this is bbc news. the headlines: rescuers in the bahamas are searching the island of great abaco for the bodies this is bbc news — of people killed by hurricane dorian. welcome if you're watching hundreds are still missing. a relief operation is under way with un, us and british involvement. here in the uk, on pbs in america or around the globe. however, some communities i'm reged ahmad. haven't yet been reached and are in desperate need. our top stories: india's attempt to land a spacecraft the search goes on for hundreds on the moon appears to have failed. missing in the bahamas after hurricane dorian. scientists lost contact those who survived with the landerjust as it was about to touch down on the lunar surface. speak of their ordeal. the unmanned vikram probe was above the moon's south pole i say, hey, we were friends for almost a0 years. when data stopped transmitting we ride together, we're from the spacecraft. going to die together here. the british prime minister's demand for an early general election looks india's mission to the moon set to be rejected after appears to have failed — opposition parties agreed scientists lose contact with the lunar lander just before touchdown. to block it when it is put to mps on monday. they said that preventing the uk a wild week in british politics ends with opposition parties uniting leaving the eu without a deal against the prime minister's call at the end of october for an early election. is their priority. and this week the us passed a grim milestone — 10,000 people shot dead since the start of the year. now on bbc news, blind comedian

chris mccausland hosts the second the number of people killed by hurricane dorian in the bahamas could be "staggering", according to officials there. at the moment, 30 people are known to have died, but many areas remain cut off. in the last hours, dorian has made landfall over cape hatteras in north carolina in the us and has weakened to a category one storm. but the full force of the hurricane was felt in the abaco islands in the bahamas. these are the latest pictures from there. along with aid and equipment, officials are sending morticians and hundreds of body bags. 0ur correspondent aleem maqbool has been aboard the british ship rfa mounts bay, and sent this report. heading out to try to find more

survivors of the hurricane, this military helicopter is taking off from a royal fleet auxiliary ship that tracked right behind dorian as it smashed into the bahamas. last night, the helicopter discovered a group of people who'd been cut off, no communications for five days. we delivered aid first thing in the morning, this morning, to give them more food. so basically, we are sort of the emergency response, so to speak. and the military here was helping some communities, even as others close by were still feeling the brunt of the storm. well, this british ship really has been at the forefront of the international emergency relief effort following hurricane dorian. right now, it is launching a vessel loaded with heavy lifting equipment and vehicles to try to get to an area that was badly affected by the hurricane, but hasn't yet been reached at all. and they have often been the first outsiders to get to the most devastated areas. but new affected communities are still being found,

like one we headed to in the north of great abaco island. there, kirk sawyer had just left his house when dorian tore through. sheltering with a friend, debris flying around and huge waves coming in, he thought he wouldn't make it. i told my friend, i say, hey, we were friends for almost a0 years. we ride together, we're going to die together here. and not being able to tell his family outside he is alive has been tough. for them, he had a message. your uncle kirk here, he's alive, he made it through this. so i'll see you all soon. thank you all for being concerned about me. love you all. the reality is, many didn't survive. in marsh harbour, we saw more bodies being removed, and the signs are the recovery effort will go on for many days yet.

i honestly believe abaco is finished. i think abaco will not recover until the next ten years, like, fully recover, because everything is gone. absolutely everything is gone. the uk is distributing shelter and ration packs across affected communities. but even those of them who have been doing this through powerful hurricanes of recent years told us they had never seen needs as great as this. india's attempt to land a spacecraft on the moon appears to have failed. scientists lost contact with the vikram lander during the descent to the lunar surface. as bill hayton reports, the country's prime minister urged the scientists not to give up hope. glum faces at ground control. india was attempting to become the fourth country to make it to the moon, but it was not to be. everything appeared to be going well until the last few minutes. the vikram lander was as planned

