earlier, several thousand counter—demonstrators attempted to block their route. tributes have been paid to the late senator john mccain at a memorial service in washington. two former presidents, george w bush and barack obama, led the mourners praising his patriotism. president trump, who'd feuded with him, was not invited to the service. there's been criticism of the decision by the united states to withdraw all funding from the un agency that provides assistance to palestinian refugees, amid fears it could further destabilise the region. a spokesman for president mahmoud abbas described the move as a flagrant assault against the palestinian people. passengers travelling on the south western and northern rail networks have suffered another day of disruption. members of the rmt union have been on strike in an ongoing dispute about the role of guards on trains.

people attending concerts and sporting events across northwest england are likely to have been affected. it follows a summer of delays and cancellations on northern‘s services after a new timetable was introduced. sharon barbour reports from blackpool. it's one of the biggest weekends for blackpool. people have travelled here to see the famous illuminations. tonight, britney spears is also on stage. but many trains across the north have been cancelled, as the rail workers union, the rmt, held another day of strike action. only 30% of northern trains run today, and all of those have now stopped. we're going to drive now. we were going to get the train, but we realised there was going to be strikes, so we had to get a friend to drive. we were just going to get the train through. it's not too far at all. we booked a train, we were going to get the train. and because of the train strikes, we've had to book a really expensive hotel. we can't get home on public transport, so we've decided to book

accommodation locally and we're going to drive back tomorrow instead. we ended up getting three trains, which was horrendous. it was, like, so awful. we wanted to get here, basically, before we could. but there was no chance, because of the delays that the strikes were causing. northern says its priority today is to get passengers to where they wanted to be. the rmt union say its priority is passenger safety. the walk—out is over plans by northern to have driver—only operated trains. we believe fundamentally, as a union, that trains are more safe by having a safety—critical conductor on board, who is trained in a whole host of competencies, emergency evacuations, knows where they are on the route, etc. what we don't accept is the need to remove conductors and safety guards from services, where they already operate. this is just the latest disruption of passengers in the north of england, who have already experienced

a summer of timetable changes and cancellations. the strike action is expected to take place every saturday this month, unless an agreement is reached. sharon barbour, bbc news, blackpool. now on bbc news, human endeavour. british racing driver billy monger meets alex zanardi, pa ralympic gold—medallist and one—time formula one star. most people remember alex zanardi as a formula 1 driver. he suffered a horrific crash and lost both of his legs but he took to hand cycling and made headlines in london and rio at the paralympics, he won two gold medals and became a superstar. when i had my accident, somehow or another, alex zanardi rang me a couple of times, he'd been through something similar and gave me a bit of advice. now i know his story and what he went through and how

he has coped with it, and what he's achieved, it's pretty impressive and when people ask me who motivated me, he is definitely one of those people. which makes meeting him going to be really cool i think. meet alex zanardi, a global superstar. from racing car to para—cycling champion, this man is always on a mission. today, the veteran is on his way to meet britain's billy monger, fondly known in racing circles as billy whiz. this is a special day. this is their first meeting. there's my man! how you doing? good to see you. good, buddy. it's nice to finally meet you. sorry if i don't get up but i'm sure you understand my issue. i do, definitely. billy monger's talent was well— known even at primary school. at the age of nine he was

featured on blue peter. you were the nominal around that track. —— phenomenal. how fast were you going? 55 miles per hour. i7 and a star of formula 4, he is tipped by many to be the next lewis hamilton. one of britain's most talented racing drivers was competing at donington park when he collided with a stationary car in front of him at 120 miles per hour. airlifted to the queens medical centre in nottingham, his lower legs were removed during surgery. teenager billy monger has driven a racing car for the first time since losing both his legs in a crash. well done yesterday. thank you, it was really cool. not only is billy back driving, the 19—year—old sensation is competing in british formula three and returned to the podium, finishing third at spa this season. i saw that you are drinking out of your sockets. yes, out of this one.

i will go and introduce myself. i'll introduce you to my sister. hi, i'mjennie. this is bonny. nice to meet you, i am alex. and i'mjennie. i'm presenting and i'm delighted that we've finally got you to together. i have some of my coaches and i ask them to bring up a normal bicycle but with an electrical assisting model. —— motor. maybe he could try to see where it is at all. mario is the boss, gianni is like his assistant. the wrong way around. they are taking care of us scobbie,. the wrong way around.

