the bbc is told final details are being negotiated. as strong winds are forecast to return in los angeles, nine people are charged in connection with looting. the impeachment trial for south korea's suspended president begins in seoul, despite his refusal to attend. hello, i'm lauren taylor. more now on the los angeles wildfires. clive myrie has been speaking to emergency crews who have been working to save property. los angeles, the city of angels, is still threatened by fiery demons. in the hills above, a taste of what might come. and in the thick of it, fire officer erin alexander. the wind and the...

i mean, that's the kind of stuff we're dealing with. wow. is that you? that was me. there's certain weather factors that we can't control. obviously, the winds were some like i've never seen. and we put one fire out and another one right down the way is starting again. you have these houses that catch fire that send off embers that catch other houses on fire. and we didn't have enough water to put the fires out. and it was, you know, there's only so much you can do. here is erin with colleagues on the day she became a firefighter, saving lives and people's homes her calling. but the scale of this disaster has been tough for all the emergency crews. can't even imagine what you would do if everything, your house, and it burned to the ground, like there's nothing left. and sometimes fast—moving fires, even if a house catches on fire, we can get in there and put it out at some point and then they have something to go home to.

but this fire burned so hot and so fast that it burned everything to the ground, and they have absolutely nothing to come back to. and in the cold light of day, a wasteland. lives, livelihoods, homes, destroyed. the winds are pretty light at the moment, but the fear is they could pick up in the next couple of days. that's what everyone is worried about, that those hurricane force winds could bring about even more of a calamity than we've already seen. they're trying to rebuild. these crews are working to get the power back on, but it'll be some time before residents are allowed to return to this corner

of greater los angeles. the authorities aren't convinced they've recovered the bodies of all those still missing, now presumed dead. let's get more from the middle east, where, after more than a year of bloodshed, a ceasefire agreement between israel and hamas appears close. outgoing us presidentjoe biden said an agreement was on the brink. let's hear a bit of what he said. we are pressing hard to close this. the deal we have enstructured will free the hostages, halt the fighting, provide security to israel and allow us to significantly surge humanitarian assistance to the palestinians who have suffered terribly in this war that hamas started. let's speak to rushdi abualouf — the bbc correspondent formerly based in gaza, who is now based in istanbul. tell us a little more about what we are hearing on those what we are hearing on those what are described as final

negotiations. i what are described as final negotiations.— what are described as final negotiations. i think the final round of talks _ negotiations. i think the final round of talks started - negotiations. i think the final round of talks started this . round of talks started this morning and it's already going. what i understand from a senior palestinian official who is familiar with the talks as they are putting in place the wording for the final announcement, which is supposed to be from the qataris, the main mediators in this negotiation in doha. we might hear an announcement soon, maybe an hour or two hours, talking about the progress they have made in the talks. we understand that all the issues have been solved and now it's just the final touches the technical details are involved two teams, a team of negotiators from hamas and from israel, they are in the same building, conducting indirect talks. and they are very close

to an announcement and they believe that the deal is imminent.— believe that the deal is imminent. . ~ , ., ., imminent. talk us through what ou know imminent. talk us through what you know about _ imminent. talk us through what you know about how _ imminent. talk us through what you know about how the - imminent. talk us through what you know about how the deal i you know about how the deal would work. i you know about how the deal would work.— would work. i think it's three staues. would work. i think it's three stages- the _ would work. i think it's three stages. the first _ would work. i think it's three stages. the first stage, - would work. i think it's three stages. the first stage, 42 l stages. the first stage, 42 days where hamas would release 34 days where hamas would release 3a israeli hostages, including women, children, sick people, and also female soldiers. the next change, israel would release about 1000 palestinian prisoners, including 200 people who are serving 15 years or more in prison. but most important for the people of gaza, about1 million people who are displaced about a year ago, they would be allowed to go back to gaza after about one week of the deal starting. some of the problems about this, israel insisted that they wanted to make sure that none of the militants from hamas or any other group would be allowed to go back to the

