it is an increasingly cheery looking picture today, with plenty of sunshine already across scotland and northern ireland, skies like these on the way for many others but we have the last dregs of a weather front bringing patchy cloud across southern wales, south—west england, east anglia and the south—east are slow to brighten up too. take a cloud on the way into scotland a0 so make the best of the sunshine today. the winds are coming from a north—westerly direction for the most part, onshore wind keeping northern scotland a little cool, 17 in cardiff, the warmest day of the year so far in wales. overnight, clear skies initially, temperatures dropping quite quickly, colder than last night, there could be some main stand pulpits staying mostly clear and patches of frost in the coldest areas. high scale to the west on thursday but we have a weather front coming the north—east which could threaten a passing shower, just about anywhere, to be honest. as potatoes by a warm front will move into the north—west scotland, bringing thicker cloud and potentially drizzle. it will be noticeably colder because the winds are coming in from the cold north sea, the sea temperature is about 6 degrees. some coolerfeeling sea, the sea temperature is about 6 degrees. some cooler feeling air working across central and eastern england and scotland, not as warm as today, southern wales is doing pretty well with temperatures above—average for the time of year. thursday promises to be quite cloudy, some rain for east anglia and south—east england. some breaks in the cloud particularly across south—west scotland, north—west england and western wales, temperatures still doing pretty nicely towards the thousand west. high pressure still to the west of the uk to the ends of the week, but colder winds will come from the continent. it is not a cold polar blast or anything but temperatures will drop, particularly for east anglia and kent, just 7 degrees in margate on friday, but the gusty winds will make it feel much colder. but across northern england, wales, northern ireland and scotland, little overall change. dry but probably pretty cloudy. a reminder of our top story... the duke of edinburgh has been discharged from hospital a month after being admitted, after undergoing a successful heart procedure. that's all from the bbc news at one, so it's goodbye from me, and on bbc one we nowjoin the bbc�*s news teams where you are. good afternoon. it's 1.30pm and here's your latest sports news. england won the toss and chose to field first in the third match of their twenty20 series in ahmedabad. this is captain eoin morgan's one hundreth t20, the first england men's player to reach that milestone. india a without loss in the early stages. the remaining matches of this series now being played without fans because of rising coronavirus rates in gujarat. the series is level at 1—1. there's text commentary on the bbc sport website and app. we're under way on the opening day of the cheltenham festival, also being staged without fans, in contrast to last year with appreciate it winning the first race of the day — the supreme novices's hurdle. the favourite came through comfortably to hand trainer willie mullins a great start to the festival. this the first of seven races today, 28 in total across the four days, of what is national hunt racing's most prestigious meeting of the year. with safety and horse welfare in the spotlight after recent negative headlines. in rugby, the ireland forward cj stander has announced he'll retire from all forms of rugby at the end of ths season. the 30—year—old won his 50th cap during sunday's six nations win over scotland. he has been a mainstay in the ireland side since making his debut back in 2016. born in south africa, he qualified to play under residency rules and went on to win the grand slam with ireland back in 2018. world rugby have announced a new women's international tournament, to start in 2023. it will be called wxv, and the aim is to increase competitiveness, in the build—up to an expanded world cup two years later. as six nations champions, england would be in the top of three tiers, alongwith the next two sides in the table, plus qualifiers from the southern hemisphere and north america. world rugby have invested £6.a—million to cover the first two years of the tournament, which will involve 16 teams. southampton striker che adams has been named in the scotland squad for this month's world cup qualifiers. he played for england at under—20 level and previously rejected an approach from the scottish fa to swich allegiance. he qualifies through one of his grandparents. after talks with manager steve clarke, he's pledged his international future to scotland. he's been in great form for his club of late, scoring three goals in his last three games. at 39—years—old zlatan ibrahimovic has been called up to the swedish national team, five years after announcing his retirement. he scored 62 goals in 116 for his country before quitting after the team's exit from euro 2016 at the group stage. but his