this is bbc news, the headlines: russia has continued to shell various regions in ukraine despite calling for a 36—hour ceasefire for orthodox christmas celebrations. president volodymyr zelensky said vladimir putin's offer of a truce, now ended, was deceitful. he said peace in ukraine would only be restored when russian forces were expelled. kevin mccarthy has been sworn in as speaker of the us house of representatives, after 15 rounds of voting. a small group of republican rebels had derailed

each previous attempt. the new speaker says it was the influence of former president trump that helped him secure the position. iran has been widely condemned after executing two more anti—government protesters. mohammad mahdi karami and seyed mohammad hosseini had appealed against their sentences for killing a member of the security forces during nationwide protests. now on bbc news, the travel show. no turning back now. ijust need to get there. even if it isjust the debris field, i will be very happy, paying my respects in the debris field.

radio: talk about comms. .. copy. so it was just weird, almost like he... radio: diver's comms, titan i was surprised when they made a turn as they departed the platform, i let them know he snagged a buoy... yeah, roger that, comms. this is diver one. just a heads up, it looked like he was heavy and possibly dropped a thruster because he started spinning really weird when he came off. he bounced a bunch of times when he was trying to leave the platform... radio: copy.

which direction did he spin? starboard. so it would have been his starboard thruster? yeah. checked it and said it was good. we will find out, we'll see! good? hungry! laughs need some breakfast. i'm all ready for when they come. must be a busyjob for you? very busy, it is indeed. it is steady. one mealjust rolls into the other, into the other. and especially on dive

days, it gets very busy. but i wouldn't have it any other way. you like it better doing this than on land? oh, absolutely, ioo%. every day is the excitement, is there a dive today, are they going to make it, what did they see, who is going down, when are they coming back? so some days, like i said, are more challenging than others, but for the most part, every day is great. every day is great. for sure. bottom out around 800 metres... so this is like the very first measurement an oceanographer would make from the site, you record the saltiness of the water throughout the whole depth profile and you record the temperature change. the ocean is getting warmer,

it is acidifying, we are seeing much faster glacial melting, the ice sheets are melting, there's huge injections of fresh water that are going on. having this kind of information from remote parts of the world like this is really important to understand those changes. and we're going to be able to link this data to all of the species that we document through the video and through the edna, so we can link these species observations to the environmental conditions that they are found in. edna stands for environmental dna, and it is dna that is left in the environment by all the organisms living there. so you can imagine a fish swimming through the environment is shedding skin cells and bodily fluids as it moves around, and all of that leaves a bit of dna behind in the environment. this expedition, we are collecting samples with niskin bottles, which are hollow tubes with caps on them that can be closed at particular depths to collect a sample, and those bottles are attached onto the titan submersible.

we do have communication with the sub while they are down there, but for me, i don't believe that there is a sample there until i see the bottle at the surface that is closed with the samples. the first time i dove the sub, i said, "this is amazing," it'sjust such a different experience, it's a totally different emotion. when you are in the sub, if you didn't bring it with you, nobody is bringing it to you. the sounds are different, what you see is different, and i thought, more people have to go in subs. it looks like silk! oh, my god, it is getting bigger too! on the way down, we saw a layer of animals we called mesopelagic animals. a lot of those animals are bioluminescent, so you get flashes of light here and there all through the water column. we were going very fast down, so it was very difficult to see

with the naked eye, but once in a while, a critter went by. ooh! wow, that was beautiful. we are at 1,200 metres. as we went down through the water column, it became darker and darker until past 1,000 metres there are no photons that get past that layer and it is pitch black. so it's very, veryjarring - because for about 2.5 hours we see nothing but darkness, and then all of a sudden - you see the floor come up to you, the ground come. up to you. all of a sudden, you see l the earth come up to you, and it does feel like i it is coming up to you because you are - descending so quickly. and so even before seeing - any part of man—made material of the ship, seeing the natural bottom of the ocean come upl at you was sort of spectacular. i mean, it was very exciting just to see dirt and mud. i wow, it was amazing, so suddenly you saw the sand

come up and we were just in the debris field there and then. seeing the pieces of debris was sobering. _ all five of us - in the submersible kind of unofficially had| this moment of silence when we hit the bottom. the first pieces i see - looking out of the porthole are pieces of coal. and it didn't even connect that they were coal - at first actually. i thought they were just rocks. and then someone in the subl said, "oh, look, there's coal." and that — that's the moment that connected me _ to the humanness of the titanic, - that people had shovelled this, people had brought it onto the boat, - and that during the sinking, itjust all spilled out. - and then we began to see other things — we saw a plate, a big dinner platejust sitting there on its own, then we saw a washhand basin with a tap still attached.

we were only about 300 metres apparently from the wreck at that stage. i don't know what is going on, i feel like... like what, like it's thrusters? yeah, i don't know what is going on. we have a grid map that corresponds. with the grid map that topside has. | 946... it is like battleship — they tell us which square we are in _ we had kind of a good idea which square we were in, l but we had topside l confirm that with us and then give us a heading. is something wrong with my thrusters? i am thrusting and nothing is happening. range...and bearing...two...

