investigation into the tragedy. at least 11,000 have died. hello, i'm caitriona perry. the world is watching' — those were the words of the head of the united auto workers union here in the us, as a midnight eastern—time deadline looms for a strike. as of now on the us east coast, no deal appears on the table. shawn fain told his union's tens—of—thousand of members to brace forfor a coordinated, targeted strike at ford, gm and shantilles.

he called their eforts a �*righteous fight�*, while insisting that �*all options are on the table'. national union ship will determine the appropriate targets and timing for further stand—up strike action. this is our generation's defining moment. the money is there, the causes righteous, the world is watching. in the uaw, we are ready to stand up. this is our defining moment. let's take a quick look now at what's at stake, and what's in play for all 146,000 union members to walk out over time. among the union's demands includes

a 36 percent wage increase over four years. automakers have responded with wage increases ranging from 17 and a half to 20 percent over a 4 and a half year contract. speaking before the uaw announcement ford c—e—ojim farley told cbs news the wage increase demands are unreasonable. we've always got something that is good sides and i don't know whether it's good faith on good faith it is just disappointing and so devastating to so many of our employees. 0ur correspondent michelle fleury is in detroit, and has more onjust how far apart the two sides are. there is anger over things like tears where senior workers can earn 25% for the same work as junior workers and anger over cost of living adjustments and pay increases to meet inflation. it ties back to the 2008 financial crisis when workers feel they made

sacrifices to help save the companies but don't feel they've been repaid at the time of the companies in their eyes, have made profits. they are saying they are asking for theirfair share and the money is there but the car—makers say they are trying to deal with the cost of electrification. so how these two sides come closer, it's hard to see now. live now to david welch, bloomberg's detroit bureau chief there are 55 minutes left to run before the deadline is up and what are you hearing from your sources as to where things are now? ., , ., ., are now? the unions have a lower demand. _ are now? the unions have a lower demand. and - are now? the unions have a lower demand. and they . are now? the unions have a| lower demand. and they are are now? the unions have a - lower demand. and they are well away from the 20% raises that general motors want and that was not long enough and they said they had got counter appraisals and you would need

very big movement to get a deal in the next 55 minutes on the way the union rhetoric has gone on, the tone coming from the president and the fact he's picked fully —— three plants to start the walk—outs hard to see a strike avoided. the only motivating factor is he's got three plants to begin with and it's not a broader attack on the company plants. he's going after with more bs properties, he's not going out with the pick—up trucks, but its chief for bronco and chevrolet colorado pick—up and these are popular vehicles but not the kind ofjewels of the company but they are big vehicles. find but they are big vehicles. and shawn fain — but they are big vehicles. and shawn fain has _ but they are big vehicles. and shawn fain has said he will join the picket line himself at midnight. how significant is it that he is starting from a

slightly smaller than the stand—up strike. where you make your profits, you have new to go up. your profits, you have new to .o u . _ , , your profits, you have new to '0 u. , , ., ., your profits, you have new to to u n , , , ., ., . ., go up. gives him another card to -la go up. gives him another card to play and — go up. gives him another card to play and that _ go up. gives him another card to play and that chevrolet - to play and that chevrolet plant in the story, that's a profitable vehicle and it doesn't make the margins of the pick—up so if he doesn't what he gets in the next round of talks, he would strike a plan that makes those vehicles. that would shut down multiple plants all at once and he has leveraged to do it and hasn't threatened to strike a plant that would make make this. and

the car companies, he couldn't go there and he's only using the strength line to pay workers while they are out on the picket lines and he has, if all 850,000 workers struck at all 850,000 workers struck at all companies that would only last seven weeks but now he can go longer and do much more damage to the profitability by hitting those plants.— hitting those plants. these union workers _ hitting those plants. these union workers voted - hitting those plants. these union workers voted in - hitting those plants. these union workers voted in a i union workers voted in a massive majority to take strike action so how do you think they will feel tonight that that is looming larger is a possibility. looming larger is a ossibili . �*, , ., ., possibility. there's been a lot of an . er possibility. there's been a lot of anger in — possibility. there's been a lot of anger in union _ possibility. there's been a lot of anger in union workers - of anger in union workers earning at inflation in the us which has made people feel poorer. they didn't get raises in the contract expiring.

