President Donald Trump says the US has carried out a “successful” bombing attack on three nuclear sites in Iran and said they have been “obliterated”.

Israel says they were in “full co-ordination” with the US in planning the strikes. Iranian officials have confirmed the facilities were struck but denied it had suffered a major blow.

The strikes mark a significant escalation in the ongoing war between Iran and Israel.

Here’s what we know.

US Gen Dan Caine, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, said Operation Midnight Hammer involved 125 US military aircraft including seven B-2 stealth bombers.

One of the targets was Fordo – a uranium enrichment plant hidden in a remote mountainside that is vital to Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

The US said it also hit two other nuclear sites – at Natanz and Isfahan.

Caine said initial assessments indicate all three Iranian nuclear sites “sustained extreme damage and destruction”.

Hidden away in a mountainside south of Tehran, Fordo is believed to be deeper underground than the Channel Tunnel connecting the UK and France.

Due to Fordo’s depth below ground only the US has the kind of “bunker buster” bomb big enough to penetrate the site – the GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP).

It weighs 13,000kg (30,000lb) and is able to drop through about 18m (60ft) of concrete or 61m (200ft) of earth before exploding, according to experts.

Due to the depths of Fordo’s tunnels, the MOP is not guaranteed to be successful, but it is the only bomb that could come close.

Caine confirmed during the Pentagon briefing that between the seven B-2 Spirit bombers 14 MOP bombs were among “75 precision-guided weapons” used in the strikes against Iran.

Gen Caine has said it will take some time to fully assess the extent of the damage caused by the US attack.

“Final battle damage will take some time but an initial battle damage assessment indicates that all three sites sustained extremely severe damage and destruction,” he said.

The Iranian Atomic Energy Organization said the bombing of the three nuclear sites was a “barbaric violation” of international law.

Both Saudi Arabia and the UN’s nuclear watchdog the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) say there has been no increase in radiation levels after the attack.

The deputy political director of Iran’s state broadcaster, Hassan Abedini, said Iran had evacuated these three nuclear sites a “while ago”. Appearing on state-run TV, he said Iran “didn’t suffer a major blow because the materials had already been taken out”.

Within the hours of the US bombing, Iran launched a fresh barrage of missiles which hit parts of Tel Aviv and Haifa. At least 86 people were injured, officials said.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi condemned the US strike and said Tehran reserved the right to respond. He said Trump had “betrayed” Americans who had been promised an end to US involvement in Middle East wars.

BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner says Iran must now choose between three strategic courses of action in response to the US attack overnight:

• Do nothing. This could spare it from further US attacks. It could even choose the diplomatic route and re-join negotiations with the US. But doing nothing makes the Iranian regime look weak, especially after all its warnings of dire repercussions if the US did attack. It may decide the risk of weakening its grip on its population outweighs the cost of further US attacks
• Retaliate hard and fast. Iran still has a substantial arsenal of ballistic missiles after manufacturing and hiding these away for years. It has a target list of around 20 US bases to choose from in the broader Middle East. It could also launch “swarm attacks” on US Navy warships using drones and fast torpedo boats
• Retaliate later at a time of its own choosing. This would mean waiting until the current tension has subsided and launching a surprise attack when US bases were no longer on maximum alert

Posting on his Truth Social platform at 19:50 local time (00:50 BST), Trump confirmed the strikes on Fordo, Natanz, and Esfahan.

Just over two hours later and flanked by Vice President JD Vance, Defence Secretary Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Trump made a televised address.

He said that future attacks would be “far greater” unless Iran reached a diplomatic solution.

“Remember, there are many targets left,” he said.

Several members of Trump’s Republican Party have posted statements in support of the move including Texas Senator Ted Cruz who “commended” the president.

Not every Republican was as supportive with leading Trump backer Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene saying “this is not our fight”.

Leading US Democrat Hakeem Jeffries said Trump risked US “entanglement in a potentially disastrous war in the Middle East”, while others have accused him of bypassing Congress to launch a new war.

Independent Senator Bernie Sanders described the US strikes as “grossly unconstitutional” as the president does not have the sole power to formally declare war on another country. Only Congress – lawmakers elected in the House of Representatives and the Senate – can.

But the law also states that the president is the commander in chief of the armed forces. That means he can deploy US troops and conduct military operations without a formal declaration of war.

UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said the US took action to “alleviate” what he called the “grave threat” posed by Iran’s nuclear programme. In a statement, he called on Tehran to agree to talks and reach a diplomatic solution.

UN secretary general Antonio Guterres said the US air strikes were a dangerous escalation; while European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas urged all sides to step back and return to the negotiating table.

Saudi Arabia has voiced “great concern” while Oman condemned the strikes and called for de-escalation.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he had spoken to Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and called for “dialogue and diplomacy as the way forward”.

Russian politician Dmitry Medvedev, an ally of President Vladimir Putin, said: “Trump, who came in as a peacemaker president, has started a new war for the US. With this kind of success, Trump won’t win the Nobel Peace Prize”.

Israel launched a surprise attack on dozens of Iranian nuclear and military targets on 13 June. It said its ambition was to dismantle its nuclear programme, which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said would soon be able to produce a nuclear bomb.

Iran insists its nuclear ambitions are peaceful. In retaliation, Tehran launched hundreds of rockets and drones at Israel. The two countries have continued exchanging strikes since, in an air war which has now lasted more than a week.

Trump has long said that he is opposed to Iran possessing a nuclear weapon. Israel is widely believed to have them, although it neither confirms nor denies this.

In March, US national intelligence director Tulsi Gabbard said that while Iran had increased its uranium stockpile to unprecedented levels, it was not building a nuclear weapon – an assessment that Trump recently said was “wrong”.

On the campaign trail, Trump had criticised past US administrations for engaging in “stupid endless wars” in the Middle East, and he vowed to keep America out of foreign conflicts.

The US and Iran were in nuclear talks at the time of Israel’s surprise attack. Only two days ago, Trump said he would give Iran two weeks to enter into substantial negotiations before striking – but that timeline turned out to be much shorter.

Sir Keir Starmer has warned of a “risk of escalation” to the Middle East and beyond the region, as he calls for a return to the negotiating table after the US bombed Iranian nuclear sites overnight.

The prime minister said he wanted to “reassure the British public that we’re doing everything we can to stabilise the situation” and find a diplomatic solution after the US bombed three sites.

He added the government had “taken all necessary measures” to protect UK interests in the region but his focus was on de-escalation.

Sir Keir said there was no UK involvement in the US action but he was told about it in advance.

He will later chair an emergency Cobra response meeting.

The US said it had carried out strikes on three nuclear facilities in Iran: Natanz, Isfahan and Fordo on Saturday night.

US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said the strikes “devastated the Iranian nuclear programme”.

Iran’s foreign minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi called the US strikes “outrageous” and said they would have “everlasting consequences”.

Speaking at his Chequers country retreat, Sir Keir said escalation was a risk to the Middle East and “beyond the region”, adding “that’s why all our focus has been on de-escalating, getting people back around to negotiate”.

He said the UK had been “clear Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon”, adding stability in the region was the priority.

Appearing on the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds stopped short of welcoming the strikes.

He said: “I wanted a different way to obtain this but I cannot pretend to you that prevention of Iran having a nuclear weapon is anything other than in the interests of the UK.”

Although the UK had “wanted” a peaceful de-escalation of tensions, Reynolds added: “Iran didn’t listen to the diplomatic calls for a peaceful solution. That was a mistake.”

Pressed on whether there was a parallel with the Iraq war and if there was any legal advice on attacks, Reynolds said: “This is very different to what we saw with the invasion of Iraq.”

The prime minister said the UK had been “moving assets to the region to make sure we’re in a position to protect our own interests, our personnel and our assets, and, of course, those of our allies.”

A UK defence source said British military personnel in the Middle East were now on their highest level of alert.

Only a week ago, Sir Keir met US President Donald Trump at the G7 summit in Canada, where he pushed for de-escalation, and had previously said there was “nothing” from the president to suggest he was about to get involved in the conflict.

Iran has claimed its nuclear ambitions are peaceful and recent uranium enrichment to 60% was done as part of a research and development programme.

