The chair of the King's Foundation Dame Ann Limb has admitted being "misleading" about her doctorate qualification.

The education specialist, who was recently nominated for a life peerage by Labour, told the Sunday Times that she had not completed a PhD at the University of Liverpool, despite this appearing on her since-amended CV.

"To be completely upfront and honest about it, I never completed my PhD at Liverpool University," she told the newspaper, adding that she used the Doctor title because she had been conferred with honorary PhDs by other institutions.

The BBC has contacted Dame Ann for comment. The King's Foundation declined to comment.

Dame Ann was among nominees to the House of Lords announced by Downing Street earlier in December, having held a number of senior public and private roles.

The King's Foundation - which offers courses in practical skills to young people - announced last week that she would be stepping down from her role as chair, which she had held since January, to become a peer.

An old version of her online CV, seen by the BBC, refers to her with the "Dr" honorific and lists a PhD from the University of Liverpool in 1978 as among her qualifications.

She was referred to as Dr Ann Limb by the City & Guilds Foundation, which she also chairs, in 2020, and in the Queen's Birthday Honours list announcing her damehood in 2022.

However, a new version of her CV - made in July 2024 - omits the Dr honorific and the supposed 1978 PhD, stating that she received honorary PhDs from Anglia Ruskin University and the University of Northampton.

Her website still says that she began her teaching career in further education "whilst undertaking a PhD at the University of Liverpool".

She told the Sunday Times: "I have used the word 'Doctor'... because I have got several honorary PhDs and that's been clear to me that they're honorary.

"Perhaps my own website is not very helpful, I don't pay a lot of attention to it, but if there's anything misleading... on that I'm very happy to correct [it]."

The newspaper also reported she claimed to have gained an MA from the Institute of Linguistics, which she also admitted was untrue.

Recipients of honorary doctorates tend not to use the Dr honorific despite technically being able to out of deference to those who have undertaken the academic work to receive a PhD.

When approached for comment, a No 10 spokesperson directed the BBC to a document listing the reasons why Dame Ann had been nominated for a peerage.

That document notes she has been the chair or non-executive director of several public, private and charity bodies.

Dame Ann grew up in Moss Side in Manchester and is currently the pro-chancellor of the University of Surrey and chair of institutions including the Lloyds Bank Foundation.

She was made a dame for services to young people and philanthropy, having spent much of her career in higher education.

The police watchdog says it may investigate West Midlands Police over its handling of the decision to ban Maccabi Tel Aviv fans from attending an Aston Villa game.

The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) told the BBC it can exercise its power to investigate "if evidence available to us appears to warrant" it, but that it needed to assess that evidence "before determining our next steps".

Its director Rachel Watson is quoted by the Sunday Times as saying she was willing to use the watchdog's "power of initiative" given the "sensitivities" of the case.

Maccabi fans were prohibited from attending a 6 November match in Birmingham based on reports of hooliganism at other away games they attended.

However, the government's adviser on antisemitism has since said that some of the intelligence the force used to come to the decision was "inaccurate".

Lord Mann told the Home Affairs Committee earlier this month that some facts about the earlier matches had been changed to fit the decision.

West Midlands Police also faced criticism over two of its high-ranking officers appearing to reiterate some of these inaccuracies before the committee.

The IOPC tends to investigate cases that have been referred to it by individual police forces - usually when someone has died due to police action, or if a police officer is accused of a criminal offence.

As such, instigating its own investigation without a referral is relatively rare.

The IOPC is not yet investigating the force's decision, but a spokesperson said on Sunday: "It is right for public confidence and police accountability that the force's involvement in the decision-making process is examined."

They noted HM Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services was examining the risk assessment West Midlands Police carried out before the fixture and the extent to which the intelligence it gathered "reflected the full information and intelligence picture".

They added that the Home Affairs Committee has asked the force for "additional evidence" relating to Chief Constable Craig Guildford and Assistant Chief Constable Mike O'Hara's committee appearance earlier this month.

"It is important for us to assess evidence related to these processes before determining our next steps."

The IOPC spokesperson said it had written to West Midlands Police and the region's police and crime commissioner to "seek assurances over what assessments they have made of any conduct".

They said this was important "to understand why a formal referral has not been made".

MPs previously heard that the ban was based on information given to the force by Dutch police commanders concerning violence that broke out in Amsterdam last year during a Europa League match between Ajax and Maccabi.

Following this, Dutch courts said evidence showed fans of the Israeli club faced violence, and also pointed out that the club's supporters pulled down Palestinian flags, vandalised taxis and chanted racist slogans against Arabs.

Despite West Midlands Police saying the decision "wasn't taken lightly", senior MPs, including Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, said it amounted to antisemitism.

Lord Mann told the Home Affairs Committee that there were several inaccuracies in West Midlands Police's intelligence report.

He said it cited Maccabi fans "pulling down Palestinian flags" on match day in the Netherlands, when the incident occurred the night before. It also referred to a match between Maccabi and West Ham which never happened.

The force also had to apologise over ACC O'Hara's repeated affirmation to the committee that representatives of the Jewish community had said they did not want Maccabi fans at the match, when they had said no such thing.

This week, Maccabi Tel Aviv was fined €20,000 (£17,550) for "racist and/or discriminatory behaviour" by supporters during their game at Stuttgart in Germany on 11 December.

Fans were also given a suspended one away match ban.

The Electoral Commission has found no "credible evidence of potential offences of electoral law" over Nigel Farage's election expenses.

In a letter to Reform UK's treasurer, shared with the BBC, the watchdog said it would take no further action.

It comes after a former member of Farage's campaign team claimed Reform spent more than the £20,660 spending limit set by law.

Last week Essex Police said they would not investigate the matter because more than a year had passed since the alleged offence.

• Farage will not face police inquiry into spending

The election agent for Nigel Farage in Clacton Peter Harris said the complaint had been "politically motivated".

"The facts are clear, the process has been properly followed, and there is no basis for any further allegation, inference, or repetition of these claims," Mr Harris added.

In a letter, the commission said it had "not identified any omissions of expenditure that ought to have been declared" in Farage's campaign for his Clacton constituency.

It added: "We did not identify credible evidence of potential offences of electoral law.

"Therefore, our decision is to close our consideration of the matter following initial enquiries and take no further action."

The claims of wrongdoing against Nigel Farage and his party were made by ex-Reform campaigner Richard Everett.

He alleged the party failed to declare spending on some leaflets, banners, utility bills and the refurbishment of a bar in the Clacton constituency office.

Documents were passed to the Metropolitan Police, which transferred the case to Essex Police.

Earlier this week an Essex Police spokeswoman said: "Any prosecution for such an offence must commence within one year."

She said an "allegation around misreported expenditure by a political candidate" in July 2024 was made on 5 December.

"It has been concluded that this report falls outside of the stated statutory time limit, and no investigation can take place," the spokeswoman added.

Farage took over as leader of Reform UK in June 2024, about a month before the general election.

He went on to win the seat of Clacton in Essex from the Conservatives with a majority of more than 8,000.

South African police say a manhunt is under way after a shooting at a tavern left nine people dead and another 10 injured in a township near Johannesburg.

They say about 12 unidentified gunmen arrived in two cars in Bekkersdal, "opened fire at tavern patrons and continued to shoot randomly as they fled the scene".

The shooting happened at about 01:00 local time on Sunday (23:00 GMT Saturday). The police added that the tavern was licensed.

South Africa has one of the highest murder rates in the world, at 45 people per 100,000 according to 2023-24 figures from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.

Earlier this month, at least 11 people - including a child - were shot dead at a hostel near Pretoria.

Israel's security cabinet has approved the recognition of 19 new settlements in the occupied West Bank as the government continues its settlement expansion push.

Far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a settler who proposed the move alongside Defence Minister Israel Katz, said the decision was about blocking the establishment of a Palestinian state.

Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank are considered illegal under international law.

Saudi Arabia condemned the move. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has said Israel's "relentless" settlement expansion fuels tensions, restricts Palestinian access to land, and threatens the viability of a sovereign Palestinian state.

Violence in the occupied West Bank has surged since the war in Gaza began in October 2023, further heightening fears that settlement expansion could entrench Israel's occupation and undermine a two-state solution.

The two-state solution refers to the creation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with East Jerusalem as its capital, broadly along the lines that existed prior to the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.

Since taking office in 2022, the current Israeli government has significantly increased the approval of new settlements and begun the legalisation process for unauthorised outposts, recognising them as "neighbourhoods" of existing settlements.

The most recent decision brings the total number of settlements approved over the past three years to 69, according to Smotrich.

The approvals come just days after the United Nations said settlement expansion had reached its highest level since 2017.

The latest approvals include the re-establishment of two settlements — Ganim and Kadim — which were dismantled nearly 20 years ago.

In May, Israel approved 22 new settlements in the occupied West Bank - the biggest expansion in decades.

The Israeli government also approved plans in August to build more than 3,000 homes in the so-called E1 project between Jerusalem and the Maale Adumim settlement, which had been frozen for decades amid fierce opposition internationally.

Smotrich at the time said the plan would "bury the idea of a Palestinian state".

About 700,000 settlers live in approximately 160 settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, according to Israeli anti-settlement group Peace Now. It is land Palestinians seek for a future independent state.

Settlement expansion has angered Arab nations who have consistently said it undermines prospects for a two-state solution.

It has also raised concerns about the possible annexing of the occupied West Bank.

US President Donald Trump had warned Israel about such a move, telling TIME magazine that Israel would lose all its support from the US if it happened.

In September, the UK - along with other countries including Australia and Canada - recognised a Palestinian state, a significant although symbolic change in government policy.

Israel opposed the move, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying a Palestinian state "will not happen".

Thousands of revellers gathered at Stonehenge in Wiltshire on Sunday morning to welcome the sunrise on the winter solstice - the shortest day of the year.

Wearing Celtic clothing and elaborate, nature-inspired headdresses, druids and pagans danced around the Neolithic stone circle in Wiltshire thought to have been built by distant ancestors to align with the movements of the Sun.

Saudi Arabia has surpassed its record for the number of executions carried out annually for a second year in a row.

At least 347 people have now been put to death this year, up from a total of 345 in 2024, according to the UK-based campaign group Reprieve, which tracks executions in Saudi Arabia and has clients on death row.

It said this was the "bloodiest year of executions in the kingdom since monitoring began".

The latest prisoners to be executed were two Pakistani nationals convicted of drug-related offences.

Others put death this year include a journalist and two young men who were children at the time of their alleged protest-related crimes. Five were women.

But, according to Reprieve, most - around two thirds - were convicted of non-lethal drug-related offences, which the UN says is "incompatible with international norms and standards".

More than half of them were foreign nationals who appear to have been put to death as part of a "war on drugs" in the kingdom.

The Saudi authorities have not responded to the BBC's request for comment on the rise in executions.

"Saudi Arabia is operating with complete impunity now," said Jeed Basyouni, Reprieve's head of death penalty for the Middle East and North Africa. "It's almost making a mockery of the human rights system."

She described torture and forced confessions as "endemic" within the Saudi criminal justice system.

Ms Basyouni called it a "brutal and arbitrary crackdown" in which innocent people and those on the margins of society have been caught up.

Tuesday saw the execution of a young Egyptian fisherman, Issam al-Shazly, who was arrested in 2021 in Saudi territorial waters and said he had been coerced into smuggling drugs.

Reprieve says that 96 of the executions were solely linked to hashish.

"It almost seems that it doesn't matter to them who they execute, as long as they send a message to society that there's a zero-tolerance policy on whatever issue they're talking about - whether it's protests, freedom of expression, or drugs," said Ms Basyouni.

There has been a surge of drug-related executions since the Saudi authorities ended an unofficial moratorium in late 2022 - a step described as "deeply regrettable" by the UN human rights office.

Speaking anonymously to the BBC, relatives of men on death row on drugs charges have spoken of the "terror" they're now living in.

One told the BBC: "The only time of the week that I sleep is on Friday and Saturday because there are no executions on those days."

Cellmates witness people they have shared prison life with for years being dragged kicking and screaming to their death, according to Reprieve.

The de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman - who became crown prince in 2017 - has changed the country profoundly over the past few years, loosening social restrictions while simultaneously silencing criticism.

In a bid to diversify its economy away from oil, he has opened Saudi Arabia up to the outside world, taken the religious police off the streets, and allowed women to drive.

But the kingdom's human rights record remains "abysmal", according to the US-based campaign group Human Rights Watch, with the high level of executions a major concern. In recent years, only China and Iran have put more people to death, according to human rights activists.

"There's been no cost for Mohammed bin Salman and his authorities for going ahead with these executions," said Joey Shea, who researches Saudi Arabia for Human Rights Watch. "The entertainment events, the sporting events, all of it is continuing to happen with no repercussions, really."

According to Reprieve, the families of those executed are usually not informed in advance, or given the body, or informed where they have been buried.

The Saudi authorities do not reveal the method of execution, although it is believed to be either beheading or firing squad.

In a statement sent to the BBC, the UN's special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, Dr Morris Tidball-Binz, called for an immediate moratorium on executions in Saudi Arabia with a view to abolition, as well as "full compliance with international safeguards (including effective legal assistance and consular access for foreign nationals), prompt notification of families, the return of remains without delay and the publication of comprehensive execution data to enable independent scrutiny".

Among the Saudi nationals executed this year were Abdullah al-Derazi and Jalal al-Labbad, who were both minors at the time of their arrest.

They had protested against the government's treatment of the Shia Muslim minority in 2011 and 2012, and participated in the funerals of people killed by security forces. They were convicted of terrorism-related charges and sentenced to death after what Amnesty International said were grossly unfair trials that relied on torture-tainted "confessions". UN human rights experts had called for their release.

The UN also condemned the execution in June of the journalist, Turki al-Jasser, who had been arrested in 2018 and sentenced to death on charges of terrorism and high treason based on writings he was accused of authoring.

"Capital punishment against journalists is a chilling attack on freedom of expression and press freedom," said Unesco's Director-General, Audrey Azoulay.

Reporters Without Borders said he was the first journalist to be executed in Saudi Arabia since Mohammed bin Salman came to power, although another journalist, Jamal Khashoggi, was murdered by Saudi agents at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018.

Last December, UN experts wrote to the Saudi authorities to express concern over a group of 32 Egyptians and one Jordanian national who had been sentenced to death on drugs charges, and their "alleged absence of legal representation". Since then, most of the group have been executed.

A relative of one man put to death earlier this year said that he had told her that people were being "taken like goats" to be killed.

The BBC has approached the Saudi authorities for a response to the allegations but has not received one.

But in a letter dated January 2025 - in reply to concerns raised by UN special rapporteurs - they said that Saudi Arabia "protects and upholds" human rights and that its laws "prohibit and punish torture".

"The death penalty is imposed only for the most serious crimes and in extremely limited circumstances," the letter stated. "It is not handed down or carried out until judicial proceedings in courts of all levels have been completed."

Mourners in Australia have fallen silent in honour of the victims of the Bondi beach attack.

The memorial was part of a national day of reflection to mark a week since the shooting in which two gunmen opened fire on an event celebrating the Jewish festival of Hannukah.

A 10-year-old girl, a British-born rabbi and a Holocaust survivor were among the 15 people killed during the attack.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was booed when he arrived at the memorial event - an expression of anger by Australia's Jewish community against his government after a rise of antisemitic attacks over the past few months.

As the sun set over Sydney on Sunday evening, a minute's silence was observed at 18:47 (07:47 GMT) - exactly one week since the first reports of gunfire at the famous beach.

There was heavy security at the memorial event. Some cordoned-off areas were guarded by armed riot squad officers who had their faces covered, while a police patrol boat was visible off the coast of Bondi beach.

For many Australians, this level of security is an unfamiliar sight.

A large crowd - many wearing kippas [the Jewish skullcap] or draped in Australian flags - gathered to listen to speeches after the observing the silence.

