as the country starts to survey the extent of the destruction. us democratic governors vow to stand with us president biden as questions continue about his fitness for office. israel says it's evaluating hamas's comments on proposals to free hostages, as the prime minister remains under pressure to end the war in gaza. hurricane beryl is passing by jamaica, with the eye wall brushing the southern coast, bringing with it dangerous high winds, sea surges and a trail of destruction in the eastern caribbean where at least seven people have been killed. currently, beryl is a category four storm — the most intense that jamaica has seen in more than a decade. the national hurricane center

says the storm is bringing winds of around 140 mph or 220 kilometres per hour. the cayman islands and mexico are next in the hurricane�*s path, and are preparing to feel the brunt of beryl after it passes jamaica. in the meantime, jamaica's prime minister is urging residents to follow evacuation orders. during the passage of the hurricane, there may be a loss of electricity and water. the emergency services will seek to restore power and water as quickly as possible. however, citizens should not seek to remove downed poles or power lines or disturb water mains. please use emergency numbers given to report damage to public utilities and do not take unnecessary risks. within the last 30 minutes, i spoke with reporter nick davis by phone who's in montego bay, jamaica right now.

what are you experiencing currently? it's one of those situations where you think you are prepared and you realise you are not prepared. i think that is the situation for many people here in jamaica. in many respects there has been a lot of damage, there has been loss of life, but we're aware that it could have been worse for everybody on the ground here. at the moment we are assessing how much damage has been done. even where i live, we have got no power. trees have come down in the yard, which means people couldn't get out, people who do need essential services cannot get out of the property, we have to figure out a way to do getvehicles out, move trees, that will be happening all over the country. the other thing that will be happening is trying to get the critical infrastructure back up and running as well. we have had power losses throughout the country and we've still got this continuous rain.

you can hear it coming down now. that has been a real problem, especially in low—lying parts of the country and tomorrow we are going to see how badly some of those areas have been affected. as you are just mentioning there, that lashing rain, because one of the serious concerns has been the storm surge. absolutely. storm surge especially in those low—lying coastal areas. some of those are very well known. they get hit over and over and over again. but people are reluctant to move away. why? because housing and access to housing is very difficult to find injamaica, so when people settle somewhere they stay, when they settle somewhere they don't want to leave, even if their lives could be in danger because it is their homes. the other thing is flooding. so many areas also suffer from dust as we are seeing a lot of development, a lot of informal development in the planning infrastructure isn't there and what happens is we see areas which suddenly

get engulfed very quickly. and tomorrow again we will see how much debris has come down from some of these communities as they flow towards us. naturally some people are anxious about leaving their homes, the places where they love to live, of course, and leave it behind to the destruction, but people were being told i understand by the prime minister to leave, to go to shelters if they can. we have any indication as to whether people were able to get out on time? the situation is that because of things that have happened in the past in terms of people going to shelters and them not necessarily living up to expectations, in some cases being very cramped, led to a feeling that people wouldn't want to go back, once they have been bitten they're not going to try again. so this is what happened and they think in some areas people refused to leave. in one area, very close to the airport, people sent their children away but stayed in their home. that's says everything you need to know.

thousands of people are now homeless after beryl ravaged grenada and st vincent and the grenadines monday. strong storm winds destroyed homes, businesses, and boats. the prime minister of st vincent and the grenadines says authorities are sending food and water to affected communities. and as beryl takes aim at mexico next, tourists in the beach resort of cancun are rushing to leave with lines stretching through the airport there. the head of mexico's civil protection agency encouraged tourists who've stayed behind in cancun and nearby tulum to hunker down in hotel basements once the storm approaches. us presidentjoe biden has held a high—stakes meeting with all 23 democratic governors, amid panicked deliberations inside the democratic party over whether mr biden has the stamina and mental fitness to lead the country