form for ac milan in italy moved opened the door for his return, the striker responding to the news from the swedish fa on social media by saying the return of the god. england's women will play two friendies next month, to be shown live on bbc four. they'll face the world's third—ranked side france in caen on the 9th, before taking on canada four days later at stoke city's bet365 stadium. the lionesses have played only once in the past 12 months a 6—0 win over northern ireland, in hege riise's first match in charge. badminton player gabby adcock has been forced to miss the up—coming all—england championships because she's suffering from long covid. she fell ill at christmas but described the effects as "horrendous". she and her husband chris have won two commonweath gold and european championship titles and they're missing what is a big event in the build—up to the tokyo olympics. the bottom line is i wasn't and am not ready to compete yet. i don't just want to step on court when i'm not conditioned to when or that is what i want to going into tenements for, to win. you have to be patient with this virus. i'm really grateful that my health is definitely on the way up. british number one dan evans has been knocked out in the second round of the dubai championships. he lost in three sets to rising star aslan karatsev. evans is ranked 28th in the world, that's 1a places higher than the russian, who was a surprise semi—finalist at last month's australian open. i'll be back with more later. in the last hour, the european union's medicines regulator — the ema — has said it is �*firmly convinced of the benefits' of the astra zeneca coronavirus vaccine. it says it hasn't seen any evidence that the vaccine causes blood clots but its experts are still reviewing it. referring to occurance of blood clots in recipients of the vaccine, the ema's executive director, emer cooke, had this to say at a news conference in amsterdam. there is no indication that vaccination has caused these conditions. they have not come up in clinical trials and they are not listed as known or expected side effects with this vaccine. in clinical trials, effects with this vaccine. in clinicaltrials, both effects with this vaccine. in clinical trials, both the vaccinated people and the people who received the placebo have shown small, some very small numbers of blood clots developments. we, the number of thromboembolic events seems not to have be higher than that seen in the general population. i don't need to remind you all today that the covid—19 pandemic is a global crisis. it continues to be a major burden on eu health systems. vaccines for covid—19 help to protect individuals from becoming ill, especially health care professionals and vulnerable populations such as older people and those with chronic diseases. this is a very important consideration in our assessment of the benefit risk. while the investigation is ongoing, we are currently still firmly convinced that the benefits of the astrazeneca vaccine in preventing covid—19 weather its associated risk of hospitalisation and death outweighs the risks of the side effects. ., ., , outweighs the risks of the side effects. . . , . , effects. that was the eu medicines re . ulator. borisjohnson has been setting out details of a post—brexit overhaul of british foreign policy. there will be a new focus on indo—pacific countries such as india, south korea and japan; and plans to reduce the uk's stockpile of nuclear weapons have been reversed, meaning there could be up to 260 warheads. borisjohnson says the greater our unity is at home, the stronger our influence will be abroad. the first outcome of the integrated review was the government was my decision to invest an extra £2a billion in defence. allowing the whole sale modernisation of our armed forces and taking forward the renewal of our nuclear deterrent. the new mini will be focused on mastering the emerging technologies that are transforming warfare, reflecting the deployment and technical skill. the greater our unity at home, the stronger our influence abroad. it will in turn open new markets and create jobs influence abroad. it will in turn open new markets and createjobs in every corner of the uk. britain will remain unswervingly committed to nato and preserving peace and security in europe. from a secure basis we will seekers friends and partners wherever they can be found, building a coalition for openness innovation. engaging more deeply in the indo pacific. i have invited the leaders of australia, south korea and india to intend the g7 summit in june. the uk has applied to become a dialogue partner of the association of southeast asian nations, and we will seek to join the transpacific free trade agreement. the bbc�*s diplomatic correspondent paul adams has been listening in. they have been big claims made by the government for this refocusing of foreign policy but in reality how significant is it? they claim is indeed. there's been a lot of talk about it is a long time coming. on the day, it feels like a bit of a mixture of