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BBC News with David Harper.
The U.S. military says Iranian forces attempted to attack three U.S. warships as they crossed the Strait of Hormuz into the Gulf of Oman. U.S. Central Command said the destroyers were not hit after Iran launched missiles, drones and small boats. It said it eliminated such threats and targeted Iranian military sites responsible for them, but was not seeking an escalation. Tom Bateman reports from Washington. This is a significant flare-up, further endangering the four-week-old truce between the U.S. and Iran, but it so far remains unclear who fired first. The Pentagon claims that U.S. Navy destroyers heading out of the Gulf through the Strait of Hormuz came under unprovoked attack from Iranian missiles, drones and small boats, to which the Americans responded by striking Iranian military facilities, including launch sites and command centers. That would likely explain the Iranian reports of explosions on land on Qeshm Island and the port city of Bandar Abbas. The Revolutionary Guard Navy says, however, it was the Americans that started it by what it called "aggression" against an Iranian oil tanker and another vessel, to which it retaliated with the missile and drone fire towards the U.S. ships. Lebanon's Health Ministry says at least 12 people were killed in a series of Israeli airstrikes in the south on Thursday despite a ceasefire. Earlier Lebanese officials said another 12 people had been killed in Israeli airstrikes on Wednesday. The Iran-backed group Hezbollah has launched further attacks on Israeli soldiers occupying parts of southern Lebanon. Donald Trump and the Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva have said their talks at the White House went very well, but unusually a joint press conference scheduled for after the meeting did not go ahead. However, President Lula later described the meeting as an important step to consolidate relations. "I'm leaving very, very satisfied with the meeting. I think it was an important meeting for Brazil and important for the U.S. I always think the photograph is very valuable and you could see that President Trump smiling is better than President Trump with a bad face." Two British-Chinese dual nationals have been convicted of spying for China. A U.K. Border Force official "Peter" Wai and "Bill" Yuen, a former Hong Kong police officer, were found guilty of running what was described as a shadow policing operation targeting Hong Kong pro-democracy campaigners. Daniel Sandford has this report. Peter Wai used his access to the Atlas immigration database to find out addresses and other details of Hong Kong dissidents based in Britain. He even organized surveillance of the people he referred to as "cockroaches." Wai sometimes dealt directly with people in Hong Kong and China, but his contact in London was Bill Yuen, the office manager of the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office, and much of the information about Hong Kong dissidents in the U.K. went to him. Daniel Sandford reporting. This is David Harper in London with the latest world news from the BBC. Greenland's Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen has criticized a reported attempt to bribe Greenlanders to sign a petition for the Danish autonomous territory to become part of the United States. Local media reported that an American man had offered a taxi driver in Nuuk $200,000 to sign such a petition. Two Australian women linked to the militant group Islamic State, who have just returned to Australia from Syria, have been formally charged with keeping a slave. Kawsar Abbas and her adult daughter Zeinab Ahmed are accused of purchasing a Yazidi woman as a slave and keeping her in their home. They'll appear in court in Melbourne on Friday. Chad has declared a 20-day state of emergency in its Lake region following attacks earlier this week by the Islamist militant group Boko Haram that killed at least 26 military personnel. The lake and its many islands have become a refuge for fighters from both Boko Haram and the militant group Islamic State West Africa Province. Counting has begun in English local elections following a series of polls across Britain that are being seen as the biggest test for political parties since the Labour government took power in 2024. Voters in England have been choosing councils and mayors, meanwhile in Scotland and Wales they've been selecting representatives in devolved national governments. The polling expert, Professor Sir John Curtis, says the Conservative and Labour duopoly is facing its biggest threat yet, including from the populist Reform Party. "Reform might be able to win control of councils in the north of England that have been Labour since 1974 when they were first created. In East Anglia, Reform may be able to gain control of councils that no party other than the Conservatives have ever previously controlled. In Wales, we're looking at the prospect of the Labour Party losing an election. In London, the Greens are certainly posing a significant challenge to Labour. The one place that frankly doesn't look as though it's going to change very much is Scotland." Professor John Curtis with the latest on the elections across Britain. And that's the latest BBC News. |