Lucy Gilder
BBC Verify journalist

The live page will be closing soon but before we go here’s a recap of what the team has worked on today.We investigated satellite images appearing to show Israel preparing to launch its widely reported ground offensive into Gaza City.

Following the second US strike on a Venezuelan vessel, we assessed whether there was any evidence that the boat was carrying illegal narcotics after President Trump said the attack had left “big bags of cocaine and fentanyl all over the place”.

We also geolocated social media posts from the front-line region of Zaporizhzhia in Ukraine, where Russian strikes were reported overnight.

Into the evening, our colleagues in Washington DC will be following FBI director Kash Patel's appearance in front of Congress, as well as the likely charging of Charlie Kirk shooting suspect Tyler Robinson.

BBC Verify Live will return tomorrow morning.

Peter Mwai
BBC Verify senior journalist

Image source, Telegram/FastSupport88

We have been looking at dramatic footage posted online by social media accounts affiliated with the Sudanese paramilitary group Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and said to show drone attacks targeting army positions in the western city of el-Fasher, the capital of North Darfur.

The group has laid siege to the city for the past 15 months and it remains the last major Sudanese army stronghold in Darfur.

We have verified the videos by matching the buildings, roads and trees we see to satellite imagery on Google Earth. We have confirmed at least ten strikes, most of them concentrated north west of el-Fasher.

The targets mainly consist of vehicles with men assumed to be soldiers or fighters belonging to armed groups supporting the army, but we also have incidents of men targeted under trees.

One of the videos has been date-stamped 12 September, but it isn’t possible to verify when they were filmed. Both the army and the RSF have been using drones in the conflict, for surveillance and for carrying out attacks.

Sebastian Vandermeersch
BBC Verify

We’ve verified footage showing a Russian kamikaze drone striking a university building in central Kharkiv in broad daylight today.

The video, filmed by a nearby market-vendor, captures the distinctive buzzing of an incoming drone before it slams into the roof of the university, sending debris flying. People can be seen sheltering and running away as the blast goes off.

Officials say four people were hurt in the strike – three women aged 51, 52 and 54, as well as an 89-year-old man. The city’s governor said all of them are receiving treatment and are in stable condition.

The drone was reportedly a Geran-2, the Russian version of the Iranian-developed Shahed drone. We confirmed the location of the footage by matching surrounding buildings with Google Earth and Street View imagery.

Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, lies only about 25km (15 miles) from the Russian border and has faced sustained missile and drone attacks throughout the conflict as its proximity to Russian positions means it can be easily targeted.

Kayleen Devlin & Kevin Nguyen
BBC Verify

We have been looking into reports of individuals being doxxed in the wake of US Vice-President JD Vance’s call to report those who celebrate Charlie Kirk’s death to their employers.

Doxxing is an online term which involves sharing people’s personal details online, usually for the process of attracting negative attention.

There have already been reports of people being fired or suspended for their online activity, as well as some instances of innocent individuals being targeted.

In one case, a Facebook user posted the name and photo of a Wisconsin-based educator, making it appear that she had celebrated Kirk’s killing. The allegations quickly spread to other platforms, with users demanding that her employees dismiss her. Reports suggested that 800 calls were made to her school.

Ryan Fournier, a conservative activist, later said, external that they had received “further information” indicating that the educator was not the one who had made the comments. Local reports suggest the initial comment came from a resident in a different district.

A site launched on Friday called “Expose Charlie’s Murderers” listed dozens of names before going offline. Our archived copy of the site shows some entries which celebrate Kirk’s death, with others condemning the shooting while criticising Kirk and his politics. We scanned the Lumen Database, an archive of legal takedown requests against websites which showed a mass influx of complaints against the site.

The site now appears to have rebranded, and has encouraged people on X to email in more examples. As of two days ago, they claimed to have received more than 63,000 entries.

Benedict Garman
BBC Verify senior journalist

A new satellite image, captured just a few hours ago, gives us the best overview yet of the situation in Gaza City.

This satellite imagery and recently verified videos show that thousands of people have been packing up and fleeing, as we reported yesterday, but it’s also noteworthy that many camps still appear to be densely populated with temporary shelters.

For example, the camps in the below pictures are just off Gamal Abdel Nasser street - one of the major roads through central Gaza City.

They have thinned out since 9 September, in particular the area around the Medina building of the Islamic University which was bombed by Israel on 14 September, but hundreds of tents remain.

While some people may have abandoned their shelters, the scarcity of materials and reported cost of acquiring new tents makes it unlikely most people would leave them.

The BBC’s Gaza correspondent, Rushdi Abualouf, earlier reported a tent for five people sells for about 4,000 shekels (£840). One local journalist told the BBC people heading to Al Mawasi in southern Gaza can expect to pay as much as $1,500 (£1,100).

Sebastian Vandermeersch
BBC Verify

Image source, X

We’ve verified new footage filmed by fighters of Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM), al-Qaeda’s Sahel affiliate, engaged in two separate attacks in Burkina Faso’s north-west, close to the border with Mali.

The villages of Gomboro and Tanagye, 25km apart, were targeted in a string of attacks.

