this is bbc news with the latest headlines for viewers in the uk and around the world. a german air—ambulance carrying russian opposition leader alexei navalny has taken off from russia's omsk airport. it is heading to berlin where he's to receive treatment there after falling into a coma. lightning strikes spark several hundred more wildfires in california including some of the biggest ever seen in the state. protestors in belarus form a human chain across the capital, as the opposition leader tells the bbc the campaign against the president goes on. just we have no right to step back now because... ..if not not, we'll be slaves.

the world health organisation says the pandemic could be over in two years — could volunteers choosing to get infected play a part. hello and welcome to bbc news — i'm aaron safir. we start in russia where an hour ago a german air ambulance carrying russian opposition leader alexei navalny took off from siberia's omsk airport. it is heading to berlin where he will undergo tests. his supporters say he was intentionally poisoned — and they've accused the kremlin of trying to cover it up. gail maclellan reports. finally, alexei navalny leaves the hospital in siberia. his

family spent all day arguing he should be allowed to leave for treatment. he collapsed on a flight treatment. he collapsed on a flight to moscow. his russian doctor suggests there could be an innocent explanation. not poisoned, but low blood sugar, perhaps? but his family wanted him moved abroad, away from a siberian hospital that was bristling with plainclothed security. crooks and thieves, thatis security. crooks and thieves, that is what he calls those in power. alexei navalny is russia's loudest voice of opposition and his forensic anti—corruption opposition and his forensic anti—corru ption investigations are hated by those they target. so his family are not taking any chances. when the medics from the german air ambulance we re from the german air ambulance were allowed to see him, they judged him stable enough to leave, so the russian team was forced into a u—turn, earning

themselves a round of relieved applause. applause alexei navalny remains critically ill. he is still unconscious in an induced coma. but as the plane heads to berlin, his family hope a foreign clinic can give them some more clear answers. in california, lightning strikes over the past 2a hours have ignited several hundred more wildfires, including some of the biggest ever seen in the state. six people have died and at least 175,000 residents have now been forced to flee their homes. the coronavirus pandemic is complicating efforts to fight the wildfires. sophie long has more from los angeles. vast infernos blaze throughout northern california, claiming at least five lives, destroying hundreds of buildings and an area bigger than los angeles. copy, we're going in now. satellite images show the smoke cloaking most of california

creating the worst air quality on the planet at a time when people are fighting a respiratory pandemic. and yet, this is political. but there are massive fires again in california. maybe we're just going to have to make them pay for it because they don't listen to us. we say, "you got to get rid of the leaves, you got to get rid of the debris, you got to get rid of the fallen trees. but most of the blazes were sparked by what's being called a trifecta of fire conditions. a freak summer lightning storm, the most intense for more than a decade, collided with a heat wave recording record temperatures, and the resulting flames fanned by high winds. if you are in denial about climate change, come to california. 11,000 dry lightning strikes we had over a 72—hour period leading to this unprecedented challenge. california is no stranger to scenes like this but the ferocity of these fires so early in the season has astonished many of the thousands fighting them

on the front line. temperatures are expected to ease but the fires are now generating so much heat, they are creating their own winds — pushing them in multiple unpredictable directions, threatening tens of thousands of homes. sophie long, bbc news, los angeles. to the situation in belarus, where opposition leader svetla na tikhanovskaya has called on her supporters to step up their strikes at factories across the country to try to force new presidential elections. belarus is facing its biggest political crisis since the break—up of the soviet union, with tens of thousands of demonstrators saying veteran leader alexander lu kashenko's re—election on the 9th of august was rigged. in the latest protest against lu kashenko, activists formed a human chain across the capital minsk. ms tikhanovskaya has been

speaking exclusively to our europe correspondent jean mackenzie in lithuania. the woman many think should've been crowned president of belarus. a woman who never even wanted to be a politician — breaking cover for the first time since being forced into exile. she now leads the 0pposition from afar. and when we sit down with her, that reluctant sense of duty still shows. i just can't step away now, you know, because i became like a symbol of freedom. i understand that i'm not a leader. i'm more frightened than anybody else among them. what frightens you ? i'm afraid that maybe i will not be able to do enough. i don't know, it'sjust a fear of responsibility. this was the moment she disappeared, the day after the election when long—time president lukashenko declared himself the victor.