and normal performance was observed up to an altitude of 2.1 kilometre. subsequently, the communications from the lander to ground station was lost. data is being analysed. the intention was to land near the moon's south pole, where no mission has gone before. it was going to be a complex mission, but if it landed successfully, it would have added to humanity's understanding of the lunar surface, the presence of water, and so on and so forth, in that part of the lunar surface. the country's prime minister was on hand to celebrate success, but ended up commiserating with the scientists. translation: i was watching and i saw that all of your faces looked disappointed. what you have achieved is not a small feat. the country is proud of you, and has learnt a lot from this hard work. despite this setback,

the other part of the mission, the lunar orbiter, remains in operation, and will continue to study the moon for about a a year. in just a few years' time, india's rockets are set to send a person into space for the first time. the air force has announced the first stage of selection is complete, but it is clear the country's space programme still has some way to go. dr ken kraymer is a research scientist and journalist with space upclose and he told us how important this moon mission is. well, it's certainly a very important mission to india. it would have been a very first lunarlanding. and it's also an important mission to humanity, as one of the people in your broadcast said, because we want to learn more about the moon. we want to get to the south pole. we want to expand what we know. because at the south pole, that's where the water is, and so that's very important for future science. how difficult was it for india to achieve what it was trying to achieve, to get this lander

to actually land on the moon? well, it's very difficult. it's not simple. more than half the probes to land on the moon have failed. the israelis tried earlier this year, and they did not succeed. the chinese tried at the beginning of this year, and they did succeed. so half of all missions have failed, so it's not a simple thing at all. but they learn a lot from trying, and one really has to applaud the indians for doing this. what makes it so difficult? because we've seen, you know, the mars rover, other, you know, contraptions land on mars, land on asteroids. why does the moon remain so difficult? well, it is fully autonomous, and even at mars, it's the same thing — less than half the missions have succeeded. the us has a really good success rate, but the other countries don't. you have to do a lot of simulations, you have to do a lot of work, in order to make this work.

you mentioned asteroids. we've got an asteroid mission there right now, 0siris—rex, and the mission want to grab a sample. they have to workjust right. they lost communication at two kilometres altitude. and they have to break the descent from 3,600 miles down to zero so they don't crash—land. they have to find a spot that is safe. you know, there's a lot of boulders all over the place, so that makes it extremely difficult, and a robot has to do it all on its own. it can't wait for any human intervention, so they have to programme a lot of corrections in there to do it all right. and it didn't work, but they do have the orbiter, and that is still continuing. it does sound really challenging, and like it sort of pushes the limits of robotics and science. on a personal level, if so many of these missions fail, what is it like emotionally for the scientists that have spent many years working on it? well, it's sad. i'm a scientist, and when my experiments fail, i'm very sad about it. but we get up and we try again,

and we make it better, and we figure out what went wrong, and we go back and we do it even better the next time. and usually it works out the next time if it doesn't work out the first time. so yes, it is disappointing. you could see it — i watched the live broadcast. they were all excited. it is just like when nasa lands, or russia or anybody, or china lands. everybody is really excited, but you don't know until that final moment if it's going to work out or not. so yes, it is an emotional rollercoaster. but you know what? that's the way this business is, and that's what makes it really exciting, and we learn a lot from these missions in the end. within the last indian prime minister timandra —— narendra modi has told scientists he was proud of the programme and said they would be further opportunities and the best was yet to come. let's get some of the day's other news. a committee in the us house of representatives is investigating vice—president mike pence‘s visit to ireland.

