Thomas Copeland
BBC Verify Live journalist

Verifying footage of catastrophic events in Asia and examining new UK migration data have made up a significant portion of our coverage today, so before we close up here’s quick recap of what we’ve been looking into.

After a devastating fire in Hong Kong that has killed at least 75 people with nearly 300 more still missing, we’ve reviewed the latest satellite imagery showing the scale of the damage and used social media footage, witness accounts and official statements to build a timeline of events.

In the island of Sumatra in Indonesia, dozens of people are reported to have died during devastating flooding in recent days. Click here to see some of the dramatic imagery we have verified from the city of Medan.

Here in the UK, our data team has:

• Assessed how tax rises in yesterday’s Budget compare to previous years
• Looked at the migration figures from the Office for National Statistics
• Examined whether the government has met its asylum pledges
• Launched a new migration tracker for you to browse

That’s all from the BBC Verify Live team, we’ll be back tomorrow morning for more.

Joshua Cheetham and Reha Kansara
BBC Verify

We’re continuing to look for information about a man accused by US authorities of shooting of two National Guard soldiers in Washington DC yesterday.

During a news conference earlier today, FBI officials shared a picture of a suspect they named as Rahmanullah Lakanwal.

Our colleagues at BBC Afghan have been sent pictures of Lakanwal by a member of his family in Afghanistan and by a former military commander who served alongside him.

Using facial recognition software alongside visual comparisons between the picture provided by the FBI and those from Afghanistan, BBC Verify has confirmed that they all show the same man.

At the news conference in Washington DC further details were shared about Lakanwal. He was identified as a 29-year-old Afghan national, who had previously worked with the CIA in Afghanistan.

Before the attack he’d been living with his wife and children in Bellingham, a city in Washington state more than 2,300 miles (3,700km) from the US capital.

Rob England
BBC Verify senior data journalist

With the release of the latest government migration figures, BBC Verify has launched a new migration tracker to help you explore the data more easily.

The tool brings together official statistics from multiple sources, allowing you to compare trends across key areas.

It includes data on:

• Net migration, the actual change in the UK’s population when you account for all the people arriving, minus those leaving
• Visas, legal migration for work, study and family
• UK migration in context, compared with other European countries
• Asylum, applications and the number of people housed in hotels
• Returns and deportations, including different groups such as criminals
• Illegal entries, such as small boats and other methods

There is also a postcode lookup to see how asylum accommodation is distributed across the UK.

Anthony Reuben
BBC Verify senior journalist

Yesterday Chancellor Rachel Reeves set out her plan to charge 3p per mile driven by electric vehicles from 2028.

When asked about it earlier, she said: “I think the principle is an important one here because at the moment, if you’ve got a petrol or a diesel car, you’re contributing to road maintenance, the building of new roads, but if you’ve got an electric vehicle you’re not making that contribution.”

Diesel and petrol drivers pay 52.95p per litre in duty on their fuel, which is a significant source of revenue for the government.

But it is a misconception that fuel duty - or indeed vehicle excise duty, often referred to as “road tax” - automatically goes to building and repairing roads.

In the early days of motoring, external taxation there was something along these lines. The Road Fund, which was set up in 1920 and funded by taxes on cars, was supposed to be spent on roads, although in fact it was often used for other purposes.

The Finance Act of 1936 abolished hypothecation (the idea that car-related tax would be spent on roads) and since then roads have been funded through general taxation.

Electric car users currently pay much less in tax on their electricity than petrol or diesel car users pay on their fuel, but owners may be contributing significant sums in other forms of taxation which could indeed be helping pay for road maintenance.

Rob England
BBC Verify senior data journalist

New figures released today have given us a fresh chance to take a look at whether the government is on track to meet its targets on illegal migration and asylum, including ending the use of hotels and speeding up asylum decisions.

Here’s how the latest data, covering up to September, compares against some of those pledges from Labour’s Plan for Change:

“End asylum hotels” - The numbers of asylum seekers in hotels has risen to 36,273. This was up by 13% compared with June, but only slightly above the total in September last year

• “Clear the asylum backlog” - The backlog of people waiting for a decision on their asylum claim has gone down to 80,841, the fourth time in a row the figures have dropped
• “Increase returns” - Returns of people with no right to be in the UK are up by 11% compared with last year

Separately, new figures were released on small boat crossings which show, between 1 January and 26 November, 39,292 people were detected arriving illegally by small boat from France.

