this is bbc news. our top stories: us basketball star brittney griner gets a nine year sentence on drug charges in russia. president biden denounces it as "unacceptable." japan and the us condemn china's military exercises in the waters around taiwan and call for an immediate halt. this afternoon, china fired dongfeng ballistic missiles from the coast of china across the taiwan strait, and they fell into waters in the exclusion zones just here off the north taiwan coast. the primary objective is obviously intimidation. the conspiracy theorist alexjones is ordered to pay more than $4 million in damages afterfalsely claiming the sandy hook school shooting was a hoax. sings out of tune.

he's an internet sensation in bangladesh for singing out of tune, but we'll find out why this crooner failed to strike a chord with the police. welcome to our viewers on pbs in america and around the globe. we start in the united states with the case of us basketball player, brittney griner, who has been sentenced to nine years injail by a court in russia. the court found her guilty of possessing and smuggling drugs. president biden said washington would use all means possible to guarantee her release, and added that her sentencing is "unacceptable. " the two time olympic gold medallist admitted to possessing cannabis oil when she was detained in february. here's our russia

editor steve rosenberg. in court today brittney griner said she made an honest mistake when she brought vape cartridges with cannabis oil into russia. she made a plea for leniency and that fell on deaf years, really, and thejudge found her guilty and sentenced her to nine years in a russian prison. her defence team says it will appeal. president biden said the sentence was unacceptable and said that brittney griner should be released immediately. question, might russia release her? after all, we know that america and russia have been talking about a possible prisoner swap that could involve brittney griner and also a former us marine, paul whelan, who is also injail in russia. washington says it has put a substantial proposal on the table. some reports suggest that in order to bring these two people home, america may be prepared to release the notorious arms trafficker viktor bout. he was sentenced to 25 years in an american jail one decade ago.

now, there is no doubt that there would be a degree of controversy over such a swap, because viktor bout was alleged to be one of the most prolific arms dealers in the world and was dubbed the merchant of death. so it would be a controversial swap. he was rumoured to have links to russian intelligence agencies, he has denied that in the past. but this is someone the kremlin has long wanted to bring back to russia, and if it manages to bring him back there is no doubt the authorities here would present that as a major victory. earlier i spoke to kimberle crenshaw, executive director of the african american policy forum, and i asked her why she thinks brittney griner�*s case hasn't been paid more attention to until her actual sentencing.

remember, she has been in prison for nearly six months. most people didn't start talking about her case until a month ago. so it is telling us something about the fact that this two—time olympian could be held like this and so few people rally knew anything about it. in fact, when a meeting was set up between brittney and herwife, no—one in the state department bothered to say that the telephone meeting was unlikely to happen when they expected it to because nobody was in the office on that day. the disregard, actually, is profound and disturbing. fortunately i think the efforts to lobby on her behalf have created a moment of accountability from the white house. why do you think, and just even a cursory view for anyone who has a look at brittney griner will realise what a star—studded career she has had within the wnba and also she played in ekaterinburg in russia where she is now. why do you think there wasn't that attention to her case until now?

of course, everybody is pointing out that she is a queer black woman, she is not someone that many people necessarily were willing to put a lot of capital on the table for but i think the most significant factor is that she is a female athlete. let's think about this. if this had been lebronjames, if this had been tom brady, tiger woods who had been arrested and held six months ago, we would have heard about it daily. so this is, of course, one of the most extreme examples of the fact that female sport heroes are not given the same attention as their male counterparts. but it is part of a larger cultural, structural disregard for those women who have

accomplished so much. there is now this potential prisoner swap offer, one person mentioned in that is a controversial russian whose name is viktor bout and maybe another american that may be swapped with brittney griner on the first details we are seeing. surely if the white house takes part in that swap it shows that they do care, they have invested capital in brittney griner. it definitely shows the power of political organising. we have to remember that the most loyal constituency that supports the democratic party, the most loyal constituency that president biden has to think for the job he now holds is black women and black women understood that and learned how to play the game. so when brittney griner comes

home and i have every hope that she will, it will be because of the political power that black women bought to bear to see that it would happen. at least 13 people have been killed after a fire broke out at a thai nightclub. people fleet as it was engulfed in flames. many people were reported to be injured which took three hours to put out. the victims are thought to be tight nationals. the speaker of the us house has made a press conference in japan. she reiterated that congress are committed to

preserving the status quo. japan's prime minister condemned beijing's military drills around taiwan. it began with this barrage of rockets streaking into the sky from the southeast coast of china. it's thought these came down somewhere in the middle of the taiwan strait. but this was just the prelude. further inland, rocket forces were preparing to launch these much bigger and much more capable ballistic missiles. in all, china is thought to have fired 11 of these missiles into waters around taiwan. japan says several of them also fell inside its exclusive economic zone. in taipei, president tsai ing—wen addressed the nation, urging calm and calling on china to end its irresponsible acts. "i want to emphasise — we will not escalate this conflict," she says. "but we will firmly protect our sovereignty and our national security. " so this is exactly what we suspected might happen.