Bee balloons floated in the wind in honour of the youngest victim of the attack, Matilda - a reference to her nickname, "Matilda Bee".

And later in the ceremony, the crowd sang Waltzing Matilda, the song for which the 10-year-old was named.

Soon, they were chanting the name of another child - Chaya, a 14-year-old who put herself in the firing line to protect a stranger's children. Shot in the leg, she used crutches to take to the stage and urge the nation to be brave and kind.

"If you guys get inspired by one thing, one thing on all this, be the light in that field of darkness," she said.

The event ended with the lighting of the menorah - something the crowds gathered for Hannukah last week couldn't do.

Sunday's memorial was not limited to Bondi beach - or the state of New South Wales. In a nation-wide gesture of "light over darkness", the windowsills of countless homes were lined with candles.

As Albanese arrived for the ceremony, one person in the crowd shouted: "Blood on your hands."

The prime minister looked startled at the hostility, his wife Jodie Haydon grasping his arm in support.

At least one member of the crowd was tackled by police after moving towards the prime minister.

The Jewish community in Australia has repeatedly said this attack was a shock, not a surprise after a rise in antisemitic attacks in Australia since the 7 October 2023 Hamas attack on Israel and the subsequent military retaliation war launched by Israel in the Gaza Strip.

The overwhelming view is that more could and should have been done to prevent the Sydney attack from happening.

Albanese has acknowledged the criticism, saying "I accept my responsibility for the part in that as prime minister of Australia."

More widely, Albanese has been accused by some of siding with the Palestinians over supporting Israel and the relationship worsened when he moved to recognise the state of Palestine earlier this year.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has accused him - as well as the leaders of other countries that have recognised a Palestinian state - of rewarding Hamas.

After the Bondi beach attack last Sunday, Netanyahu said Albanese's government "did nothing to stop the spread of antisemitism in Australia".

In contrast to the reception for the Australian prime minister, Chris Minns, the Premier of New South Wales, was praised at the Sydney memorial service as an exemplary leader, partly for the speed with which he admitted government errors in the lead-up to the attack.

He also attended the funerals of several victims this week. Albanese was not invited to some.

"We are deeply sorry." Minns said at the event. "We grieve with you, and with humility, I acknowledge that the government's highest duty is to protect its citizens. And we did not do that one week ago."

The shooting had "highlighted a deep vein of antisemitic hate in our community", Minns said, adding: "This must be confronted."

The president of the New South Wales Jewish Board of Deputies, David Ossip, was hailed with loud cheers as he called for a "Royal Commission which goes beyond New South Wales, to get to the bottom of how this catastrophe took place".

Naveed Akram, 24, has been charged with 59 offences, including 15 counts of murder and one of committing a terrorist act. His father Sajid was killed during the attack.

Days after the attack, Prime Minister Albanese announced a raft of measures to crack down on hate speech and incitement to violence.

Before Sunday's ceremonu, he announced a review into the police and national intelligence agencies.

"The ISIS-inspired atrocity last Sunday reinforces the rapidly changing security environment in our nation," Albanese said, using an acronym for the Islamic State group.

He has also said he will reform gun laws and the government has launched a gun buyback scheme - the largest since the Port Arthur massacre in 1996, which left 35 people dead and prompted Australia to introduce world-leading gun control measures.

Trail hunting is set to be banned in England and Wales as part of a new animal welfare strategy to be published by the government on Monday.

The practice sees an animal-based scent trail laid for dogs to follow rather than a real animal, while a group of hunters follows the pack on horseback.

It has remained legal since the 2004 hunting ban came into force, because it does not explicitly involve the killing of animals.

However the government, which made a manifesto commitment to bring in the ban, says the practice is being used as a "smokescreen" for the hunting of wild animals.

• Government 'committed' to banning trail hunting
• Trail hunters call sport 'vital' amid ban threat

Hunting with hounds has been a tradition in parts of the UK for centuries, but the 2004 Hunting Act placed restrictions on the practice.

The act banned the use of dogs to hunt wild mammals - including foxes, hares, deer and mink - across England and Wales.

Trail hunting involves laying a trail using a rag soaked in animal scent which hounds can chase. The intention is to replicate the pursuit across the countryside, without the need to kill animals.

In April, anti-hunting group the League Against Cruel Sports said that nearly 1,600 incidents, including 397 reports of foxes being chased, were recorded nationwide during the last hunting season.

The chief executive of the Country Alliance, Tim Bonner, said revisiting the issue of trail hunting was "completely unnecessary".

He said: "It is unbelievable that the government wants to waste more parliamentary time on hunting.

"This issue was settled 20 years ago as far as Labour was concerned but it does not seem to be able to leave it alone."

Mr Bonner also spoke about the Labour party's relationship with rural constituents, adding: "People across the countryside will be shocked that after Labour's attack on family farms and its neglect of rural communities it thinks banning trail hunting and snares used for fox control are a political priority."

The British Hound Sports Association (BHSA) has previously said trail hunts are "vital" to rural communities as they not only bring in money into the rural economy, but also support mental and physical wellbeing.

Ministers will consult on the details of the ban in the new year.

The minister for animal welfare, Baroness Hayman said the government would start work on implementing the plans.

"In our manifesto we said we would ban trail hunting, and that's exactly what we'll do.

"There are concerns that trail hunting is being used a smokescreen for the hunting of wild animals, and that's not acceptable.

"We are working out the best approach to take the ban forward and will run a consultation to seek views in the new year".

Trail hunting is already banned in Scotland. Hunting with dogs remains legal in Northern Ireland.

More than 800 migrants in 13 boats crossed the English Channel on Saturday, according to Home Office data.

The figure is a record for a December day in recent years, and is believed to be due to a backlog of people wanting to get across to Kent because of recent bad weather.

It takes the total for the year to 41,455 people, surpassing 2024, when there were 36,816 for the entire year.

A Home Office spokesperson said: "The number of small boat crossings are shameful and the British people deserve better."

The 803 migrants were brought ashore at Dover by Border Force and RNLI vessels.

While the number of people making the dangerous journey across the Channel has risen more swiftly in 2025 than recent years, the yearly total has still not surpassed that of 2022, when 45,755 arrived.

The government statement added: "This Government is taking action. We have removed almost 50,000 people who were here illegally, and our historic deal with the French means those who arrive on small boats are now being sent back."

Weather forecasts

Charities supporting migrants in Calais say there was an unusually high number of people in the makeshift camps in northern France for this time of year, wanting to get to the UK.

That follows a recent period of 28 days when no small-boat crossings were possible because of windy conditions in the Channel.

Saturday was extremely calm at sea, and the smugglers - adept at studying the weather forecasts - were quick to load large groups of people onto overloaded dinghies.

The English Channel is one of the most dangerous and busiest shipping lanes in the world.

Many migrants come from some of the poorest and most chaotic parts of the world, and many ask to claim asylum once they are picked up by the UK authorities.

The Government meanwhile continues efforts to grasp the so-called "upstream" causes of the migration crisis, including through work with neighbouring countries.

Just this week, Germany passed a new law which could see people smugglers face up to 10 years in prison for trying to bring migrants to the UK.

The law change, which will come into force before the end of the year, aims to give more powers to law enforcement and prosecutors, and boost information sharing between the UK and Germany.

It follows a deal agreed between the two countries in December last year to tackle illegal migration, including taking action to remove smugglers' advertising on social media.

Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said: "This major change in German law is the result of our close partnership working to tackle illegal migration and organised immigration crime.

"We will continue to ramp up our international co-operation to strengthen our own border security."

Additional reporting by PA Media.

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

Songs about love, sex, tax and demon hunters ranked among the best music of 2025, according to a "poll of polls" conducted by BBC News.

We compiled more than 30 end-of-year lists from leading music publications to come up with a "super-ranking" of the year's best albums and singles, with artists including Pulp, Lady Gaga and Chappell Roan joined by newcomers like pop singer Addison Rae and indie band Geese.

In total, the critics named more than 200 records among their favourites, although the year's biggest-sellers failed to impress them.

Taylor Swift's blockbuster album The Life Of A Showgirl only picked up a handful of nominations. The year's biggest single, Alex Warren's Ordinary, appeared in just one list of 2025's best songs.

Instead, critics selected music that shifted the tectonic plates of pop... Here's a guide to their favourites.

The 10 best albums of 2025

10) Addison Rae – Addison

After a shaky start in 2021, Addison Rae's music career took flight with this collection of shimmering, trance-like hymns to desire. The desire for touch, the desire for fame, the desire for inner peace.

Unlike most modern pop albums, it's the work of just three people, with Rae and her collaborators Elvira Anderfjärd and Luka Kloser establishing a stylish, spacey and occasionally off-kilter sonic palette all of their own.

Singles like Diet Pepsi and Headphones On felt simultaneously classic and futuristic, marking Rae out as pop's newest It Girl.

Listen to Diet Pepsi: Sensual, hypnotic and calorie-free pop.

9) Lily Allen – West End Girl

Hell hath no fury like a Lily Allen scorned.

West End Girl is a savage and startlingly detailed portrait of a marriage being torn apart. Allen says some of the details have been exaggerated, but her pain is tangible amongst the artful pop beats and faux insouciance.

The dirty laundry triggered an avalanche of press coverage when the album arrived in November, but the songs have lingered as everyone remembers just how well Allen can craft an intoxicating pop hook.

Listen to Madeline: Where Allen confronts her partner's mistress, and recreates their texts.

• Lily Allen is 'vicious' and 'raw' on tell-all album

8) Pulp – More

Pulp's first album since 2001, More, somehow manages to sound as if it was recorded and shelved in their mid-90s heyday.

The lyrics are the only giveaway that this is the work of a band in their late middle age - as Jarvis Cocker sings movingly about stagnation, divorce and mortality. "You've gone from all you that could be to all that you once were," he laments on Slow Jam.

Yet, at 62, he remains stubbornly committed to the transformative power of love. And the reception Pulp received at Glastonbury this summer went a long way to proving him right.

Listen to Spike Island: A spiritual sequel to 1995's Sorted for E's & Wizz.

• Pulp reveal first album in 24 years

7) Dijon – Baby

What a wild year it's been for Dijon Duenas. After contributing to Bon Iver's Sable, Fable and Justin Bieber's acclaimed comeback, Swag, he scored two Grammy nominations for his second album, Baby.

It's a dazzling, harmony-rich R&B record, that channel-hops between genres and moods like a television tuned to the twin spirits of Prince and D'Angelo.

The album's central theme is the ecstasy and chaos of fatherhood, with Dijon addressing the title track to his firstborn, then imploring his wife to expand the family on the subtly-titled Another Baby! Sleepless nights have never sounded so good.

Listen to Yamaha: A swirling 80s funk groove allows Dijon to submerge himself in the bliss of enduring love.

6) FKA Twigs – Eusexua

Eusexua, FKA Twigs has said, is a word that describes "the tingling clarity" you get when you're struck by a new idea, when you kiss a stranger, or even "the moment before an orgasm".

The album attempts to recreate that feeling with a series of abstract, futuristic soundscapes and deconstructed club tracks. Echoing Madonna's Ray of Light (most notably on Girl Feels Good), the hooks are as sharp as the dopamine is addictive.

Listen to Girl Feels Good: A visceral ode to empowerment, femininity and healing on the dancefloor.

5) CMAT - Euro-Country

Coronation Street! Social anxiety! Late stage capitalism! Jamie Oliver! Grief! Road rage!

It's all there on Euro-Country, a riotously enjoyable romp through Ciara Mary-Alice Thompson's inner monologue.

Along the way, she tackles everything from male suicide to the impossible beauty standards that had her "trying to wax my legs with tape" at the age of nine.

Listen to Jamie Oliver Petrol Station: The only song of 2025 to address the need for tolerance through the prism of service station fast food.

• CMAT: I still face abuse over viral song

4) Oklou – Choke Enough

French artist Oklou – aka Marylou Mayniel – described her debut album as a "quest for meaning, of the need to be touched by anything" in a world where our interactions are stripped of humanity and flattened onto a screen.

Co-produced by Charli XCX collaborators AG Cook and Danny L Harle, it couldn't sound less bratty if it tried.

It's an album of intimate, gauzy pop, almost entirely drumless and built around hypnotic musical loops that short-circuit your emotions. Unplug and absorb.

Listen to Blade Bird: The album's swooning climax, based on a Basque poem about the tension between love and possession.

3) Bad Bunny - Debí Tirar Más Fotos

He might be Spotify's most-played artist of the year, but Puerto Rico's Bad Bunny makes no concessions to commercial trends.

His sixth album is a jubilant love letter to the music of his homeland, mixing traditional genres like plena, salsa and bomba with the hip-swaying pulse of reggaeton.

The irresistible grooves dare you not to get up and dance, while the lyrics agonise about gentrification and capitalism stealing the island's old magic.

Listen to DtMF: A lament for the loved ones he's lost, the album's title track translates as, "I should have taken more photos".

• Why Bad Bunny is refusing to tour the US

2) Geese – Getting Killed

A savage and unpredictable record, Getting Killed was apparently recorded in just 10 days.

It finds the four members of Brooklyn-based Geese patchworking the best bits of Radiohead, the Strokes, Captain Beefheart and the Velvet Underground into something entirely new and unpredictable.

Frontman Cameron Winter anchors the chaos with his singular warble, and lyrics that swerve wildly between irreverence and incisiveness.

Listen to Taxes: Defiant, taut and full of swagger, Winter chants: "If you want me to pay my taxes / You'd better come over with a crucifix."

1) Rosalía - Lux

If music brings us closer to God, Rosalía wants her music to bring God closer to us.

The Spanish singer's fourth album is an exhilarating - and profoundly moving - exploration of the human condition, that asks why the earthly and the holy have to be so far apart.

It's a monumental work. She devoted an entire year to the lyrics alone, singing in 14 languages, over music that sits at the lesser explored intersection of classical, flamenco and avant-pop.

In an interview with the New York Times, Rosalía agreed she was "demanding a lot" from listeners, "but I think that the more we are in the era of dopamine, the more I want the opposite".

Accordingly, it's an album that reveals fresh new treasures on every listen, as Rosalía argues we're all capable of grace and beauty. We just have to open our hearts.

Listen to Reliquia: As staccato strings are sucked into a vortex of electronic distortion, Rosalía sings about the sacrifices she's made for art and love, and concludes it's better to contribute to the world than take from it.

• Radical and Riveting: Rosalía's Lux reviewed

The 10 best singles of 2025

10) Wednesday - Elderberry Wine

There's a sense of unease bubbling under this gentle indie rock song, as though singer Karly Hartzman is perpetually on the brink of divulging an uncomfortable truth. Built around the metaphor of elderberries, a fruit that can heal or poison depending on how it's handled, the song captures the tension of staying in a relationship you know is toxic.

9) Kehlani - Folded

Introduced by nostalgic strings, Folded became Kehlani's first Top 10 hit in her native US, blending classic R&B themes of heartbreak and longing with modern production. Using the simple act of folding an ex-lover's clothes as jumping off point, Kehlani captures the emotional push-and-pull of saying goodbye.

8) Addison Rae - Headphones On

Addison Rae is a student of pop, and Headphones On is her master thesis – a hymn to music that whisks you away from the world for three minutes of distracted, hypnotic solace.

7) Amaarae - SMO

A seduction, a come-on, a hedonistic exploration of physicality. "Ginga me," Amaarae sings repeatedly over a throbbing electro groove – referencing the fluid, hip-swaying movements of the Brazilian martial art Capoeira. You'll succumb, and you'll enjoy it.

6) Bad Bunny - Baile Inolvidable

This boisterous, captivating salsa was recorded live with student musicians from Puerto Rico's Escuela Libre de la Música (take that, AI). But the celebratory atmosphere masks a broken heart, as Bad Bunny is reminded of the ex who taught him to dance. "I thought I'd grow old with you," he laments.

