according to reports, us president donald trump is taking his time in announcing the decision so as to not humiliate the army lieutenant general and ensure a smooth transition. and in the guardian, england rugby head coach eddiejones may have compromised his british lions future with his ill—judged, recent controversial remarks about ireland and wales according to an opinion writer. and finally on australia's channel 9 website, nasa has drawn up plans for a huge nuclear spacecraft capable of shunting or blowing up an asteroid if it was on course to wipe out life on earth. the us space agency published details of its hypervelocity asteroid mitigation mission for emergency response — also known as the "hammer" which will be an eight ton spaceship able to deflect giant space rocks. with me is henry bonsu who's a broadcaster

and international conference host. get to see you here. let's get straight into this. the story possibly of the year. in a way, the daily telegraph's revelation that that nerve agent was possibly in the daughter ‘s luggage brought over only adds to, rather than clarifying it, makes it more murky. everybody has been speculating about what the delivery mechanism was. this revelation, and sourced, the telegraph is known for having very good military contacts to drive its exclusives. it adds a interesting twist, how do they know this? out of a note it was in the daughter ‘s suitcase? they seem to have a pretty good detail here, they are working on the theory that it was an item of

clothing, cosmetics or something that was impregnated and it happened in moscow and when they got here it was open and we know what has happened is that the gift we follow that through, we don't know if it is right or wrong, denials from moscow. if this were the way every thing was done, denials will remain. the big development might be that if they survive, if they can be questioned, oi’ survive, if they can be questioned, or if every person that can to their room or whatever, serviced the apartment can be traced, then we might have more detail. for now, russia is saying prove it to us, it is all because you are having problems with exit and thing about vladimir putin is that he never apologises and was in tour doesn't show mother russia is weak. the telegraph, a conservative newspaper, they pick up again on thejeremy

corbyn. they say, we need complete certainty before we should take. lots of people think he is not fit to be pm, even though people are talking more seriously that he could be the next one, especially if the government falls over brexit. their suspicions about his connections to the left leaning organisations in earlier times, his supporters say he has been on the right side of history and so he should be trusted. that takes us neatly on to the gulf news take, showing the amount of unity that has grown up. supportive of britain. for a while, the message from friends was a little bitjeremy corbyn —esque. from friends was a little bitjeremy corbyn -esque. the french like to show that they have a much more

independent line from the anglo—american axis. that is why emanuel macron took his time. angela merkel, quite close to vladimir putin, is very helpful to britain now, looking isolated over brexit to have a bit of noise and heft behind this position now. especially given the language that was used, it is essentially an attack on us all. this threatens all of our security. difficult to know where in terms of economic sanctions that may go. certainly singing president trump coming out very clearly. people have been wondering whether or not the reason he has been pulling his punchesis reason he has been pulling his punches is because there might be something the russians have on him. in the end i think those around him have pushed him to make this statement. donald trump pushed by anybody? by the grown-ups in the room at, one of whom we will talk

about ina room at, one of whom we will talk about in a moment. he does the pushing because it the next story focuses on the report originating in the washington post or the new york times, that hr mcmasters days are numbered. in what is the week of the musical chairs. week of the long knives. he is one of the grown—ups in the room, they said. trump likes generals and he is a decorated three star from the first gulf war. highly respected. meant to be a restraining influence on him but apparently donald trump does not like his briefings, they are too detailed and don't rub it him the right way. there is a pause, if the story suggests, in confirming his departure and making an announcement in order not to humiliate him, possibly to bump him up to a four star general before he moves on. she

is being humiliated already because this has been in the airfor the past four weeks or so. general kelly, the chief of staff is known to not have liked him and donald trump has made it clear now that he has got to go. he is looking for a replacement and it might bejohn bolton, a previous ambassador to the un, alot bolton, a previous ambassador to the un, a lot —— secretary of state. a lot of people think he is a real hawk and trump seems to be pulling all of the commentators from fox news and filling his positions with those people. it is fair to point out that the washington post is on donald trump's case, but there is a raft of other diggers who can all feel their colours are being cut. after rex tillerson was fired by a tweet and gary was gone because of

