Julia Ramadan was terrified - the war between Israel and Hezbollah was escalating and she'd had a nightmare that her family home was being bombed. When she sent her brother a panicked voice note from her apartment in Beirut, he encouraged her to join him in Ain El Delb, a sleepy village in southern Lebanon.

"It's safe here," he reassured her. "Come stay with us until things calm down."

Earlier that month, Israel intensified air campaigns against Hezbollah in Lebanon, in response to escalating rocket attacks by the Iran-backed armed group which had killed civilians, and displaced tens of thousands more from homes in northern Israel.

Ashraf was confident their family's apartment block would be a haven, so Julia joined him. But the next day, on 29 September, it was subject to this conflict's deadliest single Israeli attack. Struck by Israeli missiles, the entire six-storey building collapsed, killing 73 people.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) says the building was targeted because it was a Hezbollah "terrorist command centre" and it "eliminated" a Hezbollah commander. It added that "the overwhelming majority" of those killed in the strike were "confirmed to be terror operatives".

But a BBC Eye investigation verified the identity of 68 of the 73 people killed in the attack and uncovered evidence suggesting just six were linked to Hezbollah's military wing. None of those we identified appeared to hold a senior rank. The BBC's World Service also found that the other 62 were civilians - 23 of them children.

Among the dead were babies only a few months old, like Nouh Kobeissi in apartment -2B. In apartment -1C, school teacher Abeer Hallak was killed alongside her husband and three sons. Three floors above, Amal Hakawati died along with three generations of her family - her husband, children and two granddaughters.

Ashraf and Julia had always been close, sharing everything with each other. "She was like a black box, holding all my secrets," he says.

On the afternoon of 29 September, the siblings had just returned home from handing out food to families who had fled the fighting. Hundreds of thousands of people in Lebanon had been displaced by the war.

Ashraf was in the shower, and Julia was sitting in the living room with their father, helping him upload a video to social media. Their mother, Janan, was in the kitchen, clearing up.

Then, without warning, they heard a deafening bang. The entire building shook, and a massive cloud of dust and smoke poured into their apartment.

"I shouted, 'Julia! Julia!,'" says Ashraf.

"She replied, 'I'm here.'

"I looked at my dad, who was struggling to get up from the sofa because of an existing injury to his leg, and saw my mother running toward the front door."

Julia's nightmare was playing out in real life.

"Julia was hyperventilating, crying so hard on the sofa. I was trying to calm her down and told her we needed to get out. Then, there was another attack."

Video footage of the strike, shared online and verified by the BBC, reveals four Israeli missiles flying through the air towards the building. Seconds later, the block collapses.

Ashraf, along with many others, was trapped under the rubble. He began calling out, but the only voice he could hear was that of his father, who told him he could still hear Julia and that she was alive. Neither of them could hear Ashraf's mother.

Ashraf sent a voice note to friends in the neighbourhood to alert them. The next few hours were agonising. He could hear rescuers sifting through the debris - and residents wailing as they discovered loved ones dead. "I just kept thinking, please, God, not Julia. I can't live this life without Julia."

Ashraf was finally pulled from the rubble hours later, with only minor injuries.

He discovered his mother had been rescued but died in hospital. Julia had suffocated under the rubble. His father later told him Julia's last words were calls for her brother.

In November, a ceasefire deal was agreed between Israel and Hezbollah with the aim of ending the conflict. The deal gives a 60-day deadline for Israeli forces to withdraw from southern Lebanon and for Hezbollah to withdraw its forces and weapons north of the Litani River. As this 26 January deadline approaches, we sought to find out more about the deadliest single Israeli attack on Lebanon in years.

In the apartment below Julia and Ashraf's, Hawraa and Ali Fares had been hosting family members displaced by the war. Among them was Hawraa's sister Batoul, who, like Julia, had arrived the previous day - with her husband and two young children. They had fled intense bombardment near the Lebanon-Israel border, in areas where Hezbollah has a strong presence.

"We hesitated about where to go," says Batoul. "And then I told my husband, 'Let's go to Ain El Delb. My sister said their building was safe and that they couldn't hear any bombing nearby.'"

Batoul's husband Mohammed Fares was killed in the Ain El Delb attack. A pillar fell on Batoul and her children. She says no-one responded to her calls for help. She finally managed to lift it alone, but her four-year-old daughter Hawraa had been fatally crushed. Miraculously, her baby Malak survived.

Three floors below Batoul lived Denise and Moheyaldeen Al-Baba. That Sunday, Denise had invited her brother Hisham over for lunch.

The impact of the strike was brutal, says Hisham.

"The second missile slammed me to the floor… the entire wall fell on top of me."

He spent seven hours under the rubble.

"I heard a voice far away. People talking. Screams and… 'Cover her. Remove her. Lift the stone. He's still alive. It's a child. Lift this child.' I mean… Oh my God. I thought to myself, I'm the last one deep underground. No-one will know about me. I will die here."

When Hisham was finally rescued, he found his niece's fiance waiting to hear if she was alive. He lied to him and told him she was fine. They found her body three days later.

Hisham lost four members of his family - his sister, brother-in-law and their two children. He told us he had lost his faith and no longer believes in God.

To find out more about who died, we have analysed Lebanese Health Ministry data, videos, social media posts, as well as speaking to survivors of the attack.

We particularly wanted to interrogate the IDF's response to media - immediately following the attack - that the apartment block had been a Hezbollah command centre. We asked the IDF multiple times what constituted a command centre, but it did not give clarification.

So we began sifting through social media tributes, gravesites, public health records and videos of funerals to determine whether those killed in the attack had any military affiliation with Hezbollah.

We could only find evidence that six of the 68 dead we identified were connected to Hezbollah's military wing.

Hezbollah memorial photos for the six men use the label "Mujahid", meaning "fighter". Senior figures, by contrast, are referred to as "Qaid", meaning "commander" - and we found no such labels used by the group to describe those killed.

We asked the IDF whether the six Hezbollah fighters we identified were the intended targets of the strike. It did not respond to this question.

One of the Hezbollah fighters we identified was Batoul's husband, Mohammed Fares. Batoul told us that her husband, like many other men in southern Lebanon, was a reservist for the group, though she added that he had never been paid by Hezbollah, held a formal rank, or participated in combat.

Israel sees Hezbollah as one of its main threats and the group is designated a terrorist organisation by Israel, many Western governments and Gulf Arab states.

But alongside its large, well-armed military wing, Hezbollah is also an influential political party, holding seats in Lebanese parliament. In many parts of the country it is woven into the social fabric, providing a network of social services.

In response to our investigation, the IDF stated: "The IDF's strikes on military targets are subject to relevant provisions of international law, including taking feasible precautions, and are carried out after an assessment that the expected collateral damage and civilian casualties are not excessive in relation to the military advantage expected from the strike."

It had earlier also told the BBC it had executed "evacuation procedures" for the strike on Ain El Delb, but everyone we spoke to said they had received no warning.

Watch on YouTube if outside the UK

UN experts have raised concerns about the proportionality and necessity of Israeli air strikes on residential buildings in densely populated areas in Lebanon.

This pattern of targeting entire buildings - resulting in significant civilian casualties - has been a recurring feature of Israel's latest conflict with Hezbollah, which began when the group escalated rocket attacks in response to Israel's war in Gaza.

Between October 2023 and November 2024, Lebanese authorities say more than 3,960 people were killed in Lebanon by Israeli forces, many of them civilians. Over the same time period, Israeli authorities say at least 47 civilians were killed by Hezbollah rockets fired from southern Lebanon. At least 80 Israeli soldiers were also killed fighting in southern Lebanon or as a result of rocket attacks on northern Israel.

The missile strike in Ain El Delb is the deadliest Israeli attack on a building in Lebanon for at least 18 years.

The village remains haunted by its impact. When we visited, more than a month after the strike, a father continued to visit the site every day, hoping for news of his 11-year-old son, whose body had yet to be found.

Ashraf Ramadan, too, returns to sift through the rubble, searching for what remains of the memories his family built over the two decades they lived there.

He shows me the door of his wardrobe, still adorned with pictures of footballers and pop stars he once admired. Then, he pulls a teddy bear from the debris and tells me it was always on his bed.

"Nothing I find here will make up for the people we lost," he says.

Additional reporting by Scarlett Barter and Jake Tacchi

'Don't boo a player when they are injured'

The signs that showed Djokovic's struggles

The UK has left open the possibility of following EU rules for food and farm products in order to return to frictionless access to European markets, the trade secretary has said.

Jonathan Reynolds told the BBC such an agreement - which lowers all trade barriers in return for mirroring EU rules and standards - would not cross the government's red lines.

His comments come after EU Trade Commissioner Maros Sefcovic told the BBC a new agreement, including so-called dynamic alignment on standards, is possible alongside other areas of pan-European co-operation on customs.

Reynolds met Sefcovic at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Thursday.

He said he thanked his EU counterpart for his "incredibly positive" and "helpful" comments. Reynolds add that Sefcovic's tone was in keeping with what the government had already said about a "twin- track strategy" on trade.

"We can improve the terms of trade with the EU in a way which doesn't revisit customs unions or single markets or the arguments of Brexit, and we can do that whilst pursuing closer trade links around the world," Reynolds said.

Labour fought last year's UK general election with a manifesto pledge to lower Brexit-related barriers and red tape for the export of food and farm products to the European Union.

The question has always been how deep such an agreement might be. It could be settled in the coming weeks, though firm decisions have not yet been made.

on Thursday the EU suggested to the BBC that complete eradication of barriers in the sector would be possible if the UK followed relevant EU rules and standards as they change, a process known as "dynamic alignment".

Speaking to the BBC in Davos, Reynolds said that both ideas floated by Sefcovic - a fully fledged veterinary agreement with dynamic alignment - and a pan-European customs plan did not break the government's red lines.

On the Pan-Euro-Mediterranean Convention he said it did not cross red lines because "it is not a customs union".

Asked if a "full-fat veterinary agreement with dynamic alignment" crossed red lines he said: "No, that's part of our manifesto, an SPS agreement, a veterinary agreement."

The Conservatives have voiced anger at reports of a potential new deal on UK-EU trade, with shadow foreign secretary Dame Priti Patel telling MPs that the government was "bending the knee to the EU".

"These latest reports that the government might shackle us to the European Union are deeply concerning, and once again make clear that Keir Starmer and his chums are all too happy to put their ideology ahead of our national interest, no matter the cost," she said.

But the Liberal Democrats have said the government is not doing enough to smooth trade with the EU.

Party leader Sir Ed Davey told the Commons: "It is time for a proper UK-EU customs arrangement so we can strengthen our negotiations with Donald Trump, cut the red tape on our businesses and grow the economy."

Reynolds told the BBC he was preparing the UK's case to avoid potential US tariffs on exports, after President Donald Trump suggested the world could have to pay trillions of dollars to access markets in America.

A code of practice for getting a dog is to be drawn up in Scotland under a new law passed by MSPs.

The Welfare of Dogs Bill aims to promote responsible ownership by making sure people understand the commitment required before they take on a pet.

Within 12 months the government will need to draw up a code, effectively a checklist of questions about whether the new owner has considered whether they have the time, space and money needed.

That would then inform a certificate, to be signed by the new owner and the person they are acquiring the dog from, to underline that both sides understand the commitment involved.

The new law is a member's bill introduced by SNP MSP Christine Graham, who has been pushing for changes for more than seven years.

The Midlothian South, Tweeddale and Lauderdale MSP first tabled a Welfare of Dogs bill in 2018 but saw it fall at the end of a term of parliament curtailed by Covid.

The inspiration behind the bill can readily be seen at Edinburgh's dog and cat home, where Ms Grahame is a regular fixture - she literally has her name on the wall.

The facility is currently at capacity for dogs following a "worrying" increase in strays being brought in.

One of them is Susan, a four-year-old labrador-staffie cross. She is a friendly dog who has clearly had some training - she can sit, and offer a paw in exchange for a treat - but came in as a stray in October, having presumably been abandoned.

The home's chief executive Lindsay Fyffe-Jardine says dogs do come to them because good owners see their circumstances change, through no fault of their own.

But she said there was also an issue with "decisions which perhaps aren't talked through before purchase".

