d >> this is "bbc wows america." funding of this presentation is anmade possible by the fre foundation, and kovler foundation, pursuing solutions for america's neglected needs. >> planning a vacation escape that is relaxing, inviting, and exciting is a lot easier than you think. you can find it here in arub families, couples, and friends can all find their escape on the island with warm, sunny days,co ing trade winds, and the crystal blue caribbean sea. nonstop flights are availableom fr most major airports.nf moremation for your vacation planning is available.c at aruba.

>> and now, "bbc world news." jane: this is "bbc world news america." reportinmfrom washington, i' jane o'brien. reaction is swift and furious following the release of a republican memo acsing the fbi and justice department of political bias. dramatic scenes at the sentencing hearing for former usa gymnastics doctor larry nassar. a father whose three daughters were abused lunges at him in court. >> i see my royal shadow. six more weeks of winter to go. jane: get ready for more cold amather. the world's ous groundhog has spoken. punxsutawn phil saw his shadow.

jane: welcome to our viewers on public television in america and around the globe. after weeks of fevered speculation, a republican memo eleased alleging political bias in the justice department and fbi. it was cleared by presiden trump in spite of strong opposition from demoats and ny in the intelligence community who says it misrepresents highly sensitive information. t the bbc's nick bryanstarts our coverage. >> ladies and gentlemen, punxsutawney phil. nick: it is groundhog day inho america, whereands gathered to watch rodent name punxsutawney phil make his annual prediction on how long the nter will last. in washington, too, deja vu, with t day beginning as it often does with an attack from the white hoe on the russian vestigation, but this has intensified the big chill between the president and his senior law enforcement officials.

the top leadership and investigators at the fbi and the justice department have politicized the sacred investigative process in favor of democrats and against republicans, something which would have been unthinkable jus ort time ago -- that is the main accusation of a secret memo which the president authorized the public release of today. it alleges anti-trump bias amongst top law-enforcement officials. president trump: i think it is a disgrace what is happening in our country, and when you look at that and see that and so many other thin, what's going on, a lot of people should be ashamed of t than that.d much worse nick: the memo, commissioned by a republican congressman, accuses the fbi of using a politically bied source while seeking surveillance warrants against trump campaign adviser carter page. it alleges theeqst of the court relied on a much disputed dossier compiled by former british intelligence agent christopher still, who it says

was an -- christopher steele, who it says was anti-trump and funded in part by the hillary clinton campaign. but is this a partisan republican stunt to discredit the fbi and by extension the investigation of robert mueller into possible russian collusion with the trump campaign?be there ha no public response from the fbi, but it fiercely resisted the release of this memo, having expressed grave concerns about its accuracy. it has also been slammed by senior democrats. >> the fact that thedent of the united states will blithely disregard the admonitions of his own fbi director and department of justice tells you all you need to know about what the president's priorities are. it is not protecting classified information, it is not respecting the hard-working men and women of the fbi. it is whatever t president deems to be in his short-term political interest. nick: what we ha seen today underscores how the russian investigation has increasingly become the subject of a toxic and vicious fight not just between the political parties in washington, but between branches of the u.s. government inwa ington.im

vl putin must be rubbing his hands in delight. >> is the memo a dud, sir? nick: donald trump looked pretty happy, too his supporters believe he struck a blow for justice.s his criticgue he has engineered a political stunt. nick bryant, bbc news, washington. jane: among the members on the intelligence committee who voted to release the memo was republican will hurd, who served ia officer before joinin congress. he joined me a short time ago from san antonio. thank you for joining me. what do you feel you have gained by releasing this memo? rep. hurd: i will answer that -- i want to tweak one thing in the lead up to this. the memo does not allege political bias. everyone who is taing about this is alleging political bias, but to me, the core this, what we have gained from this, is it is congress' responsibility to shine a light on our government and theop

ations of our government, and i do not believe an american citizen should be subject to a surveillance based on unverified information, circular reporting, and rumors.e it is unfortunrtisans are going to use this to push their own particular biases, but to me this is not a criticism of the mueller investigation -- jane: but why did you make this memoublic? surely the were other ways you could have conducted your oversight duty. rep. hurd: well,e made this public because this is a pretty big deal, that the poten erosion of civil liberties is potentially happening. this is within our role asng ss to shine a light on this. having spent most of my adult life protecting sources ands, methhere was nothing in this memo when it was revealed

that impacted national security. to be frank -- jane: but it was still classified. it was still classified. but once you make the case that thpublic needs to see classified information, and this did have to be declassified in order to learn the truth, where doou stop? rep. hurd: jane, was there anything in this memo that you hadn't read before? wth stuff that was out in the press, stuff that y'all have been gathering and talking about. i think th new was that this yahoo! article that was used in the fisa investigation was based on information from what everybody refers to as the steele dossiern it irtunate we are in this highly contentious politicals time, but itways congress' responsibility to shine a light on when the are problems in making sure there is oversight being done of law e: orcement.

