the headlines... tens of thousands of ukrainians are forced to abandon their homes, as floods caused by the destruction of a russian—occupied dam continue to spread. rescue teams are trying to help people. you to help people. can see how they would be trapped. the water is cloudy. kherson, after everything it's gone through, is a city on its knees. prince harry takes to the stand again in his privacy case against mirror group newspapers. he tells the court he's suing to stop the hate towards his wife, meghan. wildfires in canada leave tens of millions of people living under orange skies, as air quality drops to hazardous levels. live from our studio in singapore. this is bbc news. it's newsday.

hi there, thank you for being with us. the authorities in ukraine say more than 42,000 people are at risk from flooding, after the collapse of a major dam in the south of the country on tuesday. president putin has said ukraine was behind the breach, which he called "a barbaric act". while kyiv and moscow blame each other, once again, it's civilians paying a heavy price for russia's war. this is the scene in the city of kherson — entire houses and streets submerged underwater. some people waiting to be rescued in affected areas have been forced to spend the night on their roofs, or in trees as the waters rose. the dam supplies water to large tracts of agricultural land, including in crimea. and the reservoir behind it provides water to cool the zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant further upriver. both areas are under

russian control. the united nations says the dam collapse will have "grave and far—reaching consequences". 0ur ukraine correspondent james waterhouse is in the city of kherson, about 60 kilometres, or37 miles from the dam — from where he sent this report. this eastern bank of the dnipro river is currently a no—man�*s—land. neither russia nor ukraine control here. now, no—one can live here. the ukrainian army drone spotted catalina trapped in her home. they tried to drop her water — no luck. her son then makes the crucial catch. they're both taken to kherson, along with her daughter, maria. a city once occupied by russia, then liberated by ukraine, now on its knees. translation: we managed to find the simplest boat, i but my father and a neighbour got carried away in it. it came loose, and the current

was too powerful yesterday. rowing didn't help. so we were left with my kids, the three of us, for the night. it feels like we lived a whole life in one day. 0therwise, we're very grateful to everyone. this once innocuous road, now a slipway rescue boats. as people are brought to safety from submerged streets, the relief is palpable. to move through the streets now, you need one of these. the silence reflects just how uninhabitable pockets of the city have become. that sign would normally be at head height. the trunks of those trees are completely submerged. rescue teams are trying to help people, and you can see how they'd be trapped. the water is cloudy. kherson, after everything it's gone through, is a city on its knees. shelling is a common occurrence in kherson. the russians might have left, but they're never far.

it takes a lot for locals to be forced to leave here — but, for a growing number, that moment has come. president zelensky has criticised the international response to what's happened, accusing the un and red cross of not being here. in two days, kherson has partly been submerged by the dnipro river. the flooding is more extreme on the eastern bank — part of ukraine, but controlled by the russians. there is a military dynamic to the kakhovka dam's destruction — it makes any ukrainian offensive from here more complicated. as for those living here, it's gone from difficult to the verge of impossible. james waterhouse, bbc news, kherson. ukraine's president zelensky said that international aid groups must take immediate action to tackle the aftermath of the dam destruction. translation: dozens of towns and villages l in territories controlled by ukraine were flooded.

thousands of houses. evacuation is under way, and we are doing it under shelling. russian artillery continues to fire no matter what. they're not behaving like humans. however, for the time being, more than 2,000 people have been rescued in the kherson and mykolaiv regions. earlier this week, there were reports of ukrainian attacks in the area west of donetsk. around zaporizhizhia, while the russians control huge areas of the region, the ukrainians are still in control of the city. 0ur correspondent quentin sommerville is there and sent this update about ukraine's cou nteroffe nsive. i've been to those very front lines where there's an offensive going on right now, and it's difficult ground to attack across. it is wide open fields with very little cover, and those fields are peppered with russian artillery craters. when we were there a few months ago, the men we were speaking

