BBC News

The manosphere is just the tip of the iceberg - that's the premise of a new report, shared exclusively with Top Comment, about the so-called male grievance industry.

Its author, Kristina Wilfore, has spent years investigating state information warfare, a playbook she says is now being followed by influencers weaponising economic anxiety, body dysmorphia, and political disenfranchisement.

We've also been given access to brand new data about the viral looksmaxxing trend, which reveals how just 216 accounts drove 14.6bn views on this type of content within the last two years.

Kristina, Matt and Marianna discuss the pipeline behind these numbers, and with effective algorithmic regulation seemingly a way off, consider more ambitious methods to clamp down on the exploitative practices which mid-tier creators are using to monetise at scale.

You can access the full report from Reset Tech and Equimundo, 'The Grift Economy: How Young Men Are Being Sold Fake Belonging and Fake Wealth Online', via this link: https://www.equimundo.org/resources/the-grift-economy

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It’s 50 years since the long hot summer of 1976 - brought us the birth of a musical movement - punk.

And marking this moment - is a gathering of more than 300 punk bands in Blackpool, UK.

The Rebellion Festival began in the 1990s - when punk was beginning to fade into history.

30 years on - as BBC’s David Sillito has been discovering - Britain’s 60 somethings have been rediscovering their disreputable past.

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The recent youth-led protests have weakened Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi "terribly", says leading activist Sonam Wangchuk whose hunger strike galvanised the movement.

Wangchuk told the BBC that the atmosphere in the country had changed following mass demonstrations which triggered the resignation of the education minister on 25 July.

Young people now have more confidence they can "change things if they want to" and feel they don't have to "take everything lying down", the 59-year-old said.

The "cockroach" movement mounted one of the biggest public displays of dissent against Modi's government, which has been in power since 2014.

The movement takes its name from a remark by India's chief justice, who drew criticism after comparing sections of unemployed young people to "cockroaches" during a court hearing.

Wangchuk fasted in scorching heat in the capital, Delhi, for 26 days in June and July, consuming only salt and water. He says he has now regained six of the 11kg he lost.

The activist was forcibly taken to hospitals which he says were "more like prisons" for the final six days of his fast.

Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan resigned the day after Wangchuk ended his hunger strike.

#India #Cockroach #CockroachMovement #Modi #CJP #SonamWangchuk #BBCNews

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Ariana Grande’s appearance in a new music video has sparked speculation, commentary and intense debate over the question of when — if ever — the public should weigh in on a woman's body.

The pop star and Wicked actor is not the first woman in the public eye to come under intense scrutiny, so how has the way we talk about celebrities’ bodies changed over time?

We ask Sarah Ditum, journalist and author of Toxic: Women, Fame, and the Tabloid 2000s, whether it’s ever OK to talk about a woman’s appearance.

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Chapters:

00:00 Why are people talking about Ariana Grande?

01:50 When did we get obsessed with women's bodies?

02:58 The influence of paparazzi

04:37 The magazines who promoted the culture

05:55 The fixation on being thin

10:25 How have GLP-1s changed things?

12:30 The impact of social media on weight loss

If you've been affected by any of the issues raised in this video, information and support is available at BBC Action Line.

Convicted sex offender Simon Levy, 40, from Tottenham, has been found guilty of murdering two women and violently raping a third surviving woman.

Carmenza Valencia-Trujillo, 54, was found dead in the stairwell of a derelict building in Walworth, Southwark in March 2025 and Sheryl Wilkins, 39, was found dead in Tottenham, north London in August.

Levy, who was being risk managed by the Met, was also found guilty of two rapes, grievous bodily harm and intentional suffocation, against a third surviving woman in Tottenham in January 2025.

When Carmenza Valencia-Trujillo was murdered in March last year, the killer made no attempt to hide her body. She was discovered, with visible injuries, lying face-down in the stairwell of a derelict block of flats in south London.

The DNA of registered sex offender Simon Levy was found on Carmenza’s body and he was arrested on suspicion of murder by local officers. But he was released without charge and the Metropolitan Police decided not to pursue a murder investigation.

The BBC can now report in detail how, earlier this year, Levy was also convicted of sexual assaults against 10 women on the tube between 2023 and 2025, and the sexual assault of a prison officer in 2022.

BBC News has been following Levy's case and can now reveal the multiple failings of the authorities, the Met, British Transport Police (BTP) and courts, which led to Levy being able to continue to harm women - and eventually kill two.

The Met has accepted that the life of Sheryl Wilkins could have been saved, had it not been for its failure to prosecute Levy sooner.

There has been a “collective system failure” and it is a “tragedy beyond words that I can express,” deputy assistant commissioner Kevin Southworth told the BBC.

He has apologised to Sheryl’s family, he says, for “any role that we've played in failing to protect her from this man”.

Detective Chief Superintendent Pete Fulton, from BTP, said that delays in carrying out ID parades on Levy “absolutely wasn't good enough” and was down to “incompetence” by two officers who have since been moved to other roles.

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At least seven people have died after a teenage boy allegedly shot his grandparents and some teachers at a school in Nonthaburi on the outskirts of Thailand's capital Bangkok.

The 14-year-old suspected shooter is also dead, authorities say.

More than 30 people have been injured with nine of them "severely injured", according to Thailand's prime minister Anutin Charnvirakul.

This is the second school shooting in Thailand this year - despite restrictions on ownership, people can acquire guns here with relative ease.

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At least six people have died in a school shooting on the outskirts of Thailand's capital Bangkok, according to reports citing police.

The suspected shooter, a 14-year-old male student has also been found dead.

One witness recalled how the suspected shooter walked from room-to-room before shooting a teacher.

Authorities have asked the public to stay away from the vicinity of the Debsirin School in Nonthaburi.

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President Donald Trump is trying again to scale back birthright citizenship in the US, weeks after the Supreme Court shot down his previous attempt to eliminate the right.

The president signed two executive orders on Thursday, including one that expands the existing definitions of non-citizens whose children are not eligible for birthright citizenship.

The second order bans so-called birth tourism, the practice of pregnant mothers coming to the US to give birth so that their babies will be citizens.

Trump and members of his administration have repeatedly railed against birth tourism, including accusing Russian and Chinese adversaries of taking advantage of birthright citizenship to infiltrate the US.

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Russia has been ramping up its efforts to strangle Ukraine's commercial links to the outside world, by launching waves of attacks along the country's Black Sea coastline.

While there have been Russian attacks on international vessels before, they've never been so numerous or so deadly. Ukraine's port administration says there were 57 Russian attacks on civilian vessels last month. Ukraine's once bustling ports – such as Odesa, Chornomorsk, and Pivdennyi – are almost devoid of ships.

Ukraine is also targeting shipping in the war, with recent, highly successful attacks on Russian vessels, including sanctioned tankers carrying oil, as well as ships involved in carrying supplies to Russian-occupied Crimea.

Using its own drones, Ukraine has struck around 200 Russian vessels, bringing traffic in the strategic Sea of Azov to a virtual standstill.

Reeta Chakrabarti presents BBC News at Ten reporting by Paul Adams

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Iran says it has reached an agreement with Oman on a route for shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.

Foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei did not give any further details on the agreement, which he said was "in the final stages".

Baqaei warned, however, that a deal with Oman would not guarantee safe navigation through the strait, arguing security remained impacted by the US blockade of Iran's ports.

Since the US and Israel attacked Iran in February, Tehran has largely blocked the Strait of Hormuz through which about a fifth of the world's oil and liquefied natural gas usually passes.

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