5) Huntr/x – Golden

Sometimes a song escapes its origins and goes into orbit. Golden was the last song written for Netflix's hit animation K-Pop Demon Hunters, but its soaring chorus became an anthem for anyone striving to achieve their dreams. An Oscar nomination beckons.

4) Chappell Roan - The Subway

Two things you can expect from Chappell Roan are theatricality and emotional honesty. The Subway delivers both, becoming a map of loss that carries listeners through a breakup on the streets and subways of New York - capturing that confusing limbo of experiencing grief and loneliness, surrounded by hundreds of strangers.

3) Lady Gaga - Abracadabra

A triumphant return to the sound of her debut album, Abracadabra takes all the Lady Gaga tropes – Nonsense lyrics! Demonic synths! Gothic choruses! – and dials them up to 11. An absolute banger.

2) Olivia Dean - Man I Need

Olivia Dean says Man I Need is a song "about knowing how you deserve to be loved and not being afraid to ask for it". The object of her affections just needs a nudge in the right direction, and this playful, soulful melody should easily set the romance on track.

1) PinkPantheress - Illegal

One of pop's most overused clichés is that falling in love is intoxicating, just like drugs!

So it's a credit to PinkPantheress that she's made the idea sound fresh – zoning in on the fraught awkwardness of hooking up, whether it's with a dealer or a potential new partner.

"It feels illegal," she frets, as her heartbeat races with the drumbeat of this smouldering dance-pop anthem.

The methodology

BBC News compiled more than 30 year-end lists published by the world's most influential music magazines and critics - including the NME, Rolling Stone, Spain's Mondo Sonoro and France's Les Inrockuptibles.

Records were assigned points based on their position in each list - with the number one album or single getting 20 points, the number two album receiving 19 points, and so on.

The results were the closest we've ever seen. Just 52 points separated Rosalía's Lux from the number two album, Geese's Getting Killed.

In the singles countdown, PinkPantheress was the runaway winner - but the rest of the field was tightly packed, reflecting a year where there haven't been many universally popular, culturally dominant songs.

The publications we surveyed included: Albumism, Billboard, Buzzfeed, Clash, Complex, Consequence of Sound, Dazed, Daily Mail, Dork, Double J, Entertainment Weekly, Exclaim!, The Fader, Flood, The Forty Five, Gorilla vs Bear, The Guardian, Independent, LA Times, Les Inrocks, Line of Best Fit, MOJO, Mondo Sonoro, NME, New York Times, Paste Magazine, Pitchfork, Pop Matters, Rolling Stone, The Skinny, Slant, Stereogum, The Telegraph, Time Magazine, Time Out, The Times, Uncut and Vulture.

Tinsel, foil garlands, multi-coloured floral lights and a lounge that looks like Christmas threw up all over it are making a return.

Retro-themed decor is in, with trees jam-packed full of bold, mismatching decorations, as more people try to recreate a festive season from their childhood.

The nostalgic shift started last year, say experts, but over-the-top (and tacky to some) has become one of the top decor trends for 2025.

"After a long run of pared-back, neutral or traditional Christmases, people seem much more willing to embrace fun, excess and nostalgia again," says Harry Bradshaw, from events and interiors styling company At Last Events.

Retailers say they're seeing growing demand for decorations that can help recreate that familiar Christmas magic from years gone by.

"Maximalism is making a bold return," says Abi Wilson, head of seasonal and gift buying at Habitat, adding that people are turning to '80s and '90s-style colourful bells and bows, oversized ornaments and paper decorations.

Primark said younger Gen X, millennials, and older Gen Z shoppers were buying decor that reminded them of their childhood.

Marks & Spencer noted strong sales of its tinsel rosettes and tinsel tree skirts this year, while John Lewis said sales of "retro-nostalgic decor" had soared 180% in 2025.

Felicity Hayward is going all out this year to find that Christmas joy.

Back in October, as she browsed the charity shops near where she lives in Margate, Kent, she stumbled across a collection of colourful festive foil stars that reminded her of Christmas at her grandparents' house when she was a child.

The 50p decorations started what became a two-month endeavour, looking for retro baubles, garlands, and anything she could find to recreate those special years growing up in the '90s.

"Christmas always revolved around my grandparents," Felicity, 37, says. The family would spend the day eating homemade cheese straws, listening to Frank Sinatra, watching Christmas movies and playing board games.

"When I think back to Christmas, I think back to their living room, and I think back to their decorations."

Felicity hadn't bothered with any Christmas decorations since 2019. The combination of the pandemic and her grandparents' deaths in 2022 and 2023 had left her feeling far from festive.

But this year, her living room is an explosion of colour, bedecked with foil stars, tinsel and homemade paper chains and ribbon garlands.

Some people might see her decorations as "tacky", but Felicity says that "for me, all of those colours bring me calm".

"I literally cannot wait to get home on a night and turn all my Christmas lights on and lie on the sofa," she says.

Liza Prideaux agrees understated decorations are overrated and has embraced "nostalgic, vintage" decor at Christmas for the last two years.

"There isn't a strict theme, it's more about colour, texture and creating a cosy, lived-in feeling," the 36-year-old from Devon says.

"The colourful incandescent lights are my favourite," she says. "They make everything feel warm and cosy."

How we sprinkle festive magic in our homes is a "physical representation of what we emotionally need from our Christmas celebrations", says Hannah Bartlett, who runs the business The Christmas Insider.

The season is always a "steady anchor" and coming back to the same rituals and traditions each year can help "ground us", she says.

But Ms Bartlett notes that the current "uncertainty" in the world is making people find even more comfort in those traditions that remind them of their childhood. There's a desire to "return to simpler times", she says.

Decorations like tinsel and brightly-coloured lights "take us back", agrees 52-year-old Pandora Maxton from York, an influencer who means business with her elaborate festive displays.

"I think that's why it's having a revival, because it just takes people back to being kids. And that's what Christmas is about, isn't it?"

Holly Langley was born in 1990. But that didn't stop her from hosting an '80s-themed Christmas some 40 years later.

Holly, 34, from Reading, hunted in charity shops and vintage fairs for foil decorations, satin baubles, tablecloths and china. On the day, she served Christmas cocktails and jam roly poly, with '80s music playing and a quiz about the decade.

"Every year we do the same thing, right? Everyone gets out their Christmas pyjamas, we watch the same TV shows, we eat the same food," Holly says. Her '80s-themed Christmas was "a little bit different, a bit quirky, a bit fun".

Want to create your own retro Christmas? Here are Felicity, Holly and Lucy's tips:

• Check charity shops, especially immediately after Christmas when people might be having a clear-out
• Look on resale sites and apps, though be careful buying second-hand electronics like lights
• Make paper chains that you can reuse for other celebrations
• Ask relatives if they have any unwanted decorations
• Play '70s and '80s music videos, films or adverts in the background

So why were decorations so bold and bright in the past?

In 1970s Britain people were looking for a "signal of hope", says vintage decor collector Lucy Scott, in a time of austerity, trade union action and miners' strikes.

It was also the age of flamboyant glam rock - Brits were going crazy for eye-catching style.

But there were also simply fewer options available in the 1970s.

"There wasn't necessarily a massive amount of choice, but the choice was for these kind of bright space age tinsel decorations... the majority from Hong Kong," says Lucy, 45, from Birmingham.

This started to change in the 1980s, when more people owned their homes and retailers like Woolworths and BHS started selling a wider choice of decorations, Lucy says.

But Felicity says she bought most of her decorations second hand. "If you think about it, these tinsels are 20 to 30 years old and they're still intact," she says.

And it's not just a trend for her.

"This won't be a Christmas, this will be my Christmas now forever."

In central Tel Aviv, the main stage has now been dismantled in Hostages Square, the focal point for the campaign over the past two years to bring back Israelis held in Gaza.

Nearby, signs and posters have been taken down, and the Hostages and Missing Families Forum has vacated the offices that served as its nerve centre. Of the 251 hostages seized by Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups in the 7 October 2023 attacks, 168 have been brought back alive from Gaza, eight have been rescued. Only one deceased hostage, Ran Gvili, remains.

With songs and prayers instead of mass rallies, the Gvili family and a small crowd of supporters assemble in Hostages Square each Friday to mark the start of the Jewish Sabbath; this week, a candle for the Hanukkah holiday was also lit.

They are determined to bring back the young police officer who was killed by Hamas fighters after he rushed to help people being attacked in Kibbutz Alumim in southern Israel in October 2023.

"I feel every day is still the 7 October. We didn't pass the 7 October, but we are strong, and we're waiting for him. We do whatever we need," says Itzik Gvili, Ran's father. "This gives us hope: the support of the people."

From the start, people power has been key to the hostage families. As its operations wind down, members of the Hostages Families Forum have been reflecting on its extraordinary evolution which turned the grassroots group into a powerful international lobbying force.

In the terrible aftermath of the 2023 Hamas-led assault on southern Israel, which also killed some 1,200 people, a huge group of distraught relatives gathered for the first time in Tel Aviv desperately seeking answers about their missing loved ones. Because of the incoming rocket fire from Gaza, they met in an underground car park.

"We were together, shocked, and it fell on me that this is actually real, that now we are going to face this unbelievable challenge of understanding where all these people are, getting them home," recalls Gil Dickmann, whose cousin Carmel Gat had been snatched from Kibbutz Be'eri.

"And the second thing is that we're going to do this together. I'm not going to stand alone."

The formation of the new forum, with its slogan: "Bring them home now", gave the hostages' families a much-needed sense of regaining control.

"It was very, very powerful to feel that when the government and Israeli state, in a way collapsed in those very first few days after 7 October, it felt like nothing was working, what was working was Israeli society," Mr Dickmann says. "So many wonderful people came to help. That brought me a lot of hope."

Dividing its efforts between supporting the families - many of whom were bereaved and displaced from their homes following the attacks - and campaigning in Israel and around the world, the Hostages Families Forum worked with more than 10,000 volunteers. They included former Israeli diplomats, lawyers and security officials.

Funded entirely by donations, it began to pay some staff, and a high-tech company loaned its central Tel Aviv office space.

In November 2023 - more than six weeks into the brutal war in Gaza, which had by then killed more than 14,000 Palestinians according to the Hamas-run health ministry - Israel and Hamas agreed to a Qatar-mediated truce.

This saw most women and children hostages returned in exchange for Israel releasing more than 240 Palestinian prisoners, all women and children. Hamas also freed some foreign nationals.

But after a week, the fighting resumed with ferocity. About half of the hostages were left in Gaza. In December, three Israeli hostages were killed by Israeli soldiers in Gaza despite the fact they were shirtless, waving a makeshift white flag, and calling out in Hebrew.

Those were difficult days for the Hostages Families Forum and in early 2024, with polls suggesting more Israelis prioritised eliminating Hamas over the return of those still held captive, it brought in political strategist, Lior Chorev, as campaign manager.

"We were in deep war in Gaza, deep war in Lebanon, there was the Iranian threat, and it appeared that everything was stuck, and public opinion was against us," Mr Chorev explains.

"As a civil society organisation, we could not impact whether or not there's going to be a deal, but we could work hard on the Israeli public opinion to ensure that if a deal came into place, it would have a sound civilian majority within the country."

As well as Saturday evening demonstrations in the plaza in front of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, now renamed Hostages Square, there were near-daily actions by the Hostages Families Forum ranging from concerts and art installations to civil disruption. Media and diplomatic teams helped keep the hostages at the centre of attention.

"They kept going 24/7 for two years," comments Times of Israel political correspondent Tal Schneider who, like visiting foreign officials, often went to the forum's HQ.

"This place became like a foreign ministry for the country, for the families of 250 people."

Looking back, Michael Levy says his intensive campaigning helped him deal with the "emotional rollercoaster" after his sister-in-law, Einav, was killed at the Nova Festival and his younger brother, Or, was taken hostage alive.

"The only thing that helped me was becoming active. I was interviewed all the time. I went with 15 different delegations to over 12 countries. I spoke to whoever was willing to listen and didn't want to stop and think," Mr Levy says.

"You need to stay optimistic all the time. You need to tell yourself every morning that today is going to be the day that he's going to be released, even though you know you are lying to yourself."

Although a hostage-prisoner exchange deal to end the war laid out in mid-2024 was described by then-US President Joe Biden as an Israeli proposal, Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was widely seen as dragging out hostilities to aid his own political survival – a claim he rejected.

Tensions rose between the Hostages Families Forum and Israel's government; there was open animosity from some government supporters.

The situation worsened after a Netanyahu aide was accused of deliberately acquiring and illegally leaking a top-secret document to a German newspaper to influence how Israel's public viewed negotiations on a ceasefire and hostage deal.

The document was misleadingly cast as suggesting that pressure on the prime minister played into the hands of Hamas.

For Mr Dickmann and Mr Levy, there was a low point when they headed to Washington for Netanyahu's address to a joint meeting of US Congress in July 2024 with other forum members.

They showed off T-shirts saying "Seal the deal" during an ovation for the Israeli leader and were arrested for an unlawful demonstration. "That was one of the moments in which I felt most alone," Mr Dickmann says. "It was one of the most frightening things and it was while Carmel was still alive in captivity."

The worst news came a month later when Carmel and five other hostages were killed by their Hamas captors, as the Israeli military closed in nearby.

Mr Dickmann says it was only an "unbelievable support group" of younger forum members that helped him get through the ordeal.

After the Israeli deaths were confirmed, angry protesters flooded the streets of Israeli cities. The forum puts the total number at 600,000.

In Tel Aviv, a crowd of hostage families and their supporters marched with six prop coffins. A crowd gathered outside Israel's military headquarters and clashed with police on a major road.

By the start of 2025, international opposition to the devastating Gaza war had reached new heights as the number of Palestinians killed approached 48,000, according to Gaza's health ministry.

In Israel, polls indicated a clear shift in Israeli public opinion, with a growing majority backing a hostage deal to end the war. With the election of a new US president, the Hostages Families Forum was increasingly directing its efforts stateside.

"They needed to bypass their own government," comments Ms Schneider. "The most important person for the job was obviously [US] President [Donald] Trump. There were signs written in English carried by the people and they would pack all their messages into a one-minute video, and they'd send it to him."

Working with regional mediators, the US secured a new Gaza deal between Israel and Hamas in January 2025, just as Trump took office. The first stage brought back 33 hostages – eight of whom were dead – in exchange for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners and detainees. Five Thai hostages were also released.

But in mid-March, Israel ended the ceasefire, resuming its heavy bombing of Gaza, without starting talks on the deal's second stage, which involved a full end to fighting and the return of the remaining hostages.

Frail and emaciated following his release in February under the ceasefire deal, Or Levy was emotionally reunited with his three-year-old son, his parents and brother Michael. However, Michael's joy was short-lived. He quickly resumed his campaigning with others in the Hostages Families Forum.

"I got what I wanted, I got my brother back, but I couldn't just stop," he says, "I couldn't be happy because in those 491 days, they became my family. I almost felt I knew all the other hostages, that every hostage still there was part of my family."

Newly freed hostages gave TV interviews saying they had been starved and beaten in captivity, sometimes in response to the ill-treatment of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.

Despite their trauma and fragile health, a few of the former hostages travelled to the White House urging President Trump to use his influence to bring back all the living and dead Israelis they had left behind in Gaza.

There were more dramatic moments.

In September, an Israeli air strike unsuccessfully targeted the exiled Hamas leadership as it met in Qatar, a regional mediator, to discuss a new ceasefire proposal presented by the US.

However, the ultimate effect was to push the Trump administration - backed up by its Arab allies – towards a new plan to end the war, which had by then killed more than 67,000 people in Gaza, according to the territory's health ministry.

Israel and Hamas agreed a ceasefire deal, under which all 20 living and 28 dead hostages still in Gaza would be handed over in return for almost 2,000 Palestinian detainees and prisoners in Israeli jails, as well as a surge in humanitarian aid and a partial Israeli withdrawal.

When Trump's Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, and the president's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, arrived in Israel just after the latest ceasefire started on 10 October, they were greeted by rapturous applause on stage in Hostages Square.

