this is bbc news. i'm tim willcox with the latest headlines for viewers in the uk and around the world. none unconventional virtual convention for the us democratic party. joe biden is just hours from being formally nominated as the party pots a presidential candidate. a major u—turn across the uk on dealing with the impact of coronavirus on school exams. pupils will no longer have results decided by an algorithm. opposition protesters in belarus have held a ninth night of protests against president alexander lu kashenko, whose re—election has been widely condemned as fraudulent. and brazil's vice president has defended its handling of the coronavirus pandemic despite being the worst hit country outside of the us.

hello and welcome to bbc news. the democratic party in the us is about to begin its convention, the glossy event that's designed to drum up support forjoe biden and formally nominate him as the party's candidate. but this year the four—day jamboree will take place almost entirely online due to the pandemic. it will be based in wisconsin, a key swing state, but instead of the usual roaring crowds, speeches will be delivered remotely by video link. highlighting the absence of mr biden from wisconsin, president trump is visiting the state in person today. and at a rally in neighbouring minnesota, he launched a direct attack on mr biden

and democrats. joe biden is the puppet of left—wing extremists trying to erase our borders, eliminate our police, indoctrinate our children, vilify our heroes, take away our energy — you know all about that. take away our energy if you can believe it. no fossilfuel. destroy our second amendment, attack the right to life, and replace american freedom with left—wing fascism. left—wing, we're going left—wing all the way. fascists, they are fascists. some of them, not all of them but some of them, but they're getting closer and closer — we have to win this election. our correspondent laura trevalyan is in wilmington, delaware for the convention — she gave me the latest from outside the chase center a short time ago. the theme of tonight is we the people and the idea is that democrats are trying to showcase the breath and the depth of what they say isjoe biden‘s support notjust

within the democratic party but across america. so as well as senator bernie sanders who is one of the keynote speakers who wasjoe biden‘s rival for the democratic presidential nomination, you're going to have the former republican governor of ohio john kasich who will be speaking. you're going to have many of america's governors. very diverse slate of candidates. and then the celebrity blockbuster of the night is michelle obama and her speech we are told is going to be aboutjoe biden‘s integrity, about his character, and about how well she knows him as a unifying candidate. all of this is supposed to be the opposite of donald trump and what democrats say are his politics of division. how much excitement can they conjure up without having a big conference centre like the one behind you filled with 50,000 people? it is a very good question. both kamala harris the vice presidential nominee and joe biden will speak from this convention centre

behind me but i can tell you the atmosphere at the moment is flat. what democrats are hoping through tight programming of just two hours which is a mix of live and taped programming of people from all over the country that they can use this opportunity to push their message, and they say there are three crises facing america. the coronavirus pandemic, the economic collapse as a result of that, and racial injustice. and those themes they are going to hammer on and say that donald trump is not the man to lead america through this moment. and we are told joe biden will make many surprise appearances this week as well as on thursday when he officially accepts the nomination so i think you can expect to seejoe biden tonight in some form. laura trevalyan. we will be going back to that virtual convention, two g, m, t. virtual convention, two g, m, t, we will be picking up michelle obama which is going to be recorded from martha's

vineyard. now, let's turn to the uk, and the impact of the pandemic on young people's education. in a huge policy reversal, affecting hundreds of thousands of pupils, england, wales, and northern ireland have all announced that a—level and gsce results will now be based on teacher assessments — rather than grades generated by computer modelling. the education secretary gavin williamson, who last week said the system was robust and fair, apologised for the distress caused. 0ur education editor branwenjeffreys has more. i'm steph, i was predicted a* and two as by my teachers and i was given a*, b, b on results day. steph has lost a place at cambridge, first from her family in birkenhead to go to uni. this morning, she told me teacher grades should stand. and we have to work extra hard for where we are and we still haven't got anything out of it. i know obviously my grades are still very good, but i've still missed out

on brilliant opportunities. out of anyone in this, we should just be trusting the teachers. now, five days after a—level results, teacher estimates will replace lower grades. a change made, only after huge pressure. an apology finally to students from the regulator. i'd like to say sorry, we have recognised the difficulty that young people have faced coping with the receipts of grades that they were unable to understand the basis on which they had been awarded. and i would like to say sorry for that and we are now taking steps to put that right. universities had closed some courses, they'd been told not to offer to too many. now the limit on places in england, lifted. incredibly sorry for all those students who have been through this and we are removing those

