said ”r if‘ai‘ii said that it ”r if‘ai‘ii 1th minutes has said that it will give formal notification of the drone strike to congress, which is required 48 hours after the president has authorised anything that could put american soldiers into harms way or lead to war. now, there will be a portion of that notification that is expected to detail some of the classified intelligence that led to that decision to kill qassem soleimani. it will also lay out the legal justification for that. here, the support for that action is pretty much split down party lines, republicans think that it was warranted, it was a very good idea and democrats on the other hand are saying that the president should have consulted them first and that they should have been asked to actually authorise this in advance. meanwhile, mike pompeo, has been trying to shore up support overseas,

he has been talking to his allies, us allies in the region including the israeli prime minister, but he said he has been very disappointed with the lack of support from the europeans. of course the big question is, what will iran do next? to that end, a lot of major cities here in the us have been beefing up their security, but they say there is no specific threat that they are yet aware of. jane, thank you very much. jane o'brien in washington. the queen has sent a message of condolence to australia, saying she is "deeply saddened" by the bushfires. a number of new fires have taken hold in the state of new south wales, and some residents have been warned it's too late to leave. since late september, 23 people have died. shaimaa khalil reports. it promised to be a day of danger and these bushfires have lived up to every emergency warning. the hellish combination of high temperatures, strong winds and dry conditions have made some of these blazes too fast to control. in kangaroo island, a famous

holiday destination, a couple died trying to escape the inferno. they were found near their car. in victoria, the blazes continued to rage in the east. evacuees were getting ready to board the navy ship taking them to safety. a moment of relief, after a harrowing few days stranded in the fire—ravaged town. our only option was to go down to the foreshore and sit it out and at one stage we had 25 fire trucks with us. sorry. the prime minister, scott morrison, has said 3000 reserve troops will be deployed to help tackle the raging bush fires. the first time this has happened in australia's history. but this video he posted on twitter, showing the government's response, accompanied by upbeat music, drew angry criticism. many accusing him of using

this catastrophe as a pr opportunity. this gusty wind is now picking up very strongly and it is bringing heavy smoke to southern new south wales, here on the coast. this is what the firefighters are dreading, because it fans these blazes making them unstoppable, but it also spreads those embers, making the fire behaviour quite unpredictable. the howling winds and billowing smoke were enough of an alarm for people in this holiday park in this coastal town. some were hosing their cabins, others took to the beach to seek refuge. this woman did not take any chances. she gathered her family, her pets and her son ‘s wheelchair and headed straight to the shore. ijust got a phone call from a friend, whose brother is a police officer and he said, get the hell out. we have just had the police come up our street and said that they expected it to impact our houses in the next 20 to 30 minutes. the authorities have warned that the situation is still volatile

and could get worse. a foreboding and now a familiar message to the people in australia. shaimaa khalil, bbc news, on the southern coast of new south wales. china has sacked its most senior official in charge of relations with hong kong. wang zhimin was the director of beijing's liaison office in the territory, which has seen six months of often violent pro—democracy protests. his dismissal is being seen as a sign of china's dissatisfaction with how events have been handled there. two lorry drivers have died in a crash on the mi. the motorway was closed for hours in both directions between flitwick and milton keynes after the incident just before 7 this morning. it was reopened northbound this afternoon, but police say the southbound carriageway will remain shut until further notice. the shadow brexit secretary, sir keir starmer, is the latest mp to enter the contest to succeed jeremy corbyn as labour leader. he will officially launch his campaign in stevenage tomorrow.

