welcome to bbc news. our top stories: a state of emergency in mississippi after a violent tornado kills at least 25 people. vladimir putin says russia has agreed to keep tactical nuclear weapons in neighbouring belarus. the uk government is set to announce the use of ferries as part of a series of alternatives to hotel accommodation for migrants as early as next week.

hello and welcome to bbc news. the governor of mississippi has declared a state of emergency after tornadoes ripped through the us state. at least 25 people were killed. the authorities say the storm left a trail of damage for more than 150 kilometres. president biden has called the storms heartbreaking and vowed federal support. one of the worst affected towns is rolling fork, where entire neighborhoods were flattened to rubble. our north america correspondent, david willis, reports. this is all that remains of the mississippi town of rolling fork. heavy vehicles were picked up and tossed around like toys after the twister touched down, all but wiping this tight—knit community off the map. we've got a new scan coming on as we speak. the storm struck at night, the warnings too late for the residents of rolling fork and nearby silver city. sighs. oh, man.

sighs. dearjesus, please help them. around 8:20, we have the tornado sirens going off, warning people to, you know, take cover. it happened so fast. right now, we got multiple homes damaged in the silver city area and also in other parts of the area of the county. some survivors likened the sound and ferocity of the storm to an incoming freight train. got to get ourselves into the middle part of the house and we did and we got in there and obviously, it was coming right behind us because as soon as we got in there, we heard a big boom. even those used to tracking such malevolent forces of nature say the impact took them by surprise. all the ingredients were in place for a large—scale tornado outbreak, fast—moving super cell storm, moving at speeds of 60 mph, and we were actually chasing storms for about 4—5 hours during the day, none were going tornadic and right at sunset, it was like a switch

was flipped from off to on. a massive search is now under way for survivors. president biden described the images as heartbreaking, and he said he and the first lady were praying for all who had lost loved ones. david willis, bbc news, washington. russian president vladimir putin has announced plans to station tactical nuclear weapons on the territory of its neighbour belarus. he indicated a few months ago that some belarussian military planes were being re—equipped to potentially carry nuclear missiles. translation: we have already transferred to belarus our- well—known, very effective complex iskander. it can be a delivery vehicle as well. on april 3rd, we will start training the crews. onjuly 1st, we will finish the construction of the special repository to store the tactical nuclear weapon in belarus. is it a significant development and for how it's seen in belarus, we spoke earlier to hanna lubakova, from the atlantic council fellow.

it's, of course, a development, it's a significant one, but i think what russia wants to do, russia wants is blackmail the west, russia wants to scare the west. and i think it's another sign that belarus is becoming this really loyal, this really controlled ally because what putin said is that they don't really give these weapons to belarus, they will help to deploy the weapons but they would be controlled by russia. so, by doing this, of course, putin is trying to threaten the west but he is showing who is in control of belarus. the british government is preparing to announce the use of ferries to accommodate migrants who have crossed the channel on small boats. the announcement could come as soon as next week. our political correspondent, iain watson, has the details. similar people coming here in small boats will then be housed in another form of vessel, on ferries, but in addition to that, the government possibly

by the end of next week will confirm the use of two military bases to house migrants as well. at this stage, the thing is there are around 50,000 people in hotels who have come to the uk. the military bases between them will accommodate between them will accommodate between 3000 and 4000 people, as you can see this will not be as you can see this will not be a solution itself to getting rid of the hotel use. the israeli defence minister, yoav gallant, has called on prime minister benjamin netanyahu to halt controversial plans for an overhaul of the justice system. the proposed laws have divided the country and resulted in weeks of protests. itamar ben—gvir, the far right police minister, has called for mr gallant to be sacked. shelley phelps reports. tens of thousands of israelis took to the streets of tel aviv on saturday as protests

against government plans to overhaul the justice system entered a 12th week. we all have to fight for our rights because of the plans of benjamin netanyahu that want to turn this nation into a dictatorship. what we're doing here tonight is protesting against the government who wants to get all of the power for itself and take all the rights from our citizens. and this is why we are here, fighting for our democracy. israel's prime minister, benjamin netanyahu, says the reforms will stop the courts overreaching their powers and that the public voted for them at the last election. proposed changes include enabling parliament to overrule decisions made by the supreme court. but critics of the plans say they risk undermining thejudiciary�*s independence and could be used for political ends. now, israel's defence minister has broken ranks and is calling for the plans to be paused.

