Two men who planned a gun attack to cause "untold harm" to the Jewish community in Greater Manchester have been found guilty.

Walid Saadaoui, 38, and 52-year-old Amar Hussein had a "visceral dislike" of Jewish people and arranged for guns to be brought into the UK as part of an "Isis-inspired plot", Preston Crown Court was told.

The men believed they were planning their attacks with a third man who they thought shared their extremist views but "Farouk" was actually an undercover operative, the court heard.

A third defendant, Saadaoui's brother Bilel Saadaoui, 36, has been convicted of failing to disclose information about acts of terrorism.

Walid Saadaoui, of Abram in Wigan, and Hussein, of no fixed abode, were convicted of preparing acts of terrorism between 13 December 2023 and 9 May 2024.

The court heard their plan was to get the weapons and ammunition and identify a mass gathering of Jewish people whom they could attack.

They had also identified areas in Greater Manchester with a large Jewish population.

In addition, they intended to kill any law enforcement or police officers who got in their way.

Their plans were laid bare through their communication with Farouk and, as a result, the police were able to thwart them.

Farouk said he would arrange for the weapons to be brought into the country from Europe.

Walid Saadaoui was arrested in a hotel car park in Bolton on 8 May 2023.

The prosecution said two assault rifles, a semi-automatic pistol and nearly 200 rounds of ammunition were found in the vehicle.

However, counter-terrorism police said they were in control of the supply and delivery of the weapons the whole time in order to protect the public.

Hussein and Bilel Saadaoui, who were both elsewhere, were arrested minutes later.

The trial heard Walid Saadaoui had been planning to "martyr himself", had prepared a will and had left a copy with his brother, along with access to his belongings and tens of thousands of pounds in cash to help provide for his family.

Bilel Saadaoui, of Hindley, Wigan, was not planning to take part in the attacks but knew what his brother was doing and sympathised with the views of the so-called Islamic State group.

The trial was shown WhatsApp messages between the pair which "provided a flavour of the views they held about Jewish people".

In one message Bilel Saadaoui had sent Hussein a link to a news report that a number of Jewish people had been killed in a bridge collapse, and he added the hashtag "Beloved Palestine".

'Deadliest terrorist attack'

Following the verdicts, Assistant Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police Robert Potts said: "What Walid Saadaoui was trying to achieve was a terrorist attack on the Jewish community that, given the weaponry and ammunition involved, could potentially have been the deadliest terrorist attack in UK history.

"Some of the things he said made it very clear that he regarded a less sophisticated attack with less lethal weaponry as not being good enough as he saw it as his duty to kill as many Jewish people as he could.

"That wasn't going to be achieved via the use of a knife, or potentially a vehicle, as a weapon.

"There was very real risk and danger for Farouk who undoubtedly saved lives.

"I cannot overemphasise his courage, bravery and professionalism in the role that he played."

Listen to the best of BBC Radio Manchester on Sounds and follow BBC Manchester on Facebook, X, and Instagram. You can also send story ideas via Whatsapp to 0808 100 2230.

Denise Coates, the founder and chief executive of Bet365, received a pay package of at least £280m in 2025, marking another year as one of Britain's highest-paid bosses.

Her total earnings jumped by more than two thirds from almost £158m a year earlier, despite profits at the gambling firm tumbling.

Ms Coates was awarded £104m in salary in the year to March 2025, Companies House filings show.

In addition, as a majority shareholder in Bet365, she was entitled to at least half of the £354m dividend payment declared by the firm for the year.

The £280m package means she has earned more than £2bn from Bet365 over the past decade.

Campaign group the High Pay Centre condemned Ms Coates's pay as too high.

Director Andrew Speke said: "Denise Coates is well-liked in Stoke for being self-made and giving back to her community.

"But the eye-watering sums she earns go far beyond what anyone needs for a life of luxury - and her fortune comes from an industry that has caused real harm to too many people."

Bet365 has been approached for comment.

Her latest pay deal came as Bet365's pre-tax profit fell to £349m for the year, from £627m previously. Overall revenue rose by 9%, from £3.7bn a year earlier to £4bn.

Ms Coates founded Bet365 in a portable building in a Stoke-on-Trent car park more than 20 years ago. It is now the biggest private sector employer in the city and offers sports betting, poker, casino games and bingo online to millions of customers worldwide.

She is one of Britain's richest women and among the world's highest-paid executives.

After training as an accountant, Ms Coates helped build Bet365 into one of the biggest online gambling companies from her father's bookmaking business. Her brother, John Coates, is a co-chief executive of the company.

As well as being one of the UK's best-paid bosses, Ms Coates is reportedly among the country's biggest taxpayers. Her £104m salary would see her pay tens of millions in income tax and national insurance.

Bet365 also said the company paid £482m of tax in the year to March, up from £364m a year earlier, including tax on dividend payments.

During the year, Bet365 donated £130m to the Denise Coates Foundation, which donates to charities covering education, arts and culture and health.

Russia launched a "massive" attack on several Ukrainian cities overnight on Monday, President Volodymyr Zelensky has said, a day after he warned of strikes over the Christmas period.

At least three people were killed, according to Ukrainian officials, including a four-year-old child, while energy infrastructure was also targeted, leaving several regions without power.

Russia launched more than 600 drones and 30 missiles, according to Ukraine.

Zelensky said "people simply want to be with their families, at home, and safe" in the run-up to Christmas, and said the strikes sent "an extremely clear signal about Russia's priorities" despite ongoing peace talks.

He added: "Putin still cannot accept that he must stop killing. And that means that the world is not putting enough pressure on Russia."

Zelensky had previously warned it was in the Kremlin's "nature" to "carry out massive attacks" during the festive period.

Confirming a child's death in the central Zhytomyr region, local official Vitaly Bunechko said: "She was taken to hospital, doctors fought for her life but could not save her in the end." Five others were injured in the strike, he added.

Meanwhile, a 76-year-old woman was killed and three people injured when a house in the Kyiv region was struck, according to Ukraine's state emergencies service.

An attack in Khmelnytskyy, western Ukraine, killed a 72-year-old, regional administration head Serhiy Tyurin said.

Polish fighter jets were scrambled in response to missiles and drones targeting west Ukraine.

The Russian defence ministry said it had targeted energy facilities and other transport infrastructure, according to Russian state news agency Tass.

Meanwhile, Ukraine reportedly struck a petrochemical plant in Stravropol, southern Russia.

Videos shared by Russian media channels online showed large flames rising from the direction of the plant.

The region's governor, Vladimir Vladimirov, said a Ukrainian drone hit the plant and sparked a fire. No casualties were reported and residential buildings were left undamaged.

With temperatures expected to fall to as low as -7C on Wednesday, Ukraine's energy operator warned of emergency power shutdowns "in all regions" and urged people to use energy "sparingly".

Acting energy minister Artem Nekrasov said it was the ninth large attack on Ukraine's energy system this year, and that supply in the Rivne, Ternopil and Khmelnytsky regions has been "almost completely" lost.

Ukrainian MP Oleksandr Merezhko told the BBC World Service that some areas could be without power "for days".

The main focus of Russian attacks in recent days has been the southern port city of Odesa, which comes after Vladimir Putin threatened to sever Ukraine's access to the Black Sea.

The Russian president made the threat in retaliation for Ukrainian drone attacks on tankers belonging to Russia's "shadow fleet", vessels used to move good including oil which are under Western sanctions.

The Tuesday morning attack punctured a period of relative calm in the capital Kyiv, where it has been weeks since Shahed drones have been spotted flying low overhead.

In the Ukrainian capital, many suspect the most recent attack is linked to Monday's killing of a top Russian general after a car bomb exploded in Moscow.

Lt Gen Fanil Sarvarov - the head of the armed forces' operational training department - died in the blast, which Russia has blamed on Ukraine. Kyiv has not commented.

It also comes after the latest round of US-led diplomatic talks in Miami, where envoys from Washington and Kyiv have been drafting detailed proposals to end the war.

According to Zelensky, the US had proposed a Christmas truce but Russia rejected the idea.

Zelensky said he received a progress report on the talks on Tuesday morning, and that "several draft documents have now been prepared", including a basic framework to end the war, future security guarantees for Ukraine, and on the country's post-war recovery.

Putin was also due to be briefed by his envoy Kirill Dmitriev on Tuesday on the latest discussions with Washington.

The family of a former Irish rugby star whose international caps were stolen during a break-in almost forty years ago have appealed for their return.

Ken Goodall, who died in 2006, first played for Ireland against Australia in 1967 and won the last of his 19 international caps against Wales in 1970.

His Irish international caps were the only items taken during the break-in at his family home in Londonderry in 1987.

"I would love the family to get these caps back... that would be the end of it as far as I am concerned," Goodall's brother Alan said.

Speaking to BBC Radio Foyle's 20 Minutes with Mark Patterson programme, Alan said nothing else was taken when the home was targeted back in 1987.

"It was only the caps that went," he said, adding Ken and his wife Wilma were not the type of people "who would have had expensive jewellery and stuff like that".

He has over the years started to think the caps were "stolen to order".

Getting the caps back now, Alan said, is "a tall order" but he hoped whoever had them might return them.

"If the person who done this is about… and maybe thinking: 'Oh, them caps, they're lying up in my loft.'

"I do not want to see you prosecuted.

"I'd say: 'Thanks very much for doing that.'"

Derry, Ulster, Ireland and the Lions

Ken Goodall, a number eight from City of Derry RFC, rose quickly through the competitive ranks of rugby, making his Ireland debut at the age of 19.