However, the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) latest report warned that Iran had amassed enough enriched uranium to potentially make nine nuclear bombs, which was “a source of legitimate concern”.

Asked why Iran needed uranium enriched to near weapons-grade, Iran’s ambassador to the UK, Seyed Ali Mousavi, told the BBC: “There’s no intention from our side to go into a military attack”.

He added Iran is considering the “quantity and quality” of its reaction to the US action.

Israeli President Isaac Herzog told Kuenssberg that Iran’s nuclear programme had been hit “substantially” but added that he did not yet know the exact details of what happened as he did not know in advance and was “woken up when it happened”.

Israel has been targeting military sites in Iran in recent days, with Iran returning fire.

Overnight, B-2 stealth bombers moved from a US airbase in Missouri to the Pacific island of Guam ahead of the strikes on Iran.

The UK-US airbase on Diego Garcia, one of the Chagos Islands, was not used.

In a televised address following the strikes, Trump said the US’s overnight operation was a “spectacular military success”, adding that if Iran did not make peace quickly it would face “far greater” attacks.

No increase in off-site radiation has been reported, according to the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) latest update.

UN Secretary General António Guterres said the overnight strikes were a “dangerous escalation”.

Reacting to the US action overnight, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch, said: “By targeting Iran’s nuclear sites, the US has taken decisive action against a regime that fuels global terror and directly threatens the UK.”

Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey said it was now “essential” for the UK to “de-escalate the conflict and achieve that diplomatic solution”.

Starmer has previously urged further negotiations in a bid to de-escalate the conflict.

“The risk of escalation in the region is obvious,” he said at the time.

Foreign Secretary David Lammy travelled to Washington last week to meet Secretary of State Marco Rubio and US special envoy Steve Witkoff.

The foreign secretary said after the meeting: “We discussed how a deal could avoid a deepening conflict. A window now exists within the next two weeks to achieve a diplomatic solution.”

He formed part of a European contingent which met with Iranian officials on Friday.

The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) has advised against all travel to Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories and Iran.

Nato summits tend to be “pre-cooked”, not least to present a united front.

Secretary General Mark Rutte has already settled on the menu for their meeting at The Hague: one that will avoid a row with Nato’s most powerful member, the US.

A commitment to increase defence spending by European allies is the dish that President Donald Trump wants served – and that’s exactly what he’ll be getting. Though there will inevitably be the added ingredients of compromise and fudge.

Nor will the summit be able to paper over the cracks between Trump and many of his European allies on trade, Russia and the escalating conflict in the Middle East.

The US president, whose mantra is America First, is not a huge fan of multinational organisations.

He has been highly critical of Nato too – even questioning its very foundation of collective defence. In Trump’s first term, at his first Nato summit, he berated European allies for not spending enough and owing the US “massive amounts of money”.

On that message he has at least been consistent.

Mark Rutte, who has a good relationship with the US president, has worked hard to give him a win.

The summit takes place at the World Forum in The Hague over two days, on Tuesday and Wednesday next week.

Now the main discussions will last just three hours and the summit statement is being reduced to five paragraphs, reportedly because of the US president’s demands.

Trump is one of 32 leaders from the Western defensive alliance who are coming, along with the heads of more than a dozen partner countries.

Dutch police have mounted their biggest ever security operation for the most expensive Nato summit so far, at a cost of €183.4m (£155m; $210m).

Some have suggested the brevity of the summit is in part to cater to the US president’s attention span and dislike of long meetings. But a shorter summit with fewer subjects discussed will, more importantly, help hide divisions.

Ed Arnold, of the defence think tank Rusi, says Trump likes to be the star of the show and predicts he’ll be able to claim that he’s forced European nations to act.

In truth he’s not the first US president to criticise allies’ defence spending. But he’s had more success than most. Kurt Volker, a former US ambassador to Nato, admits that some European governments do not like the way Trump’s gone about it – demanding that allies spend 5% of their GDP on defence.

Europe still only accounts for 30% of Nato’s total military spending. Volker says many Europeans now admit they that “we needed to do this, even if it’s unfortunate that it took such a kick in the pants”.

Some European nations are already boosting their defence spending to 5% of their GDP. Most are the countries living in close proximity to Russia – such as Poland, Estonia and Lithuania.

It’s not just Trump who’s been piling on the pressure. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is forcing a response.

But in reality many Nato members will struggle to meet the new target. A few haven’t met the goal of 2%, set more than a decade ago.

Rutte’s compromise formula is for allies to increase their core defence spending to 3.5% of GDP, with an additional 1.5% towards defence-related expenditure.

But the definition of defence-related expenditure appears to be so vague that it might be rendered meaningless. Rutte says it could include the cost of industry of infrastructure – building bridges, roads and railways. Ed Arnold, of Rusi, says it’ll inevitably lead to more “creative accounting”.

Even if, as expected, the new spending target is approved, some nations may have little intent of reaching it – by 2032 or 2035. The timescale’s still unclear. Spain’s prime minister has already called it unreasonable and counterproductive. Sir Keir Starmer hasn’t even been able to say when the UK will spend 3% of its GDP of defence. The UK prime minister only said that it was an ambition some time in the next parliament. However, given the UK government’s stated policy of putting Nato at the heart of the UK’s defence policy, Sir Keir will have to back the new plan.

The real danger is to interpret the demand for an increase in defence spending as arbitrary, a symbolic gesture – or just bowing to US pressure. It’s also driven by Nato’s own defence plans on how it would respond to an attack by Russia. Rutte himself has said that Russia could attack a Nato country within five years.

Those defence plans remain secret. But Rutte’s already set out what the Alliance is lacking. In a speech earlier this month he said Nato needed a 400% increase in its air and missile defences: thousands more armoured vehicles and tanks, and millions more artillery shells.

Most member states, including the UK, do not yet meet their Nato capability commitments. It’s why Sweden plans to double the size of its army and Germany is looking to boost its troop numbers by 60,000.

The plans go into granular detail as to how the Alliance will defend its Eastern flank should Russia invade. In a recent speech, the head of the US Army in Europe, General Christopher Donahue, highlighted the need to defend Polish and Lithuanian territory near the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad. He said the Alliance had looked at its existing capabilities and “realised very quickly they are not sufficient”.

Yet, strangely, specific discussions about Russia and the war in Ukraine will be muted. It’s the one big issue that now divides Europe and America. Kurt Volker says, under Trump, the US “does not see Ukrainian security as essential to European security but our European allies do”.

Trump has already shattered Nato’s united front by talking to Putin and withholding military support to Ukraine.

Ed Arnold says contentious issues have been stripped from the summit. Not least to avoid a schism with Trump. Leaders were supposed to discuss a new Russia strategy, but it’s not on the agenda.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has been invited to the summit dinner, but he won’t be taking part in the main discussions of the North Atlantic Council.

Rutte will be hoping that his first summit as secretary general will be short and sweet. But with Trump at odds with most of his allies on Russia, the greatest threat facing the Alliance, there’s no guarantee it’ll go according to plan.

Inside London’s first romance-only bookshop, Sarah Maxwell stands in the “smut hut” – a section dedicated to her store’s more erotic titles.

Surrounded by shelves stacked with brightly coloured paperbacks – with titles including Just For the Summer, Swept Away and The Friendship Fling – young women are milling around, chatting and flicking through books.

Sarah says she wants to challenge the critics of romance fiction – often men – who diminish what she describes as “really high-quality writing” by saying “it’s just smut”.

“A lot of these books have strong world-building, amazing character development and a really good plot,” Sarah says.

A surge in romance and fantasy sales last year pushed UK fiction revenue above £1bn for the first time, according to a report released last week.

As its popularity grows, some readers and industry experts say attitudes towards romance are changing for the better, but others believe sexism keeps the genre from the mainstream.

Romance fiction spans a dizzying range of sub-genres and moods, all centred around heady love stories with a guaranteed happily ever after – or HEA to fans – lending the books a comforting, cosy atmosphere.

Romantasy – a blend of romance and fantasy – has become a reliable fixture on best-seller lists, largely due to the cult-like following it has gained among TikTok’s reading community, BookTok.

Major series like Fourth Wing and A Court of Thorns and Roses see female protagonists enter high-stakes relationships set against magical, fantastic worlds.

