Could Ukraine hold a presidential election right now? Will Europe use frozen Russian assets to fund war? How can Ukraine rebuild China ties? 'Ukraine is running out of men, money and time' Putin says Russia believes it will win in Ukraine in New Year's Eve address Russian President Vladimir Putin has said his country believes it will win the war in Ukraine, nearly four years after he launched an invasion of the neighbouring nation, in comments made during his televised annual New Year's Eve address. The Russian leader called on the country on Wednesday to "support our heroes" fighting in Ukraine, where troops have been waging a brutal offensive since February 2022.

A visitor has called it a miracle no-one was hurt when a section of cliff collapsed on to a beach on Dorset's Jurassic Coast. Suzanne Sears, from Hemel Hempstead in Hertfordshire, was taking a walk near West Bay when she heard a deep cracking noise coming from the cliffs before the rockfall shortly after 16:00 GMT on Tuesday. The Maritime and Coastguard Agency confirmed a rescue team was sent to a report of a cliff fall at West Bay and no one was found to be in distress. A woman was forced to run to safety as the Dorset cliff collapsed on Saturday. The kayakers spotted the creature after hearing it exhaling loudly off Portland Castle beach.

Stock markets had a stellar run in 2025. From North America to Europe and Asia, markets racked up some of the biggest gains in years. The globally-focused MSCI ACWI Ex-US index had its strongest performance since 2009, when the global financial crisis was in full swing. The index, which tracks non-US stocks in more than 40 markets, was on Wednesday on track to finish 2025 up about 30 percent, compared with the nearly 18 percent return of the benchmark S&P 500. The bullish streak marks a break from the decade-plus trend of US stocks dominating global indexes.

Scroll back through the last year, and the same words come up again and again. The top-trending terms of 2025, from artificial intelligence to Zohran Mamdani, shaped headlines across politics, conflict, technology and climate. As the year comes to a close, AJ Labs has compiled an A to Z list of names, places and issues that generated sustained interest throughout 2025, according to a loose analysis of our own most-viewed story tags and those that appeared in Google's most searched. Taken together, these terms are a patchwork of issues that are also likely to spill into 2026, from ongoing conflicts to a changing technosocial landscape not seen since the dawn of the internet. This is 2025 from A to Z, by the words that made the year.

The first non-European Pope in more than 1,000 years, the Oscar-winning star of Annie Hall and The Godfather, a soul legend and one of the world's most famous designers - here are some of the well-known faces no longer with us. Among those we remember are Hollywood stars Robert Redford, Diane Keaton and Gene Hackman, and theatrical dames Joan Plowright and Patricia Routledge. Robert Redford's acting career spanned more than 50 films and won him an Oscar as a director. For many filmgoers though, he was simply the best-looking cinema star in the world - once described as a chunk of Mount Rushmore levered into stonewashed denims. As well as leading roles in hits such as All The President's Men, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The Way We Were, Redford also launched the Sundance Film Festival to champion independent filmmakers. Los-Angeles-born Keaton shot to fame with her role in The Godfather, but enjoyed a long creative partnership with Woody Allen. Annie Hall, a comedy based on their off-screen relationship, earned her a Best Actress Oscar and they collaborated on several other films. She was nominated for three further Oscars - all in the best actress category - for her work in Something's Gotta Give, Marvin's Room and Reds. BASIL! - the unmistakable sound of Sybil Fawlty admonishing her pompous and incompetent husband, is probably how Prunella Scales will best be remembered. Apart from starring in sitcom Fawlty Towers, she played many other roles on screen and stage, including Queen Elizabeth II in Alan Bennett's play, A Question of Attribution.

Vladimir Putin drone attack claims dismissed by military expert Cameron Chell, who calls the alleged Ukrainian strike on the Russian president's residence 'hard to fathom.'

Using weighted pieces and magnetic boards, players of the hybrid sport must complete each move in one breath.

The video games industry is unpredictable. If you'd told us this time last year that a previously unknown French studio would claim game of the year, Battlefield 6 would knock Call of Duty off the top of the annual charts and that Saudi Arabia would buy gaming giant Electronic Arts (EA) we'd have been... sceptical. So you'd have to be very sure of yourself - or very foolish - to try and predict what's going to happen in the year ahead. Luckily, we're not in the crystal ball business here at BBC Newsbeat, but there are a few things we can be confident video game fans should keep an eye on in 2026. GTA 6: Will it actually arrive in 2026?

It sounds like science fiction - a factory, located hundreds of kilometres above the Earth, churning out high-quality materials. But a Cardiff-based company is a step closer to making this a reality. Space Forge have sent a microwave-sized factory into orbit, and have demonstrated that its furnace can be switched on and reach temperatures of around 1,000C. They plan to manufacture material for semiconductors, which can be used back on Earth in electronics in communications infrastructure, computing and transport. Conditions in space are ideal for making semiconductors, which have the atoms they're made of arranged in a highly ordered 3D structure.

How dangerous is the US standoff with Venezuela? Is the US economy strong heading into 2026? As the United States economy heads into 2026, the report card emerging on its performance is complicated. By many measures, the world's largest economy appears to be in a strong position. After a tumultuous year marked by President Donald Trump's return to the White House and his swing towards tariffs and protectionism, recent growth has outpaced the expectations of most analysts.