welcome to bbc news — broadcasting to viewers in north america and around the globe. my name is mike embley. our top stories: a dramatic rise in the death toll from hurricane maria. puerto rico says nearly 3000 people lost their lives last year, up from just 64. google strongly denies claims by president trump that it skews search results to portray him in a less positive light. several countries call for myanmar‘s military leaders to be brough to justice following a report detailing atrocities committed against the rohingya minority. innocent human beings were raped, murdered and burned alive for no other reason than their religious and ethnic identity. the whole world is watching what we will do next and if we will act. and — a final farewell to the queen of soul. fans in detroit pay their last respects to the legendary aretha franklin.

hurricane maria hit puerto rico almost a year ago — but only now is a clearer picture emerging of a far more serious disaster than the official figures suggested. the death toll is now estimated at nearly 50 times higher than previously thought. a study commissioned by authorities in the us territory suggests almost 3,000 people died in the most powerful storm of the past 90 years. the original official figure was 64 dead. the findings come from a new report by researchers from george washington university. it also found that those from poorer backgrounds in puerto rico were at much higher risk of being killed. the bbc‘s david willis is in washington. he told me how the new statistics were arrived at. this figure of 2975 is 50 times the original figure for deaths

in that hurricane. it is based on research from researchers at george washington university here at washington, dc who looked at a six—month period from the time when hurricane maria struck in september of last year through until february of last year. they took into account notjust those hit by debris or who drowned in hurricane maria but those whose deaths were indirectly caused by the hurricane, such as those who died of heart attacks and bacterial infections that have been blamed on this weather system. it is an estimate, still, but an estimate that the puerto rican governor believes will now be the official, it says it will now be the official

death toll for hurricane maria. to put that into context, that figure of 2975 is over 1000 more than are known to have died in hurricane katrina, the weather system that hit new orleans back in 2005. expect the hear more on all of that. —— expect to hear more on all of that. president trump has long had a contentious relationship with the press and today it was social media companies he unleashed on. in an early morning tweet he took aim at the likes of google — saying they purposefully surpressed conservative voices. in a moment we'll hear from our technology correspondent dave lee — but first let's hear exactly what president trump said in the oval office. i think google is really taking advantage of a lot of people and i think that is a very serious thing and a very serious charge. google, twitter, facebook, they are really treading on very troubled territory and they have to be careful. it is not fair to large

portions of the population. he is echoing something we have heard from several members of congress in recent months, the suggestion that silicon valley giants, the tech elite as many refer to them, are using their power, this immense power to somehow silenced the views of conservatives and boost liberal views they are said to hold themselves. the companies deny it strongly, however donald trump in his early—morning tweeds amplified some anecdotal evidence, it must be said, from a conservative blog that suggests as much as 96% of results when you search for trump news were from left leaning outlets. it is very complicated to judge how reliable that sort of information is because everybody gets google results tailored to them personally. many experts do not give the research much credibility at all. google certainly doesn't. regardless of what google thinks, it does have this new problem...

well, an enhanced problem on its hands and may be facing much more scrutiny about how its results are displayed in future. to put this in context and to be frank, it is part of a presidential drive to discredit any sources of news that are critical of him or are not 100% supportive of what he says and does. absolutely. we have seen it since before he came into office. he was always coining the phrase, fake news media or co—opting that phrase. saying that people in the media and some things in the media were simply not true. things that we knew to be true. that has now shifted to silicon valley. facebook and twitter are as well. all three of those companies will be appearing in washington, dc next week to talk about some of these issues.

i think that will be some very, will include some heated exchanges between the technology companies that are keen to defend themselves and politicians who feel hard done by. what we could be seeing is the sense that more transparency may be needed by some of these companies. google and its algorithms are a mystery to most people because that is their business and what makes them profitable, those algorithms. the same could be said for facebook and to a lesser extent twitter. any attempt to make those companies more open about those processes would be damaging to the firms and that is why they would want to avoid that at all costs. in new york, the un security council has been holding an open meeting on myanmar. the un secretary general called for accountability as the council looked at the findings of a report accusing myanmar‘s top brass of a long list of atrocities in rakhine state. several countries, including the united states, called for myanmar‘s military

leaders to be brought before internationaljustice. the bbc‘s nada tawfik has more from new york. this was the first time that the security council met to discuss this report, which is the strongest yet out of the united nations, and the secretary general antonio guterres said that the security council should seriously consider the conclusions in these reports. he said that accountability was necessary for any kind of reconciliation, and for stability in the region. and so, he really outlined what still needs to be done to get this crisis to be resolved. it is clear that conditions are not yet met for the safe, voluntary, dignified, and sustainable return of rohingya refugees to their places of origin or choice. and i ask members of the security council tojoin me in urging the myanmar authorities to co—operate with the united nations and to ensure immediate, unimpeded, and effective access

