president biden has said the united states will respond to a drone attack on an american military base injordan, near the syrian border, at a time and in a manner of its choosing. mr biden blamed the attack on radical iran—backed militant groups operating in syria and iraq. tehran has denied any involvement in the attack in which three service personnel were killed and 3a injured. my colleague azadeh moshiri spoke to adam clements — he is the former us defense attache to jordan. he told her how significant this attack was for the us administration. i think the biden administration does face something significant here now because us forces have been injured and killed. unfortunately as well this has happened many times, where these iranian—backed groups have attempted to injure or kill us forces deployed in this counter—isis campaign. but you are right, there is a point now where i think that there'll have to be further strikes, just as far as just to show the us will not stand for when its service members being, in this case, injured or killed.

but there have been strikes since october the 7th, and this has still happened, as barbara starrjust said, it hasn't acted as a deterrent. so couldn't you argue, as republicans do in congress right now, that this strategy of containment and the approach that biden administration is taking towards iran is failing? i'm not sure necessarily that as far as containment or as far as even deterrence. these are still very subjective words. it's hard to measure. it's hard to know where these lines are drawn. but i do think something suggesting a strike inside of iran, that would definitely be escalatory. and given the greater context of what is happening on the lebanese border with israel, what is happening in the red sea, what's also happening elsewhere in the region, that would be quite escalatory, and so i think there is a balancing act that has to take place. and that even outside of this there are other strategic priorities that the us has to address as well, going on with ukraine and russia.

right, and can i ask, troops have been killed. if this were a concerted decision by iran to escalate things rather than perhaps a militia gone rogue from their direction, would that in your view make a difference in terms of the required military response? in my mind right now, it depends. and of course i don't have access to all the intelligence to understand some of their thinking, but it's very, very difficult to understand this thinking, the line of thinking, for the national leadership of iran. i think very definitely as well there are other contextual issues in play as well. very definitely a war and conflict is not an interest for other gulf states, for other states in the arabian peninsula, forjordan. they have signalled recently as well, i think it's in their interest as well that there is not a conflict. so there are very definitely incentives on all sides that we find a way to lower the temperature, find some way to de—escalate. and i think that starts a lot

in gaza, find a way to get these hostages released and that at least gives political space for the israeli government, and also from a military standpoint as well, because that's right now, i think, the very difficult thing in the military context, because there's so many hostages that are still in gaza. the world's most indebted property developer, evergrande, has been given a winding—up order by hong kong's high court. the company, which has extensive holdings in china, has more than $300 billion in liabilities. evergrande�*s shares fell by twenty percent on the exchange in hong kong, before trading was suspended. our china correspondent stephen mcdonell has more. people are already trying to understand how this is going to play out. one problem is, it's not even guaranteed that officials in china will recognise the court—appointed liquidator, their right to be able to seize assets in mainland china.

i mean, according to some estimates, only a very small percentage of what's owed can possibly be repaid via this method. and so in a funny way it's also the chinese system on trial, if i can put it that way. this country wants more foreign investment and investors are going to be looking at how this plays out, and if these international creditors — and they are the ones who have brought this to the courts in hong kong in the first place — if they can't get their money back and can't get access to these assets that evergrande has in mainland china then i think yet again people will be questioning, should i really be investing that much money in china, is it too risky? and so, a lot to be played out yet. and funnily enough, in the interim, for potentially years to come, evergrande will keep building buildings here because there's a lot of unwinding, a lot of reorganisation that has to take place, and even, would you believe, the chance of yet another attempt

to strike a deal to somehow bail them out. two teenage boys who died after being stabbed in bristol have been named locally as 15—year—old mason rist and 16—year—old max dixon. witnesses say they were attacked by a group of people who fled in a car. police in bristol say they have arrested a 44—year—old man and a 15—year—old boy and they remain in custody. police have begun a murder investigation and they said a vehicle had been seized. our correspondent fiona lamdin is in south bristol. i'm in south bristol where police are now investigating a double murder. max dixon was 16, mason rist was 15. and both boys were attacked here at about 11:20pm on saturday evening. as soon as the police were called they were here within minutes and the two boys were taken to separate hospitals, one to the children's hospital,

one to southmead. but in the early hours of sunday morning, both boys died. now, police have seized the car, there was a group that attacked them and they have now got that car. now, a 44—year—old man has been arrested, and a teenage boy. yesterday there was a vigil, there were over 70 people here, they turned out. you can see there are flowers, there is a football shirt, and people have been coming all morning, people are visibly very — understandably — very upset, very shocked, that this has happened. and there's schoolchildren going off to school this morning. max and mason should have been going off to school but instead the community coming to terms with this murder and police are investigating what is now a double murder. live now to dan norris, who is the metro mayor of the west of england.

