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Hoseasons has launched its Black Friday sale, which includes discounts on thousands of breaks, and there’s one near The Tolkien Trail.

Hoseasons, who operate 750 holiday parks across the UK, has launched a huge Black Friday sale, with discounts on a number of its family-friendly staycations.

The holiday park operator will be offering up to 30% off over 10,000 of its breaks, and 40,000 with discounts of up to £250. The sale will include self-catering accommodation at holiday parks, lodges, and even their boat holidays.

Best of all, parents on a budget will be able to find some bargains even during school holiday weeks, with a range of inexpensive breaks available, including some that work out at just over £50 a night during the summer holidays.

A family of four could book a seven-night break at Beacon Fell View in the Ribble Valley of Lancashire for just £295, with accommodation in a silver three-bedroom caravan.

This is based on a break starting August 21, 2026 and works out at just £52.14 per night. The park is close to the Lake District and Blackpool, meaning there’s plenty for families to do nearby.

It also has an indoor swimming pool, so kids can enjoy the water even if the British summer doesn’t bring warm weather, plus lots of entertainment facilities.

The Ribble Valley

The Ribble Valley is a beautiful place to explore with lots of open countryside and lush green hills. Bring the kids bikes along and try the family friendly cycling trail at Gisburn Forest.

At just over 5.5 miles long, the route has plenty to see along the way from a horse farm to the calm waters of Stocks Reservoir.

Just down the road is the The Tolkien Trail where you can follow in the footsteps of J.R.R. Tolkien, and see the sights that inspired the author to write books such as Lord of the Rings.

Take a day trip to Blackpool for traditional seaside vibes and lots of family fun. Visit the SEA LIFE Centre where the new Gruffalo and Friends Clubhouse is bound to thrill the younger members of your group.

Kids will love climbing and crawling through the deep, dark woods and finding their favourite characters in this immersive experience.

Another option for families is a seven-night break available at North Shore Holiday Park, just a short walk from Skegness, starting July 22, 2026.

This is priced at just £285 for four people. This is a one-bedroom apartment, but it has additional sleeping space in the lounge for two.

The site has its own pub and restaurant, playground, and amusements, plus Skegness’s North Beach is just a 15-minute walk away with golden sands and a seal sanctuary.

Skegness Beach was recently voted the best in East England by The Times, who rated the water quality as excellent, and said of the beach: “It’s big, soft and golden, with views across the Wash to the Norfolk coast.”

Skegness also has the Pleasure Beach, a seafront theme park with rollercoasters and lots of family fun. There’s also Skegness Aquarium which has lots of colourful and exotic sea life to spot.

It also has Jurassic Falls, a dinosaur-themed area where you can meet life-sized animatronic dinosaurs that bring the past to life.

If you can’t wait until summer to get away, how about an Easter break? You can book four nights for four sharing at Hemsby Beach Holiday Park for March 30, 2026, which is in most schools’ Easter break dates, for just £135.

This bargain price includes accommodation in a two-bedroom chalet, and includes access to an indoor pool and the show bar with daytime and evening entertainment for all ages.

The park is located in a lively part of Norfolk, with lots of amusements, classic seaside fun, plus long sandy beaches for spring walks.

Great Yarmouth is just a 20-minute drive away with its sandy beach, historic pier, and Joyland, an old-school amusement park that has classic rides the kids will love.

Yarmouth is also home of the Hippodrome Circus, a unique venue from the early 20th century which has huge events and water shows, with the summer months bringing a popular circus to the town.

For May half term week, you can book a four-night break arriving May 25, 2026 near the Yorkshire Dales for just £249 for four people.

Stay in the highly-rated Badgers Retreat Holiday Park, with accommodation in a cosy two-bedroom traditional lodge that has everything you need for a family holiday.

The lodge is set in 26 acres of grounds with plenty of space for the kids to play, and the market town of Richmond is nearby with historic sites to explore.

Visitors can explore the local Swaledale Museum, a quaint local spot that focuses on preserving the history of the lead mining community who used to live in the area.

You’re also close to the 14th century Bolton Castle, a well-preserved medieval building that has vast gardens including a maze. Eagle-eyed TV viewers may recognise it as a filming location for shows including Heartbeat and All Creatures Great and Small.

All these deals are subject to availability, with popular dates and parks likely to sell out quickly. The Hoseasons Black Friday sale ends on December 4. Find out more and book breaks here.

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During practice Friday, UCLA women’s basketball coach Cori Close made it clear she wanted to see more from forward Angela Dugalic.

“You’re not using what you’ve earned,” Close recalled telling her while speaking with reporters Friday.