This was 17% up on the same period last year, but below the number for 2022 between those dates.

Paul Brown and Dzhafer Umerov
BBC Verify and BBC Ukrainian

Image source, Telegram

Reports and footage circulating online suggest a Ukrainian drone strike targeted military barracks in Grozny, the capital of the republic of Chechnya in Russia.

We have analysed the footage from earlier today, which shows smoke rising from a group of buildings and geolocated it to the Baysangur district of the city.

There is no indication in the video of the cause.

The site is listed as a military residence on Google Maps and has elements often found in barracks like a fortified perimeter, guard towers and a parade ground.

It is located more than 1,000 km (620 miles) from the Ukrainian border.

The reports accompanying the footage says the strike targeted a site used by Akhmat units, a Chechen force which has fought on several fronts in Ukraine and fall under the authority of Chechnya’s leader Ramzan Kadyrov.

Thomas Copeland
BBC Verify Live journalist

New satellite imagery has just landed of the fire which engulfed a high-rise public housing complex in Hong Kong yesterday.

At least 75 people have been reported dead, with 76 others injured and nearly 300 still missing.

In this picture we can see how the fire tore through seven out of eight tower blocks in Wang Fuk Court, home to around 4,600 residents.

The fire is still burning but is “basically under control”, Hong Kong's Chief Executive John Lee says - and in the image we can still see smoke from the blaze.

We’ve also been looking at social media footage, witness accounts and official statements to build a timeline of events, which you can read here.

Robert Cuffe
BBC Verify head of statistics

Earlier today the Office for National Statistics (ONS) published new figures about what impact migration has had on the the UK population between July 2024 and June 2025.

Just under 900,000 people immigrated to the UK, down more than 400,000 people from the year before.And what about people leaving the UK?

Well that’s remained pretty steady at 693,000 people. So that means that migration added 204,000 people overall to the UK’s population.

That rise is down about 70% on last year’s figure and 80% lower then the peak of nearly a million people the year before.

Phil Leake and Lucy Dady
BBC Verify

Rachel Reeves introduced tax measures in yesterday’s Budget that are expected to raise an extra £26.1bn in 2029-30, equivalent to just over 0.7% of the value of the economy measured by GDP.

The move has earned the chancellor a second entry on the list of the UK’s eight most tax-raising budgets in the last 50 years.

Former Chancellor Norman Lamont tops the list for his March 1993 Budget, which was delivered after John Major’s surprise general election victory for the Conservatives in 1992 and contained tax rises equal to just over 1.4% of GDP.

Reeves’ 2024 Budget is actually second on the list, which included tax measures expected to raise £41.5bn by 2029-30, equivalent to around 1.2% of the whole economy, fuelled by an increase in employer National Insurance Contributions.

The 2021 Spring Budget, delivered during the Covid pandemic by then-Chancellor Rishi Sunak, is the third on the list.

But Reeves’ latest Budget, which is forecast to raise £26bn in taxes in 2029-30, sees her enter the list again.

Matt Murphy
BBC Verify senior journalist

Image source, Reuters

Photos published by the Reuters news agency have shown a major US military presence at a re-opened naval base in Puerto Rico, as the Pentagon continues to build-up its forces in the Caribbean.

The images from Roosevelt Road Airbase show a fleet of seven F-35 fighter jets parked next to the base's main terminal on Wednesday, along with helicopters, transport planes and an AC-130 gunship.

Roosevelt Road was shuttered in 2004 after military chiefs said it was no longer needed, but in recent weeks Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth has avoided questions about its current status.

Satellite images reviewed by BBC Verify show that the jets had arrived at the facility by mid-September, shortly after the US began to launch strikes against what it said were boats carrying narcotics from Venezuela to the US.

The images also show that repairs have been carried out on a taxiway next to the airport’s runway.

Data available from the plane tracking website Flightradar24 appears to show that US cargo planes have been arriving at the base consistently over the course of November.

