hello and welcome to bbc news. barack obama has given a speech attacking president trump, and accusing the republican party of abusing power, dividing america and threatening democracy. in his first major address of the us mid—term election season, the former president said americans were living in "dangerous times". he urged voters to come out in force to support democratic candidates in november, as nick bryant reports. cheering this was barack obama returning to political centre stage. using what has always been the strongest weapon in his armoury — the power of speech. and deploying it against donald trump. hello, illinois. and he addressed this week's explosive revelations that trump appointees are working secretly to subvert the president. you are not doing us a service by actively promoting 90% of the crazy stuff coming out of this white house and then saying, "don't worry — we're preventing the other 10%." that's not how things are supposed to work. this is not normal. these are extraordinary times. and they're dangerous times. these were his strongest criticisms yet of the man who succeeded him and he was scathing

about donald trump's response to events last year in charlottesville, the clashes involving white supremacists and neo—nazis. we're supposed to stand up to discrimination. and we're sure as heck supposed to stand up clearly and unequivocally to nazi sympathisers. how hard can that be? saying that nazis are bad? laughter # where at least i know i'm free... donald trump is a counter puncher and just over an hour later, buoyed by strong newjobs figures, he described his reaction to being asked about his predecessor's criticisms. he said, "what do you think of president obama's speech?" and i said, "i'm sorry, i watched it but i fell asleep." laughter i found he's very good, very good for sleeping.

laugther -- laughter these first seven days in september, which started with a memorial service forjohn mccain, feel like a milestone moment, when the forces of resistance to the trump presidency have asserted themselves more strongly. much of that service was a rebuke to the president, and then came the blockbuster new book from bob woodward and the highly critical column in the new york times, penned anonymously by an administration official. it's unprecedented in modern times to see this kind of public clash between a sitting president and his predecessor. and it speaks to how this divided country increasingly looks like two americas — one that rallies round donald trump, and one that seeks to resist him. nick bryant, bbc news, washington. meanwhile a former trump advisor, who was part of the 2016 election team, has been jailed for 14 days.

george papadopoulos admitted lying to federal agents investigating whether campaign aides colluded with russia. he'll also have to do 200 hours of community service, and pay a fine of $9,500. british airways could be fined as much as $640,000 for a huge data breach. hackers managed to access details of 380,000 bookings made with the airline over a two week period. ba says personal and financial details were compromised, and many passengers have been forced to cancel their credit and debit cards. alex cruz is the ceo of british airways. this was a very sophisticated criminal attack on ba.com. in the 20 yea rs criminal attack on ba.com. in the 20 years ba.com has been operating, we have not had a bridge like this. we are committed to the integrity of the dart of our customers. as soon as we found out that these records may have been compromised, we began

communications through all channels, directed to the customers, to alert them to this problem. —— breach. —— data. let's get some of the day's other news. in syria tens of thousands of people in the province of idlib have taken to the streets demanding that the international community intervene to protect them from a government offensive. idlib is the last remain rebel stronghold, and president assad's forces have it surrounded. they're backed by russia and iran, whose planes continue to bomb rebel positions. shares in the electric car—maker, tesla, plummeted more than 9% on friday after pictures emerged of its co—founder, elon musk, on a live podcast, smoking cannabis with comedian joe rogan. since then, tesla's chief accounting officer has resigned afterjust a month in thejob, and there reports that the head of human resources also plans to leave. the government is drawing up the biggest change to the divorce law in england and wales in almost 50 years to try to speed up the process of separation, and allow more couples to split without apportioning blame. thejustice secretary, david gork, will announce a consultation

on no—fault divorce. he says he wants to remove some of the "unnecessary antagonism" created by the system. our legal affairs correspondent, clive colman, has more. the decades, pressure has been building for a no—fault divorce system. it was recommended in 1990. many seniorjudges favour it. why? when you are getting divorced, you're being ripped apart emotionally and financially and many people feel that adding blame makes a bad situation worse. we almost got it in 1996, it was in an act of parliament, but the government rowed back. what lies at the heart of any new system? we will have to wait and see detail but my guess is we will be moving away from a system based around fault and blame. to a system that is essentially a notification system.

