A brand new series of Have I Got News For You aired on TV recently but the first episode didn’t quite go to plan, forcing the show’s episode to be axed from BBC iPlayer
Victoria also went on social media to correct the error herself(Image: CREDIT LINE:BBC/Hat Trick)
Have I Got News For You’s recent false claim has since been blamed on “digital natives”. The first episode in the new series of the iconic show included a segment where presenter Victoria Coren Mitchell incorrectly claimed that a contract to roll out the Government’s new ID cards has been handed to Multiverse.
Multiverse is a company run by the son of former prime minister Tony Blair, Euan. Jimmy Mulville, who is the founder of the show’s producer Hat Trick Productions, spoke about the mistake.
Speaking on Insiders: The TV Podcast: “What was interesting was this, and this is why I want to talk about it, is that because we now have generations of younger producers who are coming into the business, and they are digital natives, they’re called.
“They’re marinated in social media, and I said, ‘where did we get this story?’, and apparently, the story was put on by a freelance journalist, I won’t mention her name, a freelance journalist who put on her Twitter feed this story about Euan Blair and ID cards.
“And the producer said, ‘well, it had nearly three million views that day’, so it must be true, and no one questioned it. I went, ‘ok, and did we verify anywhere else?’, and then faces became very red around the table, and god bless them, they’re a fantastic team, and they felt terrible about this, really, really awful.
“Which is the right response, and so we’ve now got a new rule, we don’t take stories off social media.” He said that “normally” his team would make sure they had a second source before writing the script for the show but this time that didn’t happen.
The post which is referred to in the podcast is still on X which has been viewed almost three million times in total.
Mulville added: “It’s not defamatory in any way, in fact, the lawyers didn’t pick up on it, our lawyers and the BBC lawyers, didn’t pick up on it.
“It’s a low level mistake, but nevertheless, it is indicative, and it was good to spot it, because what you wouldn’t want to do is to make some kind of egregious claim about somebody and it is defamatory.”
The BBC apologised for the mistake after it was broadcast and the episode was removed from iPlayer last weekend. It was then edited and re-uploaded with the incorrect information removed.
Meanwhile, presenter Victoria also went on social media to correct the error herself as well.
TV presenter Cat Deeley is reportedly feeling anxious about her return to This Morning as she faces backlash and blame over her split from husband Patrick Kielty
22:51, 30 Aug 2025Updated 22:51, 30 Aug 2025
Cat Deeley anxious about return to This Morning after Patrick Kielty split blame(Image: ITV)
Cat Deeley is preparing for her return to ITV’s This Morning after the summer break, but behind the scenes, she’s reportedly feeling unsettled as she quietly navigates the emotional fallout from her marriage ending.
The 48-year-old presenter announced in July that she and husband Patrick Kielty had separated after 13 years together. The former couple share two young sons, Milo, eight, and James, six, and while they have asked for privacy, speculation around the reasons for their split has continued to swirl.
According to a source close to the star, Cat has no intention of bringing up her personal life on air when she reunites with co-host Ben Shephard. “Cat feels anxious ahead of her first day back after announcing the bombshell news of her split during her break,” the source said.
“She has decided NOT to mention the breakdown of her marriage on screen and instead wants to keep the chatty dialogue between her and Ben upbeat and positive for viewers.”
While Cat and Patrick released a united statement to confirm the separation stressing that “there is no other party involved”, those close to her say she has been quietly hurt by the public reaction, particularly around a deeply personal family event.
“She has been hurt that people who don’t even know her have judged her for not going to her mother-in-law’s funeral in March,” the source told The Sun.
Cat and Patrick split after 13 years together
“Even people from within Patrick’s family and inner circle who don’t know her well have criticised her for that and made out that it was the reason for the split when that couldn’t be further from the truth.”
The suggestion that she’s to blame for the end of the marriage has reportedly been painful.
“Cat is generally a really positive person but it hurts her to have people piling the blame onto her when this is a painful situation for them both,” the insider added.
Despite the pressure, both Cat and Patrick have made it clear that their focus remains on co-parenting their children.
Cat hosts the daytime show with Ben Shephard
Their joint statement read: “We have taken the decision to end our marriage and are now separated.
“There is no other party involved. We will continue to be united as loving parents to our children and would therefore kindly ask for our family privacy to be respected. There will be no further comment.”
