19/03/2018 BBC World News America

Welcome to our viewers on public

television here in the US,

and also around the globe.

Police in Austin Texas say they now

believe a serial bomber is behind

four explosions which have killed

two people since early March.

The latest explosion on Sunday night

appears to have been

triggered by a tripwire,

which police say shows

a "higher level of skill"

than the previous bombs.

Gary ODonoghue reports from Austin.

Latest attack was different, not

parcel bombs, but seemingly a device

left on the sidewalk and triggered

by some kind of trip wire as two

young men walked by custom

with this

trip wire, it changes things, it is

more sophisticated, it is not

targeted to individuals, we are very

concerned that with trip wires, a

child could be walking down a

sidewalk and hit something, so it is

very important that here in Austin,

if anyone sees anything suspicious,

you do not go near that package, you

immediately call law enforcement so

we can get bomb techs out there to

deal with the suspect package.

The

latest victims have significant

injuries but are stable and

hospitals. The police say so far

they have no suspects.

We are

clearly dealing with what we expect

to be a serial bomber based on the

similarities between what is now the

fourth to vice, and again as we look

at this individual and the pattern

and what we are looking at here,

will have to determine if we see a

specific ideology behind this.

The bomber's

specific ideology behind this.

The bomber's first

specific ideology behind this.

The bomber's first victims

specific ideology behind this.

The bomber's first victims were

specific ideology behind this.

The bomber's first victims were

black and prominent African-American

families, leading to suspicions it

could be a hate crime. But the

indiscriminate nature of last

night's attack, where both victims

were white, means that the

authorities do not know what

motivation they are dealing with.

For more on these bombings,

I spoke earlier with Jack Tomarchio,

who was an official

at the department

of homeland security.

What does it tell us about this

investigation that there are now

about 500 federal agents on the

scene?

Well, Right now the federal

agents are trying to harvest

evidence. You have four separate

explosive devices. The first three

seen to be of similar construction.

And the last one, of course, had a

different attack mode our two. It

was detonated by tripwire. What the

federal authorities are doing right

now is they are trying to harvest

evidence. So, for example, is there

any biometric evidence at the site?

When these things blow up, certainly

the device is destroyed, at its not

destroyed in such a way that it

doesn't exist any more. So they will

look to see if there is any

fingerprints, are there any DNA,

possibly, on bows on -- on those

pieces of debris. They will try to

match that up, and try to understand

how they were constructed, was at

construct off the internet? Did this

individual has any special

engineering skills or use any

special tools? This will hopefully

point to an identity. The other

thing they will look at, what was

the explosive made of, what was the

raw material, and where did it come

from? Did it come from a hardware

store or a chemical supply store? If

it did, they will stop Comey around

the Austin area looking for that.

Austin police are saying that they

are dealing with a serial bomber

here. How does that change the

nature of their investigation?

Well,

it does a couple of things. Totally

it's very dangerous. You have an

individual that is may be motivated

by a political motive, may be

motivated by a personal grudge

against the city or his neighbours.

And now they are going to look for

an individual that is, I would say,

highly organised, fairly

intelligent, probably very

intelligent, and is now probably

somewhat enjoying this. A lot of

these serial bombers, serial

killers, they consider themselves to

be a little step up, actually, than

most of your average criminals. I

think of an individual like the you

know bomber, a very smart guy, a

mathematics graduate from Harvard

University who thought he was the

smartest guy in the room. They want

to understand his motivation, not

only what he used to bill the actual

bomb but what might have motivated

him to do this.

How will they find a

motive, do you think?

Well, that the

tough part. They are really going to

have to piece this evidence together

and they are going to have to

around for individuals that may have

heard them think, maybe somebody

knows somebody who has sprouted

something off, they have got a lot

of work to do here, and we don't

even know if this is related to

terrorism what overseas terrorism or

domestic terrorism or just some guy

that has a bright, they just don't

know that right now.

Thank you,

Jack.

Uber is suspending driverless car

tests in the US and Canada

after a self-driving vehicle struck

and killed a woman in Arizona.

It's the first time a self-driving

car has been involved

in a fatal collision,

and raises questions over

the future of the technology.

For more, I spoke earlier

with Dave Lee, who's

outside Uber headquarters.

Dave, what are Uber saying about

this crash and the investigation?

