russian diplomats expelled by the united states over the poisoning of a former double agent in britain have begun leaving washington. earlier, russia told britain it must reduce its diplomatic presence by just over fifty people palestinians are observing a day of national mourning for at least 16 people killed in clashes with israeli soldiers at the gaza border on friday. the un secretary—general has called for an independent inquiry into the deaths. two men believed to have been members of the islamic state cell known as "the beatles", complain they can't have a fair trial because the government has stripped them of their british citizenship. the funeral of world renowned scientist stephen hawking has taken place in cambridge. the theoretical physicist, who had motor neurone disease, died on 14th march, aged 76. up to 500 family and friends attended the service. teachers have moved closer to allowing rolling strike action, if they don't receive

an above—inflation and across the board pay increase next year. if ballots for industrial action go ahead, it could mean disruption in schools in england, wales and northern ireland. our education editor bra nwen jeffreys reports. i've asked you to stop your experiments because we're kind of running out of the solutions. teachers say they're running out of patience. their pay has fallen further than nurses or police officers. many argue their workload is unbearable. some are leaving as a result. today, those feelings spilled out in the debate. young teachers are leaving in droves. who wants to spend years studying to enter a profession and then not be paid enough to own or rent a decent home? our teachers are fed up of low pay, the erosion of our national pay struction and watching good teachers leave the profession. they deserve better and, most importantly, they want to do something about it. can i see all those in favour? that something — a vote

to consider a strike ballot. teachers here are fired up about their workload and their pay, but the government has made it harder for public sector workers to go on strike so there'll be months of consultation first, and in the meantime, there could a pay offer. i do think teachers looking at the nhs settlement will now be expecting that the pay offer will be at least the level that the nhs workers have got. the government will have to weigh up its priorities — the cost of a pay rise against the growing difficulties of recruiting teachers. branwen jeffreys, bbc news, brighton. now on bbc news, the travel show. my name is tony giles. i'm from england. i'm totally blind and severely deaf in both ears. and i'm travelling around the world trying to visit every country. we're in the old city! israel is country 124. i see a place with my senses —

i see a place by the sounds, by the smells, by the textures. the hustle and bustle of people shouting, buy this, buy this, come and look at this! i feel the atmosphere, the energy, the buzz. i was born with my eye condition, so i don't have any vision apart from sunlight sensitivity. and i've gradually gone deaf as i've got older and i am now 80% or severely deaf in both ears but i use digital hearing aids. i travel alone, because it's the biggest challenge i can get. and the travelling by myself...

excuse me! ..i get to interact with more people. if i travel with someone, particularly someone sighted, they would be doing all the work, they'd be doing all the guiding, and i would not get to touch and find as many things as i do by myself. today i'm going to catch a bus into the old city to go to the western wall. western wall? western wall, yeah. ok, let's go. i will help you. 0k. let me hold your arm like that. where are you from? i'm from england. huh? england! i was lucky that the bus driver was nearby waiting, so it was really easy to find the bus. yeah, i've got it... let go, let go. new orleans was the first place i went to by myself — a foreign city by myself. didn't know where i was going,

i was blind, and ijust froze. and then i took a couple of deep breaths and said to myself, "tony, this is what you want — if you don't want it go home." a couple more deep breaths, turn left, walk down the street, and the rest is history. excuse me, are you hear me...? this is your stop station. my stop? yes. you can get off. 0k, thank you. you want any help? i'm good. just trying to get my bearings, trying to work out which way the traffic is going, and if i can use the sunlight, but i can't sense any sun at all. i have to be careful going down the steps, because they're all marble and slippery and worn so i have to go slowly and take care.

no, no, it's ok. yeah, yeah, yeah. yeah. all right, thank you. two people came to try and help me but they were a bit aggressive, theyjust grabbed me, which is not the correct way to help — it's a bit frightening. if people want to help, and many people do, ideally you would want them to speak to you and say "hello, can i help?" but obviously not everyone speaks english. so if they don't, then touch you gently on the hand, on the arm, but not pull and not grab, ideally. you have to be patient, you get lost all the time. it's very difficult if you're looking for something specific when you can't see. because obviously you can't pinpoint it. excuse me? you might get ten people walk past and then someone will stop, "are you lost, do you need help?" and then you can interact with them — that's how it works.

excuse me, is this damascus gate? yeah. straight in front of me, no? 0k. want to help? yeah. i like this! i like the atmosphere and the smells. and it's all close, and compact. it feels authentic. i'm going to the western wall, and on the way i'm going to hopefully explore some of the via dolorosa

which is stages of the cross thatjesus walked. good morning, how are you? good good how are you? you want to see my shop souvenir? i could have a brief look, why not? yes? come on. what do you sell? very good! laughs. beautiful! yeah. this is coffee. coffee yea h ? ok, i get this. about $3. that's five? that's two five yeah? yes. two five. thank you. i probably write a blog once a week, so i document myjourneys, and my travels, and i want to share it with the world, really, and try and inspire people to believe in themselves, and they can overcome whatever their challenges are. and i also add pictures i've taken.

