Lets start with the story thats dominated the uk Political Agenda for the last few days. Rishi sunak says its Utterly Wrong to blame him forfailing to tackle the issue of unsafe concrete in school buldings. As thousands of children return to classrooms today after the summer break, its emerged that more than a hundred schools in england and scotland will be closed or partially shut. Its over Safety Concerns about what is known as raac a type of concrete, thats known to be at risk of crumbling. Our Political Editor chris mason reports on a busy first day back for mps. You probably hadnt heard of it until the other day, but this stuff concrete that can get crumbly is building into a political mess. Did rishi sunak, when he was chancellor, walk away from repairs happening sooner . The man who used to be the Department For Educations most senior Civil Servant reckons he did. I was absolutely amazed to see that the decision made by the government was to halve the School Rebuilding programme
In the south and west. For the rest of us it will be fairly cloudy with sunny spells. But the wind will strengthen widely throughout the day. Details later in the programme. Good morning. Its wednesday, 18th october. Theres been International Condemnation after an explosion at a hospital in gaza is reported to have killed at least 500 people. The blast has raised the diplomatic stakes for President Biden, whos currently flying to israel to try to prevent the violence spreading elsewhere in the middle east. Hamas a group designated as a Terror Organisation by many western governments says the Al Ahli Hospital was hit by an israeli air strike. But israel has blamed the palestinian group, islamichhad, but its denied any involvement, describing the accusations as lies. Wyre davies has the latest. Pictures from Gaza Last Night showed scenes of utter chaos. Bloodied, wounded casualties from the partially destroyed al ahli arab hospital. Videos many too graphic to broadcast showed the broken
Tickets for top flight football are getting cheaper thanks to big money tv deals but why is the game still struggling to attract younger fans . Ill have the details. In sport, sir Bradley Wiggins says his lifes been a living hell as its revealed hell face no charges following an investigation into the contents of a mystery package delivered to him at the end of a race in 2011. And matt has the weather your thursday start, fairly mild but there is colder air on the way to there is colder air on the way to the next few days. A bit more sunshine as well. Your full forecast in15 sunshine as well. Your full forecast in 15 minutes. First, our main story. The future of zimbabwes long time leader, Robert Mugabe remains unclear this morning, after he was placed under house arrest by the countrys military. Two envoys from south africa have arrived in the capital, harare, to try to hold talks with the 93 year old and with the countrys generals who deny theres been a coup. Its been seen by many as
Nights state of the union speech. Hes got low Approval Ratings generally but this went down well. Cbs showed 75 of viewers approved. 65 said it made them feel proud to be american. 35 said it made them feel safer. A majority of viewers also credited him with the current buoyant state of the economy. Right, lets hear some of this speech. First heres the president on trade. America has also finally turned the page on decades of unfair trade deals. They sacrificed our prosperity and chipped away at our companies, our jobs and prosperity and chipped away at our companies, ourjobs and our wealth. Our nation has lost its wealth, but we re our nation has lost its wealth, but were getting it back so fast. The era of economic surrender is totally over. From now on we expect trading relationships to be fair and, very importantly, reciprocal. Applause whenever there is a big american political moment, i turned to the bbc news website for anthony zurcher. He described a smoother trumpet the same h