From Taylor Swift to Charli XCX, women had a record-breaking year on the British charts, according to new figures from the British Phonographic Institute (BPI).
Female pop artists topped the singles chart for an unprecedented 34 weeks – the highest ever figure.
Twenty-one of those weeks belonged to Sabrina Carpenter, whose hit singles Espresso, Taste and Please, Please, Please dominated the second half of the year.
Women were also responsible for half of the year’s biggest-selling albums, with Taylor Swift’s Tortured Poets Department leading the pack.

With Antarctica’s climate warming at an unprecedented rate, scientists are battling with dangerously thin ice and equipment falling through into the sea beneath.

For 20 years, Simon Morley has been cutting holes in Antarctic sea ice and diving into the frigid waters below to study strange and colourful sea life – including sea squirts and sponges. But climate change is thinning out this ice, meaning it is often no longer safe enough to travel over.
“‘We’d get 100 or more dives through the sea ice in the winter period [in the past],” says Morley, a marine biologist with the British Antarctic Survey (BAS). “Last year, I think [my colleagues] managed maybe five to ten dives through the sea ice.”
The ice is creating a Catch-22 situation. “It’s too thick for them to get the boats out but it’s not thick enough to cut holes in with the chainsaw and actually do the diving,” he explains. A helpful way around this, however, is to keep boats ready and standing by during the winter, so that they can launch immediately when a window opens to use them, he says.

South Korea’s acting leader has ordered an emergency safety inspection of the country’s entire airline operations, a day after 179 people were killed in the deadliest plane crash on its soil.
The Jeju Air plane burst into flames as it crash-landed in South Korea’s Muan International Airport, killing everyone onboard save for two crew members.
Acting President Choi Sang-mok has asked investigators to promptly disclose their findings to bereaved families.
His request also comes as another Jeju Air flight turned back to Seoul shortly after takeoff on Monday, due to an unidentified landing-gear issue.