welcome to bbc news, broadcasting to viewers in north america and around the globe. my name is nkem ifejika. there've been demonstrations across the uk, with tens of thousands of people showing their opposition to president trump and his policies. donald trump rowed back on his criticism of theresa may's brexit strategy — and praised her as an "incredible woman". with a round—up of the day's events, including tea with the queen, here's our political editor laura kuennesberg. you don't need to count the helicopters to know how much this visitor matters. president trump's entourage blasted through the countryside as subtly as he warned this week that his host might not get the trade deal she covets. for theresa may, herjob was not just to grin and bear it today, but more importantly, to try to change his mind. when first the tricky question was asked, he left it to her. reporter: yeah, have you had a chance to talk about the interview this morning? we've got a lot to discuss. we're going to discuss our special relationship... the question repeated, this time he made a face, rather than answer.

reporter: thank you. but after talks, back to the choreography around the stately home, exactly where she brokered her brexit compromise this time last week. the prime minister appeared to have taken hold of president trump, and predicted he's now on her side. we agreed today that as the uk leaves the european union, we'll pursue an ambitious us—uk free trade agreement. the chequers agreement reached last week provides the platform for donald and me to agree an ambitious deal that works for both countries right across our economies. was he quite so convinced? once the brexit process is concluded, and perhaps the uk has left the eu, i don't know what they're going to do, but whatever you do is ok with me, that's your decision. whatever you're going to do is ok with us, just make sure we can trade together, that's all that matters. mr president, you seem rather to have changed your tune from what you said earlier this week, when you said that on the current brexit plan, that would probably kill

the possibility of a trade deal with the uk. our countries are meant to have a special relationship, yet you publicly criticised the prime minister's policy and her personally for not listening to you this week, is that really the behaviour of a friend? i didn't criticise the prime minister, i have a lot of respect for the prime minister, and unfortunately there was a story that was done which was, you know, generally fine, but it didn't put in what i said about the prime minister, and i said tremendous things. to be accurate, it did. she's going to make a decision as to what she's going to do. the only thing i ask of theresa is that we make sure we can trade, that we don't have any restrictions. i read reports where that won't be possible, but i believe, after speaking with the prime minister's people and representatives and trade experts, it will absolutely be possible. for years, british prime ministers have strained to show

that they matter to the united states. they want to be listened to, they want to be respected, but with characteristic smash—and—grab style, donald trump has made that tricky, very tricky for theresa may just at the moment when she needs friends and reliable allies. goodbye to chequers, then for the president to move to call on one of the few people in the world whose status rivals his. the queen has now met a dozen american presidents. this spectacle a product of that shared history. these images perhaps the ones donald trump truly desired. but the politics between our two countries are fraught, the lines less precise. and as both our countries change, so diplomatic decorum is far from guaranteed. laura kuenssberg, bbc news, chequers. there were cheers as a six—metre

balloon in the shape of donald trump — wearing a nappy — took to the air over parliament square in london. our special correspondent, lucy manning, has more on the anti—trump protests. all chant: say it loud, say it clear, donald trump's not welcome here! his name echoed round the streets of london. all chant: donald trump has got to go! it was on the posters they carried, the t—shirts they wore. they were loud and they were certainly many, but as tens of thousands came to protest against president trump, he wasn't even in the city to see or hear the anger. the relationship normally a special one, the "highest level of special", said the president, but they weren't lining the streets for the american president, but against him. i think his policies are awful, i think the way he talks to people, the way he talks about women, the way he talks about disabled people, the policies on climate change.

the list of things he does wrong is longer than... you're not going to stop trump with your protest, are you? i think peaceful protest is a beautiful thing. what do you make of so many people coming out against your president? it's really nice that they care that much. the day of protests started with london's newest tourist attraction, flying outside parliament, the trump baby balloon, not huge in size, but big in impact. then the main anti—trump protest of the day, filling central london. no presidential motorcade here, the streets instead taken over by the mass of protesters. well, the american president might not be in london to see and hear these protests, but he's certainly aware of them, saying he wasn't spending more time in the capital because he'd been made to feel "unwelcome". but as donald trump said, he believes the real british people love the american president.

