it's 7pm in london this is this world today with sarah campbell. a new york court overturns harvey weinstein's 2020 conviction for rape, ordering a new trial in the landmark "metoo" case. those connected with his case have begun to react. this is what it's like to be a woman in america, living with male entitlement to our bodies. the actor and political activist, laurence fox is ordered to pay 90—thousand pounds to two people he targeted on social media. i've been speaking to the drag performer crystal — one of the two people mr fox has been ordered to pay libel damages to. also coming up on the world today: is this the new normal? scientists say climate change made deadly flooding in the gulf more intense — and warn it could become more common.

welcome to the world today — an hour of international news from the bbc. the former hollywood film producer, harvey weinstein, has had one of his convictions for rape overturned by new york's highest court on the basis that he did not receive a fair trial. it's ordered a new hearing. weinstein will remain in prison for a separate conviction for rape. emma vardy begins our coverage. when one of the most powerful men in hollywood was charged with rape, it led to an outpouring over a culture of sexual assault and misogyny experienced by women around the world. a number of actresses came forward, accusing harvey weinstein of forcing them into sex, saying they'd been afraid to speak out, because of his ability to make or break careers.

but now the rape conviction against harvey weinstein that sparked the so—called me too movement has been overturned in a shock outcome in new york. the court of appeal said prosecutors had called witnesses whose accusations were not part of the charges against him. that meant, it said, he was unfairly tried for past behaviour. harvey weinstein was also convicted of rape in a separate case here in la. last year, he was sentenced to 16 years for raping a woman in beverly hills hotel. he will remain in prison while a decision is made in new york over whether to retry him. harvey weinstein's lawyer has commended the appeals court, he said, for upholding the principles that a criminal defendant should have in a trial. harvey weinstein's accusers have called the decision a major step back in holding those accountable for acts of sexual violence. emma vardy, bbc news, los angeles. in the past half hour, harvey weinstein's lawyer has been speaking outside the court.

he said that he knew his client had not received a fair trial. in had not received a fair trial. in this court house behind us and that trial the law was not applied fairly to harvey weinstein. and what the court of appeals, the highest court in the greatest state and the greatest country said today is that yes, no one is above the law but no one is below the law either. and the case in which he relies upon is over 100 years old. and what the court of appeals said, you can't throw out 100 years of legal precedent because someone is unpopular. more than 75 women accused weinstein of varying degrees of sexual misconduct going back decades — allegations he denies. actress ashleyjudd was among the first to speak up. she spoke in the wake of today's outcome.

first and foremost, i want to say i stand in sisterhood and solidarity with all survivors of male sexual violence. today is a day like every day in american women's lives when male sexual violence has intruded in and disrupted our lives. there i am planning to get my back country camping site reservations in yellowstone national park, which i'm very excited. and i get the news from jodi kantor of the new york times that four judges at new york's court have voted to overturn harvey weinstein's this is what it's like to be a woman in america, living with male entitlement to our bodies. for more on why this case was overturned, i spoke with former assistant us attorney, and professor of criminal law at fordham university, cheryl bader. it was overturned on two bases.

so one is that there were these evidentiary rulings that the court made that allowed in testimony from other victims in incidents that were not actually charged in this case. and typically allowing in what we call propensity evidence is not allowed. in other words, we don't wantjurors to say to themselves, well, he did it before he'll do it again, or that he has bad character and therefore he's guilty, because that's not evidence of guilt that someone has bad character has done bad things in the past. there are certain exceptions to that. and the prosecutor had argued here that they should be allowed to have in this testimony in order to rebut an argument that these were sexual favors that women were giving as part of the sort of casting couch culture. and so the judge did allow this testimony in, but the appeals court said that

that was an error. former us attorney speaking to me earlier. here in the uk, the actor and political activist, laurence fox says he'll appeal after being ordered to pay two people — he referred to as paedophiles — £90—thousand each in damages. he was sued by the former stonewall charity trustee, simon blake, and the drag artist, crystal, after making the comments on social media. a little earlier i spoke crystal — former drag race uk star — who was awarded £90 thousand in damages — and felt vindicated by the verdict. yeah. the main feeling is, is a vindication, and that's what these damages are there to do. it's been three and a half years of the pursuit of this vindication. and just seeing it on the page today has just been, it's been emotional,

it's been a relief. and it's as i say, it's been very vindicating to just see how i've been feeling written down on thatjudgment paper. just take us through the lengthy process that there has been. this started back in, what, 2020? yeah, 0ctober2020, ithink i had no idea it would take this long, but it has been three and a half years of mostly kind of inaction, but occasional flare ups of trial, a preliminary issue appeal, and then the actual court case that was obviously the the most eventful part of it, which which we had in december. and now we've just finally had the thejudgement and the award of damages. i notice there has been a reaction from laurence fox. he's tweeted or on what used to be known as as far as twitter. he said none of the claimants could provide a single witness in court to support the claim that they'd suffered any harm, and he suggested that he will be appealing. i mean, i'm obviously disappointed to hear that he's going to appeal, but he has been saying