when she emerged in lithuania, she hinted at a terrible choice she'd had to make to keep her children safe. can you tell me anything about what happened in those election offices and what choice you were given? i'm sorry, but i can't. not now. bela russians have ta ken to the streets like never before, to show they voted for tsikhanouskaya and are ready for change. "enough is enough," was her message for the regime today. "enough lying, intimidation and violence." the past weeks have seen protesters detained and badly beaten. how do you feel when you see the reports of violence that have come out of the country in the last week? you know. . .i was really shocked. i didn't tell anybody, but i couldn't find peace, i was just crying.

after a couple of hours, when we saw the first pictures, i can't imagine that belarussian people can be so cruel. with protests and strikes nearly into the third become alexander lukashenko shows no sign backing down. are you worried that the movement could fail? no, i'm not worried because i believe in belarussian people the same way they believed in me. we have no right to step back now because — if not now, we will be slaves. and our people understand this, and i'm sure we will stand till the end. that end for her is new elections, ones that are free and fair. only then, she tells us, will bela russians know who their president truly is. jean mackenzie, bbc news.

the head of the world health organisation says he hopes the coronavirus crisis can be over in less than two years. the comments by tedros adhanom ghebreyesus come as cases of the disease continue to surge in europe. france, spain, italy and germany have recorded their highest numbers of daily cases since the spring. we have a disadvantage of globalisation, closeness, connectedness, but an advantage of better technology. so we hope to finish this pandemic before — less than two years. especially if we can pull our efforts together and with national unity and with global solidarity, that's really key with utilising the available tools to the maximum and hoping that we can have additional tools like a vaccine, i think we can finish it in a shorter time than the 1918 flu.

arrivals to the uk from croatia, austria and trinidad and tobago have been added to the list of travellers who will have to self—isolate for two weeks once they touch down in the uk, because of a rise in infections in those countries. the rule came in to effect a short time ago and led to a mad dash for british holiday—makers to get back in time to avoid the quarantine. 0ur europe correspondent gavin lee met some of them in croatia. a late summer getaway on croatia's dalmatian coast, where there are more british holiday—makers than from any other country. 17,000 uk tourists are here at the moment. for many, the break is now over just as it was beginning. they're leaving before mandatory quarantine rules kick in. i'm a teacher, so if i don't go back today, i miss being back at school, and the kids have been off for six months. we're both key workers

in england, so we've had to pay an extra £400 for a flight home which leaves in two hours' time. so, we're heading there now. further up the coast in the harbour of sibenik, a group of students from nottingham trent university say they need to be back for the start of term, but they can't afford the ticket prices. we obviously don't have that much money saved up to get a flight home because of the inflation of prices. we are just really stuck here. we've all got part—time jobs as well, it's slightly annoying, because now we have to take time off of work, so we don't get any money to save up for uni. so what's going wrong in croatia? back in may and june, this country of 5 million people barely registered a single case a day. in the past week, there has been a notable rise — 265 cases in the past 2a hours. other eu countries are attributing clusters of new cases to tourists coming back from here. the country's secretary of state for tourism said the british decision was unfair but acknowledged there is a problem.

it is true that we have several hotspots in croatia in recent days, but they are the result of non—compliance with the epidemiological measures. mostly, it's younger people in some nightclubs and other gatherings. but the uk isn't the only country to add croatia to the quarantine list. there are four other countries this week, and it's here in split, where there'e concern that it's the epicentre, that people aren't listening to social distancing advice, and that's why it's become a problem here. this was the last uk—bound flight out of the country. a frantic day almost at an end for those getting back in time. for others, thinking ofjetting off for a late break elsewhere, the official advice is be prepared to unexpectedly have to quarantine. gavin lee, bbc news, split on the dalmatian coast.

