hello i'm caitriona perry. we want to start the programme with three weather events thousands of miles apart, involving fire and water and disrupting the lives of local communities. in a moment we'll have the latest on the evacuations in canada, where the residents of yellowknife are 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 underway 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, thats 615 kilometers, south of mexico's southern edge. presidentjoe biden spoke about the preparations underway. 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 prepositioned personnel and supplies in the region, and they are ready to respond as needed. i urge everyone, everyone in the path of the storm, 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 1200 miles or 2000 kilometers north in the country's northwest territory capital of yellowknife are some of the more than 1000 active wildfires across canada. 186,000 residents in both kelowna and west kelowna are under a state of emergency after fast—burning and unpredictable wildfires forced evacuations early friday. in yellowknife, a wildfire continues to move closer to the city. it currently sits about 9 miles, or 15 kilometers away. residents are still evacuating and officials say flights out of yellowknife will leave every hour. 0llie williams is a journalist with cabin radio based in yellowknife, who has evacuated to a nearby village. he spoke to the bbc earlier. 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 in 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 six thousand kilometers 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. washington post reporter brianna sacks found data and video evidence indicating elctrical faults in the island's power grid likely ignited the most devastating wildfires on maui. here's what she had to say. 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. 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.

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 north—west 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 foster joined my colleague carl nasman 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, thank you very much. 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 suk yeol 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. president biden spoke in detail about how this three—way alliance will be strengthened. earlier, our state department correspondent barbara plett usher described 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 they might be and instituting a hotline to facilitate that, a crisis hotline that leaders would use, then you have those military exercises that are going to become annual events. they have had trilateral military exercises before occasionally, but this is now going to be something regular. they're also going to double down as president biden said on information sharing, especially with regards to north korean missile launches. and they're going to

have regular summits. they're also, on the economic security side, going to have an early warning system so they can be alerted to any potential disruption in global supply chain. so really it's about regularising and institutionalising a whole set of security measures and placing it on our foundation that has not really existed before. barbara plett usher there. now, a short while ago, my colleague carl nasman spoke with former assistant secretary for east asian and pacific affairs danny russell and director of the asia program at the wilson center and former senior analyst on korean issues, sue mi terry about the summit�*s significance. thank you both for being here. it's an interesting day and as we heard, this is really being hailed as historic. danny, just to start with you, what did you make about the details behind this pact? the details are reflecting a transformation, not only in the relationship betweenjapan and korea but in the integration of the elements of the three governments.

the details reflect both tremendous amount of work that has begun already among the three countries and also an ambitious programme of collaboration that i think vastly strengthens the deterrents, the defence, the intelligence, the technological and the other forms of influence and strength of these three countries. and, sue, how about you? people are going to pains to say, look, this is not an alliance, this isn't something like nato where you have that provision where if one country is attacked, the others are compelled to defend them. given that, how concrete does this look to you? it's not nato but it's close to it. this is a huge achievement. i agree with everything that danny said and danny knows it's so hard — anybody

who has worked on these issues, it's hard to overstate how difficult it is to bring korean leader and japanese leader together in this kind of setting and have this kind of ambitious agenda. the last several years particularly, their relationship has been in a deep freeze. the kudos really goes out to all three leaders — of course, president yoon for making a very courageous decision to have this very forward—looking relationship withjapan, but also to prime minister kishida, who has this very pragmatic vision. and also president biden, for prioritising improving trilateral relationship. so, this is a very significant event. i think for a lot of people out there, they will say "korea "and japan, they are the closest allies to "united states," and i don't think people understand how difficult the relationship has been and what a symbolic moment it is today,

so i'm kind of blown away and i expected it to be a good meeting but i didn't expect such an ambitious laying out of all the things that they are going to co—operate on, so i'm very thrilled by this development. danny, what about you? i mean, blown away as well,= with the amount of work president biden put into this and obviously work on all three sides but we heard that he really wanted to make this relationship a priority of his presidency. why do you think president biden worked so hard to bring these two countries closer together? there's a very simple answer, carl — because the inability of america's two closest allies in asia to fully co—operate has been a major problem for america's own national security. we need, in order to face the direct threat from north korea, in order to deal with the aggression russia has

demonstrated in its attack on ukraine and also with the myriad challenges emerging from china, we need the three nations, these three democracies, to be able to work together without political impediment, without the kinds of obstacles that in the recent past as sue pointed out, prevented japanese and korean senior government and military officials from even talking to each other and meeting, that prevented them from participating in joint military exercises where sharing data necessary to defend against a north korean ballistic missile. so, as president biden said in his press conference in typically blunt terms, this is a big deal. i don't think that the us forced japan and korea into an agreement

