This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK.
The United States is about to mark its 250th anniversary.
And so on the Global Story podcast from the BBC, we're telling surprising tales of American influence on the world stage and in ordinary people's lives all across the globe.
We have this ability to export our story and a lot of people have bought it.
I feel like the American dream is alive, but not well.
From the BBC, it's the United States at 2.53.
Listen on bbc.com or wherever you get your podcasts. making outrageous demands for money.
They wanted millions.
It was high tech and high stakes.
The country is under attack.
And it was highly secretive until someone exposed it all.
Cyberhack, season four, The Conti Files.
Listen now, wherever you get your BBC podcasts.
This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service.
I'm Charlotte Gallagher.
The Trump administration issued subpoenas to several journalists after an article questioned how safe the new Air Force One is.
And we'll get the latest on the wildfires ripping through southern Spain.
Also in this podcast.
We're in the Western Canadian province of Alberta.
As people there consider breaking away.
I think we're all very worried that Alberta's politics could be consumed by this forever.
If it's a little close and it looks like maybe there's a trend towards separatism.
And we hear about a bid by a satirical website to convert the right-wing conspiracy platform Infowars into a parody of itself.
We begin with the news that the US has launched another round of strikes against Iran.
The US Central Command said it was in response to an Iranian attack on a container ship crossing the Strait of Hormuz.
A little earlier, Iran said it had closed the strait until further notice.
State media said the Revolutionary Guards Navy had fired a warning shot at a vessel.
It said attempt to sail an unapproved route.
Meanwhile, talks aimed at opening up the strait have been held in Oman, attended by the Iranian foreign minister, but not the US.
Kashayar Junaidi of BBC Persian is following developments.
He told me more about the US strikes.
According to CENTCOM, the US Central Command in the Middle East, at 715pm Eastern Time, American forces started their third round of strikes this week against Iranian positions in the northern shores of the Persian Gulf.
And these attacks were in response to an earlier attack by Iranian forces against a container ship with a Cyprus flag called GFS Galaxy.
Apparently, the attack has resulted in a missing of one of the crew members, and the ship is not able to move because the engine room is on fire.
So the Americans announced that, in retaliation to this attack, they've hit several positions along the Iranian shoreline.
This attack comes as the IRGC, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, issued a statement announcing that the Strait of Hormuz will be closed till further notice.
That's after these talks between Iran and Oman and Qatar in Muscat actually ended without any solution, any agreement.
The Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Al-Akhchi, was in Oman for these talks, but apparently there has been no agreement between both sides.
The Omani side is insisting that there should be two sea lanes open, one on the Omani side, one on the Iranian side, and the Iranians are insisting on a joint management agreement.
Is there a route out of this?
Because it seems at the moment we're going backwards, not forwards, with any kind of diplomatic plan to end this.
Definitely.
And, you know, by this, Iran is sending a twofold message on the situation of Strait of Hormuz.
Now they believe that the Strait of Hormuz is their most powerful weapon.
And they're trying to use it to exert the highest level of pressure on the Americans.
So they're showing that they're open to both diplomacy and escalation if needed.
Right now, what they're doing is like they're trying to escalate on purpose, testing the Americans, and Americans are, of course, showing that they're serious.
This is the third time American forces have hit Iranian positions on the northern shores of the Persian Gulf.
Of course, each time Iran response by attacking U.S. bases in the neighboring countries.
President Trump has announced that the ceasefire between Iran and the US is over, but the talks will continue.
Of course, talks today, the first step of talks after the week-long pause, which was because of the funeral of Ali Khamenei.
The talks were not fruitful, but it seems that both sides have decided that the talks will carry on.
Kasia Janady from BBC Persian.
Not so long ago, the Qatari government gave President Trump a plane which he then had kitted out as his brand new Air Force One.
Donald Trump flew to the NATO summit in Turkey in the new plane, but unexpectedly swapped it for the old Air Force One when he travelled to Britain on Wednesday.
The New York Times reported that security on the new plane was not up to scratch and quoted an anonymous source.
But now the Trump administration has summoned the journalist to appear before a federal grand jury in Manhattan on Wednesday.
Mark Sheff Jr. of the National Press Club had this to say about the subpoenas.
They're going after reporters to reveal their sources and that is an absolute violation of the First Amendment rights here in the United States, a violation of press freedom.
This is a matter of the administration wanting to find out who the leakers are by pressuring journalists, by intimidating journalists.
That's what's wrong here.
And this is about journalists' relationship with their sources, and that can't be violated by the government.
Our correspondent Nick Johnson told me more about the case.
