Anthony Reuben
BBC Verify senior journalist

That’s almost it from BBC Verify Live where we’ve answered questions on the crowd size at Lady Gaga’s Rio concert and whether a snake led to the courts at Wimbledon being mowed shorter.

We’ve covered verification from Ukraine, Gaza and Mali, as well as looking into the UK government’s pilot project aimed at tackling migrant crossings of the English Channel.

Our US team will be covering President Donald Trump’s visit to Texas where he will tour the area devastated by flash floods that have killed at least 120 people. You can follow it on this live page.

And there’s more from BBC Verify on our section of the BBC News website.

Anthony Reuben
BBC Verify senior journalist

Image source, Reuters

We love hearing from BBC Verify Live readers and two of you have contacted us on the same subject.

David from Morpeth and Mark in Hertford both had questions about something they heard from a commentator while watching the match between Carlos Alcaraz and Jan-Lennard Struff at Wimbledon last Friday.

The commentator claimed the grass at Wimbledon used to be two inches (5cm) long but that it had been shortened in 1949 “because an English tennis player got bitten by a snake”.

That story appears in several places online, but not in Wimbledon’s own write-up, external of the highlights of the 1949 tournament.

I got in touch with the curators of Wimbledon’s museum, which is run by the All England Club, who very kindly reviewed their committee notes and press clippings from the 1940s and could not find any evidence to support the claim.

Richard Irvine-Brown and Jessica Cruz
BBC Verify and BBC News, Sao Paulo

At BBC Verify we’re always keen to hear from you - whether that’s to investigate a story, check a fact or look into a claim.

So, when Andrew in Bristol got in touch to ask us to check how many people could actually have seen US star Lady Gaga on Rio de Janeiro's Copacabana Beach in May, and whether the beach could even hold two million people, we took up the challenge.

In short, we settled on the advised standard of 4.7 people in a square metre and took it from there.

If you have a question for BBC Verify let us know here.

Tamara Kovacevic
BBC Verify senior journalist

Image source, PA Media

Millions of people in several areas of England have been told not to use their hosepipes after water firms warned of limited supplies as the hot weather continues. A ban was imposed today in Yorkshire, parts of North Lincolnshire and Derbyshire and will last until “reservoirs have recharged". Another ban will be imposed by South East Water from 18 July in Kent and Sussex

But are there too few reservoirs for the population?

The last major new reservoir in England was built in 1992 and since then the population has grown by nearly 10 million, external. Experts have also warned about the extra demand on the water system from data centres which use it for their cooling systems.

The government recently announced it will speed up the planning process for two new reservoir projects but they are not expected to be completed for another decade.

Sebastian Vandermeersch
BBC Verify

We’ve verified footage filmed from a drone which shows it striking a target in a Mali’s Timbuktu region where government forces are fighting a separatist insurgency.

The footage, from Mali’s national broadcaster ORTM, shows a missile striking a pickup truck in the village of Zouera. There’s an explosion, then a large plume of thick black smoke, consistent with local reports that a nearby fuel depot was caught by the blast. We cross-referenced this footage with on the ground videos of the aftermath, which show at least one person was killed.

The international aid charity Médecins Sans Frontières, external , external(MSF), external reports, external that four people died in the strike, including three young girls. Five others are being treated for injuries at a local health centre, one of them in serious condition. Local sources say the strike occurred on market day, when the village was more crowded than usual.

Mali’s armed forces have frequently used Turkish-supplied drones in operations against separatist factions and Islamist insurgents, often targeting pickup trucks and local fuel supplies in populated areas.

We verified the footage by carrying out reverse image searches of key screengrabs to confirm it had not previously circulated online. Satellite imagery also shows a fresh burn mark at the location consistent with the time and reported impact site.

Paul Brown and Emma Pengelly
BBC Verify

Image source, Telegram

As medics warn of imminent disaster at Nasser Hospital in the southern Gazan city of Khan Younis we’ve been analysing videos posted online that show the result of nearby military action.