translation: but now - i declare loudly and publicly for the sake of israel's security, for the sake of our sons and daughters, the legislative process should be stopped in order to enable the nation of israel to celebrate passover and independence day together and to mourn together on memorial day and holocaust remembrance day. these are our holy days for us. next week, lawmakers are due to vote on an essential part of the government's proposals which would change the way judges are appointed. meanwhile, protest organisers are vowing to intensify demonstrations. shelley phelps, bbc news. donald trump has opened his campaign to win back the us presidency by railing against the dark forces, he says, are lined up against him. at a rally in the us state of texas, mr trump claimed the multiple legal investigations into his conduct and finances were straight out of a starlinist russia horror show.

the biden regimes weaponisation of enforcement against a political opponent is something straight out of stalinist russia horror show. let there be no doubt the injustices now done not only to me but to dozens across our country will not stand and we will not stand for it. you will be vindicated and proud and the thugs and criminals who are corrupting our justice system criminals who are corrupting ourjustice system will be defeated, discredited and totally disgraced. that is what is happening. i've been speaking to political analyst, calvin dark. he told me more about why mr trump chose waco, texas as the venue for his rally. i think that there were two main reasons why former

president trump chose waco, texas. we are now in the 30th anniversary period of the stand—off of the branch davidians, it has become a rallying cry for anti—government extremists, so for president trump to have his speech there in waco, texas during this 30th anniversary period, he was definitely sending a message to those folks to potentially rile them up, the ani—government extremists. he also probably did it because it was a smart campaign move. this was his first rally and you want to go to friendly territory and not only texas but waco in particular, he bragged at the beginning of his speech that he had almost 100% during the last election, so i think he went there because they knew they could get a friendly crowd and they knew that they would get the numbers to make it appear that he has so much support for his first rally. you mentioned there that waco is marking 30 years since the armed stand—off which led to 86 deaths, just briefly remind us of the background and if you think there are any dangers that this being the backdrop of the rally could perhaps rile up the supporters in the wrong way.

i think in his speech today, president trump played on a lot of the fears because when we think about the stand—off that happened 30 years ago, it was interpreted by many on the extreme right as government overreach and the government was interfering in people's lives. and we have to remember the oklahoma city bomb ring that happened after was done in that name. this has continued to be a rallying cry for anti—government extremists and if you look at what president trump said tonight, things like, "if we don't win in 2024, we won't have a country, it will be over, world war ill, take our country back." these are things that he knows are whistles to this crowd and he is trying to rile them up which is unfortunate because we saw onjanuary 6th, that that riling this base up caused

violence and death. let's get some of the day's other news: hundreds of people evacuated following the first wild fire of the season in spain are facing another night away from their village. the fire has affected more than 4000 hectares of forest forcing 1,700 villagers from their homes. whilst wild fires are common in the region this is the earliest in the year that one has cropped up after a dry winter. former uk prime minister liz truss has been facing criticism following reports that she has drawn up a list of resignation honours. ms truss, who spent only 49 days in office, is thought to have put forward four people. two teenagers have appeared in court charged with more during a 14—year—old boy. he died in kingston on wednesday. rowan