Many readers pick what to read based on tropes such as “enemies to lovers” and “second-chance romance”, with books marketed under these banners.

A book’s “spice level” – or how much sex can be found between the covers – is also a major factor, often focused on female pleasure, power and emotional connection.

“I’m into cowboys at the moment,” says Sky, 23 from London – a reference to “cowboy romances”, a growing sub-genre whose books take place in a western setting – often the American frontier.

Sky and another fan, Chantelle, 24 describe themselves as “very proud romance readers”. They trace their love of the genre to reading fanfiction under their desks at school, and now get their recommendations through BookTok.

But Sky and Chantelle admit not everyone reacts positively when they talk about their favourite books.

“Some people do turn their nose up, roll their eyes sometimes,” says Chantelle, “but I just don’t really care”.

Caroline, 29, admits she “sneered a bit” at romance in her early twenties.

“I used to read romances when I was a teenager,” she recalls, “but I got away from it and started reading stuff I thought was really smart.”

Then last year, Caroline picked up Emily Henry’s bestseller Book Lovers – an “enemies to lovers” story about a literary agent and a book editor, set in a picturesque small town.

“I realised I hadn’t consumed something guilt-free in my reading for a really long time,” Caroline says, “and it was just really fun”.

She’s since devoured the entire series of A Court of Thorns and Roses, a stalwart of bestseller lists and many readers’ first taste of romantasy.

“It’s nice to feel all the feelings with something that’s just going to really entertain you,” Caroline says.

Victoria, 31, has long read both romance and fantasy for much-needed escapism: “Sometimes I think we all need a little bit of a happily ever after in life.”

She says “chick-lit” stigma is still strong, but thinks attitudes are starting to change as people speak openly about their love of the genre online.

“We’re talking about it in a different way,” Victoria says. “Guilty pleasures? Do I need to feel guilty for loving something?”

Both romance and fantasy saw record sales last year, according to data gathered from more than 7,000 UK booksellers.

Romance & Sagas, as they are officially categorised, increased from £62m in 2023 to £69m in 2024, while Science Fiction & Fantasy saw an even bigger bump – from £59m to £83m.

Both categories have seen these numbers skyrocket since the pandemic, growing year-on-year – back in 2019, romance’s sales sat at £24m, and fantasy at £29m.

Women under 35 years old make up more than half of romantasy purchases, figures show.

Literary agent Rebeka Finch, 28, says the “voracious” appetite among this demographic, largely driven by BookTok, reflects broader consumer habits.

She likens romance readers to Swifties – Taylor Swift fans – known for owning multiple copies of the same album and wanting to feel a tangible connection to their favourite artist.

“They are the people that are so obsessive about books that they will buy a Kindle edition, they will have a hard back edition, they will have a paperback edition.

“They will have so many different volumes of the same book because they love it so much.”

Bookshop owner Sarah Maxwell says the demographic gave her the confidence to open Saucy Books in the middle of a high street downturn that has seen many independent bookshops suffer.

“People have this perception that’s it’s not good business,” Sarah says, but the community is “strong” and the authors prolific, providing plenty of stock.

“Millennial women have the most disposable income,” she adds. “Romance is serious business.”

Despite this commercial growth, Rebeka says broader attitudes remain derisive – particularly when it comes to “spicy” titles.

“‘That’s fairy porn’ – the amount of times that I have heard that!” Rebeka exclaims.

“Part of me wants to be like, ‘So what?’ This industry has been made for the male gaze for so long.

“It’s such a small percentage of the book and actually… it’s largely portraying fairly healthy sexual relationships.”

Within the publishing industry, attitudes are changing but mainly for commercial reasons, according to Katie Fraser, who writes for publishing magazine, The Bookseller.

Romance has been a “maligned genre” within the industry that “some people just didn’t want to be associated with,” she says. But as romance readers become an “economic force,” publishers have had to take it more seriously and invest.

“Publishing is an industry, so that’s what it ultimately boils down to,” Katie says.

Author Bea Fitzgerald, 28, says she benefitted from this commercial shift, selling her young adult fantasy rom-com Girl Goddess Queen at the peak of the romance boom.

“That sort of space opening up is what allowed me to move into the market,” she says.

Bea previously worked in publishing, and recalls seeing “a lot of books that could have been published as romance [instead] published in other literary genres because they think that it will not appeal to a certain type of audience”.

The genre is nothing new, she quips, having long been “championed” by publishers such as Mills & Boon. The difference now is that young people “like things really unapologetically”.

“They won’t just read a romance, they’ll go shout about it online, and then they’ll go to a romance convention, and they’ll talk to their friends about it.”

While the community has grown, Bea thinks critical appraisal of the genre is still lacking.

“Do we see broadsheets reviewing romance books? No. And they are just as important, literary books.”

Bea believes this is both because “the good majority” of the readers are women, and simply because the stories are happy.

“It goes in line with this sort of academic elitism that for something to be serious, it has to be a Shakespearean tragedy,” she says. “Whereas if it’s happy, it’s not serious, it hasn’t got literary merit. It obviously does – of course it does.”

A wave of disinformation has been unleashed online since Israel began strikes on Iran last week, with dozens of posts reviewed by BBC Verify seeking to amplify the effectiveness of Tehran’s response.

Our analysis found a number of videos – created using artificial intelligence – boasting of Iran’s military capabilities, alongside fake clips showing the aftermath of strikes on Israeli targets. The three most viewed fake videos BBC Verify found have collectively amassed over 100 million views across multiple platforms.

Pro-Israeli accounts have also shared disinformation online, mainly by recirculating old clips of protests and gatherings in Iran, falsely claiming that they show mounting dissent against the government and support among Iranians for Israel’s military campaign.

Israel launched strikes in Iran on 13 June, leading to several rounds of Iranian missile and drone attacks on Israel.

One organisation that analyses open-source imagery described the volume of disinformation online as “astonishing” and accused some “engagement farmers” of seeking to profit from the conflict by sharing misleading content designed to attract attention online.

“We are seeing everything from unrelated footage from Pakistan, to recycled videos from the October 2024 strikes—some of which have amassed over 20 million views—as well as game clips and AI-generated content being passed off as real events,” Geoconfirmed, the online verification group, wrote on X.

Certain accounts have become “super-spreaders” of disinformation, being rewarded with significant growth in their follower count. One pro-Iranian account with no obvious ties to authorities in Tehran – Daily Iran Military – has seen its followers on X grow from just over 700,000 on 13 June to 1.4m by 19 June, a 100% increase in under a week.

It is one many obscure accounts that have appeared in people’s feeds recently. All have blue ticks, are prolific in messaging and have repeatedly posted disinformation. Because some use seemingly official names, some people have assumed they are authentic accounts, but it is unclear who is actually running the profiles.

The torrent of disinformation marked “the first time we’ve seen generative AI be used at scale during a conflict,” Emmanuelle Saliba, Chief Investigative Officer with the analyst group Get Real, told BBC Verify.

Accounts reviewed by BBC Verify frequently shared AI-generated images that appear to be seeking to exaggerate the success of Iran’s response to Israel’s strikes. One image, which has 27m views, depicted dozens of missiles falling on the city of Tel Aviv.

Another video purported to show a missile strike on a building in the Israeli city late at night. Ms Saliba said the clips often depict night-time attacks, making them especially difficult to verify.

AI fakes have also focussed on claims of destruction of Israeli F-35 fighter jets, a state-of-the art US-made plane capable of striking ground and air targets. If the barrage of clips were real Iran would have destroyed 15% of Israel’s fleet of the fighters, Lisa Kaplan, CEO of the Alethea analyst group, told BBC Verify. We have yet to authenticate any footage of F-35s being shot down.

One widely shared post claimed to show a jet damaged after being shot down in the Iranian desert. However, signs of AI manipulation were evident: civilians around the jet were the same size as nearby vehicles, and the sand showed no signs of impact.

Another video with 21.1 million views on TikTok claimed to show an Israeli F-35 being shot down by air defences, but the footage actually came from a flight simulator video game. TikTok removed the footage after being approached by BBC Verify.

Ms Kaplan said that some of the focus on F-35s was being driven by a network of accounts that Alethea has previously linked to Russian influence operations.

