The family of Matthew Upham said in a statement on his Instagram page that they are "heartbroken by the loss of our beloved family member... who was lost on Christmas morning".

"Matthew is deeply loved and will be forever missed," the statement adds.

It was posted on the Matthew Upham Antiques Instagram account, an antiques shop in Budleigh Salterton.

Coastguard rescue teams and RNLI lifeboat teams were called to Budleigh Salterton at 10.25am on Christmas Day after the alarm was raised.

Videos filmed yesterday morning showed scores of swimmers running into the sea on Budleigh Salterton and battling huge waves crashing onto the shore.

A number of people were rescued from the water and checked by paramedics or taken to hospital by the emergency crews.

But two men, aged in their 40s and 60s, have not been found, police said. The search for them was ended on Thursday night.

A spokesman for the coastguard said: "After extensive shoreline and offshore searches, the HM Coastguard part of the search was stood down at 5pm."

"We would like to express our sincere and heartfelt thanks to the emergency services who responded, particularly the RNLI and coastguard, for their dedication, professionalism, and tireless efforts during this extremely difficult time," said Mr Upham's family.

"We are profoundly grateful for their compassion and support."

"As we grieve and support one another, we kindly ask that our family's privacy is respected. We thank everyone for their understanding, kindness, and condolences."

Devon and Cornwall Police said the families of the men were being kept informed.

RNLI Torbay and RNLI Teignmouth, involved in the search, described the conditions at sea as 'punishing'.

They urged swimmers to take account of weather conditions and to know the limits of their abilities.

Police urged people not to go swimming in the sea on Boxing Day after weather warnings were put into place.

Our bodies are built for gravity; take it away and there are profound changes to our biology.

Muscles and bones that keep us upright on Earth become weak.

Body fluid that's normally pooled in our legs floods into our upper body, changing the shape of the heart and damaging the eyes.

And genes that are inactive on Earth suddenly switch on.

Others go silent.

These are some of the lessons learned from 25 years of studying astronauts living and working on the International Space Station (ISS).

And they are challenges that scientists must do their best to overcome as humans embark on a new era of space exploration, venturing beyond the relative safety of Earth's orbit for the first time in more than half a century.

Overcoming the bodily challenges of space

Four astronauts will launch on a test flight around the moon within weeks.

They will pave the way for future missions that will land on the surface and ultimately build a long-term presence, searching for ice and minerals.

British astronaut Tim Peake knows all about the rigours of microgravity. He spent 186 days in orbit.

"Effectively, you're taking relatively fit, healthy individuals and you're putting them through a 20-year aging process in a period of about two months," he told me.

"Then you're watching that reverse when they come back to Earth again."

The University of Northumbria has an aerospace medicine laboratory, where scientists are trying to find ways of helping humans adapt to space travel.

In one corner there is a scaffolding rig - what the team calls a "variable gravity suspension system".

Once attached to its strings, you dangle like a puppet, lying almost horizontally with feet resting on a treadmill that's fixed in an upright position, as if on a wall.

And it is the closest thing on Earth there is to walking on the moon.

You immediately realised why astronauts in those old Apollo-era movies bounce or lope across the lunar surface.

The moon's gravity is one-sixth of the Earth's and if feels natural to take giant strides. It's exhilarating.

The scientists use the suspension system to study how the muscles and skeleton move without gravity - and then develop exercises that could prepare astronauts for a mission and rehabilitate them on their return.

How quickly is the human body affected?

According to Professor Nick Caplan, head of the laboratory, astronauts on the space shuttle missions of the 1990s began to lose muscle mass and strength in as little as 14 days.

"On longer duration missions, the amount of muscle loss if somebody wasn't doing any exercise can be anywhere between 5% and 18%," he said.

And bones in the lower half of the body also get weaker if they don't have to bear weight.

The effect can be profound, said Prof Caplan.

"For a six-month mission in space, on average we see a similar amount of bone loss as we see across 10 years as part of a normal ageing process in someone down here on Earth," he said.

The musculoskeletal impacts of microgravity are why astronauts on the ISS exercise for two hours a day. There are weights for strength training and a treadmill for a cardio workout.

