MPs discussed making further changes to legislation

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has issued an update after questions emerged about how it shares data with local councils. The statement follows discussions at the Work and Pensions Committee, where policy experts examined potential changes to the DWP benefits system aimed at ensuring people access the support available to them.

Fabian Chessell, who leads central government work at Policy in Practice, argued for enhanced data sharing to strengthen “employment support” for claimants. He took aim at the Government’s devolution bill, unveiled in July 2025, for failing to address data sharing arrangements.

The proposed law would grant mayors additional powers and establish Strategic Authorities across English regions, with responsibility for matters including housing, skills, and employment support. The bill is presently being examined in the House of Lords.

On the devolution proposals, Mr Chessell stated: “If we’re giving them power, we need to give them data.” He also pointed to current legislation that could be modified to enhance data sharing, reports the Mirror.

Section 72 of the Welfare and Pensions Reform Act 1999 permits the “exchange of information” between Government departments and employers relating to individuals claiming working-age benefits. Mr Chessell explained that this legislation “creates the gateways for sharing employment data with councils today from DWP and HMRC” and could be revised to enable greater data sharing.

He appealed to the committee: “Let’s do the simple thing. There’s a lot of complex questions in front of us, this isn’t one of those.”

A DWP spokesperson commented: “Millions of people rely on our welfare system every year and it is vital that it can be accessed by all who need it. We already share income and earnings data with local authorities to help ensure people receive the Housing Benefit and council tax support they’re entitled to.

“We’re now exploring ways to expand this data sharing with Local Authorities and Mayoral Strategic Authorities, so they can better connect people with employment support.”

The DWP also noted it regularly works to raise awareness of available benefits through campaigns such as Help for Households. Those who believe they may be missing out on benefits can use the Government website’s benefits calculator tool to determine their eligibility.

The Met Office said that some roads and railways are likely to be affected with longer journey times by road, bus and train services.

They said rain moving north across England today is expected to turn to snow over higher ground in the afternoon and evening.

They said some sleet and snow is possible at lower levels, but snow will likely only build up above 250m to 300m with up to 5 cm possible.

The Met Office has issued a yellow warning for snow (Image: The Met Office)

The yellow warning stretches from the Midlands into Cumbria, covering the eastern parts of Greater Manchester including Oldham and Rochdale.

The warning also covers parts of Lancashire including Bacup and Burnley.

It is from 3pm today until 3am on Friday (January 5), with the Met Office expecting any snow to melt throughout tomorrow.

They warned of dangerous driving conditions and recommended bringing essentials such as warm clothing, food and water in case of delays.

They said weather warnings may change quickly and recommended checking for updates in the weather forecast.

The forecaster also predicts flurries of sleet throughout Thursday afternoon across Bolton and Bury.

The human body is a machine whose many parts – from the microscopic details of our cells to our limbs, eyes, liver and brain – have been assembled in fits and starts over the four billion years of our history.

But scientists are still puzzling over why we evolved into this particular form. Why do humans uniquely have a chin, for example? And why, relative to body weight, is a human testicle triple the size of a gorilla’s but a fifth of that of a chimpanzee? As I show in my new book, The Tree of Life, we are still searching for the answers to many of these “why” questions. But we are starting to find answers to some of them.

The story of evolution tells us how, starting from simple beginnings, each species was built, when each of the components that make a living creature was added to its blueprint. If we climb the evolutionary tree of life, we can follow a twisting path that visits the increasingly specialised branches that a species belongs to. We humans, for example, were animals before we became vertebrates; mammals before evolving into primates and so on.

The groups of species we share each of these branches with reveal the order our body parts appeared.

A body and a gut (inventions of the animal branch) must have come before backbone and limbs (vertebrate branch); milk and hair (mammals) came before fingernails (primates).

There is a way we can study the separate problem of just why we evolved each of these body parts, but it only works if the feature in question has evolved more than once on separate branches of the tree of life. This repeated evolution is called convergence. It can be a source of frustration for biologists because it confuses us as to how species are related. Swallows and swifts, for example, were once classified as sister species. We now know from both DNA and comparisons of their skeletons that swallows are really closer relatives of owls than swifts.

Size matters when it comes to evolution

But convergent evolution becomes something useful when we think of it as a kind of natural experiment. The size of primate testicles gives us a classic example. Abyssinian black and white colobus monkey and bonnet macaque adult males are roughly the same size. But, like chimps, humans and gorillas, these similar monkeys have vastly dissimilar testicles. Colobus testicles weigh just 3 grams. The testicles of the macaques, in contrast, are a whopping 48 grams.

