As wars in Ukraine and Gaza continued, anti-government protests erupted around the world. Amid the violence, there were moments of humanity, sporting glory and stunning natural beauty. Photographers reflect on the moments behind the pictures

A man cries out in distress as a fire spreads across multiple buildings on a housing estate in Hong Kong
Tyrone Siu/Reuters
A massive fire broke out around 3pm at Wang Fuk Court, a densely packed housing estate in Tai Po, and I arrived about an hour later. By then, the flames were raging across multiple blocks, with thick black smoke. Unsafe bamboo scaffolding and foam may have led to what became Hong Kong’s worst fire in decades. Residents were streaming out in panic, while emergency crews fought a losing battle against the inferno spreading from one tower to the next.

In 2014 the Malaysian Airlines jet vanished over the Indian Ocean. Now the team that located Shackleton’s Endurance is looking again with the latest undersea robots

• Search for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 expected to resume on Tuesday

More than a decade after Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 went missing after veering thousands of miles off course, its location remains unknown.

The Malaysian government has promised to pay a private company, Ocean Infinity, $70m (£56m) to search for the plane on a “no find, no fee” basis.

I love many shows on the streaming channels, but the BBC is our storyteller. It defines a nation and its culture – and we must defend it

• Tony Hall was director general of the BBC between April 2013 and August 2020

Don’t let President Trump cloud the real debate about the BBC. Of course, his demand for damages of no less than $5bn has dominated our thinking about the corporation over the past few weeks, as has its cause. But let’s get this into perspective. This was a serious own goal and journalists make mistakes. Salvation in this case would have been a line of script between the clips, or once a mistake had been discovered, a very speedy public acknowledgment. Now, though, the BBC is right not to yield on this. It has apologised. And, unlike other broadcasters and institutions in the United States, it doesn’t need the president’s support. This is a chance to demonstrate the BBC’s independence. Fight on.

But we must not let this cloud the debate here about the sort of BBC we all want and need, and I hope that is what dominates our conversation in the coming crucial year. The government’s green paper, published in December, starts off with a reminder of what, despite all its travails, the BBC delivers for the country. “It’s not just a broadcaster,” says the introduction, “it’s also a national institution … if it did not already exist, we would have to invent it.” The secretary of state, Lisa Nandy, is even more forthright: “I believe the BBC, alongside the NHS, is one of the two most important institutions in our country. While one is fundamental to the health of our people, the other is fundamental to the health of our democracy.” Seeing the BBC not just as a media organisation, but as a cultural organisation helping to define who we are is crucial to next year’s debate about what we want the BBC to be. It should be seen as part of our social infrastructure.

Action began in January, before an all-out strike in March. For locals, the flytipping, vermin, maggots and mess are taking a huge environmental and emotional toll

It’s an icy cold winter morning, and 80-year-old Mohammed Bashir is armed with a broom, tackling the large pile of rubbish that has accumulated outside his terraced house in Small Heath, Birmingham.

This has become an almost daily activity for Bashir since the city’s bin strike started 50 weeks ago and, like many in the city, he is starting to lose patience.

With the Danish postal service ending its letter deliveries, we asked what you would put in your final envelope

At the end of December, the Danish postal service will deliver its last letter, focusing on packages, citing the “increasing digitalisation” of society.

While the public will still be able to send letters through the distributor DAO, it made us think about how we would use that last chance to send a letter.

Our grim fascination with the doomed ship shows no sign of abating – so here’s a four-parter which makes it feel like you’re onboard. A truly intense watch

April 2026 will mark 114 years since the night that the RMS Titanic collided with an iceberg, but our grim fascination with the disaster shows no sign of abating. There was, of course, a surge of interest in the Titanic in the late 90s – thanks to James Cameron’s Oscar-bothering blockbuster – and there has been a steady stream of documentaries, dramas and podcasts about its demise ever since, some more sensitive than others (among the less tactful offerings: the 2010 film Titanic II – directed by Dick Van Dyke’s grandson Shane – a cash-in about a replica ship ravaged by a tsunami). Occasionally, the subject matter lurches starkly from the past back into the present. In June 2023, five people died on board an experimental submersible made by the company OceanGate; its passengers had hoped to see the liner’s rusting wreckage up close.

Titanic Sinks Tonight is a part-documentary, part-drama series playing across four nights, its episodes constructed from letters and diaries written by those on board, as well as interviews the survivors would give in the decades after. On the strength of the two episodes released for review, there’s no denying that it sates our appetite for Titanic-themed content. However, in centring the words and memories of those who lived through the terror of that night, it restores much-needed agency to those people. It also does well to bring a sense of reality to events that can sometimes feel unreal on account of their ubiquity, and that uncanny valley of Titanic-themed media. Central to its success is the presence of experts such as historian Suzannah Lipscomb and former Royal Navy admiral Lord West, to sharpen the corners of the story that Hollywood has sanded down.

Campaigner recently released from prison makes statement after PM’s support is questioned by Tory MPs

Alaa Abd el-Fattah, the British-Egyptian human rights campaigner, has apologised unreservedly for what he accepted were shocking and hurtful tweets that he wrote more than 10 years ago in what he described as heated online battles.

He said he was shaken by the criticism that has rained down on him since the tweets were highlighted by shadow ministers challenging Keir Starmer’s support for him since he was released by the Egyptian government to travel to the UK after his release from more than 10 years in prison.

Ukrainian leader had sought up to 50 years of security guarantees at Florida meeting with Trump

Russian troops have taken control of the village of Dibrova in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, the defence ministry said this morning, in an update we have not yet been able to independently verify.

The Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov also said that Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin will hold another phone call “very soon” after the two leaders spoke before the US president had his meeting with Zelenskyy in Florida yesterday.

Survivors urge government to stop using suppliers cited in public inquiry into fire in which 72 people died

Survivors of the Grenfell Tower fire have called on the government to stop companies implicated in the disaster from receiving public contracts, after it was revealed several were still in receipt of multimillion-pound deals.

New analysis found at least 87 contracts across the public sector in the government’s own database involve companies criticised in the phase 2 report into the Grenfell fire, published in September 2024, though some contracts may have since expired.

Health minister decries criticism of vaccinations by heads of four authorities as ‘dangerous and utterly irresponsible’

A third of Reform UK’s council leaders across the country have expressed vaccine-sceptic views, openly questioning public health measures that keep millions safe.

The leaders of four of the 12 councils where Reform is in charge or the largest party – Kent, Worcestershire, Warwickshire and Durham – are among those in the party who have publicly criticised vaccinations.