live from london, this is bbc news. the rebel advance in syria continues at pace — they've taken control of hama, now they're closing in on the crucial city of homs. new york's mayor says he's confident police are on the "right track", but the man wanted over the shooting of one of america's top executives is still on the run. romania's top court annuls the results of the first round of its presidential elections. it says the whole process must be rerun. and as notre dame prepares for the official reopening, stunning images from inside the cathedral five years after the devastating fire. these are the live pictures from paris. ukraine's president zelensky is among the dignitaries expected at tomorrow's ceremony.

hello and welcome to bbc news. tens of thousands of people are fleeing syria's third biggest city, homs, fearing that islamist—led rebels will capture it in the latest stage of their surprise offensive. reports say the militias may be just five kilometres outside the city as they continue their advance, after taking hama yesterday. the leader of the rebels says he wants an end to the assad regime and sought to reassure minorities they would be respected. the united nations says almost 300,000 people have been displaced in syria since the civil war was reignited last week. first, the rebels seized syria's second city, aleppo, before advancing south to take hama. taking homs would cut the main road leading from the capital, damascus, to the syrian coast, a stronghold of the embattled president bashar al—assad. his forces say they've been bombing rebel positions from war planes.

0ur middle east correspondent hugo bachega sent this update from the turkish—syrian border. it's an astonishing offensive by these rebels. last week they captured aleppo, yesterday hama and now they are on their way to homs which is the country's third largest city, strategic city in central syria. it connects the capital damascus to the north of the country and also to the coast, the heartland of president assad, so very significant developments happening. reports suggest they are getting closer to homs suggest they are getting closer to horns and also reports indicating that government troops may have pulled out from central parts of the city, so again, astonishing advance by the rebels. this is an offensive that is being led by islamist—led rebels by a group

known as hts, they are trying to project themselves as being a nationalist force, trying to topple the regime of president assad, and again i think the big question here is about how the president is going to respond and whether he is able to launch a kind of counteroffensive to try to stop these rebels and try to reclaim territory. we know that in the most violent chapters of the war in syria, the president relied heavily on russia and iran, especially russia's air power to crush the opposition, to crush rebels, and managed to change the course of the insurgency in assyria but now at both russia and iran are preoccupied with their own affairs, russia is busy in ukraine and iran is still reeling from a huge israeli campaign targeting its targets, its proxies across the middle east, especially has a llywydd in lebanon, so we don't know if the president has the ability

to launch any kind of ability to launch any kind of ability to launch a counteroffensive against its rebels. —— especially hezbollah in lebanon. former us ambassador to syria robert ford spoke a little earlier about the brutality of assad regime. the assad regime and its brutality are well known. it is responsible for the death of hundreds of thousands of syrians, some in very gruesome fashion. and i think it is important for viewers to remember that because of those crimes, many of the assad loyalists now will fight hard at the end. it would be difficult for them to surrender knowing that accountability awaits them. have you been surprised by simply the speed of events on the ground? yes, i have to say i am almost shocked by the speed of events on the ground and two things

stand out — one, that morale of the syrian army is terrible, i don't think i have ever seen it so disorganised and unwilling to fight, and second, its external supports, russia and iran, seem to be unable to send quickly vital reinforcements. how critical is it for assad to hold homs? if homs is lost, it is a big blow to assad. it is worth viewers knowing that hezbollah from lebanon intervened to save homs in 2017. if homs falls, the next will be fighting in damascus itself. if assad falls, take us through your analysis of the key implications of that.

first, as you say, it is a big if, and i think there are many variables in play, but were he to fall i expect first there would be some kind of syrian military security governing council, a revolution command council after the coup, and that would probably try to fight on. remember, they are guilty of terrible crimes and they don't want to pay for them. so at some point perhaps then if they are overwhelmed, those that can will try to escape and the rest would surrender, but it is very far from clear what kind of syrian opposition government would come in to place. there are many different factions of the syrian armed and political opposition. there are so many key players involved and neighbours, what do you think the key implications for all

are, the turkeys, irans, lebanons and hezbollahs? first, it would be an enormous defeat for both russia and iran because the bashar al—assad government has long been a key ally for both countries and the fall of the government would be a terrible blow to both putin and iranian islamic republic. millions of syrian refugees in turkey would likely return to their homes in cities like aleppo and homs. iraq, ithink, is nervous watching what is going on, but so far its government has not said it would send military units into syria to help assad. tell me more about the ideology of this main rebel group, hts, because it has morphed in recent times, hasn't it? well, it is not clear exactly how much it has morphed but definitely it has changed.

