US and Iran exchange fire

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1:00about World Cup ticket prices. Matthew Perry's personal assistant is jailed for his involvement in the death of the Friend star from a ketamine overdose. Also in this podcast, the BBC spends time with a controversial Manosphere influencer in Kenya. You're asking me the wrong questions. I don't like your questions. I think I'm done. OK. Thank you.

1:30The US has launched another round of strikes against Iran, despite the ongoing ceasefire and those optimistic noises we've been hearing about a potential peace deal. An American official said the attacks near the port city of Bandar Abbas were fired in self-defence. Iranian state media says its forces fired on four ships that were attempting to pass through the Strait of Hormuz, one of which was a US oil tanker with its radar system turned off. Our North America correspondent Peter Bowes is following developments. Well, according to US Central Command, that's the US military that's responsible for overseeing military operations and security interests in the Middle East, CENCOM, it says that US forces shot down four Iranian one-way attack drones that it says posed a threat around the Strait of Hormuz.

2:20It also says that it hit an Iranian ground control station in the port of Bandar Abbas, which it says was about to launch a fifth drone. Crucially, the military is insisting, though, that these actions were measured, purely defensive, and intended to maintain the ceasefire. But clearly, it is a fragile peace, given that this is the second time in three days that the US has attacked targets in Iran. Yeah, and all this happening, not just while this ceasefire is supposedly in place, but also as the peace talks are continuing as well. Yeah, and just hours after Iranian state media reported the existence of a preliminary unofficial draft deal.

3:01Now, reportedly, this included a claim that the US would lift its naval blockade of Iran's ports. In return, Iran would restore commercial traffic through the Strait of Hormuz to pre-war levels within a month with the management and routing of vessels to be handled by Iran and Oman. But it doesn't mention Iran giving up nuclear ambitions or handing over its stockpile of highly enriched uranium, which are the key issues at the heart of the dispute between the two countries. And the White House was pretty quick to dismiss this draft deal as complete fabrication. So does this suggest then that this could just as easily progress into more peace talks or indeed renewed war?

3:44Well, you know, I think for all the talk of a breakthrough, both sides have made it clear that the ceasefire could collapse, the war could resume. President Trump just on Monday again repeated that if a deal can't be reached, to use his words, we'll have to just finish the job. Iran has made it known that it is prepared for that eventuality. The focus now, though, I think is on the talks. And I think the real challenge is to see through the rhetoric that we're hearing from both sides, just to try to get a measured assessment of where we are with the war, which today is entering its fourth month.

4:21Peter Bowes there. A story now from Laos, where after a week trapped inside a flooded cave, five villagers have been found alive by an international rescue team of divers. They were part of a group of seven who had gone into the cave to look for gold, and the search operation is continuing to try and find the two others. Our Southeast Asia correspondent, Jonathan Head, reports. After a gruelling search success, two divers record the moment they found five men who'd been trapped underground for a week. Exhausted and very distressed, but alive. They'd gone into Pan for gold, but found their exit blocked by rising floodwaters.

5:09Their rescuers, one Thai and one from Finland, are veterans of the famous cave rescue in Thailand eight years ago. With their experience of extracting the young Thai footballers, they were part of a team which came from Thailand to help. They found themselves facing extreme conditions, moving through waterlogged spaces barely wide enough for a human body. For days they were within just a few metres of the trapped men, but had to battle torrential rain, which brought huge volumes of mud into the cave. So a real sense of achievement for this rescuer, announcing that they'd been found at 4.30 this afternoon, and promising he would keep searching for the two who are still missing.

5:55they've left food and drink with the gold miners now they must plan how to get them out once they've recovered their strength jonathan head reporting we're only a fortnight away from the start of something that has been very very hyped up get ready Champions of the world! For the greatest event in history. In 2026. That is one of the official adverts, very understated, isn't it? Put out by the governing body FIFA for this year's Football World Cup, which is being played across the US, Canada and Mexico. For months now, fans have been complaining about the ticket prices they're being expected to pay, particularly for the matches in the US.

6:41Now, the Attorneys General of New York and New Jersey have officially launched an investigation into FIFA, calling the way it set those prices a gauntlet of confusion, fake scarcity and impossibly high prices. I asked our correspondent in New York, Ned Atorfic, whether at the heart of this was that this is claimed to be the most expensive ever tournament. That's right. And, you know, fans have reported feeling scammed, feeling like they've been ripped off. And it was that that really prompted the attorneys general of New York and New Jersey to launch this investigation, because certainly there are reports of this happening in other states.

