this is bbc news. the headlines at 20:00. a group of charities and community organisations have called the rises in energy bills a "national emergency" as labour is to call for the energy price cap to be frozen in october. the energy minister says their plan won't work. i think we have to be a little bit careful on some of these, labour's seemingly magical solution to just wish it all away, that will have consequences. the son of author sir salman rushdie says his injuries are life changing — but that his feisty & defiant sense of humour remains intact — after he was stabbed at an event in new york state. egyptian health officials say at least 41 people have died and a0 injured in a fire at a coptic church

in north—west cairo. warnings in the uk over the use of disposable barbecues, as tinder dry conditions continue after a weekend of wildfires in parts of england. prosecutions for breaching covid restrictions have been dropped for six people who attended a vigil in london for sarah everard last year. a late goal from tottenham rescues a draw away to chelsea, but both managers are sent off after the game following a touchline clash. welcome to the bbc news channel. 70 charities and community organisations in the uk have written to the two conservative party candidates vying to be its next leader and the next prime minster urging them to show �*compassion and leadership" in dealing with the cost of living crisis. tomorrow labour is expected to call on the government to freeze

the energy price cap this autumn, to help people deal with the rising cost of living. here's our political correspondent david wallace—lockhart. with energy bills expected to continue rising, 70 charities have written to the two candidates to be the next prime minister. they're calling for £1,200 of government support to help low income families make ends meet this winter. throughout history, it has been government's role to provide support to households who need it when you are in a time of crisis. we saw it during the pandemic, using the furlough scheme and the £20 uplift to universal credit per week, and we need to see that again now. we need to see that the government at least doubles their support to low—income households right now, or we are going to be facing a winter of truly terrifying circumstances. a source of many of these concerns are predicted rises in the energy price cap. that's the maximum that can be charged for a unit of energy. last october, a typical family could expect to pay about £1,200

a year for electricity and gas. this 0ctober, it will be closer to £2,000. forecasts now suggest that the figure could go up to £3,500 later this year and to more than 4,000 injanuary. the labour leader, sir keir starmer, is expected tomorrow to call for 0ctober�*s energy price cap rise to be scrapped, a position already suggested by the snp and the lib dems. the current energy minister insists this is not a realistic proposal. we would have to find a way to compensate people by effectively trying to abolish that price rise, and that would inevitably lead to higher taxes, so i think we have to be a little bit careful on some of these kind of... like, labour's seemingly magical solution, just wish it all away, that will have consequences. the treasury is collating cost—of—living policy options for the next prime minister to consider. rishi sunak has said that he will provide more direct support to vulnerable households.

liz truss hasn't ruled out more support but prefers the idea of tax cuts. one of her key supporters, the chief secretary to the treasury, simon clark, has questioned the universal nature of some of the support offered so far, suggesting a preference for more targeted intervention. a new prime minister will take office on the 5th of september, just a month shy of another rise in bills — an immediate challenge for whoever takes over here at number ten. david wallace—lockhart, bbc news, downing street. the saudi state—owned oil giant aramco has announced record profits of more than $48 billion for the second quarter of this year. the world's biggest oil producer's net income has almost doubled year—on—year. oil prices are rising because of russia's attack on ukraine and increasing demand after the pandemic. sir salman rushdie has been taken off a ventilator and has spoken for the first time since he was stabbed several times on stage at a literary event in new york state on friday.

his son, zafar rushdie, has described his injuries as life changing, but says his usual feisty and defiant sense of humour remains intact. chautauqua county jail have released a picture of the alleged attacker, 24—year—old hadi matar, who denies a charge of attempted murder. nomia iqbal reports from new york on sir salman�*s condition. the details of his condition have come through that statement from his son, zafar rushdie, which he released on twitter. he said that his father is still in a critical condition inside the hospital. he's been taken off the ventilator. he's able to breathe unaided. and he did say a few words. zafar rushdie did go on to say that the injuries are life—changing and just to repeat what you said there, to quote him, he said that his father's usual and defiant sense of humour remains intact. he also paid tribute to the audience members who jumped into action that day on friday at the literary event where mr rushdie was due to speak

