Chelsea’s habit of squandering leads did not leave with Enzo Maresca. The lapses in concentration have piled up and there was another to add to the list after Stamford Bridge witnessed an inexplicable collapse against Leeds, who took another step towards staying up fighting back from 2-0 down to keep themselves six points above the bottom three.

The turnaround was not on the cards when Cole Palmer, who had earlier collected his first assist in the Premier League this season, extended Chelsea’s advantage by scoring from the spot for the third time in two games. By the end, though, Liam Rosenior was ­watching the prospect of an eighth win in 10 games slip away. The implosion was staggering. Lukas Nmecha and Noah Okafor had capitalised on dreadful defending to make it 2-2 and, while Chelsea rallied, their hopes of a late winner ended when Palmer produced a contender for miss of the season.

• Veteran sustains serious injury during Winter Olympics training

• Athlete in good spirits says chef de mission Alisa Camplin

Australia’s Olympic team has been rocked with Cam Bolton airlifted to Milan after breaking his neck in training, ending the veteran snowboarder’s Winter Games campaign.

Competing at his fourth Olympics, the 35-year-old suffered a crash on Monday while training for the snowboard cross event but woke up with worsening pain in his neck the following day.

Hill Dickinson Stadium is no place like home for Everton. Not yet, anyway. Sixth place and momentum in the push for European qualification was the tantalising prize for beating Bournemouth but, not for the first time at their plush new stadium, David Moyes’s team let it slip through their grasp.

Andoni Iraola’s visitors extended their unbeaten Premier League run to six games courtesy of second-half headers from Rayan, the 19-year-old Brazilian who could well be their latest gem, and Amine Adli. Bournemouth’s goals and a red card for the Everton defender Jake O’Brien arrived in an eight-minute spell in which the hosts imploded to leave themselves without a home win since 6 December. Moyes’s side have collected 17 points from their last eight away games but only eight from the last nine at home. Their quest for Europe is floundering on home soil.

• Acting director Todd Lyons called ICE ‘key’ to security

• 2026 World Cup takes place this summer in 11 US cities

The acting director of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) told a congressional committee on Tuesday that his agency is a “key part of the overall security apparatus for the World Cup” and refused to commit to pausing operations near games at this summer’s tournament.

The 2026 World Cup will be hosted this summer by the United States, Mexico, and Canada, with 78 of the 104 games taking place in the US. Various entities have estimated that up to 10 million people could visit the 11 US host cities for the quadrennial tournament. However, ICE’s role in Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown – including an extended and widespread operation in the Minneapolis/Saint Paul metropolitan area in which two people were killed by federal agents – has raised serious concerns among fans.

Health secretary poised to make leadership bid after May local elections to pre-empt a potential challenge from rival Rayner, MPs close to him say

Allies of Wes Streeting expect him to try to challenge Keir Starmer’s leadership within weeks, despite the health secretary insisting he backs the prime minister and is not intending to move against him, the Guardian has been told.

Starmer attempted to regain authority over his party on Tuesday after a tumultuous day in Westminster during which he was denounced by the Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar and lost his director of communications.

Teenagers routinely see content promoting weight-loss drugs, steroids and skin-whitening creams, research finds

Children are being “bombarded” with harmful products online, including weight-loss drugs, steroids and skin-whitening chemicals, a study has found.

Research conducted for the children’s commissioner for England found that teenagers were routinely exposed to harmful products on social media, video games and apps.

Arsenal and Manchester United face familiar opponents in a revamped competition that has so far proven more competitive

The next phase of the new Women’s Champions League format gets under way on Wednesday and Thursday, when the four playoff first legs take place. Arsenal and Manchester United are among eight teams vying to join Barcelona, Lyon, Chelsea and Bayern Munich, who automatically qualified for the quarter-finals as the top four in the league phase.

As in the men’s competition, a switch from a group stage to the league format has been made. However, with the UWCL group stage having been introduced only for the 2021-22 season, there was scepticism about a change coming so soon, with the group stage viewed as a big step forward and in its relative infancy.

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.

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 limiting the country’s ballistic missile programme, dropping its support for proxy forces in the region and curtailing human rights abuses at home.

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.

Clients of Global Counsel, co-founded by Mandelson, included OpenAI and Palantir, which have both signed deals with government

A lobbying firm co-owned by Peter Mandelson worked for OpenAI before the US tech company signed a wide-ranging agreement with the UK government to explore deploying AI in Britain’s justice, security and education systems.

In 2024, the $500bn-valued maker of ChatGPT was a client of Global Counsel, which Mandelson co-founded and part-owned. Keir Starmer subsequently appointed Mandelson as ambassador to Washington.

Christos Flessas 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 from the court late on Tuesday after giving testimony for more than eight hours.

Newsmax, granted major access as the first foreign outlet admitted after the US strike, hailed Trump as a ‘liberator’

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.

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.

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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.

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 new 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”. The bridge is due to open in early 2026.

Children are encouraged to get hands-on as the world’s leading stop-motion studio showcases its work in east London

What would Wallace – everyone’s favourite amateur Yorkshire inventor – look like with a moustache, straw boater and postal worker’s coat? Would a massive 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.

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”.

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.

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.

Exclusive: Eirik Kristoffersen, who served in Afghanistan, rejects Trump’s claim that 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.

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.

Case is shrouded in fevered speculation as prosecutors say autopsies show two of the deceased were “probably” murdered

It has been dubbed Bulgaria’s “Twin Peaks”: a grim saga involving the mysterious deaths of six people in the middle of the mountains that has gripped the eastern European country.

Zahari Vaskov, the director of the national police general directorate, told a press conference on Monday that the deaths were “a case without comparison in our country”.