we have been analysing the footage coming out of a hospital. a setback for two of the world's biggest economies — the uk and japan fall into recession. and queen camilla celebrates 400 years of shakespeare — alongside a dozen acting dames. hello, i'm samantha simmonds, welcome to verified live. a new yorkjudge has refused donald trump's request to dismiss criminal charges over alleged hush money paid to a porn star. the decision paves the way for the first—ever criminal trial of a former us president. the trial — scheduled for next month — is the first of four criminal cases mr trump faces. he's pleaded not guilty — and says the cases are

politically motivated. we are here for something that is not a crime. nobody�*s ever seen anything like it. what it is, is election interference is being run byjoe biden�*s white house. his top person was placed here in order to make sure everything goes right. this is a this is a terrible time for our country. this is a real dark period for our country. his top person, colangelo and some others have been placed into the da's office to make sure they do a good job of election interference. we can cross live to our correspondent nada tawfik who is outside the courthouse in new york for us. dramatic developments and an angular sponsorfrom donald trump. this sponsor from donald trump. this heafinu sponsor from donald trump. this healing once _ sponsor from donald trump. this healing once it _ sponsor from donald trump. this healing once it got _ sponsor from donald trump. this healing once it got under way with donald trump sitting next to his lawyers the judge got right to the point saying their motion to dismiss

the case entirely was denied and the case would move ahead as scheduled on march 25. this will be the first time a former president will send trial in a criminal case. eliciting c amongst these legal cases what the calendar would look like here we have a firm date finally march 25. donald trump's lawyer said that was a great injustice, he claimed that amounted to election interference because from their point of view it is happening in the middle of the primary season when voters will choose who they want as their republican nominee and donald trump as leading in the polls but prosecutors said much 25th as three weeks after what is known as super tuesday when the majority of states will have gone to the polls to choose their nominee so that it

leaves a water in that timeframe for donald trump to be concerned about. nevertheless donald trump has repeated these claims that this is all election interference claiming vespers about in time for the election but really the manhattan district attorney had been investigating case for years saw a firm trial date, more information that it could last up to six weeks, prosecutors saying they will need at least 17 days to present their case and both sides going over what questionsjurors should and both sides going over what questions jurors should be asked to ensure a fair europro. things like what type of media they consume commodity believe the election was stolen, and that question donald trump's lawyers wanted that out but we have seen similar questions in civil trials and underscores the

complicated nature of these things, not only with donald trump and some of the information he has put out there that is not based on fact and there that is not based on fact and the fact he is running for the presidential election. facing several other criminal trials and there are developments in another case he is involved with, in georgia. yes, that is a really interesting hearing because the georgia case brought by the county district attorney stems from allegations that donald trump tried to overturn the result and the state, the infamous quote to the secretary of state of georgia telling him to find him the 11,000 votes needed to beatjoe biden. the hearing is actually related to whether the prosecutor in that case had an improper romantic

relationship with one of the wheat prosecutors she hired and that case and whether that at all impacts the case so that hearing happening as well, it is being televised so people can watch that but this week altogether is a pretty painful one for donald trump because tomorrow we are also expecting a ruling by a judge in new york and his civil fraud case related to his business empire and in that he could be facing hundreds of millions of dollars in fines forjudge rules in favour of the new york state attorney general. thank you. the scene live inside the courthouse in new york, still waiting for donald trump to emerge. follow this story live on the bbc news website and bbc news app. the israeli army says its special

forces have raided the main hospital in southern gaza. the army says it has credible intelligence that hamas held hostages in nasser hospital and that their bodies may still be there. hamas — which the uk and us consider a terrorist organisation — has called israel's claim "lies". israel describes it as a "precise and limited" operation at the site in khan younis. medical sources say israeli forces fired into the hospital, killing a patient and wounding several others. a trauma surgeon has contacted the bbc to say "tanks and snipers" were surrounding the hospital from "all directions". jenny hill sent this report from jerusalem. where there should be healing and hope, chaos and injury. shouting. this is the nasser hospital in khan younis. corridors filled with smoke and panic. "we are being attacked by israel," this doctor shouts.