She said: "It's as easy to go out to the supermarket to buy your cereal as it is to get a dog from lots of different places and the reality is not everyone stops to think 'can I afford this dog? can I fit them into my life?'.

"Because it's a huge commitment."

This is where Christine Grahame's bill comes in.

The new law requires the government to produce - within 12 months - a code of practice which sets out steps that should be taken when buying, selling or giving away a dog.

This code must include a checklist of questions which prospective dog owners should ask of themselves and of the person they are acquiring the animal from.

These questions are intended to fit on a single side of A4 paper, and would include things like:

• whether the breed of dog is suitable for the new owner
• whether they have a suitable environment to house it
• whether they have time to exercise regularly
• whether they can afford the costs of having a pet on an ongoing basis
• and whether they can commit to caring for the dog throughout its entire life

The new owner would then have to sign a certificate showing that they have considered the questions set out in the code, while the seller would sign it to attest that they are content to hand the dog over.

This certificate isn't a licence or a legally binding document. The point is to make people think carefully about what dog ownership entails before they take on a new pet.

There is already a 28-page code of practice for dog owners, which was introduced in 2010 under previous animal welfare reforms.

But Ms Grahame contends that few will have actually read that code, and that one which needs to be signed up to at the point of buying a dog would focus minds at the critical moment.

The Conservatives pushed to simply merge the two codes at committee stage, but otherwise there has been little dissent over the plans as they now stand.

The bill originally also included proposals to set up a Scotland-wide database for registering all dogs bred in unlicensed litters.

However, this was dropped after the government said it was "not convinced that developing a registration scheme would be an effective or proportionate way" to tackle issues around irresponsible breeding.

The final debate on the bill also included a row about shock collars, after Green MSP Ross Greer attempted to add in a ban on them at the final stage of debate.

This was voted down after the government pledged to return to the issue once further independent reports on the devices has been completed later this year.

The teenager who murdered three children, Elsie Dot Stancombe, Alice da Silva Aguiar, and Bebe King, at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class last July will serve a minimum of 52 years in prison.

Axel Rudakubana had a long-standing obsession with violence, killing and genocide, but prosecutors said there is no evidence he ascribed to any particular political or religious ideology.

He admitted a terrorism offence for downloading an al-Qaeda training manual. But the knife attack has not been treated as terrorism by police or prosecutors, and the judge stressed that he "must accept" that there was no evidence of terrorist cause.

He added, however, that Rudakubana's culpability is "equivalent to terrorist matters, whatever its purpose".

Following Rudakubana's guilty pleas earlier this week, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer declared "terrorism has changed" and Britain is facing a "new threat".

In the past, he said, the main threat was organised groups like al-Qaeda, but that we now also face extreme violence from "loners, misfits, young men in their bedroom, accessing all manner of material online, desperate for notoriety". They are sometimes inspired by traditional terrorist groups, he said, but are fixated on extreme violence, seemingly for its own sake.

But what the prime minister described has been happening for years.

"This is not a new threat," says Barnaby Jameson KC, who has spent years prosecuting terror cases. "In the last decade we have seen a plethora of terrorist cases involving young males who have become self-radicalised in isolation online."

What is new is that the prime minister has now indicated this problem must be urgently addressed.

The question now is how he will do it - and, if this has been going on for so many years, why has it taken until now to do so?

A 'fluid' counter-terror system

At present, the police, courts and MI5 work to a definition in the Terrorism Act 2000.

That defines terrorism as the use or threat of violence designed to influence the government, an international governmental organisation, or to intimidate the public or a section of it, with the use or threat of violence for the purpose of advancing a political, religious, racial or ideological cause.

Put simply, for an attack to be treated as terrorism the authorities must conclude it was for some kind of cause.

But various terror offences can be – and are – used to charge and disrupt people who are not defined by prosecutors as having a terrorist motive. On the flipside, it is also true that cases which some think should be classed as terrorism, are not.

Several recent cases show how fluid the counter-terror system can be when presented with cases falling outside the main ideologies, showing these issues are not as new as the prime minister suggests.

Counter-terror police, with their particular focus on preventing violence in the first place, have investigated plots that are not defined as terrorism, including two teenagers jailed in 2018 for planning a school massacre in North Yorkshire.

Another investigation prevented a massacre in Cumbria the same year. The "loner" responsible was convicted of possessing terrorist manuals, but prosecutors said the motive was "not terrorism" and related to hatred and revenge.

In 2021, a 16-year-old boy from Birmingham admitted three terror offences for possessing gun and bomb manuals. He had a general fascination with terrorism, violence and so-called 'incels'.

From age 11, he had constantly posted in a forum about the Columbine massacre. The prosecution case was that he did not hold any fixed ideology.

On the other side of the spectrum, a vehicle attack in Westminster in 2018 - in which a man drove at cyclists and police officers outside Parliament - was prosecuted and sentenced as terrorist-linked, despite no evidence of any extremist motive, on the basis that the act and location meant the attacker must have been acting for a terrorist purpose.

The case shows a motive does not need to be clear for a case to be treated as terrorism.

But a notorious double murder that was inspired by an extreme ideology – the stabbings of Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman in a London park in 2020 – were not defined as terrorism despite the killer clearly being motivated by his adherence to Satanism and the occult.

The case of the Liverpool hospital explosion

It is up to the police, namely the senior national co-ordinator for counterterrorism, to declare an incident as terrorism.

In the past, this has happened quickly in notorious cases, including after the Manchester Arena bombing and the Westminster Bridge attack. Both were carried out by known extremists.

One reason why police may now take longer before making a declaration - even an incident that may appear likely to be classed as terrorism - is because of an explosion in a taxi outside Liverpool Women's Hospital in 2021, which was initially declared a terrorist incident.

After a long investigation, however, detectives eventually concluded there was no evidence the Liverpool bomber held extremist views of any kind and that his precise motive remained unknown, but it was likely driven by anger towards the British state for repeated rejections of his asylum claim and exacerbated by his own mental health struggles.

Despite such examples, the central focus for MI5 and police is terrorism as defined by the law, rather than a broader group of people presenting a more general risk of violence.

If the government is now going to ask that more time be devoted to this wider group, MI5 and the police may well ask for more resources.

As things stand, both are currently devoting increasing time to investigating state espionage in the UK, particularly from Russia, Iran and China, which means they're spending less time on terrorism investigations.

Within those investigations, detectives focused on the extreme right spend an increasing amount of time dealing with young people who engage in a range of harmful activity, including sexual offences.

Certain online spaces have seen a blending with the occult, Satanism, misogyny, and a general ultra-violent misanthropy, creating toxic new groups that bleed back into the real worlds.

Some of those involved are often mentally vulnerable, creating additional sensitivities around interventions, whether they involve criminal investigations or not.

Some neo-Nazi groups created by teenagers and young people online have been outlawed as terrorist organisations, joining a list that includes Hamas and the IRA.

From al-Qaeda to IS

The challenge of preventing lone attackers in the UK is nothing new. In the 1990s and early 2000s, the main threat was from elaborate plots directed by groups like al-Qaeda, such as the plan to blow up transatlantic planes using bombs disguised as drinks.

This era saw the creation of the main terrorism laws now in use, which defined a series of offences – including preparing acts of terrorism and possessing terrorist instructions – that we see in the courts, used to disrupt and stop people before they commit acts of violence.

But with the emergence of the Islamic State (IS) group over a decade ago, the threat moved away from plots directed by organisations and towards acts of violence by individuals inspired by online propaganda and instructions from groups like IS, but who might have no direct contact with them.

In the decade since there have been multiple plots and attacks by lone actors, including people using knives and vehicles as weapons, making it harder to spot their plans because the preparations are relatively low-key.

Extreme right-wing violence, which has emerged as a major issue, has predominantly followed the same pattern: plots and attacks by lone actors, often very young, who are typically inspired by material accessed online.

The challenge of rooting outing lone attackers

For years, counter-terror police have been registering their concerns about this group. (Indeed, they are only a group because the authorities have defined them as such.)

The point is illustrated by the number of them referred to Prevent, the government-led counter-extremism programme. In the year to March 2020, 51% were for individuals with a "mixed, unstable or unclear ideology", of which almost half had no concern identified following an initial assessment.

In the years since, the way in which that group is classed has changed, with newer categories for concerns about school massacre radicalisation and the misogynistic incel ideology, which makes direct comparisons over the years difficult.

However, the government's own figures for 2023/2024 show the largest single group referred to Prevent – 36%, meaning 2,489 people – were defined as individuals with a vulnerability present but no ideology or counter terror risk, with 19% classed as extreme right-wing, 13% as Islamist radicalisation, and 2% relating to concerns regarding school massacres.

From these thousands of Prevent referrals, 7% were adopted as cases requiring intervention by a multi-agency panel. But the figures for interventions show how the largest group of original referrals – the mix of people with a general interest in violence but no clear ideology – get increasingly filtered out of the programme.

For cases involving intervention, 45% related to extreme right-wing radicalisation, 23% to Islamist radicalisation, 18% to individuals with "conflicted concerns", and 4% for school massacre concerns.

The Southport attacker himself was referred to Prevent three times by "education providers" because of concern about his interest in violence and extremism, but each time officers assessed he did not need meet the threshold for intervention – assessments since found to be wrong by an official review.

A 'dizzying range' of beliefs

When you get to actual investigations by MI5, which is the UK's lead agency for counter terrorism, the figures change again, with the organisation's director general Ken McCallum saying last year that 75% relate to Islamist extremism and 25% to the extreme right.

However, he acknowledged that "straightforward labels like 'Islamist terrorism' or 'extreme right wing' don't fully reflect the dizzying range of beliefs and ideologies we see," and that MI5 is encountering more people accessing "both extreme right wing and Islamist extremist instructional material, along with other bits of online hatred, conspiracy theories and disinformation."

What the figures show is that a large group of people - about whom there are real concerns - neither end up in Prevent, nor being investigated by MI5 or counter-terror police.

The prime minister said this week it may be that such people are "harder to spot," adding that we "can't shrug our shoulders and accept that".

But what his government is proposing to do about it is currently unclear.

New definitions: Would serial killers be included?

The government could consider broadening the definition of terrorism or creating new offences to tackle the threat of violence from non-terror offenders.

It could also change the way in which the threat of violence from non-terror suspects is monitored and managed.

Neil Basu, the Met's former head of counter-terror policing, this week said that a "Prevent for non-terrorists" is now necessary and will require a "big bill" if we want to be safe.

The government has appointed Lord Anderson KC, a former independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, to review the Prevent scheme, although it was the subject of a highly critical review two years ago commissioned by the previous government.

Jonathan Hall KC, the current independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, has been asked by the government to consider whether the definition does need to change. Speaking to the BBC, he says: "There appear to be three reasons for expanding the definition of terrorism.

"The sense that only terrorism captures the horrors of attacks like the one by Rudakubana; because doing so brings in counter-terrorism powers; and because terror laws focus on pre-cursor offences and preventing attacks in the first place.

"However, to change the definition you would need to work out what violence to include, and what to exclude.

"If it was no longer necessary to prove a political, religious, racial or ideological cause, would the touchstone be methodology, or number of victims, or desire for notoriety or terrorising impact? Would serial killers like Lucy Letby be included or not?"

On the question of which resources are used to tackle the threat, he argues that "we must ask who is responsible for the risk posed by people like Rudakubana. This is about risk management and public protection by law enforcement, not welfare interventions.

"We can learn from how terrorist subjects of interest are managed by every mechanism available, such as non-terrorism prosecutions or use of civil orders."

Now the Southport attacker has been sentenced, the focus will be on what the government next does to tackle the issues articulated by the prime minister.

Top picture credit: Merseyside Police and PA

BBC InDepth is the new home on the website and app for the best analysis and expertise from our top journalists. Under a distinctive new brand, we’ll bring you fresh perspectives that challenge assumptions, and deep reporting on the biggest issues to help you make sense of a complex world. And we’ll be showcasing thought-provoking content from across BBC Sounds and iPlayer too. We’re starting small but thinking big, and we want to know what you think - you can send us your feedback by clicking on the button below.

There's been a record jump in the number of UK businesses in critical financial distress, according to insolvency specialists.