to in the trenches told us the lines had only moved perhaps ten, or maybe a few hundred metres — well, they're certainly moving now. we're getting reports ukrainian forces have gained five kilometres, perhaps even ten of territory. it's not just of the fact that they're moving, it's how they're moving, which us an indication of how the main offensive will go. they're using armoured vehicles, using tanks, and moving fast. they're attacking multiple different axes. but they're facing a very formidable foe, because the enemy on the other side of the line has been there for a long time, and has dug in and built formidable defences. they have plenty of artillery and anti—tank missiles, as well. so that much—anticipated main offensive is coming, and the ukrainian commanders will be looking at the lessons of these early offensives — but let's not forget, huw, just the other week, president zelensky said that ukraine was ready for this counteroffensive but he warned that in the coming days

and weeks and months, many lives would be lost. the ukrainian soldiers we've spoken to have a solemn understanding of that. they realise there's a lot riding on this counteroffensive, perhaps everything. the uk prime minister rishi sunak says that the uk military and security services have yet to establish who was responsible for the damage to the dam in ukraine, but he told the bbc that that if russia was to blame, it "would fit with a pattern of behaviour" of deliberately targeting civilian infrastructure. the prime minister is in washington to meet president biden and other leaders. earlier, i spoke to our north america correspondent jessica parker — i asked her what rishi sunak had been up to. yeah, an enormous amount on the agenda — a bit of a potpourri of topics, really, for rishi sunak. as you say, because of what's happened in ukraine, that breaking news of what's happened with the dam, obviously that has, to some

extent, overshadowed the visit. and i think forjoe biden and rishi sunak, who politically both are seen as people who have really leaned into supporting ukraine — that's a position that rishi sunak, of course, inherited from his predecessors, joe biden�*s been keen to push that, as well — they will want to send a message of solidarity, because there are voices in the us who are more sceptical about sending support to ukraine. and of course, a lot of people looking ahead to the presidential race next year, and there are republican candidates, people like ron desantis who's called it a "territorial dispute", russia's invasion of ukraine. donald trump, the front—runner for the republican nomination, wouldn't say who he actually wanted to win the war. so i think rishi sunak and joe biden are keen to send that message of solidarity. and then, outside of ukraine, as well, as you say, discussing topics such as artificial intelligence — and rishi sunak announcing while he's here, that he's set to hold the first global summit, or so he says, on artificial intelligence.

yeah, that's an interesting one, isn't it? also, trade on the agenda — inflation reduction act proposed by president biden. that's quite a sensitive topic for rishi sunak, isn't it? i think it's a sensitive topic in a sense for quite a lot of countries — certainly the eu looked at the inflation reduction act, which of course is about partly incentivising investment in green technologies, and were worried about the way in which that might affect competition. so i think a lot of countries — whether it's the european union and the 27 member states there, or the united kingdom, that's obviously left the eu — slightly looking over their shoulders there and wondering what more they need to do in order to not be caught out, in a sense, and left behind. so he'll certainly want to talk about that. and i think it's quite interesting just to pick up on the artificial intelligence point — obviously britain is going through this phase where it's trying to position itself, following brexit, as a global player, and rishi sunak really insisting that the uk can

lead that conversation. but i do note that the us and the eu recently held their fourth trade and technology council in sweden, where they discussed none other than artificial intelligence — the risks and the potential benefits, as well. so i think there may be britain trying to muscle in a little bit on that conversation. but i understand it's not just all about work — rishi sunak will have some fun as well tonight, talk us through his schedule. yes, so he's off to a washington nationals game, a baseball game — i've been to one of those myself here. has declined to throw the first pitch, as we understand it, obviously didn't want to do that for whatever reason — maybe he thought it was a photo opportunity that he didn't want to have. and then tomorrow, he will have his official meeting with the president, joe biden. he's been meeting with congressional leaders today. so a two—day visit, and really the big discussion tomorrow with the president of the united states. they've met before as leaders, but this is actually sunak�*s first visit, i think, as prime minister to washington, dc for this kind of visit.

