i mean, with my personality, i think you're starting off on the wrong foot. singing and songwriting and performing, it shouldn't be about a scoreboard. # i'm up in space, man...# mark savage, bbc news. no pressure! time for a look at the weather. here's susan. no pressure on you either, what are you showing us today? it is no pressure on you either, what are you showing us today?— you showing us today? it is all about high _ you showing us today? it is all about high pressure. - you showing us today? it is all about high pressure. that - you showing us today? it is all about high pressure. that is l you showing us today? it is all| about high pressure. that is so you showing us today? it is all- about high pressure. that is so bad it was painful! it is really dry. we have been going on about dry pressure for days, weeks, and we will still be going on about it for a few days yet as well. very dry this april widely across the uk, but particularly for southern counties of england. 70% down on april rainfall so far and there is not much to correct that through the remainder of this month. why? it is

that high pressure, it isjust sitting there, stopping any weather fronts coming in and stopping any meaningful shower is really bubbling up. some signs things might get moving a little more into the first week of may. here is the high, parked up across the uk. various weather systems try to topple in around it. the signs of anything having any great success perhaps saturday, this area of low pressure coming into the north—west. but these highs are stubborn so that is by no means a given in terms of its detail. the rest of today, quite a lot of cloud in the eastern half of the uk, some drifting westwards. best of the brightest brightness in the western coastal counties. isolated shower may be in northern ireland, may be for the mountains of wales and the malls of the south—west but overall, a dry picture. dry overnight, cloud in the east will hold the temperature is about the further west you are, clearer skies, light about the further west you are, clearerskies, light winds, about the further west you are, clearer skies, light winds, talking about a fast and it's the last week of april but if you have your

bedding plants out, that is something you will want to be worrying about. thursday, it dawned bright and chilly, eastern area starting with some cloud coming in off the north sea like today which will trickle westwards. scotland and northern ireland bubbling up some cloud in the afternoon, maybe squeezing a shower out but over all, still looking very dry. perhaps degree or warmer than today. friday, perhaps not quite as cold first thing that i think a thrust initially possibly the northern ireland and northern england. again, cloud drifting westwards across england and wales, perhaps up to 17 for the likes of cardiff and glasgow thru friday afternoon. we have a three day weekend coming up. we will, as i said, i think see some rain in the north—west through saturday but it is running into an area of high pressure so if anything, it looks like that i think anything, it looks like that i think a thrust initially possibly the northern ireland and northern england. again, cloud drifting westwards across england and wales, perhaps up to 17 for the likes of cardiff and glasgow through friday afternoon. we have a three day

weekend coming up. we will, as i said, i think see some rain in the north—west through saturday but it is running into an area of high pressure so if anything, it looks like tatlot will get killed off by sunday custom saturday, some rain for northern ireland and scotland, sunday perhaps showers, further south what is left of the low. bank holiday monday looks fine. perhaps a little more rain on tuesday that there is again, high pressure, we cannot escape it. first sign of things getting more mobile is the end of next week. so if you are bored of us talking about dry weather, apologies, we will probably be at it for another ten days yet. i am quite happy, thank you very much, susan. that's all from the bbc news at one — so it's goodbye from me and on bbc one, we nowjoin the bbc�*s good afternoon, it'sjust after 1.30pm and here's your latest sports news. liverpool take on villareal in the champions league semifinal at anfield later as their quest for a quadruple continues. the reds have already won

the league cup, they're into the fa cup final, and they're just one point behind manchester city at the top of the premier league. jurgen klopp may not be looking quite so relaxed later. in villareal they face a formidable foe. the europa league champions knocked out bayern munich in the last round. both side's face a tall order to match the drama of wednesday night as manchester city beat real madrid 4—3. but the liverpool boss is cherishing the opportunity of making a third champions league final in five season. this is absolutely special to be part of the semifinal, it's crazy, it's crazy, really. it's a massive game. so many coaches, so many players out there try and work their socks off their whole life and have no chance to be close to a semifinal. we are there so we have to cherish it, we have to appreciate it, of course, but we have to enjoy it as well.

ronnie o'sullivan has moved a step closer to equalling a world snooker championship record. he's the first man into the semi—finals at the crucible,after comfortably beating scotland's stephen maguire13—5. if o'sullivan wins the title it'll be his seventh, which will take him level with stephen hendry as the most successful player in the tournament's history. o'sullivan spoke to the bbc alongside hendry after the match. we all aspire to be like stephen, he set the benchmark for everybody. davis did it but he took it to another level, we are alljust trying to be like him, all—time legend greatest player, he was the tiger woods of snooker dominating the sport. it would be an honour for me to share seven because he has taken it to a new level. the other match is a real battle between two former champions, judd trump and stuart bingham. trump led 5—3 overnight but bingham won the first four frames this morning to take a 7—5 lead. however, the second half of the session went trump's way and it's now 8—all. they resume at 7 o'clock.