originally i did it because i thought it would just be funny, someone seeing a blind person take photos. it's an extra way of sharing, i can show my family and friends and stuff, that's the idea, to try and share with everyone. thank you. excuse me! take the hand! people... don't leave him! over here... ok, thank you. someone on a motorbike coming through, that's not very never. —— clever. looking for the station of the cross... this way, this way... this is the station of the cross?

come back. 0k... then to the left... this is where he put his hand, here. this is where christ... up, up, up, up... to the right... yes, exactly. 0h, 0k! thank you! welcome. apparently i'm at one of the stages of the cross, wherejesus put his hand on the wall and lent against a wall. defined handprint, very smooth, also quite rigid, quite bumpy. it's a lovely texture. right, this is some barrier, i presume. hmm. is this the way in?

hello? sorry, machine? womans. woman? yeah, it's not man. the wall is sort of separated, male and female, and the guy took me into the male section and took me up to the wall. 0k. there's all these notes in it. massive blocks, very smooth. the texture, the shape of the wall, the bricks, from a historical and a spiritual point of view, it's worth visiting. tony at the western wall. so, i'm heading to bethlehem, which is in palestinian territory.

and it's separated by a dividing wall and a checkpoint. so, i'm going to have to get off the bus, get through the checkpoint, and somehow meet my host. i e—mailed him using my laptop with speech software, and he sent me his phone number, and i memorised it, and i'm trying to call him with my phone now. i can use the phone because the buttons are tactile. i couldn't travel without my memory, my memory is my biggest asset. i'm using my memory constantly, i'm exercising it all the time — i have to remember phone numbers, i have to remember directions. it allows me to find things. my memory gives me my independence, along with my cane. i'm now at the checkpoint betweenjerusalem and bethlehem.

i've got to walk across the checkpoint and go past the dividing wall. railings... getting through the checkpoint is a little bit complicated. slightly more complicated than i thought, slightly more confusing. and then we'd just have to sort of try and follow other people, people sort of pushing me from one way to the other. have to get past this... looks like we're on the palestinian side, the palestinian territories. it's quite exhilarating. as you come out of the tunnel

into the taxi area, and where the wall is, you can hear all the people talking and smell the food and coffee and stuff. that's quite lively, that's quite interesting. can you show me to a taxi? taxi cab. i'm looking for a taxi. where? church of the nativity. 0k. maybe you want, i'll take you for photo at the wall, we stop and take photo. ok, cool. you happy? yeah, always! how big is the wall? it's very big. 30... 20 metres? yes. it's far. tony...

yeah? welcome to bethlehem, you're going to church? yeah, the church of the nativity. all this way... yes, wall. behind the wall you have hotel banksy behind the wall, you have hotel. i'm feeling excited to be in bethlehem, it's a new city, new town, new experiences. driving through bethlehem, along the wall, has sort of given me a brief sense of how long the wall could be. it certainly feels quite long travelling along it. in my mind it would seem quite impressive. and i guess quite scary to a lot of people. here the church, tony. yes, this the church.

ijust called my host to let him know i'm still coming. adam, we're at the church. hello?! hello... ? adam? give me, i call him... hello? i call him, he's coming, one minute he coming here. thanks, mohammed. thank you. hi, tony, how are you? hi, adam, good to meet you, looking forward to seeing your place. how many country you visit before?

i've visited 124 countries. oh, my god, that's nice! yeah. yeah! i'm very lucky! have you done much travelling? not, just hear, it's not easy to go move, or to travelling another country. so you get travellers to come to you? yeah! you have steps here... this is actually couch surfing, so invariably you stay for free. ok, have steps five... you live in a castle! yeah. it's a website and you can find people on it, they have profiles, and they want to travel or they want to meet travellers, and that's how it works.

now, come here, the lift. oh, this is home! we've landed, thank you! shukran. i have had a wide range of couch experiences, i've slept on floors, on mattresses like this, i've slept on couches, and also i have couch slept in africa where the toilet‘s outside, and it's a hole in the ground. i think it probably helps not seeing, i don't see the dirt or the danger or the holes, ijust get on with it. the main thing is your meeting the people, the local host and sharing their food and their culture and their knowledge and whatever they can offer you. and hopefully you make friends at the end of it. good night and good dreams.