continuity. you had borisjohnson talking about nato and the importance of our relationship with the us and some innovation, this feeling that the threat, both ethernet and the opportunity posed by china's lies on the global stage means we have two our strategy. you hear all this talk about the indo pacific region, they need to find allies in that part of the world for trade, allies among some of the fastest growing economies and some of the largest populations around the world, no accidents borisjohnson is heading to india for his first post—brexit foreign trip. in the wake of brexit, if you like, one bit if our toolkit has been removed, quite a significant part of our toolkits, our membership of the eu. britain needs to find other pieces of equipment to replace it. there will be sceptics that say there is no replacement for being a partner, a member of the largest trading bloc in the world but the prime minister is very optimistic that he can find these new partnerships much further afield. ~ ., ., , these new partnerships much further afield. ~ . ., ., , ., afield. what was the opposition sa in: ? afield. what was the opposition saying? what — afield. what was the opposition saying? what was labour - afield. what was the opposition l saying? what was labour saying? a bit of a mixture _ saying? what was labour saying? a bit of a mixture of _ saying? what was labour saying? a bit of a mixture of criticisms, i a bit of a mixture of criticisms, somewhat underwhelmed, talking about the, what they regard as the inconsistency when it comes to things like selling arms to saudi arabia while cutting aid to yemen. and also, the feeling that we are neglecting europe, almost very little reference to europe, not surprisingly perhaps in this new document. perhaps the military is going to be very stretched with these new ambitious proposals to send warships to the far east. actually, the ministry of defence's budget is in a pretty dire state and there is talk of investment in the military is perhaps a bit of a clever for military is perhaps a bit of a cleverfor a deep black hole in the finances. —— a bit of a cover. they do welcome, keir starmer said, finances. —— a bit of a cover. they do welcome, keir starmersaid, he welcomes the pivot to asia, to the indo pacific region, that is recognition of a global change reality. i think they regard this as full of inconsistencies and with a lot of questions still to be answered on all sorts of issues. the headlines on bbc news... the duke of edinburgh, who is 99, has returned to windsor castle after his longest—ever stay in hospital. borisjohnson unveils a new vision for the uk's place in the world — less europe, more asia the european medicines agency has said they are firmly convinced of the benefits of the astra zeneca vaccine, that's after germany, france and some other eu countries halted the rollout of the vaccine. now it's time to re—visit this morning's your questions answered when my colleaguejoanna gosling answered your questions on the oxford—astra zeneca vaccine with our health correspondent, anna collinson. let's listen back. yes, time for your questions answered. we've had a lot of questions and family on the oxford astrazeneca vaccine. with me to answer some of them is our health correspondent, anna collinson. hello. doug asks, what is the risk of developing a clot with the astrazeneca vaccine compared with the general population? it is understandable that people are asking this question, waking up to this news this morning that 11 european countries have announced they are suspending the use of astrazeneca vaccine, it must be a concern. there are always a risk with vaccine, always the risk of side effects but from the data we have seen the chance of a blood clot after vaccination appears to be very low. if you compare that to the risk of covid, that risk is very real. 125,000 deaths in the uk in the past year alone and hundreds of thousands more serious illnesses and hospitalisations. vaccinations save lives. the message from the regulators, from the who and from many, many scientists is clear, the risks outweigh the benefits, get yourjab. another question is, have there been any uk cases of blood clotting where people have received the astrazeneca vaccine? yes, there have but it isn't seen as a cause for concern. these clots can happen in the leg, the lungs or the brain and it is, and blood clots in the uk in the general population affecting one in 1000 people aged over 80. more than 11 million doses of the astrazeneca vaccine have been administered across the uk but the number of blood clots reported is no greater than what we would expect to see in the unvaccinated population. those cases are seen as a coincidence rather than a cause. you mentioned the stats for over 80s, do we know the age of the people who have reported blood clots. we are not sure. the rollout will target, age was the biggest factor, so the number of people being targeted were those of the older patients. if you tie that in with a number of people who are most likely to get blood clots