Thomas Copeland
BBC Verify Live journalist

We’ll be closing today’s BBC Verify Live page shortly, so take a few a few moments now to catch up on what we’ve been covering.

As votes are being counted in Bangladesh’s election, our reporter in the capital Dhaka has been tracking the spread of AI-generated videos and false claims across social media. Click here to see what they found.

There’ll be further live coverage of the election on BBC News later as results come in.

Manchester United’s billionaire co-owner Jim Ratcliffe has drawn criticism from Prime Minister Keir Starmer and others over comments suggesting the UK has been "colonised by immigrants".

Ratcliffe has since apologised for “offending some people” but also maintained an "open debate" on the issue is necessary. We’ve looked at his claims about population growth, immigration rates and benefits.

Plus, a massive sinkhole has engulfed a construction site in Shanghai, China. Watch the video we’ve verified in this post.

BBC Verify Live will be back tomorrow.

Aisha Sembhi
BBC Verify Live video journalist

The polls are closed in Bangladesh and votes are now being counted in the first nationwide election since student-led protests ousted then-Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in 2024.

BBC Verify’s Shruti Menon is in the capital Dhaka and has been tracking election-related disinformation, AI fakes and false claims across social media in the country.

Daniel Wainwright
BBC Verify senior data journalist

NHS data released today, external shows the waiting list for elective treatment in England fell by 18,000 in December and stood at 7.29 million at the end of 2025, the lowest since early 2023.

In 2025, more than 18 million waits were marked complete, which is the highest yearly total recorded. However, a record 21 million new patients also joined the list.

So how is the waiting list going down?

BBC Verify’s analysis shows that over the past year, an average of about 255,000 cases a month are removed from the list without showing up in the published data as “complete”. And it’s been the case for many years that thousands of waits are removed like this.

Completed cases include people who get treatment, but also those who decided not to go ahead and patients who have died.

The Nuffield Trust health think tank says there needs to be more transparency around removals from the list, external.

The government has said a large chunk of unreported removals will be people who have already been treated but not come off the list and that a small amount will be cleaning up of data, such as removing people who were on the list twice.

You can see how your local hospital is doing on waiting times with BBC Verify’s NHS tracker.

Tom Edgington and Lucy Gilder
BBC Verify

In his interview with Sky News, Ineos chemicals firm founder Sir Jim Ratcliffe was critical of the UK economy, saying: “You can't have an economy with nine million people on benefits.”

Fi, externalgures from the Department of Work and Pensions, external say about 10 million working-age people in Great Britain claimed a combination of benefits in February 2025.

However, a large of portion of those claimants were working and their incomes were topped up by benefits such as Universal Credit (UC) and housing benefit.

When it comes to people receiving benefits because they were out of work, the figures suggest there were about 6.5 million claimants, not nine million.

However, it is true that the number of people on benefits has increased over recent years.

• BBC Verify has looked into six things Ratcliffe said while speaking to Sky - you can read our full fact-check here

Tom Edgington and Lucy Gilder
BBC Verify

More now on comments made by Ineos founder Jim Ratcliffe while speaking to Sky News.

During a wide-ranging interview, Ratcliffe remarked that “huge levels of migrants are coming in”.

Immigration to the UK has been high compared with previous decades.

But the numbers dropped sharply in Labour’s first year in government, much of which was attributed to restrictions to visas and other measures introduced at the tail end of the previous Conservative administration.

Net migration (the number of immigrants minus the number of people emigrating) to the UK reached record levels after Brexit, peaking at 944,000 in the 12 months to March 2023.

However, the latest figures show that in the 12 months to June 2025, net migration stood at 204,000 - 78% lower than the 2023 peak. Experts believe it could decline further.

Kevin Nguyen and Shayan Sardarizadeh
BBC Verify

Image source, Reuters

Canadian authorities have named 18-year-old Jesse Van Rootselaar as the suspect in a shooting that killed eight people and injured dozens more at a secondary school in the town of Tumbler Ridge in British Columbia, Canada.

Police said Van Rootselaar was found dead at the scene from a self-inflicted gunshot injury and the suspect's mother and step-brother were found dead at a local residence.

Canadian police said yesterday that Van Rootselaar was born a biological male but identified as a female. BBC Verify has been tracking the suspect’s digital footprints using Facebook and Instagram posts and photos shared by relatives.

A Facebook post from the suspect's mother described how Van Rootselaar was interested in guns."He posts about hunting, self reliance, guns and stuff he likes to do,” she wrote in 2021 about her son's now-deleted YouTube channel.

In another Facebook post shared by a relative the same year, Jesse can be seen holding a hunting rifle. In a 2024 Instagram post the suspect’s mother, Jennifer, described herself as a “conservative-leaning libertarian” and spoke out in support of protecting “trans kids”.

