live from washington. this is bbc news, welcome to viewers on pbs in america. ukraine denies it's behind any attack on moscow or president putin after footage emerges of drone strike on the kremlin. the us federal reserve raises rates once again, but could it be the last hike in a while? a teenager is arrested after eight children and a security guard are shot dead at an elementary school in belgrade. hello, i'm sumi somaskanda. first, news out of ukraine, with explosions heard in the capital of kyiv. our correspondent hugo bachega,

who was sheltering underground, when the air raid alert in the capital went off at around 02:20 am local time. the bbc team heard at least one loud explosion and the city's air defence has been activated. earlier today, ukraine says at least 21 were killed in an attack on kherson. missile strikes hit a market, a railway station, a petrol station and residential builings. it comes as ukraine's president zelensky denied that his country carried out an alleged drone attack on the kremlin. russia says it was an attempt on vladimir putin's life. this video, which appears to show the drone attack, remains unverified. our analysis editor ros atkins has been taking a closer look. russia claims ukraine try to kill vladimir putin in the early hours of wednesday. this is the first video we have. it's in moscow. we see an object fly in from the left and explode. now let's pause here. we know this is moscow

because this is red square. this is a recent picture of the same place with the kremlin wall in the background and stands for next year's victory parade. you can see those stands in the video too, meaning it is also recent, and if we play the video on and pause again, there is the object flying towards the dome of the senate palace, moments before it explodes we can see people on the dome. we don't know who they are or what they are doing. now russia says it was attacked by two unmanned aerial vehicles, in other words, drones. we can't confirm that, and if that is one video, here are three more. this is a map of russia, with moscow in the west, and all of these videos show this part of the city. here is the second. the bbc�*s verification team has confirmed it was posted at 315 moscow time on wednesday morning. we see the same dome with smoke rising from it. the words of the name of a local telegram channel that posted the video. this next video shows the senate

palace dome with fire clearly visible, and then this shows an object flying in from the right. again, we see an explosion. russia says all of this was a planned terrorist act and an assassination attempt on the president, but has provided no evidence to back that up. ukraine says it is all staged by russia. as foeradimir putin, the kremlin says he wasn't there at the time of the incident and these pictures from reuters on wednesday showed the dome looking undamaged. and while we try to work out what exactly it is these videos show, both sides say the other carried it out. the reaction in the west has been to urge caution on any russian claims. us secretary of state antony blinken said he would take anything the russia presidency said with a "very large shaker of salt", while the white house press secretary pointedly avoided inflammatory language. since the beginning of this conflict, the united states are certainly not encouraging, or enabling ukraine to strike beyond its borders. we have been very clear

from here about that but again i don't want to get into speculation from here about the authenticity of this report, so i'm just not going to speculate from here. earlier, i spoke to retired lieutenant general steff twitty, formerly the deputy commander of us european command, and now at the washington—based center for european policy analysis. what is your first impression of hearing of these explosions in kyiv? so a couple of things i would like to add to what the commentator just talked about. as you take a look at the video, you notice you do not see a large explosion, and that tells me that there was not a missile attached to this drone. normally if you're going to go after someone and execute an assassination, it's going to be a missile associated with that, like a hellfire missile to target that particular individual, and it is normally

going to have its eye going in a window, or not a window, a door or something of that nature. so in this case we didn't see that happen. in regards to the attacks on kyiv, one of the things we need to also think about is the ukrainians have said that they are going to do a counterattack, and russia started last week upping their missile attacks on kyiv itself, and i think as they continue to do this, this is the russians trying to throw or distract the ukrainians from their counter offensive, put their mind somewhere else, have them have to do other things instead of initiating this counter offensive. keep them busy, in other words. so what should ukraine be

doing, then, to prepare? well, i think they have done well over this past year, and they particularly have been resilient, with all these missiles attacking. what we need to do is continue to get the additional air defence systems in there, and the ukrainians have sounded that they are going to do this counteroffensive. my assessment is that they are probably not initiated this counteroffensive for a couple of reasons. number one, the weather, it is still raining there, so you've got muddy terrain and so forth. number two, they are still waiting for much of the ammunition that has been promised from the west, and also they have new recruits coming in, and much of the equipment still coming in. so i think, as these conditions start to mature, we will see the ukrainians conduct this offence, which will help with all the missiles and stuff falling on them, because they will be able to go in and attack much of these attacks that they are enduring right now.