Over the course of his rugby union career he played for Ulster, Newcastle University, Ireland and the Barbarians.

In 1968, at the age of 21, he played on the British Lions tour of South Africa.

However, Goodall's Lions career did not last long after he broke a bone in his hand during his first game against Eastern Transvaal and had to return home.

The last of his 19 Ireland caps was won in a victory over Wales, and Goodall then joined rugby league side Workington.

When his time in sport came to an end, Goodall returned to teach in Derry, retiring as vice-principal of Faughan Valley High School.

The family's appeal for the return of the stolen Irish caps comes just months after they were reunited with Goodall's cap won for representing the British Lion on that 1968 tour.

In 2017 the Lions Trust launched an initiative to reunite former players with their international caps.

The cap had been, unbeknown to the family, in an office in Dublin until July, when it was reunited with the Goodall family.

Government proposals to tax inherited farmland have been watered down, with the planned threshold increasing from £1m to £2.5m.

The climbdown follows months of protests by farmers and concern from some Labour backbenchers.

At last year's Budget, ministers said they would start imposing a 20% tax on inherited agricultural assets worth more than £1m from April 2026.

Environment Secretary Emma Reynolds said: "We have listened closely to farmers across the country and we are making changes today to protect more ordinary family farms."

"It's only right that larger estates contribute more, while we back the farms and trading businesses that are the backbone of Britain's rural communities."

Head of the National Farmers' Union Tom Bradshaw welcomed the change, telling BBC Radio 5 Live it "takes out many family farms from the eye of pernicious storm".

Gavin Lane, President of the Country Land and Business Association, said: "The government deserves credit for recognising the flaws in the original policy and changing course.

"However, this announcement only limits the damage - it doesn't eradicate it entirely.

"Many family businesses will own enough expensive machinery and land to be valued above the threshold, yet still operate on such narrow profit margins that this tax burden remains unaffordable."

In the 14 months since the initial proposal was announced, there have been regular protests by farmers outside Parliament.

Some Labour MPs in rural areas have also expressed concern. At a recent parliamentary vote on the plan, a dozen backbenchers abstained and one, Markus Campbell-Savours, voted against.

Campbell-Savours was subsequently suspended for voting against the government, meaning he now sits as an independent MP.

Russia launched a "massive" attack on several Ukrainian cities overnight on Monday, President Volodymyr Zelensky has said, a day after he warned of strikes over the Christmas period.

At least three people were killed, according to Ukrainian officials, including a four-year-old child, while energy infrastructure was also targeted, leaving several regions without power.

Russia launched more than 600 drones and 30 missiles, according to Ukraine.

Zelensky said "people simply want to be with their families, at home, and safe" in the run-up to Christmas, and said the strikes sent "an extremely clear signal about Russia's priorities" despite ongoing peace talks.

He added: "Putin still cannot accept that he must stop killing. And that means that the world is not putting enough pressure on Russia."

Zelensky had previously warned it was in the Kremlin's "nature" to "carry out massive attacks" during the festive period.

Confirming a child's death in the central Zhytomyr region, local official Vitaly Bunechko said: "She was taken to hospital, doctors fought for her life but could not save her in the end." Five others were injured in the strike, he added.

Meanwhile, a 76-year-old woman was killed and three people injured when a house in the Kyiv region was struck, according to Ukraine's state emergencies service.

An attack in Khmelnytskyy, western Ukraine, killed a 72-year-old, regional administration head Serhiy Tyurin said.

Polish fighter jets were scrambled in response to missiles and drones targeting west Ukraine.

The Russian defence ministry said it had targeted energy facilities and other transport infrastructure, according to Russian state news agency Tass.

Meanwhile, Ukraine reportedly struck a petrochemical plant in Stravropol, southern Russia.

Videos shared by Russian media channels online showed large flames rising from the direction of the plant.

The region's governor, Vladimir Vladimirov, said a Ukrainian drone hit the plant and sparked a fire. No casualties were reported and residential buildings were left undamaged.

With temperatures expected to fall to as low as -7C on Wednesday, Ukraine's energy operator warned of emergency power shutdowns "in all regions" and urged people to use energy "sparingly".

Acting energy minister Artem Nekrasov said it was the ninth large attack on Ukraine's energy system this year, and that supply in the Rivne, Ternopil and Khmelnytsky regions has been "almost completely" lost.

Ukrainian MP Oleksandr Merezhko told the BBC World Service that some areas could be without power "for days".

The main focus of Russian attacks in recent days has been the southern port city of Odesa, which comes after Vladimir Putin threatened to sever Ukraine's access to the Black Sea.

The Russian president made the threat in retaliation for Ukrainian drone attacks on tankers belonging to Russia's "shadow fleet", vessels used to move good including oil which are under Western sanctions.

The Tuesday morning attack punctured a period of relative calm in the capital Kyiv, where it has been weeks since Shahed drones have been spotted flying low overhead.

In the Ukrainian capital, many suspect the most recent attack is linked to Monday's killing of a top Russian general after a car bomb exploded in Moscow.

Lt Gen Fanil Sarvarov - the head of the armed forces' operational training department - died in the blast, which Russia has blamed on Ukraine. Kyiv has not commented.

It also comes after the latest round of US-led diplomatic talks in Miami, where envoys from Washington and Kyiv have been drafting detailed proposals to end the war.

According to Zelensky, the US had proposed a Christmas truce but Russia rejected the idea.

Zelensky said he received a progress report on the talks on Tuesday morning, and that "several draft documents have now been prepared", including a basic framework to end the war, future security guarantees for Ukraine, and on the country's post-war recovery.

Putin was also due to be briefed by his envoy Kirill Dmitriev on Tuesday on the latest discussions with Washington.

Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor is understood to have voluntarily surrendered his gun licence after a visit from the Metropolitan Police.

Officers attended the former prince's Royal Lodge residence in Windsor last month, ahead of his expected house move in the new year.

A Met Police spokesperson said: "On Wednesday, 19 November, Metropolitan Police firearms licensing officers attended an address in Windsor to request that a man in his 60s voluntarily surrender his firearms and shotgun certificate."

The force said the certificate was surrendered but did not comment further.

It is not clear why the former prince - a known hunting enthusiast - gave up his licence, but the decision means he can only use or transport his guns if supervised.

Surrendering a certificate does not mean the individual will not have access to their firearms.

Andrew is expected to move to Norfolk in the new year, after he was stripped of his titles over his links to the late paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein.

The former prince will move to an undisclosed property on the Sandringham estate, which is privately owned by his brother, King Charles III.

In October, Buckingham Palace said the move would take place "as soon as possible and practicable".

Andrew's connection to Epstein came under scrutiny again last week after a photo of him lying on the laps of women was released by the US government as part of the Epstein files.

The King's brother was one of many well-known figures to be pictured in the files, and appearing in them is not evidence of a crime. Andrew has always denied any wrongdoing in relation to Epstein.

BBC Radio 1Xtra presenter Nick Bright is set to leave the station after 15 years on air.

Joining as part of its production team in 2009, Nick moved into presenting the early breakfast show a year later.

He's become a familiar voice to 1Xtra listeners, hosting weekend breakfast and a Saturday mid-morning programme over the years.

The station says his final show will be from 10am to 1pm on Saturday 3 January.

'What a run'

In a post on Instagram, 1Xtra thanked him for "15 fantastic years".

"He has brought great energy and enthusiasm," it added.

"He will always be a part of the 1Xtra family and we wish him the very best for the future."

Radio 1 Breakfast Show presenter Greg James was among colleagues paying tribute to Nick after his departure was announced.

"What a run," said Greg on Instagram, while 1Xtra Talks presenter Richie Brave called Nick "one of the greatest broadcasters out there".

The station says it will share its plan for Nick's replacement soon.

Outside of 1Xtra, the presenter is a familiar face and voice across BBC Sport and Radio 5 Live.

He has been part of covering cricket's The Hundred tournament and hosted programmes for Team GB during the Paris Olympics in 2024.

Fans may also have spotted him presenting live sport including Baller League, the Six Nations and Formula E.

Listen to Newsbeat live at 12:45 and 17:45 weekdays - or listen back here.

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A former councillor has appeared in court accused of a string of sexual offences against his ex-wife over a 13-year period.

Philip Young, 49, is charged with 56 offences, including multiple counts of rape and administering a substance with intent to stupefy his former spouse Joanne Young.

Mr Young, formerly of Swindon but now living in Enfield, spoke only to confirm his name and address at Swindon Magistrates' Court.

A total of six men have been charged with offences against Ms Young, 48, who has waived her legal right to anonymity.

Mr Young was remanded into custody earlier and is next due to appear at Swindon Crown Court for a hearing on 23 January.

This breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly. Please refresh the page for the fullest version.

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Attorney General Pam Bondi took to X over the weekend with a bold statement: "President Trump is leading the most transparent administration in American history."

Her post was about efforts to release documents concerning the attempted assassination of Trump last July.

But the folks commenting in the replies had a completely different investigation in mind – the one into Jeffrey Epstein.

And they weren't buying it.

"Liar," snapped several people – along with many much harsher insults. One conservative YouTuber who mixes blistering tirades with Bitcoin promotions wrote: "I will vote for whatever President ... campaigns on arresting Pam Bondi over the cover up of the Epstein Files."

