Every week political cartoonists throughout the country and across the political spectrum apply their ink-stained skills to capture the foibles, memes, hypocrisies and other head-slapping events in the world of politics. The fruits of these labors are hundreds of cartoons that entertain and enrage readers of all political stripes. Here's an offering of the best of this week's crop, picked fresh off the Toonosphere. Edited by Matt Wuerker.
Jared Abbott, the director of the Center for Working-Class Politics, discusses what it would take for Democrats to better appeal to working-class voters.
Jared Abbott, the director of the Center for Working-Class Politics, discusses what it would take for Democrats to better appeal to working-class voters.
The recent surge in demonstrations by far-right groups presents a challenge for the South Korean government, as it prepares to host both Xi Jinping, the leader of China, and President Trump.
The recent surge in demonstrations by far-right groups presents a challenge for the South Korean government, as it prepares to host both Xi Jinping, the leader of China, and President Trump.
Sophie says obsessive compulsive disorder is still misunderstood
The number of 16-24 year olds in England reporting symptoms of obsessive compulsive disorder, or OCD, has more than tripled in a decade, BBC analysis of NHS data has found.
The condition is now the second-most widespread mental health disorder for young adults, according to statistics from a major NHS England survey.
"OCD, I like to think of it as a bully, it attacks everything, everything you care about, everything you love," says Sophie Ashcroft.
"A lot of people do associate OCD with cleanliness, and being clean, and getting all your socks in a certain order. It's so much more than that."
The 22-year-old is one of a number of young people and their families to have contacted us through Your Voice, Your BBC News explaining how they can't access NHS treatment for their symptoms.
Those who could get seen spoke of a shortage of expert staff and effective treatments.
The average referral time figure for young people to be seen at a national OCD centre in London was 41 weeks last year, nearly three times as long as it was five years previously.
The government told us it was "turning services around", hiring 8,500 extra mental health workers, delivering more talking therapies and providing better access to help through the NHS App. It also said it was expanding the rollout of mental health support teams in schools.
Sophie sometimes struggles to leave her home because she feels compelled to repeat small tasks - such as getting into the shower or cleaning her teeth - to dispel intrusive or distressing thoughts.
"If I had a bad thought during the day, it would ruin the rest of my day. I'd think something bad was gonna happen," she tells us.
'Behind closed doors it's sheer panic'
The people who have contacted BBC News say lives have been devastated, with some families who haven't been able to get NHS help telling us they have spent hundreds of thousands of pounds on private care.
Charities insist there is an OCD crisis and say the figures should be a wake-up call for the government.
OCD symptoms can affect adults and children, and can begin as early as six years old - but they are often triggered during puberty and early adulthood.
Sophie's symptoms first appeared when she was aged nine, she says, but it was a decade later, when a close friend died, that things became a lot worse.
To dispel troubling thoughts, she says it led her to repeat actions again and again - things most people would consider mundane and would do without a second thought.
"It's something telling me you have to do that again, you have to hug that person again, and it just takes over," says Sophie. "It's such an awful, awful feeling."
Despite all this, Sophie has just finished drama school. "I'm really, really good at hiding it, but behind closed doors it's sheer panic," she explains.
Getty Images
OCD is so much more than being fixated on cleanliness, says Sophie
About 370,000 young people in England reported OCD symptoms in the financial year 2023/24, our analysis of the latest NHS Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey (June 2025) has found.
That is more than three times the number from 2014, when the figure stood at around 113,000.
It means OCD is now second in the list of named mental health disorders - placing it and other anxiety disorders well ahead of depression:
Generalised anxiety disorder (GAD) 7.6%
Obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) 5.7%
Phobias 4.8%
Depressive episodes 3.8 %
Why is OCD on the rise among young people?
Improved awareness of the condition has likely contributed to people seeking help, say experts - but, according to charities and many of those with OCD, societal problems, combined with the pressure of social media, are the main driver for the reported rise.
Leigh Wallbank, chief executive of charity OCD Action, describes many young people's lives as a "pressure pot".
"They're facing financial issues, educational issues, global issues - the environment is such a big issue," she tells us. "I think of them living in this pressure pot, and then underneath that, giving heat to this pressure pot, is social media."
