a welcome to bbc news, i'm lewis vaughanjones. our top stories. police sirens. violent clashes on the streets of bristol after thousands protest against increased police powers to control british demonstrations. blocked off the end of this city centre street but also the side roads too, and they are doing it from behind, but there's still about 1,000 people in here and now they're being left with nowhere to go. mass evacuations as south—east australia is struck by the worst floods in a century. the prime minister offers emergency funds to those affected. officials in miami beach extend the state of emergency and its curfew after spring break parties get out of hand.

warnings of a humanitarian crisis on the us border as record numbers try to illegally cross into america. and a space rock from the dawn of the solar system visible as a major asteroid passes planet earth. welcome to bbc news. here in the uk, two police officers are in hospital after clashes with protesters in the city of bristol. thousands of people were demonstrating against a proposed new law that would give police more powers to limit street protests. as the hours went by, it turned violent. the uk's home secretary condemned what she called unacceptable thuggery and disorder. 0ur correspondent andrew plant sent this report from the scene. in a protest against new police

powers, it was soon police themselves who became the target. vans and a police car set on fire, fireworks thrown into the crowd as around 1,000 protesters gathered in bristol city centre in what has been, police say, the worst violence the city has seen in years. there's a row of police blocking off what is the central police station here in bristol, but you can see at the end of the road, they've also blocked off now the end of this city centre street, but also the side roads too, and they're doing it from behind, but there are still about 1,000 people here and now they are being left with nowhere to go. protesters here holding banners, concerned, they say, that the uk is becoming a police state. the kill the bill march started in the early afternoon, but as night fell, the clashes began. projectiles thrown at officers in riot gear. we saw several people with head injuries being helped from the crowd. i think it's horrible, and i agree with the cause of the protesters, but i don't

think this is going to do anybody any good. several officers have been injured, some reported to have broken bones. the chair of the avon and somerset police federation said people's right to protest had been hijacked by protesters hell—bent on violence. alon aviram, a local journalist who was at the scene, told me what he witnessed in bristol. as the day progressed, as you've just heard, the protests started to heat up. there were thousands of people initially, who defied orders to march around bristol against the police crime sentencing and courts bill, which is clamping down on the right to protest. and then, as evening descended, people encircled the main police station in the city centre. and then, you know, after quite a tense stand—off, riot police came in,

dogs came in, horses, and the scenes that unfolded have been going around the world now. there were police vans on fire. projectiles being thrown. protesters being hit with batons and pepper spray. it's the sort of scenes we haven't seen in bristol for many years and i don't think the uk really has. probably not since the protests following the killing of mark duggan. following the killing of mark du can. �* , ., following the killing of mark du~an.�* ,, duggan. and you were speaking to --eole duggan. and you were speaking to people there. _ duggan. and you were speaking to people there. what - duggan. and you were speaking to people there. what were - to people there. what were their motivations for being out and protesting? i their motivations for being out and protesting?— and protesting? i think it was and protesting? i think it was a combination _ and protesting? i think it was a combination of— and protesting? i think it was a combination of things. - a combination of things. frustration at a sense of perceived... this bill being rushed through parliament without proper oversight, without proper oversight,

without scrutiny. and it basically being an opportunity to clamp down on the right to protest, and then that was obviously coupled with a very visceral feeling of support and sadness following the murder of sarah everard as well. i think it was a combination of factors. it was a combination of factore— it was a combination of factors. , , ~' ., factors. just linking into that, factors. just linking into that. we _ factors. just linking into that, we said _ factors. just linking into that, we said it - factors. just linking into that, we said it was - factors. just linking into - that, we said it was peaceful to begin with, and then turned violent. any sense that you could get of what happened to trigger that violence? could get of what happened to triggerthat violence? ida. could get of what happened to trigger that violence?- trigger that violence? no, it's hard to say- _ trigger that violence? no, it's hard to say. but _ trigger that violence? no, it's hard to say. but i _ trigger that violence? no, it's hard to say. but i think... - hard to say. but i think... from what i observed, as soon as the response on the part of the police ramped up in terms of bringing in, you know, riot shields and dogs and horses, it

created a focus, it created tension and it really seemed like it was just a spark waiting to happen, to be honest. and we've heard from police as well, some putting in call—outs or police that were off duty to come in. it seems the force was caught unawares as well. , , , , , as well. just very briefly, we are in the — as well. just very briefly, we are in the middle _ as well. just very briefly, we are in the middle of- as well. just very briefly, we are in the middle of a - are in the middle of a pandemic. didn't seem to be social distancing going on. i mean, you know, it's one of those things, when thousands of people are gathered together, there is only so much social distancing that can occur. there were plenty of people wearing masks, and from the placards i saw, plenty of people felt uncomfortable being there, but one person i was speaking with said they felt they had to come out, even though they felt scared of being in a crowded environment. they felt these measures were being rushed through parliament and it was going to damage a

