hello. my name is tom donkin. welcome to bbc news, broadcasting to oui’ welcome to bbc news, broadcasting to our viewers in north america and around the globe. these are our top stories: holding the world to ransom: another widespread cyber attack hits banks, shops, transport and energy networks. another setback for president trump's attempt to change american healthcare. this time, the senate delays a crucial vote. after half a century as armed revolutionaries, the farc rebels in colombia finally put down their weapons. the chinese artist ai wei—wei brings his new exhibition to washington, and, with it, his support for american dissidents. thank you forjoining us. a large—scale cyber attack that started in ukraine is continuing its spread across the globe.

the virus freezes computers and demands that a ransom is paid. a danish shipping group, a russian oil giant, an american pharmaceutical company, and a british advertising firm are just among some of the big companies that have been hit. this might all sound familiar, because a similar attack targeted the uk's national health service, just last month. our security correspondent, gordon corera, has been monitoring all of the developments. a cyber attack is sweeping across the globe, taking systems off—line. another reminder of the risks we face in our connected world. the first signs came in ukraine. systems went down this morning. some people tried to take money out of bank machines, found they couldn't. even the radiation monitoring system at the chernobyl nuclear plant was briefly taken offline. the scale was enormous. we had the virus spread, cyber virus on the transport, bank, media, infrastructure of ukraine, in government and in

the co—operative sectors as well. but during the day, it became clear that the problem was not contained in ukraine but was spreading. reports came in of companies affected from russia across europe to the uk and also the us. those affected included oil producers, shipping and pharmaceutical companies and a london—based advertising group. they were all faced with a screen like this, telling them they've been locked out of their computer and needed to pay a ransom to get back in. computer systems which have not been upgraded or patched are usually the most vulnerable. today's ransomware has some similarities but is not the same as that which struck the nhs last month and, so far, there's no sign of health services being affected. experts say the new attack in some ways is more sophisticated, but the aim is still to make money. well, ra nsomwa re is

very effective because attackers can sit at home, in the comfort of their own living rooms, somewhere possibly on the other side of the world, and mount these attacks with very low risk to themselves and very high upside. in many cases they'll make hundreds of thousands of dollars out of an attack like this. so far, the signs are that the uk has not been badly hit but officials will be watching to see how far it spreads and how much damage this attack really does. the bbc‘s dave lee is also following the attack for us — he's in san francisco. just over one month since that huge wannacry attack and here we go again. this attack seems to target the ukraine, part of the code specifically goes after ukrainian software. however, such is the indiscriminate nature of ra nsomwa re attacks, this has now spread all over the world. here, in the us, we have seen

a major pharmaceutical company have their it systems affected, and also dla piper, a major law firm, has been caught up in the attack. security researchers are trying to see if there are any clues as to where this has come from. it is a new strain of ransomware but there are similarities between this and previous attacks. companies that took sufficient measures to upgrade their system should have been protected, but as we've seen in the past, not all firms were diligent enough to make sure that happen. attackers are only asking for $300 as a ransom payment and from our analysis not many people seem to have paid up, it seems increasingly that these attacks aren't about making money. to stay with us. we will delve into this more. we will be speaking to a co—founder of a cyber security company

in boston. venezuela's president, nicolas maduro, has said that a stolen police helicopter has "attacked" the supreme court building in the capital caracas. latest reports suggest a grenade was thrown at the building, but it did not explode. president maduro said that special forces were hunting what he called the "terrorists" behind the attack. an army officer, oscar perez, who's reported to have taken control of the helicopter has posted a statement calling for action against what he described as the criminal government. the venezuelan president has been facing months of big protests after the government controlled supreme court took a series of measures to bolster his authority. senate republicans in the us have delayed a vote on their proposed healthcare bill, saying it won't happen before the american july 4 holiday. the announcement by the senate majority leader, mitch mcconnell, is another setback to republican efforts to replace the healthcare reforms introduced by barack obama. but mitch mcconnell says he remains optimistic. we're continuing to talk about it.

