we ve put in this covid winter support fund, which is another 170 million support for children, young people and their families all through christmas with parcels and food packages. downing street says the prime minister will respond to the letter soon. jon donnison, bbc news. it s one of the oldest tricks in the book sawing someone in half. this sunday marks 100 years since a magician called percy thomas tibbles performed the illusion. david sillito has more. ok, so here we go. michaelj fitch, who is this weekend just one of many magicians taking part in a global online celebration of a magical moment. ah! there we go. whenever anyone says, you know, oh, you re a magician, the first line, we hear it every day is, oh, can you saw my wife in half? or, can you saw my husband in half? for some reason, that illusion has
winter support fund, which is another 170 million support for children, young people and their families all through christmas with parcels and food packages. downing street says the prime minister will respond to the letter soon. jon donnison, bbc news. the us president electjoe biden has set out a rescue plan worth nearly two trillion dollars to combat the pandemic and stimulate what he called a sinking economy. the plan includes one off payments of 11100 dollars to all adults and extending unemployment benefits to millions more people. mr biden, who takes office next wednesday, is also promising a mass vaccination campaign. here s our north america correspondent, david willis. in the worst affected nation on earth, the coronavirus is having a devastating effect. hospitals are at breaking point as cases have spiralled to around 200,000 per day. food banks are inundated
which is another 170 million support for children, young people and their families all through christmas with parcels and food packages. downing street says the prime minister will respond to the letter soon. jon donnison, bbc news. labour is demanding a statement from the home secretary, priti patel, after it emerged that 150.000 arrest records were accidentally wiped from police databases. the home office says it s assessing the impact of the glitch, which happened last week, but insists no records of criminals or dangerous persons were deleted and say they are working at pace to recover the data. charlotte wright reports. the police national computer is a vital tool for bringing perpetrators to justice. used to store and share criminal records information between forces in investigations across the country. but it has been revealed that 150,000 of its biometric entries, including dna and fingerprints,
the specification of one of their hampers, before saying the quantity of food pictured fell short. but sarah s case is not isolated. other parents shared their images of food parcels delivered to them as part of the government s commitment to continue providing free school meals to eligible english school students during lockdown. when i saw that picture, i was absolutely disgusted. as a dad myself, ijust sort of thought, how could a family in receipt of that really be expected to deliver, you know, five nutritious meals as is required? it s just not acceptable. it s been made absolutely clear to chartwells, and to the whole sector, that that sort of behaviour is just not right. it will not be tolerated. we will not live with that. the department for education says it will give schools the freedom to arrange local voucher schemes of up to £15 per eligible pupil
sarah, who does not want to be identified, to protect her two children, is disabled and relies on free school meals. reaction to sarah s tweet was swift on social media, with the footballer marcus rashford, who has campaigned for free school meals, reposting what other families said they had received. government guidelines say school meals should contain items which parents can use to prepare healthy lunches across the week. they were replaced with vouchers during previous lockdowns in england, but because suppliers were contracted to provide meals before the current national lockdown was announced, they ve been sending food parcels instead. after meeting the company at the centre of this row, the minister for children, vicky ford, said. chartwells, the company