the gaza health ministry says an israeli strike on a school has killed at least 16 people. and iran's first reformist president in two decades acknowledges there's a "difficult path ahead". lam i am helena lam helena humphrey. iam helena humphrey. good to have you with us. us presidentjoe biden is under increasing pressure to end his 2024 re—election campaign. on saturday, a fifth democrat in the us house of representatives issued a statement calling for mr biden to step aside. congresswoman angie craig of minnesota said she admires president biden, and takes pride in the legislation passed in his first term. however, she then went on to say, "i respectfully call "on president biden to step aside as the democratic "nominee...and allow for a new generation of leaders "to step forward". ms craig cited last week's cnn debate, where president biden

appeared lethargic up against donald trump. his performance sparked concern among democrats about his age and mental fitness. the 81—year—old president has responded to the growing scrutiny by hitting the campaign trail. he also sat down for an exclusive interview with abc news anchor george stephanopoulos, rejecting any notion that he is considering withdrawing his candidacy. the bbc�*s peter bowes has more. reporter: mr president, - do you want to talk about your message in wisconsin? on a mission to prove himself, that he can still do the job of president and win the election. joe biden is in damage control mode, after that disastrous debate performance against donald trump. here he is at a rally in wisconsin. again, answering the question everyone is asking. "is he going to drop out? "what's he going to do?" well, here's my answer — i am running and going to win again! cheering. a rousing reception here, but the unease amongst fellow democrats in washington is palpable. five members of the house

of representatives have called on mr biden to step aside. the latest to come forward is angie craig, a member from the state of minnesota. the president needs to get out there and show the american people that he's up to it. that was four days ago. now, she says he has to go, explaining, in a statement, that she didn't believe that the president could "effectively campaign and win against donald trump". mr president, thank you for doing this. thank you for having me. in his exclusive interview with abc's george stephanopoulos, the president again blamed his stumbling debate performance on a bad cold. i was feeling terrible. matter of fact, the docs with me, i asked if they did a covid test because we were trying to figure out what was wrong. they did a test to see whether or not i had some infection, you know, a virus. i didn't, ijust had a really bad cold. and did you ever watch the debate afterwards? i don't think i did, no. the president was asked whether he'd take a cognitive test and release the results. he said it wasn't necessary.

every day, i have had tests, everything i do. you know, not only am i campaigning, but i'm running the world. he warned of dire consequences if donald trump were to win the election, and insisted he was the most qualified candidate to stop the former president. and if you stay in, and trump is elected and everything you're warning about comes to pass, how will you feel in january? i'll feel, as long as i gave it my all, and i did the goodestjob as i know i can do, that's what this is about. mr biden added that only the lord almighty could convince him to abandon his bid for a second term in the white house. peter bowes, bbc news. former president donald trump has distanced himself from project 2025, which aims to transform the government if trump wins the election. the 900—page plan was put together by the heritage foundation — a conservative think tank. it calls for sacking thousands of civil servants,

and dismantling several federal agencies. it also proposes expanding the power of the president, while making sweeping tax cuts. it's common for think tanks to publish policy wish lists like this. but democrats have taken aim at the heritage paper due to its wide—ranging — and drastic — measures. online, trump posted... for more, i spoke to our reporter mike wendling. it is a huge, sprawling document. it sets out the number of policy proposals that the heritage foundation and hundreds of other conservative think tanks, organisations and advisers would like to seek out of a second donald trump

administration. you mention some of the more controversial proposals. this document has been around for awhile, and the heritage foundation regularly makes these policy proposals, saying if a republican is elected, this is what we would like to see them do. so it is not official, it is not law, it is not even really a proposal of laws, but it certainly is an influential document that has been talked about quite a lot in washington right now. so mike, tell us more about who created it, who is behind it? yeah, so the heritage foundation is a very influential, right—wing think tank. they not only have their own experts, but they collected a whole range of conservative organisations, including some people who worked in the first trump administration, or who were very influential in that administration. so when donald trump distances himself and says he knows nothing about project 2025, or who is behind it, you have to take that with a massive grain of salt. these are some priorities that have been long—standing.

