in afghanistan to target so—called islamic state targets. the education secretary says she will create a new wave of grammar schools in england — which are open to ordinary working families — and not the privileged few. an update on the market numbers for you — here's how london's and frankfurt ended the day. there was a small fall in london today. and in the the united states this is how the dow and the nasdaq are getting on. more now on the news that the russian government says it will appeal against a ruling that it failed to do enough to prevent the deaths of more than 300 people, mostly children, during the beslan school siege in 200a. the european court of human rights said more could have been done to stop the attack by chechen separatists. we can talk now to tamerlan agaev via webcam from beslan. tamerlan lost his son in the beslan school siege and his whole family were held hostage there. good evening. good evening to you. a

word to you first about your reaction to what the european court of human rights has said today. what do you feel about it? you know, it has taken so much time just to take some decision, but anyway it is a decision which we could anticipate. we have anticipated, maybe not everyone, not everybody, but some of us everyone, not everybody, but some of us anticipated this decision to be taken. but anyway i will try to make myself

understandable, reasonable. inaudible. sadly, forgive me for interrupting, it is nothing to do with you making yourself understandable, but sadly the technology is getting under way and we are only picking up a few words and we will try to put that right. on the line from beslan and reacting to what the european court of human rights has had to say about that siege 13 years ago. rights has had to say about that siege 13 years ago. the pentagon has confirmed that, for the first time ever, it has used one of the world's largest non—nuclear unitions in an air strike in afghanistan.

the gbu—iis, which measures more than nine metres in length was dropped on an isis tunnel complex in nangarhar province, close to the pakistan border. white house press secretary sean spicer gave this update. at around 7pm local time in afghanistan, last night, the united states military used a gbu—43 weapon in afghanistan. the gbu—43 is a large, powerful and accurately delivered weapon. we targeted a system of tunnels and caves that isis fighters use to move around freely, making it easier for them to target us military advisers and afghan forces in the area. the united states takes the fight against isis very seriously and in order to defeat the group, we must deny them operational space, which we did. the united states took all precautions necessary to prevent civilian casualties and collateral damage as a result of the operation. the united states took all precautions necessary to prevent civilian casualties and collateral

damage as a result of the operation. syrian president bashar al assad has given his first interview since last week's suspected chemical weapons attack, in which 89 people were killed. he said reports of the attack by his forces are "100% fabricated". our impression is that the west, mainly the united states, is hand in glove with the terrorists. they fabricated the whole story in order to have a pretext for the attack. it wasn't an attack because of what happened in khan sheikhoun. it is one event, it is a stage one, the play that we saw on the social networking and on tvs, the propaganda, and the stage two is the military attack. that is what we believe is happening because it's not clear whether it happened or not because how can you verify video? you have a lot of fake videos now. we don't know whether those dead children, were they killed in khan sheikhoun? were they dead at all? who committed the attack if there was an attack? our correspondent gary

o'donoghue is in washington. we will talk about afghanistan in a moment, but first the reaction to what president assad has been saying. would anybody be particularly surprised? absolutely not. at the moment a white house briefing is going on and i am sure they will be asked about his interview. it is what you would expect. this has been the sort of line that russia has been taking for the last few days, that there is no evidence, it is a conspiracy, actually the chemicals were potentially on the ground from rebel forces, etc. those are familiar lies to people here. but there is a firm believer in washington, as there is in london, that it was a chemical attack originally in idlib by the syrian government, dropped from its

planes on a rebel area and it was akin to sarin gas. theresa may was saying today that scientists had confirmed that was most likely the case. meanwhile in afghanistan, we have this large non—nuclear munition being used. we saw sean spicer there a moment ago. what is the significance of this? it is an indication of a willingness to use something that was invented more than ten years ago and has not been used anywhere in any theatre of war up used anywhere in any theatre of war up until now. it is a huge thing. it is 30 feet long, it is about three feetin is 30 feet long, it is about three feet in diameter. it's the last, from what i can say, is about 11 tonnes of tnt. it is a massive munition. they would argue it is well suited to this area were tamils honeycomb underneath the hills to

try and protect is fighters from air strikes and allow them to move about more freely closer to the pakistan border. —— tunnels. it is a sort of story that will play well with the american public and it is a story that may help them move on a little bit from the other military problem they had today, which is the accidentally killed 18 members of the syrian defence forces in northern syria with friendly fire. gary o'donoghue in washington. authorities in new zealand have declared a state of emergency in parts of the country after a powerful cyclone made landfall in north island. landslides and falling trees have left many roads blocked, as authorities order the evacuation of tens of thousands of people. gusts of close to 90 miles per hour have left hundreds of homes without power.

