as thousands of people rallied for a fourth weekend of demonstrations against president macron‘s government. the "yellow vest" movement, as its called, began three weeks ago against a planned rise in fuel tax. that's been suspended but french ministers say the protests have been hijacked by "ultra—violent" extremists. our paris correspondent, hugh schofield, reports. from early morning, once again, the yellow vests began arriving. the shops along the avenue are now boarded up because of the threat of more violence. riot police, out in force, have adopted new tactics after last saturday's chaos. today they were stopping and searching, confiscating anything which could serve as a missile against them. the focus became, once again, the area around the arc de triomphe, and here there were the first signs of trouble, the crowd goading riot police and police responding with tear gas and moving out to retake

ground and keep the crowd moving. the white police have moved down a side street to take up a position down the avenue here. they are standing at the ready. they are being insulted, with the occasional project are being thrown by the crowd around. most of the yellow vests stayed away from the trouble spots, all they wanted was to get their message out. translation: president macron should stand down. we must return to better foundations. the party must dissolve. everything must change because we are fed up. as it continued, it was clear that the government's worst fears were not realised. prime minister edward philip announced there has been more than 200 arrests and he emphasised that the exceptional scale of the police operation that has been mounted. —— prime minister edouard philippe. both in paris and across the country. smaller than expected

numbers of protesters, and exaggerated police presence, the government is hoping that the moment of peak danger has passed. but it isn't over yet. we are still here at the champs—elysees. it is pretty intense. we had some loud noises from one of the avenues that leads up to the arc de triomphe. there are reports of some casses, breakages of cars, so it looks like some trouble brewing in that direction. in general, calmerthan last week, but this day isn't over yet. thank you. police in new zealand are preparing to charge a 26—year—old man with the murder of british backpacker grace millane. grace was last seen in auckland exactly a week ago. police say there's evidence she's dead but her body has yet to be found. angus crawford reports. fun—loving and family orientated. grace millane's parents

say her disappearance a week ago was entirely out of character, and was extremely hard to take. now they've been given the worst possible news. the evidence we have gathered at this point in the enquiry has established that this is a homicide. grace's family have been advised of this development and they are devastated. police say a 26—year—old man will be charged with her murder when he appears in court on monday. grace arrived in new zealand last month, and had been staying at a backpacker‘s hostel in auckland. she was last spotted on saturday night entering a hotel in the city with a male companion, who the police say had been with her during the evening. detectives have released pictures of jewellery they believe grace had with her. this necklace and a distinctive pink

watch are both missing from her possessions and could help them find her body. when grace's father arrived in new zealand he spoke to the media and was hopeful she could be found alive. but this is now a murder investigation. a man will soon be charged. and the police search for grace continues. alex crawford, bbc news. six people, five of them teenagers, have died after a stampede at a nightclub in italy. dozens were injured in the club in corinaldo, near ancona on italy's east coast. it's reported that panic broke out at a rap concert after a substance like pepper spray was used. amber rudd has become the first government minister to discuss publicly an alternative to theresa may's brexit deal. the work and pensions secretary descibed the so—called "norway plus" option as plausible if mps reject mrs may's deal in the vote scheduled for tuesday. if such a plan were adopted, the uk would retain its access to the single market but would have to permit free movement of eu citizens into the uk.

our political correspondent matt cole reports. far and wide this week ministers have travelled the uk, selling the idea of theresa may's brexit plan. the message — a simple one. there is no alternative. until this morning when the work and pensions secretary amber rudd opened the door to a plan b and what might happen if mps vote down the deal on tuesday. i do not think the house will support no deal. and if the house is not going to support no deal, it needs to come forward with an alternative deal. and i have seen that there is a lot of support for norway plus in the house of commons. there is a certain amount of support for a people's vote. nobody knows what would happen and people should think very clearly if they are not going to vote for the government's withdrawal agreement, whether they would actually prefer those alternatives. amber rudd insists those alternatives are not as good as the prime minister's brexit plan

and says the deal is not dead. but ministers know how their words are weighed. so, it is her suggestion that a deal like norway has with the eu would be plausible an early shot in the looming battle of the plan bs? the uk would be free to trade with the rest of the world. but the straightforward norway deal would sort out how to keep the border with the republic of ireland open, hence the republic of ireland open, hence the plus bit, some forms of customs arrangement would be needed to solve that problem. but a deal like norway's would struggle to win brexiteers backing, some proposing pa rent brexiteers backing, some proposing parent alternatives. there are discussions taking place. i was told by the leader of the house of lords.

