14/04/2017 Spotlight

Good evening. on the BBC News Channel.

Thousands of people have arrived in the South West for what is a big

test of one of our biggest industries.

There were some blue skies as people came out to enjoy

Forecasters say it won't stay completely dry all weekend,

but there should only be some short periods of wet weather.

Meanwhile, extra staff have been brought in at hospitals to cope

with an anticipated rise in demand over the weekend.

Officials are asking people to avoid emergency departments

unless they have a serious or life-threatening condition.

Please use the 111 service if you're not sure what to do with your local

Those lines are being answered much quicker now, and they can direct

you to the service that will help you in your local area.

Two owls have been freed after getting stuck in traps

which use glue to catch pests. The animals are being cared

for at the West Hatch Wildlife Centre in Somerset.

The RSPCA says the traps cause unnecessary suffering to pests

The charity is urging people not to use them.

His primary wing feathers were stuck into his own flanks here.

Without us intervening and actually washing the glue off,

there's no way he would ever have flown again.

So he would have slowly starved to death or, you know,

Born in Dorset, he shot to fame predicting the results of football

Well, there's more science to it than you might think.

John Ayres has been looking at an experiment being carried out

The point of dropping plastic bricks into this tank is to see

if Octavia can find her way through to the food.

The test is repeated, and each time, she gets quicker.

She may not be as famous as Paul the Octopus,

What I could not really grasp about Paul, the World Cup octopus,

is how he could distinguish between the technicalities

of the Netherlands team and the flamboyance of the Spanish,

or indeed, how he was able to watch the matches under

But the difference with this is that the testing is actually

real, and they believe that octopuses have intelligence similar

Student Meghan Davitt is carrying out research for her

She is measuring how long it takes Octavia to work out

Two of the puzzles that I am using for the study,

a simple one is clip-lock boxes and screw-top containers,

so she really has to figure out how to get into these boxes in order

to get her food, and then I'll present these challenges

a few weeks later to see if she has learned how to do it, and the time

Her ability to do these puzzles has been entertaining the crowds

Meghan will be carrying out a number of research projects for these

Exeter Chiefs have secured an excellent 39-26 victory

at Harlequins in the Premiership tonight.

They scored three tries in quick succession,

including this from Henry Slade, to secure the bonus point.

The Chiefs are 13 matches unbeaten, and remain on course

Plymouth Argyle must wait for promotion from League 2,

after drawing against Portsmouth late this afternoon.

But, as John Danks, reports it did look like today

Argyle knew a win today would secure promotion,

as long as other results went their way.

And they started well, after this flying header

But Plymouth moved from attack mode into defence, as Portsmouth

Eventually, a goalkeeping error by Luke McCormick

The Green Army will have to keep the champagne on ice for now.

The Pilgrims need one point from four games

to guarantee their place in League 1.

Exeter City moved up to fifth place after a 2-1 win against Barnet.

Yeovil Town were beaten 1-0 at Newport County.

In the National League, two late goals at Lincoln spelt

They are now just four points from safety with three games to go.

And in the top-of-the-table clash in the basketball,

Plymouth lost to Leicester Riders 99-69 in the BBL Championships.

Back to the weather, and it's not too bad, actually.

Hello, and a very good evening to you.

Now, we do have outbreaks of rain through the course of tonight.

Much of that rainfall will be light and patchy in nature.

And by the time we enter the early hours, we're starting

Temperature-wise, we're looking at lows of nine or 10 degrees.

Now, tomorrow morning we start on a bit of a cloudy note.

The remnants of that wet weather sinking slowly southwards.

I suspect for the Channel Islands we will see that wet

weather coming and going until around mid-afternoon.

Cheering up, one or two sunny spells into the afternoon.

Taking a look ahead to the remainder of the bank holiday weekend,

and through the course of the day on Sunday it looks like we will see

quite cloudy skies, although I suspect we will stay

Easter Monday itself, another predominantly cloudy day.

It will have some breaks and brightness here and there.

Just the outside chance of a shower or two.

And then into Tuesday looks like we could start

We will have bulletins throughout the weekend. Whatever you are doing,

have a lovely evening. Bye-bye. Good evening. I don't think

everybody was a happy bunny today with the weather. We had some rain.

Some of it was on the heavy side, particularly across northern parts

of Wales. All these things are true for the next few days. Even into

next week. We are going to stay with this chilly air coming in from the

North. Vermijl they're never quite us. -- is a mild air never quite

reaches us. It's a case of cool winds coming in from the North.

Here's the extensive cloud cover we had today. There was some sunshine

but a weather front was across the country and gave a fair bit of heavy

rain across some parts of Wales. The weather front is across the South.

There is two of them. This is a distinct feature, spots of rain on

and off through this evening and overnight. Then it's out of the way.

It should dry out. There will be showers across Scotland but plenty

of clear spells. It is chilly air. Three degrees around 5am in

Aberdeen. To the south, around eight or so.