Thomas Copeland
BBC Verify Live journalist

We’ll be closing today’s page shortly, so here’s a quick look at what BBC Verify has been looking into.

We’ve been reporting all day on the implications of a new feature on the social media platform X, which allows users to see where in the world accounts are based. We’ve found some prominent Trump-supporting accounts are actually based outside the US as well as users who back Scottish independence that are apparently connecting to the platform from Iran.

Our verification team has examined the aftermath of a night of deadly Russian strikes in the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, verified CCTV footage of a suicide blast in Pakistan and analysed videos of an Israeli strike in Lebanon’s capital Beirut.

Plus, our UK fact checkers have been examining:

• How many homes in England could be affected by a “mansion tax“
• Why the UK statistics watchdog has criticised a new graph released by the Conservatives

We’ll be back tomorrow with more from BBC Verify.

Thomas Copeland
BBC Verify Live journalist

Earlier we reported on an X profile describing itself as a fan account for US President Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka which has been revealed to be based in Nigeria.

The @IvankaNews_ account gathered more than than one million followers by posting content which was highly supportive of Donald Trump’s Make America Great Again movement, generating a significant amount of user engagement.

According to X data, the account has changed username 11 times since joining the platform in 2010.

It has now been suspended for violating X rules. We’ve asked X which rules the account violated but haven’t heard back.

Several other similar Pro-Trump accounts also identified as being based outside the US have been suspended.

Image source, X

Thomas Copeland
BBC Verify Live journalist

A viral video claiming to show a group of masked men on the London Underground is actually AI-generated.

The video appears to pan round an apparent Tube carriage showing men in dark clothing, masks and hats, while loud music plays in the background.

Over the public address system we hear an announcer say: “The next stop is Peckham.”

One post sharing it said “Welcome to Transport for London” and gathered more than 2.7 million views on X before it was deleted.

The account sharing the video, which features an AI-generated profile picture, has more than 28,000 followers and gets engagement on X by posting about immigration and crime in the UK.

There are three clear signs this video is AI-generated:

1. There is no London Underground stop called Peckham. Peckham Rye and Queen’s Road Peckham are both train stations and stops on the Overground network, but the carriages on these routes look different.
2. The tube map visible above the windows does not align with any real maps of London’s transport network
3. Two of the men’s hands appear deformed. AI text-to-video models often struggles to replicate the geometry of hands and digits.

Gerry Georgieva
BBC Verify researcher

The UK statistics regulator has said a graphic posted on social media by the Conservative Party goes against its official guidance for representing data.

The bar chart, posted on X, external, uses two vertical bars to compare the number of additional homes built in 2024-25, which they have labelled Labour, with the number completed in 2023-24 under the Conservatives.

The data correctly states that fewer homes were built in England in 2024-25 than in 2023-24 - 208,600, external compared with 221,409.

But the figures for 2024-25 include three months when the Conservatives were still in office.

The Conservatives’ chart also has a broken vertical axis where the first interval of homes goes from zero to 200,000 and then goes up in increments of 5,000. While this is marked, the chart is still visually misleading as the way it’s drawn makes the difference look bigger than the actual 6% decline.

A spokesperson for the Office for Statistics Regulation told BBC Verify that “the axis of the chart leads to an exaggerated scale of change and is not in line with analysis function guidance on charts, external which notes that broken axes are particularly likely to mislead when used on bar charts”.

We’ve asked the Conservative Party for a response to the statistics regulator’s comment.

The Labour government has pledged to deliver 1.5 million new homes during this parliament - an average of 300,000 more homes every year.

Thomas Copeland
BBC Verify Live journalist

We’re reporting today on the social media platform X rolling out a new feature making where the country or region accounts are based public information.

Several of you have been in touch asking for clarity about a controversy which emerged on Friday after the feature was introduced.

Posts containing screenshots and videos seemingly labelling the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) X account as being based in Israel began to circulate widely.

DHS at first responded by posting a picture of President Donald Trump staring forward in a stunned manner. The location feature was temporarily removed by X later on Friday for all users.

When we checked the DHS account on Sunday it was listed as being based in the US, and as of Monday morning it still is. It is the only US government account we have reviewed which displays a location.

X’s head of product Nikita Bier described claims that the DHS account was ever listed as being based in Israel as “misinformation” and called the screenshots and videos “manipulated media”. He also said the location feature was not available on any government accounts and that the DHS account has only shown IP addresses from the US since it was created.

As speculation continued online into yesterday, the DHS shared Bier’s post and said: “I can’t believe we have to say this, but this account has only ever been run and operated from the United States.”

Paul Brown and Richard Irvine-Brown
BBC Verify

We verified videos on Saturday of a series of deadly incidents in Gaza including four air strikes by Israel’s military and a confirmed shooting by Israeli troops.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement it had shot dead an armed man who had crossed the so-called “yellow line” behind which its soldiers had withdrawn as part of October's ceasefire deal.

