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narrator: funding was also provided by, the freeman foundation. by judy and peter blum kovler foundation; pursuing solutions for america's neglected needs. and by contributions to this pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. announcer: and now, "bbc news". >> i'm helena humphrey in washington and this is bbc world news america. floodwaters rise and tensions fire as russia and ukraine trade blame for a massive dam burst. our correspondent is in the affected area. >> it's very hard to compute what has happened here on top of everything else, the occupation, it's a city on its knees. it's an environmental catastrophe. >> and our chase settles over

some of the largest cities in the u.s. as wildfires from canada send smoke southwards. plus the tribeca film festival kicks off in new york, the stars will be out, the red carpet will be busy and they will be a -- of politics to go with the pump. -- there will eight bit of poli bticse to go with the pump. pomp. welcome to world news america on pbs and around the globe. floodwaters are still rising in ukraine after a major dam was based on tuesday. water is searching down a river which divides russia and ukrainian-controlled territory. tens of thousands of people have been stranded and whole neighborhoods submerged. officials say it could be a catastrophic impact on agriculture will trip -- worsening global food shortages. the floodwater is rising and we are there covering it. >> they are very few ways to get

around here. it takes a lot for people here to be forced to leave and for pockets of the city that moment has come. boats weaved through the submerged streets. some have grabbed what they can. this four-year-old made it out with her mother. >> we managed to find a boat, but my father and a neighbor got carried away in it. the current was too powerful. we were left with my kids for the night. feels like losing my whole life in just one day, otherwise we are -- we are grateful to everyone. >> on top of the daily shelling, this town is grappling with catastrophic flooding. the worst man-made disaster ukraine is seen in decades. caused by russia's invasion.

thousands need rescuing in this region, say officials. to move through the streets now you need one of these. the silence reflects how uninhabitable pockets of the city have become. outside it would normally be at head height. the trunks of those trees are completely submerged. rescue teams are trying to help. the water is cloudy, and after everything they have gone through, this is a city on its knees. it has been partly submerged. flooding is more extreme on the eastern bank. the part of ukraine controlled by the russians. there is a military dynamic to the dance destruction which makes any offensive from here were complicated. as for those living here it has gotten difficult to the verge of impossible. >> on monday there were reports of ukrainian attacks in the area west of donetsk.

>> months we have been talking about incremental gains, a street one here, -- a street here, a building there, but now the ukrainians seem to be making far bigger gains, 5-10 kilometers, and it's not just that they are moving but how they moving, his armor, moving tanks, going fast and attacking from multiple points. those of the tactics that we expect to see when the main offensive starts. at that main offensive is going to be very challenging because they are up against a force, let's say there are 60,000 ukiarans with european tanks, facing a very elaborate for vacation and it will be a difficult task. >> britain's prime minister has told the bbc that the u.k. military and security services

have yet to weigh in on who was responsible for the ukraine dam disaster. thimi' in washington where he is due to meet with joe biden on thursday. here is what he had to say about the situation in ukraine earlier. >> if it does turout to be russia, i think it would fit with a pattern of behavior throughout this more which is where russia has as an active strategy, delicately targeted civilian infrastructure. if intentional, this would represent the largest attack on civilian if the structure during a war and it has harmed hundreds, tens of thousands of people. >> our correspondent has been following the prime minister's visit and i spoke to him a little earlier. gary, great thave with us. there are range of issues on the agenda for discussion but i imagine that ukraine is likely to be front and center in light of recent events. >> i think that's right, and a particular the light of what has been happening in dnipro with

the preaching of the dam and the terrible funding we have seen -- flooding that we have seen. the prime minister's promising military aid and the brits and the americans are the two largest donors in the humanitarian terms and military terms. we have seen some movement in the past weeks in terms of the americans willingness to see training of american -- ukrainian pilots on f-16s, which biden has been pushing a l. there are differences on the extent to which weapon the can be used outside of ukraine -- weaponry can be used outside of ukraine, the u.s. is worried about the ukrainians surging in russia. one of the reasons that the prime minister has come is that congress controls the purse strings and we know there is skepticism among some republicans about continuing funding for ukraine and i think it will reinforce the view that