You could come up with several believable explanations for their different testicle sizes. Large testicles might be the equivalent of the peacock’s tail, not useful per se but attractive to females. But perhaps the most plausible explanation relates to the way they mate. A male colobus monkey competes ferociously for access to a harem of females who will mate exclusively with him. Macaques, on the other hand, live in peaceful mixed troops of about 30 monkeys and have a different approach to love where everyone mates with everyone else: males with multiple females (polygamy) and females with multiple males (polyandry).

The colobus with his harem can get away with producing a bare minimum of sperm – if a droplet is enough to produce a baby, then why make more? For a male macaque, the competition to reproduce happens in a battle between his sperm and the sperm of other males who mated before or after. A male macaque with large testicles should make more sperm, giving him a higher chance of passing on his genes. It’s a sensible explanation for their different testicle sizes, but is it true? This is where convergent evolution helps.

If we look across the whole of the mammal branch of the tree of life, we find there are many groups of mammals that have evolved testicles of all different sizes. In almost all these separate cases, larger testicles are consistently found in promiscuous species and smaller in monogamous.

A small-testicled, silverback male gorilla has sole access to a harem. Big-testicled chimps and bonobos are indeed highly promiscuous. Dolphins, meanwhile, may have the biggest mammalian testicles of all, making up as much as 4 per cent of their body weight (equivalent to human testicles weighing roughly 3 kilos). Although wild dolphin sex lives are naturally hard to study, spinner dolphins at least fit our expectations, engaging in mass mating events called wuzzles.

It was thanks to the multiple observations provided by convergent evolution that we were able to discover this consistent correlation between testicle size and sex life right across the mammals. And as for humans, we have testicle size somewhere in the middle, you can make of this what you want!

But what of the human chin?

The human chin has been fertile ground for arguments between scientists over its purpose. As with testicles, there are half a dozen plausible ideas to explain the evolution of the human chin. It could have evolved to strengthen the jaw of a battling caveman. Maybe the chin evolved to exaggerate the magnificence of a manly beard. It might even be a by-product of the invention of cooking and the softer food it produced – a functionless facial promontory left behind by the receding tide of a weakening jaw.

Intriguingly, however, a chin can be found in no other mammal, not even our closest cousins, the Neanderthals. Thanks to the uniqueness of the homo sapiens chin, while we have a rich set of possible explanations for its evolutionary purpose, in the absence of convergent evolution, we have no sensible way of testing them.

Some parts of human nature may be destined to remain a mystery.

Crotch enhancements. Banned helmets. Qualifying manipulation claims. And Russian hacking.

Even before Friday’s opening ceremony at San Siro in Milan, the build-up to the Winter Olympics in Italy has provided its fill of controversies.

Athletes are always trying to find a competitive edge. This alleged attempt – dubbed “crotchgate” by some – is bizarre.

Why might ski jumpers be injecting an acid serum into their genitalia to artificially increase the size? It’s nothing to do with bedroom gymnastics in the Olympic Village.

Claims were put to the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) that it’s being done to enlarge the skin suit surface area around the crotch to give ski jumpers greater lift – to glide further in the pursuit of gold.

WADA director general Olivier Niggli said he was not aware of the claims on how it could improve performance.

But he added: “If anything was to come to the surface, we would look at anything if it is actually doping related. We don’t address other means of enhancing performance.”

Rules were tightened after Norwegians were caught adding stitching to the crotch area of their suits during the World Championships last year.

Helmet ban

A more scientific case of seeking aerodynamic advantage landed Team GB in a hearing in Milan with the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) on the eve of the opening ceremony.

The British Bobsleigh and Skeleton Association has been appealing to overturn a ban on new helmets that were found to have breached the competition rules because of an irregular shape, denying skeleton gold medal contender Matt Weston from wearing it.

He said while awaiting the CAS outcome: “This is a sport that is won by hundredths of a second, so for us as GB and the team we have around us, we’re constantly innovating from race week to race week.

“We try to push the boundaries and find those gains, this is just one of the parts of innovation we do as GB and I think we do it pretty well.”

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Who are Team GB’s medal contenders?

Read more from Sky News:
Ice hockey match postponed after norovirus outbreak
All you need to know about the Winter Olympics 2026

Now, having the best team of lawyers can be as essential as having the best coaches in sport.

The US launched legal challenges after skeleton racer Katie Uhlaender fell just short of qualifying for a sixth Olympics.

Fewer qualification ranking points became available after rivals Canada pulled four sliders from a race last month, reducing the status of the event.

The sport’s governing body recognised it could look like the event was manipulated but found no rules were broken.

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Will US get a frosty reception?

