florida governor ron desantis drops out. israel's prime minister rejects calls by hamas for a ceasefire as well as demands for a palestinian state, and that's as the death toll from the war in gaza rises. and despite an outbreak of intense violence in north—west ethiopia, orthodox christians gather to celebrate a sacred tradition. hello, i'm azadeh moshiri. welcome to the programme. florida governor ron desantis has become the latest republican to end his 2024 presidential campaign. in a video posted online, he said he no longer believed he could win the nomination, instead endorsing his political rival former president trump. if there was anything i could do to produce

a favourable outcome — more campaign stops, more interviews — i would do it. but i can't ask our supporters to volunteer their time and donate their resources if we don't have a clear path to victory. accordingly, i am today suspending my campaign. trump is superior to the current incumbent, joe biden. that is clear. i signed a pledge to support the republican nominee and i will honour that pledge. he has my endorsement because we cannot go back to the old republican guard of yesteryear — a repackaged form of warmed—over corporatism that nikki haley represents. trump celebrated the news of desantis�* endorsement at a speaking engagement. he praised desantis a "very capable person," despite more than a year ridiculing him. desantis�*s exit from the race comes just two days before the new hampshire primary elections. earlier, i spoke with the bbc�*s carl nasman, who had been planning to cover a rally there for mr desantis.

carl, i know you are at a restaurant. you were expecting to be at a big desantis campaign event. that's not quite how the night's gone, has it? that's not how things have gone, clearly, as you can see. i mean, this restaurant, this area where we were supposed to have the desantis campaign rally — it is empty. he never showed up. in fact, a couple of hours before this event was supposed to start, we got that announcement that ron desantis was dropping out of the race. there was some expectation that he would continue to fight on. he'd go until votes were cast on tuesday, despite what we know were some very low polling numbers here in the state of new hampshire — he was in the single digits. i've been speaking with desantis supporters who did come down, who did try to make it to this campaign event. they tell me that they are surprised at the timing, but they're not shocked that he decided to drop out. here's what one voter told me. it kind of had to be inevitable at this point because we just couldn't pick up the votes that we needed

to here in new hampshire. and, ah...|'m disappointed. what we need to do is consolidate and unify ourselves to make sure that we can make sure that the best for all of the people in the united states get what they need, right? we need to fix the economy. we need to fix the border. we need to fix everything that's broken. and we need to consolidate behind the person — or people — who are best able to make sure that that happens. carl, he said it was inevitable — is that because it hasn't been the smoothest ride for ron desantis during this campaign trail? it has been a bit of a bumpy ride. of course, if you look back to 2023, as you mentioned, ron desantis was really the frontrunner. he was the candidate on the republican side that people thought might be able to take on or take down donald trump. he was pitching himself as the former president but without the baggage and without the drama.

and then, as we saw, month after month, the momentum seemed to decrease, the polling numbers went down, and this was due to several behind—the—scenes issues. there was some turmoil among the campaign brass, his advisers, there were several high—profile firings or leavings within his staff and then, we sawjust this struggle to find a message that really resonated with voters — not only in the early states but, really, in states across the country. and then, the big strategy decision for desantis was to go all—in on the state of iowa, to spend resources and precious money there. the florida governor himself personally visiting all 99 counties. that got him a second—place finish but it really was a distant second. he was still miles away from donald trump. it took about 51% of the vote in iowa. and that might have been the end of the road and crucially, ron desantis, until the very end, seemed reluctant to really go after,

to really criticise, the former president, some people thinking that might be part of the reason why ron desantis decided to come out and endorse the former president for his run in 2024 to try to get back into his good graces. of course, now it is a two—person race — donald trump and nikki haley. voting here in new hampshire begins on tuesday and we will see which one of them is able to come out on top in the state. with desantis out of the race, all eyes now are on nikki haley, the former south carolina governor who served in the trump administration as us ambassador to the united nations. on sunday, haley continued to campaign, in seven locations across new hampshire, where she is relying on a strong showing on tuesday, and says she's out to win against donald trump. nikki haley's campaign has ramped up attacks on the frontrunner in recent days. everything from trump's age to his relationship with foreign dictators has been fair game. upon learning the news that desantis would drop out, haley quipped that the race is down to "one fella "and one lady".

