as colorado goes to the polls, sisters mandy and nicky are headed to the ice. we are such a divided nation. but the one thing i like is when i walk into the hockey rink, we're all the same. the feeling is rather different on the campaign trail, as 15 states are holding votes to pick their presidential candidates. crooked joe biden, you're fired! before polls have even closed, there's been a victory for donald trump. the state of colorado was in a fight to kick him off the ballot entirely for his role in the capitol riots onjanuary 6th. but the us supreme court struck it down. his republican opponent is undeterred. i defeated a dozen of the fellas. cheering. ijust have one more fella i got to catch up to. the question is whether nikki haley quits the race, or decides to hang on. it wasn't presidentjoe biden, but the first lady doing the rounds on the democratic side, going after female voters. donald trump is dangerous to women and to our families. we simply cannot let him win. but the prospect of a joe biden rematch with donald trump is unpopular with many voters. i do wish there were more choices. that's another thing i don't lovei about our political system here. contenders that have been there before and they're kind of ready to go again. so not the most exciting match? not this time, no. because neitherjoe biden nor donald trump has any serious competition this year, as political games go, the result is rather a foregone conclusion. what matters now is that after tuesday, the real start of the election campaign will begin. and unlike this somewhat predictable super tuesday, the result of the presidential election in november will be much harder to call. emma vardy, bbc news, colorado. dr leslie vinjamuri is director at chatham house us and the americas programme about the predictabilty of super tuesday, this time around. when it comes to that headline news of who the candidates will be for president it is absolutely predictable. i think one thing to watch is how enthusiastic are the voters, do they turn out? when it gets to know them by one of the key predictors of who will win is difficult to anticipate and that is how many people will vote. —— when it gets to november, one of the key predictors. primary voters tend to be more passionate and more towards the extremes of the party so it is a little hard to read but it tells us something about the enthusiasm or possibly the lack of enthusiasm amongst us voters. the second thing to watch that i think fewer people here in the united kingdom are paying attention to are the primary is for seats in the house of representatives and the senate. this is where we will see some very important races and results, those primaries will determine who runs the house of representatives, it is certainly up for grabs. the democrats would only have to win four seats to take the house back regardless of who the president is. if you have been watching us politics carefully over the last few months we know that what happens in the house happens a huge amount with things that are significant for the rest of the world such as whether or not spending bills that go to supporting ukraine are even taken to a vote. if the democrats when the house they control those committees and have a lot more capacity to influence outcomes and so these are significant. -- if the —— if the democrats win the house. they also tell us about whether the democrats who are running will be more conservative or progressive, more moderate or more progressive, where the republican balance of power will be, so there is a lot happening below the headline news which is significant and will shape the future of us politics. it's really interesting. let's talk about nikki haley, she is trailing far, far, far behind donald trump as far as republican candidates, as it is the last day do you expect to see her on the campaign trail? what is her strategy likely to be? that is the $100 million question. i suspect it depends very much and how voters cast their ballots and one does not want to pre—empt that but it certainly looks like this will be the beginning of the end of this phase of her name being on the balance. —— on the ballot she is looking not only at 2024 but also 2028 and so her visibility, one of the questions for nikki haley is how can she remain visible and remain an influencer. she is gaining a lot of wealthy republican voters, she has a different set of policies, much more international, and that appeals to a lot of republicans who have felt alienated from the party since donald trump was elected. she will continue to have an important voice, it is unclear and it seems less likely that that voice will be on the ballot after today. and if you want to find out more about super tuesday and why it is so important in the race for the white house then head to the bbc news website or app, where we have a special guide to the day along with more articles in the run up to the presidential election. to the middle east and the israel—gaza war. israel has repeatedly said that the brutality against the victims of the hamas attacks on october the 7th included sexual violence. now a team of experts from the un has concluded there are "reasonable grounds" to believe that sexual violence occurred during the attacks, and there's convincing information that hostages taken by the group have been subjected to it. hamas has denied the allegations. pramila patten is the un special representative on sexual violence in conflict. in regard to the hostages taken to gaza, we found clear and convincing information that sexual violence including rape, sexualised torture, cruel inhuman and degrading treatment has been committed against captives. and we also have reasonable grounds to believe that such violence may still be ongoing against those still held in captivity. i pause and must add that i am of the strong opinion that this finding does not in any way legitimise further violence that actually reinforces the need for an urgent ceasefire. this is all happening as the white house says vice president kamala harris has expressed deep concern over the humanitarian situation in gaza — during talks with the israeli war cabinet member, benny gantz. this image has been released from the meeting. the vice president's office says she urged israel to let more