jat congressman, is in the -- is into the president -- isn't the president partly responsible for the allegations of political bias, because he was tweeti this morning that that was indeed the case? that was his allegation against his own people. i mean, you as a former c.i.a. officer, part of the intelligence community, how does that go down? how do you feel about that anp. hurd: look, all of this is playing into the of the russians. the russians, when they got involved in our elections, in order to erode trust in our institutions, and comments from the president, comments from both political parties, the aswothat congress d provide its oversight function and try to make things transparent, the fact that republicans and democrats have trouble agreeing on things, all this feeds into russians trying to erode trust in our

institutions, but that is not prevent us in congress to fromte ping their civil liberties. this is why i thought it was important that the information getsi out, whink it is important when if the democratst wahave their memo from out which may be rebuts some of these things, that is important to get out as well. jane: congressman will hurd, thank you for joining wh. among thoshad concerns about the release of the memo is someone who is at the brennan center for justice at new york university school of law. what is your main concern about e release of this memo? >> i main concern relates to what wn't released. the memo itself contains allegations that on their own don't prove anything. there are other facts that need to be in the public record to what is way to evalua in this memo, and the democrats in the house had a counter memo

that supposedly laid out the facts -- we don't know, we haven't seen them. t supposedly it provided context. there was a partisan vote in th hotelligence committee on partisan lines to release the memo that had the fact that the republicans wanted to release and to suppress the facts that would have given conhe memo. this is not transparency we are seeing here. jane: nevertheless, does the fbi ha a case to answer? liza: does the memo present a dose? i'm afraid in't, because it tells us what we already know. i actually agree with congressman hurd on that point that there is nothing in the memo we didn't already know. but it sets forth the allegation that the justice department used the so-called steele dossierwh it applied for a warrant to conduct surveillance of trump aide carter page. the steele dossier was at some point funded by the clinton t campaign a democratic

national committee. that's it. that's the scandal. the justice department allegedly didn't tell the court about this. jane: but that is important, though, isn't it? because if that is the case, and the fact that they are using dubious methods to investigate their suspects or their targets -- doesn't at then undermine the broader russia inquiry? liza: well, there's a pretty critical difference between saying they're using dubious methods and using source funded in part by the clinton campaign. it doesur not not nly lead from one to the other. nsone of the queste don't know is what other indicators were there of reliability for this document? were there other reasons to trust this document apart from who funded it? you have to understand that informants always come with their own agendas and bias. informants are often paid. this is not an unusual thing. o w significant it is, whether there was a dutyform the court, depends very much on

case-by-case details that we don't know from this memo. jane: are we ever going toind out? liza: we are not, my guess, at least for a long time, because it is classified. whether it is properly classified or completely harmless information classified, like the nunes memo, we don't know that, but the person who controls declassification controls what gets released, and can spin the story however theya to spin it. it is a flagrant abuse of the classificationi' system, but 'm sorry to say it happens every day. jane: thank you very much for joining me. on wall street today, the dow jones industrial took a steep dive, plummeting more than 660 points. it ranks as the worst day on the market since donald trump took office, and comes despite a strong jobs report which showed wage growth. that reinforced invest as' concerut inflation in the bond market.th add to that alpolitical turmoil we have been discussing,

and analysts say that contributed to the decline. ekfor we have seen dramatic testimony against larry nassar. today, the father of three victims says he lost control of his emotns when he launched at nassar after two of his daughters gave their statements. the second sentencing hearing for nassar, who faces 175 years in jail. the bbc's nada tawfik repts. >> girl who had larry nassar as required to -- toda: another family stands like so many before theonfront the disgraced doctor. all three of the children were sexually assaulted by larry nassar. at the final sentencing hearing, 2 of them speak of their grief and their parents' guiilt. >> i see the look in tknir faces and they want to do something, but they can't come and the guilt th have will never go away, and all of this is because of you. to my parents, thank you for all your love and support through all of this. you have done everything that a parent could ever do. i love you.

