Trump launches crime crackdown in Memphis

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK.

SackSaw Fifth is your secret to fashion's most wanted deals at up to 70% off.

On the hunt for designer steals that'll turn heads and leave a trail of envy?

Uncover Gucci, Valentino, Versace, Stuart Weitman, and more, with new arrivals dropping weekly at prices too good to stay confidential.

Lux layers, statement boots, and tailored essentials from Sacks Off Fifth will put your wardrobe on the most wanted list.

Head to SacksOffFifth.com SacksoffFifth.com or a Sacks Off Fifth store near you for a style lineup you won't want to miss.

Suffs!

The new musical has made Tony award-winning history on Broadway.

We demand to be home!

Winner, best store!

We demand to be seen!

Winner, best book!

We demand to be quality!

It's a theatrical masterpiece that's thrilling, inspiring, dazzlingly entertaining, and unquestionably the most emotionally stirring musical this season.

Suffs!

Playing the Orpheum Theater, October 22nd through November 9th.

Tickets at BroadwaySF.com.

This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service.

I'm Janet Jalil, and at 5 hours GMT on Tuesday, the 16th of September, these are our main stories.

Donald Trump sends a National Guard into Memphis to combat crime, despite its Democratic mayor saying crime there is already falling.

The US President also announces another deadly strike on what he says is a Venezuelan drug boat.

People in Gaza City report heavy, relentless bombardment by Israel hours after the visiting US Secretary of State fully backs its offensive.

Also in this podcast.

The hypothesis is the longer words use means the more effort I have to make to make that apology and the listener understands from that there's greater sincerity.

How to say sorry like you mean it.

We start in the US, where President Trump, after being forced to back down over his plan to send what he said would be a crime task force to Chicago after strong opposition from local and state officials, has now announced he's carrying out a similar operation in Memphis, in Tennessee.

Mr.

Trump compared this to his deployment last month of the National Guard Guard and other federal forces to Washington, D.C., and has indicated he hasn't given up on his plans to do the same in other cities, including Chicago, Baltimore, and New York, which all have Democratic black mayors.

The U.S.

President was joined by Tennessee's Republican governor as he announced this latest task force.

I'm signing a presidential memorandum to establish the Memphis Safe Task Force and it's very important because of the crime that's going on not only in Memphis in many cities and we're going to take care of all of them step by step just like we did in DC we have virtually no crime in DC right now the Memphis Mayor Paul Young has voiced opposition to Mr.

Trump's deployment of federal forces to his city arguing that crime there is already falling I got more from our North America correspondent David Willis the order signed today is aimed at as it puts it restoring law and order in Memphis where according to the text violent crime has overwhelmed the city's ability to respond.

And this order cites FBI figures, which show that last year Memphis saw some of the highest per capita rates of murder, robbery, and assault in the country.

But as you point out, Memphis is making strides to tackle the problem.

And only a few days ago, Memphis Police Force reported quite significant progress in curbing crime in the city in the course of the first eight months of this year.

Nonetheless, Mr.

Trump has announced the establishment of this task force, which will include members of the State of Tennessee National Guard, as well as personnel from federal agencies such as the FBI and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency, otherwise known as ICE, whose objective will be to crack down on violent crime by saturating certain areas of the city of Memphis with law enforcement personnel.

Now, part of these moves by the Trump administration in cities such as Los Angeles and Washington, D.C.,

has been to focus on what Mr.

Trump has characterized as immigration-led crime, hence the involvement in that list of ICE agents.

And the U.S.

Attorney General Pam Bondi, who was sitting alongside President Trump for the signing of this order today, said the move was designed to, as she put it, make Memphis safe again.

But Mr.

Trump was forced to shelf similar plans for Chicago, another city with a Democratic black mayor, because of strong opposition from local and state officials.

You're right, yes.

And the deployment of troops to Memphis is significant because it marks the first effort of its kind in a Republican state.

But although the move has been welcomed by Republicans in Tennessee, including the governor, the mayor of Memphis, who's a Democrat by the name of Paul Young, isn't happy at all.

And neither are some of the other local representatives who say that money would be better spent on violence prevention, poverty eradication programs, and so on.

And of course, as I mentioned, it's all part of a crackdown this on crime that has seen very similar measures implemented here in Los Angeles and in the nation's capital, Washington, D.C.

And as you mentioned, Mr.

Trump has said that other Democratic-led cities such as Chicago could be next, but he's been forced to hold off sending troops there in the face of quite considerable pushback by both the mayor and the state governor, both of whom are Democrats.

