Meta and Google found liable in landmark trial

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK.

This is Mike Voilo of Lexicon Valley.

And I'm Bob Garfield. Are you one of those people who sometimes uses words?

Do you communicate or acquire information with, you know, language?

Hey, us too! So, join us on Lexicon Valley to true over the history, culture,

and many mysteries of English. Plus, some ice cracks.

Find us on one of those apps where people listen to podcasts.

Hello and welcome to NewsHour from the BBC World Service.

Coming to you live from London, I'm Reginae by Den Arden.

Now, it's a case which pitted the world's biggest tech platforms against a 20-year-old woman

known as Kaley, who argued that their apps and sites, Instagram, WhatsApp, Facebook, YouTube,

were all created to be addictive. Well, a few hours ago in a landmark decision,

a jury in Los Angeles found meta and Google liable for causing her addiction and harming

her mental health. She's been awarded $3 million in compensatory damages and then a further

$3 million in punitive damages. Well, in the past hour, Kaley's lawyer Mark Lania gave this

reaction to reporters outside the court. This message is one that's important to Kaley and her

family, but it's a very great importance to a generation of people who have been affected.

Well, our reporter, Reagan Morris, is outside the court room too, and I asked her earlier to

explain the findings of the jury. The jury found meta and Google, the parent companies of

Instagram and YouTube overwhelmingly negligent. There was a lot of speculation, you know, we've

been waiting here for over a week for this and people kind of thought maybe Instagram would be

at fault, but not YouTube because she didn't seem to use it as well as much. And they did divide

some of that blame financially, you know, they said that Instagram would have to pay 70 percent

of her compensation and YouTube would have to pay 30 percent, but the fact that they found both

of them negligent across the board on every single charge, every question the answer was yes.

That was, you know, quite a shock in the courtroom and a lot of families that were in their watching

were very, very pleased with that result. You know, this case is about one woman, this young

California woman known as Kaley or KGM. She's 20 years old and she says, you know, she had a

difficult childhood and that social media made it much, much worse. She's at the center of this

and they've been ordered to pay her damages, but this affects, you know, hundreds, if not millions

of people around the world who use these social media apps and hundreds of cases that are being

brought in the US and around the world against these social media companies because this will

influence them. It's a test case, a bell whether it's known as. So it'll have a great deal of

influence and it'll change Kaley's life, but for the people that gathered here as well, I mean,

people, one woman, raised out and hugged me afterwards saying she felt vindicated, you know,

her son, she blames her son's death on social media. A lot of the families here that have

traveled here have lost children to suicides and different challenges and have had, you know,

real tragic stories that they've gathered here come together and are telling their children's

stories and things they blame on social media. Kaley herself, I couldn't really see her face during

it. She was in there, you know, we keep her anonymous, but we have met her and she doesn't talk

to the media on record, but she seemed to be smiling. And as I said, the families here just,

you know, hugging and crying and they feel validated that, you know, they believe social media is

every bit as dangerous as an addictive smoking and should come with more warnings.

And what was the defense from these tech platforms? Well, a lot of the defense was, you know,

personal responsibility that the parents should have been watching more, that people should have

been watching more, that they, you know, enabled Kaley to get on these apps and that, you know,

they have to take some responsibility as well. But, you know, this was the first time we saw

Mark Zuckerberg come here and face this jury. This was the first time that he has done that.

He's been, you know, hauled in front of Congress multiple times and, you know, so many families

around the world, you know, millions and millions of children use these apps. And, you know,

Mark Zuckerberg was saying they're not perfect, but they're constantly trying to improve and that

they do not want children under 13 on their apps. But a lot of the families here are saying that

kids are getting on. It's too easy and that the products have to change. They're too addictive

and too dangerous. That's Reagan Morris at the court there. Well, in response to the

jury's decision, Google says it plans to appeal. And Metaspecte's person Ashley Nicole Davis

had this to say. We respectfully disagree with the verdict and will appeal.

Team mental health is profoundly complex and cannot be linked to a single app.

We will continue to defend ourselves vigorously as every case is different.

And we remain confident in our record of protecting teens online. Thank you.

Well, Francis Hagen's a data scientist and algorithm designer. She's also a former Facebook

employee who became well known as a whistleblower. She shared her reaction to the ruling.

