Chinese Communist party. From 2020 to 2026, at least 385 individuals have been arrested and 175 convicted under national security-related offences. Continue reading...

Sensible plans to boost collaboration between councils may not be enough to tilt the balance away from private providers Nearly 55,000 children in England live with foster carers, and despite a recent fall in the number of children in care, pressure on the system remains intense. Rising costs and the growing role of private providers in residential care and foster placements have exposed deep weaknesses, yet reform has lagged behind the crisis in children’s homes. Only now have ministers set out plans to reshape fostering. The test is whether their plan fixes the system, or papers over its cracks. The main thrust of a new policy paper from the Department for Education is that more foster carers are needed to meet a target of 10,000 additional non-profit places by 2029. The children’s minister, Josh MacAlister, who previously led a review of the sector under the Tories, likened the plan to the Homes for Ukraine scheme, which saw nearly 74,000 people volunteer to host refugees fleeing the war. A national recruitment campaign can be expected soon. With around a third of all current carers aged over 60, it makes sense to try to attract new people to their ranks. Continue reading...

Cold spell means cars can cross 20km stretch of frozen sea but drivers must be able to exit quickly in case of a problem Temperatures in northern Europe have been so low that citizens of Estonia can now drive across a 20km stretch of frozen sea linking the country’s two main islands. The so-called “ice road” connecting the islands of Saaremaa and Hiiumaa, located in western Estonia between the Baltic Sea and the Gulf of Riga, was officially opened on Sunday with a line of cars waiting to use it that afternoon. Continue reading...

Kalshi says ‘incredible weekend’ after $145m in bets on Bad Bunny’s opening song and guests during half-time show Online prediction market Kalshi hit a daily record on Super Bowl Sunday, surpassing $1bn in trading volume, the company announced on Tuesday. Kalshi’s CEO, Tarek Mansour, called it an “incredible weekend”, telling CNBC that “Kalshi was the biggest brand of the Super Bowl this year, without running a Super Bowl ad”. Continue reading...

An illuminating show at the Young V&A in London showcases the work of the world’s leading stop-motion studio What would Wallace - everyone’s favourite amateur Yorkshire inventor – look like with a moustache, straw boater and postman’s coat? Would a huge set of teeth suit his faithful beagle, Gromit? How about a nose shaped like a banana? Such questions are answered by an illuminating and sometimes alarming exhibition at east London’s Young V&A that showcases the work of the world’s leading stop-motion outfit, the Bristol-based Aardman studios. Early sketches for Nick Park’s much-loved characters reveal that Wallace was once just a few bristles short of Hitler, while Gromit had fangs and the ability to speak. Continue reading...

Ex-editor of Daily Mail tells high court he is appalled by allegations about its journalists by Stephen Lawrence’s mother and others Paul Dacre, the long-time editor of the Daily Mail, has said it was “bitterly wounding” to face allegations that his journalists used criminal tactics to target the mother of a murdered teenager whose case he had championed. Giving evidence in the high court, Dacre, who edited the paper from 1992 to 2018, said the “grave and sometimes preposterous” claims from Doreen Lawrence and six other claimants had “astonished, appalled and – in the small hours of the night – reduced me to rage”. Continue reading...

Muammar Gaddafi’s son determined to make a political return backed by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Libya Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, who has died aged 53, shot dead by four masked assailants at his home, was for many years considered the heir apparent to his father Muammar Gaddafi, Libya’s long-time dictator, and was still a potential force in his country’s fractured and violent politics. He was issued with an arrest warrant by the international criminal court in 2011 – and convicted in absentia by a Libyan court in 2015 – over war crimes committed during the 2011 revolution. Saif had promised that the regime would keep fighting the rebels “until the last man standing, even the last woman standing”. Continue reading...

Trump earlier had ranted against bridge and also warned that China would ‘terminate’ hockey in Canada Mark Carney said he had held a “positive” conversation with Donald Trump after the US leader threatened to block a key bridge between their two countries, reminding the president that Canada paid for the structure – and that the US shares ownership. Late on Monday, Trump posted a lengthy message on social media, falsely claiming that the $4.6bn Gordie Howe International Bridge between Windsor, Ontario, and Detroit, Michigan, had “virtually no US content”. Continue reading...

Yes, he betrayed the national interest in his dealings with Jeffrey Epstein – but also in his sanctioned role as enabler of corporate power History is being rewritten. The story we are told is that an evil man called Peter Mandelson, pursuing his own interests, went rogue to collaborate with a serial abuser of girls and women, undermining the good work of people seeking to defend the public interest. All this is true. But – and I fear many will find this hard to accept – it is only half the story. The much harder truth is that Mandelson’s disgraceful dealings with Jeffrey Epstein were less a betrayal of his brief than an unauthorised extension of it. In 2009 – just as, we now know, Mandelson was passing sensitive information to Epstein – I argued that the government department he ran, called Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (Berr), “functions as a fifth column within government, working for corporations to undermine democracy and the public interest”. George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. Continue reading...

