Anthony Reuben
BBC Verify senior journalist

We’ll be closing this live page shortly, but there’s more to come from the team as our colleagues in Washington are checking over President Donald Trump’s news conference where he announced the deployment of the National Guard to Washington DC. You can get more on what Trump said from the BBC News live page.

Today BBC Verify has been looking at the data on older and younger drivers in Britain as the government considers getting people over the age of 70 to take an eye test every time they have to renew their driving licence.

We’ve also been analysing a social media video from the Philippines Coast Guard, showing an incident involving one of their ships and two Chinese government vessels in a disputed part of the South China Sea. You can watch the video here.

And we explained how a viral video from TikTok that claims to show people praying outside a heavily damaged mosque in the Gaza Strip was generated by artificial intelligence.

BBC Verify Live will be back on Tuesday.

Ben Chu
BBC Verify policy and analysis correspondent

I’ve been investigating whether the UK government is right to say the Chagos deal will cost £3.4bn.

This is the agreement where the sovereignty of the British territory in the Indian Ocean is transferred to Mauritius while the UK and US lease the military base on the island of Diego Garcia for 99 years.

The Conservatives have claimed the agreement will cost more than £30bn and have today got a Freedom of Information release from the Government Actuary's Department which they say shows their figure is right, external.

So which figure is correct?

The Conservatives are not wrong in pointing out the cumulative value of the annual outlay in cash terms over the 99 years of this deal could easily add up to £30bn plus.

The government has reached its significantly lower figure by adjusting these cumulative payments for:

• Future inflation
• Social Time Preference - this is the value society attaches to something in the present compared to the future, so the future costs and benefits are discounted to their present value

The inflation adjustment is valid. A payment of £1bn in 2124 will be considerably less onerous for a future government than a payment of £1bn made in 2025, given the likely considerable growth of the economy and tax revenues over a century.

Also, given the extremely long timeframe of the deal, analysts and actuaries consulted by BBC Verify say it is not unreasonable for the government to further discount the payments for Social Time Preference - given that studies of economic behaviour show immediate costs and benefits are valued more highly than future costs and benefits by individuals, businesses and governments, external.

Jake Horton
BBC Verify senior journalist

During his news conference this afternoon, US President Donald Trump said that "murders in 2023 reached the highest rate probably ever" in Washington DC - adding that the numbers “just go back 25 years”.

The homicide rate did rise in 2023 to around 40 per 100,000 residents - hitting the highest point in 20 years, according to FBI data.

However, that wasn’t the highest rate ever recorded - it was significantly higher in the 1990s and early 2000s.

The rate dropped significantly in 2024 - the last full year which we have data for.

The number of homicides so far this year is down 12% compared with this point in 2024, according to Washington’s Metropolitan Police, external.

Tom Edgington
BBC Verify senior journalist

We’ve been reporting today on the UK government’s upcoming road safety strategy which could potentially see drivers over 70 lose their licences if they fail compulsory eye tests.

Earlier we said that such a move would apply in England and Wales - responsibility for all driving licences is devolved in Northern Ireland. We’ve since been told the eye test requirement would also affect drivers in Scotland.

This is because while road safety is a devolved matter - Scotland set lower drink-drive alcohol limits than England and Wales in 2014 - driver licensing is not.

So if new eye tests were introduced as a condition of having a licence they would apply to the whole of Great Britain, the Department for Transport told BBC Verify.

Benedict Garman
BBC Verify senior journalist

Image source, Instagram/Belal Abu Amer

Footage emerged on Saturday showing the moment an aid drop landed on a child in central Gaza. Local media say the boy, named locally as Muhannad Eid, was killed.

The location is an area where we’ve seen videos and photos of air drops falling before. By comparing the scene to pre-existing imagery available online we were able to confirm it happened just north of Wadi Gaza river, north-west of Nuseirat in the centre of the Gaza Strip.

Another graphic video showed the motionless and bloodied boy being carried from the scene.

In a separate incident on Friday, verified video showed a roof collapsing in Gaza City with Palestinians on and under it, as they tried to retrieve aid from an air drop which had snagged on a building.