scientists say it could be many months before we know if any of the thirty or so coronavirus vaccines currently undergoing trials, are effective. but one way to speed up the process would be to use so—called ‘challenge trials' — where volunteers are given the vaccine and then deliberately infected with coronavirus. here's our medical editor, fergus walsh. the longer we go without a vaccine, the longer people will die unnecessarily. young, healthy and determined. sean mcpartlin is 22 and studying in oxford. he keeps fit by swimming in the thames. i volunteered to be infected with the coronavirus. sean wants to take part in a so—called challenge trial, where he would first receive a vaccine against covid—19 and then be deliberately infected with coronavirus, to see if the vaccine protects him. my mother has a hereditary lung

disorder, and every day we go without a vaccine is a day where she faces a risk that she might not have to. so i want to do everything i can to help get that vaccine to her and everyone else like her as quickly as possible. the only way we'll know if a covid vaccine works is if volunteers later get exposed to the virus. but at the moment, that's being left entirely to chance. it could take months. deliberately infecting volunteers could speed things up. one day sooner is a group campaigning for vaccine challenge trials and it has the support of 15 nobel prize winners and many leading scientists. dominic wilkinson is an expert in medical ethics and an intensive care doctor. if you look at what's at stake, that thousands of lives that might be saved if we could get to a vaccine sooner, there is an ethical

imperative to investigate and conduct challenge studies. a safe and effective vaccine against coronavirus is probably the only way our lives, our society, the economy, will return to normal. so anything that can speed up its delivery has to be worth considering. but what about the risks of challenge trials? they are hard to calculate. but for healthy volunteers in their 20s, they are probably lower than the chances of dying from donating a kidney or having your appendix removed. dr katrina pollock is not convinced — at least not yet. she's running the trial of imperial college london's coronavirus vaccine. i'm not sure that it's going to necessarily accelerate development of the vaccine in a way that some people might hope. and there are certainly significant, at this point, ethical and safety considerations for doing it. we need a lot more

understanding of this disease before we start thinking about those kind of studies. if coronavirus challenge studies do you ever take place, volunteers would need to spend at least two weeks in quarantine at a clinical research unit. there are plenty like sean who are ready to sign up, hoping to play their part in the search for a vaccine. fergus walsh, bbc news. this is bbc news. the headlines: a german air—ambulance carrying russian opposition leader, alexei navalny, has taken off from russia's 0msk airport. it is heading to berlin where he's to receive treatment there after falling into a coma. new coronavirus quarantine restrictions have come into force in the uk. anyone arriving from croatia, austria, or trinidad and tobago, will have to self—isolate for two weeks. the us postmaster—general has

told a senate committee that ballots in november's presidential election will be delivered securely and on time. amid concerns that recent policy changes were made to help re—elect president trump ? louis dejoy denied he had spoken to the president about service operations and said he himself would be voting by mail. barbara plett usher has more. louis dejoy landed in the centre of a perfect storm when he became postmaster general two months ago, or did he create it? that's what this hearing was about. cutbacks that he's made to the postal services have delayed the mail and there's concerned that they will also delay mail—in ballots especially in a year where there is going to be a lot of them. and there's a suspicion that this is deliberate because president trump is against expanded mail—in voting, he says it's going to lead to widespread fraud although there's no evidence of that. and he has opposed extra funding to the postal services because of that. but mr dejoy said there was no conspiracy to undermine the vote. he said that allegation was outrageous. he said he was a businessman who'd been brought in to fix

the postal service, to whip it into shape because it was billions of dollars in debt. he said the changes he made so far did not reduce the capacity to deal with a lot of mail—in ballots but because of the concern expressed, he would put them on hold until after the election and he would make sure that things went as smoothly as possible with the mail—in ballots. but this isn't over yet, he's going to be appearing in front of another congressional hearing on monday and he's being sued by dc and six states. so thatjust shows you how much concern there is among democrats about this issue of voter suppression in this election year. in california, a mass—murderer known as the golden state killer, has been sentenced to life in prison. 74—year—old joseph de angelo murdered at least 13 people while working as a police officer in california in the 1970s and 1980s. he was only caught by a quirk of modern technology and earlier was sentenced to spend the rest of his life in prison. a plea deal spared him