aid into gaza, while calling on hamas to accept the terms of a ceasefire. mr gantz will later meet with the us s top diplomat, secretary of state antony blinken 7 despite criticisms of the trip by some in the israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu's government. earlier i spoke with our middle east correspondent, yolande knell, about and the increasing us pressure on israel over the humanitarian situation in gaza. yes, so benny gantz met kamala harris one day after she had given the strongest rebuke yet that we had heard from a senior us government official about conditions in gaza, describing them as inhumane, saying there is a humanitarian catastrophe, that people are starving. what we understand from the white house is that ms harris spoke to benny gantz, a member of the israeli war cabinet, about the need to have a humanitarian plan before israel conducts anything and rougher on the border which is something that israel it plans to do, and that is where you have hundreds of thousands of people displaced by the fighting elsewhere, currently living in makeshift tents in very difficult conditions. there has also been this call from the us to have more aid in general entering the gaza strip and we saw over the past few days that a measure of the us�*s frustration with the state of affairs, we have had these warnings from the un about famine being almost inevitable in gaza and even the us began to join our lifting operations to parachute food supplies into gaza because they are so desperately needed, especially in the north. we heard about the world health organization, you are touching on edge, the world health organization chief saying children are dying from starvation currently in gaza, so the stakes at the moment could not be higher? yes, and in the past few days the world health organization says it has sent one of its teams to two hospitals in the very north of the gaza strip which it has not been able to visit since early 0ctober, it describes grim conditions and said italy's children have died resulting from starvation. we have heard many stories from the north about how people have even been turning to animal fodder in order to try to find food to feed their families but it has really become that desperate. it is highlighting more and more that there have been health officials in gaza talking about the numbers of children dying from diseases resulting from malnutrition and disease that could easily be prevented. there is a lack of medicines and fuel, hospital buildings like those that the world health organization visited in the north of gaza, the buildings have been very badly damaged by fighting and this makes things more desperate. yolande knell in jerusalem. to china next where the biggest event in the country's political calendar is underway. nearly 3000 delegates have gathered in beijing for the national people's congress. the country's premier delivered a major address on the economy, where he's announced that import tariffs on advanced technology will be cut to try and boost growth. security at the annual gathering inside the great hall of the people is tight. from there, our china correspondent stephen mcdonell sent us this update. here we have it, the government work report, as it's called. it gives you an idea of the marathon nature of the speech. there's a lot in here. big emphasis on the economy in the congress this year, and apparently, the government is telling its people that a consumption—led recovery is going to be key. how are they going to boost consumption? well, apparently by improving employment and also improving people's wages. also, needs to be more investment in research and development for science. that is especially crucial for china because it's finding, as relations sour with various western countries, it's finding it difficult to get high—tech stuff from other countries, so it needs to do all this stuff domestically. but when you look at this report, you know, at times it can be big on rhetoric and a bit thin on detail. so i'lljust give you some examples. i mean, as wejust dip into it, i'll read a bit. "in order to fulfil the development goals and tasks for this year, we must act on xi jinping's economic thinking, and to devote full energy to promoting high quality development." well, you know, what does that really mean? there's all sorts of jargon along those lines. and here's another taste. 11.7 million students are due to graduate from college or university this year, and we must "do more to promote employment for young people. " now, the words "do more" are doing a lot of heavy lifting there. what does that mean? what exactly is the government going to do to improve the employment situation for young people? now, that said, at least talking about these things and acknowledging the difficulties will, you know, be a good thing for people in china to hear. i'm just not so sure, though, that they are any closer to understanding how the government intends to fix the major problems this economy has, as a result of this speech. stephen mcdonell reporting from beijing. at least 35 people died while dozens more were injured as freezing rain and unexpected snowfall hit remote areas of pakistan over the weekend. 22 children were among the fatalities, many of whom were crushed in landslides that buried their homes, disaster management authorities said. the extreme weather hit pakistan's northern and western regions, clogging roads and damaging hundreds of houses. earlier i spoke to farhat javed from bbc urdu and asked her about the situation on the ground. in the last three years i think it is the second time we are witnessing the impact of climate change in pakistan. last time was in summer when we saw devastating floods in the country and now this time it is the winters. we are seeing areas hit by floods, landslides, heavy rain and snowfall, and snowfall in most of these areas is not unusual but we have cities where this never happened before and this time there was continuous snowfall which resulted in the deaths of so many people, as you have mentioned. it is so unusual and so unexpected that people are not ready for it, we have a very poor infrastructure there, people go to school by walking so that has all been disturbed that these areas need almost daily road connections