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Working from home is creating a generation who are “not doing proper work”, the former boss of Marks and Spencer and Asda has warned.

Lord Rose told BBC Panorama that home working was part of the UK economy’s “general decline” and employees’ productivity was suffering.

His comments come as some companies are calling time on remote working. Amazon, Boots and JP Morgan are just some of the businesses who now require their head office staff to be in every day.

However, work-from-home expert Prof Nicholas Bloom said that while fully remote work can be “quite damaging” to some workers’ productivity, spending three days out of five in the office was as productive as fully office-based work overall.

Lord Rose, who was chief executive of M&S and recently stepped down as the chairman of Asda, said: “We have regressed in this country in terms of working practices, productivity and in terms of the country’s wellbeing, I think, by 20 years in the last four.”

In a December 2024 UK snapshot survey by the Office for National Statistics, 26% of people said they had been hybrid-working in the prior seven days, with some days in the office and some days at home – while 13% had been fully remote and 41% had been fully office-based (the remainder were not working at the time).

The shift to working from home has transformed local economies. Industry estimates indicate that vacant office space has nearly doubled since the pandemic, a quarter of dry-cleaning businesses have shut down, and the number of golf games played during the working week has risen 350% – suggesting some people are mixing work and pleasure.

Working from home is rapidly becoming a major battleground in the culture wars. The government is currently legislating to strengthen the right of employees across the UK to request working from home and says that it intends to make it harder for employers to turn down requests.

But some employers – including government bodies – are battling with staff to get them back into the office, arguing that face-to-face interaction is essential to collaborative working.

In some cases, such as independent record label Hospital Records, this requires negotiation between a young workforce – some of whom may never have worked full-time in an office – and their older bosses.

Company founder Chris Goss, who introduced a new policy requiring staff work three days in the office rather than two, said he had “a nagging feeling” that remote working has affected the company’s bottom line.

“I firmly believe that the music industry is all about relationships, and so the one single way for any of us to be able to build those kind of meaningful relationships is to do it in person.”

Maya, a 25-year-old marketing manager at the company, said she likes being around her more experienced colleagues in the workplace. “There’s a lot of people in my team that are a lot further along in their career, so if I need help with something, you know, I can just ask someone.”

But she believes she would not be able to be in the office five days a week “because my social battery drains and I need sometimes to be just at home and just to smash out loads of admin”.

Prof Bloom, a Stanford University economist, said his research into working from home suggests employees in their teens and early 20s should probably be in the office at least four days a week to maximise their opportunities for being mentored.

However, he said polls of tens of thousands of employees in the UK, US and Europe suggest workers valued the ability to work from home for two days a week about as much as an 8% pay rise.

Employment rights minister Justin Madders told Panorama there was a growing body of evidence that working from home was more productive. He also said it was good for growth because companies will have “a much more motivated workforce” and “if we’re able to get more people into work because flexibility is available for them, that will help us reach our growth ambitions”.

Prof Bloom may not be as optimistic about the effect hybrid working has on productivity, but he does agree that increasing the number of roles which can be done from home could help with economic growth if it encourages more people back into work, such as those with caring responsibilities.

“That is a huge boost” and “kind of a win, win, win”, because people would be able to work in better conditions, contribute to tax revenue and “everyone gains”.

One of the people who could benefit is Harleen, who was made redundant after she had her second child and has been unable to return to work because she cannot find a fully remote role that fits around her autistic son’s routine.

“I am not seeing those jobs advertised. I’m not seeing anything that caters to that flexibility,” she said.

“Every day I wake up and I’m thinking I’m living in Groundhog Day. All I’m doing is being a mother. I enjoy being a mum, but I want productivity. I start to feel like I’m just being brain dead.”

In the public sector, productivity is the lowest it has been since 1997 – except for the pandemic lockdown years – and some blame working from home. Since November 2023, civil servants have been called back in for between two to three days a week.

But in several public bodies, including at the Office for National Statistics (ONS) in Newport, South Wales, some staff are refusing to return.

Ed, an IT delivery manager at the ONS and a rep for the PCS trade union, said he has worked almost entirely from home since the pandemic. He says it helps him to get his children to school and nursery and not waste time on commuting.

“We’ve never been told by senior leaders at the ONS that there is a problem with productivity, there’s a problem with quality, there’s a problem with meeting deadlines,” he said.

“We will never see this opportunity again. We have to fight for workers’ rights.”

He and other union members are threatening to strike if they are forced to travel into the office 40% of the time. Civilian staff in the Metropolitan Police and union members at the Land Registry are also in dispute over policies on returning to the office.

The ONS, which is in talks with the union, says it believes “face-to-face interaction” helps to “build working relationships, supports collaboration, and innovation”.

But whatever the outcome of disputes such as this, it is clear that all of us working full-time in the office is now a thing of the past.

Chappell Roan can’t be stopped.

Over the last 12 months, the 26-year-old has become the buzziest star in pop. A flamboyant, flame-haired sensation, whose songs are as colourful as they are raw.

Her debut album, released to little fanfare in 2023, has just topped the UK charts for a second time. Next week, she’s up for six Grammy awards, including best new artist. And BBC Radio 1 have named her their Sound Of 2025.

Success has been all the sweeter because her former record label refused to release many of the songs that exploded onto the charts last year.

“They were like, ‘This is not gonna work. We don’t get it’,” Roan tells Radio 1’s Jack Saunders.

Reaching pop’s A-list isn’t just a vindication but a revolution.

The 26-year-old is the first female pop star to achieve mainstream success as an openly queer person, rather than coming out as part of their post-fame narrative.

On a more personal level, she’s finally got the financial security to move into a house of her own, and acquire a rescue cat, named Cherub Lou.

“She’s super tiny, her breath smells so bad, and she doesn’t have a meow,” the singer dotes.

If kitten ownership is a benefit of fame, Roan has bristled at the downsides.

She has spoken out against abusive fans, calling out “creepy behaviour” from people who harass her in airport queues and “stalk” her parents’ home. Last September, she went viral for cussing a photographer who’d been shouting abuse at stars on the red carpet of the MTV Awards.

“I was looking around, and I was like, ‘This is what people are OK with all the time? And I’m supposed to act normal? This is not normal. This is crazy’,” she recalls.

The incident made headlines. British tabloids called her outburst the “tantrum” of a “spoiled diva”.

But Roan is unapologetic.

“I’ve been responding that way to disrespect my whole life – but now there are cameras on me, and I also happen to be a pop star, and those things don’t match. It’s like oil and water.”

Roan says musicians are trained to be obedient. Standing up for yourself is portrayed as whining or ingratitude, and rejecting convention comes at a cost.

“I think, actually, I’d be more successful if I was OK wearing a muzzle,” she laughs.

“If I were to override more of my basic instincts, where my heart is going, ‘Stop, stop, stop, you’re not OK‘, I would be bigger.

“I would be way bigger… And I would still be on tour right now.”

Indeed, Roan rejected the pressure of extending her 2024 tour to protect her physical and mental health. She credits that resolve to her late grandfather.

“There’s something he said that I think about in every move I make with my career. There are always options.”

“So when someone says, ‘Do this concert because you’ll never get offered that much money ever again’, it’s like, who cares?

“If I don’t feel like doing this right now, there are always options. There is not a scarcity of opportunity. I think about that all the time.”

As fans will know by now, Roan was born Kayleigh Rose Amstutz and raised in the Bible Belt town of Willard, Missouri.

