in canada, where a town of some 20,000 people is scrambling to safety. then we'll focus on the aftermath of the hawaii wildfires, and new questions over how the blazes started in the first place. but we start in california, where for the first time ever, a tropical storm could hit the southern part of the state. right now, hurricane hilary is a category four storm. it's expected to make landfall in mexico in the state of baja, california, seen here, on saturday. it will likely then downgrade to a tropical storm before hitting southern california, with san diego and los angeles in the path. you can see, prepaparations are already under way there including working to shore up hillsides. officials are worried about landslides and major flooding. the last tropical storm to hit california was in 1939 — over 80 years ago. this map shows the predicted path this storm might take. as of early friday, the centre of the hurricane

was located roughly 400 miles — that's 615 kilometres — south of mexico's southern edge. presidentjoe biden spoke about the preparations under way. i also want to note that my team is closely monitoring hurricane hilary, which has the potential to bring significant rain and flooding to southern california. fema has repositioned personnel and supplies in the region, and they are ready to respond as needed. —— repositioned. i urge everyone, everyone in the path of the store and to take precautions and listen to the guidance of state and local officials. we're tracking multiple wildfires in canada as the country faces what is being called its worst fire season on record. fires in the kelowna region of british columbia, and 1,200 miles — or 2,000 kilometres — north in the country's northwest territory capital of yellowknife are some of the more than 1,000 active wildfires across canada. 186,000 residents in both

kelowna and west kelowna are under a state of emergency afterfast—burning and unpredictable wildfires forced evacuations early friday. in yellowknife, a wildfire continues to move closer to the city. it currently sits about nine miles — or 15 kilometres — away. residents are still evacuating and officials say flights out of yellowknife will leave every hour. in the last hour i spoke to 0llie williams, a journalist with cabin radio based in yellowknife, who has evacuated to a nearby village. air will become the only option at some point if the fire keeps encroaching further and further towards yellowknife. there is just the one road south to the rest of canada — it's a small road, one lane in either direction for about 400 miles, 600 or so kilometres. it is a huge distance — there's virtually no infrastructure to get people out by road. so air is the only other alternative, and that means 20—plus flights today, the military adding extra flights on top of that.

there are still some scheduled flights getting out of the airport, as well. a line—up of people at the school and yellowknife, then a bus to the airport, and get them out that way. as far as i can tell, that system is operating about as well as it could so far today — even to the point, in fact, that they were crying out for more people to get into the line because some flights were having to wait on the tarmac because they weren't full. it's hard to tell if that's because other people got so bored of 12 hour lines yesterday that they decided to leave, or if people have managed to get other routes out of the city. it's so hard to know exactly who's where, and to know exactly how many people are out. it's hard not to see the striking similarities between the scenes in the northwest territories and those that played out last week 6,000 kilometres away, in maui. authorities there continue to search for victims in the rubble of the town of lahaina, where the death toll now stands at 111. earlier this week, the source of those deadly fires seems to have been found. this security camera footage shows the moment a tree

fell on a power line in maui's so—called upcountry. it's believed to be the first in a chain of events that led to the widespread devastation we saw last week. earlier, i spoke to washington post reporter brianna sacks, who has been reporting on investigation into the fires. she found data and video evidence indicating elctrical faults in the island's power grid likely ignited the most devastating wildfires on maui. i found some security footage that took place at 10.47pm monday night in upcountry, which captured this bright flash — which we now believe is what's called an arc flash, and that's what happens when the electrical grid faults — meaning a line can come in contact with a tree, vegetation, another line falls to the ground. and the woman narrating that video said, "i think a tree fell on a line," the power goes out, then fire sparks right in that same location. and i overlaid that with some

