welcome to bbc news, broadcasting to viewers in north america and around the globe. my name is duncan golestani. our top stories: after weeks of division, justice brett kavanaugh is sworn in as the latest member of the us supreme court at a special white house ceremony. the senate confirmation process was contentious and emotional. that process is over. my focus now is to be the bestjustice i can be. the second suspect in britain's nerve agent attack is named as alexander mishkin, a military doctor working for russian intelligence. faces of hope on syria's front line. we meet the families trying to reclaim their lives after seven years of war. hurricane michael lashes cuba. it's set to strengthen as it heads towards florida bringing "life threatening" storm surges. and google says it's shutting down its social network, google+, after a security failure that exposed users‘ data.

hello, welcome to the programme. justice brett kavanaugh has been sworn in as the latest member of the us supreme court at a special ceremony at the white house. president trump opened proceedings and apologised for the difficult confirmation process mr kavanaugh had to go through. for his part, justice kavanaugh insisted he had "no bitterness" over his nomination process and vowed to be a "team player". he thanked the president for his continued commitment to him. my focus now is to be the bestjustice i can be. i take this office with gratitude, and no bitterness. on the supreme court,

i will seek to be a force for stability and unity. my goal is to be a great justice for all americans, and for all of america. i will work very hard to achieve that goal. i was not appointed to serve one party or one interest, but to serve one nation. america's constitutional laws protect every person, of every belief and every background. every litigant in the supreme court can be assured that i will listen to their arguments with respect and an open mind. every american can be assured that i will be an independent and impartial justice, devoted to equaljustice under law. our north america correspondent, peter bowes gave me more details onjustice kavanaugh's speech. yes, this was a justice kavanaugh determined, i think,

to put the hostility and the rancor of the last few weeks behind him and look to the future, and talk about his duties as a justice of the highest court of the land, where he will be non—political, where he will be fair to all americans. and he phrased it himself that he is the kind of person that looks to the future, not to the past. it was a rather different tone that we heard from president trump, highlighting some of the political divisions that we've seen over recent weeks, and with that apology, saying that he apologised for the terrible pain and suffering that brett kavanaugh had been forced to endure. he said he had endured a campaign of political and personal destruction, and that phrase that we've heard a lot from president trump over the last few weeks about the presumption of innocence until proven guilty. he said, "you, sir, under historic scrutiny, were proven innocent." and i think that is a phrase that there will be little political agreement on in the weeks

and days to come. in terms of mr kavanaugh's opponents, are they accepting this, or are they remaining as angry as they have been for the last few weeks? we're getting a range of opinions on that. some are clearly still very, very angry at what happened, and others are accepting that they essentially lost the vote in the senate and are moving on. there are still murmurs of possible action by democrats. for example, some want to see the detail of the fbi investigation made public. so far, it hasn't been. and others have talked about possible impeachment of the justice. indeed, that is something that the president, president trump, referred to today, as he believed some democrats wanted to take that course of action. there isn't a huge amount of evidence for that. but remember, the mid—term elections are just a few weeks away, and it seems as if the president

at least wants to continue to make this a political issue. there's lots more background and analysis on our website, including a rundown of the other us supreme courtjustices, and their importance to american life. that's all at bbc.com/news. check it out. investigative journalists say they've uncovered the identity of the second man suspected of carrying out the salisbury nerve agent attack. the bellingcat website have named him as alexander mishkin, a military doctor working for the russian intelligence service, the gru. the bbc understands british officials do not dispute the identification. daniel sandford has more. the cathedral city of salisbury in march, and the two men suspected of poisoning sergei and julia skripal with the nerve agent novichok. police believe the two men arrived in the country

using false identities. the man on the left has since been identified as anatoliy chepiga. the man on the right has tonight been named by the bellingcat investigation website as a doctor — dr alexander yevgenyevich mishkin. bellingcat have unearthed these three pictures of dr alexander mishkin. the website says he trained in a military medical academy, before being recruited by the gru, russian military intelligence. they also obtained this picture of his passport in his real name. his false passport had the same date of birth, and he apparently even kept the first names of his parents in his false identity. the men gave an interview to russian state television under their false names, ruslan boshirov and alexander petrov. he, on the right here, is dr mishkin. they are suspected of using this adapted perfume bottle to spray novichok on the door of sergei skripal‘s salisbury house. mr skripal and his daughter yulia ended up in comas in hospital, before eventually recovering. but dawn sturgess, who handled