north, or any military equipment. this is where the qatari and egyptian roles started because they are going to send a team of security officers to monitor and to help and assist the israelis to make sure no militants are going back, only civilians and people from northern gaza will be allowed through certain routes with cctv cameras and screening machines. but this is a very significant issue for the people of gaza who were displaced over a year ago in southern gaza. butjust to say that over the last 2a hours the hamas run health ministry say about 50 palestinians were killed when israel intensified air strikes across the gaza strip as the negotiators in doha are trying to close the deal on the table in a big escalation.— deal on the table in a big escalation. what about the issue that _ escalation. what about the issue that had _ escalation. what about the issue that had been - escalation. what about the issue that had been a - escalation. what about the i issue that had been a sticking

point previously about how far israel had been prepared to pull back. will there be a buffer zone, pull back. will there be a bufferzone, how pull back. will there be a buffer zone, how might that work? , , ., , work? yes, the israelis will sta in work? yes, the israelis will stay in a — work? yes, the israelis will stay in a buffer— work? yes, the israelis will stay in a buffer zone - work? yes, the israelis will stay in a buffer zone about| work? yes, the israelis will. stay in a buffer zone about 800 metres on the very long eastern border and northern border. israeli troops will remain in gaza. hamas said in the first phase, and we don't know yet whether they will stay for longer. they are talking about 42 days that israeli troops will remain in this area. also most important is the border between gaza and egypt which israel for a long time accused hamas. there is the philadelphia corridor which includes the rafah crossing. these issues hamas rejected for a very long time, the idea of keeping troops in gaza. they were all the time insisting israel should complete his withdrawal from gaza israel should complete his withdrawalfrom gaza in the

first stage and guarantee that in the war. the two things are not included in this deal and this is what hamas called painful concessions that they have made to make the deal happen. have made to make the deal ha en. , have made to make the deal hauen. , a ., ., ., ~ happen. rushdi abualouf, thank ou for happen. rushdi abualouf, thank you forjoining — happen. rushdi abualouf, thank you forjoining us. _ ukrainian officials say russia is using prisoners of war to put pressure on theirfamilies to carry out acts of sabotage. kyiv says around half the families of ukrainian pows have been approached by russian operatives. russia denies those claims. will vernon reports from kyiv. firebomb attacks in ukraine carried out by ukrainians. some do it for money, paid by suspected russian agents. but others are motivated by the desperation of waiting for news of loved ones. svitlana hadn't heard from her husband, dima, for more than two years. he was captured not long after the full—scale invasion. translation: a ukrainian number called me. - i picked up and he introduced

himself as dmitry. he spoke with a russian accent. he said if you want your husband to come home sooner, i can help, but you need to do something. either set fire to a military facility, a car or a railway electrical box. svitlana reported the call to the security service, who told her she should try to stall the russians while they investigated. she managed to record some of the calls. translation: pour in a litre of the fluid - and add a bit of petrol. go to some sort of railway junction, make sure there are no security cameras, and wear a hatjust in case. the security service told svitlana the calls were coming from inside russia and she should refuse to cooperate further. translation: and then the threats began. - he said they'd kill my husband and i'd never see him again. for days he kept calling

saying, your husband is being tortured and it's your fault. did you at any point consider going through with it? no, not for a second. my husband never would have forgiven me if i had done something like that. the authorities say families who report the incidents will be treated as victims, but if they agree they can be charged with high treason. they are in a very vulnerable position. and some of them are ready to do anything. in general it's very minor damage for the ukrainian armed forces, but it can destabilise the ukrainian society's unity, so it's a main problem. and of course, in case someone is going to share the location of, for example, air defence systems, it's a big problem for us too. officials here tell us 50%

of all families of ukrainian prisoners of war are approached by russian agents. but they say the number of cases where family members agreed to carry out sabotage is minimal. in a statement, russia denied allegations that it uses prisoners' families as leverage. svitlana's husband was eventually released and says the russians didn't punish him for his wife's refusal to co—operate. but with thousands of ukrainians still in captivity, some could go to extreme lengths to bring their loved ones home. will vernon, bbc news, kyiv. around the world and across the uk. this is bbc news.

