to find out what really happened that night. i haven't been able to get the story of the grenfell baby out of my mind since — did it happen? could it happen? i suppose also as a parent, i ask myself, what must it be like to be so desperate that you're willing to trust your children to the luck a stranger's arms. also this evening: planning for plan b — the government says it's preparing for a no—brexit deal. we'll ask if it's a bluff or a big deal? and a state divided — we hear about the catalonians who oppose independence, and cheerfor the spanish police. really quite extraordinary. to see this, in a western european country, in the 21st—century we'll hear from the producer of a documentary about sexual assualt — one that was distributed by the weinstein company. hello.

when the nation woke to the horror of the grenfell tower fire almost four months ago now, a report quickly emerged of a baby apparently thrown out of a window by a desperate mother. miraculously, the child was caught by a man on the ground below and saved. it was a moving tale and it had currency because it encapsulated the tragic choices that those trapped by fire might have to confront. above all, it was a glimmer ofjoy on a terrible night, with a hero in the man who caught the baby. stories like this are a big part of news reporting. they help us to form judgements on larger events. and the specific stories that catch on, often say something about us. but given that this account of the baby was so seized upon, in a night of total confusion, it's worth asking if it was all as it seemed. david grossman was moved by it

as soon as he heard it, and he has been trying to find out more. listen to him. we need to leave now. straight to that breaking story in west london. london fire brigade are dealing with a serious fire in a tower block in west london... trying to make sense of a breaking news story as it happens, amid the realtime swirl of events. it's often hard. as one of the reporters who covered this dreadful tragedy, amid all the heart breaking action, one small, but extraordinary detail stuck in my mind. a baby was apparently caught by a member of the public after being dropped from grenfell tower as it was engulfed with flames... i haven't been able to get the story of the grenfell baby out of my mind since — did it happen?

could it happen? i suppose also as a parent, i ask myself — what must it be like to be so desperate that you're willing to trust your children to the luck of a stranger's arms. i set out to find out exactly what happened, to nail down the facts. the first thing was to trace the story back to its source — where did it come from? who are the eyewitnesss? at 10.08am on ilithjune ryan hooper at the press association tweeted this clip of her. a woman was gesturing like she was about to throw her baby. a member of the public a gentlemen ran forward and caught the baby. the comments spread to the telegraph, the evening standard, the daily star, the mail online, the guardian and the independent.

by the next day the story was around the world. when we contacted her about this, she said her memory of that night is fading, i don't want to talk about it. this man appeared in many newspapers. the initial source of the story was in the sun on 1thjune, two days after the fire. in the story, he's named pat. he supposedly caught a four—year—old thrown from the fifth floor. but we've traced him. his name is actually oluwaseun talabi and he's holding his own daughter. they had both escaped down the stairs. the other primary source is george clarke, he lives near grenfell. he was woken by the noise of the fire around 1am. i met him the next afternoon. he had been up all night and he was clearly very tired. one guy caught a kid. a kid was thrown out a window from like the eighth floor and the guy caught him. it's amazing. really? yeah.

you saw that? yeah. it'sjust unbelievable, you know. when we contacted george clarke he told us that he did not wish to make any comment on the matter at all, because he said, "it's such a contentious issue and i think it's so hurtful to so many people." talk to people on the streets near the tower and chances are they'll tell you that yes the baby story is definitely true, but they themselves didn't see it. newsnight‘s attempted to contact every single person quoted as saying they did see the baby thrown and caught. some told us that they had been misquoted. others we couldn't find at all. there's no evidence that they actually exist. none were prepared to do an on—camera interview. we can hear people screaming... jodie martin lives opposite grenfell tower. he arrived at the fire at about the same time as the first fire crews.

something he saw might shed light on the source of the grenfell baby story. i think this was the fourth floor, third or fourth, on this side of the building. there was a lady, african caribbean lady with her baby. she was leaning out the window, more like a toddler. there was smoke billowing out behind her. she was trying to get oxygen. she was at the lowest point of the ledge, right down low, hanging, top half of her torso hanging out. her infant at arm's length out. so you think she was trying to get air? yeah, definitely trying to get air. she wasn't throwing the baby? no, no. if you could see it, it was full of smoke. the smoke was billowing out. the only place to get oxygen was to get your head below the ledge of the window. that's what she was doing. so perhaps the grenfell story came from people seeing one thing and assuming they'd seen the rest. according to psychologists this is a common phenomena at such disasters.