but across the country, there were protests. in glasgow, as he landed in scotland tonight, and in other cities. all chant: hey hey, ho ho, donald trump has got to go! meanwhile, trump's supporters toasted his arrival. i don't think it's the most hospitable welcome. i think it's a bit shortsighted of some british, those that have protested, and a bit of wasted energy on their part. they were saying, "keep trump out of the uk." i mean, i don't know where to start with how you're leaving the european union and now you're trying to shun away the us? but with every corner of trafalgar square taken up with those against the president, it wasn't the welcome he wanted. lucy manning, bbc news. the white house insists the indictments of 12 russian intelligence officers for interfering in the 2016 presidential election will not jeopardise monday's summit between donald trump

and vladimir putin in helsinki. here's the us deputy attorney general rod rosenstein outlining the alleged russian state involvement. the indictment charges 12 russian military officers by name for conspiring to interfere with the 2016 presidential election. ii of the defendants are charged with conspiring to hack into computers, steal documents, and release those documents with the intent to interfere in the election. one of those defendants and a 12th russian military officer are charged with conspiring to infiltrate computers of organisations involved in administrating elections. and you can keep up to date with the latest news, business, and sport, on the bbc website. you'll also find reaction and analysis — including up—dated live pages, and reports from correspondents based in over 80 locations around the globe. just go to bbc.com/news. uk counter—terrorism detectives say

they have found the nerve agent novichok in the home of the two people who were contaminated by it in the south of england. dawn sturgess died in hospital on sunday after being exposed to the poison. her partner, charlie rowley, remains in a serious condition in hospital. our correspondent duncan kennedy has the latest. the finding of the bottle at charlie rowley‘s home here is a significant moment in the nerve agent enquiry. tonight, police are still standing guard outside, two weeks after charlie and his partner dawn sturgess were contaminated by the novichok. we now know that that novichok was found in a small bottle here on wednesday and that tests confirmed the bottle was the source of the nerve agent.

police aren't saying what sort of bottle it was or how we got here. dawn sturgess died last sunday, eight days after falling ill. charlie rowley regained consciousness on tuesday, the day before the bottle was found, and it's possible he helped police locate it. officers say they can't guarantee there's no more novichok left, so say cordons like this one at dawn's hostel at salisbury will remain. but finding the bottle has come as a relief to many people here. i'm shocked. but i'm pleased they have found it. there are still questions. where was it? to find the container, i'm actually quite relieved. hopefully there will be an end to it. i think it's fantastic it's been found. it's just sad that the circumstances it's been found in. this park in salisbury is also being searched as detectives try to trace the history and journey of the bottle that's been found. tonight, public health england have again advised people in the area not to pick up anything suspicious.

duncan kennedy, bbc news, in amesbury. at least a 120 people have been killed at an election rally in pakistan, and more than 100 others were hurt. the islamic state group said it carried out the attack. lebo diseko has more. just to warn you — there are distressing images from the start of her report a community gripped by shock and grief, as victims arrive in hospital, caught up in what is the worst militant attack in this country for nearly four years. more than 100 were killed in the suicide bombing at an election rally in the province of baluchistan. translation: we reached the blast site and found people scattered, there was hardly a person who was in a good condition. we alerted our vehicles and sent 30 ambulances to help the wounded. the army had claimed that militants had been cleared from the region near the afghan border, which has been marred by ongoing violence and instability.

in a separate incident, four people were killed in a bomb blast in the north of the country. another politician's campaign convoy was hit. it's less than two weeks before pakistan goes to the polls, and these attacks could trigger a new set of tensions ahead of an election already marred by controversy. lebo diseko, bbc news. more than 200 people are now confirmed dead from the flooding in western japan. 70,000 rescue workers and soldiers have been deployed to dig through the rubble, as dozens of people remain buried a week after record rainfall hit the region. our correspondent rupert wingfield—hayes has travelled to hiroshima prefecture, where a series of huge landslides have buried whole neighbourhoods. the sun blazed down on this flood hit town today, but the danger has not gone. well, we've just arrived in this little town and you can hear the alarms have just gone off again.

