live from washington, this is bbc news. at least 30 people are dead and hundreds of others injured in sudan, as the army and paramilitary forces clash in the capital khartoum. disruption of the grand national horse race, as animal rights protestors storm the racecourse. and after it was almost destroyed by fire, we see the remarkable restoration of the notre dame cathedral in paris. hello, good to have you with us. we start in sudan, where heavy fighting is taking

place between two rival factions of the military. gunfire and explosions rocked the capital khartoum. the sudanese military has ordered citizens to remain inside amid clashes at the presidential palace and the city's airport. the two sides are in dispute over who governs the country. sudan has been run by the military since a coup in october 2021. a journalist from the washington post newspaper reported 30 people dead and nearly 400 injured, citing the united nations. at least two of the dead are reported at khartoum international airport. earlier, footage there showed large plumes of smoke and fighterjets flying low overhead. and this video from inside the khartoum airport shows passengers taking cover on the floor. major airlines have reportedly suspended flights. un secretary general antonio guterres has denounced the clashes, with a spokesperson saying: "he spoke with sudan's abdel fattah al—burhan and rsf leader general mohamed hamdan dagalo, also known as hemedti, and is calling for an

immediate end to violence and a return to dialogue." we want to show you what happened earlier on sudanese state tv. the newsreader briefly appeared talking about clashes, but listen carefully and you can hear gunshots in the background. speaks in own language. gunshots. as you see the picture then froze, and a short while later, the broadcast suddenly cuts off. and in the past few minutes, we're getting some more information from he reuters news agency that the sudanese army haslaunched air strikes on a base belonging to the paramilitary rapid

support forces in the city of 0mdurman — that is as you can see north east of the capital khartoum. earlier, i spoke to zeinab salih, a journalist in khartoum. we've been hearing heavy gunfire all around the city. i'm in the western part of the city. we saw militaryjets flying overhead into the southern part of the city. what we understood is they are going to hit what we understood is they are going to hit a military base of the rapid support forces. it has been like this, clashes between the rsf and the sudan armed forces. it started early in the morning at 9am in the southern part of khartoum. and it quickly spread towards strategic places

like the khartom international airport, the military hq, and the palace, all of them in khartoum city. is it clear who is in control of the country at this moment? it's not clear, because everyone isjust claiming things... the rsf at first claimed they controlled the international airport and said they were going into the military hq. at the same time, i was receiving statements from the army denying all this, saying, "that's not true, we are in control of all of these strategic places." so we don't know actually who is in control. so claims and counter—claims. is there any potential for talks between the two sides, for a political solution here any time soon? it won't be an easy thing. the head of the rsf was calling

his opponent a liar and saying he is going to drag him as a dog intojustice. it doesn't feel like they will be. but at the same time, saudi arabia for example has a huge sway on sudan, and is calling on both of them to sit down for talks. the international community as well, the us and the uk, all of them are calling for that. we don't know, probably they will change their position in the coming days and sit down for talks. so you point to those international calls from both sides to come to the table, but from the perspective of people there in the capital, the sudanese population, i mean, is there any sense of what the country could be heading for? people are actually very worried about this, that it could turn into civil war in the centre. because, you know, the army has been controlled,

i would say, mainly by people from the northern part of the country, and the rsf are coming from the western part of the country, and sudan is divided along ethnic lines. that's really worrying for most of the people here. i hope it won't turn out to be like this. it is very worrying. the clashes come after months of tensions between sudan's military and the rapid support forces paramilitary group, and are raising fears of a wider conflict. 0ur reporter simi jolaosho gives us more context now. it all begins with the former president of sudan, 0mar al—bashir. he led the country for 26 years until 2019, when there were protests across the country, in khartoum, including against his rule.

that eventually led to a military coup. civilians and military leaders came together to form the southern council. the idea was for this joint committee to eventually lead the country into a civilian—led government. it was led by these two men, the military leader general burhan, and the leader of the rapid support forces. the rapid support forces are a paramilitary group that grew in power under the leadership of the former president al—bashir. but these two were always at odds and that takes us to october 2021, when there were pro—democracy protests again, following several unsuccessful coups, which eventually led to the military taking power. they had the prime minister arrested, they took over the state tv and radio headquarters. they even restricted internet access. it's been years of the southern council allegedly

