hello, good afternoon. this is bbc news with the latest headlines... pressure grows to shut more schools. unions are demanding an immediate two—week closure of all primaries and secondaries in england. we don't want to have to say the schools will close, but our fear is if we don't do something now they are going to have to be closed for much longer, for a much longer period, later on this month. india begins a nationwide mock drill to test its preparedness for mass immunisation against covid—19. french police shut down an illegal rave that had been under way since new year's eve — with more than 2500 partygoers. and wham's last christmas has topped the uk singles chart for the first time, 36 years after it was first released.

good afternoon. there's mounting pressure on the government to close all schools in england for face—to—face teaching for two weeks after the christmas holidays. teaching unions say a move to home learning for most children is necessary to curb the spread of coronavirus. one union has described it as, "the only sensible and credible option." it comes after the education secretary said all london primaries would remain shut on monday, rather than only those in some boroughs. here's our education correspondent, dan johnson. in liverpool, teachers are already at the head of the queue for tests, but there are more and more voices saying schools should not reopen on monday.

it seems to me just to be inexplicable that the government is getting it so badly wrong. we said all schools should be closed for the first two weeks, and we regret to have to say that. we don't want to have to say that schools will close. but ourfear is, if we do not do something now, they will have to be closed for a much longer period later this month. secondary schools will phase the return from the 11th of january, with year groups facing exams this summer in first. the government announced that the majority of england's primary schools would take children back on monday, except in some virus hotspots in the southeast. last night, it had to reverse the patchwork approach in london, so now all the capital's primaries will stay closed. it is good they are safeguarding teachers now, but i think school is the best place for them to be. as soon as they can get back, i think they need to be back. i think the government should have done this a long time ago.

done a harder lockdown, done it sooner. and i think we should have been stricter a bit sooner, really. my wife is a key worker, so it means we have no choice but to send our son in to school. whether it is the right thing or not, or how safe that will be for him, i think is where our concern is now. that we do not have another option for childcare, and we have to put him in, but at what risk? there is a lot for the government to consider here. the new strains, the rise in transmission rates, pressure on the nhs, and the demographics in different communities. it has always said keeping children off school would be a last resort. but there is growing pressure to extend closures beyond london and parts of the south—east, and teachers are calling for decisions to be made quickly, but clearly. we appreciate it is a fast—moving situation. the government must be getting different health advice all of the time. but schools need to plan. we will be opening for quite a few pupils next week, and we will need two rotas of staff — one to deliver to vulnerable

pupils, pupils without decent internet access, pupils with sen needs, and another to deliver high—quality online learning. all of that takes time, and this decision could have been made two weeks ago. teaching unions are discussing the situation this afternoon, and at least one said it isn't safe for staff to be back in the classroom next week. everyone recognises the practical difficulties of learning from home, but that's already a reality for many children in the next fortnight, and possibly longer. dan johnson, bbc news, in south—east london. our political correspondent, helen catt, is with me now. helen, this is a constantly evolving situation, isn't it? we are hearing now for more and more unions, i think pretty much all the teaching union is calling for more action? yes, what we have seen in the last couple of hours is a real ratcheting up couple of hours is a real ratcheting up of the pressure from teaching unions and several now have come out

and called for this short, temporary switch to online learning, promote learning, across england. most of them are going for this idea of a two—week period in which this would happen, so we have got the nus, wt among those. we also know that two unions, the national association of head teachers and the asc l had said this afternoon that earlier this week they started the very early stages of legal action against the government, which covers things like the scientific advice it is basing its reopening recommendations on and its reopening recommendations on and its plans for testing, so that as well. what might prove to be the most decisive intervention actually may come from the national education union, the ntu. that is the uk's largest teaching union, 450,000 members and it covers the majority of teachers. it is advising its primary school members that it is not safe for them to return to the classroom next week and will provide them with a model letter they consent to their head teachers,

which says it is not safe for them to the classroom because, it says, they will be in crowded buildings with no ventilation and no ppe. so if you have lots of teachers who have then saying, we can't come into work, there are huge questions about what that means for the viability of schools to reopen. questions also read what happens with the children of key workers because of course when schools are shut, they are not com pletely when schools are shut, they are not completely shut, they are open for children of key workers, so that is the pressure that is coming from the union side, certainly this afternoon. so that pressure from the ground up might force a political change of direction, which we have already seen, of course, when it comes to education. and a lot of people might be asking the teaching unions, school staff, teachers and other staff, if the government wants to make education the absolute priority that it says it does, why aren't school staff right at the top of the queue for vaccination? so what the government has consistently said on this is it is following a

