this is bbc news. the headlines: there are signs that the historic deadlock in the us house of representatives could be coming to an end. the senior republican kevin mccarthy says he's confident he'll win enough votes to be elected speaker. so far, he's failed 13 times. mr mccarthy has been repeatedly blocked by hardline conservatives. a six—year—old boy has shot his school teacher in the us state of virginia, in what police say was not an accidental shooting. officers have taken the boy into custody. the teacher, a woman in her 30s, is in hospital with what's being described as a life—threatening injury. ukraine has accused russia of continuing its offensive, despite president putin announcing a 36—hour ceasefire to mark

the russian orthodox christmas. ukraine never agreed to a truce and they've dismissed it as a cynical ploy by the russians to resupply their forces. a little bit of british space history is happening next week in cornwall. for the first time, the uk is attempting to launch a rocket into space from british soil and send satellites into orbit. the blast—off will take place at spaceport cornwall, in newquay. coming into land at spaceport cornwall, a jumbojet with coming into land at spaceport cornwall, a jumbo jet with a difference, getting ready to make history. the plane will release a rocket midair which will fire engines and send satellites into orbit, the first time this has been done from british soil. matthew

stannard will be at the controls. a, stannard will be at the controls.— stannard will be at the controls. �* ., ., ., controls. a huge amount of ride controls. a huge amount of pride that _ controls. a huge amount of pride that i _ controls. a huge amount of pride that i get _ controls. a huge amount of pride that i get to - controls. a huge amount of pride that i get to be - controls. a huge amount of. pride that i get to be involved in this. a big dealfor the uk, a big dealfor cornwall, and the idea i get to be a pilot on this mission is incredible. this is what is on board the rocket, small satellites. the uk is a leader in this industry, it has driven the growth of a space economy worth £16.5 billion per year, employing nearly 50,000 people. but until now, they had to be... but until now, british—made satellites had to be sent abroad to launch. for the first time, the uk has all the pieces of the jigsaw to be able to design and develop satellites, launch them from the uk, operate them from the uk. so we can operate an entire ecosystem in a really fantastic closed loop. a vital part of that is building rockets. in cumbernauld, just outside of glasgow, skyrora havejust opened up a new facility. they're busy working on a prototype, before building a larger rocket to launch in the uk.

and this is attracting a young workforce. i think it's a really fast growing industry. a lot of young people are really interested in this, so really putting a lot of work into working in the industry. for example, me, the hands—on experience, as well as designing things, as well as working on all sorts of engineering projects, it's really good. what you see here really is the start of the uk's space launch industry. the rockets are starting to take shape. and the idea is to bring everything to britain — from building the satellites to the rockets that carry them and the spaceports where they launch. there are a lot of opportunities, but challenges, too. one of these is building a launch site at the northernmost tip of the uk. in unst, one of the shetland islands, the saxavord spaceport is aiming for the uk's first—ever vertical rocket launch. this isolated location has been selected because it means the rocket can fly without passing over populated areas.

there's a hive of activity, and the concrete's just set on a launch pad — one of three planned. i think the first response from the locals was probably maybe it was an april fool or something like that. and then there's been real excitement about what we've been doing. and there will be jobs. the rocket companies that we're working with are already identifying those roles that can be fulfilled by local people, that they don't bring somebody in as part of their team to do some refuelling of the rocket. that actually, those skills, those people can be trained locally to perform them. shetland and cornwall aren't the only new spaceports. more are planned around the uk, and other countries are doing this, too. the global space market is getting increasingly crowded. not every venture will make it. there's a long way to go for the uk, but the hope is that high risk can bring sky—high rewards. rebecca morrelle, bbc news. now on bbc news, extreme

conservation: turkey. i'm michaela strachan, a wildlife presenter who is passionate about conservation. my work has taken me all over the world and in that time i have seen huge changes, many due to climate change. in extreme conservation, we meet inspirational people who have dedicated their lives to protecting the natural world. i am in turkey. this country's stunning forest are facing devastating losses. but it is notjust the trees that need saving, it is also the creatures. i'm meeting the remarkable people trying to save honeybees. you are a bee whisperer. and those building the brown

bears a safe to room. bears a safe place to roam. this is extreme conservation turkey. turkey is huge, a vast and varied country stretching over 1500km. turkey is surrounded by water on three sides, the mediterranean sea, the black sea and the aegean and then in the east at is mountainous and rugged it is mountainous and rugged and all that influences the climate and different ways. it is a country that is so rich in natural diversity, its sweeping pine forest are one of its key assets. but as temperatures rise, these forests are being destroyed by wildfires, that are

getting ever more intense. i start myjourney on the western coast, a short boat ride from the coastal town of bodrum where thick pine forests stretch all the way to the beaches. like so many places around the world, summers here have got hotter and drier, and recently they have had horrendous forest fires that have completely changed the landscape. all of this used to be green forest, and now look at it. here, an area bigger than 100 football fields was wiped out in days. these most recent fires were more ferocious than any wildfire turkey has

