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The headlines never stop and it's harder than ever to tell what's real, what matters and what's just noise.
That's where Pod Save America comes in.
Every week, former Obama aides Jon Favreau, Tommy Vitor, Jon Lovett and Dan Pfeiffer break down the biggest stories, unpack what they mean for the future of our democracy and add just enough humor to stay sane along the way.
Available now on The Documentary from the BBC World Service.
I'm Mohannad Hashim and I'm in Sudan's capital Khartoum, where kids have returned to school for the first time since civil war engulfed the country three years ago.
But despite the relief, can the country's youth recover from the loss of education and the scars of war?
Listen now by searching for the documentary wherever you get your BBC podcasts.
This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service.
I'm Will Chalk, and in the early hours of Tuesday 9th June, these are our main stories.
Tensions seem to have cooled in the Middle East, with Israel pausing its strikes on Iran for now.
But did Israel ignore an order from Donald Trump by striking at all?
A question our North America editor has put directly to the President.
OpenAI has become the latest tech giant to reveal plans to sell shares to the public through a stock listing in the US.
And in Sudan, despite four years of civil war, children have been returning to school, but with deep psychological scars.
Also in this podcast, a leading football ref has been denied entry to the US for the World Cup, despite having valid paperwork, and a marine invasion of the coasts of Britain.
All the evidence is telling me that this is the biggest one ever.
And also what's very significant now is that they are breeding quite prolifically, why octopuses are showing up in numbers off England's coasts.
The last couple of days have been perilous for the truce in the Middle East, with Iran and Israel once again launching missiles at each other.
But both sides have since agreed to pull back for now.
Here is what the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a televised address.
Iran and Hezbollah are weaker than ever and we are stronger than ever, but our fight with them has not finished yet.
If Iran's terror regime makes the mistake of attacking us again, we will respond forcefully.
Because Israel has a full right to self-defence and we will implement it as much as necessary.
Even once tensions had calmed though, a question that remained was whether Israel, when it attacked Iran, was directly defying an order from Donald Trump.
Well, we've been able to go straight to the source for an answer.
Our North America editor, Sarah Smith, has been speaking to the US president on the phone.
A short while ago I spoke to her on the phone and I started by asking her how long President Trump has had her on speed dial.
Well, I took the chance of giving him a call at a point in his schedule where I knew he didn't have anything else booked in.
And I was lucky enough that he first of all answered the call and then was prepared to speak to me.
This is not wholly uncommon in Washington, although it is extremely odd that you can call the president directly if you have his mobile phone number and there's a reasonable chance he might choose to speak to you, even if not for very long.
I mean, my conversation with him was a little shy of a minute but nonetheless I was able to ask him a couple of key questions about what's been going on in the Middle East over the last 24 hours, which has been a very crucial period.
Yeah, and crucially, you asked him about another phone call he had with Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu.
Yeah, on Monday morning he called the Israeli prime minister to ask him not to have any more strikes in Iran, because Donald Trump is really concerned that these hostilities could derail the ongoing peace talks.
And I was intrigued to know what it was that he had said to persuade Mr Netanyahu to stop the attacks.
And he told me, all I did is say that we have to use common sense.
We're very close to signing a very powerful deal, a very good deal, he said.
I did point out that wasn't the same as the conversation that they had had a few hours earlier on Sunday night, when Mr Trump had specifically asked Israel not to retaliate against the missile strikes from Iran, and they had gone ahead and fired missiles at Iran nonetheless.
So was that not Mr Netanyahu defying Donald Trump's instructions?
I asked him and he said no, because by the time the two leaders spoke, they had already gone.
He said meaning the missiles, which is something that we didn't know up until that point.
And that convenient timing does explain...
Why, if Israel was ignoring what the US had told it to do, had we not seen the kind of furious response that you would usually expect from Donald Trump if he felt that he had been slighted or ignored?
So do you think, if that convenient timing as you put, it wasn't actually the case that Donald Trump would even admit it?
Or do you think he would save face and say exactly what he said to you?
I think it's not that he is telling an untruth about what happened.
It may be coordinated convenient timing that allowed him to speak to Benjamin Netanyahu and it was just too late to stop those missiles from being fired off.