and helped mr rushdie. he was taken from that new york event, the neighbouring state of pennsylvania, and helicoptered here to the hospital where, as his son has said, he remains in critical condition. earlier, mr rushdie�*s agent, andrew wylie, confirmed to us that mr rushdie was on the long road to recovery. so 24—year—old hadi matar has already appeared in court. he is accused of attempted murder and attempted assault of mr rushdie. he has pleaded not guilty to those charges. there's a lot of speculation and reports that are coming out about him, including his alleged sympathies with iran's revolutionary guards. so this is a major political and military force in the country. and, of course, it was iran's spiritual leader back in 1989 who issued this fatwa,

who issued this death sentence on mr rushdie for his book, the satanic verses, which many muslims consider blasphemous. having said that, though, it's worth emphasising that the suspect�*s motives have still not been officially established. in egypt at least a0 people have died, many of them children, and dozens more have been injured in a fire at a church where thousands of worshippers had gathered for morning mass. it's reported an electrical fire broke out at the coptic church in giza, outside cairo. our correspondent sally nabil sent this report from the scene at the abu sifin church. a sunday church service that ended in tragedy. behind these windows, egyptian christian worshippers died. the abu sifin church was in a packed, busy neighbourhood of giza. the fire killed dozens, including many children.

we've been told many of the victims suffocated to death as thick smoke covered the area. people rushed into the building, trying to save as many lives as possible. this woman lost her sister—in—law. translation: she had five children. three daughters who are three, five and seven years old. and two boys. my heart is on fire for all these victims. the people i've spoken to here are clearly very angry. they want to know exactly how and why their loved ones died. there will be questions, too, for the church itself and for the emergency services. could they have acted more quickly? initial reports suggest the fire was caused by an electric fault. people here told us there was a power cut and the church was on a generator. when the electricity was turned on again, there was an overload. translation: fire was coming out

of the air condition, _ then spread to the rest of the church. it was on the third and fourth floors. many worshippers fainted and could hardly breathe. a major investigation is now under way. inspectors from the public prosecutors' office already checked the scene. there is nothing to suggest there are any criminal motives behind this incident so far. but the christian community here say they have had enough. many of their churches have been targeted by militant attacks in recent years. bereaved families will be eagerly waiting for the results of the investigation. this might bring them a bit of solace, but nothing can make up for their terrible losses. sally nabil, bbc news, cairo. a delegation from the us congress arrived in taiwan today. they're visiting for two days and will meet president tsai ing—wen. their visit comes twelve day after one by the house

speaker nancy pelosi, which led to an angry reaction from the island's neighbour china. mark cozad is a senior defense researcher at rand corporation. he told me more about what position this puts china in... it puts china in a very difficult position after speaker pelosi's recent visit. they had a very aggressive and very forward leaning response that lasted several days, stopped maritime and air traffic, or at least delayed it for a period of time and created a great deal of concern in the international community about what china's intentions were and there was a lot of speculation that this was more a rehearsalfor something larger and that it actually demonstrated some of the capabilities that china had if it did in fact decide to use force against taiwan. so where you go from here is an open question and they can on with the exercises,

but it is this case and several others of chinese attempts in the past have shown that when they try to make these demonstrations, they oftentimes backfire, they tend to galvanise international opinion against china and in this case it has actually had the same type of effect on taiwan, as is delegation demonstrates it has not deterred future delegations of us lawmakers from going to taiwan. but what does, what does the united states and taiwan for that matter expect to achieve? i think first and foremost it is a show of cooperation and a show of support for a democratic government in the region and also to lead beijing no that their coercion ——know... is not going to deter the democratic process in taiwan