It's thrilling to see the first kind of gears of justice finally turning over. A lot of people

have been waiting a long time for accountability to catch up with these companies.

And what do you think comes next now? Does this open the floodgates to other possible cases and

of course, changes within the companies? So in the reality in any kind of class action environment

is every individual bellwether. Those are the cases that kind of determine the overall sizing

of what is the damages, what is the responsibility. You know, every bellwether case is different.

But it bodes very well for the ones that are coming up over the next weeks and months.

They will see more momentum beginning to build. But I think the most important thing is that

these harms came about because there were no incentives in place that accounted for the harm

that was being done to children and adults around the world. Only profiting loss was being

optimized for short-term thinking, not long-term thinking. And hopefully these kinds of consequences,

this kind of accountability will help tech companies to think in a more holistic and responsible way

going forward. You're a well-known whistleblower. You used to work at Facebook.

What would you argue with some of the techniques that are used by these companies? And of course,

they would deny and they have through the course of this trial that they create addictive

platforms and they say it's down to personal responsibility. But I wanted to get your perspective

of someone who's been inside. You know, some of the documents that have come out through these

court cases are really good, almost like short poems that summarize what went wrong here.

So, for example, one of the studies that they presented in this case talked about how they knew

sending notifications to kids during the school day, sending notifications to kids late at night,

interfered with their school, the ability to focus in school, interfered with their sleep.

If you're someone who's struggling with mental health issues, having trouble sleeping is one of

the biggest things that's going to make that worse, right? They ran experiments where they just

did something simple. They turned off the notifications late at night. Kid said,

I feel less stressed. I'm able to focus in school. And yet they didn't launch that because people

use the platform overall, one percent less. What is the value of a healthy child? What is the value

of avoiding struggling with an eating disorder, struggling with self-arm? Is it worth one percent

less usage? Those are the kinds of things where, you know, until you have outside consequences,

the platforms will just brush under the rug so they can show their investors positive numbers

each quarter. You talk about outside consequences. Francis, do you think this judgment,

what we heard from the jury is going to change the diamond. Of course, we heard through the course

of the trial that they denied those claims. Certainly. You know, everyone deserves a fair trial.

Everyone deserves to make their case. But to give people a sense of scale, you know, we hear a number

like $3 million in compensatory damages. $3 million when played out across the number of teenagers

that exist in the United States, that works out to hundreds of billions of dollars in consequences.

So I think it's one of these things where, you know, in the US, I often joke when I work with

governments around the world that, you know, the US often struggles to, you know, pay our bills,

you know, often our government shuts down because we don't have a budget. You know, we struggle to

pass laws. We pass fear laws every year, but we're very good at assuming each other.

And when we look at other similarly scaled social problems, this is things like tobacco,

opiates, the way these social issues were resolved was through class action. And we're seeing

right now the first dominoe tipping over. So hopefully we'll see the folks situation play out

over the next year. Francis, how can a data scientist and former Facebook employee who became

well-known as a whistleblower? So what does this mean for other victims and parents who filed cases

against meta? Well, John de Mace, son Jordan, was just 17 when he died by suicide in 2022.

It's after he was sex-torted online by adults on Instagram. And the family has filed a case

against meta. Well, I asked John about today and whether it felt like it was a release,

but also a painful reminder of what his son Jordan went through.

Absolutely. I had the pleasure of being in Los Angeles for a few weeks, just a few weeks ago,

during initial statements, opening statements, and some testimony. It's quite interesting

Jordan's four-year death anniversary is today. So it's a lot of emotions just trying to fight

this battle on the civil side and also dealing with emotional aspect of just losing Jordan

in heaven as a person. He was such a wonderful young man and he was taken from us by

three Nigerian men on a hacked Instagram account. And just tell us a little bit more about the case

that you filed against meta-relating to all of this. So we filed pretty early on with the

social media victims loss under the same attorney group that's prevailed in this case in LA today.

They really are the flagship attorney group in my opinion that's really fighting this

head-on and is passionate about what's doing and all the things that Francis had just talked about.