nada: randall margraves then asked permission as a distraught father to speak. >> go ahead, sir. >> you son of a [beep]. >> we don't want to swear. we don't want to have profanity. nada: the courtroom at first chuckled as he ronuested time with nassar. >> i would ask you as part of the sentencing to grant me five minutes in a locked room with this demon. >> i -- that is not how our -- no, sir -- >> would you give me one minute? >> you know that i can't do that. >> well -- >> oh! nada: there have been numerousul poweoments throughout nassar's sentencing hearings, but this one father's reaction shows how clearly raw emotions

are. when the court resum, the judge showed compassion. >> there is no way this court will issue any type of circumstances of this case, and my heart does go out to you and your family, because of what you ha gone. -- gone through. nada: the reality that larry nassar sexually abused up to 300 girls over years has been regarded as a failure of society. this case has inevitably led to investigations, but more importantly, it forced the nation to take a hard lookt how women are treated and valued. nada tawfik, bbcor news, new in the last couple of weeks, more than 120 people have been killed in three separate attacks in the afghan capital, kabul. 2 four carried out by the taliban, the other by so-called islami growing in influence in afghanistan even as it loses territory in iraq. the bbc was given exclusive

access to a jail i.s. member in kabul. reporter: inside an afghan prison, a man once willing to kill in the name of the islamic state. >> i took part in fighting and executing people. they used to make people sit on top of bombs and blow them up. reporter: like many insi -- like many i.s. fighters inside afghanistan, the detainee we spoke to was previously part of the taliban. he asked us to not show his face, out of fear of reprisals. we interviewed him with members of the security services present.an >> for the talif someone from the government repents, you he should be forgiven, but i.s. says he should be killed. i.s. preacd that they are the real muslims, not the taliban. reporter: the islamic state group might control small pockets of territory in the country, but over the last year, they have carried out 14 major

attacks in the capital, kabul. that is significantly more than even the taliban. i.s. have repeatedly attackedbu 's shia minority. the killed over 40 peoe at this shia cultural center in december. this man narrowly escaped withfe his >> in the past, she is living in the countryside and used to comc to kabulse it was safer. now my relatives tell me toca leave kabul e it is so dangerous here. reporter: in the past two weeks, kabul has been repeatedly attacked by both i.s. and the taliban. oups have fought against each other at times. but officis here claim there is little difference between the two.

and that in attacking kabul, share the same aims. s>> the objective behind approach is to provoke people against the government and make them rise against the government. then the government will pullt. ap what happens in afghanistan, we will have chaos. reporter: but this former i.s. member says the group is different from the taliban, and ilre extreme. >> they say theydo what taliban can't do, take over the whole country. reporter: outside of the cultural center attacked by i.s., shoes of the victims remaed piled in a heap. whether it is further attacks by i.s. or the taliban, this is a city bracing for more bloodshed. bbc news, kabul. jane:' 's have a quick look at some of the day's other news. the united states has proposed gextend nuclear capabilities and a policy document published by the pentagoar the u.s. milwants to develop new low-yield atomicrg bombs y in response to the threat posed by russia. officials said russia saw the

american nuclear capability as too big to ever be used and no longer an adequate deterrent. the united states is trying too bring an enduth sudan's civil war by banning the export of weapons there. it also prevents any u.s. company or citizen from offering defense serves to south sudan. about one third of the popubytion has been displaced the conflict. almost 1000 miners have been rescued after being trapped underground for more than 24 hours in south africa. it happened when a storm knocked out power lines supplying electricity to theoldmine. in a painstaking rescue, when wasne worker at a time isted to the surface after temporary power lines were installed. you areew watching "bbc worlds america still to come on tonight's program, cameras attached to polar bears give researchers a look at why the animals are struggling to find food in the arctic.