for its agencies and partners. we must also continue to press for the release ofjournalists who have been arrested for reporting on this tragedy. well, myanmar‘s representative was also speaking to council members. myanmar has denied ethnic cleansing, they say that their operation was in response to an attack from rohingya rebels. he, in the council, again said that there were numerous attacks that were being ignored by the mainstream media, and he wanted that issue to be brought to the council's attention. but these facts were conveniently discounted or ignored by mainstream media. the violent attacks were not coincidence. as the terrorist and the foreign muslim minds knew too well that the myanmar military forces would respond to the attacks with full force, they must also have anticipated the exodus of people from northern rakhine to bangladesh.

these events were well planned and executed with the support of foreign terrorist organisations. this debate really laid bare the divisions on myanmar, because china and russia still believe that this issue needs to be addressed through diplomacy — and that is an issue that myanmar agrees with. so certainly in the days and weeks to come, when the full report is presented to the security council and the world's leaders descend on new york for the un general assembly, the conclusions of this report and the issue for the rohingya people will continue to be addressed by international leaders. ahead of that meeting of the security council, nada tawfik caught up with un goodwill ambassador cate blanchett. the actress was recently in bangladesh where thousands of rohingya muslims have been forced to flee. well, i think that they're — you know, part of the security

council's remit is to highlight and to continually and unfailingly not give up. just coming from speaking to the secretary general, when the situation is impossible, you have to push harder, and despair is something we cannot give into. and when you see the resilience of the refugees themselves, and when you sit in a school with children who have lost parents, you know, children who have seen their grandparents pushed back into burning buildings and set on fire — you know, i sat with one particular girl who was 14, who had her three—year—old brother dismembered and thrown into a fire in front of her. and when you see them, you know, moving forward, positively, trying to go to school, it galvanises me, and makes me want to not forget those individual faces in the magnitude of the numbers that we hear. and i think it's beholden upon the international community

to shine a spotlight on it. it may seem impossible, but it's not an excuse for not doing anything. have you been disappointed that aung san suu kyi, as the de facto leader, and with the moral authority from her nobel prize, has not done more? i think it's imperative that the government of myanmar now set about concrete paths towards giving the rohingya citizenship. every human being has — we're sitting here, and we have a nationality. we're able to vote, we have the right to an education and basic healthca re, and these people have none of those rights. and so i think it's absolutely vital that the government of myanmar now, a year on from the crisis, starts to make positive, concrete steps towards making sure these things happen. it is, you know, of paramount importance. and after visiting the camps, being here to speak to international

leaders, iwonder, have you reflected at all on the fact that there had been warning signs for decades, incitement to violence against the rohingya for decades, and yet international leaders did not prevent this from happening? i think when we're dealing with a stateless people, the problem can often be invisible, and you can feel, you know, particularly in the west, that there's cultural barriers. but when you sit with a mother, newly arrived, who has not even unpacked her bags, because she's worried that the latrine she's built right above us will collapse when the rains come, you realise that there are human beings inside this crisis. and i think it's really important that, even though we talk about the numbers, that we don't lose sight of the human beings. and i suppose part of my role as a goodwill ambassador is to restore that human face. stay with us on bbc news, still to come: air pollution may

damage the brain and cause a massive drop in intelligence. a shock warning from china. he's the first african—american to win the presidential nomination of a major party, and he accepts exactly 45 years ago to the day that martin luther king declared "i have a dream." as darkness falls tonight, an unfamiliar light will appear in the south—eastern sky. an orange glowing disk that is brighter than anything save the moon — our neighbouring planet mars. there is no doubt that this election is an important milestone in the birth of east timor as the world's newest nation. it'll take months and billions of dollars to repair what katrina he's the first african—american to win the presidential nomination

achieved injust hours. three weeks is the longest the great clock has been off duty in 117 years, so it was with great satisfaction that clock maker john vernon swung the pendulum to set the clock going again. this is bbc news. the latest headlines: puerto rico has acknowledged a dramatic rise in the death toll from hurricane maria. it says nearly 3000 people lost their lives last year — up from just 64. and president trump has accused google, facebook and twitter of prioritising fake and biased left—wing news, and warned them to be "very ca reful". let's get more now on that story. seth lewis is a professor ofjournalism at the university of oregon and published a study last