between the uk and the eu for preparing for a brexit without a withdrawal agreement. a no deal? yes, and those discussions should be intensified. for there to be a plan b theresa may's plan must be rejected, and looks ever more likely. one of the uk's biggest outsourcing companies — interserve — is reported to be in rescue talks to avoid its collapse. interserve employs 16,000 people here, providing services in key sectors including schools and hospitals. most of its income comes from government contracts. with all the sport now, here's mike bushell at the bbc sport centre. good afternoon. today's football matches could well have an effect on the top of the ta bles have an effect on the top of the tables in england and scotland. the first of them is under way, and liverpool will go above manchester city at the top of the premier

league if they can beat bournemouth. approaching half—time they are doing just that. mo salah scored from close range. 38 minutes gone. punters to city have a chance to respond later, they are away to chelsea for the early evening kick—off. elsewhere, southampton‘s manager will be inspiring his side to get off the bottom of the table with their match against cardiff. kilmarnock are the current leaders going into today's fixtures. england and scotland will find out which nations they will face at next yea r‘s which nations they will face at next year's women's world cup when the draw takes place in paris in a few hours' time. both nations finished top of their groups in qualifying, so top of their groups in qualifying, so willjoin 22 others —— other countries. chris mclaughlin is there and can explain how it all works. just a few miles in that direction

up just a few miles in that direction up la seine, right police are facing protests by yellow vests protesters. this is the venue for the 2019 world cup draw. england find themselves in pot one, along with the likes of the us. for scotland, an exciting day, scotla nd us. for scotland, an exciting day, scotland making the world cup finals for the very first time. they find themselves in pot three. you would imagine they would be wanting to avoid england and the holders, the usa. at an exciting day for scotland in general here this afternoon. the draw itself gets under way at 5pm uk time. all updates, or the latest, across the bbc sport website. you can see the draw live on bbc two, starting at five o'clock. the england women's cricket captain,

heather knight, has made her best score on her return. she hit an unbeaten 82 off 55 balls, but her side still lost against the melbourne stars. after their genetic draw last weekend, a rematch between tyson fury and deontay wilder can go ahead. they are meeting in la. it was controversial throughout but the governing body said the pair produced one of the best heavyweight title fight in a long time, so they have given the sequel the green light. tyson fury would love it to be in the uk, but it is more likely to be in the us again. matt wallace has had an eventful day at the south african 0pen his attempt to narrow the gap on the leader continuing. he picked up three shots. but it could have been so three shots. but it could have been so much better. his six birdies were rather spoiled by three bogeys. he is now in a group on 11 under par, a few behind louis 0osthuizen. ronnie 0'sullivan is not far away

from a seventh title in the championship. you can follow that on the bbc sport website and it is live on bbc one straight after this bulletin. for now, back to the studio. another good reason to stay with us. you can see more on all of today's stories on the bbc news channel. the next news on bbc one is at 5:25pm. bye for now. continue to do so through the course of the afternoon. not very cold. the wind is coming from the west. even parts of scotland getting let's get more now on the story about the murder inquiry taking place after a british backpacker — grace millane — went missing in new zealand. police say a man's to be charged with her murder on monday. earlier, i spoke to tim blackman. his daughter lucie tragically lost her life injapan at the age of 21. he set up a charitable support trust in her memory. the trust has been assisting grace millane's family. he told me how the trust helps in these tragic situations. what people fail to realise is as soon as you leave these shores to travel abroad, you leave behind all the connections and the agencies that we have grown accustomed to who look after us if there is a difficulty — whether it be the police or any other agencies.

and when you've got a crisis abroad, the lucy blackman trust is really the only organisation that can sit in the middle and act as a friend, as an experienced cool head for all the matters that are going to come with the rest of this case. we work alongside the fco and there is is a lot the fco can do, but there's many things that the lucy blackman trust does which gives support to families. what would you say are the most pressing things, leaving aside grace's case, but more generally when you're dealing with a disappearance, what are the kind of things that are most important terms of getting help and support? well, the immediate thing that people want to do, they want to be there. they want to go and see what's happened, speak to the police and get to the country. this is sometimes very difficult for a family. if for example you want to take a holiday in thailand, you can book a fairly cheap flight three months in advance. if you want to go tomorrow morning, it is very expensive and that is where the lucy blackman trust can help families to deal with some of those issues of getting to the country very quickly. and of course as these things unfold, as indeed grace's crisis will unfold, there will be the requirement for them to be in new zealand a number of times