ever seen before. hussain is one of the many thousands of people who have lost almost everything in the fires. people rely on these forests to make a living. not from the trees themselves, but from the creatures that live in them. these trees are vital for the survival of one of the most important insects on the planet, an insect

you might not immediately associate with forests. the honeybee. stroll down a street in this port town in the region and you can see how central honey is to the economy here. this is the honey that is unique to this area, not flower honey, it's pine honey, produced from pine trees and almost all the pine honey in the world comes from this little corner of turkey. i've never tried pine honey so i am looking forward to this. apparently it tastes very different. 0oh, that is so good. it tastes woody and almost spicy. but pine honey is not made by a bee alone, a small grub

has a big role to play. i'm meeting yonca tokbas, a bee expert, to find out more about these intriguing insects and how they contribute to making pine honey. hello! she has dedicated herself to preserving the bee way she has dedicated herself to preserving the bee's way of life even running ultra marathons to raise the profile of the bee cause. what a beautiful forest. you get the smell and the sound of the forest. this is the bug. that tiny thing? it's taking the sap from the pine tree and creating this liquid, and that is what the bee is taking from the pine tree. this tiny animal that you have

difficulty seeing is the magic creator of the whole process. more than half of these essential grubs were wiped out by the fires. if you don't have the insects you do not have food for bees and you don't have pine honey. with natural food sources dwindling, and many hives destroyed, yonca warns that some honey producers are putting too much pressure on the remaining bees. we encourage their sicknesses by treating them with chemicals

and feeding them unnatural sugars to produce more than they can. we are exploiting them. exactly. this man comes from a long line of bee farmers, and to him and his family, bees are notjust a source of income but a way of life. they clearly know you. you are a bee whisperer. he uses traditional methods to look after his 10 million bees. wow, look at that. his way is simple, he believes the bees should be left to do what they do naturally, collect the nectar collect the nectar from the wild and return to the hive to make honey. this is not the optimum production method.

intensively farmed bees just come out of the hives and drink sugar water left for them, and then go back into produce what he calls false honey. they do not travel around the ecosystem as they should pollinating plants including our fruit and vegetables. he said they get unhealthy and die sooner. this is a point of honey naturally produced and it really does taste delicious. it's interesting how we are all familiar with battery farming and exploiting chickens for eggs and meat, but how many of us have thought about the exploitation of bees with intense beekeeping and the damage that is doing? it seems to me the extreme conservation for bees is to go back to basics, back to this traditional way of beekeeping.

for him, the recovery of the pine forests is crucial, and until then these bees have limited resources to survive. what are the main things people need to understand about bees for their future conservation? plant some of the flowers they love, it is a food resource for them. this is the amount of honey that a bee can produce in a lifetime. for one bee? just in that, do not waste it. finding out a bee producesjust 1/12 of a teaspoon of honey has made me think about how much we use. for yonca, she is determined to save the bees by inspiring the next generation. the youth is amazing, they are

much more aware than we are and they are working on trying to help nature more than our generation. when we think of forests, we think of that importance to fight climate change, but they are equally important for biodiversity. so much of our wildlife lives and thrives in a forest. as we have seen with the honeybee and that tiny bug it wouldn't survive if it was not for all these trees, it's a precious ecosystem that desperately needs protecting. continuing myjourney of extreme conservation, i'm in the mountains

of east turkey. i've travelled 11100 kilometres from the aegean coast to near turkey's armenian border. in winter this area is popular for skiing but it is mainly a farming region. over time, lots of forests have been felled for pasture leaving just a patchwork of trees behind. but i am here as this is home to turkey's majestic migrating brown bear. naturally the bears would live in these mountains in spring and summer, and when food becomes harder to find in autumn, some of them travel over 100 kilometres to the black sea region where they fatten up and come back to hibernate for winter. but this natural pattern of behaviour has now been disrupted.

researchers emrah and aysegul have been observing the bears for a decade and dedicated their lives to protecting them. i'm joining them in the hope of getting a glimpse of these magnificent creatures. hi. you're listening for the bears? we are searching for the signal of one of the bears. the signal is moving. they have been collecting detailed data on the bears to understand human activity is impacting the migration habits of the bears. the forest they live in has become fragmented, dramatically changing their behaviour. we're here before dusk to increase our chances of seeing them. and we're in luck.

this has been really exciting, we have seen seven bears come out of this forest including two cubs. but the only reason we are seeing so many of them together is because they are on their way to this, the dump site, and they are going there to feed. the bears are here to scavenge. some of the forest had been overtaken by urban development so they're forced to feed on our rubbish. oh, my word. look at them, so many. so many. 18.