Running in space isn't comfortable. It requires a shoulder harness to hold astronauts down on the treadmill. Yet somehow Tim Peake managed to run a distance equivalent to the London Marathon in 3 hours 35 minutes.

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The exercise is a huge time commitment. Scientists at the University of Northumbria are trying to reduce the amount that astronauts need to do.

One strategy is to use an inflatable cuff that is wrapped around the arms or legs. It acts as a tourniquet, restricting the flow of blood and oxygen to the muscles.

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Luke Hughes, the lab's exercise physiologist, sets me up with the cuff and hands me a 2kg weight to do some bicep curls.

It's far less than I would normally lift, but it quickly pushes my muscle to exhaustion.

Dr Hughes said the system was tested by astronauts on the SpaceX Fram2 mission earlier this year and is being optimised for further testing in future.

"It could make exercise more efficient in space.

"As we move on from the International Space Station to Lunar Gateway (a planned future space station orbiting the Moon), lunar habitats, and then eventually on to Mars, we can't take all the big, heavy, bulky exercise equipment that's currently used on the ISS," he said.

"We need ways to make exercise efficient and optimise it, and this arguably is a leading candidate to do so."

There is perhaps an even bigger issue that still needs to be solved.

Another invisible danger

When astronauts leave the protective bubble of the Earth's magnetic field, they will be vulnerable to cosmic and solar radiation.

High energy particles from the sun or from outside our solar system can raise radiation levels by as much as 150 times above those on Earth, damaging DNA and increasing the lifetime risk of cancer.

If there is a solar flare while the Artemis astronauts are travelling to the Moon, they will shelter in an area of the Orion capsule that's protected by the heatshield as well as containing water tanks and food stores.

But there's still some exposure.

"It's only three to five days to get to the Moon, so those missions won't present a significant risk," said Professor Caplan.

"But if we think more into the future when we're sending humans to Mars, we're looking at a six to nine, maybe 12-month transit time.

"That amount of time will present a significant health risk to those astronauts.

"There are notions about having a metre thick layer of water around the spaceship, which would provide shielding from the radiation.

"But another way that is being looked at is through nutritional factors. Can we reduce the risk of radiation exposure through specific diets?

"There's a huge amount that is still left to be understood."

There's no doubt the Artemis astronauts heading to the Moon are better prepared and better protected than those in the Apollo era.

The ISS has been a big part in that. But there are still huge gaps in our knowledge of how to survive in space.

The Russian defence ministry said its forces were able to destroy the missiles, Russian media reported.

Mr Zelenskyy said the two leaders will discuss Ukraine territory and security guarantees and that the revised 20-point plan under discussion "is about 90% ready".

Mr Zelenskyy said Ukraine "would like the Europeans to be involved," but doubted it would be possible at short notice.

The announced meeting is the latest development in an extensive US-led diplomatic push to close the nearly four-year Russia-Ukraine war, but efforts have run into sharply conflicting demands by Moscow and Kyiv.

Mr Zelensky's announcement came after he said on Thursday he had a "good conversation" with US special envoy Steve Witkoff and the US president's son-in-law Jared Kushner.

The revised 20-point plan under discussion was made public on Wednesday and follows recent US-Ukraine talks in Miami.

Meanwhile, Russian overnight drone strikes damaged Slovakia-, Palau- and Liberia-flagged vessels in ports in the Odesa and Mykolaiv regions, Ukraine's deputy prime minister said on Friday.

In recent weeks, Russia has intensified attacks on the southern Odesa region, and Ukrainian officials said Moscow aimed to cut Ukraine off from the Black Sea and sow chaos among civilians.

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The attacks caused power cuts and damaged elevators and civilian warehouses in the Odesa region, but there were no casualties in Friday's strikes, Oleksiy Kuleba said in a statement on the Telegram messaging app.

Ukraine said it struck a major Russian oil refinery on Thursday using British-supplied Storm Shadow missiles.

Ukraine's General Staff said its forces hit the Novoshakhtinsk refinery in Russia's Rostov region. Rostov regional governor Yuri Slyusar said a firefighter was wounded when extinguishing the fire.

