welcome to our viewers on pbs in america and around the globe. ajury in chicago has found actorjussie smollett guilty of staging a hate crime against himself. mr smollett, who is african—american and openly gay, was accused of orchestrating homophobic attack against him by people impersonating supporters of then—president donald trump in 2019 to generate publicity after reportedly being annoyed by his treatment on the tv show he was starring in at the time. special prosecutor daniel webb spoke to media shortly after the verdict. a lot of times, people say, "well, police officers sweep things under the rug." this police department responded by absolutely testifying in this trial, that they took it seriously, they believed he was the victim of a crime and they worked so hard for the next three weeks, you saw — 26 chicago police officers spent 3,000 hours of time, costing this city well over $100,000 for a fake crime that never occurred — and by the way, a fake crime that denigrates what a real hate crime is. well, smollett�*s defence attorney says they're obviously disappointed, but he's confident the case will be won on appeal. unfortunately, that's not the route we wanted, but sometimes that is the route that you have to take to win, especially a case where we remain 100% confidence in our client's innocence. from the first day of this case, his case has been prejudged, his case has been tried in the media, and it's unfortunate this is the united states of america, we live in a constitutional democracy where everyone is presumed innocent. but, obviously, if we're being honest, that hasn't been the case. in social media, in the media, he's been tried and convicted before his day in court. 0ur correspondent, nomia iqbal, has more of the details. this trial lasted about two weeks and it does come nearly three years after the alleged offence, and in the trial, we heard from the two men who were accused byjussie smollett in the first place of carrying out this attack. they had originally been arrested by the police, and then later released, and they actually testified against mr smollett. they are two brothers from nigeria and they claimed that mr smollett had paid them about $3,500 to stage this attack. now, mr smollett himself took to the stand to defend himself, and he claimed that it was never money to stage an attack. he said that he had paid them this money for personal sessions, for meal plans, workout plans, that the two men, the two brothers are gym instructors, and he has maintained his innocence throughout all of this. but as we heard there, the prosecution is steadfast on this. they said that this was something that mr smollett had staged just to try and boost his profile, boost his tv career, and after about a day of deliberation, about nine hours, the jury returned their verdict, they found him guilty on five of those six charges. the prosecutor, daniel webb, when he spoke to the media, said that mr smollett lied to police, but also lied to the jury. but we heard in that clip earlier his defence attorney saying they're confident they're going to win on appeal and get this overturned? yes, they seem confident that they can do that. as i said, mr smollett has maintained that he never did anything wrong, which — it's really interesting just how much this case has turned. at the time, when he claimed that this homophobic and racist attack had happened, there was this outpouring of support for him, and we're talking about tv presenters, news presenters giving monologues and even the now vice president kamala harris calling it a modern—day lynching. but that support soon turned into anger, and even those people that had once supported him have accused him of taking advantage of the anger and pain of racism, and his career has declined since then, but, yes, his team are planning to appeal. but if that's not successful, he does face prison time. 0ur correspondent in washington, nomia iqbal. here in london, an unofficial tribunal investigating china's treatment of the uyghur minority has found evidence of crimes against humanity and genocide. the findings detail systematic human rights abuses, including forced labour and torture. the chair of the tribunal, sir geoffrey nice, explained how women were sterilised without their consent and families deliberately separated. witness statements also described rapes and assaults in detention camps. pressure is growing on beijing after both the us and other countries announced diplomatic boycotts of the winter olympics. the us house of representatives has also approved legislation banning imports from xinjiang. human rights groups believe china has detained more thani million uyghurs over the past few years. here's the chair of the uyghur tribunal delivering the outcome. 0n the basis of evidence heard in public, the tribunal is satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that the prc, by the imposition of measures to prevent births, intended to destroy a significant part of the uyghurs in xinjiang. as such, it has committed genocide. the tribunal is satisfied that president xi jinping, chen quanguo and other very senior officials in the prc and ccp bear primary responsibility for acts that have occurred in xinjiang. well, earlier, i spoke to erkin sidick who is the president of the uyghur projects foundation. i asked his reaction to the tribunal findings. i am extremely happy, because we have connections back home, we have always been getting about news from our homeland, on a daily basis, and we are so voiceless in the international community. this tribunal gave us a legal basis to hold china's government accountable for crimes against the uyghurs and other peoples in east turkestan, so we're very happy about that and this is an historic event for us. this tribunal was unofficial. what do you hope will come of this? i hope the international community moves faster than before and take some action. so far, the chinese government does not allow anybody from the international community to go to east turkestan and investigate, what the outside world is