She was in the front lines of the stuff for a long time and she's graciously come out and

pulled the rug off this stuff and that's what we're trying to do is continue sending the message

to tech companies that it's not okay what they're doing. And this is just one little crack in

the system and the floodgates are going to start to open for sure. And what do you think this

decision today in Los Angeles means for you and of course for your family and on the fourth

anniversary of Jordan's death for Jordan's legacy in memory? Well I think this is you know this is

a part of it and this is something that can't be fought in one direction. Really the only way to

affect change on a business in America as you can either do that do see them civilly or you can

press legislation against them because the only the only way that they're going to learn is either

going to be hitting the pocketbooks or there's going to be some laws that they have to follow right

and I spent a lot of my time in Washington and working on the legislative side and that's a grind

and as Francis mentioned earlier that the the United States is not very good at passing simple

legislation like the Kids Online Safety Act to put a duty of care in the law put some parameters

in there that says hey here's a guardrail that you have to follow to make things safe they're not

going to do that it's very difficult so really the only way to do this is to try to hit them civilly

and Section 230 which gives them these tech companies blanket liability on the basis of content

has protected these companies for many many years until now and today this this first case

of the 23 other or 24 bellweathers in the JCCP in LA is the opening act right and it's going to set

the tone and set the precedence for all the ones that come that come after. So what it means

for us we're not one of the bellweathers we are one of the JCCP cases in that mix of about 2000

cases in that court but it's the right move it's the right decision it's it's just going to happen

and eventually they're going to start to fall like dominoes one after another after another

and each case is going to get heard individually and the damages are going to be separated but

unless we can hit these companies civilly with in their financial aspect they're not going to make

change. That's John Domay and his civil case against Metta is still awaiting trial and as he

was saying there today marks four years since his son Jordan died by suicide he was just 17 years old.

You're listening to the BBC World Service and this is news hour. Coming up the Iranian foreign

minister has said officials are reviewing US proposals to end the war but have no intention

of holding talks. The Iranian American writer who man-matched gave his take on the claims

and counterclaims in this war of weapons and words. I think that the Iranian responses to all

these messages that are coming and then rejecting a ceasefire, rejecting what Donald Trump is saying

seems perfectly logical to me. Reminder of some of the other headlines we're watching this hour.

A young woman's won her social media addiction case against Metta and Google in a landmark trial

in Los Angeles that's expected to set a precedent and a body's been found in the Netherlands

believed to be of a French soldier who inspired the three musketeers.

This is Regina Vidinathan with NewsHour coming to you live from London. Survivors of the late convicted

pedophile Jeffrey Epstein have told the BBC they believe that everyone in his orbit knew what

was going on. In a special program from Washington my colleague Victoria Derbyshire has been

speaking to a group of five women who shared their stories. They saw everyone saw from from the

cab driver to the chef to the maid to the cameras. They knew what was going on. I mean I knew you

couldn't be friends with Jeffrey and not know what was going on. Are you saying it's impossible

for them not to have known? Well it's because they're all 40, 50, 60s and the girls are all under

23. But you can already see what's going on if you walk into a room with us that power dynamic

and huge age gap. One of the victims Joanna Harrison is speaking out for the first time.

She wanted to remain anonymous but her name was released in the Epstein files. She was 18 when a

friend introduced her to Jeffrey Epstein. She was raped by him. My fear was with the files being

released that my name would be released which it was and it was released over and over and over

again. Even though it was supposed to have been redacted. Plus it had been redacted. There were even

times that we reached out. Things were taken down but then new things were put back up and so it's

just kind of a never ending thing and you just get sick of it and it's like all right I guess it's

my time. Do you feel it's been forced upon you? I do. In terms of your name being out there.

For all of us. I mean it's not normal to see in your abuser's face every day for six years on

TV. Hear their name. You walk in a store and you see them on a magazine. Just kind of gets to a

point where you're being suffocated and you need to breathe and I feel that this is my way of

trying to breathe. Many of the women who spoke to us said they were worried about their safety after

speaking out. Shonte Davis was in her early 20s when she first met Epstein. You know I find myself

locking doors in my house that I didn't normally lock before. Why? There were a couple of times

where I would triple check that my garage was locked because I was afraid I'd go out and like my

car would explode the next morning. Just weird random fears. Because you think what you might

potentially be targeted because you've spoken out. Absolutely. Yeah and because I don't plan on

quitting and I still have a lot more to say that hasn't been said. So yeah I feel like there has

already been people who have been silenced permanently. And I don't know why would we be left off

that list to be honest. I mean even Jeffrey himself. Whoever killed him silenced him. So you don't

believe he took his own life. Absolutely no. No. No. None of you do. We knew the kind of person he

was. He never seen. He thought he was going to walk away from even this. He knew he was going to

get away with that. Yeah. What Epstein and his network of rich, powerful friends and associates did

has dominated American and UK politics after the release of millions of documents related to Epstein

by the US Department of Justice. Millions more still haven't been made public. Former Prince Andrew

was stripped of his title over his links to the convicted sex offender. Lisa Phillips who was a