A witness told the BBC that Israeli tanks fired shells and bullets as they moved into an area, which was previously farmland, and several tents belonging to displaced families were set on fire.

In one video filmed in an open area we can see burnt-out structures on a sandy mound. We know from satellite imagery captured by Planet Labs on 9 July that the area has been full of temporary shelters for displaced people.

We confirmed the point of view in the video by matching the arched white structures, roads and terrain visible in the footage to the satellite imagery.

A second verified video was filmed from within Khan Younis cemetery near the hospital. We can see deep tracks cut through the site and some of the headstones in the cemetery are cracked. We confirmed this footage by checking the cemetery boundary, a road and two buildings in the footage against a satellite photo.

A witness told the BBC that Israeli tanks, excavators and bulldozers had advanced from the south of the cemetery on Thursday before reportedly withdrawing on Friday.

You can read more details in this story.

Alison Benjamin
BBC Verify data scientist

President Donald Trump has posted a letter on social media to Canada's Prime Minister Mark Carney saying the US is going to levy a 35% tariff on Canadian imports from 1 August.

Trump has accused Canada in the past of not doing enough to prevent the opioid drug fentanyl from being trafficked across the northern border into the US and has tied extra tariffs on goods to what he said was the “failure” to prevent smuggling.

The latest data from US Customs and Border Protection shows 58lb (26kg) of fentanyl has been seized at the border this fiscal year - which starts in October.

The weight seized has already surpassed the 2024 total, which stood at 43lb (20kg). But the amount seized at the Canadian border is dwarfed by what’s intercepted at the border with Mexico.

More than 8,100lb (3.7 tonnes) of fentanyl has been seized at the south-western border this year.

Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid which has become the main drug responsible for overdose deaths in the US.

Provisional statistics from the US Centers for Disease Control say synthetic opioids were linked to an estimated 48,422 deaths in 2024, down from 76,282 in 2023.

Our colleague Nadine Yousif in Toronto reported on the latest US tariffs threats to Canada here.

BBC Verify’s Kayleen Devlin and Yi Ma reported in more detail about how fentanyl gets into the US here.

Tamara Kovacevic
BBC Verify senior journalist

Speaking on the BBC’s Breakfast and Today programmes this morning, shadow home secretary Chris Philp said the “one in, one out” scheme agreed between the UK and French governments “will only see one in 17 illegal immigrants crossing the Channel getting sent back to France”.

“The other 16 out of 17, that is to say 94%, will get to stay in the UK,” he said.

The scheme - which will initially run as a pilot, external - proposes that for each migrant the UK returns to France, another migrant will be able to come to the UK from France via a new legal route.

Both countries claim it will act as a deterrent to those crossing the English Channel in small boats. It is expected that during the pilot phase around 50 people a week will be transferred - although the government has not confirmed the numbers.

Very little detail is known about the scheme at this stage.

So far this year, 21,117 people have crossed the Channel in small boats. That’s an average of 782 people a week.

If 50 of them were returned per week, that would be just over 6% of that average weekly arrival, or around one in 17, as Philp claimed.

Paul Brown
BBC Verify senior journalist

Image source, Telegram

We’ve verified footage from northern Gaza released overnight that shows the aftermath of a reported strike on a school building which was being used as a shelter by Palestinians in Jabalia.

One clip we’ve seen is filmed from the inside an ambulance as it heads to the scene. We see the injured - including children - being taken away for medical treatment.

The strike was said to have hit the Halima al-Saadiya school in Jabalia and buildings seen lining the ambulance's route helped to confirm the location.

A second clip, taken inside the building, shows the aftermath of the strike. There are no identifiable geographical features in the clip, but one of the victims is clearly seen in both videos - proving they are from the same event.

So far the Israel Defense Forces have not commented on the incident.

Shayan Sardarizadeh
BBC Verify senior journalist

New satellite imagery has revealed damage to a US military base in Qatar after Iran launched a series of ballistic missiles on 23 June.