but ron desantis's endorsement of donald trump may make haley's chances even slimmer. the bbc�*s gary o'donoghue has been following the haley campaign in exeter, new hampshire. 0k, well, this has got to be one of nikki haley's biggest events of her new hampshire swing. probably nigh on 1,000 people in the school gym behind us hearing her say that this was now a two—horse race — which, of course, it actually is now. i'm joined by one person who came to see nikki haley tonight, tom puzzo. tom, you're a former veteran, now a schoolteacher. what did you make of her tonight? i think she's the one we need for the next president of the united states. did you vote donald trump last time? i did, because the alternative was not what i wanted. 0k. what's put you off him now, then? i think he's — again, like nikki haley says — a lot of chaos with the court cases and i think he's getting to the point that he's getting too old. he says that he wants to sort of protect people

you know, people that are in the military, not send them on all these sort of foreignjaunts. she's more of an internationalist. is that something you like? i like it. i don't think she's out for war — she wants peace — but, you know, she'll support ukraine because i think if we don't support ukraine, we don't know where putin's going to end up, going through eastern europe. and, of course, she's a big supporter of israel as well. now, of course, we've had some people drop out — ron desantis has dropped out... correct. ..vivek ramaswamy has dropped out. all those votes will probably go to trump, which makes it a lot harderfor her. i don't know, because a lot of desantis people were never trumpers. they went to him because they didn't like what trump stood for. so, we're hoping and we think that some of those votes will go towards haley. you've been on this primary a while and have seen a few politicians come and go. i have. how much of a chance do you actually think she's got? 0r or is this to shake things up, do you think? i think she's an excellent chance. as she moves from new hampshire to south carolina and beyond, i think she has an excellent chance. tom, thank you so much

forjoining us on bbc news. thank you. of course, the last 2a hours before the campaigning in the primary on tuesday. loads of events packed in tomorrow. they're really pushing for this but they're looking for a strong finish, which is a slight change in the rhetoric from, perhaps, before, when they were talking about winning. back to you in the studio. gary 0'donoghue. now to the israel—gaza war, where the hamas—run health ministry says that the last 2a hours has been one of the deadliest days of the war so far. it says that in the last day, there have been 178 deaths in gaza. the health ministry added that the total number of those killed in gaza since israel began its offensive some three months ago has now topped 25,000. and on the ground, israel's military campaign is pressing on, bombing the city of khan younis in the southern gaza strip. all of this comes as benjamin netanyahu remains defiant in calls for the creation of a palestinian state. and in a recent development, netanyahu also dismissed an offer from hamas to release the roughly 130 hostages it's still holding. under conditions proposed by hamas, israel would completely withdraw its military operation in gaza and leave hamas in power.

0ur middle east correspondent hugo bachega has the latest. there's no surprise here because this has been a long—held position by benjamin netanyahu, being against the creation of an independent palestinian state. the two—state solution is the preferred plan by the international community that would see the creation of a palestinian state sitting along israel. and arab countries have now been defending negotiations for the creation of a palestinian state as an exit strategy for this war. and we're seeing now that the prime minister has been reluctant to accept this idea — an idea that is defended also by president biden, who's been, obviously, a huge supporter of the israelis in this war —

so again, it shows that the massive, huge differences between the positions defended by the israeli prime minister and also the positions and views defended by the biden administration for gaza once the war is over. hugo bachega. i discussed the growing diplomatic tensions around the future of palestinians and israel with ambassadorjim jeffrey, a former us deputy national security advisor in the george w bush administration. ambassadorjeffrey, thank you so much for your time. i want to first address the comments benjamin netanyahu has made about his refusal for a two—state solution. in your view, do you believe that this is out of politics or genuine ideology? it's a little bit of both and, also, it is the public

