this is bbc news. i'm shaun ley. the headlines at 12. visa says its services are now operating at full capacity — after customers across europe were left unable to make payments. president trump's summit with north korea is back on — confirmation comes after kim jong—un‘s envoy delivers a large letter to donald trump. the us defence secretary accuses china of trying to intimidate its neighbours by deploying missiles in disputed areas of the south china sea. also coming up — new developments in the jeremy thorpe scandal. the bbc learns police are to re—open the investigation into the former liberal leader, after discovering a key figure they concluded was dead, could actually still be alive. and at 12.30 the bbc‘s gary o'donoghue tests a pair of glasses which provide sighted help for blind people. good afternoon and welcome to bbc news.

visa's payment system is now operating at "full ca pacity" — following widespread disruption to card payments across the uk and europe yesterday. the company says the problems were down to a "hardware failure" and has apologised to customers. payments processed through visa's systems account for one third of all uk spending. john mcmanus reports. visa says its high—tech payment system can handle 65,000 transactions per second, but on friday that boast fell flat as cardholders in the uk and across europe found their plastic simply wouldn't work. the problem began in the afternoon, appearing to largely affect electronic payments rather than cash machine withdrawals. many shoppers took to social media to complain, with the company forced to apologise. these people in droitwich said it wasn't just customers who were caught out. you can tell the staff are on tenterhooks,

the manager'sjumping and down. he's being a bit firm with his staff because it's territory they're not used to being in i think. there was a couple in front of us, and we hear that all the cashpoints there... all the cards were down, and apparently it was all over the world. so i was, like, panicking. i've just gone on to barclays bank and drew some money out. payment processing through visa systems accounts for £1 of every £3 of all uk spending, that adds up to a lot of unhappy customers. by friday night, the company said their cards were now largely working at normal levels and that the "issue was the result of a hardware failure. we have no reason to believe this was associated with any unauthorised access or malicious event." as a nation, we're using cards more than ever. that's why friday's events left so many of us frustrated. but experts say it would be wise to have some back—up payment optionsjust in case, that's cash to you and me. the consumer group which has warned

people to be wary of any phone calls or e—mails about the visa problems. they mayjust be fraudsters trying to use the event to gain your personal details. john mcmanus, bbc news. earlier i spoke to paul lewis, presenter of bbc radio 4's moneybox, about what visa has been saying this morning, and whether card holders could be eligible for compensation. visa was saying nothing. the bank of england was saying nothing except that there was a problem. it was only late last night that visa admitted they had identified a hardware failure. i think what happened is that reduced capacity so much that some payments got through, most didn't. we heard stories of people in a pub where one got through and the rest didn't. it was a bit of a puzzle. what puzzles me is where was the back—up? this is the premier payment system

in the world, probably, and certainly in the uk. 95% of debit cards go through visa. why wasn't there a back—up to fill the gap? is this a problem with the banks in terms of the sustainability of their computer systems? they are dependent on what they call legacy systems. they have been there a long time. they daren‘t turn them off and start again for fear of what they would lose. visa started in the 1960s. there is a danger that they are growing the capacity, so many people use contactless now, just to pay and go, it all causes strain on the system. it could be that itjust collapsed at some point because of the capacity. people like me get accused of being dinosaurs because we want to carry on using things like cheques. presumably this is a reminder about having to have more than one option. absolutely. as we heard just then, i'm saying to people don'tjust have cards from two different banks,

have a visa card, and a mastercard, and american express and some cash. i talk to colleagues, "i barely carry 20 quid around with me," but you've got to have enough to get you through the next few hours just in case something like this happens. there's also an issue of compensation because people have been losing money, going to extra expense. small businesses have lost money. visa has apologised this morning but is that apology going to turn into cash for those who have lost money? which are saying today people should hold onto receipts and proof of any additional expenditure. they clearly think there is the potential for compensation. absolutely. i'd heard stories that people thought they had paid, it didn't go through, they tried again and now this morning they have discovered there are two payments on their card. you'll probably get one of them back, but if you tried and then paid with cash, how can you prove the card payment was not the one you thought you had made?