caps on every single university in the united kingdom, so they have the ability to expand the number of places welcoming more students into those universities, as many as possible. the next political challenge, school returns. but not before this row plays out. this problem has been there for months and the government hasn't sorted it out. it then came to the wrong decision last week, refused to change its mind until today and now there's a huge amount of unravelling that's got to be done. but don't underestimate the distress and anger that this has caused thousands of young people who have seen their futures all over the place over the last few days. the turmoil isn't over yet, sixth form colleges like this have to decide this week who to let in to do difficulty levels like sciences, when many students might end up with similar gcse results. —— to do difficult a levels. and for universities, difficult decisions too. how many more students can they admit, while at the same

time, keeping their campuses covid secure? steph has accepted a place at another university. changes today, too late to get her to cambridge. other students now weighing up their options. branwen jeffreys. 0pposition protesters in belarus have been on the streets again calling on the president, alexander lukashenko, to go. they've dismissed his offer of a constitutional referendum — followed by a possible fresh election — as a ploy. earlier in the day, mr lukashenko addressed a group of workers in the capital minsk, from where our correspondent, jonah fisher reports. car horns toot this was the day the workers turned on alexander lukashenko. thousands downing tools and marching to a tractor factory. while the strikers rallied outside, belarus's beleaguered

president arrived by helicopter to address those who'd stayed at work. he was no doubt hoping for a friendly crowd. what he got was a public relations disaster. outside the plant was maria kalesnikava, pretty much the only opposition leader who hasn't been arrested or fled the country. translation: for 26 years the authorities have humiliated us. thank you for not being afraid. we are not the little people, we are the nation. are you worried about your own safety?

no, i'm not worried. i feel very safe here with my people in belarus. what is your message to the international community as they watch what is happening here? we are very thankful for the support of belarus and, please, only with love and dialogue we can change our lives and our countries. another sign of the president's weakening grip on power came on state tv, where programming was disrupted this morning. 0utside, striking employees chanted "tell the truth". for the last week government—controlled media has almost entirely avoided the demonstrations and the torture of activists. the momentum is certainly with the protesters, who seem to grow in confidence with every passing day. it's very hard to see any way back from this politically for the president.

the last few days have shown belarussians willing to take to the streets and to stand up against him. that surely can't be reversed. the big question now is more when and how he goes and whether it happens peacefully. jonah fisher, bbc news, minsk. but is change inevitable at this point in belarus? ales cajcyc is not so optimistic about the future. he is the information secretary of the main bela russian emigre body, the rada council. the protest situation now in belarus is unprecedented in terms of the scale of protests and really what it looks like the chances of them finally to succeed. but we've been through similar situations in 2006, in 2001, in 2010 when there was an illusion that victory of democracy was very close. but in the end, he finally found a way out, meaning lukashenko.

is there any sign that the army or police are deserting him? the signs are very weak at this moment but there are individual officers, individual soldiers who resigned and who publicly resigned who have declared their discontent with the police and their disagreements with the unprecedented police brutality, absolutely many evil police brutality that we have seen last week. there are signs of that but not yet an avalanche so to say. what about the relationship with russia? because that has been problematic and troubled for some time. it was only one year ago since putin acknowledged him at an official function. when or why would russia step in? —— since president putin barely acknowledged him. russia would probably

have the temptation to step in if there was clear anti—russian sentiment in the protests but the special thing about the protests here and the crucial difference between the protests in belarus and the protests in ukraine in 2014—15, the protests now do not have any geopolitical conflicts whatsoever. they are not pro—russian or anti—russian, they are completely pro—democracy, pro—rule of law, pro—truth. if russia were to step in, they would probably become the target of the people's anger instead of lukashenko so it would be completely irrational from russia to do anything from my point of view. ales cajcyc there. stay with us on bbc news, still to come — we'll find out what young democrats make of their presidential candidate — the oldest man to run for thejob.

washington, the world's most political city, is today assessing the political health of the world's most powerful man. indeed, i did have a relationship with ms lewinsky that was not appropriate. in fact, it was wrong. in south africa, 97 people have been killed today in one of the worst days of violence between rival black groups. over the last ten days, 500 have died. chanting: czechoslovakia must be free! czechoslovakia must be free! russia is observing a national day of mourning for the 118 sub mariners who died on board the kursk. we are all with them now. they're within our hearts. the pope has celebrated mass before a congregation of more than 2.5 million people in his hometown of krakow. "stay with us, stay with us" chanted this ocean of humanity. "well, well," joked the pope. "so, you want me to desert rome? "

this is bbc news, the latest headlines... preparing to anointjoe biden, us democrats begin their unconventional convention, as the coronavirus forces the event to go online. the uk government makes a u—turn on exam results, pupils will now get the grades given to them by their school or college. across the world the number of new coronavirus infections continues to soar. the worst affected countries, including the united states and india, have registered many tens of thousands of deaths. in europe, a rise in infections in some countries has raised concerns that more holiday destinations could be added to the quarantine list imposed by the uk. with a look at the global picture, here's our medical editor fergus walsh.