posturing of both president biden and netanyahu, particularly after the call at the end of last week, where neither are in the same place but they're going back and forth. i'm not as discouraged as i was about a week or two ago. i think that netanyahu realises there has to be some solution beyond permanent israeli garrison of gaza, and they're looking at what the options are. what are those other options that you're referencing there? because arab states don't seem like they're particularly interested in providing their own peacekeeping force in gaza. would the un? israel won't trust the un, nor should they. from the un pullout of sinai in 1967 to the disgraceful un failure to execute the lebanon resolution in 1701, the un is not a credible peacekeeping force. but there are other options — we had them in bosnia, we had them in kosovo,

we have a peacekeeping force in the sinai still today from the 19705 — but i don't know what it would be and i wouldn't rule out local palestinians there playing a role. but for the moment, the key thing is — and that's what netanyahu is focused on, as are the united states — is dismantling hamas and getting the hostages back because if hamas emerges victorious, then there's no talk of a two—state solution, there's no talk of who will run gaza — hamas will run gaza — so that's the problem and that's an obstacle to any consideration of the day after. the director general of the united nations, antonio guterres, of course, has been really encouraging and talking about the fact that palestinians do have a right to self—determination but i understand what you're talking about is their effectiveness when it comes to their peacekeeping forces. i do want to ask about the palestinian authority

because you've just said there that perhaps one option is palestinians being their own safeguarding peacekeeping force there. but what confidence do you think arab states even have and palestinians themselves have in the palestinian authority? at this point, there's very little confidence in the palestinian authority either to run a security operation — remember, they controlled security in 2007 in gaza and hamas launched a three—day uprising and slaughtered the palestinian authority security forces, and everybody remembers that. there's also real doubts about the administrative capacity of the palestinian authority under president abbas to really run a very complicated reconstruction operation, which is what gaza will require, so i think these are the initial back and forth. there's no doubt that the region as a whole,

as president biden constantly emphasises, the region as a whole is not going to take a turn towards peace if there is not a commitment by everyone, including israel, to a two—state solution — with the exception of iran, of course, which rejects a two—state solution because it rejects israel. but to isolate iran, which is particularly critical for everybody in the region, there needs to be at least a theoretical movement towards a palestinian state, and that's what president biden is pushing. what president netanyahu is pushing back on is a right but meanwhile, they're not capable of taking over from us in gaza, so is what's the alternative? and that's where the back—and—forth is going right 110w. right. and, of course, as a reminder, iran does back hamas, hezbollah and the houthis, which is complicating things further. ambassadorjeffrey, thank you for talking to us. we really appreciate it. thank you for having me on. around the world and across the uk, this is bbc news.

let's look at some other stories making news. people across the whole of the uk are facing strong winds and extreme weather warnings from storm isha. the met office has warned of life—threatening conditions with wind gusts of more than 100mph recorded in some coastal areas. there are now tornado concerns. flights, railand bus services have faced delays and cancellations. thousands are without power and there are flood warnings in place. ukrainian shelling in the russian—controlled city of donetsk in the eastern part of the country has killed 27 people and injured 25 others according to kremlin—appointed officials there. meanwhile, ukraine's president, volodymyr zelensky, said in a video posted online that russia shelled 100 cities, towns and villages in nine regions in a single day, including around donetsk. the duchess of york has been diagnosed with skin cancer. sarah ferguson's spokesperson says a mole removed during treatment

for breast cancer was identified as cancerous. you're watching with bbc news. to a developing story in china now — state media report 47 people have been buried in a landslide. state media says the landslide happened shortly before 6am local time in china's southwestern yunan province in zhenxiong county. people from 18 households were reportedly caught in the landslide. state media say some 200 more were evacuated. it marks the latest in a string of natural disasters to strike china in recent months. in the czech republic, the charles university in prague has opened the doors of its arts faculty for the first time since 1a students and members of staff were shot dead.

