BBC News Briefing

15 April, 2026

Alex Binley

Hello. With many Catholics in the US united in their criticism of Donald Trump, religious affairs correspondent Aleem Maqbool takes a look at what it could mean for the US president. Undercover filming by the BBC has found that staff at a Pakistan hospital linked to an HIV outbreak in children continued to use dangerous injection practices. And finally, find out who's better at ice hockey - the leader of Canada or Finland?

TOP OF THE AGENDA

Trump's rift with Pope is playing out in public and it's costing him valuable support

A split image shows Pope Leo on the left and Trump on the right. Leo is wearing a red robe, white skull cap and glasses and has short grey hair. Trump is wearing a red ap which says 'USA' on it and which leaves the top half of his face in shadow.

Pope Leo has condemned the war in Iran, while Trump has called him 'weak on crime'. Credit: Reuters

In the past few days, Trump has faced a broad backlash from American Catholics over his attack on Pope Leo and his sharing of an AI image of himself as a Christ-like figure. But what is striking about this, writes Aleem Maqbool, "is where some of this criticism is coming from - loyal, conservative Catholic allies". He notes that this provides the president with "political perils, given that he increased his support among that group in the 2024 election". He writes that many Catholics are unified in their unhappiness with the president "not just because of Trump's public friction with Pope Leo, but at a much deeper level over the Iran war".

Read Aleem's analysis

GET UP TO SPEED

A man wears dark clothing, including a baseball cap, with a high-vis vest on top. He is stood outdoors and green fields can be seen behind him.

Three paramedics 'killed in Israeli strikes in Lebanon'

Lebanese officials accuse Israel of deliberately targeting health workers in its war with Hezbollah. Israel has not yet commented.

Read more >

Lots of clear, tablet-shaped capsules contain a black and red ant in each of them.

Chinese national jailed for smuggling ants out of Kenya

Last month, Zhang Kequn was arrested at Nairobi's main airport with more than 2,000 ants in his luggage.

More on the case >

A blurry image shows a bald man in a light-purple short-sleeve shirt and beige trousers lying on top of a figure dressed all in black on a long red seat.

School principal tackles Oklahoma active shooter

The footage shows Kirk Moore charging and tackling an armed ex-student. Moore was shot in the leg but is no longer in hospital.

Watch the video >

NEWS FROM THE UK

Court: A man arrested climbing a fence to get into Israel's embassy carrying knives had twice come to the UK on a small boat from France, a jury heard.

Police: Two officers have been charged after a pregnant woman and her unborn child were killed in a crash with an unmarked police car in London.

Runner's death: An ultra-marathon champion has died while trying to beat the record time to complete a 234 mile (376km) route across Scotland.

AT THE SCENE

Punjab, Pakistan

Hospital at centre of child HIV outbreak caught reusing syringes

A scene from a hospital. A woman, whose face is obscured, is injecting a patient, his face blurred. She is injecting him without wearing gloves and putting the needle through the sleeve of his shirt.

The BBC filmed staff who failed to wear gloves and injected patients through clothing.

Undercover filming by the BBC in Pakistan shows staff at a government hospital carrying out dangerous injection practices. It comes after an HIV outbreak in children was linked to the THQ Taunsa hospital in late 2024. Local authorities then promised a "massive crackdown" and suspended the hospital's medical superintendent, but a BBC investigation found that many of the practices at the hospital continued.

Ghazal Abbasi, Seamus Mirodan and Mohammad Zubair Khan, BBC Eye

During undercover filming in late 2025, we witnessed syringes being reused on multi-dose vials of medicine on 10 separate occasions, potentially contaminating the drugs inside. In four of these cases we saw medicine from the same vial given to a different child. We do not know if any of the children were HIV-positive but this practice creates a clear risk of viral transmission.

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We also filmed staff - including a doctor - injecting patients without sterile gloves 66 times and we watched a nurse rummage through a medical waste disposal box without sterile gloves. When we showed our footage to the hospital's new medical superintendent, he refused to acknowledge it was genuine and insisted his hospital was safe for children.

Keep reading

HIV outbreak: In 2019, in another HIV outbreak, hundreds of people in Sindh province were diagnosed, three years after another outbreak.

USAID freeze: A Ugandan man with HIV said he'd have to split up with his wife, who is HIV-negative, due to aid cuts' impact on treatment.

HIV in Fiji: The small South Pacific nation is facing one of the world's fastest growing HIV epidemics. Here's why.

At a parade, four young women dressed in green hold a banner that reads 'Green with Envy', with six clovers spaced around the words (Credit: Alamy)

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SOMETHING DIFFERENT

Migration reversal

Americans are moving to Ireland in greater numbers than Irish people going to the US.

Here's why

And finally... in Canada

Watch as Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and Finnish President Alexander Stubb hit the ice alongside the Ottawa Charge hockey team for a friendly match. "Mark and I, we message each other pretty much every day," Stubb said, adding: "Sometimes it's about hockey [...] but most of the time it's about Nato or Ukraine or Iran."

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