this is bbc news. the headlines... forty one people — most of them students — are killed in an attack on a school in western uganda. six pupils have been abducted. officials are blaming rebels linked to the islamic state group. the un has called it an "appalling act". vladimir putin has rejected calls by african leaders to negiotate a ceasefire with ukraine during a meeting in st petersburg. the russian president interrupted the opening presentations of a peace plan by the leaders by insisting the war — and the resulting food price inflation — was the fault of kyiv and the west. teachers in england announce two more days of strike action as part of a long—running pay dispute. members of the national education union will walk out on the fifth and 7th ofjuly. the government says the strikes will cause "real damage" to pupils.

now on bbc news — spencer kelly meets the gamers competing in the uk's first live fortnite tournament, in click. this week... three, two, one... cheering. ..the battle is on as we go to the uk's first—ever live fortnite tournament... this is a sport where every player is in their own world, their own zone. ..marc speaks to xbox's big boss about what's on the horizon in the next few months... can you give us a sign that you can hear us, please? please.

..and we're hunting ghosts with some terrifying tracking tech. in amongst edinburgh's elegant architecture stands the iconic mcewan hall. in 1897, it was gifted to the people of the city by philanthropist william mcewan and throughout its life, it's been the home of graduations, concerts and even edinburgh fringe comedy gigs. but i wonder if william mcewan ever thought that his hall would be used for this... it's been turned into a fortnite den. four, three, two, one... it's the best feeling ever. basically the only game i've been playing for five years. i'm addicted to it. to win in any sport, _ you need to believe in yourself. in a game like fortnite, anything can happen at any time. welcome to red bull contested,

the first—ever major live fortnite tournament in the uk. today, 100 of the best players will battle through eight rounds of gameplay. the highest scorer will lift the trophy and walk away with £100,000. the very first—ever fortnite major lan event here in the uk. this is a sport where every player is in their own world, their own zone, hardly moving. fortnite is huge. it's only six years old, but it has 400 million players around the world. its battle royale tournaments allow up to 100 players to join each online world and then have it out with each other to be the last one standing. i grew up playing shooter games, so i feel like my aim is really, really good. ijust focus on hitting my shots and that works. irina is a streamer with tens of thousands of followers who can

watch her playing fortnite online every day, and this event is a reminder that gaming is also a massive spectator sport. it's being livestreamed to fans everywhere, and the set—up is comparable with some high—end tv programmes. for the players who have experience with physical events, that has a big advantage because there's lights going on. it's not your home chair, it's not your home desk. i always compare it to a professional football player — he plays on a pitch if it's rain, snowy, and you have to do the same in fortnite. so these may be some of the best fortnite players in the world, but what's really interesting is a new version of fortnite drops the day before this tournament, so there are new weapons, new skills to master, a brand—new area of the island that's unfamiliar to everyone, and so i think that does level the playing field. what they're saying is this really could be anyone's game. playing field is not that level — of the 100 players, irina is the only female. we haven't really had girls

stand out in the biggest fortnite tournament. fortnite competitive requires a lot, a lot of effort and we have yet to see some girls making it to the top. we actually invited five women to come and play here, but, for different reasons, they couldn't show up, unfortunately. how do you think you can make tournaments like this more attractive to women? traditionally, girls were never that interested in games, like in my generation, and i think, you know, more and more women have taken it seriously in the recent years. and i think it'sjust, like, a thing that takes some time and it will definitely come where you're going to see more and more women on the stage. she's definitely holdingj it down for the women. we love reddysh, right? it can be difficult to get your head around the fact that esports is such a big deal, and these players, aged 16 to 27, have certainly found something that they can excel in. and arguably, these alternate worlds can provide safe spaces from the stresses

of being a teenager. when i have problems, ijust put the headset on and it's just like a different type of world. it's kind of playing a different game. you don't have to focus about what's happening in real life. esports have definitely proved that they are worth the investment of big sponsors — big audiences mean big profits mean big prizes. when i was 15 years old, i went to the fortnite world cup. i played second in duos with my partner and we won about 2 million combined. it takes a lot of work to definitely become a professional gamer because you have to put in so, so many hours. after eight gruelling battles, the tournament is over and the prize goes to wave vico. what are you going to do with the prize money? i'm going to save the money and i'm going to save up for my graduation. and the 16—year—old austrian is humble and measured in his victory. i'm just at a level of happiness where ijust can cry all day right now.