The Covid-19 pandemic also played a part, says Minesh Patel, associate director of policy and influencing at the mental health charity, Mind.
The pandemic put a "particular and unique strain" on people with OCD, with disruption to routine, an inversion of social norms and a hyperfocus on hygiene, he says.
"Barriers to social interaction, including treatment and support services, meant that many coping mechanisms were disrupted or unavailable for an extended period of time," he adds.
NHS help for OCD patients includes specialist talking therapy called Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) - which can include Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP).
Through ERP patients are helped to manage their anxiety by gradually being exposed to their fears, while preventing them from performing their usual compulsive behaviours.
Medication is also offered - usually a type of antidepressant.
Getty Images
The NHS is blind to the real scale of obsessive compulsive disorder, says Leigh Wallbank from OCD Action
But not everyone can access these treatments.
Sophie was told by her GP that it is likely she does have OCD - but, two years on, she still hasn't received an appointment to see a specialist for a formal diagnosis.
In the meantime, her GP has referred her for a limited course of CBT which comes to an end soon. Sophie says she is "absolutely petrified" of what the future holds.
Leigh Wallbank from OCD Action is critical of the government for failing to collect regular quarterly data on obsessive compulsive disorder, and outcomes for patients who have it, as it does for many other conditions.
Without data, says the charity, the NHS is blind to the real scale of OCD, the success of treatments and who is being left behind.
We asked health officials in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland if they knew the number of young people with OCD symptoms, but they all said they do not collect that information.
'The system could not, or would not, provide help'
A mum from the south of England, who wants to remain anonymous, told us her autistic daughter first showed signs of OCD when she was 10 years old. Her daughter is now 17 and the OCD is severe, she says.
"My daughter has gone from being a scholarship-winning student, to being sectioned multiple times."
Some specialist treatment has been offered to the teenager, but her mum tells us her daughter is often too unwell to leave the house to attend appointments, or even take her medication.
"The impact on [all] our children, and us, is devastating. Our lives have been decimated not just by the illness, but by a system that could not, or would not, provide the help she needed, when she needed it."
The mother says the UK is failing in its treatment of young people with severe OCD. There are not enough specialists, beds or treatment options, she believes.
Children and adolescents with OCD across England can receive treatment at a national centre at the Maudsley Hospital in London.
However, the average wait time for a referral to the service rose from 15 weeks in 2020, to 41 weeks in 2024, according to a response to the BBC's Freedom of Information Act request.
But the hospital trust says that wait time is being cut.
Ade Odunlade, chief operating officer for South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust said: "We have worked incredibly hard to reduce delays and have lowered the average wait for assessments to around 20 weeks.
"We empathise with anyone who has had to wait for their assessment as we know how difficult that is."
The trust says it has now been able to secure additional funding which will allow them to employ further staff and drive down the waiting list even further.
It expects an approximate wait for assessment of about 12-16 weeks by early Spring 2026, it told us.
Marie Fuller
Marie and Graham Fuller felt they had no choice but to pay for OCD treatment abroad for their daughter
But even when people can access all the available help, it is sometimes not enough.
Graham and Marie Fuller, from Norwich, contacted the BBC to say their daughter had been hospitalised with OCD aged 12.
They described a revolving-door pattern of going backwards and forwards between NHS services for different treatments, with their daughter improving and then repeatedly relapsing.
After years of their daughter struggling with the condition, the family then decided to go to Texas to try a rare and radical procedure.
Their daughter, who is now 20, underwent deep brain stimulation (DBS) surgery - where electrodes are implanted in the brain to deliver electrical impulses to help manage OCD symptoms.
The treatment is approved by US regulators, but in the UK the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) says DBS can only be used for research studies, because there is not enough evidence on how safe or effective the practice is for OCD.
Having a loved one with OCD "has taken its toll on all of us, but we had to do all we could to help", says Marie, explaining how, before undergoing DBS, her daughter had discussed going to Switzerland to end her life.
Marie says her daughter is now back at university, though she concedes it is still early days in terms of the success of the treatment.
The UK's health guidelines for obsessive compulsive disorder are 20 years old - they are currently being reviewed by NICE. In 2019, it was agreed that policy around OCD treatment needed to reflect updated technologies and possible new drugs.
