Hello, I'm David Austin with the BBC News.

Police in the United States are searching for a white gunman, who shot dead nine people during a prayer meeting at an African-American church in the southern city of Charleston. From Washington, here is Tom Bakemen.

“Officers are now searching for the gunman, who they say was white and in his twenties, and they are treating the attack as a hate crime. The Mayor of Charleston Joseph Riley said it was an unspeakable tragedy.

“It is the large death totally act that one cannot possibly imagine. And we will bring that person to justice.”

The shooting took place at one of the oldest African-American churches in the southern United States, which traces its roots back two centuries. The police have said they would put all of their energies into finding the man who carried out the attack.

Hong Kong legislators have rejected controversial proposals to change the way the territory chooses its leader, with a dramatic end to the debate on the reforms. Julian Liu is in Hong Kong.

“When Hong Kong government officials gave their final speeches, it was hours ahead of schedule. Journalists scrambled to retake their seats in the main chamber of the legislative council. Then a bell rang reminding legislators to gather. The Cabinet Room echoed with tension. A voice called out asking to halt the proceedings with just minutes to spare. The Head head of the Council declined. Pro-government lawmakers walked out in protest. As a result, the controversial political reform plan failed by a wide margin.”

The United Nations says the number of people forced to flee their homes because of war or persecution is at the highest level ever recorded. More than half of the nearly sixteen million, who fled last year, were children. Most of the refugees were from Syria. The UN High Commission for Refugees said the international community seemed incapable of stopping conflicts.

Finance ministers from the Euro Zone are meeting in Luxemburg today to try to prevent Greece from defaulting on its debt in less than two weeks and being forced out of the single currency. But all parties played down any hopes of a breakthrough. Christ Morris reports.

“Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis has said we are bringing no new proposals to the meeting. So he is saying, as the Greek government has been saying for some time now, what we need to do is to discuss this at the very highest level，in other words, leaders of Euro Zone countries, Alexis Tsipras, Angela Merkel, Francoise Hollande, sitting down and sorting it out at a political level rather at a technical one. But on the other side, the Euro Zone countries are saying there’s no point in politicians sitting down, if there isn’t any technical document in their hands to start with.”

Denmark is going to the polls today with the issues of immigration and the economy holding center stage. Voters will decide whether to keep the country's first female Prime Minister Helle Thorning- Schmidt, or elect her center right rivals who were promising tax cuts.

World news from the BBC.

A British corporate investigator says the Chinese authorities denied him urgent medical treatment in order to extort a confession. Peter Humphrey has just been released from a prison in China after admitting that he illegally gathered information about Chinese citizens in a case involving the pharmaceuticals giant Glaxo Smith Kline, Kerry Gracie reports.

“Free at last and back on British soil. Peter Humphrey told the BBC his two years in a Shanghai jail cell, had been a shattering experience. He said Chinese authorities had denied him treatment for prostate problems as a way of trying to force him to confess, already now has a tumour as a result of not getting the medical attention he needed.”

Israeli police say a fire that's part of a Catholic church may have been an arson attack. The church, which Christians believe is the site where Jesus performed a miracle for multiplication of the loaves and fishes, is on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. A police spokesman said Hebrew graffiti found in scroll and red script paint denounced the worship of idols.

For the first time in more than a century, a new ten dollars note in the United States will feature the portrait of a woman. The US Treasury is asking Americans to submit ideas for whose image should be used. The new ten-dollar note will mark the centenary of American women gaining the rights to vote.



A court in Australia has banned a woman from breastfeeding because she got a tattoo. A judge said this put her eleven-month old son at risk of picking up infection. From Sydney, John Donison has this report.

“The court in Sydney granted the injunction to stop the woman from breastfeeding despite the fact she had negative blood tests for both HIV and hepatitis. Nevertheless, Judge Mathew Myers said there was still an unacceptable risk to the baby because the tests were not conclusive. Breastfeeding advocates in Australia criticized the decision saying the risk was incredibly small.”

And those are the latest stories from BBC News.