into northern ireland, and that rain will gradually push its way southwards and eastwards into most of england and wales, and with a lot of cloud around overnight, it's going to keep the temperatures generally ten or 11 degrees. it may briefly get a little cooler in eastern parts of scotland, but that rain from overnight will soon clear away early tomorrow morning, leaving a lot of cloud, some pockets of light rain or drizzle, and then we'll get some sunshine after the rain in northern ireland and in scotland in the afternoon with some showers, some late sunshine for wales and western england as the rain clears later. but for much of the day wales and the south west could be rather dull and misty, and the afternoon temperatures on wednesday very similar to what we had today. now the weather fronts should be moving away fairly quickly, taking most of the rain away, but with low pressure to the north. we're going to have some stronger winds on thursday, and those winds will be strongest across the northern half of the uk, where we'll see some showers, frequent showers, heavy showers in scotland with some thunder generally as you head further south a better chance of staying dry, maybe some welcome sunshine around as well, just giving the temperatures a boost by a degree or two, but still cool for this time of the year.

and as we move into friday, we could see another set of weather fronts, an area of low pressure coming in to bring some rain into england and wales this time, that then moves away. but this cool and unsettled theme continues notjust through the rest of this week, but into the weekend as well, where we'll see some sunshine at times. but there'll also be some showers as well. this is bbc news, the headlines. the former nurse lucy letby has been found guilty of the attempted murder of a baby in 2016, following a retrial. less than 48 hours before the general election — rishi sunak defends his campaign, insisting he hasn't given up and can still win. mother and a hundred people have been killed in northern india. ——

more than 100 people. hurricane beryl — strengthens to a category five storm as it sweeps across the caribbean. hurricane beryl — strengthens to a category five storm as it sweeps across the caribbean. it is not sportsday coming out. it's going to be an election addition of newscast. at least 116 people have been killed in a crush at a religious gathering in northern india, according to local officials. many of the victims are women and children. a large number of people are being treated in hospital. there are fears casualties could rise. authorities in the state of uttar pradesh say thousands had gathered in the city of hathras for a prayer meeting led by a hindu preacher. what triggered the crush isn't clear, but reports from the area suggest the hot and humid conditions inside a tent set up for the meeting several caribbean nations are trying to reach the worst affected areas after hurricane beryl made landfall over their territories. at least one person has died in st vincent and the grenadines and two died in grenada, although the authorities have said those numbers may rise.

meanwhile, the hurricane has strengthened to a category five storm as it continues its path across the region, as 0ur central america and caribbean correspondent, will grant, reports. the caribbean is on high alert in the devastating impact the caribbean is on high alert... the devastating impact of the earliest category five storm in history. across the caribbean, homes are no match for the destructive power. when it thunder into union island in grenadines, roofs ripped off, power lines brought down an entire communities cut off in minutes. infrastructure on the island was precarious before it hit an outcome in the aftermath, it has been left in ruins. union island has been devastated and the reports i have received indicate that 90% of the houses have been severely

damaged and destroyed. other parts of the caribbean were much luckier. residents took the flooded streets to assess the damage and salvage their possessions. in the end, it washed everything away and it would take several days to get everything back in order, especially at the start of the summer holidays. satellite images show the devastating size and destruction through the caribbean. and as it moves through it continues to grow in strength and with unprecedented speed to a category four event is now considered a fearsome category five is moves towards jamaica. despite efforts across the region to board up homes and evacuate low—lying areas, many people can only hunker down and try to write

out the strongest storm ever recorded in earlyjuly. emergency teams on the greek island of kos are battling wildfires that forced locals and tourists to seek shelter overnight. more than 100 firefighters are still tackling the blaze, which officials say is now being brought under control. jessica lane has the latest. more than 100 firefighters spent the night battling these fires on the island of kos, trying to make sure they won't flare up again. this is one of greece's most popular and busiest tourist spots. the scenes last night at the hotel were quite alarming. the smoke was quite clearly billowing over the hill just across from us. the winds had changed and it was coming towards us, and i felt in that instant, immediately, slight panic and very challenged. you know, just felt i needed to get to the room, get the passports, grab our stuff and get out of the hotel.

hundreds of people took refuge in this sports stadium last night after being evacuated. this morning many returned to their hotels and homes as it's hoped the worst of the fires have been put out for now. dozens of fires broke out across the country over the weekend and people planning holidays to greece are warned there could be more to come over the summer as the country has had its warmest winter and earliest heatwave on record already this year. jessica lane, bbc news. and now bbc news it's time to join adam fleming and the rest of the newscast team to round up the general election news. newscast from the bbc. chris mason is here. hello, chris. hello. hello from norton canes in the west midlands, sort of roughly between cannock and lichfield. norton canes. yeah.

