for iran's top military commander and other officials killed by a us drone strike. crowds chanted "death to america" as qasem soleimani's coffin travelled through iraqi cities on its way to iran. in the capital baghdad rockets landed near the us embassy. the premier of new south wales warns that australia is in what she called uncharted territory after the worst night of bushfires since they started two months ago. temperatures have nudged 50 degrees celsius in some parts, with winds spreading the fires and making their paths even more unpredictable. the death toll from the new year flooding in indonesia hasjumped to 60 with fears growing about the possibility of more torrential rain. tens of thousands in jakarta are still unable to return to their waterlogged homes after some of the worst flooding in years hit the enormous capital region. councils in england have urged the courts to impose biggerfines to tackle the growing

problem of fly—tipping. the local government association says there were more than a million offences last year, but only 5% of fines were above £1,000. richard galpin reports. this cctv footage captures the moment a lorry starts illegally dumping huge amounts of waste in the middle of the night. the premises of a small company used by the fly—tippers to get rid of the rubbish. in recent years, fly—tipping has been getting steadily worse, blighting the environment, causing pollution and threatening public health and wildlife. it tends to be businesses trying to avoid paying the costs of disposal. of course, the rural areas tend to be the areas that are particularly badly affected — private landowners or public land. people will find quiet places to dump sometimes quite large loads. fly—tipping in england was at a comparative low ofjust over 700,000 incidents back

in financial year 2012—13. but by 2018, there had been a sharp rise to more than a million incidents, putting local councils under more pressure. that's because they're involved in clearing up and investigating the incidents, but to their frustration say too many fly—tippers are getting away with light fines when they should face heavy punishment. richard galpin, bbc news. now on bbc news: razia iqbal presents a special programme on supreme courtjustice ruth bader ginsburg. i, ruth bader ginsburg, do solemnly swear that i will support and defend the constitution of the united states, so help me god.

justice ruth bader ginsburg is the leading liberaljudge on the us supreme court. at 86, she has been fighting for decades for women's rights, including for equal pay and fair access to abortion. it is no exaggeration to say that her crucial work has affected profound change in the legal status for women in america. and it is for this reason that she has been awarded this year's berggruen prize for philosophy and culture — a prize she will be awarded here at a special ceremony in the new york public library in front of an invited audience. but first, i've been given a rare opportunity to interview rbg — an affectionate nickname — about her career, her popular iconic status, and her hopes and fears for the future of america. ladies and gentlemen, supreme court justice ruth bader ginsburg.

thank you, thank you so much, everyone, be seated. applause. thank you so much. let's start with the prize. this is a prize that you have been given for the impact that you have made to affect social change in this country. made to effect social change in this country. what does it mean to you to have won this? i was overwhelmed with the letter inviting me to accept the berggruen prize. as a government officer, i can't accept money for myself. but this was an opportunity to give

money to many good causes. i was a bit taken aback because i'm surely not a philosopher. but i do interpret a text, and the text i interpret most often is the us constitution. applause i can assure everyone here is indeed a living constitution, because who would want to be governed by a dead constitution? laughter i wonder if i can take you back now to when you first started. and when you graduated from columbia, i wonder what you set out to think about the kind of legal career that you thought you wanted, that you thought you could have. just take us back there.

yes, there were nine women out of over 500 in the class. women were 3% of the lawyers in the country. there were precious few on any bench, precious fewjudges. and there was no law that prohibited discrimination on the basis of gender, so legal employers were upfront in saying they didn't want any lady lawyers. and in my case, they certainly didn't want a woman who was already a mother — because my daughter was four when i graduated, almost four when i graduated from law school. so it was the closed—door era.

and at the time, did you think that that's what you wanted to do? to devote your career to trying — just to try and break that culture, the attitude that "lady lawyers", as you referred it to them, were not going to be part of the fabric of the legal establishment? did you think that was what you were going to devote your career to? not when i was in law school. it wasn't until there was a groundswell, women waking up, women in numbers, joining together to change the not—so—good old ways. but it was that — when i got into the...

..the effort to make women citizens of equal stature to men, i was really driven by two forces. 0ne were my students. the feminist movement was reborn, and my students wanted a course on women in the law. so i went to the library and inside of a month, i read every federal decision that was ever written about gender—based discrimination. it was no mean feat, there was precious little. laughter and then, there were women incoming to the aclu. i was teaching at rutgers university, so women had complaints that they hadn't aired before. one group were teachers who were put

on what was euphemistically called "maternity leave" as soon as they began to show. because after all, you didn't want the little children to think that teacher had swallowed a watermelon. laughter but these were women who said, "we are ready, willing, and able to work, and there is no reason why we should be forced out of the classroom". and it was the students on the one hand, the new complainants on the other, that drove me into the effort. i wonder if you would reflect for us, in the context of the progress that you made, we've heard about some 300 cases that were taken when you are involved with the american civil liberties union, to do