and he's even staying at the president's special guest house, which hasn't happened, i believe, since david cameron was prime minister. so he'll be pleased about that. jessica parker, in washington for us. prince harry has finished giving evidence at the high court in london, as part of his privacy case against the publisher of the daily mirror. he says he took the case to stop "hate" towards his wife, meghan. the mirror denies using unlawful methods and says the stories about harry were obtained using legitimate sources. harry has alleged he was unlawfully targeted during a 15—year period that began when he was a child. our culture editor katie razzall was in court. the interest in this story shows no sign of waning. for a second day, the world's media gathered in a cul—de—sac in central london, waiting for the high court's star witness. prince harry arrived here for another bout of cross—examination. the mirror group is determined

to show he is wrong to claim that articles about him were based on unlawful information gathering. mgn's barrister told him there was not a single item of hard evidence in these articles to show phone hacking and that prince harry's claims were pure speculation. the prince says this one, about a secret dinner he had with the late tv presenter caroline flack at a close friend's house, was based on phone hacking as he and his friend had left voicemails for each other. mgn says it came from a photo agency. this one, about his then girlfriend chelsy davy�*s fury at his visit to a lap dancing club, was also based on hacking, prince harry says. mgn says it was in other papers the day before. and when he split from chelsy, there was this headline. prince harry told the court he was likely to have exchanged voicemails about the difficulties in their relationship and said, "i now find this very suspicious." mgn says the story was in the news of the world before. prince harry blames the tabloids for his break—up with miss davy. today, he told the court he had once found a tracking device

on her car, put there, he claims, by a private investigator. "for my whole life," he said, "the press have misled me and covered up the wrongdoing." andrew green for mirror group asked him... prince harry said... andrew green continued... prince harry responded... today we saw a more confident prince harry, making his points more forcefully though at the end of his evidence, his barrister asked him the toll going through it all had taken. the prince appeared to fight back tears. "it's a lot," he said in a cracked voice. he stayed in court to hear jane kerr, a former mirror royal reporter who the court has insisted must give evidence. her byline appears on almost a third of the articles about prince harry being

examined by the court. she commissioned private investigators to help with stories but she said she had never asked anybody to do anything unlawful. prince harry spent around eight hours in the witness box. he will be leaving here probably feeling relieved, having kept his cool and focus in the face of some tough questioning. there will be relief also from his estranged family. with weeks of other evidence still to come, it could be many months before thejudge makes his decision. katie razzall, bbc news. let's take a look at a few stories making headlines in the uk. west ham fans are celebrating after winning the europa conference league final. they beat fiorentina 2—1 in prague. it's west ham's first major trophy since 1980. earlier, czech police detained 16 people after west ham fans were attacked in a bar in the old town area of the city. three people were injured in the incident.

security staff at heathrow airport have announced a fresh wave of strikes this summer. the unite union will stage 31 days of action in what it's called a "major escalation" of its pay dispute. the strikes coincide with school holidays and affect every weekend in august. and a heat health alert has been issued for parts of england, as temperatures are predicted to hit 30 celsius over the weekend. the alert is in place from 9am friday morning in london, the midlands, eastern and southern england. around the world and across the uk, this is bbc news. bbc news — bringing you different stories from across the uk. every week, these volunteers are testing the water quality — and the results are getting worse. extremely frustrating because you can see this area of outstanding natural beauty being degraded. what volunteers have found is one of the main problems

with this river are high levels of cow poo and chicken poo. it's being spread as a manure, and when it rains, of course, it then washes off the land and seeps down into the river. the poop produces phosphate which attacks the water quality — and with the number of chickens being farmed in the area going up, the wildlife in the river has been going down. two years ago, the friends of the lower wye action group were set up with a single goal — to have a clean, pollution—free, healthy river and valley. i'm hoping what we're doing will make a difference. for more stories from across the uk, head to the bbc news website. you're live with bbc news. a cyber—crime gang thought to be based in russia says that it's seized a mass of sensitive data, including payroll information, from organisations and companies including

