welcome to bbc news, my name is mike embley, our top stories: president trump deploys hundreds more federal officers to american cities, expanding his crackdown on what he calls spiralling violent crime. my vision for america's cities could not be more different from the lawlessness being pushed by the extreme radical left. even though the us is recording more than a thousand coronavirus deaths a day, the president also insists schools must get back to normal. tensions between the world's biggest powers escalate, as the us orders china to close its consulate in houston. millions of poeple are displaced by torrential monsoon rains in india, nepaland bangladesh.

hello. president trump is sending federal agents to chicago and other american cities, to fight what he says is violent crime spiralling out of control. there's already considerable dispute and unease about the federal law enforcement officials deployed to portland, to confront protesters there. the president is acting against the wishes of local leaders, who say he's provoking a constitutional crisis. here's how the president and his attorney general explained the move. there has been a radical movement to defund, dismantle, and dissolve our police departments. we've just started this process, and frankly, we have no choice but to get involved. we have initiated this programme, operation legend, to step up the activity of our task forces, our anti—crime task forces in the hard—hit cities by committing more federal agents.

paul rosenzweig was deputy assistant secretary at the department of homeland security under george w bush. he's now senior fellow at the r street institute. hejoins us from costa rica. what do you make of what's going on? it's an unprecedented transformation of the federal government's role in crime—fighting. traditionally, the federal government enforces a limited scope of federal laws that are within its jurisdiction, banking laws, for example and tax laws or the federal environmental laws even. what the president and the attorney general and the acting secretary are doing now is essentially trying to create a broad—based federal police force that has no mission other than law and order on the streets of america's cities and that has always been the

prove na nce that has always been the provenance of state and local governments. it's a transformation, a mutation of their roles in ways that we've never seen before. but clearly the president is right, there isa the president is right, there is a spike in violent crime in some areas such is a spike in violent crime in some areas such as is a spike in violent crime in some areas such as chicago. there are also other cities such as portland where thousands of other people are protesting against the ways they are being policed. will these agents deal with these twin challenges? that is yet to be seen. so far they have dealt with them by violating the constitutional rights of american citizens. we have all seen american citizens. we have all seen the videos in portland of american citizens being swept off the street and unmarked ca i’s off the street and unmarked ca rs by off the street and unmarked cars by officers in unidentifiable uniforms for no apparent reason, and it seems without probable cause to believe that they had been involved in any criminal activity at all. perhaps that was an outlier, but thus far,

the record of the federal agents deployed to portland has been spotty at best. as you understand it, is what's happening legal, when local leaders are not in favour of it and have not requested this to happen? it's borderline. the department of homeland security was created with a number of discretionary emergency authorities but all of those authorities but all of those authorities were intended for the purpose of being able to respond to circumstances involving external threats to the united terrorist attacks or even natural disasters. this is the first time those same authorities have been turned inward, where american law enforcement officers are being deployed against american citizens who are protesting the very activities of those same law enforcement officers. it's possible that some of those activities are within letter of the law. certain that none of

them are within the spirit of them are within the spirit of the law or the intent and the creation of dhs. at his latest coronavirus briefing in the last few hours, donald trump reiterated that he wants schools in the united states to reopen, adding that he would be comfortable with his son, barron, and grandchildren attending them. as the figures continue to spike in southern and western states, the president urged young people to avoid packed bars and to take other steps to limit the spread of the virus. here's our north america editor, jon sopel. dance music. after months of lockdown, it's perhaps not surprising they are partying like it's 2019. but in florida, night—time curfews have had to be reintroduced because coronavirus is ripping through the state. last week, there were more new cases in this one state per day than there were in the whole of the european union. and the health system is buckling. it's the same story in texas. in the past couple of weeks,

hospitals have been overwhelmed by the rising number of new cases and it's taking a toll on those on the front line. we are trying our best to keep everybody healthy and alive. and when it's out of our hands, it's out of our control, we sometimes feel helpless. how do you deal with that? we cry. we talk to each other. we embrace each other and try to be the best that we can. as cases in the us have soared, so donald trump's poll ratings have slumped, and, belatedly, he's extolling the virtues of mask wearing. and last night he gave a sombre briefing about the state of play. it will probably, unfortunately, get worse before it gets better. something i don't like saying about things, but that's the way it is. it's the way... it's what we have. you look over the world, it's all over the world. but much of the rest of the world would argue