President Donald Trump has ordered a major military build-up in the Caribbean, citing the need to combat drug trafficking. But analysts say the White House is likely trying to mount a pressure campaign against Venezuela’s socialist leader Nicolás Maduro.

Emma Pengelly and Yi Ma
BBC Verify

We have been looking at social media footage, witness accounts and official statements to build a timeline of the deadly Hong Kong tower block fires. Here’s what we know so far:

Verified footage posted on the social platform Threads, captured the first visible signs of fire at the easternmost block of Wang Fuk Court yesterday. The user who uploaded the video said they noticed the flames at 14:51 local time (06:51 GMT).

This aligns with the Hong Kong Fire Services Department (HKFSD) statement, which reported receiving its first alert at the same time.

Within 10 minutes, a witness says they spot the first firefighters arriving as flames spread rapidly from the lower floors to several levels above.

Another video, which was filmed from a different angle, shows the fire then spread to the top of the block of flats.

By 16:10 a verified clip emerged on social media showing that the fire had spread to at least two other towers, producing thick smoke plumes.

Image source, Threads/@striking_biking

At 16:41 authorities confirmed the first fatality, a firefighter working to battle the flames.

HKFSD raised the incident to a Level 5 alarm, the highest danger classification in the city, at 18:22.

More than 24 hours after the fire began, new videos from the city shows that smoke and some fires remain active in parts of the complex.

Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee says the fire at all seven buildings is now “basically under control” but rescue efforts are still ongoing.

Meanwhile, HKFSD says the death toll has risen to 75 people, according to reports in local media.

Shayan Sardarizadeh
BBC Verify senior journalist

We have been examining a number of videos posted online in the aftermath of the shooting in Washington DC last night.

One video we verified, filmed at the junction of 17th Street NW and I Street NW near Farragut Square, shows several police and National Guard members near the bus stop outside the Club Quarters Hotel as at least two people can be seen lying on the ground and receiving first aid.

The sound of sirens can be heard in the background.

Two more clips, posted by a journalist and filmed from a high-rise building on I Street NW looking towards the same bus stop, show multiple police and National Guard members apprehending an individual outside the Club Quarters Hotel.

At least one individual in uniform can be seen lying motionless nearby. Shards of glass are also visible around the bus stop.

Later on, a man can be seen lying on the ground in front of the hotel and being attended to by two police officers.

Shruti Menon and Thomas Copeland
BBC Verify

Earlier we reported on footage from Medan, the capital of Indonesia North Sumatra province, where intense flooding has burst the banks of a river in the city.

Two more verified videos offer a closer look at the scale of devastation outside of the city.

One video shows buildings almost entirely submerged by muddy brown floodwater with only their slanted rooftops still visible.

A mosque we can see in the footage helped us to confirm the location was around 90km (56 miles) north of Medan, just outside the town of Boekitkoeboe.

We have verified a second video from the main road connecting Medan to the town of Berastagi. Even here, well inland and far from any major rivers, the floodwater is several feet high and reaches the bonnets of the cars driving through it.

According to Indonesia’s national disaster management agency, the heavy flooding and landslides were triggered by two tropical cyclones - one in the Sulu sea near the Philippines and the other in the Malacca Strait to the north of Sumatra.

Gerry Georgieva
BBC Verify

Chancellor Rachel Reeves has been asked repeatedly about National Insurance hikes since delivering her second Budget yesterday.

In response, she has quoted Labour’s pre-election manifesto as saying that the party would not increase “the rates” of National Insurance, VAT or income tax. She said this yesterday in a post-Budget interview and then repeated it in five of the seven interviews she gave this morning.

The problem is that it’s not quite true.

Labour’s 2024 election manifesto actually pledged that the party "will not increase taxes on working people, which is why we will not increase National Insurance, the basic, higher, or additional rates of income tax, or VAT".

So for income tax, the party clearly only stated that the rates would not be raised, but its pledge seemed to rule out any increase in National Insurance overall.

Reeves has now extended a freeze on thresholds - the point at which you start paying National Insurance - which means more people will be paying it as wages rise.

Helen Miller from the Institute for Fiscal Studies, an economic research group, says this would "break the letter of the manifesto which said no increase in National Insurance".

