Thomas Copeland
BBC Verify Live journalist

More now on the video showing armed Nigerian bandits with a group of abducted school girls who who were released yesterday.

Nigeria has suffered a spate of abductions in recent weeks - with more than 250 children abducted from St Mary's Catholic school still missing.

The students in the video verified today were abducted last Monday when armed assailants stormed a girls’ school in the Maga community of Nigeria's Kebbi state.

Two staff members were killed and 25 students were abducted, one of whom then escaped.

The girls were released 80km (50 miles) away in neighbouring Zamfara state, according to coordinates shown in the video shared by a Nigerian government spokesperson yesterday.

It shows footage of the students alongside a military official in the town of Anka.

Thomas Copeland and Peter Mwai
BBC Verify

Newly released footage shows armed men with a group of Nigerian school girls who were abducted last week.

We verified the video by matching eight of the girls in the footage with the same girls visible in a video and a picture shared by Nigeria authorities after their release yesterday.

Reverse images searches indicate this video has not appeared on the internet before yesterday.

In the footage, the masked masked men claim that the girls are being freed as a result of negotiations with the government, according to translations reported by local media.

The circumstances of the girls' release remain unclear, but state governor Nasir Idris told journalists yesterday that no ransom was paid.

In a social media post after the girls’ capture, Nigerian President Bola Tinubu directed the air force “to maintain continuous surveillance over the most remote areas”.

In the verified video, the bandits claim that military aircraft frequently passed over where the girls were being held.

BBC Verify's Ben Chu has been going over the details of the Budget which was announced at lunchtime in the House of Commons.

Here's his take on what taxes are going up and what it could mean for you.

Image source, Facebook/Guine-Bissau Noticias

Footage has emerged online showing what appears to be people fleeing gunfire in the capital of Guinea-Bissau.

A video shared on Facebook shows crowds running down a street in the centre of Bissau city as gunshots ring through the air. By using publicly shared photos on Google Maps, we were able to confirm that the clip was filmed near a restaurant around 600 metres (2,000ft) from the presidential palace.

In another video we verified, posted on TikTok and filmed from a street just 150 metres from the presidential palace, gunshots can also be heard in the background.

It comes days after Sunday’s disputed presidential election in which both leading candidates, incumbent Umaro Sissoco Embalo and his main challenger Fernando Dias, have claimed outright victory.

Guinea-Bissau’s National Electoral Commission is expected to declare early results later this week.

The West African country has been plagued by years of political instability and coup attempts, the last of which was in 2023.

Robert Cuffe
BBC Verify head of statistics

Forecasts are important because Chancellor Rachel Reeves is setting the level of taxes, spending and borrowing levels in order to make the books balance just over four years from now in 2030.

Professional economists tell the BBC that this type of forecasting is "incredibly uncertain".

So how accurate are the forecasts used by Reeves which come from Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR)?

Broadly, they're in the same ballpark as other external forecasters.

They have often been too optimistic in the medium term, external.

Which means that a few years after a forecast is made there often turns out to be less money to go around than the forecast predicted.

The OBR says it has too often overestimated how quickly the economy can become more productive.

It can revise forecasts for productivity - and just has - but is legally obliged to take the government at its word when it comes to spending plans.

And the UK government has frequently gone on to spend more than its Budget plans suggested.

Emma Pengelly
BBC Verify journalist

Image source, Facebook

At least 19 people have been killed after heavy rain caused flooding and landslides in Indonesia’s North Sumatra region. At least seven others are buried under landslides, according to the Indonesian National Search and Rescue Agency.

We’ve been verifying videos shared on social media by people living in the affected areas including one which shows a street near Sibolga on the west coast of North Sumatra covered in a thick layer of mud. People can be seen trying to help a driver get their car out of the mud and onto drier ground.

We’ve confirmed it was filmed in an area called Sibuluan Raya, close to Sibolga city, thanks to a pharmacy sign in the footage. We tracked down the pharmacy’s social media accounts which gave us an address that could be checked on Google Street View.

Anthony Reuben
BBC Verify senior journalist

Image source, Getty

Chancellor Rachel Reeves has announced a freeze to income tax thresholds for another three years, which will raise an estimated £8bn a year.