The issue here is that the New York Times had talked to a source who wants to remain anonymous, who said that the Secret Service had urged Donald Trump to switch planes on his way home from Turkey.
So he arrived in Turkey on the new Air Force One, came back out on the old Air Force One.
And the New York Times is reporting the reason...
The Secret Service urged him to make that switch was because the new plane wasn't kitted out in the same level of security as the original one.
And that crucially included anti-missile capabilities.
So these journalists have been subpoenaed.
How is this going down in the US?
I mean, given that press freedom is protected by the First Amendment.
Yeah, that's certainly been the main concern from the New York Times and other pro-free press organizations here in the United States.
And we've heard from the New York Times themselves that federal agents actually turned up at the homes of some of the reporters to issue these subpoenas.
So these journalists will have to appear in front of a grand jury in New York next week and there will be a decision by the grand jury as to whether a criminal offence may have been committed.
The US Department of Justice said that they value and appreciate the important role that the press plays here in the US, but that the Department of Justice also plays an important role to make sure that the people entrusted with our nation's secrets do what they're supposed to do with that information, which means protecting, not sharing, classified information.
But you're right, this goes to the heart of the First Amendment freedom of speech, freedom of the press.
A lawyer from the New York Times called these subpoenas that we'd issued against their journalists a brazen act in an attempt to prevent the public from knowing what's happening in their country by intimidating journalists from doing their jobs.
It's also worth saying that this isn't the first time the New York Times have had issues with Donald Trump.
There are a number of ongoing legal cases.
And from what the US Department of Justice had said to you, it seems like they want these journalists to hand over their sources which, of course, it's very, very unlikely that they would do that.
It's highly unlikely they would do that.
You're right, there's an unnamed source that has given this information.
But this is something that I'm sure the New York Times will fight in court.
The other side of the argument will be that there's nothing wrong with them reporting facts to the public.
I think it's how they got that information the Department of Justice will be focusing on.
Nick Johnson.
Now to southern Spain, where firefighters have started to contain wildfires which have killed 12 people and burned more than 6000 hectares of land.
Calmer winds and higher humidity levels have allowed them and 20 aircraft to directly tackle the flames in Andalusia.
The 12 people who died are reported to have been fleeing the area.
From there, our Europe correspondent Nick Beek sent this report.
The battle to contain this devastating fire has become a little easier for the 500 members of the emergency services now involved.
But it's too late for those who perished trying to flee one of Spain's worst ever wildfires.
Images have emerged of a procession of burnt out cars on the charred hillside.
As we drove up towards the village, we soon saw how far the flames had ripped through this parched countryside.
Officials said some of those killed had not taken the designated evacuation route.
But some survivors told us they'd received little information and there was no mobile phone warning.
More than 1,000 people have been moved to emergency accommodation.
In a sports centre housing some of the evacuees, we met Paula Jeeps, originally from Kent.
It's just awful.
We're so upset for the people.
So we're all in shock, really.
I'm just hoping that they get the fires under control so we can get everything back to normal.
Her husband, Barry, said it seemed lessons were not learned from a previous fire in the area.
It's not managing the forest properly, because if you get old trees, you've got branches on the ground.
As soon as a fire gets going and it's up on the top of a ridge with always got wind, it's a pattern for a tragedy.
But with such dry conditions and Spain and much of southern Europe plunged into another heatwave, trying to keep this season's wildfires under control could be a huge and dangerous task.
That was Nick Beek reporting from Spain.
There was jubilation for some Chinese Christians last week when the pastor Jin Mingri was suddenly released from a Chinese prison and flown to the US to be reunited with his family.
Jin Mingri, also known as Ezra Jin, was the founder of the Zion Church, a so-called underground church in China that's not officially sanctioned by the Chinese Communist Party.
His release came after Donald Trump directly petitioned China's leader, Xi Jinping, for him to be freed.
The Chinese crackdown on underground churches began last October, with overnight police raids that led to his detention, along with several other pastors from the same church.
One of them, Gao Yingjia, is still behind bars in China.
Celia Hatton spoke to his wife, Sherry Gao, from South Korea.
Yesterday, my husband's lawyer just visited him.
So they got to update him about what happened, just like you shared about Pastor Jimmy's release.
So when he heard the news, he was just overwhelmed with joy.
The lawyers described to me that he had tears with joy and joy.
He was really excited about this news.
And how is your husband doing?
What are the conditions in prison like?
The living condition, the food, still terrible.
But he's really going through these days by his faith.
And what is the outlook for his imprisonment?
We know he's been charged.
Can you talk us through his case?
The lawyers told me he looked really skinny.
Obviously, he has lost lots of weight.
I mean, averagely like lost 30 pounds, something like that.
