empty railway stations mean another day, another strike. we'll bring you the latest on the disruption. more people are buying electric cars but there the number of charging points for them isn't keeping up. and can the lionesses repeat last year's success as they name their new world cup squad? and the mayor of london be planning more help for those who need to get and coming up on bbc news, ben stokes is fed and raring to go ahead of england's test summer. the captain says he wants to play a full part in the ashes next month. of ukrainian children being taken by russian troops over the border into russia. 15 months on since the invasion, officials in kyiv claim more than 19,000 children have been taken this way.

the bbc can't verify that figure, but understands many children have gone from care homes and residential schools. 0ur eastern europe correspondent sarah rainsford has followed the story of parents�* desperate attempts to bring their children home. it is the most anxious journey of these mothers�* lives. dashing to reach the children they'd been separated from for six months. ukrainian children, sent to summer camps run by russia, and then never returned. alla tells me every minute now counts. the children have been told they'll be put in care if their mums don't come for them. that means a gruelling trip across thousands of miles, from ukraine, deep into the country that's declared war on them. translation: i should never have let him go but we didn't know. - theyjust took him

and that was that. my son had seen explosions. i wanted him to relax from the war, and then this happened. ijust hope we make it in time. russia has been removing children from parts of ukraine it occupies. it claims it's saving them from danger. but the international criminal court calls this illegal deportation. vladimir vladimirovich putin! it's why he is now a wanted man. vladimir putin has annexed huge chunks of ukraine and claims everything there as russian. even the children. and we've found new evidence of how they're treated. this boy's ukrainian. dressed in the z mark of russia's war on his country. he's a classmate of tatiana's son, who was also taken by the russians.

sasha has special needs. his mum had to travel into enemy territory to rescue him. he tells me how russian soldiers in balaclavas came to his school with guns. they loaded him and 12 other children onto buses and drove off with them. sasha had no contact with his mum for six weeks. when i ask how hard that was... he says it's too distressing to remember. sasha is now safe with his mum, in germany. he's told tatiana the children were banned from even mentioning ukraine, told there was nothing there to return for. translation: it's not only putin who should be put on trial. - it's all the main people. the commanders, all of them,

for what they did to the children. what right did they have? so i called the woman in charge of the school were sasha was taken. hello. deep inside russian—occupied territory. i wanted to know about the z mark. the ukrainian children, dressed as russian soldiers. "so what if they were?" the director shot back. "what kind of question is that?" soon after, the line cut out. for those who do make it back, the long road to home ends here, on ukraine's northern border. the first groups are just coming through. i can see some of the women and children waving as they cross the border, finally. six months apart, then six days of travel to be reunited. daniil had been scared he wouldn't

see his mum again, but alla made it. the stories of their exhausting, dramatic trip spill out between the welcome hugs. but alla tells me it was all worth it to see her son again. daniiljust says the reunion was brilliant. this is a war that's created all sorts of victims. brought all sorts of pain. but it is the fate of ukraine's children that's got vladimir putin indicted as a suspected war criminal. sarah rainsford, bbc news, in northern ukraine. and you can watch much more on that story in a special report from sarah on the bbc�*s iplayer — ukraine: the missing children. in the last hour the itv has said it has asked a barrier daley a barrister to carry out an external

review of events on this morning following the sudden departure of phillip schofield. he stood down after it emerged he had an affair with a much younger member of staff and lied about it to colleagues. david sillitoe is here. what have itv said? phillip schofield made his announcement last week. 0ver itv said? phillip schofield made his announcement last week. over the weekend itv have been, in its words, reviewing records and it says there has been a lot of inaccuracy in some of the reporting. has been a lot of inaccuracy in some of the reporting-— of the reporting. they've written to the culture secretary, _ of the reporting. they've written to the culture secretary, the - of the reporting. they've written to the culture secretary, the head - of the reporting. they've written to the culture secretary, the head of. the culture secretary, the head of 0fcom and the culture and media select committee to give them what it says are the facts. among them are the fact that this much younger man was there on work experience a 19, applied by itv when he was 20 and he left in 2021. the rumours about the relationship they say emerged in late 2018. they investigated and say that they denied the rumours. they say that they feel badly let down. there's going to be a barrister led external