0k. let's do it. fiery spells... ..sneaky stormtroopers. .. ..and space. lots and lots of space. a big bunch of new games have been showcased in los angeles this week. 0rdinarily, this time of year would see the games industry descend on la for one of the biggest events on the gaming calendar, the e3 convention, but it seems e3 has been indefinitely postponed. this is awkward. that didn't stop some of the biggest names in games throwing their own events, though. we are not stopping, whatever lies at the end of this road. ubisoft gave us a glimpse of gameplay from its new star wars open—world adventure, 0utlaws, as well as a return to the world ofjames cameron's big, blue feline folk in avatar: frontiers of pandora. lam na'vi. living it up with the common folk...

xbox had a couple of aces up its sleeve. a larger—than—life richard ayoade gave us an early look at the next game in the fable fantasy franchise. you see, i'm not here to slay legendary beasts. i'm here to conquer the vegetable. not a euphemism. more fantasy action from developers 0bsidian with avowed. you're either here to save us... ..or destroy us. ready? i love this part. least surprising of all, we got a long look at the latest game from legendary roleplaying developers bethesda and their epic space exploration title, starfield. with a massive number of customisation options for characters... ..and ships, the ability to play in third orfirst person, a vast array of missions and guests,

and over 1,000 planets to visit, everything about this game screams "epic". there's a lot riding on it. i caught up with microsoft games�* head honcho phil spencer to talk about the weight of expectation and what's next for xbox. starfield looks incredibly ambitious. lots of big, blockbuster game launches have stalled due to buggy titles arriving on day one. what kind of pressure is there to get it right with this game? you're definitely right that the bigger the game is, the more of a task it is to test the quality of the game. i've been playing starfield, as has the team back in redmond since, kind of, mid—late last year, so we've been playing for a long time. we've got a lot of testers on the game. we're spending the right amount of time iterating on both quality as well as the fun, right, in making sure that we've got a great, consistent game. now, microsoft, the wider company,

has a significant stake in al. it's notably invested in 0penai, the company behind chatgpt. how do you see ai affecting xbox? one of the areas that we think — well, we definitely are already employing it — is in our safety security of our network. when we think about all of the conversations that are happening on xbox live, human moderation is there, but there's only so much capacity we can stay up. from a creative standpoint, you know, i'm always creative—led, i'm not technology—led, and i think we're quite a ways away from these technologies impacting the core creative, which is very human—led today. microsoft's acquisition of activision blizzard has hit a major stumbling block with the uk competition and markets authority effectively blocking the $69 billion deal. what can microsoft do to convince regulators in the uk and the us that the deal should go ahead? i think we have, if you include all the european union countries, we're approved in about a0 countries right now. and we got to that point through listening to regulators, coming up with solutions that can

work for their market and the concerns that they bring forward. having open discussions with regulators in the uk, in the us, which you mentioned, two specific markets we need to work on specifically, listening to their concerns and that back and forth dialogue that can lead to good outcomes to get this deal closed. we are very focused on that and very committed as a company. ar is now very much a hot topic. does xbox have any plans to look at what it might be able to do in the ar space? i do like watching the innovations that happen in the ar vr space. i thought apple's announcement was really interesting. obviously, it's not really at a consumer price point today, but we'll always keep our head up, look at what's happening, listening to players, listening to creators, and make sure we're responsive to what's happening in the market. phil spencer, thank you very much indeed. now, let's pop outside and get some fresh air and some fresh water. 0h.

we had 700 reports in this year, people getting ill from swimming in these waters. over half of those reports were from "excellent" rated beaches. we are collecting all of the data sets to understand the patterns of where the peak pollution events are. sewage and the damage it's doing to our environment is suddenly a hot topic. who among us doesn't want our rivers, lakes and beaches to be kept pristine and clean? in the southwest of england, an innovative project using artificial intelligence has started, using the latest technology to try to limit the damage. so, if you get a prediction of a pollution event, what can you then do about it? so, depending on what we expect that

source of pollution is going to be — it could be something that the farmer has been doing. we say stop doing that or sort of do x, y or z to try and stop that runoff happening. so it could be slurry spreading, for example. it could be the condition of the soil. and that's where we're trying to build in that longer—term sort of prediction, sort of say, well, so he or she has got time to react. it does have a big impact because if there was massive nutrients in the stream here, it gets diluted a lot by the sea here. but, you know, you could get the beach covered with algal mats of, you know, what we call sort of gut weeds, which is just gets sinky, but it also means it's suppressing life. it gets what we call eutrophic, it loses oxygen in the water. and that, again, has the impact of the biodiversity within the water itself. steady it from your side. 0k, got it. 0k. this water sensor is one of a network of sensors that have been deployed in the catchment area.

they include soil sensors and rain gauges as well. the idea is that all that information is brought together to try to more accurately predict when and where pollution events and sewage spills are likely to take place. my name is glyn cotton, i'm ceo i and one of the co—founders of watr. so, this is one - of our watr pro units. in the top, we've got our solar panel and a battery in here. i and then in the bottom, we've got our sensors. i we've got dissolved . oxygen, ph, ammonia. with these units, we actually infer e coli levels. _ so, with the data that we've got, using the biosphere's ai system, j we can give e coli levels - to a pretty accurate percentage. and that means whether it's going to be safe to swim - in the rivers or not, - whether people are going to potentially get ill. tech firm cgi brings all the data together from the sensors to help create an ai model.

