Thomas Copeland
BBC Verify Live journalist

It’s been a varied day on BBC Verify Live, so we’ll close as usual by recapping some of what we’ve covered.

We’ve been working to verify footage of an alleged assassination attempt on President Daniel Noboa. The team has analysed clips circulating on social media of rocks being thrown at the convoy he was being driven in and consulted with weapons experts to examine signs of bullet damage to his car.

We’ve been tracking videos spreading online showing protests in the US, including debunking a claim that one clip shows Portland police confronting immigration agents. I also used a likely satirical AI-generated video of a protest to demonstrate some ways to spot other fake clips on your social media feeds.

In the UK, our fact-checking team have assessed Conservative Party leader’s Kemi Badenoch’s new stamp duty plan revealed in her speech on final day of the Tory conference,

Plus, US comedian Bill Maher says more than 100,000 Christians have been killed in Nigeria since 2009. Is he right?

Have you seen unverified videos or unsubstantiated claims spreading on your social media feed? Send them to BBC Verify here.

That’s all from us for today, thanks for joining us and we’ll be back tomorrow.

Anthony Reuben
BBC Verify senior journalist

Part of the challenge of being in opposition in the UK is that the policies you propose need to be for years in the future.

Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch today announced her new “golden rule”, which is that half of any savings made from spending cuts will be used to reduce the deficit instead of spending the money on something else.

To demonstrate this commitment the Conservatives say that they have announced £47bn a year of savings and only £21bn a year of extra spending.

But none of it could happen until the next general election, which is likely to be in 2029. If the Conservatives win that election then some of the measures announced may not be fully in place for many years after that.

This makes it hard to judge their plans, especially with things like the welfare system or immigration which could look very different by 2029.

The Conservatives have said neither their proposed savings nor the spending would all happen straight away, but that the steps would all be taken during their first parliament in line with the new “golden rule”.

Reha Kansara
BBC Trending

Last month, a BBC investigation revealed how members of an anti-Islamic American biker gang were overseeing security teams at controversial aid sites run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).

Hundreds of Palestinians seeking food have been killed in scenes of chaos and gunfire near GHF facilities.

The latest episode of BBC Trending delves into the open-source investigative techniques the BBC used to tracked down ten members of Infidels Motorcycle Club – or Infidels MC for short - who were present in Gaza. Seven of those we identified were in senior security positions.

Infidels MC’s online presence revealed anti-Muslim hate speech on its Facebook page.

Image source, Internet Archive

On archived pages from their website, we found the skull logo of the violent comic book character Punisher, a symbol appropriated by white supremacist groups.

The logo was inscribed with the word "kafir" in Arabic script, which translates as non-believer or "infidel”.

More recently on Facebook, TikTok and Instagram, members have been seen posing with machine guns, Maga hats and displaying Crusader tattoos.

Since the BBC published its investigation, GHF told us that “none of the [security] contractors mentioned [in the story] are part of the current or future GHF team and mission”.

Image source, Facebook

Thomas Copeland and Peter Mwai
BBC Verify

A claim made by US comedian Bill Maher about the killing of Christians in Nigeria has gone viral on social media recently.

On his weekly ‘Real Time’ show, Maher highlighted the actions of Boko Haram and other militant Islamist groups in Nigeria.

"I’m not a Christian but they are systematically killing the Christians in Nigeria," he said. "They’ve killed over 100,000 since 2009.”

Many of you have been in touch with BBC Verify, asking us to look into the claim.

BBC Verify has contacted Maher’s representatives to ask for the sources for his claim, but we haven’t heard back.

Responding to Maher’s comments, Dr Ladd Serwat, senior Africa analyst with US-based monitoring group Acled (Armed Conflict Location & Event Data) said: “These fatality claims are not supported by available data on religious targeting of Christians in Nigeria.”

Acled has tracked civilian deaths in Nigeria over many years, collating multiple official reports and media sources.

Islamist groups have been responsible for 16,000 fatalities since 2009, according to Acled data, of which 700 have occurred during attacks on clearly identifiable Christian communities.

Maher’s figure is closer to the total number of fatalities reported in all forms of political violence across Nigeria since 2009. That figure is 115,000 according to Acled, not broken down by religion.

“Tens of thousands of Nigerians have been killed in various forms of armed violence over the last two decades,” said Nnamdi Obasi from the International Crisis Group, “but any figures of the numbers of Christians or Muslims killed are questionable, as such claims are not based on any credible databases of fatalities, disaggregated by religious identity.”