in the future, whether it's attending the court or whatever. so we're here to help and support for that. yours was a particularly protracted case, not least because of the legal saga that followed once police had a suspect, the man who was resoponsible for ending your daughter's life and because he made it that much worse for you and your family in the way that he responded. yeah. in those situations, you were dealing with japan, there are cultural differences, presumably for grace's family there will at least be some familiarity in the system they're dealing with there in terms of judicial system and police? well, from our point of view, from the lucy blackman trust point of view, it is a big help that this crisis is in an english—speaking and kind of british place and you're right when it's abroad and we were injapan, there's just massive problems with the language and the culture and the fact that a travelling white girl tokyo was really rated

very low in priority. so we had a big fight to get an investigation going in the first place, whereas the auckland police have jumped in there and they have responded very well and i think that has helped to progress this case so dramatically quickly. one more point, for people seeking reassurance, what would you say to family thinking, oh, my son or daughter want to go travelling, i'm hearing this family going through this, this is my worst nightmare, what sort of voice of reason would you offer in those situations? well, we have so many of our children and family members go travelling, it's almost going to be inevitable that they are going to be crises and i want to think about particularly this time of year, two weeks to christmas, there are many families in the uk

who have lost members abroad, but also maybe a child's been taken through a particularly ghastly illness or was killed by a drunk driver, whatever it is, everybody feels particularly grim as it runs up to christmas, because through the empty chair syndrome and i think everybody must feel how appalling it for the millane family. if i could say one thing about travelling, it is 20 years since lucy went missing, maybe we should be re—educated a new generation of young people and i would say best thing really is to travel in a group of three orfour people so, everybody knows where even is and everybody‘s got each other‘s back. a man captured on cctv has come forward and identified himself to detectives after being mistaken for missing airman corrie mckeague corrie was 23, when he went missing after a night out in bury st edmunds in september 2016. these are the last known images are of corrie who was last seen entering a bin loading bay, just before he disappeared.

a man who drove his car into a crowd of protesters, during a rally in the us city of charlottesville, has been found guilty of murder. 21—year—old alex fieldsjunior, was described by prosecutors as "a white supremacist", and was convicted on all 10 charges he faced, including killing 32—year—old civil rights activist, heather heyer. president donald trump's former lawyer has given substantial help on how russian nationals tried to affect the 2016 election, a legal memo has revealed. michael cohen's help is detailed in the memo from robert mueller, who is heading the probe into alleged russian collusion with the trump team. danjohnson has the latest from washington. he once said he would take a bullet

for donald trump, now he faces five yea rs for donald trump, now he faces five years injail. he evaded $1.1; million in tax and secured personal loa ns million in tax and secured personal loans by lying to banks. he made illegal campaign contributions by paying two women who threatened to talk about our fears they had had with donald trump and he lied to congress about a project to build a trump tower development in moscow. that was a multi—million dollar scheme that needed the russian government's backing. that never went ahead but cohen admits discussions went on during the presidential campaign. he had a line to vladimir putin's press secretary. donald trump treated without being specific but since cohen started cooperating, he has given details about other high—level contact between russian officials and donald

trump's campaign team. a white house spokeswoman says there is nothing new here. president trump has issued some tweets this morning, as is his regular practice. this one in particular deals with the allegations of the michael cohen charges. he says, after two years and millions of pages of documents ata and millions of pages of documents at a cost of over $30 million, no collusion. a british sailor, whose yacht was crippled by a ferocious storm during a round—the—world race, has been rescued. susie goodall was sailing alone when she ran into trouble 2,000 miles off the coast of chile — leaving her stranded for days before a cargo ship came to her to aid. andy moore reports. safety at last. the cargo ship that rescued susie goodall used its crane to winch her on board. she's reported to be uninjured and in good spirits. it was an ordeal that began 50 hours earlier when this distress call

in the teeth of a ferocious storm. her yacht had lost its mast and water had to be pumped out. in one of the remotest places on earth, she had a long wait for help to arrive. she was tossed about, seasick, in a disabled boat, in heavy seas. it was a difficult rescue right to the end. the engine on susie's yacht kept cutting out as it manoeuvred alongside the rescue ship, the tian fu. and then the first news of success in a brief tweet. "0n the ship", she wrote, followed by three exclamation marks. in the time waiting to be rescued with a broken cooker, she said she'd been longing for a cup of tea. so it was no surprise that in the second message she said she had enjoyed a very good hot drink. her friends welcomed the good news

after an agonising wait. it was an absolutely huge relief, a massive relief, and i think everybody in our sailing community was just absolutely overjoyed by the news. susie is now on her way to chile. her dream of sailing solo around the world is over, for now, but at least she's safe. a little earlier i spoke to james instance, 0perations controller at falmouth coastguard, which first picked up susie goodall‘s distress signal, he explained how it came to light. the first indication that susie was in difficulty actually was picked up by race control on the morning when she reported there were rough conditions and it was really uncomfortable but it was at 11am on the 5th of december when we got an emergency signal from an emergency beacon,

