you're watching bbc news, very good to have you with us. i'm rich preston — our top stories: police in new mexico say they believe a live bullet was fired in the fatal shooting on the set of alec baldwin's new movie. we believe that we have in our possession the firearm that was fired by mr baldwin. this is the firearm we believe discharged the bullet. in a bbc exclusive — new details about the fall of afghanistan and fresh claims about the country's former president. the truth about trees: new research suggests logging and wildfires could be causing some of the world's biggest forests to produce more carbon than they absorb. and, australian footballer josh cavallo has become the only top level, male professional player to come out as gay.

police in the us state of new mexico say criminal charges against the actor alec baldwin, who shot dead a cinematographer on a film set, have not been ruled out. investigators have recovered the bullet that killed 42—year—old halyna hutchins. sophie long sent this report from santa fe. it is now nearly a week since 42—year—old halyna hutchins was shot dead whilst she was doing herjob. these are the last pictures of the cinematographer alive on the set of rust. she's in the blue coat and headphones. you can see alec baldwin beyond the camera. he was holding the gun that fired the shot that killed halyna and severely injured directorjoel souza. we believe that we have in our possession the firearm that was fired by mr baldwin. the actual lead projectile

that was fired has been recovered from the shoulder of mr souza. we regard this specific casing and recovered projectile to be the live round that was fired from the revolver by mr baldwin. when alec baldwin was handed the weapon by assistant director dave halls, he was told it was safe, what's called a "cold gun." the person responsible for firearms on set was the armourer — 24—year—old hannah gutierrez—reed. she's admitted ammunition was not secure, but says she checked the guns and found no live rounds. all three are cooperating fully with the investigation. all options are on the table at this point. i'm not commenting on charges, whether they will be filed or not, or on whom. so, the answer is, we cannot answer that question yet until we complete a more thorough investigation. the tragedy has left hollywood grieving and reignited the debate about whether real

guns and ammunition should ever be allowed on film sets under any circumstances. well, as we've been hearing sophie long was at that press conference in santa fe and has this update. sheriff adam mendoza began, both of them began by offering their condolences to the hutchins family. now, he stressed this was an ongoing investigation, but he did say to reporters that, to him, the facts were clear. they spoke for themselves. alec baldwin had been holding a functional weapon that fired a live round. he also confirmed they've recovered a lead bullet from the shoulder of director joel souza, and they believe that is the same bullet that killed halyna hutchins. he gave some details of the investigation that's ongoing, saying that they'd recovered some 600 items from the set of the movie rust. they includeding three prop guns, one of those he said was certainly functional, the other two they were investigating. it also included 500 rounds of ammunition. there had been reports

of complaints about safety standards on set. he confirmed that they had heard those reports and were investigating. in terms of the attorney general, she said, in terms of charges, they may still come, that everything remains on the table. earlier i spoke to brook yeaton. he is a prop master and armourer with 30 years experience in the movie industry. he's also a vice president of the international alliance of theatrical stage employees union, representing workers in louisiana, mississippi, and alabama. i asked him for his reaction to the latest developments. well, first off, most of the safety procedures were ignored there. the weapon should have been locked up, but first and foremost there should never be any live rounds on any film set, so they don't get confused with blank rounds. because they do look very similar, especially to someone who doesn't know better. and also, the armourer should be the only one ever to hand first team or an actor a weapon

and declare it cold or hot. it is interesting you mention it the ammunition because there is talk of this live round, talk of 500 rounds of ammunition. why would there ever be a need for so many rounds of ammunition, blank or live, on a film set? well, this was a western and when you have multiple takes, of course, you need multiple rounds available for the blanks for the weapons. that's not that uncommon to have 500 rounds but it is very uncommon to have any live rounds at all. in any prop truck or in any armourer case. during lunch, these weapons should be locked up so no—one can touch them except for the armourer and i don't know if that was done. you have worked in the movie industry for three decades, what are your thoughts on what seems to have gone wrong here? safety procedures were not followed, inexperience. some of the crew walked off the day before because

of their safety concerns. 0bviously, they had a point there, because this is what happened, this is what everyone was worried about. as far as using weapons on screen, there are thousands of rounds being shot every day on other films where everything is fine because the safety procedures are done properly. this is the biggest case since the brandon lee incident which happened years ago, so the safety standards were raised after that, i'm sure they will be raised again, but if we don't follow the safety standards, they won't help. there has been some speculation that because of covid, that changed the way people operated in terms of handing weapons to one another. has that had an impact on how weapons are handled? no, not on any of my sets, not at all. we just hand it to you with a mask on, no difference. where do we go from here? there has been talk about criminal charges, what do you envisage happening?