After folding into his coalition many non-traditional voters from the more fringe corners of the internet, Trump and members of his administration now find themselves coming face to face with the conspiratorial thinking they have stoked.

"This is the greatest cover-up by a president and for a president in history," said one member of a Facebook group devoted to sleuthing about the case. "Epstein is the story and don't let up."

At issue isn't so much the previously unreleased pictures of people like Bill Clinton, Mick Jagger, Michael Jackson and legendary news anchor Walter Cronkite in Epstein's company – which is not an indicator of any wrongdoing – but the sea of blacked-out redactions in the files themselves.

On the campaign trail last year, Trump suggested that he would support the release of investigation files. In February, Bondi said they were "sitting on my desk right now to review".

But after so much time and anticipation, Friday's release landed with a whimper.

Joe Uscinski, an associate professor of political science at the University of Miami who studies conspiracy theories and conspiratorial thinking, says Trump's coalition is now more about scepticism and antagonism towards institutions - and less about traditional Republican Party goals.

Many in the movement, he says, believe that huge numbers of children are being used for sex trafficking, beliefs that are bolstered by Epstein's very real crimes as well as conspiracy theories like QAnon.

"People don't necessarily want documents released - they want documents released which tell them that what they believe is true."

The potential for political trouble is not lost on Trump's inner circle. In a Vanity Fair article published prior to the document release, White House chief of staff Susie Wiles described the people compelled to vote for Trump because of his promises on Epstein as "Joe Rogan listeners" – in other words, younger men who aren't traditionally into politics.

Wiles has called the story a "hit piece". But she has not disputed specific quotes, including her assertion that Trump has not yet solidified a lasting Republican majority.

"The people that are inordinately interested in Epstein are the new members of the Trump coalition, the people that I think about all the time – because I want to make sure that they are not [only] Trump voters, they're Republican voters," she told the magazine.

Polls and experts back up the chief of staff's concerns about the tenuous nature of Trump's coalition.

A survey released in early December by the right-wing Manhattan Institute think tank labelled nearly a third of Trump's supporters "New Entrant Republicans" – people who voted for the party for the first time in 2024. And the poll found that just over half of that category would "definitely" support a Republican in the 2026 mid-term elections.

"These voters are drawn to Trump but are not reliably attached to the Republican Party," the institute concluded.

• Trump's chief of staff disputes Vanity Fair story
• Image in Epstein files that features Trump reinstated after backlash
• Who and what are in the Epstein files?

The possible fragility of the Trump coalition is playing out on several different levels.

One crucial group is a collection of social media stars and podcasters who stand mostly outside traditional Republican circles but have clout and influence online.

They were instrumental in keeping social media attention on the Epstein story long after the convicted sex offender's death.

A group of influencers – including "Libs of TikTok" creator Chaya Raichik, conspiracy theorist and Turning Point USA activist Jack Posobiec, and elections organiser Scott Presler – were even invited to an event at the Department of Justice (DoJ) and given binders, which Bondi described as a "first phase" of Epstein document releases.

Little if anything new was in the binders, which caused a backlash. Outrage swelled further in July after the DoJ released a memo saying that there was no Epstein "client list" and rejecting conspiracy theories about his death in prison.

Yet following the most recent release, many of these same conservative influencers have been curiously silent.

Laura Loomer, a popular Maga social media influencer who has helped spread Epstein conspiracies online, claimed that they exonerated Trump from any wrongdoing.

"Maybe now the media will stop obsessing over these files," wrote Loomer, who has mentioned Epstein at least 200 times on X this year alone.

Others - including several who were at the DoJ binder event - have not mentioned the document release at all, positively or negatively.

Their silence has been noted by other right-wing and far-right commentators, sparking online Maga infighting. And the row over the Epstein case is just one controversy currently roiling the movement, with arguments over free speech, anti-Semitism and Charlie Kirk's legacy bursting out into the open at an annual conference put on by Turning Point USA this week.

Jared Holt, senior researcher at Open Measures, a company that analyses online extremism, says the debate over the Epstein files is just one controversy contributing to the challenges facing the Maga movement.

"At the beginning of the year, Maga was a triumphant intimidating cultural force, now the train is falling off the tracks and there's no clear sign that it will be stabalising or rebounding anytime soon," he says.

"It seems like the die-hard Trump base has atrophied over the course of the year," Holt says, but notes that it's too soon to tell if the recent heavily redacted document drop will have any significant impact on the sorts of "Joe Rogan listeners" Wiles is concerned about.

Prominent voices in Congress have been less shy than the influencer class about criticising the justice department. Soon-to-be-ex-Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene lambasted the release, calling it "NOT MAGA".

Thomas Massie, the Republican member of the House of Representatives from Kentucky who spearheaded legislation leading to the document release, spent the weekend lambasting the justice department online and on US weekend talk shows.

He accused Bondi and officials of being in violation of the law requiring the release of the files, and has joined forces with Democratic Representative Ro Khanna to push for greater transparency.

Massie has suggested that they could move to charge Bondi with "inherent contempt" for ignoring a congressional order - a move which could force further document disclosures.

Regardless of whether or not that happens, there may be further revelations in the next few days. Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general, has promised hundreds of thousands more documents before the end of the year.

Maybe there was a memo sent round the royal households of Europe, but many of this year's Christmas cards seem to have similar images of showing their families holding on to each other tenderly.

Touching, linking arms, holding hands, hugging, they're all sending messages about how close they are to each other.

It's like royal superglue has been applied, connecting them in these Christmas portraits. This is the era of the relatable royals.

The Prince and Princess of Wales have been leading the way, with a Christmas card showing a relaxed, informal family group cosying up to each other in the Norfolk countryside.

As with last year's card, they're continuing in a style that is far away from a stiff, formal portrait, showing a young family having fun together on a spring day, full of affection, dressed in jeans and jumpers.

Prince William has talked about making changes in his approach to the monarchy.

And this is projecting an image that they're like any other family, with eye-lines not looking down on the viewer, literally down to earth, sitting on the grass.

Compare that to this 1969 Christmas card, which shows the royals laughing, smiling and gathered around a boat. Presumably this was meant to feel relaxed and modern.

But they're fairly stiffly dressed, they're all standing apart and it looks like they've just been presented a prize on a game show.

Back to 2025 and King Charles and Queen Camilla are arm in arm in their Christmas card - a show of unity in what's been a busy year.

The picture is a mix of the friendly and the formal, taken on the first day of the state visit to Italy, when the couple were celebrating their 20th wedding anniversary.

The Queen is wearing a lily of the valley brooch, a symbol of enduring love.

That trip was in April, which accounts for the spring backdrop for this Christmas card. The setting is Villa Wolkonsky in Rome, the elegant residence of the UK's ambassador to Italy.

Prince Harry and Meghan are holding hands in their Christmas card - or in fact, a "Happy Holiday Season" card.

Unlike others they've got the season right, with some festive snow captured in a picture from the Invictus Game in Canada in February.

They look like a fashionable couple, smiling optimistically from behind their sunglasses. It's got a sense of movement.

Although the framing of the message isn't so intimate: "On behalf of the Office of Prince Harry and Meghan, Duke and Duchess of Sussex."

This portrait of the Belgian royal family shows them as though on the way to some grand event. Or at least waiting at a very upmarket bus stop.

They've gone for a more polished look - suits, ties, long dresses - but also with a bit of greenery. The picture was presumably taken when it was warmer, outside their residence at the Palace of Laeken.

It's a multilingual country and the greeting inside - Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year - is in French, German, Flemish and English.

The Spanish royals have combined a range of styles with their Christmas card.

It's projecting a casual, approachable, family image, as if catching them accidentally on a walk in the countryside. No more ties or tiaras for these modern royals.

But at the same time, it has all the dynastic shape of a traditional court painting. A monarch and his family are looking out at us. It's Velasquez in jeans.

The setting, a place which won an award for the best village in the Asturias region, sends a message about supporting Spain's small communities and their traditional heritage.

King Felipe is 6ft 6in (1.97m) tall, so presumably the family group had to be arranged so that he didn't tower over them. For Spaniards, it's a case of very long to reign over us.

Monaco's royal Christmas card is much grander, with a big fire, oil painting, formal clothes, and a sense of regal order.

There's also a sighting of the Alan Partridge-style smart casual look.

Bonus points though for actually showing a bit of Christmas, with a tree and the log fire, unlike many of the other cards which are basically just people sending out pictures of themselves.

Another extra detail is the tiny dog smuggled into the picture, beside Charlene, Princess of Monaco. She's a former Olympic swimmer and so not shy about making a splash.

The Luxembourg royals, the Grand Duke Guillaume and the Grand Duchess Stephanie, have covered all the angles for a 2025 card.

It's got the touchy-feely, we're-not-uptight family atmosphere, full of playful laughs and children clambering over their parents.

It's also got a proper tree with decorations, there's a Rudolf reindeer toy and they've put some thought into all the splashes of red.

It might look a bit chaotic - but it's Christmassy.

But there was no contest for this year's winner. Juan Carlos, who abdicated as Spanish king in 2014, hit by scandals, now living in Abu Dhabi, sent an irresistible royal Christmas card.

Five small dogs in front of an artificial tree, looking regal in a kind of classic royal portrait line up. But it's more bark than Bach.

What does it mean? The light is glinting on the dogs' baubles. They look up with crumpled, hopeful faces. It's Christmas and that's a time for paws for thought.

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Police leaders are set to recommend scrapping non-crime hate incidents (NCHIs) in a review to be published next month.