review which they say will establish the facts and whether itv needs to change or strengthen its processes or policies. change or strengthen its processes or olicies. ., ~ , ., there's been more frustration for rail passengers with yet more strikes today. and they will continue over the weekend. first, members of the train drivers union aslef have been on strike today and will also walk on out saturday, affecting 15 rail operators. and second, members of the rmt union including train guards will walk out on friday. both unions are taking action over pay and conditions. around 40% of trains have been running today but there were wide regional variations — with some operators running no services at all. here's our transport correspondent katy austin. manchester piccadilly this morning. no rush—hour crowds, just a trickle of passengers. at london bridge station, no trains at all. and workers out on picket lines again, like these in birmingham and newcastle. for rail users, frustration.

just terrible. inconveniences everyone. i've had to catch a completely different train, to get up early. i don't know the ins and outs of it all, i don't know how much they get paid. i don't like the striking in general. i think it's entitled. get a newjob. i do think it's important for them |to strike but i think in situationsj like this it can be quite - frustrating for passengers, especially when the rail prices are constantly going up. - train drivers say this dispute is not only about pay but protecting their working conditions and there are no signs at the moment that their dispute is close to being over. these strikes come after their union, aslef, rejected the latest proposals from the train companies. the offer involved a 4% pay rise for one year, dependent on changes designed to make driver training quicker, and another 4% a rise for next year, if changes to ways of working are agreed with individual operators, for example a contractual commitment to work sunday shifts and giving employers full control of staff rotas.

that's fair and reasonable, insist the rail industry and the government, adding it would take the average driver's salary to £65,000. the union argues the deal contains things it could never accept. travel to big events including the fa cup final and epsom derby will be disrupted by saturday's strike. aslef insists it hasn't deliberately targeted them. under the legislation we have to give a minimum 1a days' notice. so we gave the bare minimum of 1a days' notice for the first action. subsequent actions are then based around not hitting the same people twice, about roster patterns and what's best for our members. in their separate dispute, train guards and station staff in the rmt will walk out again on friday. many rail commuters have got used to working from home on strike days, but leisure passengers and hospitality businesses have felt the impact. both sides say they want to resolve this but right now it looks like a deal is notjust around the corner. katie austin, bbc news. another leading figure

in the development of artifical intelligence has added his voice to warnings about its safety. professor yoshua bengio says he would have prioritised safety over usefulness if he'd realised how fast ai would evolve. yesterday ai experts warned that it could lead to the extinction of humanity and lessening that risk should be a global priority. our technology editor zoe kleinman reports. big tech is spending billions on artificial intelligence. photorealistic images generated with applications like midjourney are going viral online. chat bots like chatgpt are answering millions of questions every day. this is the fun face of generative ai. but today another so—called godfather of ai, a pioneer of the tech, voiced concerns over its rapid rise, driven by developers. governments need to track what they're doing. they need to be able to audit them. and that'sjust a minimum thing

we do for any other sector, like building aeroplanes or cars, pharmaceuticals. it's been a quarter of the century since ibm's deep blue supercomputer beat then world chess champion garry kasparov in 1997. since then, systems have been developed that acquire new skills through training, called deep learning. ai doesn't have to take the form of science—fiction's humanoid robots. you probably interact with it several times a day without realising it's picking your favourite film. artificial general intelligence is the goal of creating human level or beyond intelligence. one of the bosses of a leading uk ai firm says the pace of change is unpredictable. a year ago all of this would have been incomprehensible. teachers can no longer set essays at school because of chatgpt. you see images being imagined from nothing. where we are going to be in a year or a few years, nobody can tell. that's why we have to take some

action now, to put the appropriate guardrails around it. but its accelerating power has been matched by growing fears of whether we are seeing a new alarms race. one of the original developers of ai has told me its use in the military should be banned. this is one of the worst places where we could put a super intelligent ai. i think there's enough examples of science—fiction. the problem is, if something goes wrong and we lose control of ai and it happens to be ai that can kill people. don't worry about al killing you today. worry more about your bank details being stolen. ai is already being used to generate spam and misinformation, from deep fake images to fake news. so i don't understand the purpose of focusing on risks that don't exist yet and ignoring the ones that do. again, if that harm were so very potent and something we should all be scared of, then anybody who's signed that letter, all the ceos could just agree not to build it. that's literally how easy it is to stop it.