with gender discrimination — six of them were heard by the supreme court, five of which you won. i wonder whether you think that the sorts of progress that was made during your time with the american civil liberties union, whether you think that those things are slowly coming under threat now in the 21st century. what was done in the 19705 was, in a sense, easy. because the law books, both federal and state, were riddled with gender—based discrimination differentials. and they all had been rationalized as operating benignly in women's favour. 0urjob was to show whatjustice brennan put so well in one of the decisions, that the pedestal on which women were thought to stand more often

turned out to be a cage. so the mission in the ‘70s was to get rid of all these gender—based classifications. so in the space of a decade, almost every explicit gender—based classification was gone. it was not there any more. and those laws are not going to come back ever. so when you say that we're not going to go back to the kind of gender—based discrimination was eliminated in the ‘70s onwards, i wonder if you would accept that there are laws that were passed then that are under threat now — when you look at the specifics of states in the south of this country, that fair access to abortion is under threat. do you think women need to be, or society as a whole, notjust women, needs to be

ever more vigilant? i think society needs to be more active on this issue. the truth is that with all these restrictive laws, the only people who are being restricted are poor women. there are some states... applause and you say that because if you have money, you can travel to a state where you would be able to? yes! yes, it's a little bit like divorce was in the old days, when if you had the money to go to nevada and stay there for six weeks, you could get a divorce. now we have divorce in every state. so no woman of means will ever lack access to abortion in the united states, because there are some

states that will offer it. so it's — all the brunt of all these restrictive laws is on poor women. not only if they can't pay the plane fare or the bus fare, they can't afford to take days off from work to go. so when you say that society needs to be much more active, how do you feel that...? i think one of the things that happened after roe v wade is that the women who wanted women to be able to control their own destiny, they won, so they retreated. and the other side geared up, and we have the situation that we have today. and i suppose, just pressing you a little on what you would suggest society should do in order

to continue with the trend of continued fair access to abortion access, what would you... ? people should care about it the way they did when many women didn't have access to... didn't have the right to choose. anyway, but it is so obvious that the only people restricted are poor women. one day, i think people will wake up to that reality, that we will never have a situation again where a woman of means has any problem. the polarisation in society that we see today has been long in the making. and i wonder if you would reflect for us on the role of the supreme court as an institution in

an environment — a cultural, social, and political environment — where there is so much ideological polarisation? how would you talk to people about the continued active role of the supreme court in that context? first, it hasn't been so long in the making. think back to the year that i was nominated by president clinton. 1993. the vote in support of my nomination was 96—3. 0rrin hatch, the senatorfrom utah, was my chief supporter on the judiciary committee. my white house handlers were worried about my aclu connection, and i said, "forget it. there's nothing that you can say to me that would lead me to do anything but praise the aclu."

there wasn't a single question — not a single question — asked about my aclu work. and as i said, the vote was 96—3. there was no polarisation, congress was working the way it should. there was a true bipartisan spirit. so how did we get back from polarisation now, then? how do we get back? how do we get back to that, but how do you account for it? what is it that is the root cause of it, even if it's not been that long in the making? i can't say any more than anyone here can, how this happened. but it's not the way it should be. and i hope that there will be good

people on both sides of the aisle who will say, "let's stop this dysfunction and let's work together for the good of the country." applause but it is quite clear that there is a huge lack of that effort — of good people on both sides of the aisle coming together. this country is in the throes of an impeachment crisis, and i wonder if you would reflect for us this notion that senators should be impartial when the trial approaches. that this is something that is in the constitution, the impartiality of senators. and that doesn't seem to be something that is likely to happen. well, we shall see what this

process turns out. laughter do you think they should be impartial? the house indicts, and the senate tries. should a trier be impartial? of course, that is the job of a judge, to be impartial. but you will be very aware that there are senators who are already saying, before the impeachment gets to the senate or the trial in the senate, they've already made their minds up. that's problematic. well, if a judge said that, thejudge would be disqualified from sitting on the case. laughter applause but it's about the level of accountability, so if a senator

says they've already made their mind up and the trial doesn't even exist at the moment, there is no accountability, is there? my old chiefjustice put it very well, and he said, "the day a judge stops being impartial and starts to do things to please the home crowd," or whatever your home crowd is, "that's the day thatjudge should step down from office". so in that context, what you're saying is that you would urge senators to be impartial? and to act as jurors, as opposed to responding to their own ideological partisanship? that's the role in which the constitution cast the senate for this purpose. they are the triers.