This comes at the same time as a drop in consumer confidence as more people have concerns over the UK's financial prospects as well as their own.

In their latest report, insolvency experts at Begbies Traynor said a company can be considered in critical financial distress if they have an outstanding county court judgment of over £5,000 or face a winding-up petition.

Businesses in the most distress include those in hospitality, leisure, and retail.

While there's often a jump at year-end of companies in critical financial distress, the report found a record increase of 50% from September to December 2024, taking the number of companies in this category to 46,583 businesses.

One factor was HMRC becoming more aggressive in recovering overdue taxes owed.

The number of UK businesses considered to be in significant financial distress also rose by 3.5% on the prior quarter to 654,765.

Ric Traynor, executive chairman of Begbies Traynor, said: "After a historic rise in critical financial distress in the last quarter of 2024, it's clear that many distressed UK businesses are finding it almost impossible to navigate the challenges they face as we start 2025."

"For many businesses which were already dealing with weak consumer confidence and higher borrowing costs, the increase in national insurance contributions and the national minimum wage, announced at the last Budget, could be the last straw."

He said sectors like retail and hospitality could be impacted in particular because they typically "operate on razor-thin margins".

"I fear 2025 could end up being a watershed moment where thousands of UK businesses 'call time' after struggling to survive for years," he added.

A separate report showed a slight fall in confidence among consumers in their own finances and a much sharper one over the prospects for the wider economy.

The long-running survey from GfK showed people's intentions to spend on big-ticket items fell while the number of people considering putting money aside in savings rose.

GfK said that was a negative for the economy as it was a sign that many people saw dark days ahead and were putting money aside for safety.

Neil Bellamy, consumer insights director at GfK, said: "New year is traditionally a time for change, but looking at these figures, consumers don't think things are changing for the better.

"These figures underline that consumers are losing confidence in the UK's economic prospects."

Some online sites are prescribing men a hair loss drug that has potentially risky side effects without consistent safety checks, the BBC has found.

The side effects of finasteride can include suicidal thoughts and impotence, yet some big brand companies will send the pills in the post without seeing or chatting with the customer.

Kyle, who is 26 and from Wakefield, regrets buying the pills online after filling out a 'tick-box' form.

He says his life has been turned upside down by an all too quick decision.

Kyle started taking finasteride last spring, after it was recommended to him by a mate who was on it.

He says he did a bit of research beforehand, but buying it online was simple.

"I just typed it in on Google and it came up with all these online pharmacies," Kyle says.

"It's everywhere. It's so easily accessible."

The prescription pills arrived on his doorstep within a week of ordering them.

"I had no consultation with a doctor. No zoom meeting. I didn't have to send any pictures to them or anything like that to actually make sure I did have male pattern baldness.

"I started it and, yeah - that was the biggest mistake of my life."

Since taking the drug, Kyle says he's been having problems with his sexual, mental and physical health - problems he had never experienced before and which have persisted since he stopped the medication.

"Life just feels grey. It's, like, castrated my emotions," Kyle says.

"It just stripped everything from me - all my personality and everything. I stopped going out with my mates, stopped playing football and started having all these issues."

How finasteride works

Finasteride is one of the most common pills for hair loss, taken by tens of thousands of men in the UK. It is only available by private prescription.

It works by stopping testosterone turning into another hormone, called dihydrotestosterone (DHT), that can stop hair growing.

Kyle took it for about six weeks, but stopped after experiencing problems including suicidal thoughts.

In late April 2024 - just weeks after Kyle got his prescription - UK regulators took urgent action over finasteride, saying packs must contain a special safety alert card warning of the small risk of severe side effects including suicidal thoughts and sexual dysfunction.

After being contacted by other men like Kyle through Your Voice, Your BBC News, we asked a male colleague to buy finasteride from three leading online providers to see what the checks now involved.

Online prescriber 'Hims' mentioned the side effects.

Superdrug also offered the option to chat with a doctor - that cost extra.

Only Boots pharmacy asked for a photo of hair loss.

When some packs arrived, none contained the new patient alert card that drug makers were asked to add.

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory agency says manufacturers have been given up to a year to comply, but it might take longer.

Boots, Hims and Superdrug say online finasteride customers are asked to confirm that they have read and understood the possible risks.

They say until the alert cards are "rolled out" and put in packs, users can read the long patient information leaftlet already included with the medicine to learn about side effects.

The Royal Pharmaceutical Society says online prescribing can be very useful for a lot of patients, particularly if they are too embarrassed to visit a doctor. But the checks must be robust.

James Davies, RPS director for England told BBC News: "It's really important that regardless of whether it's online or face to face, these thorough checks are taking place.

"That means that a full medical history is taken, there's an opportunity to understand the medication that may be prescribed, the side effects, the risks and the benefits."

He said sharing photos of the hair loss with the prescriber and having a video call to discuss all of the issues could be useful.

The British Association of Hair Restoration Surgery (BAHRS) believes patients shouldn't get the drug just by filling out an online form.

Greg Williams, hair transplant surgeon and vice president of BAHRS, says although finsasteride is a good treatment for many, the small chance of serious side effects must be explained and closely monitored.

"There will be some patients who have risk factors that might make finasteride a risky prescription. I'm not saying it can't be prescribed, but patients need to be appropriately counselled."

Europe's drug regulator is doing its own safety review of finasteride which could include a ban.

Nearly a year since first ordering the drug, Kyle says he deeply regrets taking finasteride.

"It's just a little pill. You take it and don't really think about what it can do to you," he says.

"Every day I beat myself up saying like 'You had a perfect life, you didn't have to risk something over hair'.

"It was vain of me...but when you get insecure you do stupid things.

"If I were made aware of what it can do I never would have took it."

The cost of replacing more than 2,000 MPs and political staff after the election reached £52.8m, the body managing MPs' pay has revealed.

Nearly all of that was spent on closing down former MPs' offices and helping new MPs set theirs up, with around a third of the total spent on redundancy payments for staff.

The Independent Parliament Standards Authority (Ipsa) report said Labour's landslide election had been a "once in a generation event" which saw 350 MPs leave office - more than at any general election in the last fifty years.

According to its report, 2,373 people lost their job as a result - including 2,023 staff who worked for MPs who either lost their seat or stood down.

At the 2019 election only 460 members of staff were effectively made redundant.

Ipsa, which is funded by public money through a grant from the Treasury, said the "almost-unprecedented" turnover had helped push up the cost of supporting those who lost their jobs by 286%.

Costs included ending rental agreements, settling outstanding payments and making staff redundant.

MPs themselves were entitled to a loss of office payment, set at twice the legal minimum, if they lost their seat and had been an MP for at least two years.

All MPs who either lost or stood down were also eligible for so-called "winding up" payments worth four month's salary. Since April 2024, the basic annual salary of a MP is £91,346, plus expenses.

This was to compensate them for the time spent closing down their offices, which was extended at this election from two months to four. They could also claim costs during this time.

Ipsa said an average of £35,200 was spent per MP on redundancy payments to both MPs and their staff - up from an average of £19,900 at the 2019 election.

Ipsa's chair Richard Lloyd said: "An MP's office is like a small business. They are the employer, and any MP not returned in the 2024 general election had until 4 November to close down their office entirely."

He added: "Ipsa is proud of its role in supporting a representative Parliament, where people without private finances shouldn't be prevented from becoming an MP - or working for one."

Established in the wake of the 2009 expenses scandal, Ipsa oversees both MPs' pay and expenses, including the salaries of the constituency caseworkers, parliamentary assistants and other staff that work for them.

Australian police are investigating after a statue of Captain James Cook was covered in red paint and disfigured, ahead of the Australia Day weekend.

It is the second time in 12 months that the statue in Sydney has been vandalised.

Australia Day is a national holiday that is held each year on 26 January - the anniversary of Britain's First Fleet landing at Sydney Cove in 1788. Many Indigenous Australians say the date causes them pain.

The local council in Randwick - the suburb where the statue is located - described the vandalism as "a disservice to the community and a disservice to reconciliation".

Councillor Carolyn Martin told Sydney radio station 2GB that the vandals had knocked off one hand and parts of the face and nose.

The statue - which was first unveiled in 1874 - was previously targeted in February last year, when it was covered with red paint and had parts of its sandstone damaged. Works to repair and restore it were completed a month later.

There are several Captain Cook statues across Australia, and others have also been vandalised on or around 26 January.

In 2024, one in Melbourne was cut down on the eve of the holiday, while its plinth was spray-painted with the words "the colony will fall". Two years earlier the same statue had been splashed with red paint, while in 2018 it was graffitied with the words "no pride" and had an Aboriginal flag placed next to it.

Millions of people have been urged to stay at home on Friday as Storm Éowyn is set to bring potentially life-threatening winds to the north and west of the UK.

Northern Ireland and parts of Scotland are set to experience the worst disruption, where the Met Office has issued red weather warnings which means there is a danger to life from winds gusting at up to 100mph.

Schools will be closed in Northern Ireland and much of central Scotland on Friday, while travel is also expected to be disrupted.

Away from the areas expected to be worst-hit by Storm Éowyn less severe amber and yellow warnings for both wind and rain have been issued, with 11 warnings in place for the UK on Friday and Saturday.

Red is the most serious weather warning the Met Office can issue, meaning dangerous weather is expected and people are urged to take action to keep themselves and others safe.

The red warning for the whole of Northern Ireland will be in force from 07:00 GMT to 14:00 on Friday, affecting the morning rush hour.

Bus and train services have been suspended in the country, while all schools have been advised to close.

In a message to customers, supermarket chain Tesco said all its shops in Northern Ireland would be closed on Friday - adding that home deliveries would be cancelled too.

The Irish Republic's weather service Met Éireann has also issued severe red weather warnings amid the potential for "hurricane force winds" - with BBC Weather also warning it could be the storm of the century to hit the the country.

The storm is due to move east through Friday morning so a red warning is in place across Scotland's central belt, including Glasgow and Edinburgh, from 10:00 to 17:00.

• How to protect your home before, during and after a storm
• Storm names 2024-25: How do storms like Éowyn get their names?

Schools in at least 20 local authorities - covering most of central Scotland - will be closed on Friday.

ScotRail has confirmed all rail services in Scotland will be suspended on Friday, adding that the closure was to ensure the safety of customers and staff.

Train operators Avanti, LNER, Lumo, CrossCountry, and Grand Central, TransPennine Express and Northern have also issued warnings not to travel in the north of England and north Wales on Friday.

The AA urged drivers travelling in red weather warning areas to consider whether a journey is necessary, and if not to postpone it.

Across the UK winds will rapidly increase from west to east on Friday morning into the afternoon with peak gusts of 80-90mph (129-145km/h).

There will likely be a large number of trees blown over with widespread disruption to travel with roads badly affected, and flights, trains and ferries will be subject to cancellations.

Power cuts are also likely, some of which could last for a number of days.

There are 11 UK warnings currently issued:

• red warning for wind for Northern Ireland from 07:00 until 14:00 on Friday
• red warning for wind for Scotland's central belt from 10:00 until 17:00 on Friday
• amber warning for wind across all of Scotland, north-east England, north-west England and Northern Ireland from 06:00 to 21:00 on Friday
• amber warning for wind across parts of Scotland from 13:00 on Friday to 06:00 on Saturday
• yellow warning for wind across most of the country from midnight until 23:59 on Friday
• yellow warning for rain in parts of Wales, the South West and West Midlands from midnight to 09:00 on Friday
• yellow warning for wind in parts of the Midlands, east of England, London and South East England from 05:00 to 15:00 on Friday
• yellow warning for snow in parts of Scotland, in parts of the North East, North West from 06:00 until 23:59 on Friday
• yellow warning for wind in parts of Scotland from midnight until 15:00 on Saturday
• yellow warning for wind for the western side of England, all of Wales and Northern Ireland and south-west Scotland, from 08:00 until 15:00 on Sunday
• yellow warning for rain for the south-east and south-west, Wales, Midlands, East of England and North West from 08:00 on Sunday until 06:00 Monday

Storm Éowyn is the fifth named storm of the season. It has been caused by powerful jet stream winds pushing low pressure towards the UK and Ireland over the Atlantic Ocean - after a recent cold spell over North America.