they canjust not built it. there's a new drumbeat of experts calling out the danger of ai and the world is sitting up and paying attention. the solution is regulation. we know some of the questions ai poses now. politicians are starting to try and answer them. zoe kleinman, bbc news. borisjohnson has handed over his diaries and whatsapp messages in full to the government and says they should be given to the official covid inquiry. the government has so far resisted handing over what it's called "unambiguiously irrelevant" sections of the material. the head of the inquiry has threatened to sue the government if it doesn't hand it all over. let's try and make sense of this with our political correspondent. what can you tell us? it helps to think of the _ what can you tell us? it helps to think of the three _ what can you tell us? it helps to think of the three players, - what can you tell us? it helps to think of the three players, the l think of the three players, the covid inquiry, the cabinet office and borisjohnson. the cabinet office have been asked why the covid 0ffice have been asked why the covid inquiry, doing a lot of work behind—the—scenes to provide boris johnson's whatsapp messages, diaries and notebooks between 2020 and 2022

in full with nothing blacked out. the government says no, we will refuse on privacy grounds and the inquiry shouldn't have access to anything that isn't relevant to its work. the inquiry thinks it should be up to them to decide what is relevant and they should see everything in full. tomorrow at 4pm is the new deadline for the government to comply with the request or face legal action. separately there is a row going on between the cabinet office and boris johnson because the cabinet office says it didn't actually have mr johnson's whatsapp messages or notebooks. today borisjohnson's spokesperson insists it has handed everything over to them in full and not redacted. we understand extra material has been given to them before but mrjohnson insists that they have had access to that for several months, so a bit of finger pointing between borisjohnson and the government. borisjohnson is trying to put the ball in the government port, to pressure them, but the wider picture is the government at loggerheads with the

public inquiry into the covid pandemic and tomorrow we'll find out whether ministers intend to still defy their request.— the time is 6.15. our top story this evening. the ukrainian children abducted to russia and their parents�* desperate struggle to bring them home. coming up... why british researchers are developing peas that don't actually taste like peas. also coming up... jailed for life, the ex—boyfriend who brutally murdered a woman after she ended their relationship. and counting the cost of rail strikes, businesses assess the impact in central london. the england women's football coach, sarina wiegman, has announced her squad for this summer's world cup in australia and new zealand. beth mead, who was the top scorer at last year's women's euros, is not included because of injury. millie bright and lucy bronze have recovered from their injuries to make the line up. 0ur women's sport reporterjo

currie has the story. last summer the lionesses were crowned the champions of europe. and now they have their sights set on an even bigger goal, becoming champions of the world. today, manager sarina wiegman named her 23 player squad in front of a packed media room in sutton coldfield before meeting young aspiring footballers. there were a couple of challenges in a couple of very hard decisions to make. you also look at the balance on your team and that has consequences for other positions sometimes. sometimes the versatlity, it all connects with each other. at the euros wiegman never changed her starting xi but a number of those key players are available this time around.

—— but a number of those key players are not available this time around. captain leah williamson, prolific striker beth mead and fran kirby are all ruled out with long—term knee injuries. whilst ellen white retired as did jill scott. millie bright, with bright taking over the captaincy. whilst brighton and tottenham strikers katie robinson and beth england are also in after helping their side come through relegation battles. that's the kind of fight england are going to need if they are to enjoy more success. we are under no illusion that we now have a target on our backs that would perhaps we didn't have the previous tournament. we have a dream and we have an ambition. we are super excited and we can't wait to get started. last summer, girls and boys up and down the country were inspired by the lionesses�* success with many of them watching on television. however, a feud between fifa and key nations including the uk means that currently broadcast deals are not confirmed. i think how the broadcasters have covered _ i think how the broadcasters have covered women's football since i have _ covered women's football since i have experienced this is really good, — have experienced this is really good, so —