The oldest of four children, she aspired to be an actress – but, for a long time, it seemed her future would be in sport. She ran at state-competition level, and almost went to college for cross-country.

Then she entered a singing contest at the age of 13 and won. Before long, she’d written her first song, about a crush on a Mormon boy who wasn’t allowed to date outside his faith.

She took her stage name as a tribute to her grandfather Dennis K Chappell and his favourite song, a Western ballad called The Strawberry Roan.

“He was very funny and very smart,” she recalls. “And I don’t think he ever questioned my ability.

“A lot of people were like, ‘You should go completely country’, or, ‘You should try Christian music’. And he never told me to do anything.

“He was the only person that was like, ‘You don’t need a plan B. Just do it’.”

Eventually, one of her compositions, a gothic ballad called Die Young, caught the attention of Atlantic Records, which signed her at the age of just 17.

Moving to LA, she recorded and released her first EP, School Nights, in 2017. It was a solid but unremarkable affair, steeped in the sounds of Lana Del Rey and Lorde.

Roan only found a sound of her own when a group of gay friends took her to a drag bar.

“I walked into that club in West Hollywood and it was like heaven,” she told the BBC last year. “It was amazing to see all these people who were happy and confident in their bodies.

“And the go-go dancers! I was enthralled. I couldn’t stop watching them. I was like, ‘I have to do that’.”

She didn’t become a dancer, but she did write a song imagining what it would be like to be one and how her mother would react. Roan called it Pink Pony Club after a strip bar in her home town.

“That song changed everything,” she says. “It put me in a new category.

“I never thought I could actually be a ‘pop star girl’ and Pink Pony forced me into that.”

Her label disagreed. They refused to release Pink Pony Club for two years. Shortly after they relented, Roan was dropped in a round of pandemic-era cost-cutting.

Bruised but not broken, she went back home and spent the next year serving coffee in a drive-through doughnut shop.

“It absolutely had a positive impact on me,” she says. “You have the knowledge of what it’s like to clean a public restroom. That’s very important.”

The period was transformational in other ways. She saved her earnings, had her heart broken by a person “with pale blue eyes”, moved back to Los Angeles, and gave herself a year to make it.

It might have taken a little longer than that, but she hit the ground running.

During her exile, Roan had stayed in touch with her Pink Pony Club co-writer, Daniel Nigro.

He was also working with another up-and-coming singer called Olivia Rodrigo and, when her career took off, Roan got a courtside seat, supporting Rodrigo on tour and providing backing vocals on her second album, Guts.

More importantly, Nigro used the momentum to sign Roan to his own record label and ensure the release of her debut album in September 2023.

At first, it seemed like Roan’s original label had been right. Sales were disappointing and audiences were slow to catch on because her in-your-face queer anthems were out of step with the trend for whispery, confessional pop.

But those songs came to life on stage. Big, fun and designed for audience participation, they’re taken to new heights by Roan’s powerhouse voice and flamboyant stage persona.

“A drag queen does not get on stage to calm people down,” she says. “A drag queen does not say things to flatter people. A queen makes you blush, you know what I mean? Expect the same energy at my show.”

Sure enough, it was a live-streamed appearance at last year’s Coachella Festival that pushed her into the upper echelons of pop.

Dressed in a PVC crop top that declared “Eat Me”, she played the packed Gobi tent like a headliner, strutting purposefully across the stage and coaching the audience in the campy choreography for Hot To Go.

Then she stared directly into the camera and dedicated a song to her ex.

“Bitch I know you’re watching… and all those horrible things happening to you are karma.”

The clip went viral and, before long, her career did, too.

By the summer, all of her shows had been upgraded. Festivals kept having to move her to bigger stages. When she played Lollapalooza in August, she drew the event’s biggest ever daytime crowd.

“It just takes a decade,” she says. “That’s what I tell everyone. ‘If you’re OK with it taking 10 years, then you’re good’.”

As fans discovered her debut album, Roan also released a standalone single – a sarcastic slice of synth-pop called Good Luck Babe, which became her breakout hit.

“I don’t even know if I’ve ever said this in an interview, but it was originally called Good Luck, Jane,” she reveals.

“I wanted it to be about me falling in love with my best friend, and then her being like, ‘Ha ha ha, I don’t like you back, I like boys.’

“And it was like, ‘OK, well, good luck with that, Jane‘.”

A masterclass in pop storytelling, Good Luck Babe has a proper three-act structure, with a killer pay-off in the middle eight and a chorus you just can’t shake.

Still, Roan was shocked by its success.

“I just threw it out, like, I don’t know what this is going to do – and it carried the whole year!”

The question, of course, is what the star does next, now that she’s the Sound of 2025.

She’s already previewed two new songs, The Subway and The Giver, in concert – but all she will reveal about a second album is that she’s “more reluctant to be sad or dark”.

“It feels so good to party,” she explains.

Looking back at the last 12 months, she’s philosophical about what it means to be pop’s hottest new commodity.

“A lot of people think fame is the pinnacle of success, because what more could you possibly want than adoration?”

Roan does admit that the admiration of strangers is more “addictive” than she’d expected.

“Like, I understand why I’m so scared to lose this feeling.

“It’s so scary to think that one day people will not care about you the same way as they do right now – and I think [that idea] lives in women’s brains a lot different than men’s.”

Ultimately, she decides, success and failure are “out of my control”. Instead, she wants to make good choices.

“If I can look back and say, ‘I did not crumble under the weight of expectation, and I did not stand for being abused or blackmailed’, [then] at least I stayed true to my heart,” she says.

“Like I said before, there are always options.”

Chappell Roan was named BBC Radio 1’s Sound Of 2025, by a panel of more than 180 musicians, critics and music industry experts.

The top five, in order, were:

Every new president begins a fresh chapter in American history. And when Donald Trump is inaugurated in a freezing Washington DC on Monday, he will be hoping to usher in a new era for this country.

The ceremony in the rotunda of the US Capitol, moved indoors for the first time in decades due to the bitter cold, will also mark the moment he starts being judged on action and not promises.

And he has promised seismic change as well as action on day one. At a raucous rally in the city on Sunday, Trump said he would sign a flurry of executive orders within moments of being inaugurated, covering issues ranging from immigration and deportations to the environment and transgender rights.

“You’re going to have a lot of fun watching television tomorrow,” he told the crowd here.

But even if his presidency begins with a serious bang, there are still questions about what Trump’s second act will look like.

Will we feel the tectonic plates of power shift beneath our feet as he re-enters the White House? Can he deliver his pledged sweeping reforms? Will it be as apocalyptic as his opponents suggest?

Listening to some of his detractors, you would be forgiven for thinking the skies will darken and the birds will flee Washington as soon as he takes the oath of office.

Many worry he will try to rule as an autocrat and undermine American democracy. His predecessor, Joe Biden, pointedly used his final Oval Office address to warn of a dangerous oligarchy of unaccountable billionaires forming around Trump that threatens the basic rights and freedoms of Americans.

But no one can deny Trump, 78, has a clear mandate after his decisive election victory in November. He won the popular vote and the electoral college. He won a clean sweep of swing states. His agenda has the green light from voters.

This time around, Trump is determined his agenda will be enacted. He has a far more experienced and deeply loyal team behind him to make sure that happens.

He also plans – presumably with the help of Elon Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency” – to swiftly fire huge numbers of civil servants and officials.