to the main cities of pakistan for the supply of commodities and food items. that has been disrupted. for example in the north—west one highway connecting pakistan to china has been blocked at several points. thousands of tourists stranded in those areas. what kind of areas are being affected? are they all hire areas or is a very widespread? —— are they all high areas? when we talk about the north—west of pakistan, it is a very mountainous region. that is affected heavily by landslides and is why there have been many deaths in those areas. further south it is a barren land which has never had snowfall, so that took people by surprise. if you go to the coastal belt in the south of the country, there are heavy rains for the past many days now which has resulted in floods destroying property, millions of rupees of property, and people are homeless. so a huge area affected, and we saw the depth of the snowfall, there were several feet of snow. absolutely. in one area the snowfall is very common, it happens almost every year, but if we come down to another area where there was snowfall for 45 minutes for the first time, people were not ready and that resulted in property damage and many deaths. up in the mountains, because the infrastructure is destroyed and the snowfall has resulted in landslides also, which has ultimately destroyed homes and the kids and women inside their homes, many died and many are injured, it is creating chaos in all of these areas, wherever it is. rains are hitting, there is snowfall and landslides. that was farhat javed speaking to me earlier about the situation in northern pakistan. around the world and across the uk, this is bbc news. let's look at some other stories making news here in the uk. the prisons watchdog has found that a vulnerable girl being held at a young offenders�* institution was twice pinned down and forcibly stripped by male guards. the children's commissioner for england, dame rachel de souza, said she was "appalled" by the report on wetherby young 0ffender institution in west yorkshire. birmingham city council is to vote on a wave of cuts to local services and a 21% rise in its rate of council tax. the largest local authority in europe declared itself effectively bankrupt last year and is now trying to make £300 million worth of savings. libraries, parks and cultural projects may be affected. the academy of medical royal colleges has given its backing to a plan to increase the number of health professionals known as physician associates in england. there are currently more than 3000 of them in hospitals and gp surgeries. ministers hope to have 10,000 more over the next decade. they perform similar tasks to a doctor but don't have the same degree of medical training. you're live with bbc news. the french president emmanuel macron is due to arrive in prague today for a visit likely to be dominated by the war in ukraine. france has backed a czech initiative to buy up hundreds of thousands of artillery shells from outside the european union. earlier i spoke to our correspondent rob cameron in prague. he told me how this initiative came about. this initiative was unveiled by the czech president petr pavel, who is the man who has invited president macron to prague today. at the munich security conference last month he said that the czechs had found 800,000 rounds of artillery, ammunition, in countries outside the european union. this ammunition is available for sale. the czechs are offering to buy it on behalf of ukraine and say it could be shipped to ukraine within a matter of weeks if the funding can be found from eu and nato partners to buy this ammunition. a number of countries, we believe around 15, have expressed interest. some have already signed up to the plan, have confirmed they are going to be involved, canada, denmark. and the netherlands, belgium — those two have already said exactly how much money they are going to put in, something in the region of 200, 200 and 50 million euros. but the big players, germany, and crucially france, have not said exactly how much they are willing to contribute. so i think when president macron stands alongside his czech counterpart petr pavel at prague castle later today, and indeed in meetings with the czech prime minister, petr fiala, all eyes and ears will be on that figure. how much is france willing to put into this scheme? so, just to be clear, this is not an eu—backed initiative. this is the two leaders, and particularly the czech president has put this forward. and we know, don't we, that shells, artillery and ammunition, is a huge issue for ukraine at the moment. indeed. there is perhaps, you know, a lack of clarity and a lack of detail around the scheme, because it's an extremely sensitive initiative, because obviously some of these countries that have this ammunition, and it appears at least from czech officials, are willing to sell it via the czech republic, don't want to do that publicly. they want to remain in the background, in the shadows as it were, with the czechs acting as middlemen. but it is the detail that observers are looking for in this scheme, as they are trying to find out exactly how many shells could be supplied to ukraine, how soon, and crucially who is going to pay it. it's not going to be the european union as a whole, it seems. it is going to be a mixture of bilateral and multilateral funding according to president macron. those were his words in paris last week. but it is an initiative that is supported by countries around europe as it dawns upon them that they are not going to reach the target of 1 million shells sent by the eu to ukraine by march. rob cameron reporting from prague. a satellite has blasted into orbit to measure the levels of methane gas in the atmosphere. methane is believed to be a major contributor to global warming, because it traps in heat. the new project will flag where there are high levels of the greenhouse gas. 0ur climate editor justin rowlatt has more. three, two, one, ignition. and lift—off. a falcon 9 rocket blasts off overnight. amongst its payload, a satellite designed to sniff out the tell—tale fingerprint of methane in the light reflected back from earth. it will orbit 15 times a day, tracking methane emissions leaking from oil and gas facilities around the globe. the sector