a bbc investigation has found parents of children with severe epilepsy

are breaking the law to give them cannabis—based medicine, because they struggle to have the drug prescribed on the nhs. file on 4 has spoken to families buying oils on the black market, as well as those who illegally smuggle the drugs into the uk. alastair fee reports. is that funny? is everything funny? lunchtime, and this is ten—year—old annie's favourite meal. she loves food. she's quite highly motivated by food. annie has a rare form of epilepsy. we've changed their names to protect their identity. it's harrowing, it's tiring. it's exhausting, it's scary. it's the scariest thing ever — seeing your child seize. the only drug that her parents say helps is an oil made from the cannabis plant. but there's a catch. the medicine mumjane gives her daughter is illegal. i don't want to be breaking the law, but currently i probably would say i don't actually care that i'm breaking the law. because of the change you see in your daughter?

she's happier. but, most importantly, she's having a dramatically reduced amount of seizures. in london, 14—year—old jasper also takes cannabis oil to control his epilepsy. he's gone from having hundreds of seizures to almost none. but his supply is legal and privately prescribed. it costs the family £30,000 a year. i work literally seven days a week to pay for it. we are just aware that we are incredibly lucky, firstly, to have been able to secure a prescription because it's very difficult to do, and secondly, to be able to afford it. mum alice is the author of a new report by a charity that campaigns on this issue. for the first time, it has tried to quantify how many parents resort to illegal cannabis oils on the black market. we used a kind of established methodology for identifying the number of families

who are kind of based in the uk. and we identified well over 300, actually nearly 400 families. so to know that there are that many parents willing to do that is obviously very shocking. if you're, as a parent, faced with a choice between your child dying or trying something illegal, at the end of the day, there's no law that's going to stop you from trying that if you think it might work for your child. access to these particular types of oils is very difficult. we've tracked down one of those suppliers, who has agreed to talk to us anonymously. he runs a legal cbd company and offers illegal oils on the side. he says he does it for free orfor a small donation. thanks for agreeing to talk to us. no worries. thank you for giving me the time to talk. we call it a compassion programme. we have a very core belief that people shouldn't — especially children — shouldn't pay to have a decent quality of existence, quality of life. i think it comes down to a moral obligation. we see our moral obligation towards people who come to us as something that supersedes any legislation, monetary value or anything like that.

what gives you the confidence that you're not harming people with the oils that you're producing? because we have access and we have complete control of everything from seed to bottle. so we know what we're doing, we know what we're putting in, and we have the ability to test, manufacture and produce to specific specifications. medical cannabis was legalised in 2018. since then, the plant's full extract oils haven't been licensed and fewer than five patients have been given it on the nhs. it can be prescribed privately but it's costly. the bbc�*s file on 4 investigates has spoken to several families, who say they have been left with no choice but to turn to illegal suppliers. in a statement, the department of health and social care said...

is that funny? with no clear direction on when or if these medicines will become available, parents like jane say they're in an impossible situation. it makes me really, really angry that for my daughter to be this happy, healthy and well, i've got to break the law. what's your worst fear? that somebody finds out, i get arrested, my husband loses his job and annie doesn't receive the oil, and she goes back to square one. alastair fee, bbc news. the impeachment trial of south korea's suspended president yoon suk—yeol has held its first hearing. the hearing was adjourned after four minutes because mr yoon did not attend. he is facing charges over his failed attempt of imposing martial law, plunging the country into its deepest political crisis in decades. there is a separate warrant out for his arrest on insurrection charges.

