live from washington. this is bbc news is a deal on the us debt limit close? president biden believes it might be. things are looking good. i'm very optimistic. i hope you will have some clear evidence tonight. the shooting of an 11—year—old boy in mississippi raises new questions over police practices. a—derrien murry had actually called officers for help, only to be shot himself. and coming up — our analysis editor ros atkins looks at how yevgeny prigozhin rose from hot dog salesman — to become the boss of russia's wagner mercenary group.

hello. we begin right here in washington d.c. where democrats and republicans are scrambling to close a deal on raising the federal debt limit. there is still no deal in place but as many lawmakers leave for a holiday weekend — president biden hints a deal might be not be too far away. with regard to the debt limit, things are looking good. we are very optimistic and i hope we will have some clear evidence tonight. before the clock strikes i2 tonight. before the clock strikes 12 that we have a deal. but we are very close and i am not optimistic. ——iam —— i am optimistic. meanwhile, republican negotiators have signaled a deal is within reach but not yet agreed upon. adding to the optimism, it appears congress has been given a bit more breathing room. in just the last few hours, us treasury secretary janet yellen sending this letter to congressional leaders, she now says the us has until

june 5th to avoid a default. she had previously said june 1st. if republicans and the white house fail to reach a comprimise, the world's largest economy could possibly default on its debt — triggering financial chaos. staying in the us, and the state of mississippi, where an officer has been suspended after shooting an 11—year—old boy while responding to a domestic disturbance. the boy's mother says police arrived to the home in reponse to a domestic disturbance call placed by the child. he was then shot in the chest. the child has since been released from a local hospital. the bbc�*sjess parker has been following that story. according to the family, he was told by his mother to call 911 after next partner of hers had shown up at the house was acting in an irate fashion. police came to the property and the family said an officer

called on everyone to leave the house and as he moved through the property and that's when he was shot in chest. but the family say is that while the 11—year—old boy is back at home, he suffered from a lacerated liver, fractured ribs and a collapsed lung. the officer in question has been put on leave but the family are really saying they want answers, particularly for the release of body cam footage. the police department are not commenting but the mississippi bureau of investigations is looking into the matter and saying they will handle their findings over to the state's attorney general. russia's bombardment of ukraine has become an all—too—regular occurrance, with increasingly deadly results. this is a medical clinic in the central city of dnipro — on fire after it was hit by a missile. at least two people died. president zelensky described the attack as "another crime against humanity" and said russia had "chosen the path of evil of its own will." other cities, including kharkiv and the capital kyiv, were also targetted. our ukraine correspondentjames waterhouse has travelled to dnipro and sent this report.

sirens wail another difficult day for ukrainian cities. this time, it's dnipro with the most acute of impacts. a psychiatric clinic on the receiving end of a ballistic missile. after a brief reprieve, russia has resumed its tactic of targeting civilian areas. this is the residual threat that people have to live with — the idea that something like this could happen at any point, in any city. the authorities are sadly well practised in dealing with the consequences of russia's tactics. it's almost a dignified efficiency. these are the signature signs of a ballistic missile. people say the explosion happened before the sirens could react. they're harder to

detect and shoot down. the blast area is always vast. we meet yulia, in a queue for aid. she shows me the moment her window shattered from the force. translation: this is war. it's not our fault. calm and peaceful civilians suffer every day, mentally. children suffer. well, it's hard. it's just difficult. we're not even in bakhmut. we're far away. nevertheless, we get hit regularly. ukraine has spent another night under russian drones and missiles. almost 50 were shot down, we're told. translation: the thing is, russia's now irritated - - especially in recent days, when our air defence is becoming more powerful — and when they become irritated, they send their missiles everywhere. there is a methodical ferociousness to this clean—up. dnipro is, after all, trying to avoid russia's grasp, but moscow has a long reach. james waterhouse,

bbc news, dnipro. throughout the war in ukraine — we've heard a lot about russia's wagner group — led by this man — yevgeny prigozhin. our analysis editor ros atkins takes a looks at how he rose from hot dog salesman — to become the boss of the mercenary group. this is the story of a man who spent the 80s in prison. the 90s running restaurants, the early 2000s catering for world leaders. and who is now central to putin's war in ukraine. he is yevgeny prigozhin, a wealthy russian businessman who is been accused of the fbi have interfering with the 2016 us election and a man

with a private army called the wagner group which operates in ukraine because months after the war started, putin turned to prigozhin. the army wasn't doing th job. that is why prigozhin has been asked to step in. the wagner group has been fighting in the fiercest battles, including the one in bakhmut and is lost many men. and has lost many men. this is prigozhin laying flowers despite his grave earlier this year and around 10,000 wagner group fighters have died in ukraine since december and the majority of those men were russian convicts. here is prigozhin at a prison last september telling these men that their sentences will be quashed if they fight for the wagner group. many went to war and the death toll is spiralled, prigozhin�*s relationship with the defence ministry has deteriorated. he has posted furious rants on telegram and in early may,

