Alex Murray
@leguape.bsky.social
Equal opportunities verificator of stuff (just don't call it OSINT near me) since 2010. Would rather be riding a bike. Low key Puglian tourism & alcohol free drinks influencer.
This by @stephenkb.bsky.social covers Q I kept getting in my head: what if local employers are not what you passionately dream of doing. Very loose example: You grow up in Humberside & don't care about wind turbines, fishing or Airfix, but you're obsessed with aircraft engineering.
Stephen Bush@stephenkb.bsky.social · last wk.Started writing on Andy Burnham’s education proposal thinking “not sure about this”. Realised in writing “no, I am sure: it sucks!”
Yes, Argentina the first ever World Cup finalist to not have a shot in the 90 minutes.
Ukraine's Unmanned Systems Division has been hitting Russian ships around Crimea with vigour in last few days. Joint BBC Russian & Verify effort to explain what we can see www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Ukraine strikes Russian ships near Crimea, escalating attacks on fuel supplies
The attacks appear to be the latest phase of Ukraine's bid to choke off supplies and routes into and out of occupied Crimea.
bbc.co.uk
SITREP: US M/Vs ALLIANCE FAIRFAX AND CS ANTHEM COMPLETED OUTBOUND TRANSIT STRAIT OF HORMUZ 04 MAY. PROJECT FREEDOM ASSETS OVERWATCHED. NO KINETIC ENGAGEMENTS REPORTED DURING PASSAGE. CREW SAFE. UNITS CLEAR OF CHOKEPOINT. BT Spotted 50 km E Oman MONDAY 👇by @leguape.bsky.social at 24.6182, 57.1708
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article... When a terrible event happens in a remote part of a distant country, here's how Verify - and you - can make certain of the details. Thread...
IS says it was behind Nigeria's Adamawa football pitch attack
Authorities say the militants raided a football pitch where people had been gathering and opened fire at random.
bbc.co.uk
You should check out David Lough's book for more. Think his rate was a large multiple of others. Iirc, he asked his agent to secure some (discounted) column gigs in Canadian papers while travelling and they were like 'wtf? This is like 20x a Mussolini op-ed'.
Now totally obsessed with Churchill's article rate as a journalist. Consider my wig flipped @robinwigglesworth.ft.com Turns out we're all in right job in the wrong era www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIPN...
How Winston Churchill’s frenetic margin trading lost him a fortune | The Story of Money
YouTube video by The Story of Money Podcast | Financial Times
youtube.com
Toby Nangle@tobyn.bsky.social · 3mo agoLots of fun chatting investors of yesteryear with @robinwigglesworth.ft.com and Gillian Tett on their new pod. ft.trib.al/6NR6F35
Does of sanity from @covertshores.bsky.social - I initially got excited too. Consulted experts, got told could be fishing or smuggling. Certainly dramatic, but good example of why important to check context of "exciting" images
H I Sutton@covertshores.bsky.social · 4mo ago*OSINT alert* 1st image is from today, showing a 'swarm' of small boats at speed in Straits of Hormuz This is typical behavour of Iranian fishing vessels in that area Other 3 images from same area, same time of year but 2024 & 25 (dates at top) First rule of #OSINT... know what normal looks like
Less than four years ago, Russian forces in the Mediterranean were capable of troubling NATO and creating multiple challenges for Western navies. Today, by contrast, the Russian presence in the Mediterranean is largely irrelevant, purely symbolic. www.itamilradar.com/2026/04/01/r...
Russian Navy Presence in the Mediterranean Drops to Lowest Level Since Ukraine War
The Russian Navy’s footprint in the Mediterranean has sharply declined in recent days, reaching its lowest level since the start of the war in Ukraine. As of today, only the corvette RFS STOIKIY remai...
itamilradar.com
"Oh baby, baby, it's a wild world..."
Giles Wilkes@gilesyb.bsky.social · 4mo ago"At this point, were Iran to open the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for being allowed to develop nuclear weapons, nobody could be sure Trump would turn it down. If Iran made him the inaugural winner of the Cyrus the Great peace prize, those odds would improve."- www.ft.com/content/2656...