with this assessment. let's look at daily new cases in germany, italy and the uk and compare those to the us. germany eased its lockdown in late april, followed by italy in early may and the uk in mid—june. what they have in common is all three countries were well below a recommended benchmark of fewer than four daily new cases per 100,000 residents. the us saw a slight decline in case numbers but wasn't even close to that benchmark when the first states let their lockdown expire on april 30th. nor by may 15th, when half of americans lived in states which had eased restrictions. and by may 31st, 47 states — representing 90% of the population — had lifted lockdowns. one area where the president has claimed huge success is over testing. but testing's only effective if it's matched by contact tracing. and many americans are waiting so long for their results that it makes contact tracing

virtually impossible. let's get some of the day's other news. brazil has registered a record number of new coronavirus cases — more than 67,000 in the past 2a hours. the health ministry says almost 1,300 deaths were reported in that period. brazil has the second—worst outbreak after the united states with more than 2,200,000 infections. indigenous groups are increasingly among the worst affected. the united nations is warning that millions of people in yemen, already ravaged by war, disease, floods and locusts, do not have enough to eat. a report by two un agencies says the number facing acute food insecurity in parts of yemen will rise to more than three million by the end of 2020. china has evacuated thousands of residents in hubei province after some of the heaviest rainfall in decades triggered a landslide. it blocked part of the yangtze river, creating a lake that threatens to submerge several villages.

officials say they're monitoring the giant three gorges dam, which has been storing huge amounts of water to help ease downstream flooding risks. in the latest escalation of diplomatic tensions, the trump administration has ordered china to close its consulate in houston. the state department says it's acting to protect intellectual property and private information. firefighters were called after reports of documents being burned in the courtyard, but it seems they were not allowed in. this is the explanation the us secretary of state, mike pompeo, gave for closing the consulate. we are setting out clear expectations for how the chinese communist party is going to behave, and when they don't, we're going to take actions that protect the american people, protect our security, our national security and also protect our economy and jobs. that is the actions that you are seeing taken by president trump, we will continue to engage with those. that's the official american line. here's the reaction from the chinese foreign ministry. translation: china strongly condemns this outrageous and unjustified move to sabotage china—us relations.

china urges the us to immediately withdraw its wrong decision or china will definitely take a proper and necessary response. rush doshi is director of the china strategy initiative at the washington think tank, the brookings institution. he says so many questions concerning the us governments decision remain unanswered. the events today are a considerable surprise. there was no indication that was coming, nobody really expected it to happen. the trump administration has been pretty clear that the consulate was closed because it was involved in intelligence gathering efforts in the oil and medical industries, and as you mentioned, efforts to target private information of us individuals but we don't have a lot of information on specifically what the consulate was doing and why the trump administration took this step now. i think there are at least two things that are pretty clear and the first is that china is almost certainly going to retaliate. it is likely that they will close a us consulate in china, possibly even a higher—value us consulate so that they can

respond more asymmetrically. the second is that this closure is really a symptom of a broader us—china deterioration. history is rhyming in a very interesting way right now. a0 years ago, houston was at the centre of a bright new chapter in us—china relations. china's leader at the time, in 1979, deng xiaoping, came to the city and while in texas he put on a ten gallon cowboy hat and endeared himself to the american people. at that point houston marked the opening a new chapter in us—china relations, right now it looks like it is marking a closure of that chapter. and i think this is reallyjust the latest event in a downward spiral in bilateral ties and things are likely going to continue to deteriorate. yes, i was going to ask you, how significant you think this was and how much is diplomatic posturing. how bad do you think this could get? i think this is just the latest in a long list of manoeuvres that both countries have undertaken that are driving the relationship to new lows, but i think it's worth noting that this downward spiral is really nothing new. in many ways it has been going on for the last few years and there are really maybe two broad reasons for it. the first one, i'd say,