criteria for vaccinating people set out by thejoint criteria for vaccinating people set out by the joint committee on vaccination and immunisation, which is largely done on an aid group basis. the other thing is of course the department for education says that they are not closing schools because of safety concerns, but they believe there are measures in place which will stop the transmission of the virus or reduce it. they are saying that the reason for closing primary schools in london, which was the decision that sparked all of this off last night, that you turn there, was to try to help suppress there, was to try to help suppress the spread of the virus in a fast changing situation in the community. so that is the argument, that schools themselves are not inherently unsafe, so it does feel like there is a real collision course coming this weekend and of course coming this weekend and of course for many parents it will leave them in limbo as to whether or not they will be able to drop their child off on monday morning or not. thank you very much, helen catt there. with the second highest number of coronavirus infections in the world, india has begun testing its plans for a huge vaccination programme. the aim is to vaccinate as many

as 300 million people by the middle of this year. that's just under a quarter of the nation's entire population. a full—scale rehearsal is now underway, involving tens of thousands of health workers and volunteers across the country. it's intended to plug any gaps in logistics, facilities and training before the vaccination programme begins. it comes as the indian government says it has approved the oxford astrazeneca vaccine for emergency use. 0ur south asia editor, anbarasan ethirajan, has more from delhi. what the government is doing, they have employed over tens of thousands of health care workers and front line staff to make sure that when the vaccine is rolled out that it is smoothly distributed across the country and everyone gets the vaccine and there is no confusion. first and foremost, they have developed this software, so that when they get the list of names that everyone is vaccinated and then the data is uploaded, so that it doesn't crash. that is what they want to check. they did a mini drill a couple of days ago, but this is the

first nationwide drill because they are planning to inoculate around 300 million people. that is a massive exercise for a country like india. this involves hundreds of millions of dollars. and they want to run this operation smoothly. the second thing is also about misconceptions. that is what the indian health minister, harsh vardhan, said, "we also want to make sure there is no glitch. "at the same time, we want to remove any "misconceptions about this vaccine because people might have some sort "of doubt." so there is also a separate room after the vaccine is administered. the doctors will monitor those who have been given the vaccine for any side effects. so for india, it is a massive exercise, a major challenge, also, making sure the cold storage facilities are working. more than 2,500 people have attended an illegal rave in brittany, in defiance of french coronavirus restrictions. it started on new year's eve and went on for more than 30 hours. at least three police officers

were injured in violent clashes with some partygoers. the prefect of brittany said officers were faced with a difficult choice between breaking up the illegal gathering and keeping everyone safe. translation: clearly the organisers were prepared to resort to violence if confronted by law enforcement. when we saw that, we decided to pull them back and control the area. and from 10pm on new year's eve, no vehicle was able to enter the rave site. 0ur correspendent in paris, hugh schofield, explains why the police decided not to shut down the rave. they are obviously under a lot of pressure and the government is under a lot of pressure now because there is an awful lot of criticism about why this rave party was allowed to go on for so long when everyone else is in lockdown, when the police are out enforcing curfews around the country, how come 2,500 people from across france and indeed from abroad were able to dance, party away for 36 hours from thursday evening

until saturday morning? the right, the far right in particular, are very, very critical of the government, which is why they are reacting now by saying when you are at the... ..of the department, saying that it is a very difficult decision. they were faced, not just by ravers, but at the beginning by people who were reacting violently. they say they tried to stop it and after that it became a matter of simply containing it, they thought it was the best decision simply to circumscribe the warehouses where the rave was going on and then fine people, check people as they left and that is what happened. it has now more or less ground to a halt, this rave party, with a large number of fines imposed on people as they left. but you can see where the government finds it all acutely embarrassing because this is like a sort of large number of people thumbing their nose at the government, when everyone else is knuckling under. the us senate has overturned donald trump's presidential veto for the first time, less than three weeks before he leaves office.

in a stinging rebuke, the republican majority senate voted overwhelmingly to approve a defence bill that mr trump had blocked. the wide—ranging bill includes funding for a 3% pay rise for us troops. you're watching bbc news. a number of hospitals across the uk are now facing a worse situation than at the peak of the first wave of the pandemic last year. that's according to the president of the royal college of physicians. professor andrew goddard says nhs staff are braced for a difficult few months as a result of the new variant of the virus. 0ur health reporter, jim reed, has more. the pressure on hospitals in parts of the country shows no sign of easing off. staff are tired, some wards are at limit of their capacity. all hospitals that haven't had the big pressures that they've had in the south—east and london and south wales should expect that it's going to come their way.