is an important source of this powerful planet—warming gas. we know that these emissions are fixable, so with current technologies all the methane emissions from the oil and gas operations can actually be fixed at almost zero cost. so, if you don't know where the emissions are happening, you cannot fix them. so, if you have data on where the emissions are happening, you can fix them. the data will be publicly available. it will help oil and gas companies identify leaks from their operations, and at the same time regulators and the general public will be able to check to make sure those leaks are fixed. the environmental defence fund, the us—based charity behind the satellite, hopes the data it provides will help cut methane emissions from oil and gas infrastructure by almost half by the end of the decade. justin rowlatt, bbc news. let's stay in space. why not?! a crew of three us astronauts and one russian cosmonaut has arrived at the international space station. they will relieve the current team of four astronauts, who've been living at the station since august last year. this is the moment the hatch was opened and the new arrivals were welcomed on board the iss. cow. copy, hatch open. and we just heard confirmation that the hatch _ and we just heard confirmation that the hatch is open, so we should see those _ the hatch is open, so we should see those crew— the hatch is open, so we should see those crew eight members floated board _ those crew eight members floated board shortly. you can see the japan aerospace _ board shortly. you can see the japan aerospace exploration agency astronauts at the moment and in the centre _ astronauts at the moment and in the centre is_ astronauts at the moment and in the centre is the — astronauts at the moment and in the centre is the european space agency astronaut _ centre is the european space agency astronaut and also there was a nasa astronaut _ astronaut and also there was a nasa astronaut. they were working to set ”p astronaut. they were working to set up for— astronaut. they were working to set up for the _ astronaut. they were working to set up for the welcoming ceremony that will take _ up for the welcoming ceremony that will take place shortly after crew eight _ will take place shortly after crew eight rifle support. stay with us here on bbc news. hello again. at the moment we've got high pressure anchored over scandinavia, which is effectively keeping weather fronts at bay out towards the west. now, having said that, there is a weather front to the east which is producing cloudy and damp conditions. and around the high pressure we pull in the south—easterly breeze or wind, so here in the east we are going to see a lot of low cloud and murky conditions in the next few days. but by the weekend it looks very much like a weather front is going to come into south bringing some rain with it. as we go through the course of today, here is our weather front. at times it will lap offshore but it will remain cloudy and damp across eastern parts of england with some heavy showers drifting into the south—east which could be thundery. at the same time we've got some showery rain moving out of northern ireland into western scotland accompanied by gusty winds. gusty winds across the northern isles and a lot of dry weather in between, with some sunshine. through this evening and overnight a weather front comes back into the east bringing in more cloud, murky conditions, some light rain and drizzle. under clearer skies in the west, though, we'll see mist and fog patches forming, across parts of wales, south and central southern england, once again, and it'll be frosty under clear skies in parts of wales, the southwest and potentially north—west england and western scotland. so tomorrow, we've got all this cloud in the east, still with some dampness in it. it should tend to break up in its southern end but having said that too, we are still going to see some showers. brighter skies will be out towards the west with temperatures 5—12 degrees north to south. then as we head into the latter part of the week, well, here's the high pressure drifting a bit closer to us. again, if you remember the wind around it, comes in from the south—east, so it's going to be dragging in a lot of cloud, dank conditions across eastern areas at times. getting into some central parts. some light rain, some drizzle. but out towards the west we still are looking at something drier and brighter. these white circles represent the average wind speeds. the gusts will be a little bit more, and these are our temperatures, 7 to about 12 degrees north to south. it's after that it looks like a weather front�*s going to come in across southern areas overnight friday into saturday, bringing in some rain. it will also be quite breezy at times, and chilly by night. this is bbc news. the headlines... in the us, millions of voters prepare to head to the polls for super tuesday — one of the biggest days in the race for the white house. a un team says there are "reasonable grounds" to believe sexual violence occurred during the hamas attacks on october 7th. hamas has denied that its gunmen sexually assaulted women during the attacks. as the uk waits for tomorrow's budget, we look ahead to what the chancellor might have in store. and tv history goes on sale — the shirt famously worn by colin firth in the bbc s adaptation of pride and prejudice is being auctioned in london later today. the shirt is expected to fetch as much as £10,000. lots of speculation in the papers ahead of budget day as to what is and isn't in the budget. let's speak to our political correspondent, helen catt. lots of speculation including talk of an extension to the 5p cut to fuel duty. of an extension to the 5p cut to fuel du . ., , ., of an extension to the 5p cut to fuel duty-— of an extension to the 5p cut to fueldu . ., , ., ,,. ., ., ., fuel duty. lots of speculation and as ever we _ fuel duty. lots of speculation and as ever we should _ fuel duty. lots of speculation and as ever we should also _ fuel duty. lots of speculation and as ever we should also say - fuel duty. lots of speculation and as ever we should also say we - fuel duty. lots of speculation and as ever we should also say we do| fuel duty. lots of speculation and - as ever we should also say we do not