into a second term.several of those governors have just left the meeting, and told reporters, they stand behind biden. about half of the governors attended the meeting in—person at the white house. they included california governor gavin newsom, and michigan governor gretchen whitmer — two politicians whose names have been mentioned as potential alternatives to president biden, should he ultimately step aside. a shaky performance at last week's debate with donald trump has threatened to derail mr biden�*s entire campaign. despite concern, mr biden has vowed to stay in the race. in addition to the governors' meeting on wednesday, the president held phone calls with democratic congressional leaders, as well as his re—election campaign staff where he said : well, for the second day in a row, the white house press secretary faced unrelenting questions about president biden�*s mentalfitness. karine jean pierre denied an earlier report from the new york times that mr biden is considering

whether to abandon his re—election bid. democrats will be anxious about new polling out wednesday. the president is moving forward. he is moving forward as being president, he is moving forward with his campaign. as his campaign has been very clear about that. is the president telling people he is evaluating? that is absolutely false. i saw that reporting. we were not given enough time to get back to that reporting, just a couple of minutes, and we asked the president and the president responded directly when asked about this question, because we said that we would and the president said it is no, it's absolutely false. that is coming directly from him. a new york times poll found trump leads biden 49% to 43% among likely voters nationally. that's three points higher than their last poll a week earlier. a wall streetjournal poll reports similar numbers after the debate: biden behind, 42% to 48% among registered voters. as president biden faces questions about his age, donald trump faces questions of his own, including about his recent

conviction on 3a felony counts. the wall street journal poll we just mentioned asked respondents which concerned them more, biden�*s age or trump's behaviour. 46% of registered voters said biden�*s age was the bigger concern. 45% donald trump's behaviour worried them more. the number of people killed in a crush at a religious gathering in the northern indian state of uttar pradesh has risen to 121, making it one of the deadliest such disasters in more than a decade. the incident happened as a crowd of thousands of people were trying to leave a hindu prayer meeting in the northern district of hathras. police say more than 250,000 people attended the event, more than triple the number organisers had permitted. the police chief said action would be taken against anyone found to be responsible for the crush . most of those killed were women.

0ur south asia editor anbarasan ethirajan is in aligarh in uttar pradesh with the latest. tens of thousands of people had gathered here in this place in uttar pradesh in northern india to listen to one of the self—styled gurus who was addressing devotees from here. as he was leaving in a car, his devotees followed and across the road, people are trying to get a better glimpse of him and get a better glimpse of him and get his blessings and that is when we believe the crash happened. in which more than 120 people were killed. 0fficials hearsay there was only permission for 80,000 people together here, tents are being removed now but we suspect three times more that number had gathered for the meeting and that overcrowding would have caused this tragedy. now police say they are launching an investigation to find out what went wrong and what lessons they can learn from this.

police in australia are searching for a missing child who was reportedly attacked by a crocodile, while swimming in a creek in australia's northern territory. the attack happened in a remote community about 360 kilometres southwest of darwin. 0ur correspondent katy watson has the latest. what we know is a 12—year—old child was swimming in a creek at dusk on tuesday about a seven—hour drive from darwin, southwest of darwin in the northern territory. the local community raised the alarm and local police attended. now there is a search and rescue operation there that is combing large areas of the creek by boat, but still there is no clue to the whereabouts of the child. now, the northern territory has about 100,000 saltwater crocodiles, more than anywhere else in the world, and saltwater crocodiles of the most aggressive. they can grow up to six metres long, usually a male isjust over three metres, and they can way around a ton.

that said, attacks are rare, fatal attacks even rarer, and the last fatal attack in the northern territory was in 2018. around the world and across the uk. this is bbc news. let's look at some other stories making news. in northern ireland, a judge has ruled there is sufficient evidence for the former leader of the democratic unionist party, sirjeffrey donaldson, to face trial on historical sexual offence charges. sirjeffrey now faces 18 charges involving two alleged victims, including rape, gross indecency, and indecent assault. he appeared in court with his wife, who's also been charged — she faces five charges of aiding and abetting, in connection with the alleged offences. sirjeffrey has said he will strenuously contest the charges. the daughter and son—in—law of captain sir tom moore have been banned from being charity trustees. hannah ingram—moore and her husband colin were disqualified amid an ongoing inquiry by the charity commission into the captain tom foundation. the charity was set up in honour of sir tom who raised