the evacuation, the search teams, the military, everybody is being ordered out of this area, because we think, we not quite sure, we think there's a risk now of a secondary landslide just up the hill here. for young and old this is now a gruelling ordeal. it's 36 degrees and the local school offers few comforts. it's like a war zone, these ladies tell me. it's so chaotic we don't know where to start, and it's too hot. the death toll is now 204. three of the latest bodies were found in the village of yoshiura. this couple take me to the spot their neighbours died. so this is where the bodies were found. apparently all this mud and debris was right up against these houses here. they dug it all out over the last few days and this is where the bodies of the dead

were found, down by this door here. yoshihiro says he was woken by the sound of huge boulders thundering down the mountain and smashing into their neighbours‘ house. translation: my house was shaking, it was really horrible. i've never seen anything like that. translation: i never thought this would happen to a friend of mine. but across the world extreme weather events like this are increasing — and so is the death toll. rupert wingfield—hayes, bbc news, in hiroshima, western japan. this is bbc world news, the latest headlines: demonstrations have taken place across the uk, with huge numbers of people showing their opposition to mr trump's visit. a little earlier i spoke to evan mcmullin in new york. he's a former central intelligence agency operations officer who also ran as an independent during the 2016 united states presidential election. i asked him whether these latest indictments against russian nationals meddling in us elections came as any surprise.

well, it isn't a surprise, frankly. i think we have been waiting here in the united states for details around the special counsel robert mueller‘s investigation of the hacking part of russian interference, of course, they also carried out a disinformation campaign leveraging social media, in part. robert mueller has already issued a number of indictments of russian intelligence associates related to that part of their effort. but today we learned more about the actual hacking part. i suspect we will learn more down the road. there is obviously a to cover for the special counsel, so they are doing the indictments in batches. —— a lot to cover. i think over time we will see the involvement of us persons, potentially involved in the trump campaign, numbers of the trump campaign and potentially trump himself. that has been the crucial element of all of this. there hasn't been any

proven collusion. i think that is the important word, there is no proof so far of collusion with the trump campaign. i wouldn't exactly say that. i would say the special council hasn't invited anyone. —— indicted anyone. but already available in the media, there is a lot of information about different contacts, but several members of the trump campaign had all the trump family had. one of them, for example, was donald trump jr, donald trump's son, emailing with a representative of the russian representative, somebody who was representing the russian government, who offered hacked information on hillary clinton and donald trump jr said he loved it and recommended the information be used later in the summer. so there is quite a lot of information there, actually. but robert mueller and the special counsel's office, they haven't commented on that yet. we don't know how they look at that

from a legal perspective. as american citizens we have to make our own decision about that politically, when we go to the polls for the mid—term elections to decide who controls congress in 2018, but also in 2020, when, if donald trump is still president, we will make another decision about whether he will remain so. do you believe the 2016 elections are, for want of a better legal term, unsafe? i think our national security professionals have said repeatedly we are not doing enough, there is not a co—ordinated us government response yet or plan, to protect our elections from foreign interference. we are fortunate in some way that in the united states, our presidential elections are run by the states, not at the national level. so states can take action. but the federal government in washington, led by president donald trump,

has not really taken a lead on this. which is quite shocking and not what you would find with any other president in the past, republican or democrat, but that is the situation we find ourselves in, we have a president who still, even today, taking questions with prime minister theresa may, called the investigation a witch—hunt, a rigged witch—hunt. this is even after he was briefed by the department ofjustice earlier in the week about these in pending indictments of russian intelligence officers involved in hacking the democratic party and related targets. so that is where the president is. the president is still covering for vladimir putin. it is quite shocking that this would be what the president of the united states would do, but this is the situation we are in. the president was assisted by russians and he continues to protect them. the british volunteer divers who helped save 12 boys and their football coach who were trapped in a cave in thailand have arrived back at heathrow airport.