there's coverage from sheffield on bbc two, as well as the bbc sport website and app. promoter barry hearn says he doesn't believe tyson fury will retire, and he expects him to fight the winner of the anthonyjoshua — oleksandr usyk rematch, which is taking place injuly. hearn says a fury—joshua fight would be a bout like no other and the prize money on offer would be too much for fury to refuse. of course he doesn't mean it, have you any idea how much money there is on that fight, 100 million plus. it is one more fight to make sure your family are protected forever. he is a great entertainer, deserves everything he gets and that is only one way to beat tyson fury and you have to attack him and 0kamoto stop at turns up and uses the same tactics it is the same result.

against tyson fury is not as big as tyson fury against a], that is on another planet. that's all the sport for now. you can find more on all those stories on the bbc sport website. that's bbc dot c0 dot uk slash sport people wanting to apply for a new passport are being warned not to leave it until the last minute. the passport office says the delays are because of a large backlog after brexit and covid. the prime minister is warning the service could be privatised if things do not improve. the shadow home secretary raised the issue of passport delays with an urgent question in the house of commons this afternoon my my constituents fear the honeymoon may be wrecked because passports have arrived even though the applied and plenty of time, people cancelling jobs, parents tried to get horny fun a sick child waiting since january, get horny fun a sick child waiting sincejanuary, huge get horny fun a sick child waiting since january, huge delays by

parents trying to get a holiday for a sick child. the online service has no appointments anywhere in any country people cannot get absent travel to go to funerals or urgent events. the minister has said more passports have been processed and thatis passports have been processed and that is clearly welcome, clearly not enough. this demand was totally predictable, the home office was asked in 2020 and 2021what predictable, the home office was asked in 2020 and 2021 what it was doing to plan but people are already losing holidays, trips to see loved ones and thousands of pounds they have spent in good faith because of the like of planning at the passport office and the home office which is a state home office for people this summer. the home office minister, kevin foster, says the government is taking action to improve theissues there are over 4000 staff in

passport production rose in riyadh in process of recruiting another 700. 90% of applications were completed within six weeks. the standard is ten weeks. my advice to anyone who is looking to go on holiday this summer is exactly what i said of the other day, get your application in now. we are making a range of efforts, stafford working weekends and incentivise over time and we are confident we will not need to change the ten week target. as i have made the point, this is a record level of demand and a record output, fat and excess of what we have seen for what and for those who have seen for what and for those who have compelling and compassionate reasons to travel such as funerals or family ill—health we will expedite their applications.

ourgains as our gains as medically, to pay in roubles fs is not foreseen and the contract is a breach of our sanctions. we have 97% of all contracts that explicitly stipulate payment in euros or dollars so it is very clear and the request from the russian side to pay in roubles as a unilateral decision and not according to the contracts. companies with such contracts should not exceed to the russian demands, this would be a breach of the sanctions and a high risk for the companies.

russia's war in ukraine is now in its third month and has claimed thousands of lives. memorials to the two countries' shared history used to be found across ukraine. but, since the illegal annexation of crimea, they ve been coming down — a mark of a fraying friendship. from kyiv, joe inwood has more. for much of the 20th—century these were two countries under the ussr and you certainly saw soviet statues and you certainly saw soviet statues and icons and after the illegal annexation of crimea many bust started to come down and street names were changed but there was one statue, one major edifice that stood under something called the french option, a huge titanium structure and under that where these two monumental statues of impossibly chiselled joint soviet workers, one with a bare chest, supposed to signify the fertility and venture between russia and ukraine, of course that has been shattered and yesterday i was there as both statues were ta ken yesterday i was there as both

statues were taken down. for 40 years, this statue has stood in central kyiv — a monument to friendship between the peoples of ukraine and russia. but now, after two months of all out war and eight years of fighting in the east of the country, there is not much left of that friendship. and so the city council have decided that this statue needs to come down. i spoke to the mayor of the city, vitali klitschko. today, russia destroyed the normal life of millions of ukrainians and destroyed the peace in europe. and that's why we make demolition of this moment and this place, this place — her name, the place of friendship between russia and ukraine. it's no friendship any more. the russians, by himself, destroyed everything. and to talk about the war more widely, how do you feel? how do you feel about how your country is fighting at this point? we defend, actually,

the future of our children. do you feel the difference with the russian soldier fighting for the money? we're fighting for the children. for our children. and that's why i'm more than sure who wins this war. definitely win. of course, everyone knows you. finally, as a world champion boxer, presumably you wouldn't mind getting in a ring with vladimir putin. i'd never have the idea to go inside the ring, especially... no reason to fighting with old and unhealthy people. now getting these statues down is not easy. they've tried to lift them off. one of the heads actually came off as a result. so they're angle grinding the base, but they've decided they have to come down and remove a reminder of a soviet past and be replaced with something that represents an independent future for ukraine. cheering