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Cyberattacks thwarted

Russia has been trying for a decade to return to the Olympics – losing sport’s court battles.

First banned for running a state-sponsored doping programme at the 2014 Sochi Olympics, the full-scale invasion of Ukraine extended its exclusion from the biggest sports extravaganza as a team under the Russian flag and anthem.

Russians were accused of trying to undermine those Games through online disinformation and hacking attempts.

Now the Italian government says it has thwarted cyberattacks on Olympic websites and hotels in one of the games hubs at Cortina d’Ampezzo.

A Which? taste test names the best chocolate hazelnut spread in the UK

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Chocolate hazelnut spread has established itself as a kitchen essential with numerous Britons savouring it on toast, stirred into porridge and poured over pancakes. However, the most well-known brand, Nutella, can be costly and isn’t consistently stocked at your neighbourhood supermarket.

Recently, a fresh taste evaluation from the UK’s consumer champion, Which?, has revealed which chocolate-hazelnut spread reigns supreme in Britain – and the victor wasn’t Nutella or any of the prominent brands.

To determine the champion, 60 committed taste testers delivered their judgements after trying 11 chocolate-hazelnut spreads. Three leading brands were assessed alongside eight supermarket own-label products from Aldi, Asda, Morrisons, Sainsbury’s, and others.

Waitrose Essential Hazelnut Chocolate Spread emerged victorious with an overall rating of 82%, reports the Express.

Priced at £2.50 for a 400g jar, it remains somewhat expensive but costs 40p less than a 350g jar of Nutella.

The supermarket spread earned acclaim for its chocolate and hazelnut tastes and its texture. Additional testers noted it achieved the ideal balance of sweetness.

Waitrose’s spread represents the most costly option among the supermarket brands, yet it secured first preference from the taste testers, earning it Which? Best Buy status.

Nutella’s famous hazelnut and chocolate spread secured second position with a rating of 81%. Priced at £2.90 for 350g, it’s certainly expensive, but it delighted the testers with over 75% declaring their affection for the spread’s chocolatey taste.

The brand’s hazelnut taste and level of sweetness also received commendation from the testers. However, more than half of those sampling found the texture to be overly thick.

The brand has received Which? Best Buy recognition, and fans of the product can purchase larger 630g or 1kg jars if they wish to get better value for money.

Tesco Hazelnut Chocolate Spread secured joint second position with a rating of 81%. Tesco’s spread achieved both Best Buy recognition and the Which? Great Value badge, priced at just £1.65 for a 400g jar.

The chocolate hazelnut spread received acclaim for its taste and appealing look. Three-quarters of the testers also appreciated the sweetness level, and most commended its texture.

Asda’s Hazelnut Chocolate Spread achieved joint third position alongside Lidl’s Choco Nussa Hazelnut Chocolate Spread.

Both spreads achieved 80% but vary marginally on cost, with Asda’s product priced at £2 for a 400g jar and Lidl’s priced at £1.65 for the equivalent quantity.

Asda’s chocolate hazelnut spread received praise from three-quarters of the testers for its chocolate and hazelnut tastes, with even more appreciating its sweetness.

Views on the texture were divided: more than half of evaluators considered it perfect, but others deemed it overly dense.

Asda’s spread ranks among the more affordable choices and comes in 750g jars, which offer better value per 100g.

Lidl’s spread received praise for its sweetness levels and visual appeal, while two-thirds appreciated its chocolate taste and consistency. The spread’s hazelnut flavour was appreciated by just over half, but more than a quarter felt it should be more pronounced.

How do other chocolate-hazelnut spreads compare?

• Sainsbury’s Hazelnut Chocolate Spread – 75% £1.65 for 400g
• Bonne Maman Hazelnut Chocolate Spread – 72% £4.10 for 360g
• Jim Jams Hazelnut Chocolate Spread – 72% £3 for 350g
• Marks & Spencer Smooth Hazelnut Chocolate Spread – 72% £2.50 for 400g
• Morrisons Hazelnut & Chocolate Spread – 71% £2.09 for 400g
• Aldi Nutoka Hazelnut Chocolate Spread – 62% £1.65 for 400g

WARNING: DISTRESSING CONTENT A worker at Destiny Development Center in Inglewood, California, was filmed removing her shoe and throwing it at the child, who cried after being hit

A childcare worker has been caught on camera hurling a shoe at a five year old girl as fellow staff members watched and laughed.

The shocking incident took place at the Destiny Development Centre in Inglewood, California, with the footage, recorded on 16 January. It shows the unnamed employee taking off her shoe and throwing it at the child, who burst into tears after being struck. Two other members of staff witnessed the incident and laughed.