when the united states government, and i spearheaded the effort in 2012, put them on the american terrorism list, they had direct organic links to al-qaeda in iraq. in the intervening years, they cut ties with al-qaeda, they actually fought al-qaeda loyalists in northern syria, they cut ties to the islamic state and fought hard bloody battles against them back in 2014 before expelling them out of the territory that this organisation, hts, controls. they have opened up to the christian community in north—western syria and aleppo, very unlike al-qaeda or the islamic state. they have sent a message trying to reassure the syrian

community and they seem to be very competent managers of cities. there are syrian—american medical organisations that have been running hospitals and clinics in the territories controlled by hts and their leaderships have told me several times during the last years that they are able to work smoothly without difficulty from this hts organisation. that was the former us ambassador talking to me a short time ago. police in new york are continuing their hunt for the man who shot dead the boss of one of the biggest companies in the world. on thursday, detectives shared new images of the man they want to question over the shooting of the unitedhealthcare executive, brian thompson, outside a hotel on wednesday morning. the man appears relaxed and smiling. just a few minutes later, he shot mr thompson dead before making his escape.

more details are emerging about his movements leading up to the killing, but so far, his whereabouts remain unknown and his motive is yet to be fully established. 0ur north america correspondent jon sudworth is in new york with more on this. the suspect is still at large, but the police over the past couple of days have gathered a pretty substantial body of evidence — multiple sightings on camera, both before and after the shooting, details about the suspect�*s movements. he apparently attempted to use a fake identification to check into a hostel up on the upper west side of manhattan and also the police say he arrived in new york by greyhound bus on the 24th of november, a bus that left atlanta headed for new york that day. and these latest images, you know, a very clear view of what they are describing as a person of interest,

a very clear view of his face. the reporting around the release of those images suggest they were taken at the check—in desk of the hostel when the member of staff there asked the person to remove their mask and give her a smile, which he then did, and i think you have to conclude from the quality of that image that even if they are no closer to making an arrest in this case, they must be getting closer to a firm identification of who it is they are looking for. jarrett ley is a visual forensics reporter at the washington post. he explained how the gunman�*s steps had been traced. it's an incredible moment, i believe, forjust the sheer number of video cameras that are present in this part of manhattan. as a forensics reporter, my focus has been on tracking down this footage that we have of the suspect in this homicide in order to reconstruct

the movements of the suspect before and after the homicide. in terms of the manhunt, presumably the police are massively helped byjust the enormous public interest in this? i can't speak to what the police have been helped by, but i can speak to what the press has been helped by which has certainly been there have been a lot of local store owners who i have spoken with and have graciously spent many hours with me overlooking their surveillance footage and have become really invested in understanding how this person got from point a to point b, and we have been able to understand, for example, and locate how he came out of the f train nearby at 6:15am, passing by a starbucks and then turning down the block. and tell me more about whatjon was telling us, which were the words on the gun casings. i can't speak specifically to the words on the gun

casings, however, i was there when they were collecting the evidence on the scene and i can say that there were a collection of live round casings and fragments, as well as some blood on the scene. around the world and across the uk, this is bbc news.

you are watching bbc news. romania's top constitutional court has cancelled the presidential election, annulling the result of the first round, held two weeks ago. the announcement was made days after security services revealed details of what appears to be a major attempt to interfere with the elections using the social media platform tiktok and a series of cyber attacks. the results of that first round saw calin georgescu, an almost unknown far—right nato sceptic who had vowed to

end aid to ukraine if he won, emerge as the frontrunner. so, what happens now? 0ur eastern europe correspondent sarah rainsford is in romania. pretty dramatic days in romanian politics. this was a shock move by the constitutional court, the judges started meeting this morning after they had lots of petitions and requests from society here in romania to annul the election, to cancel the entire thing and that is what they have gone ahead and done, notjust cancelling the first round but saying in fact that campaigning will have to begin again too. so what we are expecting is for some date to be announced for the beginning of campaigning for a new election, possibly some people are saying here as far away as next spring now, but it is all because of this revelation from the intelligence agency suggesting that there has been massive interference in this election. now, there were documents that were declassified on the orders of the outgoing president which appeared to document

