this is bbc news. welcome if you're watching here in the uk or around the globe. i'm vishala sri—pathma. our top stories: from the slopes to the stand, gwyneth paltrow gives evidence in a trial over a skiing accident she's accused of causing and insists she was the real victim. i was skiing, and looking downhill as you do, and i was skied directly into by mr sanderson. king charles's first state visit to france is postponed as growing unrest over president macron's pension reforms continues to grip the country. biden and trudeau talk tough as the us and canada pledge to stand together against authoritarian regimes. a russian child's drawing against the war in ukraine sparks a police investigation

and tears a family apart. a close call with a space rock capable of wiping out a city: the asteroid that's about to pass between the earth and the moon. the hollywood actress gwyneth paltrow has been giving evidence on the fourth day of a trial in which she's being sued over a skiing accident in utah seven years ago. ms paltrow is counter—suing 76—year—old terry sanderson, claiming it was he who skied into her, not the other way around. sophie long sent this report. gwyneth paltrow has been present throughout this trial, listening to emotional accounts from two of terry sanderson's daughters about the impact the accident

had on theirfather. today was the oscar—winning actress's turn to give her account of the collision that mr sanderson says left him with a permanent brain injury and four broken ribs. i was skiing and two skis came between my skis, forcing my legs apart and then there was a body pressing against me and there was a very strange grunting noise, so my brain was trying to make sense of what was happening. i thought, am i... is this a practicaljoke? is someone, like, doing something perverted? this is really, really strange. my mind was going very, very quickly and i was trying to ascertain what was happening. 0k. thejury must decide who hit whom on the scopes of park city, an upmarket ski resort, which is home to the sundance film festival and attracts throngs of celebrities. miss paltrow is accused not just of causing the crash, but also, of skiing off without checking if mr sanderson was hurt. at the time of the collision,

were you aware of the rule that, if you're in a collision, you need to share your name, your contact information with the person that you're in a collision with? i don't think i was aware of the rule. 0k. were you aware that there is kind of a rule of common decency to do that? i...would not have left the scene without leaving my information, and my information was left. did you provide that information? no, erik christiansen, who was the ski instructor with us, said he would leave all the information. he wants her to be held accountable, she was to clear her name. any victory will be a long one. sophie long, bbc news, los angeles. mass protests against a planned increase in the state pension age in france have led to the postponement of king charles's first state visit as monarch. president macron requested that the three—day trip be put on hold

amid ongoing unrest across his country. demonstrators there are angry about mr macron forcing through his plans without a vote in the french parliament. from paris, here's our royal correspondent nicholas witchell. tear gas. riot police. this is paris at the moment. there are piles of uncollected rubbish in the streets and angry demonstrators on the streets furious with president macron over his plans to raise the state pension age to 64. matters appear to be deteriorating and next week's state visit by king charles and the queen consort was clearly in the protesters' sights. so, from president macron, a change of plan. translation: we'd have lacked common sense - if we'd proposed a state visit of his majesty the king and the queen consort in the midst of the protests. the two men met several times when charles was prince of wales. after today's decision

was taken, the president telephoned the king to explain that the first state visit of his reign would have to be postponed. so what should have been the glittering confirmation of a restored relationship with a ceremonial welcome here at the arc de triomphe will have to wait. paris, quite simply, is in no fit state to welcome the king and the queen consort. the entente cordiale between the two governments may be back on track after the post—brexit tensions, but on the streets of france, there is anger. and that's the problem. this was the town hall in bordeaux last night, a building the king and the queen consort had been due to visit next tuesday. and this was the national assembly a few days ago as france's prime minister did her best to explain why members weren't being given a vote on the pension reforms. the king had been due to address the french senate, and this very grand building