I think it might be the similar case for my husband.
Also, like two years ago, he had very serious disease with his appendix.
So he almost got killed.
What was your reaction when you heard about Ezra Jean's release?
And how might it reflect on the prospects of your husband being released?
I think definitely it's a miracle.
For Christians, we always believe in miracles.
I'm sure my husband and the rest of the people will also experience maybe not the same way, but definitely a miracle from the Lord.
I can really hear your faith coming through there.
Cherry, you had to escape China along with your son.
Why do you think these Christian underground churches seem to pose such a threat to the Chinese authorities?
Why does Beijing interpret it that way?
To me, like as Christians, we are doing something really beneficial for the country.
I don't know why they have such a fear of our faith.
So I think it's really like if they can open, have conversations with us to really see if and look what we are doing, so they won't interpret it as threatening.
Celia Hatton speaking to Sherry Gao.
Still to come in this podcast.
We're getting more information that's coming out, but often that is just sort of getting us deeper into the mysterious elements of this.
Well, what's actually causing it?
Why do some people get symptoms but other people don't?
The first ever compensation for people suffering from Havana syndrome.
But what is it?
How did the United States build the largest soft power empire in the world?
With the help of some tiny metal objects?
I'm Tristan Redmond, one of the hosts of the Global Story podcast from the BBC.
To mark 250 years of the United States, we speak to Roman Mars of 99% invisible.
This soft power, this influence...
It was an incredible invention.
For more.
Listen to The Global Story on bbccom or wherever you get your podcasts making outrageous demands for money.
They wanted millions.
It was high tech and high stakes.
The country is under attack.
And it was highly secretive until someone exposed it all.
Cyberhack, season four, The Conti Files.
Listen now, wherever you get your BBC podcasts.
Is the American dream still possible?
I'm Asma Khalid, one of the hosts of the Global Story podcast from the BBC.
One of the most successful exports the United States has ever sold the world is the American dream, that tantalizing promise of a better freer, richer life.
But is it still attainable?
I feel like the American dream is alive but not well.
For more, listen to The Global Story on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.
This is the Global News Podcast.
Two people were killed in the southern Odessa region.
Meanwhile, Ukraine has been striking more Russian shipping.
Dani Eberhard reports.
After the overnight bombardment of Kyiv, President Zelensky posted video of firefighters trying to douse the smouldering remains of smashed buildings.
He said the attacks had damaged civilian infrastructure, residential buildings, offices and a seminary.
This Kyiv resident, Taisha Rebecca, swept up the glass from her shattered windows.
Because the wave is very strong.
The blast wave was incredibly powerful.
It slammed the doors.
It felt like the whole building had been lifted up and then dropped back into place.
After that, everything started shaking.
The doors, the windows, everything flew open.
It was terrifying.
Meanwhile, in Odessa, the regional governor spoke of damage to civilian infrastructure, residences and a medical clinic.
Russia has a very different take.
The strikes in Odessa region.
The Ministry of Defence in Moscow said damaged port infrastructure used for military cargo and fuel, whereas in Kiev it said it had hit sites for the production and storage of drones.
Though that has not been confirmed, Russia is certainly desperate to hit such targets, given the damage Ukrainian drones are doing to key Russian energy infrastructure and shipping.
Ukraine's military is continuing concerted attacks on both to exacerbate Russia's energy crisis and harm revenues the Kremlin uses to fuel the war.
Kiev said it's hit more than 20 additional ships in the Sea of Azov, which Russia controls.
Those include oil tankers in Russia's Shadow Fleet, but also ships used for dry cargo.
Russia is one of the world's biggest exporters of wheat, and up to a quarter of its wheat exports go through the Sea of Azov.
Nervousness about the impact of Ukrainian strikes is already affecting international wheat future prices.
While Russian and Ukrainian forces continue to fight territorial battles on the front lines, it's the battle to harm each other's infrastructure that's increasingly centre stage.
That was Danny Eberhard.
For the first time, the US government has paid compensation to staff affected by so-called Havana syndrome.
That's the mysterious ailment reported a decade ago by staff working in the embassy in the Cuban capital.
The US Department of Defence says it's given out nearly $3 million in compensation.
But what exactly is Havana syndrome?
Rebecca Kesby spoke to Dr Thomas Withington, an analyst with the defence think tank, the Royal United Services Institute.
In terms of the symptoms, there's a number that seem to be fairly common.
Dizziness, nausea.
We've heard of things like nosebleeds, for instance.
I think it would be fair to say acute physiological discomfort is certainly the overriding one that most of the sufferers appear to have reported.
And that appears to be how this syndrome sort of manifests itself, these very unpleasant physiological sensations such as, as I said headache nausea, that kind of thing.