that throughout. i honestly don't know how he's going to afford it. but, you know, i'm confident that we'll win on appeal if even the court of appeal is willing to hear it, because it seems all very black and white to me. what i would also just say about laurence fox's posts on on x, i think the judge said it best when she said that he's characterised by impulsiveness, theatricality, a disregard for or uninterested in the impact on others, and an unfair hideousness about objective factuality. so i think that's how we should read anything that he says on x. when he suggests that you haven't really suffered any harm from what was said, let's not forget that he referred to you as a paedophile. yeah. i mean, obviously i strongly disagree with that, which is why i took him to court over it. and it's his continuous minimizing of the impact of that he has on others that i find very distressing. you know, he could have made this go away very early on in the proceedings

by apologising and retracting. but he refused to do that. he doubled down. and it's the playbook that we see from right wing pundits across the board. it's instead of apologising, never apologise, just keep digging that hole. double down, double down, double down and see how far you can get. and that's what we're seeing with him. so he's never going to admit that he was wrong and he's never going to admit that that, you know what he said has consequences, but at least he's going to have to pay. and the judge said in a very lengthy ruling, actually, that you've taken this case and you've done so under a sustained hailstorm of mr fox's exercise, of his rights of amplified free speech. do you hope today that this might draw a line under this whole lengthy process? i think because it has gone on for so long, i'm kind of... i don't think it's ever necessarily done. and and in one hand, what his defamation has showed me is that this rhetoric has become so much more

acceptable in modern life. and even under my post today announcing the judgment, there was someone calling me a danger to children. so in a lot of ways, that genie is out of the bottle. but what i hope it does show is that there are consequences for these demagogues and when they when theyjust go and say whatever they want and free speech doesn't mean freedom from freedom of consequences. and i hope that it can also help to embolden other people who experience this to also stand up for themselves. we're not going to get the faceless trolls on twitter, but but if if you're going to go out there with a blue tick and say crystal, the former drag race start talking earlier after having been awarded £90,000 in damages. police in wales have announced that a 13—year—old girl has been charged with three counts of attempted murder after two teachers and a teenage pupil were stabbed

at a school in camarthenshire on wednesday morning. our wales correspondent tomos morgan filed this update from outside the school. just had an update from superintendent ross evans from david powers police, where he told the media that, as you mentioned, there are 13 —year—old girl was arrested yesterday and they have now charged her with three counts of attempted murder. the three individuals were taken that were taken to hospital yesterday have now all been discharged. and the bbc understands that both of those teachers we can name now as liz hopkin and fiona elias. there was also some more detail from this press conference that we just happened moments ago. police said yesterday evening in their control room, their social media department had spotted a number of social media messages referring to incidents that had taken place here. officers then carried out a warrant. ross evans said for that person they believed responsible for those for that content.

and a 15—year—old male was then arrested and he is now in custody. now, they said that these two investigations are separate, but the police are seeking to establish whether there is any connection between the offences. and superintendent ross evans finished by again urging the public that no media or information about this incident should be shared on social media as an investigation is ongoing. still to come on the world today — donald trump's big day in not one, but two courts. around the world and across the uk. this is the world today on bbc news.

donald trump's path to the election appears to be paved with legal woes. there were two cases today, one in washington and the other in new york.

in washington, the us supreme court has heard pointed arguments on whether a former president is immune from criminal prosecution over acts carried out while in office. the outcome will determine if he faces trial on charges, he plotted to overturn his 2020 presidential election defeat. a decision isn't expected untiljune. the ruling in this case won't affect his criminal trial under way in new york — where he faces charges of falsifying business records after paying hush money to adult film star stormy daniels. here he is speaking earlier. at this trial my constitutional rights have been taken away from me. but every single expert, every legal scholar, or very respected scholars have said this is no case, there is no case here. this isjust a political witchhunt. for more, i spoke with our correspondents covering both cases — nada tawfik in new york

and gary o'donoghue in washington. two hours and a0 minutes. the ninejustices examined both sides, tested their arguments. and really what's at the heart of this is, does the president have immunity from criminal prosecution? donald trump's lawyers argue that he does and should. and those prosecuting the charges against donald trump over the january sixth riots and the attempts to overturn the 2020 election argue that a president doesn't have complete immunity. so that's the absolute crux of this. it goes into all sorts of constitutional detail. it goes into what constitutes an official act by a president as opposed to what constitutes a private act. there are arguments about whether or not criminal prosecutions can only follow an impeachment and conviction of a president by congress. so very, very detailed, as you would expect, at the highest court in the land.