workers on arriva rail north are to stage a 24—hour walk out on april 28th in a row over new driver—only trains. the rmt union announced the strike after talks failed to break the deadlocked ongoing dispute, which has seen a series of walk outs across the rail network. it comes as staff on the virgin route between scotland and england voted to walk out for 48 hours, starting on the same day. with easter fast approaching, for some, thoughts are turning to demolishing chocolate eggs. for most people, they don't last more than a few minutes. in some cases, maybe a day or two. but could you leave them untouched for nearly a century? well, someone has, and this weekend they're going on show at york castle museum. let's find out about the untouched eggs. richard saward is the head of visitor experience at york castle museum, and he joins us from there now. good evening. can you hear me,

richard? i am afraid there is a deathly hush in europe. we can see a man and we can see some eggs, but it does not appear there is any sound between us and him, so we will have that conversation in a few moments' time if that is possible. a cat that has made herself a home in gloucestershire has caused a new story. it has been adopted by tewkesbu ry town story. it has been adopted by tewkesbury town council and even appears on their website as the morale officer. the mayor reckons the cat's presence raises questions about insurers, staff time and health and safety and at a meeting tonight if the mayor prevails, the cat could be shown the door. we are

going to try the eggs again. let's going to try the eggs again. let's go back to the yorkshire museum. can you hear me? good evening, welcome. iam you hear me? good evening, welcome. i am delighted to hear your voice. the second attempt is always more worrying than the first!” the second attempt is always more worrying than the first! i though is the eggs in question? yes, we have got two eggs from the 1920s. iam i am sorry, richard, but sadly the first few words were as clear as a bell and the next few were not audible at all. we might have to try and repair that and go back to it. the lines have not been working very well for us in the last few minutes. but at least we have seen the eggs. theresa may stepped in to represent the queen today at the sobran's

parade at the royal military academy. as she inspected the troops at sandhurst, the military band played star wars. it has gone viral across social media. it has gone viral across social media. time for a look at the weather with tomasz. the weather is looking fairly quiet out there for most of us this evening. we have had a little bit of sunshine but for many of us, it is pretty cloudy and a little on the cool side. here is the satellite picture from the last few hours. not much is going to change in the next few. what you have got right now is more or less what you will have through the rest of the evening and overnight. maybe some spots of rain across northern areas of the uk. these will be mostly light rain. in the south, we are talking about clearer spells and 8 degrees in plymouth, liverpool, newcastle. in the far north, for lerwick, closer to four. tomorrow, there will be more cloud around, for sure,

and even some rain—bearing cloud but most of the rain should not be too heavy. in fact, if you live across the south, cornwall, devon, through the isle of wight towards the south—east and east anglia, here, perhaps some sunshine from time to time. even if you are on the coast, looking out to sea across the channel, there, the weather might end up being relatively sunny. but by the time we get to the midlands, certainly wales, the northwest, northern ireland, southern scotland, here at lunch time at least, and this is lunchtime, there will be more cloud and a bit of rain around, and the western isles of scotland once again getting further showers. and then the rest of good friday, so this is in the afternoon, you can see weather fronts moving across the uk. they will be making theirjourney a bit further south so later in the day in the south, it will cloud over and it may turn damp. saturday, cold air streamed from the north arrives and by the time it reaches our shores, rather than cold, it is cool. i think a fairly fresh day but at least a sunny day on the way on saturday. i would say saturday is going to be the best day of the easter weekend

because there is going to be a lot of dry and sunny weather. quite a crisp morning with some sunshine in the afternoon so not too bad at all. sunday, then, easter day, another weather front stuck to the north of us. perhaps a bit more cloud and maybe some spots of rain across northern parts of england and northern ireland but i think the best chance of sunshine is across the south and the south—west. plymouth and cardiff for example, contenders for a very good easter day. into monday, some of us will have cloud and others a bit of sunshine and maybe a few showers from time to time. all in all, the easter weekend's not looking that bad but then again, it's not that great. but let's look at the positive. hello and welcome to 100 days. the us military has dropped what is ominously called "the mother of all bombs" on eastern afghanistan. the target was a series of islamic state caves where militants may have been hiding. the bomb is so destructive is has never been used before —

a short time ago the white house press secretary explained why it was dropped today. we targeted a system of tunnels and caves that isis fighters used to move around freely, making it easier for them to target us military advisers and afghan forces in the area. syria's president is defiant in his first interview since being charged with carrying out a chemical attack, saying it's all been fabricated. and syrian refugees welcome the american air strikes, but supporting donald trump doesn't come easily. we are thankful that someone finally did something, even if it was the same man who tried banning us