human memory, it seems, is not like a videotape. in such context it's meaningless to talk about telling the truth or telling lies. the information we get from outside, from other people, from television it appears, it's very accessible to us. we might have images associated with it. it might be an eevent where we could predict what had happened. like in a natural disaster, we would expect human suffering. that means that the memoryjust becomes that information from outside becomes accessible. it can contaminate our memory. you would think that an incident this extraordinary, this dramatic would trigger a wave of official reaction. there would be records, a paper trail, but newsnight has established that neither the police nor the ambulance service knew anything about it.

the metropolitan police couldn't have been any clearer. they told us in a statement: "we have no record of this incident." another big reason to be sceptical is physics. the average weight of a six—month—old baby is seven kilos, roughly the same as a heavy bowling ball. even dropped from five storeys, this would travel at 17.15 metres a second, double the height to 30 metres or ten storeys and the ball is travelling at 2a.25 metres a second or over 87 kilometres per hour. is it plausible to think that someone could catch a bowling ball travelling at such speeds? anything over one storey would be regarded as a significant fall. i would be sceptical about a baby

falling from a very high height, that someone catching that baby would completely make the fall benign. i think that's difficult to understand. as i say, its not something we see very often. a baby falling from significant height, the bottom line is, that will expose the baby to significant risk of injury, irrespective of the landing. what's more, newsnight has established that no children from grenfell were treated in hospital for the serious type of physical injury that one would expect from such a fall. why do so many people believe the story of the grenfell baby so strongly on what we can't find, at least, so little evidence? is there something about a heart breaking story like this that means we need to believe in miracles? it would shine a nice light on maybe human nature if it did happen,

of the human nature of the people who live in and around the area. people here, after that tragedy, they're all about the community and we're looking after ourselves. the government is not looking after us, but we're taking action for ourselves, so it fits in with the story, the narrative. it is often not possible to defintively say that something didn't happen. all we can do is search for witnesses and scrutinise the evidence. we've done that and haven't turned up anything that suggests this amazing event actually happened. indeed all the available evidence points to the opposite conclusion. what an interesting case. so let's see if we can find out more about why certain stories can start out and take off. drjulia shaw is from the department of psychology at university college london and

the author of the memory illusion about science of false memory. very good evening to you. false memory definitely exists. we can construct a memory of something that didn't happen? yes, absolutely. one might ask — why human beings would have evolved that power to make things up in that way in their head? well, in the context of grenfell, first of all, it's a tragic situation. i think our resources should be focussed on preventing that happening in the future. from a scientific point of view, tragedy presents an interesting situation where we can study how memories work and don't. while some people remember highly emotional events in vivid detail, others can construct intentionally or unintentionally fabrications that weave their way into memories. as far as they're concerned, there is no distinction between the memories of what did happen and the memories that they have in the memory bank of things that didn't happen. right, a false memory is not an intention to lie. it's something where you believe this happened.

you believe this reality occurred. we think of stress as this protective factor, that something highly stressful and highly emotional and detailed, vivid must have happened. but these aren't reliable indicators that a memory is accurate. these memories of tragedy things often that we think are burned into our memories forever, even they can be corrupted by other people's stories, other people saying they saw things. so someone else can say they saw it. right. you can think you saw it. right. that's caught suggestion, the other person suggests something happened. you can internalise that suggestion, believe that it happened, accept it and what's called confabulate details, create details around the situation that make it feel and sound incredibly real. all of this no lying or intent to mislead. no lying. tell us about the role of hope or desire that on an awful night like that, people want there to be

a story that is uplifting or has a positive outcome, is there a link between false memory and a desire to believe something? or not at all? not particularly. there is evidence that suggests that negative false memories are more sticky than positive ones. but in terms of identity, i think there is something to be said for us sharing a story as humans, as a community, this is what we saw, this is what we experienced. specifically, in situations that are tragic, we might bond together more and be more receptive to the suggestions of others. from an evolutionary stand point probably helped to be part ofa group. so we feel more allegiance to a group if we share that experience. potentially. that comes back to the question i hinted at earlier — is this a flaw in human beings or a feature? you can see why memory has involved, it's darn useful.

but false memory is an odd thing to have. memory evolved to be good enough not perfect. it evolved to understand concepts and risk. with regard to false memories, i consider them a by product a creative brain. the way to recombine bits of information, memories, to solve problems and to be intelligent as human beings, i think false memories are the same process, except they're happening with our memories when we don't want them to. thanks so much. it has been a busy old day as far as brexit is concerned. a lot of balls being spoken of, as the brits and eu argue over who's court the negotiating ball is in. we say it's down to them to make the next move. for the eu, the ball is still lost somewhere in the uk. theresa may was in the commons today, repeating that we'll have a deep and special partnership — without new detail on what those words mean.