it's after he stayed at a trump—owned hotel 300km from dublin, where he was meeting officials. a spokesman for mr pence said they stayed at the hotel at the suggestion of president trump, something the president has denied. the economic advisor to the white house has suggested it may take many yea rs house has suggested it may take many years for the us and china to resolve their trade war. he told reporters the stakes in the dispute we re reporters the stakes in the dispute were high and it took a decade to sort out, so be it. the world's two biggest economies have been at loggerheads for more than a year. seven south american countries have signed a pact to protect the amazon river basin, the world's largest tropical forest, by co—ordinating their response to disasters. the summit in colombia was called amid global concern over the tens of thousands of fires burning there. the host, president ivan duque, said the establishment of a natural disaster network and a satellite monitoring network would help combat events like widespread fires. eight us states and the district

of columbia have launched an anti—trust investigation into facebook. it's in a bid to determine if the social media giant has stifled competition and put users at risk. the investigation wants to determine if facebook endangered consumer data, reduced the quality of consumers' choices, or increased the price of advertising. another long week in british politics is coming to an end. it's been dominated by the next steps in brexit, and attempts by the prime minister borisjohnson to call an early election. so far, those attempts have failed. 0pposition parties are united in insisting an election cannot happen until after an eu summit in mid—october. and a bill preventing the uk from leaving the eu without a deal will become law on monday — despite the prime minister pressing lawmakers to reject it. here's our deputy uk political editorjohn pienaar. much easier, this, than leading the country. borisjohnson is trying to call an election before brexit to stick

to his plan — leave on time, deal or no deal. but he has lost control, and he wants it back. we must get brexit done, and that's my message to my colleagues. let's come together, get this thing over the line, and unite our country, and then get on with defeating the labour 0pposition, you know, when they finally have the guts to have an election. you can almost smell the election coming, but he is having to wait, a spectator, as his opponents try to force him to give up on a no—deal brexit, break his promise, maybe his premiership. reporter: you keep mentioning 31 october. you've made it abundantly clear that's your line in the sand. if you can't deliver that, you're going to have to resign, aren't you? that is not a hypothesis i'm willing to contemplate. i want us to get this thing done. today in the lords, the legislation banning no—deal was sent to become

law, decreeing there would be no election until brexit is delayed. as many of that opinion will say, "content". content! to the contrary, "not content". the contents have it. 0pponents had co—ordinated their plans. we've agreed that we're not going to give the prime minister the general election he is so desperate for until an extension is secured and the risk of no—deal is completely eliminated. the prime minister is on the run. boris is broken. we have an opportunity to bring down boris, to break boris, and to bring down brexit, and we must take that. i want an election, the snp wants an election, but we will do that when we've made sure that the security of our citizens is determined. and you want to weaken borisjohnson ahead of that election by making him break his word? well, he has gone out with ridiculous promises of leaving the european union on 31 october. borisjohnson, that's not going to happen. no sight ofjeremy corbyn, though he gathered 0pposition leaders by phone.

labour's brexit policy is still a work in progress. but the party has joined the alliance that has cornered borisjohnson. and in downing street, they're searching for a plan, any plan, that will somehow help the pm regain some kind of control. he has sworn he will never seek an extension to brexit, but now a new law could force him to do just that. he won't break his word, he can't break the law. mrjohnson needs to find a way to force an election or salvage his plan to deliver brexit, maybe without reaching an eu deal first. and in there, there is no sign they have found one. reporter: are you asking for an extension, mr frost? what chance of a last—minute deal? britain's brexit negotiator, david frost, has been in brussels today. but the finnish pm, who is chairing the eu, suggested a no—deal exit could be close. it seems very obvious that we are not getting brexit with agreement.

on with the whites and off to peterhead market. campaigning keeps you busy. haggling is part of the job. £50 perfish. good god, that's an expensive fish! borisjohnson is famously upbeat, but his premiership could still end badly. stay with us on bbc news, still to come: could she be the oldest mother in history? a 73—year—old indian woman has given birth to twins. freedom itself was attacked this morning, and freedom will be defended. the united states will hunt down and punish those responsible. bishop tutu now become spiritual leader of 100,000 anglicans here, of the blacks in soweto township as well as the whites in their rich suburbs. we say to you today, in a loud and clear voice,

enough of blood and tears — enough. translation: the difficult decision we reached together was one that required great and exceptional courage. it is an exodus of up to 60,000 people, caused by the uneven pace of political change in eastern europe. lam free! this is bbc world news, the latest headlines: relief workers on great abaco in the bahamas are searching for the bodies of those killed by hurricane dorian. hundreds of people are still missing. let's have more on that story.

