An extra hour in school for some pupils in wales as heads try out changes to the Academic Year. The Winter Olympics torch relay kicks off in beijing as chinas capital gears up for the games. Good morning. Quite a lot of Cloud Producing Light Rain in the north and east. Not as windy as it has been but it is still going to be mild. Details later in the programme. Good morning. Its wednesday, the 2nd of february. The government will today set out its long delayed Manifesto Plan to level up the lives of millions of people across the uk. The proposals include a series of pledges to improve education, Public Transport and housing in some of the most disadvantaged areas of the country. Labour have dismissed the project as more slogans and strategies. Our Political Correspondent Jessica Parker reports. We are a government committed to levelling up. It is absolutely what levelling up is all about. What were doing is levelling up. Level up across the whole of the uk. Ministers have talked about
This flight test aims to build on what weve learned from the previous flights while attempting a number of ambitious objectives. I would just like to direct you to the bbc website. We have a live stage at the moment which has reaction to this latest launch by spacex. And these are live pictures that are coming into the bbc newsroom from space. Lets return to our top story this error. This hour. The communities secretary, michael gove, has told mps that the governments new definition of extremism is more precise and rigorous, than the previous one. He said ministers had taken every possible precaution to strike a balance between protecting fundamental rights and safeguarding citizens. Critics have warned the change could inhibit free speech and unfairly target muslim groups. Lets listen to some more of what mr gove said in the house of commons. Across this house, i am sure that we would agree that organisations such as the British National socialist movement and patriotic alternative, w
Its ahead of a planned Ground Offensive in the Southern City of rafah, where about 1. 5 Million People are sheltering. It is being reported this morning, not a huge amount of detail what those humanitarian islands would look like. It is right at the very southern end of the gaza strip, where more than half of the population is now sheltering and is a place where israel has said it needs to carry out a military Ground Offensive because it says in order to achieve its aim of fully removing hamas run gaza, the only way to do thatis hamas run gaza, the only way to do that is target hamas s remaining leadership when they are believed to be in and among civilians sheltering in rafa. Of course this remains an operation which has questions attached, certainly the word ireland is interesting because a central part of the gaza strip has been left severely damaged by months of Israeli Ground and air attacks. People who live there have left their homes, been going back to those areas but of course