electrical grid sensor data that i obtained from a company called whisker labs. and those things occurred at the exact same moment, so that was the first time that an electrical malfunction was caught on video which directly correlated with data confirming that the power system experienced a major problem at that time. in the uk, a nurse, lucy letby, has been found guilty of murdering seven babies, and attempting to kill six others when they were in her care at a hospital in cheshire, in the northwest of england. it means the 33—year—old is the uk's biggest killer of babies in modern times. in a statement, the families of lucy letby�*s victims said thatjustice could not reduce the extreme hurt, anger and distress they had experienced — adding that they were heartbroken. lucy letby was also acquitted of two counts of attempted murder, and thejury were undecided on six charges of attempted murder. she will be sentenced on monday. the government have ordered an independent inquiry into the circumstances

around the murders. the bbc�*s anna fosterjoined me earlier to discuss the case. anna, what more do we know? how did lucy letby do this? how did she go about carrying out these crimes? well, this has been an extraordinary and shocking trial, one which has lasted nearly ten months and one which has been followed very closely, as you would expect here in the uk. this is a nurse who was working on the neonatal unit at the countess of chester hospital. she was dealing with premature babies, with some of the sickest and most vulnerable children you can imagine. and at a time when she was supposed to be caring for them, when she was supposed to be nurturing them and ensuring their survival, she was instead actively trying to murder them. and in some cases, as we now know, she was succeeding, and she used innocuous methods. it was described by the prosecution, one of them as her favourite method of trying to kill children,

and that was injecting air into their bloodstream. she did things like injecting overdoses of insulin into their small bodies. at times, she would overfeed them with milk or with liquids, and it took a while for this pattern to be recognised — there were occasions when these babies who seemed to be doing quite well would suddenly and inexplicably go into a collapse, into a crash, and medical staff for a time couldn't work out why this pattern was happening, why more babies were losing their lives there than they should have done until eventually that pattern was put together. and the nurse who was always present when these incidents happened was lucy letby. what was the jury told about lucy letby as a person? well, they were painted really two very different pictures by the prosecution and the defence. the defence, first of all, they talked about a very normal, very ordinary

woman who was in her 20s at the time when these crimes were carried out. the jury saw her text messages, her social media posts, heard about the nights out she'd been on, heard about the holiday she'd been on — on the outside, a seemingly normal and caring woman. but the prosecution case, that was very different, that was in stark contrast, and they said that she used all of those things as a cloak of normality, a way to try and hide what she was doing. they produced, as part of their evidence, notes where lucy letby had scrawled in dark, writing repeated words, things like "help". she wrote on one note, "i'm evil, i did this." and in some cases as well, after babies had died, she searched for the parents on facebook. she even at one point sent a sympathy card to the parents of a child that she had killed. now, thejury, of course, heard all of this evidence,

they deliberated for more than 110 hours. and, of course, the verdict that they delivered, the version that they chose was the prosecution version of a woman who was cold, calculating, and a serial killer. we've also heard that concerns were raised by members of staff at the hospital about the number of babies that were dying there while lucy letby was working. what more do we know about that? that is something that has been revealed today at the conclusion of the trial, that people who were working alongside lucy began to have suspicions about her. they began to realise that she was the common factor here, she was the one that was always present when these babies were dying or having these acute medical episodes. but when they tried to raise concerns with hospital staff, they were very often not taken seriously — in some cases, they were told that they needed to stop making complaints, or complaints would be made about them. and so, in some cases, they were even told to write a letter of apology

to lucy letby for suggesting that she was not doing herjob properly. and that is one reason why the families in particular in this case want to see more than just this trial and these guilty verdicts — they want to see an investigation. and in fact, the uk government announced not long after the conclusion of this trial that an independent inquiry would be carried out into lucy letby, into her offending to look at whether or not this was an isolated period of time, or whether in fact this would cover her whole nursing career. and also to look at how this could happen. and crucially, looking at hospitals up and down the uk, whether they are safe enough to stop something like this from happening again. the bbc�*s anna foster outside manchester crown court, tthank you very much. around the world and across the uk, this is bbc news. let's look at some other news. the bbc has been told that at least 1,400 people have starved to death in ethiopia's northern region of tigray, since food aid was