It's all sort of shrouded in mystery, isn't it?
Are these weapons legal?
Because there have been reports that some sort of sound weapon may have been used when President Maduro was captured in Venezuela earlier this year.
It's a very good question.
I think what complicates this is that we know so little about the kind of weapons that are being used, assuming they are being used, of course.
You mentioned the capture of Nicolas Maduro.
We had these reports of a sonic weapon being used to aid that effort.
Now, sonic weapons themselves are not new.
Personally speaking, I've actually been in demonstrations where they've been used and I can tell you they're particularly unpleasant.
But my own very small and limited experience of that was not really – I didn't feel any sort of nausea or I didn't have any kind of pronounced physiological symptoms.
I just didn't want to be in the area where this thing was being activated.
But, of course, what we know in terms of what's happening in the public domain compared to what is happening in the military domain and the classified space.
Obviously that's a lot more mysterious.
By its very nature, it's much more difficult to get information about that.
Yeah, now we call it Havana syndrome, but I mean, there's never really been proved exactly what happened to cause it, has it?
Again, an excellent question.
And, you know, something I always think about is whenever something new comes out about Havana syndrome, such as the news we've had concerning the compensation, or reports we've had in the past.
Every time we get one of these reports, we get a vignette of information in many ways.
We just end up with even more questions that we need to ask.
So we're getting more information that's coming out, but often that is just sort of getting us deeper into the mysterious elements of this.
Well, what's actually causing it?
How could it be caused?
Why do some people get symptoms but other people don't?
And it's really really difficult to try and clear up those questions with any sort of definitive answers.
Dr Thomas Withington speaking to Rebecca Kesby.
Citizens in the Canadian province of Alberta will vote in October on whether to remain a part of the country or move forward with a referendum to become an independent state.
Both the Conservative opposition and the Liberal government under Prime Minister Mark Carney are campaigning against separation.
But those wishing to leave say successive governments have let the western province down.
The BBC's Nadine Youssef travelled to Alberta and its famous rodeo festival, the Calgary Stampede.
The place is absolutely packed with people wearing cowboy hats, cowboy boots, eating fried food.
When you walk around here you would think that you are at a rodeo in Texas, but all the attendees that we spoke to and the participants tell you that this is a uniquely Western Canadian event.
It's a celebration of Alberta's history and culture.
And, of course, at an event where Alberta identity is front and center.
There's been a lot of conversations about the upcoming referendum in October.
The stampede is an example of the culture here in Alberta.
Teresa Held, a born and raised Albertan who has lived in Calgary all her life.
She believes the values on display here show why Alberta should go it alone.
People believe in getting down and dirty and working hard and our goal in independence is hopefully to bring that type of value system back into Alberta.
The majority of people we spoke to at the Stampede didn't share this view and supported a united Canada.
MPs from Canadian federal parties are using the Stampede to make their case.
We've talked directly about Alberta separatism today.
This is Corey Hogan.
He's just one of three Liberal MPs in Alberta, historically the conservative heartland of Canada.
You look at the polls and you'll see 70-30 support for staying in Canada, 80-20 support for staying in Canada.
But I think we're all very worried that Alberta's politics could be consumed by this forever.
If it's a little close and it looks like maybe there's a trend towards separatism.
However, those campaigning for separatism claim that Alberta has long been treated unfairly.
They point the finger at the successive liberal governments of Justin Trudeau and Mark Carney.
We've driven north of Calgary to meet one of the campaigners for independence.
There you are, sir.
Thank you, Chris.
For Whistle Stop owner Christopher Scott, the true break with Ottawa occurred during COVID-19.
I was raised believing that Canada was a free country and that kind of came to a head when I had the police and health services here threatening me because I just wanted to exist and work and earn a living.
Chris was arrested in 2021 for protesting COVID lockdowns outside his restaurant and was later accused of breaching health restrictions, charges which were eventually thrown out.
Independence in Alberta is necessary and inevitable.
You can't go that long with people underrepresented before something breaks.
Separatists spent the last few months gathering signatures for a petition that asked to make the referendum binding.
Their effort was successfully quashed in court by Alberta First Nations, who argued they were not properly consulted on the matter.
At a neighborhood barbecue in Calgary hosted by nearby First Nations to celebrate Stampede, the mood is firmly against separation.
First Nations.
Land in Alberta is governed by treaties signed between Indigenous people and the British Crown nearly 150 years ago.
We have to fight it.
We have to.
And so we did.
Speaking to me a few feet away from where one such treaty was signed, Chief Samuel Crowfoot of Siksika Nation tells me there is no clarity on what would happen to those treaties if Alberta were to separate.