The jihadist group has been involved in a long-running insurgency against the Burkinabe government. The ruling military junta seized power in 2022, vowing to crush the group.

The Gomboro attack reportedly took place on 13 September. Footage shows dozens of fighters arriving on motorcycles and inside a captured military base. Fires are visible inside the compound, and one disabled Burkinabè armoured personnel carrier can be seen.

We confirmed the location by matching buildings to Google Earth, while Planet satellite imagery from 15 September shows a fresh burn scar consistent with the video.

Footage from Tanagye was shared online by the group on 14 September. It shows jihadists firing their weapons, including a motorcycle-mounted heavy machine gun and moving freely through the village once resistance appears to have collapsed, passing several burning buildings in Tanagye’s marketplace. We geolocated this video by matching a radio mast to Google Earth satellite imagery.

It is not clear from the footage whether soldiers or civilians were killed in either of the attacks.

Despite Burkina Faso’s junta pledging to crush the insurgency after seizing power, large swathes of the country remain outside government control, with both al-Qaeda and Islamic State affiliates active.

Marc Cieslak
AI correspondent

Image source, Getty Images

Google is going to invest £5bn in the UK over the next two years. The tech giant said the investment will enable continued research and development as well as supporting Google DeepMind, the company’s principal AI research division, which is based the UK.

The move might seem big, but so are the environmental concerns. Campaigners point to worries around carbon emissions, the energy demands of massive data centres and ultimately their effect on the environment.

Google says it has signed a deal with Shell to supply "95% carbon-free energy" for its UK investments. Meanwhile, musicians like Sir Elton John, Sir Paul McCartney and Kate Bush have signed a letter from creative organisations demanding the government recognise creators copyright under human rights laws.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves, who is opening Google’s new data-centre in Hertfordshire today, called the move a “vote of confidence” in Britain’s economy. It comes at a time when good news stories are in short supply for the government, with the Chancellor under pressure to drive growth. Google’s own estimates suggest this investment will help create just over 8,000 jobs annually in UK businesses, but crucially it hasn’t yet said what those jobs might be.

The announcement is one of a number of US investments timed to coincide with President Trump's state visit, during which OpenAI and Nvidia are also expected to unveil multi-billion-pound UK investments. The promise of intense AI investment via US big tech might support the “special relationship” with the US, but the Labour government still needs to make good on its promise to develop significant home grown sovereign AI efforts.

Lucy Gilder
BBC Verify journalist

Image source, Getty Images

Speaking about the second strike on an alleged Venezuelan drug vessel in the Oval Office on Monday, President Donald Trump indicated that the US had evidence that the boats belonged to what he called “narco-terrorist” groups.

The president told reporters: "All you have to do is look at the cargo - it was spattered all over the ocean - big bags of cocaine and fentanyl all over the place," he said. "We recorded them. It was very careful, because we know you people would be after us. We're very careful.”

The administration has not published any material which shows this alleged cargo.

President Trump posted a short video on his Truth Social platform, external purporting to show the moment of the attack on the boat. But when we analysed the video the footage is too grainy to make out any cargo floating around the wreckage.

A 2025 report by the US Drug Enforcement Agency, external , external(DEA), external said that members of Tren de Aragua - the Venezuelan gang Trump has blamed for bringing illegal drugs into the US - “conduct small-scale drug trafficking activities such as the distribution of tusi” (also known as “pink cocaine”).

The report also found that the vast majority (84%) of cocaine samples seized in the US last year came from Colombia. It observed that Mexico-based cartels often traffic the drug into the country.

BBC Verify has previously looked at how fentanyl is trafficked into the US. Our research found that the chemicals used to make fentanyl are sourced from China and turned into the finished product in labs in Mexico, before being smuggled by Mexican criminal organisations into the US.

Lucy Gilder
BBC Verify journalist

Image source, Donald Trump/Truth Social

US President Donald Trump says the US has carried out a fresh strike on a Venezuelan vessel - the second such attack in as many weeks.

Trump said three men were killed in the strike, though the White House has yet to provide robust evidence that either of the vessels targeted were carrying drugs.

When the first strike happened earlier in September, BBC Verify contacted a range of international and maritime law experts, with several saying that US may have acted illegally in attacking that first vessel.

One relevant law here is the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. Although the US is not a signatory to this convention, the US military's legal advisors have previously said that the US should, external , external"act, external in a manner consistent with its provisions", external.

Under the convention, countries agree not to interfere with vessels operating in international waters. There are limited exceptions to this which allow a state to seize a ship, such as a "hot pursuit" where a vessel is chased from a country's waters into the high seas.

But Prof Luke Moffett of Queens University Belfast told us that any such moves must be "reasonable and necessary in self-defence where there is immediate threat of serious injury or loss of life to enforcement officials", noting that the US moves were likely "unlawful under the law of the sea".

We also examined whether the strikes were legal under international law.

Notre Dame Law School Professor Mary Ellen O'Connell told BBC Verify that the strike "violated fundamental principles of international law", adding: "Intentional killing outside armed conflict hostilities is unlawful unless it is to save a life immediately."

You can read the article in full here.