general, you mentioned ukraine waiting for ammunition. we saw the us announcing it is sending ukraine another $300 million in weapons ahead of the spring offensive. if those weapons arrive, do you think the ukrainian forces will be able to push back russian fighters? well, the ukrainians have shown that they are capable of doing anything they put their minds to, you know? take a look at kyiv, take a look at what they have done in kherson, and what they are continuing to do in bakmut. the conditions they have asked for, the rate troops, they are capable of not only pushing the russians back across that 400 miles of disputed area, but they are also capable of taking crimea as well. the us federal reserve on wednesday raised interest rates to their highest level in 16 years. the fed lifted its

benchmark interest—rate by a quarter—of—one percentage point, pushing its overnight interest rate range to five to 5.25%. during the press conference, chairman jerome powell signalled that they might be ready to take a pause on rate hikes. the committee will take into account the cumulative tightening of monetary policy, the lags with which monetary policy affects economic activity and inflation and economic and financial developments. we will make that determination meeting by meeting. earlier, i spoke to jason furman. he's the former chairman of the white house council of ecnomic advisors. jason, thanks forjoining us. are these rate hikes actually working to stabilise the economy? i hope so, i think so, but we can't be sure, because we don't know what the counterfactual is. the good news is inflation expectations remain anchored. inflation isn't rising, and that's probably a lot better than what would have happened, if the fed hadn't taken these aggressive steps.

the bad news is that inflation, underlying inflation at least, when you subtract out food and energy, isn't really falling, so we haven't seen very much, if any, progress in underlying inflation, yet. that's whatjerome powell said, that inflation is still too high. this is the 10th hike in m months, and the fed did seem to signal that it might pause increases. would that be the right step? i have no idea,j powell has no idea, and the reason is that we need to see what's going to happen in the economy. you know, a year ago, it was clear that interest rates needed to be a lot higher, and so they were on a path to go up, no matter what the data said, they would still be on that upward path. right now, we don't know how tight credit will be as a result of the banking situation, we don't know the trajectory for unemployment, we don't know what's going to happen to inflation, and so the fed is, appropriately, ithink, saying, we are going to collect more information, make that decision and we're done

with telling you in advance what we are going to do, because we ourselves don't know in advance what we'll be going to do. what are the economic indicators you are looking at to know what should be done? obviously, the most important is inflation. that is ultimately what they are trying to bring down. the problem is that inflation is probably one of the most lagged indicators that there is. a lot of the inflation, i believe, it's emanating from the very tight labour market, so looking at the broad suite of things, you assess the tightness of the labour market, most importantly the unemployment rate, but also how many workers are quitting theirjobs, how manyjob openings, and then, finally, just how much work is the banking turmoil doing for the fed? how much of the fed's job is it doing, how much is credit actually contracting? so there has been, of course, some criticism of the fed raising rates again, and i want to tell you what elizabeth warren tweeted earlier today.