21-year-old model when she first met Epstein told the BBC a friend of hers was sent by Epstein

into a room with the former Prince. Andrew Mambatton Windsor has strongly denied any wrongdoing.

My girlfriend she was the reason why I started speaking out because I wanted to speak for her

because she didn't want to because the abuse happened to her and in late 2003 she said she

went to his Upper East Side House and former Prince Andrew was there and that he made her forced her

to go into a room and to have sex with this man and she didn't want to when she argued with him

she said he made her and she went into the room for a few minutes and then he kind of discarded

her and walked out. And when you say he who's the he making her do that? Jeffrey Epstein.

Making her go into that room and Andrew was in there and she was required to have sex with him.

That's what happened. Right. Andrew denies all wrongdoing. Why do you think your friend has

never gone public? Well I don't blame her. I mean I think most victims don't want to go public.

Have the police in the UK Lisa ever asked to interview you about what your friend alleged

Andrew did? The police in the UK? No. No. Should they? Yeah I think people learn a lot by talking to

the victims. That's Victoria Darbyshire there speaking to some of the survivors of the sex offender

Jeffrey Epstein and the allegations made by Lisa Phillips just then were put to Andrew Mt.

Bannon Windsor but we've not received a response and he's consistently denied any wrongdoing

in relation to his links with Epstein. We're ready to start the season. Here we go.

An absolute tank. I can't believe it. He makes another catch. Oh my god. I keep waiting for it

opening day. You ready? The first game of the Major League Baseball season is just a few hours away

and it's about to address one of baseball's biggest issues. It's one of the bug bears in all sports.

Has an umpire referee or lines person made the right call? Well there's always room for human

error but technology is changing and it's begun to change the way those decisions are made.

We've seen VAR in football and electronic line calling at the tennis in Wimbledon. Well today

robot umpires of sorts make their debut in Major League Baseball. So why's it taken so long?

Mike Carlson's a journalist who covers American sports for international audiences.

Baseball is the most traditional sport of American sports and it takes change very slowly

and they also have been trying to speed up the games for ages and this will slow the games down

because it works on a challenge system. So if there's a pitch which either the batter

or the pitcher or the catcher think should have been called the other way they can touch their

helmet within or touch their head within a couple of seconds and then there will be a replay.

They call it the automated ball strike system ABS. If you get it right you're allowed to keep

challenging. You get two challenges but but that number stays the same as long as you get it right.

If you get it wrong you you lose a challenge. Is this a controversial decision? You talk just

friend about how baseball's been slower to move with this technology than other sports that already

use it as you say American football of course football as we we call it here in the UK and cricket

for example being using this technology for a while even tennis in fact.

Yeah absolutely and you know and it is the same technology. The biggest problem with baseball

is that for example with cricket you know the height of the object you're trying to measure.

The stumps are at a set height so the computer can tell Plackeye whether the ball might or

might not have hit the stumps. For baseball a strike which is by definition a ball that the

batter is required to try to hit has to be over the plate the base that's that this plant player is

staying at the standing at the side of and between basically the top of his knees and the bottom

of his armpits but of course everybody's a different size and the uniforms hang in different

ways and the players crouch when they're batting in different styles so what they've actually done

is measured every player in the major leagues and the ball will have to be between 27% and 53% of

their height to be a strike and if you don't understand balls and strikes if a player gets three

strikes thrown past him or if he swings and misses at three strikes he's out and if the ball isn't in

the strike zone and therefore considered not fair for him to hit it's called a ball if he gets

four balls he's allowed to go to first base straight away so that's where the expression three

strikes in your out comes from. Okay so that's really interesting isn't it but this is all very

specific based on heights is there still some room for people to dispute things because technology

can sometimes go wrong? As long as they don't as long as it's not challenged and that's going to