Trump still believes there is a “deep state” within the US government that will try to frustrate his agenda. So we can expect a far more drastic clear-out of federal employees than would normally come with a change of administration, and a far more politicised government machine behind him.

Many of his plans, like major tax cuts for big corporations and the very wealthy, will need legislation passed by Congress.

But that will not be a problem, as he has control of the Republican Party and its majority in both chambers. Senators and Representatives are unlikely to defy him in significant numbers. And he has Musk on hand to wield his social media platform and vast wealth to pressure any rebels back into line.

Is there anything that could prevent Trump from rounding up and deporting millions of undocumented migrants or using the justice system to target political opponents he sees as his enemies?

There are logistical and financial hurdles no doubt, particularly when it comes to mass deportations, but Democratic opposition alone is unlikely to be enough to stop this. The party, after all, is still reeling from its resounding election defeat.

There is internal strife as members carry out a prolonged post-mortem over that result. And the resistance movement that mobilised before Trump’s first term, prompting days of nationwide protests after his inauguration that brought more than a million people onto the streets, appears less energised this time.

After his 2020 election defeat, Trump was kicked off social media platforms following the Capitol riot and his baseless claims of voter fraud. These companies are already treating him differently this time around, as he prepares to be inaugurated inside the rotunda where his supporters roamed on 6 January 2021.

Prominently seated in the VIP section to watch will be a collection of the richest men in the world. Musk, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg will all be there. So will the CEOs of Google, Apple and TikTok. It is the living embodiment of the ultra-wealthy “tech-industrial complex” that Biden warned about in his farewell address.

These men have already moved to warm relations with Trump. Zuckerberg‘s Meta is abandoning fact-checking on Facebook and Instagram, Bezos prevented the Washington Post (which he owns) from endorsing Kamala Harris. And all of them have donated millions to Trump’s inaugural fund.

Whether it is in Congress or the corporate world, Trump is taking office this time around with a warm welcome from America’s powerbrokers.

There’s little doubt that his mass of executive orders on day one will feature some eye-catching actions designed to titillate his base. Like issuing presidential pardons for many, if not all, of the people convicted over the Capitol riot. His supporters will be thrilled to see the people they regard as political hostages freed from jail.

Trump will need a steady stream of populist moves like this. Because there is a risk some of his plans are at odds with what a section of his supporters voted for.

Many wanted lower prices after years of high inflation. But most economists suggest tariffs on imported goods will probably push prices up further.

Mass deportations could lead to a labour shortage in construction – complicating his pledge to build more houses – and in the agricultural sector, which could further increase the price of food. And it is billionaires, not the working class, who look set to benefit from the biggest tax cuts.

Eye-catching proposals, like promising to rename the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America, may well excite many of those who put him in office. But it remains to be seen how many Americans will feel the benefit of his headline policies.

Trump, however, is the ultimate political showman. His ability to entertain is part of his power and appeal. But his second term agenda goes deeper than pure showmanship and would be transformative if enacted.

His White House comeback will be dramatic and eventful, with consequences felt around the world. It may change America in fundamental and lasting ways.

China has executed a man found guilty of killing at least 35 people in a car attack in November, in what is thought to be the deadliest attack in the country for a decade.

Fan Weiqiu, 62, injured dozens more when he drove his car into people exercising outside a stadium in the southern city of Zhuhai.

State media said a second man was executed for a separate attack that came days later. Xu Jiajin, 21, killed eight people in a stabbing spree at his university in the eastern city of Wuxi.

Authorities said Fan was driven by “dissatisfaction” over how his property had been divided following his divorce, while Xu carried out his attack after “failing to obtain his diploma due to poor exam results”.

Fan was detained at the scene on 11 November, where police said he was found with self-inflicted wounds.

In December, he was found guilty of “endangering public safety”, with the Zhuhai Intermediate People’s Court describing his motive as “extremely vile” and the methods used “particularly cruel”.

His execution on Monday comes less than a month after the court sentenced him to death.

In the case of Xu, police said he confessed to his crime “without hesitation” on 16 November. He was sentenced to death on 17 December, with the court hearing that the circumstances of his crime were “particularly bad” and “extremely serious”.

Human rights groups believe China is the world’s leading executioner, killing thousands of people every year. The country does not release details about its use of the death penalty, so reliable numbers are unavailable.

China has been grappling with a spate of public violence, with many attackers believed to have been spurred by a desire to “take revenge on society” – where perpetrators target strangers over their personal grievances.

The number of such attacks across China reached 19 in 2024.

Within days of the Zhuhai and Wuxi attacks, a man drove into a crowd of children and parents outside a primary school in Changde city, injuring 30.

Authorities said the man, Huang Wen, wanted to vent his anger after dealing with investment losses and family conflict.

Huang was handed a suspended death sentence last month, which could be commuted to life imprisonment if he does not commit another crime in the next two years.

Analysts earlier told the BBC that the string of mass killings raised questions about how people in China have been dealing with various sources of stress, such as the country’s sluggish economy.

“The tensions do seem to be building, and it doesn’t look like there is any way it is going to ease up in the near future,” says George Magnus, an economist at Oxford University’s China Centre.

On the eve of his return to the White House, President-elect Donald Trump promised to sign a blitz of executive orders on his first day as president, telling supporters that he would move with “historic speed and strength” in the hours after taking the oath of office.

Addressing a racuous crowd of thousands in a Washington DC arena for a “Victory Rally”, Trump offered a preview of the next four years and celebrated his November election victory over the Democrats.

The Republican promised to act unilaterally on a wide array of issues, using his presidential powers to launch mass deportation operations, slash environmental regulations and end diversity programmes.

“We put America first and it all starts tomorrow,” he told the crowd at the campaign-style event, adding: “You’re going to have a lot of fun watching television tomorrow.”

Trump is expected to sign more than 200 executive actions on Monday. This would include executive orders, which are legally-binding, and other presidential directives like proclamations, which are usually not.

“Every radical and foolish executive order of the Biden administration will be repealed within hours of when I take the oath of office,” the incoming president said.

Trump promised executive orders that would ramp up artificial intelligence programmes, form the Department of Government Efficiency (Doge), make records available related to the assassination of John F Kennedy in 1963, direct the military to create an Iron Dome missile defence shield and eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies from the military.

He also told supporters he would stop transgender women from competing in female sports categories and hand back control of education to America’s states.

“You’re going to see executive orders that are going to make you extremely happy,” he told the crowd. “We have to set our country on the proper course.”

Presidents usually take executive action when they enter office but the volume of day one orders from Trump could dwarf his predecessors and many are expected to be challenged in court.

He promised that his executive blitz on Monday would target illegal immigration – an issue at the heart of the Republican’s winning campaign for the presidency.

But experts say his promise to deport millions of undocumented migrants will face enormous logistical hurdles, and potentially cost tens or hundreds of billions of dollars.

Trump is also expected to issue pardons for people convicted of taking part in the January 6 riots at the US Capitol in 2021 led by his supporters.

He referred to January 6 rioters as “hostages” and promised that everyone would be “very happy” with his decision on Monday.

The rally took place at the Capital One Arena in downtown Washington DC, which has a capacity of around 20,000.

It began with a performance by Kid Rock and featured speeches from TV personality Megyn Kelly, actor Jon Voight and Trump senior adviser Stephen Miller.

