Lucy Gilder
BBC Verify journalist

Our live blog will be drawing to a close shortly but here’s a recap of some of what we’ve worked on today.

• We analysed what’s happened to resident doctors’ pay in England on the first day of a five-day strike
• Fact-checked a claim about Gaza aid trucks by an Israeli government spokesperson
• Explained the renovation project at the centre of a dispute between President Donald Trump and the head of the US central bank, Jerome Powell.

Soon you’ll be able to watch a social video produced by the team about what Palestinians are receiving in the aid boxes distributed by the US and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. It will be published on the BBC News TikTok and Instagram accounts.

In the mean time you can stay across the latest BBC Verify content on our pages of the BBC website.

Anthony Reuben
BBC Verify senior journalist

Image source, Reuters

We love hearing from readers and Sandra in Glasgow and Tyler and Norman in Edinburgh have got in touch to ask about water pollution.

All three of them heard Environment Secretary Steve Reed telling BBC News: “Pollution in rivers in Scotland is worse than in England.”

The Independent Water Commission Report, external, which came out this week, said that Scotland had 66% of its bodies of water getting a “good” classification, while England had 16%. But the report did point out that Scotland has a much lower population density than England, which goes some way to explain the disparity.Nonetheless, that does suggest that Scotland’s rivers are less polluted.

I asked Reed’s department and they pointed out Scotland has slightly more pollution incidents per 10,000km of sewer. It’s 35.8 in Scotland compared with 35.4 in England and Wales.

They also said that Scotland has much worse monitoring of storm overflows on its water network than England.

If you’ve heard something you’d like us to investigate you can contact us via this page.

Aisha Sembhi
BBC Verify journalist

An ad featured in US Vogue’s latest print edition is drawing attention on social media for its use of AI-generated models.

It was created for the clothing brand Guess by Seraphinne Vallora, a marketing company dedicated to creating AI models.

The company says it’s able to bring a brand’s “vision to life… without the effort and cost” of hiring industry professionals.

A post showing the advert has been liked over 200,000 times on TikTok and re-shared on X with almost 10 million views.

Co-founders Valentina Gonzalez and Andreea-Laura Petrescu say they collaborated directly with Guess to build a mood board that “respect the aesthetics” of the brand, before working with existing models and photographers to create a final concept.

“It’s about giving [Guess] the choice,” Valentina tells BBC Verify. “We can build whatever the brand wants to represent.”

“This is actually the future of marketing - people will catch up eventually.”

BBC Verify approached Vogue and Guess for comment.

Merlyn Thomas
BBC Verify senior reporter

Israeli army radio is reporting that foreign countries could carry out airdrops to Gaza in the coming days. The Times of Israel says that Jordan and the UAE will conduct this latest round of airdrops, though the BBC has not confirmed this.

BBC Verify has previously investigated air drops in 2024 which reportedly killed civilians on the ground. The Hamas-run health ministry said several people were killed in one aid drop incident in northern Gaza.

Footage of the incident in March 2024 - which we geolocated to near al-Shati camp in the north of the Strip - showed aid dropping from a plane. In the clip, a large group of parachutes with parcels attached could be seen falling from the sky.

However, one parachute failed to open correctly and other boxes fell quickly when their parachutes appeared to become twisted, plummeting to the ground and landing with impact.

As is often the case with aid drops, people to run towards the delivery - which creates crowded and dangerous situations leaving people to fight over food.

Back then, aid agencies already warned of their deadliness and inefficiency in delivery. The International Crisis Group's UN director, Richard Gowan, external, said: "Humanitarian workers always complain that airdrops are good photo opportunities but a lousy way to deliver aid".

Image source, @ismail_gh2

Matt Murphy
BBC Verify senior journalist

Image source, Getty Images

Turning back to the tense exchange on the Today programme between presenter Nick Robinson and Israeli government spokesperson David Mencer.

Mencer said that the US and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) had distributed "millions" of meals during a heated discussion about the humanitarian situation in the Strip.

On Thursday night, the GHF said it had distributed 91 million meals to Gazans since it started operations on 27 May, but that means it is behind on its stated goal of providing 300 million meals to Palestinians during its first 90 days of operations.

Meanwhile, a BBC Verify analysis of GHF figures suggests that the pace of distribution fell in recent weeks from a high of more than 50,000 boxes in mid-June. While the number of boxes delivered has risen in the past few days, it is yet to hit that high-point again.

Mencer said the new GHF delivery system was necessary to "cut Hamas out" of aid distribution operations. Israel has accused Hamas of stealing aid.

Lucy Gilder
BBC Verify journalist

Image source, Reuters

The pair has frequently clashed since Trump returned to office, with persistent speculation that Trump wants to fire Powell over his refusal to slash interest rates.

Speaking to reporters, Trump claimed that renovation costs had grown to $3.1bn, which Powell disputed.

After handing him a document purporting to show the increased costs, Powell said: "You’re including the Martin renovation. You just added in a third building.”

I’ve been looking into the details behind the dispute, which centres on a decade-long project to renovate two 1930s buildings at the Federal Reserve headquarters. The renovation is expected to be completed in 2027, at a cost of about $2.5bn (£1.9bn) according to the latest budget, external.

The Federal Reserve says that several factors have led to increased costs of the project, external, such as higher than expected prices of materials and finding more asbestos than previously thought in some of the buildings.

The “third building" mentioned in the exchange is the Martin building, which the Federal Reserve’s website says reopened in 2021, external. Its budget was about $538m (£401m).