workers feel they made big concessions during the financial crisis and they didn't really get paid back companies didn't do it and as the companies have got rich on the companies have got rich on the ceo pay has gotten better and shareholders have done well, they have it, there is a lot of enthusiasm about the strike. workers are going to want to do this forever, they do feel aggrieved and shawn fain has done a lot in stoking the tension and aggravation over these different economic issues. , , , ., over these different economic issues. , , , issues. just briefly and sorry to cutting — issues. just briefly and sorry to cutting across _ issues. just briefly and sorry to cutting across you, - issues. just briefly and sorry to cutting across you, a - issues. just briefly and sorry. to cutting across you, a slight delay on the line, what support is there locally for the workers of the strike goes ahead giving the economic impact and the big employees these are in the region. if impact and the big employees these are in the region.- these are in the region. if you talk to white _ these are in the region. if you talk to white collar _ these are in the region. if you talk to white collar workers i talk to white collar workers they won't like it because they don't have guaranteed pensions either and that's one of the

big issues that the unit is striking over but there's a lot of sympathy for union workers in the us because of income disparity in inflation and you see more successful organising efforts and strikes making gains for workers and all of that has a favourable beat at the moment but it depends how long it lasts. the moment but it depends how long it laste— the moment but it depends how long it lash-— long it lasts. well, we will watch this _ long it lasts. well, we will watch this space. - long it lasts. well, we will watch this space. thanks | long it lasts. well, we will. watch this space. thanks for joining us. in a major escalation of a long running investigation, hunter biden, us presidentjoe biden's son, has been indicted on federal charges. hunter biden was indicted by a delaware grand jury on three counts of lying when buying a fiream. it's the first time that a child of a sitting us president has been criminally prosecuted. the case is on track for a possible high—stakes trial as the 2024 election looms. the 53—year—old's attorneys have pushed back against the charges. he faces accusations of:

hunter biden's attorney slammed the charges saying they were not warranted six weeks ago. in a statement to cbs, his attorney added: the bbc�*s gary 0'donoghue is at the white house with more on the case and the political fallout. well, these gun charges go back to 2018 when hunter biden was a self—confessed drug addict and he at that time filled in a couple of forms, say the prosecution, on which he lied about being a drug addict and then bought a .38 revolver which he possessed for 11 days before his then—girlfriend threw it in a dumpster. now, hunter biden believed he'd reached a plea deal with prosecutors back injuly

in which he would avoid prison on these charges and some misdemeanor tax charges. but that deal all fell about, and that's why we're here today with this indictment. he could still face further charges. we don't know whether prosecutors are going to do that at this stage. there's been no reaction so far from joe biden and the white house. we know that matters to do with his family, famously rile up the president. so he's not likely to be pleased about this. and of course, it does come in the week when congressional republicans have begun their impeachment inquiry intojoe biden, in particular, his connections to his son's business affairs while he was vice president. that all will present a political problem for democrats, no doubt. but of course, the republicans have problems of their own with their leading candidate for the nominee for the republican nomination, donald trump, who's also facing 91 separate criminal charges

in state and federal courts. 2024 may be a big presidential election year, but a lot of people are going to be spending a lot of time in courtrooms. gary 0'donoghue there. well, joe moreno is a former federal prosecutor, and in the last hour i asked him whether hunter biden will be able to cut a deal, or will he face jail time. i think he makes a deal. i don't think he wants a drawn—out, embarrassing spectacle for his father and since prosecutors were so willing to make a few months ago i think he can get a good one if he tries. the charges add to a rough week for presidentjoe biden who is running for re—election while facing a republican—led impeachment inquiry in the us house of representatives. it bears reminding that republican congressional investigators have not found any concrete evidence of misconduct by president biden. earlier i spoke to washington post live anchor and political reporter leigh ann caldwell, the last few weeks with joe

biden has been very tough. let's look at some other stories making news ukrainian president volodymyr zelenskyy says he'll attend the united nations�* annual gathering of world leaders next week in new york to help bolster international support for his country's fight against russia. a source familiar with zelenskyy�*s plans confirms he's expected to meet president biden during his visit to the u—s, according to our partner cbs news. russia is expelling two us embassy employees, accusing them of working with a russian national that the kremlin had previously accused of spying. russia's foreign ministry says the two diplomats conducted

"illegal activities by liaising with a russian citizen" and that they must leave the country within seven days. the us state department has rejected the allegations. the father, stepmother and uncle of a ten year old girl who was found dead at her home in england last month have been charged with her murder. they were arrested wednesday evening at gatwick airport as they disembarked a flight from dubai. the three left britain for pakistan the day before police found her body. you're live with bbc news. politicians in libya are demanding an official investigation into floods that wiped out parts of the city of derna. canine search crews are searching house—to—house for survivors and for the dead. the libyan red cresent says the number of people who've died has risen to 11,000. that figure is expected to grow as the recovery effort continues, particularly with many bodies buried under mud.