what do you think of some democrats calling for a stop to these rate hikes? first of all, i would say, by the way, most economists who are coming from the democratic side actually think that inflation is a problem, and have broadly been supportive of the rate hikes. a number of the different doves in the economic debates have been less dovish, and i think it's for good reason, because they understand that doing more now can be much less costly than letting the problem grow, letting inflation get entrenched, and then it is much harder to deal with in the future, and so i think doing too little today is what would risk millions and millions ofjobs. that's what the fed is trying to control, and i think they are doing a good job of it. but, again, these rate hikes have an effect

on households and businesses. absolutely, and i wish there was another way to bring inflation down, but there isn't. again, if we go a little more slowly, and take your time, inflation will rise, and it will be even harder and more costly to get it down. why do you want to get it down? it benefits the american economy. low and stable inflation for decades was good for workers and businesses, and it let the fed act really aggressively to combat the last couple of recessions. we'd like to get that back, paying the price now for it is a smaller price than the price we would have to pay if we did it later on. you mentioned the current banking situation, raising rates, while we seen three major banks that have failed. is that dangerous? i think these banks were real outliers, in terms

of their poor management and risk profile. they were the ones that, right after silicon valley bank had a problem, we knew about the problems at first republic and signature, so i think this is the end of this phase of the banking crisis. no—one knows for sure, but here's the thing — the fed has more than one tool — it can change interest rates but it also has a set of lending facilities, the fdic has programmes, and that's what they are and should continue to use, to contain any further issues in the banking system, while keeping their policy focus on an objective which is price stability. the aim is to avoid a recession. will we? i certainly hope so. i think the odds of a recession over the next year are 50—50, but they are much higher than they would normally be. great to have you on the show. thank you very much. eight children and a security

guard have been killed in a school shooting in the serbian capital belgrade. tonight, tributes have been laid for the victims of the shooting. in a televised address to the country, president aleksandar vucic described the attack as "the most difficult day in the modern history of our country". three days of national mourning have been declared. police arrested a 13—year—old boy and said he'd been planning the attack for a month with a list of the children he wanted to kill. bethany bell reports. a 13—year—old boy is led away by police. he's the main suspect in a mass shooting at one of the best state schools in belgrade. he came to school with two guns. he fired at the security guard and three girls standing in the hallway. translation: i was walking up the stairs and while i was - walking up i could hear a sound, and i thought it was maybe boys,

some kids throwing firecrackers and that they were having fun. but then i could hear it closer, and the sound was coming from in front of the school. and then i saw the security guard falling to the ground, so i quickly ran from where i was. i didn't want to go upstairs any more. i didn't know who was up there. he then walked into a history class where he shot the teacher before turning his weapon on his fellow students. police say the shooter planned the attack a month in advance and had drawn up a list of children to target. the 13—year—old has been put in a specialist psychiatric facility. he is alleged to have used two guns belonging to his father. both his parents have since been arrested. all day, people have come to pay their respects to those who were shot. there is a deep sense of shock and sadness here. this is normally a lively part of town, but the people who live here say it's never felt so quiet. they are struggling to understand how a day at school turned into a nightmare.

with candles and flowers, this city is mourning its dead. bethany bell, bbc news, belgrade. around the world and across the uk, this is bbc news. putting their skills to the test. it was all about accuracy for this weekend's hopefuls at vista in the discipline called auto solo. auto solos can be done in a road car. it's something you can do on tarmac or grass and it's car control. driving around the course with cones, different challenges against the clock, against competitors. 12 drivers took part in the event at vista heritage, the prize? two places up for grabs to race all season for free.

motorsport uk moved to 0xfordshire in 2020 and is hoping events like this can show how accessible driving can be. great to see that there's this stuff going on for disabled people, getting people out, getting people involved and showing them they can get back into competitive sports. you're live with bbc news. the un secretary—general has called on the warring factions in sudan to stop the fighting, before the conflict escalates into an all out war. the comments come as the final flight, carrying british nationals wanting to escape the fighting in sudan, took off, ahead of a new seven—day ceasefire between warring military factions. more than 100,000 people have fled to neighbouring countries.