shand, just 16, known as fred to his friends and family, stabbed to death. police say some kind of incident took place here in kings thorpe at about 330 on wednesday afternoon and robin received a single stab wound to the chest. he died later from single stab wound to the chest. he died laterfrom his injury. initially, there were four arrests, two men were released without charge but today two boys, aged 14 and i6, appeared before magistrates, charged with murder. the teenagers cannot be named for legal reasons and have been remanded until monday when they will be another hearing at northampton crown court. a community which is lost one of its own trying to support each other. the ounu to support each other. the young ones _ to support each other. the young ones have _ to support each other. tue: young ones have been to support each other. tte: young ones have been coming in and they are absolutely devastated, devastated and shocked. you know, the church, the community, all we want to come together and be there for

this. . , , ., ., this. there has been an online a- eal this. there has been an online appeal to _ this. there has been an online appeal to help _ this. there has been an online appeal to help robin's - this. there has been an online appeal to help robin's family. | appeal to help robin's family. so far it has raised more than £19,000. -- operation chiffon was the code name given to a top secret british intelligence operation that eventually paved the way for the good friday agreement, bringing an end to more than three decades of violence in northern ireland. at the centre of it all, was an undercover agent known as �*robert�*. the journalist peter taylor has spent more than 20 years tracking him down and in a new documentary he explains what really happened. explosion. by the early 1990s, more than 3,000 people had been killed on all sides in what was known as the troubles. explosion. the continuing violence was fed by one question — should northern ireland remain in the united kingdom or become part of a united ireland?

when peace finally came with the good friday agreement, i was convinced that an m15 secret agent had played a vital role in helping to make it happen. he ran a top secret back channel between the british government and the leadership of the ira. i've finally tracked him down, but following mis�*s rules, he lied to me and said he wasn't the man i was looking for. then, astonishingly, in 2021, i received a letter. "dear mr taylor. "you will no doubt be surprised to hear "from me after so many years. "for a variety of reasons, i could now give you some "background which might fill in some gaps." explosion. screams. �*robert�* was due to meet senior republicans, but the government cancelled the meeting after ira bombs in warrington killed two children. robert disobeyed orders, sensing that despite its campaign, the ira was looking for peace. at the meeting, he gave them an extraordinary prediction. "the final solution is a union.

"it's going to happen anyway. "this island will be as one." is that what you said? i must have done. that's what's in the minute that they took. if they wrote it down, then, yeah, it seems quite likely. but you had no authority to say that? no. and what you said flew directly in the face of what british government policy was? yes. those words were absolutely crucial because it appeared that behind the scenes, the british government were secretly working towards a united ireland. the ira's goal, but to unionists treachery. but in the autumn of 1993, with no sign of the violence ending, robert's secret mission was exposed. he resigned from m15. the operation looked like a failure. but that's not the end of the story. the ira still had a desire to carry on discussing a way

forward, remembering robert's words — "the final "solution is union. "this island will be as one." i believe that robert's words helped pave the way for the ceasefire and, ultimately, the good friday agreement of 1998. it also meant that an uncountable number of lives were saved. looking back, it's a degree of pride that i've played a small part in history, done some good in the world. peter taylor, bbc news. this is bbc news, the headlines: search and rescue efforts are under way after one of the deadliest tornadoes to have ever hit the southern us state of mississippi. at least 25 people have died. vladimir putin has said russia will station nuclear weapons in belarus. the us department of defense said it was monitoring the situation but did not currently see any reason to adjust its nuclear posture.

let's get more now on our top story, the deadly tornado in mississippi that's killed 25 people. a little earlier we heard a short clip from the meteorologist and storm chaser, dr reed timmer, who was in rolling fork when the tornado touched down. well, he spoke to my colleague frankie mccamley. well, yeah. all the ingredients were in place for a large—scale tornado outbreak, fast—moving supercell storms moving at speeds of up to 60 miles an hour. and we were actually chasing storms for about four to five hours during the day. none were going tornadic. and then, right at sunset, it was like a switch was flipped from off to on, the low level winds started to accelerate above 60 knots. and as soon as the storm hit the mississippi river, as those southerly winds were streamed up, the delta there, it went tornadic.