he checks for casualties. gunfire. "there is shooting," he shouts. "get your heads down." yesterday, israeli forces ordered civilians to leave the hospital. this was, they claim, a precision strike, because they believe hamas fighters held israeli hostages here. we have credible intelligence from a number of sources, including from released hostages, indicating that hamas held hostages at the nasser hospital in khan younis and that there may be bodies of our hostages in the nasser hospital facility. israel continues its assault on gaza. earlier, its forces claimed to have killed more hamas fighters. talks aimed at a temporary ceasefire and the return of israeli hostages are ongoing, but there's no sign of a breakthrough, and so the eyes of the world are on rafah. more than a million displaced civilians have sought refuge in gaza's southernmost city.

but israel believes hamas fighters are hiding here too, and despite growing international protest, plans a major ground offensive. among those voicing their concern, the german foreign minister. "more than half of gaza's population is currently seeking shelter in rafah," she says. "many have nothing more than small children in their arms and the clothes on their backs. these people cannot simply vanish into thin air." some are trying to move away, but where to go? there are few safe options and right now little hope of peace. israelis believe that the hospital is a place that hamas has used recently and where hostages may at some point in the last few

these videos were taken in the orthopaedic department and patients being rushed through smoke—filled corridors. being rushed through smoke-filled corridors. ., , , corridors. nobody has ever seen an hinu corridors. nobody has ever seen anything like — corridors. nobody has ever seen anything like it— corridors. nobody has ever seen anything like it in _ corridors. nobody has ever seen anything like it in this _ corridors. nobody has ever seen anything like it in this country, | corridors. nobody has ever seen| anything like it in this country, it is a distressful situation. we'll have to figure that out. i will be here during the day and campaigning during the night and joe biden should be doing the same but he will be slipping. this all comes out of washington, a coordinated district attorney, the case tomorrow which is a great deal is all coordinated with the district attorney and attorney general of new york who should be ashamed, campaigned for years of trying to get trump without knowing anything about me, it is all a rigged state, city. what they are to

do is go out and take care of the violent crime and migrant crime that is destroying and killing people. take a look at the legal documents the scholars are writing, they say thatis the scholars are writing, they say that is no crime, but outside the courthouse people are being murdered so it is a very unfair situation, they want to keep me nice and busy so i cannot campaign so maybe we will not have to campaign so hard because the other side is incompetent, doing a horriblejob running this country, a horriblejob at the border, look at the hundred of thousands of people pouring in from other countries over the world, look at what is happening and i am to have to sit here for months on a trial i think it is ridiculous, it is unfair. a trial legal stores say there is no crime. somebody has to

question that, nato countries have to pay up, have to pay their bills, the united states is on for $200 billion and the economy when you add them up add up that make up nato is about the same size as our economy so we are in for 200 billion, they are in for 25 billion and it is much more important to them because we have an ocean and between, much different then so the nato countries have to pay up, they are not paying up have to pay up, they are not paying up what they should and they laugh at the stupidity of the united states of america where we have a guy that gives $60 billion every time somebody asks for it. we should not be doing that, they are laughing at us, they think we are stupid because of our leadership but as far as this is concerned it is election interference byjoe biden, the only

way he can think to get elected because she has accomplished nothing but i am not to sit here day after day after day on something the greatest legal scholars say is not even a claim. thank you very much. i will campaign in the evening.- will campaign in the evening. donald trump making _ will campaign in the evening. donald trump making his — will campaign in the evening. donald trump making his way _ will campaign in the evening. donald trump making his way out _ will campaign in the evening. donald trump making his way out of - will campaign in the evening. donald trump making his way out of court . will campaign in the evening. donald j trump making his way out of court in new york, his response coming hours after a judge denied his team's request to dismiss chemical charges stemming from hush money paid to a pawn star some years ago, he will face a charge, the first former president to face a criminal trial, much 25th, as team wanted the judge to charge him with falsifying business records to cover up the payment to stormy daniels before the

2016 election. he said the case was rigged, something he said before, a rigged, something he said before, a rigged state and a rigged city. nato's secretary general has warned that a delay in approving new us military aid for ukraine is already having an impact on the battlefield. jens stoltenberg was speaking after kyiv described the situation on the frontline as increasingly difficult. he said he expected congress would eventually approve an aid package. it's being held up by republicans in the lower house. at the same time, stoltenberg remains confident that nato stays united as an alliance. when you look at support for nato it is high. i am confident nato will remain the strongest and most successful alliance in history and i expect the united states to continue to be a staunch ally for at least

three reasons, firstly, it is in the national security interest of the us to have a strong needle. to have a strong nato. second there is broad bipartisan support for nato in the united states and thirdly, the criticism in the united states is not primarily against nato, it is against nato allies, not spending enough money on nato. this meeting also follows comments made by former us president donald trump earlier this week —that he would encourage russia to attack nato countries that didn't pay their bills. i've been speaking toprofessor jamie shea, the former nato deputy assistant secretary general for emerging security challenges. he shared his reflections on whether those comments from mr trump would have any impact.

