this is bbc news. the headlines. how many of you? 13. 13? yes. brilliant. the moment 12 boys and their coach, who were missing for more than a week, are found alive in caves in thailand. firefighters warn it could take weeks to tackle fires on moorland across lancashire and greater manchester. theresa may draws up an alternative solution for the uk's post—brexit customs arrangements with the eu, as she attempts to resolve cabinet splits on brexit. and also this hour — all eyes are on gareth southgate as england gear up for their match with colombia. expectations are rising as the team arrive in moscow — and fans wait to see which players will make the cut. and in tennis — serena williams beats arantxa rus to reach the second round, while roger federer begins

the defence of his title with a win over serbia's dusan lajovic. dramatic footage of 12 children and their football coach found alive by divers in a cave in thailand shows the emaciated boys asking for food and thanking their rescuers. a british rescuer who has been helping to co—ordinate the operation has been speaking to the children. how many of you? 13. 13? yes. brilliant. they've been missing in caves in thailand for nine days. but this afternoon boys

and their football coach were found alive after a mammoth search operation prompting scenes ofjubilation. divers have been trying to reach them for days after water levels rose suddenly, trapping the boys. they're all said to be safe but after being underground for so long it's not known exactly what condition they're in. our correspondent richard galpin gave us this update on the moment the boys and their coach were found. for more than a week, diving teams from thailand and other countries have been picking their way through this long cave complex. in the hope of finding the boys and their football coach. and now it seems thai navy divers have succeeded, just as that hope was fading away. translation: about the missing of 13 persons, the divers found the pattaya beach was flooded. then they went deeper, around 300 or 400 metres further. it is another high ground.

we found the boys safe. this photograph of the boys, aged between 11 and 16, was taken by their coach shortly before they went into the cave nine days ago, on what was supposed to be a fun adventure for them. but, inside, it's thought they were caught in flash floods, forcing them to move further into the cave complex in search of high ground. for their families, who have been waiting outside throughout this ordeal, at last it seems there is some good news. this grandmother of one of the children says she's so grateful to the authorities for persevering with this rescue operation. but it remains unclear how they are going to get the children out without the boys needing to use scuba equipment. 0ne hope is the authorities will succeed in pumping enough of the flood water out of the cave system to enable them to get out safely.

but it will need to be quick, as more monsoon rains are on their way. richard galpin, bbc news. so just how difficult will it be to safely remove the 12 boys and their 25—year—old football coach from the four mile long cave? earlier i spoke to anmar mirza from the us national cave rescue commission. it will be extremely difficult. they cannot be brought out either through an ultimate of entrance or at the dry passage, the cave diving action is incredibly risky. very dangerous. so, what do you know about how they are going to try to extract them from the cave? i've had no contact with the authorities running the rescue there, so i'm not privy to that information.

clearly the reason they were trapped in the first place was the rising flood water, presumably that is still a real risk. absolutely. at least when they are in the cave it sounds like even if the water comes back up again, they will be safe where they are. the biggest problem for them becomes keeping them supplied long enough for the water to go down orfor another effort to be made. presumably, the priority at the moment is going to be getting essential supplies to those of them in terms of food and water and so on? exactly. there's a big risk that they face now, if they have been without food for nine days, there's something we call repeating syndrome. which is when people have been fasting for too long. they eat normal food and it becomes quite dangerous for them do so. it could potentially kill them.

they need to be evaluated very carefully. i'm sure the authorities there are aware of this. it a big risk. they have to monitor them medically very carefully. i know you have been involved in many caving rescues in the past, from your experience, what do you think are the prospects of getting these boys out safely? i think as long as they can be kept supplied, the prospects are extremely good. as long as they can be given food and clean water they can stay in the cave for a week to necessary. so presumably there's also going to be a avenue to ensure that psychologically they remain calm and understand what is going on? exactly. one of the biggest issues for people who are trapped in the situation space. the fact there has been contact made with them will aid these people psychologically because before they had no idea if anybody was looking for them. now they understand there is a large effort supporting them. obviously in this case we are talking about quite young

children, does that add to the complications of dealing with this situation? it can make it both easier and more difficult, the dynamics of any group situation like that are going to be different based on the composition of the group. there's no one answer fits all. from what you know, there seems to be quite a bit of experience amongst those teams there, organising the rescue. absolutely. as far as my professional opinion goes, they have pretty much done everything that could be done. but still, looks as though it could take some time before the boys are actually brought to the surface. absolutely. it could be anywhere from days to weeks to even potentially months. that in itself is going to be quite a difficult thing — to communicate that to the boys, to reassure them and so on. absolutely. i'm assuming they have video or at least telephone communications with them at this point