But no more than that, because actually the one other organisation Mr Trump's been speaking to is an Israeli television channel, and he told them that he had stopped the attack being much worse than it could have been.
So if you put all that together, I think you get to a situation where actually, Israel and America are on the same page about this that something needed to be done to answer the Iranian strikes on Israel, but not something that went so far as to try and derail the peace talks.
And finally, in the context of Donald Trump's approval ratings which are dropping, how much of a loss of face do you think it would be if he was seen not to have authority over Benjamin Netanyahu?
That would be very difficult for him because he is running an unpopular war that has seen prices of petrol food, other goods going up in America and voters are unhappy about that.
There's also a significant section of his own Republican base who don't like the idea that American foreign policy is being led by Israel.
There's growing opposition to that idea.
So he has to be careful with the politics of that, as well as just being somebody who wants to be seen to be in charge.
The very idea that any other world leader could be either telling America what to do or defying the instructions of Donald Trump, who very much wants to see himself as the most powerful man on the world stage.
That would be difficult for him to stomach.
Sun North America editor Sarah Smith.
Despite agreeing to pause attacks on Iran, Israel has continued to attack southern Lebanon on Monday.
According to Lebanon's health ministry, five people were killed and eight were wounded in a strike on the city of Tyre.
Earlier, the Israeli ministry issued an evacuation warning for residents in some parts of the city.
Our Middle East correspondent Hugo Bechega filed this report from Beirut.
In Lebanon.
Officials say Israel's campaign has killed more than 3600 people, including many civilians.
The Israeli military occupies a large part of the country's south and has vowed to expand the ground invasion.
Hezbollah has reacted by targeting Israeli troops in Lebanon and with attacks against Israel itself.
Mahmoud Kamati is a member of Hezbollah's political council.
For Israel to be guaranteed security in its northern communities, Israel needs to withdraw completely from occupied Lebanese land and internationally recognised frontiers.
There will be no security for northern Israel until there is security and safety for Lebanon.
أمن وأمان دائمين لربنا
Despite repeated announcements of ceasefires, the war in Lebanon has never stopped and Iran is vowing to respond again to any more Israeli attacks in this country.
Hugo Beshega there.
So what does all this mean for the prospects for peace?
Our international editor Jeremy Bowen gave us his assessment from Jerusalem.
First of all, the Iranians have more or less succeeded in linking what happens here in this country to the wider issue of their negotiations with the Americans about what's happening in the Gulf.
Now they believe they're emboldened and they believe that they can improve their strategic situation and come out of this stronger than they were before it started.
Mr Netanyahu, the Prime Minister of Israel, I think will be in not a particularly happy situation.
He has been trying and saying repeatedly over the last couple of years that, using Israel's force and power, he can remake the Middle East.
Well, I think the Middle East is being remade. but not in a way that he wants.
He is against this linkage with Lebanon, but it's something that he may have to accept if President Trump insists that that is the case.
Now, there is a lot of coordination between Israel and the states.
So it's quite possible that the Americans did know what the Israelis were doing.
And some of this row between them is a little bit performative that a message is being sent to Tehran.
But I think.
Bottom line.
This is not going to end in terms of the consequences of the attack on Iran on the 28th of February.
These consequences are going to unfold not over weeks or months, but over years.
And so we could be looking at a long and very unstable and dangerous period.
So our international editor Jeremy Bowen in Jerusalem.
We're moving on to artificial intelligence, which has already changed the world massively in the few years that we, the general public, have been using it.
But how companies make money from it is a different question.
OpenAI that's the company that makes ChatGPT has today announced plans to sell shares through a stock listing in the US.
And it could value the company at, wait for it, a trillion dollars.
It's following in the footsteps of rivals Anthropic and SpaceX in announcing it's doing this.
And they've all given themselves eye-watering valuations.
Yet none of these companies are turning a profit.
So is it a huge gamble?
It's a question I put to our North America correspondent, Peter Bowes.
It is a huge gamble, but I think for many potential investors, it is a gamble.
It is a risk worth taking because they see this as one of those pivotal times in history where something comes along that could change the course of history, that this could be a technology the next generation of computing that could dominate the tech landscape for decades to come.
