To cut costs at the event hosted across the US, Canada and Mexico, smaller games may be covered from Manchester

The BBC has repeatedly faced denunciations over the hordes of staff it takes to major events, from the Glastonbury festival to the Olympics. However, the broadcaster is now facing criticism over a plan that would see some games at next summer’s World Cup covered remotely to keep down costs.

The 2026 tournament will be the biggest ever, hosted across three countries, different timezones and including an expanded 48-team lineup. To keep a handle on costs the BBC is considering asking TV commentators and pundits to cover some lower-demand games from its base in Salford, Manchester.

Images and videos taken in 2020, a year after he died in jail, show the late sex offender’s home

House Democrats released a handful of photos and videos from Jeffrey Epstein’s private Caribbean island on Wednesday, offering a rare glimpse into a secretive place where Epstein is alleged to have trafficked young girls.

The new images and videos show Epstein’s home, including bedrooms, a telephone, what appears to be an office or library, and a chalk board on which the words “fin”, “intellectual”, “deception” and “power” are written. One photo shows a room with a dentist chair and masks hanging on the wall. The New York Times reported that Epstein’s last girlfriend was a dentist who shared an office with one of his shell companies. The videos appear to be a walk-through of the property.

Waitrose has published its annual report on what goes into the middle-class shopping trolley – and the results are spicy

Name: Posh nosh.

Age: We’re talking new food trends here, so – new.

• England ‘welcome whatever comes’ says bullish captain

• Wales’ Tandy ‘unbelievably excited’ by England clash

Maro Itoje has set his sights on Rugby World Cup glory in Australia in 2027 after England were handed a favourable potential path through the tournament when the draw was made in Sydney on Wednesday.

Steve Borthwick’s side, who have risen to third in the world rankings after an 11-match winning streak, emerged on the other side of the draw from the reigning world champions South Africa, three-times winners New Zealand and France.

Democrat-led city has been bracing for arrival of federal agents for weeks, with some businesses closing their doors

Federal agents are preparing to descend on New Orleans on Wednesday, making Louisiana’s most populous city the latest front in the Trump administration’s sweeping crackdown on immigrant communities.

Tricia McLaughlin, homeland security department assistant secretary, said in a statement that the aim of “Operation Catahoula Crunch” was to capture immigrants who were released after their arrests for crimes including home invasion, armed robbery, grand theft auto and rape. “It is asinine that these monsters were released back onto New Orleans streets to COMMIT MORE CRIMES and create more victims,” she said.

Charity director warns ‘more deaths will follow’ unless government changes tack and closes women’s prisons

Over the past decade 97 women have died in prisons in England and Wales and incidents of self-harm among female prisoners have reached the highest level on record, a report has found.

Inquest, the charity that produced the report, collated Ministry of Justice (MoJ) figures since 2015 to arrive at a total number of deaths. It said the numbers were evidence for its case that all women’s prisons should be closed.

Will the captain return? Will Nathan Lyon play? Who will open? Ashes hostilities are renewed and the hosts don’t need to ask too many questions

At last, at long last, an Ashes series is about to start. It feels that way, anyway, after so many months of lead-up, such an eternal blur of preview and prediction and preamble, were supposed to reach their end – only to find that the end was instead a momentary interruption, a hiccup, an indigestion-dream of a Test from Perth, a contest done in the span of 31 hours, leaving everyone to return to punditry and prognostication for a further 11 blasted and benighted days.

We are, for pity’s sake, in a discussion cycle about Ben Stokes correctly applying a bike helmet while not on a bike, or Steve Smith correctly applying eye-black stickers in his Tim Tebow tribute act, or the archaeologically uncovered fact that Australian teams have a good record at the Gabba. Like farmers waiting for the rains, we are praying for play to start to let us talk about something that has happened, rather than something that might. Even the day-night format means another wait, four more hours than would usually be the case before the balm of the first ball.

Carrie Cracknell, Nina Raine and Belarus Free Theatre’s Natalia Kaliada and Nicolai Khalezin share memories of working with the playwright and ‘guardian angel’

Natalia Kaliada and Nicolai Khalezin, co-founding artistic directors of Belarus Free Theatre

The musician, who wrote My Way and Puppy Love among others, talks career longevity, shrewd business and which star bullied him in his youth

In 1956, when Paul Anka was 15 years old, he idolized Chuck Berry. So, when the star came to play his home town of Ottawa, Canada, the ambitious kid made sure to sneak backstage with his guitar to play him a song he’d just written. “I started singing Diana to Chuck Berry when, suddenly, he stops me and says, ‘That’s the worst song I’ve ever heard in my life, go back to school.’”