i can tell that you haven't worn one so long. you love exercising so much on the bicycle. let's go this way, thank you. i tried. it is possible to push. you get stuck in the middle, in between. what are your first impressions of meeting alex? he's a character. really positive, really engaging. just talking to him, you get the impression that he has already been through a lot and he knows the right sort of things to do and not to do. he is creeping back up. maybe it's a good idea while you are going down, there is a fast section where i can maybe try to impress him a little bit. you've i think you've already

impressed me and asked. we are now going at 80 kilometres an hour. he's basically luging. i'd imagine he's a bit of adrenalinejunkie, i think so. it's different to racing but it's not, it's the same thing in a different way. you've met some pretty amazing people in your life, especially since the accident. lewis hamilton. lewis has been really cool to me. obviously inviting me to the grand prix and sharing support for me straight after the accident. i love the fact that so many people got in touch with me, people i didn't even know, people like lewis who i'd never spoke to before. he was always someone i looked up to, so to get that support from them was really cool.

and yes, alex isjust another one of those, the guys that i'm now looking to for motivation, and to keep me pushing on. things are looking bleak for zanardi, who is fighting for his life in hospital in berlin. ely was only two years old when alex zanardi crashed 13 laps from the end of the american memorial kart race in germany. two years later, alex returned to finish those 13 laps of that fateful race. he continued on to become a successful touring car driver for bmw. i'd very much like to get the two of you to talk about your accidents

with each other. first of all, do you remember everything or did you lose consciousness? i was unconscious in the car about 45 minutes maybe and then they realised how serious my injuries were, and that was the point where they put me into an induced coma and i can't remember anything from that point onwards to about three days into my time in hospital, and by that point, the amputations had already happened in everything. but they just completed the amputation or you were amputated at the hospital? i'm not too sure, they didn't complete the amputations till we were at hospital because they didn't know how much

of the leg they could save, but i think looking back on it, it was easy, the fact that i didn't have to make that decision for myself. it was a situation where i woke up and it happened, there was no going back. for me, that would have been much, much easier than having any part. i'm not a doctor. those guys, they know what is best for you. i feel very familiar in these words in the sense that it's been the same for me, although when i woke up, i felt... i mean, i was full of drugs. me too. so that was a big filter for all the pain. when i was told by my wife what happened, she was very pragmatic, she got straight to the point. i was very happy. if i could describe the feeling above all others

which emerged wasjoy. to have lost my legs and that moment was the last of my problems because i was so happy to be alive. to know the worst was already behind me was like, wow, so ijust told daniela, "listen, darling, it's ok, the important thing is the doctors said i'm not dying anymore, and that is enough." i thought, if other people have done it, i can do it. it won't be easy but i can do it. since i'm an optimist, i also thought i can actually add a little bit more. and he did. former f1 driver alex zanardi claims gold on the 15th anniversary of losing his legs in a crash. you wake up and they tell you the worst of it is behind you, and from that point onwards, i very rarely thought about my accident afterwards. if anything, i was curious.

i watched the... there was obviously on—board footage, i saw that. it was important to have a quick look at that city can push it under the carpet and forget about it. you never fully forget when an accident like that happened to you, but in order to move forward, for me that's fine, i had to fully understand what i have been through in order to move forward. curious. i was curious to watch the footage of my accident. i was not afraid of it, but i guess this is down to the way we are in that you cannot forecast what kind of reaction you will have in particular circumstances and i saw what happened to me, i would join the club

of those saying wow, hats off to him, i would not be able to do what he does but it's not true because i tell you, we are amazing, marvellous machines and sometimes we are capable of surprising ourselves with the reaction that we didn't think we could bring in a particular circumstance, but we do. he's a very, very positive young lad. the first thing he wanted to do was to work out how to use a clutch with his hand. if i was going to go through everything i had to go through, i didn't want to adjust my ambitions and dreams to assume what everyone wanted me to do. when i was just recovering, it didn't take me long to realise that is the way wanted to go. i'm glad you can all be out here today. a big round of applause, everyone. when it comes to that rehabilitation process,