the number of people killed by the storm could be "staggering" according to officials there. so what outside help are people there getting? the bbc‘s david willis is in washington. well, of course, part of the bahamas is just 50 miles off the coast of florida, and the trump administration has promised help — help in the form of humanitarian assistance, help in the form of sea rch—and—rescue operations, and help in other disaster response modes. but it is going to be a tough battle, because the united nations is estimating that 70,000 people there on the northern islands that were worst affected are in urgent need of food aid. some areas there are utterly uninhabitable, and it would take months if not years to get people there back on their feet. now, the official death toll is still at 30, but officials in the bahamas say that that is expected to rise considerably. 0ne official is quoted as saying the possibility existed of what he called an unimaginable death toll.

which is certainly extraordinary, and shows such devastation. that hurricane is now over north carolina. can you tell us the situation there? yes, it has kept us guessing in the us for the last week and a half or so, but finally made landfall on the outer banks of north carolina earlier this morning, bringing with it very high winds and storm surges. now, many people there had ignored warnings to evacuate. about 250,000 people had actually been urged to evacuate. a lot of them ignored that, and as a result, hundreds are trapped, having taken to higher ground. the coastguard has actually been brought in to try to airlift people out of that area.

but this storm now headed out to sea, to the relief of many people here, and it is next expected to touch land in nova scotia, canada. a series of mass shootings in the us over the last year has put pressure on president trump and congress to change the country's gun laws. but for many communities gun violence is a daily reality. this week the us hit the grim milestone of 10,000 people shot dead so far this year. of those killed or injured by gunfire, 2,500 of them were children. from washington, chris buckler reports. the cordons and closed off streets have become too familiar. they mark the spot of the latest drive—by shooting that has left a man and woman in hospital. it happened on people's doorsteps and was just one of half a dozen shootings in washington, dc on this single evening. this is one of the cities that symbolizes this

country's problem with guns. a very huge problem that america has with guns and something does need to be done about it, because we are going to continue to keep losing people. some mass shootings here in the united states attract a huge amount of attention. but the more regular, almost routine gun violence goes ignored. this is just another night in america. the police in dc are desperate to get illegally—held weapons off the street. they have had to deal with a summer of shootings. and they know guns are being used to terrorise neighbourhoods. among the victims of the last few months of violence was karon brown, an 11—year—old who loved american football. he was apparently murdered in a territorial dispute over selling water and cookies. karon was loving, funny, everybody loves him.

he was the joy of our lives. the new football season is just beginning, but it's notjust a player missing from this team — an assistant coach of the woodland tigers was killed just days after karon, murdered in a drive—by shooting. you know one day, a player, and then the next day the coach. so it is like, just heartbreaking. every parent shares a struggle. away from the pads and helmets of the football field, how do they protect their child? our children aren't able to be children. they should be able to be free, and learn from their surroundings. but the things that's being taught

out right now in the streets is not safe for them. it is really... it is reallyjust messed up... it's ok. does it make you worried? yes. like america's debate about guns, little of this is new for the woodland tigers. 0f 19 boys who played here in 2001, 11 are dead. that's the majority of a team who would not even be close to a0 years of age. and as each evening comes, the sirens and searches are a regular reminder of the presence of guns. chris buckler, bbc news, washington. a woman in her early 70s has given birth to twin girls in the indian state of andhra pradesh. mangayamma yaramati had undergone in—vitro fertilisation, or ivf. she and her husband had first tried to have a baby nearly 60 years ago. the bbc‘s tim allman has the story. looking more than a little bemused