there would be an increase risk. josie asks, this is a question lots of people are asking, have any similar cases been reported of people receiving the pfizer vaccine? i get why people are asking it. there have been reports of blood clots in both as to astrazeneca and the pfizer jabs. basically, yes, we are seeing that but there is no cause for concern. it is just astrazeneca that has been suspended in european countries. a lot of people are questioning why astrazeneca is being so much focus is being targeted on astrazeneca when we are seeing similar things with pfizer. diane, i have a medical condition that increases my risk of blood clots, following the reports of clots with the vaccine will advice be updated to include more of us who already have a risk of higher clots? waking up and hearing this news story this morning, that must be scary. at the moment there is no reason or indication that diane shouldn't get her vaccination. the advice is, she should speak to her doctorjust to be doubly sure. one thing to be aware of is we know blood clots are the most common consequencesf a serious covid—19 illness. that is the argument for having the vaccination, you are potentially more likely to get blood clots. christine, is it safe to have a second dose of the vaccine? how concerned should people be? for the vaccine to work properly people need to have notjust their first dose but their second dose which happens 12 weeks after. it is important for people to keep going and get their second dose. as for being concerned, experts are reviewing these handful of reports of blood clots. today, europe's regulator is meeting to discuss this and we are expecting to hear their findings on thursday. the message has been pretty resounding, the evidence available does not suggest blood clots are being caused by the vaccine. how unusual it is for the vaccine that has been this way to administer to have newly discovered side effects? no vaccine is going to be completely free of side—effects. last year we were hearing about how these vaccines were performing in clinical trials when they were tested on thousands of people and both pfizer and astrazeneca had positive results. since december we have been seeing how the vaccine has been working in the real world and it has been successful. astrazeneca says about 70 million people in the eu and uk have received theirfirst dose of their vaccine and i have been fewer than a0 cases of blood clots reported. it is a handful of cases. is there any evidence that the questions that are being raised around astrazeneca are putting people off getting it? there are serious concerns people may be put off when they hear this because it is scary. overall, the reaction to the vaccine has been overwhelmingly positive. the government couldn't have hoped for it to go as far as it did. but when the stories came out it is going to scare people. all scientists would say any concern should be properly investigated and they are concerned it has been played out in such a public forum. and it's not possible for somebody who wants the vaccine but may be having questions around astrazeneca to choose which they get? no. the way the roll—out has been going, based on advice from the joint committee on immunisation, both vaccines offer a high level of protection. which vaccine you get will be based on supply and it is just important to remember that the uk is one of the most biggest rollouts so far, there are many counties where the roll—out hasn't even begun in the uk is seen as privileged to have the amount of vaccine it has. thank you. almost 90 per cent of pupils have attended schools in england since they began to fully reopen last week, government figures suggest. attendance in primary schools began at 96 per cent. then fell slightly to 9a per cent by yesterday. analysis by the department for education also shows that around 89 per cent of secondary school pupils were in class on march the 15th. the dfe estimates that on thursday last week one per cent of all state school pupils on roll were absent from school for covid—related reaasons. scientists in iceland are bracing themselves for a volcanic eruption after the island recorded more than a0,000 earthquakes injust over two weeks. this concerning amount of activity is an indication that an eruption is imminent, though scientists are unable to confirm when exactly it might happen. our europe correspondent, jean mackenzie has this report. at times the ground continuously shakes. thousands of micro—earthquakes cascade one after another. hundreds are strong enough to feel. at iceland's meteorological office they are recording every last one. since midnight today there have been 1200 earthquakes and in a normal week you might have 100, 200. many people have been woken up by earthquakes. we have had several over a magnitude of five so this is very unusual. i don't think anyone remembers anything like this happening. this intense swarm of earthquakes is a sign that magma is on the move, making its way to the surface of the earth, ready to erupt. everybody