7:19But this at the heart of it is a consumer protection case. They say that while it's an honor to host the World Cup, that it's not an invitation to exploit consumers. That's what they are alleging FIFA has done. And they say it's through the whole ticketing selection process, saying that it was confusing, that it was done in phases, and that on average, FIFA's tactics may have allowed the organization to boost prices by 34 percent at a time when this was already the most expensive World Cup ticket-wise compared to any previous one. And beyond that, fans have also said that after purchasing tickets, they were assigned into different categories that put them further from the field and sometimes behind the goal.

8:03And that FIFA even changed the stadium seating categories after purchases had already been made. So all of this is why the attorneys general want to have subpoenaed FIFA to provide information, internal information, and to examine this further. The BBC reached out to FIFA, but they haven't, they declined to comment. And just to know that they can, you know, try to fight this. So this is going to be far from settled by the time the tournament kicks off. Yeah, which is in two weeks' time. And then obviously that means most of the tickets have already been sold. So what powers do the attorneys general have to change anything here?

8:44Yeah, no, absolutely. I mean, look, first they have to be able to prove their case, right? So this is going to be a long legal process. If they are able to prove their case, whether it's through a settlement or through an ultimate trial, they can get FIFA to have to pay back some of that price gouging that they are alleging here. That could, in a way, go back to consumers eventually. Or they could find some other kind of settlement in a way that they feel holds FIFA accountable. That's typically how these consumer protection cases go. But that's really going to give little comfort to the fans who have already faced these frustrations.

9:25And as you say, we'll already have to deal with the tickets they have or the tickets they weren't able to get and won't be able to watch in person. I think that's what's really kind of put a damper on this World Cup, despite the excitement. The fact that communities and families don't feel like this is accessible to them anymore has really, for many, hurt the sport and what it's all about. nether torfik in new york there and let's stick on football for a couple more minutes or more accurately the much more nerdy football prediction game known as fantasy premier league or fpl if you're not familiar with it 11 million people around the world give up their free time to try and pick the best squad they can week in week out made up of players from different british clubs and after the actual Premier League season here in the UK came to an end at the weekend, the FPL winner has, for obvious reasons, now been announced.

10:23Our reporter Alfie Habershan, an FPL superfan himself, has this report. This is done. FPL 2025. 10 months of agonising over transfers. Once again, this game which I love, which does not love me, back it has come and it has haunted me. An all-consuming hobby that borders on the torturous fantasy football, of course, can you reliably predict every week for 10 months a combination of players who will perform the best and do this better than 11 million other people? It's a sport of the mind. Because we obviously know Magnus Carlsen as well is a good fantasy Premier League player. What skills do you guys have as chess players that make you good at fantasy Premier League?

11:06I think he's very unpredictable when he chooses some players, probably in chess as well. He makes some moves, which no one can expect. Grandmaster Magnus Carlsen and top Russian chess players often jostle near the top of FPL alongside other data gurus. But this year, on his first attempt, there was a new winner. Dude, it's completely insane. Of course, there's been some luck involved, but I have also put some time into it and it's taken a lot of my energy. And it just kept going up and up and up. I mean, if you had told me at the start of the season I'd even be close, I would have thought it was a joke.

11:4023-year-old Erik Ibsen, a student from Denmark. Yeah, you should see my Excel sheet. It's completely insane. I think I was sitting with it like four or five hours a day. I have an exam in three weeks and I haven't even started studying for it. At university, 15 hours a week of spreadsheet headache got me, when I played fantasy football, to around the top 30 in the UK rankings. But 10 years on, it's now a lot tougher, with the best players also turning to AI to make selections. but not Eric. I didn't really use AI to plan it especially because I felt like I didn't really take account for scenarios like other things did.

12:11Just have patience. I had so many bad weeks and I still ended up winning. Don't let the weak results define your whole season. As a result, he now wins a seven-day holiday to the UK with his family and VIP tickets to see his first ever Premier League match. That's our reporter Alfie Habershan, a self-proclaimed FPL superfan.

12:33still to come in this podcast metal music legend aussie osborne is getting the ai treatment you can go and talk to aussie and ask him anything you want and he'll talk back to you you could have your photo taken with aussie you can ask him anything you want and he will talk to you

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13:43It's like having a personal assistant baked into where you live. It's simple. Being a renter and now owning a home is better with Build. Join the membership for where you live at joinbuild.com slash podcasts. That's J-O-I-N-B-I-L-T dot com slash podcasts. Make sure to use our URL so they know we sent you. There's a rare type of Ebola spreading in Central Africa, and it has no vaccine. The WHO has declared a public health emergency of international concern, and the U.S. has restricted entry for people coming from some African countries. What does this deadly outbreak tell us about how prepared or not we are for an international health crisis?

14:24For more, check out The Global Story on BBC.com or wherever you listen.