school exams in scotland are back for the first time since covid. more than 128—thousand pupils will take part over the next five weeks, but for many it will be the first time they've sat a formal exam. we've been speaking to three students in north lanarkshire to find out how they're feeling about going into the exam hall. so i'm ewan. i'm in year 6 and i'm studying higher geography, higher position, advanced, higher marks. i'm chloe. this year i'm sitting higher psychology, higher art and advanced higher english. hi, my name is amanda. i i'm in sixth year and i'm doing . advanced biology, advanced maths and higher psychology. we kind of find out around september time when we got the exam date and our teachers kind of explained to us the process. it was quite scary considering the past couple of years we've not done anything like that.

a weird feeling when it came out and i was looking at like, wow, i'm actually going to have exams this year. and so they're just like the other ones we've been doing the past few years. these exams feel a wee bit different because i know they're based just on the exam paper. they're not going to take into consideration anything that we've done during the year, and i think that's a lot of pressure a lot riding on it. i think i prefer the way we've been doing it the past couple of years where we've gathered lots of evidence throughout the year and with kind of class assessments and prelims and things to get our grades rather thanjust kind of one final exam that it all comes down to. because i feel like having lots of evidence built up gives us a kind of safety net. yeah, i'm happy that we're back in school and it's not online, especially considering we're actually doing exams this year. i think if it was online it would be too difficult. however, because of lockdown we have been using teams and stuff and it's made it a lot easier to communicate with our teachers as well. i feel that that's is the old classic way that your mum and dad

tell you about this. she came and sat in the exam hall in the past few years. can assured that exam results can be given in a different way. it definitely does feel like there's a lot more pressure because we're the first year group in a couple of years that's actually been set in proper official exams. it feels like it's been built up kind of around school and everyone's talking about this. the headlines on bbc news... russia has stopped supplies of gas to poland and bulgaria because they're both refusing to pay in roubles as demanded by moscow. the mail on sunday's editor has declined an invitation to meet the speaker of the house of commons over the paper's article about labour's deputy leader angela rayner. five metropolitan police officers face disciplinary charges over the stop and search of team gb sprinter bianca williams two years ago. now it's time to take a look at some of the stories making the headlines this lunchtime — from our bbc newsrooms — �*across the uk'

a mum whose son was killed in a motorway collision is calling for all new vehicles to be fitted with emergency braking — which automatically slows down or stops a vehicle if its driver fails to respond. meera naran�*s son dev was just eight years old when a lorry crashed into his grandfather's car on the hard shoulder of the m6 near birmingham. she's now urging the government to adopt "dev�*s law". navtej johal reports. i'm going to make a rocket when i get big and it's going to go to another planet. dev was just full of life. it's the one sentence i could use for him over and over again. he just loved learning, he loved people. he loved his school, he loved his friends. he just loved everything about everything. he was just the light of our life. it's been four years since dev naran was killed when his grandfather's car was struck by a lorry on the m6.

the eight—year—old from leicester was on his way home from visiting his critically ill older brother in hospital. when i sat in hospital that night, i had one son fighting for his life. and my other son was dead. it didn'tjust break me, it destroyed me. it destroyed everything i knew and who i was. and i had no idea where i was going to go from there. it was devastating. meera decided to channel her grief into campaigning for road safety. and she is now urging the government to adopt what she is calling dev�*s law — legislation to make it compulsory for all new cars to be fitted with aeb, autonomous emergency braking. technology that she says could prevent future

deaths like her son's. there were so many elements that failed. and it led to the catastrophic outcome of losing dev. aeb was one part of it. if it were there, it maybe could have saved him. i think it's disappointing that we haven't done it already, we haven't mandated aeb as law already. however, i'm always optimistic that they will do the right thing. john works at a local garage and deals with cars that have aeb installed. he says the technology is proven and effective. how does the brake in a car normally work and how is that different to aeb? you press the brake pedal, that energy is then transferred to this pad, which then hits that disc. it clamps together with another pad this side and obviously slows you down accordingly. aeb works alongside a lot

of different systems on a vehicle. you have a little camera in the front of this one you can see just there. then you have radar built into the car, as well. and if that car sees an object that it thinks you are going to hit, it will slow you down accordingly. it's a safety feature. it's brilliant, it works. it wants to be on every car. meera's campaign is being supported by the aa. the european commission has voted to introduce it and it will be - introduced on all new cars - from july, but the uk government hasn't decided to support that. we think, in terms of safety, it could be a gamechanger, i so we are encouraging _ the government, alongside meera, to get this introduced. the department for transport says it is currently considering the vehicle safety provisions within the eu's general safety regulation, which includes advanced emergency braking, to determine requirements that are appropriate for new vehicles in great britain. if dev could see your campaigning, what do you think his reaction would be?