David Willis.

And President Trump has also been deploying the U.S.

military abroad.

He announced that they had struck a boat allegedly carrying drugs from Venezuela, killing three people on board the vessel.

This comes nearly two weeks after another US military strike on a boat that killed 11 people.

The Venezuelan leader, Nicolas Maduro, has accused the Trump administration of using drug trafficking accusations as an excuse to try to bring about regime change in his oil-rich country.

This is not tension, it's outright aggression, a judicial aggression.

It is political aggression, diplomatic aggression, and ongoing military aggression.

Venezuela is empowered by international law to comprehensively confront this aggression.

Our global affairs reporter, Mimi Swebe, told us more.

Trump has announced that the US military has carried out another strike in a boat carrying what he called narco-terrorists from Venezuela, which have killed three individuals.

This is the second such strike in a matter of weeks, around two weeks, and it's been in international waters.

This is all part of President Donald Trump's campaign, an escalating war on drugs coming from Venezuela towards the US.

It started with a deployment of military troops, about 4,000 military troops, in the South Caribbean Sea, just outside Venezuelan waters.

Then we had the first boke strike, which killed 11 individuals, which Venezuela really condemned, saying these were extrajudicial killings.

And then Venezuela flew two military planes very close to the US Navy vessel.

Washington saw this as a huge provocation.

And then the US sent 10 10 fighter jets to Puerto Rico.

And now we're seeing another escalation, another development, another boat strike, another deadly boat strike at that.

So this really has been an escalating of tensions between the US and Venezuela.

And there is a lot of concern about the US actions breaking international law.

Has the US provided any evidence to back up its claims that these people that it's killed were, in its words, narco-terrorists?

On True Social, Trump said that he's given these orders.

He didn't specify in either either both attack which law this was under, but he said they'd been confirmed as narco-terrorists, these individuals who had been killed.

Venezuela has said there hasn't been any evidence for this.

This is in international waters, but it's very close to Venezuelan territory.

But again, it goes back to the fact that no law has been specified.

Mr.

Trump said in his recent post on True Social that this is a warning.

He very clearly stated, if you are transporting drugs that kill Americans, we are hunting you.

A very aggressive word choice.

It seems that to him, this is

such an important cause that he doesn't need to give laws or reasoning or concrete evidence.

His word, be that on true social or verbally, is enough to condemn these supposed drug traffickers.

And this comes as the Trump administration is in the process of deporting thousands of Venezuelan migrants who've sought refuge in the U.S.

Only a year ago, these two leaders were shaking hands, having cordial meetings, and now Maduro is being blamed by the US for not only his country being a huge source of illegal immigration in the US, but also fronting and heading a drug cartel fueling the US drug trade.

And the US has also raised the reward for Maduro's capture to $50 million.

That's a huge sum of money.

So it just goes to show how kind of volatile the situation is and how icy these relations have become.

Mimi Swabi, as we record this podcast, people in Gaza City are reporting heavy, relentless bombardment by Israel overnight, hours after the visiting U.S.

Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, appeared to fully back Israel's offensive in the devastated territory.

At the same time, at an emergency summit of Arab and Muslim nations, the Emir of Qatar fiercely criticized Israel for its attack last week on Hamas negotiators who were in his country to discuss the latest US-Gaza ceasefire plan.

If Israel wants to assassinate Hamas's political leadership, why is it negotiating with them?

And if it wants to negotiate for the release of hostages, why is it assassinating everyone with whom it could negotiate?

And how are we supposed to receive in our country Israeli delegations for negotiations, while those who sent these delegations are planning to bomb this country?

These questions don't expect answers, but rather explain why we say openly that this aggression is truly vile, treacherous, and cowardly, and it's impossible to deal with this level of malice and betrayal.

But despite the fiery words, the meeting of more than 50 Arab and Muslim countries failed to reach an agreement on what steps to take to stop another such Israeli attack.

They called on Washington to use its leverage with Israel, but Mr.

Rubio, on a visit to Jerusalem, appeared to stand shoulder to shoulder with the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who has vowed to continue attacking Hamash leaders wherever they are.

However, in Washington, Donald Trump again said Israel would not carry out any further attacks on Qatari soil.

Our correspondent Tom Bateman is traveling with the U.S.

Secretary of State.

Marco Rubio assured Mr.

Netanyahu of the Trump administration's unwavering support, with none of the presidential displeasure voiced last week being repeated today in Jerusalem.