the fighting needs to stop and to stop now stop aid must be allowed in and we need secured an immediate access to give help to people who most. there's new reason for hope in the battle against alzheimer's. after major clinical trials, an experimental drug called donanemab has been shown to slow down the progress of the disease significantly. and that could have global implications. the world health organization estimates that more than 55 million people are living with dementia, the most common form of which is alzheimer's. that figure which is expected to rise to 78 million by 2030. and it will spike to 139 million, two decades after that. the alzheimer's association in the us says more than 6 million americans are currently living with the disease. our medical editor fergus walsh has been looking into the new drug, and has more.

like this is like a highly significant moment. there are now two antibody drugs which can slow early stage alzheimer's disease. the drug is called donanemab and it's given is a monthly infusion. it works by clearing a rogue protein called amyloid which builds up in sticky clumps in the brains of alzheimer's patients. in a trial, it slowed cognitive decline by around 35% over 18 months in a group of nearly 1200 patients with early—stage alzheimer's. the best results seen in trials so far but there were some serious side effect. these two volunteers died as a result of brain swelling. in november, another antibody treatment was the first drug ever to show it could use slow the progress of alzheimer's disease. dementia

researchers say we are now entering a new era where alzheimer's is treatable. we really are — alzheimer's is treatable. - really are seeing a revolutionary point in how we treat our sinus disease so we have the full results, the regulators need to make quick decisions so patients that could benefit from these treatments are able to benefit. we don't know how much it will cost but luck and over £20,000 per year per patient wrote is already licensed. dementia specialists say we will need a complete overhaul of services including access to specialist brain scans if patients here are to benefit from these new drugs. police in the us state of georgia say they've arrested a suspect in connection with a shooting at a medical facility in atlanta on wednesday. 24—year old deion patterson is in custody after five people — all of them women — were shot inside a hospital waiting room. one of the victims has died. brazilian police raided former president, jair bolsanoro's

home on wednesday morning, as part of an investigation into his covid vaccination records. police suspect his vaccine information was falsified to gain entry into the us. three of mr bolsonaro's assistants have been arrested and his phone has been seized. the ex—president denies any involvement and says he has �*nothing to hide.�* preparatiopns by the government and the people are under way for the coronation of king charles this saturday in london. but not all royals are made equal. in the run—up to the festivities, bbc special us correspondent katty kay has been meeting with royal families of other nations to see what lessons they might have for britain's new king. it's all a part of her new documentary �*europe's royals revealed.”' i spoke to here ahead of the release. katty, it is great to see you. for your new documentary, you had the enviable job of going to meet... someone had to do it. ..of going to meet europe's other royal families and seeing how they live including norway, you had an exclusive interview with princess martha louise. tell us about her story. she is a fascinating and quite controversial woman. she is actually the oldest child of king harald and queen sonia and she should have been queen by rights

but norway's succession laws weren't changed until she was a teenager so her younger brother will inherit the throne. she was is kind of what in royal language they call the "spare", which is how prince harry refers to himself and she had string of other controversial businesses, she had a school where she taught people to talk to angels, and she describes herself as a clairvoyant. she has a boyfriend who is a spiritual guru, he's a shaman, shaman durek, and all of this has been, in the norwegian press, pretty controversial. it's not the kind of things royals are expected to do. so i was really interested to talk to her to find out how the norwegian royal family has handled her doing things kind of differently. here's what she said. there have been comparisons with prince harry and meghan. my fiance, shaman durek, and the norwegian people, i guess, and everybody has decided that it is best

for me to step down because of his views about things. but what i think has been amazing through this whole cycle has been the conversations we've all had through it all. from a very young age, i remember my mum and dad, the king and queen, saying that we have to stick together, we have to talk things through, even if it's hard. we have to put all the cards on the table, we have to, because we are family and we have to work things through, through all the turmoil, because there has been so many turmoils with me, going, taking a different path than being a traditional royal. this will run ahead of the coronation of king charles. if you were suddenly to send him wishes for his reign, and everybody of course is looking to the queen, who is so well—known and loved. i remember my grandfather, king olaf, he was such a loved king. my father feared going into that role after him, because how could