this is an incredibly important situation and he will try to bolster that argument on capitol hill. >> you there on the hill, rishi sunak has been meeting with kevin mccarthy, and he will meet the president tomorw and be at the baseball game tonight. it is a high-profile visit. what is he looking to gain from it. -- it? >> i don't think there is anything substantial in concrete terms such as agreements or announcements. we may be wrong about that. we heard some detail about substantial u.s. investment in britain and the prime minister has been touting that today in particular. but this is really his first high-profile visit to washington. he has met joe biden a few times in various events around the world since he became prime minister back in october. the british prime minister said they want to come to washington have reaffirmed the so-called special relationship and they

wa to create a personal bond with the u.s. president which allows them to do business and do business as allies and there is some skepticism in london and britain about how keen joe biden really is on britain and i think that is something that the prime minister is going to try to submit to create that personal bond which allows them to do business. -- cement, to create that personal bond which allows them to do business. >> gary, thank you. here in the u.s., many are breathing contaminated air as a orange haze has descended on major metropolitan areas creating scenes like the money see behind me, public schools in new york city and washington have canceled classes for the day and people have been urged to stay indoors. here's why. this is satellite footage from the national weather service weather protection center, it shows the smoke as it pushes downward from canada, the haze.

at the agenda at the press briefing earlier. >> multiple agencies including the epa and the cdc and fema are coordinating state local and tribal governments to get timely and accurate information out to communities about global air quality conditions and what steps they can take to protect themselves. we encourage everyone in the impacted areas to lisn to their state and local officials. >> let's go to new york, where we can speak to our correspondent. we are noticing that haze where we are here in washington. your backdrop looks pretty extraordinary. what is the situation where you are and in other places across the country as well? >> just take where i am in lower manhattan, just away from the world trade center, and if you look behind me, it should be new jersey in some office building that we would regularly see any time that we are in this area

but they are rendered invisible right now. it is a similar scene drop parts of the eastern seaboard when you seek 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 and n95 mask. of course, i took to the streets of new york to ask new yorkers with the make the haze. >> have you ever seen anything like that? >> know it's like the apocalypse, it's very scary and dangerous. i have not had a mask on since covid. but now i don't want to read this in. it's very dangerous. >> never seen anything like this. this is bunker -- bonkers. >> i miss complete shock by the haze and you can stop this

horrible smell. >> it's with -- it feels like a video game, my lungs feel weird, i feel kind of sick. i don't know. >> some amazing reactions are from new yorkers who are not faced by much. how long can we expect this smoke to hang around for? >> it is all coming from the wildfires in canada right now, more than 400 fires raging in the country from east to west and only half of them are actually under control right now. and so it's the wind that is bringing that air down to new york and even as far down as the carolinas and the air is exit quite polluted as well because in it there is this fine dust that is particularly irritating for people with lung disease and asthma which is why there is so much caution around peoplstay indoors. specially if you are more

vulnerable. -- especially if y are more vulnerable. >> how do you personally feel? >> honestly, it smells like a constant campfire, like there is no need for yankee candle, it permeates absolutely everything. and you can feel that kind of smog but it is important to remember that several millions of people actually live with this kind of smog on a daily basis. >> samira hussain reporting from new york. thank you so much. as we have been hearing, the dangerous air has medical authorities on high alert. here is some advice on what you can do to keep yourself safe. >> we don't want people to get a false sense of security, we want to make sure that to the greatest extent possible people stay indoors. if you have to be outdoors we encourage people to limit heavy exertion activities and we don't want to encourage people to be

exercising in this type of smoke exposure, and for masks, don't rely on dust masks or surgical masks because those will not provide the same level of protection as an n95 mask. >> he goes on to say that n95 masks can make it difficult for some people with certain lung conditions to brief and encourages them to exercise caution when making those decisions. prince harry left the high court in london after almost two days of cross-examination in his privacy case against a group of newspapers. he claimed he was unlawfully targeted during a 15 year. would begin when he was a child. he told the court that he once found a tracking device on the part of his former girlfriend, chelsea davey and he said he thought it's a suspicious that typical conversations between him and his extra friend had appeared in stories in the daily mirror. the publisher denies using unlawful means to get