thank you for being with us. your reaction to these murders. the first thin to reaction to these murders. the first thing to obviously _ reaction to these murders. the first thing to obviously say, _ reaction to these murders. the first thing to obviously say, is _ reaction to these murders. the first thing to obviously say, is to - reaction to these murders. the first thing to obviously say, is to reach l thing to obviously say, is to reach out to the families of max and mason, theirfriends, and say this is a terrible thing. we will try and empathise as best we can with this situation, where children have been stabbed. the communities locally are finding this shocking. it will not just be knowle west where the incident happened, but the wider communities around. it will be very tough for everybody, and young people in particular will be very anxious about what has happened. what support are you in your office offering? as mayor i have resources that can offer things like offering? as mayori have resources that can offer things like— that can offer things like careers uuidance, that can offer things like careers guidance. but — that can offer things like careers guidance, but this _

that can offer things like careers guidance, but this needs - that can offer things like careers | guidance, but this needs national attention from national government. every week there is a stabbing of this kind as serious as this in my region alone, which covers beyond bristol, just in the last two years there was another incident where a young person was stabbed and killed in a mining community. it happens in other communities, places like bath, a fatal stabbing last year where one young person was killed, and now these two incidents in bristol. we need to grasp the fact that these are serious things happening across the region, in my every command across the country, across all sorts of different communities. keir starmer made an important speech, saying we had to be tough on knife crime and the causes of knife crime. we can'tjust shrug our shoulders and say it doesn't matter. it really does, and we need to support the service is already there so they can focus on this very serious approach, these murders, effectively, to make sure youth offending teams can

actually deal with this more effectively and can have serious sanctions like curfews or tags or contracts with young people. we must be honest and say there are serious consequences if you carry a knife never mind use it. it's a very serious situation that needs national attention and national results. it national attention and national results. . , national attention and national results. ,. , results. it has been described as an eidemic, results. it has been described as an epidemic. the _ results. it has been described as an epidemic, the increase _ results. it has been described as an epidemic, the increase in _ results. it has been described as an epidemic, the increase in knife - epidemic, the increase in knife crime in recent years across the country. what's behind it, do you think? i country. what's behind it, do you think? ~' country. what's behind it, do you think? ~ ., , ., , ., think? i think lots of people would like to know _ think? i think lots of people would like to know the _ think? i think lots of people would like to know the answer _ think? i think lots of people would like to know the answer to - think? i think lots of people would like to know the answer to that. like to know the answer to that because then we could do something effective against it, hopefully. i think it's about general society, attitudes to one another, including young people. we don'tjust see it in relation to the crime we are talking about today. i have an epidemic of shoplifting happening in my region, it has gone up 43% in the last year alone. and often organised gangs carry knives and threatened staff, shop workers and others when

they are committing crimes. it's an attitude, we have to say it's not acceptable and it can'tjust happen from people like me as a regional mayor. i was talking to shadow ministerfor mayor. i was talking to shadow minister for policing, mayor. i was talking to shadow ministerfor policing, and he is acutely aware of the significance of this knife crime epidemic and we have to do something about it. as keir starmer said, shrugging our shoulders and pretending it doesn't matter. it has impact on young people, they are frightened to go around where these things happen, and we can't burden on young people with these kinds of things, they have enough on their plate growing up have enough on their plate growing up to be adults, never mind these serious incidents taking place. dan norris, serious incidents taking place. dan norris. the — serious incidents taking place. dan norris, the west of england's metro mayor, thank you. some breaking news coming from west yorkshire police, who are urgently appealing to the mother of a newborn baby found dead in a pub in alton,

