The Global Story

IVF is responsible for about 2% of all births in the United States each year. The revolutionary technology has not only reshaped society's beliefs about fertility, but enabled geneticists and expectant parents to screen for certain genetic conditions and to select and implant the healthiest possible embryos.
Prenatal genetic testing has been championed as a scientific marvel, allowing parents to spare their offspring from certain debilitating, untreatable, and sometimes fatal genetic conditions. But some critics warn that the selecting for genetic characteristics bears a resemblance to eugenics – a discriminatory pseudoscience popularized in the early twentieth century, focused on maximising particular characteristics in the human population.
Geneticist Adam Rutherford from University College London joins us to consider the ethical complexities of genetic screening.
Producer: Xandra Ellin
Executive producers: Bridget Harney and James Shield
Mix: Travis Evans
Digital producer: Matt Pintus
Studio manager: Mike Regaard
Senior news editor: China Collins
Photo: File photo dated 19/05/08 of a woman looking through a microscope. Credit: David Davies/PA Wire

Senator Lindsey Graham spent decades as one of Washington’s most prominent foreign policy hawks - a fierce opponent of Russia, relentless advocate for Israel and supporter of Iranian regime change.
Graham’s funeral this week drew the likes of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and both men took the opportunity to meet with Donald Trump in an effort to keep the president invested in the wars that both their countries are fighting.
On today's episode, we speak to the BBC’s Washington Correspondent Daniel Bush and documentary filmmaker Alex Holder, who has rare access to Lindsey Graham to unpack how the late senator helped shape Trump’s foreign policy approach.
Producers: Aron Keller and Xandra Ellin
Executive producer: Sam Bonham
Mix: Travis Evans
Senior news editor: China Collins
Photo: Guests stand for during the funeral for US Senator Lindsey Graham at the Washington National Cathedral in Washington, DC USA, 28 July 2026. Credit: Will Oliver / EPA/Shutterstock

This episode contains details of alleged sexual offences and misconduct.
In an exclusive BBC investigation, four women have accused Oscar-winning actor and Thirty Seconds to Mars frontman Jared Leto of criminal sexual conduct. The woman say the alleged offences took place when they were teenagers.
Despite repeated attempts to contact Jared Leto before publication, he did not respond to the allegations put to him by the BBC. After this episode was published, Leto said in a statement released by his representatives to the BBC: “I have never sexually assaulted anyone in my entire life. These claims are absolutely and categorically false”.
Alice McShane, the director of the BBC documentary Jared Leto: Hollywood’s Dark Secret, tells us the stories of three of the women.
Read the full investigation: bbc.com/news/articles/cd7lg2nz2x2o
Producer: Sam Chantarasak
Executive producer: James Shield
Mix: Travis Evans
Senior news editor: China Collins
Clip: Requiem For A Dream/Artisan Entertainment/Thousand Words/Protozoa Pictures/Darren Aronofsky
Photo: Jared Leto attends the “Tron: Ares” premiere on September 30, 2025 in Berlin, Germany. Credit: Gerald Matzka/Getty Images.

When the Trump administration announced last week that it had signed a nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia, the agreement was held up by US Energy Secretary Chris Wright as evidence that ”the American nuclear renaissance is underway”. Although the text of the deal has not yet been made public, US media report that it could allow Saudi Arabia to enrich uranium in the future.
But shortly after the announcement, President Trump took to Truth Social to qualify the news – saying that the deal hinges on Saudi Arabia’s willingness to recognise the state of Israel.
Is that likely? And could the deal derail ongoing negotiations between the US and Iran? We speak to BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner.
Producers: Valerio Esposito and Xandra Ellin
Executive producer: James Shield
Mix: Travis Evans
Studio manager: Mike Regaard
Digital producer: Matt Pintus
Senior news editor: China Collins
Photo: U.S. President Donald Trump meets Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman at the White House in Washington. Credit: Kevin Lamarque / Reuters

“Cuba’s assault on the United States was never, at root, a quarrel over economic policy or sovereignty or even ownership of a particular territory,” reads the US Department of State’s new report on the communist state 90 miles from the Florida coast. “It was a revolution against Western civilization itself”.
Over the course of 100 pages, Cuba: The Capital of 21st Century Communism draws lines between Cuba and the Black Panthers, the Pan-African movement, radical feminism, Antifa and more, concluding that international sympathy for the island’s dire humanitarian crisis overlooks a sinister reality; that, “its power was always ideological, subversive, and parasitic.” The Cuban government has dismissed the report as, “a mediocre propaganda pamphlet.”
How much validity is there to its arguments, and why release it now? Michael Bustamante, a professor of history at the University of Miami, joins Asma to discuss.
Producers: Hannah Moore and Valerio Esposito
Executive producer: James Shield
Mix: Travis Evans
Senior news editor: China Collins
Photo: U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, July 23, 2026. Credit: Brendan Smialowski/ Pool via Reuters.