As they met, leaders of Arab and Islamic countries were lining up in Qatar to denounce Israel over its mounting offensive in Gaza City and last week's strike in Doha, targeting but reportedly failing to kill Hamas leaders.

Pressed by the BBC on whether there was a crisis of diplomacy for the US, Mr.

Rubio said he wanted Qatar, which had been mediating in the Gaza war, to continue to play a constructive role.

We've been engaged with them consistently before what happened and after what happened, and ultimately some fundamentals still remain to have to be addressed.

Irrespective of what has occurred, the reality of it is we still have 48 hostages.

We still have Hamas.

As long as they exist, as long as they're around, there will be no peace in this region because they are not agents of peace, they are agents of barbarism.

The Gulf countries have long believed their alliance with Washington, including hosting U.S.

military bases, has ensured their safety.

But last week's Israeli strike in Qatar appears to have shattered that preconception.

Mr.

Rubio will fly next to Doha at a critically awkward moment.

Israel says it will continue to hunt down Hamas leaders wherever they are in the region.

Arab countries accuse the US of facilitating Israeli escalation over diplomacy, with no expectations demanded by its superpower partner of accountability.

That was Tom Bateman reporting.

Now, when is an apology not really an apology, and how can you tell?

A study published in the British Journal of Psychology looks at apologies and how to make them.

People were given different words of regret and asked to compare them.

Is someone who says, I'm genuinely sorry, more sincere than someone who says, I'm really sorry?

The paper suggests longer words come across as more apologetic.

So if you have to say sorry, don't be too brief.

To get you in the mood, let's listen to how some big names have expressed regret.

The actor Will Smith, Bill Clinton, Tiger Woods, the former British Prime Minister Liz Truss, and the actor Hugh Grant.

You can rate them as we go.

Chris,

I

apologize to you.

My behavior

was unacceptable.

Indeed, I did have a relationship with Ms.

Lewinsky that was not appropriate.

In fact, it was wrong.

I want to say to each of you, simply and directly, I am deeply sorry for my irresponsible and selfish behavior.

Now, I recognize we have made mistakes.

I'm sorry for those mistakes, but I've fixed the mistakes.

I think you know in life

pretty much what's a good thing to do and what's a bad thing.

And

I did a bad thing and there you have it.

Well Dr Jane Gilmore is consultant clinical psychologist at Great Ormond Street Hospital in London.

She wasn't part of the study but she told Evan Davis why using long words in written apologies seems to make them more effective.

It's a really interesting and novel study.

So, I think there are some things we need to set out before we talk about the study.

The first thing that is important to notice is that apologies work, they do improve the experience of the person who's been wronged, and apologies will restore trust.

Now, in the therapy world, we'd call that rupture and repair.

And what the study looks at is both the number of words and the length of the words

implying that there is a sincere apology.

Now, the hypothesis is the longer words use means the more effort I have to make to make that apology.

And the listener understands from that there's greater sincerity.

But those two parts of the apology are very important.

There's a head and a heart in the apology.

So, the cognitive part is, I see what I did wrong, and even better, I'm going to change my ways.

You heard implications of that in that array of apologies in the piece that you showed.

But the other part is emotional.

So, I feel remorse and i understand how i've made you feel and that's empathy now the emotional part is key because unless i believe you're regretful the apology will be meaningless to you see that was my my when i looked at the kind of abstract of that paper and read sort of skimmed it i was just they've made a sort of science out of word length and and numbers of words and such like but sometimes you can just tell the difference between someone who is sincere and someone who isn't and it's not about the length of the words it's about the i don't know, it's just about a whole lot of things, isn't it?

Well, it's interesting because, but they did find that the, and there was data, by the way, to support it.

Although you and I might say, well, it, but it's an

intuitive emotion that goes alongside my belief of your apology or not.

But actually, what the theory would imply, and the data would support it, is that the effort I'm making to find the words or make my words longer implies to the listener that I have greater investment in my apology and therefore I am understood and perceived as more sincere.

Now, that's quite a theoretical point, and of course, I think that the other thing to say about this study, and I know the authors would be the first ones to say this too, is it's a very small data set, so only 25 people in each group, and it was gathered on social media.

In the olden days, we used to call it Twitter, and that is not a representative sample.

In other words, that's not representative of the entire population.

So, in a different situation with face-to-face communication, for example, if we were watching video, for example, the findings might be very different.

It might be different.

What's your advice, Jane, in how not to apologise?

What's the egregious mistake to avoid in apologising?

Well, look, I think there's lots of emotions that might go alongside.

a genuine apology or a constructed apology and one of those might be shame.

