by around noon we lost hope. when i came around after the blast, one daughter was sitting by my side. i started to shout, liza, liza. she was lying behind me. she was not moving. when i touched her, ifound there was a hole in her head. i called but she did not get up. i saw her wound but i did not realise that no one could have survived that. it was more frightening when we got to the canteen than in the gym. they made women stand in the windows. tanks were firing. they gave women curtains and they were waving and shouting saying, don't shoot, there are people in here. the walls shook every time a shot was fired. i thought the walls and ceiling would collapse. they did not prevent the terror

attack, they did not rescue us, they could not even agree to get water to us. for the sake of the children, they could have done more. they could have negotiated so more children were freed. the doctor took demands out to officials, but they did not agree to them, and then they started firing. i saw it and they did nothing to save the children. we mothers had to do what we could for our children. we brought this case so that we can look into the eyes of those who survived, and say we did everything possible. now i really want them to carry out an objective investigation here, and tell the truth about what happened in beslan. a record number of people who went

to a&e departments this winter had to a&e departments this winter had to wait more than four hours when they were admitted. here is our health editor, hugh pym. spring is here, but the nhs will not forget this winter in a hurry, more patients coming in, problems moving them out, and relentless pressure. hospital managers here, like many others, say it could have been even worse. it has been very difficult, the hospital has been functioning most of the time with 100% occupancy, and that has put a huge strain on the services. i think it is important to note this was a mild winter, we have not had a large flu epidemic. despite that, it has been very tough.

the latest figures for england show longer waiting times over three months of winter. 135,000 people had to wait longer than four hours to be found a hospital bed for a&e last winter. thatjumped to 196,000 this time. for planned treatment, including routine surgery, 264,000 were waiting more than 18 weeks in february 2016 but it was 367,000 waiting in february this year. one of those still on the waiting list isjohn. he was referred for an operation on his back early last year. but it still has not happened, he has found the wait very stressful and, at times, has had to stay off work. i go to bed. i'm in pain. i wake up and i'm in pain. all day i'm in pain. i've taken painkillers constantly. who knows how much they cost the nhs? in recent years, hospitals have noted that the pressure never

eases off in the summer. there's a constant flow of patients. in the months ahead there could be an extra challenge in the face of possible industrial action by nurses. the largest nursing union is consulting members on whether they're prepared to go on strike over a 1% pay offer, which is the same in every part of the uk. most nurses are unhappy with their income. so, they're working harder than ever. there have been years now of absolutely no pay increase. the whole cap of 1%, when we know the bills are going up. we are struggling to pay the bills. the department of health says it is going along with an independent pay review body's recommendation and can only offer what is affordable. thus argue that with all the pressure on the nhs, patients will not get the right care from a workforce thatis short on numbers and low on role. scientists at nasa say one of saturn's moons, known as enceladus, may now be the single best place to look for life beyond earth.

samples of the waters erupting from the moon's surface suggest it has all the conditions needed for life. today we are publishing a paper about our recent findings by cassini on enceladus. we have detected hydrogen in the plume of enceladus, coming from a hydrothermal vent on the sea floor of enceladus, going out into space through the plume, and so this is a very significant finding because the hydrogen could be a potential source of chemical energy for any microbes that might be in enceladus' ocean. with me now is david a rothery. he's a professor of planetary geosciences at the open university, and has been following nasa's announcement. we have car aside the name of the moon, tell us about it in other senses. it is a small, i see body and it was a surprise to find it was

so and it was a surprise to find it was so active. when they found the plumes erupting from it, we thought, wow, the bottom of the icy layer must be liquid. so the rock is hard and now we have got everything that is coming out because the surface is fractured and some water is going out into space. we have got all the ingredients there that show live could be possible. we have got water reacting with the hot rock. the last piece of evidence announced today was finding hydrogen dissolved in the water which shows a complete chemical pathway that microbes could exist on. the word would be possible are exist on. the word would be possible a re key exist on. the word would be possible are key in what you have said. nobody is claiming to have found life, but you could put the right microbes in there from earth and they would survive. it is definitely habitable. that does not mean it is

inhabited by microbes. and more habitable than any other places in the universe at this stage? you rope has a global ocean and we are pretty sure it has plenty of tidal heating and it is a better bet i would say. it may be harder to sample because the plumes are not so persistent, but there is news today that there are more plume observations from the hubble telescope that have been going on for a few years and there are some signs, looking back to 1990, that that is a pattern on the surface that was 4 degrees hotter than the rest and it is exactly where the plumes seen last year came from and it looks like that site has been active for about 20 or 30 yea rs. been active for about 20 or 30 years. it could be equally habitable, but we do not have the