Dugalic is going to face some of the best players in the country this week. Close thinks she can match up with them, but she needs Dugalic to play like it. With all the work Dugalic has done on her low-post game over the offseason, she can’t settle for floating around the perimeter.

Close won’t let her.

“I just want her to be all she can be,” Close said. “She’s been an animal down there in the low post, and I want her to hunt for that. I don’t want her to settle for playing on the perimeter when she’s got a whole lot more tools in her toolbox that she’s not accessing.”

Close got that version of Dugalic in Sunday’s 88-37 rout of Southern at Pauley Pavilion. The third-ranked Bruins were in full control from whistle to whistle, even pitching a second-quarter shutout, and Dugalic led the way with 20 points, five rebounds and an assist. She shot eight for 15 from the floor with a trio of three-pointers.

It was pure dominance by UCLA. The Bruins shot 51% from the field while holding the Jaguars to 29%. They outrebounded Southern by 30. They forced 13 turnovers, nine in the first half, and scored 28 points off them. And on the offensive end, UCLA was flowing with 24 assists to Southern’s nine.

Gabriela Jaquez added eight rebounds and five assists to go with six points. Her first basket, a layup after cutting through the paint in the second quarter, gave the senior guard her 1,000th career point. Kiki Rice had 17 points, eight rebounds and five assists and Lauren Betts finished with 15 points and six rebounds.

Dugalic opened the scoring for UCLA with a midrange jumper followed by a fast-break layup. She finished the first half with nine points, tied for the team lead with freshman forward Lena Bilic, who finished the game with 14 points.

Despite Dugalic’s strong start, Close issued her another challenge at halftime.

“I just want you to focus on making the right basketball play,” Close said. “What’s the defense doing? I didn’t think she was reading the defense. I thought she shot it well, and I thought she got some great rebounds, but I didn’t think she was in the flow that we’ve been seeing from her the last few days and our last few games.”

Close added that she thinks Dugalić is playing some of the best basketball of her career, and she’s continuously fighting to raise her standard. It’s not about how many points she scores, it’s about her decision making her defense, her consistency.

The Bruins entered that second quarter with a 22-9 lead thanks to a 14-2 run over the final six minutes of the first quarter after holding Southern (1-4) scoreless during the final three minutes. UCLA then exploded for a 27-0 run in the second quarter while holding the Jaguars scoreless for the entire period. It was the first time the Bruins had held an opponent scoreless for an entire quarter since they achieved the same feat on Dec. 5, 2021 against San José State.

Still, Close wasn’t satisfied.

During halftime, Close said she reminded the Bruins of what they want to accomplish. Close wrote down a list of “passion plays,” or goals for every single player to get in the second half.

UCLA guard Kiki Rice controls the ball in front of Southern forward DeMya Porter during the first half of the Bruins’ win Sunday at Pauley Pavilion.

(Ethan Swope / Associated Press)

It’s part of a mentality Close is trying to instill in her players. They know a 51-point win against an unranked Southern team isn’t going to give them the feedback they need.

“Outcomes are actually a distraction,” Close said, referencing legendary Alabama football coach Nick Saban. “What are the processes that we’re going to be committed to that are going to actually lead us to where we want to go?”

UCLA (6-0) will face No. 4 Texas on Wednesday in the Players Era Women’s Championship in Las Vegas, followed by either No. 2 South Carolina or Duke on Thanksgiving. The Bruins then will host No. 15 Tennessee on Nov. 30.

Moscow accuses Poland of Russophobia, pledges to respond by reducing Polish diplomatic and consular presence in Russia.

Poland has announced it will close its last remaining Russian consulate in the northern Polish city of Gdansk following the targeting of a railway line to Ukraine from Warsaw, blaming Moscow for the incident.

“I have decided to withdraw consent for the operation of the Russian consulate in Gdansk,” Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski told journalists on Wednesday.

Sikorski said he had repeatedly warned Russia that its diplomatic and consular presence would be reduced further if it did not cease hostile actions against Poland, Polish news agency PAP reported.

The move means the only Russian diplomatic mission that will remain open in Poland will be the embassy in Warsaw.

The Kremlin responded to the allegation by accusing Poland of “Russophobia”.

“Relations with Poland have completely deteriorated. This is probably a manifestation of this deterioration – the Polish authorities’ desire to reduce any possibility of consular or diplomatic relations to zero,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said when asked about the consulate closure.

“One can only express regret here … This has nothing to do with common sense.”

Later on Wednesday, Russia’s state news agency TASS quoted Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Maria Zakharova as saying Moscow will respond by reducing Poland’s diplomatic and consular presence in the country.

‘Unprecedented sabotage’

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has described the weekend explosion on a line linking Warsaw to the border with Ukraine as an “unprecedented act of sabotage”.