is feeling like they have been out to sea, a little bit giddy! but it is stressful, and most stressful for people who live close to the active areas. we head out to the volcanic area in the reykjanes peninsula. iceland is used to volcanic eruptions but there has not been one in this area so close to the capital for hundreds and hundreds of years, and so it is that that is making people a bit nervous. you can see the ground out in front of us is covered in old lava that has been here now for more than a thousand years. we are taken closer by one of the island's geologists. the activity is on the other side of this ridge, so we are in a safe spot here. the magma is now at one kilometre's depth in the crust, and that is very shallow. so we can expect that to find its way up to the surface but we are not going to see, like we saw in 2010, a central volcano with an explosive eruption and a lot of ash — that is not the case for reykjanes here. the ancient lava has been joined by new cracks — the magma already making its mark. how much warning will you get before an eruption? we don't know. we... hopefully we will get the warning, but it might be a very small signal. an eruption is coming — but when, no—one knows. people on this peninsula are dreaming of an end to their shaken nights. jean mackenzie, bbc news, iceland. now it's time for a look at the weather with chris fawkes. hello, there. the weather is going to be turning increasingly dry through the afternoon for most parts of the uk and, certainly, we've not seen anything too spicy in the weather. in scotland, we've had these clear blue skies near to edinburgh, and that sunshine is working southwards across scotland and northern ireland, now pushing into england and wales, with the cloud breaking up. we are going to see plenty of sunshine for most areas this afternoon, but out in the atlantic we have a weather system that is going to be pushing some thicker cloud back towards scotland over the next 2a hours, as we'll see in just a moment. i think the main message is grab the sunshine whilst it's there. in the sunshine today, quite warm, as well, for march, 15 or 16 degrees celsius, but notice around the coastline some green tinges on the map — it's a lot colder here with the winds coming in off the chilly sea. for example, in the north sea it is only six degrees at the moment, so if you do get the winds coming in from the sea it is going to feel that bit colder. overnight tonight, we will keep the dry weather and largely clear skies. it will be cold enough just for an odd nip of frost in the very coldest locations, but certainly a chillier night than the nightjust passed. high pressure stays with us then for wednesday. remember that cloud i showed you from the warm front? well, that's going to be working towards scotland as we go through the day, and there will also be quite a bit of cloud coming down the north sea, where the weather system here could get close enough to bring a few showers towards eastern areas of england from time to time, as the cloud thickens across northern and western areas of scotland, but that still leaves a lot of dry and reasonably sunny weather for most of us. the best of the sunshine probably toward south—western areas. southern wales probably having the highest temperatures, at about 1a or so in cardiff. for thursday, again, another weak weather system pushes southwards across the north sea bringing the threat of some rain to east anglia and the south—east of england. we could see an odd spot from the cloud as well for northern scotland, but still a lot of dry weather, probably turning a little bit cloudier. temperatures about ten to 12 degrees celsius. looking at the charts for friday, well, we've got our high pressure still to the west of the uk, but we're going to start to get some of this colder airjust spilling in across parts of southern and eastern england. we're not talking about an arctic blast, just a general cooldown. however, if you are exposed to some of those onshore winds, for example, in kent, in margate, temperatures really will struggle and the winds will be quite gusty, as well, with gusts of around 30 to a0 miles an hour. further north and west, lots of cloud, but mainly dry with temperatures staying into double figures. this is bbc news. the headlines... the duke of edinburgh, who is 99, has returned to windsor castle after his longest—ever stay in hospital. the european medicines agency has said that the benefits of the astrazeneca vaccine outweigh the risk, after some eu countries halted the vaccine rollout due to concerns about blood clots. we are still firmly convinced that the benefits of the astrazeneca vaccine in preventing covid—19 with its associated risk of hospitalisation and death, outweigh the risk of these side—effects. borisjohnson unveils a new vision for the uk's place in the world — less europe, more asia. global britain is not a reflection of old obligations, still less a vainglorious gesture, but a necessity for the safety and prosperity of the british people in the decades ahead.