have experienced this is really good, so i _ have experienced this is really good, so i do not think that is a problem — good, so i do not think that is a problem i_ good, so i do not think that is a problem. ijust hope it gets all sorted — problem. ijust hope it gets all sorted for everyone and every country. — sorted for everyone and every country, so everyone can watch the games _ country, so everyone can watch the games throughout the world. some have questioned _ games throughout the world. some have questioned the _ games throughout the world. ”he have questioned the diversity of the squad, with only two black players included. it is something sarina wiegman says she hopes changes in the future, but it will take time to evolve. england will travel down under is one of the heavy favourites, looking to become the first country since germany in 2007 told both the european and world titles. jo currie, bbc news, birmingham. we're all being encouraged to switch from petrol cars to electric, but according to the society of motor manufacturers, the number of public charging points is farfrom keeping up with the growing number of electric cars. it found the worst served area was the north west of england, where there was just one charging point for every 85 vehicles at the end of last year. the organisation says some drivers who switched to electric cars are now reverting back to petrol or diesel because of the shortage. here's our climate editor, justin rowlatt. petrol and diesel

are so last century. say electric vehicle fans like james court. but there is a problem. as ev numbers grow, it's getting increasingly hard to find a charger. last year there were around 36 electric vehicles for every available standard public charger across the uk, according to new figures. some regions do much worse than that, though. in the north west of england, there were 85 electric vehicles for every charger in 2022. in the south—west, the ratio was 78 to one. london does much better, 11 electric vehicles for every charger and scotland also fared well, with 18 per charger. but just look at this queue filmed last christmas. even a small delay can be very frustrating. what's delaying things is often the connection to the grid. so a lot of funding is going into this.

the supply chain is ready but sometimes the planning just slows the process. and these new figures exaggerate the charging challenge, says mr king. the aa estimate ev owners do 98% of their charging at home or in the street outside their home. james court charges his car at a local lamp post. i've had it for a year. the worst experience i've got is having to wait five minutes at a motorway service station. but what do you say to the hundreds if not thousands of ev users who say that they have had problems charging? it's not my experience but i think it takes a little bit more planning and there are lots of great apps out there, so if you are doing a longer trip, just a little bit of time looking at where you're going to charge when you have your coffee break. a lot of ev drivers say the same thing. but perceptions matter because whatever the truth, if people think they are going to find it hard to charge an electric car, they are going to be less likely to buy one,

which is why tackling the charging issue is so important for the car industry and also for the government. all done. with sales of new patch will add diesel cars due —— with sales of new petrol and diesel cars due to be banned in 2030, seven years' time, it means there's a huge amount of work to be done. justin rowlatt, bbc news, walthamstow. the new head of mental health for the watchdog the cqc has told bbc news that he's prepared to close failing services which do not improve, whether run by private companies or the nhs. his comments come days after the cqc found three children's wards at the priory group's largest hospital near manchester were "inadequate" and "did not always provide safe care". the priory group is the uk's biggest independent mental health provider. it says the cqc�*s findings don't accurately reflect the quality of the service they offer. angus crawford reports.

it was cold, it was uncaring, it was lonely. when meredith was just 15, she spent more than a year as an nhs patient at the biggest privately run mental health hospital in the country. and this is it, the priory cheadle royal. as we reported injanuary, three women died here last year. priory cheadle royal is a large mental health hospital... it is the flagship of the largest private provider in the country, the priory group, which gets hundreds of millions of pounds of taxpayer money each year. but during its most recent inspection, the cqc found services on three child and adolescent wards inadequate. it found that the service did not always provide safe care and concluded people shouldn't have to live in an environment with these poor conditions. i agree with everything

they are saying. like, it was absolutely appalling when i was there. and i'm not surprised that it hasn't changed. in a strongly worded response, ceo of the priory group, rebekah cresswell, said they would address any issues raised, but she was disappointed with the cqc�*s overall rating and insisted it does not accurately reflect the quality of services. she said, the priory�*s responsibilities are first and foremost to our patients and theirfamilies. and stated, the misrepresentation of service is unhelpful both to them and to our hard—working and dedicated staff. at the care quality commission, we inspect... the cqc�*s responsible for inspecting more than 900 mental health units across england. demand has grown while nhs bed numbers have dropped, meaning more and more nhs patients are being treated in private hospitals.