Cat is expected to keep things light when she returns to her presenting role on This Morning and is reportedly hoping that her personal life and marriage split will not be brought up upon her return to TV screens.
At least three people have been killed and several injured in a fire blamed on protesters in Sulawesi island.
Published On 30 Aug 202530 Aug 2025
At least three people have been killed and five were injured in a fire blamed on protesters at a regional parliament building in eastern Indonesia, as widespread demonstrations rock the Southeast Asian nation.
Indonesia’s disaster management agency, in a statement on Saturday, confirmed the deaths following the Friday evening fire in Makassar, the capital of South Sulawesi province, some 1,600km (994 miles) east of the capital, Jakarta.
“From last night’s incident, three people died. Two died at the scene, and one died at the hospital. They were trapped in the burning building,” the secretary of Makassar city council, Rahmat Mappatoba, told the AFP news agency on Saturday.
He accused protesters of storming the office to set the building on fire.
Indonesia’s official Antara news agency also said the victims were reported to have been trapped in the burning building, while the disaster agency said two of the injured were hurt while jumping out of the building.
Several people injured in the fire are being treated in hospital, officials said.
The fire has since been extinguished.
Indonesia has been rocked by protests across major cities, including Jakarta, since Friday, after footage spread of a motorcycle delivery driver being run over and killed by a police tactical vehicle in earlier rallies over low wages and perceived lavish perks for government officials.
In West Java’s capital city of Bandung, commercial buildings, including a bank and a restaurant, were also reportedly burned on Friday during demonstrations.
In Jakarta, hundreds of demonstrators massed outside the headquarters of the elite Mobile Brigade Corp (Brimob) paramilitary police unit that was blamed for running over motorcycle delivery driver Affan Kuniawan.
Protesters threw stones and firecrackers, and police responded with tear gas as a group tried to tear down the gates of the unit, which is notorious for its heavy-handed tactics.
On Saturday, a local online news site reported that young protesters had massed in Jakarta and were heading to the Brimob headquarters before they were stopped by a barricade.
Police said they had detained seven officers for questioning in connection with the driver’s death. The number of protesters injured in the violence is reported to be more than 200, according to the Tempo news site.
The protests are the biggest and most violent of Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto’s tenure, and are a key test less than a year into his presidency.
Prabowo has urged calm, ordered an investigation into the unrest, visited the family of the slain delivery driver, while also warning that the demonstrations “were leading to anarchic actions”.
Student protesters face off with riot police during a protest outside Jakarta’s police headquarters in the capital on Friday [Mast Irham/EPA]
As authorities identified the shooter in the deadly attack on CDC headquarters as a Georgia man who blamed the COVID-19 vaccine for making him depressed and suicidal, a union representing workers at the agency is demanding that federal officials condemn vaccine misinformation, saying it was putting scientists at risk.
The union said that Friday’s shooting at the Atlanta offices of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which left a police officer dead, was not a random incident and that it “compounds months of mistreatment, neglect, and vilification that CDC staff have endured.”
The American Federation of Government Employees, Local 2883, said the CDC and leadership of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services must provide a “clear and unequivocal stance in condemning vaccine disinformation.”
The 30-year-old gunman, who died during the event, had also tried to get into the CDC’s headquarters in Atlanta but was stopped by guards before driving to a pharmacy across the street and opening fire, a law enforcement official told the Associated Press on Saturday.
The man, identified as Patrick Joseph White, was armed with five guns, including at least one long gun, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the investigation.
Here’s what to know about the shooting and the continuing investigation:
An attack on a public health institution
Police say White opened fire outside the CDC headquarters in Atlanta on Friday, leaving bullet marks in windows across the sprawling campus. At least four CDC buildings were hit, agency Director Susan Monarez said on X.
DeKalb County Police Officer David Rose was mortally wounded while responding. Rose, 33, a former Marine who served in Afghanistan, had graduated from the police academy in March.
White was found on the second floor of a building across the street from the CDC campus and died at the scene, Atlanta Police Chief Darin Schierbaum said. “We do not know at this time whether that was from officers or if it was self-inflicted,” he said.
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation said the crime scene was “complex” and the investigation would take “an extended period of time.”
CDC union’s call
The American Federation of Government Employees, Local 2883, is calling for a statement condemning vaccine misinformation from the Department of Health and Human Services. The agency is led by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who rose to public prominence on healthcare issues as a leading vaccine skeptic, sometimes advancing false information.