She noted that Russian influence operations have recently shifted course from trying to undermine support for the war in Ukraine to sowing doubts about the capability of Western – especially American – weaponry.

“Russia doesn’t really have a response to the F-35. So what it can it do? It can seek to undermine support for it within certain countries,” Ms Kaplan said.

Disinformation is also being spread by well-known accounts that have previously weighed in on the Israel-Gaza war and other conflicts.

Their motivations vary, but experts said some may be attempting to monetise the conflict, with some major social media platforms offering pay-outs to accounts achieving large numbers of views.

By contrast, pro-Israeli posts have largely focussed on suggestions that the Iranian government is facing mounting dissent as the strikes continuer

Among them is a widely shared AI-generated video falsely purporting to show Iranians chant “we love Israel” on the streets of Tehran.

However, in recent days – and as speculation about US strikes on Iranian nuclear sites grows – some accounts have started to post AI-generated images of B-2 bombers over Tehran. The B-2 has attracted close attention since Israel’s strikes on Iran started, because it is the only aircraft capable of effectively carrying out an attack on Iran’s subterranean nuclear sites.

Official sources in Iran and Israel have shared some of the fake images. State media in Tehran has shared fake footage of strikes and an AI-generated image of a downed F-35 jet, while a post shared by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) received a community note on X for using old, unrelated footage of missile barrages.

A lot of the Disinformation reviewed by BBC Verify has been shared on X, with users frequently turning to the platform’s AI chatbot – Grok – to establish posts’ veracity.

However, in some cases Grok insisted that the AI videos were real. One such video showed an endless stream of trucks carrying ballistic missiles emerging from a mountainside complex. Tell-tale signs of AI content included rocks in the video moving of their own accord, Ms Saliba said.

But in response to X users, Grok insisted repeatedly that the video was real and cited reports by media outlets including Newsweek and Reuters. “Check trusted news for clarity,” the chatbot concluded in several messages.

X did not respond to a request from BBC Verify for comment on the Chatbot’s actions.

Many videos have also appeared on TikTok and Instagram. In a statement to BBC Verify, TikTok said it proactively enforces community guidelines “which prohibit inaccurate, misleading, or false content” and that it works with independent fact checkers to “verify misleading content”.

Instagram owner Meta did not respond to a request for comment.

While the motivations of those creating online fakes vary, many are shared by ordinary social media users.

Matthew Facciani, a researcher at the University of Notre Dame, suggested that disinformation can spread more quickly online when people are faced with binary choices, such as those raised by conflict and politics.

“That speaks to the broader social and psychological issue of people wanting to re-share things if it aligns with their political identity, and also just in general, more sensationalist emotional content will spread more quickly online.”

On a cloudy Tuesday in September last year, Gawain Towler, a veteran press chief for Nigel Farage’s various political parties, was working in Reform UK’s central London offices when his phone went calling him into a meeting.

He was being given the sack.

The decision had been made by Zia Yusuf, the then newly-appointed Reform UK chairman with a mandate to professionalise the party.

But although multimillionaire businessman Yusuf was sitting close to Towler in the party’s office, it was delegated to Reform’s chief operations officer to ring him and then deliver the news in an adjoining room.

After 20 years working for Eurosceptic causes, he was given just a few minutes to clear his desk and leave.

“My nose was a bit out of joint for a few hours,” Towler told BBC News. “It was a surprising way of doing it.”

He wasn’t the only Reform employee or supporter who found themselves at odds with Yusuf’s way of doing business during the 38-year-old’s 11 months in charge.

When Yusuf abruptly quit as party chairman earlier this month, Farage acknowledged that the former banker’s “Goldman Sachs-like mentality” meant some people found it difficult to work with him.

“Zia worked very hard but struggled with relationships and people,” wrote Arron Banks, a former Reform mayoral candidate and ally of Farage, in a post on X.

“Quite often businessmen come into politics and they assume that politics works the same way as business and you can work people really hard in business because you’re paying them well,” Towler said.

A lot of those in Reform, however, were volunteers.

Others were veterans of Eurosceptic politics who were used to being left to do their work without having to “constantly” report back to Yusuf.

The now ex-chairman acted with a “brutality that a volunteer organisation which is based on personal relationships sometimes finds difficult,” Towler added.

“And there were a lot of people’s noses [which] were put out of joint. We give up our free time, we do all this and we’re still treated like dirt.

“There was drive and commitment and passion. But there was very little empathy and sympathy and you need that too.”

Yusuf denies this and says that his success as Reform chairman has led to people bearing grudges.

Before he was Reform’s chairman, Yusuf was the co-founder and chief executive of a luxury concierge business offering travel bookings and once-in-a-lifetime experiences to a wealthy elite.

That business, Velocity Black, was sold for a reported $300m (£221m) to a US bank in 2023, giving Yusuf the riches which allowed him to donate a six-figure sum to Reform and work as party chairman on an unpaid basis.

But former employees of Velocity Black speaking to the BBC have said some of the issues – his controlling, sometimes domineering behaviour, a lack of empathy and harsh sackings of staff – had direct echoes of how he behaved running the concierge company.

His abrupt departure – and two days later, return as head of Reform’s council spending-scrutinising ‘Doge’ unit – even had parallels with a break, and swifter-than-expected return, as CEO of Velocity.

At Velocity, concerns included his unpredictable behaviour which meant people “lived in fear”, a complaint from a female ex-employee alleging inappropriate conduct, and a failure to take others into account, epitomised by unhygienic office conditions caused by Yusuf allowing his dog to defecate on the carpet.

Some questioned whether Reform had asked questions about Yusuf’s time running Velocity Black and whether his issues with people could have been foreseen.

“We were all in complete disbelief [that he went into politics],” one ex-employee said.

Like others in this article, they didn’t want to be named publicly because they still work in related industries.

“It is the most absurd thing to see…a person with that history choose to be on the public stage.”

“I was frankly quite shocked,” another said. “How does one make the jump from being a very kind of gauche CEO of a ridiculous concept ultimately to being incredibly high up in a major political party in one of the biggest democracies in the world. That seemed like a major jump.”

With its sale to Capital One in 2023, Velocity Black earned tens of millions of pounds for investors and shareholders and became a glittering success story for its two founders, Yusuf and former school friend Alex Macdonald.

Like many tech start-ups, however, its journey there was rocky at times.

The business started as a mobile payment app, driving diners to restaurants and allowing them to pay the bill from their phones.

Within a couple of years, it had pivoted to offering travel bookings and experiences like swimming with orcas and dining in the Egyptian pyramids.

Some of those who worked with Yusuf saw him as a “visionary” and an “absolute force of nature” who was particularly adept at raising money from investors.

But more than half a dozen former Velocity employees told BBC News that Yusuf was difficult to work for and lacked leadership skills.

They paint a picture of a flawed character who could be extremely demanding, even by the exacting standards of a fledgling tech start-up. As they would be when he was running Reform, firings were frequent and brutal.

“Zia is one of the most challenging people I’ve ever worked for,” one said.

“Everyone was on edge constantly, he was very curt,” a second ex-employee said. “He led from fear.”

“He had zero empathy,” they added. “It was a pretty toxic environment.”

A third employee who worked closely with him said he pushed people “to the absolute limits”.

“People were emotionally and psychologically affected but it wasn’t always the workload, it was the sheer unpredictability of Zia’s behaviour and people lived in fear of him,” they said.

Yusuf would lambast employees in the office and sometimes in front of wealthy members of the business’s concierge service at Velocity Black events.

At least one employee said they never received a formal written employment contract and many left just months after joining the company.

“He doesn’t interact with people in a ‘regular’ way and he doesn’t understand ‘regular’ interaction,” another said.

They pointed to an online review of Velocity as reflective of their own experiences. It states that “at the beginning you truly believe you have joined the next Tesla… It is quite simply the worst company I have ever worked in”.

One employee said Yusuf was an “excellent salesman” who recruited her on a premise which turned out to be far from the reality.

“He courted me [for the role]. Took me out to dinners. It was all very exciting.”

But when she started it wasn’t what she thought she had signed up for.

“It very quickly became apparent the façade, the charismatic salesperson, was no longer there.

“He just seemed very go go go go go and money was no object. He would get angry if things didn’t work out the way he wanted them to work out.”

