this is bbc news — welcome if you're watching here in the uk or around the globe. our top stories. pope francis leaves hospital after receiving treatment for bronchitis and says he will take part in the mass celebrating palm sunday. a critical incident has been declared in dover as passengers are delayed for hours at the start of the easter getaway. devastating tornadoes tear through america's midwest, leaving four dead. arkansas and the state government stand ready to offer whatever assistance is needed. the bbc launches a new education programme for children in afghanistan who are banned from attending school.

the pope has said he will take part in the mass celebrating palm sunday in the vatican. the 86—year—old was discharged from a hospital in rome in the last few hours where he was receiving treatment for bronchitis. smiling and leaning on a cane as he left rome's gemelli hospital, the pontiff greeted well—wishers and joked he was still alive. the vatican said he'd resumed some work duties while in hospital, baptising a new born baby as well as sharing a dinner with some of the doctors and nurses. earlier i spoke to our correspondentjenny hill who had the latest on the ground. he's now out of hospital.

as you say, he appeared very relaxed, smiling as he greeted well—wishers outside the hospital, telling reporters that he will participate in that mass right here tomorrow. and, of course, you know, pope francis himself is more than aware that talk of his impending either resignation or demise have been filling the newspapers here, you know, joking with reporters. "well, i'm still alive" as he left the hospital. but, you know, you're quite right. he has on a number of occasions made quite clear that he doesn't intend to stay in the job as many of his predecessors had done until pope benedict, of course. were he to get to the stage where he felt that his health was preventing him from doing thejob properly. and as far as we know, we don't expect a resignation any moment now. he is indicating that he will participate in the mass tomorrow. but you're quite right. you know, he has a number of serious health complaints. he's more often than not these days using a wheelchair when he's out in public because of a problem with one of his knees.

and so this will heighten concerns and questions about the length of his career now and of course, what happens after that. we do know that he all we know right now is that he said he will be saying the angelus making some comments at the end of tomorrow's mass. and he did specifically say he will be here in the square. he won'tjust be appearing at the balcony. he will be here. but we wouldn't expect, i don't think him to play perhaps the full part in this coming week services that perhaps he would have done in the past. i would expect to see a rather reduced role for him. nevertheless, he knows how important it is for the millions of catholics who will be tuning in from all over the world tomorrow and during the course of the coming week that he is very much here and central to those services. a critical incident has been declared at the uk port in dover, as coach passengers face hours—long

delays caused by bad weather and long processing times in france. hundreds of people hoping to esape for the easter break were stuck in queues overnight. port officials say they're �*deeply frustrated' by the situation. we spoke to a couple of holiday makers stuck in the queue. we're meant to be going to italy, ultimately, but we are booked into a hotel in france viz evening. but i don't know the going to make it. there's a long queue here so i don't know. normally i go in the tunnel but that was fully booked and here it's, well, we have just got to wait and see what happens. it's going to be a long one i think. we're going to be here for a while, but it's ok. it's holiday. our correspondent aruna lyengar has the latest from dover. lots of people getting on coaches, going on ski trips to france, lots of people sitting in cars and lorries, waiting to get across the english channel. the reason for the delays

is partly due to the weather, delays because of that, partly because of the huge numbers of people trying to leave the uk and get over to france but also because of french border controls. there are increased border issues there. the home office say that is the main reason but also our own uk border controls as well, those three factors are causing this huge delay and i have been speaking to people who have been on coaches like university students. one coach i spoke to, they said they arrived last night at 8pm after a long drive with delays on the roads from the north outside here and were waiting for hours. in fact they'd onlyjust managed to get into the terminal where they think they will still be waiting for another ten hours so there is real frustration by passengers. i also talked to people, coaches full of children and teachers and the teachers did not want to be interviewed

and they can't put their children up for interviews but they said they were really frustrated and all they had been given was a bag of crisps and some chocolate and a bit of water to see the children through until they can get over to france. the latest series of tornadoes to have ripped through parts of the united states has left at least four people dead, they were killed in the states of arkansas and illinois. dozens have been injured and tens of thousands— have lost power. the governor of arkansas, sarah huckabee sanders has declared a state of emergency. our reporter shelley phelps has more. oh, my god! ripping away building tops, uprooting trees and flipping over vehicles, the catastrophic tornado started moving through little rock on friday afternoon. this was the moment a weather presenter spotted it while live on air, giving warnings to locals.