suspended in april. it comes after humanitarian aid to the region by the world food programme and its key donor, the us government, was terminated due to corruption in the distribution system. twitter — or 'x", as it's now known — is removing the blocking features from its services. 0wner elon musk says "makes no sense". musk said users will still be able to block people from directly messaging them. but many people on social media said it will make it hard for people to remove abusive posts from their timeline. russia has banned 54 british nationals and people working for uk organisations from entering the country. the country's foreign minister says it's retaliation for uk sanctions on its citizens. a number ofjournalists from the bbc, the daily telegraph, and the guardian are also on the list. the bbc said it would "continue to report independently and fairly". you're live with bbc news. leaders of the us, south korea,

and japan have accused china of dangerous and aggressive behaviour in the south china sea. the assertion was made in a joint statement issued at a summit hosted by president biden at camp david, outside of washington. president biden, japanese prime minister fumio kishida, and south korean president yoon sung nyeol said that this first—of—its—kind trilateral summit marks a "new chapter" of cooperation with the three nations as they move to strengthen military ties amid china's growing influence and nuclear threats from north korea. some of what they discussed included a multi—year military exercise plan, deeper coordination and integration on ballistic missile defence, and improved information sharing, and crisis communication. leaders also committed to new economic measures, including an early—warning mechanism for supply chain disruptions. earlier, i asked our state departmet correspondent barbara plett usher about the specifics of the agreement from today's summit.

the specifics involve an agreement to consult in times of crisis, the duty to consult — so putting the response of the three on the same platform to whatever threat there might be — and instituting a hotline to constitute that, a crisis hotline. then you have those military exercises that will become annual events. they've had trilateral exercises before previously, but these won't be regular, and though also double down on information sharing, especially with regards to north korean missile launches. and they're going to have regular summits. and they're going to have regularsummits. 0n and they're going to have regular summits. 0n the economic security side, though also have an early warning system so they can be alerted to any potential disruption in the global supply chain. so really, it's about regular rising and institutionalising a whole set of security measures and placing them on a foundation that's not really existed before. on sunday, the people of ecaudor will head

to the polls for the first round of a presidential election, that has already been marked by violence. last week, presidential candidate fernando viavicencio was shot dead as he left a campaign rally. the assassination prompted widespread shock. ecuador was once peaceful, but has recently been hit by widespread drug—related lawlessness and organised crime. 0ur south america correspondent katy watson reports form guayaquil, where tackling the violence is at the forefront of everyone's minds. as night falls, the violence soars. curfew�*s about to kick in, in this part of town overrun by drug traffickers. underfunded and under pressure, the police keep working, some so scared of reprisals by gangs they don't want to show their face. translation: gangs want to win territory. | we're dealing with very violent deaths, people being found hanging from bridges or cut into pieces. international criminal organisations are recruiting people here, but they have

lots of money. there's a total imbalance between organised crime and the police trying to stop it. mexican and colombian cartels have infiltrated local gangs as they vie for lucrative drugs routes. ecuador was hit hard by covid and they've taken advantage of a country broken by a pandemic and by corrupt politics. the police are at pains to show me they're fixing the problem, but when they're having to protect themselves with sandbags in the police station, you realise this is a war without end. this used to be one of the main routes for traffickers. people would come up here with stolen phones and jewellery and exchange those goods for drugs up here, but the police have taken back this area. that said, the police have lost so much more control of the city of guayaquil. the bars on all the windows in this neighbourhood tell you all you need to know about the lack

of security here. angie fears for her four children. the police are powerless, she says. just two weeks ago, her neighbour was shot dead outside his daughter's school. translation: all | want| is security, that's the only thing that will allow us to take our children to school without running the risk of being hit by stray bullet in a shoot—out. people here are still in shock after fernando villavicencio's murder last week. security at campaign events is tight. for the remaining candidates on the campaign trail, crime is what everyone's talking about. we live in an unsafe society. we have to campaign even with a bullet—proof vest. politics is complicated here in ecuador. as long as demand for cocaine keep storing, the cartels will fight for domination and the body count will keep rising. katy watson,

bbc news, in guayaquil. cases of covid—19 are on the rise again in the us, but they remain well below their pandemic levels. in august, more than 10,000 people were hospitalised for covid in the united states according to data from the us centre for disease control and prevention — that's up 60% sincejuly. in the uk, positive covid cases are up 17% over the last seven days. this comes as a new 0micron subvariant eris has become the predominant covid strain in the us. while health agencies in the uk, us, denmark, and israel are have also detected the emergence of a new highly—mutated strain of the virus. earlier, i spoke with dr peter hotez, co—director of the texas children's hospital centre for vaccine development and dean of the national school of tropical medicine at baylor college of medicine. dr hotez, thank you so much for being here to discuss these new variants.