Elon Musk also gave a brief speech after Trump touted his creation of Doge, an advisory agency that the tech billionaire is set to run with Vivek Ramaswamy, an entrepreneur who made a failed bid for the Republican presidential nomination.

Trump’s family also joined him on stage, including sons Donald Trump Jr and Eric, and Eric’s wife Lara Trump.

Supports of the president-elect have flooded the nation’s capital this weekend despite bitterly cold temperatures and snow on Sunday.

Monday’s inauguration ceremony has been relocated indoors into the Rotunda of the US Capitol for the first time in 40 years due to the poor weather conditions, leaving thousands of people who had hoped to watch the ceremony along the National Mall disappointed.

The temperature is expected to be about -6C (22F) at noon local time, when the swearing-in takes place.

Supporters have instead been asked to watch the event from the Capitol One Arena, which will also host a version of the traditional outdoor parade.

Trump has said he will “join the crowd” there after taking the oath of office and delivering his inaugural address. The themes of his speech will reportedly be unity, strength and “fairness”.

Franklin Graham – the son of famous evangelist Billy Graham – will give the invocation during Monday’s inauguration ceremony.

“I think President Trump is a much different man than he was in 2017,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Sunday programme. “I think God has strengthened him and he’s come through this a much stronger man and he’s going to be a much better president for all these hardships he’s gone through.”

Irawati Karve led a life that stood apart from those around her.

Born in British-ruled India, and at a time when women didn’t have many rights or freedoms, Karve did the unthinkable: she pursued higher studies in a foreign country, became a college professor and India’s first female anthropologist.

She also married a man of her choosing, swam in a bathing suit, drove a scooter and even dared to defy a racist hypothesis of her doctorate supervisor – a famous German anthropologist named Eugen Fischer.

Her writings about Indian culture and civilisation and its caste system are ground-breaking, and are a part of the curriculum in Indian colleges. Yet she remains an obscure figure in history and a lot about her life remains unknown.

A new book titled Iru: The Remarkable Life of Irawati Karve, written by her granddaughter Urmilla Deshpande and academic Thiago Pinto Barbosa, sheds light on her fascinating life, and the many odds she braved to blaze an inspiring trail for the women, and men, who came after her.

Born in 1905 in Burma (now Myanmar), Irawati was named after the Irrawaddy river. The only girl among six siblings, she was doted on by her family and brought up in comfort.

But the young girl’s life took unexpected turns, resulting in experiences that would shape her as a person. Apart from strong women, Irawati’s life also crossed paths with empathetic, progressive men who paved the way for her to break barriers and cheered her on as she did so.

At seven, Irawati was sent to boarding school in Pune – a rare opportunity from her father when most girls were pushed into marriage. In Pune, she met RP Paranjpye, a prominent educationist whose family unofficially adopted Irawati and raised her as their own.

In the Paranjpye household, Irawati was exposed to a way of life that celebrated critical thinking and righteous living, even if that meant going against the grain of Indian society. Paranjpye, who Irawati fondly called “appa” or her “second father”, was a man far ahead of his times.

A college principal and staunch supporter of women’s education, he was also an atheist. Through him, Irawati discovered the fascinating world of social sciences and its impact on society.

When Irawati decided to pursue a doctorate in anthropology in Berlin, despite her biological father’s objections, she found support in Paranjpye and her husband, Dinkar Karve, a professor of science.

She arrived in the German city in 1927, after a days-long journey by ship, and began pursuing her degree under the mentorship of Fischer, a celebrated professor of anthropology and eugenics.

At the time, Germany was still reeling from the impact of World War One and Hitler had not yet risen to power. But the spectre of anti-Semitism had begun raising its ugly head. Irawati bore witness to this hate when she found out one day that a Jewish student in her building had been murdered.

In the book, the authors describe the fear, shock and disgust Irawati felt when she saw the man’s body lying on the footpath outside her building, blood oozing across the concrete.

Irawati wrestled with these emotions while working on the thesis assigned by Fischer: to prove that white Europeans were more logical and reasonable – and therefore racially superior to non-white Europeans. This involved meticulously studying and measuring 149 human skulls.

Fischer hypothesised that white Europeans had asymmetrical skulls to accommodate larger right frontal lobes, supposedly a marker of higher intelligence. However, Irawati’s research found no correlation between race and skull asymmetry.

“She had contradicted Fischer’s hypothesis, of course, but also the theories of that institute and the mainstream theories of the time,” the authors write in the book.

She boldly presented her findings, risking her mentor’s ire and her degree. Fischer gave her the lowest grade, but her research critically and scientifically rejected the use of human differences to justify discrimination. (Later, the Nazis would use Fischer’s theories of racial superiority to further their agenda and Fischer would join the Nazi party.)

Throughout her life, Irawati would display this streak of gumption combined with endless empathy, especially for the women she encountered.

At a time when it was unthinkable for a woman to travel too far away from home, Irawati went on field trips to remote villages in India after returning to the country, sometimes with her male colleagues, at other times with her students and even her children, to study the lives of various tribespeople.

She joined archaeological expeditions to recover 15,000-year-old bones, bridging the past and present. These gruelling trips took her deep into forests and rugged terrain for weeks or months, with the book describing her sleeping in barns or truck beds and often going days with little food.

Irawati also bravely confronted societal and personal prejudices as she interacted with people from all walks of life.

The authors describe how Irawati, a Chitpavan Brahmin from a traditionally vegetarian upper-caste Hindu community, bravely ate partially raw meat offered by a tribal leader she wished to study. She recognised it as a gesture of friendship and a test of loyalty, responding with openness and curiosity.

Her studies fostered deep empathy for humanity, leading her to later criticise fundamentalism across religions, including Hinduism. She believed India belonged to everyone who called it home.

The book recounts a moment when, reflecting on the horrors inflicted by the Nazis on the Jews, Irawati’s mind wandered to a startling realisation that would forever alter her view of humanity.

“In these reflections, Irawati learned the most difficult of lessons from Hindu philosophy: all that is you, too,” the authors write.

Irawati died in 1970, but her legacy endures through her work and the people it continues to inspire.

Two young women remain in intensive care after a chairlift at a ski resort in Spain collapsed on Saturday, leaving several people injured.

The Astún resort in the Spanish Pyrenees, where the incident happened, was closed as rescue services attended the scene but has since reopened.

A pulley failure appears to have caused a cable to slacken and some chairs to drop to the ground, throwing skiers into the snow.

Authorities are investigating what went wrong, state media reports. A statement from the resort stressed it has “all the permits and inspections”.

Regional officials initially estimated that about 30 people had been hurt, but the ski resort later said around 15 people had been considered injured.

Local emergency services triaged those who had fallen at the resort. They said 10 people were taken to hospital, and 20 others were discharged “on the spot”.

The two 18-year-olds in the worst condition were airlifted by helicopter to a hospital in Zaragoza, Spanish state media reports. One is said to be stable while the other remains under observation but is improving.

A pulley at one end of the chairlift came loose and part of the structure supporting it collapsed, causing a cable to lose tension and several seats to fall, according the state broadcaster TVE.

Dozens of people left hanging on the 15m-high (50ft) chairlift were helped down.

Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said he was “shocked” by the news of the incident.

Jaime Pelegri, who was on the lift, told the BBC that a cable lost tension before the chairs on his side of the structure fell.

“It was very scary, but very fast,” he said – adding that ambulances and helicopters arrived at the scene within 15 minutes.