The thresholds are the levels of income at which people start paying tax or start paying higher rates of tax. Freezing them means more tax ends up being raised as people’s salaries go up, taking them past the thresholds - this practice is often described as a “stealth tax”.

They were previously frozen by Conservative Chancellors Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt.

However, responding to Hunt’s decision in 2022, Reeves said: “The chancellor has deployed a raft of stealth taxes taking billions of pounds from ordinary working people - a Conservative double whammy that sees frozen tax thresholds and double-digit inflation erode the real value of people’s wages.”

Labour’s 2024 election manifesto 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”.

Reeves’ Budget speech from last year, external said: "I am keeping every single promise on tax that I made in our manifesto. So there will be no extension of the freeze in income tax and National Insurance thresholds."

Shortly after the Budget she said: "I have now set the envelope for government spending for the next few years so I'm not going to need to come back and top that up - either with more borrowing or more taxes."

Paul Brown
BBC Verify senior journalist

Image source, General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine

Yesterday Ukraine attacked an air base in the city of Taganrog in southern Russia. In a post on Telegram, Ukraine’s military claimedan experimental Beriev A-60 had likely been hit and published a picture of a plane on fire.

Satellite imagery of the air base capture later showed two destroyed aircraft, so I spoke to experts to get their their assessment of the claim an A-60 had been struck.

Gareth Jennings, aviation editor at defence publishers Janes, told us the aircraft seen burning is an A-60. He highlighted two external features in the images which “no other aircraft in existence" uses, as well its fuselage being “consistent” with the Ilyushin Il-76MD transport aircraft on which the A-60 was based.

He explained the A-60 was designed to test laser beam technology to shoot down aerial threats such as missiles.

Jennings also noted that the A-60 was a prototype aircraft and “did not have an operational role”.

Analysts from the UK-based intelligence company MAIAR said it was "most likely" that an A-60 at the base had been damaged - although they pointed out it has been in “exactly the same parking spot for a long time”.

Here are before and after satellite images:

Paul Brown and Fridon Kiria
BBC Verify and BBC Monitoring

Image source, Telegram

Several videos have been posted online this morning showing an explosion and fire in Cheboksary, a city around 370 miles (600km) east of Moscow in the Russian republic of Chuvashia.

In one verified clip, filmed close to the scene of the fire, an explosion is seen near an industrial site on a main road. Russian search engine Yandex lists the site as belonging to VNIIR, an electronics company which produces navigation technology, radio components and other related products.

Another video filmed nearby shows people gathered on the street as the sound of a drone is heard in the background. There is then a large explosion which appears to impact a residential block.

In a third clip from around a mile and a half away, a man talks about the present situation in the city. He notes taking precautions against the blast impact of any nearby strikes by opening his windows and says he hopes a local brewery isn't hit.

An explosion is then seen in the direction of blasts we saw in the previous videos. It is unclear if this was the explosion at the VNIIR site or the apartment block.

The head of Chuvash Republic, Oleg Nikolaev, says two residential buildings were struck by drones overnight, resulting in injuries to two people and the evacuation of nearby residents.

Ben Chu
BBC Verify policy and analysis correspondent

The key takeaways from the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) document which appears to have been accidentally published before Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ Budget are:

• Headroom in 2029–30 rises to £22bn up from £9.9b
• Plans for £26bn of tax rises in 2029–30, achieved in part by extending the freeze on income tax thresholds, charging National Insurance on salary-sacrifice pension contributions and a council tax surcharge for properties valued over £2m - introduced from 2028-29

As we mentioned earlier, our fact-check specialists and statistics team will be listening to UK Chancellor Rachel Reeves when she delivers the Budget in the House of Commons at 12:30 GMT.

BBC Verify's Ben Chu explains how we prepare for this major set-piece event in the UK political calendar.

Daniel Wainwright
BBC Verify senior data journalist

As Chancellor Rachel Reeves prepares to deliver the Budget, here’s what the our poll tracker tells us about the state of the parties.

Polling suggests that on average less than a fifth of voters would back either Labour or the Conservatives were a general election to be held tomorrow.

Reform UK’s average among five different companies for the two weeks up to 24 November was 29%, down a few points from its peak of 32% in October but still clearly ahead of everyone else.

The Greens and Liberal Democrats are currently neck and neck on an average of 13%, but the figures differ between polling companies.

