King Charles has been praised for his candour in talking about his cancer treatment where he highlighted the importance of early detection and screening.

In a recorded video message, broadcast on Channel 4 for the Stand Up To Cancer campaign, the King said his treatment was being reduced and he urged people to take up offers of cancer screening, saying "early diagnosis quite simply saves lives."

The type of cancer he is being treated for has not been revealed and the King, 77, will continue to receive treatment and monitoring.

Clare Garnsey, associate medical director of Greater Manchester Cancer Alliance, said his message was "very powerful".

The King, who revealed his diagnosis in February last year, is not described as being in remission or "cured" but the regularity of his treatment will be significantly reduced in the new year.

In his video message, recorded in Clarence House two weeks ago, he said that he was "troubled" to learn that nine million people around the UK are not up to date with the cancer screening available to them.

"That is at least nine million opportunities for early diagnosis being missed," he said.

He added: "Too often, I am told, people avoid screening because they imagine it may be frightening, embarrassing or uncomfortable.

"If and when they do finally take up their invitation, they are glad they took part.

"A few moments of minor inconvenience are a small price to pay for the reassurance that comes for most people when they are either told either they don't need further tests or, for some, are given the chance to enable early detection, with the life-saving intervention that can follow."

Speaking to BBC Breakfast, Miss Garnsey said she, "like the majority of health professionals who work in the cancer field" was "really thankful" for what the King said.

"I think the message was very powerful about the importance of early diagnosis and how important it is that we all attend for our screening," she added.

She said it is "really helpful" to healthcare professionals when people in "positions of influence" - such as the King - speak publicly about their experiences with cancer.

These messages highlight that it "can happen to anybody", she said, and raise awareness of the potential symptoms someone may experience.

Royal biographer and friend of King Charles, Jonathan Dimbleby, said the King's message demonstrated the "unique role of the sovereign".

Speaking to BBC Radio 4's Today programme, he said the King's decision to speak openly about his treatment in such "warm, gentle, thoughtful, kind terms" was "quite extraordinary and it has great impact".

Mr Dimbleby said that when it was announced that the King was having treatment for an enlarged prostate in 2024, there was a considerable surge in searches to the NHS website.

"No one else could have done this," he added.

What can be general symptoms of cancer?

Different types of cancer all have their own symptoms - but the NHS says general symptoms can include:

• A new lump or swelling
• Sweating a lot or a high temperature
• Feeling more tired than usual
• Unusual bruising or bleeding
• Unusual pain anywhere in the body
• Unexpected weight loss or loss of appetite
• Needing to pee more often or more urgently, or pain when you pee

Read more on the NHS website.

Until now the King has said little publicly about his illness.

In his video message, King Charles said he knew how "overwhelming" a diagnosis can feel, but stressed that early detection is "key" to give patients the "precious gift of hope".

The NHS has three cancer screening programmes - for bowel, breast and cervical cancer - available to certain age groups.

These tests can detect a problem even before someone experiences symptoms.

In his message, the King also urged people to use the screening checker online tool.

Cancer charity Macmillan Cancer Support said it was "incredibly grateful" to the King for sharing his experience "with such openness and honesty".

"The King's reminder of the importance of screening and early detection is an important message for us all," it added in a statement.

The prime minister said the King's message was "powerful" and that he was "glad" that the King's treatment will be reduced in the new year.

According to Buckingham Palace, the King's recovery has reached a very positive stage and he has "responded exceptionally well to treatment", so much so that doctors will now move his treatment "into a precautionary phase".

The regularity of treatment is going to be significantly reduced - but the King, 77, is not described as being in remission or "cured".

Meanwhile, Dr Harrison Carter, director of screening at NHS England, said the health service "fully supported" the King's call for people to attend screening tests.

"So, when your NHS screening invite arrives, whether it's for cervical or breast screening, or a bowel cancer testing kit through the post, please do make time to take it up."

Sign up here to get the latest royal stories and analysis every week with our Royal Watch newsletter. Those outside the UK can sign up here.

Two men have been arrested after a Christmas tree which has stood in a village for more than 10 years was cut down, hours after its lights were switched on.

The tree, in Shotton Colliery, County Durham, was felled at some point between 22:00 and 23:00 GMT on Wednesday.

Two men were arrested after an appeal by Peterlee Neighbourhood Police Team.

Police said officers were in the process of charging and remanding a 26-year-old man with criminal damage, while a 23-year-old man has been released under investigation.

On Friday, Shotton Residents Association chairman Steve Maitland said the tree had been put up as a monument to the fallen soldiers of World War One.

He told BBC Radio Tees that members of the public were making a sleeve for the tree's base, so they could bolt it back up as quickly as possible, "just to tide us over for Christmas".

He said: "These people who did this – I don't think they understand the history and the feeling of these things."

Some of the people involved in fundraising for the tree a decade ago had since died, he said.

He called the attack "mindless vandalism" but said he could not "turn the clock back".

Follow BBC North East on X, Facebook, Nextdoor and Instagram.

The Last Time Is Now. It's the name given to the tournament in which 16 wrestling giants have been competing to be the one opponent in John Cena's final fight before retirement.

And that final fight is now - Saturday night - in Washington DC, bringing the curtain down on an illustrious career that has seen the American become one of wrestling's biggest and most bankable stars.

In the 8,570 days since his debut, Cena has clinched 17 world titles and coined the iconic "You Can't See Me" catchphrase - but the 48-year-old's impact goes far beyond that.

If you were to pose the question "who is John Cena?", depending on who you ask, the answers might vary from legendary WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment) superstar, to successful film actor, while some will say he's Mr Make-A-Wish (more on that later).

How to watch John Cena's last match:

• Start time: WWE Saturday Night's Main Event is scheduled to begin at 01:00 GMT on Sun 14 Dec
• Where to watch: In the UK, you can watch for free on WWE's official YouTube channel. Internationally it can be watched on Netflix, and on Peacock in the US

'An exceptional wrestling talent'

Since his 2002 debut, there's been an evolution in his own wrestling character - transitioning from "ruthless aggression" rookie, to a "Doctor of Thuganomics" rapper, and eventually a heroic character known for a "Never Give Up" attitude.

Despite criticism from some fans of his in-ring ability, with occasional chants of "you can't wrestle" through the years, "there's no doubt that he's an exceptional wrestling talent", says Brandon Thurston, editor and owner of wrestling website, Wrestlenomics.

He feels something changed in 2005, after which WWE became "increasingly scripted in a way it had not been" before, as it entered into a more controlled, family friendly PG era. But Cena managed thrive.

"He's definitely been the biggest draw over the time which I would say stretches from 2005 to roughly 2015," Mr Thurston says, with Cena's merchandise also regularly topping sales for the company.

"There's little question that he was WWE's most important economic wrestler throughout that time - in terms of pay-per-view buys, which were still central in that era, TV ratings, and as a house show draw."

Outside the ring too, he's a personality who "people gravitate towards and want to listen to", says Mr Thurston - and wrestling fans like Joe Clarkson and Sabrina Nicole feel just that.

"To go for such a long time in an industry, which is quite heavily taxing on the body, is absolutely fascinating," says Joe, 24, who was five when he first saw Cena on TV.

"I think over time, the people just gained more and more respect for him, not just as a performer, but also as an individual."

For Sabrina, 37, who remembers Cena's WWE debut in 2002, it's "his charisma".

"He has just always had something about him that makes him a star," she says, adding that for most of his career, he's "always maintained a good guy persona".

"No matter what the crowd, no matter what the fans have thought of him. He has just been the testament to if you have a really good character, you can be on top," she says.

It also seems to be true that, beyond his ability and persona, Cena seized an opportunity.

With The Rock and Stone Cold Steve Austin no longer full-time performers, WWE bosses were looking for a new star to emerge.

Brandon feels WWE leadership recognised Cena "would be a very reliable and extremely hardworking person whom they could entrust with such a spot".

It's widely accepted within wrestling circles that the final decision to have Cena as the chosen star would ultimately have been taken by then-WWE chairman Vince McMahon.

While he was known for following his instincts, there will also have been a judgement on Cena's ability to connect with a passionate crowd on the mic, his marketability and whether he could be in the industry long enough to be profitable.

And when Cena started taking more time away from wrestling in 2015 and working a reduced schedule, Mr Thurston feels there was a "decline" in the WWE product.

Other wrestling experts have suggested Cena's presence over the years helped slow the slide of WWE ratings trending downwards which, according to analysis by wrestling site PWtorch, saw average viewership for its flagship weekly Raw programme fall by a million between 2010 and 2015, to 3.7m.

Having achieved so much within wrestling, Cena could "just come in and be a wrestler and walk out", adds Dr Gillian Brooks, associate professor in marketing at King's Business School, but instead she says he built a personal brand that comes across as real.

An 'authentic' character

Among the brands Cena has worked with is Neutrogena, becoming the face of its sunscreen campaign after revealing he had skin cancer spots - which he attributed to his own lack of sun protection use.

He also holds the Guinness World Record for the number of wishes granted through the Make-A-Wish Foundation, with more than 650 fulfilled wishes for children with critical illnesses. It's a partnership he revealed had started by "accident", but one he's kept since 2002, describing it as "the coolest thing".

"If you think about it from a child's perspective, they're seeing someone that they've seen on TV watching WWE or in films, and they suddenly get to meet him," Dr Brooks says. "The fact that he's doing charity work, he's written a children's book, been in films, made music… all these things illustrate that he's not a one show pony.

"It's coming across in a way that's very authentic and very sort of pure to who he is."

Both Cena's personal brand and his charisma are set to live on, but his time in the ring looks to have come to an end after Cena announced last year that 2025 would be his last as a competitor.

The retirement run

Explaining his reasoning at the time, he told of the physical toll wrestling had taken on his body.

His career has seen him undergo several operations, including on his neck, pec and triceps, with Cena saying in interviews that his "body hurts" and is "screaming to close the chapter".

While the old saying "never say never" is a popular one, Cena has repeatedly said he will be "100% done" - and has received rousing receptions around the world for his final appearances.

Overall, fan Joe is happy with Cena's "retirement run", with matches against old rivals such as AJ Styles, Randy Orton and CM Punk, and newer stars including Dominik Mysterio and Gunther.

He does feel the "execution" of his final year could have been better though, with Cena's short-term "heel turn" (becoming a villain) at the Elimination Chamber event in March drawing criticism.

"It could have been handled better," Joe says. "[But] he's had such a unique distinction of having a retirement run that no one's ever had before.

"It's very sad to see him retire now. But I think he said it himself - it's the right time."

Not that WWE fans will never see Cena again; he has signed a five-year deal to be an ambassador for the company.

Having won The Last Time Is Now tournament, it's former world heavyweight champion Gunther who will face Cena in his final fight.

With it not being broadcast on terrestrial TV, but rather on streaming platforms, it's been reported that there is no time limit on the match - and Gunther, who has never wrestled Cena before, has been giving much tough talk.

One thing's for sure: "You Can't See Me" might be the taunt Cena gives Gunther, but the last fight will be seen and remembered by many.

It's no secret the Avatar films are a gigantic technical feat - pushing the boundaries of cinematography, animation and performance capture.

But you may not be aware that the same applies to the music.

Composer Simon Franglen says work on the third instalment, Avatar: Fire and Ash, took an epic seven years to complete.

Along the way, he wrote 1,907 pages of orchestral score; and even invented new instruments for the residents of the alien planet Pandora to play.

And, with director James Cameron tinkering with the edit until the very last minute, the British musician only finished his final musical cue five days before the film was printed and delivered.

In total, Avatar contains "four times as much" music as a standard Hollywood film, says Franglen, with almost the entirety of its 195-minute running time requiring music.

"But I got 10 minutes off for good behaviour," he laughs.

Fire and Ash is the third instalment in the record-breaking series, continuing the saga of the blue Na'vi population, who are protecting their planet from human invaders, intent on stripping its natural resources.

The new film, released on 19 December, takes audiences back to the astonishingly vivid landscapes of Pandora, but it also sends them on a visceral emotional journey.

At the start of the film, the two main characters Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) are mourning the death of their teenage son, Neteyam.

Unable to see eye-to-eye, the grief threatens to tear the couple apart.

Franglen was tasked with creating a score that could reflect the depth of their despair.

"I wanted to make sure that you felt that sense of distance that was growing between them," he says.

"So what I would do is, I would take two lines [of music] and I'd have them moving apart, or I would make them go wrong, so that they felt austere and cold and disconnected."

"Grief is not something that is ever addressed in these sorts of films," he continues, "but for any family, the loss of a child is the worst thing you can go through.

"Musically, the important stuff is often the quiet moments."

A hoedown on a galleon

By contrast, when Franglen composed the music for the Wind Traders - a nomadic clan of salesmen, who travel by airship - he could let his imagination run wild.

Their swashbuckling themes are inspired by the action movies of the 1930s and 40s, but they also feature brand new instruments, unique to Pandora.

"When we meet the wind traders [they're having] a hoedown on their enormous Galleon," says Franglen.

"The problem was that, if you are having a Pandoran party, what do they play? I can't give them guitar, bass and drums. I can't give them a banjo.

"You have to have a real instrument that would be designed for three metre-tall, blue people with four fingers.

"And because Avatar is not animation, when there are instruments on screen, you have to have the real thing," he says, referring to Cameron's rule that everything on screen has to be rooted in reality, even though the film's imagery is largely computer-generated.

"So I sketched out some instruments, and gave them to the art department, who made these beautiful designs."

Franglen's creations included a long-necked lute, similar to a Turkish saz, with strings that represent the rigging of the Wind Traders' ship.

A percussion instrument was also designed, with the drum head using the same material as the vessel's sails.

The art department's renders were then given to prop master Brad Elliott, who built the instruments on a 3D printers, and the actors played them for real on set.

For now, however, these inventions have no official name.

"They are currently called 'the stringy things' and 'the drummy things'," laughs Franglen.

"I'm sure there's a better name. Somebody said we should have a competition."

