a very warm welcome to bbc news, broadcasting to a viewers in north america and around the globe. my name is mike embley. our top stories: fixing faulty genes to eradicate inherited disease. a scientific breakthrough brings hope to millions around the world. venezuela prepares to instal a controversial new assembly. but the firm which helped organise the election says the results can't be trusted. we have to report that the turnout numbers on sunday, the 31st ofjuly, for the election of the assembly we re for the election of the assembly were tempered. president trump reluctantly approves new sanctions against russia. moscow says the move amounts to a "full—scale trade war". and prince philip's last official engagement at buckingham palace as he bows out of public life, aged 96. hello.

there's new hope for thousands of families who live with the prospect of passing on inherited diseases to future generations. for the first time, scientists have successfully repaired a faulty gene in human embryos. they used a process known as "gene editing" to correct dna that causes a deadly heart condition. but there is concern that the technique could, ultimately, be used to create so called "designer babies". our medical correspondent fergus walsh reports. the goal could not be more ambitious: to eradicate inherited diseases. these scientists have taken an impressive first step on a long road, editing dna in human embryos. so how is it done?

inside the nucleus of each of ourselves is our genome, billions of pieces of dna. it's the instruction manual for life. the scientists were targeting a faulty gene that causes a serious heart condition. they fertilised a healthy egg with sperm from a man carrying the faulty gene. they then injected the gene editing system known as crispr. this scans the dna, like a spell—check or a satnav. it then cuts both strands of the dna and removes the faulty gene. a healthy copy of the gene from the egg was then naturally inserted. now here are some of the embryos from the study in the journal nature after being edited. 42 of 58 embryos were corrected. they were allowed to develop for five days. none was implanted. we are very excited about all the work, of course... the research has been welcomed by a team in london who have a license to edit human embryos. they say the technology could eventually

help many families. there are some nasty genetic diseases, such as huntington's or, as in this case, a disease that affects heart function later in life, which can basically blight families for many generations. so a method of being able to avoid having having affected children passing on the defective gene could be really very important for those families. nicole mowbray has the same heart condition which was corrected in human embryos. she now has a defibrillator implanted in her chest in case her heart stops. she has a 50% risk of passing on the condition, but is unsure whether she would ever consider gene editing. i wouldn't want to pass on something that caused my child to have a limited life or a painful life or a life of risk. i mean, that does obviously come to the front of my mind when i think about having children. i wouldn't want to create

the "perfect" — in inverted commas — child. i feel like my condition makes me me. and some are worried gene editing technology could lead to an era of designer babies. we will get into a society in which some people's children are genetically enhanced and given advantages over other people's children. people start to be judged on the basis of their genes rather than who they are. as well as ethical issues, there are safety concerns. previous attempts at gene editing human embryos in china led to serious errors in the dna so a lot more research is needed before this could be used to treat patients. after months of unrest, the president of venezuela has delayed plans for swearing—in members of a new assembly. he intends it to replace parliament which is dominated by the opposition, and rewrite the constitution. president maduro did though hold

a rally with delegates of the new national assembly. his opponents say the new assembly has only been created to give nicolas maduro unlimited powers. and now the company that provided the voting system for sunday's election says the machines were tampered with and the government inflated the number of voters. from caracas, the bbc‘s katy watson. more criticism of the vote, this time from the company that provided the voting system. they said the government inflated the numbers of people who turned out by overi million, although many believe it to be more. based on the robustness of our system, we know without any doubt that the turnout of the recent election for a national constituent assembly was manipulated. opposition politicians have called for a criminal investigation to be open. they have criticised the new assembly from the start, arguing that a body designed to rewrite the country's constitution was undemocratic, a power grab. the head of venezuela's electoral authorities say that the voting company's comments are "irresponsible and baseless."

the maduro administration is not bowing to pressure either here or abroad, saying that the country is now at peace, but few agree. clemente drives at taxi in a shanty town outside the city. i asked him what happened to his windscreen. translation: opposition protesters broke it when i went through a roadblock, because this taxi was given to me by the government. i'm fed up. politics is like a marriage. both sides need to sit down and talk. the oppositionjust thinks about themselves. venezuela would be better off without them. the concern among opposition politicians and the international community is that this could be the country's new reality. we can now speak to moises naim, a former venezuelan minister of trade who played a central role in the launching of major economic reforms in the early 1990s, and is now a distinguished fellow at the carnegie endowment for international peace in washington.