and deter the united states, the united states's obligations for ensuring that taiwan is able to defend itself in the face of chinese aggression. there has been no change in us policy which is basically said that the united states is going to support a peaceful unification, if that's what both sides decide to do. so i think these visits and demonstrations of support are more to show that both sides are not going to be intimidated by beijing. but how great is the risk of some form of escalation? well, the risk is always there and we have had a lot of speculation, a lot of discussion about the possibilities that with to some of these more aggressive actions, there could be something that goes wrong, as we have seen with the missile launches as well as the very aggressive air activities that have been going on now around taiwan over the past week. there is a possibility that you have an accident, that you have some sort of inadvertent damage created by one of those actions that could lead to something more, but i think both sides

are intent on not letting this evolve into a conflict, so i think that's a major portion of both side's responses. i think both united states taiwan have been restrained in the types of reactions that they had, they have called out china's aggression, one of the same time, the united states has kept its forces back and undersecretary cole said earlier week that we're not going to take the bait. i think that's a very important of this that letting china's reaction play itself out and hopefully at the end of the day there will be a demonstration for the domestic population to show the international community that they are serious and upset about the situation and hoping that it does not escalate beyond that. at least eight people have been

injured after a gunman opened fire on a bus near the western wall ofjerusalem's old city. the eight include a pregnant woman who was seriously wounded. a man has been arrested. israel's prime minister has said security in thejerusalem district is now being reinforced a powerful explosion has rocked a shopping centre and caused a fire in armenia's capital, yerevan. the armenian emergencies ministry says one person has died and 20 people have been injured in the blast. local media report that the explosion occurred at a fireworks warehouse. video of the incident showed large clouds of black smoke in the sky and people running away as a building collapsed. the area has been sealed off and teams of rescuers are at the scene. the time is 8:15pm. the headlines on bbc news... a group of charities and community organisations have called the rises in energy bills a "national emergency" as labour is to call for the energy price cap to be frozen in october. the energy minister says

their plan won't work. the son of author sir salman rushdie says his injuries are life changing, but that his feisty and defiant sense of humour remains intact, after he was stabbed at an event in new york state. egyptian health officials say at least 41 people have died and a0 are injured in a fire at a coptic church in north—west cairo. the government is going to delay a railfare increase. the department for transport says it wants to reduce the impact of inflation on rail fares and will temporarily freeze fares. our business correspondent vishala sri—pathma says the fares usually go up injanuary... they're based on the inflation figures forjuly. that's due out this week. we'll find out on wednesday what the inflation figures are. they're expected to be around ii.9%, which clearly is pretty high. if you think about your rail commute prices going up by that much, that's quite a significant chunk. so the department for transport say that it's not going to go up by that much.

so we don't know what the specific figure is going to be, but it's not going to be ii.9%. it will be lower than that. so that's sort of looking to help people with their cost of living, really. there could be more disruption for train travellers as avanti west coast introduces a reduced timetable of services, adding to problems created by a summer of rail strikes. the company, which operates trains between london and the north west and scotland, says the new timetable will run until further notice due to "severe staff shortages". ramzan karmali has this report/ just a day after the latest industrial dispute hit the railways, another major disruption is hitting customers who travel on avanti services. a reduced timetable see a drop in services. avanti west coast normally has... it will have now only four per hour.

ava nti west coast avanti west coast blazoned the time to production and the current industry relations problem. prior to these cancellations, many trains are running as a result of drivers volunteering for overtime, but the number of volunteers has fallen sharply. this has led to an accusation from the transport secretary. that this is an unofficial strike. aslef denies the accusation and says that avanti simply has quite an of drivers at the train companies in general have foster goodwill of their employees. labour mayor of manchester and london put the blame of the dispute firmly at the door of the train company. mil firmly at the door of the train company-— firmly at the door of the train coman .~ ., , ., company. all parties are to blame but for avanti _ company. all parties are to blame but for avanti to _ company. all parties are to blame but for avanti to say _ company. all parties are to blame but for avanti to say that it - company. all parties are to blame but for avanti to say that it is - company. all parties are to blame but for avanti to say that it is all l but for avanti to say that it is all down to the drivers who don't want to work on the rest days is actually pretty outrageous because the drivers have every right not to work on the rest days and indeed they get a reasonable salary so if they don't want to work on their rusty, yes,