the bbc, british airways, and boots. the hackers, part of a group called clop, are demanding a ransom payment by iiijune. 0ur cyber correspondent joe tidy has the story. it has been described as a mass cyber heist. data stolen from underneath companies' noses. and now, on a hackers' website, a warning in broken english. the gang, called clop, boast, "chances that we download a lot of your data as part of exceptional exploit." as well as the boast, an ultimatum was issued to the dozens, maybe even hundreds of organisations affected. "get in touch with us to discuss a ransom payment, or we will publish your data online." the bbc, boots, aer lingus, and british airways are just some of the organisations we know about. the scale of this mass hack has really shocked the cyber world. it all started with a relatively obscure but popular piece of corporate software called moveit. the clop hackers managed to find a unique way

into the system and that gave them access to all the companies that use moveit, for example, the uk payroll provider zellis. that allowed them to download some of the data of their customers, including the bbc and british airways. they are often dubbed supply chain attacks and what that essentially means, instead of targeting an organisation directly, they target a piece of software an organisation uses, so in this case they will use file transfer software that a bunch of companies use and this really kind of opens the gate a little bit. you use this as your initial entry point, it is your back door, if you like. clop has been a persistent cyber threat for years. an international police operation in 2021 saw arrests in ukraine of alleged members of the gang but with the leaders of the crew thought to be based in russia, clop has continued to make millions extorting organisations around the world. their latest victims are faced with a dilemma of paying the ransom or not. the advice is don't, as it fuels their criminal enterprise and they might sell

the hacked data online anyway in secret. for staff whose national insurance numbers or even bank details are potentially in the hands of hackers, it is a concerning time. but these criminals are less interested in going after individuals, when organisations could pay them more, so the advice is to not panic but be vigilant of any suspicious activity or e—mails. joe tidy, bbc news. let's take a look at some other stories from around the world. doctors in rome say pope francis is recovering well after undergoing surgery for a hernia and other abdominal issues. they say the procedure was planned after the pontiff had reported being uncomfortable for several weeks. the surgical operation and journalists here were well to read about the pope. now he's awakened, he's fine, and he's already back at work. the former us vice president,

mike pence, launched his presidential campaign on wednesday by describing his former boss, donald trump, as "reckless". pence told supporters in iowa that mr trump put himself above the constitution and should never be president again. polls show trump as the frontrunner in the early stages of the race to be the republican party's candidate. the football superstar lionel messi has announced he'll play in the united states next season. he told spanish media he'll be joining inter miami, which is co—owned by david beckham. the news was confirmed by major league soccer and inter miami, although messi said the deal was yet to be completed. the argentine, who is leaving paris saint germain had previously been linked with a move to saudi arabia. hip—hop legend tupac shakur — who was killed in a drive by shooting in las vegas, in 1996 — has received a star on the hollywood walk of fame, in los angeles.

the ceremony, which was attended by the rapper's sister and step—brother, paid tribute to the star who died at the age of 25. to north america now — where the white house is sending support to canada to help battle wildfires there that have caused smoke to drift over a large portion of the united states and canada. here are some of the live pictures now from philadelphia. you can make out the skyline through the haze just there. and we can also see these latest pictures from new york. earlier on wednesday, flights were briefly grounded at new york's laguardia airport. meanwhile public health officials have urged people not to exercise outside and warned the haze could last for days. here is the statement from new york city mayor. the city still must function. there are jobs that must

continue — police, fire, and other professionals, those essential services — because the city has to operate. that's why the commissioner stated that we are asking agencies to use to use discretion as much as possible, but the city has to operate. in this team will be providing the leadership, we will be here, and we are expecting those essential services to continue. 0ur correspondent samira hussain sent this from new york city. i mean, just take where i am right now in lower manhattan, just away from the world trade centre — and if you look behind me, well, it should be newjersey and some office buildings that we would regularly see any time that we're in this area, but they are rendered pretty unvisible right now. it is a similar scene throughout parts of the eastern seaboard, where you've seen just the air quality has become really quite poor. here in new york city, public schools have been ordered to not have any outdoor