Ukraine's long-range drone strikes on Russian refineries aim to deprive Moscow of the oil export revenue it needs to pursue its full-scale invasion.

Russian troops have also taken control of the settlement of Kosivstseve in the Zaporizhzhia region in eastern Ukraine, Reuters reported on Friday.

Mr Zelenskyy said on Tuesday he would be willing to withdraw troops from the country's eastern industrial heartland as part of a plan to end the war, if Russia also pulls back and the area becomes a demilitarised zone monitored by international forces.

Though Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Thursday there had been "slow but steady progress" in talks to end the war, Moscow has given no indication it will agree to any kind of withdrawal from land it has seized.

In fact, Russia has insisted that Ukraine relinquish the remaining territory it still holds in the Donbas - an ultimatum Kyiv has rejected.

Russia has captured most of Luhansk and about 70% of Donetsk - the two areas that make up the Donbas.

Our Sky News correspondents have been on the ground all through 2025, bringing you the full story first.

Here's what they have seen - and why it's important to them.

Adam Parsons, Middle East correspondent, on his time in Gaza

I will always remember the first time I went into Gaza.

The Israeli military took a group of journalists to a place called Tel el-Hawa, a suburb of Gaza City, where the war was raging.

The army controlled where we went, what we saw, and when we arrived and left, but even allowing for those restrictions, it was still an extraordinary experience.

It was a long journey to get there, starting in Hummers and moving into armoured personnel carriers.

When we arrived, the door slid open and reality smacked you. The booms of explosions and the chatter of gunfire were nearby, echoing on the walls of bombed-out houses.

There were warnings to look out for snipers, and people's abandoned possessions were strewn on the ground.

But what will stick with me are two things - the utter devastation all around us, with a landscape of grey dust, rubble and shattered buildings, and secondly, the simple lack of life.

Not only were there no civilians, but also no animals, no flowers, no grass and not even a bird in the sky.

Stuart Ramsay, chief correspondent, on a year of free Syria

Reporting on the evolution of Syria from a country at war with Bashar al Assad as president, to a country rid of him and trying to rebuild itself, has provided me with some of the most memorable moments of my year of reporting.

My relationship with Syria goes back to 2011. During the Arab Spring, I was one of a handful of journalists who reported from inside rebel areas of Syria, meeting the thousands of ordinary people attempting to bring about political change in their country.

They finally did get their change, and I could not believe that I was standing in the middle of a square in Damascus as they celebrated.

Since then, the stories I have covered from Syria have been far from easy - outbreaks of horrendous sectarian violence on the country’s Mediterranean coast, investigations into the former regime’s bloody campaign of torture and murder against its own citizens and witnessing the pain of people trying to find their missing loved ones were a constant theme.

But there have been moments of happiness, even euphoria, as the Syrian people slowly began to realise that the 50 years of the Assad dynasty’s dictatorship were over, never to return.

I was wanted by the Assad regime - an arrest warrant was issued because of my reporting from opposition areas, but this year I could, for the first time, walk freely in Damascus, eat in restaurants, drive north along roads in normal traffic, free from the threat of Assad’s security forces that throttled this country.

That was liberating for me. Imagine how much more liberating it is for Syrians to be free?

There is not a clearly defined happy ending, of course, the country still faces many problems both internally, with a government trying to find its way, and externally, with the international community watching like hawks, making sure Syria will not once again fall back into violence.

But a friend in Syria sent me a text on the anniversary of the fall of Assad: “We are living our best days in Syria, and celebrate the anniversary of liberation,” he wrote.

“We will rebuild our country, come witness it.”

“I will,” I replied. And I plan to do that.

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Tom Parmenter, national correspondent, on the immigration debate

The UK’s battlelines over immigration deepened even further in 2025.

The sexual assault of a 14-year-old girl in Epping in July triggered furious and at times violent protests.

At first, it was outside the Bell Hotel in Epping where the man responsible was being housed - Ethiopian Hadush Kebatu had only arrived on a small boat days earlier.

Then we saw demonstrations at other asylum hotels. People mobilised - some organising counter-protests. Others put union flags up across the nation.