but at the end of the day, this is really a kind of keystone case in the sense that if donald trump were to get his way here, at least two of those other three criminal cases against him, the document case in florida and the georgia election case, they would just fall away. the other thing about these cases, of course, is that while he's here at the supreme court, the actual cases themselves are being delayed. and there's a fairly good chance that the case involving the overturning of the election might not happen before november's general election here. and of course, if donald trump were to win that november election, he could just tell his justice department to drop the cases. so you said that the hearing is over, relatively brief hearing, bearing in mind what's at stake. have we got any idea of timescale when we might hear a result? yeah, they tend to hear a couple of hours, so it's probably not abnormal in that sense.

there's just one lawyer from each side. these these justices think about this stuff for a while. this is a key constitutional question they've never been asked before. this is the last oral case they're going to hear before the end of their term. they tend to bring out their big judgements towards the end ofjune in a kind of whole batch over a period of a couple of weeks. so you could be waiting for a couple of months yet before an outcome on this one. even though they've been urged to expedite this as quickly as possible, simply because the special counsel says people should know the outcome of this case before november's election. yeah, absolutely. all right, gary o'donoghue, thank you for that. let's go to neda tawfik, who is in new york. and donald trump, another legal situation going on for him. what have we heard in court today? yeah. well, we've had more testimony from the first witness.

we're still on the first witness in this case, david pecker, the former publisher of the national enquirer. and remember, prosecutors have really identified him as kind of a key figure in the alleged catch and kill scheme that they say was devised with donald trump and his former lawyer, michael cohen, to have the tabloid help his campaign before the 2016 election. the 2016 election keep out of the news any embarrassing stories? so david pecker has been doing two things here. he's kind of been laying the groundwork, explaining how that catch and kill scheme alleged catch and kill scheme works. he says that when one story came out by a former playboy model, karen mcdougal, that he believed she was telling the truth. he alerted donald trump. they agreed that they should buy her story. he testified that he paid her $150,000 for kind of the rights for her story, but disguised it as services paid so he wouldn't violate any

campaign finance laws. he then goes on to telljurors in the court that when he tried to get reimbursed from mr trump through his lawyer, michael cohen, his general counsel at the national enquirer, really warned him against that because of legal concerns. and so he says he ultimately dropped that. so that really kind of laid the groundwork for prosecutors to get into the key payment that is at the centre of this case, the $130,000 that michael cohen paid to stormy daniels, which prosecutors here allege donald trump directed. so we've really gotten to kind of the david pecker testifying about kind of the timeline and the intent here, that this was all to help donald trump's campaign, allegedly. i spoke earlier with annemarie mcavoy — a former us federal prosecutor and legal expert on the significance of the supreme court case and why it's considered historic.

it's a certainly a case of first impression. it's the first time that there's even been talk of bringing criminal charges against a president. obviously, there are a number of cases pending. and it was a fascinating discussion to hear thejustices going back and forth for a couple of hours on this issue. it seems that it's likely that they will remand it back to the district court. they there were concerns on both sides as to the scope of presidential immunity. it seems that the lawyers for trump actually acknowledge that there is no absolute immunity. and then they got into a whole discussion of what acts are private and what acts are official, and the immunity would apply to the official acts. and then also there were questions relating to the intent and then whether a president is acting as president or whether he's acting as a candidate. and the issue that certainly every elected official who is eligible to run for re—election is always

thinking as a candidate as well. so these are very difficult issues and there are no easy answers to them. and you could see the justices were really wrestling with the issues as to how best to approach them. israel's war cabinet has been meeting to discuss the military operation in rafah in southern gaza. israel says its plans to launch an assault on remaining hamas battalions in rafah. more than a million displaced people are taking shelter in rafah. washington has warned israel not to carry out a full—scale attack without a credible plan to protect civilians. our team at bbc verify has been examining satellite imagery — showing what could be preparations ahead of a rafah offensive. here's merlyn thomas. israel has signalled its intention to carry out an offensive on rafah. but prime minister benjamin netanyahu hasn't specified when this will happen. currently, there are estimated to be at least 1.2 million

people living in rafah here on the border with egypt. most of them have been displaced from other parts of gaza because of the israeli offensive. many are in tents with limited essential services. israel says they will evacuate them from rafah but haven't given details about how this will happen. we've been analysing satellite imagery to see where preparations are being made. now we don't know exactly where people are going to be moved to, but about seven kilometres north of rafah is the southern city of khan yunis. and these satellite images show what appear to be olive groves. then just over two weeks later, hundreds of tents have appeared. and another example, this is the border city of rafah, the city that the israeli army have said they'll attack soon. over the past couple of weeks, hundreds of tents have been put up here on the outskirts of rafah. but this is just a fraction of what's already been put up here in the past couple of months. a city covered in tents and getting