US President Donald Trump has ordered the documents related to three of the most consequential assassinations in US history - the killings of John F Kennedy, Robert F Kennedy, and Martin Luther King Jr - to be declassified.

"A lot of people are waiting for this, for long, for, for decades," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Thursday. "Everything will be revealed."

President John F Kennedy was killed in 1963. His brother Robert F Kennedy was assassinated while running for president in 1968, just two months after King, America's most famous civil rights leader, was murdered in Memphis, Tennessee.

Many of the documents related to the investigations have been released in the years since, although thousands still remain redacted, particularly related to JFK.

Trump asked for the pen he used to sign the order to be given to Robert F Kennedy Jr, who is RFK's son, JFK's nephew and the president's nominee for health secretary.

John F Kennedy was killed in Dallas by Lee Harvey Oswald. But alternative conspiracy theories about the involvement of government agents, the mafia and all sorts of other nefarious characters have long dogged the case.

RFK Jr has long cast doubt on the official narratives about his uncle's assassination as well as that of his father RFK.

• The assassination of JFK: One of the US's biggest mysteries

Trump promised to declassify all of the JFK files in his first term, but held back on his promise after CIA and FBI officials persuaded him to keep some files secret. Today's executive order states that continued secrecy "is not consistent with the public interest".

A 1992 law required the classified files to be released within 25 years. Trump didn't quite meet the deadline, and neither did former President Joe Biden when he released more documents in 2022. A few thousand – out of millions related to the assassination – have yet to be fully revealed.

In recent years there have been some new details that have come out of document releases, including about the CIA's monitoring of Oswald.

The MP for Southport, where Axel Rudakubana murdered three young girls, has demanded a review of the killers 52-year jail sentence - arguing it is "not harsh enough".

Labour's Patrick Hurley has asked the Attorney General to review if the sentence was "unduly lenient" claiming it does not "reflect the crimes".

Rudakubana cannot apply to leave prison until the year 2077 after pleading guilty to the murders of Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, Bebe King, six, and Alice da Silva Aguiar, eight.

The killings triggered a wave of political outrage, including from Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer who called the attack, which wounded eight more children, "one of the most harrowing moments in our country's history".

In a statement Sir Keir said: "What happened in Southport was an atrocity and as the judge has stated, this vile offender will likely never be released."

But Hurley argued Rudakubana's sentence "is not severe enough, it is not long enough for the crimes committed".

Attorney General Lord Hermer and Solicitor General Lucy Rigby now have 28 days to decide if they will refer the sentence to the Court of Appeal.

Critics of the judge's decision would have to convince the Court of Appeal that the sentence - believed to be the second-longest minimum term ever - is not just shorter than they would have wanted, but "unduly" so.

Because Rudakubana acted nine days shy of turning 18, by law he cannot be sentenced to a whole-life order - which would mean he could never be released from jail.

Hurley joined Tory leader Kemi Badenoch in calling for law change to allow for whole life orders to be imposed on people aged under 18 in some cases.

Badenoch said "Rudakubana should never be released from prison" after destroying "countless lives" and sowing a "legacy of mistrust" across the country.

The Conservatives "will start to explore" how to change the law, she said.

Despite the severity of the attack the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) decided the attack did meet the legal definition of terrorism, due to a lack of evidence Rudakubana sought to advance any political, religious, or ideological agenda.

But Badenoch called the attack a "terrorist" incident, and called on others to stop "avoiding these hard truths".

Leader of Reform UK Nigel Farage demanded the CPS chief resign for failing to class the case as terrorism.

"This barbaric and senseless attack was clearly both political and ideological," Farage said.

"The British public needs to have confidence in the CPS and our police forces. Tens of millions of British citizens will find it incomprehensible how the CPS decided this was a non-terror incident and maintained that position."

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper condemned Rudakubana's attack as "horrendous, cowardly, and evil" and said the government had pledged to hold a national inquiry.

"We have vowed to get the answers the country deserves about how this horror was allowed to happen and to ensure that lessons are learned," she said.

Further details would be set out soon, she said, but added "for today, all our thoughts are with the families enduring this unimaginable pain, and the example of strength and courage they have provided to us all".

Conservative shadow home secretary Chris Philp backed the inquiry, but accused the government of overseeing an information vacuum after Rudakubana's arrest, which sparked a wave of riots across the UK last summer.

Philp is one of many critics that have accused the CPS and government of withholding key details after the attack, such as Rudakubana's three referrals to anti-extremism programme Prevent, his creation of enough ricin to kill 12,000 people and the extent of his fixation on violence and genocide.

Posting on social media, Philp said: "The prime minister and CPS could have been more open with the public. This would have avoided misinformation filling the void, and fuelling the riots.

"The inquiry must address this issue too."

Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey backed the inquiry, calling on the government to fulfil its "urgent duty to the families and our country to learn the lessons from what happened".

"As a father I have found it difficult to read the sickening details about what happened in Southport that day, inflicting an indelible trauma on so many and taking three innocent lives.

"I cannot imagine the enduring pain their families are still going through. No punishment will ever seem like enough."

In response to the attack two Reform UK MPs, Rupert Lowe and Lee Anderson, called for the return of the death penalty.

Mr Lowe said it was "time for a national debate" on the use of capital punishment "in exceptional circumstances", while Mr Anderson posted a picture of a noose on his X account, with the caption: "No apologies here. This is what is required!"

"The dance club was full of laughter and excitement," is how one girl, 14, described the atmosphere as a group of 26 children gathered for a Taylor Swift-themed class in Southport.

Their summer holidays had just begun and the sun was shining down on the town as they were dropped off by their parents. As the class got under way, 29 July 2024 had all the markings of a good day.

The attack that unfolded next saw Axel Rudakubana given a minimum of 52 years in prison. At his sentencing on Thursday, details of how the incident played out from the perspectives of those involved were revealed to the public for the first time.

With the class in full swing, a taxi driver followed a passenger he had just dropped off outside after he had refused to pay.

The passenger, in his teens, was not dressed for the weather: the hood of his thick green hoodie was pulled tight around his face and he was wearing a surgical mask. Inside his pocket was a 20cm kitchen knife.

Initially, Axel Rudakubana could not figure how to get into the studio and was caught on CCTV struggling with a locked door - but then he spotted another entrance and stepped inside.

That was, as one child survivor put it, the "beginning of my nightmare".

Warning: This article contains distressing and upsetting details.

'It wasn't a prank'

Accounts from inside the dance class confirm that Rudakubana moved calmly and purposefully.

He had been planning this moment for some time. He did not hesitate, grabbing and stabbing the girl nearest to the door as soon as he walked in.

As Rudakubana attacked, he did not say a word.

For those inside the room, it took a moment to comprehend what was happening.

"I thought the man who stabbed me was a cleaner," one of the child victims recounted.

It must be a practical joke, she thought, but later said: "I realised it wasn't a prank when I saw blood coming out of me".

Her memories of what happened next are "fuzzy", but the child said she remembers thinking: "I don't want to die, I have got to get out of here".

Another victim said the image of Rudakubana in her memory is that of a monster stalking around the studio.

In court, she would later tell her would-be killer: "The thing I remember most about you is your eyes.

"You looked possessed and you didn't look human."

Leanne Lucas, who was leading the dance class, had first spotted Rudakubana outside when she went to open a window to let some air into the warm dance studio.

She thought nothing of it until the door swung open and he appeared.

What happened next, she said, left her and the girls with "scars we cannot un-see, scars we cannot move on from".

The full horror of what was unfolding only became fully clear when she was stabbed in the back. She later told the girls: "I'm surviving for you".

Heidi Liddle, who was also supervising the class, had been sitting on the floor helping the children to make friendship bracelets.

By the time she realised what was happening, the fast-moving attacker had already done unspeakable damage.

Heidi jumped into action and began trying to rush the girls towards the door.

One girl ran for a toilet on the other side of the landing and she followed.

Heidi locked the door behind them and pressed herself against it. Do not make a sound, she told the girl.

And then the door rattled. Rudakubana was still looking for victims.

Outside, she heard the screams of children who had not managed to escape.

'Running for my life'

Rudakubana set out to kill as many children as he could: by the time the 15 minute frenzy was over, two girls were dead and one was dying.

Another eight children and two adults had been stabbed. Some were fighting for their lives.

If it was not for the quick-thinking and bravery of the girls, it is certain that more would have died.

One child remembers the world seeming to move in "slow motion" as Rudakubana moved towards her, attacking her friends as he made his way across the room.

Instinct kicked in.

She remembers "physically pushing" her friends who were still able to run as they fled down the stairs.

When she confronted Rudakubana in court by reading her statement, she told him: "I knew I was running for my life.

"I knew from your eyes you wanted to try to kill us all."

When he was sentenced, the judge concluded that if Rudakubana had been able to, he would have killed each and every child present - and anyone else who got in his way.

• How red flags over Southport killer were repeatedly missed
• How Southport murders have 'forever changed' town

One of the children who survived that day was stabbed 30 times. She was airlifted to hospital and doctors operated on her for six hours to try and save the use of her arms, hands and fingers.

"She watched two of the girls die," her parents told investigators.

On one occasion during her recovery, the child told her parents: "I don't know who I am anymore."

But six months on, she is fighting back. Her mother said: "We could never be more proud of what she has achieved over the last six months.

"He has completely failed to destroy her spirit, her amazing sense of humour, her fierceness and her pure beautiful heart."

The Southport survivors are slowly rebuilding their lives.

Investigators who dealt with the case said they were staggered by their spirit and resilience.

That was on full display when one girl was asked what she says when her classmates ask if she wishes she had not been there that day.

"In some ways, I wish I wasn't," she tells them.

"But also, if I wasn't there, someone else would have been stabbed and they could have died - so I'm glad I might have stopped someone else getting hurt."

The Trump administration emailed thousands of federal employees on Wednesday, ordering them to report any efforts to "disguise" diversity initiatives in their agencies or face "adverse consequences".

The request came after President Donald Trump banned diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) offices and programmes throughout the government.

Emails seen by the BBC directed workers to "report all facts and circumstances" to a new government email address within 10 days.

Some employees interpreted it as a demand to sell out their colleagues to the White House.

"We're really freaked out and overwhelmed," said one employee at the Department Health and Human Services (HHS).

The Office of Personnel Management, which manages the federal workforce, issued guidance requiring agency heads to send a notice to their staff by 17:00 eastern time on Wednesday. It included an email template that many federal staffers ultimately received that night.

Some employees, like those at the Treasury Department, got slightly different versions of the email.

The Treasury Department email excluded the warning about "adverse consequences" for not reporting DEI initiatives, according to a copy shared with the BBC.

In one of his first actions as president, Trump signed two executive orders ending "diversity, equity, and inclusion" or "DEI" programmes within the federal government and announced any employees working in those roles would immediately be placed on paid administrative leave.

Such programmes are designed to increase minority participation in the workforce and educate employees about discrimination.

But critics of DEI, like Trump, argue that the practice itself is discriminatory because it takes race, gender, sexual identity or other characteristics into consideration.

Trump and his allies attacked the practice frequently during the campaign.

In a speech Thursday at the World Economic Conference in Davos, Switzerland, Trump declared he was making America a "merit-based country".

Critics of DEI have praised Trump's decision.

"President Trump's executive orders rescinding affirmative action and banning DEI programs are a major milestone in American civil rights progress and a critical step towards building a colour-blind society," Yukong Mike Zhao, president of the Asian American Coalition for Education, said in a statement.

The group had supported a successful effort at the US Supreme Court to overturn affirmative action programmes at US universities.

But current federal employees, who spoke to the BBC on condition of anonymity because they feared retaliation, said that the email they received felt more like an attempt to intimidate staff than to make the government more fair.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

President Trump has signed a torrent of executive orders since he took office, including a hiring freeze in the federal government, an order for workers to return to the office and an attempt to reclassify thousands of government employees in order to make them easier to fire.

The HHS employee who spoke to the BBC criticised the government's DEI practices, believing that while it was important to build a diverse staff and create opportunities in health and medical fields, "identity politics have played into how we function normally and that's not beneficial to the workforce".