there are now more than 21 million confirmed coronavirus cases around the world, and that figure is rising by more than a quarter of a million new cases every day. the global death toll now exceeds three quarters of a million. in the past 2a hours, the world health organization recorded nearly 6,000 deaths linked to covid—19, a grim statistic, and yet it is less than a quarter of the daily deaths globally from cancer. worldwide, nearly10 million people a year die from cancer. the number of new covid—19 infections in the four worst affected countries, the us, brazil, mexico and india, is trending upwards and the death toll is rising too — more than 170,000 in the us and more than 50,000 in india. there are vast numbers of new covid—19 cases per day, but death rates are not

going up at quite the same rate. we do now have several months of clinical knowledge to fall back on. we do have some treatments that we know work and that is useful for patient management. as we head towards the winter, we do have the threat of a large—scale influenza outbreak, so a health service trying to cope with flu and covid—19 at the same time, that could be devastating. in the southern hemisphere, well into its winter, there have been spikes in cases in new zealand and australia. new zealand's general election has been postponed by a month and its largest city, auckland, remains in lockdown. while australia, where a second wave began in melbourne injune, has witnessed its deadliest day yet with 25 deaths. so what about europe and the quarantine measures imposed by the uk? well, if you're coming to britain from any of the countries highlighted in red, you must self—isolate for 1h days. france, the netherlands and malta were added to a list at the weekend that already included spain and belgium.

there are concerns that other holiday destinations may be added to the quarantine list. croatia, greece and turkey have all seen a recent spike in cases. downing street said protecting public health remained the main priority. the quarantine list will be updated later this week. fergus walsh, bbc news. brazil is the worst—hit country from covid—19 outside of the us — more than 100,000 people have died and it has nearly 3.5 million cases. with a government accused of not doing enough to curb the number of deaths, the country's vice—president has defended its handling of the pandemic — as well as it's management of this year's fires in the amazon that have now started to burn — with many environmentalists fearing they could be worse than last year. our south america correspondent katy watson spoke to brazil's vice president hamilton mourao.

of course we regret the deaths of more than 100,000 brazilians, ok? but the federal government and the state government, they did everything that we could. we were successful in adapting the curve of the pandemic to the capacity of our public hospitals because, in the beginning, everybody was afraid of this, that we would have people dying in the halls of our hospitals — and this did not happen, ok? and also, we had a lot of measures to mitigate the economic and social problems. i think we are doing a good job. jair bolsonaro has made it clear on how he has felt about social distancing, he's pushed back on the wearing of facemasks. he himself has had it, so has the first lady. a lot of people feel that perhaps the leadership doesn't care. they have to understand

the nature of brazilian people. brazilian people are not a very disciplined one, ok? so, it is impossible to plop down and say, "ok, you have to do this, you have to do that." even governments, local governments, and the mayors of the main cities — they have a lot of difficulties to keep people in their homes. we have a lot of sha ntytowns in our main towns, so it's not easy to keep a social distance. so these inequalities make the fight very difficult in the way that, for instance, the people in europe did against the pandemic. fires are burning in the amazon. last week, bolsonaro branded them "a lie". despite a ban on fires, they are still burning. how can the government deny they are happening? well, we don't deny what's happening at any moment. one thing must be very sure and very clear — that the forest is not burning.

there is one part of the legal amazon where people are established. jair bolsonaro called it a lie, you know, he said that. and there is a ban on fires at the moment, and there are fires happening. that land that is, as you talk about being humanised, used to be forest. i mean, this government does not have a good record of protecting the amazon. we are monitoring this very closely. in this month of august, when the fires really are starting to grow more, we will be fully trying to stop these fires going higher than last year. you said in the past that you didn't want brazil to be labelled by the rest of the world as an "environmental villain," but many people in the world do see brazil's government acting like that. people say that we are a villain because of

the de—forestation that happened in the amazon area, over the fires. but we have very clean energy metrics, ok? we don't burn coal or oil, ok? so we are not the villains in this. but we know that it is our responsibility to enforce the law and make people obey. we understand this, and we are going to do this. hamilton maurao speaking there. what could be the highest temperature ever recorded on earth? 54.1; celsius — or 129.9 fahrenheit — may have been reached in death valley, california on sunday. it came amid a heatwave on the us west coast, where temperatures are forecast to rise further this week. the scorching heat has fuelled dozens of dangerous