if you are aficionado of the m6, it might be a name that rings a bell because there is a service station on the m6 toll the bit that you have to pay extra for called norton canes, which i was familiar with, but i wasn't familiar with the place itself. i didn't even know there was a place itself beyond the service station. but there is. and that's where we're, and i am. i've actually got pins and needles in my backside. we've just got out of our little car where there were three of us sitting on the back seat, and i was sitting in the middle seat. and you know that the middle seats kind of slightly raised. yeah. and a long stint in that particular position is is not good for the posterior, i've discovered. i'm now sat on a wall outside a community centre and blood is returning to all necessary parts. chris, you're always doing the decent thing by other people, whether it's taking the middle seat, which no one likes doing, or i noticed on your piece on the 10:00 news, along with loads of users of social media carrying the tripod. well, you know, i think we've all got to do ourfair share of looking about, haven't we? you know, and i quite like the middle seats. i didn't regard that as a,

uh, massive imposition, although about an hour. you like the middle? no one likes the middle seat. i quite like it. you get a good view straight out the straight out the front window. i quite like that. i just don't trust those seat belts. well, no, it was a proper seat belt. it was as opposed to one just round, round my lap. but also, you're sort of at the centre of all the conversations because the conversations are all happening around you. so i quite like that, although it probably didn't help with my progress with my piece forthe, uh, bbc website. but hey, i'll get to that later. whereas i like to have a snooze in the back seat, so that's why i don't like the middle seat. also, i was going to say your tripod carrying technique, you know, it's much better to like, put it on your shoulder because then you don't sort of waggle it around in front of everyone. seeing as you're asking about the tripod that i was filmed carrying across stoke—on—trent railway station, that particular tripod. i'm conscious this is a rather niche conversation, but that particular tripod had neither a shoulder strap nor a plastic handle, so i had to grapple with it

like some sort of caged animal that wasn't keen on being moved on. so not only are they quite heavy, they're quite cumbersome. and then the legs come flapping out. if you don't know how to put them and put them away properly and all that kind of stuff anyway, it's all part of the glamour of television. and i should say, they are a very important part of television journalism, because much as people might like that kind of rough and tumble stuff, when you're seeing an interview with rishi sunak or keir starmer or any other person, you kind of want it to be straight rather than wobbly. and so it can be a faff putting the tripod up, but it's definitely a faff carrying it. but it pays dividends. yeah. you don't notice when they're there. you do notice when they're not. anyway, what will we notice on today's episode of newscast? you'll find out very soon. newscast from the bbc. hello. it's adam in the studio. and it is chris sitting on a garden

wall in a community centre in norton canes. and as the blood rapidly returns to chris mason's buttocks, the buttocks of some of our fellow bbc news colleagues will be being planted in the newscasts so far in a little bit, because we're going to talk about some policy areas, because we've been focusing quite a lot on politics and electioneering. now, chris, as we enter the final furlong, what is your strategy for the last few hours? charge around with the two people who want to be our prime minister by the weekend is basically it. so yesterday i was charging around with rishi sunak and we went to the aforementioned stoke—on—trent, and then we ended up in nuneaton in warwickshire, where the prime minister was having a go at a bit of cricket. and then today we've been following keir starmer around. so here we're in norton canes in the west midlands. the day started in hucknall, in nottinghamshire, in the east midlands. and what we're getting to now are two things that we've seen in the kind of arc of this campaign, uh, from the beginning

and then all the way through, which is that you've seen the two main leaders aspiring to be prime minister returned to their main theme. so keir starmer talking about change and rishi sunak talking about the dangers of a big labour win and the dangers, as he sees it, of the tax burden spiralling higher under labour. etc, etc. and then you've also seen rishi sunak campaigning in seats that were held by the conservatives in the last parliament and some seats, frankly, that have been held by the conservatives in pretty much every parliament that you can possibly think of very safe conservative seats like hinckley in leicestershire, like witney in 0xfordshire. david cameron's former seat and keir starmerfighting in seats that have been conservative held, as you'd expect, any leader of the opposition to do, but also ones that have been held, often pretty comfortably by the conservatives. so he was in sherwood forest, uh, this morning. he'll, he's he's coming