is the palace of versailles, where the state banquet had been planned for monday evening. hardly the right backdrop in present circumstances. the state visit to france will be rearranged. the visit to germany will go ahead as planned. but paris hasn't been completely denied the sight of king charles. the local waxworks unveiled its version of a kilted king today. nicholas witchell, bbc news, paris. the us president has spoken of north american unity and improved economic ties in a landmark address to the canadian parliament in ottawa. mr biden said the two countries' prosperity was deeply connected to their shared security. he and the canadian prime minister, justin trudeau, pledged to stand together against authoritarian regimes. president biden also addressed rumours about the chinese government supplying arms to russia. i don't take china lightly, i don't take russia lightly,

but i think we vastly exaggerate. i have been hearing now for the past three months about "china is going to provide significant weapons to russia," and they haven't yet. it doesn't mean they won't, but they haven't yet. if anything has happened, the west has coalesced significantly more. how about the quad? how aboutjapan and the united states and south korea? how about what we have done in terms of aukus? so i just want to put it in perspective. i don't take it lightly what china and russia are doing, and it could get significantly worse, but let's put it in perspective. we are united, a coalition. we — we — the united states and canada.

president and canada. biden speaking in washington president biden speaking in washington there. our correspondent in washington, david willis, has more details. yes, very much so. there has been cordial relations between these two leaders, which i sense was from whenjoe biden was elected president, a change of course from the situation under donald trump, where, at times, the relationship was somewhat hostile, and today, the two leaders agreed, amongst other things, on the need to stand up economically to china by boosting, for example, semiconductor production and the mining of the sort of minerals that go into electric cars and batteries. canada is rich injust such minerals, and, indeed, the two leaders seem to be getting on famously, justin trudeau calling president biden �*joe�* at the press conference they held in ottawa today. another bromance brewing across the water! in terms of the detail of what they covered, they covered a lot of ground

in terms of what you mentioned, economic ties, but they also talked about asylum seekers as well, crucially? that's an area that canada has had problems with of late. last year alone, 40,000 migrants are thought to have gained entry to canada illegally, through border — unofficial border crossings, and that's put a strain on social services and put political pressure onjustin trudeau. now, they are doing it for a couple of reasons, not least because the us has tightened its migration policies, and because canada has been famously welcoming of those fleeing political persecution in the past. well, up to now, canada was bound by a law or an agreement going back to 2004 which forbade the deportation of asylum seekers who had crossed illegally into canada. well, now that agreement

has been tweaked, and as of midnight tonight, canada will be able to send back to the us those migrants who have entered the country through illegal border control points. now, immigration advocates have condemned the move. they say that this will make life all the more difficult for some of the poorest people in the world. it's worth making the point as well that canada has agreed in return to take in 15,000 migrants a year from central and south america. the hope being, or the intention being that it will ease the pressure on the border at the south of the united states, the border it shares with mexico. also, agreement was reached between the two leaders today, given that many of these migrants are coming from haiti, to put more money into boosting the police force in haiti, which has been increasingly driven by the collapse of law and order.

david willis speaking to me earlier from washington. let's get some of the day's other news. joe biden has said he's prepared to act forcefully to protect americans after ordering air strikes in northern syria in retaliation for an attack by iranian—linked groups, which killed an american contractor and wounded five us soldiers. authorities in rwanda have released the dissident paul rusesabadgina from prison after his 25—year sentence for terrorism offences was commuted. the us citizen was sentenced in 2021 over his ties to a group opposed to rwandan president paul kagame. he is also widely known for his heroic acts during the 1994 genocide. firefighters in spain are battling the country's first wildfire of the year, which has destroyed almost 20 square kilometres of forest. around 1,500 people have been forced from their homes in eastern valencia.