for instance, about reproductive rights and stopping the abortion pill, about deportations of immigrants and beefing up the deportation regime and the immigration forces, and also things like completely destroying the department of education, abolishing it. these are conservative priorities and have been for some time. he is aware of that and the people who are, i suppose, jockeying for potential influence in a potential second trump administration know that, that's why they put this document out, to try and guide the conversation. and what about democrats on the other side, how are they are reacting to it, what are they saying? so this is being talked about in democratic circles i think, notjust because this document exists but because of those supreme court decisions last week, about presidential immunity and about government agencies.

this is kind of all swirling around as donald trump has taken a little bit of a bigger lead in the polls, they are trying to sound the warning bells about what a second trump administration will be like. but this is filtering down, it is notjust a preoccupation of the democratic leadership. i was on that rally in wisconsin that president biden held yesterday, and several democratic voters brought up this document, and said to me they are worried to me about project 2025. i didn't even need to ask the question, so clearly this is something that democrats are worried about, and some of the details in there, they are very concerned that donald trump would implement them. it is clearly a way that they think they can win some ground back from donald trump, right, and i think that probably explains why the former he president has come out and tried to distance himself from this document. and if you want to find out more about project

2025, mike wendling breaks down all the details in this explainer article which you can find on the bbc news website — bbc.com/news uk prime minister sir keir starmer said his party's landslide victory in the election has provided a clear mandate for change in all four nations. but in a press conference, after chairing his first cabinet meeting, he cautioned that transforming the country will not be an overnight exercise. here's our political editor chris mason. is this the day you dreamt of, deputy prime minister? there was a first—day—at—school vibe in downing street this morning. is it quite something to have the red folder? is it good to be back? it's good to be back. an excitement and pride from those now at the top of government, heading in for a cabinet meeting. laughter. levity, yes, but a sense of the gravity of all this, too. it was the honour and privilege of my life to be invited by the king, his majesty the king, yesterday, to form a government.

so what do you want from the new government? here are some folk in bury, in greater manchester. honesty. just plain and simple honesty. and i'd like every politician to do a professionaljob. the priorities needs to be a massive increase in budgets, and that's throughout all of the education sector. more focus on our borders . and border control and other systems. um, disabled. i work with disabled adults. levelling up for the north. really, we're a bit fed up of our tired trains. at lunchtime, a news conference from the new prime minister. good afternoon and thank you very much for coming. yesterday, the work of change began. we're a changed labour party, and yesterday we started the work of changing the country. you've said that change can't be delivered by flicking a switch, but plenty of people might want lots of switches flicked, pretty quickly,

and so i wonder how soon you can actually start delivering concrete change. i'm restless for change, and i think and hope that what you've already seen demonstrates that. not least the appointment yesterday of patrick vallance and james timpson, two individuals who are associated with change and delivery. meanwhile, conservatives - are pondering what the future looks like this weekend, | and a recurring question. are you going to be the next tory party leader? h0 tory party leader? no announcements. - tory party leader? no announcements. we have to take our time — announcements. we have to take our time. �* ,. announcements. we have to take our time. �* y., , announcements. we have to take ourtime. �* , ., our time. are you up to the challenge? _ our time. are you up to the challenge? d _ our time. are you up to the challenge? d think - our time. are you up to the challenge? d think it - our time. are you up to the challenge? d think it will i our time. are you up to the | challenge? d think it will be our time. are you up to the i challenge? d think it will be a difficultjob? it has been a really bad result, no two ways about it. back at number ten, that sense of novelty. have you unpacked yet, have you found your way around? i have a basic understanding

of the rooms i have used so far here, and that's good, but there are plenty of places i am yet to discover. and no, we are not unpacked quite yet, but we will be soon and we will be moving in soon. the address is very familiar, but for him and for the rest of us, much that is new to get used to. chris mason, bbc news, westminster. for more, i've been speaking withjohn mcternan, a former political secretary to labour prime minister —— tony blair. good to have you with us. thank you for being with us on bbc news. a cabinet meeting on a saturday. keir starmer outlining pledging to tackle key issues such as the nhs, prisons, he's also said that the rwanda scheme is, quote, "dead and buried". what do you make of his initial priorities? the important thing is the change in tone.