and i guess there's a couple of new ones that we're actually seeing around the world. there's a one in the us, the eris variant, and then there's also a new one in the uk. have you been tracking these, and how concerned are you now about the appearance of a couple of what look to be new strains of covid? well, you know, most of them are variants of what's been known as xbb, which is a shoot—off of 0micron that first took off in the winter of 2022. so eg5, which is also eris and also known as eris, as well as the xbb variants, seem to be the ones that are really starting to ramp up now and accounting for most of the increases in the uk and the us. and on the us side, now we have a new booster, a monovalent, a single booster that's supposed to be ready by the fall, hopefully by next month. and that specifically

targets the xbb variant, and hopefully that could be used globally, as well. so i think for the immediate future over the next couple of months, i think you're going to see these xbb variants loom. but there are, as you point out, others that could take off, or may not, we still don't know. is there anything about these new variants that we should be concerned about, or worried about? are they more contagious, are they more dangerous? well, they may be more transmissible, they're not necessarily more dangerous than previous variants, in terms of severity of disease. but when i talk to people about these xbb variants, here's what i tell them — generally speaking, among large populations, although the number of hospitalisations may increase, it's unlikely we're going to get to anything near what we've seen in the past, whether it's with the delta variant or the ba1 0micron variant.

having said that, even though on a population level, it should not have as great an impact as an individual, it's really important that you have your own situational awareness to know your level of previous immunisations and boosters, so that if you've not been boosted for several months or over a year, as many americans and presumably those in the uk have not been boosted, then you are at risk potentially for hospitalisation and severe illness. so this is a reminder or a wake—up call that, as the xbb variants and their shoot—offs and spin—offs start to go up, it's really important that you be mindful of the immunisation status of you, your loved ones, your kids, and take those steps to get boosted appropriately beyond boosters, which won't be available now, as you mentioned, for another few weeks or months, what should people be doing to protect themselves? or are we back in a situation now where you would recommend

that people wear masks again in public, for example? well, again, you know, although the numbers are going up and the hospitalisations are going up, they are starting at a fairly profoundly low level. so we reached a nadir, a low point around earlier this summer, or late in the spring, injune. so it started at a low level, now it's coming up. but if you do have underlying risk factors, either because you've not been boosted or because of age, or because of co—morbidities such as diabetes or you're have underlying issues with your immune system, then you do want to be fairly careful. and by being careful, i mean if you're going into crowded indoor areas, that means wearing a good mask, either an n95 or a kn95 mask. for instance, i was travelling a couple of weeks ago on aeroplanes and in train stations — so, while in the airport

and on the plane, or in the train station, on trains, i was wearing an n95 or kn95 mask. or if your risk factors and you're in crowded restaurants, i think it's prudent to to wear a mask and be mindful of the situation, and watch those numbers and see if they really start to increase. right, you mentioned wearing masks and i don't know about you, it obviously depends on where you are, but you don't see too many people wearing masks these days, even at the airport or or crowded areas like that — of course, the world health organisation declared an end to the covid public health emergency back in may. are these variants, do you think, a bit of a wake—up call or basically to say, well, we do still need to pay at least some attention to what's going on with covid? yeah, to use the us football