and there was a long track tornado that was possibly on the ground continuously for over 50 to 100 miles. we'll have to see if it was consecutive tornadoes, multiple tornadoes or one long—track one, but we were heading from south to north, from vicksburg toward rolling fork. and the storm was absolutely electrified. the lightning was pulse lightning — so, frequent, strobe lightning, so you could see the whole structure of the storm. and then suddenly, you saw that wedge tornado probably over a quarter to a half mile wide as it was crossing the mississippi river and heading toward the town of rolling fork. and you obviously, you chase storms, you chase tornadoes. but we're just seeing pictures now of the utter devastation left in some of those towns that you must be near to. was it ever touch and go? was it ever scary at any point? well, i've been doing this for a long time, for about 25 years, so we definitely knew where the tornado was moving. we knew the structure of the tornado. i was scared for the people in the path of this one. and we arrived in the town of rolling forkjust

after the tornado came through and saw the dark side that these storms leave behind and just total devastation. we saw people that were abandoning their homes, the rubble, walking around, confused, asking what had happened. you saw serious injuries, even death in the town. and we just began transporting people to the hospitaljust on the north side of vicksburg, people with the most serious injuries, and storm chasers dropped everything and assisted in the search and rescue effort because the nearest hospital was about 40 miles away from rolling fork. and we just had to get people to help down there, to that hospital. it was just utter devastation, definitely similar to what we saw in kentucky a couple of years ago, the december 10 and 11 outbreak where mayfield and other communities in kentucky sustained serious devastation. and i understand you helped get some people — two people — to hospital who had sustained quite serious injuries. how is that search and rescue operation going now? i can see it's quite light, bright, even sunny where you are now.

so is the weather, has it calmed down? is it helping that? yeah. the weather is calm certainly now. today, it is a little bit windy. just a classic post—frontal environment. a lot of times after these supercells move through on the back side of the outbreaks, you have crystal—clear skies like this. it's very dry. sometimes, it's cold as well afterwards. so, definitely the conditions are good for the recovery effort but it's just beginning right now. you see people that are just sitting in the rubble, not really sure what to do, checking on loved ones. cell phone coverage is down there. i'm actually just south of the damage path near the vicksburg area, and about to head back and survey that damage path to see if it was one continuous tornado, a super cell that's moving at 60 miles an hour like that doesn't really have time to cycle through tornadoes. so, you get these really long track classic dixie alley

tornado outbreaks, fast—moving tornadoes. they continue through the night and there's a lot of mobile homes as well out here in the midsouth and so, it's just the worst—case scenario. and yesterday, there were people in their vehicles in town. there were no tornado sirens that that were going off. and you actually even saw vehicles that were going airborne, orbiting around the tornado. and just the worst, most devastating tornado that happened last night. and it continued and impacted other communities like silver city and amory, areas that were similarly impacted during the super outbreak of 2011. the grammy nominated composer nick lloyd webber, the son of andrew lloyd webber, has died at the age of 43. in a statement on twitter, his father said, "i am shattered to have to announce that my beloved elder son nick died a few hours ago in basingstoke hospital. his whole family is gathered together and we are all totally bereft. " he had previously said nick had been hospitalised after living with gastric cancer for 18 months. from the suburbs of paris,

to the �*cambridge university boat race' crew, it's been quite the journey for 21—year—old noam mouelle. on sunday, he'll become one of a very small number of non—white oarsmun, to take part in the historic annual contest on the river thames. he's been speaking to our sports reporter, james burridge. je m'appelle noam mouelle, etje prepare la boat race avec cambridge. it's quite something, i would say, it's very challenging. there is a lot of pressure, obviously. i've never been that stressed, stressed out about rowing in my entire life. noam mouelle's mum wanted him to do an outdoor sport. little did she know how far that sport would take him — from the suburbs of paris to the wild and lonely great ouse, for one of rowing's biggest endeavours, the boat race.