with wired lines. as long as that remains intact, that will help them psychologically. in a moment we'll be joined by viewers on bbc one for the main evening news with sophie raworth. i'll be back with our first look at the papers just before 11pm. dramatic scenes in thailand as 12 boys and their football coach are found alive in caves ten days after they went missing. we're coming, 0k? many people are coming. many, many people. we are the first. many people will come. two british divers are the first to reach them — they found all of them alive perched on a ledge six miles into the network of flooded caves. joy for the children's families who've been waiting at the entrance to the caves desperate for news for more than a week. but now the challenge is how to get the boys out through miles of flooded tunnels.

we'll have the latest live from the scene. also tonight... hundreds of firefighters and soldiers continue to battle huge wildfires across the north west of england as the heatwave shows no sign of abating. guns smuggled into mexico — but the country's newly elected president promises to crack down on the deadly drug cartels. you've been doing it forfour years, how many guns do you think you've brought in in that time? a lot. hundreds? hundreds. more and more people are cut off from public transport as funding for local buses in england and wales continues to fall. they're forward here, lukaku. and chadli's won it! another dramatic goal at the world cup — belgium knocks japan out of the tournament with just seconds to go. and coming up in sportsday live from moscow later in the hour on bbc news, we'll have a full world cup update, including brazil's win against mexico. good evening.

12 children and their football coach who've been missing for ten days have been found alive in flooded caves. two british divers who flew to thailand last week to help in the international rescue operation were the first to reach them. they found them on a ledge six miles into the network of caves. it's thought the children became trapped during a day trip. but the divers have had to leave them behind — they've gone back to get them food and to try to work out how to get the children out. jonathan head is there. what an amazing day. we've seen growing confidence in the divers in

recent days. after last week, when they were driven by rising waters or most of the entrance to the cave behind me. we knew there would be challenges potentially ahead. nobody was sure that the boys would even be in this place they were heading for, nobody had any contact with them or evenif nobody had any contact with them or even if they were alive, and now we have this seemingly almost miraculous outcome. how many of you? 13? brilliant. business two this was the moment they were found. calling out to the mission group in a cave deep under the mountains. what day is it? monday. you have been here ten days. as the divers termed to leave, promising to return with back—up, one of the boys says to them, please, tell them where hungry.

for the families of the boys, a joyous end to nine agonising days of waiting, hoping and, at times, despairing. translation: today is the best day. i've been waiting for my son for so many days. i'm so excited! the first thing i will do is hope kim. and for the thousands of volunteers, officials, climbers and others who've taken part in this extraordinary multinational search operation. a very special moment. most of all for the local governor, who's been the public face of this rescue and ordered officials working on it to think of the boys as their own son us. on it to think of the boys as their own son us. he described how the boys were discovered and then said simply, we found our younger

brothers, and they were safe. cheering they were all members of a football squad who'd entered the caves after saturday practice their coach. their bicycles were found chained to the railings at the entrance. it was presumed they'd been cut off by fast rising water. the thai government has thrown everything at this effo rts has thrown everything at this efforts to save their lives. now pumping thousands of gallons an hour from the caves to help to get them out. more rain later this week will complicate things. but this astonishing news of the boys' survival will surely spur everyone on. so, incredible news but of course this extraordinary challenge of getting them out and of course the boys are weak, they are possibly injured, some of them, we don't know that. they will certainly need some days to recover their strength. at

that point, the divers have to decide what to do with them. getting them out would mean going through very narrow passages filled with zero visibility water. it's been an enormous challenge even for these very experienced cave divers. that may not be a practical option, none of these kids has had practice in diving. what they could wait for the water levels to go down, that is what the authorities are meeting to try to decide now. it will be a long process before they get them out. thank you. more than 200 firefighters and soldiers are continuing to tackle moorland fires across greater manchester and lancashire as they try to contain the huge wildfires burning across areas near bolton and saddleworth moor. it comes as most of britain continues to swelter in the heatwave. the met office says last month was the driestjune on record in large parts of southern england. and scotland experienced its highest temperature ever recorded — 33.2 celsius in motherwell. danny savage has the latest. the full extent of the damage to the moors above bolton is astonishing. several square miles have

been destroyed by fire. the bbc was given permission to fly a drone over the area. the flames burned all weekend and tonight, it's not getting much better. we've still 29 fire engines. we'll still be having significant operations through the night protecting local homes and we will be back to having in the region of 29 fire engines all day tomorrow, so there's still a huge task ahead of us. it's still a major incident and still will be tomorrow. helicopter pilots have reported seeing people try to deliberately start new fires, which has infuriated the mayor of greater manchester. i think itjust beggars belief, doesn't it, to hear that people may have been coming on to this land over the weekend adding to the burden of the emergency services and basically taking risks with people's land and property. it's just an unbelievable state of affairs. and as this heatwave continues, there is concern that there could be more hosepipe bans in the coming days.