College of Policing chair Lord Herbert told the BBC a "sensible" new approach, focused only on the most serious incidents, would "re-balance the system" for the social media age.

NCHIs are alleged acts motivated by hostility or prejudice towards people with certain characteristics, such as race or gender, but which do not meet the bar for a criminal offence.

Current Home Office guidance says they are recorded to collect data on "hate incidents that could escalate into more serious harm", but critics say they divert police resources and restrict freedom of speech.

Though they are not crimes, NCHIs stay on police records and can come up in background checks.

Police guidance on the recording of NCHIs was first published in 2005, following recommendations by an inquiry into the murder of Stephen Lawrence - the London teenager who was stabbed to death in a racist attack in 1993.

But Lord Herbert said "an explosion of social media" in the years since they were introduced has meant police had been drawn into monitoring "mere disputes" online.

Officers do not want to be "policing tweets", he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

He added that recent headlines about NCHIs were "awkward and very damaging" for the police.

"It was quite clear that the whole regime needed looking at, that there was a perception that the police were being drawn into matters that they shouldn't have been," he added.

The home secretary will have the final decision on whether to adopt the recommendations outlined by the College of Policy and National Police Chiefs' Council in their review next month.

The Home Office told the BBC "a consistent, common-sense approach" that protected the "fundamental right to free speech" was needed, but added it would not pre-empt the findings of the review.

Details of the new proposals were first reported by the Telegraph. Lord Herbert told the newspaper that "only the most serious category of what will be treated as anti-social behaviour will be recorded".

Last year, the paper reported that 43 police forces in England and Wales had recorded more than 133,000 NCHIs since 2014.

In October, the Metropolitan Police said it would no longer investigate NCHIs to allow officers to "focus on matters that meet the threshold for criminal investigations".

It came after the policing watchdog said forces should stop recording them.

In April, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch called for NCHIs to be scrapped in most cases, arguing they "wasted police time chasing ideology and grievance instead of justice".

Fake adverts for weight loss drugs by a company pretending to be health and beauty retailer Boots have been removed from TikTok after the firm complained.

The adverts for prescription-only weight loss drugs appeared to show smiling healthcare professionals from the British retailer - but in reality they were made with AI.

It is illegal to advertise prescription-only weight loss drugs to the public.

A spokesperson for Boots told the BBC the firm was "aware" of the videos and had complained to TikTok, which said it had removed the videos.

A TikTok spokesperson said it did not allow "harmful or misleading AI-generated ads" on its platform.

But the BBC found while the videos were removed, the account - seemingly located in Hong Kong - was not.

It was able to re-upload the exact same videos despite the originals being removed.

TikTok was again notified of this, and the user was subsequently deleted.

Weight-loss jabs have been available on the NHS in England since the end of June, but they are not available over-the-counter and patients must meet strict criteria in order to be eligible for a prescription.

Before the fake Boots account was removed, its videos linked to a website where weight loss drugs could be bought.

It featured testimonies from customers and doctors which were either made with AI or taken from other websites.

The TikTok videos showed what appeared to be health workers drinking from a vial of blue liquid.

This would then appear to jump forward several months, with the workers apparently having lost a drastic amount of weight.

"AI now makes it trivially easy to generate a convincing series of videos or images showing an apparent change in a plausibly real generic health professional, or to impersonate specific health professionals wholesale," AI expert Sam Gregory told the BBC.

"The underlying question is how quickly and comprehensively platforms act when they detect - or are notified of - scams that clearly breach their terms of service.

"Major brands like Boots will get prioritised over an individual business owner who's been targeted."

'Serious risks' to health

Other videos uploaded by the same account on TikTok seemed to have used content originally posted by real people, showcasing their weight-loss journey, but repurposed and used without permission.

All of the videos used similar branding and names to that of the official Boots account on TikTok - using the handle "@BootsOfficial".

Boots said it only runs adverts on social media through its actual account @BootsUK.

The website also included warnings from the MHRA, the UK's governmental body that ensures medicines and medical devices are safe, about purchasing counterfeit products.

A spokesperson for the body told the BBC weight loss medicines "should only be obtained from a registered pharmacy against a prescription issued by a healthcare professional".

"Taking these medicines sourced in any other way carries serious risks to your health with no guarantees about what they contain," they said.

TikTok said it would continue to "strengthen" its detection methods for AI-generated content and it does not allow "the depiction, promotion, or trade of controlled substances".

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"How much did Santa's sleigh cost? Nothing, it was on the house."

The joke is met by groans that echo through a warehouse in Lambeth, London.

We're at a joke-testing session with Talking Tables, a London company that makes supplies for gatherings. Its repertoire includes Christmas crackers.

The firm's founder and chief executive, Clare Harris grins, almost apologetically at the gag. But the joke has made the cut and will feature in future crackers.

"You measure the joke by the number of groans and the loudness of the groans around the table," Ms Harris says.

The key to a good Christmas cracker joke is not the same as a good gag per se. It is all about the context - in this case, the shared laughter of the Christmas dinner table with grandparents, children and potentially the neighbours or friends who've joined this year.

"You want the joke to be something that brings the eight-year-old together with the 80-year-old," Ms Harris says.

Joke selection takes place on the upper level of the warehouse, where a handful of staff from across the company gather to pitch and assess the latest jokes they have come up with.

The jokes being worked through today will be the last few to make it into crackers for 2026.

The firm works at least a year in advance of the next batch of crackers.

"What do monkeys sing at Christmas?" asks Ms Harris. "Jungle bells, jungle bells."

On this occasion, there are more emphatic "noes" than groans, and Ms Harris accepts defeat this time around. It won't be found in a cracker next year.

"We have a database," she says. "But each year we make sure we bring our favourites from when we've used them at home."

Cracker joke material comes from a variety of sources including the internet, word of mouth and the company's own joke books.

Asked whether they've yet succumbed to the lure of artificial intelligence, Ms Harris responds with a firm denial.

She says the aim of the session is to work out what their favourites were and which delivered the greatest emotional reaction.

"Does it do what we want around the Christmas table?" she asks.

Chloe Lloyd, from the sales team, pitches a joke she has heard earlier that day.

"What does the moon do when it needs a haircut?," she asks. 'Eclipse it!"

That's an instant hit, the group says.

Gathering to enjoy shared laughter is not only nothing new, experts say, it is likely to be pre-human.

"So when you are laughing with people around the Christmas table  you are dropping into what's almost certainly a really ancient mammal play vocalisation," says Prof Sophie Scott, the director of University College London's Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience.

Shared laughter, she says, helps make and maintain social connections between people.

Researchers have found the lack of such interactions can seriously damage mental and physical health.

"The people you talk to, and laugh with, it leads to enhanced levels of endorphin uptake," says Prof Scott.

Endorphins are the brain's "happy chemicals" and are released both to reduce stress and pain and in response to pleasurable experiences, such as laughing with friends over a truly terrible Christmas cracker joke.

"You're not just laughing at a silly joke with a Christmas cracker," Prof Scott says. "You are actually doing a lot of the really important work of making, maintaining the social bonds you have with those you love."

And it is not just humans that laugh.

Laughing, says Prof Scott, is an invitation to play and build social bonds. Rats and a number of other mammals do it too.

But what is actually happening inside the brain when we hear a joke?

An awful lot happens in response to humour, it turns out.

Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), a type of brain scanner which shows which parts of the brain are working harder, Prof Scott and her team has been able to map the areas that receive more blood.

Testing involves scanning the brains of healthy participants and then subjecting them to a database of funny words, accompanied by either a neutral "crunchy" noise, or pre-recorded laughter, and to then examine which parts of the brain are working hardest.

"In the scanner we got a really interesting pattern of activation," says Prof Scott.

A joke activates not just the parts of the brain responsible for hearing and interpreting speech, but also brain areas involved in both planning and initiating movement and those involved in vision and memory.

Put all of this together, says Prof Scott, and people hearing a joke have a complex set of neural responses that underpin the laughter we hear - they not only listen to and understand the joke, but prime the motor functions needed to prepare to laugh, and have their response influenced by images from memory.

Researchers discovered that when a funny word is paired with laughter there is a greater response in the brain than the same word when followed by a neutral sound.

"This was in parts of the brain that you would use to move your face into a smile or a laugh," Prof Scott says.

It means people are not just responding to funny words or jokes, they are responding to the laughter that accompanies them.

Laughter, says Prof Scott, can be contagious.

So what does this mean for the laughter found around a Christmas table?

"You laugh more when you know people," says Prof Scott, "and you laugh more when you like them or love them."

When it comes to Christmas cracker jokes, she says, the feel-good factor is more likely to be caused not by the joke itself, but from the response to it.

"It's the laughter. The joke is the terrible Christmas cracker joke, and it's just a reason to laugh together."

Will we ever discover the perfect joke?

Probably not, but that has not stopped experts from trying to.

In 2001 Prof Richard Wiseman, of the University of Hertfordshire, in Hatfield, set up LaughLab, the scientific search for the world's funniest joke.

More than 40,000 jokes later, with ratings lodged on those jokes by 350,000 people around the world, Prof Wiseman has a better idea than most as to what works and what does not.

The perfect Christmas cracker joke needs to be short, he says.

"But they also need to be poor jokes, jokes that make us groan," Prof Wiseman adds.

The more "terrible" the joke, he says the better.

"This is because if no-one laughs – it's the joke's fault, not yours.

"What's interesting about the Christmas cracker jokes is that none of us find them funny.