how can you get that back? there are issues of double payments that people may have made. there will potentially be a problem over the weekend because people will have taken out a lot of money last night because they didn't know if the system would work, and suddenly all those cashpoints are empty. yes, they did empty and there were queues of people. there were some reports of cash machines in london that had run out of money because people were taking enough for the weekend. there could be problems. i imagine they are trying to fill them up. now of course there will be more people paying with cash over the weekend. the last point is how confident visa and therefore everybody as customers can be that this isn't going to happen again? you can't be. if we asked visa 2a hours ago if this could happen, they would have said no. when you're ready, we're ready i think is their slogan. i don't think we can guarantee it. i'm not saying anything about any other system,

it could be visa, mastercard, american express, your bank. anything could go wrong and we can't just rely on one payment system. we have to be prepared. paul lewis there. donald trump has announced that his summit with the north korean leader, kimjong—un, is back on — and will take place later this month in singapore. nine days ago, the president abruptly cancelled the meeting — blaming what he described as the "open hostility" displayed by pyongyang. but yesterday diplomatic relations seemed to improve after a letter from the north korean leader was delivered to the white house. speaking after meeting the north korean delegation, president trump said he was now optimistic about the summit. i think it's going to be ultimately a successful process, we'll see. remember what i said, we will see what we will see but i think it's going to be a process that we deserve to have. i mean, we really deserve. they want it, we think it's important, and i think we would be

making a big mistake if we didn't have it. i think we're going to be having a relationship and it will start on june 12th. our correspondent hywel griffith gave us the latest from seoul. the news that the summit is back on again has been welcomed here in seoul. a spokesman for the south korean government saying they await that moment on the 12th of june with excitement. they will also have been reading between the lines in terms of what donald trump said in the white house, particularly the idea that this will become a process and not everything will be done on a deal in singapore. and, vitally, he seemed to shy away from the issue of denuclearisation and what exactly that would mean, suggesting may be that the gap between the us‘s demand for clear, irreversible, verifiable denuclearisation is still some way away from what north korea wants as stage by stage. they will, however, have taken heart from the idea that a peace treaty could be part of the summit,

an end officially to the war between north and south. the stalemate has lasted 65 years. meanwhile, here in the korean peninsula, south has been talking to north. they have had their own talks about cooperation in the future, about economic ties. one other piece of good news that has come to seoul are the words from america's defence secretary. now, he is in a defence summit in singapore already and he said that there will be no move to pull us troops out of this region as a result of the singapore summit. the security of the region, which at the moment depends on the us, is maintained, for the medium term at least, and obviously that prospect of a longer term peace is now hanging before us all with the summit on the 12th ofjune. the us defence secretary, james mattis, has accused china of trying to intimidate and coerce its neighbours by deploying missiles in the south china sea. speaking to south—east asian defence

ministers in singapore, general mattis said that whilst the trump administration wanted a constructive working relationship with china, the us would compete vigorously if necessary. we are prepared to support china's choices if they promote long—term peace and prosperity for all in this dynamic region. yet china's policy in the south china sea stands in stark contrast to the openness of our strategy, what our strategy promotes. it calls into question china's broader goals. china's militarisation of artificial features in the south china sea include the deployment of any ship missiles, surface—to—air missiles, electronic jammers and, more recently, the landing of bomber aircraft at woody island. despite china's claims to the contrary, the placement of these weapons systems is tied directly to military use for the purposes of intimidation and coercion. the new prime minister of spain,

pedro sanchez, has officially been sworn into office today by king felipe in madrid. the ceremony comes less than 2a hours after his predecessor, mariano rajoy, was forced out of office. gavin lee has been following events in madrid. the new spanish prime minister pedro sanchez has brought about a political first in the past 2a hours, engineering a motion of no—confidence against mariano rajoy, the man who seemed unshakeable. even a week ago. the fact he survived as the people's party prime minister, attem pts the people's party prime minister, atte m pts by the people's party prime minister, attempts by his resignation, people calling for it, a no—confidence motionjust a year ago, and he got enough, pedro sanchez, enough people behind him to support that notion. what happened today? a short while ago, there was a