He wrote in a post on X earlier: “Luckily we are fine but there are injured people, we have seen several stretchers coming down.”

Images on social media appear to show one of the chairlift’s flywheels off its upright.

Regional President Jorge Azcón and Spain’s Minister of the Interior Roberto Bermúdez de Castro went to the scene.

Azcón wrote on X: “All the necessary services of the [government] are working to assist the affected and injured people.”

PM Pedro Sánchez said he had spoken with Azcón to offer the “full support” of the government.

A telephone line has been set up for the families of those affected.

The Astún resort, which is popular with Spanish skiers, is located in the Aragon region of the Pyrenees mountains, near the border with France.

As Palestinians poured onto the streets of Gaza to celebrate the ceasefire, moments of joy faded for many as they returned to their homes to be met by destruction.

In Jabalia, a town in a northern Gaza that is home to the largest refugee camp in the strip, pictures and videos shared by residents revealed entire neighbourhoods reduced to rubble.

Returning to the al-Faluja area of Jabalia, Duaa al-Khalidi told BBC News: “I survived with my two daughters we came out from under the rubble of our house.

“Here, beneath the debris, the bodies of my husband, my mother-in-law, and my sister-in-law have remained buried since 9 October.”

The 28-year-old mother of two continued: “I want nothing but their bodies so I can bury them with dignity.”

Jabalia camp, once home to over 250,000 Palestinians, became the site of the largest and most violent Israeli military operation during the war, with around 4,000 Palestinians killed, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

Also returning to Jabalia, was Hussein Awda who documented his journey back from Gaza City.

The professional weightlifter, who has represented Palestine internationally, lost 10 members of his family at the start of the war.

“The best thing that happened today is that after 100 days, I was able to visit my family’s grave and pray for them,” he shared.

He also posted a video revealing the devastation to his three-storey home and sports club he owns.

“Here I lost the people closest to my heart—my brothers, my sons, my source of livelihood. The war killed everything beautiful inside us.”

In the southern city of Khan Younis, armed Hamas fighters drove through the streets to cheering crowds and chanting, according to Reuters news agency.

Hamas policemen, in police uniforms, were also deployed in some areas after months of hiding out of sight to avoid Israeli strikes.

Gaza City resident Ahmed Abu Ayham, who has been sheltering with his family in Khan Younis, told Reuters that his home city was “dreadful”.

In the city, which has suffered the heaviest destruction according to experts, people were seen waving the Palestinian flag and filming scenes on their mobile.

But the 40-year-old said it was no time for celebrations despite the fact the ceasefire might save lives.

“We are in pain, deep pain and it is time that we hug one another and cry,” he said.

Gazans were also on the move to the southern city of Rafah near the Egyptian border.

Mohammed Suleiman told BBC Arabic’s Gaza Lifeline: “Thank God, we have received the news of the ceasefire coming into effect with joy and happiness.

“God willing, things will change for the better and we will return to Rafah. I hope every displaced person will safely return to his home.”

Many fled the city after Israel ordered their evacuation before starting an operation in the southern Gaza city.

In Rafah, Muhammad al-Jamal, a journalist for Palestinian newspaper Al-Ayyam, reflected on his own loss.

“The house was razed to the ground; everything was reduced to rubble,” he said. “The chicken coop and the fig tree whose fruits we shared together are now a thing of the past.”

The fragility of the ceasefire agreement became evident in its initial hours.

The truce finally took effect after a three-hour delay, during which 19 Palestinians were reportedly killed in what Israel said were strikes on “terror targets”.

By the afternoon, three Israeli female hostages were back in Israel, as part of a six-week first phase that will see 33 hostages released.

But people in Gaza remain fearful that the truce may falter once again.

TikTok is resuming services to its 170 million users in US after President-elect Donald Trump said he would issue an executive order to give the app a reprieve when he takes office on Monday.

On Saturday evening, the Chinese-owned app stopped working for American users, after a law banning it on national security grounds came into effect.

Trump, who had previously backed a ban of the platform, promised on Sunday to delay implementation of the law and allow more time for a deal to be made. TikTok then said that it was in the process of “restoring service”.

Soon after, the app started working again and a popup message to its millions of users thanked Trump by name. In a statement, the company thanked the incoming president for “providing the necessary clarity and assurance” and said it would work with Trump “on a long-term solution that keeps TikTok in the United States”.

TikTok CEO Shou Chew is expected to attend Trump’s inauguration Monday.

Posting on Truth Social, a social media platform he owns, Trump said on Sunday: “I’m asking companies not to let TikTok stay dark! I will issue an executive order on Monday to extend the period of time before the law’s prohibitions take effect, so that we can make a deal to protect our national security.”

TikTok’s parent company, Bytedance, previously ignored a law requiring it to sell its US operations to avoid a ban. The law was upheld by Supreme Court on Friday and went into effect on Sunday.

It is unclear what legal authority Trump will have to delay the implementation of a law that is already in effect. But it expected that his government will not enforce the ban if he issues an executive order.

It’s an about-face from his previous position. Trump had backed a TikTok ban, but has more recently professed a “warm spot” for the app, touting the billions of views he says his videos attracted on the platform during last year’s presidential campaign.

For its part, President Joe Biden’s administration had already said that it would not enforce the law in its last hours in office and instead allow the process to play out under the incoming Trump administration.

But TikTok had pulled its services anyway on Saturday evening, before the swift restoration of access on Sunday.

The short-form video platform is wildly popular among its many millions of US users. It has also proved a valuable tool for American political campaigns to reach younger voters.

Under the law passed last April, the US version of the app had to be removed from app stores and web-hosting services if its Chinese owner ByteDance did not sell its US operations.

TikTok had argued before the Supreme Court that the law violated free speech protections for its users in the country.

The law was passed with support from both Republicans and Democrats in Congress and was upheld unanimously by Supreme Court justices earlier this week.

The issue exposes a rift on a key national security issues between the president-elect and members of his own party. His pick for Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, had vocally supported the ban.

“TikTok extended the Chinese Communist Party’s power and influence into our own nation, right under our noses,” he said last April. But he seemed to defer to the president-elect when a journalist asked if he supported Trump’s efforts to restore the ban.

“If I’m confirmed as secretary of State, I’ll work for the president,” he told Punchbowl media last week.

After Trump intervened on Sunday morning, Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Tom Cotton, a Republican senator from Arkansas, broke with Trump by saying that any company that helps TikTok stay online would be breaking the law.

“Any company that hosts, distributes, services, or otherwise facilitates communist-controlled TikTok could face hundreds of billions of dollars of ruinous liability under the law, not just from DOJ, but also under securities law, shareholder lawsuits, and state AGs,” he wrote on social media.

An executive order that goes against the law could be fought in court.

Several states have also sued the platform, opening up the possibility to TikTok being banned by local jurisdictions, even if it is available nationally.

Although the platform went live again on Sunday for existing users, the question of whether third-parties – hosting platforms or app stores like Google or Apple – could support TikTok in the US remains murky, says University of Richmond law professor Carl Tobias. The app had been removed from those stores in anticipation of the ban.

“It is murky,” he told the BBC.

In a post on Truth media, Trump promised to shield companies from liability, opening the door to TikTok being available on Apple and Google again.

“The order will also confirm that there will be no liability for any company that helped keep TikTok from going dark before my order,” the president-elect said on Truth Social Sunday.