38 million pounds for the nhs by walking laps of his garden during the covid pandemic. a scottish couple are celebrating the arrival of naturally conceived quadruplets.the west lothian family welcomed four boys in may. naturally conceived quadruplets are rare, about one in 700,000 births. you're live with bbc news. a bbc investigation has revealed that a network of russia—based websites — posing as american newspapers — is pumping out fake stories in an effort to influence the us election. one of the most notable stories false claims that 0lena zelenska, the first lady of ukraine, allegedly used american military aid money to buy a bugatti sports carfor $4.8 million. the story went viral on x — and was seen by millions of users before being debunked by experts and the carmaker itself. the operation used artificial intelligence to generate thousands of articles. the bbc found that a former

us marine and police officer named john dougan was running the disinformation campaign. mr dougan denied all involvement despite his known ties to russian state media. we learned more from the bbc reporter leading our investigation — mike wendling. we have been investigating the network of 100 sites, they are meant to sound like local american new sites, names like houston postal chicago chronicle but they are not from those places at all the whole operation is managed from russia. what the network does is interesting it has pumped out fake stories a few of which go viral, they are repeated by online influences but by public officials, even members of congress. most of the time the stories have been about ukraine, as we have been tracking in the last few months but lately it has turned its network to american politics and the november election. israel's government says it is "evaluating" hamas's

response to proposals for a truce in gaza. a statement by hamas says its political leader ismail haniyeh spoke with egyptian and qatari mediators on wednesday night about proposals for a ceasefire and the release of hostages. the new york times reports that several israeli senior military officials are in favour of a truce in gaza. prime minister benjamin netanyahu is under pressure from members of his own war cabinet to de—escalate the war. but as israel's military continues to hit targets in gaza, at least four senior generals are calling for mr netanyahu to commit to a post—war plan. meanwhile, thousands of palestinians are fleeing gaza's second—largest city khan younis after the israeli military issued evacuation orders on monday. the united nations says israel warned a quarter of a million people to move from the east of the city and told them to seek shelter in a coastal area where there are few basic services. hundreds of patients fled gaza's european hospital in eastern khan younis, according to the world health 0rganization. most of them transferred to nasser hospital in

the city's west. bbc arabic spoke to one doctor at nasser hospital — who explained the pressure on services. the current situation in nasser medical complex is very complicated and very hard. actually it's expected the coming few hours that our engines will stop. will stop. that will stop the oxygen tanks in all our departments. this means that our patients are going to die, suffocating inside our departments. if the fuel doesn't reach us in the coming few hours it is expected at least 19 people inside the unit will be suffocated and many patients, nearly ten or 12 patients, in icu. tensions remain high at israel's northern border with lebanon after armed group hezbollah fired 100 rockets towards israel in response to a israeli air strike that killed one senior commander.

0ur middle east correspondent sebastian usher sent this update from jerusalem. israel has killed another senior hezbollah commander in southern lebanon. israel says that he was responsible for the unit has been firing rockets into northern israel. now, that has forced around 60,000 israelis to evacuate their homes. this has become an increasingly big problem for the israeli government. in september, schools go back and the people who live in that area are essentially putting pressure on the government to enable them to make it secure enough for them to return. now, in carrying out an attack like this israel essentially is putting its sense of security ahead of anything else. it said that mohammad naameh nasser was the head of the hezbollah unit that was firing rockets into israel. those hostilities have been going on for months now, essentially hezbollah have been firing rockets into northern israel after the war erupted between israel and hamas,

hezbollah says it was doing a show of support for hamas and it would end the confrontation when the war in gaza ended. at the moment there is no sign of that happening. we saw an escalation a few weeks ago where israel also killed a senior hezbollah commander and that led to hezbollah firing its largest barrage of drones and rockets into northern israel. hezbollah has already fired around 100 rockets into northern israel after this attack but it said that is just its first response. earlier, i spoke to aaron david miller, who held a number of roles at the us state department from 1978 to 2003, where he helped formulate the us policy on the arab israeli peace process. thank you for being with us.