are we closer to the bank? i guess. we will find out. i don't recognise that mud out there, do you? no, no. here is the map! i haven't been here before. am i spinning? yes. iam? yes. looks like it. now you are going north. oh, my god. and scott is like, _ "oh, no, we have a problem." when we are thrusting forward, one of the thrusters is thrusting backwards right now. the only thing i can do right now is a 360. i was thinking, "we're not going to make it!" we are literally 300 metres from titanic and although we are in the debris field, we can't go anywhere but go in circles. when i am initiating thrust, i am turning.

that is why i spun on the platform. yeah. oh, god, no, don't tell me we have to go to surface at 300 metres away from the titanic. well, i had covid a few years ago — the first covid, the nasty one, as they say. and i found, i had lost 80kg in the last two years, i had been keeping myself very fit and watching my diet. one of the things i do is i box every day. so usually i spend about two, three hours in the gym, but one of them is boxing for an hour, and i found i was running out of breath a lot. i went to see a heart specialist in london. they did a myriad of tests and they found the covid had given me sarcoidosis in one of the ventricles in my heart. so they decided i needed

a pacemaker and a defibrillator immediately, literally within 48 hours. i went in on a saturday, he allowed me back in the gym three days later, and gave me the all—clear literally that week to come here and do the dive. people used to say to me, "oh, you are doing your bucket list?" well, it feels like i am now. no, it makes it more exciting. and the fact that i am able to do it is fantastic. if i had ignored my symptoms, i might not be here. on the sticks now, the actual| sticks, what is left and right? the right stick, that's forward, back, turn left, turn right. and when he goes forward, he is getting a turn. what's the left stick? down and up. - yeah. — what would cause that? they swapped out one of the thrusters. they put it on the wrong way? i mean, it is unidirectional.

yeah, it should be, but something happened. yeah, what he can do, so on the controller you have the up, down, left, right arrows, and you can set them so that one was going and every time you hit the button, it would go forward. um... i hope he knows how to do this. hi, jerome. stockton on wendy's phone. just call me back if you got a chance, we've got a question. we're on the dive right now, just looking for a way to remap the ps3 controller. thanks. it's not going to be easy. if we bring up a picture of that controller, we can tell him to press x, press y, press a, press b. yeah, except i don't remember which one is up and down. it might be that he could go forward with left and right.

he'd only be able to turn one way, maybe. yeah, it would be interesting. so close! so if that is the case, when he goes left, it should go forward. when he goes to take a turn to the left, he is going to go forward starboard, which would be reverse starboard. it might work, yeah. yeah, left and right might be forward and back. huh, i don't know. alter track by 90 degrees. try turning right. then we go forward, do we? go forward, 77.

so forward... forward. right is forward. i'm gonna have to write this down. right is forward. great, live with it. perfect. 0k. ok, just say rotate the controller. it's a lot easier if you just rotate the controller and then you've got it, because if right is forward, then left is back. 0k. rotate controller. and we were so happy that we figured it out that we could just move forward, that we started clapping in the submersible, going, "yes, we can go!" piece of metal on the right. can you bring up more light, scott, or is this it? - one of the early pieces we ran across were some tiles.

not sure what part of the wreck they were from, but you could see the really pretty colours in the painted tiles. the pieces that were intact were pretty phenomenal because we see colour at the bottom of this ocean. this is definitely the most challenging piloting i've ever done! so, bearwith me, guys, i'm trying my best! good job, scott. laughs. i'm trying my best! yeah, you're doing great! it's immensely exciting. you never know what's going to swim by. i don't see any wreckage. i lost my dvl, my altitude. i see the wreck on sonar, though. 0k.

how close are we to the titanic? very close. two metres, no? the bow should be visible. if you guys see anything, you've got to let me know, ok? yeah, nothing yet. we're ten metres away from the bow. i don't see it yet. it might be on your right. it's gonna be on the right. 0k. you've gotta rotate around to it. yes, yes, yes, rotate, rotate! bow, bow, bow, bow, bow! we are at the bow.

please send that message. oh, my god, you did it! confirm they are at the bow of the titanic. doing everything in reverse to make us get here, - it looks fantastic. can't believe it. in real life, it's ginormous! it's really incredible. i'm lost for words, - actually, to be honest. it's that good, yes. i'm just crying.

we've made it! finally, made it. how does it feel to get a lifelong dream? hard to explain. hard to put in words. she is big. i mean, to imagine how big she must have been, there must be 20 feet of wreck inside the sand. and even like that, what you're seeing is 20 feet high. amazing to realise that you are at titanic.