We only include the headline percentages on voting intention, which pollsters calculate by excluding or otherwise adjusting for those people who answered "don't know" or "won't vote".

And these polls are conducted across the whole of Great Britain, so the Scottish National Party and Plaid Cymru’s figures are low because they only stand in Scotland and Wales respectively.

You can see the averages in the lines in the chart below while the dots show the positions of each party in individual polls.

Thomas Copeland
BBC Verify Live journalist

Our fact-checking team has been busy preparing for Budget day. Here’s what they’re keeping an eye out for today:

Will income tax thresholds be frozen?

It’s being reported that Chancellor Rachel Reeves will freeze income tax thresholds for another two years which would raise about £8bn a year.

As people’s salaries go up they move into new tax bands and pay a higher rate – it’s often described as a “stealth tax”.

However, when the then-Chancellor Jeremy Hunt froze thresholds in 2022, Reeves criticised his decision, saying: “the Conservatives have picked the pockets, purses and wallets of the entire country”.

Wealth tax chat

Expect to hear some talk today - from the Green Party in particular - about the need for a wealth tax - a new annual tax on the value of people’s assets, including things like property.

But many independent tax analysts have questioned how such a tax could be successfully implemented - given that the very rich might move countries or shift the make-up of their wealth to avoid it.

A lift to the two-child benefit cap?

We’ve been reporting on some evidence that suggests that the Conservatives’ decision to cap benefits for families with more than two children has pushed up child poverty.

While Labour’s election manifesto did not explicitly mention the cap it promised “an ambitious strategy to reduce child poverty".

We’ll be listening out to see if the cap is scrapped by Rachel Reeves - it would be popular with many Labour MPs but would come at a cost - an estimated £3.6bn a year.

Sherie Ryder
BBC Verify journalist

We’ve been looking at social media footage of blocks of flats in Hong Kong on fire, where four people have died.

The verified videos show a huge blaze in a several multi-storey buildings and firefighters battling the blaze, which are covered with bamboo scaffolding and green netting.

Hong Kong’s fire department posted on its Facebook account that the fire started at 14:51 local time (06:51 GMT) at Wang Fuk Court, a housing estate in Tai Po district in the north of the city.

Reports say residents are still trapped in the buildings. One firefighter is among the dead, three people are in a critical condition in hospital, one is in a serious condition, and one person is stable, authorities say.

There's live coverage of this story here.

Emma Pengelly
BBC Verify journalist

Image source, Facebook/Kang Namthip

At least 33 people have been killed in Thailand in severe flooding that has swept across nine provinces. In neighbouring Malaysia and Indonesia, also affected by intense rainfall, officials are reporting deaths there as well.

We’ve been looking at a series of videos posted on Facebook by a woman in the southern Thai city of Hat Yai which has been hit badly by the floods.

She began posting videos on 22 November in which fast-moving floodwater was almost reaching people’s waists. In a video posted two days later the water had risen above the perimeter walls of a nearby Buddhist temple and submerged businesses lining the same street.

The water was higher still in a video she posted yesterday which shows a man uses a tangle of power cables like a rope bridge to get across the floodwater. Underneath him, two men in a plastic dinghy use a cable to pull themselves through the water.

The woman who has been sharing these videos has also been posting urgent appeals for help. We’ve been trying to contact her to find out what is happening - we will update you when we can.

Rob Corp
BBC Verify Live editor

South-east Asia continues to be badly affected by flooding - with officials saying at least 33 people have died in Thailand and 19 in Indonesia. We’re verifying posts on social media that show streets, homes and businesses that have been inundated by the rising water.

We’re checking videos being shared online after a major fire in high-rise buildings in Hong Kong. Flames have engulfed the blocks in the city’s Tai Po district. There’s a BBC News live page covering the latest here.

Looking to Ukraine and Russia - we’re seeing reports of an explosion at a factory following a reported drone strike in the Russian city of Cheboksary, east of Moscow. In Ukraine, at least 18 people have reportedly been injured following attacks in the south-eastern city of Zaporizhzhia.

Elsewhere it’s Budget day in the UK where Chancellor Rachel Reeves will set out the government’s tax and spending plans. Our fact-check team have been looking into the potential measures she might announce.

We’ll bring you BBC Verify policy correspondent Ben Chu’s take on what has come out after Reeves has spoken.