Franglen's musical career started when he was just 13 years old- he wrote a letter to the BBC asking how someone would go about becoming a record producer.

Mistakenly assuming he was asking about radio production, the corporation advised him to study electronics - leading him to a course at Manchester University in the early 1980s.

He arrived just as the Hacienda Club opened ("I was member 347") and spent his free time booking bands for the college's concert venue.

"I remember booking Tears for Fears and 11 people came," he says.

After graduating, he was hired to work as a synth programmer, and was introduced to Trevor Horn - who set him to work on pivotal 80s albums by Yes and Frankie Goes To Hollywood.

Eventually, he decided to try his luck in America where, "after six months of doing almost nothing", he became an in-demand session musician and programmer.

Credits started to rack up on hits like Toni Braxton's Unbreak My Heart, All 4 One's I Swear and Whitney Houston's I Have Nothing; and he eventually found himself programming drums for Michael Jackson's HIStory album.

"The pressure was to make it great," he says. "To have that sense of groove, what we call, 'the pocket'.

"And a big part of my career is that I had a good pocket. I understood where things should feel and how they should hit. And that is as important with film scores as it is when you're making a Michael Jackson record."

Franglen's first experience of film scoring came when Bond composer John Barry asked him to assist on Kevin Costner's Oscar-winning Dances With Wolves. He was later hired to do the "dark and nasty stuff" on David Fincher's Se7en.

"My job was to provide the dystopian edge that that score has. So I would take squealing brakes, make samples of them, and then play all the violin lines with squealing brakes underneath.

"There was a lot of experimental stuff, which was incredibly fun."

Franglen first met Avatar director James Cameron after being hired by legendary film composer James Horner, to work "on a film he had no money for".

The film was Titanic - a notorious white elephant, dismissed as a vanity project, and predicted to bring about the collapse of film studios Fox and Paramount.

The composer had seen the headlines, but when Cameron showed him the scene where the Titanic broke in half and started to sink, he realised the press had got it wrong.

"It was just astonishing, in comparison to anything you'd seen before. I knew it was special."

Even so, there was no budget left for the music, Franglen had to borrow equipment and instruments from the manufacturers, and the majority of the score was recorded on synthesizers in a rented apartment.

"Part of the reason that Titanic sounds the way that it does, is because there wasn't enough money for [an] orchestra everywhere," he says.

The opposite is true on Avatar.

"Jim [Cameron] still believes that the good things take time. And as a composer, having that ability to refine and to make something special is something that is rare these days."

The director also went to great lengths to ensure his latest film is free from artificial intelligence.

"He very specifically asked me, 'So, we're not using any AI? We're not putting any real musicians out of work'," Franglen recalls.

"It's fair to say that if you gave a lot of film producers the option to save money, they would take that option.

"Jim is in a situation where he will not compromise, and that's as important when it comes to the music as it is to the live performances of the actors."

As the film prepares to open, Franglen is celebrating a Golden Globe nomination for the theme song, Dream As One, sung by Miley Cyrus.

But he's also thinking about what comes next. Cameron has already completed the scripts for Avatar Four and Five; scheduled to come out in 2029 and 2031.

"Four is… I think it's astonishing," says Franglen. "It goes into whole new territories, and I love it."

Initial footage has already been shot, but Cameron says completing the film will depend on the box office performance of Fire and Ash.

"I really hope that we break even, so that we can make it," says Franglen.

"I think they said after Avatar Two that the break even point was $1.4 billion (£1 billion).

"I have no way of knowing, but I presume that it's a similar number for this one.

"So if the audience tells us that they want an Avatar Four, I'm very much looking forward to doing that."

King Charles has shared "good news" about his cancer, saying in a personal message that early diagnosis and "effective intervention" means his treatment can be reduced in the new year.

In a recorded video message broadcast on Channel 4 for the Stand Up To Cancer campaign, the King said: "This milestone is both a personal blessing and a testimony to the remarkable advances that have been made in cancer care."

This news that he is responding well to treatment is the biggest update on the King's health since he revealed his diagnosis in February 2024.

The type of cancer has not been identified and treatment and monitoring will continue, but he said: "Early diagnosis quite simply saves lives."

According to Buckingham Palace, the King's recovery has reached a very positive stage and he has "responded exceptionally well to treatment", so much so that doctors will now move his treatment "into a precautionary phase".

The regularity of treatment is going to be significantly reduced - but the King, 77, is not described as being in remission or "cured".

"Today I am able to share with you the good news that thanks to early diagnosis, effective intervention and adherence to 'doctors' orders', my own schedule of cancer treatment can be reduced in the new year," the King said in his speech.

The video message, recorded in Clarence House two weeks ago, was played in the Stand Up To Cancer show on Channel 4 on Friday evening, in a fundraising project run with Cancer Research UK.

The campaign encourages more people to get tested for cancer and to take advantage of national screening schemes - and the King's message emphasised the importance of checks to catch cancer at an early stage.

"I know from my own experience that a cancer diagnosis can feel overwhelming. Yet I also know that early detection is the key that can transform treatment journeys, giving invaluable time to medical teams," said the King.

Early detection could be a lifesaver, he said: "Your life, or the life of someone you love, may depend upon it."

The King also spoke of how much he had been "profoundly moved by what I can only call the 'community of care' that surrounds every cancer patient - the specialists, the nurses, researchers and volunteers who work tirelessly to save and improve lives".

Until now the King has said little publicly about his illness.

He didn't seem to want to be defined by the disease and his approach has been to keep working, with a busy schedule including overseas trips and hosting state visits, including last week's by the German president.

A couple of days ago he was sending a message of optimism and seasonal "hope", when he attended an atmospheric, candle-lit Advent service at Westminster Abbey.

The Stand Up To Cancer show, presented by celebrities including Davina McCall, Adam Hills and Clare Balding, has urged people not to be frightened of getting cancer checks.

In particular, the show has appealed to the estimated nine million people in the UK who Cancer Research UK says are not up to date with NHS screening schemes, offering an online checker to let people see if they are eligible for tests for breast, bowel and cervical cancer.

The King said it "troubles me deeply" that this represents nine million missed opportunities to catch cancer early - and he urged people to use the screening checker online tool.

"The statistics speak with stark clarity. To take just one example: When bowel cancer is caught at the earliest stage, around nine in 10 people survive for at least five years. When diagnosed late, that falls to just one in 10," he said.

According to royal sources, the King's reference to bowel cancer should not be seen as linked to his own condition, and prostate cancer has previously been ruled out.

In an attempt to demystify cancer checks and show the value of early diagnosis the Stand Up To Cancer show had a live broadcast from cancer clinics at Addenbrooke's and Royal Papworth hospitals in Cambridge.

"I want to take the fear out of cancer screening and show everyone that they are not on their own in this," said McCall, 58, who recently said she was recovering from breast cancer surgery.

Currently in the UK, there are three NHS cancer screening programmes - for bowel, breast and cervical cancer - available to certain age groups.

A new lung cancer screening programme is also being slowly rolled out for anyone at high risk of developing the disease, specifically targeting people aged 55-74 years old, who currently or used to smoke.

Men may enquire about prostate cancer checks, but there is no national programme in place.

The Stand Up to Cancer project, which has raised £113m since 2012, is funding 73 clinical trials involving 13,000 cancer patients.

Michelle Mitchell, chief executive of Cancer Research UK, said public figures speaking openly about cancer can encourage others to have a check up.

"Spotting cancer early can make a real difference and provides the best chance for successful treatment," she said.

Sign up here to get the latest royal stories and analysis every week with our Royal Watch newsletter. Those outside the UK can sign up here.

On a bank holiday evening in 2016, Robert Rhodes turned to his child and said: "Do you want to get rid of Mum?"

Those words, the child recalled years later, were the start of a plot for Rhodes to kill his wife, Dawn, in their Surrey home and cover up her death as an act of defence - of himself and his child.

For years, Rhodes painted himself as a victim of an attack in the killing he planned and covered up.

Described as swift and protective, jurors heard accounts of a father who moved to protect his child from their knife-wielding mother, who lost her life in the skirmish that ensued.

'Web of lies'

But now, that account has fallen apart, revealed to be a web of lies created and maintained by Rhodes over more than nine years.

Instead, a new trial revealed a complex tale of abuse, control and a murder plot with the coercion of a child at its heart.

On 2 June 2016, the child, who cannot be named for legal reasons, went to their mother and said: "I drew a picture for you, close your eyes and hold out your hands."

Then, with the child leaving the room and locking themselves in the bathroom, Rhodes cut his wife's throat with a kitchen knife.

To cover up the killing, Rhodes once again turned to his child, telling them he "needed a favour".

The favour, the child told police in 2022, was to stab their father in the back of the shoulder, with the same knife used to kill Dawn, and then let him cut their arm.

"I didn't want to do any of it. I just felt guilty but I did what I was told," the child said during the police interview.

Despite the child crying and objecting at the time, Rhodes reportedly said: "We've done this now. There's no going back."

The child also told their therapist in 2021 that Rhodes had stabbed himself in the back of the head, causing himself another wound he would claim was caused by his wife.

As they were under 10 years old at the time of the murder, the child bears no criminal responsibility for aiding the attack.

Life insurance

The death of Dawn Rhodes followed the end of a marriage in turmoil, with the couple in the process of separating after revelations of infidelity.

The pair had known each other for more than 20 years, having met when Rhodes was 21 and Mrs Rhodes was 18, the court heard.

Having married in 2003, the couple lived in Epsom and across Surrey, before settling in Wimborne Avenue in Earlswood, near Redhill.

But on Christmas Eve in 2015, Robert Rhodes found out about an affair that Mrs Rhodes had been having with a co-worker.

From that point, Mrs Rhodes would claim to family members that Rhodes would self-harm in front of her and threaten to kill himself.

Internet searches made by Rhodes show him researching methods of suicide, as well as about life insurance.

He told the court: "I didn't see a future in our marriage."

Rhodes also admitted to creating a fake Facebook profile and contacting the wife of Mrs Rhodes' new partner to tell her about the affair.

Later, he would message his wife's partner: "Thank you for screwing my life and wife."

'Like the Hulk'

The child continued in their second set of police interviews: "There was a plan and we went through with it. I was told to lie and I did."

But shortly after the killing, the child originally told police how, after another argument between Rhodes and his wife, they had tried to intervene.

As part of the cover-up of their father's attack, the child said their mother picked up a knife and swung it at their arm, delivering the cut to their arm which was, in fact, administered by Rhodes.

The child described Dawn's "rage" and "anger" in a police interview in May 2017, before being told to run upstairs and "lock yourself in the bathroom".

In his own police interview, an emotional Rhodes told officers how he "grabbed the blade" of the knife and "held it as tight as I could".

Weaving his story together, he told officers: "I was scared, and it takes a lot to scare me.

"It's like one minute she [Dawn] is fine and the next minute she's like the Hulk," he added, referring to the comic book superhero.

Rhodes was previously acquitted of murder during a trial at the Old Bailey in May 2017.

'Snitches get stitches'

Despite the façade put up by the child, witnesses in the trial pointed to signs that the truth lay beneath.

In a conversation while together in a car, when asked about their scar from the incident, the child would tell one adult: "It was the sharp bit [of the knife], that's how dad did it."

The child would later allege that, while on supervised visits, their father would attempt to speak to them, telling them to "stick to the plan".

They would later suggest their father would message them on a phone he had secretly given them, again urging them to continue backing his version of events.

In an unrelated conversation years later, other witnesses revealed how they heard Rhodes tell the child: "Snitches get stitches."

Years passed, and the child continued at school and made new friends, while the truth of what happened continued to eat at them inside.

In November 2021, the child confided the truth in a close friend, who recalled: "I asked if they felt guilty, they said yes - like this guilt had been bothering them. They were distraught."

The following day, the child would then tell their therapist, who alerted police.

Double jeopardy

Following an appeal to the Court of Appeal in November 2024, Rhodes was retried under the double jeopardy rules.

It meant that, due to the compelling new evidence brought forward by the child, he could be reexamined for the crime he was acquitted of in 2017, as well as charges of child cruelty, perverting the course of justice and perjury.

At his new trial, Rhodes would often sit staring ahead, his eyes occasionally darting over to the 12 people hearing his case.

While the court listened to more gruesome details of the murder, Rhodes would hunch over and stare at the floor and, on one occasion when evidence was being read out, he sat shaking his head and mouthing "nope" out into the courtroom.

As jurors convicted him, he stood silently in the dock.

'Motherhood brought her joy'

Following the trial, Mrs Rhodes' family - mother Liz Spencer, sister Kirsty Spencer and brother Darren Spencer, paid tribute.

Her mother said: "Dawn was a loving daughter, sister and mother. Being a mother was what brought joy to Dawn.

"During her life, Dawn was looking for someone to build a life with. She was looking for someone to love and be loved by someone to trust and be trusted by and someone to respect and be respected by."

Kirsty added: "Dawn was my sister and I loved her dearly.

"I know my sister would want us to find freedom, a freedom that she was deprived of."

Her brother Darren added: "Dawn was a very capable woman, but unfortunately went through hell in the last few years of her life.

"The pressures on her at the time meant that she wasn't the Dawn we all knew, and the last few times we saw her before she was taken from us, she was at the end of her tether."

Rhodes will be sentenced at Inner London Crown Court on January 16.

Follow BBC Surrey on Facebook, on X, and on Instagram. Send your story ideas to southeasttoday@bbc.co.uk or WhatsApp us on 08081 002250.

It's no secret the Avatar films are a gigantic technical feat - pushing the boundaries of cinematography, animation and performance capture.

But you may not be aware that the same applies to the music.

Composer Simon Franglen says work on the third instalment, Avatar: Fire and Ash, took an epic seven years to complete.

Along the way, he wrote 1,907 pages of orchestral score; and even invented new instruments for the residents of the alien planet Pandora to play.

And, with director James Cameron tinkering with the edit until the very last minute, the British musician only finished his final musical cue five days before the film was printed and delivered.

In total, Avatar contains "four times as much" music as a standard Hollywood film, says Franglen, with almost the entirety of its 195-minute running time requiring music.