The IDF described this as a "blatant violation" of the ceasefire, adding that it had responded by striking Hamas targets in Gaza. It also shared video of the shooting and an infographic showing the incident's proximity to an IDF position, which we geolocated to a route in and out of central Gaza around three miles (five km) to the south of Deir al-Balah.

Shortly after this statement, a series of videos emerged showing bodies, fire and smoke across Gaza City, Deir al-Balah and Nuseirat Camp after apparent air strikes. We've verified at least four locations that seem to have been hit.

Gaza's Hamas-run Ministry of Health said in a statement yesterday that 21 people had been killed, 83 injured and two bodies had been pulled from rubble across Gaza in the previous 24 hours.

Benedict Garman
BBC Verify senior journalist

Israel carried out an air strike in Lebanon’s capital Beirut yesterday killing a senior Hezbollah commander.

It is the first Israeli strike on Beirut since June and comes in spite of a ceasefire agreed with the Lebanese armed group in November last year.

We verified videos from the scene using a distinctively shaped building and a nearby shop sign to confirm the strike happened on Sheikh Ragheb Harb Street in Haret Hreik, a suburb in southern Beirut where Hezbollah has major influence. The footage shows fire and thick plumes of smoke rising from a damaged multistorey building.

Other verified videos show sirens, smoke and chaos in the street, with cars covered in dust and debris at the base of the targeted building. There’s also video of an ambulance at the scene.

Later, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) released aerial footage showing the moment of the strike and a large explosion. The IDF said it had “eliminated the terrorist Haitham Ali al-Tabtabai, the de facto Chief of Staff of Hezbollah”.

A statement from Hezbollah later confirmed that al-Tabtabai had been killed.

Shayan Sardarizadeh and Ghoncheh Habibiazad
BBC Verify and BBC Persian

We've been reporting about some of the information revealed by the rollout of X's user location data.

BBC Verify has seen several accounts claiming to be from Scotland and almost exclusively posting in favour of Scottish independence. But based on X’s location feature, these accounts have been accessing the platform from Iran.

One account, Ewan McGregor, claims to be based in Dundee. "Polls can be hidden, but momentum cannot. Independence is already in motion," it posted three days ago.

Another user who claims to be in Glasgow, Alisa Stewart, posted this on Saturday: “Generations shift, but freedom endures. Scotland’s independence is timeless, beyond demographics.”

A reverse image search suggests that both accounts’ profile photos are lifted from the internet.

When we looked into them on Sunday, X’s location data indicated that both were based in the Netherlands and accessing X via the Android app in Iran.

Since their location data was made available by X, both users have manually changed them to display a region rather than a country. They now show “based in Europe” instead of the Netherlands and connected via Android from “West Asia” rather than Iran.

Researchers from Clemson University published a report in September 2024, external about a pro-Scottish independence influence network on X, which it said was linked to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

BBC Verify cannot independently confirm the location data provided by X and has so far only seen a handful of these accounts. We have messaged those we have looked into for comment.

Nicholas Barrett
BBC Verify researcher

Image source, PA Media

Reports this morning suggest UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves will impose a so-called “mansion tax” in England when she delivers the Budget on Wednesday.

Properties in bands F, G and H in England could be revalued to see if they are eligible for a council tax surcharge, the Times reports, external.

Those bands take in about 9% of all houses in England, according to an analysis of data from the government’s Valuation Office Agency, external. There are 1,347,510 in band F, 912,380 in band G and 154,810 in band H. That’s a total of around 2.4 million.

It has also been reported that the government may set a threshold based on the value of a home, above which the new charge would apply.

If properties worth over £1.5m were targeted then an estimated 276,000 homes would have to pay.

If it were only applied to homes worth more than £2m - the top 0.6% - then the number of properties estimated to be affected would fall to 145,000.

Shruti Menon
BBC Verify senior journalist, reporting from Delhi

Image source, X

We have verified two CCTV videos showing an explosion at Pakistan’s paramilitary force headquarters in Peshawar this morning.

One video shows three men guarding the main gate of the compound as a fourth walks and suddenly the screen turns grey as the explosion happens.

The second video is from a CCTV camera across the road which also captures the explosion showing the moment of impact from another angle.

The time stamps on both videos show the explosion happened around 08:11 local time (03:11 GMT) which matches what’s being reported in Pakistan.

We also matched the location of the blast with footage released by news agencies and confirmed it corresponds with the Federal Constabulary headquarters in Peshawar.

We also conducted reverse image searches to determine the video is from this morning.

So far, five people including three security officials have died and a dozen were injured. The authorities in Pakistan have called it a “foiled terrorist plot".

Thomas Copeland
BBC Verify Live journalist

We’re reporting today on what we can discover about accounts on the social media platform X after it began sharing the locations of its users.

We can now see that some notable accounts with a history of posting content supportive of President Donald Trump which generate large amount of engagement are actually located outside of the US, according to the data X provides.