surrounded by corpses of his fighters, he took aim again. russia's defence minister, the head of the armed forces and prigozhin has a reputation for this kind of furious outbursts. and also for brutality. for example, this was his reaction when, in november, the wagner defector was allegedly killed with a sledgehammer. he said a dog meets a dog's death. he did not condemn it. he began to use the image of a sledgehammer. this is not new. he was sent to prison for robbery and theft and when released in 1990, he became a hotdog salesman in st petersburg.

but by 1997, he was running a top restaurant and began winning lucrative catering contracts. these connections put into the very top. prigozhin catered for state visits and world leaders, including us president george w bush in 2006. and putin being shown around prigozhin�*s school lunch factory in 2010 and being served by him a year later. yevgeny prigozhin�*s role would become about far more than food. you have his shift from hot dog salesman, to restauranteur, massive contracts and he then moved closer to the armed forces. that point was reached in 2014, russia invaded and annexed the crimean peninsula and caused an insurgency to happen in eastern ukraine. and prigozhin was involved. he told us as much last year saying that prior to, prigozhin always avoided connection with wagner group.

what started in ukraine soon reached far beyond it. these are fighters in syria supporting pro—government these are wagner fighters in syria supporting pro—government forces as russia's military was doing too and also reports of wagner activity in africa. and its activities are varied. wagner have all kinds - of activities that they engage weapons provision, training, natural resource extraction. i this is all highly lucrative. medical reports that...

topico reports that... and these are activities not just lucrative, they are they threaten stability, good governance they threaten stability, good governance they rob countries of mineral wealth, they violate human rights. and they connected this to prigozhin. we have seen campaigns that are furthering the exploitation are furthering the exploitative goals that wagner and its founder have quite literally crossed the continent of africa. these campaigns are possible because prigozhin has an online operation too. it is best known for meddling in the 2016 us presidential election. hundreds of young people who are acting as trolls, l taking on fake personas -

and going onto the internet and influencing the election process, particularly- in the united states and - prigozhin has admitted this. and one crucial question in all of this is if there is any dividing line at all between prigozhin and the russian state. in 2020, a joint investigation concluded that the disinformation, political interference in military operations are tightly integrated with russia's defence ministry and its intelligence arm. there are other documentaries between wagner and russian intelligence. multiple reports show that they shared a base in southern russia. vladimir putin has never addressed the connection between wagner and the russian state but we know that prigozhin�*s operations around the world allow putin to exert influence at arms length. the key to his operations was plausible deniability. any russians who were involved in the fighting in those countries were described efficiently by the kremlin as volunteers. while in fact, a lot of people, a lot of experts believed

that they were actually linked to prigozhin. for now, the war in ukraine goes on, as does prigozhin and wagner's involvement in it. as do prigozhin�*s videos. this one says the withdrawal from bakhmut has begun. he questions with russia's invasion has achieved and says it has backfired. if most russians talk like this, they can expect a visit from the authorities. it is unclear why prigozhin is allowed to get away but some experts say that infighting in the elite is not necessarily a bad thing for vladimir putin because it allows him to project this image of a benevolent tsar who is above the chaos. and so, prigozhin continues, leaving his fighters, making millions saying what he thinks. though, as we have seen many times, vladimir putin's attitude towards other powerful russians can be a temporary state of affairs. around the world

and across the uk. this is bbc news. grace spoke to me just moments before serving her customers for the last time. she had to shut another venue last year, and now it's time for her to close this one. it's a really, really emotional day. the restaurant's been open forfour and a half years, but i've been running spice box as a street food business before that. so it's about seven years of hard work. and yeah, it's sad. as food and utility prices rose and customer numbers fell, it became too difficult to stay open. people are struggling and there's less money to go around. and obviously eating out is a luxury. but grace's story reflects many others in the capital, particularly in central london, where more than 500 venues have closed in the last three years. back in walthamstow, grace will now be selling her food to shops one way to keep her brand alive at

a time when it wasn't possible to keep her restaurants open. you're live with bbc news. let's take a look some of the headlines from the uk the presenter phillip schofield has resigned from itv and admitted that he lied about a relationship he had with a younger male colleague at this morning. he said his departure from the show last week was not related to the affair, and described the relationship as "unwise, but not illegal". and british cycling is to ban transgender women from taking part in female elite events — following a nine month review. transgender women will now compete with men, in what will be known as an open category staying in the uk — and to a maternity unit in kent. a new mother left in blood—stained sheets for three days — health staff who failed to wash their hands after each patient — and life—saving equipment not in the right place — all features of a unit which inspectors found so poor