On 13 October, the remaining living hostages came back.

"I'll never have a happier day in my life," says Mr Dickmann, remembering seeing his best friends reunited with their loved ones.

Mr Chorev, the Hostage Families Forum's chief strategist, considers that long-held Jewish and Israeli traditions won through.

"This basic value of the Israeli theme that you don't leave anyone behind, that you're responsible for each and every Israeli held by the enemy, this was something that was unclear to certain elements in the Israeli government," he says. "But it was very clear to the Israeli public."

Slowly, 27 of the dead hostages' bodies have been returned to Israel over the past two months.

Amid the ruins of Gaza, where health ministry officials say the number of Palestinians killed has risen to more than 70,000, Hamas operatives and the Red Cross have been searching for Ran Gvili's body east of Gaza City.

Now, the last funds of the Hostages Families Forum are being used to support the Gvilis and a few dozen volunteers continue to head to Hostages Square on Fridays.

"We have been here in the rain and in nearly 50-degree [Celsius] heat, from winter to summer," says Tali, from Tel Aviv. "Now that this is nearly over, I have mixed emotions. There is still one hostage who hasn't come back. I told myself I would stay until the last one."

A symbolic tunnel, a large "Hope" sign and a piano put in the square in honour of now released hostage, Alon Ohel - a musician - have not yet been removed, nor has the giant countdown board which marks the days since 7 October 2023. A final mass rally is promised for when Ran Gvili's body is returned for burial.

Israel's prime minister has never appeared in Hostages Square, but he has met with released hostages and hostage families, including those from a small, alternative group to the Hostages Families Forum, the Tikva Forum. The Gvilis belong to both.

The family joined a candle-lighting ceremony on the first night of Hanukkah with Netanyahu.

"We will bring Ran back, just as we brought back 254 out of our 255 abductees," the prime minister said. "Some did not believe. I believe. My friends in the government believed. They said: 'It will be a miracle.' I said: 'This nation performs miracles.'"

But in Israel, painful questions linger over why more hostages' lives were not saved.

The Hostages Families Forum recently released harrowing Hamas videos recovered in Gaza which show the six hostages who were later murdered, including Carmel Gat, celebrating Hanukkah in a tunnel in 2023.

The hostage crisis continues to cast a long shadow over Israeli society; even as many take heart from the families' message of endurance and solidarity.

Additional reporting by Davide Ghiglione and Gidi Kleiman

Just a few days before her sudden death in late May, Zoë and her husband Andrew had a conversation that he returns to time and again.

They were driving to see a friend when the 38-year-old mum of their two young boys told him "she had everything she ever wanted in life".

Six months after losing his "kind, caring, clever and beautiful" partner to sudden adult death syndrome, he says remembering that "heart-to-heart in the car... makes me feel so much better".

Andrew, a 42-year-old mechanical engineer who works in the nuclear power industry, says the pair had been busy "doing life" until then.

Surrounded by toys, photographs and cats in the family home in Timperley, Greater Manchester, he says you can never tell your loved ones too often how much they mean to you.

"I think you take so much for granted in that they are there – that you get to just touch them, cuddle them. But do you ever tell them, 'Oh yeah, you look really good today' or 'I'm so happy that you're here'?

"You don't, do you? I wish I'd done more, I wish I'd shown more how I felt. Zoë knew but..."

Facing his first Christmas without his wife, Andrew thinks this is indicative of our wider inability to talk about death, to even contemplate facing our worst nightmare.

Many people just do not know what to say, how to behave or how to best support a family member, friend or colleague who has lost their partner.

Andrew admits he used to be "terrible at this - I was always the person that hid away and didn't approach it".

There had been nothing to suggest Zoë, a partner in a Manchester law firm, was unwell before the unexplained cardiac arrest that took her life.

Having experienced such a traumatic loss, Andrew has thought about what people can do.

"Just acknowledging the pain, the grief and there's nothing to say... being there for them is enough," he says.

"Don't ask what you can do - just do what you can do. Because I don't know what I want, I don't know what I need. I just need people to do something that they're willing to do.

"Buy me some food or deliver some food. It doesn't matter if I eat it or not – you've at least given me the choice, but you've not asked me to choose.

"Because if you would ask me 'Shall I bring some food round?' I'm probably gonna say 'no' because I don't care. I will survive without it. But if you just do it, it's there isn't it?"

'Overwhelming responsibility'

If the bereaved person does not immediately respond, he says you should not be surprised.

"In the early days I was getting text messages all the time from people. And if you were the last one I read before I went to sleep at night, that person got everything - they just got a horrible griefy message summarising my day."

He says Benjamin Brooks-Dutton's best-selling book - It's Not Raining Daddy, It's Happy - offers an invaluable insight into the new reality of living without your partner while supporting and looking after young children.

The pain and sense of overwhelming responsibility is so clear when Andrew talks about their beloved boys, four-year-old Joey and Tommy, who was a month away from turning two when his mum died.

"I'm not their dad anymore - I'm their parent," Andrew explains. "My role has changed."

Sounding wistful for a moment, he continues: "I really liked being Dad. But I can't be the dad that I was - I have to be this. I have to do some of what she did."

Widows and widowers talk about the pain of the "firsts" without their late partner - anniversaries, birthdays, major life events.

Andrew thought he would be celebrating Zoë's 39th birthday on 23 December, quickly followed by the glorious chaos of Christmas with family, friends and their boys' wide-eyed excited innocence.

The couple met by chance in September 2014 after independently booking a cycling holiday in Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam.

Andrew remembers the first time they met, thinking: "Wow - she is amazing!"

He adds: "I guess the beauty of a cycling holiday is that you have to look ahead - you can't look at the person - you just talk and we talked and we hit it off."

The young couple knew it was meant to be, and Andrew soon moved from Abu Dhabi to be with Zoë in Manchester, a city where he did not know anybody else.

"It's what you dream of," he says. "You know you've got this person who understands you, believes in you, accepts you, loves you, lets you be yourself and you learn that as your relationship grows."

They moved in together before getting married in May 2017, enjoying what Andrew describes as "the perfect life - on Fridays we went to restorative yoga after work and then have a restorative pint on the way home".

After struggling to conceive naturally and a failed course of IVF, their dream of having children finally came true when Zoë became pregnant with Joey, who was born in April 2021. Little brother Tommy followed in June 2023.

Andrew says he will spend much of the festive period potty-training his younger son.

Many widows and widowers raise an eyebrow when they hear well-meaning people urging them to "be strong" and saying things like "I don't know how you do it."

Andrew says: "You do have a choice but you don't have a choice. It's like I have to be. I feel this level of expectation from her - that's who she was, that's what she was.

"So for her to be proud of me - and that's all I can do for her now, to honour her memory - is to be there for the boys, to be the best possible parent for the boys.

"Make sure they're – I don't like this – as impacted as little as possible by her loss. And they can be the people they were going to be.

"I really struggle with that because if I do a really good job as a parent her loss will be minimised. But if I do a really bad job as a parent that's the loss of her."

'Hurts so much'

Andrew, who returned to work two months after he was widowed, says he only now fully appreciates his "male privilege" and everything that "amazing mother" Zoë did to support him and their boys.

He says time is now his most precious commodity, adding: "You just don't have that backstop, do you? That extra support."

Using a sporting analogy, the keen runner - who completes Parkruns every week by pushing his sons in their buggy - says: "When a player gets sent off in a football match, you still try and win the match with 10 men don't you? And you just have to work a little bit harder.

"I feel that's the point, that I still want the boys to enjoy life. And for the boys to enjoy life, I have got to enjoy life at some point."

Andrew talks about Zoë being his "safety blanket that made me feel whole - she's gone and I don't feel whole. That's love, I think, and that's why it hurts so much."

He says seeing happy couples walk hand-in-hand while Christmas shopping, just like he and his wife used to, is incredibly hard.

"It's just accentuated at this time of year," he says. "I'm trying to wrap presents - I hate wrapping presents."

Talking about how that job always fell to Zoë, while he occupied the boys, he says: "I haven't got 'me' to distract the kids."

When you are rushing around, trying to do everything for your children and hold down a demanding job, how are there enough hours in the day?

Andrew says: "The bit that I struggle with is time. You don't have space or time to grieve and feel or reflect. I think I had two months off work. After that, I was always busy.

"And I think I was – and I still am – scared of time on my own. I'm really scared because time on my own is actually time with Zoë.

"Because she's there with me but you almost don't want that because she's not with you. You have to have it in your head."

He struggles when asked what he thinks Zoë would want for him this Christmas and in the years to come.

Eventually, he replies: "It's a horrible way to put it but she's not here to live anymore.

"It's silly for me not to live 'cos she can't. She would want me to live. I can't put it any other way."

• If you have been affected by the issues in this story, information and support is available via the BBC Action Line

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.

Australia's Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has announced a review into the police and national intelligence agencies after last weekend's Bondi Beach attack.

"The ISIS-inspired atrocity last Sunday reinforces the rapidly changing security environment in our nation," Albanese said, using an acronym for the Islamic State group. "Our security agencies must be in the best position to respond."

A national day of reflection was being held on Sunday to mourn the 15 people killed after two gunmen opened fire at a Jewish festival at the Sydney beach.

Amid tight security, a minute of silence will be observed at 18:47pm local time (07:47 GMT), marking exactly a week since the shooting began.

Police allege the attack on December 14, which they have declared a terrorist incident, was committed by a father-son duo, inspired by "Islamic State ideology".

Naveed Akram, 24, has been charged with 59 offences, including 15 counts of murder and one of committing a terrorist act. His father Sajid was killed during the attack.

Albanese said the intelligence review, due by April 2026, would focus on ensuring authorities were equipped to tackle extremism.

He said: "The Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet will examine whether federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies have the right powers, structures, processes and sharing arrangements in place to keep Australians safe in the wake of the horrific antisemitic Bondi Beach terrorist attack."

In the wake of Australia's deadliest mass shooting in almost three decades, the government has announced plans to tighten gun controls, while the New South Wales is pushing to crack down on hate speech.

As part of a national day of reflection, Bondi was to host a memorial later on Sunday, exactly one week after the tragedy.

Earlier in the day, Governor-General Samantha Mostyn addressed a vigil held in Bondi, hosted by the National Council of Jewish Women Australia, where attendees largely wore white to symbolise peace.

"The entire Jewish community, whether it's here in Bondi or across our nation, you are part of the belonging story and the success of this country," she said.

Australians across the country are still reeling and there's a sense of shock and disbelief that something like this could have happened.

But this weekend, normality returned in some ways. Bondi promenade was once again filled with surfers, runners and dog-walkers returning to their regular routine.

While a sombre mood lingers, children's surf club activities – known locally as 'nippers' – resumed on Sunday as a sign of the community showing resilience.

North Bondi's Surf Life Saving president Steve Larnach told the BBC they had considered cancelling the regular nippers events.

"We were also aware of the sensitivity towards our Jewish community," Larnach said. "We did ask their opinion, they were very supportive of us going ahead but also extremely grateful for what we did."

Lifeguard volunteers were among the first on the scene at the shooting last week providing first aid, Larnach said.

Some surf lifesavers have been hailed as heroes, including one who was photographed sprinting from a neighbouring beach with a red first aid kit slung over his shoulder.

Geraldine Nordfelft, who brought her daughter to nippers, said "it was really important to return to whatever this new normal is as soon as we could".

"You have to return, you can't stay away, you can't let fear win. The beach is the Australian way of life and we all love it," she told the BBC.

Bazball beaten and broken by oldest rivals

Awesome Australia do it again

Last rites in City of Churches

More on this story

• The 10 moments that decided the Ashes

  Published
  51 minutes ago

  

• Get cricket news sent straight to your phone

  Published
  16 August

  

Costly collapse in Perth

Head's astonishing century

Brook gifts wicket away in Brisbane

Dismal drops at the Gabba

Starc's 77 gives Aussies commanding lead

Crawley and Pope make same mistake

Brook drops recalled Khawaja

Carey reprieved by Snicko error

Cummins removes Root (again)

Another Head ton puts Aussies in total control

More on this story

• Get cricket news sent straight to your phone

  Published
  16 August

  

Just a few days before her sudden death in late May, Zoë and her husband Andrew had a conversation that he returns to time and again.

They were driving to see a friend when the 38-year-old mum of their two young boys told him "she had everything she ever wanted in life".

Six months after losing his "kind, caring, clever and beautiful" partner to sudden adult death syndrome, he says remembering that "heart-to-heart in the car... makes me feel so much better".

Andrew, a 42-year-old mechanical engineer who works in the nuclear power industry, says the pair had been busy "doing life" until then.

Surrounded by toys, photographs and cats in the family home in Timperley, Greater Manchester, he says you can never tell your loved ones too often how much they mean to you.

"I think you take so much for granted in that they are there – that you get to just touch them, cuddle them. But do you ever tell them, 'Oh yeah, you look really good today' or 'I'm so happy that you're here'?

"You don't, do you? I wish I'd done more, I wish I'd shown more how I felt. Zoë knew but..."

Facing his first Christmas without his wife, Andrew thinks this is indicative of our wider inability to talk about death, to even contemplate facing our worst nightmare.

Many people just do not know what to say, how to behave or how to best support a family member, friend or colleague who has lost their partner.

Andrew admits he used to be "terrible at this - I was always the person that hid away and didn't approach it".

There had been nothing to suggest Zoë, a partner in a Manchester law firm, was unwell before the unexplained cardiac arrest that took her life.

Having experienced such a traumatic loss, Andrew has thought about what people can do.

"Just acknowledging the pain, the grief and there's nothing to say... being there for them is enough," he says.

"Don't ask what you can do - just do what you can do. Because I don't know what I want, I don't know what I need. I just need people to do something that they're willing to do.

"Buy me some food or deliver some food. It doesn't matter if I eat it or not – you've at least given me the choice, but you've not asked me to choose.

"Because if you would ask me 'Shall I bring some food round?' I'm probably gonna say 'no' because I don't care. I will survive without it. But if you just do it, it's there isn't it?"

'Overwhelming responsibility'

If the bereaved person does not immediately respond, he says you should not be surprised.

"In the early days I was getting text messages all the time from people. And if you were the last one I read before I went to sleep at night, that person got everything - they just got a horrible griefy message summarising my day."

He says Benjamin Brooks-Dutton's best-selling book - It's Not Raining Daddy, It's Happy - offers an invaluable insight into the new reality of living without your partner while supporting and looking after young children.

The pain and sense of overwhelming responsibility is so clear when Andrew talks about their beloved boys, four-year-old Joey and Tommy, who was a month away from turning two when his mum died.

"I'm not their dad anymore - I'm their parent," Andrew explains. "My role has changed."

Sounding wistful for a moment, he continues: "I really liked being Dad. But I can't be the dad that I was - I have to be this. I have to do some of what she did."

Widows and widowers talk about the pain of the "firsts" without their late partner - anniversaries, birthdays, major life events.

Andrew thought he would be celebrating Zoë's 39th birthday on 23 December, quickly followed by the glorious chaos of Christmas with family, friends and their boys' wide-eyed excited innocence.

The couple met by chance in September 2014 after independently booking a cycling holiday in Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam.

Andrew remembers the first time they met, thinking: "Wow - she is amazing!"

He adds: "I guess the beauty of a cycling holiday is that you have to look ahead - you can't look at the person - you just talk and we talked and we hit it off."

The young couple knew it was meant to be, and Andrew soon moved from Abu Dhabi to be with Zoë in Manchester, a city where he did not know anybody else.

"It's what you dream of," he says. "You know you've got this person who understands you, believes in you, accepts you, loves you, lets you be yourself and you learn that as your relationship grows."

They moved in together before getting married in May 2017, enjoying what Andrew describes as "the perfect life - on Fridays we went to restorative yoga after work and then have a restorative pint on the way home".

After struggling to conceive naturally and a failed course of IVF, their dream of having children finally came true when Zoë became pregnant with Joey, who was born in April 2021. Little brother Tommy followed in June 2023.