As he would as Reform chairman, Yusuf worked punishing hours, seemingly to the point of exhaustion.

In 2017, Velocity’s board agreed that he could go on a break and employees weren’t sure if he would return. In the end, he returned a few days later.

One former employee disliked Yusuf’s approach to business so intently he said he didn’t exercise his stock options and had no regrets about doing so, despite missing out on a potentially six-figure profit.

“It left such a bad taste,” they said. “The moral culture, [Zia’s] lack of empathy.

“It showed bad people can win.”

While several former employees were highly critical of Yusuf, others were more positive about their experience of working with him or some of his qualities.

One described him as a “brilliant boss” from whom they had learnt a lot. Another said he was an “absolute powerhouse” who was always respectful.

Several employees who criticised his conduct acknowledged he was a powerful and persuasive speaker who was adept at securing multiple rounds of investment in the business.

Despite his hard taskmaster approach, “likeability was important to him”, one former employee said.

Velocity was a small company where employees told us they were reluctant to raise formal complaints because they feared they would invariably make their way back to the chief executive.

In 2018, a female employee told colleagues she received a series of late night phone calls from Yusuf which she did not answer.

She told them they had made her uncomfortable and she raised them with Yusuf’s co-founder, Macdonald, the next day, asking if she could work from home because of the “Zia issue”.

Macdonald said his co-founder had explained that the phone calls were in error and he had been trying to call someone else. Yusuf said he does not recall this, and that the company ran a 24/7 customer service operation so it was not unusual for employees to be called at night.

In June 2019, several months after her departure, the same woman wrote to Macdonald to complain that Yusuf was repeatedly trying to follow her personal Instagram account, despite her rejecting the request each time.

She said she had already blocked him on the messaging service WhatsApp.

She warned she would take it further if it continued and suggested others had been contacted in the same way.

BBC News has seen messages between employees suggesting that another woman who had recently left Velocity Black said they had experienced similar requests on social media.

Through lawyers, Yusuf said the accusation was false and that he had employed someone to manage his social media accounts during that period.

This man was put in touch with a BBC reporter by Yusuf’s lawyers. He said Yusuf paid him to post content and occasionally follow people through the accounts, all at Yusuf’s direction and with his approval.

He said he was not employed by Velocity Black, didn’t know anyone else at the company, and did the work as a paid hobby.

He said any repeat requests would have been inadvertent and claimed that while Yusuf had retained access to his accounts during this time, he did not use them.

Velocity Black had offices in Mayfair in London and in several American cities.

During the early period after the company’s US launch, Yusuf moved to New York.

He lived in a five-bedroom double-height loft apartment owned by Sir Winston Churchill’s granddaughter.

It cost $8,000 a month, paid for by Velocity Black with the board’s approval.

Reflecting on its grandeur, one former staffer recalled how “this place had columns”. Yusuf said it was also used as an office by Velocity employees.

Several employees said they thought the spending was excessive and a bad look for a cash-strapped start-up trying to build a viable business.

The company spent lavishly on celebrity-studded parties designed to build the brand.

In 2017, it flew several supermodels for a party at a private villa in Mykonos, with other events including a Halloween party at the Mandrake Hotel in London and pool parties in Coachella, California in 2019.

Although one senior source said Yusuf disliked the events and found them very stressful, others thought that being in the same room as stars was important to him.

“He was very enamoured by celebrity, very enamoured by being seen, being the guy, being viewed as cool,” one ex-employee said.

Yusuf liked to dress in designer clothing and owned a number of sports cars including a Porsche and a Ferrari.

For months, these were kept in a car park at Westfield shopping centre in west London, with Yusuf racking up significant fines in the process, staff said; he said he had no recollection of this and denied living a lavish lifestyle.

Employees joining the company were struck by how attractive staff members were, to the extent it appeared to them to be a recruitment strategy, something Yusuf denied.

“Everyone looked like a model but that made sense as a high-end concierge company. It was never written that you had to be ridiculously attractive,” a former staff member said.

Yusuf could be a chaotic boss. He worked long hours meaning at times he was “basically living in the office”.

“The environment was like a playground without any real senior people – fun but without a real structure,” one ex-staffer said.

Yusuf’s actions sometimes betrayed a lack of regard for those around him.

One day in 2018, he bought a husky puppy called Apollo. He would bring it in the office and leave other staff to deal with it, on one occasion leaving it there overnight.

The dog was untrained and would run around the office and defecate on the carpet, with Yusuf seemingly unwilling to pick up the faeces, ex-employees told BBC News.

Some staff members found it so unpleasant they wrote about it on Glassdoor, an online website which allows employees to anonymously review their employers. At least one post on the site about it appears subsequently to have been taken down.

One wrote: “Dog faeces in the office every day, it is unsanitary and smells disgusting.”

Under a section headlined “advice” they wrote: “Ban the dog, get the office cleaned.”

Eventually a small office was turned into a room for dogs, including those other employees were then allowed to bring in.

Yusuf’s own flat near Paddington “smelt of dog poo” according to two sources who visited. They could see dog faeces left on the carpet in the property.

Messages indicate that on one occasion in September 2018 his dog was left in an outdoor space at his London flat for several hours and sounded distressed, raising concern among his neighbours.

Yusuf disputes this and said that his dog was occasionally in the office, but it would be taken outside. He denied that he left it there overnight.

By 2021, Velocity Black was growing fast. That year, it was listed as the 18th fastest growing company in Europe in the Financial Times.

In fact, as BBC News has discovered, this was based on the wrong revenue figures being given to the statistical company compiling the list, meaning it appeared to have grown twice as fast as it actually had.

That company, Statista, said Yusuf had signed off the figures himself and had supplied gross revenue figures rather than the net revenue numbers they had asked for.

When the figures were corrected, the company fell to 32nd in the list.

Yusuf said the process would have been led by the company’s finance team, not him and the revenue figures they had provided were, to the best of their knowledge, correct.

The CEO’s co-founder Macdonald took a step back from the company in 2022, moving to non-executive chairman so he could focus on founding another business. As it turned out, Capital One tabled an offer for Velocity Black two months later and the business was sold in 2023.

Yusuf used some of the money he made from the deal as a springboard into politics, donating to Reform the following year.

Two days after his resignation as chairman last week, he returned to Reform in a new role. He now focuses on leading its ‘Doge’ taskforce – which is modelled on US President Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency, working on policy and making media appearances.

A new chairman, David Bull, has been appointed in his stead.

At a press conference marking the change, Yusuf was self-deprecating.

“What we need now in a chairman is someone who’s an incredible communicator, someone who is loved universally across the party. Loved by the volunteers. Someone who is going to do a better job than me in energising the volunteers on the frontline, he’s going to have more time to do it,” he said.

Laughing, he added: “I think you’ll probably agree he’s a more affable and charming man than I am.”

He said tweets he had sent criticising the party’s only female MP as “stupid” for raising the issue of whether Britain should ban the burka had been misjudged and that he had been “exhausted”.

“There was general relief in the professional and voluntary party when he resigned. However, when he came back with a specific task he was given there was great support as well,” Towler said.

If you have any information on stories you would like to share with the BBC Politics Investigations team, please get in touch at politicsinvestigations@bbc.co.uk

When I call Tony Hardy, it’s a sunny day. As he often does during the summer months, he’s wearing a pair of shorts in the office.

“We wear shorts all the time,” he says.

Tony runs a branding agency in Northumberland, with nine employees. His company, Canny Creative, doesn’t have a dress code. Instead he encourages staff to dress professionally but comfortably – especially because the air conditioning in their office has recently broken.

“Imagine sweating buckets all day and being really uncomfortable and then expecting them to also turn out great work,” Tony says.

With summer upon us, and much of Britain set to be basking in a heatwave this week and next, keeping cool in the office and during the commute can be a challenge. Take one look at TikTok, and you’ll see that the topic of whether or not shorts are ever appropriate for the office remains highly contentious.

And in a 2022 YouGov poll, 66% of Britons said that it was acceptable for men to wear shorts in the office, up from 37% in 2016 – though the 2022 poll was conducted on the UK’s hottest-ever day.

What people wear to the office has “just gone so casual” in the past few years, with more people wearing jeans and trainers to work, says personal stylist Karina Taylor. She attributes that largely to the Covid pandemic, when people could dress much more casually to work from home.