this is exactly what we didn't want to happen. doesn't people have been taken to hospital. jeb really scattered across roads. there are also really dramatic scenes in an alloy where a tornado caused the roof of the packed theatre to collapse. experts say such widespread severe weather is unusual. this say such widespread severe weather is unusual. , , , is unusual. this is the first time in over ten _ is unusual. this is the first time in over ten years _ is unusual. this is the first time in over ten years that _ is unusual. this is the first time in over ten years that we - is unusual. this is the first time in over ten years that we had i is unusual. this is the first time | in over ten years that we had two areas of high risk. that's very uncommon. it's typically the atmosphere likes to focus on one particular area. atmosphere likes to focus on one particulararea. it atmosphere likes to focus on one particular area.— particular area. it comes 'ust a week mi particular area. it comes 'ust a week after the i particular area. it comes 'ust a week after the tornado h particular area. it comesjust a week after the tornado hit -

week after the tornado hit mississippi, killing 25 people. president biden has been their meeting with relatives of those who lost their lives.— lost their lives. today i authorise the federal _ lost their lives. today i authorise the federal government - lost their lives. today i authorise the federal government to - lost their lives. today i authorise the federal government to cover| lost their lives. today i authorise - the federal government to cover 100% of the cost for removing debris, by keeping shelters up and running and pay for every overtime, 100% of the cost for 30 days. and then after that, we are not leaving either. similar help will be required with the clean—up efforts elsewhere in difficult hours lie ahead for the millions of people facing severe weather warnings across the me midwest and the south. earlier i spoke to the bbc�*s nick miller about how typical what we've been seeing in the us recently is for the us tornado season. it's a similar weather set up to what we had last week, we had a very deadly tornado into mississippi, an area of low pressure which is moving across the usa. i can show you exactly what's been

going on and the weather system which has caused this latest round of severe weather. it's a weather system of low pressure which actually first arrived across the west of the usa but notice how it's emerged from the rockies and it's got that strong, cold front hanging down from it which has brought, particularly from arkansas to illinois, the severe storms and tornadoes and strong straight—line winds as well. and that severe threat still around for saturday across the eastern states of the usa where that weather front, you can see, is sitting there. north—east and south—east states, in particular, where we're talking about a slight severe risk. now what we've just had is a moderate to high severe risk. it doesn't look as bad but it's still possible for damaging straight—line winds but also possible for tornadoes before that clears out all the way on sunday and it'sjust much quieter again. what's the explanation for the frequency of tornadoes, particularly in the midwest of the united states? we all know the wizard of oz and dorothy being carried away from kansas. i'm presuming there's a reason why

that's got in the popular culture? indeed. tornadoes are not unique to the usa. they happen in the uk, they happen in many other places. but the strongest tornadoes do tend to be focused towards this part of the usa. the states to the east of the rockies and that's where you have these weather elements that come together producing these super cell thunderstorms that develop into tornadoes. essentially, it's a clash of air masses. you've got very warm, moist air coming from the gulf of mexico. you've got the cold air coming down from the arctic east of the rockies, so they are clashing together. sometimes you have dry air towards the mid—levels the atmosphere too. so several different types of air, if you like, all competing for supremacy and ultimately ending up with a weather system which has winds changing direction and speed at different heights above us in the atmosphere and starting circulate, producing this tornado, touches the ground. and if the conditions are right, will strengthen further and become violent and we see the awful

results from these. "upset, angry — but not worried". that's how donald trump's lawyer has described the former us president's reaction to his indictment by a new york court. he will appear there on tuesday, charged with falsifying business records. at least one felony offence is included, that could result in a jail sentence. it's all linked to hush money paid to former adult film star stormy daniels. 0ur north america correspondent gary 0'donoghue reports from new york. this manhattan courthouse doesn't normally look like this. but then it's not everyday a former president gets charged with a crime. in fact, it's never happened before. and this is the man who's brought the charges against donald trump, district attorney alvin bragg — a democrat and a prosecutor in america's highly politicised legal system.