brief formal ceremony, the swearing—in process at the royal palace on the outskirts of madrid. the victor stood side by side with the ousted prime minister in that formal passing over of the role. and another political first, while formal passing over of the role. and another politicalfirst, while pedro sanchez swore an oath on the constitution, he asked for a bible and a crucifix not to be present. he is an atheist prime minister. the first that spain has had in its history. he has spoken about the importance of not having religion in education. he will announce his government in the next few days. there are six other parties who have made demands on the prime minister saying they have supported his motion and they want something in return, including catalan and basque nationalists. it has been dubbed the frankenstein government. he wants to rule for two years and bringing in sweeping changes, keeping to the budget but there are questions about

how long this government can last. a 43—year—old man has been arrested and charged in connection with the attempted murder of two police officers who were stabbed in inverclyde yesterday. pc kenny mackenzie has a serious neck injury whilst his colleague pc laura sayer was stabbed in the arm whilst attending a routine visit to a house in greenock. both officers are expected to be discharged from hospital later today. the man will appear in court on monday. the european union's trade commissioner has warned that the us is "playing a dangerous game" by imposing tariffs on european steel and aluminium. in response, the eu has issued a 10—page list of tariffs on us goods ranging from harley—davidson motorcycles to bourbon. canada and mexico are also planning new taxes on us products. the rail industry has pledged to get train services in the north of england back on track as quickly as possible following days of disruption. northern has announced it will be running an emergency timetable until the end ofjuly, with 165 services scrapped. peter marshall has been speaking to passengers in the lake district. replacement buses have been doing brisk service

at the start of the lakes line, oxenholme station near kendall, because trains are few and far between. it's a bit hard for us, being a bit disabled. a long journey ahead of us, we can do without the extra hour that it's cost us. the majority of services between oxenholme and windermere were cancelled yesterday. for passengers like nick hay, trying to get home to liverpool after a family break in windermere, it's frustrating. i think it's absolutely scandalous. you can see there people here with prams, dogs, we're not getting all the help. anybody here? nowhere. and this could go on for weeks on this line in particular? i believe so, yes. i think it's scandalous, something needs to be done about it. businesses in the lake district rely on visitors coming back time and time again. anything which affects that, like a poor rail connection, is worrying. if people aren't having the type of quality visitor experience that they deserve, then that's going to be the legacy. that's what they're

going to remember. not the fantastic scenery, not the great visitor attractions, all let down by something outside our control. tourism leaders fear poor rail services could do long—term damage to the lake district's reputation around the world. to be let down at that very first point of contact with the county, to come out of that station and to not be able to have that smooth onward journey is just unacceptable. and now there's confirmation from northern that for an initial two—week period from monday, all lake line services are to be removed and replaced with a bus service, as it struggles to cope with timetable changes and driver shortages. those who rely on the rail link have another suggestion. i would like to see this line taken out of the northern franchise and operated by a prudent operator. whether that's initially the government as they're doing on the east coast mainline. northern has apologised for the disruption and says it's

doing all it can to improve the situation quickly. peter marshall, bbc news, oxenholme. the headlines on bbc news: visa says its services are now operating at full capacity — after customers across europe were left unable to make payments. president trump's summit with north korea is is back on — confirmed by a large letter from kim jong—un‘s envoy. the us defence secretary accuses china of trying to intimidate its neighbours by deploying missiles in disputed areas of the south china sea. five people have died in a major food poisoning outbreak in the united states. almost 200 cases of e.coli linked to romaine lettuce have been reported across 35 states. it is the largest us outbreak of it's kind in more than a decade. tomorrow evening, millions of us will tune into bbc one to see hugh grant and ben whishaw in the final part of a very english scandal.

the drama tells the story of former liberal leaderjeremy thorpe, his downfall after he was accused of conspiring to murder his former lover norman scott. now in a timely exclusive — the bbc‘s panorama has learnt that a police investigation into the attempted murder is to be re—opened. today, norman scott lives in a rented cottage on the edge of dartmoor. he has retained a lot of horses. in fact, it was through horses that he first metjeremy thorpe. scott was then living in oxfordshire, training as what's known as a working pupil at the stables of a professional showjumper. one day, 18 years ago, thorpe was on a visit to the stables and met scott at the stable door. the two men started to talk. well, i was a very naive and shy person who was reallyjust involved with horses. i can't really say how i felt. he wasjust a person above me in every way,