it's a very complicated subject. i remember how challenging it was for the democrats, back in 2009 and 2010. there are lot of discussions still going on, and i'm optimistic we're going to get there. earlier i spoke to our correspondent david willis for more analysis on the delay and what it could mean for the proposed bill. the bottomline here, there is insufficient support from senate republicans to approve this bill. the repeal and replacement of so—called 0bamacare, otherwise known as the affordable care act. a lot of the republican senators who are concerned are worried about reports from the budget office, which suggest under the cause of this legislation in the next decade about 22 million americans could stand to lose their health coverage. so what they've done, the senate leadership, is they've taken this bill off the table for now.

they are planning to tweak it over the course of the next few days, hold discussions with those who are still opposed to it and then bring the whole thing back for a vote after thejuly 4 holiday. it is a high risk strategy, to, because in the course of this delay, it could be that they will bring those who are currently recalcitrant on—board or there could be more opposition because people will go back to their districts, lawmakers will go back to their districts, will talk to their constituents and they may pick up on concerns and fears from those people about the future of health coverage in america. now, the house suffered similar setbacks, but the margin for error is a bit more slimmer in the senate. are we likely to see what happened in the house getting pushed through, or is it looking pretty

grim for the health—care reforms now? well, you're right, they need their majority of 52. they need 50 senators to support this, and, at the moment, they simply don't have that. hence all the republican senators were brought to the white house to talk with donald trump today. this is a landmark piece of legislation. he'd very much pinned his first term in office to this, the reform of healthcare, to getting rid of what he saw as the disastrous affordable care act. and don't forget, donald trump needs a legislative victory, given all of the publicity that is currently taking up the headlines surrounding russia's alleged links to the outcome of last year's presidential election. in short, the president needs a victory right now. three current and former officers in

sick showed that make chicago have been charged with covering up the death of a teenager. the 17—year—old was shot dead in 200014. —— 2014. dash—cam video showed he was shot 16 times. 36 people have been injured in new york city when two subway train cars came off the tracks. the incident left hundreds of people stuck underground for more than an hour. the cause of the derailment, was not immediately clear. more than five and a half million trips are made on this system in the average day. brazil's president, michel temer, has rejected a bribery charge against him — calling it a fiction, based on vengeance. mr temer is accused of receiving money from the executives of a meat—packing firm implicated in a corruption scandal. he denies any wrongdoing. colombia's farc rebels have formally ended their existence as an armed group, after a violent campaign that lasted more than half a century,

in which more than 260,000 people died. at a ceremony near the town of mesetas, the farc leader, rodrigo londono, said, now disarmament was complete, the group would transform into a peaceful political movement. presidentjuan manuel santos said the country was celebrating a day where weapons were exchanged for words. hundreds of white butterflies were released at the ceremony as a symbol of peace. 0ur correspondent natalio cosoy was there. the ceremony has nowjust finished here in the town of mesetas, in the eastern plainlands of colombia, marking the end of the process, the handing over of weapons from farc members. hundreds of farc members dressed in white with the word "peace" written on their t—shirts were watching.

most colombians have been watching the ceremony on tv and it will be for them to decide if they accept these former fighters as their peers in the future. google says it's considering an appeal after it was fined a record $2.7 billion by the european union. that was for breaching anti—trust rules. the technology giant has been found guilty of abusing its power, rigging online shopping searches by promoting its own shopping comparison service at the top of its web page, while the results of competitors are buried much further down. google has been told to stop doing it within 90 days orface more fines. amol rajan has the story. they're the new masters of the universe. google's products have changed our lives forever but, today, the company was brought down to earth in the brussels headquarters of the european commission. after a seven—year investigation into google's business practices, commissioner margrethe vestager delivered a brutal verdict. google has abused its market dominance as a search engine