We have previously geolocated a number of air drops falling into dangerous combat zones and are continuing to investigate related incidents.

Lucy Gilder
BBC Verify journalist

Image source, EPA

We’ll be watching a news conference from the White House this afternoon where US President Donald Trump will speak about crime in Washington DC.

It comes after hundreds of federal officers were deployed in the capital over the weekend following an alleged attempted carjacking of an administration official.

Trump has justified the deployment by painting the city as a hotbed of violent crime. Writing on his Truth Social platform in recent days, he said Washington has “become one of the most dangerous cities anywhere in the World” and that under Mayor Muriel Bowser “the Crime Numbers get worse”.

Having looked into the crime statistics - published by Washington’s Metropolitan Police, external - we can see that violent offences fell between 2023 and 2024 and are continuing to fall, according to preliminary data for 2025.

But there’s a difference in how crime figures are published by DC police and by the FBI. In 2024, for example, DC police data shows a 35% fall in violent crime while the FBI’s data shows a 9% drop.

So the figures agree that crime is falling in DC but differ on the level of that decline.

Nationally, violent crime in the US fell 4.5% between 2023 and 2024, according to the latest FBI estimates, external. These figures only include crimes that are reported to the police.

Anthony Reuben
BBC Verify senior journalist

Drivers over the age of 70 might have to take eye tests every time they renew their driving licences in England and Wales as part of the UK government’s new road safety strategy.

But is that the age group ministers should be focusing on?

The Department for Transport publishes figures, external for people in Britain killed and seriously injured in road accidents per mile driven.

It suggests that male drivers between the ages of 17 and 24 are more likely to be killed or seriously injured than any other age group - apart from those aged 86 or older.

The younger group drive a lot more than the over-86s though - they cover roughly 10 times the mileage.

Becky Dale and Mark Poynting
BBC Verify

BBC Verify’s data team has been supporting our colleagues on the climate team in monitoring what has been happening with sea temperatures.

Marine heatwave conditions - prolonged periods of unusually high sea surface temperatures - have been present around parts of the UK virtually all year.

With seven months of complete data in 2025, we calculated the UK’s average sea temperature to the end of July using the daily data provided by the Met Office, external.

To make a fair comparison, the same seven-month average was calculated for each of the other 45 years in the time series.

UK seas in 2025 have been more than 0.2C warmer than any other year, and notably warmer than even a decade ago.

That seemingly small difference is contributing to major changes in the UK's marine ecosystems, with some new species entering our seas and others struggling to cope with the heat.

The continued burning of fossil fuels is a major driver in warming UK waters, as oceans around the world have absorbed 90% of the excess heat in the environment.

Olga Robinson
BBC Verify assistant editor

We verify real images and footage of damage and devastation in Gaza on a daily basis. But occasionally we also come across AI-generated material.

BBC Verify has been analysing one video that claims to show people praying outside a heavily damaged mosque in the Strip.

The clip, which was viewed more than six million times on TikTok in just a day, has multiple hallmarks consistent with AI-generation.

People appear to be moving unnaturally in the clip - sliding, rather than walking - and at least one seems to disappear into the ground at one point. Details like structures and some of the trees in the background also lack definition - which is also typical of AI-generation.

We also showed the video to someone from Gaza who left last year. They said the mosque didn’t look like any that are in the Strip.

The account that’s published the fake has also posted other videos said to be from Gaza that have all the hallmarks of AI-generation.

Tamara Kovacevic
BBC Verify senior journalist

The Home Office has added 15 new countries to its “deport now appeal later” scheme, which allows the government to deport foreigners who commit crimes back to their home countries before they can appeal against the decision.

There were previously eight countries on that list: Albania, Belize, Estonia, Finland, Kosovo, Mauritius, Nigeria and Tanzania.

The 15 new countries are: Angola, Australia, Botswana, Brunei, Bulgaria, Canada, Guyana, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Latvia, Lebanon, Malaysia, Uganda and Zambia.

There are 10,772 foreign offenders in prisons in England and Wales, external – or 12.3% of the total prison population - as of June 2025. Scotland and Northern Ireland manage their own prison systems.