i can only pray and hope that wherever he is, he is supporting, he is guiding me. and one day i'm going to meet him again. and i want to proudly say, "dev, mummy tried her best, she tried her everything, and i hope it made you proud while you are watching." navteonhal, bbc news, leicester. a builderfrom ross on wye has become the first in the world to be fitted with a tiny deep brain stimulation device to control his parkinson s disease. tony howells struggled to walk 200 yards before the surgery, but the procedure has significantly improved his quality of life. michele paduano has been to meet him. a club champion with a handicap of three. it was while playing golf that tony howells noticed a hand tremor that led to a diagnosis of parkinson's disease. eventually, he could no longer play the game he loved, but now he's back

on the fairway. the fact that they can put deep brain stimulation into your brain and it improves your walking. and the fact that you can play golf again, which makes a huge difference to me is amazing. i would recommend it to anybody. traditionally, a patient had a large device inserted into his chest with an external wire lead attached to the head. this device is inserted directly into the brain and can be recharged like this for an hour and a half a day. when i look back at the videos i've taken and seen how he was on a regular basis, you didn't realise how bad it was until you saw the good after the operation, before and after. before and after pictures are dramatic. the deep brain stimulation device encourages the production of the hormone dopamine. since implantation, tony's drug use has halved and his co—ordination is unrecognisable. but the benefits are psychological

as well as physical. some people don't... we wouldn't say anything, but they obviously see see you shaking and moving about. and it's what you think that they they think about you is is a problem. so in the end, you don't bother going out. the implant was developed in bristol and put in by surgeons there. it takes three hours, half the time of the traditional operation, and that's an advantage. 5% of people have it at the moment, partly because of the types of surgery. it could broaden it out to about 10%. but if you're a younger person with parkinson's, you can have brain surgery and so on. then it becomes much more applicable to that group. so tony howells is looking forward to life and the horizon doesn't look anywhere near as bleak as it did. michael pagano, bbc midlands today in ross on wye.

a group in brazil has one and i want to be fitted this cancelled because of covid—19 and the event this year should have taken place during the carnival in february but delayed due to the impact of a new variant of the coronavirus that spread across brazil. now it's time for a look at the weather with susan powell. hello. think of april weather in the uk and you probably think of april showers. april 2022 though that has not really been the case. a lot of images being sent

to us by weather watchers that look like these — arid ground gardeners and growers are certainly struggling to get things going. we've had a rainfall deficit across the uk so far this april, but its southern counties of england that have suffered, particularly with some around 70% down on the rainfall totals they would normally see. and it doesn't look like we're going to redress that balance through the rest of the month either. high pressure will sit across the uk. various weather systems will try and trickle in a bit thicker cloud now and then squeeze out the odd shower. but there's no significant rain to come across the uk as a whole through the remainder of this april. saturday we may see some rain eventually getting into scotland and northern ireland. for the remainder of wednesday, some thicker cloud across eastern counties. we may see a little bit of drizzle out of that. further west, clear skies overnight, light winds and yes, it's getting late in the season, but we're still talking about the possibility of a frost. another challenge for gardeners. chilly start to thursday, perhaps more in the way of sunshine generally through the day.

but eastern counties of england are always going to struggle with that feed of cloud in off the north sea and it will push its way westwards during the day, i think as far west as wales and the southwest. later on, a cloud bubbling up across scotland and northern ireland may produce the odd light shower. but overall we're dry, if anything, just a shade warmer than today, quite breezy towards the south, particularly through the channel. friday, same story, high pressure, still very quiet, a little bit breezier to the south, cloud coming in from the east across england and wales. maybe the odd shower, scotland certainly across central regions, but up to 17 degrees with some brightness for glasgow. and then we look to the weekend and the possibility of this area of low pressure getting into the northwest and we're way out yet and often these highs can be more stubborn than our models recognise. so at the moment we're talking about rain on saturday for scotland and northern ireland, but there is a possibility, i think, that that may not come off. certainly looking further ahead into our forecast now, we're going into the start of may and you can see high pressures, always keen to stay close

by the tail end of a low, perhaps coming into play briefly through the first week. but by the end of the week we're back under a high and it still looks dry.

this is bbc news. i'm rebecca jones. the headlines: the high court rules that government policies on discharging patients from hospitals to care homes at the start of the pandemic were �*unlawful�* my my dad worked all of his life to the age of 75, paid national insurance and had a right to life and they had and had a right to life and they had a duty of care and he was failed. russian energy giant gazprom cuts gas supplies to poland and bulgaria for refusing to pay in roubles. five police officers face gross misconduct proceedings over the stop and search of team gb athlete bianca williams. a conservative mp has reportedly been caught watching pornography while sitting in the chamber.