16—year—old rising star mirra andreeva thrashed the three—time grand slam finalist ons jabeur to cruise into the third round. andreeva, who lost the girls singles title in melbourne last year, tookjust 5a minutes to crush her idol, the world numbersix, 6—0, 6—2. it's the first time that andreeva has beaten a player in the top 10 and she will face france's dianne parry in the third round. of course i'm happy i played with ons. it was one of my dreams to play against her because i really like the way she plays and, as i said before, i'm inspired by her and so it means a lot. today it meant a lot, this match, that i won and i'm excited coming. no problems for defending champion aryna sabalenka who's through to the third round after a speedy 6—3,

6—2 win over 16—year—old qualifier brenda fruhvirtova from the czech republic. it took second seed sabalenka just 67 minutes and she'll play number 28 seed lesia tsurenko for a place in the fourth round. jordan henderson's time in saudi arabia looks to be over already despite signing a three—year deal with al—ettifaq in the summer the former liverpool captain is close to agreeing a deal tojoin ajax. preparations are being made for his arrival in amsterdam but no deal has been concluded yet. the second round of group fixtures at the afc asian cup are under way with two matches taking place in qatar today. hosts and defending champions qatar are currently in action against debuta nts tajikistan. not long kicked off in that one. they are about 15 minutes in. earlier it ended goalless between 11 on and china. both of those looking for their first victory at the

tournament. cricket now. there was a debut to remember for west indian bowler shamarjoseph after scoring 36 coming in at number 11, he dismissed the great steve smith with his very first ball in international cricket. he later followed up that dismissal with the wicket of marnus labuschagne to seal a memorable first day of test cricket. big smiles there. his performance was a rare bright spark really on another difficult day for the west indies in adelaide. kirk mckenzie was the only player to make a half century as the windies were dismissed for 188. in reply, australia reached 59—2 at stumps with usman khawaja and cameron green unbeaten. ahead of rugby union's six nations, there's been plenty of changes to squads. gregory aldritt will captain france in the absence of antoine dupont who is focusing on sevens rugby for the paris olympics, while peter o'mahony will lead ireland, taking over from johnny sexton who retired after last yea r�*s world cup. changes too for england,

as head coach steve borthwick has named hookerjamie george as their captain following owen farrell's decision to step away from international rugby, as he wants to prioritise his mental health. other news from that squad announcement, number eight billy vunipola and prop kyle sinckler have been omitted. i canjust i can just tell you that qatar has gone i—o i can just tell you that qatar has gone 1—0 in the asian cup. you can follow all of those results from the bbc sport website. that is it for me from the moment. lovely. thank you, sarah. welcome back to bbc news. china's population has fallen for the second year in a row. officialfigures show, there was a drop of 2 million last year, more than double the decline in 2022. the drop is due to a steep increase in the total number of deaths, many linked to the covid pandemic, and another fall in the birth rate. our correspondent, laura bicker, has more details.

china is facing a population crisis for the second year in a row. the population has declined. this year, 2023, tt�*s declined by around 2 million. that's double that of 2022. the biggest problem is the low birth rate. women, it appears, do not want to have babies, despite the fact the party is encouraging them to do just that. it goes way back to the one—child policy, right from the 1980s, this controversial policy that only allowed families to have one children up until 2015. the party saw this looming demographic crisis and decided to abolish it. since then, they have been promoting a message of marriage and childbirth, but that's had a limited effect. women instead are moving to urban areas and very much like their counterparts in the west, they want to wait to have children. there are issues regarding money. they want to know that they have finances in place to pay

for education, for instance. and these are some of the things that are holding many women back. other things, they want to have a career. the other problem china has is they have the most elderly people than anywhere else in the world. and this shrinking, this ageing population is a looming crisis for beijing because they need a working age workforce to fuel and drive the economy, an economy that's already stuttering. so the party is urging young people to try to rejuvenate china, but so far as you can tell, it has had a limited effect. rappers like to shock and northern ireland's latest success follows that trend. the rap trio from belfast, which performs mainly in irish, have sold out gigs in the uk, ireland and the us.

and now kneecap are making their acting debut. theirfilm is having its premiere at the sundance film festival in the us. our culture correspondent, charlotte gallagher, has been to belfast to meet them, and a warning, her report does contain some flash photography. # my raybans. ..# kneecap are at the forefront of irish hip—hop, rapping in both irish and english. their self—titled film, a semi—fictionalised account of how they got together, also blends the two languages, and it's the first irish language film to be included at the sundance film festival. they called our generation the ceasefire babies. so it's about these three fellas trying to find their place in the world. and it's about, you know, their identity and stuff like that. so everybody has this idea of the irish language that we all just sit about pubs playing fiddles and talking about grammar. you know what i mean?

