50,000 catholics In Singapore. An important moment for singapores catholic community. So we are monitoring the live shotin so we are monitoring the live shot In Singapore as the pope is greeted. You are watching bbc news. Next, the war in ukraine. Americas top diplomat, Antony Blinken, is in Poland Today following his trip to kyiv. These are the latest pictures of Mr Blinken arriving in warsaw. He is due to meet senior polish officials to discuss support for ukraine. The Secretary Of State said yesterday he will take back to washington the discussions he and his british counterpart have had with ukrainian officials about the use of long range western weapons for strikes inside russia. Live to our Eastern Europe correspondent, sarah rainsford, who is in warsaw. This is anthony benton, he is in warsaw without his Uk Counterpart, mr lambie. Just talk us through, of Course Poland very much supported the ukraine, what is the messaging we will hear from him today . I think what he is going t
And also for Northern Ireland as we head into friday morning. Some mist and fog patches across southern parts of england and wales, they could be slow to clear tomorrow. We have still got that mix of rain around the coast and at low levels but heavy snow across central parts of scotland, so some disruption is likely. Heavy rain showers for parts of north east england and for Northern Ireland. But into the weekend thats when things will turn colder for all of us and there is further snow in places as well. So heading through the course of friday night into saturday, low pressure starts to drift away towards the south. We still got more snow across the Higher Ground of scotland, some of that snow on saturday falling to lower levels and it will start to snow across parts of Northern England as well. To the south of that mainly rain showers with the driest weather for parts of Northern Ireland and into wales on saturday but those temperature starting to come down, around 2 8 degrees but it
saying an improved pay offer could be enough to stop strikes, scheduled for monday and tuesday. you re watching bbc news. now it s time for how to heal the nhs. we ve been almost 12 hours in an ambulance. there were people sitting on the floor, people on trolleys everywhere. it was just horrendous. record waits in a&e, trolleys stacked up along busy corridors, ambulance crews forced to queue outside for hours with their patients. it does get tricky when you see a time come on the call and it s hours ago and you are thinking, oh, gosh, what are you going to turn up to? and they are in a bad state. the health service in every corner of the uk has been battling through its worst winter in a generation. we are running two and three times above our capacity continually, and often more than that. we ve had crises in the nhs before, but doctors say nothing like this. this is undoubtedly a crisis, and it s undoubtedly a national scandal. we simply haven t seen the action that was nec