social media star. and coming up on the bbc news channel. it s bumper weekend of football with one of the highlights being the manchester derby in the premier league with plenty at stake for both united and city. good evening. the manchester city footballer benjamin mendy has been found not guilty of six counts of rape and one count of sexual assault, after a six month trial at chester crown court. jurors failed to reach verdicts on two other cases, meaning he will now face a re trial later this year. another man was also found not guilty of three counts of rape relating to two teenagers. our north of england correspondent, danny savage, reports. and it came to mendy! oh, what a clearance. he was the millionaire footballer who had the world at his feet. but what now for benjamin mendy? it s a brilliant strike from mendy. cleared of the majority of charges against him, but facing a retrial on two others a jury couldn t decide upon. so, come to the darkness. mendy lived
we follow one family s battle. global tributes to lisa marie presley, the only child of elvis, who s died suddenly at the age of 5a. and we speak to eric cantona about his new exibition on sportsman who ve changed the world, and how the premier league has lost its soul. i feel that if i was in england today i would support a club in the second division, i think. and stay with us here on bbc news channel for continuing coverage and analysis with our team of correspondents in the uk and around the world. good evening. after months of intense fighting, russia says it s captured the eastern ukrainian town of soledar. the area s been pounded for weeks by russian fire, as you can see here. in fact, it s seen some of the most intense battles of the war. ukraine denies russia has full control, saying its forces continue to resist. it s the first ukrainan town russia has claimed to have captured sincejuly after six months of military setbacks. the next target of the russian offensiv
november, according to new figures. the office for national statistics said it rose 0.1% overall, with pubs and restaurants boosting growth, as people went out to watch the world cup. our economics editor faisal islam reports. at g tech in worcester, their cordless vacuum cleaners sold well during the black friday discounts in november, but founder nick gray says british consumers are far from cleaning up in current circumstances. we can very much tell that there s a little bit of tension in consumers, and we feel it ourselves. the winter world cup in qatar did cause an upsurge in spending in pubs and bars and on pizza delivery that helped the economy post surprise growth in the month of november. it could stave off a formal recession, at least for a bit. so this is what those numbers look like month to month. you can see the economy shrank during covid that s january 2021 growing when the restrictions eased.
at the end of last year,. at the end of last year. however, what really matters now is this year, and you can see here that inflation should have peaked at the end of 2022, according to the forecast, but it s still high driven, as you can see, by food prices in red, energy in blue and fuel in black. and although it is coming down, it s still very high across this year. and with interest rates rising too, this is when it eats into incomes. and inflation would have been even higher were it not for the government s energy price guarantee. the net effect, though, on the economy can be seen in this chart. the uk economy tanked during covid and is still, even after today s figures, smaller than it was in 2019 before the pandemic. the government s own forecasts point to it not recovering to that 2019 level actually until the end of 2024, as households continue to be hit hard. so the question from today s figures