"But I got 10 minutes off for good behaviour," he laughs.

Fire and Ash is the third instalment in the record-breaking series, continuing the saga of the blue Na'vi population, who are protecting their planet from human invaders, intent on stripping its natural resources.

The new film, released on 19 December, takes audiences back to the astonishingly vivid landscapes of Pandora, but it also sends them on a visceral emotional journey.

At the start of the film, the two main characters Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) are mourning the death of their teenage son, Neteyam.

Unable to see eye-to-eye, the grief threatens to tear the couple apart.

Franglen was tasked with creating a score that could reflect the depth of their despair.

"I wanted to make sure that you felt that sense of distance that was growing between them," he says.

"So what I would do is, I would take two lines [of music] and I'd have them moving apart, or I would make them go wrong, so that they felt austere and cold and disconnected."

"Grief is not something that is ever addressed in these sorts of films," he continues, "but for any family, the loss of a child is the worst thing you can go through.

"Musically, the important stuff is often the quiet moments."

A hoedown on a galleon

By contrast, when Franglen composed the music for the Wind Traders - a nomadic clan of salesmen, who travel by airship - he could let his imagination run wild.

Their swashbuckling themes are inspired by the action movies of the 1930s and 40s, but they also feature brand new instruments, unique to Pandora.

"When we meet the wind traders [they're having] a hoedown on their enormous Galleon," says Franglen.

"The problem was that, if you are having a Pandoran party, what do they play? I can't give them guitar, bass and drums. I can't give them a banjo.

"You have to have a real instrument that would be designed for three metre-tall, blue people with four fingers.

"And because Avatar is not animation, when there are instruments on screen, you have to have the real thing," he says, referring to Cameron's rule that everything on screen has to be rooted in reality, even though the film's imagery is largely computer-generated.

"So I sketched out some instruments, and gave them to the art department, who made these beautiful designs."

Franglen's creations included a long-necked lute, similar to a Turkish saz, with strings that represent the rigging of the Wind Traders' ship.

A percussion instrument was also designed, with the drum head using the same material as the vessel's sails.

The art department's renders were then given to prop master Brad Elliott, who built the instruments on a 3D printers, and the actors played them for real on set.

For now, however, these inventions have no official name.

"They are currently called 'the stringy things' and 'the drummy things'," laughs Franglen.

"I'm sure there's a better name. Somebody said we should have a competition."

Franglen's musical career started when he was just 13 years old- he wrote a letter to the BBC asking how someone would go about becoming a record producer.

Mistakenly assuming he was asking about radio production, the corporation advised him to study electronics - leading him to a course at Manchester University in the early 1980s.

He arrived just as the Hacienda Club opened ("I was member 347") and spent his free time booking bands for the college's concert venue.

"I remember booking Tears for Fears and 11 people came," he says.

After graduating, he was hired to work as a synth programmer, and was introduced to Trevor Horn - who set him to work on pivotal 80s albums by Yes and Frankie Goes To Hollywood.

Eventually, he decided to try his luck in America where, "after six months of doing almost nothing", he became an in-demand session musician and programmer.

Credits started to rack up on hits like Toni Braxton's Unbreak My Heart, All 4 One's I Swear and Whitney Houston's I Have Nothing; and he eventually found himself programming drums for Michael Jackson's HIStory album.

"The pressure was to make it great," he says. "To have that sense of groove, what we call, 'the pocket'.

"And a big part of my career is that I had a good pocket. I understood where things should feel and how they should hit. And that is as important with film scores as it is when you're making a Michael Jackson record."

Franglen's first experience of film scoring came when Bond composer John Barry asked him to assist on Kevin Costner's Oscar-winning Dances With Wolves. He was later hired to do the "dark and nasty stuff" on David Fincher's Se7en.

"My job was to provide the dystopian edge that that score has. So I would take squealing brakes, make samples of them, and then play all the violin lines with squealing brakes underneath.

"There was a lot of experimental stuff, which was incredibly fun."

Franglen first met Avatar director James Cameron after being hired by legendary film composer James Horner, to work "on a film he had no money for".

The film was Titanic - a notorious white elephant, dismissed as a vanity project, and predicted to bring about the collapse of film studios Fox and Paramount.

The composer had seen the headlines, but when Cameron showed him the scene where the Titanic broke in half and started to sink, he realised the press had got it wrong.

"It was just astonishing, in comparison to anything you'd seen before. I knew it was special."

Even so, there was no budget left for the music, Franglen had to borrow equipment and instruments from the manufacturers, and the majority of the score was recorded on synthesizers in a rented apartment.

"Part of the reason that Titanic sounds the way that it does, is because there wasn't enough money for [an] orchestra everywhere," he says.

The opposite is true on Avatar.

"Jim [Cameron] still believes that the good things take time. And as a composer, having that ability to refine and to make something special is something that is rare these days."

The director also went to great lengths to ensure his latest film is free from artificial intelligence.

"He very specifically asked me, 'So, we're not using any AI? We're not putting any real musicians out of work'," Franglen recalls.

"It's fair to say that if you gave a lot of film producers the option to save money, they would take that option.

"Jim is in a situation where he will not compromise, and that's as important when it comes to the music as it is to the live performances of the actors."

As the film prepares to open, Franglen is celebrating a Golden Globe nomination for the theme song, Dream As One, sung by Miley Cyrus.

But he's also thinking about what comes next. Cameron has already completed the scripts for Avatar Four and Five; scheduled to come out in 2029 and 2031.

"Four is… I think it's astonishing," says Franglen. "It goes into whole new territories, and I love it."

Initial footage has already been shot, but Cameron says completing the film will depend on the box office performance of Fire and Ash.

"I really hope that we break even, so that we can make it," says Franglen.

"I think they said after Avatar Two that the break even point was $1.4 billion (£1 billion).

"I have no way of knowing, but I presume that it's a similar number for this one.

"So if the audience tells us that they want an Avatar Four, I'm very much looking forward to doing that."

Wednesday afternoons have become a ritual for 15-year-old Sadmir Perviz. It's a circuitous route from home in Perth to the Fiona Stanley Hospital - but it's worth it, he says, to sit down for a game of Dungeons & Dragons with people he may not know but with whom he shares a great deal in common.

Sadmir and his board game companions are just some of the 300 patients at the gaming disorder clinic, Australia's only publicly-run institution of its type, helping patients wean themselves off excessive online gaming habits.

The room where they meet is a simple space in a faceless hospital but in the corner, there's a pile of boardgames on a chair. Jenga, Uno and Sushi Go are also popular choices at the informal group which is attended by both patients and clinicians.

It's a bit of a departure for the 15-year-old who until a couple of months ago preferred to play games with friends online for 10 hours a day.

"It feels completely different," says Sadmir. "You get to roll the dice instead of clicking a button. You can interact with people, so you actually know who's there rather than just being on a call with random people."

Dr Daniela Vecchio, the psychiatrist who set up the clinic, says that while gaming isn't bad in itself, it can become a problem - an addiction even.

Gaming platforms and social media pose similar risks for children: excessive time spent online, and potential exposure to predators, harmful content or bullying.

So she wonders why gaming platforms have not been included in Australia's "world-first" social media ban for under-16s.

The ban, which came into force on Wednesday, is supposed to prevent teens from having accounts on 10 social media platforms including Instagram, Snapchat and X. Children will still be able to access platforms like YouTube and TikTok, but without accounts.

For Vecchio, the omission of gaming platforms is odd.

"It doesn't make much sense," she says.

"Gaming and social media are so interconnected, it's very difficult to separate.

"The individual who plays games for excessive amounts of time also spends excessive amounts of time on social media platforms where they can see other gamers or can live stream gaming, so it's a way to connect."

Sadmir, for example, spent much of his time on the gaming platform Steam, as well as YouTube. Dr Vecchio singles out the platforms Discord and Roblox as particular worries - a concern echoed by many experts and parents the BBC has spoken to in covering the ban and its impact.

Both Roblox and Discord have been dogged by claims that some children are being exposed to explicit or harmful content through them and are facing lawsuits relating to child safety in the US.

Roblox introduced new age assurance features in Australia and two other countries weeks before the social media ban kicked in, with the checks due to be rolled out to the rest of the world in January. The checks will "help us provide positive, age-appropriate experiences for all users on Roblox", the company said.

Discord also introduced age checks on some features earlier this year and on Wednesday said it was introducing a new "teen-by-default" setting for all Australian users.

The 'wild west of internet usage'

Former gaming clinic patient Kevin Koo, 35, wonders whether a social media ban could have influenced the access he got at a younger age.

"I was growing up in the wild west of internet usage so, there weren't any restrictions," he says. "I got free rein on the internet basically. So I think that for me, the damage has already been done."

A former quantum finance intern interested in AI, Mr Koo lost his job just before the pandemic. Living in Sydney, he had no family nearby and no regular work. He says he lost confidence and ended up consumed by online gaming, likening his experience to substance abuse.

Dr Vecchio agrees with the comparison - if she had her way, she'd be tempted not just to expand the social media ban to gaming but to raise the age to 18.

Gaming disorder is also now recognised by the World Health Organisation as an official diagnosis and, according to a 2022 Macquarie University study, around 2.8% of Australian children are affected by it. Vecchio thinks the number at risk is higher.

The Australian government says its ban is about protecting kids from harmful content, cyberbullying, online grooming and "predatory algorithms" among other things – some or all of which could arguably be said to exist with gaming platforms.

The Australia Federal Police are among those who have warned chatrooms on these sites are hotbeds for radicalisation and child exploitation.

But, as the eSafety Commissioner said last month, the legislation enforcing the ban means platforms were not selected according to "safety, a harms or risk-based assessment".

Instead, platforms have been selected according to three criteria: whether the platform's sole or "significant purpose" is to enable online social interaction between two or more users; whether it allows users to interact with some or all other users; and whether it allows users to post.

Exceptions were made for gaming, for example, because its primary purpose is not social-media style interaction.

The law, say some experts, makes no sense.

"It's incompetence, it's reactionary," says Marcus Carter, professor of human-computer interaction at the University of Sydney.

"Social interaction is not a bad thing… There are a bunch of probably legitimate concerns about these big tech platforms and what they are affording children and what they are exposing them to so as a result we've said we are banning social media.

"I just wish the government was trying to figure out how to help rather than put a band-aid on a bullet wound," he says.

Tama Leaver, professor of internet studies at Curtin University and chief investigator at the ARC Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child, also says the ban on social media is too blunt a tool – instead a more nuanced approach is needed, including towards gaming platforms.

"There is such a wide spectrum of gaming from incredibly positive, nurturing, fun, creative, expressive spaces - something like Minecraft comes to mind where it's had so many positive uses." However, platforms like Roblox are at the other end of the spectrum, he says.

"Roblox isn't a game. It's a series of enabling tools for other people to make games. And we know that some of the games that have been made that clearly feel like they're meant for adults have been accessed by very young people."

On Professor Leaver's desk at the university are three plushies with inbuilt ChatGPT inside them. On the box, it says they are suitable for three and above. This, he says, has also gone too far.

"I do think there needs to be age-appropriate regulation," he says, referring to young people going online. "I do think we're at a moment, and it's not just Australia, you look across the EU, there is huge appetite for all sorts of regulation."

A treatment plan, not a cure

In Mr Koo's case, for example, his vice wasn't just gaming. It was AI chatbots, another feature of online life that has come under scrutiny for everything from making things up to allegedly encouraging children to kill themselves.

There is evidence they are designed to manipulate users into prolonging interactions and their use has even given rise to a new phenomenon called AI psychosis, in which people increasingly rely on AI chatbots and then become convinced that something imaginary has become real.

Mr Koo also started googling his mental health issues and relying on AI to help confirm his diagnoses.

"You're Googling stuff that you think you already know and then you kind of tick the box after that saying, oh, I've already done my work for today, my therapy work with ChatGPT," he says. Mr Koo suffered a psychotic episode and after extensive therapy with a professional, he now takes a different approach.

"I might Google or ChatGPT something and then I'll check it with my therapist in person," he says. "I do think being able to read human emotions and having that face-to-face conversation with someone is completely different."

The government has said it will continually review the list of banned platforms and at the end of November added Twitch, a streaming platform where people typically play video games while chatting to viewers.

Communications Minister Anika Wells also told the BBC last week that the eSafety Commissioner "definitely has her eye on Roblox". And, she said, the social media ban "isn't a cure, it's a treatment plan" that will "always evolve".

The demand for platforms to do better is growing. So too are the queues of families waiting to get help at the gaming disorder clinic, but Vecchio has to turn them away.

"[The legislation] is excluding platforms where children interact with many others and some of them can be people who harm them," says Vecchio. "Children need to be protected, they need to be safeguarded."

Luigi Mangione, the man accused of fatally shooting United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson in a case that sparked national attention, watched as new testimony and never-before-seen footage from the day of his arrest in a McDonald's was unveiled during a hearing this week.

Mr Mangione has pleaded not guilty to state charges related to the 2024 murder of Mr Thompson, a father of two, as well as federal counts that carry the possibility of the death penalty.

The pre-trial hearing is focused on the defence's attempts to keep certain evidence out of the trial, which has not been scheduled yet, including items found in his backpack during his arrest and statements he made to officers.

During the first two weeks of the hearing, supporters of Mr Mangione - the scion of a prominent Maryland family and Ivy League graduate - filled the back rows of the Manhattan criminal courtroom, some wearing a pin portraying him as a saint-like figure.

Prosecutors and Mr Mangione's legal team are expected to question over a dozen witnesses from the day of his arrest, including the employees who spotted him and the police who arrested him.

Here is a look at some of the key pieces of evidence discussed that offer a window into Mr Mangione's trial.

An eyebrow giveaway

The pre-trial hearing has centred on the small-town McDonald's in Altoona, Pennsylvania, where officers were shocked to find the high-profile suspect days after Mr Thompson was fatally shot - and hours from the busy Midtown Manhattan crime scene.