BBC Verify has so far found no content indicating a motive or preparation for the attack from Van Rootselaar’s social media accounts.

You can read more about the incident here.

Mark Poynting
BBC Verify researcher

China’s emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) - the main gas responsible for global warming – appear to have slightly fallen last year, new analysis suggests.

Emissions in 2025 were 0.3% lower than 2024, according to provisional figures from the independent Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (Crea) and published by the climate website Carbon Brief.

China is by far the biggest emitter of CO2, so its policies play a major role in shaping climate change around the world.

Crea’s analysts say the drop is notable because it has taken place even while electricity demand has grown, unlike during the fall in China’s emissions during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The change is largely down to the massive growth in China’s renewable electricity generation, such as solar and wind.

Dr Yixian Sun, an associate professor in international development at the University of Bath who was not involved in the study, says the trend is “likely to continue” because “clean technologies have been a new engine of economic growth”.

But given China’s continued reliance on coal, energy analysts are reluctant to say that the country’s emissions have definitely peaked. That will only be revealed by more years of data, they say.

Read more about China’s emissions pledges here.

Jake Horton
BBC Verify journalist

A sinkhole at a major junction in the Chinese city of Shanghai has engulfed a large area of road, videos circulating on social media show.

In the dramatic footage, construction workers run for safety as the hole swallows fencing, a hut and other construction materials.

We’ve matched features seen in the footage with public satellite mapping and can see the sinkhole is near the Qixin Road metro station in Shanghai. Construction on a new commuter railway line has been taking place since 2021 and is expected to be completed in 2027.

Officials say no-one was hurt in today’s incident.

The hole is so big - we measured it at about 45m (147ft) across - it can clearly be seen on satellite images of the area today.

Shruti Menon
BBC Verify senior journalist, reporting from Dhaka

A video falsely claiming to show ballot papers being counted last night ahead of today’s polling in Bangladesh is being shared on social media.

The clip, shared by some accounts based in India and others supportive of former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League, appears to be from a previous election.

The version of the video being circulated is low quality, but enhancing it shows the ballot papers bearing the boat electoral symbol of the Awami League.

However, Hasina’s party is not contesting this election, which indicates the video is old.

After student protests in 2024 forced her and other Awami League leaders to resign and leave Bangladesh, the interim government banned the party from participating in the elections.

We've found no evidence of any ballot counting taking place ahead of the polling.

Paul Brown and Fridon Kiria
BBC Verify and BBC Monitoring

This morning we've been reviewing footage of a series of reported Ukrainian strikes inside Russia.

Videos and photos from the town of Ukhta in the Komi Republic of northern Russia show a drone and a column of smoke at the Lukoil-Ukhtaneftepererabotka oil refinery.

We were able to confirm the location of the attack after seeing footage of a plume of smoke said to be from the site. The video was filmed from a shopping centre car park which gave us shops and signs we could locate using online maps. This showed the shops seen in the video are right next to the refinery.

Ukhta is located around 1,700km (1,000 miles) from the Ukrainian border.

We’re also checking reports that a number of buildings at a factory making missile components is on fire in the town of Michurinsk in Russia’s Tambov region.

The plant is blurred out on Yandex Maps - Russia's version of Google - suggesting it is a sensitive location.

Verified footage from Michurinsk shows a projectile and an explosion along with fires at buildings surrounding the facility - but nothing from within the site itself.

Ben Chu
BBC Verify policy and analysis correspondent

Image source, PA Media

During his interview with Sky News, Ineos boss Sir Jim Ratcliffe said: “The population of the UK was 58 million in 2020. Now it's 70 million. That's 12 million people.”

Ratcliffe’s claim is incorrect - the Office for National Statistics’ p, externalr, externalovisional , externalmid-year, external population estimate for, external 2025 , externalwas , external69.4 million, external. For 2020, the population was 66.7 million. So the UK population has increased by an estimated 2.7 million - not 12 million.

The last time the UK population was estimated to be 58 million people was in 1995. So the 12 million increase has taken place over more than three decades.

The period immediately after the lifting of Covid restrictions did see very large immigration into the UK with net migration peaking at 944,000 for the period between April 2022 and March 2023.

That figure has since dropped significantly to a provisional estimate of 204,000 for the year ending June 2025 and is expected to fall even more.

Emma Pengelly
BBC Verify journalist

Recent satellite images also show construction work was carried out at the key Natanz nuclear facility in Iran between early December and January.

Photos analysed by the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) show a white paneled roof constructed over an enrichment plant for nuclear material which was damaged in an Israeli strike in June 2025.

The panel covering appears to have been built over a damaged anti-drone cage. ISIS has assessed the roof was added to block the view of anyone trying to observe what Iran was doing underneath it.