it must hurt. you are smiling. it does hurt but every step is a step forward. you know that the following day will be better so you move on. actually, to a certain degree, the suffering gives you a right measure of the value of what you're doing. i remember during the course of my rehabilitation, the first days, i was starting to work with these strange things and i had to go to the toilet and i just passed in front of the restaurant so i take advantage, so i went in and while i was doing my business i realised it was the first time i was taking a leak standing since after the accident. isaid, "wow, this is a special moment." even before you start doing physio on legs, i did a lot of training staff to try and build as much strength

as i could because at that time, you are in a wheelchair and your wounds are recovering and you can't train in the way he wants to train. you can't start walking and getting better at it. until you've recovered yourself. i've been quite lucky in my rehabilitation that i've been able to meet a lot of soldiers. they have been a big source of inspiration, not so much what they can do physically but of their mental attitude. when it came to the licence, tell me what you had to do. ignorance is what scares you the most. everybody was basically sure that if they allowed me to drive, i would have a big accident, hurting myself and possibly hurting other people is that they were just looking for an excuse to say no, you can't. i said, i lost my legs, not my head. but finally i passed every test and they gave me the green light and i got my licence.

what alex did to get the perception of other people, to change, has helped me a lot, especially. when i asked the question of why i could not race a single seater car again, they didn't have an answer. there are always go to people who are concerned that you are jumping back into a car and you're not going to be safe, not just to yourself that other people so i had to prove that i was capable of driving the car in a safe manner and that i was able to get out of the car with a did have an incident, so that if it was on fire or anything like that, i would be as safe as any of the other drivers and also making sure that the controls are viewed as safe from the fia, make sure they are up to a level that they were happy with. i bump into people who told me that life is a beautiful thing matter what.

i bumped into this gentleman who had a coffee with and i did not ask why he was there. he was normal. and when he was holding his baby, his daughter, and the baby was with no legs, and he was crying, and so i went to comfort him. and he said "no, alex, i'm just very happy, that's why am crying." i asked what he was talking about. he said "my baby was born with no legs and when i came here the first time, they told me that we had to wait until she was four days old before they could give her prosthetic legs," and so today was that day. and the prosthetic technician asked "how about the shoes?" he said he was the happiest man in the planet because he bought his daughter her shoes that day.

still, to this day, i think how can you not learn the lesson into something like this, right? how can you complain? this is the marvellous aspect of us all as individuals. we can't fly. we don't have the strength of some animals. we don't have the sense of some animals. but somehow with our intelligence we've been able to run this planet. we are all limited to different degrees. the fact that you are certificated as disabled because you have lost something does not stop you to do things in an alternative way and to display your talent if you think you have some, or if you think you have enough to get the job done. and i've always been a big fan of him and now that met him, i'm even more convinced even more

convinced it's a good idea to be a fan. the idea is to lie on this block. you are kind of ready to go. change gear. to downshift, you push to upshift. downshift, upshift. can you push your brother up? you've got it. obviously this journey has been a journey for him over the past

year, but also for you. it's never easy but when you see him out there smiling, it goes away for a while. when the accident happened, you were there that day and you went out to be with him? mum was in a bit of a state so i was kind of the only one that was half with it that could go and keep him calm. that is a big responsibility, even just as a brother or sister. yeah, but it needed to be done, so i knew that... we — you — everyone who saw the footage knew it was bad. i had to deal with it in the moment and do what was best to him. do you remember the first time that you saw him post—accident, after that day? yeah, when he wasjust

in the hospital bed. not nice. but it was nice to know that he was still there. that's all that really mattered at that point. i bet your mum — this was not an easy thing to accept and to have gone through. she still does not like the racing but she knows that it makes him happy, so she let's him get on with it. as long as he's happy, she is happy. the first time that he got back into the car, after he got his licence, that could not have been comfortable for anyone. i was relieved to see him back. everyone was nervous. everyone had that. i'm sure billy had that. just to see his face when he was back in the car and to see him back in the environment was so nice after all the stuff he had been through. it was nice to see him back there. what do you think today has meant to him and to you? i think it has been a long time coming to meet alex and just seeing them together is so funny,

