as the candidates to be the uk s next prime minister prepare to go head to head. welcome to the programme. we start with the extreme heat across europe. it s facing its worst drought in a long time. we ll look at that in a moment. but first the high temperatures are also causing big wildfires. let s go to france. there s a huge wildfire near bordeaux, in the south western region of gironde. this is what it looks like at night. thousands of hectares have been burnt. 10,000 people have been forced to evacuate the area, and several homes are destroyed. it s spreading so fast because it s so dry. this is the scene in the day. you can see a plane dropping chemicals used to slow the fire down. more than a thousand fire fighters are there trying to control it. let s hear from one of them. translation: for l the moment, the fire is progressing in every direction. if i may say, the wind is not steady for the moment. it will rise in the course of the day. we are told that the wind will
remembering legendary actor james caan this is nbc nightly news with lester holt. good evening, everyone a guilty plea today in a russian court from brittney griner, the american basketball star the biden administration says has been unlawfully held griner admitting to carrying vape cartridges containing cannabis oil into russia her lawyer saying she did so accidentally, hoping griner s contrition will lead to a lenient sentence. as it stands, a conviction carries a possible maximum sentence of ten years in prison. today s development also being seen in this country as potentially the first step in a delicate diplomatic dance to win her release in a prisoner swap. the wnba standout the wnba standout also receiving a letter today from president biden in response to her plea not to be forgotten. andrea mitchell has details. reporter: on just the second day of her trial, wnba superstar brittney griner, handcuffed and carrying a photo of her wife, cherelle, pleading guilt
defending his decision to visit saudi arabia as he travels to the middle east next week against criticism and controversy surrounding the trip. the president set to meet with saudi crown prince mohammed bin salman. biden vowed to make saudi arabia a pariah. now as president he says his visit to the country is critical to u.s. security. that s right. washington post op-ed the president writes it s my job to keep our country strong and secure. we have to counter russia s aggression, put ourselves in the best possible position to outcompete china, and work for greater stability in a consequential region of the world. to do these things we have to engage directly with countries that can impact those outcomes. the president s trip has come under criticism because of saudi arabia s role in the murder of journalist jamal khashoggi. the saudi crown prince was said to be responsible for ordering khashoggi s murder. let s get some perspective on president biden s trip. a historia
bannon is set to go on trial for criminal contempt for refusing to comply with the committee subpoena. days before the select committee is said to hold more public hearings, let s bring in marshall cohen. does it appear likely that bannon will, indeed, testify before the panel? it is not clear yet if this is actually going to happen. it is a change of bannon s posture from where he had been over the last several months. he refused to testify and hand over any documents. he claimed that there was executive privilege. now, he says that donald trump has sent him a letter waving those claims. i just want to be very clear. the justice department does not think that those are very legitimate claims because steve bannon was not in the executive branch. he had left the white house in 2017. that led to him getting indicted for refusing to comply with the subpoena. now, donald trump says that he is waving those claims, which opens the door to steve bannon to go to the committee and o
manchester to any judicial consideration present or more in the future of any aspect of this unprecedented behavior in this investigation was corporate this comes as multiple intelligence sources tells fox news tonight the secret sci presentation marking on one of the documents photographed by the fbi you can see it there, was unsealed last night, is unusual. they say it is not widely used by the intelligence community. trump attorney alina take a listen. i have been down there, down there frequently. i have never seen that. i have never ever seen that bear that s not the way his office looks. anybody who knows president trump s office, he has guests frequently. it s. it s just a joke where they literally must have gone in, taking out documents they wanted or cover letters as it is and put it about so the public believes that this is top secret documents that on his floor. gillian: also breaking tonight as the u.s. marked international overdose awareness day, the dea is c