There is no guarantee, there is no talk from the separatists, no reach out from any of the movements here to talk with any First Nation, as far as I'm aware about what this new area of Alberta would look like if we were to separate from Canada.
As the Calgary Stampede winds down and the fairground goes quiet, it is clear that this is only the starting gun of what will be a long debate for Alberta's future ahead of October.
That was Nadine Youssef reporting from Canada.
Now we're going to go back to the horrific killings at the Sandy Hook School in Connecticut in the US in December 2012, when 20 children aged just six or seven years old were shot dead, as well as six staff members.
Almost immediately, a man called Alex Jones spread false claims that the shooting was staged on his website Infowars.
After a long legal battle, Jones was ordered by a court to pay more than $1 billion to the families.
But it's not happened, as he was declared bankrupt.
So the owners of a well-known satirical website, The Onion, are trying to buy the Infowars website so they can launch a parody of it.
Robbie Parker's six-year-old daughter Emily was one of those murdered at Sandy Hook.
He said he supported the Onion's move.
It felt like such a breath of fresh air to have one, have them kind of be on our side and almost have other people joining in this fight with us and doing it for reasons that were so pure and innocent and funny and light compared to the dark and evil and just atrocious things that we had been dealing with.
Alex Jones pushed the limits on one side and went too far with it.
And I feel like The Onion is going to use the First Amendment in a way that's going to be on the other side for showing the hypocrisy, shining a light on things, bringing laughter and in a way bringing people together in a way that Alex Jones will never be able to do.
Amal Rajan has been speaking to the CEO of The Onion, Ben Collins.
Well, we thought it would be funny, first of all, and it is.
But we also wanted to do a good thing.
And we wanted to provide people some hope that if you do the right thing occasionally, it might be rewarded.
What would you say to those people who argue that satire parody is not the appropriate response when the issue at stake here is the murder in daylight of schoolchildren at Sandy Hook in 2012?
So I was an extremism reporter for 10 years before I was an Onion CEO.
And I reported on them all the time.
I called those people who were doing that stuff family members who were affected by it and all those things.
And I can tell you that reporting on it doesn't really do much.
In fact, it's only increased these people's purchase and import in American life since then.
Ridiculing them tends to work.
Expose their lies and try to spotlight them who they really are from the inside out.
We've done this through the express permission of the San Diego families.
We had a phone call with them less than a month ago.
And they were just saying, keep going.
A lot of them had told us that they felt free to speak up for the first time and be themselves.
These are parents of murdered children.
And we gave them permission to make fun of these people in public again.
Because otherwise, they're big, bad, scary monsters.
But there is this man behind the curtain element to all this stuff.
These guys are, they're nobodies at the end of the day.
They've just been able to co-opt our culture for really dastardly ends.
If you're honest, what is your assessment of how likely it is that you'll be able to ultimately buy InfoWars?
We feel really, really good about it.
We have the backing of the families.
And the families, by the way, are the people who are ultimately in control of this stuff.
Alex Jones has gone all the way to the Supreme Court with one of the two cases involved in this, the one that he owes 135 billion to these families.
They will ultimately end up within fours.
And we are very excited to buy that stuff and resell some of it so they can get some more cash as well from the estates.
And to be clear for people who haven't followed the case or your attempt to buy the website very closely or carefully as things stand, we're 14 years on from the massacre at Sandy Hook and the families have not received any compensation, have they?
Yeah, it's a complete perversion of justice.
It's actually been almost five years since he was ordered to hand over that 14 billion and he still hasn't done it.
He's moved assets around.
He's handed stuff over to his dad.
He has tried to declare Infowars valueless, despite the fact that we have been willing to pay money for this the whole time.
It's been a mess, but again...
All it takes is somebody on the other side saying actually no, this one you're not going to get away with.
That was Ben Collins from The Onion speaking to Amal Rajan.
And that's all from us for now.
If you want to get in touch, you can email us at globalpodcast.bbc.co.uk.
You can also find us on X at BBC World Service.
Use the hashtag Global News Pod.
Don't forget our sister podcast, The Global Story.
This edition of the Global News Podcast was mixed by Darcy O'Brie and the producer was Emma Joseph.
The editor is Karen Martin.
I'm Charlotte Gallagher.
Until next time, goodbye.
Is the American dream still possible?
I'm Asma Khalid, one of the hosts of the Global Story podcast from the BBC.
One of the most successful exports the United States has ever sold the world is the American Dream, that tantalizing promise of a better freer, richer life.
But is it still attainable?
I feel like the American Dream is alive but not well.
For more, listen to The Global Story on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.