The girl’s mother, Michelae Jones, exposed what happened, telling local station KTLA she was shocked and outraged. “I’ve been with these people for three years. I really thought my baby was safe with them,” Jones said.

Jones revealed her daughter informed her about the incident that same evening. Jones immediately challenged the childcare facility’s director, but claims staff were far too sluggish in their response.

It took a fortnight before Jones was allowed to view the CCTV footage from that day. The child’s aunt, Kira Townsend, raised multiple concerns about the facility’s safety protocols and how it operates reports the Mirror US.

“I want to know how often are they reviewing the footage?” Townsend questioned. “How do you have a business and you don’t review the footage unless a parent says something? Why do we have to wait for my niece to come and tell us, ‘Hey, my teacher hit me in the ear with a shoe?’”

The nursery’s director, Danielle Williams, reportedly told Jones that she was initiating an inquiry. She subsequently explained to Jones that the carer who hurled the shoe was allegedly “throwing shoes into another room that weren’t supposed to be there and [the child] accidentally got hit in the head with the shoe.

“My school, what we stand for, it’s not child abuse,” Williams insisted. “We don’t hire child abusers.” Following her investigation, Williams sacked the shoe-throwing carer, identified only as “Ms. Emily.”

The two other women present during the incident were initially suspended for failing to report it, but after examining the footage, Williams decided to dismiss them too.

Williams emphasised that all her teachers and staff have undergone thorough background checks before joining. “We go through every procedure for people to get employed at this facility – a caregiver background check, FBI index, everything and then the training that goes along with it. I wouldn’t wish this on anybody’s child. We don’t stand for it, we don’t agree with it.”

The child’s mum said a simple apology isn’t enough and fears this may not be a one-off. Jones says she wants the carer arrested for assault and child abuse, with criminal charges brought forward.

“You need to be in jail like any other child abuser. That’s what I want. Justice,” the mother said. The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department is presently probing the incident.

The Newcastle show at The Stand Newcastle on Sunday, February 8 is part of Natalie’s UK tour, taking the popular podcast from the studio to the stage for an intimate Sunday matinee filled with laughter, honesty and candid conversation, featuring family members, celebrity guests and audience interaction.

Natalie says performing in the North East always feels special. “I’ve always found people in the North East incredibly friendly and warm. It feels very different to London. You smile at people up here and they smile back – and I’m really looking forward to coming up and feeling that warmth again.”

The Newcastle date will feature a special guest appearance from TV favourite Scarlett Moffatt, who Natalie described as “brilliant, hilarious and just such a laugh.”

Scarlett will also be bringing along some of her drag queen friends, adding what Natalie promises will be “a real bit of fun and camp” to the afternoon.

“Scarlett and I are just going to have a really lovely chat about life, love and what we’re all up to,” Natalie said. “It’s very much the normal Life With Nat podcast chat, just in front of a live audience – and with a glass of wine.”

Natalie added that the live format allows them to explore their very different journeys into fame. “I’ve known nothing different, whereas Scarlett had a completely normal life and then was suddenly catapulted into fame through reality TV,” she said. “We’ve both done reality shows, so we’ll definitely have a good old chat about that – including whether I should ever go into the jungle for I’m A Celebrity.”

Alongside Scarlett, Natalie will also be joined on stage by her brother Tony and her fiancé Mark, making the show a particularly personal one. Natalie believes the mix of people is what makes the live show stand out.

“My brother is 57 – he’s a builder and a fisherman and he doesn’t hold back,” she said. “He’s very no-nonsense and really down to earth. So for any blokes thinking there won’t be anything there for them – there absolutely will be.”

She added: “My fiancé Mark and I talk quite openly about relationships, and we’re very dry with each other, so anyone who’s a bit nosey about other people’s lives will enjoy that.”

Natalie, who left the hit BBC soap last year, said the live show is not just for regular podcast listeners, but also for EastEnders fans curious about life behind the scenes.

“I’ll talk about EastEnders, about the past, about being famous and how that’s affected my family,” she said. “People are always really interested in how it impacts the people around you, especially when you’ve been in it from such a young age.”

The Stand Newcastle offers an intimate setting – something Natalie says was a deliberate decision.“I think it’s really important to start with smaller venues, it’ll feel a lot more intimate conversation but it’s also so people can get to know what you’re about,” she said.

“I was really nervous before my first live shows, thinking, ‘Why would people want to come and watch us chat?’ But the feedback from my live shows last year was that it felt like a really lovely afternoon.”

Natalie is no stranger to the region, having previously toured the North East in productions including Bedroom Farce and The Vagina Monologues.