"That's a shared experience around the table and I think it's lovely."

The Archbishop of Wales has said that some parishioners have chosen to leave the Church in Wales in protest over her sexuality and gender.

The Most Reverend Cherry Vann, who is also Bishop of Monmouth, became both the UK's first female Archbishop as well as the first openly gay Archbishop in the world, in July.

Speaking ahead of delivering her first Christmas message as Archbishop, she said she had been hurt by attacks over her sexuality, but added those with different opinions should not be forbidden from expressing their views.

It follows the Global Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (Gafcon) describing her appointment as "another painful nail in the coffin of Anglican orthodoxy".

Speaking to BBC Wales, the Archbishop said: "There are still patches all over the place where people continue to struggle with women in leadership and I have to respect that.

"The Church in Wales is working hard to welcome LGBT+ people, but also I respect that there are people in the Church in Wales who find that really difficult.

"Some, sadly, have felt the need to leave and I take that very seriously".

Archbishop Vann was elected by her fellow bishops with a two-thirds majority, following the retirement of her predecessor, Andrew John, in the summer.

He retired after issues with safeguarding, excessive drinking and church members overstepping sexual boundaries came to light at Bangor Cathedral.

Archbishop Vann said the vast majority of people had been supportive about her election, but added others had been "quite hostile".

"It can be very hurtful", she said.

"It's hard to hear some of the things that people say, but I think it's important that there is the space for them to say that.

"I don't want people to feel shut down or silenced just because I hold a different view.

"But it does nevertheless hurt because it feels like an attack on who I am and who God has made me to be.

"We have to find a way as a Church to respect one another's views and find a commonality in our faith in Christ, despite our differences".

Archbishop Vann said that despite the widespread interest in her election because of her sex and gender, they were not the most important things to her.

"Other people find it fascinating", she said.

"I had a lot of people contact me rejoicing at my election and saying how much hope and strength they get from the fact that there is now a woman in the role – and a civilly partnered woman at that.

"I've had the opposite as well. That's just life".

In her Christmas message, the Archbishop said she had chosen a passage from the Gospel of John about finding light in the darkness, a popular choice at carol services.

"It's really about how the coming of Jesus into the world is the light in the darkness – and there's plenty of darkness around in the world at the moment", she said.

"Our message as Christians is that Jesus comes into all that difficulty and despair and brings the light of hope and love and joy, because of who he is".

After a turbulent year for the Church in Wales, Archbishop Vann said she was very conscious of her responsibility to fix the issues that led to her predecessor's departure.

Asked whether her time as Archbishop should be judged against her ability to change the culture within the Church, she said it presented a significant challenge.

"I think there is a big cultural issue in the Church", she said.

"Anybody who has tried to change the culture in an organisation will tell you it takes a long time.

"This is a big thing and I guess that there will still be work to do when I retire.

"(We need) to take a greater care for those who have been damaged by the Church, of which sadly there are many.

"But I am hopeful that we are already making changes.

"There are many people who are determined to make a difference and ensure that the Church is a place where, when things go wrong, they are dealt with properly".

This year is on course to be the UK's hottest since records began, according to the Met Office, as climate change continues to drive temperatures to new heights.

With just over a week still to go, the average UK air temperature across 2025 is on track to end up at about 10.05C.

A cooler Christmas could affect final figures, but it is likely that 2025 will edge out the current record of 10.03C from 2022, the Met Office says.

Along with a lack of rainfall, the persistent warmth left the country vulnerable to droughts and wildfires through the spring and summer, with temperatures peaking at 35.8C.

While temperatures vary naturally from year to year, scientists could not be clearer that human-caused climate change is driving the UK's rapidly warming trend.

By the end of 2025, the UK's 10 warmest years on record will all have taken place in the last two decades, in measurements going back to the late 1800s.

"Anthropogenic [human-caused] climate change is causing the warming in the UK as it's causing the warming across the world," said Amy Doherty, a climate scientist at the Met Office.

"What we have seen in the past 40 years, and what we're going to continue to see, is more records broken, more extremely hot years [...] so what was normal 10 years ago, 20 years ago, will become [relatively] cool in the future," she told BBC News.

The Met Office's projection uses observed temperatures up to 21 December and assumes that the remaining days of the year follow the long-term December average.

As a result, the Met Office cannot say with certainty that 2025 will be the hottest year, but it is the most likely outcome.

It would be the sixth time this century that the UK has set a new annual temperature record, following 2002, 2003, 2006, 2014 and 2022.

"In terms of our climate, we are living in extraordinary times," said Mike Kendon, also of the Met Office.

"The changes we are seeing are unprecedented in observational records back to the 19th Century," he added.

The expected new record of 2025 has been built on persistent heat through the spring and summer.

Those long, hot, sunny days may feel like a distant memory as we head towards Christmas, but both spring and summer were the UK's warmest ever recorded.

Each month from March to August was more than 2C above the long-term average between 1961 and 1990.

And while temperatures may not have reached the peaks of 40C seen in July 2022, hot spells happened repeatedly.

Four separate - albeit relatively short-lived - heatwaves were declared across much of the country.

The UK Health Security Agency also issued several heat-health alerts through the summer.

Spring and summer were also marked by low rainfall. Spring was particularly dry - the UK's sixth driest since 1836.

Combined with the warm weather helping to dry out the soils, this lack of rainfall pushed large parts of the country towards drought.

Through the summer, official droughts were declared across several regions in England and Wales, by the Environment Agency and Natural Resources Wales respectively.

Parts of eastern Scotland also entered "significant water scarcity", according to the Scottish Environment Protection Agency.

Recent rainfall has eased the situation across much of the country and most areas are no longer in official drought. But water levels are still below average in some places.

"There's a huge deficit to be made up, and there's a huge implication, not just for people who are farming the land [and] growing food, but our rivers, our aquifers, our availability of drinking water," said Jess Neumann, associate professor of hydrology at the University of Reading.

The repeated swings between drought and flooding were making it very hard for communities to adapt to increasing weather extremes, she added.

The prolonged dry, warm weather created ideal conditions for wildfires too.

By late April, the area of the UK burned by wildfires had already reached a new annual record, according to data from the Global Wildfires Information System going back to 2012.

More than 47,100 hectares (471 sq km or 182 sq miles) has now been burned throughout 2025 - smashing the previous high of 28,100 hectares of 2019.

As the UK continues to heat up - driven by humanity's greenhouse gas emissions - scientists expect the UK to experience more weather extremes.

"The conditions that people are going to experience are going to continue to change as they have in the last few years [with] more wildfires, more droughts, more heatwaves," said Dr Doherty.

"But also it's going to get wetter in the winter half-year, so from October to March [...] the rain that does fall will fall more intensely, and in heavier rain showers, causing that kind of flooding that we've been seeing this year as well," she added.

The UK has not been alone in experiencing extreme heat this year. The world is on course for its second or third warmest year ever recorded, according to the European Copernicus climate service.

But the international consensus on tackling climate change is also being tested, with the US and some other leading producers of fossil fuels rowing back on their net zero commitments.

Additional reporting by Justin Rowlatt and Kate Stephens

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Dozens of people have been left stranded for Christmas after a giant hole emerged in a section of the Llangollen Canal in Shropshire on Monday.

Initially thought to be caused by a sinkhole, engineers later said the embankment in Whitchurch had collapsed, causing water to flood out. Two boats were left at the bottom of a deep trench and several others lay on the dry canal bed.

Many other liveaboards - people who live on narrowboats full-time - now cannot pass through the area, leaving them stuck either on the Llangollen side of the collapse, or the side that joins the Shropshire Union Canal.

This includes Geoff and Pamela Poole, who were just three boats away from the breach. They were awoken by neighbours, who knocked on their boat door at 04:20 GMT on Monday.

"The whole boat was listing and everything had fallen," Mrs Poole said.

"I had literally just watched How The Grinch Stole Christmas last night and I saw the Christmas tree on the floor with broken ornaments."

The couple, from the USA, had been on their boat for just two-and-a-half months.

"We literally retired, left two kids back in the States, flew over here, bought the boat back in May and then spent months getting it ready," said Mr Poole.

"That's the end of our plans for the winter."

He said the pair, who were moored near the Grindley Brook Locks, would now have to spend Christmas in a hotel.

Although they can visit family nearby on Christmas Day, they do not have a spare bed.

"[It's] totally disruptive - four days in a hotel, and then we'll see what we're going to do," Mr Poole said.

On Monday evening, the couple packed their essential belongings into bags and loaded them into a trolley, ready to leave their home behind for the time being.

"We have the cutest little tree, our bed is all covered in little lights, I'd made a home-made wreath," said Mrs Poole.

She said their biggest concern was not knowing when they would be able to get back on the boat and move on.

"When we started evacuating, we literally thought it could be six months to a year, because that's what happened at the Bridgewater," Mrs Poole said.

She added that they had just been Christmas shopping for special food to celebrate the occasion together.

"You have these big dreams of our first Christmas on the boat," she said.

"We'll have next year."

Phil Johnson, originally from East Yorkshire, moved on to his boat in May.

He was planning on travelling back home on Tuesday, before returning to Whitchurch on Boxing Day.

"I certainly won't be having Christmas in East Yorkshire," he said.

"Because of the way the boat is at the minute, I don't want to leave it.

"Basically all my personal belongings are on that boat - everything that I own is on that boat."

He said some friends, who lived in Oxford, had driven up to Whitchurch to give him keys to a flat they owned there, so he had somewhere to stay.