i'm really not sure. i feel sorry for everyone involved. i'm really not sure. but the responsible party at least, if i have my say, is the person who handed that gun and declared it cold and it was not. to a bbc exclusive now — and two months after the taliban took control of afghanistan, new details have emerged about the fall of kabul and the actions of the former president. ashraf ghani has always claimed he fled the capital because his life was in danger, and says that to stay would've sparked greater bloodshed. that has been rejected by his former chief of staff, who's been speaking to the bbc. matin bek told our chief international correspondent, lyse doucet, that when mr ghani left in a helicopter — there was no danger and no threat to his life. i mean, i still... i don't know why he ran away, i don't forgive him for that.

i am again telling you, lyse, after everything was ok, if he had run away whenjalalabad had fallen, and other districts, kabul had fallen, there was no argument between us, it could have been understandable. may be he said, ok, may be said he was a coward, he ran away. he ran away for his life. but after everything, some ceasefire put in place, a security arrangement even in place, that the palace was the safest place in afghanistan. i don't buy that argument there was a threat or anything. he said one of his security aides had told him the taliban were going room to room searching for him, that's what the president said? no, no, no, that's completely a coward, that's completely not true. because after he ran away, there was no problem, no shooting, nothing.

may be a rumour the taliban came to the palace at about 8pm, after six hours he had run away from the country. 0ur chief international correspondent, lyse doucet, explained what the effect was of ashraf ghani's hasty departure. even the taliban this week have said they wished that kabul had not fallen in this way, that there had been an agreed transfer of power. of course this isjust a big what if, but if president ghani had not left the palace, if the taliban had come in as part of a coordinated transfer of power, some interim arrangement, would so many afghans have fled? matin bek himself, and many other officials also left afghanistan the next day. would the situation be different on the ground? many believe that an opportunity was missed at least to do something more smoothly. lyse�*s full interview is available on her podcast called a wish for afghanistan. new episodes are

available on wednesdays. you can listen to it on the bbc sounds app or any other podcast platform. let's take a look at some other stories in the headlines. america s most senior military officer, mark milley, has confirmed that china recently tested a nuclear—capable hypersonic missile that orbited the earth. hypersonic missiles travel at more than 6,000 kilometres an hour and are manoeuvrable, making them very hard to detect or destroy. general milley called the event very significant and concerning. facebook has instructed its employees to preserve all internal documents and communications since 2016, as governments and regulators have started inquiries into its operations. facebook has been facing increased scrutiny since a whistle—blower leaked thousands of internal documents revealing how much the social media giant knew about the harm it was fostering , including the spreading of misinformation

the us has again urged the sudanese military to release all civilian leaders it's detained since monday's coup. the call came after the secretary of state spoke on the phone to the deposed prime minister. abdalla hamdook was arrested and detained on monday, but has now been allowed to return home. mohamed 0sman from the bbc�*s arabic service sent this update from khartoum. translation: it seems - that the protesters were not convinced by the justifications given by the commander in chief of the sudanese armed forces who described his actions as a correction to the course of the revolution. as they continued their sitting and protest for the third as they continued their sit ing and protest for the third consecutive day in cities and residential neighbourhoods to denounce the coup attempt and demand civilian rule.

many protesters clashed with the security forces in several residential areas. and those forces used tear gas and live bullets to disperse them, which led to a flare between the protesters and the security forces. life in khartoum has not returned to normal. shops are still closed, banks and commercial establishments are still closed, public employees have not returned to their workplaces yet, even school and university students are not returned to their classroom since last sunday. the prime minister returned to his home as his office revealed in a statement, and he is under house arrest and is prohibited from communicating with other parties. the security authorities continue to arrest political leaders and arrested a leader of another party and another man. stay with us on bbc news — still to come...

first the self—driving car, now the self—driving boat — the transport revolution taking place in amsterdam. indira gandhi, ruler of the world's largest democracy, died today. 0nly yesterday, she had spoken of dying in the service of her country and said, "i would be proud of it. "every drop of my blood will contribute to the growth of this nation." after 46 years of unhappiness, these two countries have concluded a chapter of history. no more suspicion, no more fear, no more uncertainty of what each day might bring. booster ignition and lift off. of discovery with a crew of six astronaut heroes and one american legend. - this is beautiful. a milestone in human history.