A public statement by federal officials condemning misinformation is needed to help prevent violence against scientists, the union said in a news release.
“Their leadership is critical in reinforcing public trust and ensuring that accurate, science-based information prevails,” the union said.
Fired But Fighting, a group of laid-off CDC employees, has said Kennedy is directly responsible for the villainization of the CDC’s workforce through “his continuous lies about science and vaccine safety, which have fueled a climate of hostility and mistrust.”
Kennedy reached out to staff on Saturday, saying that “no one should face violence while working to protect the health of others.”
Thousands of people who work on critical disease research are employed on the campus. The union said some staff members were huddled in various buildings until late at night, including more than 90 young children who were locked down inside the CDC’s Clifton School.
The union said CDC staff should not be required to immediately return to work after experiencing such a traumatic event. In a statement released Saturday, it said windows and buildings should first be fixed and made “completely secure.”
“Staff should not be required to work next to bullet holes,” the union said. “Forcing a return under these conditions risks re-traumatizing staff by exposing them to the reminders of the horrific shooting they endured.”
The union also called for “perimeter security on all campuses” until the investigation is fully completed and shared with staff.
Shooter’s focus on COVID-19 vaccine
White’s father, who contacted police and identified his son as the possible shooter, said White had been upset over the death of his dog and had become fixated on the COVID-19 vaccine, according to a law enforcement official.
A neighbor of White told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that White “seemed like a good guy” but spoke with her multiple times about his distrust of COVID-19 vaccines in unrelated conversations.
“He was very unsettled, and he very deeply believed that vaccines hurt him and were hurting other people,” Nancy Hoalst told the newspaper. “He emphatically believed that.”
But Hoalst said she never believed White would be violent: “I had no idea he thought he would take it out on the CDC.”
Houayxay, Laos – Fishing went well today for Khon, a Laotian fisherman, who lives in a floating house built from plastic drums, scrap metal and wood on the Mekong River.
“I caught two catfish,” the 52-year-old tells Al Jazeera proudly, lifting his catch for inspection.
Khon’s simple houseboat contains all he needs to live on this mighty river: A few metal pots, a fire to cook food on and to keep warm by at night, as well as some nets and a few clothes.
What Khon does not always have is fish.
“There are days when I catch nothing. It’s frustrating,” he said.
“The water levels change all the time because of the dams. And now they say the river is polluted, too. Up there in Myanmar, they dig in the mountains. Mines, or something like that. And all that toxic stuff ends up here,” he adds.
Khon lives in Laos’s northwestern Bokeo province on one of the most scenic stretches of the Mekong River as it meanders through the heart of the Golden Triangle – the borderland shared by Laos, Thailand and Myanmar.
This remote region has long been infamous for drug production and trafficking.
Now it is caught up in the global scramble for gold and rare earth minerals, crucial for the production of new technologies and used in everything from smartphones to electric cars.
A fisherman along the Mekong River in Bokeo province, Laos [Al Jazeera/Fabio Polese]
Over the past year, rivers in this region, such as the Ruak, Sai and Kok – all tributaries of the Mekong – have shown abnormal levels of arsenic, lead, nickel and manganese, according to Thailand’s Pollution Control Department.
Arsenic, in particular, has exceeded World Health Organization safety limits, prompting health warnings for riverside communities.
These tributaries feed directly into the Mekong and contamination has spread to parts of the river’s mainstream. The effects have been observed in Laos, prompting the Mekong River Commission to declare the situation “moderately serious”.
“Recent official water quality testing clearly indicates that the Mekong River on the Thai-Lao border is contaminated with arsenic,” Pianporn Deetes, Southeast Asia campaigns director for the advocacy group International Rivers, told Al Jazeera.
“This is alarming and just the first chapter of the crisis, if the mining continues,” Pianporn said.
“Fishermen have recently caught diseased, young catfish. This is a matter of regional public health, and it needs urgent action from governments,” she added.
The source of the heavy metals contamination is believed to be upriver in Myanmar’s Shan State, where dozens of unregulated mines have sprung up as the search for rare earth minerals intensifies globally.
Laotian fisherman Khon, 52, throws a net from the bank of the Mekong River without catching anything [Fabio Polese/Al Jazeera]
Zachary Abuza, a professor at the National War College in Washington and an expert on Southeast Asia, said at least a dozen, and possibly as many as 20, mines focused on gold and rare earth extraction have been established in southern Shan State over the past year alone.