the trade war. david shaw can, then carson, the housing secretary, betsy divorced. —— devoss. all possibly soon for the chop. on to the guardian, there is not much you can say these days and expect to get away with it. eddiejones, the head coach for england rugby and he has done amazing things. but managing to humourously make a couple of remarks to the scummy irish and very unsavoury commentary about wales. they have been eked out and he has been put over the coles street. fair? i think so. this would be bad evenif fair? i think so. this would be bad even if he were still winning. now that the wheels appeared to be

coming off the chariot. the problem is, he is saying unpleasant things, the kind of things that would have been swept aside years ago as part of rugby banter, but you cannot say things like that about people on national or ethnic grounds, it, especially when you are leading national football. it might have been at a private event, but these days no comment like that is safe. especially when you have things recorded. a private corporate event eight or nine months ago. people hold these things and wait until you are vulnerable. two successive defeats by scotland and france. move on, let's say again, hyperbola city... —— hyper velocity. a way of dealing with asterix. picking on a worrying aspirator. —— asteroid.

great story. bringing in so many things, the end of the world, killing off the dinosaurs versus modern technology. this is something thatis modern technology. this is something that is travelling at about 100,000 holders per hour. it has echoes of the movie deep impact. high above the movie deep impact. high above the atmosphere, knocking off its axis. it is mutual destruction that we can approve of. this is much bigger than the space junk you are reporting yesterday. let's hope it is true. thank you so much, good to chat. thanks for watching the briefing, from me david eades, and the rest of the team, goodbye. hello. some of us will escape with a fine friday, even mild in some places but by the weekend it's much colder. you won't have a fine friday close to this weather front, north—east england into eastern scotland, cloudy, wet,

outbreaks of rain, some snow in the scottish hills and that snow level lowering later in the day. this is your cloudy, wet zone throughout the day. also got this area of cloud and rain nudging northwards from the midlands, wales, into parts of north—west england and fringing into northern ireland. to the south of that we see some sunshine coming through, but you may catch a shower, could be heavy and possibly thundery, not everybody will. it's here you have temperatures in double figures but it is a turning colder day through eastern scotland and north—east england, going into the evening and night, that snow level lowering and maybe into lower levels you could see a light covering into places going into saturday morning and a few of these wintry showers drifting westwards overnight and a developing and getting stronger eastern wind. a much colder start on saturday morning and temperatures are not

going up very far on saturday. throughout the weekend, we have got high pressure in scandinavia pumping bitterly cold air our way and a strong wind too, so wind chill will be a factor and on that flow of air, some snow around too. some snow scattered about eastern parts of the uk through saturday, there will be some accumulations in places. many north and western areas could avoid them and stay dry, some with sunny spells. it is all about the feel of the weather, though. significantly colder compared with friday and i have mentioned the strength of the wind, making it feel like it is well below freezing for many of us on saturday into sunday. it's going to be a bit of a shock to the system after what we have had in recent days. watching saturday night, we could see a longer spell of snow into sunday morning and again that risk of disruption, ice in places with a frosty start on sunday. that gradually edges away westwards, we see a risk of further snow showers coming into eastern parts, not everybody will see those

and still, that brisk and very cold easterly wind making for a significant wind chill as well. so winter is roaring back this weekend. gradually turning milder again next week. but for the weekend, much colder, that bitter wind with a significant wind chill and yes, some of us will see some snow and there will be some disruption in places because of it too. hello. this is breakfast, with charlie stayt and steph mcgovern. jeremy corbyn warns against drifting into a "new cold war." he talks of a fevered atmosphere at westminster. the labour leader is resisting growing pressure from labour backbenchers to unequivocally blame the russian state for the salisbury attack. good morning. it's friday the 16th of march. also this morning:

at least four people have died after a newly built bridge collapsed onto a busy motorway in miami. they made my