this new variant is definitely more infectious, and it's spreading across the whole of the country. it seems very likely that we're going to see more and more cases wherever people work in the uk, and we need to be prepared to stop another prepared for that. another 53,285 virus cases were recorded across the uk yesterday. 616 people lost their lives to the virus. in london, the nightingale hospital is now being ready for action. is now being readied for action. it's thought it will soon start to take non—covid patients, or those recovering from the disease. vaccinations are seen as the way out of this crisis. i million doses of the pfizer—biontech jab have been delivered, but gps are being asked to postpone a second booster shot, giving it after three months rather than three weeks, to roll it out more quickly. senior doctors say one dose is still effective, but for some any delay to that booster is concerning. darren, a pharmacy technician,

suffers from a serious breathing condition, and had his first vaccine dose on boxing day. it would be devastating, another three months, when you're so close, and you think, oh! you know, life... and if that's put off another three months, it's a huge impact. huge. the government says tens of millions of doses of at least two covid vaccines will be available by the spring. getting those to the people who need them the most will be crucial as the nhs fights the winter wave of this pandemic. jim reed, bbc news. the headlines on bbc news... pressure grows to shut more schools. unions are demanding a two—week closures of all primaries and secondaries in england. india begins a nationwide mock drill to test its preparedness for mass immunisation against covid—i9. french police make arrests after more than 2,500

people break virus restrictions at an illegal rave near the city of rennes that began on new year's eve, in defiance of coronavirus precautions. the government is being urged to tackle the growing problem of men offering women rent—free accommodation in return for sex. the housing charity shelter says as many as 30,000 women in the uk may have been propositioned by landlords between march and september, after answering adverts offering a place to live. peter kyle is the labour mp for hove, and shadow ministerfor victims — he's been campaigning for reform around sex for rent offences for several years now. hejoins me now. very good afternoon to you, peter kyle, thanks for your time this afternoon. some of these adverts are really brazen, aren't they? sofa bed free for homeless

girl, free room for one an 18—30, just a quote two of them. really quite shocking when you read them. actually there are people out there who are very good just exploiting people's vulnerabilities. 0ver who are very good just exploiting people's vulnerabilities. over the last few years housing has become a bad ability for a lot of people, so they have been exploiting it. then you add in the covid—i9 period and of course there is an additional layer of air of vulnerability that people are... can be readily exploited, so that is what we are seeing at the moment, so people, young people, but also men as well as women, being attracted and enticed and then exploited by people who are nothing more than sexual predators. is this already an offence? it is an offence, under the 2003 sexual offences act, section 52, but it is a very old—fashioned law doesn't quite relate very well to this, which is why there hasn't been a single prosecution under this because the offence itself is an incitement to prostitution, so it means if the victim of this comes

forward then the victim does become a prostitute in the eyes of the law, so there is a real disincentive in the law as it stands today, so i am asking for a specific sex for rent cause to be added to the law, so that victims are stigmatised for it and are incentivised to come forward and are incentivised to come forward and get the support they need as victims, and to make sure we can start looking up some of the people who are exploiting young people in this way. i will come in to what the government has said to you about this, if anything, so far, but first of all i want to talk about the websites on which these adverts are appearing. clearly there is a duty for them to act. how much progress have you had in conversations with various websites? several years ago i co nta cted various websites? several years ago i contacted all of the websites that had these on them. gumtree is a good example. within one week of receiving my letter, the director of country came and sat with me and spoke about the problem in a week after that they had eradicated it

and they now police their website. craigslist is a problem. it is a us —based californian company and they have refused to engage with me and have refused to engage with me and have a conversation on it, theyjust ignore, either ignore journalists and the media and governments as well. we have got to be really clear on what is happening here. they are profiting from the sexual exploitation of young people in our country. they are acting almost like pimps do, but if the police see someone in the street was pimping out young people for sexual exportation they lock them up and get them off the streets, but because this is happening virtually via this website, craigslist, ministers in the home office act in a completely different way. i don't know why we are not treating these people according to their behaviour. just because they are an online platform, we should treat the fully sexual exploiters that they are... and we have contacted... they are getting money for everyone of these adverts. we have contacted craigslist for comment, but haven't heard back. so what in terms of conversations you have been having