you had a relaxed prime minister with a very big win in the election but a tone different from his predecessor there before him and he was being inclusive and not divisive and he was not seeking to wind people up, he's actually saying, ourjob, a difficult challenge ahead but let's start work immediately. that's why we are having a cabinet meeting on a saturday. there is only one week, normaly a tuesday, and he appointed his cabinet yesterday and had a meeting yesterday, today, with the press at lunchtime and i think that is the way we are going to go which is moving quickly on the priorities the country cares about, but also, having a tone that is easy with the country. it is a difficult challenge but we will work on it together. talking about some challenges, what do you think they may be and how potentially difficult to you think it will be to make some progress, relatively quickly? it's a really great question. he can make immediate progress because there are powers the government

has, you don't need to make spending, pass laws, you can just do them. in the uk, the minimum wage has a lower rate for 18, i9 and 20—year—olds that could be changed immediately and that is a pay rise for young people, so that could be an immediate change and it could be people in your households, nieces and nephews, people you know. so that kind of visible change could happen. a pay—rise for thousands of people immediately. so he could start to move on some capital spending, he could be renovating schools or hospitals within months and he could actually change planning legislation which is holding back some construction. so i think labour will do some quick things in the early period, some things for the medium—term and some for the long—term. but the sense of hitting the ground running is going to be a very important part, and then momentum on top of that. keir starmer said there were going to be some

challenging moments i had, that he would always be transparent about those tough choices. where do you think those tricky areas could be for him? he was asked about it this morning, he was asked, he appoints a new minister for prisons, this minister has a lot of experience in rehabilitation and probation services, this minister, said, i think a third of people who go to prison should not be there. and he was asked about it by newspapers and saying, do you agree with that, do you think a third should not be present and he said, a number of things, really interesting, he said i was a prosecutor of public prosecutions, i went to a lot of courts and saw a lot of sentencing and i thought, like a lot of people in the profession, there are people who are going to prison who should not be there

and they shouldn't have been diverted earlier on from going to prison. and he said, i want to work on knife crime to stop people actually starting with picking up a knife. that idea of prevention and being honest that some people should not be in prison and saying, we should be working to be preventing people from being in prison different from the lock them up rhetoric the tory government had. i want to touch on his international agenda, keir starmer will be heading to washington next week for the nato summit, david lammy coming in as foreign secretary already gone to germany to meet with his counterpart — what kind of foreign policy and defence policy do you expect to see from this new government? so there will be continuity in the support for ukraine. i think keir starmer has been clear and so has david lammy and the incoming defence secretary. the ukrainian frontline

is notjust the european frontline but the british frontline, is also a strong support for ukraine, i think there must be policy in support of the nato and we continue to find a seed to turn for nato. increasing when our physical on defence to 2.5% of gdp and take a strong emphasis, david lammy clear on it, a strong emphasis on human rights in foreign and defence policies so i think that is the kind of limits of it. keir starmer will be pleased to be at the nato summit, criticalsummit for nato because partly, he can be one of the most successful politicians there. with the french president under pressure and the american president under pressure. so the united kingdom, newly elected prime minister with a big mandate, he will have a large was on security notjust the uk or europe but globally. and some developing news now — the new uk government has said that the last two migrants who had been detained pending removal to rwanda will be bailed in the coming days. the home office also revealed that a further 218 migrants were released from detention centres by the previous government during

the election campaign. they were due to be deported to the african nation, as part of previous prime minister rishi sunak�*s policy to tackle illegal immigration. on his first full day as prime minister, sir keir starmer confirmed the rwanda deportation scheme is "dead and buried". so what comes next for prime minister starmer? after a tour of the uk on sunday, he'll shift his focus abroad. in fact, the prime minister has already held his first official phone call with us presidentjoe biden. number 10 has released a video of that moment — take a listen. mr prime minister, congratulations, what a hell of a victory. thank you, mr president, it has been a long night and day. i've been busy appointing my cabinet during the course of this afternoon. there is no doubt on your leadership. our countries will continue the special relationship, we are working together on just about every