On Tuesday, Tusk told the Polish parliament that the two suspects had been collaborating with the Russian secret services for a long time.

As a result of the investigation, we now know it was the Russian Secret Services that commissioned the blast of the Polish railway and recruited two Ukrainians to do it. We also know the identities of the perpetrators who immediately fled Poland for Belarus.

— Donald Tusk (@donaldtusk) November 18, 2025

He said their identities were known but could not be revealed because of the ongoing investigation, and that the pair had already left Poland, crossing into Belarus.

Western officials have accused Russia and its proxies of staging dozens of attacks and other incidents across Europe since the invasion of Ukraine more than three years ago, according to data collected by The Associated Press news agency.

Moscow’s goal, Western officials say, is to undermine support for Ukraine, spark fear and divide European societies.

The pursuit of perfection can consume some sportspeople. Logically, they know the goal itself is unattainable, but the endeavour to get there can take them to new heights.

Craig Bellamy is one such person. He doubts whether anyone or anything can be perfect but, on Tuesday night, he saw his Wales team come close as they dismantled North Macedonia 7-1.

The result was one thing, the victory Wales needed to finish second in their World Cup qualifying group and secure home advantage for their play-off semi-final in March.

The performance was another matter altogether, a dizzying mix of expressive, ultra-attacking football played at a rapid pace, combined with a raw physical intensity off the ball which overwhelmed their opponents.

North Macedonia had only conceded three goals in seven qualifiers before coming to Cardiff City Stadium. They doubled that total in the space of 19 first-half minutes, before leaving the Welsh capital humiliated.

“I am not a perfect person, I haven’t come across anyone who is,” said Bellamy .

“But maybe I take a little bit of that back because that was as close to the perfect performance as I have seen. That was incredible.

“The way we were able to use the ball, our timing. We didn’t play with a forward, we had three [number] 10s. But they were in the position where you drag someone out and someone runs, then the wide players were connected with it as well.

“We were just so clean with the ball and that allows you to have good chances. It was one of those days where we are able to take them as well.”

Israel is engaged in a last-ditch bid to change the wording of a United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolution on the next phase of United States President Donald Trump’s Gaza peace plan that was recently amended to mention a “credible pathway” to Palestinian statehood.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told his cabinet on Sunday that his opposition to a Palestinian state had “not changed one bit”, one day before the UNSC votes on the US-drafted resolution, which would mandate a transitional administration and an international stabilisation force (ISF) in Gaza.

Israeli public broadcaster Kan reported on Sunday that Netanyahu’s government was engaged in a last-minute diplomatic push to alter the draft resolution, which the US had changed to include more defined language about Palestinian self-determination under pressure from Arab and Muslim countries expected to contribute troops to the ISF.

The draft now says that “conditions may be in place for a credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood” after reforms to the Palestinian Authority are “faithfully carried out and Gaza redevelopment has advanced”.

There has been criticism that Palestinian voices and aspirations have been sidelined in the whole spectacle of Trump’s Gaza plan from its launch, which came with the US president’s customary fanfare.

Later on Sunday, Hamas and other Palestinian resistance factions called on Algeria – a non-permanent member of the UNSC – to reject the plan for stabilisation forces to be deployed in Gaza.

In a statement, the resistance factions called the efforts “a new attempt to impose another form of occupation on our land and people, and to legitimise foreign trusteeship”.

“We direct a sincere and fraternal appeal to the Algerian Republic, government and people, to continue adhering to its principled positions supporting Palestine, and its steadfast rejection of any projects targeting Gaza’s identity and our people’s right to self-determination,” the statement added.

On Friday, a joint statement with eight countries – Qatar, Egypt, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Pakistan, Jordan and Turkiye – urged “swift adoption” of the draft resolution by the 15-member UNSC. Potential contributors to the force have indicated that a UN mandate is essential for their participation.

Israel has already said it will not accept Turkiye, a key Gaza ceasefire mediator, having any role on the ground.

Turkiye has maintained staunch criticism of Israeli actions in Gaza over the past two years and recently issued arrest warrants for genocide against Netanyahu and other senior officials.

Ahead of Monday’s crucial vote, which is expected to garner the nine votes needed to pass, with the likely abstention of Russia and China, Netanyahu confidants and officials from the Foreign Ministry were said to be engaged in intensive talks with their US counterparts, according to the Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation (Kan).

Netanyahu under pressure

A far-right walkout over the ceasefire plan, in which Trump has heavily invested his own prestige, could bring down Netanyahu’s right-wing government well before the next election, which must be held by October 2026.

On Sunday, Israeli government officials lined up to express their opposition to any proposals backing a Palestinian state.