shukran, and to you. people think being blind must be terrible, poor you, they don't understand, they don't know what they're talking about. i'm so lucky and i'm leading a fantastic life, to be able to go country to country when i want, where i want... this is the way to travel! with very few restrictions on what i want to photograph or do, and you come here and you see people, yeah, they can see and they can walk but they can't go places, it's just sad. you know for directions to go trains? ok, so can you give me directions? just a straight, not left, not right. so, just straight? yeah. and i wish you be happy and lucky in your life. bye — bye.

bye— bye. is this the entrance to the church and you can go in a straight now. i can roughly hear a voice but it's a bit disconcerting. the echo splits the sound, so it takes away the direction. we'll get there, it can't be far. there is a big metal thing with studs which could be... yes, that's a gate! oh, yes! yes, oil, candles... it's got a waxy smell... polish.

finding the entrance is like reaching my goal, it's like reaching my target, and everything else after this is a bonus. once they've started singing, isuppose, louder, and i'm going to get close to this, because there's going to be a lot of energy involved, and then i've got to try and get close in close—up, eventually using my cane and picking out the steps, then guy helped me down. realising that i was the only person to get close to hear that, feel that, makes me feel very privileged. i'm absolutely buzzing after that.

energy is incredible! that was cool, just to be here for that if nothing else! it was quite crowded going down those steps, and they‘ re quite slippery, very deep. oh, my goodness! from the fire into the furnace. very hot in here, and i guess it's from candles and more people coming in. this is my hand, yeah? this is the place wherejesus was born, here is the star where he was born. kneel down on your knees. kneel down... more, more, more... you can touch the place

wherejesus was born. this is the star, it has 14... it's a flower, or? no, it's a star. the star of david, yeah. marble? no, it's silver. this is marble. yeah, this is marble. the ground wherejesus was born is down here, you feel it, he was born here. so this is the grotto. yes, he was born here. 0k. about there? yeah, it's not ok like this, let me help you a little bit, it's like this, you can take a photo now... definitely an experience, a very humbling experience, to sort of be in a place where one

might argue history occurred 2000 years or so ago. visiting the church, the smells, the sounds, that's what makes travelling, for me, special. i travel by myself because it's my challenge, it's like climbing a mountain, you feel, oh, this is difficult, it's a struggle, and then you get to the top, and you're like, yeah, i've made it, this is magical. that's what it's all about. broadens my horizons. and makes me become hopefully a better person. hello there. conditions have been gradually improving through the day. it has been turning drier for many. the rain reserved to eastern parts of the uk, still a little bit wintry over the higher ground,

but many places have seen scenes like this through the afternoon — a lot of cloud around, quite cool as well, but there have been some holes in that cloud to allow some sunny spells, like this weather watch picture shows in cambridge. some of the best sunshine is across the north and west of scotland. that's because we have this ridge of high pressure toppling in from the west, pushing this weather front across the eastern side of the country away into the irish sea. but it will take a while as we head through the night. it will still stay quite damp across central and eastern parts of scotland and england. further sleet and snow on the hills as well. further west, dry. under clear skies, it will turn cold with a frost developing, even quite a hard frost across scotland — temperatures down to —3 to —6 here. but it's a ridge of high pressure building in for easter day. we're in between weather system so most places should be dry. a cold start for many with some frost around. lost of sunshine around, particularly across scotland and northern ireland, western parts of wales and england. but through the day, the cloud will build up at times and i think a bit of

a greyer afternoon. it will remain cool. a few showers continuing across eastern coastal counties of england, then it starts to turn wet and windy late in the day across and devon, all courtesy of this next area of low pressure. it has a some mild air moving in behind the front but ahead of it the rain will be pushing into some pretty cold air so we are likely to seek a mixture of rain, sleet and snow, snow in the high ground further south and snow down to lower—level perhaps for central northern wales, central northern england into central southern scotland and maybe northern ireland. this could cause some problems as we head through the afternoon. further south, sunshine and showers, and it will be turning milder with temperatures in double figures here. the far north of scotland will stay dry. easter monday, if you have any trouble plans, keep this snow in mind, it is likely to cause disruption, so keep tuned to bbc local radio and head online for all of the latest warnings. as we head on into tuesday, a very different feel. much milder southerly winds and a typical mixture of sunshine

and heavy april showers across england and wales. some heavy downpours there across northern ireland too. but notice the temperatures range from nine to around 11! or 15 celsius. welcome to bbc news, broadcasting to viewers in north america and around the globe. my name is nkem ifejika. our top stories: heading home. russian diplomats begin leaving washington in the latest tit—for—tat expulsions over the nerve agent poisoning of a former spy in britain. sorrow and anger in gaza. palestinians mourn the protesters killed in clashes with israeli troops. two men accused of taking part in islamic state beheadings, complain they won't get a fair trial after losing their uk citizenship. hundreds pay their respects at the funeral of the world—renowned physicist, professor stephen hawking. and on a collision course. the out—of—control chinese space station expected to land back on earth with a bump.