take away all the fun of players aren't doing with the umpire and kicking the manager running out

of the dugout and kickers. Yeah and well the fights they try not to to keep them going but you know

it is a controversial thing. Hi this is Alex Cantrowitz I'm the host of Big Technology podcast

a long time reporter and an on-air contributor to CNBC and if you're like me you're trying to

figure out how artificial intelligence is changing the business world and our lives so each week

on big technology I bring on key actors from companies building AI tech and outsiders trying to

influence it asking where this is all going they come from places like Nvidia Microsoft Amazon

and plenty more so if you want to be smart with your wallet your career choices and meetings with

your colleagues and at dinner parties listen to Big Technology podcast wherever you get your

podcasts. Have you ever received a call from a stranger regarding student loans you don't own

an unpaid parking ticket for a car that you don't even own if so you might have been the target

of a scam orchestrated by criminals a thousand miles away I'm Tristan Redman one of the hosts of

the global story podcast and we're taking a linside look at the highly lucrative scam factories

of Southeast Asia listen to the global story on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

Welcome back to news hour now to an extraordinary story of bravery in the face of danger which has

been recognised Nathan Yuby was being treated for a chest infection at a hospital in Leeds in the

north of England when he went to speak to a man who was acting strangely in the corridor

well that man Muhammad Farouk was planning to blow the hospital up with a huge homemade bomb

Nathan eventually managed to persuade him to abandon his attack. Farouk who was a nursing

assistant at the hospital was subsequently convicted of preparing acts of terrorism and he was

jailed for a minimum of 37 years well today Nathan's been awarded one of the UK's highest honours

the George medal and he's been speaking to the BBC's Emma Glaspy.

5 a.m. outside a Leeds hospital an armed police arrest a man with a homemade bomb.

Described in quarters a self-radicalised lone wolf terrorist Muhammad Farouk had been waiting

around at St James's planning to detonate the bomb and kill nurses but he'd been stopped by a

patient who spent more than two hours with him in the hospital car park talking him down. Nathan

Yuby will today receive the George medal at St James's palace for his bravery and he's spoken

for the first time about that night. I remember going outside for a bit and told this guy

he was just anxious if you know what I mean it and his pockets and fiddling about and swaying

backwards and forth just looked at a place so I just went over to see if we were all right and

have a chatting typical to make a feel better. But Farouk eventually confessed to Nathan he had a

bomb in a bag and showed him the pressure cooker device. When I saw one in the bag that's when

reality then I was like well this is now I'm with it and I'd have been killed anywhere.

If a run in the panic could set it off there's no way to get in the way now where I was all

staying with the guy. In fact Nathan moved Farouk and his bomb device further away from the hospital

building. So he asked me to stand up and give my hugs I said yeah I have an augment and then he

said that I want your phone police before I turn around and he was just about to kill a lot of

people. We're about to say yeah. Outside St James's hospital. Whoa not right put outside there.

He's just pulled the gun out. He's just pulled the gun out. Yeah yeah. You sounded very calm.

How are you feeling inside? You don't have time to think how you're feeling just

thinking about the people around you didn't think about the hospital him. I didn't have time to

think about how I felt. I just think about others and try to get my way and try to protect them.

As the police operations swung into action Nathan returned to his hospital bed to relieved nurses

who wondered where he'd been. Emma Glasby with the remarkable heroism of Nathan there.

You're listening to news hour from the BBC. I'm Reginae Vidinathan. Well let's catch up on

developments in the Middle East. We're hearing more contradictory statements from the US and Iran

about a possible ceasefire plan as the strikes and suffering continue. In a post on X Tehran's

Ali Rezza Khani referred today to the harm done to the civilian population in his city.

2000 families in Tehran have been left homeless. Women, children, the elderly, the young,

ordinary residents of our Tehran have been struck. We will rebuild their homes. We will rebuild

them stronger than before but as my dear leader has said we will take both retribution and

compensation from those responsible. Well this man's just escaped from Iran he spoke to the BBC

on the border with Turkey. People honestly expected something better from this

United States and Israeli intervention but I think it backfired at the moment because

Iranian people right now seem to be trapped and caught between war on one hand and domestic

repression on the other hand. Like a dilemma. We thought that the American intervention would

release us soon. However that freedom which we wanted didn't happen. Well he also described how

his father died as a result of an attack on their home. All the windows started shaking and breaking

and my father 82 years old was struck badly he'd taken to hospital and later lost his life because

of receiving such a shock. While speaking a few hours ago Iran's foreign minister Abbas Araqji

said officials are reviewing American proposals to end the war but the Tehran has no intention of

holding talks with the United States. Meanwhile the White House is insisting that talks are ongoing

and that President Trump is prepared to unleash hell if Tehran doesn't accept a deal.