when you tell people in france, so people who don't do rowing, that you're doing the oxford—cambridge boat race, it's a bit like... it's hard for them to imagine, right? because it's something that seems very old—school and very uk—based, and seems like almost a glitch in the matrix that a french guy could do this thing. while the boat race has always had an international flavour — it attracts many rowers from around the world — it doesn't have a great reputation when it comes to diversity. in fact, noam is that rare exception this year. across the board, when you look at rowing clubs in this country, just 6% of its members come from diverse backgrounds. people in the uk mostly learn to row in schools, and for your school to have enough money, let's say, to have good rowing equipment and so on, you need to be in a private school. and it's only a certain demographic which goes into private schools, which is why maybe you have a bit

less diversity here in rowing, at least. but that's really not the case in france. people are just rowing in rowing clubs. and so, for example, you will have people who row for their school, but they use the facilities... so rowing—club facilities, which makes the sport definitely noticeably more diverse. british rowing say they're increasing the number of outreach programmes in under—represented communities and want to change the make—up of gb rowing. noam doesn't want to be a trailblazer, but is hopeful he can encourage more people into the sport. if someone feels like rowing is not for them because people who row are different from them, right? and if that person sees that i'm doing the boat race, let's say, or anyone else, and they think, "oh, maybe, maybe i could try, maybe i could give it a shot in my local club or in my school or whatever," well, yeah, definitely, i would say, in that case, i'm happy. and if you were to win, what will

the reaction be like in france? it will be pretty special. so they're getting a big screen to put in the rowing club, so that people can watch. so, like, all of the kids, some of the kids and the older people are going to watch this race live on the 26th. my parents are going to be there. many friends are going to be watching online as well. so i think if i win, yes, that would be... that would be very, very special. millions around the world have been switching off their lights to mark �*earth hour�*. and it's not just and it's notjust houses, monuments including rome's coliseum and the acropolis of athens shot off their lights at 8pm local time to mark the event. the appeal was launched by world wildlife fund in 2007 to raise awareness of climate change and proposes that a large number of people around the world can reduce carbon emissions by turning off unnecessary lights and electronic devices for one hour.

you are watching bbc news. you can reach me on twitter — i'm @monikaplaha. now let's get the weather. looks like things are turning colder brieflyjust—in—time for british summertime. our clocks went forward one hour during the early hours of sunday. it will be turning colder across northern areas today and we will start to notice the difference in the south once we lose the early morning rain, all courtesy to this area of low pressure, pushing into the near continent as it pulls away, northerly winds will set and initially across the north of the uk and then spread outwards and you notice the blue colours spreading to pretty much all areas by the end of sunday. but we start this morning on a rather wet note across southern areas, that rain takes its time to clear away from east anglia and the south—east, could leave a bit of a hang back of cloud for the north. some good spells of sunshine around but it will be cold in the northerly wind with some showers which will have a wintry element to them particularly in north and east

of scotland so temperatures here, low single digits and single figures for much of england and wales as well, away from the southwest. as we move through sunday night, that cold air spreads southwards, sky is clear, it is going to be a very cold night, widespread frost i think away from the far south—west of england and south wales, so ice and frost could be an issue. into monday, we are in between weather systems, this will arrive as we head into tuesday but a ridge of high pressure will bring a lot of fine and dry conditions on monday to much of the uk, it will start cold and frosty mind you, watch out for any early ice across northern areas and it should stay sunny into the afternoon as well. cloud tending to build a southern and western areas later on, temperatures lifting to 11 degrees but after that cold start in the strong late march sunshine, temperatures will reach highs of 7—9 celsius. on tuesday it starts to turn cloudier, windier, weather, rain pushes in, preceded by some snow certainly across the hills and across the north of england

and scotland but temperatures will be on the rise you will notice, southern and western areas, we are back into the low teens and beyond tuesday, it looks like low pressure dominates the scene, sitting out to the west of us ushering in some very mild airfrom the south—west there will be strong winds and rain too. i think one of the mildest days will be thursday, we could be up to 16 or 17 degrees across southern and eastern areas but it will be mild and unsettled right across the board.