finding so far is still a very little part of what actually happened in east turkestan. i have some connections, sources, in east turkestan, and also in china's central government. i get many pieces of information, which is much worse than what was reported in the western media. for example, even today, the western media says more thani million uyghurs have been detained in camps, but my source in the top—level chinese government department tells me about 9 million uyghurs have been detained since 2014. this number may surprise many people. the uygher population is not 11 or 12 million as the chinese government reports so far, it is about 20 million. so from the 20 million uygher people, about 9 million have been detained in, since 2014, and about1 million people have died. so we have even more difficulties about that, for example, among those 9 million uyghurs, 2.1 million have been transferred to other parts of china and disbursed and disappeared. 1.8 million transferred from concentration camps to prisons and jails, and the rest, some of them have transferred to forced labour factories in east turkestan. recently, ourfoundation got a list of the chinese companies hiring uyghur people as forced labourers in east turkestan. the numbers were huge — more 111,000 factories in east turkestan alone. so if one factory employs about 100 uyghurs, this means that currently they have 1.4 million uyghurs being employed as forced labour workers in china's factories in east turkestan. so the real situation is much, much worse. at least 49 migrants have died after the truck they were hiding in crashed in the south of mexico. the accident, close to the border with guatemala, is a major transit point for undocumented migrants trying to reach the united states. a further 58 people have been injured, some of them seriously. local officials have suggested the driver was speeding when he lost control. now to the uk. the drama surrounding the british prime minister, borisjohnson, has added fresh scenes and new characters. after the claims about rule—breaking christmas parties, there are now questions over whether he misled an investigation into refurbishments at his downing street flat. if that wasn't enough, some of his own conservative mps are furious over his new coronavirus restrictions. 0ur political editor laura kuenssberg has this report. nightmares on downing street. behind every window, a different dilemma. what's the truth about last year's christmas party in the building? who paid forjohnsons�* expensive interior design upstairs? how can they control another surge in the pandemic? and can they keep their own party under control? when thejohnsons moved in upstairs, they had thousands of pounds of renovations. when the lavish expenses emerged, this was the prime minister's claim. who initially paid for the redecoration of this downing street flat? he should know that i paid for downing street refurbishment personally, mr speaker. yet the tories have been fined thousands for breaking spending rules after a wealthy businessman tried to set up a special trust to pay for doing up the flat. the real tangle is whether borisjohnson has been straight about what happened. he told a previous investigation he hadn't known exactly where the cash came from until february this year, but today's report showed he sent a wealthy donor a whatsapp about the cash several months before. downing street's defence? it's suggested he knew this wealthy donor was overseeing the money, but not that he was directly providing the cash himself. boris johnson's taking the british public forfools. he's not only broken the law, but made a mockery of the standards we expect. and even though there's been tears and a resignation, number ten's hardly recovered from denials and non—denials about parties under its roof. i'm truly sorry... and tonight, confirmation that the director of communications in downing street, jack doyle, attended and made a speech at the gathering on december 18 to thank as many as 30 staff who were present. he's the man who's been in charge of denying there was a party. now, we know he was at the event, just one of three under investigation. thank you very much, mr speaker. willa formal investigation catch up with what really happened? not one, not two, but three what the government is still calling gatherings. a gathering at number ten downing street on november 27, 2020, a gathering at the department for education on december 10, 2020. and allegations made of a gathering at number ten downing street on december 18, 2020. but it's the emptying of offices next week, the return of tighter covid restrictions, vaccine passports to get into venues that's stirring strong feelings. dozens of tory mps have already vowed to vote against the plans next week, and this is all provoking private questions about the prime minister's future with a warning from the past. the mood of the conservative party is sulphurous, and what we need now is a bit of grip from number ten. it's no good having these stories dragged out by the media. the government needs to make a clean breast of it. the conservative party history is littered with ruthlessness on these occasions, but i'm confident that boris will get a grip. there is exasperation in the tory party about what's been happening, and near universal agreement that someone somehow has to take control of what's happening here. but a universal belief that that will certainly happen? that's a different matter. downing street will soon be home for a new baby girl, born happy and healthy to thejohnsons this morning. but what many conservatives also want to see is rigour and clear logic in residence behind that famous door. laura kuenssberg, bbc news, westminster. stay with us on bbc news. still to come, back in the city: some familiar friends return to television screens in the uk. john lennon was shot at the entrance to the dakota building in the centre of new york. there's been a crowd here standing in more or less silent vigil and the flowers have been piling up. the 14th ceasefire of this war ended