Andrew says he will spend much of the festive period potty-training his younger son.

Many widows and widowers raise an eyebrow when they hear well-meaning people urging them to "be strong" and saying things like "I don't know how you do it."

Andrew says: "You do have a choice but you don't have a choice. It's like I have to be. I feel this level of expectation from her - that's who she was, that's what she was.

"So for her to be proud of me - and that's all I can do for her now, to honour her memory - is to be there for the boys, to be the best possible parent for the boys.

"Make sure they're – I don't like this – as impacted as little as possible by her loss. And they can be the people they were going to be.

"I really struggle with that because if I do a really good job as a parent her loss will be minimised. But if I do a really bad job as a parent that's the loss of her."

'Hurts so much'

Andrew, who returned to work two months after he was widowed, says he only now fully appreciates his "male privilege" and everything that "amazing mother" Zoë did to support him and their boys.

He says time is now his most precious commodity, adding: "You just don't have that backstop, do you? That extra support."

Using a sporting analogy, the keen runner - who completes Parkruns every week by pushing his sons in their buggy - says: "When a player gets sent off in a football match, you still try and win the match with 10 men don't you? And you just have to work a little bit harder.

"I feel that's the point, that I still want the boys to enjoy life. And for the boys to enjoy life, I have got to enjoy life at some point."

Andrew talks about Zoë being his "safety blanket that made me feel whole - she's gone and I don't feel whole. That's love, I think, and that's why it hurts so much."

He says seeing happy couples walk hand-in-hand while Christmas shopping, just like he and his wife used to, is incredibly hard.

"It's just accentuated at this time of year," he says. "I'm trying to wrap presents - I hate wrapping presents."

Talking about how that job always fell to Zoë, while he occupied the boys, he says: "I haven't got 'me' to distract the kids."

When you are rushing around, trying to do everything for your children and hold down a demanding job, how are there enough hours in the day?

Andrew says: "The bit that I struggle with is time. You don't have space or time to grieve and feel or reflect. I think I had two months off work. After that, I was always busy.

"And I think I was – and I still am – scared of time on my own. I'm really scared because time on my own is actually time with Zoë.

"Because she's there with me but you almost don't want that because she's not with you. You have to have it in your head."

He struggles when asked what he thinks Zoë would want for him this Christmas and in the years to come.

Eventually, he replies: "It's a horrible way to put it but she's not here to live anymore.

"It's silly for me not to live 'cos she can't. She would want me to live. I can't put it any other way."

• If you have been affected by the issues in this story, information and support is available via the BBC Action Line

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.

"It's like a switch that goes on and you're instantly starving."

Tanya Hall has tried to stop taking weight loss medication multiple times. But every time she stops the injections, the food noise comes back. Loudly.

Weight loss jabs, or GLP-1s, have done for many what diets could never do. That constant background hum, telling them to eat even when they are full, has been turned off.

The drugs have given those who never thought they could lose weight a new body shape, a new outlook and in many cases, a completely different life.

But you can't continue taking them forever, can you? Or can you? Well, that's one of the issues, no-one quite knows.

They are new drugs - which mimic GLP-1, a natural hormone that regulates hunger - and the potential side effects from using them in the long term are only just beginning to emerge.

And with an estimated 1.5 million people in the UK paying for the injections privately, staying on them for a long time is not a cheap endeavour.

So what happens when you try to stop? Two women, with two very different stories but the same goal - to lose weight and keep it off - tell us what it's been like for them.

"It was like something opened up in my mind and said: 'Eat everything, go on, you deserve it because you haven't eaten anything for so long'."

Tanya, a sales manager for a large fitness company, first started taking Wegovy to prove a point. She was overweight, felt like an "imposter" and thought her opinion was not valued by her industry because of her size.

Would she be taken more seriously if she were slimmer?

Ultimately, she says her suspicions were proved right. After she started using the jabs, people would come up to her and congratulate her on her weight loss. She felt she was treated with more respect.

However, during the first few months of the treatment, Tanya struggled to sleep, felt sick all the time, had headaches and even started to lose her hair, which might not be directly due to the drug but is a potential side effect of rapid weight loss.

"My hair was falling out in clumps," she recalls. But in terms of weight, she was getting the results she'd hoped for. "I'd lost about three and a half stone."

Now, more than 18 months down the line, what started as a bit of an experiment has turned into a complete life change. She's lost six stone (38kg) and she's tried to come off Wegovy several times.

But each time, within just a few days, she says she eats so much food she's left "completely horrified".

Should she stay on the medication, and live with all the side effects that come with it, or jump into the unknown?

Wegovy's manufacturer, Novo Nordisk, said that treatment decisions should be made together with a healthcare provider and that "side effects should be taken into account as part of this".

Stopping weight loss drugs can feel like "jumping off a cliff", observes lifestyle GP Dr Hussain Al-Zubaidi.

"I often see patients who will come off it when they're on the highest dose because they've reached their target and then they stop."

According to Dr Al-Zubaidi, that can be like being hit by an "avalanche or a tsunami". The food noise comes back as quickly as the next day.

He says the evidence so far suggests that, between one and three years after stopping the medication, people will see a "significant proportion of weight" go back on.

"Somewhere in the region of 60 to 80% of the weight that you lost will return."

Ellen Ogley is determined not to let that happen. She decided to start taking weight-loss medication because she had reached a "key turning point" in her life. She was so overweight she had to sign a waiver to say she might not make it through a vital operation.

Starting on Mounjaro was her "final shot to get it right", she says.

"I was an emotional binge eater," she says.

"If I was happy, I would binge. If I was sad, I was binging. It didn't really matter, I had no filter whatsoever."

But when she started using the jabs, "all that switched off".

Life without food noise gave Ellen the space to redesign her relationship with eating. She started to read up on nutrition and create a healthy diet that helped fuel her body.

She was on the medication for 16 weeks before she began to taper, cutting down over a period of six weeks. She lost 3st 7lb (22kg).

As she lost more weight, she found she could exercise more and when she was feeling "low", instead of "going to to the cupboards and filling my face", she would go for a run.

But when Ellen stopped taking Mounjaro, she began to see her weight creep up, which she says "messed my head up a little bit".

This is why the right support is crucial, Dr Al-Zubaidi says. The UK's medicine watchdog, Nice, has recommended that patients receive at least a year of ongoing advice and tailored action plans after they've stopped treatment, helping them to make practical changes to their lives so they can keep the weight off and most importantly, stay healthy.

But for those who pay for the drugs privately, like Tanya and Ellen, this kind of support is not always guaranteed.

For the past few months, Tanya's weight has stayed the same, and she feels the medication is having little impact. But she's not going to come off it, she says.

She's finally at a weight she feels comfortable with and each time she's tried to stop, the fear of putting the weight back on quickly becomes too great and she finds a reason to go back on the medication.

"For the first 38 years of my life, I was overweight - now I'm six stone (38kg) lighter," says Tanya.

"Therefore, there's part of me that feels like there's an addiction to keep it going because it makes me feel the way that I feel, it makes me feel in control."

She stops for a second. Maybe it's the other way round, she muses, maybe it's the drug that controls her.

"It's all about having an exit strategy," Dr Al-Zubaidi explains. "The question is: what are these people's experiences once they come off the injection?"

He is worried that without additional support for people making the transition, society's unhealthy relationship with food means little will change.

"The environment that people live in needs to be one that promotes health, not weight gain.

"Obesity is not a GLP-1 deficiency," he says.

In some respects, many people enter a game of weight-loss roulette when it comes to stopping their weight-loss medication. Factors like lifestyle, support, mindset and timing all play into how futures post-GLP-1s unfold.

Tanya is staying on the medication and is fully aware of the pros and cons of this decision.

Ellen feels that chapter has now closed. She's lost more than eight stone (51kg) now.

"I want people to know that life after Mounjaro can be sustainable as well," she says.

Eli Lilly, the company which makes Mounjaro, says "patient safety is Lilly's top priority", and that it "actively engages" in monitoring, evaluating and reporting information to regulators and prescribers.

Universal's UK theme park was given the green light this week, a decision which created buzz for families up and down the country who might one day want to go.

After months of discussions, Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government Steve Reed gave planning permission for the park to be constructed in Kempston Hardwick, close to Bedford.

This isn't just another attraction - it's an attempt by the US entertainment giant to build one of the biggest theme parks in the world.

Universal mentioned in planning documents that a country like the UK should have at least two global theme parks, and this project was described as a "generational opportunity".

But can Universal pull off something of quite this scale? As BBC News heard from locals, it might be a tall order - and not everyone is happy.

Living on the doorstep of a theme park

"They haven't bought enough land; what they should be buying is 2,000 acres somewhere and put their theme park in the middle," says Claudia Pixley, 46, who lives in a bungalow on Manor Road where the theme park entrance will be built.

"But as it happens, some of these roads around here are tiny village roads."

"Anything goes wrong on the M1 or the A421, this whole area is at a standstill... and then you want to put Universal Studios in the middle of that."

She describes the project as "absolute madness" and says representatives of Universal have approached her about buying her home, where she's lived for the last decade, but she wants to stay put in her "little slice of Eden".

She may well be one of few people in the area unhappy about the new park. According to Universal, in the Bedford area 92% of those who responded to its survey of 6,000 people were supportive of the development.

But it raises an interesting point about what might and might not be achievable in the grand vision for the theme park to rival the biggest and best existing equivalents around the world.

Slated to open by 2031, the park is expected to draw 8.5 million annual visitors and could feature the tallest rides seen in Europe. The total size of the resort would be 268 hectares (662 acres), with the theme park 96.7 hectares (238 acres).

Universal said visitor numbers were expected to rise to 12 million by 2051, which would make it the most-visited park in Europe. According to Forbes, Disneyland Paris held that title last year with 10.2 million visitors.

However, even at opening, 8.5 million is more than three times the attendance of the UK's biggest parks today:

• Legoland Windsor Resort, Berkshire: 61 hectares (150 acres), 2.42 million annual visitors (2023)
• Alton Towers, Staffordshire: 222 hectares (550 acres), 2.35 million annual visitors (2023)
• Thorpe Park, Surrey: 200 hectares (490 acres), 1.62 million annual visitors (2023)
• Chessington World of Adventures Resort: 52 hectares (128 acres), 1.5 million annual visitors (2022)

How good can Universal UK be?

For content creator Theme Park Kate, who specialises in theme parks and attractions on TikTok, Universal's future attraction could be "a huge game changer within Europe" and the ambition with its size and rides is realistic.

"It will potentially be a theme park that can compete with the popularity of Disneyland Paris, which has dominated the European theme park market for many years now," she tells BBC News.

The theme park fan speculated that the park would benefit from using intellectual property (IP) that has not been used at other locations around the world.

She added: "Harry Potter has been done now at various Universal parks, but a new IP like the rumoured James Bond or Lord of the Rings will be unique to the park and bring in a large amount of fans that will want to see these brand new experiences for themselves for the very first time."

Last year, a source told the BBC that the new park could include James Bond, The Lord of the Rings, Paddington and Jurassic World-themed rides - although a Universal spokesperson said it was too early to confirm this.

Theme Park Kate is hopeful this could have a ripple effect of boosting the country's existing parks and force them to "step up their game" to match Universal.

YouTuber Jack Silkstone, who visits theme parks around the world, agrees with the sentiment. He lives "next door" to Thorpe Park - and his message to any unhappy Bedford residents like Claudia is that living on the doorstep of a theme park is "honestly a dream".

"Everyone has some form of connection to the park - whether they work there themselves, they know someone that works there, they love to visit, or they aspire to work at the park when they're older," he said.

"It creates a real sense of community that then spills out into the wider surrounding towns."

Jack sees the projected scale of the Universal UK park as a huge oportunity for the UK's economy, and seems confident that the company can pull off its aims for scale.

"We're very lucky, we've got some amazing, classic theme parks already in this country. But Universal are global leaders in the theme park industry; they do it different."

'Winners and losers'

Universal said it expected to directly create 8,050 jobs when it opens, with many staff coming from the surrounding areas.

Wixams, a town which will border the new theme park, will also get an upgraded four-platform railway station as part of the proposals.

Despite the concern expressed by some like Claudia that the area may not be able to cope with an influx of visitors, Bedford borough councillor Marc Frost said councillors had been assured that traffic surveys were complete and road infrastructure would be in place.

Universal's engagement with local officials suggested they "genuinely want to work and get on with their neighbours", he added.

Another consideration for those in the local area is property prices - and some could fare better than others.

Nick Kier, a partner at Lane & Holmes estate agents, says he already knows of some people who have already bought property close to the Universal site, which they plan to rent out to visitors in the future.

He explains that "there are definite winners and losers in this scenario" and "you cannot expect, with that amount of investment coming in... that the prices won't go up".

"The people who are living here for a completely other reason will find it more expensive... That's the losing side."

At the same time, he acknowledges that local hotels for miles would be likely to benefit.

What is clear is that the Universal park could dwarf much of its competition if all goes to plan, and while the impacts can be a double-edged sword, many are excited to see what its opening brings.

Follow Beds, Herts and Bucks news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X.

Sign up for our morning newsletter and get BBC News in your inbox.

Tinsel, foil garlands, multi-coloured floral lights and a lounge that looks like Christmas threw up all over it are making a return.

Retro-themed decor is in, with trees jam-packed full of bold, mismatching decorations, as more people try to recreate a festive season from their childhood.

The nostalgic shift started last year, say experts, but over-the-top (and tacky to some) has become one of the top decor trends for 2025.

"After a long run of pared-back, neutral or traditional Christmases, people seem much more willing to embrace fun, excess and nostalgia again," says Harry Bradshaw, from events and interiors styling company At Last Events.

Retailers say they're seeing growing demand for decorations that can help recreate that familiar Christmas magic from years gone by.

"Maximalism is making a bold return," says Abi Wilson, head of seasonal and gift buying at Habitat, adding that people are turning to '80s and '90s-style colourful bells and bows, oversized ornaments and paper decorations.

Primark said younger Gen X, millennials, and older Gen Z shoppers were buying decor that reminded them of their childhood.

Marks & Spencer noted strong sales of its tinsel rosettes and tinsel tree skirts this year, while John Lewis said sales of "retro-nostalgic decor" had soared 180% in 2025.

Felicity Hayward is going all out this year to find that Christmas joy.

Back in October, as she browsed the charity shops near where she lives in Margate, Kent, she stumbled across a collection of colourful festive foil stars that reminded her of Christmas at her grandparents' house when she was a child.

The 50p decorations started what became a two-month endeavour, looking for retro baubles, garlands, and anything she could find to recreate those special years growing up in the '90s.

"Christmas always revolved around my grandparents," Felicity, 37, says. The family would spend the day eating homemade cheese straws, listening to Frank Sinatra, watching Christmas movies and playing board games.

"When I think back to Christmas, I think back to their living room, and I think back to their decorations."

Felicity hadn't bothered with any Christmas decorations since 2019. The combination of the pandemic and her grandparents' deaths in 2022 and 2023 had left her feeling far from festive.

But this year, her living room is an explosion of colour, bedecked with foil stars, tinsel and homemade paper chains and ribbon garlands.

Some people might see her decorations as "tacky", but Felicity says that "for me, all of those colours bring me calm".

"I literally cannot wait to get home on a night and turn all my Christmas lights on and lie on the sofa," she says.

Liza Prideaux agrees understated decorations are overrated and has embraced "nostalgic, vintage" decor at Christmas for the last two years.

"There isn't a strict theme, it's more about colour, texture and creating a cosy, lived-in feeling," the 36-year-old from Devon says.

"The colourful incandescent lights are my favourite," she says. "They make everything feel warm and cosy."

How we sprinkle festive magic in our homes is a "physical representation of what we emotionally need from our Christmas celebrations", says Hannah Bartlett, who runs the business The Christmas Insider.

The season is always a "steady anchor" and coming back to the same rituals and traditions each year can help "ground us", she says.