month about google news. professor, good to talk to you. i suppose whether you like president trump or not, whether you agree with the president will not, he is right in the sense that no algorithm is actually mutual, is it? and because of the fact that they are generally kept secret, for business reasons they are kept secret, they are open to conspiracy theories? right, i think that is one of the key contentions, that by their nature they are a black box to us. if we knew how they worked, we would know how to gain the system. clearly they wa nt to how to gain the system. clearly they want to avoid that type of scenario but as a result, it means that it kind of leaves room then for people to —— for speculation and conjecture, we should be talking about the power and influence of algorithms in our everyday lives that this is not the way to have this conversation. a lot of people

will be aware of some personalisation, even if they have not asked for it. if you regularly use research or information from a lot of sources, you get a lot more search returns from those particular sources. right, i mean the way that, i think sources. right, i mean the way that, ithinka sources. right, i mean the way that, i think a lot of people sometimes misunderstand the way that google search works, that it does not search works, that it does not search all of the internet and that it certainly prioritises some things over others, based on the thinking patterns, which sites have more things than others. we have conditioned ourselves into thinking that google is this key source of information, almost a university where we can learn, but the problem is it that is the only place we go, we let ourselves in a kind of vunerable situation we may not be finding or discovering the information we may need. the sort of assumed that there is a conspiracy, left—wing bias is the sort of go to a direction that is not particularly

helpful, and is not really accurate whatsoever. and yet the president is clearly agitated about this, he was tweeting about it for 5:30am washington time. he has won the tech giants they had to be careful. what i think giants they had to be careful. what ithink are giants they had to be careful. what i think are the chances of an attempt that regulation? there is no real threat of a short—term regulation of these types of platforms. i think this falls into the category of whether president has threatened things and nasty things to be fixed, but i do not think we will see action in the short term or even that the medium—term. i think the bigger problem here is that it could lead to google over correct in, if we look at what happened with facebook in 2015, it came under some accusations from the conservative is about its bias, and ended up making some decisions which allowed it to be very easily taken by far—right

and other kind of efforts towards misinformation in the run—up the election. so the problem here is called google make a similar mistake? professor, thank you very much. happy to be here. this news has just been much. happy to be here. this news hasjust been coming much. happy to be here. this news has just been coming through in the past few hours. a white police officer in the us, who fired five bullets into a car carrying a group of teenagers, has been found guilty of murdering a black 15—year—old. this very unusual, of course. roy 0liver, who no longer works for the police, killed jordan edwards in texas last year. the teenager was unarmed, 0liver had claimed that the car was moving towards his partner, but his partner told the court he didn't fear for his life at the time and felt no need to use his weapon. now, could air pollution make us less intelligent? research carried out in china suggests it might. a four year study found the longer people were exposed to dirty air, the greater the damage to their cognitive abilities. and men are affected more than women, as our science editor david shukman now reports.

a wave of pollution rolls into the centre of beijing. dirty air is a reality of life for many in china. in fact, for billions of people around the world. and scientists now know how it can damage the lungs and the heart, how it can shorten lives. some of the pollution we breathe in gets trapped in the nose, but tiny particles can slip into the lungs and then make their way into the bloodstream — and there's evidence they can even reach the brain. so pollution may not only have a physical effect, but a mental one as well. to explore what pollution might be doing to the mind, scientists in china embarked on a massive investigation. this was one of the largest studies of its kind.

it looked at levels of air pollution in dozens of cities across china. and at the results of tests of verbal reasoning and maths taken by 25,000 people in those places. the researchers conclude that long—term exposure to air pollution impedes cognitive performance. that is a bold claim, and it doesn't provide direct evidence of cause and effect, but it does follow a few other studies that have also suggested that polluted air may affect the brain, so a link is thought to be possible. we asked one of britain's leading pollution scientists to look at the chinese research, and he says it's another red flag warning that pollution may undermine mental ability. what they find is that older men were more susceptible, other studies have shown older women, so there's a few things that we need to resolve. but certainly, the — those red flags, there's more of them and itjust adds to the weight of evidence that air pollution has a wide range of effects in your body. this matters because most of the world's population lives in air that's polluted.

india, for example, has some of the dirtiest conditions. and as the research into pollution advances and we learn more about the impacts, it may turn out to be that they're not only physical, but mental as well. air pollution is a threat from africa, to here in britain. and its true implications may only become obvious in the decades ahead. david shukman, bbc news. we shall keep an eye on this story. a passenger ferry with over 1000 onboard is sailing back into the port of piraeus after a fire broke out onboard. the ship was en route to the island of crete when a fire started in the parking compartment. the greek coast guard say the situation is safely under control. and there are no reported injuries. the queen of soul aretha franklin is lying in state in an open coffin for two

days in her home city, detroit, as fans pay their last respects. thousands queued from before dawn outside the african american history museum in the city to see herfor one last time, before her funeral later this week. rajini vaidyanathan was with them. # the moment i wake up, before i put on my make—up. # i say a little prayerfor you... for fans of aretha franklin, it's been the ultimate pilgrimage. # what you want, baby, i got it. # what you need, you know i got it... crowds lined up from the early hours, as they waited to say a final farewell to their beloved queen of soul. but before she said goodbye, she made one last entrance. ever the diva, a white vintage cadillac transported her in a golden casket. for those waiting patiently to see her, the mood here was melodic, not morose. # r-e-s-p-e-c-t, that's just what it means to me.