i think it's raised a little something of an alarm signal sounded in the alliance because from donald trump as the us president last time it was a rough ride, frankly, for the allies, particularly threats that the united states would withdraw its protection from those individual allies who were not meeting the 2% goal and when donald trump was president the first time, last time, only three of the non—us allies were protection from over 25 allies which obviously would be good news for nato but at the time, paradoxically, trump reinforced the number of us troops and infrastructure in central and eastern europe, regularly sent aircraft carriers nato exercises so if i could use an expression on his bark worse

than his bite, as restraining influence was interesting, the republicans in congress, senior personnel belonging to nato on the number of nato lawyers in the national security council. ambassadors, generals, able to restrain donald trump certainly must hope that there is some adults in the room. stay with us here on bbc news. the number of patients in england waiting more than 12 hours for a bed on a ward — after being seen in a&e — was 19 times higher this winter than it was before the covid pandemic. new data shows there were nearly 100,000 12—hour waits in december and january — compared to about 5—thousand in 2019-to-2020. british gas has announced its profits for 2023 increased 10—fold to £750 million.

the supplier said the jump from £72 million in 2022 was due to regulator 0fgem allowing it to recover losses of £500 million it racked up in the aftermath of russia's invasion of ukraine. centrica, british gas's parent company, said its profits fell by 17% to £2.8 billion. people are voting to elect new mps in kingswood and wellingborough. the by—elections will decide who'll replace former conservative mps chris skidmore and peter bone. mr skidmore resigned as an mp last month and mr bone had to vacate his seat because of a successful recall petition. results are expected early on friday. you're live with bbc news. a murder investigation has been launched after a 16—year—old boy was stabbed to death in bristol. the teenager was attacked by two people wearing masks in rawnsley park in bristol on wednesday. local police say they were called by the ambulance service at 6pm on wednesday to a report that a boy had been found injured on the street. he died at the scene.

earlier, we got the latest on the scene from our correspondent dan johnson. we know this attack happened here in rawnsley park in bristol at around 6:00 last night. you can probablyjust make out the police forensic tent there, the white and yellow tent, which is surrounding one of the benches here in the park. the police are saying that this 16 year old boy was stabbed by two masked figures who made their escape on bikes. we know that the boy, we're told, was able to get himself out of the park. he ran to the main road here looking for help. and we understand a van driver stopped and that together they drove to a local police station to try to get him help. but they found that that police station was closed. we've heard from local people who run some of the shops about half a mile from here where this boy ended up that they were trying to save his life while they were waiting for an ambulance. but he was pronounced dead there at the roadside outside those shops, despite people's efforts to try to save his life. so there is now a murder inquiry under way here.

the police are looking for those two figures, trying to work out exactly who was responsible for this 16 year old's death. the police are saying there's no evidence that this was connected to other teenage stabbings in the city. but he is the third 16 year old to lose his life injust over three weeks. there was a stabbing of a 15 and 16 year old and other teenagers have been injured in stabbings in bristol as well. so already this week the police were talking about extra patrols across the city, extra action to tackle knife crime in bristol. there will be increasing calls for that sort of action. there is concern in this community and more widely across bristol about how so many young people are losing their lives or being injured in the course of knife crime. and local people are asking, where are the emergency services telling us that the cctv cameras here don't work, that they had to wait for that ambulance, that the police have withdrawn from this community because the police station has closed and that there needs to be more action to protect young lives.