he fill those shoes? and i think that's the whole point, you don't fill his shoes. so king charles will be different from queen elizabeth? absolutely, you can't copy somebody else. katty, i really did notice that when she talked about taking a different path and being a different royal, it does remind me of harry and meghan. so tell us about how her family has handled all of this publicly? she describes herself as somebody has done things out of the box and, in a way, prince harry does as well. and look, some of the things she's done have caused controversy in norway, because there have been suggestions of conflict of interest. was she using her royal title to make money from her businesses? and the norwegians didn't really like that. i think the big difference is that it hasn't caused a rift in the family.

as she said, they sat down and spoke about it and i wanted to kind of check out her story, �*cause i didn't want to think it was just her telling of this, and i spoke to the royal correspondent for a big tabloid magazine in norway who has been pretty critical of some of the things martha louise has done but said exactly the same things, the family loves each other and they come out of this much stronger, had these conversations and been honest with each other and there is a clear affection between all of the members of the family, so even though martha louise has been, sort of, in a way, the troublesome royal, the troublesome royal child who hasn't fit into the box, done things differently, the family has not been torn apart by it. i guess that's the big difference between the house of windsor and the royal house of norway and when the house of norway says, "we love each other," the norwegian population believes them. katty�*s documentary europe's royals revealed is available on bbc select here in the us and canada, which is distributed on amazon prime video, apple tv, and the roku channel. viewers in the uk can

find it on bbc iplayer. hello there. many of us had some beautiful late spring sunshine on wednesday. in fact, in bournemouth, there was just over 13 hours of sunshine, a glorious day. but top temperature, well, that was in south wales, in gwynedd, just shy of 20 celsius, and it felt very pleasant indeed. now it's not out of the question that we could see 20 celsius on thursday, but the weather story is certainly on the change with low pressure starting to move in from the southwest. so as we go through the day on thursday, it's a tale of three halves, really — we've got cloud driving in off the north sea, affecting eastern england and northeast scotland.

we've got rain pushing into the southwest — and sandwiched in between the two, that's where the best of the sunshine is likely to be, and that's where we'll see the best of the warmth. the breeze still coming from an east direction, so with exposure, that's just going to add a slight edge to things. a little more shelter, it'll feel pleasant enough with highs of 19—20 celsius perhaps in the southeast. now, as we move out of thursday into friday, that weatherfront will continue to push its way steadily north. it'll bring outbreaks of rain as it does so, and then, following on behind, plenty of showers to come. so on friday, we'll see a spell of more persistent rain moving out of northeast england, into scotland. sunny spells and scattered showers tucking in behind. some of those showers could be heavy, slow—moving, with the odd rumble of thunder. now, not everybody will see the showers, but because the winds are slightly lighter coming from a southwesterly direction, maybe those showers might hang around for a little bit longer. still a cool easterly, making it feel fresher in scotland, but highs likely of 18 celsius by friday afternoon. sunny spells and scattered showers tucking in behind. some of those showers could be heavy, slow—moving,

with the odd rumble of thunder. now, not everybody will see the showers, but because the winds are slightly lighter coming from a southwesterly direction, maybe those showers might hang around for a little bit longer. still a cool easterly, making it feel fresher in scotland, but highs likely of 18 celsius by friday afternoon. now, as we move into the start of the weekend, that southwesterly wind will drive that milder air further north for all of us. and the wider picture throughout the bank. holiday weekend — saturday will be the wettest of the days, sunday and monday, sunny spells and scattered showers. some of them on monday could be quite heavy.

voice-over: this is bbc news. we'll have the headlines and all the main news stories for you at the top of the hour, straight after this programme. welcome to hardtalk, i'm sarah montague. it's more than 60 years since the dalai lama fled to bit and set up a government in exile, hopeful of one day going back. since then china has banned any mention of the spiritual leader in his

homeland, and there are