0ur political correspondent jonathan blake is here. jonathan, how is the leadership race shaping up? well, the field is growing, five mps have now said they will stand and there are already some clear differences. sir keir starmer the latest to set out his pitch to labour party members are giving in a piece in the sunday mirror tomorrow that labour cannot hide its head in the sand and needs to rebuild fast. in an apparent pitch tojeremy corbyn supporters, he said that the party must not lose sight of its values or retreat from the radicalism of the last few years. there is no mention of brexit at all in his pet and as a leading remain campaignerand in his pet and as a leading remain campaigner and someone who argued ha rd campaigner and someone who argued hard for a second referendum he may be seen as out of step with the leave voting constituencies and the voters who turned their back on the party at the election. 0thers voters who turned their back on the party at the election. others in the running, jess phillips, lisa nandy have argued that the party does need to change direction and choose someone as a to change direction and choose someone as a leader who is more in

touch with their working—class support base. the shadow business secretary rebecca long—bailey is yet to officially declare but she has long been seen as a natural successor to jeremy corbin, long been seen as a natural successor tojeremy corbin, emily thornberry and clive lewis in the mix. the timetable is yet to be finalised, but expect around 12 weeks of debate. jonathan blake, thank you very much. councils in england have urged the courts to impose biggerfines to tackle the growing problem of fly—tipping. the local government association says there were more than a million offences last year, but only five per cent of fines were above a thousand pounds. richard galpin reports. this cctv footage captures the moment a lorry starts illegally dumping huge amounts of waste in the middle of the night. the premises of a small company, used by the fly—tippers to get rid of the rubbish. in recent years, fly—tipping has been getting steadily worse. blighting the environment, causing pollution and threatening public health and wildlife.

it tends to be businesses who are trying to avoid paying the cost of disposal. of course the rural areas tend to be the areas that are particularly badly affected, private landowners or public land, people will find quiet places to dump, sometimes quite large loads. fly—tipping in england was at a comparative low ofjust over 700,000 incidents back in financial year 2012—2013. but by 2018, there had been a sharp rise to more than a million incidents. putting local councils under more pressure. that is because they are involved in clearing up and investigating the incidents. richard galpin, bbc news. sir rod stewart has been charged by police in florida, after he allegedly punched a security guard at a hotel.

a police report says the altercation occurred after the singer and his son failed to gain access to a private event on new year's eve. he'll appear in court next month. with all the sport now, here's karthi gna nasegaram at the bbc sport centre. good evening.... martine. good evening. england's cricketers staged a determined fightback on day two of their second test against south africa. ben stokes took four superb catches as south africa slipped to 215 for 8 at the close of play. they trail england's first innings total by 54 runs. adam wild reports. in cape town, a beautiful, warm day. watching on, english knights were heating up, too. into battle once more, jimmy anderson. but after yesterday's batting problems, today's opening stand was england's last and anderson didn't. not for long, anyway. gone! all out for 269. now, it may be one of the world's most picturesque grounds but right then for england, things weren't looking great. that was until stuart broad found

the edge of pieter malan's bat. the ball, the game, suddenly moving at quite some pace. time, then, to get a grip of it. ben stokes, another brilliant catch from him. zubayr hamza the latest batsman to wonderjust how he does it. and while south africa were still working it out, stokes caught hold of another. england's day brighter by the moment. rassie van der dussen too caught by an england hand but wait. replays showed a no ball. south africa with a roar of reprieve. van der dussen, along with dean elgar, added more than a hundred. still, fortune remains fickle and with stokes, england really are in great hands. here he finally got van der dussen. moments later, he caught dwaine pretorius as well. four catches — quite a day for him and for england. jimmy anderson striking with the final ball and celebrations really started.

england's day for england's knights. adam wild, bbc news. the third round of the fa cup is the point at which premier league and championship teams join the competition. it's time to pop out of the room if you don't want to know what happened in today's games as match of the day fa cup highlights follow soon on bbc one. the result of the day came at vicarage road where tranmere rovers, who are struggling in league one, came back from 3—0 down, to draw 3—3 with the premier league side, watford. paul mullin scored the penalty equaliser to make sure his side got a replay. a mixture of youth and experience helped rochdale earn their equaliser in a 1—1 draw against newcastle united. the league one side's 40—year—old substitute, aaron wilbra ham, scored in the 79th minute, the pass to him coming from 17—year—old luke matheson. all of the day's results and the goals are on the bbc sport website. these are selected results. two premier league sides were knocked out of the third round today — brighton and aston villa. holders, manchester city

beat port vale 4—i. hull city came from behind to beat rotherham 3—2. in rugby union's premiership, saracens scored ten tries as they thrashed worcester by 62 points to 5. it's saracens sixth win in eight games but they are still only on minus 7 points after receiving a 35—point deduction for breaching salary cap regulations. gloucester needed a strong second half to beat bath by 29 points to 15. ruan ackerman's try gave gloucester the bonus point victory as they move up to third place in the table. while second from bottom of the table leicester defeated bristol 31—18. and in the proi4, two late tries gave glasgow warriors a bonus point victory over benetton. glasgow ran in six tries and are in third place in conference a, which means they stay in touch with the play—off places. that's all from the bbc sport centre for now, martine. you can see more on all of today's stories on the bbc news channel.