at the walls of the old city of dubrovnik. this morning, witnesses said shells were landing every 20 seconds. people are celebrating the passing of a man they hold responsible for hundreds of deaths and oppression. elsewhere, people have been gathering to mourn his passing. imelda marcos, the widow of the former - president of the philippines, has gone on trial in manila. she's facing seven charges of tax evasion, _ estimated at £120 million. she pleaded not guilty. the prince and princess of wales are to separate. a statement from buckingham palace said the decision had been reached amicably. this is bbc world news. the latest headlines: a court in chicago has found the actorjussie smollett guilty of staging an attack on himself nearly two years ago — and making it look like a hate crime. an unofficial tribunal in london finds evidence of crimes against humanity and genocide against china's uyghur minority. workers at a starbucks cafe in the city of buffalo in upstate new york have voted to start a union. starbucks decertified unions in the us more than 30 years ago but campaigners say the pandemic and work conditions have been the catalyst for change. earlier i spoke to richard bensinger. he is a starbucks union organiser from workers united and casey moore, she is a staff member — they call their employees "partners". they had just left their victory party to speak to us and i asked richard for his reaction. i think it is a victory not only for casey and starbucks partners, it is a victory for their generation and for service workers all over the world. casey, starbucks says it provides excellent standard of care for its employees and this will be the first unionised store in 30 years and it says you have excellent wage and salary opportunities. why was this necessary? why did you vote for this? it ultimately has to do with having a seat and having a voice at the table. starbucks has a symbolic chair at their board table that represents partners and every time that they make decisions they look at this empty chair and say, well, what do we think partners would want? we thought we should feel that chair, that we should have a say in our workplace. we are starbucks, we are the ones who make it what it is today and working through the pandemic, risking our lives so customers could have the starbucks experience, we thought we deserved to have a say in our workplace and have a democracy in our work place. looking at the bigger picture here, richard, many people in europe, unions are normal in many countries, france, germany, the uk but not so much in many areas of american life. what does this mean for employees in the us, from sea to shining sea, between the two coasts, and notjust in the hospitality industry? i think this victory is a victory for all workers. and ifigure it begins to address the tremendous economic disparity of wage and inequality in this country. casey's generation, most people have no hope of owning a home or they work twojobs to pay off student debt. generation union, they are looking to unions as a solution. it is an incredible moment for this country and i think for workers around the world. why was now, casey, the right moment for this to happen? many people think that it was because of the pandemic and, you know, the pandemic was definitely a part of it, the last straw that got a lot of my co—workers to say enough is enough. but it is combined, as richard said, it is generational. millennials and generation z have faced the great recession, a global pandemic and realise that this economic system does not work for us. i have partners who can barely afford to pay rent and put food in their fridge at the same time every week. so i think it was a combination of the pandemic, of pay, starbucks has had a profitable year amidst the pandemic and all of these issues combining, you know, drive—through levels increased volumes at our stores, partners were saying enough is enough. this is not sustainable and we are going to do something about it. a union is the only way that we can actually hold starbucks accountable to be the company that we know we can be, a progressive company that is ultimately pro— partner and pro—worker. the wife of republican veteran bob dole has paid tribute to her husband. she laid her head on his casket in silent tribute. she was married to the world war ii veteran and politician for 46 years before his death at the weekend. sienna miller is the latest celebrity to win damages following claims of phone hacking by a british tabloid newspaper. she has accepted a substantial settlement from rupert murdoch's newsgroup of newspapers after accusing the sun newspaper of illegally obtaining her adequate records that revealed she was pregnant. and new york �*s metropolitan museum of art is dropping references to the suckler family on the set of exhibitions carrying its name amid growing anger over the role they played in fuelling america's opioid crisis. the move follows several years of lawsuits in criminal investigations into how they push the highly addict of painkillers that make painkillers that make painkiller 0xycontin through their company. here in the uk, it's been an evening of cocktails on the sofa with old friends. the sex and the city reboot has had its uk premier. it's been more than a decade since we last saw the group of new yorkers. so have they still got it? don't worry, there's no spoiler alert required. lucy grey won't be giving anything away. i find that if you have good friends in your corner, anything's possible. 