when in actual fact, these three characters don't really mention the language that much. the whole film, they're, like, selling drugs and, like, talking about, you know, youth culture through the language rather than... they're living and surviving through the language. you've heard of intergenerational trauma, right? right. our history. our history has become our biology. the band grew up after the good friday agreement in a time of relative peace. the film explores what that means to young people in northern ireland. kneecap had never acted before. they didn't know how to act. right? because, you know, it's not necessarily a natural thing. and we got on board an acting coach called kieran lagan, who's from queen's university, and he put together a course that, over six months, you know, kind of put them through a university degree in acting, all the theory and things like that. and they absolutely blossomed week by week and i think the biggest thing people are going to be surprised about isjust how good

they are on screen. and they are acting opposite people like michael fassbender, simone kirby, some of the greatest actors ireland's produced in a generation, and they don't look like they're there because they've won a raffle. kneecap are not without controversy. this mural showing a police land rover on fire did upset some local politicians, but the band say they're about making music, not stirring up tensions. i think controversy is definitely subjective because, like, you had the song get your brits out, that has nothing to do with a mass exodus of british people from the north of ireland or anything like that there. which people like to believe. and that's kind of what we're playing off there. but in reality, the song, obviously, if you don't speak irish, you don't know what we're saying, but the song is about taking the dup out. ona night on a night out. so there are many aspects. people have different ideas of what we are, but we obviously just make music. you see this kind . of aesthetic as well of people wearing tracksuits -

and the kind of clothes you wear, it's associated with a type i of scumbaggery and people just have that image straight away. i was just about to say that as well. l with a balaclava as well, people look at this and - think it's a kind of sectarian statement or something, _ but it's the opposite. the name is derived from so—called kneecapping, where people are shot in the legs by paramilitaries. but kneecap say their name isn't a celebration of violence. any interview we do, we always say like, just like, we're glad that there's peace now. we're not trying to stoke any fires. like, we're all the same people, do you know what i mean? and the pioneers in irish rap gave me a language lesson before i left. he speaks irish. she repeats. thank you, guys. no problem. what's thank you in irish? go raibh maith agat. it's not easy. that was "i'm here with kneecap today in belfast". apologies about the pronunciation. charlotte gallagher, bbc news.

brilliant. they can be seen at the sundance film festival. stay with us here on bbc news. although much of the country today and tomorrow will continue to see a lot of dry, sunny and cold weather, we have some concerns for the social hours piling into the north of the country. —— the snow showers. we have an amber warning in force. this system across france won't pose any issues at southern britain. it will bring an area of thicker cloud. it is the snow showers in the north which we have no concerns about and an amberwarning which we have no concerns about and an amber warning here issued for an extra five centimetres to ten centimetres of snow falling on already deep snow. we could see 15-20 already deep snow. we could see 15—20 centimetres extra so over the high ground. further south,

15—20 centimetres extra so over the high ground. furthersouth, best 15—20 centimetres extra so over the high ground. further south, best of the sunshine, a very cold day particularly across the northern half of the uk. this evening and overnight, we lose the cloud and wintry showers from the far south—east. it is cold, dry and clear for most. wintry showers around coastal areas were given a nice risk and those snow showers continuing to pile into the northern isles and into central and northern ireland. a cold night to come wherever you are, it could be down to 44 -15 wherever you are, it could be down to —14 —15 in central scotland. a frost and icy start to thursday. bright with plenty of sunshine. snow showers draped around coastal areas, a dusting across eastern coastal counties newcastle down to norwich. the same for northern ireland and northern and western wales. the heaviest of the snow across northern scotland and northern isles. another very cold day to come. subtle changes into friday. we lose the arctic northerly, high pressure builds and westerly winds come in. a cold the day —— are slightly less

cold the day —— are slightly less cold the day on friday. snow showers will come in thick and fast across the north and west of scotland with longer spells of snow adding to the snow depth there. elsewhere, temperatures coming up a little bit, four to six celsius. into the weekend, big changes. we start to pick up atlantic low pressure systems, strong to gale forced south westerly winds and pulses of rain. rising temperature with heavy rain and snow melt could lead to localised flooding. certainly turning a lot milder this weekend.

live from london, this is bbc news. the princess of wales is recovering following abdominal surgery. kensington palace say the operation was a success and she will remain in hospital for up to a fortnight. iran's foreign minister says houthi attacks in the red sea will only stop when the war in gaza ends. translation: if the genocide in gaza stops, then it will lead to the... - the end of other crises and attacks in the region. the hamas government in gaza says the last 2a hours of fighting has been the most difficult and intense since the start of the war with israel. and rishi sunakfaces a crucial vote on his plan to deport asylum seekers to rwanda after two

deputy chairmen from his own party resign over the issue. hello, welcome to verified live — three hours of breaking stories and checking out the truth behind them. the princess of wales has had planned abdominal surgery, and will be in hospitalfor up to a fortnight. kensington palace says the procedure was successful, and took place at the london clinic, a private hosptal in central london. the princess is unlikely to return to public duties until after easter. what more do we know? this was a surrise what more do we know? this was a surprise statement _ what more do we know? this was a surprise statement released - what more do we know? this was a surprise statement released by - surprise statement released by kensington palace an hour ago. the statement is fairly lengthy. we know