But for Leigh Wallbank from OCD Action she says better funding is imperative if young people are to get the help they need.
"Policymakers and the government need to invest in OCD services. [OCD] is preventable and it is a crisis that can be changed."
A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Social Care said the government had inherited a broken NHS with mental health services suffering following years of neglect - adding that funding was now being boosted by £688m.
But people with OCD such as Sophie are scared about what the future holds.
The limited course of CBT that she's been prescribed is coming to an end and she fears a return of her symptoms.
"What am I going to do? What if it happens again?"
The bodies of the dead Palestinians were transferred by the Red Cross in refrigerated lorries
Out of a single room, with no DNA testing facilities or cold storage units of its own, the forensics team at Gaza's Nasser hospital face the challenges brought by peace.
Over the past eleven days, 195 bodies have been returned to Gaza by Israeli authorities, in exchange for the bodies of 13 Israeli hostages, under the terms of Donald Trump's ceasefire deal.
Photographs released by Gaza's medical authorities show some of the bodies badly decomposed, and arriving in civilian clothes or naked except for underwear, some with multiple signs of injury. Many have their wrists tied behind their backs, and doctors say some bodies arrived blindfolded or with cloth roped around their necks.
The forensic team at Nasser hospital are working with almost no resources to answer vast questions about torture, mistreatment and identity.
The head of the unit, Dr Ahmed Dheir, said one of their biggest limitations is a lack of cold storage space. The bodies arrive in Gaza thoroughly frozen and can take several days to thaw out, ruling out even basic identification methods like dental history, let alone any deeper investigation or post-mortem (autopsy).
"The situation is extremely challenging," he said. "If we wait for the bodies to thaw, rapid decomposition begins almost immediately, putting us in an impossible position [because] we lose the ability to examine the remains properly. So the most viable method is to take samples and document the state of the bodies as they are."
Dr Ahmed Dheir says the lack of cold storage space means he and his colleagues have little time to examine the remains properly
The BBC has viewed dozens of photographs of the bodies, many of them shared by Gaza's health authorities, others taken by colleagues on the ground.
We spoke to several of those involved in examining the bodies in Gaza, as well as families of the missing, human rights groups, and Israeli military and prison authorities.
We also spoke to three forensic experts outside the region, including one specialising in torture, to educate ourselves about the medical processes involved in this kind of investigation – all agreed that there were questions that were difficult to answer without post-mortems.
Dr Alaa al-Astal, one of the forensic team at Nasser hospital, said some of the bodies arriving there showed "signs of torture", such as bruises and marks from binding on the wrists and ankles.
"There were extremely horrific cases, where the restraint was so tight that blood circulation to the hands was cut off, leading to tissue damage and clear signs of pressure around the wrists and ankles," he said.
"Even around the eyes, when the blindfolds were removed, you could see deep grooves - imagine how much force that took. The pressure left actual marks where the blindfold had been tied."
Dr Astal also mentioned the loose cloths tied around the necks of some bodies as needing further investigation.
"In one case, there was a groove around the neck," he said. "To determine whether the death was due to hanging or strangulation, we needed to perform a post-mortem, but because the body was frozen, it was not dissected."
The bodies are bring brought to a temporary facility at Nasser hospital in Khan Younis
Sameh Yassin Hamad, a member of the Hamas-run government committee responsible for receiving the bodies, said there were signs of bruising and blood infiltration indicating that the bodies had been severely beaten before death. He also said there were stab wounds on the chest of face of some of them.
Some of the images we saw from the unit clearly show deep indentations or tightly-fastened cable-ties on the wrists and arms and ankles. One photograph appears to show the bruising and abrasion that would confirm that ties had been used while the person was still alive.
Other bodies showed only deep indentation marks, meaning a post-mortem would be needed to determine whether the ties had been used before or after death. Cable-ties are sometimes used when transporting bodies in Israel.
When we asked Israel's military about the evidence we gathered, it said it operates strictly in accordance with international law.
We showed the photographs we were given to the outside forensic experts. The images represent a fraction of the bodies transferred to Gaza by the Red Cross.
All three experts said that some of the markings raised questions about what had happened, but that it was difficult to reach concrete conclusions about abuse or torture without post-mortems.