He will spend Christmas Day with some friends in the town.

"The boating community, any disaster like this, everybody's helping each other," he said.

For those needing emergency accommodation, Norbury Wharf has offered its boats free of charge.

Like the Pooles, Mr Johnson said he had woken up in the early hours of Monday to cracking, banging and shouting.

He saw water flowing out of the breach in the embankment, adding it "sounded like Niagara falls".

"I went past the bow of my boat and that's where I saw that first boat in all the pictures and the bow was being flooded," he said.

"Then the first boat was flat at the bottom, and there was another one teetering on the edge.

"The back of the boat went down and instantly it looked like that scene of the Titanic film."

Cause unknown

No injuries were reported and Shropshire Fire and Rescue Service said it had supported about 15 people and taken them to safety.

The Canal and River Trust said it did not know how long the repair would take, and that its priority was to ensure boaters were supported, and that the area was made safe.

On Monday, it said it was also too early to know how the embankment had become compromised.

"Our 200-year-old canals and structures are regularly inspected and monitored as part of routine operations," it said.

"These checks ensure everything remains in good working order and that any issues are identified and addressed promptly."

Another liveaboard, Chris, who is moored at the Grindley Brook Marina, said when she woke up at 05:00 GMT on Monday, she fell into the wall of the boat because it was listing over.

Looking ahead to Christmas, she said: "I haven't done any [Christmas] food shopping because I can't think about it at the minute, I just want to get the boat right.

"I know that sounds really dramatic, but it's not.

"Where do you go? This is home."

What little water is left in the marina is shallow, not enough to float a boat.

Chris said it had been an emotional day. For many, she said life on a boat was all about being on the move and yet everyone had suddenly found themselves stuck.

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Russia has intensified its strikes on the southern Ukrainian region of Odesa, causing widespread power cuts and threatening the region's maritime infrastructure.

Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Oleksiy Kuleba said Moscow was carrying out "systematic" attacks on the region. Last week, he warned that the focus of the war "may have shifted towards Odesa".

President Volodymyr Zelensky said the repeated attacks were an attempt by Moscow to block Ukraine's access to maritime logistics.

Earlier in December, Russian President Vladimir Putin threatened to sever Ukraine's access to the sea as retaliation for drone attacks on tankers of Russia's "shadow fleet" in the Black Sea.

"Shadow fleet" is a term that refers to hundreds of tankers used by Russia to bypass Western sanctions imposed after its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

On Sunday night in the Odesa region, strikes cut off electricity for 120,000 people and sparked a fire at a major port which destroyed dozens of containers of flour and vegetable oil.

It was the latest in a series of hundreds of strikes which have disrupted power supplies in the region for days on end and caused several casualties.

Last week, a ballistic missile strike on the Pivdenniy port east of Odesa killed eight people and injured at least 30.

Another attack earlier in the week killed a woman who was travelling in a car with her three children and temporarily cut off the Odesa region's only bridge linking Ukraine and Moldova.

Zelensky indicated a new commander of the air force for the region would be selected soon following the dismissal of Dmytro Karpenko over the weekend.

Odesa's port has always been key for the country's economy. The city is Ukraine's third largest after Kyiv and Kharkiv. It now occupies strategic importance as other ports in the Zaporizhzhia, Kherson and Mykolayiv regions are inaccessible to Ukraine due to Russian occupation.

Despite the war, Ukraine remains one of the world's top exporters of wheat and corn.

Since August 2023, Odesa has been the starting point of a crucial corridor that allows it to export grain out of the country, following the coastlines of Romania and Bulgaria before reaching Turkey.

Zelensky, who has previously accused Russia of "sowing chaos" on the people of Odesa, said that "everyone must see that without pressure on Russia, they have no intention of genuinely ending their aggression".

His comments came as the latest round of US-led diplomatic efforts wrapped up in Miami. The US separately met the Ukrainian and Russian delegations, with the meetings yielding optimistic statements but no clear progress to bring the end of Moscow's nearly four-year war on Ukraine any closer.

US President Donald Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff said he and his Ukrainian counterpart Rustem Umerov had worked on "aligning positions" on a 20-point draft peace plan put forward by Ukraine earlier this month. The plan is an alternative to a proposal presented by the US in November, which was seen as favourable to Moscow.

Before Russian envoy Kirill Dmitriev even returned to Moscow from Florida, Kremlin foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov told reporters that the European and Ukrainian changes to the peace proposal would not improve the chances of peace being achieved.

On Monday, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov accused EU countries of having a "firm aspiration" to derail potential Russia-US agreements on Ukraine and to "in general prevent Russia-American relations getting healthier".

He also said European countries were "possessed by a maniacal" fear of a Russian attack. Russia was ready to confirm in a legal agreement that it had no intention of attacking either the EU or Nato, Ryabkov added, echoing previous comments from Putin.

"We've never planned to [attack Europe], but if they want to hear it from us, well, let's do it, we'll put it in writing," Putin said in November.

A husband and five other men have been charged with a string of sexual offences against his ex-wife over a 13-year period.

Philip Young, formerly of Swindon but now living in Enfield, has been charged with 56 sexual offences, including rape and administering a substance with intent to stupefy/overpower to allow sexual activity.

The 49-year-old has also been charged with voyeurism, possession of indecent images of children and possession of extreme images.

Five other men have also been charged with offences against his ex-wife, 48-year-old Joanne Young, who has waived her right to anonymity.

All six men are due to appear at Swindon Magistrates' Court on Tuesday.

Mr Young, who police described as a white British national, has been remanded in custody.

The five other men are on bail.

Their names and charges are:

• Norman Macksoni, 47, of Wood End Close, Sharnbrook. Police described him as a black British national. He has been charged with one count of rape and possession of extreme images
• Dean Hamilton, 47, of no fixed abode. Police said he was a white British national. He has been charged with one count of rape and sexual assault by penetration and two counts of sexual touching
• Conner Sanderson Doyle, 31, of Crofton Road, Swindon. Police said he was a white British national who had been charged with sexual assault by penetration and sexual touching
• Richard Wilkins, 61, of Tattershall, Toothill, Swindon. He was described by police as a white British national and he has been charged with one count of rape and sexual touching
• Mohammed Hassan, 37, of Torun Way, Swindon. Police described him as a British Asian male. He has been charged with sexual touching

Det Supt Geoff Smith, of Wiltshire Police, described the charges as a significant update in a "complex and extensive" investigation.

He added that Ms Young was being supported by specially trained officers.

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A young police officer who was shot in the head during the Bondi Beach attack has been released from hospital.

Probationary Constable Jack Hibbert - who is just four months into the job - was patrolling a Hanukkah event when two gunmen opened fire, injuring over 40 people and killing 15.

The 22-year-old, who was also hit in the shoulder, has lost vision in one of his eyes but is now recovering at home, his family confirmed in a statement.

"As a family, we couldn't ask for anything more - having our Jack home, especially for Christmas, truly feels like a miracle."

They thanked the public for their "overwhelming support" and praised medical staff for their "exceptional" care and dedication.

"While he is home, he is still recovering and will need space, support, and continued positive thoughts during this time," the statement added.

Even after he was shot during the attack, Constable Hibbert continued to help festival attendees until he physically couldn't, his family previously said.

"Many of his colleagues who were present on the night of the incident have visited in hospital and given testaments to Jack's bravery during the incident... They described how Jack acted, he moved toward people in need, not away from danger," they said.

He was one of two police officers injured in the shooting, with the second officer Constable Scott Dyson, 25, still recovering from his injuries in hospital, according to the last police update.

Last week, NSW Police Commissioner Mal Lanyon visited Constable Hibbert in hospital, praising him as a "positive young man".

Lanyon added that the force would rally around Constable Hibbert and find "appropriate duties for him" after his recovery.

Police have alleged the suspected gunmen were inspired by Islamic State ideology and targeted the Jewish festival in what has been declared a terror attack.

Naveed Akram, 24, has been charged with 59 offences, including 15 counts of murder and one of terror. A second gunman - his father, Sajid Akram - was shot dead by police at the scene.

On Monday, new court documents alleged the pair "meticulously" planned the attack for months, and two days prior to the shooting, visited Bondi for reconnaissance.

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Attorney General Pam Bondi took to X over the weekend with a bold statement: "President Trump is leading the most transparent administration in American history."

Her post was about efforts to release documents concerning the attempted assassination of Trump last July.

But the folks commenting in the replies had a completely different investigation in mind – the one into Jeffrey Epstein.

And they weren't buying it.

"Liar," snapped several people – along with many much harsher insults. One conservative YouTuber who mixes blistering tirades with Bitcoin promotions wrote: "I will vote for whatever President ... campaigns on arresting Pam Bondi over the cover up of the Epstein Files."

After folding into his coalition many non-traditional voters from the more fringe corners of the internet, Trump and members of his administration now find themselves coming face to face with the conspiratorial thinking they have stoked.

"This is the greatest cover-up by a president and for a president in history," said one member of a Facebook group devoted to sleuthing about the case. "Epstein is the story and don't let up."

At issue isn't so much the previously unreleased pictures of people like Bill Clinton, Mick Jagger, Michael Jackson and legendary news anchor Walter Cronkite in Epstein's company – which is not an indicator of any wrongdoing – but the sea of blacked-out redactions in the files themselves.

On the campaign trail last year, Trump suggested that he would support the release of investigation files. In February, Bondi said they were "sitting on my desk right now to review".