This included people wearing shorts as they worked from their kitchens or home offices, says Carmen Bellot, style editor at Esquire magazine – they no longer had to think about the bottom half of their outfits while on video-call meetings.

But wearing shorts to the office is still “very much a grey area”, Karina says, describing them as “the ultimate casual piece of clothing”.

Stylists agree that whether or not you can wear shorts to the office is overwhelmingly based on context – and they’re often too casual for client-facing roles such as law and finance.

The professionals advise that if your company has no explicit dress code, you should monitor what your colleagues are wearing and decide whether shorts would look out of place.

Otherwise “you may be pushing the boundaries,” warns Nick Hems, a personal stylist in London.

The BBC contacted a range of companies to ask if they had a formal dress code and whether shorts would be acceptable to wear to the office, if styled professionally.

Many companies, including consultancy Accenture and British American Tobacco, told the BBC they don’t have explicit dress codes but expect staff to dress both comfortably and professionally, and to take extra care to dress appropriately when meeting clients or attending events.

Accounting giant PwC says it trusts staff to make “appropriate decisions” about what to wear to work. “We don’t list items that people can and can’t wear,” a spokesperson said.

Santander says both casual and business dress is acceptable for staff who aren’t required to wear a uniform, but noted “anything that could be beachwear isn’t okay for the office”.

So if your company does allow you to wear shorts to the office, what sort of shorts should you go for?

There’s a clear consensus among the experts: keep it formal – ideally tailored – and don’t go too short. Beach, sports, cargo and denim shorts are generally all no-gos.

But this isn’t the case for all companies.

At social media marketing agency We Are Social, some employees have even worn hot pants to work, according to managing director, Lucy Doubleday.

“You can wear what you want,” she says, with the company seeing clothing as an expression of creativity.

It’s a similar story for CEO Tony and his team, who even wear shorts to client meetings, including when they visited London to meet staff at a major bank’s headquarters in Canary Wharf.

“We did get really strange looks,” Tony says. “Everybody there was in suits and it was boiling hot. But we’re a creative agency and we went as we would go to our regular meetings.”

He argues that if another company has a problem with how his staff dress, they probably aren’t the right fit to work together.

Shorts might be perceived differently on men and women, stylists suggest. Carmen says that even outside the office, shorts can be “quite divisive among men,” she says.

“When I speak to men about their opinions on shorts, they tend to say that they don’t feel comfortable wearing them when not on holiday,” Carmen says. “I don’t think there’s this type of sentiment in womenswear.”

Some men embrace the opportunity to get out of long trousers, though – including 46-year-old primary school headteacher, Dave McPartlin.

At his school in Lancashire he spends most of the final weeks of term before the summer holidays wearing shorts.

Dave thinks it’s “ridiculous” people are still discussing whether it’s appropriate to wear shorts for work – and the students don’t treat him any differently based on what he wears, he says. “I don’t think they could care less.”

Diane Brander wears shorts to work sometimes, too. She says her performance in her account administration job “would probably suffer” if she was too hot in the office and unable to wear shorts, and says she finds them more comfortable than skirts and dresses.

So what should you do? Karina’s best advice is to only wear shorts to work if you’re confident about your company’s dress code and how to style them.

“If in doubt, probably avoid,” Karina says, “because it will cause you far too much stress to get the look right and you maybe won’t feel confident about pulling it off.”

Shooting, chasing, exploring – hit video games tend to have themes that set the pulse racing.

One of the world’s most popular new titles, however, is about something considerably more sedate – gardening.

Grow a Garden involves players slowly developing a little patch of virtual land. It’s something that, earlier this month, more than 16m people – many of them children – chose to spend their weekend doing.

That smashed a record for concurrent players set by the somewhat more adrenalin-filled Fortnite.

What is it about this plant-growing simulation that has got so many people hooked – and could it persuade more people into real-life gardens?

Players of Grow a Garden, which features on the online gaming platform, Roblox, do exactly what the title suggests.

When I gave the game a go, I was presented with my own little brown patch of land.

To the sounds of some relaxing music, I bought seeds from the local shop, and watched them as they grew, something that continues even when you are offline.

Once your garden produces a harvest, you can sell your items. You can also steal from the gardens of others.

“It’s a really fun game,” says eight-year-old Eric Watson Teire, from Edinburgh. He and his 10-year-old brother, Owen, are massive fans.

Eric said “a lot” of his friends at school are playing it too.

“We can do competitions with each other – like, who’s got the most Sheckles [the in-game currency], who’s got the best plant.”

They are not the only ones. According to Roblox, the game has had about 9bn visits since it was created in March. It says 35% of the Garden’s players up until now have been aged 13 and under.

It’s fair to say the premise does not appeal to everyone – there are online forums puzzling at the popularity of a game which its detractors say is “the equivalent of watching paint dry.”

Eric says the slowness of the game has an appeal. “There’s a bit of patience to it,” he explains.

Owen told the BBC he enjoyed the competitive element of it – but its virtual produce also caught his attention.

“Could there be a sugar apple – which is the best plant you can get? Or will there be a carrot, which is the worst?”

The gameplay can be sped up if you use Robux, the Roblox currency, which is paid for with real money.

Some players are very willing to do that. On eBay, it is possible to buy some of the most sought-after items – such as a mutated candy blossom tree or a dragonfly – for hundreds of pounds.

US-based Roblox is one of the world’s largest games platforms. In the early months of this year, it had 97.8m daily users.

Its vast empire includes some 40 million user-generated games and experiences, and Roblox is the most popular site in the UK for gamers aged eight to 12.

While many love the platform, there have also been reports of young people being groomed on it and becoming addicted.

Roblox told the BBC earlier this year it was confident in its safety tools, and took the approach that “even one bad incident is one too many”.

If people discover they love virtual gardening, might they be encouraged to take up the real thing?

Andrew K. Przybylski, a professor of human behaviour and technology at the University of Oxford, said it was possible the game could “plant a seed” that could lead to a passion for plants. But, overall, he’s sceptical.

“It is unlikely that a game like this will encourage real world gardening any more than Super Mario Wonder encourages plumbing,” he told the BBC.

Prof Sarah Mills of Loughborough University has carried out research into the experience of young people and gaming. She highlights a key appeal of Grow a Graden is it is free to play, but the in-game currency is important.

“This wider landscape of paid reward systems in digital games can impact children and young people’s experiences of gaming and financial literacy,” she said.

“It can also cause challenges for many families to navigate, changing the nature of pocket money.”

Gardening podcaster and BBC presenter Thordis Fridriksson, meanwhile, is hopeful that any interest in gardening is a good thing.

“Obviously the whole process is pretty different to real life, but it taps into the same thing which makes gardening so addictive, and that’s planting seeds and watching your garden grow.

“Fingers crossed some of the people who love the game will try growing something at home.”

Outside the living room in Edinburgh where they play the game is Owen and Eric’s actual garden, which both boys help in.

“I like gardening – and gardening in Grow a Garden,” says Owen.

But asked which one he prefers, he’s emphatic: “Grow a Garden!”

Hundreds of Lime e-bikes have been dumped in rivers and canals since hire schemes were introduced across England – raising concerns about pollution and flooding.

The Canal and River Trust said it was a national problem and was having to spend thousands of pounds retrieving the bikes from waterways.

The charity said Nottingham was a particular hotspot, with eight or nine Lime bikes pulled from the canal each week.

Lime, the US company that runs the hire scheme in Nottingham and other cities, told the BBC it is working with various authorities to tackle the problem.

According to the Environment Agency, electric bikes pose a pollution risk because the batteries contain substances that can enter a watercourse if they remain submerged in water.

The Canal and River Trust said the number of Lime bikes being dumped nationally “could be into the thousands”.

“Whilst the quantities are a concern, and this is a drain on our resources, it’s worth remembering one bike alone can easily cause thousands of pounds worth of damage to a boat, tens of thousands of pounds of damage to canal infrastructure, and an incalculable value of damage to wildlife,” said Dick Vincent, the charity’s national towpath advisor.

The charity has asked Lime to cover the cost of retrieving the bikes, but an agreement has not been reached.