that's all from me. goodnight.

hello. this is bbc news. let's get more on our main story, that two mortar rounds have landed near the us embassy in baghdad and rockets have hit a base housing american troops following the assassination of an iranian military commander, general qasem soleimani, by a us drone attack outside baghdad airport on thursday. thousands of people have taken part in his funeral procession in the iraqi capital. here, the defence secretary, ben wallace, has said the royal navy

will be accompanying ships through the strait of hormuz — a vital route for global oil supplies off iran's south coast. jarret blanc was the state department coordinator for the implementation of the iran nuclear deal at the us department of state under president 0bama. he's now a senior fellow at the carnegie endowment for international peace. it's very difficult to see how things de—escalate. one of both sides need to stop making escalatory decisions. at every moment over the last couple of years, both sides have chosen high risk strategy, that is certainly the case against soleimani. so either the iranians need to step back or the us needs to absorb the retaliation without taking the next step. and when you were within the state department,

how much of a concern was qasem soleimani? i think that a mistake is being made here in the personalisation of him. 0bviously, he was an important, influential and effective operator within iran's regional policy and so to that extent there was concern about him. but the revolutionary guard corp — these are institutions that can survive without a single leader. so the real concern within the 0bama administration and everybody should have are about the country's policy are not about a single individual who as important as he was is absolutely replaceable. but given this general‘s role in bolstering and in some cases orchestrating militias

against the region, do you think that, if you put aside the issues of revenge and retaliation, is the region a safer place, as president trump argues, without him? his career his and ability to influence the region largely stemmed from us failed interventions, most importantly the iraq war. if we had not destabilised the region, he would not have had the field in which he successfully played. it's not credible that further us interventions are likely to lead to a greater stabilisation. i do not even think the trump administration can say with a straight face that they think that the region is safer

or more stable today. increasing security arrangements to get out of the area, all of that is proof that they know that the situation is more unstable and more dangerous today than it was three days ago, and that's certainly the case if you look further down to a few months as tensions between the us and iran go from a shadow conflict into a more open conflict. and we'll find out how this story and many others are covered in tomorrow's front pages at 10:30pm and 11:30pm in the papers. 0ur guestsjoining me tonight are john rentoul, chief political commentator at the independent, and benedicte paviot, uk correspondent for france 24. the death toll in the worst flooding to hit indonesia's capital, jakarta, in over a decade has risen to 53, according to the kyodo news agency. indonesian authorities

say over 170,000 people are taking refuge in shelters. the wet weather is forecast to continue until sunday with the possibility of more extreme rains in the coming weeks. china has sacked the head of its hong kong liaison office, wang zhimin, after almost seven months of violent clashes between police and pro—democracy demonstrators. the liaison office has been criticised in mainland china for misjudging the political situation in the territory. the shadow brexit secretary, sir keir starmer, hasjoined the race to become the next labour leader. sir keir, who's a prominent remain supporter, will launch his leadership bid in stevenage tomorrow, calling on the party to listen to voters in order to regain their trust. he's the fifth mp to enter the contest with prominent backbenchers lisa nandy and jess phillips also announcing their leadership bids in the past 24 hours. theyjoin the shadow treasury minister, clive lewis, and the shadow foreign secretary,

emily thornberry, who have previously announced their intention to stand. earlier, i spoke to stephen bush, the political editor at the new statesman. he had this take on the contenders. it's a crowded field at the moment, and not all the candidates will make it to the ballot because the hurdle to get on the ballot is large. it is very obviously keir starmer at the moment. notjust because of his background, but he is fighting a very adept campaign, doing everything he needs to do to woo labour members, the most socially concerned, socially liberal, deeply liberal about the consequences of another five years of the conservative