from the government, any progress there in terms of a concerted cross— party there in terms of a concerted cross—party action on this? there in terms of a concerted cross-party action on this? well, when i first started contacting government, which was several years ago now, it was david liddington, who was the secretary of state for justice, and then it was amber rudd who was secretary of state at the time and she set up a work programme and met with me many times to talk about this on a cross—party basis, but as soon as amber rudd stopped being the home secretary, her successors, priti patel etc, scrapped these work programmes and have not met with me on after three yea rs of have not met with me on after three years of having this clarified as an offence, there has not been a single arrest or prosecution or conviction for sex for rent, and as you said in the introduction, there are 30,000 people this year alone who have been propositioned by this and the placement of an ad is a criminal offence, so we can actually prevent people being subjected to the exportation. and sometimes modern

enslavement that this actually entails. so what i'm calling for, really quickly, is for enforcement to start happening now, for a clarification in the law in the stigmatisation for a new clause and then finally for craigslist, the platform which is facilitating the sexual exportation of young people in our country, to be brought to heel and treated the criminal activity that they are perpetrating and profiting from. it is absolutely hideous, isn't it, to exploit people in this way? people who, as you pointed out, are under additional pressure this year because of the pandemic, many with a loss of income and financially and in many other ways very vulnerable. is this a problem that you have come across in the area you represent? it is. it is an area which, an area of exportation that has emerged in recent yea rs exportation that has emerged in recent years because areas that have a housing crisis, so short supply, high costs, then you add in university towns because you have a large number of young people migrating towards it and then the third element is actually ubiquitous

access to online platforms such as craigslist, so you see places like brighton and hove and bristol and canterbury, london, edinburgh, cardiff and bristol, all of these places are really suffering as a result of this. but these are criminal perpetrators, these are people who exploit the young people and they are very, very good at being manipulative, so whenever you see a new trend, whether it be the pandemic or a housing crisis, these people will find and exploit all of these opportunities to make people vulnerable. whenever they see a fun ability and people they will exploited, which is why we need to really clarify the law. i am deeply upset that the home office has shrugged this to one side. they have refused to engage with me, they have refused to engage with me, they have refused to engage with me, they have refused to enforce and they are refusing to do the one thing that could really protect young people. this isn't necessarily the young people of the kind of young people from a certain background you would expect to slip into this exportation. we are talking about young people going to towns, experiencing freedoms for the very

first time, geographical freedoms, social freedom, and yes, first time, geographical freedoms, socialfreedom, and yes, sexual freedom as well and at that particular point in their lives people from all sorts of backgrounds are unknowingly vulnerable to the type of predatory behaviour we are seeing at the moment. and it needs government and the home office to really ta ke government and the home office to really take it seriously. peter kyle, mp, thank you very much. peter kyle, mp, thank you very much. peter kyle, the labour mp for hove there. today marks the 50th anniversary of the ibrox disaster, when 66 people were crushed to death leaving a football match between rangers and celtic in glasgow. it was one of scotland's worst peacetime tragedies, as andrew picken reports. 1971 was only two days old when rangers met celtic at ibrox. the game was dull and many fans started leaving before late goals for either side during the last five minutes. commentator: that's as near as we'll get today! the day became infamous for the deadly crush which developed on a stairway at the rangers end of the stadium. among the victims were five

teenagers from markinch in fife, who never came home. we were all together, just joking, having a wee bit of banter. there was no animosity because they were rangers supporters and we were celtic supporters, there was nothing like that. we were pals. celtic fans peter leigh and shane fenton were among those who left early that day. it wasn't until we got back to kincardine, where the supporters used to stop on the way back and the older boys would go into the pub for a pint or whatever, they came back out of the pub and onto the bus, telling us what they'd seen on the television, there had been an incident at ibrox, there had been fatalities at the rangers end of the ground. that was the first of us knowing about anything happening at all. the boys were among the 66 dead and 145 injured. 50 years on, modern crowd science

