it s wednesday, 31st january. our main story. scotland s former first minister, nicola sturgeon is due to give evidence about the decisions she took during the pandemic, when she appears before the covid inquiry today. ms sturgeon, who led the scottish response to the coronavirus outbreak is expected to face questions surrounding lockdowns, and missing whatsapp messages as the inquiry continues sitting in edinburgh. our scotland correspondent lorna gordon reports. 1,044 positive cases were reported yesterday. nicola sturgeon was at the helm throughout scotland s pandemic response. as head of the scottish government, she was the key decision maker and first in the firing line when things went wrong. we will have made mistakes on all aspects of the handling. now about to be questioned on that handling and how decisions the truth, the whole truth. the former first minister s closest political ally amongst those who admitted texts between the pair no longer exist. are those t
has caused a lot of concern to people working across the bbc in relation to how they respond to the impartiality guidelines which, in our view, they need to be both proportionate and applied consistently. proportionate and applied consistently. the uk chancellor, jeremy hunt, has spoken to the governor of the bank of england about silicon valley bank uk, which is heading for insolvency after the failure of its parent company in the us. the german interior minister, nancy faeser, is leading calls to tighten the country s gun ownership laws, after six people were shot dead in hamburg on thursday. eight others were wounded in the attack on a group of jehovah s witnesses. the bbc has apologised for its limited sports programming this weekend after several sports presenters walked out in support of their colleague gary lineker. he was suspended for comments about the government s migration policy. lineker, the bbc s hightest paid presenter, won t be hosting match of the day toni
was using gaza s largest hospital as a command centre. in southern gaza, israeli forces have started dropping leaflets in the khan younis area, warning people to evacuate their homes and head to shelters for their own safety. similar leaflets were also dropped over northern gaza weeks before the ground offensive, suggesting imminent military operations may be planned for the south. so let s get the very latest from my colleague mark lowen, who is in southern israel. thank you very much indeed. we were going to be live with you in that headline sequence, but we had to dash because there was a rocket that was just fired above our heads and intercepted by israel s iron dome anti missile system. there was a siren that went out, so we just had to take cover. in the distance, a very large plume of smoke there were an air strike very large plume of smoke there were an airstrike has very large plume of smoke there were an air strike has recently hit. a sign ofjust how constant the th