But Ms Bartlett notes that the current "uncertainty" in the world is making people find even more comfort in those traditions that remind them of their childhood. There's a desire to "return to simpler times", she says.

Decorations like tinsel and brightly-coloured lights "take us back", agrees 52-year-old Pandora Maxton from York, an influencer who means business with her elaborate festive displays.

"I think that's why it's having a revival, because it just takes people back to being kids. And that's what Christmas is about, isn't it?"

Holly Langley was born in 1990. But that didn't stop her from hosting an '80s-themed Christmas some 40 years later.

Holly, 34, from Reading, hunted in charity shops and vintage fairs for foil decorations, satin baubles, tablecloths and china. On the day, she served Christmas cocktails and jam roly poly, with '80s music playing and a quiz about the decade.

"Every year we do the same thing, right? Everyone gets out their Christmas pyjamas, we watch the same TV shows, we eat the same food," Holly says. Her '80s-themed Christmas was "a little bit different, a bit quirky, a bit fun".

Want to create your own retro Christmas? Here are Felicity, Holly and Lucy's tips:

• Check charity shops, especially immediately after Christmas when people might be having a clear-out
• Look on resale sites and apps, though be careful buying second-hand electronics like lights
• Make paper chains that you can reuse for other celebrations
• Ask relatives if they have any unwanted decorations
• Play '70s and '80s music videos, films or adverts in the background

So why were decorations so bold and bright in the past?

In 1970s Britain people were looking for a "signal of hope", says vintage decor collector Lucy Scott, in a time of austerity, trade union action and miners' strikes.

It was also the age of flamboyant glam rock - Brits were going crazy for eye-catching style.

But there were also simply fewer options available in the 1970s.

"There wasn't necessarily a massive amount of choice, but the choice was for these kind of bright space age tinsel decorations... the majority from Hong Kong," says Lucy, 45, from Birmingham.

This started to change in the 1980s, when more people owned their homes and retailers like Woolworths and BHS started selling a wider choice of decorations, Lucy says.

But Felicity says she bought most of her decorations second hand. "If you think about it, these tinsels are 20 to 30 years old and they're still intact," she says.

And it's not just a trend for her.

"This won't be a Christmas, this will be my Christmas now forever."

When Anne and Ross Campbell were watching the news on the night of 21 December 1988, they already had "go-bags" ready.

The Ayrshire-based couple were part of the Radio Amateurs' Emergency Network (Raynet), a UK-wide radio communications service.

Staffed by volunteers, it was formed in the aftermath of the North Sea flood in 1953 with a simple aim: during major events and emergencies, licensed Raynet operators would step in to provide essential radio communications.

When news broke that an aircraft had crashed in a small Dumfries and Galloway town, Anne and Ross got the call from their local controller: "You're on standby for Lockerbie."

At the time of the disaster, Anne and Ross, along with friends Tom Stewart and William Jamieson were all keen radio enthusiasts in their 20s and 30s.

And they were all members of Ayrshire's Raynet chapter.

"You worked away, doing exercises for the council and road races, but you always had in the back of your mind, there could come a general emergency," said Ross.

He had been involved in the group for a couple of years at the time but added: "You never imagined something like Lockerbie."

Pan Am 103 was flying from Heathrow to New York when a bomb exploded in the skies above the town, killing all 259 passengers and crew on board – as well as 11 people on the ground.

It remains the biggest terror attack to have taken place on British soil.

As part of the search and rescue efforts, hundreds of volunteers arrived at the scene to help – including many from Raynet.

Their expertise – and equipment – was desperately needed.

Ross said: "Strathclyde Police radios had their own frequency.

"Dumfries and Galloway Police had a separate one.

"Every police service had their own, as did ambulance services, so they couldn't communicate with one another."

Each search party at Lockerbie was teamed with a Raynet operator who would send messages back to Lockerbie Academy, the disaster control room.

They accompanied search and rescue dogs, air accident investigation units, the FBI, and the police.

Volunteer Tom, who had been in the fire service for 10 years, made the call to Anne, Ross and William to tell them to report to the scene the following morning.

Anne and Ross were both stationed at Tundergarth, in the field where the plane's nose cone lay.

"I still remember the press, with huge lenses, leaning over the fence, trying to get pictures of them bringing the bodies out," said Anne.

"That horrified me, I just thought these people deserve a wee bit of respect."

While Tom was used to scenes of emergency from his time in the fire service, nothing could have prepared him for what he saw.

"The devastation, it was horrendous," he said.

"For other members of the group that didn't have that background, it was harder."

Tom's main role was with search and rescue dog teams, which had been tasked with searching for bodies and collecting debris and evidence from the crash.

"I can still remember the Chinook helicopters flying above.

"They were bringing out body bags and rescue equipment.

"We sent messages back, and the helicopter came with bags, and they came and took them away."

For William, one of the most striking moments was passing on the message that his team had found evidence of an explosion.

"We came across a baggage container, and from the damage to the container, they knew instantly there was a bomb.

"I was asked if I could radio in saying we had found evidence of a bomb, but because the press were there, they were going to be listening, and I advised them I couldn't send that message because it would be on the telly before we even got back.

"We changed it to asking for an urgent recovery of that item."

Earlier this year, William returned to Lockerbie for the first time in almost 38 years to pay his respects.

"I'd always meant to go back, but I've never been, because it does bring up memories," he said.

William, who was 22 at the time, said one of his most harrowing memories was finding a passenger still in their seat.

"To find something like that and knowing there was nothing you could do to help them, it was certainly upsetting."

Tom, who returned with his three friends, still struggles with what he experienced.

"I'd still never seen anything on that scale.

"I can still remember seeing people's letters and personal belongings and thinking that was someone's son, someone's daughter."

Anne said: "I'm proud that I managed to have a wee bit of input.

"But there were a lot of people who did a lot more than we did."

All four feel the role of volunteers needs to be acknowledged.

Search and rescue teams and their dogs, the Salvation Army, the Women's Royal Voluntary Service, and locals from the town were all involved.

"They gave their free time willingly at Lockerbie and went back home and yet nobody knows of them," Ross said.

Assistant Chief Constable Stuart Houston from Police Scotland's organised crime, counter terrorism and intelligence unit has thanked Raynet for the role they played.

He told BBC Scotland: "The assistance Raynet provided the police and other emergency services in the aftermath of the darkest day Lockerbie has ever endured will never be forgotten.

"We are grateful for their support and expertise that afforded vital communications between emergency services at such a critical time.

"Our thoughts remain with the families and friends of those who lost loved ones in 1988 and who continue to show incredible dignity and strength."

Additional reporting by Charles Ross.

If there are issues you would like to see covered, you can get in touch via BBC Your Voice.

The release of thousands of pages of documents related to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein's abuse has left some who were anxiously awaiting the files disappointed.

The documents' release was prompted by an act of Congress that directed the US Justice Department (DOJ) to make materials related to Epstein's crimes public. But some documents have numerous redactions, and others have not been shared publicly at all.

The lawmakers who pushed for these documents to see the light of day have said the release is incomplete and described the Justice Department's efforts as insincere.

Some legal experts also warned that the breadth of redaction may only fuel ongoing conspiracy theories.

But Deputy US Attorney Todd Blanche said on Friday - the day the materials were released - that the department identified more than 1,200 Epstein victims or their relatives, and withheld material that could identify them.

Among the latest released information is a photo of Epstein confidante Ghislane Maxwell outside Downing Street, a document that claims Epstein introduced a 14-year-old girl to US President Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago, and multiple images of former President Bill Clinton.

Trump has consistently denied any wrongdoing in relation to Epstein and has not been accused of any crimes by Epstein's victims. Clinton has never been accused of wrongdoing by survivors of Epstein's abuse, and has denied knowledge of his sex offending.

Other released photos show the interiors of Epstein's homes, his overseas travels, as well as celebrities, including Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, Mick Jagger, Michael Jackson, Diana Ross and Peter Mandelson.

Being named or pictured in the files is not an indication of wrongdoing. Many of those identified in the files or in previous releases related to Epstein have denied any wrongdoing.

But many of the documents are also heavily redacted.

The Justice Department said it would comply with the congressional request to release documents, with some stipulations.

It redacted personally identifiable information about Epstein's victims, materials depicting child sexual abuse, materials depicting physical abuse, any records that "would jeopardize an active federal investigation" or any classified documents that must stay secret to protect "national defense or foreign policy".

In a post on X, the DOJ said it was "not redacting the names of any politicians", and added a quote they attributed to Blanche, saying: "The only redactions being applied to the documents are those required by law - full stop.

"Consistent with the statute and applicable laws, we are not redacting the names of individuals or politicians unless they are a victim."

John Day, a criminal defence attorney, told the BBC he was surprised by the amount of information that was redacted.

"This is just going to feed the fire if you are a conspiracy theorist," he said. "I don't think anyone anticipated there would be this many redactions. It certainly raises questions about how faithfully the DOJ is following the law."

Mr Day also noted that the justice department is required to provide a log of what was being redacted to Congress within 15 days of the files' release.

"Until you know what's being redacted you don't know what's being withheld," he said.

In a letter to the judges overseeing the Epstein and Maxwell cases, US attorney for the Southern District of New York Jay Clayton, said: "Victim privacy interests counsel in favour of redacting the faces of women in photographs with Epstein even where not all the women are known to be victims because it is not practicable for the department to identify every person in a photo."

Clayton added that "this approach to photographs could be viewed by some as an over-redaction" - but that "the department believes it should, in the compressed time frame, err on the side of redacting to protect victims."

Survivors of Epstein's abuses, are among those most frustrated by the release.

Epstein survivor Liz Stein told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that she thinks the Justice Department is "really brazenly going against the Epstein Files Transparency Act", which is the law that requires all the documents to be released.

Survivors are really worried about the possibility of a "slow roll-out of incomplete information without any context", she noted.

"We just want all of the evidence of these crimes out there."

Baroness Helena Kennedy, a human rights lawyer and Labour peer in the House of Lords in the UK, said she was told the redactions in the documents were there to protect the victims.

"Authorities always have a worry" about "exposing people to yet further denigration in the public mind", she told the BBC's Today programme.

Many Epstein survivors seem "very keen" to have the material exposed, she said, but added that they "might not be so keen if they knew exactly what was in there".

Democrat Congressman Ro Khanna, who led the charge along with Republican CongressmanThomas Massie to release the files, said the release was "incomplete" and added that he is looking at options like impeachment, contempt or referral to prosecution.

"Our law requires them to explain redactions," Khanna said. "There is not a single explanation."

Massie seconded Khanna's statement and posted on social media that Attorney General Pam Bondi and other justice department officials could be prosecuted by future justice departments for not complying with the document requirements.

He said the document release "grossly fails to comply with both the spirit and the letter of the law" of the Epstein Files Transparency Act.

After the release, the White House called the Trump Administration the most "transparent in history", adding that it has "done more for the victims than Democrats ever have".

Blanche was asked in an interview with ABC News whether all documents mentioning Trump in the so-called Epstein files will be released in the coming weeks.

"Assuming it's consistent with the law, yes," Blanche said. "So there's no effort to hold anything back because there's the name Donald J Trump or anybody else's name, Bill Clinton's name, Reid Hoffman's name.

"There's no effort to hold back or not hold back because of that."

"We're not redacting the names of famous men and women that are associated with Epstein," he added.

"It's been an incredibly difficult two years," says Phil Rosenberg, president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews. "I think our Jewish identity is being worn far more heavily these days given the pain of it all."

Conflict in the Middle East has, he says, had a profound impact on British Jewish society.

"The attacks of 7 October were felt very personally, not least because there were British Jews who were killed in the initial onslaught and people with British connections held hostage.

"And in the war that followed, the devastation in Gaza was very painful to watch. Then there was the vitriol that surrounded the whole conflict, and the massive rise in antisemitism culminating in deadly attacks."

The devastating shooting at Bondi Beach last weekend, which targeted the Jewish community during Hanukkah celebrations, and the attack on a Manchester synagogue on the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, Yom Kippur, together with the events in the Middle East over the past two years, have collectively had far-reaching repercussions for Britain's estimated 300,000 Jews.

Since the 1967 war in the Middle East it is hard to think of such a pronounced inflection point for British Jewish society, one that has so clearly affected daily lives.

There have been shifts in how secure many feel, and how connected they feel to the rest of the community. And with it, there is also some evidence that there have been shifts in discourse about Israel - including a generational divide that is starting to become apparent among British Jews.

Opinion across the community is incredibly diverse, but these are the ways in which a range of British Jews told me they felt life had changed over the past two years.

Hate crimes and antisemitism

"There was an extent to which it felt like Jewish friends were more likely to understand," says Ben Dory, 33, who lives in London. "I have ended up making more Jewish friends and also being more involved with the Jewish community."

As well as taking a bigger role in his synagogue he has also been more active in campaigning against antisemitism. That has partly come because of the huge change in how secure he himself feels.

"I know Jewish people who, if they are going to the synagogue, will keep their kippah (skull cap) in their pocket until the moment they're through the door, and take it off the moment that they leave."

Following the attack in Australia last weekend, Ben told me he was "horrified, but not surprised," saying it followed a pattern of the "global frenzy of antisemitism".

"It's long been the case that gatherings related to Israel haven't felt safe. But now Jews feel they are under a constant threat, even at non-political cultural and religious gatherings," he says.

He has become more, what he calls "political," over the past two years - and more vocal and passionate in his support for Israel. To some extent it is a response that he says is driven by a rise in anti-Jewish hate.

There were 1,543 hate crimes targeted at Jewish people in England and Wales in the year to March 2023, rising to 3,282 by March 2024, according to the Home Office.

The data for the following year is incomplete. But the Community Security Trust, a group that has monitored the number of antisemitic incidents in the UK for nearly 40 years, says levels over the past two years are the highest since their records began.

"The Jewish people that I know are more than ever conscious of the need for a safe Israel in case they need to escape there," says Ben.

Ever since the state of Israel's creation following the Holocaust, that notion that Israel is needed as a "safe haven" has remained for many Jews - and this has been heightened because of recent events, according to many of those I spoke to.

"I've never felt as vulnerable as a Jew as I do now," says Dame Louise Ellman, a former MP, "and this feeling I find is replicated among everyone I speak to in the Jewish community."

She left Labour in 2019 over concerns about antisemitism in the party, rejoining in 2021; she is also joint independent chair of the Board of Deputies, the largest body representing Jews in the UK.

Dame Louise used to attend the Heaton Park synagogue in North Manchester. She was married there and her son's Bar Mitzvah was held there.

This was also where the attack in October took place, which left two victims dead and three more seriously injured, requiring hospital treatment.

Her close connection to the synagogue intensified the shock she felt. "People are increasingly concerned, feeling edgy and feeling alone," she says.

"I find this very distressing."

All of this has, she explains, led her to a position of more staunch support for Israel. "I'm well aware that a number of people, particularly young people, are looking at this in a different way, but that is very much a minority."

One of those who has reached a very different conclusion about Israel is Tash Hyman, a 33-year-old theatre director from London.

Though the past two years have, she explains, made her feel more connected to her Jewishness - for example, she has leaned more into traditions of Jewish activism - she does not feel greater support for Israel.

"I grew up in a religious context where my Jewishness was very much entwined with the state of Israel, but I really started to interrogate that," she says. "The bottom line for me now is that the actions of the state of Israel make me feel less safe, not more safe.

"It makes me less safe in the UK because of what they are doing in Gaza." She rejects the idea that Israel is a "safe haven" for British Jews.

About 1,200 people were killed when Hamas attacked Israel on 7 October 2023 and more than 250 people were taken hostage. Since then, according to Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry, more than 70,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli military action.

Tash says that because some assume Jews support Israel's actions, it is important that those who do not make clear that there is opposition to what Israel is doing from within the Jewish community.

Today she attends synagogue but has surrounded herself with those who are politically like-minded - pointing out that the Hamas attacks and the war in Gaza have made nuanced debate between British Jews about Israel all the more difficult.

