Former pop star Gary Glitter has been released from prison in England after serving half of a 16-year prison sentence for sexually abusing three young girls in the 1970s. The 79-year-old singer's real name is Paul Gadd. He was freed from a prison in Dorset, in southwest England. It is common in for offenders in the U.K. to be freed half-way through their sentences and then be placed on probation. Glitter was arrested in October 2012 under Operation Yewtree, the national investigation launched in the wake of the child abuse scandal surrounding the late BBC entertainer Jimmy Savile.

After a COVID-imposed hiatus, artisans are again crafting elaborate costumes and floats for the famed Carnival in the Belgian town of Binche. After the economic struggles of the past two years, and amid the pain from energy bills that went through the roof after Russia’s war in Ukraine, locals want to make this year’s festival one for the ages. The earliest records of the Binche Mardi Gras date to the 14th century. Many towns in Belgium hold ebullient carnival processions before Lent. But what makes Binche unique are the “Gilles”— the local men deemed fit to wear the Mardi Gras costumes.