information about the prints. we are in cot with more. >> the interest in this story shows no sign of winning. for the second day the world media gathered in a cul-de-sac in central london waiting for the high court and its star witness. prince harry arrived here for another bout of cross-examination. the mayor group is determined to show thate has wrongly claimed that articles about him were based on unlawful information gathering. there was not a single item of evidence in these articles to show phone hacking, mimes the barrister, and is names appear speculative. the prince says that this article about a secret dinner at a friends house was based on phone hacking as he and his friend had left voicemails for each other. this one about his then girlfriend, thierry about his visit to a lap dance club was also hacked, harry says, and was

in other papers that it before, the opposition says. prince harry told the court that he was likely to have exchanged voicemails about the difficulties in their relationship and says we find this very suspicious. the barrister says that this was in news of the world. prince harry blames tabloids for his break up and says he found a tracking device on her car. put there by a private investigator, he claims. for my whole life, the press have misled me to cover up wrongdoing, he says. the mere group asked him would you be relieved or disappointed if the court decided you had not been hacked by us? prince harry said that phone hacking was on an industrial scale at the time and that is beyond doubt. i would feel some injustic so you want to have been phone hacked? no one wants to have been phone hacked, my lord. his barrister asked prince harry

the told that it had taken. the prince appeared to fight back tears, it's a lot, he said, and a cracked voice. he stad in court to hear a former mirror while reporter that the court insisted must give evidence. a byline appears on almost a third of the articles about terry being examined by the court. she commission private investigators to help generate stories but never asked anyone to do anything unlawful. >> she spent -- prince harry spent eight hours in the witness room and will probably be leaving feeling relieved at having kept his cool. there was nothing in his testimony which would be embarrassing to the royals. prince harry's focus was solely the tabloid press. an effort, he said, to bring in and to the abuse and intrusion of him and his wife. >> pope francis has undergone abdominal surgery at a hospital in rome, the vatican spokesman says there were no pump --

convocations and the pope was noback in his room. 86 euros is expected to stay at the hospital to recover, the hernia operation was carried out under general anesthetic it is the second operation in less than two years for the pontiff and his third stay in hospital. argentina legend leonel messi will join americans in miami after his exit from the french championship. former barcelona forward is set to reject a more lucrative offer from saudi arabia. he won an award for best player several times and he is expected to win it again after the world cup success. the former u.s. vice president has launched his bid for the budget 24 republican presidential nomination. mike pence told a crowd in iowa on wednesday that following the 2020 election loss by -- my consulting to choose between him and the constitution. he says that anyone who attempts

to make that choice should not be president. >> selling himself as a christian conservative, mike pence kicked off his campaign with a fleshy video. >> that is why today before god and my family, i'm announcing i'm running for president of the united states. >> not one image of donald trump appears in this video. but mike pence cannot escape from four years of servile loyalty as vice president. >> mike pence is going to have come through a -- for us. if he doesn't, that will be a sad day for our country. >> until he reviews to block joe biden from becoming president. -- refused to block joe biden from going president. >> writers called for him to be hung. -- rioters called for him to be hung. defending the constitution is now a campaign pitch. >> anyone who puts themselves over the constitution should

never be president of the united states and anyone who asks someone else to put them over the constitution should never be president of the united states again. >> mr. pentz is on much safer graph if i want will be the first state to pick a republican nominee. also competing is ron desantis, and in fact, eight candidates were under the same roof last weekend. >> god is not done with america get. -- yes. >> mike pence is a well-known but is trailing badly in the polls behind donald trump. more candidates like pencil get into the race, the more they split that antitrust vote and the easier they could make it for mr. trump to win the nomination. >> these voters did not get to

hear from trump himself, but skipping this event does not seem to undermine his support. >> for your support for the nomination - who are you supporting for the nomination? >> trump or desantis. i could go for either one. but truck first i think. >> i voted for trump last time, i love his policies. the name-calling is got to stop. >> pentz is one of the guys i am looking at. i think he needs to be a little bit stronger, but i think if you're going to be the president, you have to have a live -- little bit of bulldog and you. >> mike pence will do what he can to attract attention, straddling a harley-davidson if that's what it takes. in a congested race it is still candidates like him versus the absent donald trump. and it is the former president who is still clearly in the lead. sarah smith, bbc. >> downtown manhattan is paying -- playing host one of the biggest film of into the u.s.