we don't want people to be in a service where they are at risk, we want people to be safe. in his first broadcast interview, the new head of the cqc�*s mental health inspection teams said he was determined to drive up standards. if we don't see a service improving from inadequate or requires improvement, we may get to a point whereby we might have to use our enforcement powers, and it might mean for any provider, whether nhs or independent sector, we might get to a point where we might then get to a point where services close. is that possible? yes, it is possible. a cqc inspector for years, nigel wants to remain anonymous. private hospitals, in his experience, did raise particular concerns. the companies were focused on reputation management — the larger ones, certainly — and they were focused on having hospitals that were full. you will see the same issues coming up again and again. they are not risk assessing well enough to prevent people harming themselves seriously or dying.

in response, the department of health and social care told us, but in a fractured system under intense pressure, do patients always get the care they really need? angus crawford, bbc news. a new survey says the presence of pine martens in northern ireland has almost doubled in the past five years. the organisation ulster wildlife says the species is undergoing a "phenomenal resurgence" after they nearly became extinct on the island due to hunting and habitat loss. british researchers are developing peas that don't actually taste like peas. why, you may ask? well, the plan is to produce an alternative to soya to meet the growing demand for plant—based food.

peas are high in protein, but they tend not to be used as a meat substitute because it's hard to mask their taste — as our science correspondent pallab ghosh reports. these pea plants are being grown at mudlee farm just outside norwich. when they're grown, chris harrison will use them to produce meat substitutes. this is what they'll look like after they've been processed. these protein chunks are sold to food firms to make into plant—based alternatives to meat dishes, like this chilli. mm! this is really delicious. but it's easier to make spicy food because a pea protein tastes of peas. once you start to use milder flavourings, then you're more likely to taste the pea flavours coming through. burgers, for example? yeah, exactly that. so a lot of work goes in to making burgers that don't have that vegetable flavour. that's probably been the biggest focus of that industry in the last five years.

these pea seeds could be the answer. they're of a wild variety found in india which have no flavour. they can't be grown commercially, but scientists have come up with an ingenious answer. in this particular one, we have a flavourless trait. in this one we have improved nutritional quality. but neither of these are variants that would be grown by the farmer. and we need to really get those traits into something like this, which the farmer is prepared to grow. so, in other words, we're going to interbreed with these three types. these are the first plants to have been crossbred with some of these seeds. there's been an enormous increase in demand for plant—based foods — in the uk it's growing at 30% a year. and growing peas could save farmers £15 million each year. that's because they don't need any fertiliser. and that would reduce co2 emissions by a whopping 211,000 tonnes each year.

and british—grown flavourless peas would reduce the need for imported soya, which is widely used in many plant—based foods. we all know we're facing a climate emergency. a lot of soya is produced in south america and a fair proportion of it is produced following rainforest deforestation. and that obviously carries a big footprint. the aim now is to produce a completely new variety of pea that's more nutritious, easy to harvest, and most importantly, doesn't taste at all like a pea. palab ghosh, bbc news, norwich. give peas a chance. sorry, couldn't help it. time for a look at the weather. here's louise lear. 0ne one of my favourite vegetables! i am veryjealous of one of my favourite vegetables! i am very jealous of this one of my favourite vegetables! i am veryjealous of this photograph, the blue sky and sunshine. look at this, my flowers are barely out of the

ground. that is out cold and depressing it has been across the south and east of england. it has been, once again, a tale of two sides. just that little bit further west, this is argyll and bute. 0ut west, this is argyll and bute. out to the east coast, it has been once again a different story. a cool, nagging north—easterly wind whipping up nagging north—easterly wind whipping up the seas. a lot of cloud, it was thick enough this morning for some drizzle across south—east england. if we take a look at the satellite picture, we can see how extensive it was today. weston produced a drop at the same time, eventually it nibbled away but it never really eased for the east coast of england. it stayed rather disappointing. actually, the cloud returned through the night tonight. western fringes keeping those clear skies. we could see a little bit patchy mist and fog. around 7—10. tomorrow morning, with that cloud picking up once again for a spot or two of light drizzle across the south and east, the best of the sun shine out to the west. eventually some of that cloud will start to thin and break, just like

we have seen today, but