by all the attention, the proud father shows off his newborn children. sitarama rajarao is 82 years old, quite an age to be a first—time dad. his wife, the proud mother, is only a few years younger. she is still in hospital after undergoing a cesarean section. the couple had never been able to have children naturally, and had to use a donor egg to conceive. the first attempt she was pregnant, and that was really amazing for us. and from that time, we formed into teams, we formed three teams, one to look after her pregnancy, and one team to look after her nutritional needs, and another team to look after her general health. the new mother also means, in this case, a new grandmother as well. translation: i am very happy, and tense too. my daughter at last became a mother. we will look after the children, no problem with that. i always wanted a granddaughter,

now i have two, i am very happy. india has become a destination for so—called fertility tourism, as ivf here is relatively cheap. there are hundreds of mostly unregulated clinics that provide help, and age is really an obstacle. authorities say new laws are being considered. but highlighting the potential risks for the children of much older parents — only a day after becoming a father, sitarama rajarao suffered a stroke and is now in hospital. when asked who would look after his children, he said it was in the hands of god. a third person has died in the united states as a result of a severe lung illness that has affected hundreds of e—cigarette users, 01’ vapers. us health authorities have again urged people to stop vaping until they discover what's

causing the problem. the third death occurred in indiana, where officials say they're investigating 30 other suspected cases. more than 400 cases are being investigated across the united states in total. former south africa rugby union international and 1995 world cup winner chester williams has died at the age of 49. the former wing was the only black player in the world cup—winning team in 1995, a year after the end of apartheid. mark alexander, the president of south africa rugby says williams was "a true pioneer." before we go we want to remind you of our top story. search teams in the bahamas are searching the island of great abaco for the bodies of those killed by hurricane dorian. hundreds are missing. a relief operation is under way with us and

british involvement. lots more on that story on our website. and you can reach me on twitter. hello there. for many of us the weekend is fair, it will be mostly dry with some sunshine but there will also be a few showers. we have one or two around at the moment, north scotland, northern ireland, north wales and north—west england. if you are heading outside here, might be worth taking an umbrella with you. showers will be fleeting in nature so they won't last very long in any one place. for some of us then it will be a chilly start to the weekend, particularly across north—eastern areas, but it is a mostly dry prospect, those showers will continue for a time, northern ireland, north wales, north—west england, perhaps sneaking into the midlands. we may well see a few light showers pop up later in the day across east anglia and south—east england. but still for the vast majority it is a dry day with sunny spells — that said we have a cool northerly wind so temperatures just 13 degrees

in aberdeen, the highest temperatures towards the south—west, where 19 in cardiff and plymouth should feel pretty pleasant throughout the afternoon. saturday night is going to turn to be quite a cold night, with clear skies, light winds, temperatures will get down to about 3 celsius or so in newcastle, perhaps a few patches of frost in eastern scotland and north—east england, in the very coldest areas. so sunday does promise to be a cold start for this time of year. for most of us a lovely start today, plenty of sunshine, a bit of cloud will bubble up, but across the north—west wuite a change here for northern ireland and west scotland as a warm front moves in, that cloud will bring the threat of a bit of light, patchy drizzle for a time, quite misty around some of our western hills and coasts. temperatures coming up a bit across north—east england, so not quite as chilly but the highest temperatures further

south. monday's weather dominated by this area of low pressure, the low pressure itself is forming really across england and wales, so there is quite a degree of uncertainty exactly where the heaviest rain will be and how far east it gets. the forecast could change but the general idea is that monday is going to be quite an unsettled day for many of us, rain at times and temperatures not too impressive, highs of 14—16 degrees. that's our weather, but take a quick look now at hurricane dorian, this is the last port of call, dorian is going to make another landfall, this time in canada's nova scotia. gusts about 100mph. that's the last you'll hear of dorian, it will spin up to iceland where it will be an area of low pressure, it is not coming to the uk — but this might. this is expected to be hurricane dorian. it will turn into a normal area of low pressure, 00:28:51,123 --> 2147483051:51:10,276 but later in the week that 2147483051:51:10,276 --> 4294966103:13:29,430 could effect our weather.