our asia correspondent shaimaa khalil told us more about what will happen next. as expected, yoon suk—yeol did not attend the first impeachment hearing. his lawyers have told us that, citing safety concerns and other objections that they had about the logistics of the hearings. it lasted about four minutes, it was very, very quick. essentially it was the marking of the start of the impeachment trial procedures. we are expecting another hearing later this week. this, as protesters and anti—yoon protesters continue to gather outside the presidential palace. what the constitutional court has to decide is whether the declaration of martial law by yoon suk—yeol early in december was unconstitutional and whether it was illegal. and it has many weeks, even months, to decide that. it has about five months now that the hearings have started. it could drag out but they are under pressure to make a quick decision because of the instability that

south korea finds itself in. this comes after a month of parliament deciding to vote to impeach the president after he declared martial law and then withdrew that very, very quickly. if the impeachment is upheld then yoon suk—yeol is out of power and that will trigger a snap election that will have to be done within 60 days. if it's not, if it's dismissed, then he is reinstated and he is back in power. that will not go down well, neither with the opposition, not with many members of the public who again continue to gather outside his presidential palace, expressing their anger about what happened in early december. we are keeping an eye on events in qatar where negotiations seem to be getting close to a potential ceasefire deal between hamas and israel over

the war in gaza. these are pictures from khan younis in gaza. talks are now back under way. an official with the palestinian delegation has told the bbc that for the first time during the war delegations from israel and hamas are holding indirect talks in the same building. we know us president joe biden has said a deal is on the brink. israeli officials have also mentioned to reuters news agency that an agreement was possible in hours, days or more. we will keep a close eye on events affecting the possible ceasefire deal in gaza. you can catch up on that on our website as we have an live page covering the story. big garden birdwatch is the world s largest garden wildlife survey. every year, hundreds of thousands of nature lovers take part, helping to build a picture of how garden birds are faring. getting school children

involved is a huge part of this annual event. fiona lamdin reports. so who's up there? so that's a great tit. so that's a bird that has done quite well in big garden birdwatch over the last few years. so it is something that likes nesting boxes. yeah. watching birds in sherwood forest. it's really cold today and so lots of the birds we're seeing are really fluffing themselves up. and that's so they can keep warm air kind of close to their bodies. so it's a really clever way of staying warm basically. and this is exactly what the rspb�*s big school bird watch is all about. running for over 20 years, asking children to spot and count our birds. why is it so important to know

how birds are doing? so, i love birds and i think it's really important to know how they're doing, but they're also a great indicator of the whole of the natural world. so we know that if our birds aren't doing so well, and we know we've lost about a fifth of our birds over the last 50 years, a bit like a canary in a coal mine, they show us what's happening to nature. and so if birds aren't doing so well, then we all need to be worried about that and doing something about it. now, over there... yeah? am i right in thinking that's a dunnock? yes, yeah. so dunnocks quite often feed on the ground, but we're seeing them up a bit higher today. they mix it up a bit. female dunnocks are famous for having lots of boyfriends. right. but they're a really pretty bird, like, grey and kind of a lovely dappled brown. those robins look as cold as i feel. yeah. they're really plumping up their feathers.

yeah, yeah, yeah. yeah, they're famous for being quite brave with people. we think that's because people act a bit like kind of a big pig or something like that. they think we're going to turn over the earth, expose worms for them, they're going to get food. yeah, yeah, yeah. so they love — they'll always come close to a gardener, for example. right on cue, a robin comes to see what we're up to. the robin has come just to see us. just here. amazing. he really thinks we've got some food. yeah. last year, 100,000 children spotted 135,000 birds. and scientists are calling on all those eagle eyes to help them once again. maths can be a daunting and confusing subject for many schoolchildren and adults.