Witnesses suggested the arrest may never have occurred there if not for one of Mr Mangione's key features: his eyebrows.

During the first day of the hearing, prosecutors played a call to police from a McDonald's employee about a tip from a customer in the restaurant.

The employee said the customer thought a patron looked like the suspect in the United Healthcare CEO shooting. The patron was well covered, wearing a black hoodie, a medical mask and a tan beanie. But one key detail stuck out.

"The only thing you can see is his eyebrows," the employee told police.

It was not the only time Mr Mangione's distinguished eyebrows have come up.

Prosecutors also entered into evidence notecards they say Mr Mangione had, which appeared to be to-do lists for the days after the high-profile shooting.

One card reads: "Keep momentum, FBI slower overnight," while another said: "Change hat, shoes, pluck eyebrows".

'Proposterous': An unexpected day at McDonald's

Dozens of videos released by prosecutors show Mr Mangione's encounter with police and his eventual arrest in the McDonald's as other customers watched.

Officers who responded narrated the footage this week, telling the court what was going through their minds as they realised the 27-year-old appeared similar to the suspect in photos.

On Thursday, Altoona Lieutenant William Hanelly said a fellow officer responded sarcastically that he would "get right on it" when he heard the tip about the suspect.

Mr Hanelly told the court that he understood the sarcasm, because it seemed "preposterous" that a shooter from "New York City had found his way to a McDonald's in Altoona, Pennsylvania".

But at the scene, officers said they quickly saw the resemblance to New York Police Department pictures circulated to the public after days without any leads.

"It's him. I'm not kidding. He's real nervous. It's him," one officer can be heard telling Mr Hanelly in a phone call played for the court.

In one video, Mr Mangione eats a McDonald's meal as officers stand guard around him in the restaurant waiting for more officers to arrive.

At the hearing, Mr Mangione watched the videos quietly from the defence table, seated next to his lawyers - wife and husband Karen Friedman Agnifilo and Marc Agnifilo. The latter defended Sean "Diddy" Combs, who was acquitted of sex trafficking and racketeering charges just months earlier.

Wearing a grey suit and button-down shirt most days, Mr Mangione frequently took notes on a legal pad, and occasionally smiled and laughed with his lawyers.

A fake name leads to an arrest

In the series of police body camera videos played for the court, Mr Mangione's interactions with officers eventually lead to his arrest on 9 December as Christmas music plays loudly in the background of the McDonald's.

When officers first speak to Mr Mangione, they ask him to pull his mask down. He listens, and is heard telling officers his name is "Mark Rosario", handing them a New Jersey identification that police later said was false.

That identification gave officers enough cause to arrest Mr Mangione, Mr Hanelly told the court, and in the video, Mr Mangione tells officers his real name is Luigi.

In another body camera video, an officer tells the 27-year-old he is under police investigation for giving a fake identification and Mr Mangione is seen putting his hands on the wall as officers arrest him.

They then take a photo of Mr Mangione with his hands behind his back, an image widely circulated on social media after his arrest.

Bullets, a journal and cash: a peak into Mr Mangione's backpack

The pre-trial hearing also shed light on the items Mr Mangione was carrying when he was arrested.

Mr Mangione's lawyers have argued that a 9mm handgun as well as a notebook should be excluded from trial because officers did not have a warrant to search his backpack. Prosecutors allege that Mr Mangione wrote in his notebook about "the deadly, greed-fuelled health insurance cartel".

During the hearing on Thursday, Mr Hanelly argued that there were exceptions for warrants.

Earlier in the week, Ms Friedman Agnifilo questioned the officer who searched Mr Mangione's backpack, arguing they were searching the bag "because you thought he was the New York City shooter".

"No, we search everyone," said the officer, Christy Wasser.

Video played in court shows a police officer pulling a series of items from the backpack, including a handgun magazine that Mr Hanelly said contained 9 mm bullets - all as Holly Jolly Christmas plays over the speaker.

One law enforcement official comes across a journal in the backpack, and can be heard saying it reads like a "manifesto".

Ms Agnifilo objected after the "manifesto" part of the video was played repeatedly in court, arguing the prosecutor wanted to emphasise the line.

Eventually, Mr Hanelly testified, the officers decided to stop searching the backpack and take it to the police station because "it was going to be a mess".

Prosecutors this week entered into evidence images of other items Mr Mangione had with him, including a gun, a silencer, dozens of $100 bills, face masks, a hair trimmer and a passport.

The hearing is expected to continue into next week.

Hundreds of parents have contacted the BBC about their struggles with getting support for adopted children - as charities call for a government review.

The response came after we reported last month that more than 1,000 adopted children had been returned to care over five years. Dozens of adoptive parents told us they had been blamed for the difficulties of often traumatised young people.

Mina, who contacted BBC Your Voice about her son who died last year from alcoholism, said: "You're just a lone person battling, trying to battle the system."

The charity Adoption UK said it had raised the issue with England's children's minister this week, calling for permanent funding for therapy and a wider review of the support available.

Mina was one of 700 people who contacted the BBC in response to the story, many of whom said they were adoptive parents who had struggled to get help for their children or had been blamed for their emotional and behavioural difficulties.

She and her husband adopted their son Leighton at the age of three, after he was removed from his birth mother when he was 18 months old. He struggled all his life with his mental health and addiction, she says.

"He turned all this pain inside, like I'm not worthy, I'm not lovable," says Mina. She believes his distress over his adoption led to his heavy drinking and death from liver failure at the age of 26. "He couldn't understand why."

Even as a four-year-old, Leighton would have periods of "deep depression" but his parents' concerns were brushed off by social workers, Mina says. When he was older, she adds, he would self-harm and began taking drugs and abusing alcohol.

She says social workers blamed her and her husband for Leighton's struggles, insisting "it must be something happening at home".

"There's a perception that once a child's adopted, they'll live happily ever after, and there is no platform to complain or to even have your voice," Mina says.

Mina's local authority did not respond to a request for comment.

Children's charity Coram - one of several organisations to call for greater support for adoptive families or to raise concerns about the blaming of parents in response to our story - says the adoption system is "under exceptional strain".

"It's shocking to discover again that adoptive parents, are experiencing blame as the first response when they seek help. That should never be the case," said CEO Dr Carol Homden.

She says "adoption remains an extremely important part of our care system and highly successful for the majority of children" but when children have been removed from their birth families for their own protection, "we need to recognise that they will need potential support for life and ensure that our services are there in a timely and sufficient way".

Coram also runs the largest body representing children's social workers, CoramBAAF, which has joined the call for a review of adoption support, saying: "We must get this right for the children at the heart of this."

James - not his real name - told us he was reassured to learn he was not the only parent to have gone through something like this and now feels he "owes it to our adopted son" to speak out himself.

He says he adopted a child who had severe foetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) - a condition caused by drinking in pregnancy that can lead to physical and mental problems.

As he grew older, James says, his adopted son's behaviour was sometimes violent because of his condition.

'Heavily blamed'

One social worker suggested they should live in separate homes, says James, with one parent living with their adopted son and their other children staying with the other parent in the family home. A social worker also admitted, he adds, that social services staff had not been trained to deal with FASD.

"We took on a child knowing there'd be issues. We didn't expect everything to go perfectly because it doesn't. But when you ask for help, they need to help," he says.

Eventually, he felt his adopted son was no longer safe to live with the other children - James told us - and he arranged for him to be accommodated in care again.

James says they struggled to remain in contact with him.

"It was almost like, me and my children, that we weren't to exist anymore because we'd been heavily blamed," James says. "We were literally removed from from his life. They were more bothered on him seeing family pets than step-siblings."

His local authority said it could not comment on individual cases, but pointed to research which it says shows that outcomes for adopted children are "overwhelmingly successful".

The government says adoptive parents do "an incredible job providing a loving and supportive home" to vulnerable children, and while those arrangements do sometimes break down, support is in place to keep them together where possible.

We also heard from some parents who did receive good support and who say it made a huge difference.

Emma and her husband Geoff says they adopted their daughter, who needed extensive help, when she was nearly six. The local authority had an established relationship with a family therapy provider which specialises in adoption, Family Futures.

"They understood that adoption and therapy need to go together," she says. "When we asked for some help they were very keen to give it. They realised if they don't do it now, things get worse, children go back to care and it all falls apart."

Adopted children who have been moved first into foster care, and then into an adoptive family, struggle to feel safe, says Emma, and the family therapy was aimed at addressing that.

"If you imagine being a small child and being put from pillar to post with different people and then you arrive virtually into a stranger's house, you are going to be very scared," she adds.

Geoff said it took about 10 years of seeing a therapist, on and off, before their daughter trusted them.

Without that support, he says he can't see how she would have been able to achieve as much as she has now that she is 21, having moved into supported living accommodation and still keeping in touch with her parents.

"We used to think that we couldn't imagine how she could ever leave home," says Geoff. "Now she's able to live away from us. She's got a place where she feels she belongs."

When Klarisse Smith started living in a homeless hostel in Birmingham at the age of 16, she had been in the care system for two years.

She had spent that time moving between her foster carer, her aunt and her partner's family.

"I felt like my social worker just kind of washed her hands of me when I went to my auntie's," she said.

"I didn't really have much contact with anyone. They just left me to my own devices and at the time I just thought this was pretty normal."

New government data shows the number of households in England with at least one young care leaver facing homelessness has risen by 37% in the past five years – more than double the increase for the general population.

The care charity Become said the figures showed "a complete failure in support for care leavers".

A government spokesperson said the risk of homelessness faced by care leavers was "unacceptable" and it was making "record investment" in social and affordable housing.

Klarisse, now 24, said: "Being homeless kind of strips your confidence away. It eats at your self worth and has you feeling like it's never gonna change."

She remembers her social worker being on leave a lot and only visiting her at the hostel when she was waiting on her Universal Credit claim.

"I had nothing to sustain me within the six weeks, so she gave me £50 a week and she'd drop it round in cash," she said.

It was difficult to ask for support during those years, Klarisse said.

"If you're not the type of person to want to constantly be nagging someone, then you just kind of get left under the system," she said. "You have to constantly be making the calls and the emails."

While Birmingham City Council said it could not comment on individual cases, it acknowledged the "significant challenges" young care leavers like Klarisse faced when transitioning to independent living.

A spokesperson said cover arrangements were "always in place" to ensure continuity of support when a social worker was unavailable and it was committed to ensuring care leavers had safe accommodation and the support they needed.

They said Birmingham had commissioned a Care Leaver Pathway since January 2025 to support 16 to 17-year-olds who were homeless or in care, focusing on life skills, youth engagement, education and training.

Klarisse sat her A levels while at another hostel. She then did a social work degree and this summer completed a  scholarship programme for clinical medicine at the University of Oxford.

She said: "I studied social work because I got an understanding of the social care system. I'm a care leaver myself, and I feel that I can relate to a lot of people, especially foster kids. I can instill some confidence into them."

It took a "special kind of person" to be a social worker, she said, because things that might not seem significant to others could mean "literally everything" to a child in the care system.

She said: "When you're a child, you're a lot more sensitive. So, putting their clothes in bin bags, for example, might just be a form of transporting them. But to a child, it feels like there's something they've done wrong to be treated like this. They treat people the same when they come out of jail."

New figures from the Department of Housing, Communities and Local Government (DCLG) show there were 4,610 18 to 20-year-old care leaver households facing homelessness in 2024-25, up 37% from 2019-20.

The number in the general population has risen 14.5% since 2019-20, to 330,410 in 2024-25.

The data tracks those who have been assessed by their local authority as homeless or threatened with homelessness, and so have received a relief or prevention duty.

Clare Bracey, director of policy, campaigns and communication at Become, warned not all cases show up in official statistics.

"Part of the problem is that young people aren't reaching out for support," she said.

A DCLG spokesperson said: "Our Homelessness Strategy will set out bold steps to prevent homelessness and deliver lasting solutions, and our landmark Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill will require public bodies to consider the support young people need when leaving care."

Ms Bracey said the government was "taking forward really positive developments" with the bill.

It would require local authorities to support care leavers up to the age of 25 to help them transition into independent living.

"We want to make sure that it is really clear who that support applies to, that there is a broader definition of that support and that young people have a say in what support they should get," Ms Bracey added.

A Local Government Association spokesperson said: "In order to effectively reduce homelessness and tackle housing waiting lists, councils need the powers and resources to build or acquire more of the genuinely affordable homes our communities desperately need."

They added there were currently 132,410 households living in temporary accommodation, costing councils £2.8bn a year.

US President Donald Trump's overseas envoy will travel to Germany this weekend to meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and European leaders for the latest round of high-level talks on ending the war.

Steve Witkoff, who has been leading White House attempts to mediate between Ukraine and Russia, will discuss the latest version of the proposed peace agreement in Berlin.

The Trump administration is pushing for a deal to be in place by Christmas and has held several rounds of talks with Ukrainian and Russian representatives in recent weeks, though there has been little sign a breakthrough is imminent.

It has not yet been confirmed which European leaders will attend the Berlin talks.

The Wall Street Journal, which first reported details of the meeting, said UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz would all take part.

The Witkoff-Zelensky meeting comes days after Ukraine gave the US its revised version of a 20-point peace plan, the latest iteration of a proposal which first emerged in late November and has triggered a flurry of diplomatic activity.

The fate of territory in eastern Ukraine remains one of the most intractable topics in the negotiations, with Kyiv refusing to cede land which has been illegally occupied, and Moscow repeating its intention to take the Donbas region in full by force unless Ukraine withdraws.

Zelensky has reacted sceptically to the White House's latest proposal on resolving the territorial question, which is for Ukraine's army to pull out of the region and for it to be turned into a "special economic zone".

The Ukrainian president told reporters that under the US-proposed terms, the Kremlin would undertake not to advance into the areas vacated by Ukraine's forces, with the land between Russian-controlled parts of the Donbas and Ukraine's defensive lines effectively turned into a demilitarised zone.

The proposal, seemingly an attempt to resolve the question of legal ownership by creating a new status for the land, has been publicly questioned by Zelensky, who said: "What will restrain [Russia] from advancing? Or from infiltrating disguised as civilians?"