if a spouse reports the marriage has broken down irretrievably and after a defined period of time, could be six months or a year, if they are still saying that then they will be entitled to a divorce as of right. some people will say that undermines the institution of marriage but many will say it takes a layer of stress and anxiety away from what can be one of the most traumatic experiences any of us could ever go through. thousands of people have been forced to leave their homes after more than a week of fighting between rivalfactions in libya. but now a ceasefire, brokered by the un, seems to be holding. seven years ago, rebel groups, backed by a military coalition, toppled the dictator, muammar gaddafi. since then, there has been political and military chaos. the bbc has the only international news team there. clive myrie sent this report. we're entering a nervous city. only now after a week of fighting and three ceasefires do we think it's safe to enter tripoli. along this same road seven days ago, fighters from armed groups based outside the capital breached the city walls. but rival factions inside tripoli were ready for the fight. the battles left scores dead,

including civilians, and forced thousands to flee their homes. darkness provided no respite. the battles are over for now, but the scars linger. at his family compound, ali el—amari doted on two grandchildren who are now dead. translation: the rocket or missile landed right where the children were playing. there was blood everywhere. 0n the ground, all over the trees. when you see the body

of your grandchild in pieces... my daughter had to see it too. i am very, very sad. i am very sad. ten years. why are we still all fighting? why? 0ne boy was 14 and the other 15. they were buried one week ago today. libya's problems, the deaths, the destruction, are the result of the messy end of colonel gaddafi's rule. the armed groups that helped topple him carved up the country, leaving no—one in overall control. and the militias and groups that stayed within the capital are being accused of being greedy, of siphoning off funds, of ruining the economy. those groups outside the capital now say they had to intervene. there is a un—backed government in tripoli,

but it's accused of allowing the armed factions in the capital to act with impunity. with so many militias and fighting groups seemingly running the country, libya is a failed state. and seizing on that failure have been the people smugglers. the fighting of recent days has ensnared many of the thousands of migrants who are trying to use libya as a gateway to europe across the mediterranean. these people had to break out of a detention centre when the fighting got too close. this man says there was gunfire at night and five people were hit, that's why we escaped, but even as we tried to run, another man was shot. the fighting forced thousands of libyans to free their homes, children to leave their schools. this woman is a mother of four. she said she wanted to talk to us, and she poured out her heart. "we are tired, we've had

enough," she told me. "we had to leave our homes. "i would like to send a message to the world, "we are peaceful people. "we want to live like everybody else, our children "to grow up in peace. "why is this happening, why?" libyans are tired of the men with guns having all the influence. and hopes for nationwide elections by the end of the year are now in ruins. once again, an attempt to stitch together this fractured nation has come to nothing. you can find out more about what is happening, including the ceasefire,

as well as the groups vying for control, on our website. just go to bbc.com/news. as we've been hearing british airways could be fined as much as £500 million for a huge data breach. hackers managed to access details of 380,000 bookings made with the airline over a two week period. emma simpson has the story. it's all about the customers. business travellers and holiday—makers, transporting them around the world. but thousands have had their personal information stolen after british airways was hacked. jorge herrera is one of them. he booked tickets with a credit card at the end of august, but has other cards on his ba account, too. he's struggled to speak to the airline all day. i don't think i have to cancel all my credit cards, but i don't know. and so i'm in the process of doing that. and it's going to take a long time. so, what do we know about this data breach? well, it affected customers who made

a booking or changed one through the british airways website or ba app from 11pm on august 21 up until 9:45 on wednesday evening. 380,000 cards were affected. ba says hackers stole names, addresses, e—mailaddresses and payment information. that included the card number, expiry date and, critically, the three digit security code on the back. i'm not letting you see my three digit number, because it's a bit like giving you the keys to my safe. now, with an online transaction, this number shouldn't be stored. ba says they weren't. so how did hackers get hold of them? emily here is a cyber—security expert. what could have happened? well, one theory is that a supplier to ba actually got compromised in the first place. so when you are booking a flight on the website, you may not realise, but there is lots of third—party software that is used within those

web pages to do things like process card information. so it could be that they were targeted because they were a little weaker on security, and then used to extract the data. ba says it's sorry, promising compensation for any customers who may end up out of pocket. this was a very sophisticated criminal attack on ba.com, and over more than 20 years that ba.com has been operating, we've never had a breach of that type. this attack doesn't surprise me. we see attacks like this targeting payment and card details all the time. but this is a big industry, and criminals do do this on a daily basis. but it is unusual for hackers to land so much sensitive payment card details at once. it's the first major incident since new data protection rules came into effect, which means ba could face a sky—high fine of around half a billion pounds for the breach. a man who claimed to be a survivor

of the grenfell tower fire has beenjailed forfalsely claiming almost £87,000 worth of emergency funds. yonatan eyob was put up in a hotel and given a food allowance and pre—paid credit cards. drugs, including cocaine, were found in his hotel room, along with around £3000 in cash, designer clothes and jewellery. you're watching bbc news. the latest headlines: former president barack obama has called for the restoration of honesty and decency in the us government — in an outspoken attack on donald trump. after a week of fighting in the libyan capital, a fragile ceasefire appears to be holding. the labour leader, jeremy corbyn, has insisted his party speaks for the mainstream, after the former prime minister tony blair told the bbc he's not sure it's possible for moderates to lead the party.