So what if any progress is being made when it comes to ending the conflict? Well who man

matched is an Iranian-American writer and the author of The Aya Toler makes to differ.

In this particular case when with this particular war it seems like the Iranians are telling the

truth more often than the US's. At least in terms of what Trump claims and what the Iranians claim.

When Trump says that President Trump says that the Iranians have reached out they are desperate

to make a deal. They really want to make a deal. They called me. They gave me a present which

arrived yesterday at the White House. Things like that and Iran denies them all. They didn't deny

the present because that's like no point denying something like that. Obviously they didn't send

a present to Donald Trump in the middle of being bombed by him. But you know it begger's belief

that Iranians would when they appear to be having the upper hand in this war at this point

to be begging Trump for a deal. I don't think there's any questions that Iranians would like to

make a deal at some point that satisfies their demands. But I don't think they're anywhere near

that at this point. And I think they're nowhere near the end of causing pain for both the United

States and the regional allies and the world economy basically so that this becomes their deterrent

against a future war. It's like the next time you do this remember this is what we can do.

Especially with the world economy more so than missile attacks and drones. Even though that is

you know obviously a problem for the regional countries and including American air bases and

American servicemen and women who've been killed so far in this war. But the ability to keep

the straits of foremost effectively close, even though it's not literally physically close,

with no real kind of solution on the part of NATO, the US, other allies to open it

without a massive ground invasion which nobody seems to want to do. You know I think that the

Iranian responses to all these messages that are coming and rejecting a cease-fire,

rejecting what Donald Trump is saying seems perfectly logical to me.

Yeah I mean we had that response on state TV and official who was quoted saying that the

proposals at 15 point plan that was widely reported was excessive. Yeah well yeah I mean the

the so-called 15 point plan we assume is is real it was passed on to the Iranians by the

Pakistanis and the Iranians rejected it because it is basically a capitulation. It's a maximalist

you know demand by the United States but of course the United States can argue that well of course

you enter negotiations with your maximum position and Iran has basically already set what their

maximum position is and their maximum position is a cessation of war a pledge to never attack Iran

again and reparations for all the damages damages in the war. So that's Iran's position which is

actually you know more stringent conditions than they offered in right before the war in talks

in Geneva with the United States. So yeah they both sides are going to come up with these these

you know demands. Iran is going to reject American demands and America will probably reject

the reparations at least sanctions relief immediate sanctions relief that's another demand that

Iran is making at this point and they'll probably reject that as well and the US will probably

want to do a phased sanctions relief. And so to follow up on that because we all know President

Trump's style is very unconventional but of course he has in some ways managed to get before

these strikes of course and the war began some closeness to a diplomatic agreement and then things

fell apart. And now he claims he's getting closer to that again or you think the Iranian

responses given the unconventional approach that President Trump adopts.

I think they just basically don't trust him at all and they don't trust anything the US says.

I mean they feel like they've been duped twice you know once in the 12-day war back in June when

they were in the middle of negotiations and then Israel attacked and then in the US dropped the

bombs on their nuclear sites and then called for a ceasefire. Iran believed that they showed

restraint then. They said that the next time this happens we won't show restraint the supreme

leader who is now dead you know at the beginning of February and his speech said you know next time

it's going to be a regional war. So it's it's it's confusing as to why Trump believed that the Iran

wouldn't react they already had said they would react like this exactly like this. And I mean in

terms of you know trusting Trump negotiators I think that those days are over everything will

have to be you know much more concrete for the Iranians to believe anything that the Trump

negotiators say to them. There's also the question of whether they'll even trust Steve Whitkoff

and Jared Kushner who have so far shown you know an inability to to negotiate a deal with Iran

that that satisfies Trump and satisfies them. You know two realistic developers getting involved in a

very complex technical nuclear issue the Iranians now don't believe and they've said so.