has given us a better understanding of what went wrong. in a crowd that's packed to the levels of density that eyewitnesses were commenting on at ibrox, and on a slope, then you get the gravitational force added to the fall, and as each person falls onto others then you get a cascade dynamic. in the wake of the disaster, rangers rebuilt the stadium, making it one of the safest in europe. across scotland on january 2nd, people will mark the 50th anniversary of the ibrox disaster. andrew picken, bbc news. employers in all sectors have been cutting hundreds of thousands of jobs, as the economy struggles against covid—19 — leaving an estimated 1.7 million people out of work. our business correspondent, sarah corker, caught up with some of them. three people who all lost theirjobs because of the pandemic. 0lympia, rebecca and heather

were facing the toughestjobs market for a generation. we've got no money coming in, so we'll survive as long as we can. i first met 0lympia and herfamily back in may. she was touring as part of a circus troupe when the first lockdown restrictions came in and they were stranded on morecambe seafront for months. with no money coming in, it was a real struggle. it's fear. fear that... that i might not ever be able to do what i love again, which is perform, in the circus, because we might not recover. since then, things have got better. 0lympia's moved in with her mum in rotherham to save money, and wait until they‘ re allowed to perform again. financially it's been a big strain. it's been massive. like i say, we normally work from february to november, so about 85—90% of our shows were just cancelled or stopped or postponed until next year. five months on morecambe prom,

relying on the food bank to feed you guys — what was that experience like? it was really hard. coming to terms with the fact that i had to rely on other people to eat and to live. in west yorkshire, rebecca was finding competition forjobs fierce. how many roles have you applied for? i don't think i could possibly tell you. she'd worked in communications at a high street bank for a decade when she was made redundant in the summer. with every application that goes out the door, it does kind of chip away at your confidence and how you feel. it's already dog eat dog. it's only going to get worse. three months on, she's now working for a shed company. and it's been really busy, hasn't it? it's completely booming at the minute, the shed industry, believe it or not. it's a new world for me, it's a million miles away from banking. what's it like after so many months not working, having a regular wage aagain? it was a massive confidence boost.

there's no shame in saying that although, yes, you have your friends and family and things, when you have a job, you feel like you have purpose, so it felt like i had purpose again. financially, things are going to get better for me. some of those in their 50s and 60s, like heatherfrom prestwich near manchester, felt they were being overlooked. the best one is "you're overqualified," which doesn't make any sense to me, because if you're qualified to this level then you can do anyjob up until that level. so being overqualified doesn't mean a thing, except it's another way of saying you're too old. heather is still on the job hunt but enjoying having more time exercising in the local park. did you think it would take this long and it would be this hard? um, yeah, basically. you know, i've been here before, in much better times. there are obviously a lot more people unemployed, and because there's more people unemployed, there are fewerjobs

at the moment because a lot of people are on furlough still. but she is determined to get back into work. i don't relax. i'm not a relaxed sort of person, i can't do nothing. so for some, the search for work continues. but the arrival of an effective vaccine has brought renewed optimism for 2021. sarah corker, bbc news. it is 2:28pm. it's taken 36 years. but finally, wham's festive hit, last christmas, has made it to the number one slot. despite its enduring popularity, the song was held off the top spot in 1984 — by band aid's do they know it's christmas. dj richard blade explained what wham's belated success means to him. he first interviewed the band in 1982. # last christmas i gave you my heart # but the very next day you gave it away...#

i mean, it's one of those tracks that people, when you hear it, you think about george, you think about wham, and you think about the time of year, it's the perfect track. # last christmas i gave you my heart. ..# i was really shocked, actually, it had never been to number one on the uk charts before. it's one of those songs that people request all the time because they love wham, they love george. i was very, very lucky to know wham from their earliest days. when they first came over in 1982, i had them on my radio show. they did their first ever live gigs with me at the beginning of 1983. i took them to the 321 club in santa monica, california, and that was the first time they played live when they lip synced to young guns and bad boys. and then they did it the next night at the club i was doing in westwood. # well, it's been a year, it doesn't surprise me...# the uk charts, to be

number one on the bbc at christmas is so important, and i think it could be starting a tradition because, i mean, they have got the movie behind it, last christmas, they've got the song, why not george michael and wham at number one? it should be a tradition. # the very next day you gave it away.# that snow takes us neatly to the weather forecast. now the weather with helen willetts. good afternoon. with the cold weather remaining for the rest of the weekend at least, the showers that are coming along are falling as snow over the hills but even at lower levels, and so ice is a real concern because it is bitter out there. even with the sunshine, temperatures are barely reaching more than 3—4 degrees above freezing, and we have seen quite a number of showers around. so, under the cover of darkness, once again, temperatures will plummet. and it looks as if the showers will continue, as well,