socially and in every way. i was just a person working in a stables, so... i was a bit in awe of him, i suppose. norman scott speaking back in the 1979. tom mangold joined me earlier and explained what the investigation had discovered. the new evidence we have uncovered is from a man called dennis meehan, who told me he was part of the original conspiracy to murder norman scott, and that he, meehan, andrew newton, remember the guy who shot rinka, scott's dog, and a member of the liberal party conspired at the ritz cafe in shepherd's bush to murder norman scott. meehan was the first person who was hired as the hitman. he went down to barnstaple to kill

scott, lost his nerve at the last moment, gave the gun to newton and the rest is history. meehan made a full confession to scotland yard detectives about this. this is back in the 70s? way back in the 70s. that full confession was subsequently disappeared. and in its place meehan was invited to sign a much more anodyne statement which happened not to mention jeremy thorpe or the fact that he, meehan, had gone down to kill norman. meehan was anxious to sign it. as the result of my revelation on that, gwent police were invited to conduct an investigation into these allegations. the investigation lasted a year, and i'm afraid it has been a bit ineffectual, because they said, we cannot proceed with this because andrew newton, the third member, is dead. sadly, they have now had to revise their opinion because they don't think andrew newton is dead. so the revelation itself therefore is notjust that andrew newton may well be alive when they thought he was dead, but more importantly,

that that was the thing that stopped the investigation, and therefore if he is still alive, the investigation could start again? absolutely. it seems to me the investigation must start again because my guess is, when i knew newton, he was a fit young man, and i would not be surprised at all if he is still alive. tom mangold speaking to me earlier. and his programme, the jeremy thorpe scandal is on bbc four this sunday at 10pm. losing your eyesight brings with it a range of challenges. for mona manahan it meant the simple pleasure of putting on her makeup became near—impossible — so her husband des stepped in to help. this simple gesture of love eventually found its way onto social media and went on to pull on heartstrings around the world. john maguire has been to meet des and mona.

we have been married now 56 years. we are just enjoying life. we are still married. as with any long—standing marriage, mona and des are a successful partnership and as her eyesight deteriorated, des found a special way to help. her left eye is bad, really bad. when she tries to do something with the right eye, the left eye doesn't see anything. it's very relaxing. best thing to do is to keep you awake. so i would be doing little corrections like that. this birthday party came up and mona decided "i'm going to get my face done up for the party". they enlisted a make—up artist. he was telling me this story that mona's eyesight was bad and she was losing her sight and that she wasn't able to hold things properly. she had a lot of shaking in her hands. des took the brushes from my hand and wanted to have a try. if you see the way he holds the brushes, he's a natural. the story came to the attention of mario dedivanovic whose

clients include katy perry, jennifer lopez and kim kardashian. he invited them to his show in london. mario was touched by the story and said to his manager "i want those two at my masterclass in london." he just, he just seemed to want to know us. he seemed to want to have us there. it is an effort for me even realise how big it is. make—up and mario and the kardashians, they were absolutely nothing in our lives until now. she hasn't changed a bit, really. i got a little bit make—up in my hair. i was trying to impress her with my attempts to sing like nat king cole. sings: they try to tell us we are too young. mona and i both agree on one thing and that is that less is more. and there is no way i want my lovely mona slapped up with stuff.

he thinks i'm lovely as i am. i do. voila. we are done. it's the sport in which the passenger gets a rough ride. sidecar—cross will change all you thought you knew about motorbike sidecars. the british championship continues this month and mike bushell has been to hampshire, to meet the team for whom this unique style of racing is a family affair. it is not a typical way for a dad to spend time with his daughter at the weekend, but this bone crunching sport will shake up much of what you thought that you knew about sidecars which were originally popular as cheap alternatives to the motorcar. it's brilliant.

where else can you spend an entire day with your teenage daughter and really enjoy yourselves? off the track dad is in charge but on the track i'm in charge. we shout at each other occasionally. she sometimes tells me because i'm going too fast or hit a bump too hard but it works really well. this could not be more different than the traditional image of a sidecar. it is sidecar cross and the passengers are not just there for the ride. in sidecar cross the passenger is in the most precarious position, throwing their weight around on the back. brian and his daughter spent years watching until clarissa suggested forming a team. the first time we took it out of the van and started it up we drove