taking a look at israel's government to start with that it is evaluating hamas's response to proposals for a truce in gaza. what you think the chances are of a potential breakthrough here? probably better, but i think we are a long way from tipperary yet. if, in fact, you can get an israeli — hamas agreement to the israeli ideas the president laid out, first there is a security council resolution, 14—0 with the russians abstaining, then you have a chance perhaps of a limited agreement, may be phase one, six weeks of a ceasefire in exchange for a limited number of hostages and an asymmetrically larger number of palestinian prisoners. i don't think, given the mutually irreconcilable objectives of israel and hamas in the latter stages of this proposal, it's hard to believe that both will sign up to a conference proposal.

that is why the northern front is worse, if in fact you did find a way to de—escalate the situation in gaza, even for a few weeks, you would create some time and space for a cooling down of the ratcheting up of israeli and hezbollah actions in the north and perhaps avoid what everyone beers and what the middle east has never experienced, which is a regional war of a kind and of a character that, in terms of its level of destruction, the parties would go beyond anything experienced before. aaron, something else i wanted to touch on was reporting from the new york times saying israel's top generals want to begin a ceasefire as well. even if that keeps hamas in mpowerfor the time being. and of course we know that would be at odds with the thinking of prime minister benjamin netanyahu. where do you think that could potentially leave him? i mean, i think the israeli military here plays a critically important role in providing the pressure point.

i think once israeli, large ground manoeuvres in rafah and operations subside, which should happen in the next couple of weeks, i think there may actually be space to think seriously about a limited agreement between israel and hamas. the pressure on hamas is considerable from countries, i think, and i'm absolutely persuaded that this government in israel, no matter how right—wing and extreme it is would in fact agree to a phase i agreement. the biden administration, given the precariousness of both these fronts, i think would only be too happy to sign on. the logic being that if you could get six weeks of an actual true ceasefire, literally no israeli or hamas military activity, which is something gaza has not experienced since 7 october, then might be able to create pressure, more internal pressure from the israeli

public and perhaps even from palestinian public opinion in gaza to build on those six weeks in order to break the battlefield dynamic. but, again, ithink we are still a long way away from that. the good news is for nine months, israel and hezbollah in the north have avoided opening the regional conflagration. they really do believe, it may be counter intuitive given all the talk you have a wall, that a certain amount of risk aversion on the part of israel and hamas and probably iran still prevails. that is the situation there, for example, with the northern border there towards lebanon. another area i wanted to touch on is the west bank, because at the same time we have israel approving plans for what is described as the biggest potential expansion of settlements in the occupied west bank in over 30 years. what you think the impact

of that could be? it's simply going to feed the hopelessness and sense of despair and the impossibility of normal humans envisaging a political solution. it's not one hand clapping, clearly israeli and palestinian requirements both need to be met if you're going to even begin to talk about it in a serious way a negotiation to end the israeli—palestinian conflict. and this government... look, the reality is very simple, even though it is two hands clapping it's absolutely elemental that there be a change in the israeli government and a government that would emerge might be still very withholding when it comes to doing things for palestinians, but at least there is a chance to avert and avoid what this government has clearly embarked on, which is a policy and a plan to annex the west bank in everything but name.

and i think if that process is left to continue, however grim and bleak the situation, there will be absolutely no space to consider possible political solutions, to begin to mitigate them, ultimately, i don't think we can give up on this, ending the israeli—palestinian conflict. let's turn to some other important news around the world. at least 5 people have been killed and 53 injured by a russian drone missile strike on the central ukrainian city of dnipro. shops, schools and hospitals were also damaged by the strike. ukrainian president volodomyr zelensky condemned the attack saying "only two things can stop this russian terror — modern air defence systems and the long range capabilities of our weapons." meanwhile, russian president vladimir putin and china's president xi jinping met at the shanghai cooperation 0rganisation summit in kazakhstan. the two leaders spoke on the sidelines of the summit in astana, which also includes india and iran.