government and a return to what they see as the bad old days, and at the moment keir starmer is saying to people, i can win, but i will not throw the baby out with the bath water. and thus far, no one else has got close to coming up with a message that both marries the need to win the labour leadership election but in a way that leaves them with plenty of room for manoeuvre in terms of winning a general election afterwards. what is interesting about the range of potential leadership candidates that have declared so far is it is impossible at this stage to know which direction the labour party will go in, depending on the outcome of this race, because we have some who were london based and others who are making a virtue of being away from london and speaking to voters further into the country, and then we also have across the political spectrum those who are closely allied withjeremy corbyn and further left

and more centrist candidates. the london stuff is a red herring. islington is the borough of tony blair and jeremy corbyn, stoke newington is the constituency of diane abbott and yvette radically different home secretaries and labour leaders, but we do not yet know what the direction of the labour party will take. not least because all of the candidates that i would consider to have a decent chance of winning are in different ways fighting, saying, i will not jump many of these policies. but in different ways keir starmer and other candidates i can plausibly see winning. clive lewis has the potential

to do well if he gets onto the ballot but i cannot see... he is running a campaign to say, i ought to be in the shadow cabinet. he is a big asset to the left of the labour party but i do not think he will get onto the ballot this time. police have begun a murder investigation after a man was stabbed to death in north london. the man in his 30s was attacked in finsbury park yesterday evening. friends at the scene said he worked as a food delivery moped rider. no one has been arrested. there are calls for a review of surrogacy laws to allow a child's intended parents to be recognised as such at the time of their birth. currently, parents have to apply to the courts for a child to be legally recognised as their own, which often doesn't happen. bbc scotland's carole erskin reports. they‘ re really cute.

for laura and stephen, penelope is their miracle baby. ten years ago, laura was diagnosed with chronic myeloid leukaemia. she manages her illness with daily chemotherapy tablets, but knew she always wanted a family. in 2016, she began trying for her own child. when i was first diagnosed and i went to hospital, i had a list of questions i wanted to ask. you know, am i going to die? am i going to lose my hair? will i be able to have children? and the cancer increased and increased quite rapidly and, when i went to hospital, a nurse she said to me, "if you did get pregnant, and the cancer continued to increase, it could get to five or six months into the pregnancy and we would have to decide whether we save your life or save the baby's." and that was the most devastating blow. i felt really, really useless, and that cancer had not only taken a kind of chunk of my life — because obviously it plays on your mind that what is my life expectancy going to be? — but that it had played with my chance of having a family.

and, yeah, thankfully, there was someone there to help with that. that someone was her sister—in—law, jayne. i am blessed to have a family and i know what the feeling is like to have your child and i wanted that for my brother and sister—in—law and we would do anything, as we have done, to make that happen for them. i don't see her as my child. ithink, if i had had issues and had the baby blues or post—natal depression, then, as we talked with the counsellor, then maybe surrogacy may not have been a good option for me, but i have had no problems before. penelope's special book of herjourney. i think we always felt it was important to do so that we could write down everything we were feeling and all of the states we had gone through so that when she is old enough, maybe five years old or so, we would be able to tell her how she came into the world.

baby penelope jayne tessa was born on november 23rd after being conceived by ivf on the nhs. penelope is biologically ours, so i had to go through ivf and have my eggs removed. jayne had to have injections herself as well, so there were two of us going through that and, for me to watch jayne having to go through that and know it is for us as well was really tough to take. we had a lot of ups and downs. it's not easy at all. it did not work the first time, there was a lot of upset and, actually, at the point when jayne came to tell us that she was actually pregnant, i think i had given up hope. i really thought it was not going to happen. jayne arrived at our door with a positive pregnancy test and that was just the most incredible moment of my life. in the eyes of the law, jayne is penelope's mum and laura and stephen can apply to change this when she is six weeks old and officially become recognised as a