Ukraine and allies in Europe have said publicly that the US-led talks have been fruitful, and have hailed progress on securing amendments to a plan which was widely viewed as favouring Russia when it first emerged.

But there have been signs in recent weeks that Trump is losing patience with Zelensky and his backers on the continent.

In a scathing interview with Politico earlier this week, the US president labelled European leaders "weak" and renewed his calls for Ukraine to hold elections.

Zelensky said elections could be held within 90 days if the US and Europe provided the necessary security. Elections have been suspended since martial law was declared when Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.

As the White House's diplomatic push continues, attention in Europe is focused on how to support Ukraine in the event of a peace deal, with talks ongoing over security guarantees and funding.

The Ukrainian government faces a stark financial situation: it needs to find an extra €135.7bn (£119bn; $159bn) over the next two years.

On Friday, European Union governments agreed to indefinitely freeze around €210bn (£185bn; $247) worth of Russian assets held in Europe.

It is hoped that agreement paves the way for the funds to be loaned back to Ukraine if a deal can be reached at an EU summit next week, providing Kyiv with financial help for its military and efforts to rebuild parts of the country left devastated after nearly four years of all-out war.

That move has been condemned as theft by the Kremlin, and Russia's central bank has said it will sue Euroclear, a Belgian bank where the vast majority of Russian assets frozen after the invasion are held.

Officials were still negotiating the exact structure of a deal to repurpose the Russian assets on behalf of Ukraine, with the Belgian government being particularly sceptical due to its particular legal exposure as the main holder.

Elsewhere, it was reported that the latest version of the peace plan being circulated envisions Ukraine rapidly joining the European Union.

The Financial Times said Brussels backed Ukraine's swift accession to the bloc, an idea proposed by Ukraine in the latest draft it has given to Washington.

Ukraine formally applied to join the EU days after the 2022 invasion but despite promises of an accelerated process is still several years away from becoming a member.

Under the plan, Ukraine would become a member as soon as January 2027, AFP reported, citing an unnamed senior official. It was unclear whether Washington had approved that element of the draft.

Sir Keir Starmer has urged resident doctors not to go ahead with "reckless" strikes planned for next week, saying it is "beyond belief" they could take place during a flu outbreak.

The prime minister said the NHS is in its "most precarious moment" since the coronavirus pandemic due to soaring flu cases across the UK, and that strikes would put the healthcare system and its patients in "grave danger".

The doctors' union, the British Medical Association (BMA), is polling its members to see if they are willing to call off the walkout, with the results to be released on Monday.

But if they vote against it, a five-day strike by resident doctors will begin two days later on Wednesday 17 December.

A BMA spokesperson said the government could stop the strike by tackling pay, conditions and trust with a credible offer.

Flu has come early this winter, and it looks to be a particularly nasty season because of a new mutated version of the virus which is circulating, say experts.

Many are now calling it "super flu", but it is not more severe nor harder to treat.

An average of 2,660 patients per day were in hospital with flu in England last week – the highest ever for this time of year and up 55% on the week before, NHS England said.

Flu cases are also rising in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, figures show.

Children and young people are particularly affected by the outbreak, health officials said.

Writing in the Guardian, Sir Keir said the strikes "should not happen" and said resident doctors, formerly known as junior doctors, should accept a deal to avert industrial action.

Sir Keir said as well as the government's new offer, they had also given the BMA the chance to reschedule the strikes until after Christmas.

"Don't get me wrong – of course I would rather they were cancelled... But under the circumstances, I wanted to be sure we have left no stone unturned in our efforts to protect the NHS," he said.

The BMA said it will ask its members whether the government's offer will be enough to call off Wednesday's strikes.

If members indicate yes, then they will be given time to consider the offer in more detail and a formal follow-up referendum would be held on ending the dispute completely.

The offer aims to address problems for some doctors trying to find work and to provide more training places for newly qualified medics to progress in their careers.

Health Secretary Wes Streeting made a similar intervention to Sir Keir's on Friday, warning strikes coupled with increasing flu patients would be a "double whammy" for the NHS.

However, the medical director for the NHS in London, Chris Streather, said the flu situation was "well within the boundaries" of what the NHS could cope with and that hospitals were better prepared for large disease outbreaks since the Covid pandemic.

US President Donald Trump has said the prime ministers of Thailand and Cambodia will halt fighting "effective this evening".

Trump made the announcement after telephone conversations with the two leaders following deadly border clashes in recent days which have left at least 20 people dead and half a million displaced.

Neither Thai PM Anutin Charnvirakul nor his Cambodian counterpart Hun Manet has commented.

However, after his call with Trump earlier, Charnvirakul told a news conference that a ceasefire would only come about if "Cambodia will cease fire, withdraw its troops, remove all landmines it has planted".

In a post on his social media platform Truth Social, Trump said both leaders "have agreed to CEASE all shooting effective this evening, and go back to the original Peace Accord made with me.

"Both Countries are ready for PEACE and continued Trade with the United States of America."

The long-standing border dispute escalated on 24 July, as Cambodia launched a barrage of rockets into Thailand, which responded with air strikes.

After days of intense fighting which left dozens dead, the neighbouring South East Asian countries agreed to an "immediate and unconditional ceasefire" brokered by Trump and Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim.

Since then, tensions continued to build.

This week, violence expanded into at least six provinces in north-eastern Thailand and five provinces in Cambodia's north and north-west.

The two countries have been been contesting territorial sovereignty along their 800km land border for more than a century, since the borders of the two nations were drawn after the French occupation of Cambodia.

A raccoon that broke into a Virginia store and joyfully drank its way through the liquor aisle is now suspected of a wider crime spree, officials say.

A Hanover animal control officer suspects the stripe-tailed mammal also broke into a nearby karate studio and then raided the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) for snacks.

"Supposedly, this is the third break-in he's had," said Officer Samantha Martin.

The raccoon, now nicknamed the "trashed panda", was first discovered passed out in the bathroom of the Ashland liquor store two days after Thanksgiving. After sobering up, the unlikely outlaw was released back into the wild.

A new study found the masked mammals known for rummaging rubbish bins for easy food, are evolving and getting comfortable around humans.

Ms Martin says it's only a matter of time before the masked bandit strikes the shopping centre again.

"This is not the first time he's been in one of the buildings," she told the county government's official podcast, Hear in Hanover, on Thursday.

"He was in the karate studio. I think he got into the DMV [and] ate some of their snacks one time," she said.

She later added that there is a chance the earlier break-ins could have been perpetrated by a different raccoon - but officials have identified him as their prime suspect.

Raccoons are known for breaking into peoples garbage cans, leading to the nickname "trash panda".

The county has been selling shirts with the logo "trashed panda" and has raised a whopping $207,000 (£155,000) as of Friday. The money will be used to renovate the shelter, and add to its capacity, Ms Martin said.

Officials say the little Kung Fu trash panda was living his best life when he was detained in the liquor store and kept his spirits up even after being placed in the county kennel.

"I just set him in there, [and] let him kinda relax for a few hours. The sun was beating on him so he was feeling good," Ms Martin said, adding that he was released about one mile away from the shopping complex. "He didn't do anything wrong. He was just having a good time."

The story has gone viral, which Ms Martin says is because it is so "relatable".

"Everybody's been there," she says. "Everybody's had a few extra and passed out by the toilet, and hopes somebody can come get you the next morning."

"I hope he learned his lesson," she said, before adding that there's a good chance he might be found committing another heist soon.

"He'll be back. He's not a dummy."

More images from the estate of convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein have been released by Democrats on the House Oversight Committee.

The Democrats said the 19 images came from a tranche of 95,000 photos the committee received from Epstein's estate as part of its ongoing investigation.

US President Donald Trump, former Prince Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and former Trump adviser Steve Bannon are among the high-profile figures featured in the photos. The images, many of which have been seen before, do not imply wrongdoing.

It comes one week before a deadline for the US justice department to release all Epstein-related documents, which are separate from the images shared by the committee on Friday.

The individuals featured in the images have not yet commented. Many of them have previously denied wrongdoing in relation to Epstein.

In a statement, Representative Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the committee, said: "It is time to end this White House cover-up and bring justice to the survivors of Jeffrey Epstein and his powerful friends."

"These disturbing photos raise even more questions about Epstein and his relationships with some of the most powerful men in the world. We will not rest until the American people get the truth. The Department of Justice must release all the files, NOW" he added.

Republicans, who are in the majority on the committee, have accused Democrats of "cherry-picking photos and making targeted redactions to create a false narrative about President Trump".

The White House called the release a "Democrat hoax" against Trump that has been "repeatedly debunked".

Trump appeared in three of the images released on Friday. One image showed him standing next to a woman whose face has been redacted.

Another showed Trump standing next to Epstein while talking to model Ingrid Seynhaeve at a 1997 Victoria's Secret party in New York – an image that was already publicly available.

A third photo showed Trump smiling with several women, whose faces have also been redacted, flanked on either side of him.

An additional photo showed an illustrated likeness of the president on red packets next to a sign that reads: "Trump Condom".

Among the images released was what appeared to be cropped photo of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor next to Bill Gates. A fuller version of the photo, which was available on photo agency Getty Images, showed King Charles, the then-Prince of Wales, on the right side of the photo.

The Getty Images' caption said the picture was taken during a summit during the Commonwealth heads of government meeting in London in April 2018.

Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon was also pictured in some of the images. He was shown speaking with Epstein at a desk, and in another, standing beside him in front of a mirror.

A third image showed him speaking with filmmaker Woody Allen.

A photo featuring former US President Bill Clinton's showed him standing next to Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, who was convicted in 2021 for her role in facilitating the disgraced financier's abuse.

Two other people the BBC has yet to identify are also in the image, which appeared to have been signed by Clinton.

Clinton has denied any wrongdoing in relation to Epstein. In 2019, a spokesperson said he "knows nothing about the terrible crimes" Epstein pleaded guilty to.

Other prominent figures which appear in the images include US economist Larry Summers, lawyer Alan Dershowitz and entrepreneur Richard Branson. Not all the images show those individuals in the company of Epstein.

Epstein was charged with sex trafficking in July 2019. He died in prison a month later while awaiting trail.

The president was a friend of Epstein's, but has said they fell out in the early 2000s, years before he was first arrested.

Trump has denied any wrongdoing in relation to Epstein.

The justice department is required to release investigative material related to Epstein by 19 December under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which was signed into law by Trump last month.

Sir Keir Starmer has urged resident doctors not to go ahead with "reckless" strikes planned for next week, saying it is "beyond belief" they could take place during a flu outbreak.

The prime minister said the NHS is in its "most precarious moment" since the coronavirus pandemic due to soaring flu cases across the UK, and that strikes would put the healthcare system and its patients in "grave danger".

The doctors' union, the British Medical Association (BMA), is polling its members to see if they are willing to call off the walkout, with the results to be released on Monday.

But if they vote against it, a five-day strike by resident doctors will begin two days later on Wednesday 17 December.

A BMA spokesperson said the government could stop the strike by tackling pay, conditions and trust with a credible offer.

Flu has come early this winter, and it looks to be a particularly nasty season because of a new mutated version of the virus which is circulating, say experts.

Many are now calling it "super flu", but it is not more severe nor harder to treat.

An average of 2,660 patients per day were in hospital with flu in England last week – the highest ever for this time of year and up 55% on the week before, NHS England said.

Flu cases are also rising in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, figures show.

Children and young people are particularly affected by the outbreak, health officials said.

Writing in the Guardian, Sir Keir said the strikes "should not happen" and said resident doctors, formerly known as junior doctors, should accept a deal to avert industrial action.

Sir Keir said as well as the government's new offer, they had also given the BMA the chance to reschedule the strikes until after Christmas.

"Don't get me wrong – of course I would rather they were cancelled... But under the circumstances, I wanted to be sure we have left no stone unturned in our efforts to protect the NHS," he said.

The BMA said it will ask its members whether the government's offer will be enough to call off Wednesday's strikes.

If members indicate yes, then they will be given time to consider the offer in more detail and a formal follow-up referendum would be held on ending the dispute completely.

The offer aims to address problems for some doctors trying to find work and to provide more training places for newly qualified medics to progress in their careers.

Health Secretary Wes Streeting made a similar intervention to Sir Keir's on Friday, warning strikes coupled with increasing flu patients would be a "double whammy" for the NHS.

However, the medical director for the NHS in London, Chris Streather, said the flu situation was "well within the boundaries" of what the NHS could cope with and that hospitals were better prepared for large disease outbreaks since the Covid pandemic.

Warehouses supplying the vast majority of Ukraine's pharmacies have been destroyed in a series of Russian attacks over recent months.

Medical supplies worth about $200m (£145m) were destroyed in just two strikes in December and October.

A large warehouse storing medicines in the city of Dnipro was destroyed in a Russian air strike on 6 December. As a result, about $110m worth of medicines were destroyed - estimated at up to 30% of Ukraine's monthly supply.

"It was a missile and drone strike against our facility. The missiles flew past, but the drones hit it," said Dmytro Babenko, acting director-general of pharmaceutical distributor BADM.

"They caused a fire which unfortunately proved impossible to contain and the whole facility was destroyed."

BADM is one of two companies that supply about 85% of Ukrainian pharmacies in roughly equal shares.

The other company is Optima Pharm, whose warehouses have been hit three times this year - on 28 August, 25 October and 15 November.

The October attack destroyed its main storage facility in Kyiv, and cost the company more than $100m, says Optima Pharm's chief financial officer Artem Suprun.

Russia denies hitting civilian targets, but when the Optima Pharm warehouse was hit in October, the defence ministry in Moscow said only that it had targeted a factory producing drones.

On the day BADM's warehouse was destroyed, Russia said it had hit "a warehouse storing military equipment" as well as energy and transport infrastructure.

Such attacks significantly complicate the treatment of sick and wounded in Ukraine, after almost four years of Russia's full-scale war.

