on friday morning. this is bbc news with the latest headlines. in local elections in england, the conservatives suffer a series of significant losses in london, but across the country, labour are only making modest gains. results continued to come in during the day and into saturday, and as they did, the overall picture evolved. by the end of friday, it was clear that the conservatives had lost nearly 500 council seats, as was mentioned in an online article, headlined like this, which drew the ire ofjac freeman...

we asked bbc news for a response to that point, and they told us... it's fair to say not everyone is so concerned about the outcome of local elections, which often struggle to enthuse large parts of the electorate. those who are politically engaged were well—served by bbc news, which ran through—the—night programmes on both television and radio, as well as extensive coverage through the day on friday. coverage through it was all too much,

though, for dawn cannell... one way of trying to attract audiences to a topic like local elections is to go beyond those well—worn shots of ballot papers being counted and use visual metaphors, pictures which can be linked to the subject in question through a deft script line. that was the approach used for a report from wales on friday's news at six. steeped in labour history, the south wales valleys�* relationship with the party has wavered in recent years...

cheering ..but today, vows were renewed. voters who may have flirted with other parties have returned to the fold. while some taste success, the picture is still mixed for most of wales. david bussey was unimpressed with that approach and recorded this video to explain why. i've become convinced that there's a new batch of reporters and producers out there, recently released from university, with a brief to find new and innovative ways of telling old or recurring stories. that's great. i'd encourage that. but, hey, hang on a minute — on the news last week, i saw the picture of a councillor under an umbrella, sheltering from a storm. this was to do with the local electioneering. and at the same time, "vows were being renewed, "voters may have flirted with other parties," alongside a video of a couple getting married. and then there was the barman

mixing cocktails, alongside the line, "while some taste success..." come on! innovation is great, but please treat us like adults. politics was centre—stage again on tuesday for the state opening of parliament, with the government's new programme of legislature being read out this time not by the queen, but by prince charles. the pomp and ritual remained, but not all of it was seen or heard on the bbc�*s special programme, as huw edwards had some guests to talk to. and i do not feel any sense, in what i've heard in the previews, that this is the speech that is going to have anyone at home going, "i think the government have got this, and they understand "the pressures we're under." hold the thought because there's some more ceremonial activity happening. this is inside the royal gallery, where we have all the military and diplomatic guests. and here we have the yeomen of the guard, who have done that search of the cellars earlier. in a very familiar newswatch complaint, some viewers told us they could have done with less chat and more of the ceremonial. as laurie palmer put it...

does the term "wagatha christie" mean anything to you? if not, suffice it to say that it refers to a dispute between rebekah vardy and coleen rooney, the wives of two footballers, which this week came to trial in the high court in london. here's a bit more background on the case from colin paterson, on tuesday's news at one. once, they were friends, cheering on england together from the stands at the 2016 euros, but everything changed in october 2019, when coleen rooney did some online detective work to investigate who was leaking information about her to the press. she wrote three fictitious tales, including returning to tv and their basement flooding, on her instagram stories to see if they would end up in the papers —

and they did. only then, after the use of ten dots to ramp up the tension, did coleen reveal that the one account she'd allowed to read them was rebekah vardy�*s. mrs vardy denies being the source of the leak. as we found a couple of weeks ago with actress amber heard's defamation trial against her former partnerjohnny depp, bbc coverage of stories featuring celebrities from the world of entertainment can really exasperate newswatch viewers, particularly when they're juxtaposed with more obviously weighty subjects. here's claire bath. i watched the one o'clock news on the bbc on thursday. i listened to the harrowing report of russian military slaughtering civilians. i saw the cctv of the brutal and cowardly murder of leonid. therefore, i was appalled that immediately afterwards, the bbc reported on the so—called wagatha case. that was so crass! this is fit for gossip columns,

certainly not national news. there are so many issues happening nationally and worldwide, that this has no place on a news programme. it's a grubby little case that should be confined to the trash. while that sentiment certainly represents the majority of our feedback on this subject, there is another side to the story. when we featured complaints recently about that trial involving amber heard and johnny depp, we received this response from denise... we've also had some reaction to an item we ran last week