"What is happening in Gaza is an international forensic emergency," said Michael Pollanen, a forensic pathologist and professor at the University of Toronto. "Based upon images like this, there is an imperative for complete medical autopsies. We need to know the truth behind how deaths occurred, and the only way to know the truth is to do autopsies."
But even with limited forensic data, doctors at Nasser hospital say the routine cuffing of wrists behind the body rather than in front, along with the marks observed on the limbs, points to torture.
"When a person is naked, with their hands tied behind their back, and visible restraint marks on their wrists and ankles, it indicates that they died in that position," Dr Dheir told us. "This is a violation of international law."
And there is strong evidence to suggest widespread abuse of detainees - including civilians - in Israeli custody in the months after the war began in October 2023, particularly in the military facility of Sde Teiman.
Unidentified bodies are being buried in a mass grave once forensic exams have been carried out
"At least in the first eight months of the war, the detainees from Gaza were cuffed behind their backs, and had their eyes covered, 24 hrs, 7 days a week, for months," said Naji Abbas, head of the Prisoners and Detainees Programme at the Israeli human rights organisation, Physicians for Human Rights (PHRI).
"We know that people developed serious infections on their skin, hands and legs because of the cuffs."
We have spoken to several people who worked at Sde Teiman over the past two years, who confirm that detainees were cuffed hand and foot – even while undergoing medical treatments, including surgery.
One medic who worked there said he had campaigned to loosen the cuffs, and that the treatment of detainees there was "dehumanisation".
But many of those detained during the Gaza war are held as unlawful combatants, without charge.
One complication for doctors at Nasser Hospital now is determining which of the returned bodies are Hamas fighters killed in combat, which are civilians and which are detainees who died in Israeli custody.
Some of the bodies returned by Israel are still wearing Hamas headbands or military boots, but doctors say most are either naked or in civilian clothing, making it difficult to distinguish their role, interpret their injuries, and assess human rights violations.
Photographs seen by the BBC show mostly naked or decomposed bodies. One dressed in civilian clothing and trainers has what officials say are two small bullet wounds in his back.
AFP
Officials at Nasser hospital have been showing pictures of the bodies and any personal items to relatives of missing people
Sameh Yassin Hamad, from Gaza's Forensics Committee, said that Israel had sent back identification with only six of the 195 bodies it had returned – and that five of those names turned out to be wrong.
"Since these bodies were held by the Israeli authorities, they will have full data about them," said Dr Dheir. "But they haven't shared that information with us through the Red Cross. We were sent DNA profiles for around half the total number of dead, but have not received any details about the dates or circumstances of death, or the time or place of detention."
We asked Israel's army about the details in this report, including striking allegations by Gaza's forensic team that Israel had removed single fingers and toes from the bodies for DNA testing.
Israel's military said "all bodies returned so far are combatants within the Gaza Strip." It denied tying any bodies prior to their release.
A spokeswoman for the Israeli Prime Minister's Office, Shosh Bedrosian, on Wednesday described the reports from Gaza as "just more efforts to demonise Israel" and suggested the media focus instead on the experience of Israeli hostages.
Somaya Abdullah was at the hospital looking for her son
As families of those missing gather at the hospital gates, Dr Dheir and his staff are under intense pressure to identify the dead and provide answers about what happened to them.
So far, only some 50 bodies have been positively identified – mostly through basic details like height, age and obvious previous injuries. Another 54 have been buried, unidentified and unclaimed, because of intense pressure on space at the unit.
Many families of the missing attended the burial of the unnamed dead this week, just in case one of them was theirs.
"Honestly, it's hard to bury a body when you don't know whether it's the right one or not," said Rami al-Faraa, still searching for his cousin.
"If there was [DNA] testing, we'd know where he is – yes or no," said Houwaida Hamad, searching for her nephew. "My sister would know if the one we're burying is really her son or not."
Donald Trump's ceasefire deal has brought some relief for Gaza, but little closure for the families of most of those missing, left burying a body in place of a brother, husband or son.
Good weather led to a boost in clothes shopping, according to the ONS
Retail sales hit their highest level since 2022 in September, with good weather giving a boost clothes shopping, according to new data.
Retail sales between July and September were 0.9% higher than the previous three months, new figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) shows.