by giving illegal advantages to another google product, its shopping comparison service. if you search google for something that you want to buy — say, for instance, my new cricket bat — several ads appear here at the top of the screen. these are clearly marked ‘sponsored' and are part of a service called google shopping. each time i click on one of the ads, the american tech giant earns some money. but today, the european commission ruled that this prime real estate gives google an unfair advantage. kelkoo is one of the companies that brought the case. it says google needs to be reined in. it said, right, i'm going to take over this marketplace and i'm going to demote you all and put myself at the top of the listings. anti—competitive. they can't do that when they have a 90% share in general search. they use that power, and that's wrong. google said it respectfully disagreed with the decision

and would take the 90 days granted by the commission to find a solution. 0ne former google insider says the company is being punished for its success. the reality is, google is all about creating a great user experience. the reason why people come back and we use it probably on a daily basis is because it enables us to find what we are looking for as quickly as possible, it's a frictionless experience. and they need to stay competitive. for years now, european officials have been itching to subject tech giants to fresh regulations. but over in silicon valley, many leading innovators believe social problems usually have a technological, rather than legal solution. one of the great mantras of silicon valley is, move fast and break things. i don't think that many people would characterise eu bureaucracy as having that kind of spirit. there are two very different worldviews — america and europe. and they have very different attitudes on competition, on access to data, even on very fundamental things like the profit motive. whether it's a good thing or not. what i think is fascinating about this case is it really shows a very different attitude. through remarkable innovation

and engineering, google has become integral to our daily routines. this record fine is a reminder that it is at base an advertising company, which uses our personal data to sell us things. if you don't like the search results, well, there's always yahoo!. amol rajan, bbc news. stay with us on bbc news. still to come: dissident chinese artist ai weiwei tells us what inspired his latest work, portraits of fellow freedom fighters made from lego bricks. members of the of the neo—nazi resistance movement stormed the world trade center armed with pistols and shotguns. we believe that, according to international law, that we have a right to claim certain parts of this country as ourland. i take pride in the words

"ich bin ein berliner." cheering and applause chapman, prison—pale and slightly chubby, said not a single word in open court. it was left to his lawyer to explain his decision to plead guilty to murdering john lennon. he believes that onjune 8th, god told him to plead guilty, and that was the end of it. the medical research council have now advised the government that the great increase in lung cancer is due mainly to smoking tobacco. it was closing time for checkpoint charlie which, for 29 years, has stood on the border as a mark of allied determination to defend the city. this is bbc news. the latest headlines: computer systems around the world have been hit by a major cyber—attack which has targeted banks, retailers, energy firms and transport networks.

chris wysopal is co—founder at the security company veracode. he's in boston. good to see you, chris. we've been told that this particular ransomware form, this new one, can't be solved by the way the old one was solved. what happens, does this keep moving from computer to computer? yeah, it doesn't seem to have the defect that the previous one had, which was what was dubbed the kill switch, where a domain was registered that stopped the worm from moving. this one doesn't have that kind of problem. there really doesn't seem to be a good way to stop it, you just need to patch your systems and you need

to patch your systems and you need to contain it. if you can shut down your network, networks from connecting to each other you can try to contain it while you clean it up. it's hugely destructive to global companies and individuals but our cyber criminals making any money out of this? you can look at the bitcoin account online, there's relatively little in there? that's leading to some speculation that it really wasn't meant to be ransomware at all that it was really meant to be destructive and disruptive. the e—mail address be ransomware author used to collect and communicate with people was shut down within hours. it doesn't seem to be any command and control, which would mean the attackers speaking to these systems in someway over the network. it seems to be using destructive capability to encrypt files. the

timing of it, hitting ukraine the day before constitution day, a big holiday in the ukraine, is leading people to speculate this was just meant to harm the ukrainian government, ukrainian businesses and other businesses that work with ukraine. the fact that it isn'tjust petty theft if you like, does that suggest it might be more of a state—sponsored or state entity where this might have originated from? that really does seem like the likely source. it's either really, really inept criminals that happened to focus on ukraine the day before constitution day, or it is someone who is a little more sophisticated and didn't care about the ransomware part, just wanted it to be disruptive. i'm leaning towards the latter and people are collecting evidence to see if we can podemos to any state—sponsored attackers. evidence to see if we can podemos to any state-sponsored attackers. -- if