hundreds of thousands of people out of rafah will be a huge challenge. there are four main roads that lead out of rafah, covered in debris and damage from months of fighting. this is a video from the center of khan yunis on one of the main roads. cars are driving through a landscape of rubble. and on this road, you can see on satellite imagery a crater, one of the remnants of earlier bombardment. cars could still technically go around it, but it's damage like this that is likely to make evacuation extremely difficult. and the question of what awaits palestinians fleeing rafah is still unclear. israeli media reports say preparations are under way, including the purchase of 40,000 tents, each designed to hold 10 to 12 people. so while the offensive of rafah hasn't begun, it doesn't mean it's a safe place. the israeli army carried out several strikes overnight. this is a video that shows the aftermath of one of those strikes we've geolocated to the city

by matching identifiable features in this video with publicly available images, children's toys, a carseat, whole lives scattered. and about 57% of gaza's buildings have been damaged or destroyed. that's according to satellite image analysis. khan yunis has borne the brunt of israeli strikes in the south since the war began. so even if people were evacuated to the city, there's little for people to return to. netanyahu hasn't yet said when the attack will take place, but the israeli army has confirmed two reservist brigades have been called up for missions. palestinians are already living in dire conditions in crowded camps in rafah, which had a population of around 275,000 before the war. now more than 1.7 million will need to flee again. and where and how they'll do that is still unknown. the prince of wales paid a visit

to a school in england to learn how students are being supported with their mental wellbeing. prince william was invited to st. michael's church of england high school in the west midlands, by a 12—year—old pupil last october. freddie had asked the prince to come and find out about the school's matrix project — set up to shine a spotlight on male mental health. at the time, the prince responded with a message commending the school on its work but apologised for being unable to make it. six months on, the prince met the school's student voice committee to learn about its various initiatives. the initiative was launched in 2012 and consists of up to 100 students who meet at lunchtimes and after school.

working on their mental health, well done them. do stay with us here on bbc news. hello there. there were two different types of weather across the country for thursday, neither being warm. across england and wales, there was a lot of cloud around with some patches of rain and these grey skies, the rain, was all tied in with an area of low pressure out in the north sea. you can see the extent of the cloud here. further north, though, we had much brighter weather in scotland with some lengthy spells of sunshine. so if you wanted the sunnier weather, scotland was the place to be. however, we did see some of those brighter skies push in into northern ireland and northern england through the afternoon. now, overnight, we've got a few patches of rain to come and go across southern areas of england, perhaps south wales as well. away from that, most of the uk having clearing skies, especially during the second part of the night, becomes largely dry, and there will be quite a widespread frost in rural areas. so we are looking at a cold and a frosty start to the day for many on friday. but overall, it's a much brighter day with more in the way of sunshine.

the exception southern england, where there is the threat of some rain, especially in the southwest. and through the afternoon we'll see some showers break out. they'll become quite widespread, but especially across northern and eastern scotland and eastern areas of england. wherever you are, we're looking at another chilly day for the time of year, with temperatures well around about 8—11; degrees. now, this weekend will see an area of low pressure move up from the south. and this brings with it the threat of some rain. now, on saturday, the rain will be affecting southern england across parts of wales, the midlands and east anglia. there will be a chilly wind gusting into the 25 miles an hour, not desperately strong, but given those low temperatures, the wind, i think, will make it feel that bit colder. for northern ireland, scotland and northern england, after a cold and frosty start, again, we're looking at an afternoon of sunny spells and passing showers, some of the showers having a bit of hail mixed in and temperatures below average once again. the second part of the weekend, the same area of low pressure threatens some rain across eastern england. now, there is a chance this rain

could be a bit more extensive across the midlands and slower to clear, but away from that area, again, after a cold and locally frosty start, we're looking at some sunny spells and a number of showers, especially across the north and the west of the country. temperatures continue to run below average for the time of year. however, as we get into next week, if you're fed up with this chilly weather, it does look like we'll see something of a change to much milder weather conditions. however, it's not necessarily dry. there will be some rain and showers around next week.

this is the world today from bbc news, the headlines a new york court overturns harvey weinstein's 2020 conviction for rape, ordering a new trial in the landmark "metoo" case. top us diplomat antony blinken is in beijing — as the two superpowers attempt to repair their relationship and venice becomes the first city in the world to charge day trippers for entry in an effort to tackle over crowding. remember the extraordinary scenes from dubai. a year and a half's worth of rain fell in a day last week. scientists say it's likely the torrential storms were made significantly more intense because of climate change.

the finding comes as heavy rain continues to pummel