But after so much time and anticipation, Friday's release landed with a whimper.

Joe Uscinski, an associate professor of political science at the University of Miami who studies conspiracy theories and conspiratorial thinking, says Trump's coalition is now more about scepticism and antagonism towards institutions - and less about traditional Republican Party goals.

Many in the movement, he says, believe that huge numbers of children are being used for sex trafficking, beliefs that are bolstered by Epstein's very real crimes as well as conspiracy theories like QAnon.

"People don't necessarily want documents released - they want documents released which tell them that what they believe is true."

The potential for political trouble is not lost on Trump's inner circle. In a Vanity Fair article published prior to the document release, White House chief of staff Susie Wiles described the people compelled to vote for Trump because of his promises on Epstein as "Joe Rogan listeners" – in other words, younger men who aren't traditionally into politics.

Wiles has called the story a "hit piece". But she has not disputed specific quotes, including her assertion that Trump has not yet solidified a lasting Republican majority.

"The people that are inordinately interested in Epstein are the new members of the Trump coalition, the people that I think about all the time – because I want to make sure that they are not [only] Trump voters, they're Republican voters," she told the magazine.

Polls and experts back up the chief of staff's concerns about the tenuous nature of Trump's coalition.

A survey released in early December by the right-wing Manhattan Institute think tank labelled nearly a third of Trump's supporters "New Entrant Republicans" – people who voted for the party for the first time in 2024. And the poll found that just over half of that category would "definitely" support a Republican in the 2026 mid-term elections.

"These voters are drawn to Trump but are not reliably attached to the Republican Party," the institute concluded.

• Trump's chief of staff disputes Vanity Fair story
• Image in Epstein files that features Trump reinstated after backlash
• Who and what are in the Epstein files?

The possible fragility of the Trump coalition is playing out on several different levels.

One crucial group is a collection of social media stars and podcasters who stand mostly outside traditional Republican circles but have clout and influence online.

They were instrumental in keeping social media attention on the Epstein story long after the convicted sex offender's death.

A group of influencers – including "Libs of TikTok" creator Chaya Raichik, conspiracy theorist and Turning Point USA activist Jack Posobiec, and elections organiser Scott Presler – were even invited to an event at the Department of Justice (DoJ) and given binders, which Bondi described as a "first phase" of Epstein document releases.

Little if anything new was in the binders, which caused a backlash. Outrage swelled further in July after the DoJ released a memo saying that there was no Epstein "client list" and rejecting conspiracy theories about his death in prison.

Yet following the most recent release, many of these same conservative influencers have been curiously silent.

Laura Loomer, a popular Maga social media influencer who has helped spread Epstein conspiracies online, claimed that they exonerated Trump from any wrongdoing.

"Maybe now the media will stop obsessing over these files," wrote Loomer, who has mentioned Epstein at least 200 times on X this year alone.

Others - including several who were at the DoJ binder event - have not mentioned the document release at all, positively or negatively.

Their silence has been noted by other right-wing and far-right commentators, sparking online Maga infighting. And the row over the Epstein case is just one controversy currently roiling the movement, with arguments over free speech, anti-Semitism and Charlie Kirk's legacy bursting out into the open at an annual conference put on by Turning Point USA this week.

Jared Holt, senior researcher at Open Measures, a company that analyses online extremism, says the debate over the Epstein files is just one controversy contributing to the challenges facing the Maga movement.

"At the beginning of the year, Maga was a triumphant intimidating cultural force, now the train is falling off the tracks and there's no clear sign that it will be stabalising or rebounding anytime soon," he says.

"It seems like the die-hard Trump base has atrophied over the course of the year," Holt says, but notes that it's too soon to tell if the recent heavily redacted document drop will have any significant impact on the sorts of "Joe Rogan listeners" Wiles is concerned about.

Prominent voices in Congress have been less shy than the influencer class about criticising the justice department. Soon-to-be-ex-Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene lambasted the release, calling it "NOT MAGA".

Thomas Massie, the Republican member of the House of Representatives from Kentucky who spearheaded legislation leading to the document release, spent the weekend lambasting the justice department online and on US weekend talk shows.

He accused Bondi and officials of being in violation of the law requiring the release of the files, and has joined forces with Democratic Representative Ro Khanna to push for greater transparency.

Massie has suggested that they could move to charge Bondi with "inherent contempt" for ignoring a congressional order - a move which could force further document disclosures.

Regardless of whether or not that happens, there may be further revelations in the next few days. Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general, has promised hundreds of thousands more documents before the end of the year.

Tony and Becs Wadley say they can't spend Christmas at home after insulation installed under a government scheme has caused black mould in several rooms, and their asthmatic son can't be inside the property.

Mr Wadley says the situation is tearing the family apart: ''It's awful. Elliott can't come into our house, it's as if he's been ostracised from his own home.''

The couple are among more than 300 people who have contacted the BBC in recent weeks to tell us about insulation that has gone wrong in their homes.

The government has been contacted for commented.

Mr and Mrs Wadley got a government grant to have energy efficiency measures fitted in their Gower Peninsula house because they hoped a warmer home would help Elliot's asthma. The grant covered the cost of insulating his bedroom walls.

But months after the work was completed, the Wadleys discovered black mould was growing behind the insulation boards. It was removed by the installer and replaced with a new insulation system. But this also had to be removed along with all the plaster after it became damp. Elliott, 19, hasn't entered the house since April, instead staying with his grandmother during university breaks.

''I miss him like you wouldn't believe'," says Mrs Wadley.

The family are going to stay with Mr Wadley's sister for Christmas so they can all be together.

Billions of pounds of public money has been spent on insulating homes over the last 15 years.

The Wadley's home was insulated under a government scheme known as ECO4. In October, the National Audit Office (NAO) spending watchdog found that 29% of internal wall insulation carried out under ECO4 had been so poorly installed it needed to be repaired.

It said there had been "weak" government oversight and regulatory ''failure''.

In response to the NAO report, Energy Consumer Minister Martin McCluskey, said at the time: "We are fixing the broken system by introducing comprehensive reforms to make this process clear and straightforward, and in the rare cases where things go wrong, there will be clear lines of accountability, so consumers are guaranteed to get any problems fixed quickly."

In the downstairs rooms of the Wadleys' home the insulation has also failed and has had to be removed. There is black mould on the walls while electric sockets hang loose with the wires exposed. The family says it has been in this condition for months.

The installer, Stellar Energy, says it has ''no record of any immediate safety hazards being flagged.'' It says the descriptions of the exposed wires and sockets was "highly inconsistent" with their standard operating procedures, which required all such work to be made safe.

Building surveyor, David Walter, says the insulation wasn't fitted correctly and says the installer ''didn't understand what they were doing and what they were doing to the building which is why we've got these problems.''

Stellar Energy told the BBC the design was ''technically correct for a stone house and was installed...in strict accordance with the mandatory technical specifications of ECO4.''

Mr Wadley says he wouldn't have signed up for the grant if he'd known what would happen. ''You wouldn't put your family through this. Nobody would. Somebody needs to take responsibility.''

Stellar Energy says it ''sincerely regrets any distress this situation has caused the family'' and says its priority is ''providing a final resolution to ensure the home meets the high standards'' it strives for.

Scott Proudman contacted the BBC about the botched external wall insulation fitted to his Bristol home in 2021.

His family had been eligible for a government grant because of his eight-year-old daughter's disabilities. Born 24 weeks premature, she has cerebral palsy, a partial visual impairment and a shunt. She was recently diagnosed with autism.

''I feel like a failure every time I come home because this was meant to be something to look after my family, to make life easier, and it hasn't," he says.

When the work was done, insulation boards were fixed to the outside of the house and render was applied to make it waterproof. But the render has been falling off for years.

Building surveyor Mr Walter, says poor design and poor workmanship has caused the render to disintegrate. He says rainwater will very likely get under the cracked render and behind the insulation and will likely cause dampness inside.

''It's like a timebomb. It's going to get worse and worse, affecting the inside of the property," he says.

Mr Walter says all of the render and insulation will have to come off and will cost tens of thousands of pounds to put right.

Right now the family is stuck with the repair bill because the installer, SPMS Wales, is being liquidated and Mr Proudman says they weren't given the required guarantee for the work. Trustmark, the organisation responsible for overseeing quality, says it can't help because the company lost its accreditation soon after the work was completed.

Mr Proudman says he chose the company ''because it was on a government website and was Trustmark registered. I can't believe how few rights consumers have.''

Brett Langdon, a director at SPMS Wales says he is ''very sorry the Proudmans have ended up in this situation'' and says all works ''were done to the manufactures specification.'' He says he gave a guarantee to the Proudmans but has told the BBC he can't remember who the guarantee is with. He says the delamination of the render was "due to a failure of the system".

In a statement TrustMark said it was ''very sorry to hear about what's happened to Mr and Mrs Proudman and Mr and Mrs Wadley and the conditions both families' homes have been left in. It is totally unacceptable and we are in discussions with the relevant Scheme Providers and guarantee providers to help resolve these situations.''

And it said it underlined ''the need for reform to the current system''.

The US Food and Drug Administration has approved a pill version of the weight-loss drug Wegovy, according to maker Novo Nordisk.

It marks a first in this new era of weight-loss medications with Wegovy being the only so far to gain approval for the pill version of their GLP-1 drug, which has only been available as an injection.

Wegovy's Danish makers Novo Nordisk said the once-daily pill was a "convenient option" to the inject-able and would provide the same weight loss as the shot. It comes after Wegovy was approved by the FDA specifically for weight loss.