it's difficult for avanti, but they should have sorted this out when they took over the franchise a couple of years ago.— they took over the franchise a couple of years ago. grant shops has written to the _ couple of years ago. grant shops has written to the mayors _ couple of years ago. grant shops has written to the mayors of _ couple of years ago. grant shops has written to the mayors of the - couple of years ago. grant shops has written to the mayors of the cities i written to the mayors of the cities and he remains adamant that fault lies with the union. he is calling for major reforms of the railways but that is little comfort of the thousands who face much tougher journey to the destination. bbc news. today is the last of four days of the intense heat which sparked an amber weather warning for much of southern england and wales. concerns about drought and the impact on vulnerable people continue but many have tried to make the most of it and head to the coast. however, as emma simpson's been finding out, labour shortages mean not all businesses are in a position to benefit from the extra trade. it's boom time if you're selling food and drink at the beach — if you've got the staff to do it. i need somebody to go in the kitchen. i need waitresses, bar staff. louise runs this pub and it's missing out on lost sales.

we could certainly be taking more than we are if we were doing food seven days a week and i had got more staff so we could put the facilities out there. we are not putting the tables out on monday and tuesday at the moment, purely because i haven't got the staff to do so. it's even worse for this award—winning restaurant. trading is on pause. they have struggled to get staff since brexit and covid. the owners are now abroad, trying to hire chefs and waiting for a special government licence to bring them over. many sleepless nights. this business is a family business so it's me and my partner, so this is our only income. this is all really we live for, and to be closed is really heartbreaking, to be honest. there's no shortage of customers in this town — just staff. across the uk, there's something like 176,000 vacancies in hospitality. that's double the number before the pandemic. so this is a mock—up restaurant.

you won't find a customer in here. the boss of this suffolk hotel chain shows me the training centre he started in march to help recruit and retain staff. you have to do something about it yourself because no one _ is going to give you these people and, if you want them to stay, i you have got to give them the skills and the confidence to be with you. i labour shortages now, but could that tide be about to turn? at the alex cafe, they are open all week — three days only, though, upstairs. but the owner is in no rush, with rising energy costs for him and his customers. i've done the job for over a0 years and it has never been like this. you know, you have always been able to see a path, however steep that path is, or how difficult. at the moment, it is almost like an abyss. we could be looking at £100,000 a year extra — extra — on energy. you know, that's £2,000 per week. he's trying to keep it simple in a sector that is bracing itself for bumpier times ahead. emma simpson, bbc news, felixstowe.

legal action against six protesters for attending a vigil for sarah everard has been dropped after the crown prosecution service said the "legal test" for prosecution had not been met. the six were accused of breaking covid lockdown rules by attending the vigil in march last year following the abduction, rape and murder of sarah everard by police officer wayne couzens. there were clashes with police after several hundred people attended the unofficial gathering. several european countries have seen a wave of deadly wildfires, triggered by record temperatures and drought across the continent. here you can see there are currently major fires in much of western europe. officials are concerned that windy conditions could make the situation worse.. in france, officials in the south—western gironde region have said a major fire there has been brought under control and 8,000 people can return to their homes. but another wildfire in south—central france has reignited, forcing

more than 1,000 people from their homes. our correspondent bethany bell is in the gironde region. firefighters have brought the big blaze that was burning near here under control but they've warned that the fire isn't entirely extinguished yet and, if you look behind me, back there in the woods, you can see what they mean — there's wisps of smoke, which is a sign that they're still burning embers on the ground or sometimes below the ground but could in the wrong circumstances be whipped up into another fire. but there is very good news for the 10,000 people that were evacuated from near here. they've been told that they can now go home after days of staying in emergency temporary housing. president zelensky says any russian soldier who fires at the zaporyzhzhia nuclear plant, or uses it as a base to shoot from, will become a target

for ukrainian soldiers. he said russians involved in what he called "nuclear blackmail" should be tried by an international court. translation: every russian soldier who either strikes or shoots - from the nuclear site or its territory must realise that they will become a special target for our intelligence special services and for our army. almost six months ago, thousands of ukrainian civilians joined the military to fight invading russian forces. among those who signed up were members of one of ukraine's top rock bands, antytila. they became army medics in kharkiv — helping to treat wounded soldiers. the bbcjoined them as they headed to the front line. it is russian mortarfire. come on, come on, come on. yeah. here. we're here, it's ok. come on. listen.