Iranian foreign minister and interviews have said so that he doesn't believe that he was a

negotiator with Steve Whitkoff and Jared Kushner that they understood the offer that Iran was making.

That's the Iranian-American writer Human Majd who's also the son of an Iranian diplomat.

Please stand as we go to welcome Sarah our Archbishop into her Cathedral Church.

Royals and faith leaders gathered at Canterbury Cathedral in southeast England one of the oldest

Christian structures in the world as history was made etched in one of the walls as a sculpture of

Saint Augustine the very first Archbishop of Canterbury a man like all of those who followed

until now well in a grand ceremony Sarah Malali became the first woman ever to hold the title.

I solemnly commit myself before you to the service of the Church of England the Anglican

Communion and the whole Church of Christ throughout the world that together we may proclaim the gospel

of Christ who reconciles us to God and breaks down the walls that divide us.

Well as the spiritual head of the Anglican Communion worldwide Sarah Malali not only

leads the Church of England but also heads up an association of independent churches including

the Episcopal Church in the United States which together have more than 100 million members.

Well Bishop Emily Onyango is the assistant bishop of the diocese of Bondo and the first woman

ordained bishop in the Anglican Church of Kenya she was at the ceremony and I asked her about it.

Yeah it was a wonderful service we really felt a little and it was history in the making we were

very grateful for what God has done among us.

And how significant for you was it to see the first ever female archbishop of Canterbury?

It is quite significant and it will change a lot within the church.

You know having a woman bishop will change a lot the way people view the ministry and the office

of the archbishop. So by her nature Bishop Sarah Archbishop Sarah is a person who is pastoral.

So she comes with a caring spirit and a reconciliation spirit so it will really change the way

people view the leader of the Anglican Church. Let's talk about the way people view the leader of the

Anglican Church because the appointment of a female archbishop of Canterbury isn't popular with

some of the more conservative members of the church in Africa and elsewhere. What do you feel about

how those views could be changed and united? Yeah I think by her nature she is about peace and

reconciliation and we think this will make a lot of impact in Africa and like other church leaders

who are full of ego and power struggle archbishop Sarah is concerned about reconciliation.

So I think she will really bring a lot of change on the way people view that office and we think

her appointment although unpopular is going to bring reconciliation and healing to the church.

And just very briefly you were the first woman bishop ordained in the Anglican Church of Kenya.

Did you face the wrath of male egos? Yeah they are quite a bit of that but I think being in the

ministry and having reconciliation spirit is quite important. So I think the way women

look at that ministry is quite different from the way most of the male leaders look at that I think

we look for peace and reconciliation. That's Bishop Emily on Yango the assistant bishop of the

diocese of Bondo in Kenya. A reminder that you can listen to news hour whenever you like. We've

got two editions a day you can get the latest one online at bbcworldservice.com or line up sign up

for our free download just search for new BBC news hour wherever you find your podcasts.

This is Regina Vidinarvan with news hour coming to you live from the BBC in London.

Let's go to Lebanon now and the human cost of the ongoing conflict there.

Israel has continued to launch strikes on southern Lebanon and in the southern suburbs of the

capital Beirut while the Iran-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah says that it's still attacking

Israeli troops on Lebanese territory. Well all of this comes a day after Israel's government said

it intended to occupy a 10th of Lebanese territory until the threat from Hezbollah is removed.

Well more than a million Lebanese people have now been displaced since the war resumed at the

start of this month there. The humanitarian fallout has seen countless families forced to flee

their homes and in a country which has seen war for decades it's an unwelcome yet familiar ritual.

I've been speaking to Rana her mood now she fled her home in southern Lebanon with her three

children and their cat and it's not the first time she's had to leave her home in a hurry.

I asked her how it felt this time. I can't do this again. I can't do this again.

Hello this is the it has to be the last time. All I tell my children all I say to my children is

that if this happens all again you do not stay in the country you need to leave the country.

This can't be happening all the time. So yeah it has to end somewhere. I don't know how

it has to end. We have the right to say this conflict has to end.

And just tell us about how you packed everything up. You had three children with you as well.

Just tell us about that moment where you decided you had to move.

From where I live everybody left. So yeah it started to become dangerous people who are calling me

my parents or my friends and you need to leave this time it's very serious. It seems that

people start talking. So yeah for the sake of everybody we had to leave I have three children.

