president trump has said he won't declare a national emergency to build a wall on the border with mexico — meaning there's no end in sight to the us partial government shutdown. it has now entered its 22nd day, becoming the longest shutdown in history. rahaf mohammed al-qunan, the 18—year—old saudi woman who fled to thailand in fear for her life, is now on her way to canada. the canadian prime minister said his country was pleased to offer her asylum. she'd said she feared being killed if she was returned to her family in saudi arabia for having renounced islam. seven people, including a 9—year—old boy, have now been killed in the extreme weather across southern europe. heavy snow is still continuing to fall, bringing chaos to a number of the continent's alpine regions. now on bbc news, it's time for the travel show. there have been tributes to diana

knox brie who has died at the age of 51 after a short illness. she worked on radio one, alongside sieben —— simon dale and steve wright, and to more than 20 years she was the weather presenter for north—west tonight. her colleague dave guest looks back at her life. weather presenters must remain cool and calm whatever is thrown at them and dianne 0xberry was the coolest of them all. this chart might be the one you like... you can see that the warm air is moving out of the way... this is the comedian, peter kay, making an unexpected appearance during one of her forecasts on the bbc‘s north west tonight programme. god love dianne 0xberry. god love her. you've made it sunshine for everybody. i have. for once. she just had such a great rapport with the public and they loved her. everywhere you went, people would say, "is di coming?" "where's di?" dianne 0xberry began her broadcasting career with steve wright on radio 1 and she was a member of simon mayo's posse on the radio 1 breakfast show. there was a spark in the studio when she was there, you know, and i think everyone is very

devastated by the fact she's gone. she switched to tv in the early ‘90s, presenting the saturday morning children's show the 8—15 from manchester. i am joined by mark and gary from take that... but she didn't only meet the fledgling take that on the show, she also met herfuture husband, iain, a cameraman on the 8—15. shejoined north west tonight in 1994. here for the first time is dianne 0xberry. yes, i am going to be here tonight and every night this week, bringing you a detailed weather forecast... in fact, she was to become a regular face on the show for almost a quarter of a century and a welcome visitor to so many living rooms. have you had your teas? but dianne 0xberry didn't just do the weather, she was often to be found trying her hand at so many other roles, too. her warmth, energy and down—to—earth nature made viewers and listeners see dianne as a friend, even if they had never met her. they'll miss her, but so too

will those of us who did know her and considered her a friend, as well as a colleague. diane duxbury, who has died at the age of 51. —— 0xbury. now on bbc news, it's time for the travel show. my name is tony giles. i'm from england. i'm totally blind and severely deaf in both ears. and i'm travelling around the world trying to visit every country. we're in the old city! israel is country 124. i see a place with my senses — i see a place by the sounds, by the smells, by the textures. the hustle and bustle of people shouting, buy this, buy this, come and look at this! i feel the atmosphere, the energy, the buzz.

i was born with my eye condition, so i don't have any vision apart from sunlight sensitivity. and i've gradually gone deaf as i've got older and i am now 80% or severely deaf in both ears but i use digital hearing aids. i travel alone, because it's the biggest challenge i can get. and the travelling by myself... excuse me! ..i get to interact with more people. if i travel with someone, particularly someone sighted, they would be doing all the work, they'd be doing all the guiding, and i would not get to touch and find as many things as i do by myself. today i'm going to catch a bus into the old city to go to the western wall.

western wall? western wall, yeah. ok, let's go. i will help you. 0k. let me hold your arm like that. where are you from? i'm from england. huh? england! i was lucky that the bus driver was nearby waiting, so it was really easy to find the bus. yeah, i've got it... let go, let go. new orleans was the first place i went to by myself — a foreign city by myself. didn't know where i was going, i was blind, and ijust froze. and then i took a couple of deep breaths and said to myself, "tony, this is what you want — if you don't want it go home." a couple more deep breaths, turn left, walk down the street, and the rest is history. excuse me, are you hear me...? this is your stop station. my stop?