the death penalty. earlier, i asked our north american reporter regan morris about his victims — there were so many that their families couldn't all fit inside a court—room. that's right, he was sentenced inside a university ballroom and coronavirus had something to do with that, because people had to be safely distanced. but there were dozens of people there, nowhere near the number that were impacted by this man, but they sat together as families and some of them gave impact statements, talking about his crimes, what the effect was on their families and he was sentenced right there in that courtroom. and he did apologise. he was in a wheelchair. he took off his mask and he told them, "i'm truly, truly sorry." why did it take so long then for him to be caught, convicted and sentenced? well, he was a police officer and during the 70s, some actually speculated that they thought that maybe it was a police officer,

because he always seemed one step ahead of investigators. he knew what he was doing. he was actually fired in 1979 for shoplifting, so he stopped being a police officer and that's when he moved from the north of california down to the south, and that's when his crime spree really widened. but they found him with this very unusual — the first time in the united states this has happened, where the detectives uploaded some dna from a cold case and they matched it to some members of his family. they narrowed it down and it was just on a genealogy website, it wasn't through some database of criminals. it was through a genealogy website, so they were able to link him to his family and eventually they were able to identify him as the golden state killer. let s get some of the day s other news. the united states and the european union have announced their first mutual trade tariff reductions in more than two decades. the deal will increase market access for hundreds of millions of dollars of us and eu exports

ranging from american lobster products to european glassware volunteers in mauritius say the government is blocking efforts to help clean up a recent oil spill. the authorities say the area has been restricted for health reasons. but there s concern the government is trying to silence criticism of its handling of the spill. us actress lori loughlin has been sentenced to two months injailfor her part in a college admissions scam. along with other wealthy parents, she paid bribes so her children could get into top universities as fake athletic recruits. more than 50 people are facing charges over the scheme. the captain of manchester united football club, harry maguire, has been arrested while on holiday on the greek island of mykonos. he's due to appear in court later this morning. our sports correspondent 0lly foster has the details. yes, the world's most expensive defender is spending a second night in a greek police cell. the club this morning confirming that their captain

was fully cooperating with the greek authorities. we know that harry maguire and two other british men were arrested at around midnight last night after an incident on the greek island of mykonos. the greek police said they were called out to an altercation between two groups, they had to break up a fight and it was then that three men rounded, they claim, on one of their officers, verbally abusing and assaulting him. the three men were then escorted to a local police station. it's then that the police claim that upon arrival, they strongly resisted, pushing and hitting three police officers and that one of the detainees then tried to offer money to avoid any further action. the police then opened a file on this case. it includes accusations of violence against officials, bodily harm, insult and attempted bribery of an official. we do not know the specifics of the accusations against harry maguire, but today the three men were transported by boat

to the neighbouring island of syros and another police facility there. i have spoken to the greek lawyer who is representing maguire, he says they are going to appear in court tomorrow morning at 10am greek time. he says maguire denies all the allegations and he's confident that his client will be released any charges. in the uk, the last few weeks have been uncertain for many school leavers hoping to get into university, but one student's dream is a step closer, thanks to the kindness of a very special stranger. vitoria mario, who's 18 and from london, set up an online fundraising page to help pay for college accomodation and living costs. and who should chip in, but us pop star, taylor swift. david sillito has the story. i couldn't believe it. ifeel, like, even now, i am still processing it. ijust can't believe it. it began with this text message.