Retail sales rose by 0.5% on the month in September 2025, following a similar increase in August 2025.
Computer and telecoms retailers grew strongly, while within non-store retailing, online jewellers reported strong demand for gold.
ONS statistics are used in deciding government policy, which affects millions, and are also used by the Bank of England to make key financial decisions, such as setting interest rates.
Boat owner Hong Suk-hui says the seas are becoming more dangerous
Hong Suk-hui was waiting on the shore of South Korea's Jeju Island when the call came. His fishing boat had capsized.
Just two days earlier, the vessel had ventured out on what he had hoped would be a long and fruitful voyage. But as the winds grew stronger, its captain was ordered to turn back. On the way to port, a powerful wave struck from two directions creating a whirlpool, and the boat flipped. Five of the 10 crew members, who had been asleep in their cabins below deck, drowned.
"When I heard the news, I felt like the sky was falling," said Mr Hong.
Last year, 164 people were killed or went missing in accidents in the seas around South Korea – a 75% jump from the year before. Most were fishermen whose boats sunk or capsized.
"The weather has changed, it's getting windier every year," said Mr Hong, who also chairs the Jeju Fishing Boat Owners Association.
"Whirlwinds pop up suddenly. We fisherman are convinced it is down to climate change."
South Korean Coastguard
Five of Mr Hong's crew members drowned when this fishing boat capsized in February
Alarmed by the spike in deaths, the South Korean government launched an investigation into the accidents.
This year, the head of the taskforce pinpointed climate change as one of the major causes, as well as highlighting other problems — the country's aging fishing workforce, a growing reliance on migrant workers, and poor safety training.
The seas around Korea are warming more rapidly than the global average, in part because they tend to be shallower. Between 1968 and 2024, the average surface temperature of the country's seas increased by 1.58C, more than double the global rise of 0.74C.
Warming waters are contributing to extreme weather at sea, creating the conditions for tropical storms, like typhoons, to become more intense.
They are also causing some fish species around South Korea to migrate, according to the country's National Institute of Fisheries Science, forcing fisherman to travel further and take greater risks to catch enough to make a living.
Environmental campaigners say urgent action is needed to "stop the tragedy occurring in Korean waters".
BBC/Hosu Lee
Some fish species are migrating from the waters around South Korea
On a rainy June morning, Jeju Island's main harbour was crammed with fishing boats. The crews hurried back and forth between sea and land, refuelling and stocking up for their next voyage, while the boats' owners paced anxiously along the dock watching the final preparations.
"I'm always afraid something might happen to the boat, the risks have increased so much," said 54-year-old owner, Kim Seung-hwan. "The winds have become more unpredictable and extremely dangerous."
A few years ago, Mr Kim began to notice that the popular silvery hairtail fish he relied on were disappearing from local waters, and his earnings plunged by half.
Now his crews have to journey into deeper, more perilous waters to find them, sometimes sailing as far south as Taiwan.
"Since we're operating farther away, it's not always possible to return quickly when there's a storm warning," he said. "If we stayed closer to shore it would be safer, but to make a living we have to go farther out."
BBC/Hosu Lee
Fishermen on South Korea's Jeju Island say hairtail fish have become scarcer
Professor Gug Seung-gi led the investigation into the recent accidents, which found that South Korea's seas appear to have become more dangerous. It noted the number of marine weather warnings around the Korean Peninsula - alerting fishermen to gales, storm surges, and typhoons - increased by 65% between 2020 and 2024.
"Unpredictable weather is leading to more boats capsizing, especially small fishing vessels that are going further out and are not built for such long, rough trips," he told the BBC.
Professor Kim Baek-min, a climate scientist at South Korea's Pukyong National University, said that although climate change was creating the conditions to make strong, sudden wind gusts more likely, a clear trend had not yet been established – for that, more research and long-term data is needed.
BBC/Hosu Lee
Captain Park fishes for anchovies from this small boat
One foggy morning, we left shore in the dark on a small trawler with Captain Park Hyung-il, who has been fishing anchovies off Korea's south coast for more than 25 years. He sang sea shanties, determined to stay upbeat. But when we reached the nets he had left out overnight, his mood crumpled.