Sherie Ryder
BBC Verify journalist

We’ve been looking at some posts on social media overnight from Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, the front-line region where it’s been reported that Russian strikes hit several areas.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky posted images on X showing emergency services putting out fires. He said that 13 people had been wounded, including two children.

Close up night-time images are often tricky for us to verify, especially when buildings are burning, but daytime aftermath footage helps us to piece things together.

This morning, footage from a residential area revealed a missile had landed, causing windows to shatter on an adjacent block of flats.

As the person recording panned around, we were able to pinpoint residential blocks in Komunarskyi in Zaporizhzhia city by looking at satellite images on Google Maps.

On closer inspection, we could see that some of the blocks were joined by distinctive panelling, which we could also cross-reference using Yandex, another search tool. In addition, a low wall, about waist height was visible in the middle of the blocks, and the balconies matched up with StreetView. This helped us to find the exact location.

Finally, we carried out ‘reverse image searches’ by checking a few freeze frames to make sure the footage was from today, and not old.

Image source, X

Sebastian Vandermeersch and Yi Ma
BBC Verify

Image source, X

We’ve been looking into reports of Russian strikes across Ukraine this morning. So far we have verified footage showing a large logistics hub on fire after a Russian strike about 30km south-west of the capital Kyiv this morning.

Epicenter - a major retail chain in Ukraine - says the facility covers 138,000 square metres, processes more than 3,000 tonnes of cargo daily and can support collections by more than 300 vehicles per day.

According to Ukraine’s State Emergency Service, the site was reportedly hit with a Shahed drone. No casualties were reported, but officials say Russian forces struck again as rescuers tried to extinguish the blaze, damaging two firefighting vehicles.

Videos circulating online showed a huge plume of smoke and flames engulfing the site. We confirmed the location by matching the layout of the complex to satellite imagery, and cross-checked it with promotional drone footage posted on Youtube by Epicenter, the company that owns the hub.

Anthony Reuben
BBC Verify senior journalist

Image source, Getty Images

Under the triple lock rules, it’s likely that people drawing the new UK state pension will see an increase of 4.7%, which is more than £500 a year, from April.

The triple lock guarantees that the state pension rises each year by whichever is highest: inflation, average earnings growth, or 2.5%. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) announced this morning that average earnings grew 4.7% between April and July and that will probably be the figure used.

But there has been growing concern over the triple lock, with the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) think tank recently , externalcriticising it , externalfor increasing pensions “in an unpredictable way”. The organisation said spending on the state pension could be expected to be anywhere from £5bn to £40bn higher per year in 2050.

In July, the government's official forecaster the Office for Budget Responsibility said the cost of the triple lock was set to be three times higher by the end of the decade than was originally anticipated when the Conservative government introduced it in 2011.

The government is expected to spend, external £145.6bn on the state pension this year, which is about 11% of total government spending.

New satellite images of Gaza City appear to provide the clearest evidence yet that Israel is launching its widely reported ground offensive into Gaza City.

Imagery captured on Monday morning showed a significant troops presence in the north of the strip’s largest city, next to the central Sheikh Radwan Pool area.

The satellite photo, taken just after 08:30 local time (06:30 BST), reveals about 40 armoured vehicles parked among the ruins of dozens of buildings destroyed in recent days. Smoke could also be seen rising from a building and a road nearby.

A convoy of nine vehicles could also be seen to the south of the city on Salah al Din road near the Netzarim Corridor, where there were a large number of military vehicles parked in staging areas surrounded by berms - makeshift fortifications made of sand or earth.

These vehicles were not visible at this location in other recent satellite images, though it should be noted that while this image was captured in the morning, previous images were captured in the early afternoon.

The imagery also showed a dense line of traffic running 3.3 km (2 miles) out of Gaza City along the coastal road, Al Rashid. People have been evacuating along this route for days now trying to escape Israel’s attacks.

Paul Brown
BBC Verify senior journalist

Image source, Getty Images

This morning we're looking into reports of a series of overnight strikes across Gaza City amid claims that the planned Israeli ground operation on the city has begun.

Palestinian social media channels have reported strikes in multiple locations, alongside footage of dead and injured people in hospitals. As yet there are very few clips from the scene of strikes themselves, but we are working through what is available to try to build a picture of what has happened.

Some images taken from Israel have captured major explosions in the Strip's largest city this morning.

Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz has today said "Gaza is on fire" and we've already seen an exodus of people from the city along routes designated by the IDF for evacuation.

We'll continue to bring updates on our page, and via the BBC News Channel.

Matt Murphy
BBC Verify senior journalist

Good morning,

We're working to verify footage emerging from Ukraine this morning, where images appear to show fresh strikes on the capital Kyiv and in the Zaporizhzhia region.

Our verification team are also looking at lots of footage and satellite images emerging from Gaza over the past 24 hours, which appear to show Israeli armoured vehicles entering Gaza City and huge numbers of people fleeing the Strip's largest city.

And Donald Trump says the US has carried out another strike off the coast of Venezuela on a boat he claimed was carrying drugs bound for America. We will be looking into the legality of such attacks.

You can always get in touch with BBC Verify - and suggest a story we should investigate - by following this link.