but if mr bragg was saying nothing, the former president wasn't so reticent. he's called it "political persecution", "election interference" and his opponents "thugs" and "radical—left monsters". no—one is above the law, not even a former president of the united states. the case all centres on the financial accounting for $130,000 paid to this woman to buy her silence before the 2016 general election. hi, everyone! stephanie clifford — aka stormy daniels — an adult film star, says she had sex with donald trump in 2006, something he denies. today, it's donald trump. tomorrow it's going to be a democrat. the day after that it could be your brother, your son, your daughter. and we have to be concerned about the rule of law falling. because what's happened here is this is a case that would not have been brought against another individual in this country, if his name wasn't donald trump.

in the next few days, donald trump will come here to the courthouse. he'll have his fingerprints and his photograph taken. he'll then appear before a judge to enter a plea. until recently the most powerful man in the world will be processed like any other defendant. it's finally good to see somejustice happen. it's a political sham, and it's politically motivated. but this case in new york is not the only legal problem facing donald trump. stop the steal! two other criminal investigations are looking into his role in the storming of the capitol onjanuary the 6th two years ago, after he lost the election, and attempts to overturn the results. # cos there ain't no doubt i love this land...# those inquiries could prove much more serious for the former president, as he readies himself for another run at the white house. gary 0'donoghue, bbc news, new york.

the new school year started last week in afghanistan. but for the second year running, a taliban ban is keeping teenage girls out of school. so what are the options for young afghans who want to keep up their studies but are unable to return to class? shazia haya reports on one new solution being offered by the bbc world service. across afghanistan, girls' classrooms sit empty. they have told the bbc how it feels. translation: | find it - so painful that they are not allowing us to our schools. this decision is against islam. for the past two years, every morning i go to the rooftop of our home to watch the primary schoolgirls going to school. i stay there until midday when they finish and i cry. i miss learning new things. the bbc made lessons for the children to access remotely during the coronavirus lockdown in the uk. we thought they might be

useful in somewhere else. this is where the journalists and producers of bbc�*s afghan service are coming together to work on a very different task from what we normally do. working on an educational programme for young afghans, this lesson in dari and pashto, the two most widely spoken languages in afghanistan. the show will help people learn english in both my maths and science as well as have a bit of fun. where's afghanistan? 0k. for the presenters who are all journalists from afghanistan, it is a very personal project. my father was a teacher and he was killed in a suicide bomb attack 16 years ago. at that time, i felt that i want to be a teacher

because my father was a teacher. but i became a journalist. but now, by presenting this programme, i think that i have become a teacher and fulfilled my dream and also my father's dream in afghanistan. for those unable to go to school, classes will now come to them at home. earlier, i spoke to shazia haya, one of the presenters of �*dars' and producer mariam aman for more details on the series. yesterday, recorded a first episode and today we launch that. it has been a pleasure and has been a wonderful ride of eight weeks. relentless work has gone into it and we are extremely happy to be at the say is that we are in. you left afghanistan, 20 odd years ago at a time and the prospect of education was disappearing for girls. obviously, in recent years we had that opportunity briefly open up again.