As he wound them in, the anchovies could barely be seen among the hordes of jellyfish and other fodder. Once the anchovies had been separated out, they filled just two boxes.
"In the past, we'd fill 50 to 100 of these baskets in a single day," he said. "But this year the anchovies have vanished and we're catching more jellyfish than fish."
This is the predicament facing tens of thousands of fishermen along South Korea's coastlines. Over the past 10 years, the amount of squid caught in South Korean waters each year has plummeted 92%, while anchovy catches have fallen by 46%.
BBC/Hosu Lee
There are far fewer anchovies to be sorted by fishing workers
Even the anchovies Park had caught were not fit for market, he said, and would need to be sold as animal-feed.
"The haul is basically worthless," he sighed, explaining it would barely cover the day's fuel costs, let alone his crew's wages.
"The sea is a mess, nothing makes sense anymore," Park continued. "I used to love this job. There was joy knowing that someone, somewhere in the country was eating the fish I caught. But now, with barely anything to catch, that sense of pride is fading."
And, with livelihoods disappearing, young people no longer want to join the industry. In 2023 almost half of South Korea's fishermen were over the age of 65, up from less than a third a decade earlier.
Increasingly, elderly captains must rely on help from migrant workers from Vietnam and Indonesia. Often these workers do not receive sufficient safety training, and language barriers mean they cannot communicate with the captains – further compounding the dangers.
Woojin Chung, a researcher at the Environmental Justice Foundation, a UK-based charity, described it as "a vicious and tragic cycle".
When you combine more extreme weather with the pressure to travel further, the increased fuel costs this brings, and the need to rely on cheap, untrained foreign labour, "you have a higher chance of meeting disaster", she explained.
BBC/Hosu Lee
Fishermen Jong-un (left) and Yong-mook (right) were killed in a fishing boat accident this year
On 9 February this year, a large shipping trawler sank suddenly near the coastal city of Yeosu, killing 10 of the crew. It was a bitterly cold, windy day, and smaller boats had been banned from going out, but this trawler was deemed sturdy enough to withstand the gales. The reason it went down is still a mystery.
One of those killed was 63-year-old Young-mook. A fisherman for 40 years, he had been planning to retire, but that morning someone called and asked him to fill a last-minute opening on the boat.
"It was so cold that once you fell in you wouldn't survive the hypothermia, especially at his age," said his daughter Ean, still distraught over his death.
Ean thinks it has become too easy for boat owners to blame climate change for accidents. Even in cases where bad weather plays a role, she believes it is still the owners' responsibility to assess the risks and keep their crew safe. "Ultimately it is their call when to go out," she said.
BBC/Hosu Lee
Young-mook's daughter Ean (right) wants boat owners to make their vessels safer
As a child, she remembers her father's fridge would be filled with crabs and squid. "Now the stocks are gone, but the companies still force them to go out, and because these men have worked as fishermen their whole lives, they don't have alternative job options, so they keep fishing even when they're too frail to do so," she said.
Ean also wants owners to better maintain their boats, which are aging too. "Companies have insurance, so they get compensated after a boat sinks, but our loved ones can't be replaced."
The authorities, aware they cannot control the weather, are now working with fishermen to make their boats safer. As we were with Mr Hong, whose boat capsized earlier this year, a team of government inspectors arrived to carry out a series of on-the-spot checks on two of his other vessels.
The government's taskforce is recommending that boats be fitted with safety ladders, fisherman be required to wear life jackets, and that safety training be mandatory for all foreign crew. It also wants to improve search and rescue operations, and for fisherman to have access to more localised and real-time weather updates.
Some regions are even offering to pay fishermen for the jellyfish they catch, to try to clean up the seas, while squid fishermen are being given loans to protect them from bankruptcy, and encourage them to retire.
BBC/Hosu Lee
Because the problem will likely worsen. The UN's Food and Agricultural Organisation forecasts that total fish catches in South Korea will decline by almost a third by the end of this century, if carbon emissions and global warming continue on their current trajectories.
"The future looks very bleak," said the anchovy fisherman Captain Park, now in his late 40s. He recently started a YouTube channel documenting his catches in the hope of earning some extra money. Park is the third generation of his family to do this work and likely the last.
"Back then it felt romantic getting up early and heading out to sea. There was a sense of adventure and reward."
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