issue, supporting ukraine, managing competition with china, supporting cooperation in the pacific with aukus. and the prime minister will be visiting the us next week. the bbc�*s gary o'donoghue has more from downing street. later on tuesday, it is his first big international trip to the nato meeting in washington. and really i think, to really try and cement what is after all britain's most important international relationship, to find a way of working with the biden white house, but also to try and think about what would happen in four months' time if donald trump would win the presidency. gaza's health ministry says at least 16 people have been killed, and dozens injured, in an israeli strike on a school, sheltering displaced people in al—nuseirat. witnesses told the bbc that the raid hit the upper floors of the school, which is near a crowded market. the israeli army says it was targeting militants in the area, and that it tries to minimise harm to civilians. efforts to secure a ceasefire between israel and hamas have gained momentum in recent days.

moderate candidate masoud pezeshkian has won iran's runoff presidential election, beating his hardline conservative rival, saeed jalili. dr pezeshkian, who's a heart surgeon, secured 53.3% of more than 30 million votes counted. mrjalili won 4a.3% of votes cast. the runoff came after neither candidate secured a majority in a first round of voting injune. that vote saw a historically low voter turnout. dr pezeshkian ran on a promise to reach out to western countries, and ease enforcement of a mandatory headscarf law, which people have protested in recent years. but he did not pledge major changes to iran's islamic theocracy. iran's government is largely led by hardline conservatives. here's the iranian president—elect, speaking a short while ago. translation: congratulations to the knowledgeable and dearj people of iran on their victory. you have completed the work

and taken a great step forward. earlier i spoke with karim sadjadpour — a senior fellow at the middle east program at the carnegie endowment for international peace. what more do we know about the new iranian president elect and what can we expect from his presidency, most crucially? helena, he has been described in the western media as a reformist and i think that is an inaccurate label. he is really a moderate regime loyalist, in that he is not promising any meaningful reforms, and he's already voiced his loyalty to the supreme leader, the ayatollah. the ayatollah, the main power and his promise to adhere to and honour his agenda, so i do not think we should have any expectation that he will meaningfully change the iranian internal and external conduct.

he's not going to challenge the iranian supreme leader and he's not going to restorative regime's lost legitimacy and i did not think he is going to pacify public discontent. so i don't think this was a terribly consequential election. so, for example, on issues such as women's rights in iran, you don't anticipate any kind of change? i don't anticipate meaningful change, as long as the supreme leader remains. for the hardline leadership in iran, the people who really have power, the mandatory veiling of women is one of the flags of the islamic republic and all presidential candidates over the years, they have paid lip service to these issues while running, but once they come to power, none over the last 45 years has really challenged the issue like the mandatory hijab. what about washington, because we know that pezeshkian

has advocated working with or reaching out to the united states, i should say, with regards to the nuclear programme, in regards to getting those economic sanctions softened, if not lifted, in some part. how receptive do you think washington would be to any kind of moves from the new president—elect? the official slogans of the islamic republic — death to america, death to israel — that's not going to change. so the president of iran pezeshkian cannot change the regime's long—time grand strategy, but presidents can be impactful in changing the tactics of the regime, and i think what pezeshkian will seek to do is bring in foreign policy advisers who are perceived to be more competent, less ideological, and that will, frankly, present in my view, a dilemma for any us administration, whether it's biden or trump, because on one

hand, it will make it a little bit easier to engage with iran, but at the same time it will make it more difficult to isolate iran. ijust wonder, and i want to talk about more on voter turnout, because once again it was low, and you said dr pezeshkian, in your view, should not be described as a reformist, but more as a moderate loyalist instead. do you think that is something that voters do feel keenly aware of, and perhaps explains that lower turn out that we saw? absolutely. those living inside iran understood what this election was about. it was a choice that they had between someone who was unpalatable — pezeshkian — and someone whom they viewed as disastrous, and that was his opponent, saeed jalili, who is a hardline ideologue, who many iranians feared would increase the risk of conflict with the us, and increase the economic sanctions, which have been suffocating the country.