because i can see so many similarities in them, even nothing to do with the injury, it just them to talking about racing. a long journey ahead of for both of them, then. nothing will separate them, when you see them. when you see them on the motorcycles, they're just gone. you will always be linked by the fact that you've had these horrible life—changing injuries, yet neither of you just sat there and said that you will let this overtake you. you have bad days, but like you say, you need to not let it overtake you, to be honest. just meeting him and chatting with him and taking what i can from his experiences is enough to know that today was an awesome day. what he's been able to do isjust amazing to me — how fast and rapidly he has been able to recover — mentally speaking, especially — from what has happened. it really let us imagine that the future is quite bright for this kid, and he isn't

a surprise us all with these things. and i really wish him the best because i see a little bit of myself in his story and what he is going through at the moment. i really hope that he is going to be able to turn that into an opportunity and not to see this into the — "the" — opportunity. because this is also a dangerous aspect of being a superstars just because something happened to you for which everybody tells you your special, the danger is also to end up thinking that that is your role in life. no. his role is to carry on, to do what he wants, to try to achieve what he loves, and never be happy with it, because life is a beautiful thing, but we only have one opportunity. the clock is ticking, so you have to take every opportunity to add things to live. not being anxious to add, but when you can, why not? hello.

saturday's top temperature — 25.2 celsius in hull. eastern parts of the uk that saw the lion's share of the sunshine. closer to high pressure, there's another system approaching from the atlantic, though. that will pep up the rain for northern ireland and western scotland going through the afternoon and into the evening. this is how it looks first thing. a lot of cloud to the north and west. a warm start here, but the clearer parts of eastern england, some spots into single figures, maybe one or two mist and fog patches. the cloud in the west could also be low cloud, so some coast and hill fog around in places. damp and drizzly for a few spots as well. but even within this zone, there will be some brighter spells at times. sunny spells into north—east scotland but particularly into eastern england. quite a windy day for scotland with gusts around 30—110 mph, and rain coming from the western isles into the west of scotland

through the afternoon and into the evening as it will be pushing across northern ireland. ahead of that, though, we may see some sunny spells for a time. northern england, the midlands, wales, the south—west often cloudy. you may encounter the odd shower, the odd bit of light rain. but for some in east anglia and south—east england, unbroken sunshine and temperatures here edging towards the mid 20s once again. and it will be warm in the sunny spells in north—east scotland, too. you rain to end the day, though, in northern ireland and western scotland, pushing further south—eastwards going into monday morning. those parts of northern ireland and scotland that turn clearer will be much cooler. along that weather front, though, and certainly to the south of it through much of england and wales, quite a warm night going into monday morning. the big picture for monday has the weather front here very slowly moving south. cold front, the leading edge of cooling air, so ahead of that still some warmth. behind it, though, feeling much fresher. and, of course, temperatures are lower but there'll be some sunny spells into northern ireland, those areas of scotland where the weather front has cleared. that's not the case in eastern scotland. still some rain for a time on monday, pushing across more of northern england, part of the midlands, wales and south—west england. so it's behind that again, it's cooler and fresher. it's cooler along the weather front where you have got cloud and rain.

it's still warm in any sunny spells for east anglia and south—east england. that front gradually pushes further south into tuesday, taking that cooler air with it. the rest of the week delivers fair amounts of cloud around. some sunny spells. there will be a bit of patchy rain or a few showers but actually, for the rest of the week, much of the country is looking mainly dry. that's your latest forecast. welcome to bbc news, broadcasting to viewers in north america and around the globe. my name is nkem ifejika. our top stories: thousands of far—right demonstrators in the east german city of chemnitz are ordered to disperse following an anti—migrant rally. far right parties are accused of inflaming tensions. as soon as we try to express our grief, we are put into a certain corner, and this i don't accept at all. washington's farewell. three former presidents are among those paying tribute to senatorjohn mccain at his memorial service. for all our differences, for all the times we sparred,

i never tried to hide, and i thinkjohn came to understand the long—standing admiration that i had for him. palestinian officials condemn a us decision to withdraw all funding from the united nations agency that supports palestinian refugees.