Lucy Gilder
BBC Verify senior journalist

The National Guard members shot in Washington DC yesterday are two of about 2,000 deployments in the city.

The troops were sent to DC in August to address what President Donald Trump described as “out of control” crime.

He said on Tuesday that under his leadership “we haven't had a murder in six months” in DC.

That isn’t accurate - DC police figures, external show 62 homicides (a category that includes murder) between 25 May and 25 November this year.

The number of homicides fell from 107 recorded in the same period last year.

Overall crime in DC has fallen since the National Guard was first deployed although it’s unclear exactly what role it has played in the decline.

Nearly 6,500 offences have been recorded by police since 12 August to date, down from about 9,500 in the same period in 2024.

You can read our recent fact check of President Trump’s claims about crime in DC here.

Daniel Wainwright
BBC Verify senior data journalist

While looking through the Office for Budget Responsibility’s (OBR) analysis of the Budget, we spotted that the government is forecast to miss its target of delivering 1.5 million new homes in England by the next general election.

The OBR has estimated that across the entire UK, annual net additional housing will only exceed 300,000 in 2030, external, a year after the next general election has to be held.

To reach its target the government would need that many homes to be built every year in England alone.The total number of homes built across the UK is forecast by the ONS to be just under 1.5m between the 2024-25 and 2029-30 financial years, but most of this final year is after the next election must be held.

The most recent government figures suggest there were an estimated 208,600 new homes in England in 2024-25, external, a period made up of the final three months of the last Conservative government and the first nine months under Labour.

The government has re-introduced mandatory housing targets and instigated planning reforms, which the OBR expects to lead to new homes rising “sharply”, but not before first falling further.

We’re tracking how many homes are being added in each local authority area here.

Thomas Copeland
BBC Verify Live journalist

We’re looking at the latest footage from Indonesia today, after flooding in the North Sumatra province killed at least 43 people.

In the neighbouring Aceh and West Sumatra provinces, a further 18 people are reported to have died in flash floods and landslides.

One video which was uploaded to social media in the early hours of this morning shows the roof of a building being swept away in floodwaters before being crushed beneath a bridge.

We’ve managed to pinpoint where this footage was filmed to a street in the south of the provincial capital of Medan, where the Deli river has been engorged by floodwater.

Comparing this video to historic satellite and street view imagery shows that the river’s waterline is several metres higher than it usually is.

We’re working through more footage now and we’ll bring you updates as we verify them.

Emma Pengelly and Yi Ma
BBC Verify

Two videos posted on the social media platform Threads show the initial stages of yesterday’s Hong Kong tower block fire, which has killed at least 55 people and left hundreds of others unaccounted for.

By matching fence lines, trees and exterior walls with Google street-level images of Wang Fuk Court, we’ve confirmed the clips were filmed near an entrance of Wang Cheong House, the easternmost block in the complex.

We know they show the beginning of the fire because a video filmed later from farther away, shows only Wang Cheong House burning. The fire then spread to six other Wang Fuk Court blocks.

This also matches the account from the deputy director of Hong Kong Fire Services, Derek Armstrong Chan, who told reporters the blaze started at Wang Cheong House.

The person who posted the videos on Threads also described what they saw, they said:

• At 14:51 local time (06:51 GMT) they heard “some banging sounds” before seeing the fire
• At 14:57 the first firefighters arrived, by which time the fire had spread to other floors

We’re continuing to analyse videos being shared online to build a timeline of how the fire spread.

Adam Durbin
BBC Verify Live editor

Good morning from BBC Verify Live.

Our verification team are looking into video showing major flooding in the island of Sumatra in Indonesia, where at least 61 people have died. Footage shared online shows residents of the city of Medan attempting to navigate water that inundated major roads. One video we’ve verified shows a building’s roof floating down a fast-flowing stream of water.

Another main focus today is the devastating tower block fires in Hong Kong, where at least 55 people have died and hundreds more are missing. We’ve been combing through social media footage of the blaze to try and build a timeline of how it spread to multiple high-rise buildings.

Plus, in the UK our fact-checkers are looking into two major stories:

• The impact of the Budget delivered by Chancellor Rachel Reeves yesterday
• Analysis of new migration data that has been released today