what did it mean to you to have the educational opportunities away from afghanistan? how frustrating was it when you thought of you wider family still back home? the cycle of this problem in afghanistan, we are talking about the last two years but this has been going on for over two generations now. while shazia is quite young and she is from the post—taliban era, i am from the generation that the fans when of taliban was in power there and i just had a teenager when the taliban had their first running. ifled, my family fled and here i am, living a good life, having all the privileges that i have here. but my cousins couldn't. a teenage cousin of mine got married then in the late 905,

now she has daughters of this age that she used to be when the first round of taliban came. so this cycle of misery and lost hope and lost dreams continues. in a sense, you're hoping to break the cycle. shazia, thinking to back home. a lot of our focus internationally is on kabul because that's where a lot of people are based. but afghanistan is an enormous country. are you hoping that you'll be able to reach maybe even some of the children would never had the opportunity to go to school? i'm from the province. they are not allowed to go to school but they are desperate to get some education and through our programme, at least they can watch. they can listen to this programme. they can get some education through the tv, through our satellite channel.

i'm sure this programme will not only reach the audience in big cities but in rural afghanistan as well because we will broadcast this programme not only on satellite channels, on our social media platforms, on radio as well. we have some good audience on radio as well so we are really happy with that. radio, that bbc broadcast that country has magnificent ride reach in the country. we hope through radio we reach to the moat wrote part of the country and by satellite and by persian tv and social media. we want to research most cities and other places. the big focus has been on girls in particular and for both of you, i understand that

must feel very personal. what about the kind of lost opportunity for the country and the fact that the educational opportunities are limited? there are limited by poverty and employment opportunities, the location of places. they're also limited by choices that leaders make. how frustrating is that? and do you think it's something that is possible with an initiative like that, you can start to change some of these attitudes that may be the education something that is not the girls. we hope, this is the first small but really... with a really good intention. a lot of love at this programme is being made. as a purely academic programme. it's been done through bite—size material that was put out during the pandemic. we are picking that up, we have put together a really purely academic programme where we aim to reach a _ lot of these children of afghanistan

who are for some reason banned from formal education. but in terms of the whole of the country, as i said when i was in afghanistan as a teenager, we didn't have climate change as a big force as it is now right now. we have poverty, climate change and a new political order, which is not at best ideal, if i put it mildly, ideal. but there are things that are out of our control, things that we as a journalist at the bbc as people who are born in that country, we can do and this is one of them. and we hope that there are other forces while doing similar things that we could bring a small but significant and meaningful for change. shazia, can i ask you one last question.

how have your family reacted? my mother is just let me a voice message and she does watch the programme. she was really happy, she told me i was looking great. she was so happy! i'm sure she's feeling proud to have me and i'm feeling proud to be part of his programme. definitely. let's get some of the day's other news. investigations are continuing in switzerland after two separate trail derailments on friday that took place within 20 minutes of each other. 15 people were hurt in the incidents — both north of the capital bern — around 30 kilometres apart. rail operators believe stormy weather might�*ve played a role. the immigration detention centre in mexico hit by a deadly fire earlier this week is being shut down. 39 migrants died in the ciudad juarez centre on monday with leaked footage suggesting the victims

were stuck inside locked cells. five people have been arrested, accused of not helping those who were trapped. israeli police have shot dead a palestinian man who allegedly stole a gun from an officer in occupied eastjerusalem. there were no casualties among israeli forces. clashes later broke out between the security forces and palestinians. the rapid melting of ice in antarctic is slowing down the flow of deep ocean water and could have devastating consequences on the global climate. that's according to scientists writing in the journal �*nature'. they say ice melts are driving a "substantial slowdown" of water circulation. earlier, i spoke to professor matt england from the climate change research centre at the university of new south wales. he is the co—author of a recent

study that has identified significant changes in the earth's ocean circulation patterns. the problem here is that we have in overturning circulation and keeps our oceans healthy. it's sourced around antarctica so around the continental margins of antarctica, very salty and cold water is formed. and with ice melts, that fresh signalfrom ice melt is making the water less dense, more buoyant, is not sinking and the problem with this is that if we shut down that circulation, we basically stagnate the very bottom half of the ocean. so some 3km down, that water is very important. slowing down of antarctica, it's really important to ventilate those very deep layers and bring nutrients back up to the surface. and those nutrients are actually presumably essential to supporting of life in the oceans, they have an impact on the rest of us too? absolutely. i mean, it's recycling of nutrients.