yes. you can get off. 0k, thank you. you want any help? i'm good. just trying to get my bearings, trying to work out which way the traffic is going, and if i can use the sunlight, but i can't sense any sun at all. i have to be careful going down the steps, because they're all marble and slippery and worn so i have to go slowly and take care. two people came to try and help me but they were a bit aggressive, theyjust grabbed me, which is not the correct way to help — it's a bit frightening.

if people want to help, and many people do, ideally you would want them to speak to you and say "hello, can i help?" but obviously not everyone speaks english. so if they don't, then touch you gently on the hand, on the arm, but not pull and not grab, ideally. you have to be patient, you get lost all the time. it's very difficult if you're looking for something specific when you can't see. because obviously you can't pinpoint it. excuse me? you might get ten people walk past and then someone will stop, "are you lost, do you need help?" and then you can interact with them — that's how it works. excuse me, is this damascus gate? yeah. straight in front of me, no? 0k. want to help?

yeah. i like this! i like the atmosphere and the smells. and it's all close, and compact. it feels authentic. i'm going to the western wall, and on the way i'm going to hopefully explore some of the via dolorosa, which is stages of the cross thatjesus walked. good morning, how are you? good, good, how are you? you want to see my shop souvenir? i could have a brief look, why not? yes? come on. what do you sell? very good! laughs. beautiful! yeah.

this is coffee. coffee yea h ? ok, i get this. about $3. that's five? that's two five, yeah? yes. two five. thank you. i probably write a blog once a week, so i document myjourneys, and my travels, and i want to share it with the world, really, and try and inspire people to believe in themselves, and they can overcome whatever their challenges are. and i also add pictures i've taken. 0riginally i did it because i thought it would just be funny, someone seeing a blind person take photos. it's an extra way of sharing, i can show my family and friends and stuff, that's the idea, to try and share with everyone. thank you. excuse me!

take the hand! people... don't leave him! over here... 0k, thank you. someone on a motorbike coming through, that's not very clever. hello. looking for the station of the cross... this way, this way... this is the station of the cross? come back. 0k... then to the left... this is where he put his hand, here. this is where christ... up, up, up, up...

thank you! apparently i'm at one of the stages of the cross, wherejesus put his hand on the wall and leant against a wall. defined handprint, very smooth, also quite rigid, quite bumpy. it's a lovely texture. right, this is some barrier, i presume. hmm. is this the way in? hello? sorry, machine? womans.

woman? yeah, it's not man. the wall is sort of separated, male and female, and the guy took me into the male section and took me up to the wall. 0k. there's all these notes in it. massive blocks, very smooth. the texture, the shape of the wall, the bricks, from a historical and a spiritual point of view, it's worth visiting. tony at the western wall. so, i'm heading to bethlehem, which is in palestinian territory. and it's separated by a dividing wall and a checkpoint. so, i'm going to have to get off the bus, get through the checkpoint, and somehow meet my host.

i e—mailed him using my laptop with speech software, and he sent me his phone number, and i memorised it, and i'm trying to call him with my phone now. i can use the phone because the buttons are tactile. i couldn't travel without my memory, my memory is my biggest asset. i'm using my memory constantly, i'm exercising it all the time — i have to remember phone numbers, i have to remember directions. it allows me to find things. my memory gives me my independence, along with my cane. i'm now at the checkpoint betweenjerusalem and bethlehem. i've got to walk across the checkpoint and go past the dividing wall. railings... getting through the checkpoint is a little bit complicated.

slightly more complicated than i thought, slightly more confusing. and then we'd just have to sort of try and follow other people, people sort of pushing me from one way to the other. have to get past this... looks like we're on the palestinian side, the palestinian territories. it's quite exhilarating. as you come out of the tunnel into the taxi area, and where the wall is, you can hear all the people talking and smell the food and coffee and stuff. that's quite lively, that's quite interesting. can you show me to a taxi? taxi cab.