to cannock chase this afternoon and all of the candidates later on the bbc website for all of these constituencies. it's interesting that rishi sunak�*s message about, "0h, do you want to wake up on the 5th ofjuly and there'd be a massive, massive labour majority? " and i'm just thinking back to a conversation we had with laura a few weeks ago when that concept was first raised by the defence secretary, grant shapps. and i can't remember if it was you or laura saying that. 0h, actually the plan was to deploy that message much later in the campaign to kind of scare people, to motivate conservative voters to come out. it's interesting that, having said it every day, for, what, two and a half weeks now, itjust doesn't seem as scary. you can see it would have had maybe more attention grabbing shock value if it had been deployed in the last few days. yeah, perhaps. although, you know, with the growing proportion in recent elections of people voting by post if they're able to, i think there's been awareness for the last couple of weeks that, you know, perhaps up to a fifth of the electorate are voting or have been voting,

all already. and i think actually coming into this morning, i was struck that you had this kind of narrative within the campaign of the conservatives talking about the dangers, as they see it, of a labour supermajority. and keir starmer, in an interview with the times, leaning into what he sees as the value of a big majority. to be able to do big stuff, potentially controversial stuff, not least making planning and development much easier, which obviously comes with those who will, uh, criticise it, making that easier if he gets, i think, what he called a sizeable mandate, which in anyone else�*s language is a big majority. but it's always worth thinking, isn't it? i was struck listening to sir craig 0liver, the former bbc editor and former downing street adviser to david cameron, on newsnight last night, saying, you know, there can still be a difference between the big narratives of the campaign and where the conversation might be at 10:10 on thursday night when we get the exit poll. or maybe there won't be a difference, but the narrative right now shapes the conversation around which people are mulling over how they might how they might vote. so it matters irrespective of the way we end up.

it's interesting that interview that keir starmer gave to the times newspaper, which was published on tuesday morning, and the bit that caught my eye seemed talking about his children and the concept of moving into number ten, something he's talked about before. but he was talking about it like much more of a done deal. he sort of allowed himself to be picturing himself and his family in number ten, which i thought was interesting, because that's that's not his natural caution that he's displayed in the previous weeks. so i've been talking to keir starmer today, and i was really struck by... and, you know, put yourself in his shoes. it's really difficult to how you do this publicly a couple of days out from an election. 0n the one hand, you have to look like someone who has given obvious and clear thought to what you would do in government, both on a practical level as far as family is concerned. but then on a governing level, in terms of what you would seek to do without any time looking like you're sounding in any way that you formulate your sentences,

like you assume that it's a racing certainty that it's definitely going to happen, because that just sounds a kind of, complacent and sort of indifferent to the views of millions who are yet to... they all it measuring the curtains. don't they vote in westminster? exactly. and i could see, i could see in, in, in keir starmer�*s answers to me that, that precise dilemma. you know, i was asking you about the shape of a cabinet were he to win, i wasn't assuming he would win. i was just asking what it would look like if he were to win. instantly pushed back to that idea of saying, no, no, we must not be complacent. even though it seemed to me it's perfectly reasonable that newscasters ought to have an idea as they weigh up how to vote. what a labour government, notjust the top, you know, not just the leader, but what a labour government in its senior personnel might actually look like. it seems a perfectly reasonable question to ask, but he was aware

of what he saw, of the danger of entertaining that question, because it might look complacent, even though sure as heck he must have a pretty good idea of what that top team is going to look like. and by the way, i suspect it had looked pretty similar to the current line—up of the shadow cabinet, but perhaps with a few, uh, kinks and tweaks here and there to reflect particular things he might have concluded, uh, and or, uh, the prospect of one or two maybe, you know, not getting back to parliament. well, yeah, because the rumour mill at westminster, well, there's nobody at westminster. but in the social media around west of people who are normally at westminster is kind of going into overdrive about certain members of the shadow cabinet not making it into the actual cabinet if there is a labour government come friday. and ijust suspect that's in the absence because because political journalists have got used to all the messages and this last few days is aboutjust ramming home the messages. so they're kind ofjust filling the airtime with something else. yeah. and to be clear, the, the two, the two sort of things that hover in the air. one is thangam debbonaire, who faces a real battle with the greens in a seat in bristol. in other words, does she, as a current member of the shadow cabinet, win or not?

again, full list of candidates for bristol central on the bbc website. and then the other question that's hovered for a while is about david lammy, the shadow foreign secretary, and, whether or not, whether or not he will be kept on which keir starmer has not been explicitly clear in saying yes to. and he wasn't explicitly clear to me either, although he did frame the whole thing as being a much, much more, uh, vague. the whole thing as being a much, much more vague. but he has said for months that rachel reeves would be the chancellor in a labour government. so there's a bit of inconsistency there. but as you say, adam, the point is, from their perspective at this stage, you just hammer the big messages and give the broad impression. if you're in keir starmer�*s position or you hope to give the broad impression of being ready to, you know, seize the reins of power if they come your way. key thing at this stage is to just get them, the leaders off the script that everyone could recite themselves by heart. i know you did that in a very clever way by referring to the football. let's hear what the two men said. this is you asking rishi sunak aboutjude bellingham's last minute save your kick on sunday.

