night. a lot of cloud as well, mist and murk, temperatures generally four or 9 degrees. we start the weekend with a lot of cloud around. still this band of rain across parts of northern ireland, wales, parts of south—west england. much of the rain will peter out, but northern ireland in particular will stay cloudy and damp. at the same time, a lot of cloud rolling in from the north sea, with some spots of rain, mist and murk, and with this breeze it will feel rather chilly for north sea coasts. furtherwest, feel rather chilly for north sea coasts. further west, temperatures of ten or 30 degrees. as we head into the second half of the weekend, things look a little bit brighter. this area of high pressure tends to build its way in. that means more in the way of drive weather on sunday. not completely sunny, there will be spots of rain around, for the south—west, the odd shower. but it should be brighter. i2 south—west, the odd shower. but it should be brighter. 12 degrees, no great shapes bid shakes on the face of it. the sun has some strength to it, not feeling too bad if you are

out in the dry and bright weather by the weekend. thanks ben. theres more analysis of the days main stories on newsnight with christian which is just getting under way on bbc two, the news continues here on bbc one, as now its' time tojoin our colleagues across the nations and regions for the news where you are, but from the ten team it's goodnight. hello, i'm 0lly foster with the latest from the bbc sport centre. the indian premier league is back. ben stokes and moeen ali were the first england stars on show, but their chennai super kings were beaten by reigning champions gujarat titans in the opening match of the tournament's 16th edition. michael redford reports. of the big stadium in the world to come of the biggest of occasions, so much more thanjust come of the biggest of occasions, so much more than just a cricket condiment, it's full of global stars and plenty of home—grown talents.

that was mohamed's 100 and plenty of home—grown talents. that was mohamed's100 ipl and plenty of home—grown talents. that was mohamed's 100 ipl wicket. but that was mohamed's100 ipl wicket. but this wasn't his story. instead, step forward a batter full of potential and potency. full of power, too. a super king producing super shots, the titans needing 179 to win. a daunting total, perhaps, but they have talent oozing through their team. when he went for 63, the runs it suddenly dried up, but this is 2020 and big hits changed everything. the titans off to a winning start, but onlyjust. michael redford, bbc news. the former yorkshire bowler azeem rafiq says he feels "vindicated" after a cricket discipline commission found charges had been proved against five former players of bringing the game into disrepute through their use of racist language. the former england captain michael vaughan was cleared

"on the balance of probabilities" of using racist language towards some of his former team—mates and rafiq. vaughan�*s lawyer has criticised the process and the toll it's taken on all parties. 0ne one of the criticisms that could be made around having to use the cdc proceedings is that it is advertorial, it will invite claim and counterclaim, it invites people to call each other liars because that's the adversarial process. that can be very damaging and a very harmful pro for this —— process. but ultimately, it can cause a lot of damage as well in the process. after less than six months in thejob, the chairman of cricket scotland, anjan luthra, has resigned following a row about progress on dealing with racism. a report last year found the leadership and governance of scottish cricket to be institutionally racist, with luthra promising to clean up the problem when he took up the role.

he was criticised for claiming "significant progress" had been made, but in announcing his resignation, he "fundamentally disagrees" with the way governing body sportscotland is running the sport. sportscotland say they're "fully committed" to helping rebuild scottish cricket. let's have a quick look at some of the other headlines today. british athletes laura muir and jemma reekie have split from their long—time coach andy young, leaving their south african training camp early. muir and reekie, who are medal prospects at this year's world championships, have resumed training in loughborough. young claims there has been no "bust—up". northern ireland's record goalscorer rachel furness is expected to return for next month's friendly with wales. she's been called up to the squad after stepping away from international duty in august for personal reasons. chelsea's millie bright has withdrawn from sarina wiegman�*s england squad because of injury. arsenal defender lotte wubben—moy has been called up to replace her for friendlies against

brazil and australia. for the friendlies against brazil and australia. championship leaders burnley were held to goalless draw by sunderland in the championship on friday night. it was the visitors who came closest to scoring — amad diallo�*s deflected effort coming off the bar in the second half. the clarets need eight more points to seal promotion back to the premier league at the first time of asking. sunderland are now six points outside the play—off places. leicester tigers are through to the quarterfinals of rugby union's european champions cup after beating edinburgh. the english champions only led 3—0 at the break at welford road but half—time replacement jasper wiese scored the game's only try. the game's only try, tigers winning by 16 points to 6. bristol's european campaign is over for another season after they were beaten at home by clermont auvergne in the european challenge cup. french star damien penaud scored two tries as his side moved