we have a process to selectjurors. if a juror reveals a bias, thatjuror will not be chosen. the one who is a judge or a trier must be impartial. what is your reading of the constitution in the context of the president of the united states saying that the supreme court should stop this impeachment? this is something that he has tweeted not that long ago, and i wonder what, if anything, exists in the constitution which allows people to interpret that there is — that some sort of response should be made when the head of the country says that the impeachment should stop and the supreme court should intervene.

is there a reading that you can present to us? the president is not a lawyer, he's not law trained. laughter applause you have been spoken about as being even bigger than a rock star. let's talk about the popular iconic status that you have acquired — and your view of it, whether you enjoy it, for a start. i think it is an amazing phenomenon. laughter here i am, almost 87 years old, and everyone wants to take a picture with me. applause but i should tell you how it all started. it was started by a second—year student at new york university law school.

she started it when the supreme court decided a case involving a key provision of the voting rights act of 1965. the decision was divided. it cut the heart out of the voting rights act. and this young woman was angry. and then, she thought to herself, "well, what good is that going to do, just to be angry? i have to do something positive." so she took the announcement of my dissent that i read from the bench, not the whole long dissent, just the five minutes or so in which i summarised it, and she put it on some kind of a blog. and it took off from there

into the wild blue yonder. laughter and she called it the notorious rbg, after the famous rapper, the notorious big, because she decided that the two of us had something very important in common. what we had in common is that we were both born and bred in brooklyn, new york. applause you've seen so much change. i wonder what you would say to young people who you talk to all the time, and people come to seek your advice — what would you say to young women who look at your example, and are either despondent in the current climate that progress is not possible — what would you say to them? well, the young people are my hope. and when my granddaughter,

who is here tonight, who is doing what she can to make things better in our society, think of malala. malala yousafzai? the swedish... greta thunberg. i think the young people that i see are fired up, and they want our country to be what it should be. so my faith — one of the things that makes me an optimist are the young people. applause justice ginsburg, thank you very much for speaking to us. thank you for being here. applause

thank you. the only reason i am here tonight is tojust share the same oxygen as the notorious rbg. oh, come on, she's everything. she's a pioneer, she has stuck her neck out for women and for equality before it was fashionable to do so. i have two daughters. they are never excited about anything i go to. but tonight really meant a lot to them. good morning. 0nce good morning. once again there will be some sunny breaks across parts of the country through today but for many of you it's going to be a fairly cloudy day like yesterday bringing just the odd light shower in the west. the breeze picking up, signs of something much windier next week. with light winds through the

night into the morning, clear skies across eastern areas, a touch of frost. further west, cloud too thick, wind from the south—west and i'll start here. we will see fleeting light showers for the rest of the day, persistent rain in the hebrides, spreading into the highlands through 0rkney and shetland, milder weather here compared with yesterday. the breeze will pick up elsewhere. the best of breaks, east of wales, midlands, came to the north east of mainland scotla nd came to the north east of mainland scotland and across the board, cloud and sunshine, temperature is around eight to 12 degrees. we finished today with heavy rain in the north of scotland, that clears. 0ther today with heavy rain in the north of scotland, that clears. other than a few showers in the west, most will have a dry and mild night to take us through sunday night into monday. the return to work for many after the christmas break but look what is waiting. 0ur weather is set to turn very lightly into next week. pretty active jet stream across the atla ntic active jet stream across the atlantic and on each little dip we will see subsequent areas of low pressure developed. the first to

spread northwards across iceland as we go through into monday. spreading its weather fronts southwards and eastwards into the uk and ireland and with it strong to gale force winds. the best weather across ireland on monday morning, spreading in three much of scotland during the day —— the rain. into wales, western england in the afternoon. many parts of eastern england dry through monday, could be spells of hazy sunshine at times and brighter weather to finish in northern ireland. temperatures roughly across the board nine to 11 degrees. into monday night, more potent low pressure will start to arrive from the north. this much larger. the extent of the stronger winds will be greater. very windy day across the board. best dry weather to the south and east, a few showers but heavy rain across the north and west of scotla nd rain across the north and west of scotland and at times in northern ireland. here are the strongest winds, could touch 60, 70, may be 80 in north—west scotland. went elsewhere because travel disruption

and exceptionally mild air. could peak at 16 degrees around the moray firth. 15 degrees north and eland —— northern ireland. even though we have the milder, it may not feel it in the wind and the wind to start the week could be disruptive. stay tuned to the forecast.

good morning. welcome to breakfast with rogerjohnson and sally nugent. 0ur headlines today: president trump warns the united states has a list of 52 targets that will be hit "very hard" if iran retaliates for the killing of its top military leader. the royal navy is to begin escorting british ships in the persian gulf and the foreign secretary is to travel to washington for talks. hundreds more homes have been destroyed in australia as the country's prime minister warns the bushfires crisis could last for months. the shadow brexit secretary, sir keir starmer, joins the labour leadership contest.