I do not want them to be traumatized all their lives. The children said oh we're going to do

this again. I said yeah we did it before we can do it again. And we will come back as soon as

this gets better. We stayed like nine hours on the road. We slept in the car with a cat. Things

were complicated at that moment. So yeah we called our friends and we are now guests in their house.

What support have you had from the government? I mean of course you've had the support from

your friends. Others aren't as fortunate in that way to have a place to stay. What support are

you seeing around you and what are you getting as a family? Oh no nothing we're not

know from the government. No. But you know I believe it has to end some time I can't say but

this is going to end like everything else. Hopefully once and for all we do not have conflicts

anymore in our country. And what are your children asking you what concerns and fears do they have?

They say we are going back and when is this going to end? They can see the news. They started

online studying yesterday which is good. Well the million people in your country have now

been displaced forced to leave their homes. Their stories like yours up and down the country.

Just tell me about your friends and your family and where they all are as well.

Presumably scattered everywhere. My mother is in the north. My sister is in Beirut. I haven't

seen them since then. I have some friends who are still in the in Sur. Some friends are still

on the border and the villages on the borders. Some of them were unable. Some of them refused to leave

and I respect that so much. I sometimes envy them for staying. And what's it like in the south

at the moment? It's it's terrifying. People are not sleeping. They're wondering when this is going

to end. Now that they have taken down the bridges. They're wondering if they're going to have food

or supplies. Some of them have children. Some of them are sick. Some of them were unable to leave

the living day by day. Now it was Rana Hamud, a Lebanese civilian who has had to flee her home in

the south. Now take a listen to this. Can you guess which bird that is? Well if you can't it's

a hummingbird. I don't know you study has found that they consume about the equivalent of a pint of

beer as equivalent for humans a day. Now that's from the nectar that they drink. Well Alexi Marrow is

a graduate student at UC Berkeley in California and he's the lead author of this study. A bit of a

curious thing to study. So I began by asking him why he picked this subject. Well it hasn't been

studied before. We have all of these studies about how bees and hummingbirds respond to alcohol

and lab settings that assume that there's alcohol in flower nectar or somewhere in their diet.

But the concentrations before have just been too low for previous methods to detect.

That's new. We didn't know how much alcohol was in the flower nectar before.

Yeah so just tell us a bit more about how you went about your research then.

Yeah we went to the Botanical Garden at the University of California and we ended up sampling

around 29 species of flowers using these microcapillary tubes that are about half a microliter of very

tiny amounts of nectar and you probe a flower and the nectar goes off the tube and then we'd

cap it and freeze it and we used an enzyme assay, an enzyme that kind of chemical reagents to very

accurately estimate these seemingly very low concentrations. So low concentrations but do

hummingbirds show signs of being drunk? Yeah so they end up really adding up because hummingbirds

consume something like one and a half times their body mass and nectar and so when you're drinking

that much volume even a little bit of alcohol adds up and when you correct for body mass they're

consuming something similar to a 5% you know half a liter longer per day but they're doing

you very slowly over the course of the day and hummingbirds they evolved drinking nectar. It's been

over a hundred million years that flower and plants have been around and they do it their whole life

so I imagine they have a slightly different relationship to it but that doesn't mean they don't

enjoy it. If it's a dietary signal like we think it is it may play that kind of role when you

smell alcohol you know that there's yeasts and there's not spoilage bacteria in the nectar.

And how does that make a decision? How does that compare with other pollinators because I know you

said you've looked at bees for example. Yeah honey bees are a little trickier to estimate because

they're they do so many different things and the estimates that do exist say that honey bees are

consuming about a quarter of what I had a couple I estimated a couple species of hummingbirds and

three species of sunbirds. I have said I didn't have a drunk hummingbirds down on my news hour

bingo card but that was Alexi Marrow a graduate student at UC Berkeley. In California I'm Regina

Vise and Arden from the team and myself thanks very much for listening to this edition.

Have you ever received a call from a stranger regarding student loans you don't owe

an unpaid parking ticket for a car that you don't even own? If so you might have been the target

of a scam orchestrated by criminals of thousands of miles away. I'm Tristan Redman one of the hosts

of the global story podcast and we're taking a linside look at the highly lucrative scam factories

of Southeast Asia. Listen to the global story on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.