trying to transition the country into civilian—led leadership. now, with the open conflict and the general elections that are planned forjuly this year, only time will tell if they will actually happen. to the uk, 118 people have been have been arrested at the grand national, one of the most prestigious horse races in the world. they were arrested on suspicion of criminal damage and public nuisance offences in relation to disruption. a large number of police had been deployed to the ground after animal rights activists had warned they would try to disrupt the race. 0fficers went onto the course to remove the protesters. the start of the race was delayed for 14 minutes whilst the group were cleared. but it did eventually go ahead and was won by corach rambler, ridden by the jockey derek fox. 0ur correspondent sharon barbour was at aintree racecourse. it's been a really tense day at aintree, a day of high drama. it began with the protesters,

animal rising, which threatened all week to disrupt the most important race in the calendar, the grand national, which was due to start at 5:15pm. everybody said they couldn't possibly, there were so many police surrounding the race course and inside as well. protesters arrived, they sat down on the ground, we spoke to them, they said they were determined to disrupt the race, but still it wasn't believed that it was possible. well, they did — the race was stopped for around 15 minutes as they go onto the track, nine animal rising protesters were arrested. a little bit about that organisation — it was until a few days ago animal extinction, a sister to rebellion extinction, we don't know how many were here, but certainly they got onto the track and managed somehow to get through security and disrupted a race that is so important, not only here in liverpool, where the income

is about £60 million, but right around the world. 500 million, thejockey club say, watched the race in 140 countries, so, certainly, even though the race got under way, for the activists, it was a success in raising what they say are issues around animal welfare. certainly there will be a lot of questions, not only about security and what they can do to now protect that race, but also questions about what they can do perhaps about the safety of the horses taking part. sharon barbour there. staying in the uk, where coordinated strike action involving doctors and nurses isn't being ruled out, according to the union of the british medical association, as their pay dispute continues. nhs leaders say the further planned walkouts by nurses in england pose serious risks. the royal college

of nursing yesterday rejected a 5% pay offer. simonjones reports. preparing for more picket lines. members of the royal college of nursing will strike again over the may day bank holiday in england. for the first time, it will involve those working in emergency departments, intensive care units and cancer care. hospital bosses are concerned. that will present an unprecedented level of action that we haven't yet seen from nursing staff, and therefore, the challenges with that, the organisation and all of the work that will go into managing and mitigating that, will be enormous. the pay deal on the table would have meant a 5% rise for this year, plus a one—off payment for last year. jessica collins, a paediatric nurse from cambridgeshire, voted against the deal. thisjust isn't the pay restoration that we asked for. in fact, it is nowhere near, and i think there's a lot of disappointment in the unions for trying to encourage us to accept it.

clint cooper, a nurse in yorkshire, was in favour of the deal. absolutely gutted. i understand why my- colleagues have rejected it. but i stand by my word. - i will not leave my patients. this morning, junior doctors returned to work after four days of strike action. they're asking for a 35% pay rise and their union hasn't ruled out coordinating strike action with nurses in future. it's difficult to hypothesise, but all options are very much on the table. and the ball is in the health secretary's court to prevent any further strike action. the royal college of nursing responded that it's in close contact with the bma, but insists there is no planned coordinated action. the government said the 5% pay offer made to nurses is fair and generous. it has been accepted by another union, unison. ministers say they want the best for patients and staff. malcolm matin spent the night in a&e at st thomas�* hospital

in london afterfalling and breaking a finger. i don't think they should be allowed to go on strike. because it's an importantjob. hospital bosses say the nhs needs a period of stability. instead it's facing more disruption. simon jones, bbc news. uk prime minister rishi sunak is to ban the construction of new smart motorways, which use technology to regulate speed and traffic flow on some of the uk's highways. 1a planned smart motorways, including 11 that are already paused, will be removed from government road building plans. the bbc�*s panorama programme in 2020 investigated smart motorways, revealing 38 people have been killed on them over a space of five years. it led to the government reviewing the smart motorway network. here's a snippet from the documentary by richard bilton. we put in a freedom of information request

for one stretch of the m25. 0ne warning sign was out of action for nearly a year. 336 days. there was a 20—fold rise in near misses — 72 in five years with a hard shoulder, 1,485 in the five years without. earlier, i spoke to our political correspondent damian grammaticas, and asked him how smart motorways work, and what prompted the government decision. the way they work, in order to try to improve the flow of traffic on the motorways, and keep traffic moving, what the government has done over recent years is bring in these sort of measures. some are simply electronic boards that advise you that they have changed the speed limits, to try to keep traffic moving.