they said the they weren't heroes, just a group of people who had a unique set of skills. one of them, john volanthen, who was responsible for bringing up to half the boys out, has been speaking to the bbc about the rescue as robert hall reports. they'd spent days in the total darkness of a flooded cave system. this morning, blinking in the flashlights, the seven rescuers arrived to applause from a crowd of well—wishers who'd shared a drama replayed around the world. the skilled cave diving team you see before you are in a class of their own. when two of those divers, rick stanton and his colleague, john volanthen, emerged from the inky water a mile from the cave entrance, they could hardly believe what they saw.

how many of you? 13. 13? brilliant. today, for the first time, john spoke in detail about that moment. we're swimming along an underwater passage, wherever there is an airspace we surface, we shout, and also we smell. and, in this case, we smelt the children before we actually saw or heard them. slowly and carefully, preparations were made for a rescue which the thais dubbed mission impossible. both mick and i were aware of the enormity of the task. the visibility in the water is very low, so varying down to a few inches. there was also a lot of debris in the cave from previous attempts. at last, supported by thai colleagues, the british team began their operation. one by one, they inched the children and their coach to safety. we essentially packaged the children with a buoyancy compensator, which is a kind of diving jacket,

a cylinder on their chest, and this buoyancy compensator we'd made into a harness, and that allowed us to have a single unit, for want of a better word, that was completely self—contained. it was very low, you had to carry them to the side. sometimes it was very narrow, you would push them in front. itjust depended on what the cave was doing and where they had to be in relation to you to pass that particular section of passage. john and his team say they're no heroes, just expert cavers doing a job. so today, they left quietly to resume their normal lives. but across the world, their efforts will not be forgotten. robert hall, bbc news. missions don't get any more ambitious, searching for the origins of life and the secrets of universe. now a vast new project's been unveiled in south africa that could bring some of the answers a step closer.

andy beatt reports. scanning the skies of south africa, a key new part of the world's biggest and most powerful radiotelescope. 61: radiotelescope. 64 dishes, collectively called meerkat, are built at a cost of $330 million. they'll link up with thousands more across africa and australia. a scientific megaproject known as the square kilometre arrayed. these are cameras taking pictures of galaxies outside our solar system, and the more antennae m10 as we have, the better. meerkat aims to unlock cosmic conundrums, from dark energy to detecting extraterrestrial life. it will search the reaches of space, 10,000 times faster than before, and with 50 times the

resolution. taking images like this one, a supermassive black hole at the centre of the milky way. 25,000 light years away. 0r the centre of the milky way. 25,000 light years away. or this, the first image meerkat captured showing 1300 galaxies, only 70 of which were previously known. the pioneering project is pushing the frontiers of science and putting south africa in the spotlight. what's great today is we're seeing an instrument that is the best of its kind anywhere, and what that means is people like myself, other people who aspire to this, can grow up people who aspire to this, can grow up in an environment where they have access to that facility right on their own doorstep. hundreds more telescopes are planned here and in kenya and ghana, expanding meerkat‘s reach still further. they're due to be fully operational in the late 2020s. andy beatt, bbc news. the us first lady melania trump has met some chelsea pensioners during a visit to the royal

hospital in london. accompanied by philip may, the prime minister's husband, mrs trump helped veterans and local schoolchildren assemble poppies for the royal british legion. the first lady also spoke to the schoolchildren about her be best campaign, as our correspondent sian lloyd reports. hello. a smile as melania trump arrived at the home of the famous chelsea pensioners. good morning, how are you? to receive a lesson in poppy making, with the help of local schoolchildren. and she'd done a pretty good job, according to the prime minister's husband, philip may. that's very impressive. very professional. the audience was chosen to chime with her be best campaign, which champions children's well—being initiatives. there was no speech from the first lady. she chatted and listened to the experiences of two different generations.