Rather than slink away from such a pronouncement, however, Anka used it as a spur. “Revenge is a motivator like you won’t believe,” the 84-year-old star said with an eruptive laugh the other day. “I said to myself, ‘I’m going to show him.’ That attitude has prevailed for me through my entire life.”

Exclusive: report into Blackpool Victoria hospital by Royal College of Physicians finds systemic failings have affected patient safety

A culture of systemic bullying and harassment has been allowed to flourish among staff at one England’s most scandal-hit hospitals, a damning leaked report reveals.

The safety of patients at Blackpool Victoria hospital was affected as a result of the failings, the report by the Royal College of Physicians (RCP) found.

Late-night hosts discussed a bizarre televised cabinet meeting, dismal approval ratings and yet another Trump posting spree on Truth Social

Late-night hosts tore into Donald Trump’s five-hour Truth Social posting spree and his inability to stay awake during cabinet meetings.

• Name favoured by the Ambani family co-owners

• Surrey retain 51% share in franchise after auction

Oval Invincibles, the Hundred’s most successful franchise, will be competing as MI London next year, the name favoured by their new Indian co-owners.

The change of name brings the men’s and women’s teams, who between them have won Hundred titles in each of the past five years, in line with the rest of the Ambani family’s Mumbai Indians holdings which, in addition to its Indian Premier League team, includes MI Cape Town in the SA20, MI Emirates in the ILT20 and MI New York in Major League Cricket.

She brought the house down as a stripper in Gypsy, going on to star in films with Al Pacino and Jack Nicholson. Now, at 96, she’s stealing the show in Eleanor the Great. What’s her secret? ‘Be a looker-ahead’

It is surely a comfort to anyone still awaiting mega-success to know that June Squibb was in her mid-80s before she hit the big time. Her role as a foul-mouthed matriarch in the 2013 film Nebraska brought her an Oscar nomination, and she had her first leading role in last year’s action comedy, Thelma. Now she’s playing the lead again, in the new film Eleanor the Great and she’s currently in rehearsals for a show on Broadway. Is Squibb, who has just turned 96, sick of talking about her late-peaking success? “I think people are interested, so no, it’s not a bad thing,” she says. “But it is funny, because when I first came to New York – it was the 50s – I did The Boy Friend, a musical, and I was a big hit.” But it was theatre, she concedes. “The film thing is so different.”

In Eleanor the Great, Scarlett Johansson’s directorial debut, Squibb plays Eleanor Morgenstein, a 94-year-old woman who, mourning the loss of her best friend Bessie, moves from Florida to New York to be near her daughter. Encouraged to make new friends, Eleanor goes to the local Jewish community centre to join a choir, but the woman belting out Stephen Sondheim is enough to make anyone rush for the door. “Oh god,” mutters Eleanor, backing away, before being scooped up by the Holocaust survivors group, meeting at the same time, who erroneously assume she’s one of them. Lonely and grieving, US-born Eleanor finds herself passing off Bessie’s survival story as her own.

Researchers find children who own dogs score lower for social problems, aggressive behaviour and delinquency

Having a dog in the home could help boost teenagers’ mental health, research suggests, with scientists adding this could in part be down to the sharing of microbes.

Prof Takefumi Kikusui, of Azabu University in Japan, who led the work, said being with dogs could reduce owners’ stress and stimulate the release of the bonding hormone oxytocin.

This is the UK’s second-largest listed company, and the European bank most exposed to declining US-China relations

It turns out that Sir Mark Tucker, 67, retired as chair of HSBC in September to make way for an older man. Say hello to Brendan Nelson, 76, a former KPMG partner, who has been doing the job on an interim basis for a couple of months but was regarded as a rank outsider to get the gig permanently.

Just how permanent remains to be seen because the HSBC chief executive, Georges Elhedery, clearly unaware that Nelson had thrown his hat into the ring, appeared to rule him out when speaking at an FT conference only on Monday. He said Nelson didn’t wish to do a full term of six to nine years, a remark that didn’t feel controversial at the time. After all, while US presidents may go on into their 80s these days, chairs of globally important banks tend not to.

• Germany’s bid won 15 of 17 votes

• Eight cities will host tournament

Germany will host the 2029 Women’s European Championship after receiving the vast majority of the votes from Uefa’s executive committee. The German campaign pledged to smash records for ticket sales and was selected ahead of a bid from Poland and a joint submission from Denmark and Sweden. Portugal withdrew from the bidding process in November and the Italian Football Federation withdrew in August.

The decision came in the first round of voting, with 15 of the 17 votes going to Germany. The remaining two votes were for the Denmark/Sweden bid.