Jake Horton
BBC Verify

We've been looking into a video claiming to show local police confronting Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents driving towards a crowd of protesters in Portland.

There have been clashes between some protesters and ICE agents outside an immigration detention facility there in recent weeks, after US President Donald Trump called for a crime crackdown in the city in Oregon.

In the footage a man wearing vest marked “Portland police liaison officer” can be heard telling someone to "back up" and drive away, adding that "if you go into this crowd of people you will be arrested".

The version shared on X has gathered more than one million views and claims "true law enforcement are standing against the Trump’s ICE Gestapo".

But in the original video you can see two women in the car who appear to be civilians.

Image source, X

Some immigration agents have been dressed in civilian clothes in unmarked cars during enforcement operations, but they are often masked and should have ID badges to identify themselves if necessary.

Portland police have told BBC Verify that they have “no information suggesting the individuals in the vehicle are federal agents”.

In the full video, you can see the car eventually backs up and leaves the site.

The original account which shared it also posted another clip of the same car saying: “Pepper balls shot at protesters as they attempt to stop civilian car from driving through outside Portland ICE Detention Center.”

Emma Pengelly
BBC Verify journalist

We’ve been in touch with weapons analysts about an Ecuadorian minister’s claims of “signs of bullet damage” on the car of the President Daniel Noboa.

We believe Noboa was travelling in a black SUV in the convoy because the Ecuadorian Presidency has shared a photo of him beside the damaged vehicle.

The damage we can see on this car is “more consistent with stones or hand thrown projectiles” than bullets according to Amael Kotlarski, a weapons expert from defence intelligence company Janes.

Lewis Galvin, an analyst for strategic risk consulting firm Sibylline, told me that most of the damage to the vehicles in the convoy seems to have been dealt by rocks.

He said this was indicated by the relatively large impact areas, with damaged glass generally forming large cracks radiating outwards.

Assuming Noboa's vehicle had bulletproof glass, Galvin said he would expect to see a “spiderweb” shaped pattern caused by a bullet.

Galvin said one impact area shows some evidence of this, but the quality and lack of footage makes it difficult to assess precisely.

He also said he couldn’t definitively rule out that a firearm was used, which is also the conclusion Kotlarski came to about the same area of damage.

“The security environment in Ecuador is particularly volatile at the moment amid sustained protests against Noboa's recent cuts to diesel subsidies, so an opportunistic attack cannot be ruled out,” Galvin added.

Meanwhile Retired US Marine Corps Col Mark Cancian of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies also pointed out damage on another part of the vehicle suggested it did not have bulletproof windows.

Image source, Reuters

Nicholas Barrett
BBC Verify researcher

Image source, EPA

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch told her party conference earlier today that “the next Conservative Government will abolish stamp duty on your home. It will be gone”.

But how much will that cost?

According to government statistics, external, stamp duty raised £11.6bn between 2023 to 2024, although this figure tends fluctuate year on year and is down from £15.3bn the year before.

The Conservatives are only proposing to abolish stamp duty on main homes, meaning buyers will still pay the tax on additional properties and on non-residential property. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has estimated, external that abolishing stamp duty on primary residences would cost the Treasury around £4.5bn a year.

However, the Conservatives have said that due to a “dramatic tax increase Rachel Reeves is planning” they expect the policy could cost £9bn a year.

Olga Robinson
BBC Verify assistant editor

We’ve just been reviewing a video being shared online which claims to show a missile damaging an apartment building in the Russian city of Stary Oskol, close the border with Ukraine.

Even though the footage is very dark, the layout of buildings is visible and we can just make out a playground and some trees.

We managed to geolocate it by using daytime images of the aftermath in which the name of a local pub is partially visible on the damaged building.

The Shek’s Bir pub’s address is available on Yandex Maps, a popular search engine in Russia. We then used Google Street View to match up the details visible in the original footage.

In the video, a projectile can we seen flying towards the roof of the apartments before it explodes, either on impact or just above the building.

Posts from pro-Ukrainian users online have claimed it is a Russian missile that hit the flats. Belgorod’s governor said in a post on Telegram earlier this week that debris from an intercepted Ukrainian drone had shattered the windows in 15 flats.