is that the gap between the us and china with respect to power is shrinking. china is now two—thirds of the us economy by some metrics, by other metrics it has a larger economy. china has been modernising its military, it is catching up technologically, it has this world—spanning belt and road. it's basically a superpower rival. and then there's the second factor which is equally important and that is that the ideological gap is growing between the us and china. china is clearly becoming more authoritarian and that's unsettling to the united states and the broader west. that is also causing relations to deteriorate and on top of all that, you throw covid—19, that's the accelera nt, on deteriorating ties, so things are likely going to get much worse. this is only one of many ways in which they are going to get worse. we will see probably additional steps taken in technology, and other areas in the months to come. and if they get seriously worse between these two huge economies, there will be knock—on effects, won't there? for industry, third parties and the wider world? that's absolutely right. this isn'tjust a matter of tension, what we are witnessing

is really something more, and aside from covid—19, the us—china divorce that is happening now, you could say it's the biggest geopolitical event in many ways since 9/11, maybe even since the end of the cold war, and the reason i say that is precisely what you just mentioned, it is going to reshape everything. the competition is going to be in technology, supply chains, finance, over who has the best system. it's going to affect universities, students, it's going to affect most facets of globalisation. we are really witnessing the dawn of a paradigm that is emerging day by day and for the united states and for china, managing this competition while securing their own interests, that is going to be the task of the next several years. stay with us on bbc news. still to come: a mystery for medics all around the world. why have lockdowns led to fewer babies being born prematurely?

nasa: can see you coming down the ladder now. it's one small step for man... one giant leap for mankind. a catastrophic engine fire is being blamed tonight for the first crash in the 30—year history of concorde, the world's only supersonic airliner. it was one of the most vivid symbols of the violence and hatred that tore apart the state of yugoslavia. but now, a decade later, it's been painstakingly rebuilt and opens again today. there's been a 50% decrease in sperm quantity and an increase in malfunctioning sperm unable to swim properly. seven, six, five, four... thousands of households across the country are suspiciously quiet this lunchtime as children bury their noses in the final instalment of harry potter.

this is bbc news. the latest headlines: president trump sends more federal agents to chicago and other cities to tackle what he calls spiralling violent crime. tensions between the world's biggest powers escalate as the us orders china to close its consulate in houston. from ireland to australia, many hospitals are reporting that far fewer premature babies are being born during the coronavirus pandemic. nature magazine is reporting that during denmark's lockdown, the birth rate of extremely premature infants decreased by 90% compared with the stable rate in the preceding five years. more research is needed, but doctors hope that the answers could help to reduce the risk of being born too early. joining me now from nashville in the us is dr stephen patrick. he's director

of child health policy at the vanderbilt university school of medicine. very university school of medicine. good to talk to you. do very good to talk to you. what do you think is going on here? is it do you think is going on here? isita do you think is going on here? is it a natural variation, something more widespread or significant? we don't yet know. it is something we need to look into because implications are quite large. at our in march we know the increase of our babies in the unit day today, i began to reach out to colleagues to see if they were seeing something. some, yes. some no. we need to know more about what has happened, be sure about it and investigate some of the potential underlying causes. we should stress here that being born premature is notjust being born premature. it can have lifelong implications. that is right. about one in ten babies in the united states are born preterm. it has immediate implications, a leading cause of mortality. they are at risk

of mortality. they are at risk of having developmental issues, movement and breathing issues long—term. it has lots of implications as well as for long—term outcomes. implications as well as for long-term outcomes. if this turns out to be a thing, if conditions surrounding lockdown have an impact, what might that tell you? we need to understand why. first, is a real phenomena? and if so, what led to it? that is what is most exciting. are there ways we can develop systems to support families better that may provide some insight into how we can prevent preterm birth? we need to dig through mechanisms that may have caused this, if it really was a rogue phenomena so we can prevent preterm birth worldwide. as you say, much more research is needed. but what you hear at the moment, what do you think? i think we will did deeper into this. we have a couple of things right now, looking to see if what we saw was because of preterm birth i was just natural variation is set at