why have you decided to queue up here to pay your last respects? i couldn't have done t for a better person. she is all of that and a bowl of soup. i am honouring her today. she means a lot to me, to my family, you know, to everyone. she is the queen of soul, because she paved the way for a lot of black singers, and the d has turned it out for aretha. aretha will lie in state at the city's african—american museum for another day, her style, her grace and her ruby—red heels on show for one last time. it was beautiful. she looked like she was just sleeping. she had on red shoes, her dress was so elegant. she looks really pretty. herface isjust like she was relaxed. aretha franklin will be remembered as america's voice in more

ways than one. she fought for gender and racial equality, supported charities and communities she cared about, and remains a role model to so many in detroit and beyond. she was a global superstar who never forgot her hometown roots, and this week, her hometown is showing the world they'll never forget aretha franklin. just finally, something very different for you. what seemed to be full—blown scallop wars in the english channel. french fishermen have been accused of throwing projectiles at their british rivals over the battle over scallops. the

chips are legally allowed to fish in this area, which is rich in scallops, but their presence has enraged the french, who accuse the british of depleting shellfish stocks. go! —— ships. that is something you do not often see. much more news for you any time

on the bbc website. things for watching. —— thank you for watching. hello. wednesday starts with a bit of umbrella weather across some parts of the uk, but it should turn drier and sunnier for many of us as the day goes on. two weather systems to talk about early on. this one clipping parts of south—east england and east anglia, with either showers or some rain, could be some heavy bursts. and this one moving out of scotland and northern ireland, taking some increasingly light and patchy rain further south through england and wales. starting temperatures — double figures for england and wales, but something fresher for scotland and northern ireland, it is less humid behind this weather front, and there will be some sunshine around. a few showers pushing into north—west scotland, maybe along to the west of northern ireland. rain clears east anglia and the south—east lunchtime at the very latest, and then our weakening weather front takes a few late—day showers towards this part of the world. sunny spells developed elsewhere in england and wales. —— develop. here's a look at things at a:00pm in the afternoon, and on the breeze, a feed of a few showers into north—west scotland. but most other parts here in scotland, and indeed

in northern ireland, will be dry. you mayjust catch the odd shower in the west. good sunny spells, sunny spells developing across northern england, wales, the midlands, and into the south—west. but a weakening weather front, with still maybe the odd shower associated with it, moves into east anglia and the south—east towards the end of the day. but hardly any rain left, really, and then it clears away and then we've got clearing skies. and there mayjust be the odd patch of mist and fog as we go into thursday morning, but overnight into thursday, our weather systems have cleared away — clearing skies, and temperatures dip away. a much cooler night to come going into thursday morning, mid to low single figures in some spots. nonetheless, clearing skies, we have an area of high pressure starting to build into the uk, which means although it's chilly first thing on thursday, there will be plenty of sunshine to come first thing. it may not last all day. you'll see the band here showing that we've got clear skies. as we go deeper into thursday, you can see some cloud starting to build.

it may produce the odd shower, maybe more so into western scotland. most will be dry, just expect a bit more cloud to come, but still some sunny spells, and temperatures high teens, to a few into the low 20s. so once we get past that chance of umbrella weather in the day ahead, for the rest of the week, it is looking mainly dry. but do note, again, that the nights will be chillier. and then, as we go into the weekend, we'll see a theme of cloud coming into western parts of the uk. that may produce a bit of patchy rain. the emphasis is on the plenty of dry weather, as the weekend goes on, it will start to warm up a little bit too. that's your latest forecast. this is bbc news. the headlines: authorities in the us territory of puerto rico are now saying nearly 3,000 people died as a result of hurricane maria — forty—six times more than official figures have suggested up to now. researchers from george washington university also found those from poorer backgrounds were at much higher risk of being killed. president trump has claimed that google,

facebook and twitter prioritise what he calls fake news and left—wing sources — to portray him in a less positive light. he suggested the big tech companies had to be "very careful". google has strongly denied the claims. several countries are calling for myanmar‘s military leaders to be brought tojustice. they're responding to a un report detailing atrocities against the rohingya minority. the report also criticised the women who effectively leads myanmar, aung san suu kyi, for not intervening to stop attacks. now on bbc news, it's time for more from the money and power season which looks at how money, and its power,