we'll give it all of the geographic information, including watercourse, elevation, vegetation — so, do we have communities living in specific areas? rainfall patterns. so it is every single geographic data set, as well as data sets from the sensors in order for it to learn and develop the predictive mechanisms to be able to inform where these incidents are occurring and the likelihood and, indeed, when they would occur as well. it's one thing to be able to predict a pollution event, but do you think we're really in a position then to try and stop it? it's a lot easier to prevent it than actually try to sort of deal with it once the incident�*s occurred. we are planning to showcase this model as part of cop28. at the moment, we've launched a project in south africa that will use some of the data sets here and the learnings from this project to roll out a similar project in south africa.

and so, we want to very much showcase the role of technology for climate action, notjust mitigation, but adaptation as well. the task is huge, but here in the uk, it's proposed that £10 billion be invested to upgrade the sewage network. much of that will be spent on infrastructure like pipes and treatment plants. but the point of this project is to prove that the technology does now exist to warn us about pollution before we see it and smell it on the beach.

moderators of the site's many firms made their public facing communities private in a show of support for developers facing higher costs to access its data. a solar powered robot which can plan seeds a minute is being trialed as a way to aid reforestation of the amazon rain forest. the machine is being used three days a week by an american nonprofit organisation jungle keepers added some nursery and the peruvianjungle. this keepers added some nursery and the peruvian jungle-— peruvian jungle. this robot is incredibly _ peruvian jungle. this robot is incredibly agile. _ peruvian jungle. this robot is incredibly agile. it _ peruvian jungle. this robot is incredibly agile. it is - peruvian jungle. this robot is incredibly agile. it is able - peruvian jungle. this robot is incredibly agile. it is able to l incredibly agile. it is able to plant all of our seeds for nurseries, freeing up our rangers to do other tasks. nurseries, freeing up our rangers to do other taske— do other tasks. amazon says it's usin: do other tasks. amazon says it's using more _ do other tasks. amazon says it's using more sophisticated - do other tasks. amazon says it's using more sophisticated tools, | using more sophisticated tools, including ai, using more sophisticated tools, including al, to tackle fate product reviews. the tech giants as it's interested in machine learning models to analyse thousands of data points and help detect fraudulent behaviour. at this year's leave a technology conference in paris, the

l'0real group debuted a range of hair and beauty gadgets, including a smart hand—held hand—held applicator with limited hand mobility to apply lipstick. there's a global race on to meaningfully regulate artificial intelligence. this week, the eu parliament, in strasbourg, passed new rules to regulate the industry, which could set the yardstick worldwide. its plan is to try and categorise applications of ai into levels of risk. at the low end are ai—enabled video games or spam filters. high—risk ai systems include those which evaluate credit scores and access to loans and housing. this is where the focus of strict controls will be. at the totally unacceptable end of the scale are uses like facial recognition systems in real time in public places, something already deployed in china. i sat down with margrethe vestager, who's leading the eu's position on al.

us lawmakers in congress have said that they're worried that they're not up to the job of regulation because it's such a complex area and it's moving so quickly. do you think the eu is better prepared? regulating technology is extremely difficult because a legislative procedure is per definition much slower than innovation. important thing is, how do you use it? if it's a customer service robot, i want to know that i'm not talking to a human being, but what are the risks? but if it's a bank using it to decide whether i can get a mortgage or not, or if it's the social services of your municipality, then you want to make sure that you're not being discriminated. is it possible that 0penai could turn around and say, "well, we've released chatgpt, "we can't be responsible for somebody using it "to decide somebody�*s mortgage?" well, there must be a relationship between developers and those who uses the technology to make sure that if you release it and say it's perfectly fine,

it will not discriminate anyone, that the user cannot then, you know, just twist it and say, "well, yeah, but in the real world "we only want to lend to men." and since it will take a bit of time before the legal obligations comes into force, we are trying to do sort of a broader, international, voluntary ai code of conduct. what do you think is the biggest threat that al poses? there are many. i have listened a lot to those who said that there is a threat of extinction and probably that may exist. but i think the likelihood is quite small. i think the ai risks are more that people will be discriminated, they will not be seen as who they are. what does success look like? we want to put in guardrails so that what we believe in as humans is still there in a more digital world. but that there is a sense of... uh, this is... this is actually quite amazing.