beginning. we need to understand first what —— was as real, and if so, what led to it. we can begin to look at some of the reasons preterm birth and things like that. we need to make sure they were not adverse consequences, things like stillbirth and injury. we need to be cautious, take a holistic look at this. very briefly, what is your hunch? my hunch being in the unit is that there is something to it, but asa there is something to it, but as a researcher, i know to trust my hunch a little bit because it leads to important questions. but we have to follow the data. understood. thank you so much. thank you for having me. floods triggered by torrential monsoon rains have displaced millions of people in india, nepal and bangladesh and caused widespread damage. the floods are described as the worst in the area in years, have killed over 300 people in the past few weeks. forecasters are warning of more rains in some parts of the region, already battling to contain the outbreak

of the coronavirus. anbarasan ethirajan reports. nothing can stand in the way of the mighty brahmaputra — the river has burst its banks in several places in the north—eastern indian state of assam. the result — vast areas are submerged and millions have been affected. floods are an annual event here, but this year, the impact has been devastating. living conditions are basic and the people have lost most of their belongings. translation: the situation is very bad here. everything has been damaged. our houses have been ruined, the cattle are dying and we are facing difficulty getting food. tens of thousands of people have been moved to safety. the challenge is to provide them with essentials, as many roads have been cut off by the floods. the region is already grappling with the

coronavirus. both the displaced and rescuers are at risk. we are facing the dual challenge of covid and floods at this time, and we have to take all the precautions. let us not forget that india personnel also have to protect ourselves before they protect others, and in the process, some of them may have been infected. many have reluctantly come to these shelters, fearing for the safety of their household items and cattle. the floods have also inundated vast areas of the world —famous kaziranga nature reserve, home to the world's largest population of one—horned rhinos. as their habitats are submerged, the animals rush to higher grounds. at least nine rhinos have died so far, along with hundreds of deer and wild buffalos. further downstream in neighbouring bangladesh, officials say almost one—third of the country is underwater. the heavy rains have swollen both the brahmaputra and the ganges. some say these are

the worst floods in a decade and they are praying for a respite. in nepal, landslides have caused havoc in the mountainous regions. more than 120 people have been killed in landslides alone in recent weeks, and dozens are still missing. all this happening when the economies of the region have been crippled by the coronavirus lockdowns, adding to the despair of millions of people in this region. anbarasan ethirajan, bbc news. around this time five years ago atv around this time five years ago a tv celebrity raised laughs around the world when he announced he wanted to run for the white house. fast forward to now, and kanye west, better known of course as a hugely successful musician, producer and entrepreneur, fancies his chances of taking over from president donald trump. a chaotic campaign rally at the weekend drew quite a lot more criticism than support. and it's prompted his wife, kim kardashian, to make a public appeal

for compassion for him. she confirmed he has bipolar disorder, but says the family can do nothing, legally, to help. josef sorett is professor of religion and african american studies at columbia university. i asked him what he makes about all of this. to be honest, talking about kanye west at this particular moment feels like a distraction of sorts, right, whether it is in the context of the presidential contest between donald trump and joe biden, or in thinking about the american political landscape more generally in this moment. we think of the death of civil rights leaders in recent days — ct vivian and john lewis. we think of the sustained protests in response to the killing ofjohn floyd, breonna taylor and several others. we think of the president's most recent threatening and calling in of federal agents to intervene in everything, from what looks like gang violence on one hand, to organised uprisings and protests on the other. and yet here we are, we find ourselves talking about kanye's presidential bid,

and it is a storyline that feels now much more like we're peering into a set of personal challenges and most recently, as you noted in your lead—in, a marital dispute. and that being said, i think still there is so much as it relates to larger questions of religion, politics and music in this particular moment that ka nye's long history, now 2—decade history as a producer and artist, and now, in some ways, as a celebrity music star and potential candidate, there is still so much that is interesting and that it helps us to think about. so what do you think is the bigger picture here? i mean, there's always a conspiracy theory. the conspiracy theory is that it is kind of a put—upjob, that he is being encouraged to run for the presidency by some in the trump campaign to try to take black votes from joe biden. there are issues with that, of course. i think a lot of kanye's supporters in fact are white and, if you are after the black vote, it is a pretty odd way to do it to go on stage and dis harriet tubman, for starters.

