this is bbc news. i'm lukwesa burak. the headlines at 5... "on the edge of losing control" of coronavirus — a stark warning from one leading scientist following a sharp rise in cases. it comes as a further 3,497 cases are confirmed in the uk. it is still a very widely distributed infection, it's across the whole of the uk and, by every measure, the numbers are going up. the university of oxford and astrazeneca have restarted clinical trials of their coronavirus vaccine which was halted after a volunteer fell ill. boris johnson defends his plans to over—ride parts of the brexit withdrawal agreement — saying the eu is looking to "carve up and divide" the uk.

sir terence conran, the british designer who revolutionised retail and decor, has died aged 88. coming up at 5.30 — global questions. a month after lebanon's catastrophic explosion in the port of beirut, what next for the country's crisis—hit economy and political system 7 a leading scientist has warned that the uk is "on the edge of losing control" of coronavirus as infections rise. professor sir mark walport, a member of the government's sage advisory committee, said people needed to limit their socialising, to ensure children can remain at school and students at university.

it comes as the latest government data shows the uk recorded 3,497 new confirmed cases of covid—19. this report from our health correspondent, lauren moss. it's the final weekend before new restrictions are introduced across the uk. from monday, the rule of six will limit the number of people that we can socialise with. yesterday, there were 3500 new confirmed covid cases, and scientists have warned the rate of infection is doubling every seven to ten days. i think one would have to say that we are on the edge of losing control, and you've only got to look across the channel to see what's happening in france and what's happening in spain. the french on thursday had 9800 new infections, and one can see that their hospital admissions and, indeed, their intensive care admissions are going up. the rate of infection is much lower than it was at the peak of the pandemic, when it is thought there were 100,000 new infections a day.

but government advisers believe the r number — the number of people an infected person can pass the virus on to — is between 1 and 1.2, which means it is growing. the latest data from public health england shows the largest increase in positive cases is among 20 to 39—year—olds. but there has also been a steep rise in the number of people over the age of 80 testing positive, which is beginning to lead to an increase in hospital admissions. while people will not be able to socialise in groups of more than six from monday, in parts of the midlands the restrictions are going further. from tuesday, in birmingham, and nearby sandwell and solihull, 1.5 million people will be banned from mixing with other households. the onus is on all of us to do everything that we can to make sure that we are abiding by those rules. and those rules, of course, ensure that we can, with close family members and friends, socialise in appropriate circumstances and those rules also stress the vital importance

of making sure that children are at school, that students can study at university and that we can work in a covid—safe environment. in scotland, restrictions on two households mixing were expanded into lanarkshire at midnight. and there are still reported issues with testing in england, after dozens of people told the bbc they were struggling to get one. the department of health says capacity is being targeted at the hardest—hit areas. as coronavirus cases rise, the country will walk a tightrope between containing it and maintaining a way of life. lauren moss, bbc news. as you saw in that report, professor sir mark walport, a member of the government's sage advisory committee, has warned the uk is in a dangerous position. he spoke to my colleague shaun ley earlier about the risk. the numbers speak for themselves. so, as your reporterjust said, the numbers are going up consistently in the uk

at the moment. the imperial study suggested a doubling about every seven days, and the numbers of patients on the 5th of september was just over 1800. yesterday, it was 3500. if you look across the channel, then we can see the numbers in spain, we can see the numbers in france. and france had, earlier in the week, just over 9800 infections there, and because they are a few weeks ahead, the numbers of patients going into intensive care is increasing. it's increased by 93 people on wednesday. so, this is the time to act. and again, if you look at belgium, where they are managing to hold the numbers down, and they had a very severe initial phase, they are limiting numbers of social gatherings to about five people. but the bottom line is that this is still very widely distributed infection, it's across the whole of the uk and, by every measure, the numbers are going up at the moment.