ought to seek medical help. their priority is to ensure the welfare of the mother. emergency services attended at the three horseshoe public house in alton yesterday afternoon following the discovery of afternoon following the discovery of a newborn baby girl in the toilet area who was tragically confirmed as deceased by paramedics. an investigation is ongoing but they are urgently appealing for the mother of that newborn baby found deadin mother of that newborn baby found dead in a pub in alton yesterday, to contact them or seek medical help. to india now, where a different kind of impact is being felt from the conflict in the middle east. as thousands of men, desperate for secure jobs, have been going to recruitment centres to sign up for work in israel. in a treaty signed last year, india s government promised to send more than 40,000 workers to help plug shortfalls in the construction industry. archana shukla reports. braving a frosty winter morning,

thousands gather at this government recruitment centre, willing to risk going to a country at war. the only hope, a well paying job- translation: we are just running around looking forjobs. _ if we get one here, why would we risk going to a war zone? translation: we have families to take care of. j all this crowd is waiting here only in hope for a good salary in israel. one among them is 24—year—old subriv, who travelled 300 kilometres to try his luck as a carpenter. ajob in israel will get him six times the salary he makes here through ad hocjobs. translation: i want to break the cycle of poverty _ my family has seen. if i get good money i will go, even if it's risky. these skilled workers are meant to fill part of the labour shortage in israel's construction industry after work permits of thousands of palestinian workers were revoked amidst the ongoing conflict in gaza. the job—seekers you see around me

are part of india's sprawling and precarious informal economy. they do ad hocjobs with no formal contracts or benefits. most of them, who are even college graduates, end up getting paid just $8—$10 a day. this is a crisis that has not changed, despite india being the fastest growing major economy in the world. even prime minister narendra modi's focus on wooing foreign investment and big ticket infrastructure projects has not helped rising unemployment in the country. educated youth bear the highest burden. latest research by india's azim premji university shows 15% of all graduates and 42% of graduates under 25 years old have nojobs. what we need to do in a young country like ours, where everyone is getting better educated, is to generate many more non—farm jobs. on the contrary, what we have seen happen in the last five or six years in particular,

is that manufacturing jobs actually fell in absolute terms as a share of total employment. manufacturing as a share of gdp actually contracted, despite all the talk about make in india. for these job—seekers, despite security concerns in israel, the chance to earn an income outweighs the risks, at least for now. archana shukla, bbc news, uttar pradesh. rail users in england are facing more disruption this week, as members of the train drivers union aslef stage an overtime ban and another series of strikes. there will be nine days of industrial action affecting more than a dozen train companies. the walkouts are the latest in a long—running row over pay and working conditions. our transport correspondent katy austin has the details. 18 months after train drivers began their strikes, large parts of the rail network will once again come

to a halt over the next week. strikes are planned for tuesday, wednesday, friday, saturday and next monday. a ban on overtime shifts lasting from today until next tuesday is likely to cause some short notice cancellations. the dispute is over pay and about the train companies group and the government pushing for changes to ways of working. a deal late last year means the rmt has ended its strikes for now, but the train drivers dispute goes on. the operators and ministers have repeatedly urged aslef to give members a vote on the deal that was rejected last april. the offer on the table would see the average driver's salary go to £65,000 for a four—day week before overtime. that is twice the average household income in england. we say it's fair and reasonable. the union's leader disagrees and accuses the other side of not trying to find a resolution. for the record, we're always available to talk. it isn't us that are putting the hold—up into this process, and we never have done.

we've gone to the table in good faith many times and talked for months. on every occasion we've been let down by the employers and the government, and their acts of bad faith. the government's recently brought in a new law, and that means that operators could choose to make enough members of staff work on strike days to run 40% of normal services. but putting so—called minimum service levels in place wouldn't be straightforward. and aslef says it would just respond by putting on more strikes. in the end, no train companies decided to do it this time, so the strikes will still have a severe impact and they're unlikely to be the last. katy austin, bbc news. around the world and across the uk. this is bbc news. bbc news, bringing you different stories from across the uk. - every morning i walk down here to record rainfall about nine o'clock. since he was ten years old, tom bown from llwydiarth—esgob on anglesey has made the same journey to the bottom of his garden every day without fail.