i'm looking for a taxi. where? church of the nativity. 0k. maybe you want, i'll take you for photo at the wall, we stop and take photo. 0k, cool. you happy? yeah, always! how big is the wall? it's very big. 30... 20 metres? yes. it's far. tony... yeah? welcome to bethlehem, you're going to church? yeah, the church of the nativity. all this way... yes, wall. behind the wall you have hotel banksy behind the wall, you have hotel. i'm feeling excited to be

in bethlehem, it's a new city, new town, new experiences. driving through bethlehem, along the wall, has sort of given me a brief sense of how long the wall could be. it certainly feels quite long travelling along it. in my mind it would seem quite impressive. and i guess quite scary to a lot of people. here the church, tony. yes, this the church. ijust called my host to let him know i'm still coming. adam, we're at the church. hello?! hello... ?

adam? give me, i call him... hello? i call him, he's coming, one minute he coming here. thanks, mohammed. thank you. hi, tony, how are you? hi, adam, good to meet you, looking forward to seeing your place. how many country you visit before? i've visited 124 countries. oh, my god, that's nice! yeah. yeah! you're like ali baba. i'm very lucky! i love to travel! have you done much travelling? not...just here, it's not easy to go move, or to travelling another country. so you get travellers

to come to you? yeah! you have steps here... this is actually couch surfing, so in theory you stay for free. 0k, have steps, five... you live in a castle! yeah. it's a website and you can find people on it, they have profiles, and they want to travel or they want to meet travellers, and that's how it works. now, come here, the lift. oh, this is home! we've landed, thank you! shukran. i have had a wide range of couch experiences, i've slept on floors, on mattresses like this, i've slept on couches, and also i have couch slept

in africa where the toilet‘s outside, and it's a hole in the ground. i think it probably helps not seeing, i don't see the dirt or the danger or the holes, ijust get on with it. the main thing is you're meeting the people, the local hosts and sharing their food and their culture and their knowledge and whatever they can offer you. and hopefully you make friends at the end of it. good night and good dreams. shukran, and to you. people think being blind must be terrible, poor you, they don't understand, they don't know what they're talking about. i'm so lucky and i'm leading a fantastic life, to be able to go country to country when i want, where i want... this is the way to travel! ..with very few restrictions on what i want to photograph or do,

and you come here and you see people, yeah, they can see and they can walk but they can't go places, it's just sad. you know for directions to go trains? ok, so can you give me directions? just a straight, not left, not right. so, just straight? yeah. and i wish you be happy and lucky in your life. 0k. shukran. bye—bye, good to meet you, adam. bye — bye. bye— bye. is this the entrance to the church? you can go in straight now. 0k, thank you. i can roughly hear a voice but it's a bit disconcerting. the echo splits the sound, so it takes away the direction. we'll get there, it can't be far.

there is a big metal thing with studs which could be... yes, that's a gate! oh, yes! yes, oil, candles... it's got a waxy smell... polish. finding the entrance is like reaching my goal, it's like reaching my target, and everything else after this is a bonus. 0nce they've started singing, isuppose, louder, and i thought i've got to get close to this, because there's going to be

a lot of energy involved, and then i've got to try and get closer and closer, eventually using my cane and picking out the steps, then a guy helped me down. realising that i was the only person to get close to hear that, feel that, makes me feel very privileged, very warm inside. i'm absolutely buzzing after that. energy is incredible! that was cool, just to be here for that if nothing else. it was quite crowded going down those steps, and they're quite

slippery, very deep. oh, my goodness! from the fire into the furnace. very hot in here, and i guess it's from candles and more people coming in. this is my hand, yeah? this is the place where jesus was born, here is the star where he was born. kneel down on your knees. kneel down... more, more, more, more, more, more, more... you can touch the place wherejesus was born. this is the star, it has 14... it's a flower, or? no, it's a star. the star of david, yeah. marble? no, it's silver. this is marble. yeah, this is marble. the ground wherejesus was born is down here, you feel it, he was born here. so this is the grotto.