it was almost shut down. officials visited the william harvey hospital in ashford injanuary after a damning report — which found at least 45 babies might have survived with better care from the east kent hospitals trust. its chief executive has apologised. our social affairs correspondent michael buchanan has this special report. the errors kept coming. our son harry died because of a number of serious and preventable failures. years of harm... some days, do i want to go out and face the big, wide world? at least 45 babies who may have survived. no one spotted - what was going on. they could have saved them. and yet care has not improved. sweetheart! ambrose chapman is healthy and happy, but his mother, philippa, will never forget his birth. should we put you back and then you can go forward? labour wasn't progressing well, so exhausted and in pain, philippa asked for an epidural

but was told the clinicians were too busy to help her. at this point, they said as well as his head swelling, he was getting distressed. they said, well, what we have to do is wait until either your life is in danger or his life is in danger before we can bump you up the queue, which was terrifying to hear. after two hours of worrying, staff at the william harvey hospital safely delivered ambrose by forceps and episiotomy. but he soon developed jaundice, necessitating a hospital stay. three days of which philippa spent in the same place sheets she'd given birth on. the cleaner had come round to mop the floor and had heard me previously asking for clean sheets, and had seen the midwife run off and not come back. she said had they not changed your sheets yet? she said i've had enough of this and she went and got a midwife, said to the midwife, she is still in dirty sheets. she's changing her baby on bloody sheets. get her a clean bed.

too many families are having a poor experience in east kent, according to the care quality commission. inspectors found multiple examples of inadequate practices, staff routinely in some areas didn't wash their hands after treating patients. life—saving equipment wasn't in the right areas, posing a high risk of delay and emergency treatment, and staff didn't have the skills or experience to keep women safe. we have learned that inspectors were so concerned about the quality of care that they wrote to nhs england, asking them to draw up contingency plans in case they had to close inpatient maternity facilities, a highly unusual move and insight into the gravity of their concerns. i know that i am definitely not the only one who's taking antidepressants whilst on the midwifery course. this woman spent a year in 2020 working as a student midwife in the william harvey hospital. she says she often ended shifts in tears, felt wholly unsupported and began suffering from anxiety before quitting midwifery.

if people are being rude about other people behind their back, you are not going to work well as a team. and that's when things happen and things go wrong. the trust say they have hired more staff and changed some working practices. we fully accept what cqc had recommended that we do. they called for immediate action, and we have responded to that, and they seem satisfied with what we've done. but that still leaves an awful lot of other things to do. ambrose recently celebrated his first birthday, but his parents fear having another baby certainly in east kent, other women have apparently already started avoiding the trust. michael buchanan, bbc news, kent. turks will go back to the polls on sunday. in a presidential election run—off between their long—time authoritarian leader — recep tayyip erdogan and his main rival, the secular opposition leader kemal kilic—daroglu. the president held a lead in the first round of voting.

both candidates chasing support from nationalist voters. from istanbul our senior international correspondent orla guerin reports. "one nation... ..one flag... ..one motherland," they chant. take a look at the fervent support for turkey's strongman leader. recep tayyip erdogan is facing into sunday's second round in a commanding position. at this cab drivers�* convention in istanbul, they couldn't get enough of him. we meet kasim, a fan of the president's nationalist message and track record in office. "what our president did in 21 years would take others a hundred years," he says. "that is why we support him. may god keep him from harm."

"erdogan is everything to me," says aisha. "we couldn't get to hospitals before. now we can get around easily. we have transportation, we have everything." and what of the president's rival, kemal kilicdaroglu? from him now, less talk of hope and a much harder tone. "i declare," he says, "as soon as i come to power, i will send all refugees home." that includes more than 3 million syrians. it is a campaign pledge that goes down well here. whoever is turkey's next president, nationalism is already a winner in this election. in kasimpasa, few doubt the outcome. president erdogan grew up on the streets of this working class neighbourhood. at the corner shop opposite his old home, this woman tells

us he brought freedom for religious conservatives like her. translation: there are police, teachers and civil servants - in headscarves now. god bless brother tayyip. we have hot running water and gas in our homes. there has been a great improvement. but for others there has been just the opposite. these are students from the lgbtq+ community. they are already banned from holding pride marches and fear worse to come. when you think about maybe five more years of president erdogan in charge in turkey, what is your gut feeling? scared, i'm scared. we will still do something and we will still fight but i don't know how hard