16 syria including several children froze to death recently trying to cross the mountains from syria into lebanon. the bbc's martin patience has met someone who survived the journey. martin: meet little sarah, just three years old. black marks on her face are caused by frostbite. smugglers abandoned sarah during a blizzard as she was cr the mountains from the war in syria to join her dad. she only survived because theo man mped her was forced at gunpoint to go back and get her. but sarah's mom, big sister, and granny all froze to death. now in a lebanese hospital, sarah's dad watches over her day and night. >> i do my best to be a mother and father to sarah. i do everything i can to help her get over this. she is all i have now.

martin: 16 syrians died trying at day.h a safety for the rescuers, it was the worst thing they had ever seen. but there is some good news. a couple of days after the first meeting with sarah and her dad, we went to see them again.ha sarah haan operation on her face. she has got her appetite back. her doctor says the surgery was a success. so you are hopeful ton't be too much scarring? >> yes, yes. martin: her face will be -- >> yes, will be normal, like a normal face. martin: fanttic, it will look normal. sarah's dacaptured her first moment after the operation. she has got a long way to go. she is still smiling. martin patience, b news, lebanon.

jane: high-tech tracking collars with cameras have given us anea incredibl's eye view of like in the arctic. the cameras were fitted to female polar bears in an effort to discover how they are finding enough food on the diminishing arctic ice. victoria gl has more. vis oria: a polar bear'view of the arctic. these remarkable images were captured by cameras inside tracking collars that scientists fitted to fema polar bears. the researchers had to wk for three arctic spring seasons om 2014 to 2016 to capture nine bears. each animal wore a collar for 10 days before the cameras inside

were retrieved, revealing unique insights into their behavior.m the was to understand whether the animals were gettina enough tt during the critical spring thaw.sh satellites havn arctic sea are decreasing at a rate of 14% every decade, and use the ice to hunt their main and most calorie-rich prey, seals. after hitting them with tracking in their colors, researchers injected the bears with the metabolic tracer. it showedil that they have a higher metabolic rate than previously thought, most of them were able to catch enough food to meet their needs. >> really quite fascinating toar the basic behaviors of these animals and how they are using this environment. this is in the spring, where temperatures can get down to -20, -30 celsius. i

at is pretnhospitable, almost impossible researcher to be on the in in those conditions for an extended time. there is very little information that exists onhe basic behaviors of these animals. the video camera collars provide us with actual insight into what the bears are doing. victoria: scieists say that this new technology following their every move a every meal reveals just how the predators will be affected in thei ic icyme envir transforms around them. victoria gill, bbc news. jane:he a view of arctic you don't often get to see. it wouldn't be groundhog dayou wiending the program where we started. yes, it is that time of year where everyone's favorite marmot decides whether we can pack the sweaters or keep the hat and mittens close by. here is how the annual tradition unfolded.

>> is it an early spring or just more snow? reporter: this is punxsutawney phil, pennsylvania's famous groundhog. the nual event dates back to 1886. if the groundhog sees its shadow, six more weeks of winter are in store. >> ok, guys, are we ready? we got winter or spring? huh? shivering. yes. shivering. ok, we got it. i see my royal shadow. six more weeks of winter to go. jane: yeah, i just refuse to believe him. wherever i am, it is summer. yoare able to find much more of all the day's news on our website, and to see what we are rking on at any time, do check out our facebook page. i'm jane o'brien. thank you very much for watching

"world news america," and do have a very sunny weekend. >> with the bbc news app, our vertical videos are signed to work around your lifestyle, so you can swipe your way through the news of the day and stay up to date with the latest headlines you can trust. download now from selected app stores. >> funding of this presentation is made possible by the freeman foundation, f and kovlndation, pursuing solutions for america's neglected needs. >> planning a vacatiscape that is relaxing, inviting, and exciting is a lot easier than you think. you can find it here in aruba. families can all find their escape on the island with warm, sunny days, cooling trade winds, and the crystal blue caribbean sea. nonstop flights ome available

most major airports. more information for your vacation planning is ava at aruba.com. >> "bbc world news" was presented by kcet, los angeles.

captioning spons by newshourroductions, llc >> woodruff: good evening. i'm judy woodruff. on the newshour tonight: wall street woes. the stock market plunges to one of the worst weeks the u.s. has seen in years. then, republicans release their controversial memo. a look at the highlyted document alleging missteps by the f.b.i., and what it means for the russia investigation. plus, i sit down with outgoing chair of the federal reserve, janet yellen, to talk the atate of the nion's economy and what she sees for the financial future. al we've enjoyed solid growth. it's helped he labor market and that's great, but the pace isn't what we would ideally like to see. >> woodruff: and, it's friday.