Others like Ozempic, which has similar weight-loss effects, were primarily approved for the treatment of Type 2 diabetes.

The BBC has contacted the FDA for comment.

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"How much did Santa's sleigh cost? Nothing, it was on the house."

The joke is met by groans that echo through a warehouse in Lambeth, London.

We're at a joke-testing session with Talking Tables, a London company that makes supplies for gatherings. Its repertoire includes Christmas crackers.

The firm's founder and chief executive, Clare Harris grins, almost apologetically at the gag. But the joke has made the cut and will feature in future crackers.

"You measure the joke by the number of groans and the loudness of the groans around the table," Ms Harris says.

The key to a good Christmas cracker joke is not the same as a good gag per se. It is all about the context - in this case, the shared laughter of the Christmas dinner table with grandparents, children and potentially the neighbours or friends who've joined this year.

"You want the joke to be something that brings the eight-year-old together with the 80-year-old," Ms Harris says.

Joke selection takes place on the upper level of the warehouse, where a handful of staff from across the company gather to pitch and assess the latest jokes they have come up with.

The jokes being worked through today will be the last few to make it into crackers for 2026.

The firm works at least a year in advance of the next batch of crackers.

"What do monkeys sing at Christmas?" asks Ms Harris. "Jungle bells, jungle bells."

On this occasion, there are more emphatic "noes" than groans, and Ms Harris accepts defeat this time around. It won't be found in a cracker next year.

"We have a database," she says. "But each year we make sure we bring our favourites from when we've used them at home."

Cracker joke material comes from a variety of sources including the internet, word of mouth and the company's own joke books.

Asked whether they've yet succumbed to the lure of artificial intelligence, Ms Harris responds with a firm denial.

She says the aim of the session is to work out what their favourites were and which delivered the greatest emotional reaction.

"Does it do what we want around the Christmas table?" she asks.

Chloe Lloyd, from the sales team, pitches a joke she has heard earlier that day.

"What does the moon do when it needs a haircut?," she asks. 'Eclipse it!"

That's an instant hit, the group says.

Gathering to enjoy shared laughter is not only nothing new, experts say, it is likely to be pre-human.

"So when you are laughing with people around the Christmas table  you are dropping into what's almost certainly a really ancient mammal play vocalisation," says Prof Sophie Scott, the director of University College London's Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience.

Shared laughter, she says, helps make and maintain social connections between people.

Researchers have found the lack of such interactions can seriously damage mental and physical health.

"The people you talk to, and laugh with, it leads to enhanced levels of endorphin uptake," says Prof Scott.

Endorphins are the brain's "happy chemicals" and are released both to reduce stress and pain and in response to pleasurable experiences, such as laughing with friends over a truly terrible Christmas cracker joke.

"You're not just laughing at a silly joke with a Christmas cracker," Prof Scott says. "You are actually doing a lot of the really important work of making, maintaining the social bonds you have with those you love."

And it is not just humans that laugh.

Laughing, says Prof Scott, is an invitation to play and build social bonds. Rats and a number of other mammals do it too.

But what is actually happening inside the brain when we hear a joke?

An awful lot happens in response to humour, it turns out.

Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), a type of brain scanner which shows which parts of the brain are working harder, Prof Scott and her team has been able to map the areas that receive more blood.

Testing involves scanning the brains of healthy participants and then subjecting them to a database of funny words, accompanied by either a neutral "crunchy" noise, or pre-recorded laughter, and to then examine which parts of the brain are working hardest.

"In the scanner we got a really interesting pattern of activation," says Prof Scott.

A joke activates not just the parts of the brain responsible for hearing and interpreting speech, but also brain areas involved in both planning and initiating movement and those involved in vision and memory.

Put all of this together, says Prof Scott, and people hearing a joke have a complex set of neural responses that underpin the laughter we hear - they not only listen to and understand the joke, but prime the motor functions needed to prepare to laugh, and have their response influenced by images from memory.

Researchers discovered that when a funny word is paired with laughter there is a greater response in the brain than the same word when followed by a neutral sound.

"This was in parts of the brain that you would use to move your face into a smile or a laugh," Prof Scott says.

It means people are not just responding to funny words or jokes, they are responding to the laughter that accompanies them.

Laughter, says Prof Scott, can be contagious.

So what does this mean for the laughter found around a Christmas table?

"You laugh more when you know people," says Prof Scott, "and you laugh more when you like them or love them."

When it comes to Christmas cracker jokes, she says, the feel-good factor is more likely to be caused not by the joke itself, but from the response to it.

"It's the laughter. The joke is the terrible Christmas cracker joke, and it's just a reason to laugh together."

Will we ever discover the perfect joke?

Probably not, but that has not stopped experts from trying to.

In 2001 Prof Richard Wiseman, of the University of Hertfordshire, in Hatfield, set up LaughLab, the scientific search for the world's funniest joke.

More than 40,000 jokes later, with ratings lodged on those jokes by 350,000 people around the world, Prof Wiseman has a better idea than most as to what works and what does not.

The perfect Christmas cracker joke needs to be short, he says.

"But they also need to be poor jokes, jokes that make us groan," Prof Wiseman adds.

The more "terrible" the joke, he says the better.

"This is because if no-one laughs – it's the joke's fault, not yours.

"What's interesting about the Christmas cracker jokes is that none of us find them funny.

"That's a shared experience around the table and I think it's lovely."

This year is on course to be the UK's hottest since records began, according to the Met Office, as climate change continues to drive temperatures to new heights.

With just over a week still to go, the average UK air temperature across 2025 is on track to end up at about 10.05C.

A cooler Christmas could affect final figures, but it is likely that 2025 will edge out the current record of 10.03C from 2022, the Met Office says.

Along with a lack of rainfall, the persistent warmth left the country vulnerable to droughts and wildfires through the spring and summer, with temperatures peaking at 35.8C.

While temperatures vary naturally from year to year, scientists could not be clearer that human-caused climate change is driving the UK's rapidly warming trend.

By the end of 2025, the UK's 10 warmest years on record will all have taken place in the last two decades, in measurements going back to the late 1800s.

"Anthropogenic [human-caused] climate change is causing the warming in the UK as it's causing the warming across the world," said Amy Doherty, a climate scientist at the Met Office.

"What we have seen in the past 40 years, and what we're going to continue to see, is more records broken, more extremely hot years [...] so what was normal 10 years ago, 20 years ago, will become [relatively] cool in the future," she told BBC News.

The Met Office's projection uses observed temperatures up to 21 December and assumes that the remaining days of the year follow the long-term December average.

As a result, the Met Office cannot say with certainty that 2025 will be the hottest year, but it is the most likely outcome.

It would be the sixth time this century that the UK has set a new annual temperature record, following 2002, 2003, 2006, 2014 and 2022.

"In terms of our climate, we are living in extraordinary times," said Mike Kendon, also of the Met Office.

"The changes we are seeing are unprecedented in observational records back to the 19th Century," he added.

The expected new record of 2025 has been built on persistent heat through the spring and summer.

Those long, hot, sunny days may feel like a distant memory as we head towards Christmas, but both spring and summer were the UK's warmest ever recorded.

Each month from March to August was more than 2C above the long-term average between 1961 and 1990.

And while temperatures may not have reached the peaks of 40C seen in July 2022, hot spells happened repeatedly.

Four separate - albeit relatively short-lived - heatwaves were declared across much of the country.

The UK Health Security Agency also issued several heat-health alerts through the summer.

Spring and summer were also marked by low rainfall. Spring was particularly dry - the UK's sixth driest since 1836.

Combined with the warm weather helping to dry out the soils, this lack of rainfall pushed large parts of the country towards drought.

Through the summer, official droughts were declared across several regions in England and Wales, by the Environment Agency and Natural Resources Wales respectively.

Parts of eastern Scotland also entered "significant water scarcity", according to the Scottish Environment Protection Agency.

Recent rainfall has eased the situation across much of the country and most areas are no longer in official drought. But water levels are still below average in some places.

"There's a huge deficit to be made up, and there's a huge implication, not just for people who are farming the land [and] growing food, but our rivers, our aquifers, our availability of drinking water," said Jess Neumann, associate professor of hydrology at the University of Reading.

The repeated swings between drought and flooding were making it very hard for communities to adapt to increasing weather extremes, she added.

The prolonged dry, warm weather created ideal conditions for wildfires too.

By late April, the area of the UK burned by wildfires had already reached a new annual record, according to data from the Global Wildfires Information System going back to 2012.

More than 47,100 hectares (471 sq km or 182 sq miles) has now been burned throughout 2025 - smashing the previous high of 28,100 hectares of 2019.

As the UK continues to heat up - driven by humanity's greenhouse gas emissions - scientists expect the UK to experience more weather extremes.

"The conditions that people are going to experience are going to continue to change as they have in the last few years [with] more wildfires, more droughts, more heatwaves," said Dr Doherty.

"But also it's going to get wetter in the winter half-year, so from October to March [...] the rain that does fall will fall more intensely, and in heavier rain showers, causing that kind of flooding that we've been seeing this year as well," she added.

The UK has not been alone in experiencing extreme heat this year. The world is on course for its second or third warmest year ever recorded, according to the European Copernicus climate service.

But the international consensus on tackling climate change is also being tested, with the US and some other leading producers of fossil fuels rowing back on their net zero commitments.

Additional reporting by Justin Rowlatt and Kate Stephens

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