0fficials estimate that 30,000 people have been left homeless. many libyans have blamed poor infrastructure maintenance. the united nations has also criticised the country's alert system. the bbc�*s anna foster reached benghazi, the nearest city, in the past few hours. she spoke with me earlier. even though we are several days on from the devastation, the one thing we do not know is the scale of the devastation. the death toll has been rising day after day and the mayor has said he believes as many as 20,000 people could have been killed by that wall of water that came barrelling through the city. we know two dams designed to hold back water of the scale and volume were destroyed by the power of it and when you look at those extraordinary heartbreaking pictures you can really see the force of the water and the way it has carved the land away in the way cars have been picked up and thrown to one side and the way whole buildings often

with entire sleeping families inside have been washed away. it really shows you the scale of what libya is having to deal with and it is clear here in benghazi, the closest airport, particularly to derna, you start to see while the aid has been promised and slowly making its way, it's been no means on the scale to deal with people need because many more have been injured, many thousands more have been displaced in this country with its infrastructure almost completely destroyed by more than a decade of conflict in these in no position to deal with the situation, the catastrophic situation it's now finding itself in. but what if residents had been warned and given time to escape? petteri taalas, secretary—general of the world meteorological organization, thinks many lives could have been saved. i spoke with him earlier.

we've seen thousands of lives lost in libya after catastrophic flooding but do you think some of the lives could have been saved? how is that? unfortunately the government of libya has not been very good in terms of the public sector and they are not able to operate their functions as they used to do before this crisis which broke up in 2011 and that has meant that the meteorological service has limited resources and they have staffing problems so they have to do this with their observing systems and also the emergency management has difficulties in functioning as they used to function in the previous administration and this has all meant that when the storm and flooding was hitting libya,

enough to the people and in the normal case one could have avoided lots of this casualties and have had no casualties in this case, but it is clear that this instability of the situation in libya has led to higher numbers of casualties. given what we have seen, what can libya do now? hopefully they will pay more attention to the early warning services and how communicate the services to various places especially with the management and that has been very much the missing piece in this case and has led to this very unfortunate high number of casualties.

are there other countries you feel could face similar risks in terms of flooding and potential tragedy? sudan is in a very poor state at the moment. the sudanese met service last week at the african climate summit said that most of the establishment escape the country and some of them have moved to the north—eastern part of the country where they can have very limited operations with the early warning services and we have a handful of countries where the situation is poorer and it means with high impact event since those countries that unfortunately we see more casualties and more economic losses.

in countries with unstable power bases like you have been describing, what is the role for the international community for an organisation like your own? we have a major programme called early warning services and our aim is to improve early warning services in a hundred countries by the end of 2027 and we have the mandate from to promote that programme and we are lucky that many donor countries have allocated resources for that purpose and more developed countries are sharing their expertise to improve the early warning service. 0ur member countries we are in partner with and we have to make sure that the message is understood and there is the relevant tax and emergency management and the usage of customers of those services. how can you do that if there are challenges in identifying who is controlling the country or say in the case of sudan with meteorologists have fled?

once we have these kind of military conflicts going on there is no way to operate in the short term but hopefully this crisis in sudan will be over in the coming months or years and thereafter we can start to act. we have resources in 30 countries where we are functioning and sudan was one of the selected countries, but of course, at the moment there is no chance to operate that and improve their services. morocco's government

says it will rebuild about fifty—thousand homes damaged by last week's earthquake. authorities say they'll provide more than 13—thousand—dollars for each home that was completedly destroyed and now needs reconstruction. they'll also offer eight thousand for those partially damaged. residents will meanwhile be given temporary shelters equipped to withstand cold weather, and each household will receive a grant of three thousand dollars. the exact number of people left homeless is still not known. nearly three—thousand people have been confirmed dead, and more than five—thousand injured in the six point eight magnitude quake. france is set to ban disposable e—cigarettes because of the danger they pose to the environment and to public health. the country's prime minister said the measure was part of a new anti—smoking plan being drawn up by the government. campaigners say the ban should be in force by the end of the year. 0ur paris correspindent, hugh schofield, has more. france says it will burn the disposable e—cigarette, what they call the puffs, disposable e—cigarette you spoke for 500 or 600 puffs and you throw away and they have become a controversial device, notjust here but across the world and

other countries are considering a ban as well. the problem is twofold. 0ne a ban as well. the problem is twofold. one that, there is the environmental problem in an campaigners point out that these are plastic and millions are thrown out every week and they also contain a battery which is non—recyclable which contains lithium, all of which are red lights on environmental fronts but what has propelled the cause in france to get them banned is how they are being targeted at children. the ones you buy in the shops and i bought one a couple of days ago, it's colourful, the flavours are from a sweet shop, marshmallow, lemon and lime, hazelnut and chocolate. they are clearly being targeted at young people and then on social media the whole influencer thing is propelling children, teenagers into buying them and they are paid on the market in france a couple of years ago