The International Rescue Committee (IRC), an NGO that had been using the warehouse in Dnipro, says it lost $195,000 worth of medication and supplies, which could have served 30,000 people in need.

"When I arrived at the site I was devastated, the scene was simply awful. All of this medicine could have served people for years, and in a single moment it was all lost," says the IRC's Andriy Moskalenko.

The IRC said the Dnipro facility had served "as a critical hub for hospitals, healthcare providers, pharmacies and humanitarian actors".

Mr Babenko from BADM said the Russian attack had destroyed "vitally important medicines" that had been imported and are not produced in Ukraine.

"It's a pretty complicated situation," he told the BBC.

But he is hopeful that the attack will not leave Ukrainians without medicines.

"There won't be significant shortages, possibly only of certain types of goods. We're hoping to restore all supplies in a month or a month-and-a-half," Mr Babenko said.

Ukrainian authorities accuse Russia of deliberately targeting hospitals, ambulances, medics and rescue workers, claims Moscow has denied.

According to the government in Kyiv, more than 2,500 medical institutions have been damaged or destroyed, and more than 500 civilian doctors, nurses and other medical workers killed.

Earlier this month, the World Health Organization said it had recorded 2,763 attacks on Ukraine's healthcare system since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion, and it said that in 2025 there had been a 12% increase in attacks from the previous year.

More images from the estate of convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein have been released by Democrats on the House Oversight Committee.

The Democrats said the 19 images came from a tranche of 95,000 photos the committee received from Epstein's estate as part of its ongoing investigation.

US President Donald Trump, former Prince Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and former Trump adviser Steve Bannon are among the high-profile figures featured in the photos. The images, many of which have been seen before, do not imply wrongdoing.

It comes one week before a deadline for the US justice department to release all Epstein-related documents, which are separate from the images shared by the committee on Friday.

The individuals featured in the images have not yet commented. Many of them have previously denied wrongdoing in relation to Epstein.

In a statement, Representative Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the committee, said: "It is time to end this White House cover-up and bring justice to the survivors of Jeffrey Epstein and his powerful friends."

"These disturbing photos raise even more questions about Epstein and his relationships with some of the most powerful men in the world. We will not rest until the American people get the truth. The Department of Justice must release all the files, NOW" he added.

Republicans, who are in the majority on the committee, have accused Democrats of "cherry-picking photos and making targeted redactions to create a false narrative about President Trump".

The White House called the release a "Democrat hoax" against Trump that has been "repeatedly debunked".

Trump appeared in three of the images released on Friday. One image showed him standing next to a woman whose face has been redacted.

Another showed Trump standing next to Epstein while talking to model Ingrid Seynhaeve at a 1997 Victoria's Secret party in New York – an image that was already publicly available.

A third photo showed Trump smiling with several women, whose faces have also been redacted, flanked on either side of him.

An additional photo showed an illustrated likeness of the president on red packets next to a sign that reads: "Trump Condom".

Among the images released was what appeared to be cropped photo of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor next to Bill Gates. A fuller version of the photo, which was available on photo agency Getty Images, showed King Charles, the then-Prince of Wales, on the right side of the photo.

The Getty Images' caption said the picture was taken during a summit during the Commonwealth heads of government meeting in London in April 2018.

Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon was also pictured in some of the images. He was shown speaking with Epstein at a desk, and in another, standing beside him in front of a mirror.

A third image showed him speaking with filmmaker Woody Allen.

A photo featuring former US President Bill Clinton's showed him standing next to Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, who was convicted in 2021 for her role in facilitating the disgraced financier's abuse.

Two other people the BBC has yet to identify are also in the image, which appeared to have been signed by Clinton.

Clinton has denied any wrongdoing in relation to Epstein. In 2019, a spokesperson said he "knows nothing about the terrible crimes" Epstein pleaded guilty to.

Other prominent figures which appear in the images include US economist Larry Summers, lawyer Alan Dershowitz and entrepreneur Richard Branson. Not all the images show those individuals in the company of Epstein.

Epstein was charged with sex trafficking in July 2019. He died in prison a month later while awaiting trail.

The president was a friend of Epstein's, but has said they fell out in the early 2000s, years before he was first arrested.

Trump has denied any wrongdoing in relation to Epstein.

The justice department is required to release investigative material related to Epstein by 19 December under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which was signed into law by Trump last month.

Some men are having vast numbers of children through sperm donation. This week the BBC reported on a man whose sperm contained a genetic mutation that dramatically raises the risk of cancer for some of his offspring.

One of the most striking aspects of the investigation was that the man's sperm was sent to 14 countries and produced at least 197 children. The revelation was a rare insight into the scale of the sperm donor industry.

Sperm donation allows women to become mothers when it might not otherwise be possible - if their partner is infertile, they're in a same-sex relationship, or parenting solo.

Filling that need has become big business. It is estimated the market in Europe will be worth more than £2bn by 2033, with Denmark a major exporter of sperm.

So why are some sperm donors fathering so many children, what made Danish or so-called "Viking sperm" so popular, and does the industry need to be reigned in?

Most men's sperm isn't good enough

If you're a man reading this, we are sorry to break it to you, but the quality of your sperm probably isn't good enough to become a donor - fewer than five in 100 volunteers actually make the grade.

First, you have to produce enough sperm in a sample - that's your sperm count - then pass checks on how well they swim - their motility - and on their shape or morphology.

Sperm is also checked to ensure it can survive being frozen and stored at a sperm bank.

You could be perfectly fertile, have six children, and still not be suitable.

Rules vary across the world, but in the UK you also have to be relatively young - aged 18-45; be free of infections like HIV and gonorrhoea, and not be a carrier of mutations that can cause genetic conditions like cystic fibrosis, spinal muscular atrophy and sickle cell disease.

Overall, it means the pool of people that finally becomes sperm donors is small. In the UK, half the sperm ends up being imported.

But biology means a small number of donors can make vast numbers of children. It takes just one sperm to fertilise an egg, but there are tens of millions of sperm in each ejaculation.

Men will come to the clinic once or twice a week while they're donating, which can be for months at a time.

Sarah Norcross, the director of the Progress Educational Trust charity which works on fertility and genomics, said the donor sperm shortage made it "a precious commodity" and "sperm banks and fertility clinics are maximising the use of available donors to meet demand".

Some sperm is more popular

From this small pool of donors, some men's sperm is just more popular than others.

Donors are not chosen at random. It's a similar process to the savage reality of dating apps, when some men get way more matches than others.

Depending on the sperm bank, you can browse photos, listen to their voice, find out what job they do - engineer or artist? - and check out their height, weight and more.

"You know if they're called Sven and they've got blonde hair, and they're 6 ft 4 (1.93m) and they're an athlete, and they play the fiddle and speak seven languages - you know that's far more attractive than a donor that looks like me," says male fertility expert Prof Allan Pacey, pictured, who used to run a sperm bank in Sheffield.

"Ultimately, people are swiping left and swiping right when it comes to donor matching."

How Viking sperm took over the world

Denmark is home to some of the world's biggest sperm banks, and has gained a reputation for producing "Viking babies".

Ole Schou, the 71-year-old founder of the Cryos International sperm bank where a single 0.5ml vial of sperm costs from €100 (£88) to more than €1000 (£880), says the culture around sperm donation in Denmark is very different to other countries.

"The population is like one big family," he says, "there is less taboo about these issues, and we are an altruistic population, many sperm donors also donate blood."

And that, Schou says, has allowed the country to become "one of the few exporters of sperm".

But he argues Danish sperm is also popular due to genetics. He told the BBC the Danish "blue-eyed and blonde-haired genes" are recessive traits, which means they need to come from both parents in order to appear in a child.

As a result, the mother's traits, such as dark hair, "might be dominant in the resulting child", Schou explains.

He says demand for donor sperm is coming mainly from "single, highly-educated, women in their 30s who have focused on their careers and left family planning too late". They now make up 60% of requests.

Sperm crossing borders

One aspect of the sperm donor investigation published earlier this week was how a man's sperm was collected at the European Sperm Bank in Denmark and then sent to 67 fertility clinics across 14 countries.

Nations have their own rules on how many times one man's sperm can be used. Sometimes it is linked to a total number of children, others limit it to a certain number of mothers (so each family can have as many related children as they want).

The original argument around those limits was to avoid half-siblings - who didn't know they were related - meeting each other, forming relationships and having children.

But there's nothing to stop the same donor's sperm being used in Italy and Spain and then the Netherlands and Belgium, as long as the rules are being followed in each country.

This creates circumstances where a sperm donor can legally father large numbers of children. Although the man is often in the dark about that fact.

"Many recipients, and also donors, are unaware that a single donor's sperm can be lawfully used in many different countries - this fact should be better explained," says Sarah Norcross, who argues it would be "sensible" to bring down the number of children one donor can have.

In response to the investigation into the sperm donor who passed on a gene that led to cancer in some of the 197 children he fathered, officials in Belgium have called on the European Commission to establish a Europe-wide sperm donor register to monitor sperm travelling across borders.

Deputy prime minister Frank Vandenbroucke said the industry was like the "Wild West" and "the initial mission of offering people the possibility of a family has given way to a veritable fertility business".

The European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology has also proposed a limit of 50 families per donor across the EU. That system would still allow one donor's sperm to make more than 100 children if the families wanted two or more babies each.

Concerns have been raised about the impact on the children conceived through sperm donation. Some will be happy, others can be profoundly distressed by the double discovery of being made with donor sperm and being one of hundreds of half-siblings.

The same is true of donors, who often have no idea their sperm is being so widely distributed.

These risks are amplified by readily available DNA ancestry tests and social media where people can search for their children, siblings or the donor. In the UK, there is no longer anonymity for sperm donors and there is an official process through which children learn the identity of their biological father.

Mr Schou at Cryos argues more restrictions on sperm donation would just lead families to "turn to the private, totally unregulated, market".

Dr John Appleby, a medical ethicist at Lancaster University, said the implications of using sperm so widely was a "vast" ethical minefield.

He said there are issues around identity, privacy, consent, dignity and more - making it a "balancing act" between competing needs.

Dr Appleby said the fertility industry had a "responsibility to get a handle on the number of times a donor is used", but agreeing global regulations would be undeniably "very difficult".

He added that a global sperm donor register, which has been suggested, came with its own "ethical and legal challenges".

The Trump administration has filed a lawsuit against a Georgia county seeking access to 2020 voting records, as Donald Trump continues to assert the presidential election was stolen from him.

The justice department lawsuit asks the state to turn over "all used and void ballots, stubs of all ballots, signature envelopes, and corresponding envelope digital files from the 2020 General Election in Fulton County".

The government accuses Fulton County of violating the Civil Rights Act, after local officials said that the ballots were sealed and could not be produced without a court order.

Trump narrowly lost the state of Georgia to Joe Biden in 2020 - a defeat that cost him the White House.

According to the lawsuit, the justice department sent a subpoena to Fulton County election officials in October demanding the ballot materials, citing a need to investigate "compliance with federal election law".

In a statement on Friday, Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon said that states must protect against "vote dilution".

"At this Department of Justice, we will not permit states to jeopardize the integrity and effectiveness of elections by refusing to abide by our federal elections laws," she said.. "If states will not fulfil their duty to protect the integrity of the ballot, we will."

The county did not immediately return requests for comment.

After losing the 2020 election to Biden, Trump alleged widespread fraud. Numerous courts rejected the legal challenges brought by his campaigns and allies.

Georgia, particularly Fulton County and the greater Atlanta region, became a focal point of Trump's challenges to the 2020 election results.

After the election, Trump called Georgia's Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and told him, "I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have. Because we won the state."

Raffensperger, whose office oversees Georgia's elections and certifies results, confirmed that Biden won the state even after multiple reviews.

His office declined to comment on the justice department's lawsuit.

Later, it was in Fulton County that Trump was criminally charged in connection with a scheme to overturn the state's election results.

Fulton County prosecutor Fani Willis brought an unsuccessful racketeering case against him alleging he led a criminal conspiracy to undermine Georgia's election results. Trump pleaded not guilty to the charges in August 2023.

A judge dismissed the case earlier this month, after a series of procedural blows hampered the prosecution and Trump's return to the White House in 2025 put the case on ice.

The Georgia election interference case was once considered the most threatening of Trump's four criminal indictments, because he could not pardon himself from state-level charges if he returned to office.

The Last Time Is Now. It's the name given to the tournament in which 16 wrestling giants have been competing to be the one opponent in John Cena's final fight before retirement.

And that final fight is now - Saturday night - in Washington DC, bringing the curtain down on an illustrious career that has seen the American become one of wrestling's biggest and most bankable stars.

In the 8,570 days since his debut, Cena has clinched 17 world titles and coined the iconic "You Can't See Me" catchphrase - but the 48-year-old's impact goes far beyond that.

If you were to pose the question "who is John Cena?", depending on who you ask, the answers might vary from legendary WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment) superstar, to successful film actor, while some will say he's Mr Make-A-Wish (more on that later).

How to watch John Cena's last match:

• Start time: WWE Saturday Night's Main Event is scheduled to begin at 01:00 GMT on Sun 14 Dec
• Where to watch: In the UK, you can watch for free on WWE's official YouTube channel. Internationally it can be watched on Netflix, and on Peacock in the US

'An exceptional wrestling talent'

Since his 2002 debut, there's been an evolution in his own wrestling character - transitioning from "ruthless aggression" rookie, to a "Doctor of Thuganomics" rapper, and eventually a heroic character known for a "Never Give Up" attitude.

Despite criticism from some fans of his in-ring ability, with occasional chants of "you can't wrestle" through the years, "there's no doubt that he's an exceptional wrestling talent", says Brandon Thurston, editor and owner of wrestling website, Wrestlenomics.

He feels something changed in 2005, after which WWE became "increasingly scripted in a way it had not been" before, as it entered into a more controlled, family friendly PG era. But Cena managed thrive.

"He's definitely been the biggest draw over the time which I would say stretches from 2005 to roughly 2015," Mr Thurston says, with Cena's merchandise also regularly topping sales for the company.