samples of the water venting outer space analysed to prove we have a com plete space analysed to prove we have a complete pathway. what further work will now be done to try and find out more? it is now entering the endgame and it will burn up in satin‘s atmosphere after passing several times between the planet and the rings, so no more from cassini about enceladus. there is a mission yet to be funded, and the next big mission will go to jupiter and do be funded, and the next big mission will go tojupiter and do a lot of good sampling. an exciting day. the education secretary justine greening has defended plans to push ahead with new grammar schools in england — saying she wants to create schools that are "truly open to all". in a speech this morning, she said she wanted grammar schools to serve more children from disadvantaged backgrounds.

well, to discuss this further, we can now speak to sian griffiths, education editor at the sunday times. good evening. good evening. the government is determined to pursue this. how do you see it working? an interesting speech from justine greening, making it clear that the government is going to push ahead with grammar schools, but it is massively unpopular with the education establishment. there will bea education establishment. there will be a white paper in may and there will be a battle to establish new legislation because there will be opposition in parliament to any idea that we are going to have new grammar schools. she is talking about recruiting from effectively a different group of people from what has happened in the past. are you clear how that is going to work? no, until we see the white paper nobody is clear how it will work. one of

the criticisms of existing grammar schools, there are only about 163 left, is that they are stuffed full of middle—class kids. that has been the thing people have been banging on about, this will not help social mobility if we set a new grammar schools. very interestingly today whatjustine greening schools. very interestingly today what justine greening has schools. very interestingly today whatjustine greening has said is, let's not focus quite so much on the very tourists because we know they are woefully underrepresented, let's raise the bar a little bit and look at what they are calling ordinary working families, people who were previously called jans, but people thought that was a patronising acronym , thought that was a patronising acronym, and let's see how many of those are in grammar schools and push grammar schools to take more of those children from those families. they are not the purist, but they are probably families where the household income is around £33,000 a

year. if it is a single—parent family it is around £17,000 a year. they are not very well off, but they are not the poorest in society and it is those peoplejustine greening and the government is focusing on, saying we need to do better for these families and children from these families and children from these families and children from these families because they have the right to a first—class schooling and nobody can argue that grammar schools cannot do this. when you say push grammar schools, how can you craft an admission process that would actually do that? the devil is in the detail and that is what will be very interesting to see when the white paper comes out. how will they make sure that kids from these ordinary working families get into grammar schools? we know at the moment there is an exam at 11 and it is on that basis that grammar schools select pupils. the middle

classes due to their children to the nth degree to pass the exam, they pay for private tutors, and that is why grammar schools at the moment are full of middle—class kids. how will that be changed by the government? there was no clear a nswer government? there was no clear answer today as to whether there would be a quota system, but there was a lot of pushing to say that grammar schools will take at least possibly more than 30% of these ordinary working families and children. it will be interesting to see how that plays out. will they provide private tutoring for children in state schools paid for by the government? will there be lower admissions hurdles for these children? they do not have to do quite so well in tests. it remains to be seen what they will do, but they have to do something to change they have to do something to change the current make—up of these schools. thank you very much for your thoughts. time for a look at the weather.

let's see what is happening out there this evening and it is fairly quiet on the weather front. there is a cool breeze. in the last few hours there was quite a bit of cloud around, but it has broken up. a bit ofa around, but it has broken up. a bit of a sunset for some of us, but overall a fair bit of cloud around into good friday. temperatures will be more or less the same in the south and the north. it is just in the northern isles were temperatures will be closer to three degrees. tomorrow there will be some rain from time to time in north wales, the south coast may get some sunshine and the north east of scotland. showers coming and going and through the cause of friday evening and into saturday those spells of rain will continue. easter

weekend is rather cool with some sunshine. this is bbc news. i'm julian worricker. the headlines. syria's president assad says reports of a chemical attack in the country are 100% fabrication. 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. the american military has dropped its biggest non—nuclear bomb on a series of caves used by so—called islamic state in eastern afghanistan. new grammar schools in england should to do more to help ordinary working families — says the education secretary. russia should have done more to prevent the beslan school siege in 2004 — in which more than 300 people died — according to a european court of human rights ruling.