BBC在线收听下载:美国阿拉巴马州遭龙卷风袭击

Hello, I'm Eileen McKue with the BBC News.

At least twenty-three people have been killed in Alabama after tornadoes hit the US state. Jay Jones, the sheriff of Lee County on the border with Georgia, said the number could rise as the authority searched through the rubble and debris. The victims include a number of children. Alabama governor Kay Ivey declared a state of emergency. Chip Brownlee is a local journalist in Auburn, in Lee County.

It came up just so fast. You know, I think, you know, people don't have time to get out of the way of these things, especially when they're moving as fast as they were moving today. And when this one was particularly as powerful as it was, there's not much you can do, particularly when these things are leveling homes like this one did, snap trees in half. It's flipping cars.
President Trump has urged people in the region to stay safe.

Venezuela's opposition leader Juan Guaido says he's returning to his country after a week-long tour of South America to amass support for his attempt to remove President Nicolas Maduro from power. Speaking on social media from an undisclosed location, Mr. Guaido said he would lead anti-government marches throughout Venezuela on Monday and Tuesday. This report from Will Grant.

We'll see each other tomorrow, Juan Guaido told his supporters in a late night address on Sunday via Facebook live. It was a reference to a march he's called for in Caracas, although it isn't yet clear if he will actually be back in the country by then or how he intends to return. He was placed under a travel ban by the Supreme Court loyal to President Maduro. Now his intention is to come back to Venezuela, which may provoke the Maduro government into arresting him. If they do, he said it would be one of their last mistakes in office.

The United States will on Monday merge the activities of its consulate in Israel with those of its embassy in a move that's angered Palestinians. The consulate in Jerusalem has until now operated as a semi-independent diplomatic mission serving Palestinians in the disputed city and acting as a direct channel of communication between Washington and the Palestinian authority. The merger will make the consulate subordinate to the US ambassador to Israel David Freeman, considered a supporter of the Israeli settlement program in the West Bank.

Police in Kenya say a helicopter has crashed in the northwest of the country, killing all four American passengers on board and their pilot. Reports say the helicopter came down after taking off from a tourist camp on a remote island in Lake Turkana on Sunday evening. The cause is not yet known. That's the BBC news.