take the funnel out, which collects the rainfall. you have a bottle underneath which collects the water. it's then put into a calibrated gauge and that's more or less one millimetre. the rainfall measurements tom takes are passed on to natural resources wales. it helps us with forecasting, with modelling, and with water resources. the weather station he uses was built by his grandfather at the end of the 19th century. tom took over the responsibility of measuring the rainfall in 1948. how long do you think you'll keep going? as long as i can, as long as i can walk! hopefully, yeah. for more stories from across the uk, head to the bbc news website. - you're live with bbc news. some sport now — and we now know which two teams will contest american football's super bowl. the big game will feature the kansas city chiefs

for the fourth time in five years, and the san francisco 49ers. first to book their place were the chiefs, who went to baltimore, and overcame the pre—game favourites, the ravens, by 17 points to 10. among the star performers, quarterback patrick mahomes, and the tight end travis kelce — who was watched, once again, by his girlfriend taylor swift. here's patrick mahomes on what the chance to win a third super bowl means. you don't take it for granted either. you never know how many you're going to get to, or if you're going to get to any. and so it truly is special. just to do it with these guys after what we've been through all season long, guys coming together, it really is special. but i told them, the job's not done. ourjob now is to prepare ourselves to play a good football team in the super bowl and try to get that ring. the later kick off saw san francisco host

the detroit lions in the nfc championship game. the 49ers were trailing by 17 points at half time. but they put together five successive scoring drives to put themselves ahead. and despite a late touchdown, the lions touchdown, the lions couldn't get back on terms, eventually losing 34 to 31. so, that means the 49ers will face the chiefs in super bowl 58 on the 11th of february, in nevada. it's a repeat of the super bowl from four years ago which was won by the chiefs, and we'll bring you more details in our sports bulletins a little later here on bbc news. the social media site x — formerly known as twitter — has blocked users for searching for taylor swift. this is the message which comes up when a search for the american singer and songwriter

is entered into the website. it comes after faked explicit images of the singer spread across the site earlier this week. x says the action is only temporary. it's believed that some of the images — we're not showing them here — were generated by artificial intelligence. one had reportedly been viewed more than 47 million times before being taken down. these are images of taylor swift from her recent tour across the world. erin woo reports on x and twitter, tiktok and snapchat for the american news outlet the information. shejoined us from san francisco and told us what she made of the decision by x to block searches about taylor swift. what we've seen is just a really blunt instrument from elon musk�*s x, after cuts to the trust and safety team made it essentially impossible

or difficult to use any kind of more fine—grained tooling to try to shut down these images. elon musk has really slashed the trust and safety team, and more specifically teams that would have done more proactive trust and safety work, so that's really hampered the company's ability to respond to something like this. i think that they definitely didn't respond perhaps as quickly as they could have. had this happened back in october 2022, before elon cut so much of the team, but i think it's hard to say whether or not this is "too late". the care quality commission in england is to carry out a special review of an nhs trust which treated a man for mental illness before he went on to kill three people in nottingham lastjune. valdo calocane has been given an indefinite hospital order, for attacking barnaby webber, grace o'malley—kumar and ian coates. jon kay has been speaking to barnaby�*s family, who say victim support within the criminaljustice system needs reform.

yeah, so this was barney's room. remembering his big brother. seven months on, charlie webber says losing barney will never get any easier. i mean, obviously, it's massively, massively devastating. and i think... i need people to realise that it's something that isn't just affecting my life, it's affecting everyone's life. like, people i'll know in the future, people i know now, people around me, everyone's life is affected. people who didn't even know him, but they know me, it's affecting them because it's affecting me. so it affects everybody. the thing for me that wakes me up, and it's almost the first thing i think about, is going into the hospital when we had to go and see... 0h. don't _ ..when i had to go and see my beautiful boy. barney's parents, david and emma, have told breakfast they had a call from the prime minister after their son was stabbed to death. but they say it was six days

before they were offered any specialist counselling. that first week of just shock and despair, yeah, that's when you kind of need it the most. barney and his friend grace o'malley—kumar, were heading home to their university accommodation in nottingham when they were fatally stabbed last june. school caretaker ian coates was the third victim of paranoid schizophrenic valdo calocane, leaving their families shattered. barnaby, grace and ian have been failed here. the system has failed. the support, or lack of support, for victims and the families is shocking. having now been in the system and seen how the system deals with things, it's got to change. last week, a court accepted calocane's pleas of manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility. he will be detained indefinitely at a high security hospital. when you heard that the court