500 firefighters have been deployed and are supported by planes and helipcopters. shares in us banks have ended the week in the green in new york after volatile trading in the european banking sector. the fall in stocks was led by germany's biggest lender, deutsche bank, which suffered a fall of almost 8.5% in frankfurt before rebounding later. mark zandi, chief economist at moody's, says it's been a diffcult time for the banking systems. yeah, well, the global banking system is under a lot of pressure, central banks, the federal reserve, the bank of england, european central bank and others, they are raising interest rates very aggressively, and they have been for the past year, and that's put a lot of pressure on the banking system, and it has come to a head here in the last couple of weeks with a couple of failures here in the us,

and of course the emergency rescue of credit suisse, the big swiss investment bank by ubs, and i was just going to say, you have investors that are just very nervous, very skittish, stock investors, bond investors, and any creditor in these institutions arejust watching this and are on edge, and i think that's what we are seeing in the trading action. do you think these nerves are a direct response to what we saw with those interest rate rises in the us and here in the uk? because there was talk about perhaps a steadying of interest rates, but then we saw inflation figures are a bit higher here in the uk, and they ticked up a little — do you think that was a direct response? yeah, it's hard to know. it can't help, right. raising interest rates puts pressure on the banking system, makes it more difficult for banks to get the funding they need to finance their operations, their lending, so, certainly, it was not a plus for the banks, so hard to know if that was the catalyst for the continued angst here,

it is probably deeper and broader than that, but nonetheless, it puts pressure on central banks to cool it here, take a pause, make sure that the financial system is on solid ground before they go back to fighting inflation. in terms of deutsche bank, do you think that is perhaps a blip or will there need to be intervention there as well? that, i don't know. it feels odd that deutsche bank was under some pressure. i think it is the lightning rod for all of this general angst about what is going on in the system right now, so i don't know it well enough to know the answer to that question, but i do think it does reflect just a broad sense of unease that exists among investors at this point in time with good reason — the system is under a lot of pressure. this is bbc news. our main headlines this hour: the hollywood actress gwyneth paltrow has been giving evidence in a trial where she's accused of causing a skiing accident. she says she was the real victim. president biden has called for improved economic ties on his visit to canada.

mr biden and the canadian prime ministerjustin trudeau also pledged to stand together against authoritarian regimes and said they'd reduce their economic dependence on china. 0pposition parties in india have accused the government of stifling democracy after rahul gandhi was disqualified from parliament because of his conviction for defamation. mr gandhi, who is a key congress party figure, was given a two—year prison sentence on thursday for remarks about the prime minister's surname, modi, in a campaign speech in 2019. the congress party says it will challenge the verdict. here's the bbc�*s south asia correspondent, yogita limaye. it's extremely rare for someone to get a jail term for defamation in india. rahul gandhi's party, the congress, has called the court's verdict

"erroneous" and "bizarre". they've said it's a politically motivated move by the ruling party, the bjp. the case was registered by a member of the bjp, the court which delivered thejudgement is in prime minister modi's home state. bjp saying this is the court's decision and the congress should not criticise the judiciary. it comes against the backdrop of a number of raids being conducted and cases being registered against a number of leaders of opposition parties. that is perhaps why we have seen so many of them today rally in support of mr gandhi, one leader saying, "this is a new low for indian i. "democracy . mr gandhi has said he is fighting for the voice of india and would pay any price that is required for it. he isn't expected to be jailed. he can appeal against the verdict but he cannot contest elections — national elections are due next year — unless that sentence is suspended or he's acquitted. it is a rare moment in indian politics. whether or not it's a seminal

moment in terms of uniting the opposition against the bjp, we'll see in the days and weeks to come. a child's simple picture against the war in ukraine has ripped a russian family apart. the 13—year—old schoolgirl who drew this has been removed from her father after her school objected to it and reported her to the police. herfather is being prosecuted for anti—war posts on social media, and now risks losing his daughter. 0ur russia editor steve rosenberg reports from the town of yefremov. this is the last time masha moskalyova was seen in public. police had just detained her father for anti—war social media posts. masha was taken to a children's home. it was on 1 march. but the story began last year with a picture. 12—year—old masha drew it at school. "glory to ukraine," it says, "no to war," as russian

missiles fly in. then, the problems started. town counsellor 0lga podolskaya says masha's father, a single parent, contacted her to say the school, shocked by the drawing, had called the police. translation: her father, alexei, told me he was - dumbfounded. then, the police began checking his social media. they told him he was bringing up his daughter in a bad way. the authorities want everyone to toe the line. no—one is allowed to have their own opinion. alexei is under house arrest and not allowed to talk to us. since masha drew that picture, he's been charged twice with discrediting the russian army. he could now be sent to prison. his lawyer says alexei is distraught without his child. translation: alexei is very worried about his daughter. l he doesn't know what's happening to her.