If you look at the nationality of foreign offenders in England and Wales, Albanians come top with 1,193 people in prison as of June 2025, followed by 707 Irish nationals, 320 Indian and 317 Pakistani.

There were 774 prisoners from the 15 new countries on the list.

Yi Ma
BBC Verify researcher

Image source, X

Social media users in Japan have been posting videos of extensive flooding after heavy rainfall in the south-western Kumamoto Prefecture. According to local media reports, this intense rainfall is rare and has led to the evacuation of 1,687 residents., external

One verified clip shows severe flooding and heavy rain in Kamiamakusa City. The footage shows buildings submerged by rising floodwaters and debris flowing through the streets.

Another verified video, filmed from a high-rise in Fukutsu City north of Kumamoto shows the water in a local river approaching the ground level of buildings.

We confirmed the authenticity of these videos by matching road layouts and building features using Google Earth.

Reverse image searches confirmed these clips have not appeared on social media prior to today.

While no fatalities have been confirmed so far, there are reports of missing people and communities being cut off due to road damage., external

Official rainfall warnings have been downgraded as the downpours are now less intense.

Image source, X

As we mentioned earlier, the Philippine Coast Guard has released a video which it says shows a collision between two Chinese government ships in a disputed area of the South China Sea.

The incident happened while a ship from China's navy was chasing a Filipino vessel near the Scarborough Shoal.

China has confirmed there was a confrontation but did not mention a collision.

Sherie Ryder and Shayan Sardarizadeh
BBC Verify

BBC Verify has been working to verify footage and images from inside Gaza following an Israeli air strike that hit a tent killing five journalists near the al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City.

One of those killed was Anas al-Sharif who worked for the news organisation Al Jazeera who the Israel Defense Forces have claimed was the head of a “Hamas terrorist cell”.

Al Jazeera's managing editor Mohamed Moawad has rejected the Israeli allegation and told the BBC al-Sharif was “doing one thing, he was reporting and giving voice to the voiceless inside the city of Gaza".

Two clips - which are too graphic to be broadcast by the BBC - appear to show the bodies of al-Sharif and another journalist, Mohammed Qreiqeh, being carried away from the scene.

We were able to confirm the location of the incident by comparing the scene with similar posts on social media.

This morning, we’ve seen some daylight footage of the aftermath. Comparing videos posted online with photographs from the Reuters news agency we can confirm this is where the journalists were killed.

Image source, Reu

Daniele Palumbo
BBC Verify journalist

Image source, Philippines Coast Guard

We’ve been analysing a social media video posted this morning by the Philippines Coast Guard showing a new incident involved one of their ships and two Chinese government vessels in a disputed part of the South China Sea.

The Filipino video initially shows a China Coast Guard ship chasing a Philippines vessel. Then a third ship - from China’s navy - appears. It seems to sail at speed between the two other vessels before colliding with the Chinese coast guard ship.

The collision is said to have taken place near Scarborough Shoal, a disputed area of the South China Sea.

BBC Verify relies on ship-tracking websites like MarineTraffic to locate where the incident took place. But these are military vessels and so they are not sharing their positions.

The Chinese government has so far not confirmed a collision took place. However, another video posted by the Philippines Coast Guard shows clear damage on the bow of the Chinese Coast Guard vessel. The team at BBC Verify will continue investigating the incident.

Image source, Philippines Coast Guard

Rob Corp
BBC Verify Live editor

Welcome to the live page where we share the work being done throughout the day by the BBC's specialists in verification, fact-checking, data journalism and debunking disinformation.

We're starting the day by assessing footage from the Philippines coast guard that it says shows two vessels from the Chinese navy and coastguard colliding in a disputed area of the South China Sea. The Filipino authorities say one of the ships was badly damaged - we're looking into what happened.

Elsewhere we're checking what people are posting from inside Gaza following yesterday's Israeli air strike that killed five journalists - at the moment we're verifying footage showing the aftermath of the attack.

And our data team is doing some work on the statistics around older drivers in the UK as the government here wants to bring in eyesight checks before their licences are renewed.

As ever - you can find more of our work on the BBC Verify section of the BBC News website.