BBC

The US government has approved a $346m arms deal with Nigeria which would include munitions, precision bombs and precision rockets. What is behind the change in a decade-long US policy about selling certain kinds of weapons to Nigeria?

The mining of gold has been a key factor of Sudan's economy, and now it is a major source of funding of the two-year civil war. We look back at its history in Sudan, and how the war is driving demand.

And one year on since Ghana's parliament passed its landmark Affirmative Action (Gender Equality) Act, which was hailed as a victory for women's rights, how have things changed?

Presenter: Audrey Brown

Producers: Tom Kavanagh, Nyasha Michelle and Stefania Okereke in London. Charles Gitonga in Nairobi

Technical Producer: Philip Bull

Senior Journalist: Patricia Whitehorne

Editors: Andre Lombard and Alice Muthengi

Can Donald Trump strike a deal with Vladimir Putin in Alaska today and get a ceasefire in Ukraine - and if so, on what terms? President Trump has previously spoken of 'land swaps' but Kyiv has already rejected the idea. We hear from a teenager who lived under Russian occupation in the Donbas for 10 years, and recently escaped.

Also in the programme: the world marks 80 years since Japan surrendered, ending World War Two; and as talks on a global plastics treaty collapse – again – is there any hope countries can ever agree?

(IMAGE: U.S. President Donald Trump waves while boarding Air Force One, as he departs for Alaska to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin to negotiate for an end to the war in Ukraine, from Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, U.S., August 15, 2025 / CREDIT: REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque)

Donald Trump will not be on the ballot in next year’s midterm elections, but his policies will be put to the electoral test. Sumi Somaskanda, Courtney Subramanian, and Bernd Debusmann Jr explore how the president’s latest actions on immigration and economy could shape Latino voter behaviour in the 2026 midterms.

Every Friday, The President’s Path explores the state of US politics in Washington and beyond. We dig into the key issues shaping America and uncover what is on the minds of those closest to power. You can contact us at: [email protected]

Producer: John Ringer

Editor: Adrian Chiculita

Nolan talks to SDLP Belfast City Councillor Carl Whyte and road expert Wesley Johnston.

US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin will travel to a summit in the US state of Alaska on Friday with contrasting priorities as they prepare for talks on ending Russia's war in Ukraine. Mr Trump has said the plan was to "set the table" for a more important second meeting involving Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Also: AI designs antibiotics for gonorrhoea and MRSA superbugs, and German states debate who invented Bratwurst sausages.

The Global News Podcast brings you the breaking news you need to hear, as it happens. Listen for the latest headlines and current affairs from around the world. Politics, economics, climate, business, technology, health – we cover it all with expert analysis and insight. Get the news that matters, delivered twice a day on weekdays and daily at weekends, plus special bonus episodes reacting to urgent breaking stories. Follow or subscribe now and never miss a moment. Get in touch: [email protected]

Organisers of the Los Angeles Olympics in 2028 have agreed a landmark deal with the International Olympic Committee allowing venue naming rights to be sold to commercial partners for the first time in the games history. Honda and Comcast are the first naming partners.

Presenter Roger Hearing also examines why some Americans are drinking less and what this means for the big drinks companies like Carlsberg.

And PostNord in Denmark has decided to bring to an end to 400 years of letter deliveries - and focus instead solely on parcels from 2026. We hear from there about what this means for the future of the industry.

As Alaska awaits the arrival tomorrow of the US and Russian Presidents, we're in Anchorage for a preview of their summit - and hear what one Ukrainian woman in the north-eastern city of Kharkiv expects from it.

Also on the programme:

Why has the pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly decided to hike the price of the weight loss drug Mounjaro in the UK?

Israel says it will push ahead with plans to build more settlements in the West Bank. We have Palestinian reaction.

And the A-level student spending results day evening at her local pub - because she runs it. We speak to the UK's youngest pub landlady.

There's been fierce international criticism of Israeli plans to build more than three-thousand homes in a controversial settlement in the occupied West Bank. The country's far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, said the move - which will split the territory - will "bury the idea of a Palestinian state". Britain's foreign secretary, David Lammy, described the plan as a "flagrant breach of international law" that "must be stopped".

Also in the programme: Humanitarian workers in Sudan say they lack the resources to deal with a deadly cholera outbreak in camps for people displaced by the civil war; what sort of welcome are Alaskans preparing for President Putin; and why are some female Australian birds developing male sex organs.

(Photo: Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich speaks at a press conference regarding settlements expansion for the long-frozen E1 settlement, that would split East Jerusalem from the occupied West Bank, near the Israeli settlement of Maale Adumim in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, August 14, 2025. REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun)

US Health Secretary RFK Jr’s call to retract a study on childhood vaccines is resisted by the journal. Also antibiotics get designed by AI, and a new way for stars to die.

A study focussing on Danish childhood vaccination data has attracted the US Secretary for Health’s anger, as RFK jr calls for the journal in which it was published, the Annals of Internal Medicine, to retract it. The Editor, Christine Laine, talk to Science in Action about the strengths and challenges of observational studies.

The cuts to prestigious US federal science funded research continue, as last week it was announced that $500 million funding for future mRNA vaccines would be withdrawn. Barney Graham, one of the pioneers in the field and prominent during the Covid vaccines, argues that the research will still happen, though maybe not in the US, as mRNA has become a fundamental area of global research.

Meanwhile, strides are being made in the field of synthetic biology as Jim Collins and colleagues at MIT and Harvard have used AI to design potentially viable antibiotics for two important drug-resistant superbugs. Previously, AI has been used to comb through libraries of known antibiotics. This study has gone a step further, and used generative AI to design new ones, that can then be synthesised using real chemicals. Though a long way from being prescribable drugs, the team think this could herald a new golden age of antibiotic development – something which has been lacking in recent decades.

Finally, it seems astronomers may have discovered a new way for a star to die, sort of. Supernova 2023zkd was seen to explode back in 2023, found by a team looking for odd events. It didn’t seem quite like normal supernovae, in that it took a bit longer to die down. Then the team looked back, and noticed that it had also been getting slowly brighter for almost a year. At 730 million light years away, in a galaxy far, far away, it also seemed to have been stripped of all its hydrogen and even stranger yet, appeared to have exploded twice. As Ashley Villar of the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics explains, the almost unique observation fits with a model of the huge star getting closer to a black hole, the gravity of which may have disrupted the star enough to cause it to explode.

Presenter: Roland Pease

Producer: Ella Hubber with Alex Mansfield

Production Coordinator: Jana Bennett-Holesworth

(Image: Child getting a vaccine. Credit: Luis Alvarez via Getty Images)

Jazzer receives a tempting offer, and Susan faces a negotiation.