pillar of any vibrant, healthy democracy, the right to protest. heavy rains have triggered the worst floods for a century in parts of australia. thousands of residents in the state of new south wales have been told to leave their homes. forecasters are warning that more rain is expected. to give you an idea ofjust how saturated the ground is, look at these pictures filmed at 0xley island, about 250 kilometres north of sydney. the water simply has nowhere to go. and that's led to images like this — a house literally floating away. it's believed it belonged to a couple who were due to get married on saturday. the river is peaking nearly six metres above normal. it's already burst its banks. things are so serious that prime minister scott morrison has put the australian defence force on standby. well, communities along the hawkesbury river near sydney risk losing their homes and vital utilities could be disrupted for months. earlier, i spoke to resident lucy hughes — floodwaters have separated her from her family. currently on the city

side of the hawkesbury river and my family, my parents, my brother, they're currently in north richmond. my parents live in sackville which is just down from windsor bridge. and what's happening? what's the threat level to your childhood home, the home that you grew up in? currently its major flooding. our home is currently sitting on its own little island, it's currently surrounded by water. my parents, my brother, we tried to take what necessities, what sentimental stuff that we could, they evacuated down to north richmond, which is also in a major flood zone as well. we can just see the pictures from you, actually, just seeing how close the water is to the house there. just give us a flavour of what emotions you are going through at the moment.

my whole family is devastated. we are beyond the level of shock. those photos were taken about an hour ago and this weather and the flood levels are only expected to rise even more, and so we have had to come to the realisation and acceptance that the water is going to rise and it's going to rise into ourfamily home, into a property that's been in ourfamily for two generations. there's a lot of memories in that place and a lot of valuable, sentimental things that we own that we are going to lose and my parents are going to lose. we are going to have to start over again and we are currentlyjust in a mood of complete devastation. my thoughts of course are with you and your family as you try to just wait and see what happens, what have you been told about what is going to happen in the days to come and weeks to come?

we only know what we have heard from the news as well. i have been refreshing floowater sites hourly to get flood levels. my brother and father returned back to the property by boat because it is the only way to find out what is happening and what is going on in the area and as you can see those photos were only taken an hour ago after having access to that area by boat. so for now it is just wait and see. we know the next 2a hours is going to be more water. the warragamba dam in sydney is continuing to spill and dump water equivalents of sydney harbour into this river system and the level of water is only going to rise so right now we are holding onto the hope for a miracle because miracles can happen and it is all we can hope for. let's get some of the day's other news. the trial of michael kovrig, the second of two canadians detained in china for more than two years,

is under way in beijing. the hearing comes days after the closed—door trial of michael spavor — both men were detained in apparent retaliation for canada's arrest on a us extradition warrant of huawei executive meng wanzhou. the us defence secretary, lloyd austin, has called for a reduction in violence in afghanistan during a brief, unannounced visit to kabul. speaking after talks with president ashraf ghani, mr austin refused to be drawn on whether the biden administration still planned to withdraw troops from afghanistan by may, as stipulated in the us agreement with the taliban last year. officials in miami have extended a state of emergency for three weeks, saying crowds of visitors are spreading chaos and disorder. just look at these scenes, filmed on saturday evening. this is the time of year when young americans, particularly college students, head off on spring break.

police used pepper spray to clear the crowds. as you can see, there was little social distancing or mask—wearing in evidence. 0ur north america correspondent peter bowes gave me the details. these really are quite extraordinary scenes we are seeing in miami beach. throngs of people, many of them students, but local officials are saying amongst them general tourists, adults who have been coming to florida steadily and increasingly over the last few weeks for a break. it is spring break, a traditional time for college students to party and let their hair down a little before going back to their studies over the next few weeks and months, but these scenes are different this year. you might remember this time last year, exactly the same place during spring break, a lot of the students then were partying and were heavily criticised right at the beginning of the pandemic. the mood now seems to be as if the pandemic were over, and of course it is not,

but some seem to be in a celebratory mood and almost carefree, believing that covid isn't going to get them. some talking about the fact that they have had the vaccination, others saying they just want to party. and how has florida been handling the pandemic more widely? well, florida has been controversial all the way through the pandemic. the republican governor ron desantis last month described florida as an oasis of freedom from coronavirus restrictions. it is now one of the few states that has lifted all of its restrictions, those kind of restrictions that many others in other parts of the country are still dealing with. and a number of people believe that is why the influx of tourists has increased, because people have perhaps come from boston and new york where major restrictions are still in force and they believe they can go to florida and lead relatively normal

