rachel reeves, the shadow chancellor, is there and they promise they will bring back the rate of interest tax to fund nhs staff. other news this afternoon. a moment of history in italy georgia meloni looks set to become its first far right leader since the second world war and its first female prime minister. a school shooting in russia has left at least 13 people dead, seven of them children. and nasa prepare to crash a space probe into an asteroid to find out how hard it would be to save the planet. welcome to bbc news, very good to have your company and it is going to be a busy afternoon. the pound fell overnight to its lowest level against the dollar for half a century. asian markets were reacting in part to the government s announcement last week of tax cuts and increased borrowing to pay for them. of course, that had come too late for their trading week on friday. at one stage, sterling plunged to around $1.03, before regaining ground. a weaker pound raises the cost
and outgoing shells, every 30 seconds or so. it really doesn t stop. and science fiction made reality as nasa plans to try to divert an asteroid by crashing a rocket into it. we start in the uk where the bank of england says it won t hesitate to take action to control inflation, after the pound slumped to an all time low against the dollar. take a look at this chart from this morning s asia trading. at one point sterling fell to $1.03 the lowest since 1971 though it s since recovered slightly. there s been speculation that the bank of england may announce an emergency hike in rates to control rising prices. for the moment, that hasn t happened. well there s lots to unpack. first to understand what s happening today we must go back to friday and to this annoucement in parliament. i can announce today that we will catch the basic rate of income tax to 19p, in april 2020 three, one year early. that means a tax cut for over 31 million people injust a few months time. t