Myanmar is now four years into a civil war and lawlessness reigns in the border area, which is held by two powerful ethnic armed groups: the Restoration Council of Shan State (RCSS) and the United Wa State Army (UWSA).
Myanmar’s military government has “no real control”, Abuza said, apart from holding Tachileik town, the region’s main border crossing between Thailand and Myanmar.
Neither the RCSS nor the UWSA are “fighting the junta”, he said, explaining how both are busy enriching themselves from the chaos in the region and the rush to open mines.
“In this vacuum, mining has exploded – likely with Chinese traders involved. The military in Naypyidaw can’t issue permits or enforce environmental rules, but they still take their share of the profits,” Abuza said.
‘Alarming decline’
Pollution from mining is not the Mekong River’s only ailment.
For years, the health of the river has been degraded by a growing chain of hydropower dams that have drastically altered its natural rhythm and ecology.
In the Mekong’s upper reaches, inside China, almost a dozen huge hydropower dams have been built, including the Xiaowan and Nuozhadu dams, which are said to be capable of holding back a huge amount of the river’s flow.
Further downstream, Laos has staked its economic future on hydropower.
According to the Mekong Dam Monitor, which is hosted by the Stimson Centre think tank in Washington, DC, at least 75 dams are now operational on the Mekong’s tributaries, and two in Laos – Xayaburi and Don Sahong – are directly on the mainstream river.
As a rule, hydropower is a cleaner alternative to coal.
But the rush to dam the Mekong is driving another type of environmental crisis.
According to WWF and the Mekong River Commission, the Mekong River basin once supported about 60 million people and provided up to 25 percent of the world’s freshwater fish catch.
Today, one in five fish species in the Mekong is at risk of extinction, and the river’s sediment and nutrient flows have been severely reduced, as documented in a 2023–2024 Mekong Dam Monitor report and research by International Rivers.
“The alarming decline in fish populations in the Mekong is an urgent wake-up call for action to save these extraordinary – and extraordinarily important – species, which underpin not only the region’s societies and economies but also the health of the Mekong’s freshwater ecosystems,” the WWF’s Asia Pacific Regional Director Lan Mercado said at the launch of a 2024 report titled The Mekong’s Forgotten Fishes.
In Houayxay, the capital of Bokeo province, the markets appeared mostly absent of fish during a recent visit.
At Kad Wang View, the town’s main market, the fish stalls were nearly deserted.
“Maybe this afternoon, or maybe tomorrow,” said Mali, a vendor in her 60s. In front of her, Mali had arranged her small stock of fish in a circle, perhaps hoping to make the display look fuller for potential customers.
At another market, Sydonemy, just outside Houayxay town, the story was the same. The fish stalls were bare.
“Sometimes the fish come, sometimes they don’t. We just wait,” another vendor said.
“There used to be giant fish here,” recalled Vilasai, 53, who comes from a fishing family but now works as a taxi driver.
“Now the river gives us little. Even the water for irrigation – people are scared to use it. No one knows if it’s still clean,” he told Al Jazeera, referring to the pollution from Myanmar’s mines.
A fish seller at Kad Wang View, the main market in Houayxay, where stalls were nearly empty during a recent visit [Fabio Polese/Al Jazeera]
‘The river used to be predictable’
Ian G Baird, professor of geography and Southeast Asian studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, said upstream dams – especially those in China – have had serious downstream effects in northern Thailand and Laos.
“The ecosystem and the lives that depend on the river evolved to adapt to specific hydrological conditions,” Baird told Al Jazeera.
“But since the dams were built, those conditions have changed dramatically. There are now rapid water level fluctuations in the dry season, which used to be rare, and this has negative impacts on both the river and the people,” he said.
Another major effect is the reversal of the river’s natural cycle.
“Now there is more water in the dry season and less during the rainy season. That reduces flooding and the beneficial ecological effects of the annual flood pulse,” Baird explained.
“The dams hold water during the rainy season and release it in the dry season to maximise energy output and profits. But that also kills seasonally flooded forests and disrupts the river’s ecological function,” he said.
Bun Chan, 45, lives with his wife Nanna Kuhd, 40, on a floating house near Houayxay. He fishes while his wife sells whatever he catches at the local market.
On a recent morning, he cast his net again and again – but for nothing.
“Looks like I won’t catch anything today,” Bun Chan told Al Jazeera as he pulled up his empty net.