by approaching these negotiations in a constructive way, in a spirit of friendship and cooperation and with our sights firmly set on the future, i believe we can prove the doomsayers wrong and i believe we can seize the opportunities of this defining moment in the history of our nation. now, again today the government insisted that it's preparing for the possibility of no deal at all — not deep and special, perhaps not even shallow and common. we've got some fascinating insight into that in a few moments, because i'm joined by two of our top editors to update us, nick watt and chris cook. and i have three brexit expert guests too to work out whether no deal is a goer or not. sir simon fraser was the permanent undersecretary of the uk foreign and commonwealth office until 2015 — he's now the managing partner of flint global ltd. jill rutter is the programme director at the institute for government and was also a former senior civil servant. dia chakravarty is the brexit editor at the daily telegraph. good evening to all.

why are they talking now about no deal? it felt like this was a bit of rebalancing. these plans for a no brexit to have been there for some time but it was not mentioned in the florence speech which was all about reaching out to eu leaders. she mentioned it in the q and a. last friday there was a meeting of the eu ambassadors in brussels and it did not go well for britain, some member states said that we should reach out to the uk, two member state said no, not enough money on the table and that was france and germany. two states that we hope will come and deliver for us. it feels like in terms of this preparation, it is all on paper rather than reality. that is right, if you go to our reports today, that is right, if you go to our ports today, there aren't new customs houses

being built or thousands of officials being recruited and trained. that partly speaks to the fact that for a lot of officials certainly, the prospect of a disorderly end to these talks, is one that they are terrified of. it really reflects the fact that one of the things that the eu does, it says that our planes are air where the, our banks are solvent, and as those processes break down and we do not have anything to deal with, whether that leads to a bit of fudge that we have to sort out on the night were something more serious, they do not know. simon, do you think no brexit, no deal is a serious option? i do not think it is what the majority of people in the uk or eu want. i do think it is a serious possibility that we should plan for, i think contingency planning is important and the record of contingency planning on brexit has not been great so far, but if you look at the way that negotiation is developing, how slowly it is going and how

complicated it is, when you look at the differences of approach, and you consider that you are negotiating with 27 other countries, there has to be a chance that in the end you will not get there on the day and you need to think about the options. do you think they will fudge it? if there is goodwill in the room and we have not reached a deal, they will stop the clock or give us more time? the question is, is it about you are prepared to take and what are the consequences of not taking it? you could say yes, at the end of the day, we will sit down and agree, but one of the things that has characterised the eu approach, they are taking a legalistic approach, so say we can in and say we are getting nowhere, we need to extend article 50, doing that requires unanimity, requires one stroppy member state to say we are not extending and we are only extending if you seize sovereignty on gibraltar. it is difficult to bank on that.

i think for you, you are in the more brexit camp, for you, no deal is a positive opportunity. you're not scared of it. i think we will have to make no deal a positive opportunity, if we come away with no deal, we can say, we tried our best. it is a good idea to prepare for it. rumour has it there is about a 25% chance but there is a lot more negotiation to do. there might be a new, no deal rather. if you were a business, you would be preparing for that and businesses have been preparing. i think we should be preparing. simon, can you imagine any deal that is worse than a no deal?

is it plausible they will offer us a worse deal than no deal? the slogan that no deal is better than a bad deal is meaningless, no deal is a very bad deal and even if you arrive at the end of the negotiation and even if you arrive at the end of the negotiation and you do not have a dealer or a transition, you will still have to have deals, the idea we will not have a formal relationship between the uk and eu in economics, politics, defence, trade is not tenable. the prime minister has proposed that we should have a bold new strategic offer in security and defence. there will have to be arrangements. if you fail off the edge, there would be a bad bump and i think it would be very damaging for our economy. then we would have to claw our way back. it would be temporary. we would fall out, there would be a new deal, but we would not permanently have no deal, after six months we would reach a deal. which is why this timeline set by the eu seems artificial. if we are going to be talking