lives during their holiday. butjust briefly, what have ordinary people, residents of the area, made of this? because presumably some will be welcoming the economic benefits but others i am sure are not? the problem for a lot of those people is some of the businesses have been forced to close down after everything they have been through for the past year because of the huge numbers of people, for public safety, they have had to close down, so they are not happy about that. other residents are saying the beach area isn't a place they would normally go to anyway and i think they are looking upon these people in a very negative way for essentially bringing as they would see this bad behaviour to their town at a time when they are trying themselves to follow the kind of restrictions that people across the country are continuing to follow, because when you look at the numbers, the number of new cases, about 1,000 in the neighbouring county and 4,000 across the state

of florida every day over the past week. stay with us on bbc news, still to come: the largest asteroid to pass earth this year provides the chance to see a space rock from the dawn of the solar system. let there be no more wars or bloodshed between arabs and israelis. with great regret, the committee have decided that south africa be excluded

from the 1970 competition. singing. streaking across the sky, the white hot wreckage from mir drew gasps from onlookers on fiji. this is bbc world news, the latest headlines. violent clashes on the streets of bristol, after thousands protest against proposed police powers to control british demonstrations. mass evacuations, as south—east australia is struck by the worst floods in a century. the prime minister offers emergency funds to those affected. as record numbers of people attempt to illegally

cross into the us, a top official in the biden administration has said that the border is closed. the homeland security secretary, alejandro mayorkas, told us news channels that the message to people thinking about crossing the southern us border is simple — do not come. amongst the groups making the treacherous journey are many thousands of unaccompanied children, and they are now being held in huge camps. 0ur correspondent, sophie long, sent us this report from the rio grande valley. thousands of migrants are crossing the united states' southern border illegally every day. many of them are children who've made the dangerous journey alone. wejoined sergeant roger rich as he patrolled the vast scrubland along the river that separates texas from mexico. before the new president took office, we didn't have these types of numbers coming across. we see unaccompanied children all the time. we caught one on monday that was coming in from bolivia,

that was ten years old, by himself. as every day ends here, a waiting game begins. soon, emerging from the banks of the rio grande, eight scared, bewildered and exhausted boys. they left guatemala weeks ago, coming without parents or passports, just plastic packages protecting birth certificates and crucial phone numbers. so, he's going to somebody who's going to help take care of him. milken is 17. he tells me he came here because he wants to study. at home, there's only crime and gangs. the boys are directed to this temporary processing site from which we were evicted and told we couldn't film. it's likely some will be sent here. dallas convention center has been converted to hold up to 3,000 unaccompanied

children. media are not allowed in. families are coming too. some say they come because the cartels that control the mexican side are telling those desperate to hear it that the new president has opened the border. with this new administration, numbers are starting to go up because they feel that possibly they have a chance to be heard, to be allowed to be inside. the previous administration had the same problem, not because they were very kind and wanting to welcome everybody but it was because they had hopes that maybe i'll get in before he kicks us out. why did you decide to leave your mum, your brothers? milken tells me he's run from violence and poverty. he doesn't even know who president biden is. all he knows is how hard it was to say goodbye to his family. i give him my phone so he can call the uncle he's desperately trying to reach. but he's thousands of miles away in seattle.

these boys may have made it to the promised land, but theirjourney is far from over. their future now as uncertain as the day they left home. sophie long, bbc news, the rio grande valley. in syria, seven people have died in an artillery strike on a hospital in a cave in a rebel—held town in the aleppo region. 1a medics were also injured. turkey's defence ministry said a child was one of those killed in the attack, which it blames on forces backed by the syrian government. mark lobel�*s report contains some distressing images. the remains of a hospital. once a place to get better. it suddenly became a target, shelled by syrian government backed forces. during the shelling,

the hospital director runs for cover. urging people around him to keep calm. he already knows of seven casualties in his hospital, and that it's no longer safe. translation: stay calm! stay calm! _ as you can see, the shelling of the hospital has going on until now. we came here for our own safety. we asked the medical staff to leave. the hospital is out of service. there is meant to be a ceasefire in this area. this hospital's co—ordinates have been shared by the un to avoid making it a target. but it's the fifth such attack this year according to the international rescue committee. also struck, this fuel depot in bab al—hawa near the turkish border. crucial rebel fuel