and according to opponents, 13%, one in seven children between 13 and 16 has tried them at least once and if you go at any school, secondary school, you will see youngsters smoking them and then chucking them way. that's why the government and the prime minister articulated it the other day that they decided to say gateway to smoking and they want its stopped and it will be banned here. ufo's capture the imagination, and conjure up images of the great unknown. uaps are actually the same thing — unidentified anomolous phenomena — and that's what nasa was speaking about at an important briefing on thursday. nomia iqbal has the details. my gosh... that is the voice of a navy pilot. the grainy blob he has zoned in on appears to be a ufo. it is the kind of unclassified material nasa has been looking into. we went to the space agency's headquarters hoping for answers. the nasa independent

study team did not find any evidence that uap have an extra terrestrial origin. but we don't know what these uap are. ok, no alien life yet, or the kind many space watchers hoped for, but it is the public nasa is now relying on to help them gather data on uap. it is the new term for ufos. the rebrand is partly to encourage everyone to report sightings without feeling they will be judged but most of us still use the term ufos. i wonder how much is the stigma still a problem for you? by releasing this report publicly, nasa says it is being open and transparent. for decades, the space agency and the us government have been accused of covering something up, which they deny, but not everyone is convinced. injuly, some former military pilots gave stunning testimony to congress, claiming the government wasn't telling the truth. parts of our government are aware more about uap than they let on. excessive classification practices keep crucial

information hidden. top pentagon officials said it was insulting to staff. some still don't know what to believe. no concrete answers yet, then, to the question, is there alien life out there. but if you spot anything strange in the skies, nasa wants you to please get in touch. nomia iqbal, bbc news, washington. thats all from us here in washington, i'm caitriona perry. we leave you with these live pictures of london. 0ur colleagues there will pick up at the top of the hour. stay with us here on bbc news

hello. the weather is looking a little mixed over the next few days. certainly some sunshine on offer and really quite warm weather in the south of the country, but the further north you are, you're more likely to run into the cloud with some outbreaks of rain. and that's exactly what's happening right now. if we look at the satellite picture, you can see a weather front there spreading across ireland into more central parts of the uk. so here it's the case of thicker cloud and some outbreaks of rain. to the south of the weather front we've got that warmer, more humid air spreading in from spain and also france and that will be in place across most of england and wales through friday. so here's the forecast then through the early hours, you can see where the rain is and the cloudier conditions for the north. in the south, it's warmer and clearer temperatures of around 12—14 degrees celsius, fresher there in the glens of scotland, around 5—7 degrees celsius. so in the morning it's cloudy and rainy across the far north of england, parts of northern ireland, the south of scotland, though the north of scotland is fine in the morning. and then further south across england and wales, i think through the course

of the morning, into the afternoon, we'lljust see fair weather, cloud building. it will be a really warm day. temperatures in the low to mid 20s, 22 for birmingham, 20 for norwich and london could get up to about 26. for the north, only around 14 degrees. now on saturday the weather front still with us. it's kind of stuck in this area of high pressure, very little wind to move things around. so it'll be here until it reallyjust rains itself out. so thicker cloud and spots of rain through this part of the country. notice the blobs of blue here, the potential for one or two showers and thunderstorms later in the day. but on the whole, it's a dry day for most of us, at least. really warm in the south—east, again, 26 or 27 degrees with that continental influence and a fraction higher, i think, in the north. now on the showers and thunderstorms, they really get going i think on sunday spreading in initially to south—western and western areas and they'll probably move further north and east. frequent lightning, gusty winds, maybe hail, that sort of thing. so it could be quite lively for some of us, at least later on sunday. lower temperatures in the south on sunday, slightly higher in the north. now, here's the outlook then — we've got a couple of really

warm days then across more southern parts of the uk. but after that, the temperatures are closer to the seasonal norm. and the weather, well, of course, a little more unsettled with rain and showers at times. bye— bye.

this is bbc news. we will have the headlines at the top of the hour, which is straight after this programme.

welcome to hardtalk. i'm stephen sackur. for those who want to see vladimir putin defeated in ukraine, this was supposed to be a decisive phase of the war, a counter—offensive to break through russia's defensive lines alongside a chokehold on the russian economy. is it working? well, at first glance, no. the fighting on the front lines is attritional and hugely costly to both sides. putin's home front has shown cracks, but it hasn't crumbled. my guest is vladimir milov, once a russian minister, now an anti—putin activist in exile. can putin outlast his enemies?