good evening. we start tonight with the escalating legal battle between rishi sunak s government and the independent public inquiry, into the handling of the covid pandemic. government officials in the cabinet office missed a deadline, earlier today, to hand over all of boris johnson s private messages and papers, to the inquiry. what s more, the government is now launching a legal challenge, arguing that some of the material is not relevant to the inquiry s work. the chair of the inquiry, baroness hallett, a formerjudge at the court of appeal, says it s for the inquiry to decide what is or is not relevant. and she s hinted that the inquiry could launch its own legal action against the government. labour has accused the government of undermining the work of the inquiry, as our political correspondent alex forsyth reports. the covid pandemic had a huge and lasting impact. now a public inquiry is examining what happened, the decisions taken in government that affected so many l
there remain questions tonight about how a 12 year old girl and a 17 year old boy came to lose their lives after being pulled out of the sea off the coast of bournemouth yesterday. police have ruled out suggestions that they were hit by a vessel or that anyone was jumping from the pier. eight other people were treated on the beach for non life threatening injuries. a man in his 40s has been arrested on suspicion of manslaughter. duncan kennedyjoins us from bournemouth. duncan. there is a real sense of disbelief here about how a group of people playing in the sea can somehow get caught up in a tragedy like this. the police are not saying exactly what happened but they ruled out some things, like this group being hit by a jet ski or becoming injured byjumping off the pier here. whatever has gone on here, it has left two families grieving. for several hours, this part of bournemouth beach was transformed into a major incident. the sand was cleared of the public to allow in hel
pay across england in march. at least 260 jobs are going, as british steel announces the closure of its coking ovens in scunthorpe. and, a pivotal day in welsh rugby players are due to reveal whether they will strike during the six nations, over contractual disputes. good afternoon, and welcome to bbc news. tesco and aldi have become the latest supermarket groups to restrict the amount of some fruit and vegetables that customers can buy in response to recent shortages of fresh produce. yesterday, asda and morrisons put limits on the number of cucumbers, peppers and tomatoes that shoppers can take home. our business correspondent marc ashdown is here with me. in the winter, there were cold snaps. defra says supply chains are resilient. it doesn t appear to be any reason. lancashire s police and crime commissioner has announced an independent review of the investigation into the disappearance of nicola bulley. andrew snowden has commissioned the college of policing to look in
antonyjoshua beatsjermaine frankin in his comeback fight, but fails to land a knockout punch. our ancient woodlands standard stead fast and tall, it is with this past that we build a future for all. the unmistakable voice of damejudi dench, as the king says thank you for the three million trees planted in honour of the late queen. good morning, a fairamount good morning, a fair amount of cloud around this morning but things will brighten up through the day. it will be less windy with more sunshine than we saw yesterday. more details, shortly. it s sunday 2nd of april, out main story. three british men are being held in custody by the taliban in afghanistan. a humanitarian organisation said two of the men were arrested injanuary, while a third was detained on a different date. the foreign office says it s working hard to make contact with them, as helena wilkinson reports. back under taliban control since the summer of 2021, now it has emerged that three british men are being
and tributes for the legendary rock guitaristjeff beck who s died at the age of 78. there s more evidence today of the crisis in the nhs in england, ambulance response times in december were the worse on record. were the worst on record. for category two emergency calls, including strokes, they were more than an hour and a half on average. the target is 18 minutes. the highest priority calls with an immediate threat to life took almost 11 minutes on average, the target is seven. and patients are waiting even longer in accident and emergency, 35% waited more than four hours that s another record. our health correspondent jim reed reports. long queues for ambulances, the most 999 calls ever, record waits in a&e, new figures today show in blunt terms the pressure the nhs is under. martin started feeling chest pains in his home in east sussex in november. his family rang three times for an ambulance. we kept thinking, the ambulance will pull up any minute, it is going to ar