"There's little question that he was WWE's most important economic wrestler throughout that time - in terms of pay-per-view buys, which were still central in that era, TV ratings, and as a house show draw."

Outside the ring too, he's a personality who "people gravitate towards and want to listen to", says Mr Thurston - and wrestling fans like Joe Clarkson and Sabrina Nicole feel just that.

"To go for such a long time in an industry, which is quite heavily taxing on the body, is absolutely fascinating," says Joe, 24, who was five when he first saw Cena on TV.

"I think over time, the people just gained more and more respect for him, not just as a performer, but also as an individual."

For Sabrina, 37, who remembers Cena's WWE debut in 2002, it's "his charisma".

"He has just always had something about him that makes him a star," she says, adding that for most of his career, he's "always maintained a good guy persona".

"No matter what the crowd, no matter what the fans have thought of him. He has just been the testament to if you have a really good character, you can be on top," she says.

It also seems to be true that, beyond his ability and persona, Cena seized an opportunity.

With The Rock and Stone Cold Steve Austin no longer full-time performers, WWE bosses were looking for a new star to emerge.

Brandon feels WWE leadership recognised Cena "would be a very reliable and extremely hardworking person whom they could entrust with such a spot".

It's widely accepted within wrestling circles that the final decision to have Cena as the chosen star would ultimately have been taken by then-WWE chairman Vince McMahon.

While he was known for following his instincts, there will also have been a judgement on Cena's ability to connect with a passionate crowd on the mic, his marketability and whether he could be in the industry long enough to be profitable.

And when Cena started taking more time away from wrestling in 2015 and working a reduced schedule, Mr Thurston feels there was a "decline" in the WWE product.

Other wrestling experts have suggested Cena's presence over the years helped slow the slide of WWE ratings trending downwards which, according to analysis by wrestling site PWtorch, saw average viewership for its flagship weekly Raw programme fall by a million between 2010 and 2015, to 3.7m.

Having achieved so much within wrestling, Cena could "just come in and be a wrestler and walk out", adds Dr Gillian Brooks, associate professor in marketing at King's Business School, but instead she says he built a personal brand that comes across as real.

An 'authentic' character

Among the brands Cena has worked with is Neutrogena, becoming the face of its sunscreen campaign after revealing he had skin cancer spots - which he attributed to his own lack of sun protection use.

He also holds the Guinness World Record for the number of wishes granted through the Make-A-Wish Foundation, with more than 650 fulfilled wishes for children with critical illnesses. It's a partnership he revealed had started by "accident", but one he's kept since 2002, describing it as "the coolest thing".

"If you think about it from a child's perspective, they're seeing someone that they've seen on TV watching WWE or in films, and they suddenly get to meet him," Dr Brooks says. "The fact that he's doing charity work, he's written a children's book, been in films, made music… all these things illustrate that he's not a one show pony.

"It's coming across in a way that's very authentic and very sort of pure to who he is."

Both Cena's personal brand and his charisma are set to live on, but his time in the ring looks to have come to an end after Cena announced last year that 2025 would be his last as a competitor.

The retirement run

Explaining his reasoning at the time, he told of the physical toll wrestling had taken on his body.

His career has seen him undergo several operations, including on his neck, pec and triceps, with Cena saying in interviews that his "body hurts" and is "screaming to close the chapter".

While the old saying "never say never" is a popular one, Cena has repeatedly said he will be "100% done" - and has received rousing receptions around the world for his final appearances.

Overall, fan Joe is happy with Cena's "retirement run", with matches against old rivals such as AJ Styles, Randy Orton and CM Punk, and newer stars including Dominik Mysterio and Gunther.

He does feel the "execution" of his final year could have been better though, with Cena's short-term "heel turn" (becoming a villain) at the Elimination Chamber event in March drawing criticism.

"It could have been handled better," Joe says. "[But] he's had such a unique distinction of having a retirement run that no one's ever had before.

"It's very sad to see him retire now. But I think he said it himself - it's the right time."

Not that WWE fans will never see Cena again; he has signed a five-year deal to be an ambassador for the company.

Having won The Last Time Is Now tournament, it's former world heavyweight champion Gunther who will face Cena in his final fight.

With it not being broadcast on terrestrial TV, but rather on streaming platforms, it's been reported that there is no time limit on the match - and Gunther, who has never wrestled Cena before, has been giving much tough talk.

One thing's for sure: "You Can't See Me" might be the taunt Cena gives Gunther, but the last fight will be seen and remembered by many.

Crack open a tub of Celebrations or pull a Terry's Chocolate Orange from a stocking these days, and have you noticed, there seems to be a little less to go around?

Not only that, you might find – no, it is not your imagination – that some popular treats taste a little different, a little less "chocolatey".

To top it all the prices have risen too.

So will your festive favourites still hit the sweet spot this Christmas?

Chocs away

Many of the companies making popular bars and chocolates admit they have been looking for ways to save money. A tried-and-tested one is to replace some of the more expensive ingredients, like cocoa, with cheaper ones, a strategy that's been dubbed "skimpflation".

Some recipes have changed so much that bars like Toffee Crisp, Penguin and others can no longer be called chocolate.

There is even a debate among some chocolate fans over whether the year-round classic Cadbury's Dairy Milk has changed its recipe.

Becca Amy Stock, a TikTok influencer who goes by the name Becca Eats Everything, set herself the task of reviewing every milk chocolate bar at Britain's major supermarkets. The 29-year-old spent six hours and £100 on her rigorous research.

She concluded Dairy Milk was "more oily" since Cadbury's takeover by the American company Mondelez in 2010. And the brand, famous for its "glass and a half" of milk, was less milky, she said.

"You do notice the difference," Becca says, "Cadbury's does not taste how it used to taste."

Milk chocolate in the UK must have at least 20% cocoa solids and 20% milk solids to earn the name chocolate. Without that it has to be labelled "chocolate flavour" not chocolate. Cadbury's Dairy Milk still meets that standard.

Mondelez says it has not been fiddling with the recipe, at least not recently.

"Our Cadbury Dairy Milk products continue to be made with the same delicious recipes that consumers know and love," its spokesperson said. "The cocoa content has not changed for many years."

Crunching the numbers

But it is still one which you'll be paying more for.

Plenty of food manufacturers have been reducing the size of their products, without dropping prices, known as shrinkflation.

And some are also putting prices up, too.

Chocolate prices in supermarkets have risen by more than 18% on average from this time last year, according to market researchers Kantar.

We got these figures by analysing price data collected by market researchers Assosia across four of the UK's biggest grocers, Tesco, Sainsbury's, Asda and Morrisons, between December 2021 and December 2025.

They show:

• Cadbury's Dairy Milk weighs 10% less, while the cost jumped from £1.86 to £2.75 - a 48% price increase
• Mars Celebrations has shrunk by 23%. The price has risen from £4.25 to £6.11 - a 44% jump
• Terry's Chocolate Orange is 8% smaller, while the cost has risen from £1.49 to £2.25 - a 51% price rise

Mondelez's spokesperson said putting up prices was a "last resort" but ingredients are costing more - in particular cocoa and dairy.

"This means our products continue to be much more expensive to make.

"As a result of this difficult environment, we have had to make the decision to slightly reduce the weight and increase the list price of some of our Cadbury products," they said.

Mars Wrigley told the BBC higher cocoa prices and manufacturing costs meant they had to "adjust some… product sizes... without compromising on quality or taste."

Sticky costs

So what has caused the price of cocoa and milk to shoot up?

Extreme weather caused by climate change has hit cocoa farmers' crop yields in Africa, says Ghadafi Razak, an academic at Warwick Business School.

Extreme rainfall in India, Brazil and Thailand in 2023, followed by droughts the following year have meant poor harvests in those countries too, pushing up prices.

The extra costs take time to feed through to customers, says Christian Jaccarini, a senior food analyst at the Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit think tank, which means those extra costs are hitting shop shelves now.

"It takes about 18 months for the impact of a shock to be felt by consumers, so we still have quite a long time with higher prices for chocolate," he said.

Milk prices have shot up too. Diarmaid Mac Colgáin, founder of the Concept Dairy consultancy blames the rising cost of feed, fuel and fertilisers as well as farmers facing higher wage bills and production costs.

He says some brands have substituted palm oil and shea oil for some of the milk to make up the fat content of their chocolate.

Bad taste

Shoppers are becoming increasingly aware of these cost-saving tactics, but that does not mean they are happy about it.

It is the element of unwanted surprise that can leave a bad taste, according to Reena Sewraz, retail editor at consumer champion, Which?

It can feel "especially sneaky" when companies shrink products or downgrade their ingredients she said.

"With Christmas not far away, shoppers will be looking to get the best value from what they buy," she said. "Supermarkets and manufacturers should be more upfront about making these changes. Customers may not love the news - but [then] at least they don't feel misled."

But there is not much you can do about it. For Becca, who insists she's not "chocolated out" despite her chocolate-tasting marathon, quality not quantity is the way to go.

She suggests fellow chocoholics treat themselves to smaller premium bars such as Tony's Chocolonely. They'll cost more but she finds them more satisfying.

She also plans to treat herself to a selection-box on Christmas day.

Otherwise she generally advises against "food snobbery".

"I think supermarket own-brands are actually a much better way to get better quality chocolate."

"Every moment of that abortion was a surprise to me," says Annie Ernaux.

The French Nobel literature laureate is talking about an illegal abortion that nearly ended her life in 1963.

She was a 23-year-old student with ambitions to become a writer. But as the first in a family of labourers and shopkeepers to go to university, she could feel her future slipping away.

"Sex had caught up with me, and I saw the thing growing inside of me as the stigma of social failure," she wrote later.

Her one-word diary entries, as she waited for her period, read like a countdown to doom: RIEN. NOTHING.

Her options were to induce an abortion herself or find a doctor or backstreet abortionist who would do it at a price. The latter, usually women, were known as "angel-makers".

But it was impossible to get any information. Abortion was illegal and anyone involved - including the pregnant woman herself - could go to prison.

"It was secret, nobody talked about it," the 85-year-old says. "The girls of the time absolutely did not know how an abortion happened."

Ending the silence

Ernaux felt abandoned - but she was also determined. When writing about this time, she wanted to show how much strength it took to face this problem.

"Really it was a battle of life and death," she says.

In plain, factual language, Ernaux describes the events in unflinching detail in her book, Happening.

"It's the detail that matters," she says.

"It was the knitting needle I brought back from my parents' house. It was also that when I finally miscarried, I didn't know that there would be a placenta to pass."

She was rushed to hospital, haemorrhaging, from her university dormitory.

"It was the worst violence that could be inflicted on a woman. How could we have let women go through this?" she says. "I wasn't ashamed to describe all that. I was motivated by the feeling that I was doing something historically important.

"I realised that the same silence that had reigned over illegal abortion was carried over to legal abortion. So I said to myself, 'All this is going to be forgotten.'"

Happening, published in 2000, is now on the school syllabus in France and has been made into a multi-award-winning film.

Ernaux says it is important for young people to know the dangers of illegal abortion, because politicians sometimes seek to restrict access to legal abortion. She points to recent events in some US states and Poland.

"It is a fundamental freedom to be in control of your body and therefore of reproduction," she says.

Abortions are now a constitutional right in France - the first country to guarantee this - but Ernaux wants recognition for the countless women who died following illegal abortions.

Nobody knows exactly how many, because the cause of death was often disguised. It has been estimated that between 300,000 and one million women had illegal abortions every year in France before it was legalised in 1975.

"I think they deserve to have a monument, like there is to the unknown soldier in France," she says.

Ernaux was part of a delegation to propose such a monument to the Mayor of Paris earlier this year, but whether any action is taken will depend on the outcome of elections in March.

The subject still has the power to shock. Audience members are routinely carried out of the theatre when watching a stage adaptation of Ernaux's book, The Years, which also features an abortion scene.

Ernaux says she has had some funny reactions. One male university professor told her: "it could have been me!"

"That shows up this extraordinary fear of women's power," she says.

In her work, Ernaux fearlessly examines her own life.

Her books touch on shameful subjects that many have experienced, but few dare speak about - sexual assault, dark family secrets, losing her mother to Alzheimer's.

"These things happened to me so that I may recount them," is how she ends Happening.

In A Girl's Story, she recounts her first sexual experience, working at a summer camp, when an older camp leader assaulted her.

At the time, she did not understand what was happening, and was "a bit like a mouse in front of a snake, who doesn't know what to do".

Now, she accepts it would be considered rape, but she says her book does not include this word. "Because what's important to me is to describe exactly what happened, without judgement."

These events were recorded in her personal diaries, which Ernaux kept from the age of 16. After she married, these precious items were kept in a box in her mother's loft, together with letters from her friends.

But in 1970, when Ernaux's mother came to live with her and her family, she brought everything from the loft - except that box and its contents.

"I understood that she had read them and thought they should be destroyed," says Ernaux. "She must have been completely disgusted."

It was an incalculable loss, but Ernaux did not want to ruin their relationship with a pointless argument. And as an attempt by her mother to erase the past, it failed.

"The truth survived the fire," Ernaux writes in A Girl's Story.

Without her diaries to refer to she relied on her memory, which proved to be sufficient, she says.

"I can take a walk through my past, as I wish. It's like projecting a film."

This is also how she wrote her seminal book The Years, a collective history of the post-war generation.

"I simply had to ask myself, 'What was it like, after the war?' And I can visualise and hear it," she says.

These memories are not just her own, but those shared by the people around her. Ernaux grew up in her parents' cafe in Normandy, surrounded by customers from morning until night.

It meant she learned about adult problems from a young age - which embarrassed her.

"I wasn't sure if my classmates knew as much about the world as I did," she says. "I hated that I knew about men who were drunk, who drank too much. So I was ashamed of a lot of things."

'I will write to avenge my people'

Ernaux writes in a pared-down, unadorned style. She developed it, she once said, when she started writing about her father, a working man for whom plain language seemed appropriate.