into the quarterfinals. super league champions st helens are up to fourth after thumping bottom side wakefield 38—nil. they ran in seven tries. hull kr were also winners tonight — they led 14—nil at the break against leeds rhinos and scored straight from the restart in the second half before holding on to win 20—12. despite the win, they slip to fifth below saints on points difference. 0scar pistorius's bid for parole collapsed today after it emerged that he hasn't actually served enough time to qualify for early release. he has served six years of a 13—year sentence for killing his girlfriend reeva steenkamp in 2013. the six—time paralympic champion will remain in prison on the outskirts of pretoria for at least another year and half before he is eligible for parole. ms steenkamp�*s parents had opposed his parole request, claiming he hasn't been rehabilitated. pistorius continues to maintain he shot ms steenkamp at their home by mistake, believing

she was an intruder. russian and belarusian players will be able to compete at wimbledon this summer after the all england club lifted the ban it imposed last year. the players will be able to feature subject to competing as neutral athletes and complying with certain conditions. they were banned last year in response to russia's invasion of ukraine and the support provided by belarus. the decision also covers other british events held in the run—up to wimbledon, most notably the tournaments at queen's and eastbourne. former world champion anthonyjoshua has weighed in at a career—high 18 stone 3 lbs for tomorrow's fight against the americanjermaine franklin at london's o2 arena. joshua has fought twice over the last 18 months, losing both times to the world champion 0leksandr usyk. american franklin is almost two stone lighter than when he lost to dillian whyte in november. ifjoshua wins, he says he'll target a title fight against tyson fury.

and that's all the sport for now. this is bbc news. we'll have all the main news stories at the top of your the hours straight after this programme. hello, and welcome to newswatch with me, samira ahmed. next week sees the start of a new channel named simply bbc news. what difference will viewers of the current bbc news channel see, and why the change? next monday marks a big moment in the evolution of bbc news with the start of a single news operation for both domestic and international audiences.

we've already noted on this programme some changes associated with the move and your reaction to them, and there will be further alterations in the coming months. but it's a good time to take stock, and we'll be doing so in a moment with the man running the new service. before that, though, how did we get here? the corporation's first foray into 24—hour news was dedicated to audiences abroad. bbc world service television, as it was called at first, could not be seen in the uk and was funded by subscription in some parts of the world and advertising in others. good evening. this is the bbc world service news. i'm ed mitchell. the headlines tonight... six years later, domestic audiences got their own channel, news 24. hello, and welcome for the first time to bbc news 24. since then, with a couple of changes of name, the two services have run in parallel with some content being shared, a trend that's increased recently. but against the background

of a decline in the bbc�*s income with the two—year freeze in the licence fee, the bbc announced last summer that there would be a new unified channel, though uk viewers will receive specific content, such as this programme, at certain times of the day and during certain news stories. it'll be broadcast from london during the day and singapore and washington during the night. but some viewers have been telling us they fear there will be a downgrade from the current news channel. annette glaser wrote to us a few weeks ago begging... diane roberts echoed that. others were concerned about the practicalities,

with terry pearson e—mailing... and someone tweeting as patrickphotos posted this... well, let's put those concerns to the man in charge, interim executive news editor of bbc news channel, paul royall. thank you for coming on newswatch. now, we've already seen some of the changes, like the loss of the paper review, the film review, dateline london. what differences will there be from next week?