was going to accept manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility, that there wouldn't be a murder conviction in this case, what was your... ? sick to my stomach. hello! how are you? oh, rubbish. barney and grace's parents didn't know one another until their children were killed together, but now they are joining forces. i like to hope that wherever they are, they are together. and i do feel that they probably are together. the families believe justice has not been done. they say the police, the crown prosecution service and the nhs still have questions to answer, and they want to know if their children's deaths could have been avoided. the heartbreaking thing is it was their last few days, last week of term, and ijust still can't get to terms with that. both families say they will campaign on issues like knife crime

and getting better support and counselling for grieving relatives. if the prime minister phoned you now and said, after everything you've been through so far, what do you think should happen to help other families who might face this horrendous situation in the future, what would you say? what would you tell him is needed? the ministry ofjustice need to throw proper, considered resources together to support, because the devastation that this has caused... i also think i'd be doing barney a disservice by not using the voice that we've had thrust upon us to try and make some change. shortly before he was killed, barney had told his mum and dad about a special friend called grace. he said they had so much in common. now their families are united in their determination. jon kay, bbc news.

some news lines coming in from iran, a news conference held by the iranian foreign minister and pakistan's caretaker foreign minister. the iranian foreign minister. the iranian foreign minister say they will continue to support the palestinian people and the country will continue to extend support to the people of palestine, and this comes hours after iran denied any involvement in drone strikes that killed three us troops at a base injordan. we'll get an update on the weather now with carol kirkwood. hello again. the weather this week once again is going to be fairly changeable. today, what we've got is cold air coming in across the north behind this weather front, which is producing rain. but we are still in the milder conditions, represented by the yellows further south. now, that rain we are looking at is going to be heavy in parts. it's affecting parts of southern scotland, northern england, wales, the north—west midlands and the southwest. the heaviest of which will be falling across the north of england. we could have some sleet and snow in the hills of the southern

uplands and also the hills of the north of england. but to the north of that in the sunshine it's going to be colder than it was yesterday and not as windy. come south, we are looking at 14 or indeed 15, way above average for the time of year, which in parts of the southeast is eight or nine. through this evening and overnight, the rain continues to push steadily eastwards. behind it, for england and for wales there will be a lot of cloud, patchy light rain and drizzle. but for scotland and northern ireland, under clear skies, it's going to be a cold night. we could see —5, that's our lowest temperature, with the risk of ice and some frost. we could actually also see some frost across parts of northern england, but as we come south, no issues with frost at all. so tomorrow, we are left with a bit of cloud across england and wales. bits of that will break up through the day to allow some brighter spells to come through. we've got a ridge of high pressure building up across us, so a lot of dry weather. any showers we see in the north—west highlands could prove to be wintry on the hills and temperatures slipping down, 5 to about 9 degrees will be our maximum temperatures.

then as we move on through the rest of wednesday, low pressure is crossing into the north of scotland, but look at all those isobars, and this weather front. it's going to be a very windy day in the northern half of the country on wednesday with gales, even severe gales, and this rain will be heavy as it pushes steadily southwards, with some hill snow in it. come further south again into england and to wales, and we are looking at a drier day, blustery winds, not as windy as in the north, and these are our temperatures. so they are starting to go up a little bit once again, a range of 7—11 north to south. beyond that, if we look at the outlook period, well, temperatures will be roundabout where they should be at this time of year. it will be wet and windy at times, especially so in scotland. further south, though, we are looking at something drier, but windy at times too.

live from london — this is bbc news... the united states says it will respond to a drone strike injordan that killed three us military personnel. talks set to continue to try to secure a truce in gaza and the release of hostages held by hamas. the uk is to ban the sale of disposable vapes — to make the products less attractive to children. and — the boy—band from pakistan finding international success with thanks to a former member of one direction.

hello, i'm samantha simmonds. president biden has said the united states will respond to a drone attack on an american military base injordan, near the syrian border, at a time and in a manner of its choosing. mr biden blamed the attack on radical iran—backed militant groups operating in syria and iraq. tehran has denied any involvement in the attack in which three service personnel were killed and 3a injured. it's the latest in a series of attacks against us bases in the region since the war in gaza began, as our world affairs correspondent, paul adams, reports. the americans say the attack happened at a base known as tower 22, right on the syrian—jordanian border. it's one of many american bases across the region. there have been dozens

of drone and missile attacks in recent months, but no american personnel