about deals after we leave, why can't we talk about it and we talk about how we are leaving? that would be the more sensible approach. let me come back to our editors, you each have reports from in the civil service as to what this preparation means. it stands for the best alternative to a negotiated agreement, which is a posh way of saying plan b. essentially, what they are looking that is a series of scenarios and the obvious one is that talks collapse, but we do have a hung parliament and i understand that there are also civil servants looking at a scenario in which the government collapses. i spoke to a dup source who said that they are giving theresa may until christmas, not much confidence there. the government falls, negotiations stall because we haven't got

a government and that is why we don't have a deal. i spoke to a senior former civil servant who said that is the kind of thing the civil service would do but it would be so far under the radar you would have no idea and the government are saying, we are not planning for this scenario. do you believe that? people are doing huge amounts of work on the first plan, how much time they have got for some of this scenario planning, they do not tend to do it during elections when the ministers have all gone away. we have just had the conferences, that might have given people time to do it, but you do not do scenario planning for the collapse of government at that time. we did not do it when i was a civil servant. you have been in the department of international trade. it is a strategic department. it only goes big picture things.

one of the things they have been working on is project after and that is what our trade policy might look like if we had a rancorous relationship with the eu and we had to radically change who we are and the things they have come up with are genuinely very radical, one of them isjoin the transpacific partnership,... join asia! mexico, canada, australia, new zealand, japan, korea. another idea is that we could effectively slash arab tyrants. another idea is that we could effectively slash —— tariffs. these are things that they thinking we might have to do. we could set up free ports, areas outside our customs border, and the idea is that it is not very subtle way of delivering subsidy to a town

where we could try and build up a manufacturing base. that will not work. these are things they are thinking about. so these projects, a lot of thinking going on, simon, what do you make of these ideas? on trade, what has been described as the uk considering joining every trade deal that president trump is trying to dismantle is not a good approach. almost half of our trade in goods and services is done with the eu and if we leave the eu on whatever terms, that trade will not go away, it will be done on less advantageous terms and we will suffer. we are not going to transport that trade to other markets rapidly. this whole idea of global britain like you can leave europe and trade elsewhere, maybe over time, but it will take a long time. there is a lot of trade that we do in parts, where it depends on proximity. we are not going to be part of an integrated supply chain with australia. you cannot substitute

some of those things. it is really interesting on trade, if you read the trade quite a lot of these future partnership papers the government is putting out are about trying to backfill to try and make sure we retain the advantage we have had through eu membership and we do not lose those on exit. trade with south korea is via the eu at the moment. these guys are pooh—poohing the idea of global britain, but you are strong believer in that. one thing we must not forget is that a no deal might be bad for us and no deal will not be good for the eu either and we sometimes forget that. it is a two—way situation, we say that a lot of our prosperity has depended on being part of the eu but a lot of their prosperity has depended

on as being part of the eurozone or the eu ‘s own as well. we must not forget that and think they hold all the cards. but i want to ask you something, simon, if we fall out and there is no deal, one cause might be a fall in government, but do you think the british government has to fall if no deal happens? is that a resigning matter? i do not know how it will play out but if we did get to that situation, it would probably be in circumstances of some political upheaval but there are some ways in which it might come about. you have to remember, there are some people in the conservative party, possibly in the government who favour a no deal and do not consider it advantageous. they think it is beneficial. there are different strands of thought within the party, within the government, and let us see how the balance of

power plays out over time, many people are speculating about the longevity of the prime minister and we do not know what will come afterwards. would you expect a prime minister who said i am optimistic of getting a deal, would you expect them to resign at crisis point of no deal? may be the planes aren't flying? i think there would be a crisis in government and many questions would be asked and there would be issues in real life that would need to be resolved which will cause a lot of questions in the country. thank you all very much indeed. until this weekend, the catalonia crisis looked like a struggle between catalonia and the rest of the spain. but the hundreds of thousands on the streets of barcelona yesterday, in defence of the union with spain, are a reminder of how nothing is simple. catalonia is divided, which makes life difficult for the catalonian president, carles poojdemon. —— carles puigdemont.