Tehran metropolitan area is nearly 16m people, living under "black rain" & smoke from strikes on oil facilities. After 1991 Gulf War, US military was so concerned about effects of oil fires, it health checked service personnel. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Air strikes cause black rain and 'unprecedented' pollution in Tehran, scientists say
Air strikes have damaged at least four oil facilities since US-Israeli attacks on Iran began last month.
bbc.co.uk
Sobering to think that 4 years Ukraine has engaged in full scale war for survival is roughly same amount of time as from Nazi invasion of Poland to start of Allied liberation of Italy.
In Scotland, no patches of snow from winter 2024/2025 survived to winter 2025/2026 - This is the fourth year in a row that all snow has completely disappeared I miss snow #climatecrisis HT @carbonbrief.org rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
All patches of snow in Scotland disappear in 2025, for the fourth consecutive year
No patches of snow survived on the hills of Scotland from the winter of 2024/2025 to the winter of 2025/2026.
rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com
A lot of this might be me, @danict89.bsky.social and @leguape.bsky.social.
Flightradar24@flightradar24.com · 6mo agoUS military flights have dominated our most tracked flights list this week. See a time lapse of flights since Monday and how you can access the most tracked flights panel in the Flightradar24 app.
From the start of the week, Janes military intelligence told BBC Verify the US could be preparing for 'direct action'. Part of ongoing work with @leguape.bsky.social, for the live page: www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cd...
Hello, sailor! Fairly confident this is USS Gerald R Ford is off coast of Morocco, heading towards Gibraltar Strait at speed. Have called Centcom (spoke to very polite woman), awaiting their reply www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cr...
Olympics Dog was chasing the motorized camera they have to capture the competitors at the finish line, then decided to chase some competitors instead
Epic verification skillz in this thread (ht @richib.bsky.social)
And our eventual piece, with @leguape.bsky.social providing most of the verification of assets in play, plus the work of @thomascopeland.bsky.social www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
US build-up of warships and fighter jets tracked near Iran
BBC Verify has seen US aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln near Iran ahead of talks between the two countries
bbc.co.uk
Looking at US military ships and planes moving to the Middle East, around Iran. What makes this build up different from Venezuela or Operation Midnight Hammer?
Significant that the High Court ruling is still, in places, quite damning of Palestine Action. It emphatically rejects that the group is engaged in "civil disobediance", for example. It just finds (compellingly) that proscription was still wrong, despite that.
Wow! Palestine Action win judicial review - Guardian report. This is a *big* legal win. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...
UK ban on Palestine Action unlawful, high court judges rule
Protest group’s co-founder wins legal challenge against decision to proscribe it under anti-terrorism laws
theguardian.com
What can we see from satellite imagery over Iran’s nuclear facilities? www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Iran fortifies underground complex near nuclear site, satellite images show
The activity comes at a time of heightened tensions as talks between Iranian and US officials continue over Iran's nuclear programme.
bbc.co.uk
Before everyone gets excited, second Carrier Strike Group that's being deployed will take at least fortnight to reach Gulf, even if it goes today. HW Bush is out on pre-deployment exercise, so can probably stick another week on that for good measure
Good luck to them. When we tested it last year, it couldn't correctly identify Binley Mega Chippy. It might face same fate as Geofeedia when it turned out cops were using that.
Joseph Cox@josephcox.bsky.social · 6mo agoNew from 404 Media: we've confirmed cops are buying access to GeoSpy, an AI that can geolocate photos in seconds. Doesn't use metadata, but clues in the photo like soil, architecture, to pinpoint where social media photos taken. Being used in investigations www.404media.co/cops-are-buy...
idk how widely this article has been shared, but it is extremely irresponsible and inaccurate in many different ways. it states as fact and with no reporting that things *are happening now* that *may eventually be possible*. it is shocking that this was published newrepublic.com/article/2059...
How TikTok 2.0 Became a Weapon for ICE
In just one week, the company has gone from being Gen Z’s preferred social media platform to a tool for spying on Americans and the suppression of information.
newrepublic.com