⚽️ Latest updates from the Premier League and beyond ⚽️ Live scores | Tables | Follow us on Bluesky | Email Will This feels like a significant night. The Liam Rosenior revolution continues apace at Chelsea, where he has four wins in as many league games. A victory tonight and Manchester United slipping up at West Ham would put the Blues into the top four. Leeds gave Nottingham Forest a good pummelling and will think they can ruffle some feathers at Stamford Bridge, especially having defeated Chelsea at Elland Road a few months ago. Eddie Howe admitted on Monday he would be willing to quit as Newcastle head coach if he thought he was the problem. Something is going wrong with the Magpies, sitting 12th in the Premier League and putting in mediocre performances most weeks. Speaking of under pressure coaches, Newcastle are in Tottenham tonight, where Thomas Frank is desperately waiting for a turnaround in form. Seeing off Newcastle would be a useful start because if Spurs do lose and Leeds get a point tonight, the North Londoners will drop down to 16th. Continue reading...

As the right stokes culture wars, their alternatives to ‘woke’ Hollywood prove to be shoddily made and uninspired It’s not fair, what they did to rightwing folks on Super Bowl Sunday. Regular viewers could either take in an elaborate and joyful halftime performance from Puerto Rican recording artist Bad Bunny, one of the most popular music stars in the world, or, if they weren’t interested in football or in Bad Bunny’s music, they could quietly find something else to watch or listen to. There are a lot of options out there. Those who wanted to prove their Maga bona fides or loyalties, however, may have felt obligated to watch a parade of similar-sounding country singers lead into a performance from a shorts-wearing Kid Rock, jumping around and seemingly lip-syncing to a novelty hit from 1999. For rightwingers who couldn’t stomach the Spanish lyrics to Bad Bunny songs, they could take comfort in the clear English of the man also known as Robert Ritchie: “Bawitdaba, da-bang, da-bang, diggy-diggy-diggy.” (These lyrics are actually just what a certain segment of white listeners prefer: something ripped off from Black culture, in this case rapper Busy Bee.) This sad spectacle was provided by Turning Point USA, which is not actually a charity organization for faded turn-of-the-century rap-rockers, but a rightwing advocacy group co-founded by the late Charlie Kirk. When Kid Rock pivoted back to Ritchie and covered the country tune Til You Can’t (with a pious and half-assed new verse added by Ritchie himself), the music was chased with a tribute to Kirk. This means that viewers were treated to all the artistry of a Kid Rock show plus all the cheerfulness of a funeral. Continue reading...

The dried food, traditionally for pets, has become an unlikely influence for meal preppers. Some commenters have even claimed the trend could be an antidote to toxic masculinity Name: Boy kibble. Age: It’s new. Continue reading...

Pupils, aged 12 and 13, at Kingsbury high school are receiving medical care, with one at a major trauma centre Two boys, aged 12 and 13, have been stabbed at a school in north-west London, and police are searching for a teenage suspect. The Metropolitan police were called to the scene at Kingsbury high school in Bacon Lane, Brent at 12.40pm on Tuesday to reports that a 13-year-old boy was stabbed. When they arrived at the scene, officers found a 12-year-old boy who had also been stabbed. Continue reading...

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Exclusive: Norway’s chief of defence Eirik Kristoffersen, who served in Afghanistan, was critical of Trump’s claim Nato troops stayed off frontlines Norway’s army chief has said Oslo cannot exclude the possibility of a future Russian invasion of the country, suggesting Moscow could move on Norway to protect its nuclear assets stationed in the far north. “We don’t exclude a land grab from Russia as part of their plan to protect their own nuclear capabilities, which is the only thing they have left that actually threatens the United States,” said Gen Eirik Kristoffersen, Norway’s chief of defence. Continue reading...

Miliband is one minister who doesn’t want to be PM, and is more than happy to let Starmer think he is still in control It was a day for one of the Top Team. The safest of safe hands. A grownup. That didn’t mean the likes of Emma Reynolds. Emma looks permanently startled at the best of times. Especially when there’s a microphone around. Give her more than 30 seconds and she’ll confess to crimes she didn’t commit. And certainly not Wes Streeting. Not even Wes trusts Wes. His denials over any involvement with Anas Sarwar’s Monday press conference weren’t 100% convincing. Nor was his insistence that he had never much liked Peter Mandelson. In his WhatsApps, Wes uses one kiss for those he hates and two for those he loves. Apparently. Continue reading...