like mcewan hall, many arts venues are moving with the times, trying to accommodate new forms of entertainment. for example, i wonder whether you've ever tried immersive theatre, drama productions where you become part of the action and get pulled into the world that you're watching? well, alasdair keen has been to see how one performance in glasgow is using technology more traditionally associated with warehouses to bring a haunted house to life. can you give us a sign that you can hear us, please? please, give us... 0h, did you... did you see that? in this play, things are going bump in the night. this is ghost hunter, a theatre experience where the audience are taking on the role of those finding paranormal activity. going down the way, you are heading in that direction. for this show in particular, you are the show. it's tricky to do without the audience. so there is a sort of set story

and a set path that does need to be followed. but within those sort of set destinations, anything can happen. like, we don't know what's going to happen each show, which is kind of terrifying. an epp, i've never heard an epp before. "for my son frank, to be opened upon my death." i still get scared. there are still points where i know what's coming and i stilljump. ihope... i hope that they're going to feel scared and feel a bit nervous. but then i hope when these things happen, that there's also a little bit of, like, laughter, you know, there always is. and ijust... i really hope they have fun. director: opening again, please. the set is a house, complete with living room, kitchen and bedrooms. radio crackles. but the real secrets here isn't the ghosts. it's the tech powering it. this is the behind the scenes of this huge set. it fills this entire warehouse. but look up. you can see lots of little sensors. they allow the crew on the outside to know what's happening

on the inside and control the different spooks. turns out ghosts are really difficult to employ. so instead, we've got an array of computers that are hiding behind the walls of the house that deliver a lot of the haunting, along with a lot of people who run around the walls of the house and deliver it as well. but the main element of the game is that these audience members have to hunt down these ghosts, which they do, using a couple of devices that we've called the scanner and the amplifier. and those devices conjure up these ghosts through using a number of different pieces of technology. flashing lights is good. i've got it here. it's searching for the rift, but the rift is in the house. toby, could you close that door? james, you come straight back in. all right. there's a rift out there. are you thinking what i'm thinking? let's go find it. so this, over here... ..this is a posex tag. this allows the computer to see exactly where you are within the space at any time. these tags are constantly transmitting location

information to all the anchors, which use it to work out where they are in the space. and so we can track the audience as they move round the space in this map of the house. the tracking tech the team are using is vital to let them bring the performance to life. but it wasn't designed for theatre. this combines both a real actor and technology. how unusual is that in theatre? it is quite unusual. what we're finding is that there is increasingly a role of theatre looking to the technological world and what it can bring in. and there's quite a lot of interest in how you can mesh those two worlds together. i think the interesting thing about the show is it's also a mixture of theatre and escape room as well, which is a really interesting melding of two different worlds that hopefully will appeal to people who might go, well, theatre's not my thing, but i really enjoy solving puzzles and getting a little bit scared at the same time as well, hopefully.

door creaks. ok, my heart is still absolutely racing. after that, i've got goosebumps all up my arms. that was a play like i have never experienced before. i'm not sure i'll sleep tonight, but it's been years in the making for the team that put this on and they're really hoping this is the kind of technology that can help to bring new people into theatres. brilliant stuff. that was alisdair. and i'm afraid that's it from us here in edinburgh. thanks for watching and we'll see you soon. hello. it's fairly quiet on the weather front right now, but quite a wild day on the way for some of us on sunday with thunderstorms forecast. some of them could be severe,

bringing hail, gusty winds and a lot of rainfall in a short space of time, leading to flash flooding. butjust down the road, you might miss the storms and it'll end up being fairly dry and bright. low pressure is close by to the uk. you can see it on the satellite picture here. this vortex and this low pressure will help to spawn some of these storms over the next day or two. now, there's already a lot of cloud across the uk. skies have been quite hazy in places and we've had some showers as well, drifting from south, moving northwards. quite a muggy air mass. so that means that tonight will be quite close for many of us. a generally dry night, but not completely. there will be some showers around. the temperatures early in the morning will be around about 15, 16 degrees in the warmest spots. but in the fresher areas there, newcastle, hull closer to ten degrees. so when will these storms start forming? well, from late morning onwards into the afternoon, i think the risk of thunder increases across england and wales in particular. a big range in the

rainfall forecast. locally, 30 millimetres of rain in an hour is possible later in the afternoon, perhaps even 80 millimetres in a few hours from central southern england through central england, all the way to the north. but i think the really widespread heavy showers will start to form later in the afternoon and into the evening hours. and it does look as though it's these more eastern and northern areas that are at risk from these big downpours, gusty winds, hail and, of course, flash flooding, the met office warns. on monday early, we could see still some stormy weather across parts of eastern scotland. but then again, that weather front moves northwards quickly and then, behind it, it's a case of sunny spells and just a scattering of showers. and again, one or two thunderstorms as well. so if you miss the storms on sunday, you might actually catch one on monday or even tuesday. now, it stays on the warm side and, into next week, it does look as though those temperatures will start to pick up again.

but you can see from the weather icons, it does look a little mixed. bye— bye.