even as his legal problems are mounting his hold on the republican party is tightening. i m phil mattingly in washington. pamela brown has the night off, and you are in the cnn newsroom. we begin this hour in ukraine as it wrestles with a terrifying fear of a nuclear disaster. it is now almost six months to the day since russia launched its unprovoked invasion. new video from ukraine s ministry of defense right here says this is a successful strike destroying a rare russian radar complex in south eastern ukraine. ukraine is about to get more u.s. help in its fight against russia. the pentagon saying it ll now send another $775 million in aid. including ammunition for the high promobility artillery ro rockets, howwitzers and other ammunition plus dozens of drones and different vehicles. a lot of the fighting right now is centered in zaporizhzhia, right around the zaporizhzhia nuclear plant. ukraine says russia is launching attacks from there because ukraine wouldn t risk
in the blast. we begin with the extreme weather threat across the central and southwestern u.s. more than 12 million people under flood watches, heavy rains pummeled phoenix, leaving streets and walkways flooded. meanwhile, a storm warning has been lifted for far southern texas, but rain from that system could spread into oklahoma and louisiana through midweek. so let s talk more about this with cnn meteorologist derek van dam. so much going on. what is catching your eye right now? well, some of the new flood watches that have been issued by the national weather service encompass some large metropolitans across north-central texas including dallas, fort worth, 12 million americans under flood watches as we speak. lots going on here. we re trying to get to all of it. i want you to see what s kind of the broader scope of what s happening. there s this low pressure system that s part of the monsoon that s brought the heavier rain and flooding you saw a moment ago across phoe
year. tropical storm warnings up for parts of texas. we re going to see some heavy rainfall in certain parts. we re going to tell you where and what that means for drought conditions. and a massive fire erupts at a boat yard in massachusetts. what we re learning about the fire and the damage that s been done. welcome to your weekend, saturday, august 20th. we re grateful to have you. thanks so much for waking up with us. great to be with you, amara. i can t believe it s august 20th. i wait for the weekends to know what the date is. i m realizing, oh my gosh, we re close to september. that s good. cooler weather, please. we were just talking about that, yes. it s almost halloween. good to be with you, boris. of course. we have a lot of news going on. we begin with the intense situation surrounding the z zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. that lies on the front lines of russia s war against ukraine. the fighting around the area have intensified so have concerns abo
russians have got gun implacements and rocked implacements close to that nuclear facility. they ve got military vehicles inside, which is no great surprise, because they captured it on march 4th. and they have been, because we ve seen the evidence with our own eyes, firing rockets outside of that facility. on top of that, we ve got their claim that the ukrainians are shelling back. that has been undermind not only by our own analysis of satellite imagery, but i ve spoken in the last few hours to people who have been working and one who has been working in that plant, close to that plant, and this is something we hear repeatedly from witnesses, who repeats that the russians are firing mortars to make it look as though the ukrainians are involved in some kind of threat to their own nuclear power station. all of this is set against a backdrop of very serious combat along a long front and very keep concerns in the international community that the international community could be
obtained by cnn suggest otherwise. cnn s sam kiley has more on a potential diplomatic breakthrough in an attempt to avoid a nuclear disaster. here s more from sam. yes, it could be seen as some kind of diplomatic breakthrough that the russian president has endorsed the idea that the international atomic energy authority, the body responsible for inindividuallating, if you like, nuclear power stations around the world, should be allowed to go to the zaporizhzhia nuclear power station and check it out, and install and reinstall the monitoring systems. the fact of the matter, though, is that this is a repeated russian offer and amidst a russian rejection of the international community s demands that they demilitarize the nuclear power station and the town around it. the reason the international community wants to see that is that this has been the locus of fighting. it s effectively on the front line. we know for an absolute fact, jim, that there are missiles being fired out o