born today, this girl in india is the seven billionth person on the planet. this is bbc world news, the latest headlines... police in new mexico say they believe a live bullet was fired in the fatal shooting on the set of alec baldwin's new movie. new details have emerged about the fall of kabul and the actions of the former president — ashraf ghani. an opinion poll carried out for the bbc has found that popular support for strong action against climate change is growing around the world. the survey of more than 30,000 people in 31 countries found that 56% wanted their countries to show leadership at the un climate summit in glasgow next week. staying with climate change and a new report says at least ten of the world's most highly protected forests have turned

from absorbers of greenhouse gases into net emitters of carbon, due to human activity. the shift is blamed on illegal logging, agriculture, and increasingly frequent wildfires, driven by climate change over the last two decades. david gibbs, co—author of this unesco report told me more about theirfindings. so, when we cut down forests or they are burned, they will emit carbon into the atmosphere, and it's a matter of how much forests we cut down relative to how much forest we leave it standing. if we cut down too much, we have forests that emit more carbon than they are capturing from the atmosphere. we mentioned that this includes some of the world's biggest and most protected forests. how many are we talking about and which forests? we looked at first in 257 different sites around the world, in the unesco world heritage system, and

on the whole, these sites are capturing a lot more carbon than they are emitting, approximately they capture around half of the carbon that is emitted by the united kingdom, from fossil fuel emissions in a year however, ten sites are emitting more carbon than they capture during the last 20 years and this was very surprising to us. what were some of those ten sites? so, one of the sites that emit more carbon than it captured is the wetlands in brazil, these have had extensive fires in recent years. imagine wetlands being on fire, doesn't seem like it should happened, but it has. so overall it has emitted more

carbon than it has captured. another example that has had extensive, what we're calling land use such as logging and agricultural clearing, is the rainforests of sumatra and indonesia, and that is also emitted more carbon than it has captured. how did you go about doing this research, how did you get this information? we used some recently published maps that colleagues and i and a number of research institutions created. these maps are of greenhouse gas emissions and sequestration for forests worldwide over the last 20 years but at the maps are based on a combination of satellite data and field data and we overlaid these maps with the boundaries of unesco world heritage sites to see what had been happening to the carbon in forests over the last 20 years. it's a matter of using recently available technology in the sky, in outer space, in order to see what's happening on earth.

how big a problem is this? this isjust a handful that are putting up more carbon than are absorbing, surely. so, these ten sites, you can think of them as sort of, they are a taste of what we can see of what might happen to forests around the world. there are already many first that emit more carbon than they capture, if they are being converted into other land uses, light cropland, pasture or cities. but these are some of the most protected sites in the world, some treasured and iconic places and these should not be emitting so much carbon. we believe that if these heavily protected and treasured sites are at such risk, a few of them, others will also be threatened as well, other protected forests, much less to forests that are not as protective. to italy now, and the island of sicily is being battered by a rare cyclonic storm known as a medicane.

torrential rain has caused widespread flooding around the city of catania. at least two people have been killed. courtney bembridge reports. during a brief respite from the rain, residents of catania were out checking the damage. translation: here, it was like a swollen river, a lake. - it spread and caused major damage to this beautiful area of our city. between yesterday and the day before, 300 millimetres of rain fell. the annual average in catania is 600 millimetres. this means that in 2a hours, half of what is recorded in one year fell. it's very unusual. this is what that much rain looks like. streets turned to rivers, the water strong enough to pick up cars. mud filled many homes and in some areas, the water supply has been cut off, making the cleanup even harder. translation: it was a disaster. my mother was sleeping here.

local businesses are trying to salvage what's left. translation: we don't know yet. we will try to clean these plants, but i think it will be difficult to save some of them. and the worst could be yet to come. the powerful storm is forecast to peak between thursday and friday, with more heavy rain expected. courtney bembridge, bbc news. here in the uk: the british chancellor has promised a post—covid "age of optimism" as he delivered his uk budget for 2021. rishi sunak committed to a spending increase of £150 billion — just over 200 billion us dollars — over three years. speaking earlier, he addressed the impact on people's lives. help for working families,

because we will always help people help themselves. i'm levelling up, because for too long, the location of your birth has determined too much of your future because the awesome power of opportunity shouldn't be available to only a wealthy few but the birthright of every child for an independent and prosperous united kingdom. here's the opposition labour party's rachel reeves, who was filling in for leader keir starmer after he tested positive for covid—i9. the shadow chancellor told parliament many people wouldn't benefit. businesses hit by a supply chain crisis and those who rely on schools, hospitals and police, they will not recognise that while the chancellor is describing. they will think he is living in a parallel universe. the chancellor in this budget has decided to cut

taxes for banks. so, madam deputy speaker, at least at the bankers on short—haul flights sipping champagne will be cheering this budget today. josh cavallo, a 21—year—old who plays professional football for adelaide, has become the only male player at the top level, to announce that he's gay — as our sports correspondent katie gornall reports. i'm a footballer and i'm gay. with those six words, josh cavallo, in a video released by his club, adelaide united, made a powerful admission and also international headlines. all i want to do is play football and be treated equally. cavallo's announcement was met with an outpouring of support, including the likes of gary lineker and clubs such as liverpool and barcelona. today, he said he wanted to be a positive role model for gay footballers. there was a long period in my life where it brought me sadness, and it took me