“Israel’s policy is clear: no Palestinian state will be established,” Defence Minister Israel Katz wrote on X.

He was followed by Foreign Minister Gideon Saar, who said on X that his country would “not agree to the establishment of a Palestinian terror state in the heart of the Land of Israel”.

Far-right firebrand and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir called the Palestinian identity an “invention”.

Hardline Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a major backer of Israel’s settler movement who has been sanctioned by a number of countries for “incitement of violence” against Palestinians, urged Netanyahu to take action.

“Formulate immediately an appropriate and decisive response that will make it clear to the entire world – no Palestinian state will ever arise on the lands of our homeland,” he said on X.

Russia’s rival resolution

The UNSC resolution would give the UN’s blessing to the second phase of Trump’s 20-point plan, which brought about a ceasefire after two years of genocidal war that has killed nearly 70,000 Palestinians.

The ceasefire came into effect on October 10, although it has been repeatedly breached by Israel with near-daily attacks that have killed hundreds of people.

There has been plenty of jockeying ahead of the vote.

Meanwhile, Russia is circulating its own resolution to rival the US version, offering stronger language on Palestinian statehood and stressing that the occupied West Bank and Gaza must be joined as a contiguous state under the Palestinian Authority.

In a statement, Russia’s UN mission said that its objective was to “to amend the US concept and bring it into conformity” with previous UNSC decisions.

“We would like to stress that our document does not contradict the American initiative,” said the statement. “On the contrary, it notes the tireless efforts by the mediators – the United States, Qatar, Egypt, and Turkiye – without which the long-awaited ceasefire and the release of hostages and detainees would have been impossible.”

Nov. 8 (UPI) — Wendy’s is closing about 300 locations over the next year as the fast-food chain seeks to revitalize its business model and become more profitable.

Interim Chief Executive Officer Ken Cook announced the pending closings on Friday and said they represent a small fraction of the popular restaurant chain’s 6,000 locations in the United States, CNN reported.

Cook told analysts that “consistently underperforming” locations will be closed so that they won’t reflect poorly on the Wendy’s brand.

“These actions will strengthen the system and enable franchisees to invest more capital and resources in their remaining restaurants,” Cook explained.

“Closures of underperforming units are expected to boost sales and profitability at nearby locations.”

The restaurant closures will start this year and continue through next year.

The fast-food chain last year closed 140 restaurants for similar reasons, but it still reported a 4.7% decline in sales during the third quarter of 2025.

Meanwhile, Burger King, McDonald’s and Shake Shack reported revenue increases during the quarter.

Among the thousands of remaining Wendy’s locations, Cook said many will benefit from improved equipment and technology, and several also will be transferred to new owners, according to USA Today.

Wendy’s has not posted a list of locations targeted for closure or indicated how many in each respective state.

Lille in France is the perfect destination for an extreme day trip, with the Eurostar from London taking just an hour and 22 minutes to reach the city

Living in the UK means you’re just a short journey away from exploring entirely different countries. With much of Europe within easy reach, extreme day trips are becoming increasingly popular among UK travellers.

According to Google search data, searches for “extreme day tripping” have skyrocketed by 9,900% between October 2023 and October 2025. The concept involves departing in the morning for another country and returning home the same evening.

It provides a budget-friendly travel option as you avoid accommodation costs whilst still experiencing the thrill of an international getaway. Lille in France makes an ideal destination for a day visit this festive season.

The average Eurostar journey from London takes just one hour and 22 minutes, making it perfect for exploring during the winter months. The city also boasts a delightful Christmas market where you can browse before heading home to sleep in your own bed, reports the Express.

Iglu Cruises has created an ideal itinerary for a Lille day trip. Upon arriving at the station, you can stroll through the historic old town, taking in the cobblestone streets and numerous cafes and bakeries.

Pop in for a coffee and croissant to energise yourself, then make your way to the Palais des Beaux-Arts.

This art gallery is amongst the city’s most stunning buildings and contains France’s second-largest art collection, behind only the Louvre.

In the afternoon, why not explore some of Lille’s renowned boutiques before pausing for a snack at Maison Méert, one of France’s oldest tea rooms still in operation.

It’s particularly famed for its waffles filled with Madagascan vanilla — the ideal sweet treat for an afternoon boost.

Before you catch your evening train home, make sure to visit the Grand Place at the city’s heart for a spin on the Ferris Wheel that takes you high above the cityscape.

Finally, round off your day by wandering through the Christmas Village in Place Rihour, with its 90 wooden chalets offering gifts, art and naturally, food.

Don’t depart without savouring a cup of mulled wine and some rich, indulgent raclette.