first of all, how do you react to the suggestions that the election result was tampered with? well, it is not just result was tampered with? well, it is notjust me and the company that provided the services, it is a0 countries, a0 nations around the world that are saying that and saying that they would not recognise the new national assembly. the european union, and a south american grouping of countries. so it is a widespread agreement that it was tampered with. the president has said that a lot of the problems are constitutional, and could be fixed with the new assembly. many others are external, and the government's fault. adieu respond to that? it is not a problem that the country has to do the constitution. —— how do

you. this is a graduate the largest concentration of oil in the world, and all sites of riches and minerals. that was completely destroyed in 20 years of government, first by hugo chavez, and then nicolas maduro. price controls on all sorts of interferences and crazy policies that make no sense, and huge corruption explain that. there is nothing in the current constitution which, by the way, when drafted and promoted by hugo chavez, that creates problems, and there will not be a constitutional solution to the problems of corruption and the collapse of the entire state in terms of its capacity to provide health and citizen safety. with your experience in the country, what do you feel the rest of the world can do to ease the situation there that does not make things worse for the broad mass of

venezuelan people? it is quite hard. just to let people vote. the opposition has asked that they be allowed to vote. let's have an election. president maduro has broken the constitution by not allowing regional elections that we re allowing regional elections that were mandated by the constitution. a recall referendum and several other insta nces. recall referendum and several other instances. so all the opposition wa nts instances. so all the opposition wants and all the international committee is saying, the 0rganisation committee is saying, the organisation of american states, and others, is to let people vote. just briefly, if you don't mind, the american sanctions against president maduro himself, what of them?” think this is the beginning of sanctions. i have been arguing, and i hope that these sanctions are targeted to the individuals that are the culprits of the situation, now that they are broke the law is, the

kingpins in the government, the massive violators of human rights, and the corrupt government officials that are leading the country. and so sanctions can be targeted to them, and their converse is, and the country from further suffering... thank you very much. president trump has signed off on new sanctions against russia but without much enthusiasm. it was done behind closed doors and then came his statement shortly after that the law was "significa ntly flawed". the russian prime minister was quick to fire back, saying the sanctions are tantamount to declaring a full—scale trade war. dmitry medvedev also claimed the trump administration had shown its "total weakness" by handing over executive power to congress in the most humiliating way." 0ur north america editorjon sopel has more on why president trump is so doubtful. well, you almost says 30 signed this piece of legislation with a heavy heart, and one of the short

tell—tale signs of that was there we re tell—tale signs of that was there were no cameras present to record him signing this legislation into law. and he says it in creatures on executive authority. it is a president who makes foreign policy. he says it will damage american companies, and it is against the european interests me as well. but he also said that he recognised that it was the will of the people that it was the will of the people that it should be signed, and so for the sake of unity, he had gone along with this piece of legislation. and then at the end of this statement, he said he built a truly great company worth billions of dollars. this is a big part of the reason i was elected, and as president, i can make far better deals than congress. so he is clearly unhappy with it. that has not stopped russian counterblast. dmitri medvedev said this would do the damage to us russian relations. he said it was

tantamount to starting a trade war. is that it would be deeply damaging. the trump administration has absolutely no power in reining in congress. what is ironic about what donald trump has said is that he seems to be far more critical of the legislation then he is for the reasons the sanctions are being introduced, namely russian interference in the us election. jon sopel for as they are. —— for us there. let's cover some of the other menus for you, now. “— there. let's cover some of the other menus foryou, now. —— main there. let's cover some of the other menus for you, now. —— main news. the italian parliament has agreed to send the country's navy to help the libyan coastguard combat people—traffickers. the italian government is denying any breach of libya's sovereignty. it insists the mission will act only with the agreement of the government in tripoli, which is backed by the un. germany has expelled the vietnamese press attache over the suspected kidnapping of this man, trinh xuan thanh.

it's alleged he was bundled into a car by armed men at berlin zoo, nine days ago. mr thanh is the subject of an international arrest warrant. four men from the west midlands in england have been convicted of plotting to attack police and the military. they were arrested last august in a sting operation by security services. a pipe bomb, imitation gun and meat cleaver were found in one of their cars. three of the men had previous convictions for terror offences and met injail. brazilian politicians have rejected plans to put the president michel temer, on trialfor corruption. there were chaotic and angry exchanges in congress as lawmakers shouted abuse, pushed each other and threw fake bank notes at their opponents. mr temer was accused of receiving $12 million in bribes from one of the country's top companies. he has denied the allegations. here's the bbc‘sjulia carneiro from rio de janeiro. this is a big victory for the president. he worked very hard to muster support in congress over the past few weeks. he was manoeuvring with his allies to make sure he would have enough votes in tonight's session to make sure he would stay in the presidency.