this afternoon, china fired dongfeng ballistic missiles from the coast of china across the taiwan strait, and they fell into waters in the exclusion zones just here off the north taiwan coast. now, the primary objective is obviously intimidation, but these tests also bring tremendous disruption to taiwan's shipping industry, to its airline industry, and to its large and important fishing fleets. on the dockside, we found these rather glum fishermen fixing their nets. they can't go fishing, and no fish means no income. this captain told me he tried to put to sea, only to be ordered back by the coastguard. "we don't know where these exclusion zones are," he told me. "so we had no choice but to do what the coastguard tells us." taiwan's defence ministry has described these missile tests as an attempt to blockade the island. but this retired navy captain told me what china is really doing is an elaborate performance. "what china is engaged in is psychological warfare," he says.

"all the missiles being fired, all the explosions, it's to show china's domestic audience how tough beijing is being, while at the same time intimidating the people of taiwan." it is nevertheless an impressive show and illustrates just how far china's military has come in the last two decades. and it's not over yet. captain liu says china's next step could be to fire a missile over the top of taiwan — something it has never attempted to do before. rupert wingfield—hayes, bbc news, in taipei. a jury in texas has ordered a prominent far—right conspiracy theorist to pay more than $4 million in damages to the parents of a child killed in the shooting at sandy hook elementary school in 2012. alex jones was accused of causing emotional distress to the parents by repeatedly insisting the massacre of 20 children and six adults at the school was a "hoax" manufactured by gun control activists. the jury still has to

decide on the amount of punitive damages. our north america correspondent, peter bowes, told us more. we are halfway through the story and it depends on who you listen to in terms of analysis post—case in terms of what it means. alexjones has been talking about this on his website in the last few hours, saying that as far as he is concerned when you consider those hundreds of millions of dollars that the parents have been hoping to get and so far we are at $4.2 million, he is framing this as a victory for himself and he makes the point that yes, he said what he said — he accused, essentially, the us government of staging this hoax shooting at sandy hook, even going as far as to call the parents crisis actors in this situation. he is now saying that he was wrong, based on the information that he had at the time, and that he has apologised to the parents. so he frames this relatively

small number, still a lot of money — $4.2 million, as something of a victory for himself but, and it is a big but, we have to see what the jury decides in terms of punitive damages and they are, effectively, to punish him for what he said. is it possible to know, because he had a huge following, alex jones, and he is part of the culture wars in america and he is a conspiracy theorist, does a judgement like this make any difference to that influence that he has had? it could make a difference and, again, we need to see what the punitive damages are, it could make a huge financial difference to him and he has already said that he simply does not have the money, there's a state of bankruptcy for his company, infowars, although it is still, essentially on the air or on the air through the internet, he is still getting his message out. but let's see what happens at the end of this case and whether the financial implications are so overwhelming that he cannot continue.

i think more interesting question perhaps is wider afield, his followers and those who believe in what he says, whether this will send any kind of message and if you look at the state of american politics and this incredibly divided nation at the moment, and the entrenched views that we see on all sides but especially the right, it seems as if this kind of action is unlikely to change the minds of those people or even deter them from expressing those controversial views. stay with us on bbc news, still to come: the us declares monkeypox a public health emergency — after recording more cases than any other country in the last 2 months. the question was whether we wanted to save our people, and japanese as well, and win the war, or whether we want to take a chance on being able to win the war by killing all our young men.

the invasion began at 2 o'clock this morning. mr bush. — like most other people, was clearly caught by surprise. we call for the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of all the iraqi forces. 100 years old, and still full of vigor, vitality and enjoyment of life. no other king or queen in british history has lived so long, and the queen mother is said to be quietly very pleased indeed that she's achieved this landmark anniversary. this is a pivotal moment for the church as an international movement. the question now is whether the american vote will lead to a split in the anglican community. this is bbc world news.

the latest headlines: washington condemns the 9—year sentence handed down to basketball star brittney griner in russia and urges moscow to accept a deal for her release. china launches live missiles as part of large—scale military exercises around taiwan — the us says it's irresponsible, while japan calls for the drills to stop. monkeypox has been declared a public health emergency in the united states, in a move that frees up federal funding and resources to fight the outbreak. over the past two months, the country's recorded more cases than any other — over 6,600, most of them in men who have sex with men. medical adviser to president biden, dr anthony fauci said there could be some spillover into the general population, given the ways in which the virus spreads. that is not really entirely unexpected, that you will see some spillover because you are

talking about spread on close skin to skin contact. close skin to skin contact. close skin to skin contact. close skin to skin contact occurs, obviously, in an intimate sexual encounter, but it can also occur under other circumstances that have nothing to do with sex so we have not seen an amount of that spilling over into other than men who have sex with men population and hopefully it will stay at a low level that you can contain. well, earlier i spoke to peter chin—hong who's a professor in the ucsf health division of infectious diseases. i asked whether he thought this announcement will make a difference in tackling the outbreak. it will make a difference, but the question is whether it was too late, and many people are worried that too little, too late, and maybe people were asleep at the driver's wheel. so, talk me through that a little bit.