Actually, shame is not a useful emotion to have alongside an apology because it just just gets us stuck in the past and

we don't evolve.

What I would aspire to, I'm going to tell you where to go, not what to avoid.

I would aspire to humility.

Humility.

Humility.

That means an openness for learning and an understanding about our responsibility.

Dr.

Jane Gilmore on the art of the apology.

Still to come.

The smoothness and the fact that they fitted the ring of truth almost exactly raised some concerns.

We hear how the World Stone Skimming Championship was rocked by scandal.

It's finally happened.

Your kid could be part of the first generation to never suffer the rough touch of toilet paper on their tender tush.

All thanks to new flushable little dude wipes available in bubble bum scent or fragrance-free.

Because we we know little butts can make a big mess.

But with Little Dude Wipes, you can keep your kids' keister clean without the burn and debris toilet paper can leave behind on their behinds.

Experience the confident clean of Little Dude Wipes, available exclusively at Walmart nationwide.

As America's most trusted movers, Mayflower has seen it all from big dreams and new beginnings.

All right, here we are.

Oh, it's perfect.

To first steps and fixer-uppers.

From starter homes.

So guess what?

We're having another.

Another?

We definitely need more space.

To more practical homes.

Yes, Mayflower has been there for it all and will always have your back.

Every moment, every move, every step of the way.

Schedule your move now by going to Mayflower.com.

So do you want to look and feel your best this summer?

Well, don't just think skin deep.

Think cell deep with Prolon.

Prolon is a plant-based nutrition program featuring soups, snacks, and beverages that nourish the body while keeping it in a fasting state, which triggers cellular rejuvenation and renewal, target fat loss, support lean muscle, and reset your metabolism.

So you look and feel your best all summer long.

Prolon is science-backed nutrition that can help change your relationship with food in just five days.

Get 15% off, plus a $40 bonus gift when you subscribe now at ProlonLife.com slash iHeart.

That's ProlonLife.com slash iHeart.

This message is sponsored by Greenlight.

With school out, summer is the perfect time to teach our kids real-world money skills they'll use forever.

Greenlight is a debit card and the number one family finance and safety app used by millions of families, helping kids learn how to save, invest, and spend wisely.

Parents can send their kids money and track their spending and saving while kids build money confidence and skills in fun ways.

Start your risk-free Green Light trial today at greenlight.com/slash iHeart.

That's greenlight.com/slash iHeart.

The Trump administration says Washington has reached the framework of a deal with Beijing to transfer the ownership of TikTok's American operations from a Chinese to a US company.

The former President Joe Biden had ordered the sale of the app used by millions of Americans because of fears that Beijing could use it for surveillance purposes or to access sensitive data.

Mr.

Biden had threatened to close down TikTok in the U.S.

if a sale wasn't agreed, but the deadline for this was extended by Donald Trump.

Our North America technology correspondent, Lily Jamali, has more.

Speaking after the latest round of U.S.-China trade talks in Madrid, the U.S.

Treasury Secretary Scott Besant said Donald Trump and Xi Jinping would complete a TikTok deal on Friday.

Details are sparse, including which U.S.

buyer may be purchasing the Chinese-owned video app that 170 million Americans use.

Mr.

Besant said he wouldn't talk about the commercial terms of the agreement, as it was between two private parties.

A January deadline to force China's bite dance to sell TikTok or face a ban was mandated by Congress and upheld by the Supreme Court.

Mr.

Trump has unilaterally extended it three times with another set for Wednesday.

But many experts are skeptical that a deal will address the national security concerns that prompted congressional action in the first place.

Lily Jamali.

Since the Taliban's takeover four four years ago, Afghanistan has seen a huge surge in child malnutrition, and this year has been the worst so far, with the US cutting off all aid, other donors pulling funds because of the Taliban's appalling treatment of women and girls, widespread drought, and the forced return of millions of Afghans who had fled to neighboring countries.

All these factors have led to an unprecedented wave of hunger, stunting, and death among Afghanistan's children.

Yogita Limaye has seen their plight traveling from Badakhshan in the east to Herat in the west.

And just to warn you, her report is very distressing.

Here in the malnutrition ward of the Badakhshan province, literally every room we walk into, there's at least two babies in each bed.

All of them suffering from severe acute malnutrition, but also from other complications.

They've told us that there are about 26 patients in 12 beds.

There's one baby here who is extremely tiny.

She's got a cleft lip.

She's suffering from severe acute malnutrition as well as from diarrhea.