"But that doesn't mean I want my colleagues to get fired," the employee added.

He described the the impact the email and the DEI orders had on his agency as "very calculated chaos".

The employee's division had been thrown into confusion, he said, with questions about hiring practices going forward, as well as what programmes and directives were allowed to continue, given Trump's broad definition of DEI.

A second HHS employee said that hiring and research grants had been frozen and the entire department staff was waiting to see what they could do next.

The HHS, and one of its subsidiary agencies, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), issue millions of dollars in federal grants to universities and researchers across the globe to advance scientific research.

Agency employees feared that the DEI order could have an impact outside the government as well. One questioned if grants that allowed laboratories to create more opportunities for hiring minority scientists and medical professionals would now get the axe.

An employee who worked at the Food and Drug Administration told the BBC that she had not received the email, but all DEI-related activities had been paused.

"We have been told by seniors to keep doing our jobs," she said. "But there is a sense of fear about how it's going to have an impact on our work in general."

Serious and systemic problems have been found in homes insulated under government schemes, according to the Minister for Energy Consumers.

An audit of homes that have had external wall insulation since 2022 found ''widespread cases of poor-quality installations that did not meet the required standard'', Miatta Fahnbulleh told Parliament.

She added that 39 businesses have now been suspended from the government schemes as a result of poor-quality work.

Some 65,000 households in the UK have had solid wall insulation installed under two government schemes - ECO4 and the Great British Insulation Scheme - since 2022.

All homes that have had external wall insulation fitted under the schemes would be contacted by the energy regulator Ofgem, the minister said, with repair work overseen by the regulator and the cost met by installers.

The audit, which was carried out by the independent organisation Trustmark found problems ranging from missing or incomplete paperwork to more serious problems such as exposed insulation and poor ventilation which, if not fixed, could lead to damp and mould. In some cases, serious health and safety concerns were raised such as wires not being fitted properly.

Last year the BBC highlighted the case of Tormuja Khatun, whose Luton home has been consumed by black mould, mushrooms and dry rot after the botched installation of external wall insulation. Her family told the BBC they had been warned it could cost more than £100,000 to repair and described the situation as a "nightmare".

In total more than three million homes have been insulated under government schemes and the BBC reported last year that hundreds of thousands of them could have insulation that wasn't installed to the required standard.

A growing number of MPs are worried about the impact on their constituents of poorly installed insulation, while Citizens Advice has called on the government to "urgently fix" regulation of the sector.

In a statement to the House of Commons, Fahnbulleh said: ''The government is moving fast to protect households. But I have to be honest with the House - these issues are the result of years of failure in a system that must be reformed.

"I know that this will be concerning for families who have had solid wall insulation fitted through these schemes. Getting this sorted out is our number one priority. We are determined to make sure families are never let down in this way again.''

But some MPs voiced their concerns that the government did not announce a review of other insulation schemes, such as those involving cavity wall insulation and spray foam insulation.

Fahnbulleh said audits of other forms of insulation had not shown the "systemic failure'' found with solid wall installations.

The minister's statement was welcomed by the Energy Saving Trust (EST), which has been calling for a national expert advice service in England to provide all households with impartial, tailored advice.

"It's equally important that steps are now taken to strengthen consumer protection and support going forward, to ensure households have confidence when upgrading their homes," said Stew Horne, head of policy at the EST.

Three has apologised after thousands of people reported they were unable to make phone calls on the UK mobile network.

Downdetector, which tracks website outages, showed more than 10,000 people reported issues with Three in the UK on Thursday.

There have also been several thousand reports from users of Smarty and ID Mobile - smaller mobile companies which use Three's network.

"We're aware of an issue affecting a small percentage of voice services, our team are working hard to fix this as soon as possible," Three said in a post on X.

"We're really sorry for any inconvenience caused."

The firm said people were still able to use mobile data services and make 999 calls during the outage.

Three's support team has been telling customers that it does not "have a timeframe" for a fix, but that the firm is "working hard to resolve this as soon as possible".

Three has around 10.5m customers across the UK, according to its website, but it is unclear how many of them are affected by the outages.

It is not known whether customers will be able to claim compensation for the outage, although according to the website of telecoms regulator Ofcom, it "may be appropriate" for providers to offer refunds "while repairs are being made".

It comes a month after the UK regulator gave the go-ahead for Three to merge with former rival Vodafone in a £16.5bn deal.

It comes the same day a major outage affected artificial intelligence tool ChatGPT.

Southport killer Axel Rudakubana has been sentenced to a minimum of 52 years for the "sadistic" murders of three young girls in an attack described as "shocking" and "pure evil".

Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, Bebe King, six, and Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, died while eight other children and two adults – dance class leader Leanne Lucas and businessman Jonathan Hayes – were seriously wounded.

The 18-year-old refused to come into the courtroom as he was sentenced at Liverpool Crown Court, having been removed from the dock earlier due to disruptive behaviour – which included demands to see a paramedic and shouts of "I feel ill".

Sentencing him, judge Mr Justice Goose said: "Many who have heard the evidence might describe what he did as evil, who could dispute it?"

He added: "On any view, it was at least the most extreme, shocking and exceptionally serious crime."

Victim impact statements were read out by prosecutor Deanna Heer KC, in which the grieving families of two of the murder victims branded their daughters' killer as "pure evil" whose actions have left them in "continuous pain".

Warning: This story will contain distressing details

Earlier, the details of Rudakubana's crimes were laid out in court for the first time in graphic detail – including CCTV and dashboard camera footage from outside the Hart Space studios on Hart Street.

• Me and girls were easy prey, says Southport survivor
• How Southport murders have 'forever changed' town

There were gasps from the public gallery as the distressing footage was played on the courtroom TV monitors.

The court heard how, just after 11:45 BST on 29 July, Rudakubana moved through the sold-out dance workshop, organised by Ms Lucas, "systematically" stabbing young girls as they sat making friendship bracelets and singing along to Swift's music.

Ms Heer also described how Rudakubana gloated about the attacks as he was escorted through Copy Lane police station after his arrest – saying he was "glad the children were dead".

The court had heard how the teenager had booked a taxi to take him to Hart Street after leaving his home in Old School Close, Banks, west Lancashire, at 11:10 BST.

Ms Heer played footage of Rudakubana asking the driver to point him to the address of the dance class – before getting out without paying.

The driver's dashboard camera also captured Rudakubana walk up the stairs of the Hart Space building to the first-floor studio which had 26 children, Ms Lucas, and her colleague and friend Heidi Liddle inside.

Seconds later, the sounds of screaming children filled the courtroom and the footage showed girls streaming out of the Hart Space dance studio.

The families of the victims cried in the public gallery as Ms Heer played footage of three of the girls staggering into the street and collapsing – including two of the survivors and Alice.

Inside the studio, Bebe had been subjected to 122 knife wounds, while Elsie Dot had 85.

Ms Liddle and one other child were hiding in a locked toilet on a landing outside – Ms Liddle later describing how she realised that some of the children had not escaped when she heard them begging Rudakubana to stop.

The police arrived at Hart Street shortly before 11:59 BST – three officers and a member of the public, window-cleaner Joel Verite, charged up those stairs to find Rudakubana stood over the body of Bebe King holding a knife.

Police body-camera footage showed him tackled to the floor as Mr Verite shouted in utter shock and horror at the injuries he saw had been inflicted on Bebe.

A short time later Ms Liddle and the child hiding with her were seen sobbing in terror and relief as the police told them it was safe to emerge.

'We were easy prey'

One of the survivors, a seven-year-old girl referred to as Child A, had been pulled back inside the building by Rudakubana as she tried to escape and was stabbed repeatedly, before managing to stagger into the street where she fell to the ground.

A statement written by the mother of Child A, read by Ms Heer, said her father had been "broken" by what happened to his daughter.

"Our daughter has not only experienced the most violent, frenzied attack on her body, but she's witnessed so much horror too.

"She watched two of the girls die. She saw her friends and teacher stabbed. Her entire childhood has been destroyed by what she experienced and although she survived, she now has to carry that with her for the rest of her life."

The leader of the dance class, Ms Lucas, who read her statement in court, looked around the packed courtroom at the family members of fellow victims and survivors as she spoke.

She said: "He targeted us because we were women and girls, vulnerable and easy prey.

"To discover that he had always set out to hurt the vulnerable is beyond comprehensible.

"For Alice, Elsie, Bebe, Heidi and the surviving girls, I'm surviving for you."

Stan Reiz KC, defending, told the court Rudakubana had appeared to have been a "normal child" until he reached 13.

Mr Reiz said: "There is no psychiatric evidence before the court that could suggest that a mental disorder contributed to the defendant's actions.

"However, he did make a transition from a normal, well-disciplined child to someone who was capable of committing acts of such shocking and senseless violence."

In his sentencing remarks, Judge Mr Justice Goose said: "I am sure Rudakubana had the settled determination to carry out these offences and had he been able to, he would have killed each and every child – all 26 of them."

Justice Goose confirmed the offences did not reach the legal definition of terrorism because he did not kill to further a political, religious or ideological cause.

However, he told the packed courtroom that whether the "motivation was terrorism or not misses the point".

"What he did on the 29 July last year has caused such shock and revulsion to the whole nation, that it must be viewed as being at the extreme level of crime", the judge said.

"His culpability, and the harm he caused and intended, were at the highest."

Rudakubana was sentenced for three counts of murder, 10 of attempted murder, one of producing the biological toxin ricin and one of possession of an Al Qaeda training manual, an offence under the Terrorism Act.

Listen to the best of BBC Radio Merseyside on Sounds and follow BBC Merseyside on Facebook, X, and Instagram and watch BBC North West Tonight on BBC iPlayer.

Families of the girls who were murdered by Axel Rudakubana and the other victims of his knife attack on a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in Southport have told Liverpool Crown Court about the horrific impact on their lives.

Rudakubana is being sentenced for the three murders and ten attempted murders in July 2024.

• Follow live as Axel Rudakubana is sentenced

In court, families of the victims sat in the public gallery, some visibly upset, as their statements were read out.

Reporting restrictions protect the identities of the children who were injured, so they are referred to below using letters.

Warning: This article contains distressing and upsetting details.

Alice da Silva Aguiar

A statement read out on behalf of Alexandra and Sergio Aguiar described how "in a matter of minutes our worlds were shattered and turned upside down by the devastating attack on our Alice".

"A pin drop that changed our lives forever," they said.

"Everything stopped still and we froze in time and space. Our life went with her. He took us too."

They said their daughter "was always a very kind girl, who valued equality and fairness at the core" and "a world of possibilities awaited her".

"We were so lucky and privileged to have her. Everyday felt like a gift," they said.

"Alice was a beautiful girl, perfect in every way. Loved her school., her friends. Music, dance, colourful pens and friendship bracelets. She loved Taylor Swift, Billie Eillish, and Sabrina Carpenter."

They described her as "a strong and confident pre-teen with a world of dreams and unlimited potential".

"Our bond was very strong, the love in the family was pure. Life was bliss.

They described how "life was bliss", and how they had a surprised trip to Disneyland planned and how that hot July day last year Alice had woken up excited to go to the workshop in the morning and to her friends to play in the garden and pool in the afternoon.

"It was a perfect plan for a perfect day," they said.

"This was the perfect start to her beautiful day, but also the worst."

"Our dream girl has been taken away in such a horrible, underserving way that it shattered our souls," the statement read.

"We're heartbroken that we can never help Alice fulfil her dreams, we can't hug her anymore, brush her hair, take her to school through her beloved Botanic Gardens

"We can no longer wake up with Alice's happy smile, being playful or get a morning kiss and hug from her.

"We would do anything to hold Alice one more time."

They described how it feels like they are stuck in a "horror movie" with "fear, anxiety, loss and terror... playing on a loop".

They described how it was "hard to feel happy, to enjoy the music and to see the good in life, when the centre of our universe has been taken".

"Any attempts to lighten up, a smile and a laugh are quickly met by regret and guilt," they said.

"How can we ever smile if Alice is not here?

"We will forever struggle to find a light and peace again.

"We will miss Alice forever, Her energy, contagious smile, assertive confidence and undeterred determination to find herself, grow into herself.