Iran said the attack on the al-Udeid air base was in retaliation for US strikes on three of its nuclear sites during the 12-day war with Israel - including the attack on the Fordo nuclear enrichment facility with American B-2 stealth bombers.

An analysis of satellite images of the base captured on 23 and 26 June by Planet Labs reveals a scorch mark and visible damage to a white radar dome, as well as an adjacent building.

Image source, Planet Labs

Image source, Planet Labs

The damaged structure appears to be part of a system that “provides secure communication capabilities including voice, video and data services, linking service members in the US Central Command area of responsibility with military leaders around the world”, according to the US Air Force, external.

President Donald Trump described Iran’s retaliatory attack as “very weak”, adding that all but one of the 14 missiles launched had been shot down.

Sherie Ryder
BBC Verify journalist

Our UGC team verified some dramatic footage posted online from the southern French resort town of St Tropez yesterday evening which showed a luxury yacht on fire in the marina.

Looking at posts on X, we were able to pinpoint the name of the yacht – Sea Lady II, which sleeps up to 10 guests.

We confirmed its location using the ship-tracking site Marine Traffic before moving on to working out where the fire footage was filmed from.

We could work out the video-taker‘s location by comparing a shop front and church seen in the footage with comparable buildings on Google Street View. We could then confirm the person who took the video was in St Tropez as they said.

James Elder of the United Nations children’s charity Unicef has told BBC News that “there really has to be an overdue review into Israel’s rules of engagement” in Gaza after an air strike in Deir al-Balah yesterday killed at least 15 people including eight children and two women.

Elder said those killed had been going to “a clinic where Unicef supplies nutritional foods”.

The Israel Defense Forces said it had struck a "Hamas terrorist" and regretted any harm to civilians.

BBC Verify’s Merlyn Thomas has been looking through some of the footage.

Paul Brown
BBC Verify senior journalist

Image source, Telegram

Russian drone strikes on Ukraine's second city Kharkiv overnight have left nine people injured, according to Mayor Igor Terekhov.

The strike resulted in damage to a nearby maternity hospital, although no-one inside is believed to have been injured.

I’ve been reviewing footage of the strike’s aftermath and have geolocated the bulk of the damage to a building around 60m (200ft) from a maternity hospital.

The footage included several identifiable features - the most striking of which was a mural painted in red, gold and green featuring a lion and a depiction of the Jamaican reggae star Bob Marley.

By running screengrabs from the video through an online reverse image search we established that this was a nearby shop.

Google Street View confirmed the location - although the mural had not been painted when the image was captured in 2015.

Image source, Google

Lucy Gilder
BBC Verify journalist

Image source, PA Media

I’ve been looking for more detail about the UK government’s “one in, one out” returns deal with France which was announced by Prime Minister Keir Starmer and President Emmanuel Macron yesterday.

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper was asked on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme earlier about how the government would detain small boat migrants under the agreement. She responded that “we will be detaining people as the pilot is introduced” but did not say whether this would include everyone who arrives or just the migrants the government plans to return to France.

Detention centres are primarily used to hold people who are due to be returned from the UK. In April 2024, a Home Office official told a committee of MPs, external that detention capacity in the UK was approximately 2,500. He added that a “further 1,000 [spaces] are coming online”.

The two detention centres which were supposed to re-open to expand capacity - Campsfield in Oxfordshire and Haslar in Hampshire - were still in development as of June 2025.

Just over 1,800 people were held in detention at the end of March 2025, slightly lower than the number held in March the previous year.

Rob Corp
BBC Verify Live editor

Good morning.

We're working to unpack the UK government's pilot scheme agreed with France that will see Britain return migrants who arrive in small boats back across the English Channel.

Our fact-check team has been listening to the home secretary on BBC Radio 4 this morning talking about the plan and will report here about what she's said.

We're also working to verify footage posted online showing an apparent Russian drone strike that's damaged a hospital in the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv following another night of air attacks across the country.

And we're monitoring social media for the latest verifiable information from Gaza where more than 60 people were reportedly killed yesterday by the Israeli military - eight of the victims were children queuing in front of a health clinic.