that was exactly one month ago. teaching is due to resume next month, but the fourth floor of the faculty where the shooting took place will remain closed. students at the nearby school of decorative arts will begin work on a permanent memorial for those who lost their lives using the wax of thousands of candles left by people outside the university. intense fighting has been reported in recent weeks in ethiopia's northwestern amhara province between local militias and government forces. but despite this threat of violence, many 0rthodox christians are celebrating an annual religious festival in the historic city of gondar. 0ur correspondent kalkidan yibeltal has been attending the festivities. bells ring the epiphany holidays include three days of festivities observed among followers of 0rthodox christianity, and we're now in the final stages. these faithful

are escorting replicas of the ark of the covenant or tabots as they are called here, back into their respective parishes after the tabots spent days near a 17th—century baptism pool. the tabots, which are found in every ethiopian parish, are said to have inscriptions of the ten commandments. the holy days themselves mark the baptism ofjesus christ on the riverjordan, and the main event takes place on the second day, where many of the faithful, particularly among young people, leap into the pool in symbolic baptisms after priest and rights prayers are held. in this historic city of gondar, home to magnificent unesco registered castles, normally tens of thousands attend these holy days, filling the streets with dancing and choirs singing hymns, but this year, because of violence that's been raging in northwestern ethiopia for months, far fewer people are attending. the holy days have

significant spiritual, cultural and economic value for the city and its residents. many who are attending here told us that, given armed clashes in recent weeks, they are happy that the holy days are happening at all. sunday marks four years since the first official case of covid—19 was ever recorded here in the us. more than 1.1 million americans have died. and in recent weeks, cases have been on the rise across the country and around the world. according to the world health organization, hospitalisations have risen by more than 40% in the americas and across europe. to get a sense of where things stand and what we have learnt from the pandemic, i spoke with dr peter hotez, dean of the national school of tropical medicine at the baylor college of medicine. thank you so much forjoining the programme. i would like to start by asking

you about restrictions. some states are breaking with the cdc guidelines when it comes to covid—19. do you think we are at a point now where we can relax? i don't think so we are in a pretty significant wave not as bad as 2021 or 2022, but it's looking the same size as around this time last year, and we are still at around 30,000 hospitalisations on a daily basis, and so it is a pretty serious pandemic situation still unfortunately although we are in the fourth year of the pandemic. deaths have dropped, so we're not in the same scenario as before. is not reasonable, therefore, for people to go back to school, or back to work if they are asymptomatic or do we need to take covid—19 far more seriously? the odd part of this is why the states are not in sync with the centers for disease control. they always worry about the states going rogue and setting president from what the cdc recommends

because it gives some states a licence to say, well, if that state did it, why can't i? the most egregious example is what has happened with the florida surgeon general who has gone very rogue and making false claims about covid—19 vaccine, saying they cause cancer, and his defence could reasonably, well, if california and florida are not going by cdc, why should florida? what florida is doing is far more dangerous than oregon and california. in principle, i would prefer all the states were in the same situation is what the cdc is recommending. i understand why states may have differences of opinion, but the optics are not the best. as a reminder, california, oregon, those were states far more cautious during the pandemic, so that's why people were surprised they relaxed those restrictions.

covid—19 asside, do you think we have learned the lessons of the pandemic, enough to prevent the next pandemic if and when it does come? i don't think so because we are now in a situation in the united states where we are trying to actively discredit both the science and the scientists, and here in the us, we had a very unique situation where of the million plus deaths, at least 200,000, maybe more were needless deaths because so many americans refused vaccines after the vaccines became widely available, this happened during the delta wave in the last half of 2021 into the 0micron wave, there was this defiance of public health interventions including getting vaccinated and it was notjust because of random disinformation but it was a deliberate and predatory campaign, led by extremist members of the us congress, together with some of the extremist conservative news outlets, and people went down that rabbit hole and paid for it with their lives, so we