they will attack this time. because over these two or three years, our hopes were like, yes, he will go after these elections, we can still, we still have a chance. but if he still wins, they will attack us more, they will take our rights more. they will ban many more things. so what is ahead here if president erdogan wins on sunday, as looks likely? supporters say more development and a stronger turkey. critics say more repression and a darker future. orla guerin, bbc news, istanbul. to venezuela now where social media is proving to be both a liability and an asset in a country where critics of the state are often silenced. venezuelan citizens are being paid by the government to tweet propaganda in an effort

to �*control the narrative' online. bbc trending's reha kan—sara has spoken to a twitter user who's been sharing propaganda to supplement his income and has more. there's a reason why we're not showing you who this man is, who's being paid by the government to tweet, and that's because we've anonymised him over concerns for his safety. so for this purpose, we're calling him rafael. the pro—government content he is sharing is made up of hashtags, which each day is promoted by the venezuelan ministry of communications before it's amplified by paid propagandists like rafael and loyal supporters of the government. now, this is one hashtag that we've been closely monitoring, and it's from the ministry of communications twitter page from earlier this year. it's in spanish and it says, "second hashtag of the day. # we are social intelligence." now, this one in particular was a response from the government after claims that the government used videos created using artificial intelligence to spread propaganda. but what purpose do hashtags like this really serve? well, if the venezuelan

government can get a hashtag trending, it can drown out the noise of its critics online. and what better way to do that than by financially incentivising people to tweet on behalf of it? now, rafael provided us with evidence of payments he's received through a government app called sistema patria, which gives venezuelans access to things like benefits, state pensions and public salaries. now, this gives you a flavour of how he's receiving payments in the app. as you can see, they're referred to as social media mention awards. and one payment he received was for 39 venezuelan bolivars, which isjust under two us dollars, and varying other payments. as you can see, the more you tweet, the more you make. now, we asked the venezuelan government why they are paying people to tweet online propaganda, but they did not respond.

stay with us here on bbc news hello. friday was another fine and dry day for the vast majority, with high pressure dominating our weather picture. there was lots of sunshine around. just a little bit of this fell with a cloud popping up for a time, like here in chorley, lancashire. it was across the other side of the hills that we had today's highest temperature. bainbridge in north yorkshire, popping up to 23 degrees celsius friday afternoon. that's seven degrees above the may average. so pleasant in the sun. and you can see on the satellite picture just how sunny it was just a little bit of cloud across northern england, a bit for northern ireland, a bit for northern scotland. but looking out in the atlantic, we've got a weather front that's set to bring some much thicker cloud in over the next few hours. so, cloudy over across north western areas of the uk,

an odd spit of rain by dawn. otherwise, it's dry with clear skies and temperatures about 6 to eight degrees celsius. if you're heading outside first thing in the morning, saturday morning, yes, you might need a layer or two will be a little on the cool side. saturday's forecast then, high pressure staying put for most of us. but this week, weather fronts working into that area of high pressure. and so for scotland, we see the cloud thicken a little bit of light, patchy rain, followed by sunshine and showers. in the afternoon. it will turn cooler temperatures about 11 to 13 across the far north of scotland. for northern ireland, england and wales, plenty of dry weather and sunshine and it's going to feel warm, high teens to low 20s widely, but peaking at around 23 across the spine of the country through parts of northern england, the midlands and central southern england. southern and eastern scotland should be pleasant enough, as well.

still holding on to a bit of sunshine here on sunday. high pressure is still with us, but it's probably going to be a little bit more in the way of cloud developing for a time. i think sunny spells, though, coming through that. temperatures just easing down for scotland, northern ireland, northern england. so, mid—to—high teens here, the warmest weather towards the south west where we could see around 23 degrees again. but wherever the may sunshine comes out, i think it's going to feel ok. and it's a similar picture really for bank holiday monday itself. a bit more of a wind blowing for east anglia and south east england. that could make it feel a little on the cool side first thing in the morning. but once we've got that sunshine coming through again, it should feel ok and temperatures are going to start to rise in scotland. 21 in glasgow could be one of the warmest places in the country, but turning a bit cooler down the eastern side of england. beyond that, deeper into next week, it's sunny and it's set to get warmerfor some temperatures could reach the mid twenties. bye for now.

this is bbc news. we will have the headlines and all the main news stories at the top of the hour straight after this program. this week on the travel show... ..it�*s a right royal affair in sweden... it's one of the best escorts we do. everyone is out riding through masses of happy people. ..i'm searching street food stalls for breakfast, filipino style... it looks like a mackerel. oh, yes. you're going to walk slow. ..and i get to sashay away with the golden gays of manila. ifeel like i've got a lot of make—up on. you look like a star.