we don't want to stagnate the bottom of the oceans because marine life at the surface has been used to that nutrient uplift. there are other cycles of nutrients up in the upper ocean, but over time, i read a study before i came on line looking at the impacts, we didn't study the biology, we studied the circulation, i'll get back to that in a second about the antarctic ice impacts right at the margin of the mounting there. but this biological uplift is estimated take away about 30% of the source of nutrients for phytoplankton at the top of the ocean over a multisensory timescale. so we don't really want to leave future generations without that supply of nutrients supporting marine life at the other ocean in the marine system. what are the effects of this is carbon dioxide, the amount of common dioxide that the oceans absorb. has this actually already been incorporated into the ipcc models because we know obviously they've already dealt with the question of the melting of the ice caps?

that's a good question. i should point out the ipcc model, like other models do, the slowdown recurring. what's unique about our study is that it captures the four main sources of that water information very accurately. a lot of previous models had the convection out in the open ocean so this new projection we have has a much more accurate baseline simulation. there are some nice animations on, you can look at the flow field. thank you to professor england for providing us with that. those are our main headlines on bbc news. hello. many of us will have been waiting patiently and crossing ourfingers for some drier weather because march has certainly been a very wet month across much of the uk, particularly for parts of england, where it's been the wettest march since 1981, over a0 years ago.

some places have had three times the expected march rainfall, but now we turn the calendar over to april and actually through the weekend, things are going to be becoming drier and gradually brighter as well. not dry everywhere today, we've still got low pressure close to the south east and we've got a weather frontjust draped across western areas as well. so that's going to bring some outbreaks of rain in parts of northern ireland, south west england, south wales as well. and from the east, with the breeze coming in from the north sea, that's going to import a lot of cloud and a few splashes of fairly light rain, some sunshine here and there, particularly parts of northern scotland, perhaps a bit down towards wales into the midlands as well. where you do see the breeze coming in though for northeast england and eastern scotland, only about seven to nine degrees. the rest of us, typically around 11 to 13. by the afternoon, a few glimpses of sunshine here and there, but most places are fairly cloudy into the evening and overnight. then we keep a fair amount of cloud and some spots of fairly light rain. that weather front in the west graduallyjust easing away, fading out through the night, some clear spells developing for eastern areas.

and there could just be a touch of frost for prone parts of eastern scotland, for instance. that's how we start sunday. now, sunday will be an improving sort of day because high pressure is eventually starting to build in, and that's going to clear the weather fronts away and mean lighter winds, a drier and a brighter day ahead for many of us. still a little breezy for east anglia and the south east, but certainly more sunshine than we've seen of late, a little bit more cloud drifting across scotland at times, northern ireland into wales and the south west of england, too. still rather cool around the east, nine or ten degrees, but most of us, about 11 to 13. and of course, the sun is starting to feel a little bit stronger this time of year. so monday, then, high pressure still very much with us. we've got a couple of weather fronts sitting out here in the atlantic and through the week they'll try and nudge in from the west, but they'll bump into that area of high pressure, so largely dry and settled with lighter winds on monday. it is looking like a much improved day. it could be some overnight frost, though. so a bit of a chilly start to things, by the afternoon, though, temperatures between about ten to 13 degrees for most of us on monday. and then looking ahead through the rest of this coming

week, then a lot of dry, unsettled weather, perhaps a little bit of rain through the middle of the week. but at the moment, it looks a little warmer and drier towards easter. bye— bye.

this is bbc news, with me, shaun ley. the headlines: pope francis has left hospital in rome. he was admitted on wednesday, after complaining of breathing issues.

the pope says he will take part in the mass celebrating palm sunday.