we're entering, i think, a really exciting phase for bbc news with the news...with the new channel. we're gradually bringing in the changes during april and early may. as you've said at the beginning there, some of the output will be combined. and so, the way to sort of understand the channel is there are two main feeds. there's a global feed, and there is a uk feed, and at some point they're combined, but at other times they're separate. so, for example, just to give you a sense of things, between 6am—11am, every day, every weekday, uk viewers will see bbc breakfast and then the nicky campbell phone—in. and also then during the day, the one, six and ten 0'clock news and also, then during the day, the one, six and ten 0'clock news will also be on the uk feed. and also, newsnight is going to be introduced onto the uk feed as well. so, these are all programmes they could be consuming on other

parts of the bbc output? absolutely, but as we know, people will consume in different ways, and some people willjust consume bbc news through the news channel, not necessarily through bbc one, for example, or radio 5 live or bbc two. so, for news channel viewers in the uk, that's 7.5 hours of premium uk—facing programming and content built in every weekday before you get to the combined feed. now, what happens, this is what a lot of viewers wonder, when you have a big global story like an election in a country, say, in south america or africa, and there's a big uk story, maybe a big political story that's breaking here or a story like a major storm orfloods that is really specific to the uk, and they're happening at the same time? what will uk viewers get? well, again, i can take you through that. if we had a big uk story that really didn't feel relevant to the combined global feed, we can go our separate way with the uk feed. also, we're going to be introducing single—story news streams into our coverage as well, and that's another layer of uk coverage that we'll

be able to deliver... how does that work? so, you could see that, for example, on the live page and the iplayer, for example, and see a specific story there as well. so, actually, the sort of...the end result of all of this is actually more choice and more flexibility as opposed to a reduction. so, you're talking about potentially having the iplayer as an outlet for a breaking uk story. you can't predict news, of course, when it will happen, so are you going to have a dedicated uk team on standby 2a hours for this kind of scenario? absolutely, yeah, and we've got a live and breaking team as part of the new structure for the channel team. and the newsroom is resourced in the same way... so, it doesn't sound like you're going to save that much money, then. there is significant... i mean, this is... we're delivering value for licence fee—payers, this is a value for all projects. but also underpinning it is world—class journalism and our commitment to delivering for all audiences world—class, impartialjournalism, which we know they value and they want from the bbc.

now, we've already heard from some uk licence fee—payers who are unhappy that they feel they're getting a worse service. essentially it's a takeover of the uk channel by world news, isn't it, with some opt—outs? it's not a takeover. i'll go back to what i said earlier in the sense that during the day, there are two feeds, a global feed and the uk feed. sometimes they're combined. on any given weekday, there's 7.5 hours of uk—facing content built into the schedule for uk viewers before you even think about the combined feed. and it could be that a uk story might be the top story globally on a given day, and also, obviously, significant uk stories will be in that combined rundown anyway. and because we're using new technology and we're innovating, we are going to have other ways, and other flexible ways, where we can deliver uk stories for audiences when we need to. so, for example, we've been

rehearsing that and piloting this over the last few weeks, and i already know sitting here today there are stories next week where we will be breaking off to deliver them for uk audiences. so, actually it's really exciting, and i'm actually really so, actually, it's really exciting, and i'm actually really confident that we can deliver for uk licence fee—payers. we're acutely aware of that. we're talking about that and thinking about that the whole time. and it's not the case that it's sort of as simple as to say it's a takeover. obviously, as we begin and we establish ourselves, there may be the odd imperfection along the way, and we'll learn from that and we'll take lessons from that. now, the world channel has been funded by advertising. that's going to continue, and the uk viewers won't see those adverts, so what will they see in those ad breaks? well, there's a number of things they'll see, and actually this is... i'm glad you brought this up because one of the things we're doing during those breaks is to bring in some stories from the uk nations and regions while the globalfeed is on those breaks. and that will help us get to lots of stories around the uk

that might not necessarily find their way into a combined find their way into a combined rundown, but they will be popping up a couple of times an hour during the day. the thing about the world channel is it's got a commercial imperative at its heart, and that means for many viewers that they don't think you're going to be fulfilling your obligations to viewers whose licence fee money is going into this new merged channel. i think the answer to that, the commercial imperative and the way the bbc in news terms resonates around the world is through impartial, world—class journalism. that's what audiences around the world want. that's what we're going to deliver, and that's what uk audiences want as well. so, there isn't really a conflict there because the way bbc news is sold around the world is because of its brilliant, impartial, world—class journalism. all right, paul royall, thank you very much. just time for a quick mention of what you've been contacting us about over the past few days, and coverage on monday of the latest school shooting

in the united states, in which six people were killed in nashville, elicited contrasting responses. colin wildman objected to the disturbing nature of some of the footage shown of the shooter, asking... but a viewer called john wrote... last week, there were complaints from those tuning into the news at ten who instead found themselves watching the apprentice: you're hired, the follow—up programme to the final of the reality show the apprentice, which had just finished on bbc one. the news bulletin went on air half an hour later than normal, and lucy berry declared herself...