Lucy Gilder
BBC Verify journalist

Image source, Getty Images

Turning away from Gaza momentarily, President Donald Trump will arrive in Scotland later today to visit two of his golf courses.

During the trip he’ll meet Keir Starmer and is expected to discuss trade and the terms of the tariffs deal negotiated between the UK and US in May.

Ahead of these discussions, I’ve been looking at new estimates published this morning, external on the value of UK-US trade.

They show that the UK exported about £16bn in goods to the US in the first three months of this year, an increase from the previous quarter when about £14.1bn was exported.

The UK exported about £34bn in services over the same period, down from the £37bn in services exported the previous quarter.

Last year as a whole, the UK exported £59bn of goods to the US, external in value terms and £137bn in services.

Machinery and transport equipment made up nearly half of all goods exported while management consulting and public relations services made up much of the services exports.

Merlyn Thomas
BBC Verify senior reporter

Image source, Getty Images

When we're trying to better understand what's happening on the ground in Gaza, we pull together as many sources of information as possible to piece the story together.

As well as speaking to Cogat, the Israeli body that coordinates co-ordinates aid inside Gaza, I've been speaking to humanitarian organisations to find out what's happening to their supplies.

One official with a major aid agency - who spoke to BBC Verify on background, meaning that we agreed not to reveal their identity - said there were a number of agreements that the Israeli authorities had promised to fulfil in June.

However, they told us that Israel has so far failed to meet the agreements. They included:

• Increasing the minimum number of trucks allowed
• Faster clearances and permissions for aid trucks to move
• Creating more border crossing points
• No armed forces near near humanitarian convoy routes
• Ensuring safer routes

We reached out to both the IDF and Cogat about this but neither commented.

Merlyn Thomas
BBC Verify senior reporter

An Israeli government spokesperson has been speaking to BBC Radio 4's Today programme this morning about the aid situation in Gaza.

In an at times heated interview with host Nick Robinson, David Mencer said: "There are one thousand trucks of aid waiting on the Gazan side" and blamed the aid agencies for failing to pick it up.

Mencer was echoing a claim made by the Israeli military earlier this week, when they posted drone footage purportedly showing dozens of parked lorries “currently waiting in Gaza” to be picked up by aid agencies.But this doesn't tell the full story.

Humanitarian agencies say that even when aid trucks are allowed inside Gaza, they can't move without permission by Israeli authorities, because they need to use routes agreed by the IDF for safety. They say the IDF has been reluctant to grant those permissions.

An analysis of UN figures by BBC Verify - illustrated below - found that Israeli officials have frequently denied permissions for aid lorries to move beyond those border crossings since May.

Lucy Gilder
BBC Verify journalist

Image source, Getty Images

President Emmanuel Macron announced last night that France will officially recognise a Palestinian state in September, in a move that has angered Israel and the US.

Of the UN’s 193 member states, at least 147 recognise Palestine. More than 80 countries, including nations in the then-Soviet Union like Ukraine and Russia, recognised Palestine in 1988.

Most major Latin American economies, including Brazil, Argentina and Mexico, have all since established relations with Palestine.

Sweden was the first EU member in western Europe to recognise the state of Palestine 2014, and Spain, Ireland, Norway and Slovenia did so a decade later.

But many other powerful Western nations have been reluctant to do so.

France is just the the first of the large industrialised G7 countries to recognise Palestine. Others - including Germany, the UK and Canada - have expressed willingness to do so, but only in the context of a long-term two-state solution and not unilateral recognition.

Resident doctors in England (formerly known as junior doctors), begin their five-day walkout in England today.

They say that pay is at the core of their dispute with the government.

But what has actually happened to their salary over the past 17 years? Our policy and analysis correspondent, Ben Chu, has been taking a look.

Paul Brown
BBC Verify senior journalist

Satellite imagery taken yesterday over Cyprus has offered us our first aerial glimpse of wildfires in the south which killed two people.

In low-resolution imagery provided by Planet, smoke can be seen rising from at least three spots in a mountainous area of the Limassol district.

Planet routinely provides this kind of image quality, which allow us to monitor large-scale incidents like wildfires. While it’s not detailed enough to examine close-up damage or individual structures, it does allow us to monitor broader changes over time. Higher-resolution imagery is also released but not as often.

A spokesman for the fire service posted on X yesterday that there were "no active fronts" in the fire but intense "flare-ups" continued in the area, with inland temperatures forecast to hit 44 degrees.

Photographs from the ground also show burned out buildings and charred land in the affected areas.

The UK Foreign Office has advised tourists due to travel to Limassol or Paphos districts to ensure they have suitable insurance and contact their travel operators for advice.

Image source, Planet Labs

Matt Murphy
BBC Verify senior journalist

Thanks for joining us at BBC Verify Live, its a busy morning here at our London newsroom. Our fact-checkers, verification experts and data journalists are looking at a wide variety of stories.

Authorities in Cyprus continued to fight fires on Thursday which have so far ravaged 100 sq km (40 sq m) of land and killed several people. We’ve been examining the latest satellite imagery from the island.

Last night President Emmanuel Macron announced that France will recognise Palestinian statehood at the UN. We will look at what that means, and how many other countries have already done so.

And our policy and analysis correspondent Ben Chu has been looking at the claims from the British Medical Association (BMA), which has vowed to push ahead with strike action over resident doctors’ pay.