about the practice of occasionally broadcasting bbc one news bulletins from locations around the uk. some viewers thought this was a waste of money, but allane hay disagreed... finally, a documentary on bbc two on monday featured bbc news special correspondent fergal keane and the struggles he's had with post—traumatic stress disorder — or ptsd. for over 30 years, i've covered conflict for the bbc from across the world. archive: murder, mutilation, rape -j it all happened here in freetown

as the rebel army swept into the city. saddam hussein and his regime have finally been destroyed. in that time, i've seen the best of humanity and the worst — too often, i'm afraid, the worst. archive: the second suicide bomber - detonated his explosives in the middle of a crowd. people were blasted and burned. even those familiar with such horror were moved. you can hear the shelling here behind me. there is no ceasefire. it's an illusion. it's taken a heavy toll. i have a condition called post—traumatic stress disorder. there's a set of symptoms, whether it's twitching and having nightmares or flashbacks. it's a place of extreme fear, is how i would ultimately define it. fergal keane featured on a number of bbc news outlets on monday, talking about how he'd been affected by ptsd, and his account resonated with many viewers, such as gail mcconnell, who described

the documentary as... and jill mansfield agreed... consider it done. thank you for all your comments this week. if you want to share your opinions about what you see or hear on bbc news, on tv, radio, online and social media, email... or you can find us on twitter... you can call us on... and do have a look for previous interviews at our website... that's all from us. we'll be back to hear your thoughts about bbc news coverage again next week. goodbye. hello there. we had some contrasting weather conditions on friday across the country.

it was rather cool and breezy at times across scotland and north—east england, as depicted by this weather watcher in moray. in fact, in one or two spots, temperature struggled to climb into double figures. but it was a different story after a rather grey start across england and wales. the cloud broke up and we saw temperatures peaking in the london area by the middle of the afternoon of 21 celsius. now, clear skies will continue to dominate the weather story to start off our weekend. we will see a little more in the way of cloud, producing a few scattered showers into the far north—west of the great glen, but elsewhere, it's a relatively mild start to the day, and, yes, there will be some early morning sunshine for many. out to the west, there will be a little bit of early morning patchy mist and low fog. that's because we've got high pressure building, winds falling light. but i just want to draw your attention to these showers down into the south—west arriving later on in the day. so, that early mist will lift away, a lot of sunshine pretty much throughout the day. we could just see a little more in the way of coastal cloud out

towards the far north—west. top temperatures, though, warmer than friday in scotland, highs of 11—18 celsius. we could see 22—23 celsius somewhere across south—east england — that's 73 fahrenheit. now, into the evening, though, those showers will arrive through the south—west across wales pushing their way into central and southern england. there will be some sharp thundery downpours mixed in there as well as those showers move through during the early hours of sunday. they will take their time to clear away as well. some running down through the channel coast, some moving up through wales, stretching up into northern england and scotland for the second half of the weekend. so a slightly different feel to the weather story. still warm where you keep the sunshine, highs again of 23 celsius. there will be further showers to come through sunday evening into the early hours of monday. if anything, more widespread sharp showers, possibly still thundery, moving their way up to scotland, and that is because as we go through into next week, we continue to see the risk of some low pressure systems pushing in off the atlantic. always sitting out to the west, so the further east you are,

it should stay largely fine and dry. but a little more unsettled, particularly the further north and west, warmer in the south with temperatures once again into the low 20s.

this is bbc news. i'm nuala mcgovern. our top stories: international condemnation as israeli police beat mourners carrying the coffin of the aljazeera reporter shireen abu aqla, who was killed in the occupied west bank. well, we just had to move back very quickly because the mourners were trying to carry the coffin through the gates, out the hospital. the border police are directly outside and now, we're seeing confrontations here. the us defense secretary calls for an immediate ceasefire in ukraine in his first conversation with his russian counterpart since the invasion. explosion. the bbc crew runs for cover as russian forces bombard an area near the south—eastern ukrainian city of zaporizhzhia.

the new prime minister of sri lanka tells the bbc