“The other day I caught a few, but we didn’t sell them. We’re keeping them in cages in the water, so at least we have something to eat if I don’t catch more,” he said.
Fisherman Hom Phan steers his boat on the Mekong River [Fabio Polese/Al Jazeera]
Hom Phan has been a fisherman on the Mekong his entire life.
He steers his wooden boat across the river, following a route he knows by instinct. In some parts of the river, the current is strong enough now to drag everything under, the 67-year-old says.
All around him, the silence is broken only by the chug of his small outboard engine and the calls of distant birds.
“The river used to be predictable. Now we don’t know when it will rise or fall,” Hom Phan said.
“Fish can’t find their spawning grounds. They’re disappearing. And we might too, if nothing changes,” he told Al Jazeera.
Evening approaches in Houayxay, and Khon, the fisherman, rolls up his nets and prepares dinner in his floating home.
As he waits for the fire to catch to cook a meal, he quietly contemplates the great river he lives on.
Despite the dams in China, the pollution from mines in neighbouring Myanmar, and the increasing difficulty in landing the catch he relies on to survive, Khon was outwardly serene as he considered his next day of fishing.
With his eyes fixed on the waters that flowed deeply beneath his home, he said with a smile: “We try again tomorrow.”
The US football league has previously faced legal challenges over its failure to address players’ concussions.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams has said that a gunman who killed five people, including himself, sought out the headquarters of the National Football League (NFL), which he blamed for the brain injuries he suffered from.
Adams said on Tuesday that a note carried by the shooter, identified as 27-year-old Shane Tamura, suggests his target was the NFL.
“The note alluded to that he felt he had CTE [chronic traumatic encephalopathy], a known brain injury for those who participate in contact sports,” Adams told CBS News. “He appeared to have blamed the NFL for his injury.”
But Tamura appears to have arrived at the wrong floor of a New York City office tower and instead opened fire in the offices of a real estate firm, on top of shooting people in the ground-floor lobby.
Police officers work near the scene of a shooting in Manhattan on July 28 [Eduardo Munoz/Reuters]
The NFL has previously faced litigation relating to concussions suffered by football players.
The organisation, which oversees professional US football, has denied any link between conditions like CTE and its sport, but it has nevertheless paid out more than $1bn to settle concussion-related lawsuits.
Monday’s shooting has also renewed debate about mass shootings and access to firearms in the US. Tamura reportedly entered the building with an AR-15-style rifle.
The NFL’s headquarters are located in a skyscraper that it shares with other firms.
Tamara is believed to have started shooting as he entered the lobby of the skyscraper. Then, police believe he took the wrong elevator, arriving at the 33rd floor, which contained the offices of Rudin Management, a real estate firm.
There, he opened fire once more and then took his own life.
Among those killed in the shooting was a 36-year-old police officer named Didarul Islam, who had come to the US from Bangladesh and had been on the force for three years.
Other victims include security guard Aland Etienne, Julia Hyman of Rudin Management, and an executive at the BlackRock investment firm, Wesley LePatner.
NFL commissioner Roger Goodell stated in a memo that there would be an “increased security presence” at the organisation’s offices over the coming weeks.
Tamura is a resident of Las Vegas, Nevada, with a history of mental health issues. He never played in the NFL, but he did play football in high school.
The news outlet Bloomberg reported that Tamura’s note alleges that his football career was cut short by a brain injury.
The note also called for his brain to be studied. CTE can only be diagnosed through an autopsy.
![- A fisherman along the Mekong River in Bokeo Province, Laos [Al Jazeera/Fabio Polese]](https://www.occasionaldigest.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Fishermen-Laos-Fabio-Polese-34-1753773262.jpg)
![Laotian fisherman Khon, 52, throws a net from the bank of the Mekong River without catching anything [Fabio Polese/Al Jazeera]](https://www.occasionaldigest.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Fishermen-Laos-Fabio-Polese-26-1753861860.jpg)
![A fish seller at Kad Wang View, the main market in Houayxay, where stalls were nearly empty during a recent visit [Fabio Polese/Al Jazeera]](https://www.occasionaldigest.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Fishermen-Laos-Fabio-Polese-44-1753862477.jpg)
![Hom Phan, 67, steering his fishing boat on the Mekong River [Fabio Polese/Al Jazeera]](https://www.occasionaldigest.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Fishermen-Laos-Fabio-Polese-43-1753863104.jpg)