supplies decimated by suspected russian jets. the human cost of this ongoing war is all too real. syria and its ally in this conflict, russia, says it only targets militant islamists, not civilian areas. but the un says this attack on a hospital is an alarming development which has devastated those burying their dead. the largest asteroid to pass by earth this year has just reached its closest point, giving astronomers an opportunity to observe a space rock that formed at the dawn of the solar system. the asteroid, which was first discovered 20 years ago, is about 900 metres in diameter. the american space agency nasa says that at its nearest point, it will still be two

million kilometres away. jeffrey hoffman is a former nasa astronaut, who is now a professor of aeronautics and astronautics at massachusetts institute of technology. he told me what these near—earth asteroids could mean. well, knowing how big it is, it is over half a kilometre asteroid, so i mean, it's a planet killer, if it were to hit the earth. whether it's too close or not, as long as it misses us, it is far enough away. where are we on mapping all these objects out there which could actually hit us and do us damage? well, it's been a long term project of nasa to try to map all of the so—called near earth asteroids, down to a certain size.

i don't know, something on the order of 150 metres. but you know, this big asteroid is not the only one passing by us today. there's another one, the big one is about two million kilometres, another that is only about 30 metres about 30 metres across, which is going to miss us by about 1.5 million kilometres. that is closer! it can do a lot of damage and it was only discovered two days ago, last friday, so there are still surprises out there. that's worrying that it was only discovered two days ago and there are still surprises of that size out there! things can come at you out of the sun, fighterjets in the movies, in wars, what we really need is a dedicated satellite which will be able to do

an even deeper survey of these objects. nasa is in fact working on this. do we have a plan in place if we discover one is coming a bit too close for comfort? well, if you can get it early enough, there are many things you can do. if it's far enough away from you and you know about it in advance, and you can fly up to it with a spacecraft and give it a little push, that's enough to change the orbit so it will miss us. but if you only see it two days before it's going to hit us, unfortunately, there is probably not much we could do. reach me on twitter — @lvaughanjones.

it is bbc news. goodbye. hello there. it looks like our weather pattern is going to change over the week ahead. for the past few days we've had quiet, settled weather. it's been warm when the sun has been out. high pressure in charge. let me show you the upper level winds, the jet stream, that's the position of the jet stream and you can see how undulating that pattern is right now. but as we head into the week, we get more of a zonal flow. west—to—east wind coming in and bringing in air from the atlantic, and lower pressure means the weather is eventually going to turn more unsettled. fairly quiet at the moment, still. we've got a chilly start underneath those clearer skies. more cloud coming into northern ireland, north west england and especially western scotland. a little light rain or drizzle here. elsewhere it looks like it's going to be a dry day. some sunshine at times, light winds, temperatures again peaking at 13 or 1a celsius through the midlands,

south east england, east anglia and the north east of scotland. moving quickly onto tuesday, and we've got a fresher breeze picking up. south or south—westerly wind, looks like it's going to bring in a lot of cloud. maybe some dampness in the air out towards the west ahead of a band of rain that comes into northern ireland, western scotland later. temperatures again are perhaps 13 or 1a in the east where skies should be a bit brighter. we start to see the weather changing, though from midweek. that weather front bringing rain down from the north west into england and wales, not going to amount to very much at all. still dry in the south east for a while. after that band of patchy rain, we get some sunshine and then the weather turns wetter in the north west, especially into western scotland. the winds are bit stronger here. elsewhere, the winds should be fairly light which is why that band of cloud and rain isn't moving very far. temperatures not changing very much, again, on wednesday. the winds continue to pick up though, i think, during thursday and we start to see some mixture, really, of sunshine and showers. some wetter weather, though, a band of rain coming

into northern ireland, into western scotland through the day. and temperatures of 12, 13, maybe 1a celsius — near normal for this time of the year. but as we head towards the end of the week, we've got low pressure in charge. that's coming down from greenland, settling between iceland and scotland and that's going to bring colder air across the uk together with some much stronger wind. and we're looking at some bands of rain or showers and it's cold enough for those showers to be wintry over northern hills, perhaps even down into parts of wales as well. temperature wise, 7 celsius in the north, maybe making double figures in the south east.

this is bbc news, the headlines.

several police officers have been seriously injured during violent protests in bristol. thousands of people gathered to oppose the uk government's police and crime bill — which would give forces in england and wales more powers to curb protests. clashes then broke out at a city centre police station. parts of new south wales in australia are suffering their worst floods in a century. torrential downpours have caused dams to overflow and river levels to surge. around a thousand people in the western suburbs of sydney are the latest to be urged to evacuate their homes. city officials in miami beach in florida have approved an extension to a state of emergency after thousands of tourists descended for the annual spring break holiday, risking the spread of coronavirus. the decision means that a night—time curfew will continue for at least three weeks. now on bbc news, dateline.