parents. for them all, the long journey to get to here has been worth it, and it means laura has more reasons than ever to stay positive about her own health. it gives me something to live for, more than ever now, so i am determined to just carry on and stay as healthy as i can for her. it's honestly been the most wonderful, wonderful thing, so we're eternally grateful forjayne, sorry... but we all love her, so... you know... she is special. yeah. a portrait of the queen and her three heirs to the throne has been released to mark the start of the new decade. the photograph, which was taken the week before christmas, shows the prince of wales, the duke of cambridge at buckingham palace. it is the second official portrait of the four generations of royals together. our first look at tomorrow's

papers follows shortly. first, matt taylor has the weather for the week ahead. hello there. it might not have been sunny everywhere, but saturday was broadly speaking a quiet day of weather, certainly compared with some of what is to come. there are lots of weather fronts waiting out in the atlantic, but they are currently being held off by this area of high pressure keeping things largely dry for many of us through sunday, but a brisk south—westerly wind is delivering a lot of cloud which will be producing the odd spot of rain or drizzle across hills and coasts in the west. some slightly more persistent rain from this frontal system across north—west scotland but, for eastern scotland, some parts of england and wales, we will see a little bit of brightness, some spells of sunshine and what will be quite a windy day but also a mild day, especially in the northern half of the uk. as we go through sunday night, still some rain moving across northern scotland. a lot of cloud elsewhere, some clear breaks but, as we head on into monday, that area of high pressure that

has been protecting us from these frontal systems, well, the high slips away and this weather front will work in from the atlantic. we see some outbreaks of pretty heavy rain, actually, tracking eastwards during monday. very brisk winds along the line of this frontal system. the rain not really getting into east anglia or the south—east until after nightfall and, behind that rain band, things turned temporarily just a little bit drier, but it won't last. as we go into tuesday, a strong and powerfuljet stream blowing across the atlantic is going to spin up a deep area of low pressure just here to the north—west of the british isles. while the centre of the low will stay a long way from our shores, from our shores, you can see, on the southern flank, a lot of white lines, a lot of isobars squashing together. it is going to be very windy, very wet for some but also really mild, this wedge of mild air sitting in place across the british isles. so we will see some outbreaks of heavy rain, most especially across scotland, northern ireland, parts of northern england, not as much rain further south. not as windy here, either, but, further north, we'll see wind gusts of 60—70 mph or more in scotland.

also quite gusty i think to the eastern side of the pennines, but very mild — temperatures 13—15d, very unusual for this time of year. as we move out of tuesday into wednesday, this cold front will slip its way south—eastwards. that will bring something a little bit cooler and, actually, wednesday is our chance to draw breath, our window of drier weather with some spells of sunshine. there will still be some showers around, some of these showers wintry over high ground in scotland because of that slightly coolerair but, behind me, here comes our next frontal system, another area of low pressure spinning up, which is going to head our way as we get on into thursday. at this stage, this one doesn't look like being quite as windy, but i think it will be fairly blustery out there. we'll see some outbreaks of rain, perhaps some snow, at least for a time across high ground in scotland as some cold air tries to mix its way in from the north. temperatures during thursday afternoon in double digits across southern parts, but 7 degrees there in stornoway, 9 in glasgow. and what about further ahead

as we head into next weekend? well, the jet stream still sending weather systems in our direction, but notice the way in which the jet stream angles itself towards the north—west of the uk, so that's where we are going to see the wettest of the weather, and this weather setup would allow high pressure across the near continent to try to edge back in our direction. the extent to which it will do that at this stage is a little unclear but, for some of us at least, there will be some drier weather for a time, particularly in the south and the east. further north and west, more rain and gales. generally, it will be mild. that's all from me. bye for now.

hello. this is bbc news. we'll be taking a look at tomorrow mornings papers in a moment — first the headlines. two mortar rounds land near the us embassy in baghdad — as huge crowds join funeral processions in iraq, for iran's top military commander, killed by a us drone strike. iranian president rouhani visited the dead general‘s family — promising that americans will feel the impact of their actions for years ahead. the queen sends her condolences to the people of australia, as fears grow that high winds and temperatures will push bushfires