the actor stephen tompkinson tells a court it would be career suicide for him to assault someone as he denies inflicting grievous bodily harm. # instead i wrote a song. and they re off heading to liverpool for the first eurovision semifinal tonight before saturday s big showdown. and coming up in bbc news. manchester city fans are building up to their champions league semifinal with real madrid in spain. it is a repeat of last year when the spanish side put them out. good evening. the head of the metropolitan police has insisted they had serious and reliable intelligence that protesters had planned to disrupt the coronation on saturday. sir mark rowley says they had intelligence that rape alarms and loud hailers were going to be used which would have frightened horses during the procession. he spoke out to defend officers who arrested and detained six anti monarchy demonstrators, the first arrests to be made under the sweeping public order act. but scotland yard now say
donald trump dismisses the woman who won a sexual assault case against him as a whackjob as he again claims he s the victim of a political vendetta. and from defending human rights on television to rocking out at night at eurovision, the lawyer turned pop star representing australia. and coming up on bbc news, west ham look to reach their first european final in 47 years as they take on az alkmaar in the first leg of their european conference league semifinal. good afternoon and welcome to the bbc news at one. interest rates are at their highest in 15 years, after the bank of england raised them to 4.5%, making it more expensive to borrow but better for savers. the increase is an attempt by the bank of england to curb people s spending and bring down inflation that s the rate at which prices are rising which was just over 10% in march. but the bank also upgraded the prospects for the uk economy now no longer forecasting the economy will shrink but grow modestly over t
accusations of chaos one of the biggest train operators in the uk is stripped of its contract. and eurovision fever heats up. 16 countries take to the stage in liverpool later for the second semi final. welcome to bbc news and we start with the war in ukraine and a significant development with confirmation from the british defence secretary that cruise missiles are being sent to ukraine. the missiles have a long range capability and are typically launched from the air. the move prompted an instant response from the kremlin saying the decision required an adequate response from our military. he has ben morris with the announcement in the house of commons. ican i can confirm that the uk is donating storm shadow missiles to ukraine, a conventional precision strike give ability complementing the long range system already gifted including happen missiles as well as ukraine s on neptune christmas oh and longer range missions elsewhere gifted. the donation gives ukraine the best cha
success welcome to the programme. in the us, just hours to go until donald trump s controversial immigration legislation title 42 expires. the us homeland security secretary says their borders are not open and warns of tougher consequences for those who try to cross illegally. we ll look at what will it mean for people waiting to cross the us mexico border. also in the programme. the uk is to supply ukraine with long range cruise missiles to help push back russian forces. we ll look at exactly what these missiles are. interest rates in the uk go up again. now at their highest level in the uk for nearly 15 years. what does that mean for the economy? and it s eurovision the second semifinal is getting under way right now in liverpool. we ll be live with the latest from the contest. we re going to start in the us with title a2. that s the name of the legislation that makes it easier to expel people he who cross the border from mexico. it was introduced in covid times, on pub
welcome. let me start with the situation welcome. let me start with the situation as we see it on the outlook situation as we see it on the outlook for the economy. the outlook for growth outlook for the economy. the outlook for growth and unemployment has improved~ for growth and unemployment has improved. six months ago we expected a shallow improved. six months ago we expected a shallow but long recession. since then energy prices have fallen substantially and economic activity is holding substantially and economic activity is holding up better than expected. so today is holding up better than expected. so today we forecast modest but not positive so today we forecast modest but not positive growth and a much smaller increase positive growth and a much smaller increase in positive growth and a much smaller increase in unemployment. we think inflation increase in unemployment. we think inflation will fall quite sharply over inflation will fall quite shar