in televised remarks before the meeting, mr putin said relations between russian and china are at "their best period in history". belarus's president, alexander lu kashenko, released five political prisoners on wednesday. the amnesty is a rare move by mr lukashenko who launched a crackdown on opponents after he claimed victory in the disputed 2020 presidential election. he has led the country since 1994. according to human rights group viasna, there are still more than 1,400 political prisoners in belarus. the inaugural esports world cup has kicked off in saudi arabia. the tournament will run for eight weeks — with an unprecedented $60 million in prize money across all of the games. but critics of the event say it masks scrutiny of saudi arabia's human rights record. new legislation in greece will now permit a six—day work week, allowing employees to work up to 48 hours a week, as

opposed to 40 hours. it is optional for employees and only applies to certain industries. employees who choose to opt in will get paid an extra 40% for overtime. the hope is that the plan will help boost the greek economy. before we go, a new study found that hippos can become briefly airborne when trotting. researchers say that when moving fast, the feet of the creatures leave the ground for less than a second. by contrast, while elephants can walk and run, they never leave the ground with all four feet. the britain's royal veterinary college made the findings, suggesting hippos are able to push the limits of what giant land animals can do. now you know. our colleagues in london take overfrom now you know. our colleagues in london take over from the top of the hour. from the team in washington thank you for your company and have a very good evening. goodbye for now.

hello there. there'll be winners and losers when it comes to the weather forecast on thursday. for the far north and west, we will continue to see a rash of showers. it will be quite windy with it, as well. sunny spells elsewhere. the winds really quite a feature right across the country, but the strongest of the winds closest to this area of low pressure, driving in a rash of showers, maybe longer spells of rain at times. but elsewhere, particularly where we had quite a lot of cloud and it was drizzly from time to time on wednesday, will be a better story. more in the way of sunshine coming through. so, by the afternoon, expect this story. we will see these showers and, as i say, some of them heavy, the brighter yellows and greens denoting that. and with the strength of the wind as well, well, those temperatures really struggling, 11 to 14 or 15 degrees. a few showers into northern ireland, not quite as many, and a few showers across northern england. but generally across england and wales, there'll be more in the way of sunshine, particularly across southeast england. temperatures peaking at 21 degrees. so that means for wimbledon, it will be a better day. we'll have some sunny spells coming through. by friday, though, once again, a change of fortunes.

rain could have a part to play for the outer courts as we go through the day. and the reason being this frontal system that's going to slide in through the latter stages of thursday into friday, bringing more in the way of cloud and showery rain across southwest england during the early hours of friday morning, pushing towards sw19 for the early morning rush hour. but, generally speaking, those temperatures will hold up into double digits to start the day on friday. as we move into friday, then, there will be a good deal of dry, sunny weather really from the m4 corridor south. that's where we'll see the rain. a little more cloud, but generally across england and wales, a good slice of sunshine. a few isolated showers into northwest scotland, but generally those temperatures — not much change — ranging from 14 to 20 or 21 degrees if we're lucky. into the weekend, the unsettled theme is set to continue. very changeable, the weather story, at the moment. a ridge of high pressure to start saturday, but there'll be more wet weather moving in on sunday. so, for england and wales,

perhaps saturday the best day, but elsewhere, we'll see showers or longer spells of rain set to continue and those temperatures disappointing forjuly.

voice-over: this is bbc news. we'll have the headlines for you at the top of the hour, which is straight after this programme. welcome to hardtalk. i'm stephen sackur and today i'm on the road — and on the water — in guyana, south america, a country of extraordinary ecosystems and of vast resource potential. the question is, which comes first? guyana has always been resource—rich. for decades, the rush was for gold. now it's for oil. guyana is fast becoming a petrostate, the fastest growing economy in the world. but new wealth has stoked old tensions.