If open ai and anthropic were just any old business, that might seem like a good bet for the future, even though they weren't making any money now.
I think investing in them would be highly speculative.
But These are businesses that have the potential to become the backbone of the AI economy.
So I think yes.
Right now, given how much these companies are spending on their infrastructure, Investing in them feels like a huge gamble.
But think back to the early days of the Internet and the big players like Amazon.
They spent years losing money before becoming profitable.
And we could well be living through one of those times now with AI.
As for OpenAI itself, like I say, following in the footsteps of its rivals, which may answer this next question actually, why now and how quickly is it all going to happen?
Well, we don't know why now.
They're not saying.
OpenAI stressed that it's in no hurry, but it says there are things it still wants to do that are easier, while remaining a private company.
Thanks for having me to make long-term decisions without having to explain its performance to shareholders, and going public brings much greater scrutiny from regulators and investors.
In fact, OpenAI's chief executive, Sam Altman, said only last week that he would take the company public once only when it made sense.
So by filing confidentially now, it keeps the company's options open without committing to a timetable.
Although this move we've heard about in the last few hours comes exactly a week after Anthropic said it was planning to go public, which seems to me the most likely reason why now.
Peter Bowes there.
The civil war in Sudan is now in its fourth year.
And during that time, at least 150000 people have been killed and millions have been forced from their homes.
As headline numbers, they're shocking.
And that's before you consider any of the knock-on implications.
For example, about half of the Sudanese population is under 18, so millions of children have had their education disrupted.
For the past year, some have been returning to classrooms in the capital, Khartoum.
But as the BBC's Mahanad Hashim reports, the conflict continues to shape their lives.
At a newly opened primary school on a dusty street in Sudan's capital Khartoum small, excited boys in uniforms are sitting four to a desk, ready for class to start.
For some of the boys, it's their first real taste of school since the country was plunged into civil war three years ago, when the powerful paramilitary group, the Rapid Support Forces, the RSF, took on the Sudanese army.
As the war spread, schools closed across much of the country and millions of children have lost out on their education.
But in 2025, the army finally recaptured Khartoum from the RSF.
So here at least, despite all the destruction, people are coming back, schools have been reopening.
Mohamed Abdel Wahab is the head teacher.
We are so happy.
So, as our kids, they are happy to meet their friends and they are happy to come back to school and come back to classes.
Are you boys happy to be back at school?
But both the teachers and the kids here have been through a lot.
Many have seen death and destruction, endured shelling and drone attacks.
Millions have been forced to flee their homes.
Twelve-year-old Muzir was displaced.
His return to find his own neighbourhood has been wrecked.
How do you feel being back at school?
I am very, very happy because I want to read.
You like to read.
What do you want to do when you're older?
Builder.
You want to be a builder?
Because I want to build homes.
Why do you want to build homes?
Because I want people to live here.
And with all the joy of returning to school, of seeing friends.
Teachers and parents are aware that many children have been changed by this war.
I have a four-year-old son.
He's so traumatised that any time he hears an aircraft, he'll jump and he'll freak out and run away.
And at night he'll sit up and just stare at you and come and cling to you.
So you can imagine how his younger siblings are doing too.
Selwa is part of a group of mums who stayed in the city during the war and its occupation by the RSF.
When the school shut, they banded together to set up a school kindergarten for local children.
Tahani is one of the volunteers.
Most of the children who come to us here have experienced a kind of split in their lives.
It's as if three years of war have separated them from their mothers.
I think, because most of them have experienced fear, real terror, and felt their mums couldn't protect them, couldn't make them feel safe.
And with some kids now, we see involuntary wetting.
They wet themselves.
Some exhibit extreme loneliness.
Children who want to be alone.
Some don't even want to eat their meals.
We're trying to help them with these things.
Given what they've been through, some struggle to return to education.
Hiba teaches at the University of Khartoum.
During the battle for the capital, she volunteered to teach kids stuck in the city.
People are losing their families, so there is no interest in education.
Most of them are like, my parents forced me to come and that's what I'm doing.
Even the humour is about fights and violence and killing.
You miss the innocence of the play.
It will be hard to measure the true cost of this war on the youth here.
But given that perhaps half the population is under 18, the damage could be felt for years to come.