We cannot tell definitively what happened either way from the footage as the moment of impact is not clear, but we can say the damage to the building was relatively limited.

Thomas Copeland
BBC Verify Live journalist

We’ve been seeing social media videos showing agents from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and protests against them. Many are real but some are AI-generated, like the one below which is labelled with a watermark from OpenAI’s new Sora 2 model.

The video is also likely intended to be satirical - with protestors shouting “no queso, no cheese”. Generative AI expert Henry Ajder told me Sora 2 has “taken AI-generated video to the next level in terms of realism” and made it harder to spot fakes.

Not all labels added to a video or image indicate they are made by AI, as many accounts sharing them on social media add elements like usernames or emojis. So it is a good idea to check any watermark or other addition to determine the possible origin. Here are some other signs to look out for if you encounter a suspicious video or image:

Hands

Strange-looking hands are common because AI struggles to understand their geometry, according to Prof Thomas Nowotny from the University of Sussex. This isn’t a problem for a generic image of a hand, but as soon as you prompt an image generator to show anything more complex - like gesturing - it will struggle.

Text

AI generators also struggle with creating words, Nowotny explains. He notes the cardboard sign in this video has markings intended to be text but the “symbols make no sense”. But the rate of technological development with these tools is so rapid that Nowotny says it is impossible to say how long these red flags will remain.

See our graphic for examples of what to watch for.

While we speak to experts about “signs of bullet damage” on the vehicle of Ecuador’s president, the BBC’s South America correspondent Ione Wells has been reporting on this alleged assassination attempt and the weeks of protest leading up to it.

In this online piece, she writes that the country’s largest indigenous organisation - the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (Conaie) - said five people were “arbitrarily detained" after the incident.

President Daniel Noboa's office said those arrested would be charged with offences of terrorism and attempted assassination.

Ecuador has been rocked with violent clashes and demonstrations for more than two weeks, which started when Conaie declared a national strike to protest the government ending diesel subsidies.

The government has defended ending the subsidy which it has said will save $1.1bn (£820 million) a year that can be distributed to small-scale farmers and people in the transport sector.

Image source, EPA

Emma Pengelly and Kayleen Devlin
BBC Verify

We’ve spent the morning verifying footage from an attack on Ecuador’s president Daniel Noboa, which the government has alleged was as an assassination attempt.

The Ecuadorian presidency’s official X account posted a video filmed from inside a vehicle which was part of the president’s convoy, showing crowds hurling rocks.

We have verified videos shared on social media filmed from the protesters’ point of view. In them, people can be seen throwing rocks at the convoy and striking vehicles.

Emergency sirens can be heard and there is also smoke nearby - but the source of it is unclear. We’ve confirmed the incident happened outside a restaurant along a road south of El Tambo in Cañar Province. This is because we spotted a restaurant sign in one of the videos.

We first checked Google Maps for the exact address and then we matched surrounding landmarks on satellite imagery - such as hill peaks and other nearby buildings.

Ecuador’s environment and energy minister Ines Manzano said there were “signs of bullet damage” on the Noboa’s vehicle. We have not been able to verify this from the videos and are asking experts whether images from the scene can confirm this.

Adam Durbin
BBC Verify Live editor

Good morning from the BBC Verify Live team.

Today we’re looking into compelling footage showing an alleged assassination attempt of the president of Ecuador. According to a government minister, there were signs of bullet damage on Daniel Noboa’s car and he is unhurt. We’re analysing video of rocks being hurled at Noboa’s presidential motorcade by dozens of people as it drives past, as well as speaking to experts to assess whether pictures of damage on the car appear to have been caused by shots impacting it.

Elsewhere, our team are also examining videos from Russia's Belgorod region on the border with Ukraine. One clip shows what appears to be a missile exploding near a residential building earlier this week. And local authorities have blamed Ukrainian forces for a separate strike on a village near the border, saying three people have been killed - Ukraine has not yet commented.

There has also been a recent uptick of AI-generated content linked to protests in the US over immigration raids and detentions, so we’ll be bringing you a helpful guide of some tell-tale signs that can help you spot this kind of fakery as it spreads on social media.

Plus, it’s the final day of Conservative conference and our fact-checkers are primed to listen to party leader Kemi Badenoch’s speech. She is expected to commit to a new “golden rule” intended to cut both government borrowing and taxes, so we’ll be diving into any details she reveals to assess who and what it could impact.