“If I’m being honest, I would like them to answer their emails and get back to us,” said Mr Vincent.

“They seem to be ignoring this as a problem, and that’s a real shame.”

Toni Robinson, founder of the Little Litter Pickers of Nottingham, said her group had retrieved 23 Lime bikes from just a short stretch of the River Leen, in the Bulwell area of the city.

She said she had written to Lime but the company had not responded to her.

“I would like them to stop them ending up in the river,” said Ms Robinson.

“We’re trying to keep the river clean from pollution and then we’ve got these bikes that are polluting the river more than probably any rubbish we’ve ever found was.”

Ms Robinson is particularly concerned because e-bikes are powered by lithium-ion batteries, and she is worried about substances entering the water.

She believes Lime should have docking bays to keep the bikes locked up unless people pay to ride them.

“I think young people get bored and think ‘I’ll throw it in the river’,” said Ms Robinson.

“It’s just been ongoing. We pick one out and there’s another one in there.”

Ethan Radford, deputy leader of Nottingham City Council, is so concerned he has been putting on waders and entering the River Leen himself to retrieve the Lime bikes.

He said it started happening after the Lime scheme was introduced two years ago, in spring 2023.

“On one particular occasion I think we pulled out about five bikes in one day,” said Radford, who has been helping Ms Robinson’s group.

“There’s obviously the environmental concerns. These things don’t belong in the river. It’s a natural habitat.”

The Environment Agency said it was in the process of setting up a meeting with Lime following “repeated attempts” to do so.

“The disposal of electric bikes or other waste into rivers can cause environmental damage, affect water quality, and harm aquatic life,” a spokesperson said.

“Whilst we have pollution concerns, we primarily remove the Lime bikes from the River Leen in Nottinghamshire and other watercourses in the area such as Nethergate Brook and Ouse Dyke, to prevent blockages and reduce flood risk to local communities.”

The consensus is Lime bikes are being dumped in water by people who steal them, rather than paying customers.

Lime bikes do not need to be physically locked in place at parking locations, which makes it easier to steal them.

The bikes do have a pedal-locking mechanism, but this can be “hacked” so that people can ride them without paying.

Ms Robinson said she had witnessed this herself.

“I know people can ride round with them with the alarm going off, so they can still use the bike without inputting any details,” she said.

“There are often kids going past me on the street and it’s going ‘beep beep’, and they’re riding past as normal.”

In a statement, the city council’s transport team said: “Evidence shows that it is exclusively non-customers who are causing issues, including abandoning bikes or dumping bikes in rivers and canals.”

Radford agreed. “It’s not the people who are using the scheme that are causing the problem,” he said.

“It’s people who come along after that, see a row of bikes, take advantage and do something stupid.”

Radford believes the problem could be resolved if Lime required customers to lock the bikes in bays, as some hire bike operators do.

“There’s nothing stopping you from pushing it around, putting it on the floor, putting it in the road, taking it over to the river, for example, if it’s not locked into place,” he said.

Ms Robinson added: “It would stop them being stolen and polluting our rivers.”

The BBC put this suggestion to Lime, and asked why it does not require customers to lock bikes up.

A spokesperson said: “Lime has operated a mandatory parking scheme in Nottingham since the launch of our e-bike service here two years ago.

“This is enforced by accurate on-vehicle GPS technology and our new mandatory end trip photo process. Users that leave bikes outside of designated parking locations are warned and fined, with repeat offenders banned.”

The Canal and River Trust, which manages waterways in England and Wales, said it was a problem wherever Lime had hire bikes.

Most of the Lime bikes are concentrated around London, but there are also schemes in Greater Manchester, Nottingham and Milton Keynes.

Lime previously ran a hire bike scheme in Derby, but pulled out due to what it described as “persistent issues with vandalism and antisocial behaviour“.

This included bikes being thrown into the River Derwent.

The Environment Agency, which is responsible for managing large rivers in England, said it “regularly” pulled bikes out and took them to designated drop-off points.

Lime says it is “the largest provider of shared electric vehicles in the world”, and it claims to provide a “sustainable” mode of transport by replacing car journeys.

On working with the agency and Canal and River Trust, Lime said: “We have engaged in ongoing conversations with the Environment Agency and Canal and River Trust and are eager to finalise a collaborative plan to address these issues.”

Lime says anyone who sees a submerged bike can report the location, and it will “recover it as soon as possible”.

“We always aim to promptly collect obstructive or misparked bikes reported to us via the ‘report bad parking’ function in our app within a matter of hours,” a Lime spokesperson said.

“To improve our response time, we have significantly increased our on-street team by more than double in Nottingham.”

On pollution and environmental concerns, Lime said the deliberate dumping of bikes was “totally unacceptable”.

“It harms the environment and undermines our mission to create sustainable urban transport,” the spokesperson added.

“We are committed to working with the local community, Environment Agency, and the Canal and River Trust to stop this behaviour.”

Dua Lipa treated fans to a surprise appearance by Jamiroquai, as she played her first ever show at Wembley Stadium.

Bringing out the band’s frontman Jay Kay for a one-off performance of his 1996 hit Virtual Insanity, the star said he was “a massive trailblazer for British music”.

Their performance came half-way through a stunning two-hour show, that saw Lipa tear through hits like Physical, One Kiss, New Rules and Levitating.

”This is such a massive, massive milestone for me,” she told her 70,000 fans. “I’ve had a lump in my throat from the moment this show started.”

Some dedicated fans had camped out since Thursday to see the singer’s UK stadium debut, braving temperatures that exceeded 31C.

“It means the absolute world to me that you’re here tonight,” she told them during the show. “It feels like I’ve waited my whole life for this moment.”

Reflecting on her ascent to the top tier of pop music, the 29-year-old added: ”It’s been 10 years since our first ever London show, which happened to be about 350 people, and I dreamt of a night like this.“

“To be in front of 70,000 people. I’m so, so blown away.”

She then introduced one of her earliest singles, Hotter Than Hell, telling fans it was the track that had earned her a recording contract.

Since then, she has stockpiled an enviable selection of armour-plated hits, most of which got an airing on Friday night.

The show began with a new-agey wash of ocean sounds, that segued seamlessly into her 2024 single, Training Season.

Lipa sang the first verse slowly, over a sultry orchestral backing. But before long, the band kicked into gear, and the disco pulse barely let up for the next two hours.

In many respects, the set played like an extended remix of her triumphant Glastonbury performance last year – full of pin-sharp choreography and fiercely futuristic pop.

Her voice remains a strong point – resonant and flexible, with a hint of the rasp she inherited from her father, Albanian rock singer Dukajin Lipa.

It was particularly effective on the cascading vocal runs of Falling Forever, and the Flamenco-flavoured Maria.

Somehow, Lipa managed not to lose her breath, despite demanding, body-rolling dance routines that only occasionally recalled Jane Fonda’s 1980s keep fit videos. She leaned into the schtick with an interlude instructing her fans to “move those hips” over the intro to Physical.

Jay Kay arrived to a scream of recognition from older members of the audience, suited up in a tasseled white cowboy jacket and pink jeans.

“What a privilege and an honour to be on stage with you,” said the singer, before launching into Virtual Insanity – a song that became a hit when Dua was just one year old.

Between songs, the star spent time getting personal with fans in the front row – borrowing their phones to pose for selfies, signing records (side note: who on earth brings a vinyl record to the front row of a stadium concert?) and even appropriating one person’s scarf to accentuate her own stage outfit.

It was a simple, but personal, touch that helped to illustrate why the star has become only the second British female solo artist after Adele to headline Wembley Stadium.

Watched from the stands by her family, including fiancé Callum Turner, she wrapped up the show with a flawless four-song encore that included some of her biggest hits: New Rules, Don’t Start Now and Dance The Night.

Lipa finished with the psychedelic pop smash Houdini, ratcheting up the tension with a flurry of fireworks as she head-banged to a shredding guitar solo. Then the music suddenly stopped and she vanished in a cloud of smoke.

A powerhouse performance from a star at the top of their game, it was proof that you don’t need giant mechanical props or cutting edge video technology to pull off a compelling stadium show.

Sometimes, the right songs, the right choreography and a generous helping of feel-good energy are enough.