we can point this to. chris wysopal from the cyber company veracode out of boston. for more information on the attack, including an break—down of what ransom—ware is you can head to our website, bbc.com/news or simply download the news app to your smartphone. the british prime minister theresa may has said the country must hold a national investigation following the deadly tower block fire in london earlier this month. at least 79 people lost their lives and there are question marks over the cladding that was used on the building. and it's notjust britain that is concerned about safety, as tim allman reports. the fire may have taken place in london, but its consequences are also being felt elsewhere. this is western germany. more than 70 people have been evacuated from this 11 story tower block. after the g re nfell tower, story tower block. after the grenfell tower, local officials aren't prepared to take any risks.

translation: we have here a building with a similar structure to the building in london that burned down. we have an easily flammable cladding and at the same time an emergency exit situation in which you can reach the staircase only via balgonie is. we've decided we can't ta ke balgonie is. we've decided we can't take the responsibility for people living here as long as the situation is like this —— balconies. living here as long as the situation is like this -- balconies. the residence will be given no place to stay while the building is made safe but for many this came completely out of the blue —— residents. translation: i came back home from work and i saw the police and then we we re work and i saw the police and then we were told we had to leave in 15 minutes. i'm shocked, i don't know what's happening. in london, the burnt out shell of grenfell tower, a reminder of the terrible events that happened here. bodies are still being identified, checks of other buildings are being carried out. officials say so far cladding in 95

buildings have failed fire safety tests. a 100% failure rate so far. the government says around 600 buildings will be tested across the uk. the bbc has learned all of london's councils were warned about the potential danger of cladding a month before the grenfell fire. but how many more tower blocks pose a potential danger in britain and across the world? tim allman, bbc news. the chinese artist ai weiwei is a well known champion of human rights, views that led to his own detention in china in 2011. this week he's in washington, promoting one of his most significant works, lego brick portraits of people he calls freedom fighters. you can see his work at the hirshhorn gallery, and that's where jane o'brien caught up with him. ai weiwei came up with the idea for trace, a sprawling portrait project, when he was incarcerated by the chinese authorities in 2011.

he uses lego bricks to create pixelated images of 126 people he considers to be prisoners of conscience, or free—speech activists. they have strong beliefs. they are very brave. in most circumstance, they know they could lose their life. they know they will lose all they have. most of the people you portray here have been imprisoned by repressive regimes. but some of your portraits are of people who have been imprisoned in the united states. how do you think visitors will react to that? for many visitors they would be surprised because very often we think we are living in a free world or free society. i think this is a very shallow thinking. so we include chelsea manning, who is so brave for me. like most of ai weiwei's works, trace was constructed by others following his design. it was first shown on the site of the notorious prison of alcatraz

and its transfer to washington comes at a time of heightened debate about the meaning of truth in politics, fake news and the power of social media. a medium ai weiwei has mastered. what impact do you think president donald trump has when he uses social media? i often heard a lot of criticism, but i also think it's what we want to know, how this guy really thinks about or even the mistakes this guy can make, but the discussion is still always on the surface. it's not a really in the more profound way. unnoticed, the killer stands out. liu xiaobo, the jailed chinese dissident and nobel peace laureate, who as the exhibition opened, was moved from prison to hospital, suffering from terminal cancer. ai weiwei says he's symbolic of many others who suffer the same fate unnoticed.