all the ships, all the yachts in the race have to carry emergency satellite beacons, and we received a signalfrom that. the only difficulty from one of these beacons is although it tells you that something is probably wrong and tells you who it is and where they are, it doesn't tell you what the problem is, so we immediately got in contact with race control to say we picked up this signal and then spent a very uncomfortable hour waiting for race control to get through on her satellite phone to be able to find out what the situation was so we're aware of where it was, the southern ocean in the deep areas of the pacific, we know that something is probably wrong but we don't know what the situation is so it was great news she got back but then we had the difficulty of arranging a rescue. so you at least she was still on board the yacht, you knew she wasn't injured, but you knew also that somehow she had to be rescued in a very remote

part of the ocean. where would the nearest ships have been to her at that stage? she's 2,000 miles west of chile so you're in one of the most remote areas of the world. and you are nowhere near a main shipping lane or a main transport area. you would be looking for other yachts that are taking part in the race to be able to come to your assistance, but in this case, the closest one was already further towards south america and to turn back in those conditions would have been really difficult. the next yacht behind her was 780 miles so that wasn't possible. we liaised with the chilean authorities, the rescue authorities there were amazing and what they did. they did exactly what we would have done in the uk, they put out a satellite broadcast to alert ships in the area and we're talking about a 500—mile

radius of where susie is to see what is around and then you've got to try and directly get in contact with those ships to get them to divert to go to their assistance and there were two that were contacted, one was a70 miles away and another vessel which was 385 miles away, so it's not like you're in trouble off the coast of cornwall or devon in the english channel where you can get a lifeboat and helicopter within half an hour, this is 48 hours at least of susie having to wait around, floating at sea in her badly damaged yacht, hoping it wasn't going to take on water and waiting for rescue. an eight—year—old boy took control of a car travelling at 60 miles per hour

after his mother blacked out at the wheel. lauren smith had a seizure while driving near colchester. her son, ben, turned on the hazard lights and drove onto the hard shoulder, before the car stalled. a rare scottish wildcat, born at chester zoo, has been captured on camera for the first time. bosses at the zoo say the female kitten, born in august, could offer a "lifeline for the species". wildcats, also known as highland tigers, are britain's rarest mammals and as few as 100 are estimated to remain in the uk. time for a look at the weather. here's phil avery. it's going to be choppy to say the

least! this is not the worst of the conditions this weekend. the wind is a real feature through the weekend. but it is going to get a bit windier so but it is going to get a bit windier so if you are out and about this afternoon, it is gustyjust now. tomorrow, it is drier and brighter. in the short term, showers are ganging up to northern ireland initially but then we got this band of weather gradually pushing its way further eastwards so if you enjoy that dry started day across eastern england, in the next few hours, it isn't going to stay dry. lows of the gusts we are expecting, around 55 miles an hour but it is mild we are

into double—figure territory. 0vernight we will drag the prolonged showers and spells of rain further south but it is the wind across the southwest quarter of the british isles that is a real concern. some of the gusts in this stage in excess of the gusts in this stage in excess of 60 mph and further north, the skies were clear so a pretty chilly start on sunday. generally a chilly feel because the breeze will move northwesterly, so the showers will drag there way across the southern counties for the first part of the day but that is not the main feature of the day. the main feature is i drier, brighter, fresher day. the breeze is still there, notjust as strong today, and what showers there will be across northern ireland and

through wales into the southwest but much fewer and further between and the wind for the most part although still there won't be just as noticeable. sunday night into monday, clearing skies so there will bea monday, clearing skies so there will be a cold start and a frost widely across northern portions of the british isles but on monday, we have the prospect of drier, brighter conditions for many of us, just increasing amounts of cloud eventually getting into these western parts as we develop a battle for the coming week between mild air from the atlantic and colder from the continent. hello this is bbc news. the headlines: police in new zealand say they're set to charge a 26—year—old man with the murder of a british backpacker. grace millane, who's 22 and from essex, was last seen earlier this month. police have fired tear gas on the streets of paris — as thousands of anti—government protestors stage more demonstrations against the french president,

emmanuel macron. the work and pensions secretary, amber rudd, has warned the country would be in "uncharted territory" if mps reject theresa may's brexit deal. six people, including five teenagers, have been killed and more than a hundred injured, in a stampede at a nightclub in northern italy. now on bbc news in bbc wales investigates, wyre davies reports on an underground group that is inciting new recruits to spread racist hate throughout britain a group are targeting a new recruit.

they say they want foot soldiers. activists who will take to the streets and help them rid wales of muslims, dues, non—whites and games. he is our