interference, meddling, using tiktok and also cyber attacks on the electoral process here. there is an investigation under way into that, but in the meantime those constitutional court judges have said, look, this can't be a valid election, we're going to cancel it, we're going to start the whole thing all over again. so a considerable amount of political turmoil in this country that is now under way for the past couple of weeks, ever since that first vote. just 30 seconds, if you would, give me a sense of the political reaction there has been since that decision and the public reaction. well, the main reaction we are still waiting for which is from the man who is at the centre of all this controversy, this far—right politician who came from nowhere to win the first round. we are waiting to hear from him, but people close to him have been saying don't come out onto the streets, don't give them an excuse to call martial law, to announce martial law. so quite a lot of uncertainty about what

happens next, so far no protests but the main second—runner, who was supposed to be running on sunday, has ruling, saying that is a crushing of democracy here in romania, so some quite uncertain and very, very controversial times here. the archbishop of canterbury has apologised for his farewell speech to the house of lords, after accusations he had caused further distress to abuse survivors. in explaining why he had resigned, justin welby told the house of lords that a review that found serious safeguarding failures within the church of england meant "a head had had to roll". he made light—hearted references to a iath—century archbishop who was beheaded, drawing some laughter. three bishops said the speech was "utterly insensitive". mr welby said he "apologised wholeheartedly" for any hurt caused. to paris now, where in the midst of political turmoil,

president macron is preparing to play host to international dignitaries for the official reopening of notre dame cathedral. the historic building was devasted by fire five years ago. since then, experts have been working tirelessly on its renovation. today, it looks like this. this weekend, there'll be a succession of ceremonies to breathe life back into the cathedral and celebrate the recovery of this landmark building. some of the high points will be the official reopening of the cathedral�*s massive doors and the celebration of the first mass. brian katz is an acoustics expert helping to restore the unique sounds of the grand cathedral. he told me the finished project looks stunning. the renovation has really progressed far and it gives this impression of attending the opening ceremony of a gothic cathedral, which is quite exciting. give me an idea and our viewers

watching the sort of work you were involved with. so, we were part of the scientific advisory committee to the restoration, so we were there to answer any questions and provide any support to the restoration committee on the impact of anything that they were doing, so we were in the acoustics group, there was also structure and glass and metal and we were all there as part of the scientific working support group to help, specifically we helped in predicting what the acoustic impact of choices would be, the most notable of that was on the restoration or the replacement of the choir organ, where they were looking at providing a new layout and a new position of the organ and we were able to study the propositions from the organ builders and provide advice that way. how do you even do that? because right at the start of the week i saw the choirs practising for this weekend's events, but what are the sort of factors

you are trying to take on board that affect the acoustics there? so we had the opportunity, in 2015, to do measurements in notre dame and start creating what is called a digital acoustic twin which is a commuter model which is a computer model which can replicate the acoustics and then since the fire, subsequent measures to that, we were able to refine that, so basically we have a duplicate of notre dame which we can integrate changes like moving the organ and changing the orientation of the organ or even changing the shape of walls or different materials and we can predict what the sound results will be. that is the prediction and as you are talking we are seeing an array of pictures from inside, the stunning stained glass window, but in terms of that acoustic, what you have described is the theories of what you are going through, when you did the tests, what did they

actually sound like and how did you do the tests? the test for the measurements are basically putting microphones and speakers in a lot of various positions and then creating a 3d model and trying to calibrate the model so it gives the same results as the microphone. in terms of listening, we have kind of simulated a number of concert scenarios. actually, what we have been doing a lot of is recreating the acoustic history of notre dame over eight centuries and trying to recreate different pieces of music in different epics, and we are putting that together as a historic film, a documentary so people can really experience all the stages of notre dame as well as hearing about what it would be like now after the restoration. will you be there tomorrow or over the weekend at some point to actually be there, see it, listen? sadly, the restriction is quite high on who has access.

