hello and welcome to the programme. we start today with russia it says a pro kremlin military blogger has been killed in a blast at a cafe in st petersburg, which is the second largest city after the capital, moscow. police say several others have been injured in the incident. vladlen tatarsky was one of a handful of reporters writing blogs on the telegram platform from the front line he was a vocal supporter of russia s war in ukraine. these are pictures before the explosion. tatarsky was a guest speaker at an event hosted by the cafe in st petersburg when the bomb went off. earlier, sergei goryashko, from bbc russian gave me this update on the story. so, for now we know that the explosion was around 6pm local time in st petersburg at a cafe where dozens of people gathered to meet vladen tatarsky and to listen to his account on the ongoing russia ukraine war. the blast went offjust after vladen tatarsky received a gift from one the visitors. he was given a statue, a smal
for their country will prevail. democracies over the world will stand guard for our freedom today, tomorrow and forever. president joe biden delivering a powerful message to vladimir putin and all of eastern europe marking one year of war in ukraine. we ll have more on his speech in warsaw in just a moment. back here at home we re learning more about the special grand jury that investigated the potential 2020 election interference by former president donald trump and his allies. plus we ll have the latest on the efforts to cleanup an environmental disaster in ohio as federal and state officials take action against the rail company at the center. good morning, and welcome to way too early on this wednesday, february 22nd. i m jonathan lemire, thanks for starting your day with us. today president joe biden wraps up a historic trip to eastern europe. last night he gave a speech in warsaw, poland marking one year since the russian invasion of ukraine. it followed monday s s
prime minister rishi sunak is aiming to finalise a deal with brussels on post brexit northern ireland trade rules early this week some speculate as soon as tomorrow. government officials held talks with their counterparts in brussels on sunday in a bid to overcome some of the detail that is currrently unpallatable to some politicians in northern ireland. the so called northern ireland protocol has split political opinion since its inception in 2021. it is the trade deal that was agreed to ensure the free movement of goods across the irish land border after brexit. what do business leaders based in northern ireland think about these latest developments? joining me now is roger poland, head of the federation of small businesses northern ireland good to talk to you again. are you hopeful, are you with those who are domestic and think a deal could done this week? we are deal could done this week? - are hopeful of a deal being done this week and the last miles of the race are
of the investigative journalists behind the story. ben, out of interest, as we re talking about twitter, how important is it as a tool for your reporting? look, for many of us, twitter is really a lifeline. you know, not only is it a way to share findings, but i think there s there s a couple of reasons. first of all, collaboration. i never would have met some of the people i ve worked with had it not been for twitter. second, it s a world of sources at our fingertips, so that we re able to contact those that we really wouldn t be able to actually reach. and third, it s a way for us to actually speak to people on the ground and it s one of those crucial platforms for that, which, as we ve seen with this investigation, we wouldn t have had access to many of those people had it not been for some platforms like twitter. 0k, and we will come back to more of that, i m sure, later. but let s go for the big story this week. elon musk announced himself as chief twit last week when