screaming and kicking. i think that the administration wisely seized the momentum and has created now a trilateral framework that embeds the bilateral detente, which is delicate, and i think makes it much more likely that this kind of progress is going to be sustained beyond the current yoon and kishida governments. and sue, ijust want to bring you back in here because president biden said something else interesting. he said this agreement is not anti—china. what do you make of that statement — and maybe more importantly — what do you think china makes of this agreement? china is not going to like it, obviously, and they went out of their way to sort of, not i guess try to say directly that this is about china but they did talk about dangerous

and aggressive behaviour by beijing in the south china sea, and that's really strong for president yoon to accept. prime minister kishida has always been closer, japan has been closer to the us in terms of condemning china. so this is a novel thing coming out of south korea because south korea has been in the past more reluctant, because south korea has been, in the past, more reluctant. they pursued more of a hedging policy between us and china. so, to me, it's no doubt this statement is about china. it's a very strong statement about china. they don't want to necessarily provoke china by admitting so but there's no doubt in my mind that a big part of this whole meeting and having this kind of trilateral relationship is about china. of course, it's also about north korea's expanding and modernising their nuclear missile programme but it's definitely about china, there's no doubt about that. and danny, last word to you — we've got about 30 seconds — but how do you think this agreement will be seen by china? well, china's now committed

to viewing everything the united states does as fundamentally hostile. they�* re deeply paranoid. but the real message of camp david, i think, is not anti—china, it's deterrence. when china looks at the geopolitical and the security situation, now that south korea and japan are close to being reconciled and are certainly working with the united states, let alone violent, actions to change the status quo, —— it sees an environment that will not tolerate unilateral, let alone violent, actions to change the status quo, and that's good for regional security. that's good for stability. right. danny russell, the former assistant secretary for east asian and pacific affairs and sue mi terry, former director of the asia programme at the wilson centre and former senior analyst on korean issues at the cia, thank you both so much for your insights. the family of a presidential

candidate murdered in ecuador last week has announced they're suing the government forfailing to protect him. fernando villavicencio was shot dead after a political rally. his family accused the government of murder by omission and said the authorities ignored several death threats against him. the lawsuit comes ahead of sunday's presidential vote. crime is at the forefront of everyone�*s minds. in the first six months of the year, there were 3,568 violent deaths in the country, according to the national police. that was up more than 70% on last year. 0ur south america correspondent katy watson reports form guayaquil. ecuadorians go to the polls with a little nervous after the murder of fernando viv asencio, he was not the first politician to be murdered and there is fear there is more violence to come around the election period, such as the power of the cartels here, as i have been finding out in ecuador�*s biggest city. 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 i 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 do the campaign even with a bullet—proof vest. politics is complicated here in ecuador. as long as demand for cocaine keep soaring, the cartels will fight for domination and the body count will keep rising. these elections have been held early because the current leader dissolved the national assembly to avoid an impeachment vote so many ecuadorians are questioning what can be done in the 18 months until the next election will be held. there is no question though that the murder of fernando villavicencio has upended campaigning and all the campaigners have been focusing on security and peace head of the vote but it looks like no candidate will win enough votes to avoid a run—off late in

october. that's all from us here in washington. we leave you with these live pictures of london, where our colleagues will pick up at the top of the hour. i'm caitriona perry. thank you for watching. stay 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 of 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 a0 or 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 but 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, north east 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 mist and fog in southern areas in particular by sunday morning. and it will feel a little less oppressive — we'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. just there'll still be one or two 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 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 butjust for the remainder of the night, storm betty still with us. there are numerous warnings. more details on the website.

merchuma, bbc news.

voice-over: this is bbc news. we'll have the headlines for you at the top of the hour, which is straight after this programme. chloe, would we like to be in a video about how much i love you? and you, bambi? dogs have never been more popular. in the uk, we bought 3.2 million pets during lockdown. in europe, puppies are now a multibillion euro industry. but where are all these puppies coming from?

for the first time, our world unveils a criminal underworld of puppy traders trafficking dogs across europe. they came here to resell those dogs in england. those englishmen, they also dealt in drugs. the criminals are breeding dogs in unlicensed puppy mills in hungary. these dogs suffer abuse and neglect. the dogs are sold into a vast pet trade network in western europe that handles 8 million puppies a year. many are illegally passed off as the offspring of a much—loved family pet.

hungary has emerged as a dog breeding power in europe.