is there a rishi sunak equivalent of thejude bellingham overhead kick that we're going to see in the next 48 to 72 hours to to radically change what looks like the scoreline could be? mine is probably more a kind of flashy, you know, i don't know, cover drive or off drive or something instead. but, there we go. look, it is not over till it's over. literally no idea what that means, but i'm sure it will mean something to the football fans he's trying to appeal to there. and here is what keir starmer said when you asked him about comparisons with gareth southgate. you must share a sort of sense of solidarity with gareth southgate that you doing a job where 1,000,001 other people think they could do a betterjob than you? yeah, everybody in the stands and watching the television has got a better idea of how gareth southgate should do hisjob. and there are some similarities. i've got no end of advice. i've had it for four and a half years and no doubt i'll be getting a lot more. what's your take on how they answered those questions?

i thought, you know what? just a tiny, tiny bit of revealing, revealing ness at the very end of that answer from keir starmer. "no doubt i'll be" getting a lot more. would he get a lot more if he didn't win? i mean, maybe he would, i suppose, because loads of people would say, oh, you would have won if you'd done a, b, c, and d, but it kind of nodded to the prospect that he might soon be, prime minister. i'd also asked, um, uh, keir starmer about bukayo saka, the england player who had a little stint at left back as opposed to playing on the right wing, kind of the opposite end of the opposite end of the pitch. and keir starmer is a properfootball fan. he sort of eyes light up when you ask him about football because he knows his stuff and he's interested and passionate about it, whereas as you heard with rishi sunak, yes, he is a football fan, supports southampton, but he's crickets his real thing. so he ended up turning that line about about the football into a line about a shot that a batsman would play at cricket. it's one of those things that you either know a lot

about or absolutely nothing about. as i discovered when i sort of used that line in our reporting of it last night. but yeah, you're right, adam, it's trying to find let's be honest, if you were either of those two men in these last couple of days, all you want to do is get your vote out and hammer home your main messages. and to heck with what people like me ask you just sort of give the same answers come what may. and, you know, that's kind of rational from their perspective. so i'm constantly trying to find a bit easier with keir starmer when you can sort of tease away potentially at a few things that, you know, a labour government would confront. whereas you kind of know what the answer from rishi sunak would be because they've been confronting those issues in, office themselves. but yeah, i'm always constantly trying to find is there something that can bring out a bit more of a human answer or something where they're just, as you say, off script a bit, and actually the football this week, it's one of those things that what was it, 17 point something million people at peak were watching that football the other night? even folk who most of the time don't give football much attention will probably be aware ofjude bellingham and an overhead kick. and so it's one of those things where you can just hope

that they're up for just sort of talking off script, off piste a bit. there's another sporting reference. in, you know, rather than talking about change and talking about tax and all the usual gubbins. 0ff piste, at least a sport i finally recognise. also, i noticed rishi sunak�*s um, famous work ethic is slightly getting the better of him because he is obviously a bit tired because, he said in his interview with you yesterday misspeaking, we haven't achieved anything as a government, which i saw a few people making light of. and you know what? yes, yes, i saw david mitchell on social media picked up on, uh, picked up on that. i have to be honest, you know, and maybe this is also the exhaustion of us lot as a reporter pack. so none of us in that room recording that interview either. the team i work with, nor the prime minister's team noticed that, and neither did we notice it when we watched the interview back. some colleagues did. and then plenty of other people did on social media. so you kind of knew

what he intended to say. and i'd heard it so many times, um, i kind of heard it as it meant to come out rather than as it did come out. so that was a little bit teased away out, uh, wasn't it? but, yeah, i mean, ithink, uh, yeah, the exhaustion thing. you know, anyone who denies the exhaustion thing at this stage of the election campaign is just not being truthful. it's great fun to be involved in. it's an incredible thing to report on, but, there's a there's an odd splash of tiredness around. let's be frank, it'sjust... quite funny seeing that the blatant things that people are doing in the last few days, like steve reed, the shadow environment secretary on the labour battle bus, handing out these, these pillows with pictures of rishi sunak on them, saying don't wake up to rishi sunak on the 5th ofjuly. and then rishi sunak blatantly trying to bribe all the travelling journalists with free mcdonald's breakfasts. just a bit obvious. yes, there is all of that. i've noticed that the last couple of days, both labour