Leaders focus on bolstering Ukraine’s finances as US-Russia talks to end war make little progress

The European Commission will move ahead with controversial plans to fund Ukraine with a loan based on Russia’s frozen assets, but in a concession to concerns raised by Belgium, which hosts most of the assets, the EU executive has also proposed another option: an EU loan based on common borrowing.

The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, said on Wednesday the two proposals would ensure “Ukraine has the means to defend [itself] and take forward peace negotiations from a position of strength”.

The accused, including Syrian refugee Sarah Mardini and Irishman Sean Binder, were among those providing humanitarian assistance in Europe’s migration crisis

Twenty four former aid workers accused of facilitating the illegal entrance of migrants into Greece, and other crimes that carry lengthy prison terms, are set to appear in court on Lesbos in a trial being closely watched internationally.

Human rights defenders from around the world, including Sarah Mardini, the Syrian refugee immortalised in the Netflix movie, The Swimmers, are slated to take the stand when proceedings before a court of appeals begin in the island’s capital, Mytilene, on Thursday.

The Guardian’s defence and security editor, Dan Sabbagh, explains the current situation in Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region. On Monday the Russian defence ministry published a series of videos that showed Russian soldiers walking around the city centre waving their flags, and claimed they had taken over the entire zone. Ukraine denied this, saying its forces still controlled the northern zone

• The slow death of Pokrovsk

• Which areas is Russia demanding as its price for peace in Ukraine? – visual explainer

Newcastle, Nottingham Forest and Ipswich have all had fast starts after promotion – but they did it decades ago

By WhoScored

Sunderland have not so much defied expectations as torn them to shreds. You have to go back 20 years to find a promoted side that has picked up as many points after 13 games – Wigan Athletic in the 2005-06 season. Newly promoted sides simply do not start like this anymore.

In fact, the three promoted teams in each of the last two seasons have all ended up facing relegation, and playoff winners fare even worse: seven of the last 11 clubs to come up via the playoffs have gone straight back down. Promoted clubs are supposed to wobble, scrap, cling on; Sunderland have politely declined that script.

• Crawford stripped of WBC belt in sanctioning-fee row

• Britain’s Hamzah Sheeraz to fight Mbilli for vacant title

• Unpaid fees end brief reign as undisputed champion

Terence Crawford has been stripped of his World Boxing Council super-middleweight world title after a dispute over unpaid sanctioning fees, a decision that puts Britain’s Hamzah Sheeraz in line to fight for the vacant belt.

The WBC announced on Wednesday that it had removed the American star as its champion, three months after he shocked Canelo Álvarez in Las Vegas to become undisputed at 168lb. The organization said Crawford had not paid its required fees from that victory or from his previous bout in 2024, despite “multiple” attempts to contact him and his team.

Amid all the fairy lights and tinsel, an understated getup can look a bit curmudgeonly – you need to add some fashion sparkle

Christmas has begun. Don’t come for me with your pedantry about partridges and pear trees. The lights are lit, the turkey sandwiches are in Pret: ’tis the season, already. For the next few weeks we will be in a bubble that has its own festive rules. This is an alternate universe in which it is perfectly acceptable to have Michael Bublé on your Spotify playlist and to drink at lunchtime (to be fair, it is almost dark by then) and non-negotiable to play parlour games.

Christmas also comes with its own set of fashion rules, some of which are set in stone, and others which are updated every year. So I thought it may be helpful to have a quick refresher on how to dress for Christmas. Not least because one of the ways in which this time of year is its own little world is that even people who don’t like parties go to parties.

From the trauma and triumphs of Olympic cyclist Bradley Wiggins to the secret life of a match fixer

The Chain
Bradley Wiggins, (HarperCollins)
The Tour de France winner’s autobiography begins with him sneaking into his walk-in wardrobe and doing a line of coke off his Olympic gold medal: the final emblematic descent from his crowning summer of 2012. And yet for all the personal lows chronicled here – addiction, self-harm, the collapse of his marriage, the haunting memories of his difficult father and of a coach who sexually abused him – this is not your classic misery memoir. Disarmingly honest and roguishly humorous, it is a journey of rediscovery: a man knocked sideways by the toxic winds of sport and celebrity, finally learning to stand straight again.

The Escape: The Tour, the Cyclist and Me
Pippa York and David Walsh (Mudlark)
In a previous life Robert Millar was one of this country’s greatest cyclists: a stern Glaswegian who won the King of the Mountains jersey at the 1984 Tour de France. Now known as Pippa York, she returns to the race in the company of the journalist David Walsh. It’s a freewheeling, fascinating read that defies genre: part travelogue and part memoir, it dances between present and past, sporting observation and self-reflection, drugs that help you cheat and drugs that help you live. And for all the pain and anguish that gets unlocked here, this is a book without a bitter or hateful bone in its body.

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