At the age of 22, she wrote in her diary: "I will write to avenge my people," a sentence that has been her guiding light. Her aim was to "redress the social injustice linked to social class at birth", she said in her Nobel lecture in 2022.

As someone who moved from a rural, working-class life to a middle-class life in the suburbs, she calls herself an internal migrant.

For the past 50 years she has lived in Cergy, one of five "new towns" built around Paris, where she moved with her then husband and children. In 1975 it was still under construction, and she has watched the town grow around her.

"We are all equal in this space - all migrants, from within France and from outside." she says. "I don't think I would have the same perspective on French society if I lived in central Paris."

She bought the house she lives in now with money from her first literary prize.

The connection with her audience is important for Ernaux.

When a passionate love affair with a married Soviet diplomat ended in 1989, it was writing about it that helped her recover.

After the publication of that book, A Simple Passion, consolation came her way from readers.

"Suddenly I started receiving many many accounts from women, and men, who told me about their own love affairs. I felt like I had allowed people to open up about their secret," she says.

There is a certain amount of shame involved in having an all-consuming affair, she adds, "but at the same time, I have to say that it is the most wonderful memory of my whole life".

This content was created as a co-production between Nobel Prize Outreach and the BBC

King Charles has shared "good news" about his cancer, saying in a personal message that early diagnosis and "effective intervention" means his treatment can be reduced in the new year.

In a recorded video message broadcast on Channel 4 for the Stand Up To Cancer campaign, the King said: "This milestone is both a personal blessing and a testimony to the remarkable advances that have been made in cancer care."

This news that he is responding well to treatment is the biggest update on the King's health since he revealed his diagnosis in February 2024.

The type of cancer has not been identified and treatment and monitoring will continue, but he said: "Early diagnosis quite simply saves lives."

According to Buckingham Palace, the King's recovery has reached a very positive stage and he has "responded exceptionally well to treatment", so much so that doctors will now move his treatment "into a precautionary phase".

The regularity of treatment is going to be significantly reduced - but the King, 77, is not described as being in remission or "cured".

"Today I am able to share with you the good news that thanks to early diagnosis, effective intervention and adherence to 'doctors' orders', my own schedule of cancer treatment can be reduced in the new year," the King said in his speech.

The video message, recorded in Clarence House two weeks ago, was played in the Stand Up To Cancer show on Channel 4 on Friday evening, in a fundraising project run with Cancer Research UK.

The campaign encourages more people to get tested for cancer and to take advantage of national screening schemes - and the King's message emphasised the importance of checks to catch cancer at an early stage.

"I know from my own experience that a cancer diagnosis can feel overwhelming. Yet I also know that early detection is the key that can transform treatment journeys, giving invaluable time to medical teams," said the King.

Early detection could be a lifesaver, he said: "Your life, or the life of someone you love, may depend upon it."

The King also spoke of how much he had been "profoundly moved by what I can only call the 'community of care' that surrounds every cancer patient - the specialists, the nurses, researchers and volunteers who work tirelessly to save and improve lives".

Until now the King has said little publicly about his illness.

He didn't seem to want to be defined by the disease and his approach has been to keep working, with a busy schedule including overseas trips and hosting state visits, including last week's by the German president.

A couple of days ago he was sending a message of optimism and seasonal "hope", when he attended an atmospheric, candle-lit Advent service at Westminster Abbey.

The Stand Up To Cancer show, presented by celebrities including Davina McCall, Adam Hills and Clare Balding, has urged people not to be frightened of getting cancer checks.

In particular, the show has appealed to the estimated nine million people in the UK who Cancer Research UK says are not up to date with NHS screening schemes, offering an online checker to let people see if they are eligible for tests for breast, bowel and cervical cancer.

The King said it "troubles me deeply" that this represents nine million missed opportunities to catch cancer early - and he urged people to use the screening checker online tool.

"The statistics speak with stark clarity. To take just one example: When bowel cancer is caught at the earliest stage, around nine in 10 people survive for at least five years. When diagnosed late, that falls to just one in 10," he said.

According to royal sources, the King's reference to bowel cancer should not be seen as linked to his own condition, and prostate cancer has previously been ruled out.

In an attempt to demystify cancer checks and show the value of early diagnosis the Stand Up To Cancer show had a live broadcast from cancer clinics at Addenbrooke's and Royal Papworth hospitals in Cambridge.

"I want to take the fear out of cancer screening and show everyone that they are not on their own in this," said McCall, 58, who recently said she was recovering from breast cancer surgery.

Currently in the UK, there are three NHS cancer screening programmes - for bowel, breast and cervical cancer - available to certain age groups.

A new lung cancer screening programme is also being slowly rolled out for anyone at high risk of developing the disease, specifically targeting people aged 55-74 years old, who currently or used to smoke.

Men may enquire about prostate cancer checks, but there is no national programme in place.

The Stand Up to Cancer project, which has raised £113m since 2012, is funding 73 clinical trials involving 13,000 cancer patients.

Michelle Mitchell, chief executive of Cancer Research UK, said public figures speaking openly about cancer can encourage others to have a check up.

"Spotting cancer early can make a real difference and provides the best chance for successful treatment," she said.

Sign up here to get the latest royal stories and analysis every week with our Royal Watch newsletter. Those outside the UK can sign up here.

Ticket prices outstrip wages for many countries

You've bought your tickets, how about the flights?

What England and Scotland fans are saying

Ticket prices have soared since the bid document

How do World Cup ticket prices compare to other major events in the United States?

What is in the Christmas forecast?

What makes a Christmas officially 'white'?

What are the 'white Christmas' odds?

More on this story

• Is it winter yet?

  Published
  28 November

  

• UK snow: Five things you might not know

  Published
  25 December 2024

  

• Does the UK get less snow than it used to?

  Published
  3 January

  

Ukraine is running out of cash to keep its military and its economy going, after almost four years of Russia's full-scale war.

For Europe, the solution to plugging Kyiv's budget hole of €135.7bn (£119bn; $159bn) for the next two years lies in frozen Russian assets sitting in Belgian bank Euroclear and EU leaders hope to sign that off at their Brussels summit next week.

Russian officials warn the EU plan would be an act of theft and Russia's central bank announced on Friday it was suing Euroclear in a Moscow court even before a final decision is made.

'Only fair' to use Russia's assets

In total, Russia has about €210bn of its assets frozen in the EU, and €185bn of that is held by Euroclear.

The EU and Ukraine argue that money should be used to rebuild what Russia has destroyed: Brussels calls it a "reparations loan" and has come up with a plan to prop up Ukraine's economy to the tune of €90bn.

"It's only fair that Russia's frozen assets should be used to rebuild what Russia has destroyed – and that money then becomes ours," says Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz says the assets will "enable Ukraine to protect itself effectively against future Russian attacks".

Russia's court action was expected in Brussels. But it is not just Moscow that is unhappy.

Belgium is worried it will be saddled with an enormous bill if it all goes wrong and Euroclear chief executive Valérie Urbain says using it could "destabilise the international financial system".

Euroclear also has an estimated €16-17bn immobilised in Russia.

Belgian Prime Minister Bart de Wever has set the EU a series of "rational, reasonable, and justified conditions" before he will accept the reparations plan, and he has refused to rule out legal action if it "poses significant risks" for his country.

What is the EU's plan?

The EU is working to the wire ahead of next Thursday's summit to come up with a solution that Belgium can accept.

Until now the EU has held off touching the assets themselves directly but since last year has paid the "windfall profits" from them to Ukraine. In 2024 that was €3.7bn. Legally using the interest is seen as safe as Russia is under sanction and the proceeds are not Russian sovereign property.

But international military aid for Ukraine has slipped dramatically in 2025, and Europe has struggled to make up the shortfall left by the US decision to all but stop funding Ukraine under President Donald Trump.

There are currently two EU proposals aimed at providing Ukraine with €90bn, to cover two-thirds of its funding needs.

One is to raise the money on capital markets, backed by the EU budget as a guarantee. This is Belgium's preferred option but it requires a unanimous vote by EU leaders and that would be difficult when Hungary and Slovakia object to funding Ukraine's military.

That leaves loaning Ukraine cash from the Russian assets, which were originally held in securities but have now largely matured into cash. That money is Euroclear property held in the European Central Bank.

The EU's executive, the European Commission, accepts Belgium has legitimate concerns and says it is confident it has dealt with them.

The plan is for Belgium to be protected with a guarantee covering all the €210bn of Russian assets in the EU.

Should Euroclear suffer a loss of its own assets in Russia, a Commission source explained that would be offset from assets belonging to Russia's own clearing house which are in the EU.

If Russia went after Belgium itself, any ruling by a Russian court would not be recognised in the EU.

In a key development, EU ambassadors are expected to agree on Friday to immobilise Russia's central bank assets held in Europe indefinitely.

Until now they have had to vote unanimously every six months to renew the freeze, which could have meant a repeated risk to Belgium.

The EU ambassadors are set to use an emergency clause under Article 122 of the EU Treaties so the assets remain frozen as long as an "immediate threat to the economic interests of the union" continues.

Why Belgium is not yet satisfied

Belgium is adamant it remains a staunch ally of Ukraine, but sees legal risks in the plan and fears being left to handle the repercussions if things go wrong.

A usually divided political landscape in this case has rallied behind Prime Minister Bart de Wever, who is under pressure from European colleagues and having talks with UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer in London on Friday.

"Belgium is a small economy. Belgian GDP is about €565bn – imagine if it would need to shoulder a €185bn bill," says Veerle Colaert, professor of financial law at KU Leuven University.

While the EU might be able to secure sufficient guarantees for the loan itself, Belgium fears an added risk of being exposed to extra damages or penalties.

Prof Colaert also believes the requirement for Euroclear to grant a loan to the EU would violate EU banking regulations.

"Banks need to comply with capital and liquidity requirements and shouldn't put all their eggs in one basket. Now the EU is telling Euroclear to do just that.

"Why do we have these bank rules? It's because we want banks to be stable. And if things go wrong it would fall to Belgium to bail out Euroclear. That's another reason why it's so important for Belgium to secure water-tight guarantees for Euroclear."

Europe under pressure from every direction

There is no time to lose, warn seven EU member states including those closest to Russia such as the Baltics, Finland and Poland. They believe the frozen assets plan is "the most financially feasible and politically realistic solution".

"It's a matter of destiny for us," warns leading German conservative MP Norbert Röttgen. "If we fail, I don't know what we'll do afterwards. That's why we have to succeed in a week's time".

While Russia is adamant its money should not be touched, there are added concerns among European figures that the US may want to use Russia's frozen billions differently, as part of its own peace plan.

Zelensky has said Ukraine is working with Europe and the US on a reconstruction fund, but he is also aware the US has been talking to Russia about future co-operation.

An early draft of the US peace plan referred to $100bn of Russia's frozen assets being used by the US for reconstruction, with the US taking 50% of the profits and Europe adding another $100bn. The remaining assets would then be used in some kind of US-Russia joint investment project.

An EU source said the added advantage of Friday's expected vote to immobilise Russia's assets indefinitely made it harder for anyone to take the money away. Implicit is that the US would then have to win over a majority of EU member states to vote for a plan that would financially cost them an enormous sum.

More images from the estate of convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein have been released by Democrats on the House Oversight Committee.

The Democrats said the 19 images came from a tranche of 95,000 photos the committee received from Epstein's estate as part of its ongoing investigation.

US President Donald Trump, former Prince Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and former Trump adviser Steve Bannon are among the high-profile figures featured in the photos. The images, many of which have been seen before, do not imply wrongdoing.

It comes one week before a deadline for the US justice department to release all Epstein-related documents, which are separate from the images shared by the committee on Friday.

The individuals featured in the images have not yet commented. Many of them have previously denied wrongdoing in relation to Epstein.

In a statement, Representative Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the committee, said: "It is time to end this White House cover-up and bring justice to the survivors of Jeffrey Epstein and his powerful friends."

"These disturbing photos raise even more questions about Epstein and his relationships with some of the most powerful men in the world. We will not rest until the American people get the truth. The Department of Justice must release all the files, NOW" he added.

Republicans, who are in the majority on the committee, have accused Democrats of "cherry-picking photos and making targeted redactions to create a false narrative about President Trump".

The White House called the release a "Democrat hoax" against Trump that has been "repeatedly debunked".

Trump appeared in three of the images released on Friday. One image showed him standing next to a woman whose face has been redacted.

Another showed Trump standing next to Epstein while talking to model Ingrid Seynhaeve at a 1997 Victoria's Secret party in New York – an image that was already publicly available.

A third photo showed Trump smiling with several women, whose faces have also been redacted, flanked on either side of him.

An additional photo showed an illustrated likeness of the president on red packets next to a sign that reads: "Trump Condom".

Among the images released was what appeared to be cropped photo of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor next to Bill Gates. A fuller version of the photo, which was available on photo agency Getty Images, showed King Charles, the then-Prince of Wales, on the right side of the photo.

The Getty Images' caption said the picture was taken during a summit during the Commonwealth heads of government meeting in London in April 2018.

Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon was also pictured in some of the images. He was shown speaking with Epstein at a desk, and in another, standing beside him in front of a mirror.

A third image showed him speaking with filmmaker Woody Allen.

A photo featuring former US President Bill Clinton's showed him standing next to Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, who was convicted in 2021 for her role in facilitating the disgraced financier's abuse.

Two other people the BBC has yet to identify are also in the image, which appeared to have been signed by Clinton.

Clinton has denied any wrongdoing in relation to Epstein. In 2019, a spokesperson said he "knows nothing about the terrible crimes" Epstein pleaded guilty to.

Other prominent figures which appear in the images include US economist Larry Summers, lawyer Alan Dershowitz and entrepreneur Richard Branson. Not all the images show those individuals in the company of Epstein.

Epstein was charged with sex trafficking in July 2019. He died in prison a month later while awaiting trail.

The president was a friend of Epstein's, but has said they fell out in the early 2000s, years before he was first arrested.

Trump has denied any wrongdoing in relation to Epstein.

The justice department is required to release investigative material related to Epstein by 19 December under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which was signed into law by Trump last month.