should he declare independence tomorrow, as many of his supporters want? or retreat from his earlier threats and hit the pause button on the constitutional crisis? gabriel gatehouse has been in barcelona watching this conflict evolve. it was supposed to be a march for unity. it was certainly big. this is incredible. never seen anything like it. but amidst the festive atmosphere, one senior exposed deep divisions that have driven spain to its biggest crisis since the end of the franco era. the root of the march led past the headquarters of the national police. last week there were angry protest here after officers from the same force is brutally prevented people from voting, but this was different. what did you think about what you saw in the polling stations when the police

were beating people? i think it was horrible, but it was necessary. you thought it was necessary? they cannot break spain. those who oppose independence support the police and perhaps that is not surprising. what is surprising is what happens next. officers appear on the balcony, among them, the most senior national police within catalonia and the salute the crowd and they know exactly how to interpret the gesture. really quite extraordinary, to see this in a western european country and the 21st—century, and national police force is making this kind of a political statement. all this adulation, it is thirsty work. luckily, there is a handy tapas bar next door, a police chief and his deputies take time out for selfies. outside a crowd gathers

around another policeman, now they're angry. because he's from the regional catalonian force. unlike the national police, these police stood aside during the national referendum to allow the referendum to take place. out, out they chant. they get their way. the national police eventually appears, but at a leisurely pace. in the end, it's not clear whether they've come to protect their colleagues or to see them off. for those on the receiving end of the violence, it was at this polling station

that 73—year—old gloria, a retired psychologist, went to cast her vote. instead, she says, she was assaulted by the police, who injured her arm. that wasn't the worst of it. the irony is gloria doesn't support independence. but the fear is the government in madrid is resulting to the methods of the past. so, what happens now? manana, they say in spain

and indeed, tomorrow's session in the catalan parliament might, or might not, be decisive. this is where it's all going to happen. we went to meet an mp in the governing party. the coalition for yes. my seat is on the third... their leader has pledged to declare unilateral independence, but she seemed to suggest they could step back from that. there's been some talk and some confusion about what exactly will happen here on tuesday. will there be a unilateral declaration of independence? or will there be a soft declaration of independence? i cannot tell you that right now. why not? because you haven't decided yet? yeah, well, ithink we are still willing to talk and we are still trying to find the best solution. that's why every second, every minute is important, because the best thing we can do is to talk.

the message from madrid seems to be we're in no mood for compromise. tomorrow is turning into a high stakes political staring competition. catalonia seems to be offering to blink first, but it needs something in return and madrid doesn't seem to be offering. when you read — as much of the world has been doing over the last few days — about the behaviour of hollywood boss harvey weinstein, one can only wonder at how so much

could be known about his seriously lewd behaviour, and yet, how so little had come into the public domain. ok, so he was an oscar generating machine, so there was an incentive for many who worked with him to keep calm and carry on. but he also had multiple financial settlements with women which prevented them from causing trouble for him. the whole thing is extraordinary. joining me from la is amy ziering. she produced the oscar nominated documentary the hunting ground, which was distributed by the weinstein company, and ironically was about sexual assault on us college campuses. very good evening to you. i don't know how much direct or indirect experience you had of harvey weinstein, but would you say you were aware of all this stuff that had been going on? no. we were not aware. we had no direct or indirect contact with harvey weinstein while making the hunting ground.

we were working with a subsidiary, radius, their independent branch that did documentaries at the time. it no longer exists. i didn't have any interrelations, any kind - there's a lot of talk that everybody in hollywood knew. is that your experience? my experience is that generally in institutions it often is an open secret. there are often rumours and people do know about these things. but there's an incredible push for everybody to stay quiet. there's tremendous fear around this issue and no—one wants to speak up. we see that all the time. it's a small percentage of men that commit these crimes. it's a serial predator crime, but the culture around them protects and enables them. that's the problem. that's why we never hear about this. one of the interesting things in this case, the new york times has cited at least eight financial settlements. as far as we know, all the financial settlements are conditional on non—disclosure, that

you don't say anything, keep it secret. we know that people were basically paid to shut up about it. should we worry as an institution in our society that you can effectively pay people to shut up about something like this? yeah, it's incredibly worrisome. you see it all the time with this issue in particular. you see that it has this tremendous silencing effect. it's why even though this behaviour has been going on for decades, we're only just hearing about it now. it would be great for people to settle without having to sign that agreement. it's easy to understand in an individual case why a victim would stay quiet, they worry about their career, need the money or anything. what do you think and you've made films about this, what do you think societies can do to make it easierfor victims to come out and report this stuff, so it is in the public domain and we don't wait 30 years to hear about it? that's a great question. there's a super easy answer. this is the only crime that

when people come forward and report we question the veracity of what they're saying, we disbelieve them. yet it presents just like every other serious felony in society. let's take the sex out of this crime and treat it like a crime like any other. if somebody said, i was robbed. you wouldn't say, "are you sure? maybe you meant to give them the television set." you would say, oh, my god, how can i help you? that needs to be our response all the time when someone says they've been sexually assaulted, that's for police, law enforcement, friends, colleagues, etc. we will see a radical transformation with that simple thing. you are talking about these as crimes rather than civil offences in which someone has been inconvenient. yet, it must be wrong for me to pay somebody to cover up a crime. that's what's been going on effectively, if you believe that account, payment to someone to say you can't report this are payments to cover up a crime. well - you would never be allowed it pay someone to not report a murder.