i'm 0k. i'm taras topolya, the frontman of antytila, a popular band in ukraine. now me, with my friends, serving in territorial defence forces. we are a paramedical team — paramedical squad. singing we've been playing for more than 12 years. we've released seven albums. so we had a lot of big ukrainian tours, and we had three american and canadian tours. here, it is a front line. this is our position. this yard was destroyed by russian mortar fire.

it's far away. you know, blood smells disgusting for me. and also, when this smell compares with the smell of the shelling, with the smell of the explosion, it's the most disgusting smell of my life. after doing my duties, i call my wife and my kids. i have no tears any more. i'm tired to cry. ijust can't wake up, like a dream. i'm in a dream. and i want to wake up. wake up in my home.

i don't want to lie that sometimes the sadness defeats me. i want to create a new album, a new antytila album after the war. we will need a new kind of songs. songs of happiness. with a smile on our face. if we will survive, we will do this, of course. a—level grades in england, wales and northern ireland are expected to fall when results are announced this week but teenagers applying to university are being reassured most will get their first choice. the bbc has seen a letter being sent out

to students from exams regulator, quual, and the university admissions service, ucas, saying the marks should not be compared with those from 2021 — when exams were cancelled because of the pandemic and teacher assessment led to a boom in top grades. tottenham salvaged a point away to chelsea in the premier league. it was a controversial two—two draw — with both managers sent off after the final whistle for a touchline clash. imran sidat reports. if there was bad blood between his clubs before this game, things were about to intensify. it all started so well for chelsea. koulibaly is a defender, but he produced a finish that any striker would be proud of. that is how it stayed until the hour mark when the game sprung into life. harry kane was on goal there was only one outcome.

then the game's first big flashpoint. spurs went up the other end and they were all square. on one of the hottest days of the year, tensions were beginning to boil over in the dugout. chelsea seemed to use that as extra motivation and the pressure paid off. rhys james, the man in the right place at the right time. how thomas tuchel enjoyed that one. but he wasn't celebrating for long. in the six minute of injury time, harry kane made amends to salvage a draw. both managers were shown a red card after the final whistle, with the fallout set to continue for some time to come. china is well—known for its ancient practice of acupuncture as a way to promote the healing process and general well—being. now increasingly, pet owners are turning to the method to help soothe the aches and pains of their beloved cats and dogs. in this beijing clinic, pets of all shapes and sizes are being signed up for treatments — care that their owners say

is less invasive and comes with fewer side effects than conventional treatments. recordings of gentle bamboo flute music and birds chirping are played to help the animals relax. translation: she's enjoying it. before, she used to refuse to go. now, every time i tell her we're going to visit dr lee for some treatment, she's really happy and ready to get into the car. she'll come to lie still for a0 minutes to an hour. who doesn't like gentle bamboo flute music? now it's time for a look at the weather with elixabeth rizzini. it's all change weather—wise next week but that weather warning for extreme heat expires overnight tonight and it will be turning a look next week with temperatures dipping to the seasonal average but there will also be thunderstorms around as well and welcome rain for many but intense downpours and there is it offers a met office amber

weather warning for thunderstorms across parts of northern ireland and possibly travel problems arising from this and lots of surface water around. some showers as well in parts of scotland but for most places it's dry and certainly still warm and feeling muggy as well with temperatures dipping to the mid — high teens in cell c is so uncomfortable again for sleeping. and then this is monday would still showers across northern ireland are moving into scotland and elsewhere it's dry and certainly still warm and feeling muggy as well with temperatures dipping to the mid—high teens in cell c is so uncomfortable again for sleeping. and then this is monday would still showers across northern ireland are moving into scotland and elsewhere its with highs of 30 celsius but even here temperatures were dip the week.