But during the Supreme Court hearings, Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar was adamant that an executive order cannot change the law retroactively.

“Whatever the new president does, doesn’t change that reality for these companies,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor said during the hearings.

“That’s right,” Prelogar said.

Professor Tobias said that the law does include a provision that would allow the president to postpone the ban for up to 90 days, if he can show that the company is making substantial progress on alleviating national security issues. But, he said, it’s not clear whether those conditions have been met.

“The best thing Trump could do is work with Congress, and not potentially be in violation of the law or have any questions left hanging,” he said.

“I don’t know that we’re going to know a whole lot more until we see that executive order.”

A new portrait of the Duchess of Edinburgh has been released to celebrate her 60th birthday.

In the picture, taken by London-based fashion photographer Christina Ebenezer earlier this month, Sophie looks relaxed and happy as she perches in a window seat at her Surrey home.

Buckingham Palace said Sophie was interested in Ebenezer’s style of photography and wanted to support a rising female photographer.

She will mark her birthday on Monday privately at home with the Duke of Edinburgh.

The photo, taken at Bagshot Park, shows the duchess wearing a black turtleneck jumper and a pleated cream skirt.

Sophie’s public profile has grown in recent years, having been hailed as a dependable figure in a slimmed-down working monarchy following the departures of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex and Prince Andrew, as well as the King and Princess of Wales’s health troubles.

She became the first member of the royal family to visit Ukraine since the beginning of the Russian invasion, travelling to Kyiv to meet President Volodymyr Zelensky and First Lady Olena Zelenska last April.

They discussed how to support survivors of conflict-related sexual violence.

The Palace said that as the duchess turns 60, she has a renewed sense of commitment to her gender equality work and looked forward to further championing the issue in the future.

Ebenezer, born in Lagos, Nigeria, before moving to London at the age of four, has previously been recognised as a Forbes 30 Under 30 arts and culture leader and a British Fashion Council New Wave Creative.

Two of her portraits – of British actresses Michaela Coel and Letitia Wright – were unveiled at the National Portrait Gallery last year.

A daughter described as “at her happiest when she dances” will be among the three Israeli women due to be released after 471 days held hostage by Hamas.

Romi Gonen, 24, was among those captured by the militant group as she tried to escape the Nova festival during the 7 October 2023 attack.

She is expected to be freed alongside Doron Steinbrecher, 31, a veterinary nurse, and Emily Damari, 28, who holds dual British-Israeli nationality.

Their release forms part of the first phase of the deal between Israel and Hamas – a delay in Israel getting the three names, which Hamas blamed on “technical field reasons”, pushed the ceasefire back by nearly three hours.

Romi had travelled from her home in Kfar Veradim, in the north of Israel, to the Nova festival.

The Hostages and Missing Families Forum, which represents her family, said she had gone “to do what she loved, to dance” – something she had studied for 12 years, starring in solo performances and becoming an “amazing choreographer”.

When sirens sounded as the Hamas attack unfolded, Romi called her family. Her mother, Meirav, recalled hearing shots and shouting in Arabic in the final call with her daughter.

Romi was ambushed by Hamas militants as she tried to flee the festival.

A video posted by the families’ forum last November described her as “the girl with the biggest smile, the brightest light, the greatest friend”.

Doron, a 31-year-old veterinary nurse, was abducted from her apartment in Kibbutz Kfar Aza when Hamas attacked.

In May last year, her sister, Yamit Ashkenazi, penned an emotional letter through the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, calling her “my sunshine”.

“I wish you could feel the energy we send to you,” it read.

“I wish you were aware of, at least, some of the battle we are fighting here for your release. I wish you could feel it all. Loving you, longing for you, heartbroken, yet still fighting for you.”

And in an earlier post, Doron was described as “the glue that connects all her friends, sensitive and funny, always smiling and the first to offer help”.

She studied theatre and film in school, and developed a love for animals that led to her becoming a veterinary nurse.

Speaking to the BBC in November 2023, Doron’s sister Yamit spoke of a new tattoo. It read: “As the sun we will rise again”, but had some of the sun’s rays missing.

“They will be added when she is home,” she added.

Emily, a 28-year-old who holds dual British-Israeli nationality, was also taken hostage from Kibbutz Kfar Aza during the 7 October attack.

As news of her release came on Sunday, a source close to her family said that it had been a “torturous 471 days but a particularly torturous 24 hours”.

“All Emily’s mum Mandy wants to do is hug Emily. But she won’t believe it until she sees it,” the source said.

Emily has strong connections with the UK – she is a Tottenham Hotspur fan and would often visit to see relatives, attend concerts, go shopping and visit the pub here.

Her mother, Mandy Damari, previously told the BBC that Emily is “the core of our family and the core is missing”.

“I love her to the moon and back, she is a special person,” she added.

More than a year after the Hamas-led attacks on Israel, the two sides have agreed a ceasefire deal that could lead to the release of the remaining Israeli hostages.

Hamas seized 251 people when it attacked Israel in October 2023. According to Israel, 94 are still unaccounted for, but only 60 are believed to be alive.

The Israeli hostage and Palestinian prisoners releases are part of a set of agreements, which include the withdrawal of Israeli troops and the return of hundreds of thousands of displaced Gazans to where they lived before the war.

These are the stories of those hostages who are still being held, which have either been confirmed by the BBC or credibly reported.

This list is updated and names may change, as some people feared kidnapped are confirmed to have been killed or released.

Last updated on 16 January 2025

Emily Damari, (28), who holds dual British-Israeli nationality, was taken hostage from Kibbutz Kfar Aza. Addressing a memorial event in London on 6 October 2024, her mother Mandy said that hostages released last November had told her they had had contact with Emily in captivity.

Alexander (Sasha) Troufanov, 28, was taken hostage with his mother Lena, his partner Sapir Cohen, and his grandmother, Irina Tati. All were abducted from Kibbutz Nir Oz as they spent the Sabbath together. Irina, Sapir and Lena were released in November 2023.

Ariel Cunio, 27, and his partner Arbel Yahud, 29, were abducted in the same attack on Nir Oz. Eitan Cunio, Ariel’s brother who escaped Hamas, told the Jewish Chronicle that his last message from Ariel said: “We are in a horror movie.”

David Cunio, 34, another of Ariel’s brothers, was also kidnapped from Nir Oz. David’s wife Sharon Aloni Cunio and their three-year-old twin daughters Ema and Yuly were released in November 2023. Sharon’s sister Daniele Aloni, and her six-year-old daughter Emilia were both released the same month.

Doron Steinbrecher, 31, a veterinary nurse, was in her apartment in Kibbutz Kfar Aza when Hamas attacked. At 10:30 on 7 October, she sent a voice message to friends: “They’ve arrived, they have me.”

Naama Levy, 20, was filmed being bundled into a jeep, her hands tied behind her back. The footage was released by Hamas and circulated widely on social media. According to her mother, the teenager had just begun her military service.

Ohad Ben Ami, 55, was kidnapped from Be’eri with his wife, Raz. She was later released by Hamas.

Twin brothers Gali and Ziv Berman, 27, were taken from Kfar Aza. Ziv was messaging a friend as the attack happened. Their family say the IDF has told them the brothers are being held in Gaza.

Iraq-born Shlomo Mansour, 86, was taken captive from Kibbutz Kissufim, where he lived and worked as a chicken coop manager. His wife, Mazal, managed to escape.