"She was brilliant, she was our everything. Living life without Alice is not living at all. It's a state of permanent numbness."

Elsie Dot Stancombe

The mother of seven-year-old Elsie Dot Stancombe described how she had lost her "best friend" when her daughter was murdered.

In a victim statement, read out on her behalf, Jenny Stancombe told Rudakubana he did not deserve to know "the extraordinary person" her daughter was.

"You know what you have done, and we hope the weight of that knowledge haunts you every single day," she said.

"The nature of your actions is beyond contempt.

"You deliberately chose that place, fully aware that there would be no parents present, fully aware that those girls were vulnerable and unable to protect themselves."

She said it was "not an act of impulse; it was premeditated".

"You chose that place, that time, and those circumstances, knowing that when we arrived, all we would see was the aftermath of the devastation caused, she said.

"We were robbed of the opportunity to protect our girls. If we had been there, this would never have happened, and the outcome would have been vastly different.

"What you did was not only cruel and pure evil; it was the act of a coward."

She said the family would honour Elsie Dot's memory, adding: "We will carry her love, positivity and her legacy forward, no matter how much pain you have caused".

Addressing Justice Goose in the statement she said: "He took our daughter, her life, her future, and everything she could have been.

"There is no greater loss, and no greater pain. His actions have left us with a lifetime of grief, and it is only right that he faces the same.

"There is nothing that can undo the damage he has caused, but knowing that he will never be free to cause any harm to vulnerable children again, would give us a small measure of justice.

"Perhaps he will have the opportunity to contemplate the fear and terror he inflicted upon those girls and we sincerely want the consequences to reflect the irreparable damage he has inflicted."

Child C

The family of Child C said their daughter knows her scars "will be with me forever"

Their statement included comments from the girl, who was nine at the time of the attack, who said:

"It has been very hard to deal with what happened to me at Hart Space. I struggle with my emotions, and I have scars that I know will be with me forever, but I want to look forward.

"When people in school asked me, 'do you wish you weren't there that day?', I said that, in some ways, I wish I wasn't, but also, if I wasn't there, someone else would have been stabbed and they could have died, so I'm glad I might have stopped someone else getting hurt."

Her family said: "These are not the words that any little girl, who just liked yoga and making bracelets, should ever need to say.

"Her words both horrify us and make us immeasurably proud.

"Our daughter is strong. Our daughter is positive. Our daughter is brave. Our daughter is beautiful. Our daughter loves and is loved. Our daughter sees the best in everyone.

"Our daughter is everything that Axel Rudakubana is not.

"She is our hero."

Child F

A girl who was stabbed by Rudakubana during the attack addressed him directly via videolink, saying "you looked possessed and you didn't look human".

The girl, who cannot be legally identified due to her age and is known only as Child F, told Liverpool Crown Court she knew from his eyes "he wanted to kill us all".

She had attended the class with her sister, saying that a "sunny and warm" day turned into a "living nightmare".

Child F said: "The dance club was full of laughter and excitement all morning with the girls full of life.

"The beginning of my nightmare started when I saw you. I thought you were playing a joke.

"I saw you in your green hoody and face mask.

"The thing I remember most about you is your eyes. You looked possessed and you didn't look human."

She recalled watching him carrying out his attack and his approach to her feeling like "slow motion".

She said she remembered screams around her and experiencing "blind panic" and "screaming for the girls to get down the stairs".

Speaking to Rudakubana, she said: "I remember I was physically pushing them down the stairs to get them out of the building and get away from you.

"I knew I was running for my life.

"I knew from your eyes you wanted to try to kill us all."

Her injuries included fractures to her spine and a lung collapse but she said the mental strain was all encompassing.

She said: "Some of us are physically getting better, but we will all have to live with the mental pain from that day forever.

"I want you to know that you changed mine and my sister's lives forever but whilst you live behind bars alone, I will make sure that my sister and I, and our family will do our best to move forward with our lives."

A red weather warning has been issued for Northern Ireland on Friday, as dangerous Storm Éowyn heads towards the UK.

The red warning for wind, posing a danger to life, has been issued, while an amber warning is in place for parts of Scotland and the north of England, with gusts forecast up to 80-90mph (129-145km/h).

Damage to homes is possible, with winds strong enough to blow off roofs. Travel disruption is also likely, with rail operators warning commuters not to travel in parts of the north of the UK on Friday.

The rest of the country is also braced for strong winds, rain and snow, with the entire country covered by at least one yellow warning on Friday, as Storm Éowyn moves across the UK.

For the Republic of Ireland, this could be the storm of the century, BBC Weather said.

Blanket red weather warnings have also been issued by Irish forecasters at Met Éireann covering all of the Republic of Ireland for widespread gusts in excess of 80mph. Structural damage along with widespread disruption to transport and power is guaranteed.

The amber warning is in place on Friday from 06:00 GMT to 21:00, but these warnings are under review and could be upgraded.

As well as structural damage, power cuts are likely and people could be injured by flying debris.

Train operators Avanti, LNER, Lumo and Northern have issued warnings not to travel in the north of England and north Wales on Friday.

However, the big change to the UK's weather starts on Thursday, as heavy rain and strong and gusty winds move across the country.

Parts of the south coast of England, South West and much of the Welsh coast are covered by a yellow weather warning for wind until 18:00 GMT on Thursday.

It is likely sea fronts will be affected by spray and large waves and power and travel disruption.

Early on Friday Storm Éowyn will begin to affect the UK with winds initially in the south-western part of the UK with heavy rainfall before quickly spreading north-east to the rest of the UK.

There is also a chance of snow over parts of Northern Ireland, Scotland and the north.

The yellow warnings in place on Friday are for:

• wind in parts of the Midlands, east of England, London and South East England from 05:00 to 15:00
• rain in parts of Wales, the South West and West Midlands from midnight to to 09:00
• wind across most of the country from midnight until 23:59
• snow in Scotland, in parts of the North East, North West from 03:00 until 12:00

Storm Eowyn is fifth named storm of the season.

Everything gets mixed up together. The child's multi-coloured backpack. A running shoe. A steel pot perforated by shrapnel. Bits of beds, chairs, cookers, lampshades; the glass of broken windows, mirrors, drinking glasses. Scraps of clothing.

These last shredded, dust covered items can be markers. Often they belong to the dead lying near the surface of the rubble.

"Since the Israeli occupation forces withdrew from Rafah, we have had about 150 calls from civilians about the presence of their relatives' bodies under houses," says Haitham al-Homs, director of Emergency and Ambulance Services for the Civil Defence agency in Rafah, at the southernmost end of the Gaza Strip.

The Palestinian health authorities estimate that 10,000 people are missing. Where there is no obvious marker like clothing at the surface, the search teams rely on information from relatives and neighbours, or they follow the smell of death that radiates from the ruins.

WARNING: This story contains distressing content

The Israeli government has banned the BBC and other international news organisations from entering Gaza and reporting independently. We depend on trusted local journalists to record the experiences of people like those who are searching for the missing.

At the end of every day, Mr Homs updates the list of those found. His team excavates the rubble with care, aware that they are searching for fragments of broken humanity. Often what is recovered is no more than a pile of bones. Israel's high explosive bombs blasted and mangled into pieces many of the dead. The bones and scraps of clothing are placed in white body bags upon which Mr Homs writes the Arabic word "majhoul". It means "unidentified".

A resident of Rafah, Osama Saleh, went back to his home after the ceasefire and found a skeleton inside. The skull was fractured. Mr Saleh reckons the body lay there for four to five months. "We are humans with feeling…I can't convey to you how miserable the tragedy is," he says. To be surrounded every day by the smell of decomposing bodies is a deeply unsettling experience, as those who have witnessed the aftermath of mass death will often testify.

"The bodies are terrifying. We are seeing terror," Osama Saleh says. "I swear it is a painful feeling, I have cried."

Families have also been arriving at hospitals to search for remains. In the courtyard of the European Hospital in southern Gaza, collections of bones and clothing are spread out on body bags.

Abdul Salam al-Mughayer, 19, from Rafah, went missing in the Shaboura area; according to his uncle, Zaki, it was a place you didn't come back from if you went there during the war. "So, we didn't go to look for him there for that reason. We wouldn't have returned."

Zaki believes a set of bones and clothes in front of him belong to the missing Abdul Salam. He is standing with a hospital worker, Jihad Abu Khreis, waiting for Abdul Salam's brother to arrive.

"It's 99% certain the body is his," Mr Abu Khreis says, "but now we need the final confirmation from his brother, the closest people to him, to make sure that the trousers and shoes are his."

Soon after the brother arrived from the tented refugee camp of al-Mawasi, also in southern Gaza. He had a photograph of Abdul Salam on his phone. There was a photo of his running shoes.

He knelt before the body bag and pulled back the cover. He touched the skull, the clothes. He saw the shoes. There were tears in his eyes. The identification was complete.

Another family moved along the row of body bags. There was a grandmother, her son, an adult sister, and a toddler. The child was kept at the back of the group while the elderly woman and her son looked under the cover of the body bag. They stared for a few seconds and then embraced each other in grief.

After this, the family, helped by hospital workers, carried away the remains. They were weeping, but nobody cried aloud.

Aya al-Dabeh was 13 years old and was living with her family and hundreds of other refugees at a school in Tal al-Hawa, in Gaza City in the north. She was one of nine children. One day at the start of the war Aya went to go to the bathroom upstairs at the school and - her family says - she was shot in the chest by an Israeli sniper. The Israel Defense Forces say they do not target civilians and blame Hamas for attacking from civilian areas. During the war the UN Human Rights Office said that that there has been "intense shooting by Israeli forces in densely populated areas resulting in apparently unlawful killings, including of unarmed bystanders."

The family buried Aya beside the school, and her mother Lina al- Dabah, 43, wrapped her in a blanket "to protect her from the rain and the sun" in case the grave was disturbed and exposed to the elements.

When the Israeli military took over the school Lina fled south. She went with four other children - two daughters and two sons - to reunite with her husband who'd gone earlier with the couple's other children. Lina had no option but to leave her daughter where she lay, hoping to come back and recover the remains for a proper burial once peace came.

"Aya was a very kind girl, and everyone loved her. She used to love everyone, her teachers and her studies, and she was very good at school. She wished well for everyone," Lina says. When the ceasefire came Lina asked relatives still living in the north to check up on Aya's grave. The news was devastating.

"They informed us that her head was in one place, her legs were in another, while her ribs were somewhere else. The one who went to visit her was shocked and sent us the pictures," she says.

"When I saw her, I couldn't understand how my daughter was taken out of her grave, and how did the dogs eat her? I can't control my nerves."

The relatives have collected the bones and soon Lina and her family will travel north to carry Aya's remains to a proper grave. For Lina, there is grief with no end, and a question that has no answer - the same question that sits with so many parents who lost children in Gaza. What could they have done differently, the circumstances of the war being what they were? "I couldn't take her from where she was buried," says Lina. Then she asks: "Where could I have taken her?"

With additional reporting by Malak Hassouneh, Alice Doyard, Adam Campbell.

Newly released satellite imagery shows Israel Defense Force construction taking place within the demilitarised buffer zone that separates it from Syria.

The image, obtained exclusively by BBC Verify, shows building work taking place at a location more than 600m inside what is known as the Area of Separation (AoS).

Under the terms of Israel's ceasefire agreement with Syria in 1974, the IDF is prohibited from crossing the so-called Alpha Line on the western edge of the AoS.

When contacted about the images, the IDF told the BBC its "forces are operating in southern Syria, within the buffer zone and at strategic points, to protect the residents of northern Israel."

The imagery captured on 21 January shows new structures and trucks at the cleared area.

Construction appears to have begun at the beginning of this year, with lower resolution imagery showing gradual development at the site since 1 January.

A new track or road measuring around 1km also appears to join with a pre-existing road that leads into Israeli territory.

Drone photographs shared by a Syrian journalist 20 January shows trucks, excavators and bulldozers at the site.

Jeremy Binnie, Middle East specialist a defence intelligence company Janes told us: "The photo shows what appear to be four prefabricated guard posts that they will presumably crane into position in the corners, so this is somewhere they are planning to maintain at least an interim presence".

The BBC has previously filmed military forces near the town of Majdal Shams, which is within the buffer zone and around 5.5km from the new construction.