not because there's any shortage of water, but demand has risen so much over the last couple of weeks that utility companies are struggling to get enough treated water through the system and into our homes. northern ireland is the only place so far to have implemented a hosepipe ban. tankers used to supplying an altogether different type of liquid are now moving water around. in north—west england, united utilities has messaged its customers, appealing for them to use less water in an effort to avoid a ban. but the weather outlook is not on the side of the utility companies. there's at least two, maybe three weeks of dry weather ahead. people are of course enjoying the sunshine. this is a very different summer. last month was the driest on record in parts of england, and saw the hottestjune day ever in scotland. danny savage, bbc news, bolton. the prime minister has come under pressure to reveal more details about a possible new plan to break the deadlock over how

customs will be handled after the uk leaves the european union. details have not been revealed publicly but senior ministers will discuss it on friday at chequers — the prime minister's country retreat. this afternoon, theresa may made a statement to mps following last week's eu summit, as our political editor laura kuenssberg reports. a mirage in the heatwave, or could it... could it really be the outline of brexit emerging? the government's sweating to publish a more detailed plan next week. but the prime minister first of all has to get her sparring cabinet to sign it off. statement, the prime minister. the eu and its member states will want to consider our proposals seriously. we both need to show flexibility to build the deep relationship after we have left that is in the interests of both our peoples. this government has mishandled the negotiations every step of the way. another summit is gone and another opportunity missed.

but all we know for sure is that number 10 says it has a new plan for sorting out customs and the irish border after we leave the eu. even ministers were not aware of all the details — it's thought even the brexit secretary david davis may not yet have agreed all the lines. you wouldn't be blamed for thinking that you've heard this many, many times before. the tories have been trying to sort this out for months and months and months, but this week matters because the government's promising decisions, and number 10 believes it has found a way out out of some of the brexit conundrums. a way through the tensions that have been frying the tories in the westminster heat. and remember — it's not only conservatives staking out their territory. i'lljust put my handbag down. the prime minister needs her northern irish allies on board. we don't give blank cheques to anybody and i think it's very clear that we don't.

0n brexit, we want to see a proper brexit which fulfils the referendum result, but we've been very clear that has to be on the basis of the whole of the united kingdom. but number 10's next steps may not survive the full glare of the rest of the eu. there's no sign that brussels will accept downing street's mooted compromise. but first the prime minister must try to corral the cabinet — some on tour today — the beasts big and small. but whether theresa may is really in charge of her party is — let's just say it — the elephant in the room. laura kuenssberg, bbc news. mexico's first—ever left—wing president has promised sweeping reforms of latin america's second biggest economy, following his landslide election victory. andres manuel lopez 0brador — known as amlo — is promising to help lift millions of mexicans out of poverty. the new president said tackling the country's crippling levels of corruption will be his top priority. he's promising a new approach

to crime, and to mexico's deadly drug cartels, who are responsible for some of the world's worst murder rates. and in a message of conciliation to his political opponents, he's insisted that he'll deliver "authentic democracy, not dictatorship". clive myrie is in mexico city, where the new president and his supporters have been celebrating their election victory. yes, mexico hasjust experienced a political tsunami with the complete shattering of the two party system that's governed this country pretty much nonstop for almost 100 years. mr 0brador is charged with stealing a population of 120 million people toa a population of 120 million people to a bright future. he was on stage last night banking some of those supporters who have stuck with him over the years. this of course is his third attempt at winning the presidency. his supporters know that

for him to be successful when so many other administrations have failed will be a herculean task. dawn sees the summer sun rise to warm a land blessed and cursed. nature is bountiful in this part of mexico, and opium poppy fields can yield a living for farmers when other crops have left the ground. bloodlines run deep in these fields. this husband and wife, like so many families down the years, score the opium bulbs to reveal the latex that will become heroin. translation: well, we work out of necessity. we are not responsible for the people who use drugs. people who criticise this have probably never known need. so how does any government tell this parent, who doesn't want to be identified, that she can't provide for her three—year—old child because she reaps a bitter harvest? mexico's new president must address the rural poverty of millions if he is to tackle the drugs trade. but in the meantime,