is that what you counted? just in this bit? this is really depressing. you can see the cubs, even. for me, it is exciting to see bears but not like this, this is really, really sad. here is too much food, they are not fighting, they are trying to eat leftovers but many times they eat plastic. the young cubs copy the adults and so learn this scavenging behaviour. the cubs are learning to eat in the garbage. walking off with a whole bag of rubbish. some bears are very fat and lazy because they are not moving too much. this is a really sad sight, and it's all—too—familiar across the world as habitats are being destroyed,

wild animals are forced to come into build—up areas to find food. a massive problem that needs a massive solution. the team has come up with an ambitious plan to lure the bears away from the dump. they want to create a new travel route for the bears taking existing patches of forest, they are this forested route will stretch over 160 kilometres right up to the georgian border. creating turkey's first wildlife corridor. they hope it will entice the bears to migrate once again. this is perfect for bears — thick forest, but then itjust

stops and there's this vast expanse of nothing and the next forest is 1a kilometres away, so this habitat has become really fragmented. the bears have a big role to play in this ecosystem, they keep the balance amongst the animals that roam these forests, the lynx and wolves and even rabbits. we all have a kind of silent agreement with each other, if you take out one species, we could think about the health of the agreement would not exist any more. we are tracking along the bears' route looking for any clues to show at least some of them are still trying to make the journey. look. — this is footprints. this is rubbing trees.

this is where they come and rub? some hairs and scratching. i can see there. some bears scratch but almost bears like this. that must be great to see. this is the sort of information emrah and aysegul have been painstakingly collecting for ten years. this is like our eyes in the forest. they've installed around 50 of these cameras which up help them document the natural behaviour of the animals and their relationships with each other, and they have also collared some with gps trackers to map how they move around in this patchwork of forest and see where they're running into trouble. this is the bear movement,

it is recorded every hour. we have the information of their movement and behaviour, the time they're spending in the spot. it tells us these animals need more space to move and go further. also in their way are the pastures cleared for farming.

these aren't planned to be planted. the data shows some of the braver bears still move between forests, and they hope more tree cover will encourage others to migrate. the initial trees in the project were planted only a few months ago. i'm joining this man to plant one of the first saplings in this area.

i've played a tiny part of a huge and exciting project. it will take years before it's finished, but wouldn't it be amazing to come back here and see this whole area forested, full of bears and lynx and wolves and so much other wildlife and become an incredibly precious ecosystem? only when the wildlife is roaming freely in the forest and can find food and nature can this dump be safely shut off to bears. 20 years later, i hope everywhere has trees not open area like this. and bears do not eat the trash, just their food. and hanging around here

and having fun being in the real wildlife. we hope so. during my time here, i've met incredible individuals fighting to protect the creatures living alongside them. desperately trying to manage the delicate balance between people and nature. rewilding the forest will take time but it also takes care and consideration of all its inhabitants. big or small. we have pushed so much of our wildlife into unsustainable pockets, and lost whole ecosystems already. climate change and our insatiable appetite for development has destroyed so many habitats, and it's up to us now to try and find ways to recreate them. what they are doing here in turkey is ambitious

but if it works, hopefully it will be an inspiration for other projects around the world. hello there. it's going to be unsettled this weekend, not a wash—out by any means, but there will be some heavy rain to start with. and then it's blustery showers and sunny spells for the rest of today and into sunday. temperatures will be coming down as well. the reason for it, this very deep area of low pressure which will pass to the north of the uk. on its southern flank, you will see widespread gales, lots of isobars there, plenty of showers rattling through from the south—west.

now, we start off this morning with a band of heavy rain across central, western parts of britain. that will slowly clear out to the north sea, and then into the afternoon, it's brighterfor all. gales around irish sea coasts, some huge waves crashing onshore, and it's a mixture of sunny spells, scattered showers, some of these heavy and thundery, in the south and west. after a mild start, temperatures will come down in the afternoon — 8 to maybe 11 degrees. sunday's a cooler day for all, again blustery. not quite as windy as sunday, but it's going to be sunny spells, scattered showers, again, some of these heavy and thundery across western areas, with some hail mixed in, and it'll feel cooler and fresher for all areas.

cornwall, in newquay.

welcome to bbc news. i'm anjana gadgil. our top stories: signs that the historic deadlock in the us house of representatives could be coming to an end — frontrunner kevin mccarthy appears to be making headway. i think you saw we made some very good progress. we'll come back tonight. and i believe at that time, we'll have the votes to finish this once and for all. a six—year—old boy has shot his school teacher in the us state of virginia, in what police say was not an accidental shooting. the altercation was between a six—year—old — the student who did have the firearm — and the teacher, and then a round was fired.

ukrainian officials accuse russians of opening fire in several areas, in spite of a temporary ceasefire