the perfume bottle nearly four months later, died from the effects of the nerve agent. daniel sandford, bbc news. in syria, militants still fighting president assad's regime are mainly gathered in idlib province. the area is now home to 3 million civilians, among them up to 90 thousand anti—government rebels, including extremistjihadists. president assad's forces were expected to launch a final offensive last month but that was postponed after an agreement to create a demilitarized zone surrounding the rebel area. our middle east editorjeremy bowen reports from the front line in idlib, a place fewjournalists have been able to get to. in this war, most syrian christians have chosen silence or the regime. at st george's church, the local commander is proud that his mostly christian town has had a bishop

since the fourth century. and he is proud that in the fight to end the rebellion in idlib, christians from the town are in the front line. the guns are silent for now because turkey and russia want to set up a demilitarised zone to separate the regime and its enemies. on the other side, are islamist fighting groups. the christian commander says they are all dangerous fanatics, taking orders from western intelligence services, including britain. he says thejihadist extremists have a choice, give up their ideology or be killed. no deals?

translation: no, they are terrorists. when they become humans, we will make a deal with them and we will do a deal when europe and america stop their support and the gulf countries stop funding them and putting the jihadi ideology in their heads. we drove along the front line around idlib province. village after village is in ruins. half of syria's population have lost their homes. the regime denies accusations that its forces are the biggest killers. the next stop was one more badly damaged ghost town. government forces pushed jihadists of the al—nusra front out of here earlier this year. at the school, newly reopened, the ministry was delivering supplies. the regime wants to show it is getting the country back. in the classroom are children too young to remember peace. only 100 families have come back here. for children who have seen a lot of war, school is a bright spot. for a moment, the wrecked

main street was busy before they melted away into the empty, damaged town. this girl hasjust started at the school. with herfamily, she arrived from idlib only ten days ago, a place of bad memories. one day, jihadist fighters came to their house. her father said they killed his son because his mother was an alawi, from the same sect as the president and from the alawi heartland. translation: i have a son. his mother is from latakia. i sent his mother and the other kids back to latakia at the beginning of the crisis. he was 14 years old, so he stayed with me. they cut his head off in front of me, in my house. he was 14 years old. they cut off his head because his mother was from latakia. driving through that part of syria, from military positions to broken towns, in the rubble and pain an ending is in sight. the rebels are almost beaten.

reopening this highway, the m5 is part of the plan to avoid a last battle in idlib. this is syria's main north south route, cut by rebels in idlib since early in the war. after all the years of killing and destruction, president assad and his allies are close to victory. but the president will never be able to say that he has restored sovereignty to the whole country while this road is still cut. that is why reopening it has become one of his major strategic priorities and it is shared by the russians as well. this is as far as you can go up the highway on the regime side. the last syrian army post, looking across at territory held by the rebels. if the demilitarised zone does not work, the regime,

the russians and the iranians might launch the offensive so feared by idlib‘s three million civilians. then there is the future. not deadly like war, but not cosy or reassuring. jeremy bowen, bbc news, on the idlib front line. stay with us on bbc news. still to come: celebrating dance and diversity. the changing face of the royal ballet. this was a celebration by people who were relishing their freedom. they believe everything's going to be different from now on. they think their country will be respected in the world once more, as it used to be before slobodan milosevic took power. the dalai lama, the exiled spiritual leader of tibet, has won this year's nobel peace prize. as the parade was reaching its climax, two grenades exploded, and a group of soldiersjumped from a military truck taking part in the parade and ran towards the president, firing from kalashnikov automatic rifles. after 437 years, the skeletal

ribs of henry viii's tragic warship emerged. but, even as divers work to buoy her up, the mary rose went through another heart—stopping drama. i want to be the people's governor. i want to represent everybody. i believe in the people of california. this is bbc world news. the latest headlines: after weeks of division, justice brett kavanaugh has been sworn in as the latest member of the us supreme court at a special white house ceremony. let's get more now on our main story. i've been apeaking to mica mosbacher, an advisor to the trump 2020 campaign. she gave me her reaction to the swearing in ofjustice

kavanaugh. well, this is undoubtedly a huge victory for president trump and for the gop party. this was beyond a contentious hearing. it was all—out war between the two parties, and undignified, actually, for the us senate. and i did find, as many women did, dr ford's testimony compelling. but overriding that was the fact that, while her testimony was compelling, it was uncorroborated by any of the four witnesses that her attorneys have recommended. therefore, on trial in this nation were the core principles of the presumption of innocence and due process of law, and i think that that prevailed, and that has satisfied a number of very conflicted female voters, especially among gop conservatives in the party. i also spoke to

professor sahar aziz. she was one of more than 2,000 law professors who asked justice kavanaugh to withdraw. i asked her if anything she saw in the swearing in process made her change her mind. no, because what we saw during his testimony last thursday, i think, revealed his true character. and the concern is, for many of us who signed the letter, over 2,400 law professors, is whether or not he is going to be able to put his own partisanship aside when cases regarding rights to abortion, same—sex marriage rights, and other important individual rights cases come before him in the supreme court, will he be able to put aside his allegiance to the republican party and his disdain for the democratic party, as an independent and impartial judge?