And if it's bad here in Khartoum, it's almost certainly much worse in more remote war-torn areas.
In the meantime, it's left to teachers, parents and volunteers to try to mitigate the damage.
Mahanad Hashim reporting.
Still to come in this podcast.
I will do my best to be part of something that will end sexual and gender-based violence.
One woman's quest to end abuse of women in Africa in her lifetime.
The headlines never stop and it's harder than ever to tell what's real, what matters and what's just noise.
That's where Pod Save America comes in.
Every week, former Obama aides Jon Favreau, Tommy Vitor, Jon Lovett and Dan Pfeiffer break down the biggest stories, unpack what they mean for the future of our democracy and add just enough humor to stay sane along the way.
Available now on The Documentary from the BBC World Service.
I'm Mohannad Hashim and I'm in Sudan's capital Khartoum, where kids have returned to school for the first time since civil war engulfed the country three years ago.
But despite the relief, can the country's youth recover from the loss of education and the scars of war?
Listen now by searching for the documentary wherever you get your BBC podcasts.
The world is on the brink.
Wars, contentious elections, disinformation spreading at warp speed, and Donald Trump is at the center of it all.
But what does that mean for the Tune in to Pod Save the World every Wednesday?
Wherever you get your podcasts or catch it on YouTube?
This is the Global News Podcast.
We may have mentioned it before in this podcast just a few times.
We are mere days away from the start of the Football World Cup.
It is massively exciting for football fans everywhere.
But whilst it's the players that get all the attention, the tournament also brings together some of the best referees and officials there are.
But one of them won't be there.
The Somalian Omar Artam, regarded as one of Africa's leading football refs, has been denied entry to the US, despite having valid paperwork.
The head of America's World Cup task force, Andrew Giuliani, said he supported the decision by the US border authorities.
There were some very terrible people that he was talking to.
What I can tell you is it was the right decision by Customs and Border Patrol and I support that decision.
While we want players, we want coaches, we want referees to come here to the World Cup, we also want to make sure that we're not going to allow a soccer tournament to be the opportunity for terrorists to potentially get in the country or anybody who's actually talking to them.
So do we know the details of why exactly the US turned him away?
It's a question I put to BBC Sports' Manny Jasmy.
They haven't given any details, but FIFA World Football's governing body have confirmed the decision and have said that ultimately it's down to the host country who gets a visa.
There was equally no information on Saturday, when one of Iraq's players, Ayman Hussain, was detained at Chicago Airport for seven hours before being allowed to rejoin his teammates after they all landed in the country.
But Arag's official photographer wasn't allowed.
So he was also turned back at the gate without any official reason given.
Safe to say we've not seen a World Cup like this before, have we?
No.
You've got to be really into football to have a favourite ref, I think.
But for those who do, Omar Artan is considered the best of the best, is he?
Well, you either have to be really into football or really naive about football to have a favourite referee.
I would say
But Omar Attan.
He's the current African Referee of the Year, which is the award that he received in 2025 from the body that runs African football.
He's a top referee, maybe the best one from Africa.
And he was all set to become the first Somalian official to take part and officiate in any World Cup.
But all of those hopes have been dashed by his repatriation.
And we believe he's back in Turkey, where he spent the last few months.
As we've seen, though, it's not just refs and players and even team officials having problems.
There's been some quite incredible stories of fans spending a fortune on tickets only to not be allowed into the US.
Yes, I read a piece about an Iraqi fan who spent a fortune just to get to Jordan from Iraq to have his face-to-face interview, as he applied for a visa and didn't get it.
There are so many countries that are on this US banned list.
Iran and Haiti, no one from those countries can go.
And anyone from Ivory Coast and Senegal are subjected to restrictions.
It's very difficult for fans to follow their teams.
And very quickly.
It's just one of the kind of problems overshadowing the start of this isn't there.
We've had other ticket problems.
We've had water bottles.
There's been all sorts.
And no one's kicked a ball yet.
This suggests that in the next five or six weeks there may be other talking points away from football.
Manny Jasmy.
Poland's prime minister has warned his country's solidarity with Ukraine risks being destroyed.