it comes as the leader of the liberal democrats, sir vince cable, said he wanted to transform his party into a movement voters who are disaffected by the direction of both labour and the conservatives. this report from our political correspondent vicki young contains flash photography. is british politics in need of a face—lift — or even a total rebuild? are you a voter who thinks the politicians in here are failing to represent your opinions? chanting: tony, tony, tony! tony blair was the last party leader to win a decisive election victory. he sasteremy corbyn doesn't have a broad enough appeal for this kind of win, and moderate centre ground mps have lost control of the labour party. i'm not sure that it's possible to take it back. there's lots of people associated with me who feel that the labour party's lost, that the game's over.

visiting a museum in leicester today, the labour leader insisted he's the one in tune with voters, and his campaign for a more equal society was a mainstream message. tony should recognise that the party membership is now much bigger than it's ever been. in the general election last year, we set out what our aspirations are for the people of this country. aspirations of eliminating homelessness, aspirations of putting more money in resources into education. 0verwhelmingly popular policies. the liberal democrat leader thinks millions of voters feel homeless. today he offered them a roof over their heads, saying he'd open the party to outsiders who shared his liberal values. he even suggested the next lib dem leader wouldn't need to be an mp. why are you confident that millions of people would flock to you, in this new system? well, there is clearly a demand out there for a rallying point, for large numbers of people, you know, who are fed up

with the drift of the country, and the fact that the two established parties are being taken over by extremists. some conservatives and many labour mps are increasingly uncomfortable with the direction their parties are going in. there have been conversations about setting up a new party or breaking away from the old one, but without an obvious figurehead from inside or outside the political system, it's hard to see how any of these ideas would get off the ground. and there's certainly no agreement about what might happen next. vicki young, bbc news, westminster. the us rapper mac miller has been found dead at his home in los angeles after an apparent drug overdose. the 26—year—old, who's real name is malcolm mccormick, previously dated pop singer, ariana grande. he shared the stage with her at the one love for manchester concert last year. fans and fellow musicians have been paying tribute to the rapper on social media. he had just released a new album and was due to start touring

later this month. earlier i spoke to bbc radio ixtra dj semtex who was one of the first djs to interview mac miller in the uk. yeah. i mean, being a hip—hop dj, i always look for the hottest new artist and the greatest music. it was six or seven years ago i came across him. when he came to the uk for his first ever show i made sure i got one of the first interviews with him. he was a really cool guy, an amazing artist. he had a lot of fans out there. yeah, something that has been coming out in the tributes in what fans have been saying, and also what people like salonge and chance the rapper is how kind he was. he was a really cool individual, one of the best people. whenever he was in the uk us reached out to me and invited me to his shows, we did interviews whenever he was over.

—— in the uk, he reached out. not many artists like that. he was a very thoughtful person and an amazing artist and an amazing mc. i saw one fan talking about how he ought a whole bunch of them chicken after a show in brixton. —— bought. yeah, he did the show in brixton and afterwards we went to nando's and they were closing, so i said, look, we've got a great artist here, so they stayed open, and basically fought —— basically bought food for everybody. like, 20 tables. that was mark miller. —— mac miller. he was this crazy, wonderful guy. everybody around him, where did you knew him or not, you felt part of that crowd. there was no attitude or anything like that. he was a really great people person, and an amazing artist. it is just tragic what has happened. tell us about his impact as a musician. i know that he opened doors are a lot of artists behind

him, as well. yeah, he was... he wasn't the first independent artist, but he was one of the first successful independent artists, and he came through at the same time as other people were doing really well and were starting to make labels. he was getting a lot of success independently and making a lot of money independently, which inspired other guys to go out and do the same thing. and i think he just had that essence, he could wrap about anything, he loved the music and the art form. he wasjust... hejust inspired us. he inspired other artists. if he was wrapping and you were in his vicinity, really, he did inspire a whole generation. every year millions of tonnes of plastic waste flow into the sea

around the world. now, for the first time, an attempt will be made to get into the middle of the pacific ocean — to try to clean it up. here's our science editor david shukman. in san francisco, final construction of a massive project with an incredibly bold ambition. to try to clear the oceans of plastic waste. this animation shows how the huge structure is meant to collect millions of pieces of plastic to make them easier to get rid of. sights like this have shocked people around the world. images of the damage to wildlife have inspired this effort to clean up. if we don't do it now all this plastic will start breaking down into smaller and smaller pieces, and the smaller the pieces are the more harmful and harder to extract from the marine environment. so we feel there is a sense of urgency. there is plastic waste in every ocean around the world but this