because what we saw during that hearing was far from that. hurricane michael has brought strong winds and heavy rainfall to western cuba, and is now set to strengthen as it makes its way across the gulf of mexico towards the us. the state of florida has been warned to prepare for life—threatening flash—floods. the storm battered central america over the weekend, killing at least 13 people, including six in honduras. lebo diseko has more. trying to get to safety, with water all around, people in honduras doing their best to salvage what is left of their homes and their lives. where once there were streets, now there is flooding, after rivers broke their banks. some communities were completely cut off, after mud and debris closed roads. the message from the president, as the rains came in — don't wait to get to safety. translation: the situation is getting more difficult

with the passing hours. the important thing is to evacuate the areas of risk. don't wait for the authorities to arrive. the rain, which started on thursday, has destroyed several homes, and a landslide killed two children and their mother as they slept. the worst looks like it might be overfor honduras, as hurricane michael moves on. it is now lashing the coast of cuba with strong winds and heavy rains. michael is currently a categoryi storm, but it is expected to be a major category 3 hurricane by the time it hits the coast of florida on wednesday. google is shutting down its online social network google+ after discovering a bug which exposed the private data of up to 500,000 accounts. larry magid, a technologyjournalist and internet safety advocate in california, explained how this

data breach happened. google has what are called apis, or application programming interfaces, which allows third—party operators to interact with google property. and potentially some of those apis exposed data about users to some developers. now, google says they have no proof that data was breached, but the mere fact that the potential exposure was there is very much a concern. so what are they doing to rectify this, to safeguard users‘ data in the future? well, firstly, they're shutting down google+, which is no great loss, because it was a failed social network that did not even come close to competing with facebook and other social networks. they're also tightening the rules when it comes to their developers. they're making it harder

for developers to get access to data, and giving users more granular control over what developers can get. now, it's important to point out that these apis have a purpose. for example, when i go on to my android phone i may log in to a new app. i can log in with my google account, which makes it easier. there are other advantages, add—ons for gmail. so an api can be your friend, but they can also expose data. and that was one of the things that happened with the facebook cambridge analytica situation, where a third—party developer got personal information used for the trump campaign. do you think there should be greater regulatory control? because, as you mentioned cambridge analytica there, and facebook — this is not the first incident like this. i think it is inevitable.

we have also seen the gdpr, the general data privacy regulations in europe. we're going to see more of that in the united states. the problems with security breaches is that no company goes out of its way to have a security breach. it's a problem. it's like making bank robbery illegal. of course they're illegal, and the bank should have a solid vault. i don't know what regulation could do for security, but it could do a lot when it comes to tighter privacy laws. an explosion and fire has ripped through canada's largest oil refinery. a large, black column of smoke could be seen over the east coast facility, which has a capacity of 300,000 barrels a day. several workers were treated for non—life—threatening injuries. owners of the refinery described the explosion as a major incident, but there has been no explanation of the blast. writing to the president is a hallmark of american life, and when president obama was in the oval office,

every night, before he went to bed, he read ten of the letters he had received. these are notes that regular americans sent to the white house, some supportive, some critical, and others that were completely unexpected. take a look. dear president obama. .. his wife and two children pay $1,200 per month for health insurance. dear president obama, i'm writing to tell you about the $15 my family just donated to your 2012 campaign. it's about wanting to say that $15 means something these days. $15 is a special pizza dinner at our local pizza stop. it's 1.5 tickets to see the newest film at the old—school cinema we walk our daughters to. it's getting fresh fruit instead of frozen. dear president obama, i hear that you are good

at correcting homework. i was wondering if you could take a look at this, particularly the highlighted portion on the back. how did i do? thank you. it gives you a sense of what's best about america, and inspires you, and makes you want to work that much harder to make sure that that spirit is reflected in our government. ballet is seen by many as the most elite and least diverse of all the arts. but, at the royal ballet in london, the two dancers most recently promoted to principal ballerina are both mixed—race. they say they represent a changing ballet world, as lizo mzimba reports. one of the royal ballet's most recent promotions to the top level of principal ballerina,