in the dead of night, a smuggler preps to trade in misery. we watch as he takes apart an ordinary family car and stuffs the fuel tank with drugs. cocaine, heroin, crystal meth. the 26—year—old american will smuggle whatever he can get his hands on. whatever his handlers desire. you've loaded up the car and the drugs are in there and you're sitting on top of them, literally. where are they heading? translation: i take them to phoenix or los angeles, but i know they sometimes go to kansas or indiana. so, all over america? yes. but you're not stupid, you know what these drugs do to people across the border. do you care about that? no, i don't put a gun to people's head to make them take drugs. it's not my problem.

his only problem, navigating the busy frontier checkpoint and avoiding the scrutiny of guards. others have very different concerns about the frontier with america. jesus vega is a family man with the hopes and fears of any parent. any husband. i'm worried that violence is going to escalate more and we're going to have shootings here in the park or at my daughter's school, my wife's work. it's really, really sad to live like this. jesus understands man's capacity for violence. he's a crime scene investigator. so we can see the csi's processing the scene and we have the dead body over there on the side of the street. in a quiet suburban area in the border city of tijuana, mexico has lost another son.

jesus describes the scene. i can see from here that he has probably gunshot wounds in the back. he's a young male. sadly this is because of the out—of—control firearms that are coming in from america to tijuana. mexico's new president has to deal with the epidemic of murders this country endures and stem the flow of guns from abroad. and that's where our smuggler re—enters the story. he's back from america with a new cargo. guns. that looks like a handgun. how many are down there in the petrol tank? translation: the boss told me there are three here in the tank. and it's easy, easy getting these in? it's easier bringing the weapons in because there's less violence compared to the other way around.

the weapons are carefully wrapped in tinfoil and bagged. calibres of all sizes. killing machines. smuggled to order. the only way to beat mexico's strict gun laws. you've been doing it forfour years, how many guns do you think you've brought in in that time? a lot. hundreds? hundreds. yeah. you've brought in hundreds of weapons yourself. well, he showed us three weapons but he's also told us there are many more inside the car and hidden all around it. we've been asked to leave now because the person who ordered this shipment is on their way to pick it up and it doesn't take a genius to guess where those weapons are going to end up. in the hands of criminal gangs and drug cartels. someone somewhere in mexico will die as a result of those weapons. that night, there's another murder in tijuana. yellow cones mark the fallen bullet

casings at this crime scene. for jesus, this country's well—being is on the line. the new president needs to secure a future for mexico's children. right now, the scene behind us, there's a dead guy. it's something that kids see every day and they get used to that, so that's the sad thing. i have to think about my daughter. i've got to think about my daughter's friends. i don't want them to grow up thinking that every day there's a killing and it's ok, it's fine, and nothing is going to happen. so many of mexico's problems are the result of a society that doesn't work for everyone. her new leaders must govern for the millions left behind, trying to navigate a life worth living. clive myrie, bbc news, in tijuana, mexico. there's growing concern about cuts to funding for local bus services,

and the impact that's having — particularly on people on lower incomes. for example, in england, subsidies for bus services have almost halved in the past eight years according to research by the campaign for better transport. and over that same period more than 3,000 bus routes have been reduced or scrapped. but bus fares have gone up by 13% in real terms — putting added pressure on households. our home editor, mark easton, has been to blackburn to speak to some of those most affected. his report contains some flashing images. blackburn's buses have seen the amount of support they get from the council cut by 93% since 2010. the subsidy used to be close to £900,000 a year — now it's just ten grand. the result? private bus companies have axed services and increased fares. ben, a youth worker in the town, struggles to afford the daily commute. it's becoming a massive,

massive issue for young people and the community. it shouldn't be something we have to worry about. it shouldn't be. just to get to work or get home from work, it should be something we think about secondary to ourjobs. natalie and steph, both in their early 20s, are currently on benefits but doing work experience at the youth centre. the increasing cost of transport means making some hard choices. well, sometimes, if you're running low on money and you really have to get somewhere, you've either got to choose between eitherfood or your bus pass. you can't get to places that you need to go to, like jobcentre, youth zone, work, yeah. it's a story repeated across england. subsidy is cut, fares rise, passenger numbers fall, routes become uneconomic. thousands of services have been reduced or scrapped, with devastating consequences for many people on low incomes. the cost and unreliability of public transport has changed the thinking of the groups which calculate

the minimum income standard used by