yes, he was born here. 0k. about there? yeah, it's not ok like this, let me help you a little bit, it's like this, you can take a photo now... definitely an experience, a very humbling experience, to sort of be in a place where one might argue history occurred 2000 years or so ago. visiting the church, the smells, the sounds, that's what makes travelling, for me, special. i travel by myself because it's my challenge,

it's like climbing a mountain, you feel, oh, this is difficult, it's a struggle, and then you get to the top, and you're like, yeah, i've made it, this is magical. that's what it's all about. broadens my horizons. and makes me become, hopefully, a better person. hello. the weekend is upon us and there will be some spells of sunshine around, like there was to end the day on friday in portsmouth. it will also briefly be feeling a little bit milder, but also increasingly windy and there will be a few showers around as well. in fact, for western parts of scotland, some persistent spells of rain. and that comes courtesy of this cold front which we can see here, already delivering some persistent rain across the western isles through the early hours of saturday morning and slowly sinking its way south and eastward. so for much of the uk, it will be a fairly cloudy day on saturday. increasingly windy, a few showers sinking their way southwards but tending to dissipate as they do but the showers will give way

to a more persistent spell of rain initially across the east of northern ireland and later in the day across northern and western scotland and some of that rain just arriving into the far north of england as well. quite a windy day, particularly across scotland. that's an idea of average strengths but gusts could well touch 30 or 40 miles an hour. but for many, a milder—feeling day, temperatures into double figures, around 10 or 11 celsius. 0vernight, it's cloudy, it's windy, a bit damp in places with some patchy drizzle but more persistent rain pushing its way across northern scotland and then slowly sinking its way southwards to arrive perhaps into the far north of england by dawn on sunday, but it will be a mild night — temperatures not much lower than seven or eight celsius. so here is how sunday shapes up. notice how the isobars are really quite close together. it's an increasingly windy day. this cold front will be sliding its way southwards, tending to weaken as it does, just bringing a few showers. we'll see plenty of showers, though, piling into northern and western scotland. a much cooler feel to the day here. further south, some bright or sunny spells. increasingly windy, though, and this is an idea of average gusts through sunday afternoon — quite widely 30 or 40 miles an hour.

for northern and western scotland, gusts of up to 50 or 60 miles an hour and a slightly cooler feel here during sunday afternoon with some blustery showers. further south, still quite mild — ten or 11 celsius. but not for long, because as we go into next week, we start to lose the milder yellow colours. they become confined to south—western fringes and elsewhere, it turns colder again. now, on monday, the winds will slowly ease down, so lighter winds, a mixture of variable cloud and sunny spells. but aside from one or two showers across northern scotland, it should be a dry day. but everywhere starting to feel cooler — temperatures up to between five and nine celsius. and that's how the week continues in the week ahead. the temperatures will be starting to slide away. here is an idea of our city forecast over the next five days. by the end of the week, temperatures not much higher than six or seven celsius. so, for the week ahead, it will turn colder, a return of the overnight frost and some of the showers could be wintry.

good morning. welcome to breakfast with naga munchetty and charlie stayt. 0ur headlines today: more than 40,000 criminals, including burglars and shoplifters, would avoid jail every year under plans to scrap prison sentences of six months or less. 22 days and counting — the longest government shutdown in us history leaves hundreds of thousands of workers without pay, as the row continues over president trump's wall on the mexican border. mainland europe braces itself for more heavy snow as austria suffers their worst conditions for 30 years. the greatest we've ever had. sue barker says andy murray is the best tennis player great britain has ever produced as he prepares to retire later this year. and, flying into the new year, it's indoor bungee jumping. i've been to try the new sport which leaves you in a spin.