Donald Tusk was referring to a row which has broken out over the name of a Ukrainian army unit, an event which happened more than 80 years ago.
Anka Desai found out more from our global affairs reporter, Paul Moss.
Last month, Volodymyr Zelensky named a particularly successful military unit the Ukrainian Insurgent Army.
That was a tribute to a group of partisans in World War II.
The Ukrainian Insurgent Army fought the Nazis.
They also fought the Soviet Union because they wanted Ukraine to be independent.
However, they were also blamed for an appalling atrocity in which 100000 roughly Polish civilians were murdered, part of an ethnic cleansing campaign in a disputed border area known as Wolinia.
Now, fast forward to the present, and of course, Poland has been a key ally of Ukraine.
It supplied billions of dollars worth of military aid to resist Russia's invasion.
It's hosting literally millions of Ukrainian refugees.
The Volhynia massacre has long been a source of resentment, but I think Ukraine, honouring This Ukrainian insurgent army, that really has been the sort of straw that broke the camel's back.
And many Polish politicians are now absolutely furious.
One of those leading the charge is the Polish president, Karol Nowrocki.
He had a meeting on Monday to discuss Poland's response.
And one of the things they're considering is cancelling an honour which Poland bestowed on Volodymyr Zelensky the Order of the White Eagle.
We also heard from the Polish Minister of Defence, Władysław Kosyniak-Kamysz.
What happened in naming a military unit after UPA heroes is unacceptable.
I spoke directly to General Badanov, the head of the Ukrainian president's office.
It is unacceptable because it destroys allied friendship.
Memory and historical truth are the foundation for building friendship.
Now, Poland's prime minister, Donald Tusk, is clearly hoping cooler heads prevail.
He said, I publicly appeal for a direct and honest conversation between the presidents of Ukraine and Poland.
Cooperation is in the interests of both our states, conflict in the interest of Moscow.
So you mentioned Donald Tusk.
Why is he so worried?
Some might say this seems like a relatively small issue.
The thing is that this is coming at a time when there are signs that Polish people are getting a little tired of Ukraine anyway.
Firstly, the presence of about two million Ukrainian refugees hasn't gone down well with everyone.
Secondly, Ukraine is getting privileged access to EU markets for its agricultural goods, which has annoyed some Polish farmers who are being undercut.
And this all comes at a time when United States support for Ukraine is under discussion.
European solidarity in the face of the Russian invasion is more important than ever.
So it's not just Donald Tusk.
I think all European leaders who care about Ukraine support are going to be very worried about the idea that the Polish-Ukrainian alliance might in any way be damaged.
Paul Moss speaking to Anka Desai.
According to the United Nations, the number of cases of conflict-related sexual violence more than doubled globally last year, and one of the worst affected continents is Africa, with rape, sexual slavery and abduction being deployed as weapons of war.
But one woman has made it her mission to make sexual and gender-based violence in Africa a thing of the past within her lifetime.
Rwandan Sabine Nkosi fled the genocide against the Tutsis as a young teenager in 1994.
What she saw made her vow to God that she would dedicate her life to giving a voice to women survivors of abuse.
Now based in London.
Sabine, who is a Christian, works with faith leaders across the continent, urging them to see the crucial role they can play in challenging attitudes.
Attitudes which have led to one third of women and girls in sub-Saharan Africa experiencing sexual and gender-based violence.
Naomi Wellings has been to Kigali in Rwanda to see for herself how attitudes are being challenged.
For the 12 women.
Sabine is hosting a retreat for here.
It's a chance to break the silence that often has shrouded their experiences.
Now working for the international development charity Tear Fund, Sabine is able to honour the promise she made to God when fleeing Kigali as a teenager.
If I'm ever able to be out of the situation that we were in, that I will do my best to be part of something that will end sexual and gender-based violence.
Her team's Journey to Healing retreats run now in 15 countries and she sees firsthand the difference they make to survivors like Francine.
She was abused by her partner and left pregnant and with HIV.
When going through the difficulties I've gone through, you're isolated, you're stigmatized.
But I want to tell anyone who's gone through that experience that it is possible to be well.
You can be loved, valued, and what's most important is God is with you.
He has never left you.
Sabine believes the prominent place of the church in many African countries gives it a unique platform from which to challenge attitudes.