"It does certainly feel like there's a polarising and there's a real inability to have that conversation across the divide, because the divide is so big."

Zionism: a generational divide

Data from the Institute for Jewish Policy Research (JPR), a UK think tank, gathered before the Manchester attack and published in October, suggests that there is a generational divide in opinion among British Jews when it comes to views about Israel.

The study of 4,822 British Jews over the age of 16 suggested that the overall number identifying as "Zionist" was 64%, but among the 20-30 age group, only 47% did. Meanwhile 20% of that age group describe themselves as "non Zionist" and 24% as "anti-Zionist". (It was left to respondents to decide how to interpret those labels.)

The proportion of those Jews identifying as anti-Zionist since 2022 has increased in all age groups but so too has the gap between older and younger groups. For example, 3% of 50-59 year olds surveyed in 2022 said they were anti-Zionist, a 10 point gap compared to the 20-29 age group.

By 2024, it was a 17-point gap - with 7% of 50-59 year olds saying they were anti-Zionist, compared to 24% for the younger group. (Comparable figures by age are not available longer-term.)

Robert Cohen, a PhD student at King's College London, has done his own research into Jews in the UK who are now critical of Israel's actions in Gaza, and what led them to reach that position.

Between February 2023 and October 2024, he interviewed 21 people who took that stance and has tried to shed light on why a generational gap might be opening up.

He believes that for some young people, their stance was the result of what he described as their "British Jewish ethics" around issues such as justice and charity coming together with their "Gen Z sensibilities".

"We know Gen Z are characterised by authenticity, being super-inclusive, being very big on justice issues," he argues. "And I could see among my research cohort there was a merging of those things with the ethics of their Jewish upbringing."

Others I spoke to, including Ben Dory, suggested that a generational split over views on Israel could be associated with young people having less of a direct connection with the Holocaust and a lack of awareness of its impact.

Robert Cohen also suggests that those British Jews he interviewed who wanted to speak out against Israel's actions in Gaza often wanted to do so alongside others from the community who would best understand them, referring to the "Jewish bloc" at pro-Palestinian marches.

He also talked of the alarm some had felt at unsympathetic reaction to the Hamas attacks.

"Some were clearly disturbed by the fact that they could see a complete collapse in empathy towards the Jewish Israeli victims of what happened on 7 October."

By taking a stance that was critical of Israel, many of those he spoke to had fallen out with friends or family.

But over the past two years many other young British Jews became more staunchly supportive of Israel, and that also may have had an impact on relationships with those around them.

'My friend group turned away from me'

Lavona Zarum was born in Israel and brought up in London. At the time of the 7 October attacks, she was a student and had just been appointed president of the Jewish Society at the University of Aberdeen.

"I had quite a few people walk away," she recalls. "The girls in my main friend group, slowly over that summer, all turned away from me."

She recalls how isolated she felt - and how difficult she found it to talk to a lot of non-Jewish students about the way she felt about the attacks in Israel and the war that followed.

She was also offended by certain social media posts by people she knew - some were about "globalising the intifada".

"People felt very comfortable saying what they wanted, and I had been very careful not to bring it up really. I kind of retreated within myself."

Lavona is 21 now. She has since gravitated towards friends with whom she feels there is mutual respect, even if they disagree.

She also visited Israel six months after 7 October through a fellowship with the Union of Jewish Students, visiting some of the sites attacked by Hamas where she said people "spoke kindly and listened and shared ideas" in spite of some differences in opinion.

"The world was a bit more antisemitic than I had allowed myself to believe before," she adds. "But it's taught me to enter into discussions being more intentional and thoughtful, and also backing myself up."

Discord within the Board

Over the past two years, the Board of Deputies of British Jews has faced questions of their own about how to conduct debates on Israel.

Earlier this year, 36 of the board's members signed an open letter, which was published in the Financial Times, protesting against "this most extremist of Israeli governments" and its failure to free the hostages held since 7 October.

"Israel's soul is being ripped out and we… fear for the future of the Israel we love," the letter said.

Five members of the Board were suspended for instigating the letter. The Board's Constitution Committee found that they had broken a code of conduct by creating the "misleading impression that this [the letter] was an official document of the Board as a whole".

But for some, the letter represented a watershed moment where some of the conversations about Israel happening in private within the UK's Jewish community could be had in public.

Phil Rosenberg argues that there has long been healthy debate among the 300 deputies. His primary concern now is the safety of British Jews but also how the community sees itself.

"We have a whole range of activities to confront antisemitism," he says. "But we also believe that the community needs not just to be seeing itself, and to be seen, through the prism of pain.

"It already wasn't right that the only public commemoration of Jewish life in this country is Holocaust Memorial Day. And the only compulsory education is Holocaust education. Both of these things are incredibly important, but that's not the whole experience of Jews."

Back in May 2024 when he first became president of the board, Phil Rosenberg had talked about aiming to celebrate more the contributions made by Jews to British life. The events of the past two years have, he says, been detrimental to that.

"The war definitely has made it harder because when you open either a Jewish media publication or a national publication it's all bad news.

"Right now, as a Jew in Britain, it can feel hard to feel good about things and hard to feel positive."

As for the generational divide among British Jews about views on Israel, Robert Cohen predicts that the situation on the ground in the Middle East, and whether it results in greater rights for Palestinians, will determine whether it becomes more pronounced.

For Ben Dory, especially after the Bondi Beach and Manchester attacks, the main concern as he looks ahead is about security.

"I think that the future of Jewish people in the UK is on a real knife edge," he says.

"And how Britain as a country chooses to respond to this challenge in the very short term will be incredibly important for whether Britain in the long term can continue to be a place that Jews feel safe."

BBC InDepth is the home on the website and app for the best analysis, with fresh perspectives that challenge assumptions and deep reporting on the biggest issues of the day. You can now sign up for notifications that will alert you whenever an InDepth story is published - click here to find out how

On a winter morning in 2022 Raphael Wong and Figo Chan walked into Hong Kong's Stanley prison to meet Jimmy Lai, the media billionaire who had been arrested two years before and was awaiting trial charged with national security offences.

They had all been part of the turbulent protests that had rocked Hong Kong in 2019, when hundreds of thousands took to the streets demanding democracy and more freedom in the Chinese territory.

They would also often meet for dinner, sometimes lavish meals, gossiping and bantering over dim sum, pizza or claypot rice.

In prison, he "loved eating rice with pickled ginger," Chan said. "No-one could have imagined Jimmy Lai would eat something like that!"

But neither had they imagined a reunion at a maximum security prison, the protests crushed, friends and fellow activists jailed, Hong Kong just as boisterous and yet, changed. And gone was the owner of the irreverent nickname "Fatty Lai": he had lost considerable weight.

Decades apart - Lai in his 70s, Wong and Chan about 40 years younger - they had still dreamed of a different Hong Kong. Lai was a key figure in the protests, wielding his most influential asset, the hugely popular newspaper, Apple Daily, in the hope of shaping Hong Kong into a liberal democracy.

That proved risky under a contentious national security law imposed in 2020 by China's Communist Party rulers in Beijing.

Lai always said he owed Hong Kong. Although he is a UK citizen, he refused to leave.

"I got everything I have because of this place," he told the BBC hours before he was arrested in 2020. "This is my redemption," he said, choking up.

He wanted the city to continue to have the freedom it had given him. That's what drove his politics - fiercely critical of the Communist Party and avowedly supportive of Hong Kong's pro-democracy movement. It cost him his own freedom.

Lai harboured "a rabid hatred" of the Chinese Communist Party and "an obsession to change the Party's values to those of the Western world", the High Court ruled on Monday as it delivered the verdict in his trial.

It said that Lai had hoped the party would be ousted - or, at the very least, that its leader Xi Jinping would be removed.

Lai was found guilty on all counts of charges he had always denied. The most serious one - colluding with foreign forces - carries a maximum sentence of life in prison.

"Never," Lai had said to that charge when he testified, arguing that he had only advocated for what he believed were Hong Kong's values: "rule of law, freedom, pursuit of democracy, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of assembly".

Monday's verdict was welcomed by Hong Kong's chief executive John Lee, who said Lai had used his newspaper to "wantonly create social conflicts" and "glorify violence". The law, he added, never allows anyone to harm the country "under the guise of human rights, democracy and freedom".

Back in 2022, before Wong and Chan left the prison, Lai asked them to pray with him, to Wong's surprise.

Lai's Catholic faith had deepened in solitary confinement - an arrangement he had requested, according to authorities. He prayed six hours a day and he made drawings of Christ, which he sent in the mail to friends. "Even though he was suffering," Wong said, "he didn't complain nor was he afraid. He was at peace."

Peace was not what Jimmy Lai had pursued for much of his life - not when he fled China as a 12-year-old, not while he worked his way up the gruelling factory chain, not even after he became a famous Hong Kong tycoon, and certainly not as his media empire took on Beijing.

For Lai, Hong Kong was everything that China was not - deeply capitalist, a land of opportunity and limitless wealth, and free. In the city, which was still a British colony when he arrived in 1959, he found success - and then a voice.

Apple Daily became one of the top-selling papers almost instantly after its debut in 1995. Modelled on USA Today, it revolutionised the aesthetics and layout of newspapers, and kicked off a cut-throat price war.

From a guide to hiring prostitutes in the "adult section" to investigative reports, to columns by economists and novelists, it was a "buffet" targeting "a full range of readers", said Francis Lee, a journalism professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Former editors and employees spoke of Lai's encouragement - "If you dared to do it, he would dare to let you do it" - and his temper. One said he often swore.

They describe him as unconventional, and as a visionary who wasn't afraid to bet on experiments. "Even before the iPhone was launched, he kept saying mobile phones would be the future," recalled one of the paper's editors, adding that he was full of ideas. "It was as if he asked us to create a new website every day."

It had been the same when he owned a clothing label. "He was not afraid of disrupting the industry, and he was not afraid of making enemies," said Herbert Chow, a former marketing director at a rival brand.

That was both his making and undoing, Chow said: "Otherwise, there would have been no Apple Daily. Of course, he wouldn't have ended up like this either."

An early TV commercial for Apple Daily featured the then 48-year-old Lai biting the forbidden fruit while dozens of arrows took aim at him.

It became a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Escape from China

It was his first taste of chocolate that beckoned Lai to Hong Kong as a boy.

After carrying a passenger's luggage at a railway station in China, Lai was given a tip, and a bar of chocolate. He took a bite. "I asked him where he's from. He said Hong Kong. I said, 'Hong Kong must be heaven' because I had never tasted anything like that," Lai said of the encounter in a 2007 documentary, The Call of the Entrepreneur.

Life in Mao Zedong's China was punctuated by waves of oppressive campaigns - to industrialise China overnight, to weed out capitalist "class enemies". The Lais, once a family of business people, were blacklisted. His father fled to Hong Kong, leaving them behind. His mother was sent to a labour camp.

Decades later, Lai wrote of how of he and his sisters would be dragged out of their homes to watch a crowd forcing their mother to kneel while she was shoved and taunted - cruel public shaming that soon became the norm. The first time, Lai wrote, was terrifying: "My tears flowed freely and wet my shirt. I dared not make a move. My body was burning with humiliation."

Uncowed, his grandmother finished every story with the same message: "You have to become a businessman even if you only sell seasoned peanuts!"

And so, at the age of 12, he set off for Hong Kong, among millions who fled the mainland - and Mao's devastating rule - over the years.

The day he arrived, on the bottom of a fishing boat, along with about 80 seasick travellers, he was hired by a mitten factory. He described the long working hours as a "very happy time, a time that I knew I had a future". It was there that one of his co-workers helped him learn English. Years later, he would give interviews and even testify at court in fluent English.

By his early 20s, he was managing a textile factory and after making money on the stock market, he started his own, Comitex Knitters. He was 27.

Business often took Lai to New York, and on one of those trips, he was lent a book that came to define his worldview: The Road to Serfdom by Nobel Prize-winning economist Friedrich Hayek, a champion of free-market capitalism. "People's spontaneous reaction" and "the exchange of information" have created the best in the world, was his takeaway. To him, that was Hong Kong's strength.

The book spurred a voracious reading habit. He would read the same book multiple times, and read every book by authors he admired. "I want to turn the author's thoughts into my backyard garden. I want to buy a garden, not cut flowers," he said in a 2009 interview.

After a decade in manufacturing, he was "bored" and founded the clothing chain Giordano in 1981, which became a fast-fashion pioneer. It was so successful that Tadashi Yanai sought advice from Lai when his Japanese label Uniqlo opened shops.

Lai launched stores in China, which had begun to open up after Mao died. He was "excited", China "was going to be changed, like a Western country", he said in the 2007 documentary.

Then in 1989, Beijing crushed pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square: a rude awakening for Lai and Hong Kong, which was set to return to Chinese rule in 1997 under a recent agreement by China and the UK.

Giordano sold tees with photos of Tiananmen protest leaders and anti-Beijing slogans, and put up pro-democracy banners in stores across Hong Kong.

A million people marched in Hong Kong in solidarity with student protesters in Beijing. Until 2020, Hong Kong held the largest vigil that mourned the massacre.

Lai said later that he "didn't feel anything about China" until then. He had always wanted to forget that part of his life but "all of a sudden, it was like my mother was calling in the darkness of the night".

'Choice is freedom'

The following year Lai launched a magazine called Next, and in 1994 published an open letter to Li Peng, "the Butcher of Beijing" who played a key role in the Tiananmen massacre. He called him "the son of a turtle egg with zero intelligence".

Beijing was furious. Between 1994 and 1996, Giordano's flagship store in Beijing and 11 franchises in Shanghai closed. Lai sold his shares and stepped down as chairman.

"If I just go on making money, it doesn't mean anything to me. But if I go into the media business, then I deliver information, which is choice, and choice is freedom," Lai said in the 2007 documentary.

He soon became a "very active participant" in Hong Kong's pro-democracy movement, meeting leaders to discuss strategy, said Lee Wing Tat, a former lawmaker from the Democratic Party.

He became an outspoken critic of the CCP, writing in 1994: "I entirely oppose the Communist Party because I hate everything that restrains personal liberties." He also started to voice concerns about the looming handover of Hong Kong, from Britain to China, in 1997.

"After more than a century of colonial rule, Hong Kongers feel proud to return to the embrace of the motherland," he wrote. "But should we love the motherland even if it doesn't have freedom?"

During the handover, however, China's then-leader Jiang Zemin promised that Hongkongers would govern Hong Kong and the city would have a high degree of autonomy for the next 50 years.

The 2014 Umbrella Movement sparked by Beijing's refusal to allow completely free elections in Hong Kong became another turning point for Lai.

Protesters occupied the city's main commercial districts for 79 days. Lai turned up from 9am to 5pm every day, undeterred after a man threw animal entrails at him. "When the police started firing tear gas, I was with Fatty," the former lawmaker Lee recalled.

The movement ended when the court ordered protest sites to be cleared, but the government did not budge. Five years later, in 2019, Hong Kong erupted again, this time because of a controversial plan that would have allowed extradition to mainland China.

What began as peaceful marches became increasingly violent, turning the city into a battleground for six months. Black-clad protesters threw bricks and Molotov cocktails, stormed parliament and started fires; riot police fired tear gas, rubber bullets, water cannons and live rounds.

Lai was at the forefront of the protests and served 20 months for participating in four unauthorised assemblies. A protester told the BBC he was surprised to see Lai: "To me, he's a busy businessman, but he showed up."

Apple Daily provided blanket coverage or, as critics would argue, a sounding board for an anti-government movement.

Government adviser Ronny Tong said Lai was "instrumental" in the protests because Apple Daily carried a "totally false" slogan – anti-extradition to China – which "caught the imagination of people who wanted to cause havoc in Hong Kong".

Whether Apple Daily played a seditious role, and how much control Lai exerted over its stance was at the centre of his 156-day national security trial.