activities, and the mayor of new york has said that, "look, don't go outside if you don't have to, and if you do, you should be wearing an n95 mask." but of course, i took to the streets of new york to ask new yorkers what they make of the haze. have you ever seen anything like this? no, i said it was like the apocalypse. that's what i feel like, it's very scary. and dangerous, too! i haven't had a mask on since covid, but now breathing this — i don't want to breathe this in, it's very dangerous. no, never seen anything like this before at all. this is bonkers. ijust walked out now, - and i was completely shocked by the haze and the — - it's like, you can smell this horrible, horrible smell. it feels like a video game, it don't feel real, it smells weird. it'sjust crazy, like my lungs feel weird right now. i'm feeling sick, so i got to get home, yeah, i don't know. well, it is all coming from the wildfires in canada — right now, there are more than 400 fires raging in the country from the west

over into the east, and only half of them are actually under control right now. and so, it's the wind that's bringing that air down to new york, and even as far down as the carolinas. and the air�*s actually quite polluted, as well, because in it, there's this fine dust that is particularly irritant — a particular irritant, rather, for people with lung disease and asthma, which is why there's so much caution around people staying indoors, especially if you're more vulnerable. samir hussein reporting in new york city. wejust samir hussein reporting in new york city. we just learned that canada's justin york city. we just learned that canada'sjustin trudeau has canada's justin trudeau has said canada'sjustin trudeau has said hundreds of american firefighters have now arrived in canada in order to help them with those wildfires that we've now just with those wildfires that we've nowjust been telling you about. he also spoke to us presidentjoe biden about critical support from the

united states. so that's the latest from canada, where justinjurado has said hundreds of american firefighters have now arrived to help with those wildfires. i just want to bring you these pictures. amazing footage from hawaii, where the kilauea volcano erupted earlier on wednesday. the us geological survey said the ensuing lava flows have been confined to the crater floor. it's situated in a closed area of hawaii volcanoes national park. it's one of the world's most active volcanoes. in 2019, a string of earthquakes and eruptions led to the destruction of homes and businesses in the area. officials say at this time "there is no indication that populated areas are threatened". that's it for the programme, thanks so much for watching newsday.

hello. well, our weather's been stuck on repeat a bit over the past few weeks, hasn't it? it's been largely dry and settled, with the best of the sunshine towards the west. but things are changing as we head through the latter part of the week and into the weekend, the heat and the humidity are going to build, and there's a chance of some thunderstorms, as well. now, heading through the course of the weekend, these are the sort of temperatures we could see — mid—to—high—20s, very small chance, one or two places possibly getting near 30 celsius. but we do have a heat health alert that's been issued by the met office and the uk health and security agency, too. so high pressure has been in charge of our weather, but cast your eyes down towards the southwest — this is storm oscar, and over the next few days, that low pressure is going to push closer towards the uk — and as it does so, we'll draw in these winds for more of an easterly, or even southeasterly direction, so that is what is bringing us the warmer weather. but for the here and now, still in that cooler air mass at the moment, so thursday morning dawns with quite a bit of cloud for central and eastern areas

and, like recent days, that cloud will burn back towards the east coast through the day. so lots of strong sunshine — you'll notice the breeze blowing through east anglia, southern england, through the english channel, too — but the warmest spots probably getting up into perhaps the mid—20s, still mid—teens though for parts of eastern scotland and northeast england. and grass pollen season will be reaching its peak soon, so very high levels of pollen — you'll notice that across england and wales if you suffer from hay fever. now, thursday evening and overnight into friday, the cloud rolls back westwards once again, as it has done over previous nights. it's probably a little bit less cold, though, temperatures staying up around about 8—9 celsius for most of us into friday, we'll see that subtle change in wind direction. so friday, mostly dry again, still a bit of cloud lingering in the northeast, but not as much as recent days. breeze blowing in from the east or northeast, across the southern half of the uk, but look at those temperatures — more widely, we're getting up to about 211—25 celsius, still a little bit cooler than that again in the northeast. heading into saturday, a few showers start to work in initially for the far southwest, they'll creep their way northwards and eastwards —

perhaps northern ireland, central parts of england and wales could catch some of those hit—and—miss thundery downpours. so we're looking at temperatures probably warmest for many central and eastern areas on saturday. temperatures above average for all of us as we head through the next five days or so. chance of some heavy showers — it looks like they ease away for many of us through the course of next week. bye— bye.