And she's calling on faith leaders not simply to denounce abuse, but to denounce the gender injustice that can lead to it.
Faith leaders.
They're really key to that, because faith leaders have influence and they shape how we view the world, even how we believe, and they can be a catalyst for change.
Okay.
Using role play, listening activities and, for them crucially, re-examining Bible texts.
A charity tear fund leads a programme called Transforming Masculinities, which has worked in 24 countries around the world.
I used to think that whenever I want her, at any time, she needs to accept without questioning.
I did not give enough value to my wife.
While there was no suggestion of violence, Pentecostal pastor Edward Burajea found this course in Rwanda four years ago transformed his attitude towards his wife, Chantal.
The thing that happened to you and you feel like this is something that could never happen.
I was really happy.
After his confession to her, he then went further and confessed to his whole congregation.
Yeah, it's not an easy thing going in front of the congregation and telling them what you had been doing wrong.
But due to the change that I had undergone, I realized that it was very important.
People within the church and also people within our community.
Within a couple, they will invite us to go and discuss with them and to help them resolve the conflict.
For Sabine.
It's role models within the church, like Edouard and Chantal, who could make the key difference in rooting out some of the causes of sexual and gender-based violence.
Naomi Wellings with that report from Kigali.
Before we go, a change in the seas off the southwest coast of England.
Lobsters and crabs have been harder to come by, but it's not all bad news for fishermen.
I mean, it's devastating for the thoroughbred lobster fishermen, but on the other side of the coin they're earning three or four times more money now with the octopus.
Yeah, it's a sign that octopuses are appearing in record numbers, apparently from the Mediterranean.
A new study by the Marine Biological Society has revealed the scale and the scope of the phenomenon.
Dr Bryce Stewart is the lead author, and he spoke to Owen Bennett-Jones.
Last year they were very much on the south coast of Devon and Cornwall, originally in quite a restricted area.
And then really just in the last month or two, fishermen in Wales have been seeing them as well.
There have been blooms of this species of octopus before.
The last one was right back in 1950.
There was a minor one in the 30s and then before that, 1900s.
But as far as I can tell, all the evidence is telling me that this is the biggest one ever.
And also what's very significant now is that they are breeding quite prolifically.
So this is something that was almost never seen before.
What's been happening over the last 18 months is pretty extraordinary, because there's also been a lot of octopus caught.
So over 3,000 tonnes have been caught by fishermen and yet still there are loads of them here.
Yeah, the thing I was wondering about is if it's 1899, that's obviously pre-climate change.
That's an important point.
So we actually did the analysis here.
And what we found was, with all of those historical blooms, they were unusually warm years for the time.
That's important because this is a species that normally likes warmer temperatures.
It's normally from the Mediterranean and Spain and North Africa.
What seemed to happen in the past is they got here probably through some chance events, some transport of young octopus by the ocean currents, but they didn't last very long because we had much colder winters in the past.
Whereas with climate change we haven't had a very cold winter here in the UK for probably at least 15 years.
This last winter was very warm and sea temperatures have stayed much, much warmer than average.
Really for over two years now, we've been in a marine heat wave.
So this is why I think this one is different and it's continuing.
Right, and crabs don't like it because the octopus eat them.
Who eats the octopus?
We know seals eat them.
We know blue sharks have been eating them.
We've seen pictures of blue sharks with sucker marks on their heads.
Congareels is another big one.
Somebody saw a congareel sneak out and just bite off a tentacle.
And also interestingly, Rissos dolphins, which is normally a deep water species of dolphin that's actually become quite common over the last 18 months.
And one of its favorite foods are octopus.
So they seem to be hanging around the south coast of the UK, taking advantage.
And again, we've got photos of Rissos dolphins with the octopus inside.
Dr Bryce Stewart there from the Marine Biological Association speaking to Owen Bennett-Jones.
We'll be right back.
So please do check that one out.
This edition of the Global News Podcast was mixed by Jonathan Greer.
The producer was Emma Joseph.
The editor is Karen Martin.
And I'm Will Chalk.
Until next time, goodbye.
Before the party, I'm already on TikTok.
Music, looks and ideas are all there.