14:34This is the Global News Podcast. When Matthew Perry was found dead in his hot tub from a drug overdose, an investigation was launched into those closest to the Friends actor and how they may have played a role in his death. Four people, including doctors and a drug seller dubbed the Ketamine Queen, have already been sentenced. Now the live-in personal assistant who injected Matthew Perry with ketamine several times with no medical training has been told he'll spend more than three years in jail. Our correspondent, Shaima Khalil, was inside the Los Angeles courtroom as Kenneth Iwamasa was sentenced.

15:11I asked her what the atmosphere was like. It was pretty charged. You could feel that there was tension there, that there was anger, emotions were high. even though it was mostly silent, you could still feel that. At one point, Matthew Perry's stepfather, Keith Morrison, took to the stand and he confronted Kenny Iwamasa, told him that the family trusted him, that they considered him to be one of the family, and that he wanted control of Matthew Perry's life. He wanted the kind of lifestyle that working for someone like Matthew Perry afforded him. He also said that the one thing that the family wanted from him was that when the actor slipped because of his long fight with addiction, that he informed them.

16:00And not only did Mr. Iwamasa not inform the family at any point, he continued to procure ketamine and inject Matthew Perry with the drug. Now, the defense has time and time again argued during the hearing that Mr. Iwamasa was an employee, that he was doing what he was told to do, that there was a discrepancy in the power dynamics. At one point, Mr. Ilmasa himself then took to the stand and he turned around to face the family. And at that point, you could just see that some of them were getting really emotional, really teary. And then he said, I'm so sorry to all of you. I'm so sorry to have done these illegal acts that I will forever regret and take to the grave.

16:38And then he said that I hope that mine would be a cautionary tale for anyone in my position to make a better judgment, to make a better decision. And then he offered them his condolences. And you mentioned the charged atmosphere in court. What were the comments from the judge to the defendant? In sentencing him, the judge took into consideration two things. One, Iwamasa's knowledge of Matthew Perry's long fight with addiction. She told him you were privy to his struggle. You knew that he shouldn't have used that amount of ketamine as much as you administered and gave him. And you also saw the effect on him because there were a number of instances where the late Matthew Perry would freeze up and he would be incapacitated after being injected with ketamine.

17:28And even though that happened, Mr. Iwamasa continued to administer and continued to give him, inject him with ketamine. The second thing that she mentioned was the fact that even though Iwamasa pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distributing ketamine, which caused death, and even though he came forward eventually and helped the legal authorities build a case and helped give evidence and give information, She said that immediately after the death of Matthew Perry, he concealed evidence. He cleaned up the scene, he cleaned up ketamine containers. And so when she was sentencing him, she took those two things into consideration.

18:06Shima Khalil there. Now, you might have already heard of the Manosphere. It's a truly global but massively controversial industry. Accounts can generate millions of dollars, often using misogyny and rage bait to get views. Critics say it's fueling a growing gender divide. Our correspondent Jackie Wakefield has been speaking to one influencer in Kenya, Andrew Kibbe, and sent this report. You might find some of its contents disturbing. Missing something in your life? Wake up with us. Good morning. Andrew Kibbe is a former radio host who around the time of the COVID pandemic turned into a content creator.

18:45He's tripled his followers in just a few years with the same misogyny and anti-feminist views you hear in the global manosphere. Women lie all the time. In 2023, he was suspended from YouTube. It's believed for misogynistic content. I interviewed Keebe before and asked him if he knew what misogyny is. He had to look it up. Where is it? Misogyny. Misogynist. A person who dislikes, despises or is strongly prejudiced against women. Who in the world is like that? No man hates a woman. We love you. We are like gods to you. Worship us. Why not just respect both ways? How do I respect somebody I want to sleep with?

19:29The word respect is useless to a woman. I shouldn't respect you. I mean, when I look at you, you're a sexual being. On TikTok alone, hashtag Andrew Keebe has had 530 million views. At a university in western Kenya, male students have been waiting for hours for Kibe to arrive. They're mostly aged between 18 and 21. But some of the female students objected to Kibe's visit. I totally disagree with Kibe's content. Like one of my classmates, this boy, he has been influenced by Kibe's content. He can't socialise with any lady in our class. I can say it's getting worse. For those who follow Kibbe's teachings, they'll find them saying ladies are less capable.

20:19That's really hurting us as ladies because we all believe that we are capable of everything. Professor Awino Oketch, gender, sexuality and security academic, says there are real-world consequences. We are ending up with a society of young men who are being fed the idea that the only way to be a man is to be violent, that's a real-world consequence in terms of the next generation of men in our society who will end up leading our countries and propagating these same ideas into the laws and policies of how our countries are governed. Kenya has seen a rise in the number of cases of femicide, women killed because they're women.

