22/02/2018 London News

It's goodbye from me.

On BBC One we now join the BBC's

news teams where you are.

Welcome to BBC London News.

I'm Sara Orchard.

The Mayor of London has announced

today he will commit £110 million

pounds into the Met Police over

the next year.

It was presented to the London

Assembly this morning but it came

under scrutiny for not

being new money.

Tolu Adeoye is here.

What happened?

Had confirmation of

the detail of the additional police

budget this year, money not coming

from central government, it is being

raised through Londoners from things

like business rate and council tax

and Londoners will be paying more

than ever before. Up from 18% in

2010 to 23% today. The mayor has

said he had no choice but to tax

Londoners directly to pay for

policing. Here is some of the

detail...

I can confirm today that I

will invest an extra £59 million a

year to support an additional 1000

police officers that otherwise have

been affordable in 2019/20 and I

have allocated an extra £5 million

to spend on recruiting additional

police officers. And also providing

an additional £5 million to reduce

their borrowing to Mopac.

The

has-been criticism of this today.

Gareth making, Conservative, said...

And all of this has come on a day

when the Metropolitan Police itself

has been criticised for its dealing

with children again.

Yes, it was

found in the latest inspection that

191 cases of 214 were rated as

either inadequate or required

improvement. It took 11 days to come

to one case when it was reported a

12-year-old boy was trying to

distribute half naked pictures of a

girl and was threatening to send out

more images if no action was taken.

In a previous report the Met was

also criticised in this area. It

said it is aware of the urgency of

improving its services further.

Inspectors will be revisiting this

issue over the next 12 months.

Thank

you.

Number Ten has defended itself after

during a freestyle rap, Stormzy

asked whether money had gone from

Grenfell.

Police in Sutton have issued

CCTV pictures appealing

for help to identify a man wanted

in connection with a fraud committed

against a 96-year-old man.

In January the pensioner received

a call from a person pretending

to be from his bank.

The victim gave his personal details

and PIN then collected the bank

cards from his home.

The suspect withdrew thousands

from a bank in Wallington.

Anyone with information should

contact Crimestoppers.

Low pay is having a "corrosive"

impact on family life and the health

of workers earning below

the voluntary living wage,

according to a new study.

The survey for the Living Wage

Foundation found that a quarter

of respondents believed low pay

negatively affected

their relationships.

More than three out of five said

they worried so much it

affected their day-to-day life.

Arsenal midfielders Aaron Ramsey

and Mesut Ozil will miss

the Europa-League last-32 second-leg

against Ostersunds at

the Emirates tonight.

The Gunners won the first

leg in Sweden 3-0.

Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger

will use some of his younger

players as a result.

Wenger said Germany international

Ozil has been ill while Ramsey

is recovering from a groin injury.

We play at home

in front of our fans.

There's still a lot at stake for us

because this competition

is important for us,

and what is absolutely vital

is that we go into the game

with a good focus to win it.

Two new teachers have been hailed

a success for helping autistic

youngsters at a school in Berkshire,

to improve their

communication skills.

But the pair are no ordinary tutors.

Steve and Alex are robots.

They're being used by real life

teachers, but as Joe Campbell

reports, young people who struggle

to deal with the world outside

the classroom are finding

the world of the future,

a bit easier to get to grips with.

Hello, my name is Steve.

He needs no introduction,

or if he does it's

perhaps better coming

from those he's helping

to learn new skills here

at Prior's Court school.

This is our favourite robot,

called Steve and Alex.

Many of the pupils here struggle

with the world around them,

but not with the robots.

Any person with autism might

struggle to read our

faces really.

The robot doesn't give off all those

signs - their eyebrows

aren't moving, their

hair is not moving.

The voice and their mouth

isn't making shapes.

So actually the focus

is on what is actually being

said by the robot.

Can you find an object

which is my eye colour?

They've certainly been a hit

with students like Jamie here.

Who do you like? Steve or Alex?

Two of those.

You like both of them.

Why do you like them?

# Head, shoulders, knees

and toes, knees and toes... #

And staff responsible

for their introduction say

they have made a difference.

Since the start of the year now, we

can see the difference.

They sit down, they take turns.

They wait when something goes wrong.

Sometimes they just work

or something, and they accept that.

Normally that is a great

skill for them to wait.

Of course finding these robots

they use here shouldn't

come as any surprise.

After all, Dame Stephanie

Shirley, who was

responsible for setting up the

school, was a pioneer

in information technology.

And set up Prior's Court

because of her own experiences with

her son, who was himself autistic.

The school is hoping

to add another robot,

and is working on programming

them to the specific needs

of pupils here in future.

On the BBC London Facebook page

today, you can find out more

about last night's Brit Awards,

IF our journeys in London

are getting slower and you can

meet Jingdong Liu.

With the start

of the Chinese New Year,

the foreign student explains how

he is now celebrating the festival

to mark coming of

spring with friends.

Now the weather with

Elizabeth Rizinni.

Good afternoon, feeling cold today

but that's nothing compared to how

it will be feeling by the end of the

week, some very cold air coming.

Some sunshine around this morning.

This should tend to brighten up

further as we go through the

afternoon with more sunshine coming

as the wind switches to a

south-easterly, dragging up dry air.

There is a wind chill with top

temperatures up to six Celsius only.

More sunshine as we head towards the

end of the day, then overnight

tonight we will see some cloud but

lots of clear skies. The wind will

pick up the torch and it will be a

chilly start of the day tomorrow. A

frosty start with widespread frost,

temperatures

... This cloud will melt away as we

had through the afternoon so there

will be sunny skies around and with

the wind slightly more brisk

tomorrow, it will feel even colder

with highs up to six Celsius but

once again you have to factor in

wind chill. The wind is coming in

from the east as we had through the

rest of the week and we have very

cold air coming our way is write

from Russia, Siberia. It will be

freezing as we had through the

weekend. Literally so, in fact

temperatures will struggle to get

anywhere above freezing as we head

through Sunday but it is looking

dry, there will be sunshine around

at times as we head into the start

of next week. We run the risk of

seeing snow showers. Mostly for

eastern areas on Monday but they may

become more widespread by the time

we get to

become more widespread by the time

we get to choose day.

That's about it from me.

Riz will be here with our

6:30 evening programme.

But for now, from us all,

a very good afternoon.