is the first attempt to clean it up. it will take place in the eastern pacific in a rotating current that traps plastic, what's called the great garbage patch. it's bigger than britain and france combined. how is the project meant to work? a giant tube 600 metres long will float on the surface and bend into a shape like a horseshoe, drifting naturally with the current and the winds. because it will move faster than all the bits of plastic in the water it should slowly gather them together into a small area. underwater a kind of barrier will hang three metres down to trap plastic below the surface and the design should mean that any fish will pass under it. once the plastic has been drawn into a dense mass it will then be collected by ship, taken

away to be recycled. no—one can be sure if the huge system will work. some experts worry it could harm marine life. the major problem is those creatures that passively float in the ocean and cannot actually move out of the way. once they are in, they are going to be trapped there unable to move. for example plankton is the bottom of the food chain, so we really do not want to be taking that out of our oceans. that is clearly from the teeth of a fish. yes. there is no other explanation. one of the scientists on the clean—up project says because the plastic is being eaten by fish it is entering the food chain so should be removed. it's been there for years. we find plastic from the 70s, from the 80s, from the 90s. and then we also find languages on those bits of plastic so we will find in the north pacific chinese, japanese, english, so we will try to define where the things may have come from. the plan is to start with one collection device and eventually

deploy 60 of them. but all the time plastic is pouring down rivers into the oceans. so on its own the clean—up operation will never be enough. in tennis, the defending champion, rafael nadal, has retired from his us open semi—final with a knee injury. the world number one was two sets down to the argentine, juan martin del potro at the time. he will now face either novak djokovic or the japanese player, kei nishikori in sunday's final. the duke of cambridge has been visiting newcastle and gateshead. he toured the great exhibition of the north, a three—month celebration of the region's art, culture, design and innovative spirit. but football took centre stage for a moment when the prince was given a customised newcastle united shirt for his five—year—old, prince george. now the weather with ben rich. the weekend is upon us.

many of us will see a little bit of rain at some stage in the weekend. that is by no means the whole story. there will be a lot of dry weather around as well and some spells of sunshine. quite a complex pressure pattern. high pressure to the south. one area of low pressure to the north—east. then this wriggling weather front pushing in from the atlantic. this is essentially going to send a pipeline of moisture in across central parts of the uk. for wales, the midlands, northern england, we will seek outbreaks of rain through the day, the odd heavy burst. some of that rain dribbling down into east anglia. the further south you are more in the way of dry weather, some brightness and brighter skies to be had further north through saturday afternoon. extra cloud through the far north—east of scotland. get yourself into some sunshine. aberdeen i6, 17 in glasgow. a cool fresh feel, similar story for northern ireland. northern england into wales

and the midlands, outbreaks of rain at times, the odd heavy burst over the hills, particularly. it will be quite breezy. breezy further south as well. towards the channel islands you may see breaks in the cloud and a little bit of sunshine. remember that pipeline of moisture, it piles its way in as we go through saturday night into sunday. there could be patchy rain and drizzle around through the morning, close to newcastle, as the great north run gets under way. as we go on through the day i am hopeful the cloud will start to break up. we'll see spells of sunshine developing into the afternoon. temperatures around 16 or 17. it will be fairly breezy. across the rest of the country, a similar story. rain will drift across many northern parts of england, northern ireland, and scotland.

the rain continues across northern scotland through the day. some thundery showers later on. increasingly windy. further south, more sunshine towards the south east and some slightly higher temperatures as well. moving out of sunday and into monday, high pressure still influencing the weather in the south. more frontal systems in towards the north—west. it will be northern and western parts of the uk that will see outbreaks of rain, often breezy conditions. further south, more in the way of dry weather. some sunshine. and it will start to warm up as well. this is bbc news. the headlines: barack obama has launched an outspoken attack on donald trump and accused the republican party of abusing power, dividing america and threatening democracy. he also urged democrats to vote in the november's mid—term elections. president trump hit back, saying the speech sent him to sleep. a fragile ceasefire seems to be holding in the libyan capital, tripoli, following a week of clashes between rival militia factions. the un says at least 47 people have been killed and 1,800 families internally displaced by the violence. british airways could be fined

as much as $650 million for a huge data breach. hackers managed to access details of 380,000 bookings made with the airline over a two week period. the company's apologised and said it's "100% percent committed" to compensating customers. coming up in 10 minutes' time, news watch. but first on bbc news, click. this is nelson's column in trafalgar square, and for over 150 years its base has been guarded by four giant lions. but soon these guys will be joined by a fifth — and a rather unusual one.