in our group, there is myself and my co—chair and there was only one permit of accessibility and she was the one who got it, so sadly i will be at home this weekend, but i think i will be doing a fair number of interviews from zoom in my house, but i will be going in on wednesday, we have tickets to go to the mass on the 11th and i am very excited to hear now it is open. you are still smiling, even though you won't be there tomorrow, but does it feel like a huge honour to be part of a huge, huge team that has worked so hard to put it together? and the other thing to say is that they have managed it in such quick time, just a little less than five years. it is an amazing honour to be involved, i never thought when i moved to france i would be able to work at notre dame and to be this involved. we have been active in the restoration in trying to help out probably since the first day after the fire when we realised

we were the only team that had acoustic measurements of notre dame, so that was quite a valuable effort of resources we were able to offer, but yes, amazing to be part of it and very excited. it's so interesting, that answer, so you must have seen it at its very worst if you say you saw it the day after, afterjust the enormity of the damage done by that fire, so you must have seen it at regular intervals as it has edged closer to this rebirth? that has been one of the really amazing parts of what we have been allowed to do, to get access to inside the cathedral to make periodic measurements of how the acoustics is evolving, so the first time we were in i think was only two months after the fire, so there was still rubble on the ground and you could still smell the burnt materials, and the last time we were in was only two months ago at the end of september, so we were able to really see the progress. while i can't be there this weekend, i have had my eyes

and ears inside notre dame over the past four years a number of times. a fascinating interview there. an appeals court in the united states has upheld the law that orders tiktok to separate itself from its chinese owner or face a ban in america. the legislation was passed because of concerns about national security linked to the power the chinese authorities could have over the platform. let's bring in our north american business corresponent michelle fleury. this is a very interesting development, tell us more, what happens next?— happens next? yes, so the us court of appeals _ happens next? yes, so the us court of appeals in _ happens next? yes, so the us court of appeals in the - court of appeals in the district of columbia ruled essentially this ban could go ahead. it was being challenged by tiktok and its owner, bytedance, the parent company, under the grounds that it was

an infringement of first amendment rights. however, in its ruling, let me read you what they said, the first amendment exists to protect free speech in the united states, here at the government acted solely to protect that freedom from a foreign adversary nation. and to limit that ability to gather data on the people of the united states. you may recall this dates back to donald trump's first time in office, he went into a lengthy battle with tiktok, often railed against it through the form of the idea of tariffs. ultimately, it was under presidentjoe biden that this ruling came into effect. essentially, it gave china's owner, bytedance, untiljanuary owner, bytedance, until january to owner, bytedance, untiljanuary to either sell the company or divest it and as things currently stand, that will go ahead, although we expect them to appeal to the supreme court. it is clearly one to watch, thanks for bringing us right up to date on that developing

story. i'm back with more of the day's headlines here on the programme injust a moment the day's headlines here on the programme in just a moment or two, don't go away. hello there. there is a red winter warning from the met office, which means danger to life, winds will be gusting 90 mph through this part of wales and through the bristol channel for a while. that runs from the early hours of saturday morning and there will be potentially large and dangerous waves as well. as well as rain, spell of snow across the hills in northern parts of scotland. focus on the winds again, not only do we have that red warning, but also

an amber winter warning that covers a large area, including northern ireland and south—west scotland, that will last for long on saturday with winds gusting 70, 80 mph and on top of that, an amber rain warning, given how wet it has been in this part of wales, with more heavy rain to come, likely to be further flooding issues here. we are all going to have a windy and wet day, strengthening north to north—westerly winds, feeding in showers or longer spells of rain and as the low, the storm tracks into the north sea, the winds will pick up around north sea coasts. perhaps as they begin to is a little out towards these western areas, capture is similar to today. for the second half of the weekend, there is the stone, it will start to track away into continental europe, but it will still be a windy day on sunday,

perhaps not quite as windy. stockist of the winds through the midlands and eastern england, perhaps it scotland for a while and this is where we will find most of the showers streaming in, but is towards the west and north it will be less windy, drier and more anywhere else in china but a northerly wind so temperatures at 7—8 . every weekend, the storm tracking across the uk bringing wet and windy weather but into the beginning of next week, that moves into the mediterranean, high pressure will build across the uk. the winds eventually dropping in a southern areas, quieter, drierweatherand dropping in a southern areas, quieter, drier weather and some centred. —— over the weekend.

live from london, this is bbc news. the rebel advance in syria continues at pace. they've taken control of hama, now they're closing in on the crucial city of homs. eight organisation see half the population in sudan are facing acute hunger. and as notre dame prepares for the official reopening, stunning images from inside the cathedral five years after the devastating fire. tens of thousands of people are fleeing syria's third biggest city, homs, fearing that islamist—led rebels will capture it in the latest stage of their surprise offensive.

reports say the militias may be just five kilometres outside