In November, satellite imagery also showed the IDF building a trench following the Alpha Line on the western side of the buffer zone, stretching past Jubata al-Khashab.

Following the fall of the Syrian regime last month, Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered his forces to enter the AoS, saying: "We will not allow any hostile force to establish itself on our border."

The United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) has previously said that Israeli construction along the AoS with Syria amounts to "severe violations" of the ceasefire agreement.

What do you want BBC Verify to investigate?

Three has apologised after thousands of people reported they were unable to make phone calls on the UK mobile network.

Downdetector, which tracks website outages, showed more than 10,000 people reported issues with Three in the UK on Thursday.

There have also been several thousand reports from users of Smarty and ID Mobile - smaller mobile companies which use Three's network.

"We're aware of an issue affecting a small percentage of voice services, our team are working hard to fix this as soon as possible," Three said in a post on X.

"We're really sorry for any inconvenience caused."

The firm said people were still able to use mobile data services and make 999 calls during the outage.

Three's support team has been telling customers that it does not "have a timeframe" for a fix, but that the firm is "working hard to resolve this as soon as possible".

Three has around 10.5m customers across the UK, according to its website, but it is unclear how many of them are affected by the outages.

It is not known whether customers will be able to claim compensation for the outage, although according to the website of telecoms regulator Ofcom, it "may be appropriate" for providers to offer refunds "while repairs are being made".

It comes a month after the UK regulator gave the go-ahead for Three to merge with former rival Vodafone in a £16.5bn deal.

It comes the same day a major outage affected artificial intelligence tool ChatGPT.

Yoga instructor Leanne Lucas, who was stabbed in the Southport knife attack, has said she believes the killer "targeted us because we were women and girls, vulnerable and easy prey".

Speaking at Liverpool Crown Court ahead of the sentencing of Axel Rudakubana, the 36-year-old read out her victim impact statement, and said she had previously worked with teenagers and "never would have considered that they would hurt me or hurt younger children".

"To discover that he had always set out to hurt the vulnerable is beyond comprehensible," she said.

She said she had "endured three hospital stays where I undertook multiple surgeries and received treatment".

"At a time where home comforts may have helped me, I sat staring at hospital walls further impacting my mental health."

'Cannot unsee'

She said the trauma had been "horrendous" and she was "trying to see the goodness in the world".

Ms Lucas said there were "scars we cannot unsee" and she was struggling with trusting others and herself.

"As a 36-year-old woman I cannot walk down the street without holding my breath as I bypass a person and then glance back to see if they've attempted to stab me.

"As a 36-year-old woman I cannot enter a public place without considering how I will get out in the event of an emergency.

"As a 36-year-old woman I cannot give myself compassion or accept praise, as how can I live knowing I survived when children died."

Ms Lucas said she had considered her work as providing a "safe haven" to help families in Southport by highlighting "goodness and positivity".

"I never thought this was going to happen to me and now my mindset has been altered to it could happen to you and it will probably happen to you," she said.

"I feel that I have lost the ability to accept people now as they are."

She said she felt she had "now lost my role, my purpose and my job as I can no longer provide that guidance and reassurance to anyone".

Ms Lucas continued: "I feel like I can no longer be trusted again, I know people will disagree and say that is not true however his actions have proven I can never feel that level of responsibility again where there may be dangers to others."

She concluded her statement by saying: "For Alice, Elsie, Bebe, Heidi and the surviving girls, I'm surviving for you."

Listen to the best of BBC Radio Merseyside on BBC Sounds and follow BBC Merseyside on Facebook, X, and Instagram, and watch BBC North West Tonight on BBC iPlayer.

Families of the girls who were murdered by Axel Rudakubana and the other victims of his knife attack on a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in Southport have told Liverpool Crown Court about the horrific impact on their lives.

Rudakubana is being sentenced for the three murders and ten attempted murders in July 2024.

• Follow live as Axel Rudakubana is sentenced

In court, families of the victims sat in the public gallery, some visibly upset, as their statements were read out.

Reporting restrictions protect the identities of the children who were injured, so they are referred to below using letters.

Warning: This article contains distressing and upsetting details.

Alice da Silva Aguiar

A statement read out on behalf of Alexandra and Sergio Aguiar described how "in a matter of minutes our worlds were shattered and turned upside down by the devastating attack on our Alice".

"A pin drop that changed our lives forever," they said.

"Everything stopped still and we froze in time and space. Our life went with her. He took us too."

They said their daughter "was always a very kind girl, who valued equality and fairness at the core" and "a world of possibilities awaited her".

"We were so lucky and privileged to have her. Everyday felt like a gift," they said.

"Alice was a beautiful girl, perfect in every way. Loved her school., her friends. Music, dance, colourful pens and friendship bracelets. She loved Taylor Swift, Billie Eillish, and Sabrina Carpenter."

They described her as "a strong and confident pre-teen with a world of dreams and unlimited potential".

"Our bond was very strong, the love in the family was pure. Life was bliss.

They described how "life was bliss", and how they had a surprised trip to Disneyland planned and how that hot July day last year Alice had woken up excited to go to the workshop in the morning and to her friends to play in the garden and pool in the afternoon.

"It was a perfect plan for a perfect day," they said.

"This was the perfect start to her beautiful day, but also the worst."

"Our dream girl has been taken away in such a horrible, underserving way that it shattered our souls," the statement read.

"We're heartbroken that we can never help Alice fulfil her dreams, we can't hug her anymore, brush her hair, take her to school through her beloved Botanic Gardens

"We can no longer wake up with Alice's happy smile, being playful or get a morning kiss and hug from her.

"We would do anything to hold Alice one more time."

They described how it feels like they are stuck in a "horror movie" with "fear, anxiety, loss and terror... playing on a loop".

They described how it was "hard to feel happy, to enjoy the music and to see the good in life, when the centre of our universe has been taken".

"Any attempts to lighten up, a smile and a laugh are quickly met by regret and guilt," they said.

"How can we ever smile if Alice is not here?

"We will forever struggle to find a light and peace again.

"We will miss Alice forever, Her energy, contagious smile, assertive confidence and undeterred determination to find herself, grow into herself.

"She was brilliant, she was our everything. Living life without Alice is not living at all. It's a state of permanent numbness."

Elsie Dot Stancombe

The mother of seven-year-old Elsie Dot Stancombe described how she had lost her "best friend" when her daughter was murdered.

In a victim statement, read out on her behalf, Jenny Stancombe told Rudakubana he did not deserve to know "the extraordinary person" her daughter was.

"You know what you have done, and we hope the weight of that knowledge haunts you every single day," she said.

"The nature of your actions is beyond contempt.

"You deliberately chose that place, fully aware that there would be no parents present, fully aware that those girls were vulnerable and unable to protect themselves."

She said it was "not an act of impulse; it was premeditated".

"You chose that place, that time, and those circumstances, knowing that when we arrived, all we would see was the aftermath of the devastation caused, she said.

"We were robbed of the opportunity to protect our girls. If we had been there, this would never have happened, and the outcome would have been vastly different.

"What you did was not only cruel and pure evil; it was the act of a coward."

She said the family would honour Elsie Dot's memory, adding: "We will carry her love, positivity and her legacy forward, no matter how much pain you have caused".

Addressing Justice Goose in the statement she said: "He took our daughter, her life, her future, and everything she could have been.

"There is no greater loss, and no greater pain. His actions have left us with a lifetime of grief, and it is only right that he faces the same.

"There is nothing that can undo the damage he has caused, but knowing that he will never be free to cause any harm to vulnerable children again, would give us a small measure of justice.

"Perhaps he will have the opportunity to contemplate the fear and terror he inflicted upon those girls and we sincerely want the consequences to reflect the irreparable damage he has inflicted."

Child C

The family of Child C said their daughter knows her scars "will be with me forever"

Their statement included comments from the girl, who was nine at the time of the attack, who said:

"It has been very hard to deal with what happened to me at Hart Space. I struggle with my emotions, and I have scars that I know will be with me forever, but I want to look forward.

"When people in school asked me, 'do you wish you weren't there that day?', I said that, in some ways, I wish I wasn't, but also, if I wasn't there, someone else would have been stabbed and they could have died, so I'm glad I might have stopped someone else getting hurt."

Her family said: "These are not the words that any little girl, who just liked yoga and making bracelets, should ever need to say.

"Her words both horrify us and make us immeasurably proud.

"Our daughter is strong. Our daughter is positive. Our daughter is brave. Our daughter is beautiful. Our daughter loves and is loved. Our daughter sees the best in everyone.

"Our daughter is everything that Axel Rudakubana is not.

"She is our hero."

Child F

A girl who was stabbed by Rudakubana during the attack addressed him directly via videolink, saying "you looked possessed and you didn't look human".

The girl, who cannot be legally identified due to her age and is known only as Child F, told Liverpool Crown Court she knew from his eyes "he wanted to kill us all".

She had attended the class with her sister, saying that a "sunny and warm" day turned into a "living nightmare".

Child F said: "The dance club was full of laughter and excitement all morning with the girls full of life.

"The beginning of my nightmare started when I saw you. I thought you were playing a joke.

"I saw you in your green hoody and face mask.

"The thing I remember most about you is your eyes. You looked possessed and you didn't look human."

She recalled watching him carrying out his attack and his approach to her feeling like "slow motion".

She said she remembered screams around her and experiencing "blind panic" and "screaming for the girls to get down the stairs".

Speaking to Rudakubana, she said: "I remember I was physically pushing them down the stairs to get them out of the building and get away from you.

"I knew I was running for my life.

"I knew from your eyes you wanted to try to kill us all."

Her injuries included fractures to her spine and a lung collapse but she said the mental strain was all encompassing.

She said: "Some of us are physically getting better, but we will all have to live with the mental pain from that day forever.

"I want you to know that you changed mine and my sister's lives forever but whilst you live behind bars alone, I will make sure that my sister and I, and our family will do our best to move forward with our lives."

A red weather warning has been issued for Northern Ireland on Friday, as dangerous Storm Éowyn heads towards the UK.

The red warning for wind, posing a danger to life, has been issued, while an amber warning is in place for parts of Scotland and the north of England, with gusts forecast up to 80-90mph (129-145km/h).

Damage to homes is possible, with winds strong enough to blow off roofs. Travel disruption is also likely, with rail operators warning commuters not to travel in parts of the north of the UK on Friday.

The rest of the country is also braced for strong winds, rain and snow, with the entire country covered by at least one yellow warning on Friday, as Storm Éowyn moves across the UK.

For the Republic of Ireland, this could be the storm of the century, BBC Weather said.

Blanket red weather warnings have also been issued by Irish forecasters at Met Éireann covering all of the Republic of Ireland for widespread gusts in excess of 80mph. Structural damage along with widespread disruption to transport and power is guaranteed.

The amber warning is in place on Friday from 06:00 GMT to 21:00, but these warnings are under review and could be upgraded.

As well as structural damage, power cuts are likely and people could be injured by flying debris.

Train operators Avanti, LNER, Lumo and Northern have issued warnings not to travel in the north of England and north Wales on Friday.

However, the big change to the UK's weather starts on Thursday, as heavy rain and strong and gusty winds move across the country.

Parts of the south coast of England, South West and much of the Welsh coast are covered by a yellow weather warning for wind until 18:00 GMT on Thursday.

It is likely sea fronts will be affected by spray and large waves and power and travel disruption.

Early on Friday Storm Éowyn will begin to affect the UK with winds initially in the south-western part of the UK with heavy rainfall before quickly spreading north-east to the rest of the UK.

There is also a chance of snow over parts of Northern Ireland, Scotland and the north.

The yellow warnings in place on Friday are for:

• wind in parts of the Midlands, east of England, London and South East England from 05:00 to 15:00
• rain in parts of Wales, the South West and West Midlands from midnight to to 09:00
• wind across most of the country from midnight until 23:59
• snow in Scotland, in parts of the North East, North West from 03:00 until 12:00

Storm Eowyn is fifth named storm of the season.

US President Donald Trump has been criticised for launching a meme-coin while saying he "doesn't know much" about the cryptocurrency.