17 years since the last series and 11 years since the second film — the less said about that, the better — and and just like that, carrie and the girls are back. honey, i'm home! well, most of them. kim cattrall�*s samantha — such a huge part of sex and the city, is not in this new series — apparently because of a falling out with co—star sarah jessica parker. but other than that glaring omission and the new name for the show, it all feels very familiar, if perhaps a bit more serious. we're in a different cultural moment, we're talking about different things, we're dealing with different things. we thought, you know, how amazing to be able to tell these stories and not that we can solve anything — we can't — but we can talk about it in the way that we did with women's sexuality in the first show. you know, we didn't solve anything, we just opened the door. it started with a conversation that michael patrick and i had in late march of 2020 and it evolved into realising that there were stories that were exciting to us and the idea of the family growing, the fraternity — sorority growing was exciting and seemed challenging and interesting and seemed like it was appealing to all the people — the new people we went to, so that was encouraging. i've learned a lot from miranda over the years and i think- she's, in a funny way, i learned a lot from me! it was like meeting an old friend that you have not seen in 20 years and you pick the conversation right back up again. it was a special time in our lives and a special time in the city and the city has had some hard times and i hope we can shore it up a little. if i can be a small part of that shoring up, with a martini, or a tequila... so, is it any good? a bit like the best cosmopolitans, the reviews are, well, mixed. but what about the fashion? is style icon carrie still setting trends in her50s? after all the years... # . higher! ...and all the changes... # i'm so much stronger now! ..you're still you. hello, lovers. lucy grey, bbc news. hundreds of schoolchildren across china have been taking part in a somewhat unusual science lesson. the pupils came from various cities in different parts of the country, but the people doing the teaching were a long way away. the bbc�*s tim allman explains. class begins, the children wait attentively, but giving teacher an apple may be a bit of a stretch. particularly when teacher is floating 400km up in space — wang yaping introducing her and her fellow astronauts from china's new space station. this is distance learning on a completely different scale. the three astronauts carried out a series of experiments in zero gravity, here comparing how buoyancy works both on earth and in space. some of the children even got to ask questions. "talking to the astronauts has made me interested in the universe," said this student, "and now, i dream about space". "i think we young people should also be ambitious and aspiring," said this boy, "and build our own spacecraft". after the hour was up, the lesson came to an end and the astronauts waved goodbye. as one official put it, they want to plant the seeds of space and science in the hearts of children. tim allman, bbc news. you can reach me on twitter. i'm @richpreston. hello there. thursday brought a day of contrasting weather conditions. glorious blue sky and sunshine in west sussex — nearly six hours of sunshine before the rain arrived late on in the afternoon. and as for friday, well, we could actually see plenty of sunshine yet again in many places. there will be a scattering of sharp showers and it will feel pretty chilly for most of us. however, as we head into the weekend, the story is changing. it will turn increasingly cloudy with some rain around but, more noticeably, it will turn milder. before that, though, this weather front continues to clear away. the winds swing round to a north—westerly and that's going to feed in some showers from the word go across the far north and west of scotland. it's going to be a chilly start as well first thing this morning with low single figures in the north. now, some of these showers could be heavy with some hail and thunder mixed in there as well and they will drift their way down through the cheshire gap towards the midlands but you can also see there's a good slice of dry, sunny weather to be found for many particularly sheltered eastern areas, central and southern england as well. temperatures generally around 4—9 degrees, so still a little below par, really, for the time of year. however, as we head into the weekend, here's the change. these weather fronts will start to push in and they're going to swing the wind direction around to a south—westerly, so that's going to feed in some milder air from the south—west and that's going to gradually nudge its way northwards for the second half of the weekend. it does come at a price — it means more cloud around. perhaps some early morning brightness in sheltered eastern areas. clouding over from the west with the rain pushing in, and some of it turning quite heavy along west—facing slopes as well. now, in terms of the feel of the weather, if we keep those clearer skies, 6 or 7 degrees for a time but out to the west, the milder air showing its hand — we'll likely see 10—12 celsius. then on sunday, it's going to be a rather cloudy, damp, misty, murky kind of day with outbreaks of rain perhaps threatening into the far north and west. but look at the temperatures — widely, we're likely to see highs of 11—14 degrees — that's just above the average, really, for this time of year. and that milder trend is set to stay with us for the week ahead, although cloud cover could be a bit of an issue from time to time. that's it. take care. this is bbc news. the headlines: a court in chicago has found the actor, jussie smollett, guilty of lying to police after he staged an attack on himself nearly three years ago and said it was a hate crime. his claims prompted an outpouring of support from celebrities and politicians at the time. an unofficial tribunal looking into allegations of human rights violations in the chinese region of xinjiang has concluded that beijing has carried out genocide and crimes against humanity. it accused china of torture, rape and religious destruction against muslim uyghurs and other ethnic minorities. and workers at a starbucks store in buffalo in upstate new york have voted to start a union. union organisers say the pandemic and deteriorating work conditions have been catalysts for change. starbucks says it's not anti—union, but that the issues raised don't warrant unionisation. now on bbc news, it's hardtalk.