the social services seem obsessed with this family — i think that's purely for political reasons. the family's problems only began after the girl drew that picture. we tried contacting masha's school to get its side of the story. school number 9 didn't respond to a written request for comment, so we went along there but were told, no, we couldn't come in. we tried calling. speaks russian. same result. dialtone beeps. across town, supporters of the family gathered in court. "return masha to her father," it says. the localjuvenile affairs commission is taking legal action to restrict alexei's parental rights. the commission has yet to respond to our request for comment. alexei moskalyov had wanted

to come here to court but he wasn't allowed to interrupt his house arrest to be here, even though what's at stake is whether his rights as a father are going to be restricted and whether his child will be taken away from him. local activists are doing what they can to help, buying food and supplies forfather and daughter. but when we ask the moskalyov�*s neighbours what they think, they're reluctant to say. "i'm scared to," angelina says. "i'm frightened to answer." "sorry," she says, "i won't express an opinion". and that, too, paints a picture of today's russia, of the level of fear. dissent is unacceptable, punishable. what those in power here expect is people's support, no matter what decisions are taken. steve rosenberg, bbc news, yefremov, russia.

an asteroid large enough to destroy a city will pass between the orbits of the earth and the moon this weekend — luckily for us, missing both. the object, named 2023 022, was discovered a month ago. although asteroid flybys are common, nasa says that given its proximity and size, it is a once—in—a—decade encounter. i asked dr sara webb, an astronomer at swinburne university of technology, about the significance of this sighting. we live in a solar system with thousands — millions — of asteroids, little bits of space dust and debris and quite often, they — quite small ones — come by the earth, and that's of no cause of concern. however, this one is quite large in the grand scheme of things at about 90 metres across. it's one that is probably more concerning to have found, but an excellent test of some of our observational facilities around the world to be able to identify it with plenty of time to model its orbit. now, we're reassured that there's no sort of danger to us, but in terms of sort of potentially dangerous asteroids, is that kind of easily identifiable, do you think?

yeah, so, potentially dangerous asteroids are identified by how close they come to the earth and then also, the size of them. so, we do have quite an extensive list of potentially dangerous asteroids that are continually tracked and monitored and this will most likely be added to that list because of the risk of how close it is coming right now and how close it will potentially come in 2026 as well. now, what's sort of slightly baffling for me is that this asteroid will return, like you say. so, you're saying in 2026 we're going to see it again. how does that happen? that's right. so, just like us, asteroids are on orbit around our solar system and sometimes, we get lucky coincidences where the orbits line up just right and they will come nearby us again. so, there's several asteroids that do continually orbit near the earth. they tend to be much longer time scales than what we're seeing here, but we can think of it as like a friendly hello. itjust enjoyed earth so much, we'll see it again in a few years!

chuckles. and if, say, for example, an asteroid was kind of deemed as being sort of hazardous, would we be able to react in time? in theory, potentially yes. so, this is quite a difficult question because we're only just now starting to think about really how do we be... ..defensive, kind of, as a planet? so, how do we defend ourselves from beyond our place here on the surface of the earth? and we're starting to see that with some really unique experiments. so, last year, we had the double asteroid redirection test, or dart, which crashed itself into a moon of an asteroid to see if we could use its momentum to knock it off course a little bit, and it was a complete success, and so, that's kind of our first stage in confirming that these methods we think will work could potentially work in the future. however, we're definitely not at the stage yet where we could use it right now. dr sara webb.