As an added bonus, that keeps the tickets affordable: The most expensive seats cost £155, compared to some stadium shows this summer, where prices have topped £900.

Lipa continues her Radical Optimism tour with a second night at Wembley on Saturday, followed by dates in Liverpool and London before the North American leg kicks off in September.

• Training Season
• End of an Era
• Break My Heart
• One Kiss
• Whatcha Doing
• Levitating
• These Walls
• Hotter Than Hell
• Virtual Insanity (with Jamiroquai)
• Maria
• Physical
• Electricity
• Hallucinate
• Illusion
• Falling Forever
• Happy for You
• Love Again
• Anything For Love
• Be the One

Encore:

• New Rules
• Dance the Night
• Don’t Start Now
• Houdini

King Charles has recorded a warm personal message to researchers in Antarctica celebrating a frozen Midwinter’s Day – the first time a monarch has given the annual broadcast.

Marking the BBC Antarctic Midwinter Broadcast‘s 70th anniversary, which sends a morale-raising message to remote research stations in the depths of their winter, the King praised the work of scientists tracking climate change.

“Each observation, measurement and calculation you undertake adds to the world’s understanding of the Earth’s fragile systems,” the King said.

Alex Rootes, who leads the UK’s Rothera research base, said it was an honour to be recognised for their work “at the cutting edge of science in a really difficult part of the world”.

While much of the UK swelters in the summer heat, Antarctica is celebrating an icy Midwinter’s Day without any sun and with driving snow.

“With the sun shying away from your horizon today, I particularly wanted to send my warmest good wishes,” said the King, who praises the researchers’ “critically important work”.

The King, a longstanding environmental campaigner, spoke of his appreciation for the scientists’ “resilience and commitment” as they tracked changes in the ice in Antarctica, examining the “role humanity plays, as we struggle to live in harmony with nature”.

The broadcast from the BBC World Service is part of the traditional Midwinter celebrations for scientists at these isolated bases.

Previous contributions have included a message from Sir David Attenborough, a quirky song from Bill Bailey – “There’s rock and roll at the South Pole” – and a comedy sketch from the cast of W1A, which claims “they’re actually moving a glacier from one place to another”.

King Charles is the first monarch to be part of this annual broadcast – with a message praising the British Antarctic Survey, which he said was “more vital than ever, telling us stories of the past, the present and possible futures”.

The British Antarctic Survey has described Antarctica as a “barometer of environmental change”, as its researchers extract and analyse ice cores to see changes in climate over hundreds of thousands of years.

Mr Rootes is one of 41 researchers at Rothera who will be listening to the broadcast in Antarctica – a location so remote that it’s a thousand miles to the nearest hospital. Also in this very bespoke audience have been researchers at bases in Bird Island and South Georgia.

Mr Rootes told the BBC it was currently warmer than usual in Antarctica, at -2C, but that it can be tough to cope without any daylight, which makes it even more important to have a community celebration for Midwinter.

“At this time of year when the darkness has really closed in, it’s very easy psychologically for people to withdraw into themselves,” he said.

“It’s a really vital part of our mental health provision that people have something like this, which people really look forward to.”

The traditions for Midwinter Day are something similar to having Christmas in June, including giving presents, a big dinner and watching the same film each year.

The seasonal favourite is The Thing, a 1980s sci-fi horror film about a group of scientists in Antarctica under threat from an unknown presence. Mr Rootes says it’s now part of the ritual of the day.

This is the southern winter solstice, the shortest day in their location, more than 1,000 miles south of the southern tip of South America.

This year, there are plans at the Rothera base for a 10km (6.2 miles) fun run, if the conditions allow. It’s one way of chilling out.

The annual BBC broadcast becomes a connection with home, with messages sent by the researchers’ families and selections of their favourite music.

But Mr Rootes said the King’s message will be an important endorsement of their work, as they measure changes in marine life and the ice linked to climate change.

“It’s lovely to feel like we have the King talking to us and recognising us in this remote community,” he said.

A Scottish schoolgirl’s message in a bottle has finally received a reply more than 30 years later – after being discovered in Norway.

Alaina Beresford, from Portknockie in Moray, sent the message in 1994 when she was 12 as part of a school project.

It washed up across the North Sea where it was found by a volunteer cleaning up a Norwegian island – who then dispatched a postcard to the delighted sender to let her know.

Alaina told BBC Scotland News she could not believe her original letter was in such good condition after three decades.

Her handwritten letter had been sent in an empty bottle of Moray Cup, a fizzy drink produced in the north east of Scotland.

It said: “Dear finder. My name is Alaina Stephen and I am 12 years of age. I come from Portknockie and I am doing a project on water so I decided to send a message in a bottle.

“My teacher’s husband took them and dropped them in the middle of the ocean.

“When you find this message, please write back with your name, hobbies, where you found the message, when, and if you could, a little information about your area. Yours sincerely, Alaina Stephen. PS I come from Scotland.”

Now, 31 years on, Alaina has received a postcard from Pia Brodtmann, telling her the good news, with pictures of the find.

It said: “My name is Pia and I am from Germany. Today I found your message in a bottle on Lisshelløya, a tiny island around Vega in Norway.

“I am here for beach cleaning as a volunteer for four months and today we cleaned Lisshelløya. On the front of the postcard you can see our workboat Nemo and our sailboat Fonn, where we live. You can also see the area around Vega. I wonder when and where your teacher’s husband threw your bottle in the ocean?”

It added: “PS I am 27 years old and I like rock climbing and sailing a lot!”

Alaina, now 42, said she was stunned when she picked up the post and noticed the postcard addressed to herself.

“I’m at the same address,” she said.

“I did live in Buckie, and another house in Portknockie for a while, but moved back in with my parents.

“I couldn’t believe it, as I had sent it when I was 12 years old, 31 years ago.”

Alaina was able to find Pia via social media, and messaged her asking to send a photo of her letter.

“I was shocked when she did, I couldn’t believe how legible it was,” she said.

“I can’t remember actually writing the message, but I do remember it was a Moray Cup bottle, and that my teacher’s husband had dropped it into the sea when he was a fisherman.

“According to my message, I had done it as part of a project on water. It was when I was in P7.”

She added: “Pia and I have been keeping in touch and hopefully we will continue to do so.”

A photo of the Prince of Wales with another generation – this time of puppies – has been posted on social media by Kensington Palace to mark his 43rd birthday.

The picture, taken by the Princess of Wales, shows Prince William with their family’s Cocker spaniel, Orla, and three of her four recently-arrived puppies.

The message for Prince William was signed online “with love”, with the initials of Catherine and their children, George, Charlotte, Louis, and “the puppies”, plus a paw print emoji.

The picture was taken in Windsor earlier this month.

There was also a message online for Prince William from the official account of the Royal Family, saying “Happy Birthday to The Prince of Wales!”, plus some celebratory emojis.

An accompanying picture, of the prince sitting on a stone wall, was taken while he visited farmers and food producers on the Duchy of Cornwall – a parcel of land William now owns – in May.

Orla was given to the royal couple by Catherine’s brother, James Middleton, in 2020, shortly after the death of their previous dog Lupo.

The dog – seen walking behind William in the picture – gave birth to four puppies in May.

Spaniels are well known for their affectionate behaviour and the picture shows the puppies clambering around the prince.

In the puppy picture, the prince looks relaxed in a pair of jeans and trainers – an informal moment after recent showcase occasions, including Trooping the Colour and the Order of the Garter procession.

He also visited a project linked to his Earthshot environmental prize which creates a type of sustainable dye that can reduce the fashion industry’s use of harmful chemicals – so colours can really be green.

Catherine did not appear at Royal Ascot earlier this week, with royal aides saying she had to find a balance in how she returned to public events. In January, the princess revealed she was in remission after her cancer diagnosis last year.

On Friday, she sent out a message about her support for children’s hospices – saying they helped families who were “heartbroken, fearful of the future and often desperately isolated”.

And now her photo has marked her husband’s birthday.

While Prince William was born in mid-summer on the longest day of the year, his father King Charles has been praising those in Antarctica experiencing the shortest day of the year.

He recorded a special message for the BBC’s Antarctic Midwinter Broadcast, which sends a morale-raising message to scientists working in remote research stations in the depths of their winter.

The King praised the work of researchers tracking climate change.