Well, first of all, Cooper has

expressed its condolences about what

happened. -- Uber. This 49 year-old

woman was walking across the road

with her bike in the early hours of

Monday morning in Arizona when the

car struck her and she later died

from the injuries she sustained in

that incident. Uber say they are

co-operating fully with the

investigation into what happened.

And as part of their agreement to

test this technology in Arizona,

they agreed to keep very detailed

logs of how the cars act. Precisely

for reasons and incidents such as

this one, they will be able to go

back and see exactly what may have

happened. As you mentioned, as we

understand it, this is the first

pedestrian to be killed by this

technology, and I think it could

have the potential to greatly alter

the public reception of something

that already makes people slightly

nervous, I have to say.

Dave, are

Uber saying anything at all about

their timetable for rolling out

these driverless cars, and what this

accident does do that?

Well, the

timetable for driverless cars has

always been fairly foreign to the

future. They've started testing

driverless fleets in Arizona -- far

into the future. They were testing

them in San Francisco as well in

2016. Up until now, they have always

had a human driver behind the wheel,

somebody ready to take control

should anything go wrong. That was

the case in this incident as well.

At Uber has told us that it was in

full autonomous mode, the car's

computer was dealing with all

aspects of the driving. This may be

a setback to the roll-out of

driverless cars, however people who

work on this technology say, if you

look at the bigger picture, despite

incident like this one, on the whole

it should make driving safer.

Dave

Lee, thank you.

Russia's presidential election

did not provide real choice,

say international observers,

because of restrictions

on who could run.

Vladmir Putin easily won a fourth

term in Sunday's run-off

with 76% of the vote,

beating seven other rivals.

Setting a conciliatory

tone after his victory,

Mr Putin vowed to work with other

nations in resolving

their differences.

The BBC's Richard Galpin has more.

Vladimir Putin!

Vladimir Putin

emerging triumphant yet again. In

front of his supporters in Mosquera

Lozano. -- in Moscow last night,

allowing election -- an election

from which any serious opposition

candidates have been excluded.

Today, the Russian media, most of

which is controlled by the Kremlin,

also revelling in his appointment as

president for another six years. And

yet, CCTV footage from polling

stations posted on social media here

tells a different story. Often

latent rigging. These women stuffing

ballot boxes -- of latent rigging.

There are reports of hundreds of

violations during the boat.

Officials say the violations this

time were far fewer than in the last

election. And Mr Putin is already

concentrating again on the big

issues of state, including the

crisis with Britain over the

poisoning of the Skripals. He is

adamant that the Kremlin was not

behind the attack. Kuggeleijn yellow

it is rubbish, drivel, nonsense, to

think that Russia would do something

like that aired of the presidential

election and the World Cup. This

respected academic told me it would

have made no sense for the Russian

state to have been involved in the

poisoning.

The last thing that Putin

needs right now is to have another

problem, not even with the United

Kingdom, but with the West at large.

My assumption has always been that

after the elections he would start

making cautious steps in the

direction of some kind of limited

reconciliation.

So, if not the

Kremlin itself, some here believe it

should -- could be connected to the

murky world of powerful factions

swirling around the president, those

determined to keep Russia I selected

from the West. Richard Galpin, BBC

News, Moscow. -- to keep Russia

isolated.

For more, my colleague Katty kay

spoke earlier with Angela Stent,

an expert in Russian politics

who teaches at

Georgetown University.

That was for the BBC's

Beyond 100 Days programme.

You have written recently that

institutions in Russia have rarely

been as insignificant as they are

today over the course of the last

100 years. Does that mean that

Vladimir Putin is therefore much

more powerful?

Well, he is certainly

at the moment, this is a highly

personalised system and he appears

to be very powerful now. He has just

won 76% of the road. Even if there

was ballot stuffing and some

cheating, he is definitely popular.

He appears to be very popular. But

going forward, if this is indeed his

last term, you start to get people

manoeuvring for succession, you

start to get people questioning what

is happening. But right now, and I

would say for the next year or two,

he will indeed be very powerful

white I want to pick up on that,

Angela. There is a term

limit in

Russia, he will have served 24 years

at the end of this. Will his

priorities shift because there is a

jostling for power?

Well, his

priorities should shift to economic

reform, strengthening the economy

and making sure that people's

standard of living doesn't fall and

the people around him don't start

grumbling more. But it's not clear

that he really will do anything. The

other possibility is a more

assertive foreign policy. If you go

back to the pre-election speech he

made a couple of weeks ago, it had?