how — why do you think it is too late? well, in middle of may, we had ourfirst case. there were a trickle of cases after that. now we have 6,600. we are the highest grossing country in the world right now, and the longer you wait, the more expensive it takes. for example, if you imagine having a few cases and doing contact tracing around that, it is very manageable. you can nip it in the bud. if you wait for 6600, and many people think this is really the tip of the iceberg because it is so hard to diagnose clinically, not a lot of patients are going to get diagnosis, and not a lot of clinicians are recognising it in time to give a diagnosis, and apart from that it's stigmatising to say, "hey, doctor, can you give me a monkey pox test," because it evokes images of multiple sex partners, unprotected sex, and not being responsible. so, what needs to happen now if there is this funding? you mention some of the challenges that are there. if you were the person who was spending that money,

what would you do first? well, i think the focus is on vaccines. vaccines will get us out of this because of the problems in diagnostics, that i mentioned. so, i think for the first part, maybe dividing, or multiplying the doses, by five. if you administer it in a different way, which is being entertained notjust by the us but by the who as well, for global equity, and then i think about the three ms. so, first of all, money. we need to fund people to do contact tracing. we can't use money from covid funds, legally. the second m is, of course, medicines. we have 2 million doses of a good antiviral approved for monkeypox. not approved for monkeypox — approved for smallpox. a lot of people worked to figure that out. if that gets an emergency—use authorisation, lower barrier to give treatment, and the third m is, of course, meta data,

and that is just public emergency. states, public health jurisdictions are are not obligated to report to be cdc. four serving and former police officers in the us have been arrested and charged over the fatal shooting of breonna taylor two years ago. their alleged crimes include the illegal use of force and obstruction. let's remind ourselves of exactly what happened. breonna taylor was shot in her home in louisville in 2020, by plainclothes police. at the time, the police said they were executing a search warrant as part of a drugs investigation. no drugs were found in the property. it led to scenes like this, racial injustice protests all over the country. this is the lawyer for breonna taylor's family reacting to the news. because of a breonna taylor, we can say this is a day that black women saw equaljustice in the united states of america. well earlier i spoke to dr rashawn ray who's a senior fellow at

the brookings institution. he explained more about how these officers came to be charged. now, some of those officers were found guilty of actually harming or endangering others, and that was actually the drywall in between breonna taylor's home and her neighbour's home, for shooting bullets through there. but the department ofjustice, this particular department ofjustice, led by merrick garland, they have made clear that they are going to investigate police departments, and it's another important point that is important — under the obama administration, and even under president bush, there were a lot of police departments investigated. underformer president trump, there were zero. biden has aims to change that with merrick garland, and were are seeing that — and look — make no mistake, the department ofjustice rarely brings forth charges unless they have a lot of evidence, and in this case, the big thing is that they said that these officers met

together to conspire, actually allegedly in a garage, to meet, to come up with a story that matched the information that was received to cover themselves. yes, and, of course, i don't have a response from those police officers or their defence at the moment either, which ijust want to point out. when it comes to breonna taylor, though, dr rashawn, why do you think it has taken this long to come to this point? i think with other cases, if it was eric gardner, for example, or george floyd, that was something that exploded into the public�*s consciousness very quickly, and i think it's been a different case when it comes this to breonna taylor. yeah, well, look — i think it is a few factors. the first big factor is video. with george floyd as well as eric gardner and some others, we had video evidence. we did not have that for breonna taylor. that was a big thing. it was also alleged that those officers turned off their body—worn cameras, and they supposedly weren't working, so that is a big deal. people actually did not see

the level of violence that happened inside of that home. the other thing is also, in a sense, the market in a sense. i mean, we have louisville compared to new york and minneapolis, but people actually did cry out for breonna taylor, and we know that there was a civil settlement handed down fairly quickly, and people have to recognise that in the united states, whether we are talking about george floyd, eric gardner or breonna taylor, that money comes from taxpayers. that is a problem that does not come from police officers, it does not come from police department budgets. it comes from taxpayers, and so we really have to think about that, but i think when it comes to breonna taylor, the big thing is the video evidence, and also people have noted the fact that we have black men compared to black women. black men are significantly more likely to be killed by police, but black women more likely to be killed in their homes. and this are the sort of stats we need to bring to bear because it all impacts the black community and all of us, whether we are americans all living around the world. doctor rashawn ray.