there's been tight security surrounding this event. while her husband has certainly made waves, this was an opportunity for melania to show a softer side of the partnership. whisked away by her entourage, the first lady had made an impression on the children she'd met, who go to a school a stone's throw away from the us embassy. she gave me a hug and she shaked my hand. and what did you feel about that? i was actually really happy. iwas... i don't even want to wash my hands. nana had sat next to melania trump and said he was honoured to meet her. inspired me. i've learned that i should try my best and be the best i can be, even in hard times, i should be the best that i can be. the aim of this visit was to show a lighter touch, and while this was a tightly controlled event with no opportunity for media questions, those who met melania trump said she was a good sport. sian lloyd, bbc news, chelsea. melania trumpet playing bowls.

incredible! i'll be back with the headlines, but first, nick miller has the weather. hello. welcome to the weekend, which will offer a bit of cloud and some rain to parts of scotland and northern ireland, whereas much of england and wales will stay dry. here's the rain—maker — this weak weather front coming in. but for saturday, it's just towards the far north, north—west of scotland. it will affect more of scotland and northern ireland on sunday, as we'll see in a moment. for many over the weekend there will be sunshine, there will be warmth. in fact, building warmth particularly across parts of england and wales. sunday looking even hotter in places. so a real range of weather this weekend. this is what it looks on saturday morning then. the cloud, some outbreaks of rain, far north—west of scotland, maybe willjust fringe into the west of northern ireland later in the day. yes, cloud increases ahead of that. but the further south and east you are in scotland and northern ireland there will be some sunny spells to be had. some cloud building in england and wales. you can see from the colours here, warm to hot sunshine to be had. a range of temperatures,

quite breezy as well with the cloud and some outbreaks of rain in north—west scotland. there mayjust be an isolated shower popping up across eastern parts of england. most will avoid that and stay dry. here's how it's looking for the wimbledon finals this weekend, the men's final could be one of the hottest men's finals for decades, coming up on sunday with temperatures around 30 celsius, if not slightly above in some spots in south—east england. heading out and about on saturday evening, a lot of fine weather to come. but through the night some outbreaks of rain moving into northern ireland and western scotland. staying dry in england and wales. these are the overnight temperatures going into sunday morning. so on sunday, scotland and northern ireland, more have cloud, more have some outbreaks of rain. gradually pushing further east. mayjust reach into the far north—west of england later in the day. elsewhere, across western england and wales, there could be showers popping up here and there. most will avoid them and stay dry. most in england and wales will hold on to the very warm to hot sunshine. temperatures will be a few degrees higher in the sunshine compared with saturday, just 17 degrees in stornoway. this weather front is taking some

cooler and fresher air south eastwards across the uk. it's just going to take its time. on sunday evening, not a great deal of change in the position of that front, if you're heading out and about. it will gradually slide further south—eastwards monday into tuesday, but it is a slow process. any rain on itjust becomes a few showers. don't becomes a few showers. expect much as it does st we are left with something, eventually, into next week, cooler and fresher, with more cloud around and than perhaps some of us have seen recently. a greater chance of picking up one or two showers around as well. enjoy your weekend. this is bbc news. the headlines: tens of thousands converge on central london in protest at president trump's visit to britain. there have also been demonstrations in other cities around the country, and he's now facing fresh protests in scotland as he continues his visit to the uk. earlier, he met queen

elizabeth at windsor castle and described the relationship between the us and the uk as the "highest level of special". president trump is now in scotland at his turnberry golf resort — the last stop on his trip to the uk. two days before mr trump meets vladimir putin, a grand jury in the us has decided to charge 12 russian intelligence officers with hacking into the computers of the democratic presidential candidate hillary clinton and her party. ina in a moment on bbc news, we will have news watch, but first, he is click. —— here is. file footage: the seconds wound

down before the start, 24 drivers stamped ha rd 24 drivers stamped hard on the throttle. formula 1 has been at the cutting edge of technology and design since its creation in 1946. welcome to