Daniela Gilboa, 20, was a soldier based at Kibbutz Nahal Oz. In July 2024 a Hamas hostage video was published, in which she appealed to the Israeli government to bring her and the other hostages home.

IDF soldier Matan Angrest, 21, was on duty on 7 October and is presumed to be in Gaza.

Eli Sharabi, 52, was taken from Be’eri with his brother, Yossi, since confirmed dead. Eli’s wife and two daughters were murdered in the attack. Ofir Engel, the boyfriend of Yossi’s daughter, Yuval, was also taken, but released on 29 November.

Agam Berger, 20, was kidnapped from Nahal Oz. She was seen being taken away in videos released by Hamas.

Edan Alexander, 20, is an Israeli-US citizen who volunteered to join the Israeli army. He was serving near the Gaza border at the time of Hamas’s attack. Edan’s family said they had been told by Israeli officials that he had been taken to Gaza as a hostage.

Matan Zanguaker, 24, was taken with his partner Ilana Gritzewsky, 31, from Nir Oz. Ilana, a Mexican national, was released on 30 November 2023.

Eitan Horn, 38, and his brother Yair, 46, both Argentinian citizens, were also in Nir Oz at the time of the attack. Yair is a construction worker while Eitan works in education.

Keith Siegel, 65, and his wife Adrienne – often known as Aviva – Siegel, were taken from their home in Kfar Aza. Adrienne was released in November 2023.

Bipin Joshi, 23, a Nepalese agriculture student, is believed to have been taken from Kibbutz Alumim. The Joshi family say they received confirmation from Israeli intelligence that his phone had been located in Gaza.

Oded Lifshitz, 84, a retired journalist, was taken hostage from Nir Oz. His wife Yocheved was also kidnapped but she was freed in October 2023.

Omer Neutra, a 22-year-old Israeli-American and grandson of Holocaust survivors, was serving as a tank commander near Gaza when Hamas attacked. Omer’s parents say they were told by the Israeli embassy that he had been kidnapped.

Itzik Elgarat, 69, was kidnapped from Nir Oz, and reportedly shot in the hand during the attack. His phone was traced to Gaza after the attack.

Gadi Moses, 80, was also abducted from Nir Oz, where he worked as an agricultural expert. His partner, Efrat Katz, was killed in the attack. In September, his family told the Times of Israel that they had not heard any information about him since December 2023, when he appeared in a Hamas propaganda video.

Nimrod Cohen, 20, was taken from Nahal Oz. After he was kidnapped, his father was invited to meet Pope Francis in Rome along with other hostages’ families.

Tsachi Idan, 50, was taken away by Hamas gunmen from his home in Nahal Oz. His eldest child, Maayan – who had just turned 18 – was shot dead in the attack. In August, Tsachi’s wife, Gali, told US TV that the last she had heard of her husband was a report from released hostages in November 2023.

Yarden Bibas, 34, was abducted from Nir Oz along with his wife, Shiri, and their two young children, Ariel and Kfir. Hamas has claimed that Shiri, Ariel and Kfir were later killed in an Israeli bombing. In a TV interview in June, Israeli minister Benny Gantz indicated that the government knew what had happened to the Bibas family, but said it could not provide details yet.

Karina Ariev, a 20-year-old soldier, was serving at the Nahal Oz army base when she was kidnapped. Her sister Alexandra told the BBC she heard shooting as Karina called her during the attack, and later saw a video showing Karina being taken away in a vehicle.

Ofer Kalderon, 53, was taken by Hamas from Nir Oz, along with his two children, Erez and Sahar. Two other family members – 80-year-old Carmela Dan and her granddaughter, Noya, 12 – were killed in the attack. In November 2023, Erez and Sahar were released.

Omri Miran, 47, was abducted from Nahal Oz. His wife, Lishay, said she last saw him being driven away in his own car. She and their two small daughters were not taken with him.

Liri Albag, 19, had just started military training as an Army lookout at the Nahal Oz base when Hamas attacked. Her family say that she has managed to pass messages back to them through released hostages.

Ohad Yahalomi, 50, was abducted from Nir Oz, along with his 12-year-old son, Eitan, who was released during the November ceasefire.

Tal Shoham, 39, was taken from Kibbutz Be’eri. His wife, Adi, their two young children, and his mother-in-law, Dr Shosham Haran, were also captured but released in November 2023. Dr Haran’s husband, Avshalom was killed during the attack.

Sagui Dekel-Chen, 36, an American-Israeli citizen, has been missing since Hamas’s attack on Nir Oz. Since his abduction, his wife Avital has given birth to their third child, a girl named Shahar.

A number of people were abducted from the Supernova music festival in southern Israel. Among them:

Omer Shem Tov, 21, initially made a getaway in his car but was captured when he tried to rescue his friends, Maya and Itai Regev. All three were taken captive – the Regev siblings were released in November 2023, but they say they had been with Omer in captivity.

Yosef Ohana, 24, had been at the festival with a friend, who told his mother he and Yosef had remained to help people escape the gunfire before running themselves. Several weeks after the attack, Yosef’s mother was told by the Israeli army that he was a captive in Gaza.

Avinatan Or, 31, was kidnapped along with his girlfriend, Noa Argamani. She was rescued from central Gaza in June, and revealed that they had been separated during the abduction.

Guy Gilboa-Dalal, 23, attended the festival with his brother. In June, an unnamed released hostage was reported as saying they had been held in a room with Guy after their capture.

Eitan Mor, 24, was working as a security guard at the festival. In June, his father told Israeli radio that “the last sign of life” his family had had of Eitan was four months previously, but he did not give any details.

Alon Ohel, 23, is a Serbian citizen who was attending the festival. Hamas footage showed him being taken away as a hostage, but his mother said in August that she had not seen or heard of him since then.

Maxim Kharkin, 36, was invited to the festival at the last moment. He texted his mother twice after the attack, but has not been seen or heard of since.

Segev Kalfon, 26, was running away from the festival, across the highway, when he was captured by Hamas.

Romi Gonen, 24, was ambushed as she tried to escape from the Supernova festival. Her mother, Merav Leshem Gonan, addressed the UN Human Rights Council in June, when she appealed for international help to release the hostages.

Bar Kuperstein, 23, was working at the festival when the attack took place. His family say they identified him in a video of Israeli prisoners, posted by Hamas. Since then, they say they have had no further information.

Eliya Cohen, 27, and his girlfriend initially hid from the attackers in a shelter, but he was discovered, and driven away. In June, Hamas footage was released showing the moment Cohen and others were taken prisoner.

Elkana Bohbot, 35, had gone to the party with friends and, before losing contact, he spoke to his wife and mother telling them he was helping to evacuate the wounded, the Times of Israel reported. Hours later, his family found a video of him posted online by Hamas, which has been seen by BBC Verify.

Rom Braslavski, 20, was working on security for the festival. According to an account published by Hostages and Missing Families Forum, he was trying to rescue an injured person in the attack when he was caught in a volley of fire. He has not been heard from since.

Omer Wenkert, 23, a restaurant manager, sent a message to his family to say he was going to a safe shelter but then lost contact. His family say they saw Hamas video footage of Omer, including a photo of him handcuffed and wearing only underwear.

Evyatar David, 23, was at the festival and on the morning of the attacks, he texted the family to say “they are bombarding the party”. His family say they later received a text from an unknown number, containing video footage of Evyatar handcuffed on the floor of a dark room. According to Israel’s foreign ministry, he is being held captive by Hamas in Gaza.