to a dark place. it was over six years of pain, and i'm so happy and excited to put that to rest today. today is so positive, it's my freedom day, and i have never been this happy in my entire life. such an announcement is rare in men's professional sports. the former aston villa midfielder thomas hitzlsperger only felt comfortable coming out publicly after retiring, while it's 31 years since justin fashanu became the first and only top—flight english footballer to come out as gay whilst still playing. we're in 2021, it's a different time to what it was before, it's more accepting. i hope that one day, someone can follow my lead and come out, too. and it's just normal, it becomes normal, you know? playing football, it doesn't matter who you are. everyone's welcome. for those footballers who feel that being open about their sexuality might negatively impact their career, cavallo wants to show it doesn't have to be that way. katie gornall, bbc news. in the quest to push the barriers of transport technology, we've had self—driving cars, self—driving lorries,

and self—driving buses. now, in the dutch city of amsterdam, they're trying out self—driving boats. the designers hope they could revolutionise travel and commuting — as the bbc�*s tim allman reports. # row, row, row your boat # gently down the stream... # actually, there's not much rowing involved. this is the autonomous floating vehicle, the roboat — as in robot. an electric—powered vessel that finds its own way around. we have a lot of open water available in the canals that is not being used anymore for transport. only for tourists. so we developed a self—driving autonomous ship. for several years they have been testing the roboats on a project involving the massachusetts institute of technology. the small ships have no pilot and depend on sensors to avoid any unwanted aquatic encounters.

so if you want to go from a to b, it automatically calculates the most efficient route to sail. then when it's sailing, it senses and maps the environment to see where are other objects or other ships that i have to avoid any collisions with. the designers have lofty ambitions for the roboats. they can be used like tugboats, linked together to form a bridge, there are even hopes they could one day be used to contain oil spills. # row, row, row your boat # row your boat down my stream... # for now, the plan is to utilise them as mobile rubbish collectors — vital in a crowded, congested city like amsterdam. after that, the sky — well, the water — is the limit. tim allman, bbc news. you can reach me on twitter — i'm @ richpreston.

hello. 24—hour rain totals have now surpassed 230mm in the wettest parts of the cumbrian hills, and the met office amber warning for rain continues across cumbria and southwest scotland into thursday. there is more rain to come and, as all that water feeds down through the rivers and streams, the risk of flooding and disruption increases from a weather front which is very much still around in the day ahead, pulses of energy running along itjust enhancing the rainfall. so, there will be more rain to come on a very wet day in cumbria, for a time more widely across southern, central and eastern scotland, from the eastern side of northern ireland before it eases here, and pushing into more of northwest england and wales, and southwest england as the day goes on. northern scotland, sunny spells and a chance for showers, brightening up in northern ireland. largely dry through central

and eastern parts of england. these are your wind speed averages — gusts are high, particularly with the rain band along irish sea coasts, gusting near 50 mph in places, and the higher temperatures will be those parts of across eastern england that break out into a few sunny spells. we could well see 18 celsius again. there will be further rain overnight thursday into friday, but the idea is it's starting to move its way further east on another very mild night. and on friday, that rain will reach into parts of eastern england that have stayed dry through much of the week. there'll be another spell of rain moving through scotland — but as it all begins to pull away eastwards, it will be much drier to end friday, and particularly in those areas that have seen so much rain so far this week. at the same time, temperatures are coming down a few degrees. we're not finished with the rain, though — low pressure still very much in charge for the weekend, and another band of wet weather will arrive friday night into saturday. now it does look as if it's moving a little bit quicker

now, this, so it will bring a spell of rain overnight into saturday, but clears away more readily on saturday, allowing a drier, brighter day after the rain with a few showers around. and again, notice our temperatures are edging downwards. it looks at this stage as if sunday will be the wetter day of the weekend. as low pressure feeds in yet more rain, some of this will be heavy as it moves its way northward. the wind starts to pick up again, as well, and even after the rain, there'll be some heavy showers around.

this is bbc news —

the headlines... police in the us state of new mexico say criminal charges against the actor alec baldwin — who shot dead a cinematographer on a film set — have not been ruled out. investigators have recovered the bullet that killed 42—year—old halyna hutchins lodged in the shoulder of the film's director. new details have emerged about the fall of afghanistan, and the actions of the former president ashraf ghani. he claimed he fled the capital because his life was in danger. his former chief of staff has exclusively told the bbc that he was not in danger. a new survey shows that human activity and climate change have turned ten of the world's most highly protected forests from absorbers of greenhouse gases into net emitters of carbon. the shift is blamed on illegal logging, agriculture, and increasingly frequent wildfires, driven by two decades of climate change. now on bbc news — hardtalk.