Just two days ago, Trump shared on Truth Social a screenshot of a post from an X account called @TRUMP_ARMY_ celebrating a Supreme Court ruling in his favour.

We can now see that this account, which has more than half a million followers, is based in India and has changed its username four times since joining the platform in March 2022, according to X.

The account profile has now been changed to “An Indian who loves America, President Trump, Musk! “

Many of these accounts have previously claimed they are American or based in the US.

@IvankaNews_, which describes itself as a fan account for Trump’s daughter, has gathered more than one million followers by posting multiple times a day in support of the president and the wider Make America Great Again movement.

This user previously claimed to have voted for the president in the 2024 election.

We can now see the account is based in Nigeria and has changed its username 11 times since 2010, according to X.

The account has now posted that “some of us living outside the USA genuinely support President Trump’s movement because we believe he was saved by God… not only to save America, but to save humanity.”

BBC Verify is not able to independently confirm the information X provides and we have contacted these accounts for a response.

Emma Pengelly
BBC Verify journalist

Image source, Telegram/Exilenova+

While diplomatic efforts to find a negotiated end to the Ukraine-Russia war continued over the weekend there’s been no let-up in attacks launched by both sides..

Clips began surfacing yesterday morning after a reported drone attack on the Shatura power plant in Russia’s Moscow region.

Verified video shows fires burning in at least two parts of the site in front of the main power station building.

We can be confident the clip is of the Shatura plant because we’ve matched chimneys, a body of water and surrounding structures to available images of the site and street-level mapping on the Russian search engine Yandex.

In a separate verified video filmed at an entrance to the plant a large blaze is burning in the same direction as the previous footage and emergency services can be seen parked close by.

Regional governor Andrei Vorobyov said on Sunday morning there had been “a drone attack” on the power station. He said power supply was not disrupted because it was switched to “backup lines”.

Image source, Reuters

Rob Corp
BBC Verify Live editor

We’re keen to hear what you think the BBC Verify team should be looking into.

We're interested in investigating claims you may've seen online in your social feeds. We're also keen to know if you've think an image may have been made using artificial intelligence to spread disinformation.

You can also get in touch with BBC Verify if you've got a question about how we verify video posted online or work with satellite imagery.

You can send your suggestions to the team here.

Sherie Ryder
BBC Verify journalist

Image source, Telegram/ Ihor Terkhov

We’ve been looking at social media posts emerging overnight of emergency services dealing with the aftermath of deadly overnight Russian strikes on the city of Kharkiv in north-east Ukraine.

Kharkiv’s mayor Ihor Terekhov reports in a Telegram post that four people have been killed in a strike on residential buildings.

He adds that 17 people were injured, including two children, in three districts of the city: Shevchenkivskyi, Saltivskyi, and Kholodnohirskyi.

In one video shared on Telegram, we see Terekhov offering his coat to an elderly resident of a building that was hit.

We’ve also been looking at footage of an explosion lighting up the sky from a distance. We were able to verify the location of the person filming by matching the distinctive St Panteleimon Church and other nearby landmarks to images online.

The strikes come after talks over a Washington-backed peace plan were held between Ukraine and the US in Switzerland over the weekend.

They were described by both parties as “highly productive”, but President Volodymyr Zelensky has identified the “main problem” with the 28-point proposal as being Ukraine ceding territory it controls to Russia.

Shayan Sardarizadeh
BBC Verify senior journalist

Image source, X

Over the weekend, X rolled out a new feature which allows users to to see the country or region where the social media platform believes an account is based.

According to X’s head of product Nikita Bier, official government accounts will not have their locations revealed “to, external prevent acts of terrorism against government leaders”, external.

The feature, called “about this account”, can be accessed from any user’s bio and identifies the country or region through which they often connect to X.

X has clarified that the data about where an account is based can be impacted by recent travel or temporary relocation, so the information may not be accurate and can change from time to time. The use of virtual private networks (VPN) which allow users to change the location they are accessing the internet through might also distort the data.

BBC Verify is not able to independently confirm the information X provides about each account.

X will add a new update to the feature today, which Bier has said will have a 99% accuracy, external.

The new data has led to praise from many X users, who say the feature has provided much needed transparency about accounts which deliberately mislead users for engagement or political reasons. But it’s also caused some concern about revealing users’ private information.

Rob Corp
BBC Verify Live editor

Good morning.

Over the weekend the social media platform X began sharing which region users’ access their accounts from. The firm, which is owned by Elon Musk, says it’s done this in the interests of “transparency”. We’re looking into what this means in terms of tackling disinformation.

Elsewhere our verification team is checking out footage being shared from Ukraine where a Russian strike overnight is reported to have killed at least four people in the north-eastern city of Kharkiv.

After the Israeli military killed a top Hezbollah official in an air strike yesterday, we’ll explain how we verified videos of the scene and the aftermath.

As ever BBC Verify is keen to hear from you if you’ve seen material being shared online that appears to be misleading or questionable - you can get in touch with us here.