police in bangladesh have been criticised for their heavy—handed tactics after arresting a man who's become famous for singing out of tune. officers made a dawn raid at a house in dhaka and the singer says he was kept in custody for eight hours. and he insists he's been "mentally tortured" as the bbc�*s tim allman explains. sings out of tune: # you opened the door... let me introduce you to the unique musical stylings of �*hero' alom. # my heart will go on and on... he is something of an internet sensation, with millions of followers on social media. hero is famous, or notorious, depending on your point of view, for what has been described as his unique crooning style and arresting videos. but it seems that the local police took the whole arresting thing a bit too literally.

translation: if the police wanted to talk to me, - they could have simply summoned me. i would have gone there myself. they were not supposed to pick me up and behave so rudely to me. hero admits he is not the world's greatest singer, but he stepped into the breach when no—one else was willing to perform in his videos. the trouble began when he started to sing classical works, including some written by nobel laureate, rabindranath tagore, and bangladesh's national poet, kazi nazrul islam. translation: of course i think my rights were breached. - if i'm not able to speak orsing, then, yeah, i think my rights are being snatched away. if all the other classical singers were called into the police station, then i would not feel like i was being singled out. after his brush with the law, hero quickly produced a video showing him behind bars. the police says he's apologized for performing the classical songs and will stop doing so from now on, but hero insists he wants to keep on singing

for freedom in bangladesh. tim allman, bbc news. officials in france say a lost beluga whale has swum to within 72 kilometres of paris down the river seine. people have been urged to keep their distance to avoid distressing the whale, which is normally found in cold arctic waters. authorities are worried about its health. the whale was first spotted on tuesday in the river that flows through the french capital to the english channel, and follows the rare appearance of a killer whale in the seine just over two months ago. a reminder of our top story, us basketball player brittney griner has been set to nine years injails by a court in russia. years in “ails by a court in russia. , years in “ails by a court in russia._ years in “ails by a court in russia. , �* russia. president biden said washington _ russia. president biden said washington would _ russia. president biden said washington would use - russia. president biden said washington would use all. russia. president biden said - washington would use all means possible to guarantee her release and added that her

sentencing is unacceptable. for more details on that story, go to our website or on our news app. thank you for watching. little change on the weather front as we head into friday and the weekend. for most of us, it's going to be predominantly dry. yes, there is some rain in the forecast, but it'll fall in the form of hit—or—miss showers, and most of that is expected in western and northern scotland. indeed, the weather fronts that have been crossing the country in the last few days mostly fizzle away by the time they reach southern parts of the country. so, here, it remains bone—dry, and this high pressure, which will be building across the uk and europe, will be responsible for bringing some very warm weather, some hot weather towards the end of next week. so, the short term, then — a few showers around western scotland, around the irish sea as well, but elsewhere, it's a case of clear spells or clear skies.

temperatures around 14 in london, but in rural spots of scotland, five degrees possible on friday morning, so a bit of a nip in the air there in the north. let's have a look at friday — a northwesterly breeze, scattered showers for scotland, the lake district, maybe the pennines, maybe one or two sneaking across the pennines, and getting into lincolnshire and hull, but south of that, it is predominantly bright or sunny. warm in london, 24 degrees. typically more around 20, so not all that hot — 17 in the north. for the commonwealth games in birmingham on friday, we're expecting highs of around 20 degrees with bright or sunny skies, so very pleasant weather overall. here's the weekend, and saturday, the weather fronts bringing those outbreaks of rain that we're forecasting for northwestern and northern scotland, so fresher here — 15. elsewhere, it's generally dry, turning very warm in the southeast, up to around 26 by the time we get to saturday. and those temperatures will continue to climb into sunday and monday and tuesday and wednesday as this high pressure builds

in off the atlantic, spreads right across the uk into scandinavia and many other parts of europe as well, and will draw in that hotter air, that really warm atmosphere from the southern climb. so, the confidence is increasing for that hot spell to arrive, at least from midweek onwards. let's have a look at those temperatures — in fact, quite conservative estimates here. the indication is that temperatures by the end of the week could actually approach low or the mid 30s in some parts of southern britain. bye— bye.

this is bbc news, the headlines: washington says the nine year sentence given to the american basketball player brittney griner in russia is "unacceptable". she was convicted of smuggling drugs after admitting to possessing cannabis oil. the us has urged russia to accept a deal for her release. the white house has condemned china's decision to launch live missiles as part of large scale military exercises around taiwan. china launched the operation after a visit to taiwan by the us house speaker nancy pelosi, which it saw as a challenge to its sovereignty claims over the island. the american conspiracy theorist and far right broadcaster alexjones has lost a defamation case over the sandy hook school shooting. he was ordered to pay more than four million dollars in damages to the parents of a child killed in the massacre, for falsely claiming it was a hoax.