Life With Nat Live promises an afternoon of laughter, heartfelt stories and honest conversation, delivered with Natalie’s trademark warmth and down-to-earth charm.

Tickets are on sale now via The Stand’s website.

AT LEAST three people have died after a car collided with a cyclist and smashed into a supermarket in Los Angeles.

Some of the victims were trapped underneath the car as it ploughed into the 99 Ranch Market on Thursday afternoon with six others left injured.

An elderly woman in her 70s was behind the wheel of the silver Toyota Prius in the Westwood area when she lost control of the car, the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) confirmed.

Police Lieutenant Anthony Espinoza said they believe the driver lost control after hitting a cyclist.

The car then swerved towards the 99 Ranch Market and crashed through the bakery section of the store.

Three people were pronounced dead at the scene including two men, aged between 30 and 55, and a woman, 42.

Two men, both aged 35, were rushed to hospital in a serious condition, the LAPD confirmed.

A 37 and 38-year-old suffered minor injuries and were taken to hospital as a precaution.

The other two injured were treated at the scene and walked away okay.

The female driver is undergoing a medical evaluation but isn’t thought to have been injured.

She is coopering with a police investigation who don’t believe it was an “intentional collision”.

LA Mayor Karen Bass said a crisis-response team was headed to the scene after the crash.

She said in a statement: “My heart is with the victims, their families, and all who were impacted by the deadly crash.”

The street corner was cordoned off as firetrucks and police cars assessed the damage.

The back of the sedan was visible to bystanders as they walked past hours after the fatal smash.

A woman ended her marriage after believing her husband was on dating apps – but was devastated when she discovered it was their neighbour’s catfishing scam

Discovering your partner has cheated is devastating – but one woman experienced an extraordinary twist regarding her husband’s alleged betrayal.

The distraught wife ended her marriage after discovering her husband was on dating apps, only to later learn their neighbour had created the fake profile using his photographs to catfish women online.

She accused her neighbour of stealing from her family “our love and happiness” and whilst she hasn’t spoken to her husband in over a year, she’s now hoping to salvage their relationship after uncovering the truth.

She turned to Reddit’s Relationship_Advice forum to share her harrowing ordeal, explaining they are currently “not on speaking terms”.

In her anonymous post, she explained receiving a Facebook message last September claiming her “husband was talking and exchanging naked photos with other women on Tinder”.

After viewing screenshots of the images showing her ‘husband’s’ exchanges with the woman, the wife downloaded Tinder herself and stumbled upon her ‘husband’s’ profile – which indicated his location was “nearby”

However, the situation took an unexpected turn when she confronted him.

She wrote: “I was convinced that he was cheating, and we had a terrible fallout that evening which led to my family coming over to calm the situation, but instead, it escalated when my brother punched and grabbed hold of my husband.

“The neighbours called the police and my husband was asked to pack a few things and stay elsewhere for a while. We separated shortly after, and he has since moved to Sydney to be closer to his ailing father but sees our kids for a weekend twice a month.

“It has now been 14 months since the woman separated from her husband and she was finally moving on, only for the neighbour’s wife to knock on the door.”

She then discovered her neighbour had been catfishing a woman online – when someone pretends to be another person online – and had been using her husband’s photos to do it.

The post went on to say: “[The neighbour] downloaded these photos from a Macbook that we lent him during COVID, and some of these photos were of intimate nature…and of me. The police are currently dealing with this.”

The shocked wife confessed she now wants to reconcile with her ex-husband but has no clue how to go about it as she’s concerned it might be too late.

She explained: “I am so scared that we might be down too far the rabbit hole and that he will likely push for a divorce, even though I know that we love each other deeply, but this took a massive toll on our mental health, finances and the wellbeing of our three kids.”

One Reddit user responded: “Your husband experienced something that you will never understand: A false accusation, an assault from your brother, spousal alienation….I am afraid there is no going back for you. You chose to not listen to him when he said it was not him.”

Whilst another addd: “You two got screwed over, not just by your neighbour, but also by your brother…being married is being part of a shared family. The fact that your family got in the middle of it and bodily hurt him would make anyone think twice about getting back in.”

The woman then returned to the same post several months later to provide an update. She revealed that following a sit-down discussion about everything, he remained determined to proceed with the divorce.

“It was decided that our marriage was beyond repair and that we should go our separate ways.

“He is currently in therapy and has requested we have a clean break with no further contact in the future – I intend to respect his wishes and will continue to communicate through his lawyer on matters that concern our kids.”

She then disclosed her brother had apologised and was “extremely remorseful” and added: “It is a series of unfortunate events that has changed many lives and robbed my family of our love and happiness.”