You can see there's respiratory distress.

When her oxygen was off briefly, you can literally see that her feet and her hands have become slightly bluish in color.

Her name is Sana, she's three months old, and her mother Zamira is here who's 22.

She's going to sign child again.

Zamira told us that her first baby died when she was a few months old.

I'm afraid that this child might also die.

I'm so tired of this life.

It's not worth living.

Doctors have just pointed to a baby in one of the rooms who they say is the most critical patient currently admitted.

Her name is Musleha, five months old.

Not only does she have severe acute malnutrition, but she's also got a complicated case of measles as well as diarrhea.

She doesn't have her eyes open.

She looks almost unconscious.

The breathing is labored.

Sharing a cot next to Musleha are twins Muthera and Mazian, also suffering from malnutrition and measles.

They're half the weight they should be at 18 months.

A week after we visited the hospital, we followed up with the families we met.

We were told that Sana, Musleha, and Muthera had all died within the week.

Three children from one hospital room.

The latest casualties of Afghanistan's crisis of hunger.

We've come to western Afghanistan, to the province of Herat, Afghanistan's third largest city, and just outside the city there's a settlement that we've come to.

I can just see tiny mud houses.

We're meeting now a family who say they've lost three children in the past two years to malnutrition.

I'm walking with Ghulam Moheddin and his wife Nazu.

They're taking us to the local graveyard to show us where their children are buried.

Watching helplessly as my children cried out of hunger, it felt like my body was erupting in flames.

It felt like someone was cutting me into half with a saw from my head to my feet.

So at this graveyard, I've asked whether there's anybody who keeps any records, if there's any kind of register which would identify whose graves these are, because the graves essentially

are a pile of stones and mud.

So what I've actually done is I've walked through the graveyard, I've done a rough count, and it's really staggering.

Two out of every three graves are of children.

We've heard a lot of people warning about this.

There's going to be a silent wave of deaths that Afghanistan's children are dying quietly in their homes, triggered by hunger and malnutrition.

But what I'm seeing in front of me now is really staggering evidence of that.

We've now come not far from the graveyard into the settlement and we're going from house to house and we found cases of malnutrition.

Rafiola, a one-year-old boy who's malnourished and we're about to speak to his mother, Hanifa Saeedi.

Hanifa has just told us that she

gives her child some tablets to help him sleep.

So I've just asked if we can see those tablets.

So both the strips she's given me, they are both anti-anxiety medications.

She's told me that she gives a tablet three times a day to her youngest child because he's hungry and she she doesn't have enough to feed him and so that he can sleep.

She's also told us that when she went to the pharmacy, she asked for basically sleeping pills for herself.

She didn't say it was for her child.

John Ayliff, the country head for the World Food Programme, has said that they've also encountered a growing number of such calls.

It's incredibly heartbreaking to be in this country and watch this unfold.

WFP has a hotline.

We've had to retrain our call operators because we're getting a much higher proportion of calls from women threatening suicide because they just don't know they're desperate and they just don't know how to feed their children anymore.

The evidence is everywhere.

It's hard to overstate the urgency of the situation in Afghanistan.

Yugita Limaye reporting on the malnutrition crisis killing Afghanistan's children.

The UN says progress towards gender equality is much slower than it was hoping for, with female poverty barely shifting in the past five years.

It It says around one in ten women are still stuck in extreme poverty, most of them in sub-Saharan Africa and in Central and Southern Asia.

But there's been a big drop in maternal mortality in the past couple of decades.

With more details, here's our gender and identity correspondent, Megha Mohan.

The UN put forward an aim to empower all women and girls by 2030, but it says that progress is falling short of ambition.

The 2025 gender snapshot shows around 10% of the world's women still live in extreme poverty, and more than 350 million may remain so by 2030.

While maternal deaths have dropped by nearly 40% this century, women still spend two more years in poor health than men.

The report also focuses on the rise of AI.

Women are nearly twice as likely as men to hold jobs at high risk of automation, with clerical and other female-dominated roles most exposed.

It concludes UN member member states need to make a stronger commitment to achieve gender parity.

Mako Mohan.

Intense bushfires, floods, and cyclones, climate change is already hitting Australia hard, and now a new landmark report says one and a half million Australians living in coastal areas will be at risk from rising seas by the year 2050.

Stephanie Prentice reports.

Millions of Australians at risk, coastal properties under threat, and parts of the country unlivable in certain seasons.

Some of the predictions of the first National Climate Risk Assessment, looking at possible scenarios if global warming increases by 1.5 degrees, 2 or 3 degrees.