it's no longer a myth for me. it's reality, it's right there, in front of you. you are so close to it that you can actually touch it. when you go to the bottom and you start slowly going up and you can see every port hole — some of them are open, which is one of the things that people are amazed, that the people left port holes open when all this was going on, and you're going up and up and up, and it seems endless because the ship is huge. this was a floating palace. you can imagine the people walking up and down, taking in the sun, whatever, etc. we went down the side and captured the whole anchor. there is the name of the titanic on the anchor, we were able to see that. so this, sort of, nostalgic view, in a way, and also a tragic view. imagine seeing nothing and then, lights turn. on and you see an entire . skyscraper in front of you — that's what it was like. there is no words to -

encapsulate the feeling of it. seeing the scale of the titanic is what anchored me - into the realness of that - night, of the numbers of lives that were lost. 0k! bottom time expired, return. then we finally started leaving the site. it was a sad moment for me at the time to leave it. it was so short, that the time went by so quick. i'm gonna tell them "no hablo ingles". inaudible there he is. it's an incredible experience.

you are in this capsule, just like a spacecraft, with your other four travellers, and you go through it and when you come to the surface and they open the dome, it isjust like somebody snapped theirfingers and all of a sudden, you are back on planet earth. how was it? it was fantastic! how are you doing, jaden? hey! — good. oh, my gosh. what a trip. it feels like i've left earth and now i'm just returning. it feels incredible, thank you. both models are closed in the debris field. so, we've got two samples from the site. which makes me happy. 3,800 metres. there is enough pressure to break the cups. that's pretty good. that's cool. - everybody kind of started to go out, and i was trying to gather myself.

cheering ship horn toots the ship even blew the horn, which was fantastic. and once i saw stockton, i started crying. happy tears! happy tears. one less dream. are you crying? it was like a weight lifted off my shoulders. i needed to do that to feel complete, and ifeel now complete. we got it done.

hello there. the weekend so far has brought some strong and gusty winds. it has also brought a lot of rain for some parts of the uk, and there is more to come. this is the rainfall we are expecting to accumulate over the next five days, particularly in the west, there is a lot of rain to come, some parts of wales for example likely to see well over 100mm of rain, so that could cause some flooding issues. there is more rain to come on sunday, it will come in the form of showers, blustery showers at that, blowing around this area of low pressure. and as we get onto the backside of that low, we will start to pull in some slightly cooler air from the north—west, nothing exceptionally cold for the time of year,

just a slightly chillier feel through sunday. a mix of sunny spells and showers, some of the showers heavy with hail and thunder, perhaps wintry over the highest ground in scotland. confirmation of another windy day, particularly around western coasts, and temperatures between seven and ten degrees. so, certainly not unusually cold for the time of year, but as i mentioned just feeling a little chillier than it has done. moving out of sunday into monday, our area of low pressure still to the north of us, this north—westerly wind just adding to that rather chilly feel. monday, a day of sunny spells and showers again, some heavy, thundery showers and some wintry showers but again only really over the highest ground in the north of the uk. and those temperatures once again between six and ten, maybe 11 degrees in the far south—west of england. now, as we move out of monday into tuesday, here comes another frontal system from the atlantic so that is another dose of heavy rain, the heaviest rain always over high ground in the west. and between these two weather systems, between this warm front and this cold front,

we have what we call a warm sector, a wedge of mild air. so, through tuesday, this heavy rain splashes its way northwards and eastwards, maybe some snow over high ground in scotland, but that milder air rushing in from the south—west on some brisk winds so temperatures in the south up to 13 or 11! degrees, very mild indeed. but that cold front sweeps through during tuesday night and into wednesday. we end up in this flow of brisk westerly winds, that will bring further showers, maybe longer spells of rain at times as the showers tend tojoin together. and we will be back into something just a little bit chillier by this stage. so you can see from the blobs of white, there may be some wintriness in the showers, but again that will be over hills and mountains in the north, particularly in scotland. and we are back to those temperatures of between seven and 10 degrees. this brisk westerly flow continuing to bring frontal systems in our direction. by thursday, it may be that we see another dose of more widespread rain pushing northwards and eastwards, another one of these wedges of mild air, another warm sector likely to develop

so cardiff, london, plymouth at 12 degrees, even further north we are looking at eight there, aberdeen should be a mild feeling day. that very mild feel probably won't last. as we look further ahead towards the end of the week into the weekend, low pressure is likely to be to the north of us, and again as we get on the back edge of that low, we are likely to bring in a north—westerly wind, perhaps more other northerly wind developing injust for a time. there are signs as we go further ahead in our forecast that we could get into something just a little bit colder, again nothing exceptional for this time of year but temperatures are likely to drop awayjust a little. and with colder weather at this time of year, there is of course always the chance that we could see something a little wintry mixing in with the rain.

hello and welcome to bbc news. the ceasefire in ukraine — declared by russia, for the orthodox christmas — has come to an end. clashes between ukrainian and russian forces continued throughout the 36—hour period. president zelensky said vladimir putin's offer was deceitful — he said peace in ukraine would only be restored when russian forces were expelled. and moscow said it reserved the right to return fire if its troops were attacked. our correspondent, james waterhouse — along with producer siobhan leahy and cameraman paul francis — sent this report from the eastern city of bakhmut, on the front line. you leave civilisation behind on the journey to bakhmut.