The digital coin called TRUMP appeared on his social media accounts ahead of his inauguration on Monday and quickly became one of the most valuable crypto coins. The value of a single coin shot up to $75 within a day, but since has fallen to $39.

But the launch of the so-called meme-coin - a cryptocurrency with no utility other than for fun or speculation - has been widely criticised by industry insiders.

"Trump's comments about not knowing much about the coin back up my opinion that he is making a mockery of the industry. It's a stunt," says Danny Scott, CEO of CoinCorner.

The latest dip in value came after Trump told reporters: "I don't know much about it other than I launched it, other than it was very successful."

When he was told his coin raised several billion dollars for him, he played it down saying "several billion - that's peanuts for these guys" pointing to tech billionaires assembled for a press conference about AI.

• Live updates on Trump's return to power
• Trump tells Putin to end 'ridiculous war'

Meme-coins are often used by speculators to make money or to allow fans to show support to a celebrity or moment in internet culture.

It's not the first time Trump has sold crypto products. He made millions from launching a series of NFTs of him in various superhero poses in 2022.

Some industry analysts say the president having his own meme coin is a sign that others should follow.

"TRUMP token just signaled to every company, municipality, university & individual brand that crypto can now be used as a capital formation and customer bootstrapping mechanism," Jeff Dorman from investing firm Arca posted online.

However, the overall sentiment seems to be negative towards the president's meme coin.

Many in the crypto world are waiting for Trump to back up campaign promises to help boost the industry in the US. People like Danny Scott hope to see focused plans, particularly around Bitcoin, from the administration.

Last year Trump promised Bitcoin fans he would make the US the "crypto capital of the planet". A few days into his term, the president has not issued executive orders involving cryptocurrency, nor has he mentioned it in his speeches.

TRUMP coin is now the 25th most valuable crypto coin with a value of around $8 billion, according to the website CoinMarketCap.

Trump and the team behind it own 80% of the coins so, in theory, they would make billions of dollars if they sold their shares and the price remained the same.

This set-up has been described by crypto researchers at K33 as outdated for similar tokens.

"There's no sugar-coating this - these tokenomics are horrendous for a meme-coin," said David Zimmerman, a K33 analyst.

However, K33 analysts acknowledge that the remaining 80% of coins can't be dumped on the open market so investors are partially shielded from price shocks.

There are thousands of cryptocurrency coins and anyone can create one.

First Lady Melania Trump launched her own meme-coin on the eve of the inauguration, which now has a value of $700m since slumping from $13 a coin to $2.70.

But many meme-coins have led to big losses for people investing in them.

• YouTube star Logan Paul apologises for CryptoZoo project failure

Dan Hughes, from crypto firm Radix, thinks the president and his wife launching their meme-coins undermines the positives of the industry.

"This pattern of celebrity-driven token launches, particularly from political figures, potentially marks a concerning trend in crypto markets where influence and liquidity manipulation could overshadow fundamental value creation," he said.

Others in the cryptocurrency world think that launching meme-coins to make money is degrading.

"The introduction of these coins during the presidential inauguration raises concerns about potential conflicts of interest and may undermine the dignity of the president and the first lady," said Grzegorz Drozdz, market analyst at investment firm Conotoxia.

• ANALYSIS: Six Trump executive orders to watch
• IN DEPTH: Relationship with Europe this time may be very different
• PARDONS: Jan 6 defendants get nearly everything they wanted
• WATCH: Bishop asks Trump to show mercy to LGBT people and migrants

Charli XCX leads this year's Brit Awards with five nominations, including a nod for album of the year with Brat.

She is also nominated for artist of the year, best pop and dance act and song of the year with Guess, featuring Billie Eilish, which went to number one in August.

Her sixth studio album was released in June and grew into a cultural movement - Brat was crowned Collins Dictionary 2024 word of the year and it even reached US politics with presidential candidate Kamala Harris giving her social media a brat rebrand.

Seven-time Brit winner Dua Lipa has received four nominations including pop act which she won last year.

Making an epic comeback this year is rock band The Cure who have received their first nomination in three decades.

Their album Songs of a Lost World, which is the band's first new music in 16 years, is up for album of the year.

They are also nominated for group of the year and best alterative/rock act which is voted for by the public.

The Beatles are another oldie but goldie band nominated. They are nominated for song of the year with Now And Then, making it their first nomination since 1977.

Billed as their "final song", Now and Then was started by John Lennon in 1978, but only completed in 2022 by Sir Paul McCartney and Sir Ringo Star.

Released in November 2023, the song meets the eligibility criteria as it has spent at least eight weeks in the top 15 ranked British songs based on sales.

Ezra Collective, make their Brits debut with four nominations. The group become the first jazz act to win the Mercury Prize in 2023 with their album Where I'm Meant To Be.

Similarly, The Last Dinner Party - last year's rising star winners - have four nominations.

Both groups are nominated for album of the year, group of the year and best new artist.

Joining them in the best new artist category is Indie band English Teacher who won the 2024 Mercury Prize for their debut album, This Could Be Texas.

Myles Smith is also nominated in the category and his feel-good foot-stomper Stargazing, which became the biggest-selling British single of 2024, is up for song of the year.

At the award ceremony in March he'll receive the Brit Awards' rising star prize – following in the footsteps of Sam Fender, Adele and Rag 'N' Bone Man.

There are 70 nominees across 13 categories.

Nominations in the three biggest categories are:

Artist of the year

• Beabadoobee
• Central Cee
• Charli XCX
• Dua Lipa
• Fred Again
• Jamie xx
• Michael Kiwanuka
• Nia Archives
• Rachel Chinouriri
• Sam Fender

Group of the year

• Bring Me The Horizon
• Coldplay
• The Cure
• Ezra Collective
• The Last Dinner Party

Album of the Year

• Charli XCX - BRAT
• The Cure - Songs of A Lost World
• Dua Lipa - Radical Optimism
• Ezra Collective - Dance, No One's Watching
• The Last Dinner Party - Prelude to Ecstasy

British artists up for multiple awards this year include Beabadoobee, Central Cee, Chase & Status, Fred Again, JADE, Nia Archives, Michael Kiwanuka, Rachel Chinouriri and Sam Fender.

Coldplay, who headlined Glastonbury last year, have received nominations for group of the year and song of the year with feelslikeimfallinginlove. However, the British band's 10th album - Moon Music - was not nominated for album of the year.

The international artist of the year category is once again a tough battle with the majority of nominees being female American pop singers. Beyoncé, Taylor Swift, Sabrina Carpenter, Chappell Roan and Billie Eilish are among the nominees.

Roan has just won BBC Radio 1's Sound of 2025 – the station's annual poll to identify music's biggest rising stars.

Five genre categories in the Brit nominations are voted for by the public via WhatsApp - alternative/rock; dance; pop ; R&B and hip hop/grime/rap.

Among the nominees in those categories are Raye, who made history at the Brit Awards last year winning six of the seven prizes she was nominated for, and girl group Flo, who were named winners of the rising star award in 2022.

The winners will be announced during a live show, presented by Jack Whitehall, on 1 March at The O2 arena.

Netflix musical Emilia Pérez leads this year's Oscars nominations, with Wicked also among the top contenders.

Emilia Pérez, about a Mexican drug lord who changes gender, has 13 nominations in total - although one of its stars, Selena Gomez, missed out.

Wicked received 10 nominations - including nods for British actress Cynthia Erivo and her co-star Ariana Grande.

Three-and-a-half-hour epic The Brutalist, starring Adrien Brody, also has 10 nominations, while Demi Moore has the first Oscar nomination of her career.

• Follow reaction to the Oscar nominations

• List of nominations in full

• Full coverage of the Oscars

Moore, 62, is nominated for best actress for playing a fading star who swaps her body for a younger and more beautiful version of herself in The Substance.

In the best actor category, two big names are in contention for portraying the early years of real-life people - Timothee Chalamet for playing Bob Dylan in A Complete Unknown, and Sebastian Stan for playing Donald Trump in The Apprentice.

The top nominees:

• Emilia Pérez - 13 nominations
• Wicked - 10
• The Brutalist - 10
• A Complete Unknown - 8
• Conclave - 8

The Academy Awards ceremony, hosted by US comedian Conan O'Brien, will take place on 2 March.

Following the devastating wildfires, organisers have said the ceremony will "reflect on the recent events while highlighting the strength, creativity, and optimism that defines Los Angeles and our industry".

Two Russian ships linked to its military have docked at the Kremlin's naval base on the Syrian coast at Tartous, with experts suggesting that an anticipated evacuation of the facility has finally begun.

The Sparta and the Sparta II docked in Tartous on Tuesday. Both ships are sanctioned by the US and have been linked to the transportation of Russian arms by Ukraine.

Analysts anticipated that Russia would reduce its military footprint from Syria following the fall of the Assad regime in December - which it supported throughout the civil war.

Large quantities of military hardware have been moved to the port in recent weeks and have been visible in satellite photos analysed by BBC Verify.

The imagery appears to show dozens of vehicles and other equipment sitting at the port. The hardware first appeared in mid-December following footage of large columns of Russian vehicles moving north towards the base - indicating they had been redirected from other outposts across the country.

The ships arrival coincides with reports in Syrian media that Russia's lease for the port has been cancelled. The new transitional government in Damascus refused to confirm the reports to the BBC, while Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov also declined to comment when asked during a news conference in Moscow.

Tartous has been a key base for Russia in recent years, allowing it to refuel, resupply and repair vessels in the Mediterranean.

The Kremlin has appeared keen to retain control over the base, and said in December that Russian officials were speaking to the new authorities about a continued presence.

Analysts have suggested that the Sparta and the Sparta II - which are ultimately owned by Oboronlogistika LLC - a shipping company which operates as part of the Russian ministry of defence, were denied permission to dock at Tartous while discussions continued. The ships have spent several weeks off the coast of Syria in the Mediterranean Sea.

Marine tracking sites show the ships finally docked on Tuesday evening, after which they switched off their transponders.

The weather in recent days has made it difficult to obtain clear satellite pictures. But images from the EU's Sentinel radar satellites - which are low resolution but capable of penetrating cloud cover - revealed that the ships were in the military section of the port.

Until now, no Russian military vessels had been spotted at Tartous since the fall of Assad regime in early December. In earlier high-resolution satellite imagery dozens of military vehicles could be seen parked near where the vessels are now docked. Also nearby were cranes which may be used to load equipment.

It is possible that two other Russian naval vessels are also present in the port, naval analyst Frederik Van Lokeren told BBC Verify. He said the vessels, Ivan Gren and the Alexander Otrakovsky, could also be involved in an evacuation - a sentiment echoed by Ukrainian military intelligence to BBC Verify.

"With the 49 year lease being cancelled it has become very clear for Russia that it can no longer hope to maintain a military presence in Tartous and as such, there appears to be no point in staying there and delaying the maritime evacuation any longer," Mr Van Lokeren added.

The evacuation of all of Russia's equipment may take some though, according to Anton Mardasov from the Middle East Institute's Syria programme.

"Over the years much more has been brought in there than these ships and vessels can take," Mr Mardasov told BBC Verify.

Meanwhile, there has also been continued activity at the main Russian airbase in Syria, Hmeimim. Satellite images have shown large Russian aircraft being loaded with military equipment on various dates since the fall of the Assad regime.

Ukrainian military intelligence said Russia flights had transferred military personnel and equipment from Hmeimim to airbases in Libya at least 10 times since mid-December. The Kremlin is already supporting the Tobruk-based warlord Khalifa Haftar in the east of Libya.

Moscow has long maintained a presence at two of the bases mentioned by Ukrainian intelligence - Al-Khadim and Al-Jufra. A former member of the UN's working group on mercenaries, Dr Sorcha MacLeod, told BBC Verify that the facilities were previously run by the Wagner Group.

She said that Russia's defence ministry has taken over responsibility for the bases through its new Africa Corps. The force is run directly by Moscow and has taken over much of the Wagner Group's former role.

Dr Macleod added that the relocation of Russian forces to the country "makes sense given that Libya has become such a big hub for Africa Corps operations and access into West Africa".

Additional reporting by Ned Davies and Joshua Cheetham. Graphics by Mesut Ersoz.

What do you want BBC Verify to investigate?