eight pallbearers who carried queen elizabeth ii's coffin at her funeral are among those to be recognised in a special honours list. britain's longest—serving monarch died in september last year, aged 96. 0ur reporter shelley phelps gave me more details. this special honours list following the death of queen elizabeth includes scores of members of the royal household and military personnel who were involved in the queen's funeral and others who were involved in the queen's lying in state — i'm sure we can remember those queues — hundreds of people queueing to see the queen and pay their respects. you mentioned the pallbearers — the eight grenadier guards. they've been awarded the royal victoria medal. of course, they played such an important role in the queen's funeral. if you think of some of those poignant scenes as they carried the queen's coffin, draped in the royal standard with the crown atop it, and they were watched by millions of people around the world and some viewers actually reported holding

their breath as the pallbearers carefully carried the queen's coffin into st george's chapel. now, also being recognised are members of the royal air force flight, who transported the queen from scotland to london, as well as some of her advisers like angela kelly, who worked with the queen as her dresser for 25 years. she is said to have ensured that the queen looked stylish and modern and that she always had a bit of sparkle. and another of her advisers, paul whybrew, who was one of her aides. he was memorable for the 2012 olympics sketch, the james bond sketch, where the queen appeared with daniel craig. yes, those are good memories. and who decides on these honours? they are the gift of the king but they are independently bestowed. they are not awarded on the advice of the prime minister or anything to do with downing street. and they are all about recognising those who have

served the monarch and the royal family in a personal way. shelley phelps. you can reach me on twitter. i'm @bbcvishalasp. i'm also on instagram. hello there. the month of march has been a bit of a roller—coaster, hasn't it? and friday was no exception. look at these contrasting weather conditions — a beautiful afternoon in scarborough, north yorkshire. pleasantly warm as well. different story in wiltshire. in fact, there was just shy of an inch of rain by some torrential and at times thundery downpours that moved through the country. we have actually seen quite an unsettled month for many — some areas seeing double the amount of rainfall — and the month is not out with more wet weather to come before we move into april. now, as for the start of the weekend, we are going to see further showers, not quite as many as friday, but this little weather front will enhance the showers from time to time. it's going to be a mild

start to the day. sunny spells and a few isolated showers during the morning become a little bit more widespread into the afternoon, but there will be some drier, brighter interludes and favoured spots for that is where we had the wettest of the weather, actually, on friday, so across southern and south west england, along with wales, 13 or 14 degrees. a line of showers from that front across east anglia, northern england and into northern ireland. a little bit more cloud but some sunshine into northern scotland but noticeably cooler as that northerly wind starts to kick in — 5—9 degrees here. now, it looks likely that we are going to see some wetter weather, though, from saturday into sunday with this area of low pressure bringing some rain once again into the south—west and so, that brings a bit of a contrast first thing on sunday morning. milder air sitting down to the south—west but eventually as that rain clears, the cooler northerly flow starts to push further south across the country. so, a grey, potentially wet start across the south first thing on sunday morning, slowly easing away to brighter, sunnier skies. a few wintry showers

in the far north of scotland — keir sitting in the cooler air with around 4—6 degrees. further south, it will be noticeably cooler but not particularly biting with it. now, it looks likely that that cooler trend stays on monday with plenty of sunshine before more rain arrives for tuesday. and just before i say goodbye, don't forget, as we move into the early hours of sunday morning, it's the start of british summer time. we all lose an hour's sleep but we gain more daylight. take care.

this is bbc news, the headlines: the american social media influencer and actress gwyneth paltrow has been giving evidence on the fourth day of a trial in which she's being sued over a skiing accident at a resort in utah in 2016. ms paltrow has counter—sued, and testified that she was the victim of the incident. president biden and the canadian prime minister justin trudeau have agreed to deepen their countries' economic cooperation and to stand together against authoritarian regimes, during a state visit to ottawa. king charles' first visit to france as monarch has been postponed, as demonstrations continue across the country against president macron's changes to the country's retirement age. the king's visit to germany later in the week will still go ahead.