18—year—old vitoria mario was in church and a friend wanted to let her know there had been a donation to her university gofundme page... ..from taylor swift. 2a hours later, it is still rather difficult to process. i was overwhelmed, i was happy, of course, very happy. i was very grateful. i wanted to hug taylor swift, i guess! i want to say thank you, it's so amazing. i don't even know how to feel or how to handle my feelings. taylor swift had also left a message saying she had been inspired by vitoria story. vitoria had arrived from portugal on her own at 1a. four years later, she has two a—stars and a. but could not see a way of funding university. you are not eligible for any maintenance grants, because you arrived here in britain on your own at aged 14? that's correct. speaking no english. no english at all. i learned mostly

from the netflix. you learned english watching netflix? watching films with the subtitles, so i can learn how to say it and learn how to write it. of course, this isn't the first pop charitable donation. ariana grande, rhianna and stormzy — with his scholarship programme for black students — have all made large donations for those who are struggling. but taylor swift, who does have a new album out, has a track record of surprise gifts. but why vitoria's story touched her in particular is a mystery. where are you a taylor swift fan? of course! you're a fan now. of course, i know who she is, of course. i would not say i was a superfan. i am not one that contact them every day. ijust don't know... i don't know. david sillito, bbc news.

that is a lovely story, isn't it? i will be back in a few minutes with the headlines. thanks for watching. hello there. the last few days has brought some very windy weather across many parts of the country. on friday we had winds well over 60 miles an hour here in the south—west of wales, also the south—west of england and we saw those very strong winds pushing through the english channel as well, leading to some very dramatic weather watcher pictures taken earlier on in the day. now, for the weekend it's not going to be as windy. that's because the deep area of low pressure that brought those unseasonably strong winds is moving away into the norwegian sea, so already the winds are dropping. but we are going to continue to see some sunshine and some showers during saturday. and there could be some heavier ones moving down into scotland for a while, actually some longer spells of rain for northern ireland and those showers pushing into england and wales. driest weather, sunniest weather likely to be across southern counties of england and perhaps into east anglia.

but for england and wales in particular, it's still a blustery day, not as windy but still those gusts of 35 to a0 miles an hour. it will take the edge off the temperatures, which may be a bit lower than we had on friday. top temperature of 22 degrees there, but further north and west, quite a few degrees cooler than that. those heavier showers continue into the evening before tending to fade away overnight. the wind continuing to drop as well. as we head into the second half of the weekend, well, there's a brief sign of this ridge of high pressure in from the atlantic, but all it's doing is it's changing the wind direction to a cooler north—westerly. again, the winds continuing to drop though on sunday, lighter winds for much of the country. some sunshine and showers for scotland, the heavier ones for northern ireland pushing into northern and then eastern parts of england with the risk of some thunderstorms too. our top temperature will be 21 degrees in the south—east on sunday, but quite a bit cooler, i think, than saturday across scotland with those north—westerly breezes. into the early part of next week, first of all we've got a weather system coming in from the atlantic. it's quite a weak affair really and the winds are light on monday, but we're looking at a lot of cloud to move its way eastwards and some patchy rain too, may be a little

bit heavierfor a while across southern part of england and wales. drier weather in the north—east of scotland, but it's only 13 degrees in aberdeen and around 19 celsius in cardiff. and then for tuesday and wednesday, we've got another deep area of low pressure heading our way threatening to bring some more very strong winds across the uk. a spell of rain probably will be followed by some sunshine and some showers.

this is bbc news. the headlines... russian opposition leader alexei navalny is on his way to berlin for treatment, two days after falling seriously ill. navalny is on an air ambulance that took off from siberia's 0msk airport. he remains in a coma. there are claims he was poisoned. the governor of california has appealed for assistance from canada and australia after lightning strikes sparked several hundred more wildfires in the region. some of the fires are the biggest recorded in the state. 12,000 firefighters are battling the blazes, and more than 100,000 people have been evacuated. new coronavirus restrictions have come into force in the uk. anyone returning from croatia, austria, or trinidad and tobago, will have to self—isolate for two weeks, because of a rise in infections in those countries. the coronavirus crisis has caused concern among hundreds of thousands of people, who are in rented accommodation worried about how

they'll pay the bills