For some, it was an expression of national solidarity - for others, it exacerbated the idea they were living in a hostile environment.

Racist incidents spiked. People also felt unsafe not knowing who was living in their communities. Politicians who dismissed the protests as simply “far right” were not seeing the full story.

Fury felt over a chaotic immigration system, then turned to farce.

The sex offender who triggered the protests in Epping was released by mistake from prison.

We followed a fast-moving manhunt around London before he was caught and promptly deported to Ethiopia.

Remarkably, it wasn't a one-off - it turned out the underfunded prison service has been losing inmates at an alarming rate.

At one point in November, we were following two further manhunts - one inmate did the decent thing and handed himself back in.

The other, an Algerian sex offender, was on the run for two weeks. Sky News caught up with him shortly before the police arrested him.

“It’s not my f****** fault!” he yelled at me.

It was surreal, and yet another story 2025 where you come away asking: "What is going on in our country?"

Martha Kelner, US correspondent, on her viral encounter with Marjorie Taylor Greene

My most remarkable moment of the year was an encounter I had with Marjorie Taylor Greene, a house representative from Georgia.

I'm not sure I will ever forget standing in the Capitol building, inside the US government's corridors of power and being told by a sitting member of Congress to "go back to [my] own country".

I was berated by MTG, as she's known here, for asking very reasonable questions about Signalgate.

It was a scandal about leading members of the administration, including defence secretary Pete Hegseth and vice president JD Vance, using Signal, a less secure communication platform, to discuss military strikes on the Houthis in Yemen, a matter of international interest.

I knew Taylor Greene had a reputation for being feisty, but I didn't expect such a vicious outburst.

The exchange soon went viral, I think because it demonstrates how much things have changed in the second Trump term, where normal codes of conduct don't apply.

MTG and US President Donald Trump may have fallen out now, after the congresswoman went up against him on big issues, but she was just taking her cues from her old friend.

Because the president is also disdainful towards certain journalists, calling them "Piggy" and "stupid" and "nasty" when they ask questions he doesn't like.

Yousra Elbagir, Africa correspondent, on the war in Sudan

In September, we finally made it into North Darfur after two years of trying to cross over into Sudan's western region from Chad.

Two decades on from the genocide of the early 2000s, Darfur is being ravaged by armed violence at the hands of the same Janjaweed militias - now with more power and sophisticated weapons than ever before as the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

We met people with incredible bravery and commitment to helping the vulnerable, starved and displaced populations that were fleeing the regional capital, Al Fashir, as the RSF tightened their 18-month siege.

They all warned us that Al Fashir's fall to the RSF would be catastrophic - one man who fled the city and had the scars to prove it looked me dead in the eye and said "if Al Fashir falls, the whole of Sudan will fall".

Weeks later, we were reporting on the capture of Al Fashir by the RSF and the mass atrocities they were committing as people attempted to flee.

Civilians were shot dead in killing fields around the city in trophy videos shared by RSF fighters, and others were rounded up in a school in a nearby town, and they said they were forced to bury the captives who were executed by the RSF based on ethnicity.

This was the catastrophe we were warned about - the horror of massacres so bloody and brutal that corpses and red stains were seen from space.

As this all unfolded, our deployment to Darfur stayed at the forefront of my mind.

The voice of Dr Afaf, a volunteer from Al Fashir helping thousands of people through the Emergency Response Rooms, kept ringing out: "I direct my blame to the international community - where is the humanity?"

Emergency teams were called to a property on Brimscombe Hill, near Stroud, at around 3am, a Gloucestershire Police spokesperson said.

One person managed to escape the property and was taken to Gloucestershire Royal Hospital for treatment.

"Three other people, who are believed to have been inside the property, have not yet been accounted for and efforts to locate them are ongoing," the spokesperson added.

Gloucestershire Police said officers attended the scene alongside crews from Gloucestershire Fire and Rescue Service and the ambulance service.

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An investigation has been launched to determine the cause of the fire.

Roads around Brimscombe Hill remain closed while emergency services continue to work at the scene.

Members of the public are advised to avoid the area.