Air India has confirmed that only one of the 242 people on board its flight that crashed into a doctors' hostel in Ahmedabad has survived.
Also in the programme: Donald Trump has urged Israel not to launch an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities - we hear from a former US ambassador to Israel; and scientists have discovered a previously unknown species of dinosaur hidden in plain sight in a Mongolian museum's fossil collection.
(Photo: Air India plane with over 240 on board crashes after take-off in Ahmedabad - 12 June 2025. Credit: Siddharaj Solanki/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)
ESA’s Solar Orbiter camera probe begins raising its orbit towards the sun’s poles, whilst Betelgeuse’s elusive buddy continues to sneak past our best telescopes.
Earlier this year, Solar Orbiter started to stretch its orbit over greater latitudes – effectively standing on cosmic tiptoes to catch a glimpse of the Sun’s poles. This week, we have seen the first ever pictures of them, and as solar scientist Steph Yardley tells us, the views will only get better.
Meanwhile, Andrea Dupree of the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and colleagues have had time to study new Hubble and Chandra telescope observations of the iconic star Betelgeuse searching for signs of its hypothesised binary companion – dubbed “Betelbuddy”. The papers that appeared on the Arxiv pre-print server have not yet been fully peer-reviewed, but it seems astronomers will have to keep looking.
Humans use machines to read gene sequences as best they can, but it takes time and is not perfect because we do not know what all of it means. Of course nature has its own genome reader – the ribosome. It is this that interprets the genetic instructions contained in our DNA and translates them into actual proteins. Viruses, of course, use it too when a cell gets infected. Shira Weingarten-Gabbay has this week demonstrated how scientists can make use of ribosomes too. Working somewhat in reverse, her team have identified many thousands of proteins previously unknown, that could for example provide targets for future vaccines or antivirals should the need arise.
Finally, Nanshu Lu and team in the University of Texas at Austin have been working for some years on two-dimensional wearable electronic “E-Tattoos” to monitor health non-invasively through our skin. Their latest work, describes “A wireless forehead e-tattoo for mental workload estimation”.
Presenter: Roland Pease
Producer: Alex Mansfield
Production co-ordinator: Jasmine Cerys George
Photo Credit: ESA & NASA/Solar Orbiter/SPICE Team, M. Janvier (ESA) & J. Plowman (SwRI)
The local police chief tells the BBC that 204 bodies have been recovered - it's not known how many of those victims were on the plane, or were on the ground when the plane crashed. One passenger has survived, a local police chief says, with Indian media reporting he is British. The plane crashed into accommodation used by doctors. We speak to a British MP in touch with the family members of some on board.
Also on the programme: Rioting – described by the police as “racist thuggery” – in Northern Ireland. And the new images from space that are helping explain the science of the sun.
(Photo: A tail of an Air India Boeing 787 Dreamliner plane that crashed is seen stuck on a building after the incident in Ahmedabad, India. CREDIT: REUTERS/Amit Dave)
More than 240 people killed in a plane crash in Ahmedabad. The Air India flight crashed into a residential area shortly after take-off. Also, Iran accused of failing to meet nuclear safeguard obligations.
Hospital services in Ghana grind to a halt after a nurses' strike escalates
What are the implications of Afreximbank's credit rating being lowered to one notch above junk
And will Ecowas ever realise its dream of a borderless region?
Presenter: Richard Kagoe
Producers: Nyasha Michelle, Patricia Whitehorne and Tom Kavanagh in London. Blessing Aderogba in Lagos.
Technical Producer: Philip Bull
Senior Producer: Paul Bakibinga
Editors: Andre Lombard and Alice Muthengi.
Air India flight to London crashes after take-off in Gujarat. It's reported there are no survivors. The airline says 169 Indian nationals, 53 Britons, a Canadian national and seven Portuguese nationals were on the flight
Two people are facing the first federal charges in the LA unrest and could serve up to 10 years in prison. Also: Harvey Weinstein is found guilty on one charge of sexual assault, and rare good news from Gaza.
As protests against raids targeting illegal immigrants continue in Los Angeles, we hear the latest from the city and speak to a former director of the US border agency ICE, Ronald Vitiello.
Also in the programme: the role of rare earth minerals in an apparent warming of trade relations between the US and China; and reflections of former Palestinian foreign minister Nasser al-Kidwa on finding a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And memories of Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys band, who has died at the age of eighty-two.
(Photo: Members of California National Guard speak to a man outside the Edward R. Roybal Federal Building, after days of protests against federal immigration sweeps in Los Angeles, 11 June 2025. Credit: REUTERS/David Ryder)
A 31-year-old blogger, Albert Ojwang, has died in police custody in Kenya. A post-mortem revealed that he was hit on the head and his death was likely to have been caused by assault. The results of the post-mortem contradict police previous claims which said Albert had "sustained head injuries after hitting his head against a cell wall". His death has sparked widespread outrage in Kenya. We'll find out more about the case.
Also, what happens to desperate people when humanitarian organisations cannot offer them the aid they need?
And why Botswana has paused production at some of its diamond mines
Presenter: Audrey Brown
Producers: Bella Hassan and Yvette Twagiramariya
Technical Producer: Craig Kingham
Senior Journalist: Karnie Sharp
Editors: Andre Lombard
Police in LA say there have been mass arrests, amid protests over immigration raids. Also: dozens more Palestinians are killed trying to get to aid centres in Gaza and the latest on Austria's school shooting.