Spencer Faragasso, a senior research fellow at ISIS, tells me: “It is possible that Iran intends to carry out salvage and recovery operations to retrieve any intact machinery, equipment, or even recover any 60% highly enriched uranium that may remain inside the destroyed enrichment facility.”

Shruti Menon
BBC Verify senior journalist, reporting from Dhaka

There’s been a noticeable increase in AI-generated content on social media during Bangladesh’s election, so it’s worth being sceptical if you come across videos with hyper-realistic looking people delivering aggressive or dramatic messages.

AI-generated videos are becoming increasingly convincing but there are subtle clues that could still give it away, so here’s a quick guide of giveaways to look out for. Sometimes, AI gets specifics of a location wrong.

For instance, taxis in Bangladesh are typically green but several videos claiming to be from Bangladesh show yellow taxis, which are more commonly associated with Kolkata in India’s neighbouring West Bengal state.

It is also useful to look closely at text or signs in a video. AI-generated videos can include spelling errors, weird phrasing, garbled text and sentences that don’t quite make sense.

If a video appears highly polished and lacks a clear verifiable source, treat it with scepticism until it can be independently confirmed.

Shruti Menon
BBC Verify senior journalist, reporting from Dhaka

What’s interesting about this election is the amount of political content created using artificial intelligence flooding social media in Bangladesh.

I’ve been monitoring dozens of Facebook pages since January and have come across hundreds of AI-generated political videos, many of which are not labelled as synthetic content.

The clips feature hyper-realistic but fabricated news presenters, people who are supposedly “ordinary citizens” and others dressed in police-style uniforms. The production quality is often polished, making the videos appear real at first glance.

One video I’ve verified as AI-generated using SynthID, Google’s tool to detect when media has been made using its software, has been viewed nearly eight million times. It shows a man in a blue uniform resembling an official figure delivering a partisan political message.

Another clip, viewed nearly 200,000 times, features a fake shopkeeper explaining why he would not vote for a particular candidate.

Under Bangladesh’s electoral code of conduct, creating or sharing misleading AI-generated content is prohibited. However, there is limited clarity on how this is being monitored or enforced online.

Anthony Reuben
BBC Verify senior journalist

Image source, PA Media

UK Chancellor Rachel Reeves has said: “Ours is the fastest growing G7 economy in Europe”.

The G7 is a group of advanced economies that includes four from Europe - the UK, France, Germany and Italy - as well as the US, Canada and Japan.

You would normally compare growth, external over either a single quarter or a whole year. Reeves is right about the whole of 2025 but not about the most recent quarter.

This morning’s figures suggest, external the UK grew 0.1% between October and December - referred to as Q4 - and 1.3% in the whole of 2025.

The French economy grew, external more in Q4 - by 0.2% - but less in the whole of 2025, only 0.9%

The same is true f, externalo, externalr Germany, external, which grew 0.3% in Q4 but only 0.4% in the whole year.

And in Italy, the economy grew, external 0.3% in Q4 and 0.7% in all of 2025.

Emma Pengelly and Ghoncheh Habibiazad
BBC Verify and BBC Persian

Iran has been strengthening tunnel entrances to an underground complex about a mile (2km) south of Natanz nuclear facility.

Satellite images analysed by the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) think tank show the complex at Mount Kolang Gaz La - also known as Pickaxe Mountain - with what appears to be fresh concrete at one tunnel entrance.

The images from 10 February also reveal a concrete-reinforced structure at another tunnel portal has been added, with rock and soil pushed back and flattened nearby.

ISIS says the ongoing presence of heavy construction machinery and materials around the site indicate that the complex is likely not yet ready for operations.

Pickaxe Mountain was not one of the locations attacked in US and Israeli air strikes in June 2025 but the Natanz facility nearby was and we have also observed new construction work there - which we’ll analyse for you soon.

ISIS has also analysed satellite images of Iran using earth to bury tunnel entrances at a nuclear site in Isfahan which was also hit last summer - we reported on those images yesterday.

Rob Corp
BBC Verify Live editor

BBC Verify has been reviewing new satellite imagery which appears to show reconstruction work has been carried out near one of Iran’s primary nuclear facilities. By comparing the latest pictures with imagery taken last year we’ve been able to see what’s changed.

People in Bangladesh are voting in the country’s first elections since the ousting of former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in 2024 after 15 years in power. BBC Verify’s Shruti Menon is in the capital, Dhaka, and has been looking at the spread of disinformation on social media ahead of the vote.

Here in the UK the economy grew by 0.1% in the final quarter of last year, according to figures from the Office for National Statistics. We’re fact-checking Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ claim that the UK has the fastest-growing economy of the European G7 nations.

We’re also analysing new data on how well the NHS is doing at improving waiting times for planned treatment in England. Our data team will be updating this tracker with the latest numbers.