21:05It doesn't mean influencers are to blame. but words matter. Kibe invited us to come along on his book tour. The book's subtitle is A Journey Into Manhood, and he said he wrote it because men today are lost. After four days following him, it's time to talk to him. Do you think it's fun when you speak to women in the way that you speak to women? I don't speak to women. Yeah, I guess you don't, because the other day at the uni, you walked past a couple and you spoke to the young man asking if he could have a go with the young woman next to him, his girlfriend. Do you think that's an appropriate way to speak about women?

21:41I mean, you didn't even address her. No, I didn't speak about her. I spoke to him. I told him, hey, listen, because I know you in campus cannot hold on to that girl of yours. I know. So please make sure when you're done you holler at your dog. It was a joke, though. Everybody saw it as a joke. The only person who wasn't laughing was him. So he didn't see it as a joke then? Yeah, but to hell with him. Who cares about him? you're asking me the wrong questions. I don't like your questions. I think I'm done. OK. Thank you. Jackie Wakefield in Kenya there. And if this is a story that interests you, there's plenty more content on it you can find.

22:19Search for Manosphere Messiahs on the BBC World Service YouTube for a full visual documentary. And there's also a podcast series as well, which is available wherever you get your podcasts. Now, we've reported a lot on this podcast about the effects of the war in Iran on world economies across Asia into Europe. But in the US, it's being felt in somewhere you might not expect. Mangoes. It's mango season in India, and America usually imports a lot of them. But shipping costs are going up. The BBC's Samira Hussain reports from Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey.

23:01Fresh off a plane from India, some very precious cargo Oh, it's exquisite! That is the real mango smell Indian mangoes are only available a few weeks a year but in high demand in America and big business How much money would you say that you brought in last year in mangoes? More than a million dollars. That's just 7 % of last year's Indian mango imports to the U.S. I cannot even describe that smell. It is so sweet. Importing mangoes is a side hustle for Bharat Kumar Prasanna. A chemist by trade, mangoes by passion. The mangoes that you get in the U.S. It's like a potato. It's a table of fruit.

23:46Okay, so 408 boxes in here. and probably like$50 a box. You're looking at about a little more than$20 ,000 worth of mangoes. Since they can only be imported by air, the ephemeral fruit comes at a bitter price. Because of the war, the airline jumped the cargo price. Yeah. So that's why it's like more than double price this year. The supply chain price is high, gas is high, paying to the people is high amount. So yeah, everything is adding too much. Viral Shah delivers the mangoes from the airport to a nearby Indian grocery store. Actually, it's an amazing feeling, man. This is coming from home, motherland, you know.

24:28And this season, everybody's waiting for it. The three months, you know, they know we're going to get after that. we won't see it for another year, you know? So it's actually a great feeling. In India, the mango would cost about 70 cents, but in the store in New Jersey, it's seven times that price. If you want it, you can eat it like expensive, doesn't matter, right? Once in a year. But the taste of home is priceless. Samira Hussain there reporting from New Jersey. 10 months after the death of the British hard rock star Ozzy Osbourne in true dramatic metal music fashion he's being brought back to life sort of his family have announced an avatar which won't just perform songs as the ABBA Voyage avatars do but also interact with fans Ozzy Osbourne's widow Sharon has told the BBC she's hoping the avatar will have its debut in Birmingham in the English Midlands where the singer was born and where he gave his final performance three weeks before he died.

25:37You can go and talk to Ozzy and ask him anything you want and he'll talk back to you. You can have your photo taken with Ozzy. You can ask him anything you want and he will talk to you. Well, for more on this, let's hear from Dan Hudson. He's a Birmingham-based music journalist, a Black Sabbath superfan and the founder of the Aussie Airport campaign to rename the city's airport in Aussie's honour. Dan told Sean Lay what he made of the initiative. I think it's interesting. I mean, heavy metal fans are some of the most unforgiving, brutal fans there are. So I think if this doesn't end up sort of going to plan, then, you know, it's quite a high risk move.

26:18Better not be now. Right, exactly. But I would never bet against Sharon Osbourne or the Osbourne family. And I think, you know, if she's behind it and she's really pushing it, Jack's really behind it as well. I just think it will be a success. Do you think Birmingham as a city makes enough of its metal heritage? Absolutely not. I mean, if you compare it to other international cities around the world, for example, like Nashville or Memphis, when you go to Nashville, you know you're in the home of country music. When you're in Memphis, you know you're in the home of blues. Here in Birmingham, there's barely anything to suggest that this is the birthplace of a global genre.