the tribeca festival. it was cofounded by robert de niro in the wake of 9/11 and meant to revive the devastated tribeca neighborhood and has grown into an internationally respected movie showcase. our correspondent joins us now from tribeca, great to happy with this. as we were touching on, robert de niro, one of the cofounders of this festival, to what extent do you think that it still bears is mark? -- his mark? >> very much so. he is a figurehead, but his values as a new york liberal democrat and the values of the other cofounder jane rosenthal actually does inform this festival, it's very diverse, very inclusive, and what they have built up over the years is pretty formidable. they're going to be having more than 600 events here in new york over the next 12 days showing more than 100 feature films. dinero is a very interesting character, a brilliant actor,

member him in phil's -- films like taxi driver and raging bull, and at the age of 79, he announced just the other day almost as an aside that he had become a father of a young baby girl. and a way, i went to meet him, he is not the easiest person to interview because he is a little hazard, he is charming, but he is a bit one-on-one about donald trump, his nemesis. i asked him if he was more spoken because he felt freer and older -- outspoken because he felt fre and older? >> in some ways i feel like i might be, but with trump it makes me so angry that we would allow someone like him to be president ever under any conditions. >> he does like your movies, because i was looking at a list of his top 10 films and he rates goodfellas. >> he thinks he's a gangster, that's why. >>, a political message

therefrom robert de niro, does that translate into the festival movie choices? >> if not overly, i think the cofounder and the founder would actually say it is a very activist festival. that is very apparent in some of the films that they have put in the lineup this year. i've seen a few of them. for example, a couple of documentaries which deal with ukraine, in a very interesting and compelling way. there is one which follows for standup comics in ukraine were traveling around the country plying their trade and trying to make ukrainians laugh at a time when their country is going through a lot of turmoil. there are films le that in the lineup which in no way reflects, i think, the tribeca view of what cinema should be about. >> i do have to ask you of

course, everybody is speaking about the orange haze in new york, also here in washington. is it having an impact on the festival? >> i went around to the festival press office the short time ago and they say it is making no difference because the event tonight, the launch of the opening-night film is actually an indoor event. that will be affected. i think you will see robert -- that won't be affected. i think you will see robert de niro on the red carpet. >> enjoy the movies. thanks for talking to us. before we go, we had to show you this amazing footage from hawaii where the kilauea volcano erupted earlier on wednesday and u.s. geological survey said the suing lava flows have been confined to the crater floor. mount kilauea is in a closed area, and is one of the world's most active volcanoes. a string of earthquakes and eruptions led to the destruction

of homes in 2019, and officials at this time says there is no indication that theopulation is 13. -- threatened. you can always find the latest news on our website, and on our twitter. i'm helen humphrey in washington dc, thank you for watching world news america. narrator: funding for this presentation of this program is provided by... narrator: financial services firm, raymond james. man: bdo. accountants and advisors. narrator: funding was also provided by, the freeman foundation. by judy and peter blum kovler foundation; pursuing solutions for america's neglected needs. and by contributions to this pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. ♪ ♪

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that's one small step for man. one giant leap for mankind. geoff: good evening. i'm geoff bennett. amna: and i'm amna nawaz. on the “newshour” tonight, smoke from canadian wildfires blankets wide swaths of the eastern united states, causing air quality concerns for millions of americans. >> the high levels of air pollution are going to be detrimental to people who are at risk. but really, everyone is impacted by this. geoff: rescuers rush to get civilians to safety in southern ukraine after a catastrophic dam breach floods streets and buildings. amna: and the republican presidential field expands with former vice president mike pence and north dakota governor doug burgum announcing their bids for the white house.