finally, saturday's lunchtime news told us about a giant asteroid that was passing between the earth and the moon. the views of two astronomers, correctly described by the reporter, were quoted, but they were both labelled on screen as "astrologers" instead. jonathan green sighed. thank you for all your comments this week. if you want to share your opinions about what you see or hear on bbc news on tv, radio, online and social media, e—mail newswatch@bbc.co.uk, or you can find us on twitter @newswatchbbc. you can call us on 0370 010 6676, and do have a look at previous interviews on our website, bbc.co.uk/newswatch.

now we're off the air next weekend over easter, and when we return, our broadcast on the new news channel will be moved to a different, later slot at 11:30pm on friday nights. we'll still be on bbc one, too, though, at 7:a5am on saturday mornings and available to watch on the iplayer. thanks for watching. goodbye. hello there. after a very dry february right across the country, march has more than made up for the lack of rainfall, certainly across england. in fact, in the south—east quadrant of england, some areas have seen more than three times the march average, and the latest met office stats for march suggest that england has been the wettest since 1981.

that's all about to change, though, as we lose low pressure, start to see higher pressure into the start of april. this weekend and into next week, we'll see more drier and brighter weather across the country. but in the short—term, we still have friday's low pressure system clearing off into the near continent. it left a legacy of cloud and some weather fronts, which will bring further rain throughout saturday, certainly for northern ireland, parts of south wales, south—west england. thicker cloud also affecting eastern scotland, eastern england, with some spots of rain on it, will continue to plague these areas throughout the whole day. and it'll be quite chilly as well here with the onshore easterly breeze, and further west, although that weather front will be fizzling out with a bit of brightness, it won't be as warm as it has been of late. and as we move through saturday night, it looks like those weather fronts will tend to fizzle out. we'll see variable amounts of cloud and clear spells, and the reason for those weather fronts being squeezed out is because high pressure will be building in across the country for sunday. so, a dry start for most areas, and with us importing some slightly

slightly drier air from the near continent, certainly the cloud certainly, the cloud should tend to break up. we'll see quite a bit of sunshine around. lighter winds, too. early on, we could see more of a breeze in the south—east, but those winds will fall lighter. bit of cloud for northern scotland, northern ireland. despite the temperatures still on the low side, 9—12 degrees, when you factor in the strong early april sunshine, it'll feel quite pleasant. as we move out of sunday into monday, so the first working week of april, high pressure still dominates the scene for most areas. there will be variable amounts of cloud, i think, for scotland, northern ireland, closer to these weather fronts out in the atlantic, which will make inroads for tuesday and wednesday. but, again, much of england and wales certainly will be dry, widespread sunshine. widespread sunshine, and i think temperatures will be creeping up a little bit with the abundance of sunshine. we could be close to the mid—teens — i'd say 11—13 celsius. then some subtle changes tuesday and also wednesday. high pressure starts to pull away, and we'll see low pressure and its weatherfronts pushing

into northern and western areas. so scotland, northern ireland, northern and western england and wales will see some splashes of rain. a bit of cloud getting in towards the south—east, but there'll still be some sunny spells here. 0urairsource, though, coming in from the south—west, so a mild direction, as temperatures range from around 12—14 celsius. wednesday, a similar story — northern and western areas plagued by some weather fronts. high pressure never too far away from the south and the east, but we will see further splashes of rain across northern and western areas on wednesday. but as the fronts push eastwards, they will be pushing into higher pressure, so they'll tend to weaken, fizzle out, to become no more than a band of cloud. but, again, another mild day on wednesday, around the mid—teens, 111—15 degrees. and then, as we go beyond, the run—up to easter, looks like high pressure wants to build back in, trying to keep these weather fronts at bay, which will scrape into the north—west at times. but this is the easter weekend. it, at the moment, looks like it could be fine and dry. the run—up to the easter weekend will also be fairly fine. perhaps a bit of rain for the north and west of the uk,

but for the easter weekend itself, at the moment, it's looking pretty promising with quite a bit of sunshine. take care.

this is bbc news with the latest headlines for viewers in the uk