there are still expectations that new charges will be pressed against him, but he managed to get 263 votes in his favour in the session thatjust finished in congress. so he needed less than 170. he won by a big margin. it is quite a big show of strength, in a very delicate moment for the president. the scandal erupted in may, so ever since we have been seeing brazil again immersed in turmoil and lots of gossip around what is going to happen in the political scenario, now he is going to get some breathing room with this result. this means that the charges against him will be blocked. we will still have to see if the prosecutor—general will press new charges against him. still based on this big scandal that broke, this big meatpacking company, jbs, that accused mr temer of having demanded bribes in his favour. julia carneiro for us there.

will he be the world was made most expensive footballer? neymar will earn $1 every second. the question was whether we wanted to save our people, and japanese as well, and win the war, or whether we want to take a chance on being able to win the war by killing all our young men. the invasion began at 2am this morning. mr bush, like most other people, was clearly caught by surprise. and we call for the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of all the iraqi forces. 100 years old and still full of vigor, vitality and enjoyment of life. no other king or queen in british history has lived so long, and the queen mother is said quietly to be very pleased indeed she has

achieved this landmark anniversary. this is a pivotal moment for the church as an international movement. the question now is whether the american vote will lead to a split in the anglican community. this is bbc news. our top story: scientists have used gene editing techniques to correct faulty dna in human embryos. the breakthrough could help eradicate inherited diseases. i've been speaking to the mit geneticist, richard hynes, who gave me his thoughts on how significant this development was. it's a significant advance. there are actually a couple of advances in the paper which show this technique can be much improved over what we saw six months ago.

it still has a lot of work to be done before this could be used clinically, and i will come back to this, but before you would consider using it, there is going to be lots more debate about the issues raised by one of your previous figures. but they have made great progress in this paper. it is a very nice scientific paper showing, convincingly, that the mistakes which are called off—target effects can be reduced to a low level, to the point where they could not detect any errors. that does not mean there were none, but they‘ re clearly very low and hard to distinguish from the background among differences among different embryos. that is one big advance. the second is that if you edit in an embryo, there is a problem called mosaicism, where some cells may be edited and others not. that has been a big hurdle.

they have improved that quite a bit. they have not got it to 100% compared to embryos that don't get edited, but they have improved it a lot and we can hopefully anticipate it'll get better. those are big advances, technically. realistically, how long do you think it might be before patients receive gene editing is a treatment? i would say years. i don't want to put a number on the years. sometimes breakthroughs happen which can speed things up faster than you would think. but i think it will be years, and i think the opportunity now offered to us, where we can see this is likely to be feasible, is an opportunity for us to think hard and debate in the public arena these issues that were raised about who should be entitled to do this. here, queen elizabeth's husband,

the duke of edinburgh, has bowed out of public life after almost 70 years of official engagements. the 96—year—old made his final solo appearance at a parade of royal marines at buckingham palace this afternoon. he announced his retirement in may after completing more than 22,000 solo appearances. 0ur royal correspondent nicholas witchell reports. it was the kind of afternoon, weatherwise, which would have made anyone glad to be retiring. and the duke's case, he has been doing it for 70 years. but there he was on the forecourt of buckingham palace, a man of 96, standing to attention in the pouring rain, for the salute that he has had so many times. there were many things to remind him of the past decades. the parade had been mounted by the royal marines, the fighting force which is part of his beloved royal navy, in which he served in world war ii.

and in the background was the palace, the headquarters of the monarchy, the building where his wedding to the then—princess elizabeth was celebrated 19a7, when his life as a royal began, and where he's attended so many events — the garden parties and formal dinners, alongside the queen, in the years since. i'm the world's most experienced plaque unveiler. throughout it all, the duke has retained his own style, always direct, and often humourous. this afternoon, he strode across the palace forecourt. no stick for him — and woe betide anybody who would suggest such a thing. and as he went, the crowd outside the palace applauded. by now, it was almost time to go. the royal marines gave him three cheers. hip hip! hooray! the duke waved his hat, and turned to go. as he did so, the band of her majesty's royal marines played for he's ajolly good fellow.

after 70 years' service, and with his own separate programme of royal engagements now concluded, who, today, would have dared to disagree? nicholas witchell, bbc news, buckingham palace. around $260 million — that's what's expected to be paid for the brazilian footballer neymar in a world record football transfer deal. he says he wants to leave his current club, barcelona, and move to paris st germain. if the deal goes ahead, it will make him the most expensive player in history. 0ur sports news correspondent richard conway reports from paris. fans visiting the club shop here in

the centre of paris are getting excited, and that's because a deal for neymar is inching slowly forward. we've seen over the last few days the player go from shanghai uncommercial duties and fly back to barcelona. he has been excused from training and now barcelona say, pay us training and now barcelona say, pay us the money, and you can have the player. we will have to see how it plays out in the coming hours and days but there is now an increasing certainty that neymar will be a paris st germain player for this coming season, and the implications for that our huge, the barcelona of course, without one of their leading players. for paris st germain, who desperately want to bridge the gap between champions league wannabes and winners, and uefa, given financial fairplay — clubs have a requirement to live within their means. this size of deal, the money involved, is such that many clubs,

