What happened
Singer songwriter Chris Rea passed away in hospital yesterday after a brief period of illness, his family said. Rea rose to prominence in the 1980s, becoming a major figure in British popular music with a string of chart successes and a career that spanned several decades. Rea was best known internationally for the enduring seasonal song “Driving Home for Christmas,” originally released in 1986, which has become a staple of the festive soundtrack and was featured in a Marks and Spencer television campaign this year.

Who said what
“So so sad. A lovely brilliant funny giant of a bloke”, said fellow Middlesbrough native comedian Bob Mortimer on X. Despite his “knack for slick pop, the principled and passionate Chris Rea never took the easy road”, said Alexis Petridis in The Guardian. Rea saw himself as “Britain’s answer to the blue-collar star Bruce Springsteen”, said The Times in its obituary. It was “not an inaccurate analogy” given his “stock in trade was a mix of grainy American blues-rock influences and a gritty realism that reflected his upbringing in industrial Middlesbrough”.

What next?
Rea leaves behind a substantial catalogue of music, including the UK number-one albums “The Road to Hell” and “Auberge”.

What happened
Jimmy Kimmel will say 2025 has been “a really great year for fascism” in Channel 4’s Alternative Christmas Message. The US talk show host was briefly taken off the air in September after comments he made about the shooting of Charlie Kirk drew the ire of Donald Trump and his supporters.

Who said what
Channel 4 said Kimmel will “reflect on the past few months in a deeply personal and characteristically jovial address” that comes “at the end of a year when US politics has featured heavily in news and current affairs programming”.

Kimmell is also “expected to warn that press freedoms can be snuffed out quickly, and urge UK viewers to resist attacks on free speech“, said The Guardian. He “follows in the tradition of other topical presenters”, said Channel 4, including civil rights leader Jesse Jackson, the President of Iran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad; NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden; and Afghan war veteran Major Andrew Stockton.

What next?
Jimmy Kimmel’s Alternative Christmas Message will air on Channel 4 at 5:45pm on Christmas Day, two hours after the King’s Christmas Message on BBC One and ITV.

After decades of progress, more children under the age of five are at risk of death than in previous years. Many of these deaths are preventable, given proper funding and resources. But international cuts to health and development aid have endangered millions of lives. 

Society made significant progress on child mortality throughout the 21st century. Between 2000 and 2020, the “number of children who die before they hit their fifth birthday dropped by half” from “nearly 10 million deaths a year to under 5 million deaths a year,” said NPR. However, by the end of 2025 approximately 4.8 million children are expected to die before they turn five, according to a report by the Gates Foundation. 

This is an increase of about 200,000 from the 4.6 million deaths in 2024. “By far, the largest single cause of death is the cuts in international aid,” Mark Suzman, the CEO of the Gates Foundation, said to The Independent.

Just between this year and last year, global health assistance dropped from $49 billion to about $36 billion, which is more than a 25% decline. The US has led the charge on funding cuts, as it has historically been the largest contributor of global aid in the world. But the US was not the only country to reduce aid. Other high-income countries, including the UK, France and Germany, “have also been making significant cuts as priorities have shifted,” said NPR. 

“While some countries have stepped up,” it unfortunately “does not make up for the cuts.” If funding cuts continue, between 12 million and 16 million more children could die by 2045, the report said.