Or Levy, 34, fled the festival with his wife Eynav, and phoned his mother to say they were hiding in a bomb shelter. Israeli forces later told the family that Eynav’s body had been found in the shelter and that Or had been kidnapped.

Thailand’s government says that six of its citizens are still being held hostage in Gaza.

Their names are Watchara Sriuan, Bannawat Seatho, Sathian Suwannakham, Nattapong Pinta, Pongsak Tanna and Surasak Lamnau.

A number of hostages are now known to have died while in captivity. Among them are the following:

On 1 September, the IDF announced that its forces had recovered the bodies of six hostages – Carmel Gat, Eden Yerushalmi, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Alexander Lobanov, Almog Sarusi and Master Sgt Ori Danino. The IDF said that they had been murdered by Hamas shortly before Israeli forces could reach them.

On 8 August, it was announced that the bodies of Abraham Munder, Alex Dancyg, Yagev Buchshtab, Chaim Peri, Yoram Metzger and Nadav Popplewell – all of whom who died in Hamas captivity – had been extracted from Gaza by the IDF and returned to Israel.

In November 2023, the bodies of 19-year-old soldier Noa Marciano and 65-year-old Yehudit Weiss were found by Israeli troops in buildings close to Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City.

In December 2023, the Israeli military expressed “deep remorse” after soldiers mistakenly killed three hostages in northern Gaza who had escaped from their captors. They were named as Yotam Haim, 28, Samer Talalka, 22, and Alon Shamriz, 26.

And in January 2025, the body of Yousef Zyadna, a 53-year-old Bedouin dairy farmer, was found by the Israeli military in an underground tunnel in the southern Rafah area. The IDF later said his son Hamza, 22, had been killed in Hamas captivity, after a forensic examination of remains. Yousef’s other children, Bilal, 19, and Aisha, 17 had also been abducted but were released in November 2023.

Research by Jamie Ryan and Emma Pengelly

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The Israeli military says special forces have recovered the body of a soldier killed in the 2014 Gaza war, which had been held hostage by Hamas since then.

Staff Sgt Oron Shaul’s remains were found during a “covert, special operation” by the Israeli military and Shin Bet security service in Gaza, according to a statement.

His family was informed following an identification procedure carried out by the National Institute of Forensic Medicine and the Military Rabbinate, it added.

Hamas had been expected to hand over Shaul’s remains as part of the new Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal, which was meant to be implemented on Sunday morning but has been delayed.

Israel Defence Forces (IDF) spokesman Rear Adm Daniel Hagari said Shaul “fell in battle” in Gaza City’s eastern Shejaiya district on 20 July 2014 and “was abducted by the Hamas terrorist organisation”.

“This was a significant intelligence and operational undertaking that lasted over the past decade since his fall and abduction, and especially during the war and over the past few days,” he told a briefing.

The operation to bring Shaul’s body home for burial was conducted by special units from the IDF’s Military Intelligence Directorate, the Shayetet 13 marine commando unit and Shin Bet operatives, he said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu commended the special forces involved “for their resourcefulness and their bravery”.

He said photos of Shaul and Goldin had “been before me in my office for many years as daily testimony to my commitment to bring them back home”.

“We have completed the mission to bring back Oron and will not rest until we also complete the mission to bring back Hadar Goldin,” he added.

“We will continue to act to return all of our hostages, the living and the deceased.”

Netanyahu issued the statement shortly after he said the start of the Gaza ceasefire would be delayed until Hamas confirmed the names of the first hostages it planned to release in exchange for Palestinian prisoners.

Hamas blamed technical problems for failing to hand over the list, and said it was still committed to the deal.

Israel launched a campaign to destroy Hamas in response to the 7 October 2023 attack, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.

Almost 46,900 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry. Most of the 2.3 million population has been displaced, there is widespread destruction, and there are severe shortages of food, fuel, medicine and shelter due to a struggle to get aid to those in need.

Israel says 94 of the hostages are still being held by Hamas, of whom 34 are presumed dead.

The first six-week phase of the ceasefire deal should see 33 hostages – including women, children and elderly people – exchanged for Palestinian prisoners being held by Israel.

Israeli forces will also withdraw to the east, away from densely populated areas of Gaza, while displaced Palestinians will be allowed to begin returning to their homes and hundreds of aid lorries will be allowed into the territory each day.

Negotiations for the second phase – which should see the remaining hostages released, a full Israeli troop withdrawal and a return to “sustainable calm” – will start on the 16th day of the ceasefire.

The third and final stage will involve the reconstruction of Gaza – something which could take years – and the return of any remaining hostages’ bodies.

Animal rights campaigners in France are celebrating after a wild boar facing the threat of death was allowed to stay with its owner.

The boar, named Rillette, was found in 2023 as a piglet by Elodie Cappé on her horse-breeding smallholding in Chaource, central France, after apparently being abandoned by its mother.

Local authorities had refused Ms Cappé the permission required to keep a wild animal. Unable to find a sanctuary to take Rillette, she faced the possibility of having to get it euthanised.

A French court has now ruled the authority’s decision must be re-examined.

Ms Cappé’s husband thought it was a joke when she came home with the baby boar on 1 April – April Fool’s Day – which she then raised.

She told the BBC she had initially tried to release Rillette back into the wild, but the boar came running back.

“She’s happy here,” Ms Cappé said.

Wild boars can carry diseases and cause a nuisance to farmers because of their size. Weighing between 60-100kg, according to the Woodland Trust, they are capable of knocking down fences, damaging fields and killing livestock.

While attacks on humans are rare, wild boars have increasingly been spotted roaming towns and cities across Europe – prompting officials to authorise culls in several countries.

When Ms Cappé’s local authority refused her permission to keep the wild animal – and unable to find a sanctuary that would take the sizeable beast – she faced two options.

She could give the boar to a woman who trained animals for films for profit, or Rillette would be euthanised – neither of which she wanted to happen.

Ms Cappé described Rillette – whom she cuddles and strokes – as her “best friend”.

“We both play a lot. I learn a lot of things. She knows how to sit [on command], lie down, play with dogs.

“She joins us for horse rides. She sleeps with the dogs. She’s a clown! She spends her days doing silly things to play.”

Keeping the boar, though, meant Ms Cappé risked a three-year jail sentence and a €150,000 (£127,000) fine.

Her appeal to a French court gained worldwide attention. She said she received calls from Germany, Ukraine, Brazil, Canada and the US while fighting the case.

Rillette’s story has drawn comparisons with a case in the US last year, in which a tame squirrel named Peanut that had had a large following on social media was put down by the authorities, sparking outcry.

In France, the animal rights activist and film star, Brigitte Bardot, joined the campaign to save Rillette.

A court in the nearby city of Châlons-en-Champagne has now ruled that the authorities must reconsider Ms Cappé’s original application.

It also ordered them to pay her €15,000 (£12,700) in damages, according to Reuters.

The judge said that “although the capture of live wild boars in the wild is in principle prohibited, the prefect nevertheless still has the power to authorise it”.

Ms Cappé was ecstatic when her lawyer relayed the decision: “I started partying – I screamed very loud as I was very happy.”

She said she was going to buy a cake and drink champagne, explaining that cake, along with apples, are one of her pet’s favourite foods.

Additional reporting by Aleks Phillips