that would be a jailable offence, surely? well, you could pay someone, though, there are settlements. there are settlements for all sorts of crimes, this is no different. i'm pushing that point harder than it probably deserves. let me ask you this one — do you think he got away with it longer than he should have, because he had liberal politics, was a democrat, in political circles and was behind films or was supportive of films like yours on these kinds of issues. did that give him coverfor some period? i think he kept doing it for so long because i've seen it over and over in institutions. men in power are enabled by the people around them. power speaks and power is powerful. no—one wants to challenge that power. it doesn't have anything to do with liberal or progressive or,

i mean, predators come in all sorts of different denominations and all sorts of different political beliefs, as we know and have seen. there's people in incredible positions of power right now that are sexual predators that identify as republicans. no correlation? i don't see — there's no correlation. i think he was, like in any other institution we've seen, when men commit these crimes, and it's a small percentage of men that do, they are usually in positions of power and everyone is afraid of going forward and speaking out against them. thanks so much for speaking to us about it. that's it for tonight. we leave you with the news that american economist richard thaler won the nobel prize today for his contribution to nudge theory — the idea of using clever psychological devices to get people to do the right thing. the most famous example is the sticker of a fly placed

tantalisingly in the bowl of a gents urinal to get men to aim front and centre. but after a very short debate, we decided to show you the second most famous example instead, courtesy of website the funtheory.com. it's the piano stairs, created to encourage people to get some exercise and not to use the escalator. good night. hello there. the day is going to start on quite a gloomy note across many parts of england and wales. some thick cloud and even some outbreaks of rain. the best of the sunshine as we get started is going to be across scotland, i think, and extending perhaps in the northern england. for northern ireland, some thick cloud and some outbreaks of rainfor thick cloud and some outbreaks of rain for the next couple of hours. not short of showers across the central lowlands of scotland, but to not short of showers across the cer north ‘wlands of scotland, but to

sunshine here and is -romised decent sunshine here and is promised by northern england and the midlands as well. let's have a closer look at what is going on in russia. this is 8am on tuesday morning. northern ireland, some sunshine to the south and east. to the north and west more cloud and outbreaks of rain. wet and windy across the northern isles. in the mainland scotland, brighter skies and a few isolated showers. a bit more cloud for the central lowlands, moving further south again, sunny spells across much of northern england. showers coming in through the liverpool bay area towards lincolnshire. to the south of that, quite a lot of cloud around. a little bit difficult to pinpoint where we will get the best of the breaks. we could see some early sunshine across the south—east and east anglia. not looking likely with thicker cloud and outbreaks of rain in the south—west and south wales. in the welsh mountains, hopefully some breaks across the likes of herefordshire, up into warwickshire and derbyshire. enjoy that early brightness across southern and eastern areas because it looks like the cloud will fill in

here from the west through the day. quite a gloomy picture with a little bit of light rain thrown into the mix through the afternoon. brightening for wales as the hours by. the midlands not looking too bad, and northern england. northern ireland perhaps losing some showers for the afternoon. and what a change for the afternoon. and what a change for scotland after that pretty glorious start. i the afternoon, thicker cloud arriving, strengthening winds in some quite heavy rain. this frontal system making itself felt on wednesday. heavy rainfall northern england and later in the day wales. scotland and northern england do brighten with some showers, but some of that rain could be very heavy for the cumbrians fels and the welsh mountains. ahead of that, 18th till possible in the south—east with some sunshine. thursday the cloud is day of the week across the board. a lot of the week across the board. a lot of fine weather and temperatures i think somewhere in the mid teens for the majority. this is a new stay on the bbc. —— newsday. the headlines: a top republican says

president trump could set america on a path to world war three, and claims white house staff try to contain the man at the top. one of the worst firestorms in california's history is tearing its way through parts of the state's wine region, killing at least one person. i'm babita sharma, in london. —— kasia madera. also in the programme: barnaby joyce, australia's deputy prime minister, is one of seven mps facing scrutiny over dual citizenship. the saga that's gripped the country is due to be debated in the nation's highest court. and we travel to the pakistani border with afghanistan where the army is building a fence to keep out the militants.