have not fixed that. now we're seeing a revisionist history from the same actors from the far right, now i have called them out and others have as well, saying that 200,000 americans needlessly died because of the disinformation, there is revisionist history going on, falsely claiming that it was the covid—19 vaccines that killed americans or that the scientists invented the virus in the first place. all of this means we continue to politicise the pandemic and we will not be ready for the next one as a consequence. on that issue, when you are talking about the next one, the world health 0rganizaation was sounding the alarm about disease x, what they are calling the next pandemic disease would be. they have presented some concerning information about it. how much is that something people should genuinely be worried about, or is this more of a hypothetical issue

and we are talking about �*just in case�* precautions? one of the most common questions i am asked is, "hey, doc, what the heck is going on?" by that, what do they mean? you have ebola in 2014, we had virus infection 2016, now covid—19 the answers these pandemics are not coming at a regular basis, now we are understanding why it has to do with a confluence of a number of forces which includes climate change and urbanisation and deforestation and greater exposure to animal reservoirs. so that we should now expect these on a regular basis, we have had three major coronavirus epidemics in this century alone, sars, and mers, covid—19, we should expect a fourth one before the end of the decade, we still have these zooanotic influencers, the avian influencers and in the southern part of the united states we have mosquito transmitted virus inspections, we had zika

in 2016 and some are concerned about dengue returning to the gulf coast or yellow fever, we have enormous vulnerabilities and i think we're still not taking them seriously even after covid—19, which we realise the public health impact was only one part, there was also the geopolitical impact and the economic impact. we are still not taking them seriously enough. doctor, thank you so much for your time. thank you. before we go, to a healthy staple in south korea and around the world. the country says exports of kimchi recorded an all—time high last year. shipments of the spicy fermented cabbage exceeded 114,000 tons last year. an official cited the growing popularity of south korean culture globally as the main reason behind the surge. thank you so much. that is all from us. hello there. storm isha is likely to cause significant damage

and disruption to parts of the uk as we push into monday morning. met office amber warnings remain in force for severe gales with these damaging gusts of wind and heavy rain. then this heavy rain combined with snow melt, because of the milder temperatures across northern areas likely to lead to localised flooding. the centre of storm isha passing just to the north of scotland, widespread severe gales on its southern flank pretty much covering most of the uk. these are the sorts of wind gusts we can expect, even inland up to 60mph or more, and in excess of 70, 80mph around some irish sea coasts. we could be looking at in excess of 90mph across parts of northern ireland and western scotland. this amber warning is valid until 6am this morning. these are the sorts of temperatures we can expect to start monday morning — 6—11 celsius. so, storm isha's likely to bring significant disruption to travel for the monday morning rush. stay tuned to your bbc local radio bulletins and also bbc breakfast for all the latest updates. monday itself looks very windy,

though storm isha pulling away into the norwegian sea, stays blustery with scattered showers, most of these in scotland, northern ireland with some snow falling on the hills. some of the showers will be heavy at times. best of the sunshine will tend to be across eastern parts of the country, and these sorts of temperatures can be 7 to 11 celsius. but as we move through monday evening and overnight, the winds will begin to ease down as a ridge of high pressure starts to build and the showers will also die off across northern and western areas. it'll turn dry, clear and cool across the north and east of the uk, but the next spell of wet and windy weather will start to work its way into western areas early on tuesday morning. here it is then on the pressure chart, the next low—pressure system to bring a spell of rain and gales. not as severe as storm isha, but still, a blustery day to come, wet and windy weather across western areas will spread to all areas through the day. could see some transient snow on the mountains of scotland before the milder air starts to move northwards across the whole country, and it will be very mild indeed

for the time of year with temperatures reaching 1a, maybe 15 celsius. the weather remains quite changeable as we move through the rest of the week, wet and windy spells interspersed with drier and sunnier moments. and generally for the time of year, it's going to stay mild throughout.

voice-over: this is bbc news. we'll have the headlines and all the main news stories for you at the top of the hour, straight after this programme.