they can easily make you disappear. your lawyer cannot really defend you, or your family cannot know where you are. in some cases even after you're serving the time, you still cannot see your family. audiences may not sympathise with the motives of everyone portrayed in trace, but the broader aim of ai weiwei's work is to raise questions about the nature of freedom and how it is protected or violated by governance. jane o'brien, bbc news, washington. i want to pause and take you back to oui’ i want to pause and take you back to our breaking news, venezuela's president nicolas maduro says a stolen police helicopter has attacked the supreme court building in the capital caracas. speaking on state television, president maduro said a grenade was thrown at the building but didn't explode. an army officer oscar perez reportedly took control of the helicopter and has

posted a statement calling for action against what he described as the criminal government. the venezuelan president has been facing months of protests after the government—controlled supreme court took a series of measures to boost mr maduro's authority. and finally before we go take a look at this. a superstitious elderly passenger has delayed a china southern airlines flight in shanghai after throwing coins at the engine for good luck. the 80—year—old told police she prayed for safety. it took engineers several hours to retrieve all the coins. she wasn't the best shot. of the nine coins thrown, only one hit its target, but this was enough to force the evacuation of 150 passengers for several hours. not the best luck for passion and is on board that flight! you can get in touch with me and the team on twitter. the bye for now. —— for passengers on board. hello, good morning.

really since the start of the week the weather has turned, we've seen much more rain around. this picture was taken at swanage in dorset. instead of the sunshine of monday we had the rain of tuesday. a lot of rain far and wide across the uk, 56 millimetres of rain already on the isle of man, and then more recently we've seen the wettest weather developing in the south—east, spilling into east anglia. both those areas seeing about a month's worth of rain injust 24 hours or so. and with the rain developing more widely, particularly in england and wales, and with some heavy rain too, a lot of water on the roads, surface spray, even into the morning rush—hour, it could be quite tricky on the roads if you are going to be travelling. you can see how extensive the rain is across england and wales by wednesday morning. still some heavy bursts of rain too. briefly some rain for northern ireland but much of scotland may well stay dry. may well brighten up towards the south—east but unlikely to do so in the south—west

of england, the threat of more rain coming in here. and the rain never really clears away from wales. if it does brighten up and turns a bit warmer in the south—east later, we could trigger a few heavy showers. but further north, much cooler across the north midlands, especially northern england with the rain. quite a keen wind blowing in off the north sea. it should turn a bit drier, perhaps a little bit brighter for northern ireland, and this time the driest weather is going to be across scotland on wednesday. but again chilly with the winds off the north sea. that rain, though, continues to push its way northwards through wednesday evening and wednesday night, so it will turn wetter in scotland and northern ireland too. the rain still around across northern england and north wales, but to the south and south—east it may well be dry. quite a warm night as well but the big story, the rain that isjust continuing. but this time in a different area really on thursday. so the wettest weather going to be for scotland and northern ireland. eventually it turns a bit drier for northern england. for many parts of northern england and wales, it may be a drier day, some brighter skies, a bit of warmth as well and some humidity.

but further north where we have the rain and still the winds coming in from the east or north—east, it will feel cold. quite a bit colder than it should do for this time of the year. low pressure responsible for all the rain, which doesn't really know weather it's coming or going. as we've seen its moving northwards for a while, but into friday that low pressure dragster rain back southwards again into england and wales, where we could see some heavy bursts of rain, especially in the east of england. turning drier this time, though, for scotland and northern ireland. some sunshine but again a stronger wind, this time coming in from the north. now, pressure over the weekend should be a little bit higher. not completely dry but it will be drier and warm when the sun comes out. hello. this is bbc news. the headlines: banks, retailers, energy firms and transport networks are among thousands of companies and organisations who've been hit by a major cyber—attack. users are told that their computers have been frozen until a ransom is paid to an anonymous account.

president trump's attempt to overturn his predecessor's healthcare reforms has been setback, with senators delaying a key vote. five republican senators have said they won't back the bill. president trump held a meeting with several senators at the white house but hasn't yet persuaded the critics. the left—wing rebel group in colombia, known as the farc, has formally ended its existence as an armed group, after a revolutionary campaign lasting half a century. the group's leader told a ceremony that its disarmament was complete and farc would now transform itself into a peaceful political movement. now on bbc news, it's time for a programme about brexit, asking that crucial question — what happens next?