wildfires there. an eyewitness captured these images, of a smoke funnel near a raging wildfire in lassen county, northern california. on saturday weather agencies issued a rare "fire tornado" alert, as the blaze generated its own storm cloud. now, returning to tonight's kick—off for the democratic national convention. this whole process started with upwards of two dozen presidential candidates. now it's down tojustjoe biden. but is he the right person to unite the party? what do the younger generation think? joe biden is... the best option that we have. an incredible american. really the only shot we have of restoring humanity to the white house. a liberal in the image of a moderate. a listener. empathetic. essential to save oui’ democracy. joe biden is a moderate continuation of the status quo. the last resort... but he's not a horrible last resort. in the united states, young people under the age

of 35 make up a third of the country's electorate. this demographic turned out to vote in record numbers in the 2018 midterms — nearly doubling the young voters who went to the polls in 2014. we don't know yet if that'll be the case in the 2020 general election, but we do know that young people are likely to lean democrat. hi, how are you? so we talked to a dozen young democratic voters from all across the country to ask what they think of their party's nominee. joe biden was not the favourite for a lot of young people. joe biden was not my number one choice. i don't think he has that certain je ne sais quoi that i would want in a president. but since winning the nomination, he's done something that i did not expect — he has reached out to the more liberal wing of the democratic party and really brought in staffers from other campaigns to advise him on policy. ifjoe biden is elected,

what should he do on day one of his presidency? 0h... that's a really good question. i think he should arrest donald trump, but i don't think that'll be possible. definitely going back into the paris climate agreement. try to rejoin the world health organization. to overturn the muslim ban that impacts people like myself, as a muslim. community investment into the black community. if he's so confident that he has the african american vote, then he needs to be able to provide for african—americans in office. we are in the middle of a pandemic. i think everybody's asking, "what's next on health care?" many of us will lose our health insurance once we age out of being able to be on our parents' health insurance. joe biden will be able to get us back to a point where not everything is horrible. i want the terror that's been caused by this current administration to end. he has good intentions and wants to help people — which is more than can be said for our current president. sometimes that's enough.

and more coverage of the democratic convention coming up in the hello there. monday was another day of impressive cloudscapes across the uk but big lumpy clouds like these tend to produce intense downpours and thunderstorms, and that is exactly what we saw. this is the radar picture. it shows that those showers and storms look quite extensive across england and wales. some of them were heavy enough to give some localised flooding but equally a few spots fell between the showers and stayed completely dry. and tuesday is going to be a similar sort of day. some slightly more persistent rain though across north wales and northern england for a time and generally quite a cloudy start across the north of the uk. for scotland, the skies should brighten. we'll see some sunshine but a scattering of heavy showers into the afternoon, these could give some localised flooding. not quite as many showers further south at this stage through the midlands, wales, east anglia, towards the south of england.

but again where they do show up, they are likely to be heavy and thundery. top temperatures between 18—23 celsius. now, most of the showers will fade during tuesday evening but into the early hours of wednesday, rain will swing its way in from the south west and this signals the start of a very unsettled spell of weather. in fact, this is more of an autumnal weather chart than one you'd expect to see during the summer. low pressure firmly in charge. that's going to bring some outbreaks of rain at times through the middle part of the week. but also, some very, very strong winds — unusually strong winds for this time of year and that could cause some disruption. now on wednesday, it's likely we'll see outbreaks of rain drifting northwards across much of england and wales, into northern ireland and perhaps southern scotland by the end of the afternoon but the winds will be picking up all the while from the south west. gusts of a0 mph or more for exposed coasts here. temperatures on wednesday, well, no great shakes for the time of year. 18—22 celsius.

now, it stays unsettled and very windy as you move out of wednesday into thursday. low pressure still firmly in charge, various frontal systems swinging around the low and quite a few white lines, isobars, on the chart. that shows that it will be windy. these are the wind gusts we can expect. it will be windy for all parts of the uk but particularly for western coasts where wind gusts are likely to get to 40—50 mph. pretty unusual for this time of year.

this is bbc news,

the headlines... in the united states, the democratic party convention will start later in wisconsin. delegates will confirm joe biden as the man to challenge donald trump in november's election. but coronavirus restrictions mean the four—day event will take place almost entirely online, with joe biden giving his acceptance speech from his home—state of delaware. in a major reversal, students across the united kingdom will now get the grade given them by their school or college. there was an uproar after 40% of a—level results were downgraded by the exams regulator, which used a formula based on schools' prior grades. opposition protesters in belarus have held a ninth night of protests against the president alexander lu kashenko, saying his re—election was fraudulent.