into a tree within ten seconds! do you think he is mad to do it? kind of. we did have a few scares, especially at the start with all the noise and the others with you but it's great. it is notjust beginners who come a cropper, there is often carnage around every corner. it is painful. you spend a whole race behind someone and your face can become numb because of the stones hitting you, you can have a fat lip, bleeding gums, and i thoroughly enjoy that! not exactly what i want to hear before my first lap as a passenger! is about transferring your weight. you have to switch over and take a seat like that. what do you need to be a good passenger? more fitness and strength. i'm not massively strong in my arms but you've got to be pretty agile and fast moving. this is where i've got to do the work and lean over as brian turns the corner, over onto this side

and transfer the weight. back to the middle. by the end ofjust one lap, my arms felt locked in position, my knees were like jelly. do you want yourjob back? it's all yours! i can see what you do, congratulations. it is always mike! now the weather with matt taylor. hello there. a good deal of sunshine and warmth again for many of you today, but for many, those storm clouds are once again brewing. we've seen clouds spilling of the near continent through today. that brought early rain across some eastern parts of england, spreading its way northwards and westwards. but a few showers and storms dotted around and they will continue to develop as we go through into the afternoon.

mainly across northern and eastern half of the country, a lot more sunshine compared with recent days in the south and a fair bit of sunshine across parts of scotland and northern ireland too. but it's here inland and if we take a closer look at the details, we could see some severe and fairly slow—moving storms set up. mainly over the hills, maybe a few through the central belt and towards the southern uplands. one or two isolated ones in northern ireland. greater amount of cloud though here, southern scotland into northern england, not a huge amount of sunshine but with a few showers and thunderstorms possible extended down into the east midlands and across east anglia as well. now, those storms could cause a risk of some flooding because they are so slow—moving, but many will stay dry and with blue skies continuing through much of wales, the midlands, southern england this afternoon, we could see highs of around 25 or 26 degrees. into this evening and overnight the storms gradually fade away. there'll still be a few showers through the night, southern scotland, northern england, maybe also northern ireland. most though will be dry, very misty across the north. very muggy night, 15 degrees in glasgow. bit fresher across the south compared with the past few nights, but here you are going to start your sunday with some sunshine away from some eastern coasts. a blue sky day for many,

maybe just one or isolated showers close to cornwall and the isles of scilly. always more cloud, northern england, scotland, northern ireland. so a little bit cooler than recent days, but not as many showers as today. if you do get one or of the heavier showers, you will be rather unlucky and temperatures a bit closer to where they should be for the time of year, but climbing a bit on today's values in the south, 26, 27 not out of the question. that's the weekend, quick look into next week. we've still got high pressure dominating the weather charts. it's to the north—west of us are monday and with winds flowing round clockwise, that means like we saw the other week, it will bring in the cloud off the north sea to give a grey start to monday. could be the odd spot of drizzle around, most will be dry, isolated showers later but most having a dry and fine day. sunny spells breaking through and temperatures closer to where they should be for the time of year, mid—to high teens, if not low 20s. we will stick roughly with those values through the week, maybe getting a little bit warmer at times, so the chance of a few storms across the south, but by and large, especially northern areas, a lot of dry weather to come. bye for now. this is bbc news —

our latest headlines: visa says its services are now operating at full capacity after customers across europe were left unable to make payments. president trump's summit with north korea is back on — confirmation after kim jong—un's envoy delivers a large letter to donald trump. the us defence secretary accuses china of trying to intimidate its neighbours by deploying missiles in disputed areas of the south china sea. pedro sanchez has been sworn in as spain's new prime minister. the socialist leader deposed the conservative mariano rajoy, who lost a vote of confidence in the spanish parliament yesterday. sport now and for a full round up, from the bbc sport centre, here'sjohn watson. good afternoon. we start at the french open where kyle edmund, the only british player remaining in the singles draw

is in action, looking to book his place in the last 16. he's up agaisnt the italian 18th seed fabio fognini, he lost the first set but came back to take the second and the third. both players have had a medical time out, fognini for some heavy strapping to his right ankle. we'll keep an ey eon that one for you. in the women's draw, the number 8 seed petra kvitova is out. she was beaten in straight sets by the 25th seed anett kontaveit. that's a first defeat in 13 matches for kvitova. still no play on the second day of the second test between engalnd and pakistan. joe root‘s side will resume on 106 for 2 after an inspired performance from the bowlers yesterday.