Part to it. One was economic reform

and the other was showing of nuclear

weapons and basically telling the

US, we can invade any think any

weapons that you have, and don't

mess with us. You didn't listen to

us beforehand so listen to us now.

I

wonder if history and his worldview

ensures that he really does like the

way that things are drifting at the

moment, going back to a Cold War,

and an era, really, where Russia and

the Soviet bloc was all powerful. As

if you think back to where he was as

an FSB agent, everything was

collapsing, there was chaos. There

might have been more democracy, but

there wasn't a strong economy.

So,

his goal has been to get the outside

world to Russia as if it were the

subject union, a great superpower,

powerful, people should respect and

fear it -- as if it were the Sobhi

at union. He is well on his way to

achieving that, despite an economy

that is not reduction in well,

crumbling infrastructure, the

demographics, he has been able to

project Russian power.

In that

context to what extent does

interfere and in elections around

the world, in the West in

particular, and the spy story in the

UK, costed you part of blood

Prutton's legacy?

It certainly will

be part his legacy, double

constitute blood Armia Prutton's

legacy. There are a number of

European and American groups that

look favourably upon Putin, this

will be part of his legacy.

Deploying these tactics, poisoning,

and very tough tactics which were

deployed in Sobhi at times too but

with greater intensity now.

That was Angela Stent,

speaking earlier to my colleagues

Katty Kay and Christian Fraser.

You're watching BBC

World News America.

Still to come on tonight's

programme: Having their day

in court, but not in jail.

How opioid addicts are getting

a new chance at this courtroom

in Upstate New York.

Surgeons in London have restored

the sight of two patients

with one of the most common

forms of blindness.

The team at Moorfields Eye Hospital

inserted human embryonic stem cells

in the back of the patients' eyes

to treat age-related degeneration.

Fergus Walsh reports.

Before his pioneering

stem-cell treatment,

Douglas Waters was completely blind

in his right eye.

Now he can see.

Everyone wanted to go

outside when the...

Rain finally stopped.

That's perfect.

So, this is an amazing

improvement, Mr Waters.

I just couldn't believe it.

And each morning, I picked things

out in the bedroom to look

at, out of the garden.

I'd do this.

And it's unbelievable.

I'm really chuffed,

I suppose you could say!

And so is his surgeon.

Two patients with age-related

macular degeneration had

the sight-restoring treatment

at Moorfields Eye

Hospital, in London.

We are able to show

that we could take someone that

could not read at all,

that could not see the book

that they were supposed to be

reading from, and taken them

to reading around 60-80 words

per minute with their

normal reading glasses.

For us, this is a

fantastic breakthrough.

And it could help other

patients with age-related

macular degeneration,

who can lose all

their central vision.

So what causes AMD?

Well, if we open the eye,

the macular is at the back.

It's the part of the retina

responsible for central vision.

Now, if we pull out a section,

here are the light-sensitive cells,

the rods and cones.

AMD is triggered when a crucial

layer of support cells -

seen here in green -

die.

As a result, patients gradually

lose the ability to read

or to recognise faces.

Douglas, who's 86, says

the stem-cell therapy has given him

renewed independence.

Fergus Walsh, BBC News.

President Trump flew

to New Hampshire on Monday to roll

out his plan to address

the nation's opioid crisis.

He's calling for increased law

enforcement, improved public

awareness, and that wall

with Mexico to stop the drugs

from entering the US.

Mr Trump also wants

the stiffest of penalties

for major drug traffickers.

We can have all the blue ribbon

committee is we don't get tough on

the drug dealers, where wasting our

time. But remember that, where

wasting our time. And that toughness

includes the death penalty.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Well, if tougher penalties are one

side of this debate,

the other is giving treatment

to those addicted to opiods.

And in the city of Buffalo,

New York, the country's first opioid

court is providing what could be

a model for the rest of America,

as Nada Tawfik reports.

All rise.

Thank you, please be

seated.

This unremarkable court room

in upstate New York might just be

America's best defence against this

badly drug crisis. The goal here in

the nation's first open your court

is basic yet ambitious, to keep

people alive. When offenders who

appear in court are addicts, the

judge immediately put their case on

hold.

I'm going to release due today

and I need you to report here

tomorrow so we can go over

everything about drug treatment.

No

longer viewed as criminals, they are

given help and a chance to have

their charges dropped or reduced.