and the conservatives have been sort of leaning into this sort of imagery about who you wake up next to. it's been quite a lot of stuff about pillows and alarm clocks going off and and all that kind of stuff, which is kind of quite, i don't know, evocative imagery. but then, you know, for those who decide that sleeping between midnight and 6am is a sensible thing to do, then there is that sense, isn't there, that you wake up on friday morning, even if you've caught the exit poll on thursday night, you wake up on friday morning and the political landscape is remoulded, either significantly or otherwise, for the best part of the next five years. and that's that's kind of quite a thing. what are your plans for wedensday, last day? so tomorrow we're not quite sure yet. is the honest truth. here we're in sort of norton canes, wondering where the which compass bearing might next.

it depends. can we get to, uh, some of the main leaders tomorrow? uh, because if we get to any of them, we've kind of got to get to quite a few of them. gets quite tricky because they all start zipping around at an even greater pace. basically, tomorrow, myjob is to pull the whole thing together to make sure that newscasters and other sort of bbc news viewers, listeners and readers get a full sense of what all of the parties are kind of up to. and then i guess, kind of take stock really on where the last six weeks have left us, what's changed and what hasn't. so what hasn't changed? well ,the opinion polls haven't really changed for labour well, the opinion polls haven't really changed for labour and the conservatives? what has changed? will nigel farage entered the stage there? my sort of two top line kind of kind of thoughts. and we kind of, it would seem, don't we, stand on the brink of a kind of landmark election, but where actually, whether it is or not will be determined by millions of individual decisions that even if they've been made, haven't been committed to yet. and that's the that's the jeopardy of the next couple of days. newscast from the bbc. and that's all for this episode of newscast. but we recorded some bonus material that you can hear in the podcast

version, which is available on bbc sounds. and we will be back here on bbc news live at 630 on wednesday evening to cover all the thrills and spills of the final day of campaigning in the uk general election 202a. join us then live! what could possibly go wrong by? what could possibly go wrong? (tx sor) hello there. these were not the sort of skies you'd expect to see at this time of the year, and the weather pattern isn't changing much through the rest of the week. the westerly wind could strengthen, it will bring in some further rain at times and keep it cool for this time of the year. now, what's changed from a couple of weeks ago when we had temperatures of 30 degrees? well, the position of the jet stream. back then the jet was to the north of the uk. we sucked in all that heat and humidity, but what's happening now and through the rest of the week is the jet stream is further south. we're on the colder side of the jet,

and those temperatures are going to be a lot lower, and the jet is going to steer in more cloud from the atlantic. this is where our weather is coming from. already had some heavier rain in western scotland, and that thickening cloud will bring more rain into scotland, into northern ireland, and that rain will gradually push its way southwards and eastwards into most of england and wales, and with a lot of cloud around overnight, it's going to keep the temperatures generally ten or 11 degrees. it may briefly get a little cooler in eastern parts of scotland, but that rain from overnight will soon clear away early tomorrow morning, leaving a lot of cloud, some pockets of light rain or drizzle, and then we'll get some sunshine after the rain in northern ireland and in scotland in the afternoon with some showers, some late sunshine for wales and western england as the rain clears later. but for much of the day wales and the south west could be rather dull and misty, and the afternoon temperatures on wednesday very similar to what we had today. now the weather fronts should be moving away fairly quickly, taking most of the rain away, but with low pressure to the north. we're going to have some stronger winds on thursday,

and those winds will be strongest across the northern half of the uk, where we'll see some showers, frequent showers, heavy showers in scotland with some thunder. generally as you head further south a better chance of staying dry, maybe some welcome sunshine around as well, just giving the temperatures a boost by a degree or two, but still cool for this time of the year. and as we move into friday, we could see another set of weather fronts, an area of low pressure coming in to bring some rain into england and wales this time, that then moves away. but this cool and unsettled theme continues notjust through the rest of this week, but into the weekend as well, where we'll see some sunshine at times. but there'll also be some showers as well.

hello, i'm lewis vaughanjones. you're watching the context on bbc news. we've worked for four—and—a—half years to change the labour party, to get us to a position where we can run a positive campaign and be ready to bring about the change that we need in this country. what these candidates who are coming over to the conservatives know is that a vote for reform is just a vote to put keir starmer in numberten. we know that around about a third to 40% make up their mind - during the campaign — l and a lot of those will do it in the final week. welcome to the programme. we are now 50 hours away from polls closing in the uk general election, when big ben strikes 10pm onjuly the 11th — and we get the first exit poll results live here on bbc news. if the polls are correct,

labour will win a huge majority, and sir keir starmer will be the new prime minister.