analogy, we spiked the ball on the 20—yard line before we crossed the goal line. and that's unfortunate, because that could also delay the appearance of of the xbb boosters because of regulations in terms of working with the us food and drug administration, the fda, to expedite the release of these vaccines. so yeah, covid—19 is definitely still with us. certainly it's not — the character of the pandemic is not the same as it was a year ago, or two years ago. but if you have underlying risk factors, that's something very important to consider. and i know i sound like a bit of a broken record, but the most important piece of this in my mind, the single most important thing you can do to protect yourself and yourfamily, is being mindful of your immunisation and booster status. and if it unfortunately — particularly for the mrna vaccines, the boosters are not as durable as we'd like, so if it's been more than 4—6

months since you've gotten last gotten a booster, you do have some vulnerability there, and it's important that you take advantage of the new booster when it becomes available and plan accordingly. some very good advice there. dr peter hotez, co—director of the texas children's hospital centre for vaccine development and the dean of the national school of tropical medicine at baylor college of medicine, thank you so much. and we hope to bring that football this time, but across the goal line. thanks forjoining us. thank you. before we go, former us first lady rosalynn carter turned 96 on friday. carter — who lives with her husband, 98—year—old former presidentjimmy carter in plains, georgia — is the second—oldest first lady in american history. the couple marked their 77th wedding anniversary last month, extending their record as the longest—married first couple. rosalynn, who has dementia, is credited with helping her husband defy the odds after he entered hospice care six months ago.

that's all from our team for now, i'll be back at the top of the hour with the latest headlines. stay with us here on bbc news. hello there. storm betty is bearing down upon us through the rest of the night and the start of the weekend. second named storm this month, and giving a lot of wet weather and windy weather, particularly for the western side of the uk. so heavy rain, potentially some really nasty thunderstorms across central and eastern areas being warned off could give some likely disruption, as well as the unusually windy weather which could bring down the odd small tree — not great news for those under canvas either, those winds are more akin to autumn. so there are warnings out — quite widespread warnings. more details on the website, but those gusts of wind could reach 40—50mph inland, as well. as i say, there's a potential for some really torrential thunderstorms, impactful

weather — because it's so muggy and warm, that's also giving energy to these storms. now getting towards morning, that rain is slow—moving across scotland and northern ireland. it only slowly creeps its way northwards. the winds starting to abate a little bit, pushing showers ever eastwards. and look, for northern ireland, parts of scotland, it's just shower after shower, but longer spells of rain for some. before the event moves out of the way, that's storm betty, we could have a month's worth of rain in some areas. but, given some sunshine through the day, particularly for the likes of eastern scotland, northeast england with an offshore wind, it might feel warmer than it did on friday. and then, as we go through the evening and overnight, the showers ease off further, the winds gradually decreasing — so we could have some missed fog in southern areas in particular by sunday morning. and it will feel a little less oppressive, se're losing that humidity, so a little bit more comfortable for sleeping saturday night, rather than the remainder of this night. sunday sees fewer showers — we will keep them in northern and western areas.

there'll still be 1—2 getting into eastern areas, but there should be fewer showers on sunday for many parts. so perhaps the drier half of the weekend, still feeling quite warm — it is august, after all. and, with high pressure close to the south as we move into next week, we should see some more warmth here. but the lower pressure further north will maintain the risks of showers — on monday, you can see some longer spells of rain coming in. well, it is an area of area of the uk where we haven't seen as much rain, but nevertheless east of the grampians best of the drier, brighter weather — 25—26 further south. so, some warmth and some drier weather as we move into next week — but, just for the remainder of the night, storm betty still with us. there are numerous warnings — more details on the website.

this is bbc news. we will have the headlines and all the main news stories for you at the top of the hour as newsday continues straight after this programme. good girl, straight on. oh, i want you two to come so badly, but i don't want you to be eaten by lions. a lion and a buffalo? yes, he wanted to hunt. music plays. kenya has been

at warfor decades. its enemy? the poachers who prey on its precious wildlife. impossible route in and impossible route out. 0l pejeta conservancy's canine unit are just one of the many groups across africa taking up the fight against poaching. this illegal trade has threatened the very existence of animals like these. at the endangered species enclosure at 0l pejeta, will and i have been brought to meet mother and daughter, najin and fatu, the last surviving two northern white rhinos on earth. and here, it's very soft, on their ears. here. who's this? this is najin. hello, najin!