the one that is most controversial is the scheme that exists already on quite a number of motorways, where the hard shoulder, so the edge of the motorway, what would not be used on traditional motorways an area that you could park up if you had a problem... that had been converted on some motorways into an extra lane for permanent moving traffic. the idea was its monitored by cameras, there are these billboards. if you had trouble, you were told to stay in your car and the traffic would be directed to slow down and go around you. part of the problem, there were accidents happening there. and as the panorama programme revealed, there had been some 30—plus deaths on some of those motorways in recent years. this led to a safety review,

a pause on smart motorways and now we get this announcement that the projects that have been paused or planned, 14 of them, will not go ahead. two projects are nearing completion will actually now be done, but crucially, important to say that the ones but crucially, important to say that the ones already in place will stay. they will continue with some safety upgrades. so those will not change. so is this actually the end of smart motorways? can the government do this? no, it's not the end. at the minute, smart motorways already cover something like 10% of the motorway network. some 400 miles here in the uk. so the ones in place will stay in place. what the government has done today is to say that for the time frame it can look into, up to the end of the decade, basically, all road—building plans where smart motorways were planned, they have now been removed from those plans. so nothing before the end of the decade, and it will continue to look at how

users view this. worth saying too, this isn't just about safety. a large part of this is about cost. inflating prices for the work to convert motorways into smart motorways, the bill for the upcoming projects is put at about £1 billion. so that's £1 billion of saving, the government is making. so there is a cost saving it can make, as well as, it says, listening and responding to public about safety. damian grammaticas, thank you. to a developing story from the us now. the us federal railroad administration says a train has derailed in the northeastern state of maine. emergency services say they've contained a fire and that no hazardous material was released in the accident. it's the latest in a string of derailments in the us. the biden administration

has allocated more than $1 billion to upgrade the network's infrastructure. let's turn to japan now, where a man has been arrested after throwing what appeared to be a smoke bomb at the country's prime minister. a 24—year—old man was held by security guards after a loud explosion at a campaign event in the city of wakayama, south of osaka, where fumio kishida was giving a speech. 0ur tokyo correspondent shaimaa khalil has the details. chaos among the crowd as a young man is wrestled by security and pinned to the ground. then, this. explosion. smoke filled the air after a loud explosion, with screaming bystanders scrambling to flee the scene. this is how a speech by the prime minister fumio kishida was interrupted. he was ta ken to safety unharmed, no other injuries were reported, but those who came to see him fled in fear. translation: something flew over our head, we ran - as fast as we could.

and about ten seconds later, we heard a loud noise. my child started crying. it was shocking. police say a 24—year—old man has been identified and arrested — his motivation is unclear. shortly after, a defiant mr kishida addressed the crowd in another location, and said it should not affect the electoral process. translation: we are in | the middle of an important election in our country. we have to carry on. violent attacks are extremely rare injapan. this is one of the safest countries in the world, with very strict gun laws. but this smoke bomb incident comes less than a year after the assassination of the former prime minister shinzo abe. since then, there has been heightened security around politicians but also a heightened sense of nervousness. in the attack today,

the assailant appeared to be in the middle of the crowd as he threw the suspected smoke bomb. you can see him holding an unidentified metal device. mr kishida is safe and has continued the campaign trail events. but questions will be asked about why he was in such a vulnerable spot only a few months after his predecessor was assassinated. crowds have gathered injerusalem for the holy fire ceremony, the highlight of 0rthodox easter celebrations. but it comes against a backdrop of israeli police restrictions at one of christianity�*s holiest sites, the holy sepulchre church, and what locals say is a rise in hostility towards christians. 0ur middle east correspondent yolande knell reports. a roar of wonder. for 0rthodox christians, this light is an easter miracle, and quickly it spreads around the holy sepulchre church. there's a crush of foreign

pilgrims, but the number of local christians injerusalem is in decline — a minority feeling increasingly under threat. in this old city church, a religiousjewish tourist vandalized a statue and ultra—0rthodox teens desecrated graves in the anglican cemetery, breaking crosses. spitting is a regular occurrence. 0ften, processions are targeted. church leaders believe extremists have been emboldened by the rise of the israeli far right. i don't believe that it is a strategy of the new government to attack churches. but these young people who practise these offences feel in some way protected because they have strong representatives in the government. there's a lot of tension here today. the tiny christian community — it's less than 2% of the population — is angry at israeli police restrictions being imposed

on the religious ceremony, the police say, for safety reasons. but all of this comes amid christian complaints that jewish settlers are taking over more properties around here, and they feel a sense of growing hostility, which many believe is meant to push them away. chairs were smashed in a recent attack byjewish extremists on this armenian—owned restaurant, and a masked youth entered the armenian quarter with a jewish group on another night. one of the youngsters decided to climb the wall to take down the cross—bearing flag of the armenian patriarchate. either the christian world decides to wake up and defend their christian brothers, who are here defending the land wherejesus walked, where is the birthplace of christianity, or we will lose it all. many christians injerusalem are worried about the future and, as the holy fire arrives for 0rthodox easter, they're clinging onto it