certainly, right. i think at the end of the day, what is significant to note in this right state, which has always been central to american politics and has been central to sort of mobilising of black electoral vote that ka nye did in fact not end up getting in the ballot and i think that being said, his effort to negotiate on one hand the sort of evangelical base that he seems to have increasingly moved toward, which is not exclusively, but largely white, and his own sort of relationship to trump, although he has now tried to distance herself from him, on one hand — we see this part of kanye, but then we think about the larger legacy of kanye's home in chicago, this large black base, the place from which obama lodged his candidacy. we think of kanye's own rootedness in black musical traditions. on one hand, there's the sort of anti—black evangelicalism, but also his own sort of tie to a history to black musical and cultural expression. and i think when it comes to him thinking through these two trajectories in

public, it ends up very confusing. we might be back to that story. they trace the logo before the jet continued journey over the pacific. watching from the ground might not have been obvious, but the twists and turns would look pretty strange. as you can see, it could be clearly seen online on flight could be clearly seen online on flight tracker websites. finally, fans of the liverpool have finally seen their team presented with a trophy. no fa ns were presented with a trophy. no fans were allowed inside the stadium. the club built a stage and hundreds gathered outside the stadium and around the city to watch on tv. police had warned fans not to gather outside the stadium. some perhaps not surprisingly ignore

that advice. that is it for now. thank you so much for watching. hello there. cloud is thickening up once again from the atlantic. it's set to bring some more rain mainly for the middle third of the uk. some areas stayed cloudy and damp throughout the day on wednesday and, as a result, it was quite cool, as well. we had a temperature of 26 degrees in london, but the sunniest weather, that was in bournemouth — almost 1a hours of sunshine. probably not as much sunshine, though, for thursday. it will be quite a cloudy start to the day with temperatures around 12—14 degrees. and we start with some outbreaks of rain mainly across northern ireland, southern scotland, northern england and wales. that's going to be quite heavy for a while. it will gradually turning lighter and more patchy through the day. we get some sunshine more widely across scotland and northern ireland

and towards the south—east. perhaps even into the midlands, it may well stay dry, but there'll be more clouds around, so it won't be quite as warm — still 23 or 2a degrees. we are looking at some showers to come into the south—west of england, still damp into wales, some more rain across northern england, so quite a cool day here, although the far north of england improving later on. we'll have some sunshine in the afternoon across northern ireland and more widely in scotland, so a warmer day here, 19 or 20 degrees. but still some rather sharp showers in the north—east and up towards the northern isles. those will tend to ease off a bit during the evening. this light and patchy rain by this stage heading down towards the midlands, eventually later on in the night towards the south—east of england. the weather front bringing that is going to be very weak, and as we move into friday, we are in between two wet weather systems — a transient ridge of high pressure before that weather front increases the cloud and brings some rain in from the atlantic. but many places will have a dry day on friday. could be a fair bit of cloud, particularly across southern parts of england and south wales, the odd shower here. one or two showers further north, perhaps into north—east england and scotland. then we get later on in the day

some rain pushing in from the west across northern ireland. ahead of that, 20 degrees through the central belt of scotland, and we're back up to 25 in the south—east of england. as we head into the weekend, we're dominated by low pressure sitting close to the north of the uk. that weather front will tend to move through, taking some heavy rain away, and then it's showers following on behind. certainly looks like saturday is going to be the wetter day, and those showers could be heavy and thundery. a much drier day on sunday for eastern parts of england with the bulk of the showers in the north and the west of the uk.

this is bbc news. the headlines: president trump is sending hundreds of federal law enforcement officers to fight what he calls rising violent crime in american cities. he said he had no choice but to act, following anti—racism protests. 200 federal agents have already been deployed to kansas city, a similar number will be sent to chicago. china has reacted angrily to the us ordering the closure of its consulate in houston. beijing has threatened to retaliate saying it was a political provocation that would jeopardise relations. the americans said china was using the consulate as a centre for its spying operations in the us. brazil's diagnosed a record number of people with coronavirus, more than 67,000 in the past 2a hours. figures show almost 1,300 deaths were reported in that period. the country has the world's worst outbreak after the us.