the release includes infamous former defence contractor leonard glenn francis known as fat leonard. he s at the center of one of the us navy s largest corruption cases. in exchange the us has freed alex saab, an aide and top ally to venezuela s president nicolas maduro, accused of laundering money on behalf of the maduro government, which he denies. mr maduro is also releasing 20 venezuelan political prisoners. it s all part of the biden administration s efforts to improve relations with venezuela, and push mr maduro to hold fair elections next year. earlier, i spoke with our reporter mimi swaby about the deal. president byers was emphasising that this was all about encouraging venezuela to hold free and fair elections. how much leveraged you think the biden administration has in that regard? this is yet another sign of significant flowing between relations between the us and venezuela after months of really high level negotiations. this comes as biden is grappling with a
new laws are intended to limit asylum seekers coming into the eu. eu member states and the parliament have agreed on this overall law on an approach to asylum seekers. it is intended to speed up and standardise the amount of people coming into the black. it proposes to do that with five new eu laws. the first of which would be the speedier vetting of arrivals using biometrics. that could be facial recognition technology, fingerprinting. which could be done at one of these new border detention centres that are being thirdly, an accelerated consideration of asylum cases, so the eu wants to speed up the time it takes to determine whether a migrant has a valid asylum claim. they want to do that in six months or less, if it s not a valid claim, they say they will accelerate the deportation of that person. finally, and crucially, allows its proposed for solidarity measure. this is a way for countries in the eu to financially support or even to help with an influx of migrants by acc
the air national guardsman accused of stealing and sharing classified documents appears in court. and the government says he has a history of threatening to kill people. then, dozens of americans trapped in sudan, begging the u.s. government to help them get out. why do u.s. officials say they can t help, even though other countries are carrying out evacuations? plus, tears, smiles, and laughs. brittney griner holds her first news conference since her release from a russian prison. never going overseas unless i m representing my country at the olympics. what the basketball star had to say about her famgame and th other americans still being wrongly detained in russia. welcome to the lead, everyone. i m in for jake tapper. we start today with our national lead. this afternoon, the man accused of leaking classified u.s. intelligence on the internet appeared in court where a judge decided that the suspect will stay behind bars, at least for now. prosecutors argued th
not a single hand raised, we ll take a look at what this says about the leadership race so far. in golf, australian cameron smith hits a birdie blitz at st andrews to claim the open championship for the first time. and jenny from the block becomes mrs affleck, nearly 20 years after they first dated. jennifer lopez and ben affleck have tied the knot. voice over: live from our studio in singapore, this is bbc news. it s newsday. hello and welcome to the programme. a preliminary report into the uvalde school shooting in texas has found systemic failures in the police response. the report says that while almost 400 officers responded, there was a lack of urgency and no one took overall command. 19 children and two adults were killed when the 18 year old gunmen opened fire. a texas state committee has been looking into why it took police more than an hour to confront and kill the shooter. state representative dustin burrows said the committee met the uvalde families to discuss the
we ll take a look at what this says about the leadership race so far. and what s next for sri lanka after 100 days of protests that brought down the country s president? live from our studio in singapore, this is bbc news. it s newsday. it s 6am in singapore and 5pm in texas where the repercussions of may s shooting at an elementary school in uvalde are still having a huge impact. a preliminary report into the shooting has found systemic failures in the police response. 19 children and two adults were killed when the 18 year old gunmen opened fire. a texas house of representatives committee has been looking into why it took police more than an hour to confront and kill the shooter. for the latest on this, i m joined now by our correspondent rianna croxford in washington. great to get you on the programme and i have to say the findings of this preliminary report are pretty stark. give us a sense of what was said at this press conference. the? said at this press conference. t