at the emirates. good afternoon and welcome to the bbc news at one. downing street has described as unacceptable remarks alleged to have been made by one of the conservative party s biggest donors about the mp, diane abbott, during a business meeting in 2019. the guardian claims that frank hester said ms abbott made him want to hate all black women and that she should be shot . this morning diane abbott has called the alleged comments frightening . mr hester has admitted making comments about her which he described as rude , but his spokesperson has said this is not a confirmation of the quotes in the guardian. henry zeffman has the story. some people who give millions to political parties have high public profile is. frank hester didn t. until now. this is what the guardian says mr hester told staff at the health care software company he built from scratch at a meeting back in 2019. it s like trying not to be racist, but you see diane abbott on the tv and you just wan
that s slightly higher than expected and driven mainly by higher costs for gasoline and rents. in the 12 months up to february, the cpi rate increased by 3.2%, compared to 3.1% injanuary. the core rate, stripping out those volatile elements such as fuel and rents, fell to 3.8% from 3.9% injanuary, but that was still higher than the 3.7% expected. this latest data suggests there is still some stickiness with inflation that will be scrutinised by the federal reserve as it weighs up a highly anticipated interest rate cut injune. let s head over to new york and speak to our north america business correspondent michelle fleury. as far as the fed is concerned, it is about how they respond to this number. it is not going in the direction they wanted it to. the tricky word direction they wanted it to. the tricky word that direction they wanted it to. tue: tricky word that you direction they wanted it to. tte: tricky word that you were stumbling over, sticky, and a lot of this is
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 know what is in the budget until the chancellor announces it tomorrow, but there are a lot of guesses being made. the idea here will freeze fuel duty, continue to freeze fuel duty i think is one of the least surprising bits of speculation. no chancellor has raised that the levy since 2011 but i think that one is possibly a pretty firm bed of speculation. let s talk about cuts to personal taxes because i think what we can t divorce ourselves from is that this is an election year. presumably that s the undercurrent running through all of what to expect to hear from jeremy through all of what to e
iam i am working with them very hard and we must get more aid into gaza. no excuses. the us secretary of state has also been calling on israel to maximise every possible means of getting aid into gaza. speaking before talks with qatar s prime minister, antony blinken said conditions in the territory were unacceptable and unsustainable. take a listen. it is also urgent, irrespective of the cease fire to dramatically increase the cease fire to dramatically increase this of getting to people inside increase this of getting to people inside gaza. the situation for children. inside gaza. the situation for children, women, for men, the crossfire children, women, for men, the crossfire hamas is making inside of gaza is crossfire hamas is making inside of gaza is unacceptable and unsustainable. israel is to maximise every unsustainable. israel is to maximise every possible means, every possible method every possible means, every possible method of every possible means,
to successfully hit and destroy the russian ship, sergei kotov. allegedly there were five drones used in the attack on the battle lasted for about a0 minutes. what is interesting is that ukrainian drones tried to attack this very same ship in the past twice, and the third attempt seems to be successful, and even though we still have not heard any comments from russian officials or the russian the military bloggers admit that ship has been lost, the sergei kotov. it is important because it shows you this trend that russia is failing to have dominance in the black sea, and despite the fact that ukraine s fleet is no match to that of russia, they still managed to hit and destroy a number of russian vessels. they have had a number of successful attacks in the past, and therefore russia is unable to launch air strikes, for example, from the black sea, or launch any attacks and that is why this attack, this incident is important. is why this attack, this incident is im ortant.