yasmine naghdi, is half—belgian, half—iranian. made principal at the same time, francesca hayward is half—english, half—kenyan. exceptional talent and long hours of preparation have helped them both reach the most senior positions in the company. they also know their backgrounds have a huge symbolic value. i feel very proud that i can inspire the younger generation to strive to do what we do, and that's what this is about, is inspiring young generations. i'm really proud to be here, to show that, you know, it is literally for anyone, of any colour, any background, you know, no matter how much money you have. as well as showcasing diverse talents at the very top of the company, the royal ballet is also working hard to plant the seed as early as possible that ballet can be accessible, can be interesting,

for anyone and everyone. one, two, three, four... turn! the company takes part in an outreach programme in a range of schools — an opportunity to try and convince children that ballet might be something they can enjoy watching, or even doing, whatever their background. i like it quite a lot, especially the way it's involved with a lot of plays, stories. i thought it would be a bit boring, but it's actually fun. for teenagers, dancers like misty copeland are also changing perceptions. she is the first black principal ballerina at the american ballet theatre, and a social media star, with more than 1.5 million instagram followers. there is still a long way to go in convincing everyone about the changing nature of ballet, but all of these are being seen as significant steps in persuading people that they might be surprised

in how it is transforming. lizo mzimba, bbc news. plenty more on our website. you can reach me on twitter. i'm @duncangolestani. thank you very much for your company and we will see you again soon. goodbye. hello. there's some warmth and some sunshine in this forecast. also one more day of rain for scotland and northern ireland, and by the time it pulls away later on tuesday, through the early hours on wednesday, parts of the western highlands could well have seen around 200 mm, that's close to eight inches, on this one front, that's been

hanging around for a few days. still with us on tuesday and still bringing strong winds and outbreaks of rain into northern ireland and scotland, always heaviest the further north and west you are. slowly through the day, it will push northwards. so something dry arriving arriving into northern ireland, southern and eastern scotland, and increasing amounts of sunshine across england and wales, as the cloud through the morning thins and breaks. mayjust keep a little bit more cloud across the far north of england. anywhere northwards of wales will see the strongest of the winds through tuesday. this is an idea of the average speeds, but the gusts, once again, will be touching a0 or 45 mph. lighter winds further south. here in the sunshine, temperatures between 17 and 20. 15 and 16 for northern ireland and scotland. still just 11 for the far north of scotland. through tuesday evening and overnight, our band of cloud and rain continues to work its way northwards so for much of the uk, as we start wednesday morning, it'll be dry, with clear skies, the odd patch of mist and fog, and a mild start to wednesday. temperatures between 7 and 12 celsius as the overnight low. and that warmer air continues to push its way up across the uk through wednesday.

you can see temperatures rising, the warmest day of the week, and our front finally clears away from the far north—west of scotland, just some cloud and patchy rain first thing in the morning, before finally it moves away, and for much of the uk, it's a fine day, plenty of sunshine. a fairly noticeable south—easterly breeze later in the day. some hazy skies across southern england, perhaps some showers through the evening. to give you an idea of the temperature, you can see warmer area extending right across the uk and we will see temperatures widely in the low 20s celsius on wednesday, even up into scotland. parts of east anglia and south—east england could see temperatures up around 2a celcius. by thursday, it is more unsettled. bands of showers, longer spells of rain, working their way up, particularly in the west. further east, at this stage, dry and still holding some warmth. 20 or 21 celcius. a cooler feel further west. as we go through friday, keep an eye on this because we could see some very wet and windy weather, gales are likely across much the uk,

very unsettled by the end the week. this is bbc news. the headlines: after weeks of division, justice brett kavanaugh has been sworn in as the latest member of the us supreme court at a special white house ceremony. president trump apologised on behalf of the american people for what he called the campaign of political and personal destruction based on lies and deception the judge had to endure. the second suspect in britain's nerve agent attack has been named as alexander mishkin, a military doctor working for russian intelligence. last month, the first suspect was named as colonel anatoliy chepiga. russian ex—spy sergei skripal and his daughter yulia were poisoned in march. hurricane michael is lashing cuba with strong winds and heavy rains and is set to strengthen as it heads towards the united states. officials are warning residents along florida's gulf coast to prepare for life threatening storm surges. the storm's set to make landfall in the us on wednesday, then move up the east coast.

now on bbc news, it's time for hardtalk.