Australia relies heavily on fossil fuels, is one of the world's biggest polluters per capita, and has already reached warming of above 1.5.

It's predicted that if that doubles, heat-related deaths in Sydney could rise by more than 400%

and almost triple in the city of Melbourne.

The report also highlights substantial threats to the natural world, including further degradation of sensitive ecosystems like the Great Barrier Reef and pressure on critical infrastructure and the economy.

Dr.

Andrew Watkins is the report's lead author and told us more about the economic projections.

We are also looking at losses in labour productivity.

It's just going to be so much harder for people to work outside.

And 2.7 million working days could be lost just to heat waves.

We are expecting to see a greater loss of property damage and greater loss of homes, particularly in coastal areas.

And then, unfortunately, people could see a decrease of Australian property values of around $600 billion by 2050.

The big problem being that in those areas we will get floods and fires and so on.

Insurance may simply become unaffordable in some of those areas.

Australia's climate and energy minister Chris Bowen said the threat of climate change is now impossible to ignore.

I think many Australians will find this report confronting.

I don't think many Australians will be particularly surprised.

I would say to people, let's be clear-eyed about the challenges.

Let's be realistic about the threats, but also let's be optimistic about the future.

He says it's still possible to avoid the worst of the impacts, and the government has outlined a national adaptation plan, restating a pledge to reduce emissions by 43% by 2030.

That is roughly on track, but critics say the targets need to be higher and target dates need to be sooner.

What everyone does seem to agree on is the new report's assertion that nowhere in Australia will be left untouched by climate change.

Stephanie Prentice.

Now to the story of a scandal that has rocked a sport to its very core.

The sport in question, skimming stones, a pastime popular with children, but also with adults, hundreds of whom have been taking part in the World Championships this month on a tiny island off Scotland, but where several competitors were disqualified for cheating.

If you've never skimmed a stone, well, it's when you fling one across a body of water so that it bounces repeatedly across the surface.

With more, here's Will Chalk.

It's always difficult to hear of something beautiful, something idyllic, turning bad.

So brace yourself for this clip from Dr.

Kyle Matthews, organiser of the World Stone Skimming Championships.

This year's championship was a massive success, our largest ever.

We had a couple of thousand of people at the island, at the championships, cheering on.

And it was just after that excitement and jubilation, really, of the triumph of the day

started to ebb away that I became aware of murmurings and rumours of some maybe nefarious deeds.

Yeah, pretty shocking stuff, right?

The championships take place every year on the tiny island of Easdale off the west coast of Scotland, which usually has a population of just 60 people.

Now, you might be wondering how someone could go about cheating at something like skimming stones.

Well, let's go back to Kyle Matthews, or as he's known in his stone skimming capacity, the Tossmaster.

So, in the competition, you get three throws and you must use stones that come from this beautiful Hebridean Island ease deal from where I'm speaking to you today.

Those stones must be less than three inches in diameter and they get checked by going through a metal ring or measurer, which is called the ring of truth.

Now it is apparently common knowledge in the stone skimming community that larger stones skim better and this gave some dishonest participants an idea.

So these competitors had taken larger stones and used machinery to grind them down into perfectly circular three-inch diameters.

So, the smoothness and the fact that they fitted the ring of truth almost exactly raised some concerns.

Happily for the integrity of the sport, Kyle says it was a very small number of people and they confessed to what they'd done.

I think the main thing is the stone skimmer is a noble breed of competitor.

And I think the very fact that as soon as they were challenged, they held their hands up.

I think that's something to be very, very proud of.

And in case you're wondering, the championship was won by non-cheater Jonathan Jennings from the US, who skimmed his three stones a total of 177 meters.

And that report was by Will Chalk.

And that's all from us for now, but there will be a new edition of the Global News podcast later.

If you want to comment on this podcast, you can send us an email.

The address is globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk.

This edition was mixed by Caroline Driscoll.

The producers were Carla Conti and Irian Cochi.

The editor is Karen Martin.

I'm Janet Jalil.

Until next time, goodbye.

Sucks!

The new musical has made Tony award-winning history on Broadway.

We the man to be home!

Winner, best store!

We the man to be seen!

Winner, best book!

We the man

It's a theatrical masterpiece that's thrilling, inspiring, dazzlingly entertaining, and unquestionably the most emotionally stirring musical this season.

Suffs!

Playing the Orpheum Theater October 22nd through November 9th.

Tickets at BroadwaySF.com