many individuals involved at the highest levels of football are looking at it and wondering whether paris st germain will be able to live within those obligations. for now, the fans in parisjust want live within those obligations. for now, the fans in paris just want to know one thing — when will neymar sign? just mention the word ‘test pilot‘ and you know you are talking about a special breed. back in the 19505, their hair—raising exploits weren't without accident, but their accomplishments led to advancing the space race. hundreds of films showing those early flights have just been released, and dana purifoy from nasa has helped talk us through them. coming out of world war ii, we were in a race, if you will, to see who could build the highest, who could go the fastest, so there were a very large number of unknowns associated with each of these vehicles and how they were gonna be flown. so, the risks were significant. each time the pilots went up, they were probably doing something for the first time. so, a lot of these flights, you just didn't know what the endgame was gonna be.

and we didn't understand all of the physics that were going to occur during these tests. and there were a large number of accidents in the early days as we learned what were the big risks and what we could do to keep the pilots safe. i think it's important to remember that in the ‘50s, we were trying to expand both the speed and altitude of aeroplanes. so, bigger motors with jet engines, with afterburners, new materials, new ways to build and fly aeroplanes. sort of what motivates them, what drives them to do this business which, especially in the ‘50s, was relatively risky. and i think the answer is a desire to push the envelope a little bit, to be a pioneer. clearly, these people felt themselves to be very competent pilots. and many of them were very good aerospace engineers, so they participated not only in flying the vehicle but also

in developing the profiles, developing the technology. so, curious people, explorers, who are confident in their ability to handle almost any situation. and i think those characteristics follow through to today as well. while the risks are generally better understood and better mitigated, the character of the people that undertake these flights and work in this business is fundamentally the same. dana purifoy there, with a look back. much more at any time on the bbc website. and you can get in touch with me and most of the team on twitter: i'm @bbcmikeembley. thank you for watching. hello. the area of low pressure that brought wednesday's rain is still close enough

during thursday to produce showers across the uk, making it quite windy too. it is gradually edging its way north—eastwards. not quickly enough for many of us before it gets to scandinavia and our weather improves. plenty of showers from the word go across many parts of the uk. the north and west in particular. some of these will be heavy. the risk of a rumble of thunder and perhaps some hail too. a look at the picture. eight o'clock in the morning, showers scattered in south—west england. much of central and eastern england will be dry at this stage. some sunny spells around. but you will notice through england and wales it is a windy day, unseasonably for the time of year. gusty winds at that. plenty of showers in northern england and northern ireland, beginning to pull away actually. showers in scotland initially to the west. longer spells of rain in the northern isles. here we have easterly winds. brisk south—westerly gusts of wind in england and wales will be noticeable during the day. some sunny spells. showers fading in the afternoon, especially in england and wales.

they linger on through the afternoon in scotland. slow—moving with lighter winds here. thundery downpours especially in eastern scotland into the afternoon. temperatures, high teens, low 20s. the first day of the women's british 0pen golf at kingsbarn, not far from st andrews on thursday. we have the threat of some heavy showers moving through. some will fade thursday night into friday. could well see some spells of rain in ireland and scotland. edging southwards here for a time around the area of low pressure which hasn't quite yet got to scandinavia yet. the breeze is a notch down. more in the way of sunshine. feeling pleasant between showers. and in fact, for the bulk of the uk, the showers away from scotland will be few and far between. those temperatures, well, into the low 20s in east anglia and south—east england.

though most of us still pegged back into the high teens. the big picture going into the weekend, a ridge of high pressure trying to come in. we will still see showers on saturday, perhaps for a time in north england, north wales, scotland, more numerous in those areas. temperatures in high teens, low 20s. after a chilly night on saturday, sunday delivers drier weather. though there is a weather system poised to come in from the west later in the day. this is bbc news — the headlines: scientists have successfully repaired a faulty gene in human embryos for the first time. the breakthrough could help eradicate inherited diseases — but critics fear it could lead to the creation of so—called designer babies. venezuela has delayed swearing—in members of a controversial new assembly, which would replace parliament and rewrite the constitution. president nicolas maduro has been accused of pushing the country towards dictatorship. meanwhile, the firm which helped

organise sunday's election says the results can't be trusted. the brazilian congress has voted not to send president michel temer to face trial for corruption. he's been accused of receiving millions of dollars in bribes from one of the country's top companies. the opposition says the government channelled billions of dollars of public funds to politicians to secure the victory. now on bbc news, it's time for click.