I

think we've made a tremendous

mistake in the 60s, 70s, 80s and

90s, which is locking people up. It

didn't work. And we're not going to

make that same mistake now, we have

the Mussa Chamaune to show that you

cannot lock up an addiction, the

second that they walk out of jail

they are going to go back to the

substance.

Participants are given

treatment within hours. They agreed

to drug test, a curfew, and daily

court appearances. The judge knows

that often this court can be the

only support system that some people

have. Having them check in daily and

trying to form a personal bond is a

way of keeping them on track.

Are

these good?

Carly has been clean for

two months since starting the

programme. She was arrested for drug

and session and says she has used

prescription pills and heroin for

over a decade. In one weekend alone,

she was revived three times after

overdosing. Finally she feels like

herself against a pillar when you

are in jail or on the streets, you

are number

to correctional officers,

you are a dog to drug dealers, you

really don't have any value or

self-worth, you don't have any sense

of self at all. Like when somebody

looks at you and actually cares

about what are going through in your

life, what your problems are, how

can we help you, it reminds you that

deep inside there is a person, you

know, that needs and deserves love.

Carly is trying to develop a plan

for the day when she no longer has

to check in with the court. She

hopes to have a career in criminal

justice, just like Judge Hannah,

himself a recovering addict.

The

only difference between me and the

individuals you saw today is one

thing, time. Once they have us

long-time clean as I have, they can

accomplish anything like.

Whilst it

is too early to draw firm

conclusions, in Buffalo they already

think it is a success. The number of

deaths has significantly decreased

come and that has other cities

taking notice.

The US midterm elections are months

away, but we already know

that there will be more than twice

as many female candidates running

for Congress compared to 2016.

This comes nearly a century

after women fought and won

the right to vote.

Author Elaine Weiss' new book,

The Woman's Hour, explores

the struggle behind the ratification

of the 19th Amendment,

guaranteeing that right.

She joined me earlier.

Elaine, you handed this manuscript

in the very day before the 2016

election, and even though Hillary

Clinton didn't win, is an jaw book

store very timely?

I think it is. It

has -- isn't your book very timely.

It is the story of how our democracy

is improved and expanded and it is a

story about women making a

difference in the political spear.

They were not handed the vote, they

had to demand it and they had to

fight for it. So, in this time, a

sort of brought political time here

in America, I think it really speaks

volumes about what sort of fight for

rights we have a historical legacy

of fighting for. We need to be doing

that again now.

What I find so

interesting about your book is the

way you reveal it was actually women

who were against women getting the

vote. How intense was that

confrontation?

It was very intense.

Because the right to vote was never

just a political issue. It became a

cultural issue, a social issue, for

some people even a moral issue,

about what women's role sites should

be. And so the anti-suffragists, the

women and is suffragists, thought

that women being able to vote,

entering into the political sphere,

would destroy the family. They would

tear off their aprons and run out

and want to go to work and do also

the things that were not considered

proper. And so there's great passion

on both sides, because it's almost

like what we call the cultural wars

now, it's much more complicated than

just a political decision.

Fascinating. You detail in the book

how the battle for women to get the

vote came all the way down to one

young male lawmaker in the state of

Tennessee. How did his mother

influence his pivotal vote?

Well,

his mother, Mrs Harry Burn, he's 24

years old, the youngest legislator

in Tennessee, in his freshman term

-- this is Harry Burn. His mother is

a very well read woman, she lives on

a small farmhouse, but she urges,

she writes a letter to him and says,

I want you to stand up and support

women. It is only right, it is only

justice. He has that letter in his

pocket and he changes his vote.

He

does the right thing! In Britain,

the women who fought for the folk

are household names -- who fought

for the vote are household names

like Emmeline Pankhurst. Why is that

not the case in the United States

with these women?

Fadli to say, it

is not. We know some of the pioneers

-- sadly to say. It is usually about

as wide as our knowledge extends.

What I wanted to do in this book is

to talk about the second and third

generation suffragists who brought

the ball over the finish line and

won the vote for American women. It

took seven decades here, seven

decades of ceaseless work, and these

are the women who finally carried it

through. And I hope they will become

household names. And to put some

monuments up to them to honour them

in other ways, as we approach the

centennial of American women getting

the vote in 2020.

Elaine, thank you

so much for joining us.

My pleasure.

A long fight for women's equality.

Remember, you can find more

on all the days news at our website.

Plus, to see what we're working

on at any time, make sure to check

out our Facebook page.

I'm Laura Trevellyan.

Thank you for watching

World News America.