BBC News Briefing

25 July, 2025

Alex has short blonde hair and blue eyes. She is smiling and wearing a black turtleneck.

Alex Binley

Hello. Almost one in three people in Gaza are going days without eating, the UN has warned. In Lapland, my colleague Erika Benke visits the Santa Claus village which is in the grip of a heatwave, prompting renewed concern about the accelerating pace of climate change in the Arctic. In Japan, watch as police and local hunters practice bear attack drills against a man dressed as one. Plus, test your news knowledge and try our quiz of the week.

TOP OF THE AGENDA

'New and astonishing levels of desperation' in Gaza, UN warns

A crowd of Palestinian women push up against each other with their arms outstretched holding pots and buckets, hoping for food

The World Food Programme has said that malnutrition in Gaza is surging, with 90,000 women and children in urgent need of treatment. Credit: Reuters

Almost one in three people in Gaza are going days without eating, the UN's food aid agency has warned, as it described "new and astonishing levels of desperation". Amongst those suffering are Hedaya al-Muta'wi and her 18-month-old son Mohammed, who is malnourished. The pair were widely pictured this week, and now Hedaya has spoken to the BBC about her struggle to provide for her son. While Israel controls the entry of supplies into Gaza, it has repeatedly said there are no restrictions and blames Hamas for stealing food. Also on Friday, Israel said it would allow foreign countries to airdrop aid into Gaza in the coming days, but as BBC Verify notes, this has gone wrong in the past with reportedly deadly consequences, and has been criticised as inefficient by aid agencies.

GET UP TO SPEED

A young girl with black bobbed hair and a fringe wears a black T-shirt and drinks from a bottle of water. Other people can be seen around her

Thai-Cambodia clashes could 'move towards war'

Thailand's acting PM's warning came after clashes between the neighbours left 16 people dead and thousands displaced.

Read more >

Two men with short black hair hug. One man has his back to the camera. The man whose face can be seen appears to be crying. He is wearing a blue T-shirt with stripes on and has tattoos on his arm and hand

'We lived through hell,' say ex-mega-prison inmates

Four men deported from the US to a notorious facility in El Salvador told the BBC that they were mistreated.

What they said >

A cyclist in a purple top and grey shorts cycles along a road, followed by a white motorbike. On either side of the road is grass and four brown cows can be seen grazing

Tour de France route changed due to ill cows

An outbreak of contagious nodular dermatitis was found in a herd on the Col de Saisies, so organisers reduced the route.

More on this >

Two men sit next to each other on a stage. Both hold microphones and have short brown hair and beards. The man on the left has a white T-shirt on and is speaking into microphone. The man on the left has a grey T-shirt on and his beard is grey

South Park creators make mock apology to Trump

The first episode in the new series makes several jokes at the president's expense, including depicting him in bed with Satan.

More on the row >

AT THE SCENE

Rovaniemi, Finland

Santa feels the heat as Lapland buckles in record-breaking heatwave

A man dressed as Father Christmas stands on a stoney area with trees in the background. He is waving and wears brown boots, baggy rey toursers, a large baggy white shirt with a red tunic over the top. He wears a Santa hat and has a long grey beard which reaches to his waist

After an unusually cold early summer, Finland has seen two weeks of temperatures topping 30C. Credit: BBC/Erika Benke

This summer, northern Finland has seen temperatures hover around 30C (86F) for days on end. In the country's northernmost region, Lapland, temperatures this high are extremely rare, making heatwaves like the current one exceptional. It has also prompted renewed concern about the accelerating pace of climate change in the Arctic, which is warming four to five times faster than the rest of Earth.

Erika Benke, journalist

"Make sure the reindeer have plenty of water and don't forget to drink a glass every hour too," Santa reminds a team of elves as Lapland swelters in a record heatwave. It's not every day that Father Christmas finds himself briefing about the hazards of sunstroke at the Santa Claus village inside the Arctic Circle.

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While Santa's workshop is adapting with cheerful resilience, the unusually warm temperatures in the Arctic are a serious matter, and scientists are pointing at climate change as the culprit. Finnish Meteorological Institute's meteorologist Jaakko Savela notes that this particular, long heatwave was not directly caused by climate change. However, he says, "climate change has had an impact. Without it, temperatures over the last two weeks would have been lower". Prof Jeff Welker, University of the Arctic Research Chair at the University of Oulu, agrees. "All over the world, every day, climate change is manifested in extreme heat and extreme precipitation events... The fingerprint of climate change is upon us."

Keep reading

Climate change: A really simple guide to global warming.

Extreme weather: Four ways climate change worsens extreme weather.

What you can do: Simple steps to help you reduce your carbon footprint.

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