as a symbol of hope. yolande knell, bbc news, jerusalem. in other news. the last three nuclear power stations in germany have ceased generating electricity as the country brings to an end its nuclear era. anti—nuclear campaigners have welcomed the move, describing it as a triumph. but surveys show most germans oppose the closures, as they see nuclear power as cleaner than fossil fuels. new york city has appointed its first "rat czar". she said she would take on the city's estimated two million rats by tackling litter and food waste and using new products to exterminate the rodents. now to france. it's been four years since the notre dame cathedral was nearly destroyed by fire. at the time, president macron�*s promise to have it rebuilt appeared optimistic. but it turns out that the restoration is on track for completion in late 2024. 0ur paris correspondent hugh schofield has the story. four years ago, the world

watched aghast as fire devoured notre dame. and the terrible climax, the spire of the cathedral, crashing to its destruction. the spire has become a symbol. which, at a site in eastern france, they been rebuilding, exactly as the original. thousands of oaks from ancient forests have been felled and shaped and now the first part, the massive base, is ready for assembly. bang on time. so, we have said we will do this in five years. so our reputation is at stake. inside the cathedral it's still a sci—fi film decor of metal, scaffolding reaches up to the vast hole which was once the roof. but everywhere, craftsmen and women are at their work of architectural healing. one of the big tasks has been treating the stained glass. like the spire, these windows are not medieval but 19th—century. unlike the spire,

they were saved. firefighters knew not to spray them with water or they'd have shattered. the disasterfor them, ironically, is an opportunity to remove 200 years of dirt. translation: it's a human grease from the breath - of millions of worshippers, soot from the candles and the stains left by condensation. it has all left its mark. it may still look like an unimaginably complicated task, but the reconstruction of notre dame has been advancing much quicker than the doubters ever thought was possible. just in the last few days, the base of the spire which we saw being assembled earlier has been transported here to paris and hoisted into place. soon, they'll be building upwards and by the end of the year it's confidently expected there will be a new feature on the paris skyline. or rather a very old one — the spire of notre dame.

hugh schofield, bbc news, paris. stay with us here on bbc news. hello there. most of us got some sunshine on saturday. i suspect that sunday will be a slightly cloudier affair, that cloud rolling in from the west. that said, if you get sunshine it will feel relatively warm. but those cloudier conditions, courtesy of this frontal system pushing in from the west, even bringing some splashes of rain. high pressure still holding firm, just about. so we are looking at mainly dry weather, and where we are closest to the centre of the high, across eastern england, sunny but a chilly start with early fog patches. further west, a lot of cloud, some rain and drizzle. in the afternoon, northern ireland could brighten up, but that could spawn some pretty sharp showers. north—east scotland also

seeing sunshine, lifting temperatures here to around 17. more generally, 12—16 degrees. through sunday night, we will keep some large areas of cloud. that cloud will break in places, but if you see clear spells for any length of time, they could fill in with patches of mist and fog. if it stays cloudy where you are, it will remain relatively mild, but in the clearer spots, temperatures dropping relatively close to freezing. into monday, still this patchwork of clear spells and cloudy areas. we could see quite a lot of cloud rolling in from the north sea. that, coupled with a bit of a breeze from the north sea, will make it feel rather chilly for some of our eastern coasts. temperatures in hull, for example, around 13. the same in aberdeen. further west, glasgow, 17, some spots up to around 18. as we head deeper into the week, the high pressure stays with us, which means it will be largely dry.

but with this high building to the north—east of us, the easterly wind will strengthen a little. the breeze quite noticeable in off the chilly north sea will make it feel cool on the eastern coast. we could see more cloud in the south on tuesday, maybe even giving rise to the odd shower. some spells of sunshine elsewhere. once again, the highest temperatures likely across the north and the west of the uk, and that will continue deeper into the week. always a bit chilly the further east, could turn cloudy around the middle parts of the week. there will always some spells of sunshine and generally warmest in the west.

this is bbc news. we'll have the headlines and all the main news stories for you at the top of the hour straight after this programme. hello and welcome to talking business, with me, tadhg enright. let's have a look at what's on the show. can revenge spending save the world economy? after more than three years, lockdown is finally over for more than a billion people in china. they've had time to stash trillions of dollars�* worth of savings. are they about to spend it travelling the world? and what's that going to mean for the rest of us?

i'll be getting the lowdown on revenge spending with this top team — steve odlan of the us