now, an artist from bristol believes he may have found a solution for those struggling with numbers by transforming them into colours. maths is not everyone's favourite subject, but one artist's idea of transforming numbers into multi—colour art could help to change that. i decided to count the main colours that we had. i counted white, black, brown, pink, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple. i was like, that's a base ten counting system. it takes it away from maths being something that is just something that we need to learn to answer a question. this language of maths unlocks doors to education. to have an understanding of maths is really important. so how does this visual method work, brooke? this pink circle represents the number three. this expanding balloon of orange, when read vertically, reads plus five, giving us an answer of eight, a blue circle. it can be read in any direction, and in reverse, and opens up a world of unendingly beautiful patterns. the same applies for multiplication and utilises the power of imagery to retain

important numberfacts. 36 divided by 4 is...? nine. — nine, well done. after learning the technique, and putting their equations on butterflies, pupils at this primary seem to be getting the hang of it. because you don't need to use numbers and it'sj easier to remember. this inspires me about how the colours are from numbers, and how interesting they are. if i'm stuck on three times four, i know it because i can just look at my headbands. especially in year four, there's a big government pressure around the children understanding all rd of the times tables. this way allows them to think a little bit more deeply about the times table. any method, any approach to teaching maths, to presenting maths, to getting people to engage with maths that is new, and that is potentially going to help overcome that mental barrier that people have, or people who have maths,

anxiety or dyscalculia, any way of helping people to engage with the subject, to me isjust a huge positive. wow, look at all this maths flying in the sky! this new technique is making the future look promising for people who suffer from maths anxiety. and it's clear that those who have had a go are already getting very excited for... multi—colour maths! jasmine ketibuah—foley, bbc news. now it's time for a look at the weather with carol kirkwood. hello again. it's been a quite cloudy start to the day for many of us, but through the day it will brighten up in places. high pressure is still in charge of our weather. you can see from the squeeze on the isobars that it is quite breezy across the northwest. but as we go through the next few days we hang on to the milder conditions, as represented by the yellows and the ambers on the chart. now, today, we still have the remnants of the overnight front sinking south with its cloud. it's a weak feature, might have a little bit of drizzle on it but not much more than that.

some drizzle coming out of the thicker cloud across the northwest, where it's breezy. but some sunny skies developing, especially eastern scotland and also northeast england. these are the temperatures, ranging from about 9 to 13 degrees. now, into this evening and overnight, quite quickly we'll see some fog developed across the south—eastern we'll see some fog develop across the south—eastern quarter of the country. some of that will be dense. there will be some pockets of fog elsewhere. still breezy across the northwest and not a particularly cold night, our lowest temperature around about 3 or 4 degrees. starting tomorrow, then, we've got the fog across the southeast. now, this will be slow to clear. it may lingerfor much of the day orjust lift into low cloud, but brighter skies across parts of scotland, northern england, also northern ireland and later into parts of wales. with the weather front not too far away from the northwest where it will remain windy. temperatures, 9 to about 11 degrees. then as we head on overnight wednesday into thursday, our high pressure starts to drift away. our weather front starts to sink south, but then it

drifts northwards again during the course of thursday. so we start off on thursday with some mist and fog, again, slow to clear. our weather front takes its way northwards into the northern isles. in between there will be something drier and brighter, some sunny spells developing as we go through the day, and these are our temperatures, so a little bit down on what we are looking at on wednesday. around about 7 to 10 degrees at best. now, beyond that, as we head on into the weekend, the high pressure continues to drift away. still quite breezy at times across the northwest. around sunday it looks like our weather front is going to make inroads coming in from the west. now, the rain on it won't be particularly heavy, but note as we head through the ensuing few days the temperature starts to slide a bit once again.

live from london, this is bbc news. hopes that a ceasefire deal between israel and hamas is close. the bbc is told final details are being negotiated. the special counsel's report to congress — donald trump engaged in unprecedented criminal effort to overturn the 2020 election result.

a bbc special report on the safety failings on an egyptian dive boat. 11 people died when it sank last year. i was ready to die. and, to be honest, it is very weird to be alive compared to the others. and as strong winds are forecast to return in los angeles, nine people are charged in connection with looting. hello, i'm lauren taylor. after more than a year of bloodshed, a ceasefire agreement between israel and hamas appears close. outgoing us presidentjoe biden said an agreement was on the brink. the deal would see israel remove its troops from the most populated parts of gaza in return for the gradual release of israeli hostages. a palestinian official has told the bbc that the terms of the deal were being finalised with negotiations continuing in qatar —

both sides working in the same building for the first time.