so i don't think voters inside iran have any illusions that pezeshkian is going to bring about real change. i think everyone knows that there is likely not to be any change in iran, as long as the current 85—year—old supreme leader remains in power. let's just touch on the fact that, of course, the israel gaza war continues. any potential impact there, do you think? i don't think so. the president of iran does not control iran's foreign policy, in particular, iran's regional policy — that will remain the domain of the supreme leader and the revolutionary guards. as i said, there may be more competent, less ideological iranian diplomats at the helm, but we have seen those diplomats in the past as well, and according to themselves,

they don't control iran's foreign policy, so i don't so i think that pezeshkian�*s arrival as president is not going to meaningfully impact the iranian internal or external conduct. and sabrina carpenter, the us singer behind two of this summer's biggest songs, has broken a uk chart record. the 25—year—old has become the first female artist to hold simultaneously both the number one and number two slots on the singles chart for three consecutive weeks. her track, �*please please please' remained in the top spot, with her previous single �*espresso', holding on at number two. the catchy tune also topped the billboard 200 chart here in the us. stay with us here on bbc news. hello, there. we had a very wet start to the day on saturday, with low pressure in charge, extensive and pretty heavy outbreaks of rain.

the afternoon got a bit better, sunny spells came through, but we also had quite widespread showers, like this shower cloud working across the horizon in the scottish borders. now the wettest place in the whole of the uk was rothamsted, in hertfordshire, near luton, and here, we had 37mm of rain — that compares with the monthly average of 52. so, in other words, we had, well, nearly three—quarters of a month's worth of rain in just the space of 2a hours. now, showers have continued to affect eastern areas of scotland, northeast england into the first part of the night, but over the next few hours, many of the showers will tend to fade away, but i think we'll see another clump working into wales and southwest england, as we head into the first part of sunday. now, sunday is overall the better of the two days of the weekend. many of us will start off with some sunshine, first thing in the morning, but we'll have those showers from the word go, across wales and western england, and through the day, those showers push eastwards. it is always across england and wales that the heaviest downpours are likely to be, with some hail and thunder

mixed in, and, to a degree, northern ireland seeing heavy downpours, too. in scotland, there will still be showers, but they perhaps won't be quite as heavy as the ones we've seen over the last 2a hours. now, monday's forecast, it's another pretty unsettled day, again, starting off on a promising note. many areas will start the day dry and sunny, but showers will develop across northern areas of the uk, and it looks like we'll see another area of rain start to work into the southwest, so that could affect southwest england and parts of southern wales, as well. the area of rain is associated with this next area of low pressure, which pushes its way northwards across the country, very slowly, through tuesday and wednesday. so, tuesday looks like probably the wettest day of the week ahead. extensive and heavy outbreaks of rain in england and wales, some wet weather for northern ireland. eventually, the rain reaches northwards into scotland, and again, as the rain eases off, it willjust be followed by heavy showers and thunderstorms. top temperatures — high teens to low 20s, much as the temperatures have been over recent days. that is below average for this time of the year, and beyond that, it does stay pretty unsettled, we might see something

a little bit less soggy, as we head towards the following weekend. bye for now.

voice-over: this is bbc news. we'll have the headlines for you at the top of the hour, which is straight after this programme.

so, what are you holding there? i'm holding two gems that came from the british museum and which i'm now bringing back to them. is that stolen property you're holding? yes. this is dr ittai gradel — and to clarify, he is not the thief. but the gems ittai's holding are at the heart of the story i'm about to tell you. it's emerged that the british museum was warned more than two years ago that objects from its collection were being put up for sale. more than 1,500 items were stolen, damaged or are missing from this place. this is a story about one of britain's most revered institutions and the theft of ancient treasures that were sold around the world. it was very shocking.

it was worrying. i had no idea the scale that this would turn out to be.