two of the world's leading economies — the uk and japan — have gone into recession. the uk economy shrank by 0.3% in the final three months of last year; japan's contracted by 0.4%. 0ne definition of a recession is a fall in economic output over two consecutive quarters. robert cuffe has been looking at the uk's performance for us. the uk has been seeing pretty sluggish growth for the last couple of years and it's finally tipped over into recession. we can show you that here. you can see the amount the economy grew by each three months. you see here is the rebound after the pandemic really starts to slow down. and for the last two years, there's not been not much to shout about. and finally, you have to come in very close to see it. small falls at the end of 2023, down by 0.1% by 0.3%. that's meeting the criteria for a recession. it's not great news, but it's probably more important not to look at the size of the economy overall, but the size per person,

because that tells you whether getting richer or poorer rather than bigger or smaller. the story there is worse. not much growth to go round population always going up. you can work out for yourself what's going to happen. instead ofjust two months of falls, we've seen seven consecutive quarters of falling gdp per capita. to turn that into cash terms, well, at the start of 2022, the uk economy put out about £8,a00 of worth of stuff per person. but by the end of last year that had fallen down to £8,250. that's not great news. but the uk isn't alone. we're not the only country in this situation. if you look across the world's leading advanced economies, the g7, you can see actually the ones that are growing are the outliers. the us, they grew in the third and fourth quarter of last year by quite a lot. italy managed a bit, but not very much. france flat, canada falling and rising. germany flat and falling and the uk and japan both entering a recession. we're all dealing

with the same problems. the fallout from the war, from the pandemic, from rising prices and rising interest rates to try and bring down prices. but they do that at the cost of worse economic performance. so mostly the economy is struggling, the uk is not alone. it's really the ones that are growing that are the exception. there is a silver lining though. as recessions go this is one of the mildest we've seen for a very long time, at least so far. the last half of last year, the uk's economy fell by about about half a percent. let's compare that to previous recessions we've seen now here is 1973, 1980. you can see they all on average tend to knock off about 1%, not half a percent of the economy in the first year. the only one that looks like us, well, i should say as well, i'm leaving out the pandemic. if i included the figures for 2020, when the economy fell by a quarter, it'd be literally off the chart.

the only recession that looks like us last year is from 2012. and actually that was a false alarm. these are all estimates of what's going on and when you get more data, the estimates get revised. and we found out later that actually this wasn't a recession, the economy had grown. so 2023 really stands alone as the mildest recession that we've seen so far. it's that's the silver lining, we hope. and the forecasters think that things will turn around. but that long term picture of sluggish growth that's been affecting the uk and many other economies for a long time is harder to see how that's going to go away quickly. greece could soon become the first country with a christian 0rthodox—majority, to legalise same—sex marriage.parliament has been debating the measure and is due to vote on it today. prime minister, kyriakos mitsotakis, called on legislators to — as he put it — �*boldly abolish a serious inequality�* by approving same— sex marriage. the prime minister introduced the bill but about a third of his own mps are expected to vote against it.

that means he ll need the support of the left—wing opposition for it to pass. let's go straight to our correspondent mark lowen, who is following the story from rome. tell us the latest. it looks likely parliament will vote in favour of this bill which would enshrine marriage equality and also allow same—sex couples to adopt children but not to have a baby through surrogacy, but is allowed for heterosexual couples and single woman's with a medical need. this will pass despite it is essence of perhaps 50 of the governing party mps, but the past with the support of the parties that this timepiece caught up with western europe, 50 countries have same—sex 35 point but

countries have same—sex 35 point but countries tend to be in the west and north of the boxoffice would be an exception to that south—east and the first 0rthodox majority country to legalise it so that it is a defining moment for the socially conservative country. what is the cost for? head what is the costly country? 55% in favour, resistance has been read by the orthodox church which went up condemning the move which was read out in the church services across the country, there was a protest in athens if you were just parties and have the country feels very attached 0rthodox russian roots and use this as an attempt to destroy that. as

the central rate prime minister feels confident going into largely left—wing territory and visitors time for the student. temperatures are a lot higher than they would normally be at this time of the year and higher than yesterday perhaps as well. we've widely got 15 degrees across england and wales

have across england and wales seen the cloud thickenin across have seen the cloud thickening across wales and west developing, has clear. the push latest news, should be drawn night, still some clues but a few showers and west. sta rts starts to fade, should be quiet, a few showers was far—off, sunny across the south windsor village and, temperatures not as high as today but central belt, average, 1a and south—east of england and east anglia. against atlantic feeling, pushing its way east, starting dry

for very, of cloud and sunil narine ahead of the band, sweat, quick idc western scotland activity which 13-14. the western scotland activity which 13—111. the event was east, spells of rain. . cleaning from. summary. patients south. try. sure first. in.

this is bbc news, the headlines. donald trump will face his first criminal trial next month after a judge in new york denies his bid to have the case dismissed. it's in relation to a hush—money payment to an adult—film star as far as this is concerned, it is election interference by biden because it is the only way he can think of getting elected because he has accomplished nothing.