Lai instructed the editorial team to "urge people to take to the streets", according to Cheung Kim-hung, former chief executive of Apple Daily's parent company Next Digital, and a defendant-turned-prosecution witness. After the National Security Law took effect, the newspaper was raided twice and eventually shut down in 2021.

During the height of the protests, Lai flew to the US where he met then Vice-President Mike Pence to discuss the situation in Hong Kong. A month before the National Security Law was imposed, Lai launched a controversial campaign, despite internal pushback, urging Apple Daily readers to send letters to then US President Donald Trump to "save Hong Kong".

All of this, the court ruled, amounted to a public appeal for a foreign government to interfere in Hong Kong's internal affairs.

"Nobody in their right mind should think that Hong Kong can undergo any kind of political reform without at least tacit acceptance from Beijing," Tong said. The protests in 2014 and 2019 "are totally against common sense".

Beijing says Hong Kong has now moved from "chaos to governance" and onto "greater prosperity" because of the national security law and a "patriot-only" parliament. But critics, including hundreds of thousands of Hongkongers who have since left, say dissent has been stifled, and the city's freedoms severely curbed.

Lee, the lawmaker, is among them: "When I first came to the UK, I had nightmares. I felt very guilty. Why could we live in other places freely, while our good friends were jailed?"

Lai's family has been calling for his release for years, citing concerns for his health because he is diabetic, but their calls have been rejected so far. The government and Lai's Hong Kong legal team have said that his medical needs are being met.

Carmen Tsang, Lai's daughter-in-law who lives in Hong Kong with her family, says her children miss grandpa - and the big family dinners he hosted every two weeks. His loud voice scared her daughter when she was younger, but "they loved going to grandpa's place… They think he's a funny guy".

She is not sure today's Hong Kong has a place for Lai.

"If there's a speck of dust in your eye, you just get rid of it, right?"

Kate Winslet has spoken about how she coped with "appalling" reporting and intrusion by the media after rising to fame as Rose in James Cameron's 1997 epic, Titanic.

The actor and director said she was followed by paparazzi and had her phone tapped, with people even looking through her bins and asking her local shops what she bought to "try and figure out what diet I was on or wasn't on".

"It was horrific," she said. Years later, she experienced further intrusion during a marriage breakdown, adding the ways she dealt with the media attention were "a good meal, a shared conversation, a nice cup of coffee, a bit of Radiohead and a good poo".

"You know, life's all the better for those things," she told BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs.

While filming Titanic in her early 20s, Winslet wasn't in a "particularly good shape" mentally around her body, she said.

Though the experience of making the film was incredible, she said, her world was "totally turned upside down" once it hit cinemas.

"I wasn't ready for that world," she said.

She said she had received negative comments about her appearance from a young age, recalling being nicknamed "blubber" by her peers at primary school as a child, and later being told she would have to "settle for the fat girl parts" if she wanted to be an actor by a drama teacher.

From the ages of 15 to 19, she said she was "on and off" dieting, "barely eating" by the end.

"It was really unhealthy," she said.

Once Titanic was released, she began to see herself on the cover of newspapers and magazines, often accompanied by what she described as "awful, terrible, actually abusive names".

"It was horrific. There were people tapping my phone. They were just everywhere. And I was just on my own. I was terrified to go to sleep," she said.

Support from friends and those close to her was part of how she dealt with it then - including from a neighbouring couple who would leave her a "bowl of steaming pasta and a little glass of red wine" on the garden wall between their houses.

Speaking further about her depiction in the media at that time, Winslet described how magazine cover images of her were edited without her knowledge - something she also famously spoke out about in the early 2000s.

Speaking to Lauren Laverne, Winslet recalled looking at those types of images and thinking: "I don't look like this. My stomach isn't flat like that. My legs are not that long, my boobs are not that big. What? My arms aren't that toned. What the hell?"

"I didn't want any young woman, even just one, to look at that image and think, 'Oh my God, I want to look like that.' That's not me," she said.

Winslet also talked about the headlines that were printed after it emerged she was about to divorce from her second husband, film director Sam Mendes, in 2010.

"I was being followed by paparazzi in New York City with my two small kids, who wanted to, of course, know the reason why Sam and I had split up," she said.

Asked how she dealt with that at the time, Winslet said: "You just keep your mouth closed, you put your head down, and you keep walking. And you try and put your hands over your children's ears. You lean on your friends, you just keep going."

Looking towards the present day, Winslet said that while the pressures of being a woman in the film industry may have changed with time, there is "so much we still have to unlearn [...] about how we speak to women in film".

As she makes her directorial debut with the film Goodbye June, written by her son, Joe Anders, she said she had heard a number of things that "would never be said" to a male director.

"So they might say things like, 'Don't forget to be confident in your choices'.

"And I want to sort of say, 'Don't talk to me about confidence', because if that's one thing I haven't ever lacked, actually, it's exactly that. That person wouldn't say that to a man."

Her reaction to it now?

"Shut up," she said with a laugh.

Listen to Desert Island Discs at 10:00 on Sunday 21 December via BBC Radio 4 and BBC Sounds.

Songs about love, sex, tax and demon hunters ranked among the best music of 2025, according to a "poll of polls" conducted by BBC News.

We compiled more than 30 end-of-year lists from leading music publications to come up with a "super-ranking" of the year's best albums and singles, with artists including Pulp, Lady Gaga and Chappell Roan joined by newcomers like pop singer Addison Rae and indie band Geese.

In total, the critics named more than 200 records among their favourites, although the year's biggest-sellers failed to impress them.

Taylor Swift's blockbuster album The Life Of A Showgirl only picked up a handful of nominations. The year's biggest single, Alex Warren's Ordinary, appeared in just one list of 2025's best songs.

Instead, critics selected music that shifted the tectonic plates of pop... Here's a guide to their favourites.

The 10 best albums of 2025

10) Addison Rae – Addison

After a shaky start in 2021, Addison Rae's music career took flight with this collection of shimmering, trance-like hymns to desire. The desire for touch, the desire for fame, the desire for inner peace.

Unlike most modern pop albums, it's the work of just three people, with Rae and her collaborators Elvira Anderfjärd and Luka Kloser establishing a stylish, spacey and occasionally off-kilter sonic palette all of their own.

Singles like Diet Pepsi and Headphones On felt simultaneously classic and futuristic, marking Rae out as pop's newest It Girl.

Listen to Diet Pepsi: Sensual, hypnotic and calorie-free pop.

9) Lily Allen – West End Girl

Hell hath no fury like a Lily Allen scorned.

West End Girl is a savage and startlingly detailed portrait of a marriage being torn apart. Allen says some of the details have been exaggerated, but her pain is tangible amongst the artful pop beats and faux insouciance.

The dirty laundry triggered an avalanche of press coverage when the album arrived in November, but the songs have lingered as everyone remembers just how well Allen can craft an intoxicating pop hook.

Listen to Madeline: Where Allen confronts her partner's mistress, and recreates their texts.

• Lily Allen is 'vicious' and 'raw' on tell-all album

8) Pulp – More

Pulp's first album since 2001, More, somehow manages to sound as if it was recorded and shelved in their mid-90s heyday.

The lyrics are the only giveaway that this is the work of a band in their late middle age - as Jarvis Cocker sings movingly about stagnation, divorce and mortality. "You've gone from all you that could be to all that you once were," he laments on Slow Jam.

Yet, at 62, he remains stubbornly committed to the transformative power of love. And the reception Pulp received at Glastonbury this summer went a long way to proving him right.

Listen to Spike Island: A spiritual sequel to 1995's Sorted for E's & Wizz.

• Pulp reveal first album in 24 years

7) Dijon – Baby

What a wild year it's been for Dijon Duenas. After contributing to Bon Iver's Sable, Fable and Justin Bieber's acclaimed comeback, Swag, he scored two Grammy nominations for his second album, Baby.

It's a dazzling, harmony-rich R&B record, that channel-hops between genres and moods like a television tuned to the twin spirits of Prince and D'Angelo.

The album's central theme is the ecstasy and chaos of fatherhood, with Dijon addressing the title track to his firstborn, then imploring his wife to expand the family on the subtly-titled Another Baby! Sleepless nights have never sounded so good.

Listen to Yamaha: A swirling 80s funk groove allows Dijon to submerge himself in the bliss of enduring love.

6) FKA Twigs – Eusexua

Eusexua, FKA Twigs has said, is a word that describes "the tingling clarity" you get when you're struck by a new idea, when you kiss a stranger, or even "the moment before an orgasm".

The album attempts to recreate that feeling with a series of abstract, futuristic soundscapes and deconstructed club tracks. Echoing Madonna's Ray of Light (most notably on Girl Feels Good), the hooks are as sharp as the dopamine is addictive.

Listen to Girl Feels Good: A visceral ode to empowerment, femininity and healing on the dancefloor.

5) CMAT - Euro-Country

Coronation Street! Social anxiety! Late stage capitalism! Jamie Oliver! Grief! Road rage!

It's all there on Euro-Country, a riotously enjoyable romp through Ciara Mary-Alice Thompson's inner monologue.

Along the way, she tackles everything from male suicide to the impossible beauty standards that had her "trying to wax my legs with tape" at the age of nine.

Listen to Jamie Oliver Petrol Station: The only song of 2025 to address the need for tolerance through the prism of service station fast food.

• CMAT: I still face abuse over viral song

4) Oklou – Choke Enough

French artist Oklou – aka Marylou Mayniel – described her debut album as a "quest for meaning, of the need to be touched by anything" in a world where our interactions are stripped of humanity and flattened onto a screen.

Co-produced by Charli XCX collaborators AG Cook and Danny L Harle, it couldn't sound less bratty if it tried.

It's an album of intimate, gauzy pop, almost entirely drumless and built around hypnotic musical loops that short-circuit your emotions. Unplug and absorb.

Listen to Blade Bird: The album's swooning climax, based on a Basque poem about the tension between love and possession.

3) Bad Bunny - Debí Tirar Más Fotos

He might be Spotify's most-played artist of the year, but Puerto Rico's Bad Bunny makes no concessions to commercial trends.

His sixth album is a jubilant love letter to the music of his homeland, mixing traditional genres like plena, salsa and bomba with the hip-swaying pulse of reggaeton.

The irresistible grooves dare you not to get up and dance, while the lyrics agonise about gentrification and capitalism stealing the island's old magic.

Listen to DtMF: A lament for the loved ones he's lost, the album's title track translates as, "I should have taken more photos".

• Why Bad Bunny is refusing to tour the US

2) Geese – Getting Killed

A savage and unpredictable record, Getting Killed was apparently recorded in just 10 days.

It finds the four members of Brooklyn-based Geese patchworking the best bits of Radiohead, the Strokes, Captain Beefheart and the Velvet Underground into something entirely new and unpredictable.

Frontman Cameron Winter anchors the chaos with his singular warble, and lyrics that swerve wildly between irreverence and incisiveness.

Listen to Taxes: Defiant, taut and full of swagger, Winter chants: "If you want me to pay my taxes / You'd better come over with a crucifix."

1) Rosalía - Lux

If music brings us closer to God, Rosalía wants her music to bring God closer to us.

The Spanish singer's fourth album is an exhilarating - and profoundly moving - exploration of the human condition, that asks why the earthly and the holy have to be so far apart.

It's a monumental work. She devoted an entire year to the lyrics alone, singing in 14 languages, over music that sits at the lesser explored intersection of classical, flamenco and avant-pop.

In an interview with the New York Times, Rosalía agreed she was "demanding a lot" from listeners, "but I think that the more we are in the era of dopamine, the more I want the opposite".

Accordingly, it's an album that reveals fresh new treasures on every listen, as Rosalía argues we're all capable of grace and beauty. We just have to open our hearts.

Listen to Reliquia: As staccato strings are sucked into a vortex of electronic distortion, Rosalía sings about the sacrifices she's made for art and love, and concludes it's better to contribute to the world than take from it.

• Radical and Riveting: Rosalía's Lux reviewed

The 10 best singles of 2025

10) Wednesday - Elderberry Wine

There's a sense of unease bubbling under this gentle indie rock song, as though singer Karly Hartzman is perpetually on the brink of divulging an uncomfortable truth. Built around the metaphor of elderberries, a fruit that can heal or poison depending on how it's handled, the song captures the tension of staying in a relationship you know is toxic.

9) Kehlani - Folded

Introduced by nostalgic strings, Folded became Kehlani's first Top 10 hit in her native US, blending classic R&B themes of heartbreak and longing with modern production. Using the simple act of folding an ex-lover's clothes as jumping off point, Kehlani captures the emotional push-and-pull of saying goodbye.

8) Addison Rae - Headphones On

Addison Rae is a student of pop, and Headphones On is her master thesis – a hymn to music that whisks you away from the world for three minutes of distracted, hypnotic solace.

7) Amaarae - SMO

A seduction, a come-on, a hedonistic exploration of physicality. "Ginga me," Amaarae sings repeatedly over a throbbing electro groove – referencing the fluid, hip-swaying movements of the Brazilian martial art Capoeira. You'll succumb, and you'll enjoy it.

6) Bad Bunny - Baile Inolvidable

This boisterous, captivating salsa was recorded live with student musicians from Puerto Rico's Escuela Libre de la Música (take that, AI). But the celebratory atmosphere masks a broken heart, as Bad Bunny is reminded of the ex who taught him to dance. "I thought I'd grow old with you," he laments.

5) Huntr/x – Golden

Sometimes a song escapes its origins and goes into orbit. Golden was the last song written for Netflix's hit animation K-Pop Demon Hunters, but its soaring chorus became an anthem for anyone striving to achieve their dreams. An Oscar nomination beckons.

4) Chappell Roan - The Subway

Two things you can expect from Chappell Roan are theatricality and emotional honesty. The Subway delivers both, becoming a map of loss that carries listeners through a breakup on the streets and subways of New York - capturing that confusing limbo of experiencing grief and loneliness, surrounded by hundreds of strangers.

3) Lady Gaga - Abracadabra

A triumphant return to the sound of her debut album, Abracadabra takes all the Lady Gaga tropes – Nonsense lyrics! Demonic synths! Gothic choruses! – and dials them up to 11. An absolute banger.

2) Olivia Dean - Man I Need

Olivia Dean says Man I Need is a song "about knowing how you deserve to be loved and not being afraid to ask for it". The object of her affections just needs a nudge in the right direction, and this playful, soulful melody should easily set the romance on track.

1) PinkPantheress - Illegal

One of pop's most overused clichés is that falling in love is intoxicating, just like drugs!

So it's a credit to PinkPantheress that she's made the idea sound fresh – zoning in on the fraught awkwardness of hooking up, whether it's with a dealer or a potential new partner.

"It feels illegal," she frets, as her heartbeat races with the drumbeat of this smouldering dance-pop anthem.

The methodology

BBC News compiled more than 30 year-end lists published by the world's most influential music magazines and critics - including the NME, Rolling Stone, Spain's Mondo Sonoro and France's Les Inrockuptibles.

Records were assigned points based on their position in each list - with the number one album or single getting 20 points, the number two album receiving 19 points, and so on.

The results were the closest we've ever seen. Just 52 points separated Rosalía's Lux from the number two album, Geese's Getting Killed.

In the singles countdown, PinkPantheress was the runaway winner - but the rest of the field was tightly packed, reflecting a year where there haven't been many universally popular, culturally dominant songs.

The publications we surveyed included: Albumism, Billboard, Buzzfeed, Clash, Complex, Consequence of Sound, Dazed, Daily Mail, Dork, Double J, Entertainment Weekly, Exclaim!, The Fader, Flood, The Forty Five, Gorilla vs Bear, The Guardian, Independent, LA Times, Les Inrocks, Line of Best Fit, MOJO, Mondo Sonoro, NME, New York Times, Paste Magazine, Pitchfork, Pop Matters, Rolling Stone, The Skinny, Slant, Stereogum, The Telegraph, Time Magazine, Time Out, The Times, Uncut and Vulture.