earlier, i spoke to dr gabriel scally — visiting professor of public health at the university of bristol — and a member of independent sage, a separate group of scientific experts. he is calling for a more localised approach to testing. i think it's not fit for purpose at all. it is not delivering the goods. it's not getting people tested quickly and locally. it's not delivering the results in a timely fashion. it is taking far too long. and finally, there are still data flow issues getting that information to the local level again. it really does need to be completely rethought and moved towards a much more locally based system, which is a response notjust to the needs of the population but also to the number of cases in the population. are we expecting too much too soon, maybe? because this is a huge undertaking. well, no, not at all, because the government stopped

testing on the 12th of march and their view at that time was that testing was unimportant, it wasn't for countries like the uk. and it took them two months to change their mind on that and go back to community testing. and they said this nhs test and trace — which is not an nhs service at all, it is run by deloitte and serco and private contractors — would be fully functioning in september, and there is still no sign of it. and anyway, i think, as a public health doctor, it is flawed asking someone who has got symptoms of this really problematic disease to drive, and drive 100 miles — or if they are not driving, someone to go and drive in a car with them for 100 miles — to get tested. itjust doesn't make sense in an era of social distancing. it needs to be locally driven, locally resourced and locally coordinated, and it is none of these things. earlier, i spoke to our health correspondent lauren moss — you saw her report at the top of the programme —

and i asked her how seriously we should take this warning. well, the warning is significant, and one government adviser yesterday described the figures as a wake—up call. cases are climbing. 3500 confirmed cases yesterday. and the rate of infection as well is growing. the official government advisers have the r number, that is the number of people that someone who has coronavirus can pass it on to, as between one and 1.2. but a very large surveillance study, the results of which went up to monday of this week, yesterday put the r number even higher than that. as high as possibly 1.7. whichever way you look at this, the number of cases and rate of infection, it is growing. however, we are not at the place that we were earlier on in the pandemic. 3500 new cases yesterday, surveillance studies suggest that possibly the numbers are higher than that. but earlier on in march, april time it was probably thought to be about 100,000 cases per day. the numbers are a lot lower. you have only got to look at hospital admissions as well to see

where we are with that. hospital admissions 863 people currently being treated in hospitals across the uk for the virus right now. at the peak of the virus, around 19,000 or 20,000 in april time. those numbers are still far lower, but that is why this morning is so significant, really, because this is where we could possibly end up going back to, although we do have other treatments in place now that we did not have in march and april time. that is why it is important that social distancing, hygiene measures, face coverings — that is why the government is so keen on pushing that and the rule of six being introduced on monday to stop that from happening and to try and prevent the uk ending up in a place like france and spain and so on. obviously, it is great news that the vaccine trial has restarted. there is still lots of questions about testing strategy. earlier this week, the health secretary matt hancock said around one quarter of people that were applying for a test were not actually eligible for one because they didn't have symptoms. but then also the bbc

has heard from people who have been trying to get a test because they do have symptoms or their children do, and they are not able to get one. the website shows there isn't one available near them or they are being told to go many, many miles away. the department of health says that capacity is increased. there are around 250,000 capacity of tests to be carried out every day. around 220,000 were done yesterday according to the government website. they are prioritising hotspot areas, like with bolton for example, birmingham. they are the places that they are really concentrating that testing, where they know there is a problem. we are hearing that some people are still struggling to get a test. the department of health say capacity is increasing all the time. boris johnson announced again 500,000 is the target by the end of october. and the astrazeneca and university of 0xford trial, what do we know about that? this is a big trial.

around 100, 200 vaccine trials under way across the world at the moment. the oxford one is one that there are a lot of hopes pinned upon it. they are very far along in their trials. last week, it was paused because one of the participants became unwell. this is the second time that the trial has been. it is quite routine. oxford university said that this sort of thing does happen. the trial was paused, so an independent investigation could be carried out to try and find out the cause of the participant's illness. we do not have the details as to that person's condition, but the independent investigation has concluded that it is now safe for the trial to resume, it has been signed off by the nhra, the regulatorfor medicines and devices in the uk. it will now continue. earlier this week, the health secretary said he was hopeful that a vaccine could be available to be rolled out at the start of next year if it passes all of those trials. birmingham hasjoined other parts of england under local lockdown. people living there now face greater restrictions,

alongside those living in solihull, sandwell, parts of greater manchester, west yorkshire, lancashire, 0ldham, blackburn with darwen, pendle, bolton and leicester. 0ur news correspondent kathryn stanczyszyn has spent the morning in the birmingham. 1.6 million people affected by these new restrictions coming in from tuesday. that's as well as the rule of six from monday as well. people's reaction is that obviously the rates are rising and something needs to be done about it, but there are differing views on whether the right things are being done. public health officials here in the city say that, actually, transmission rate spread seems to be across the board. it's across all age groups as well, because we do keep hearing about younger people being responsible, but there is an issue across age groups. also that they are starting to see hospital admissions and intensive care admissions which they haven't been seeing at all. still small numbers at the moment, but there's often a two or three—week lag between the amount of infections a place is seeing and then the hospital admissions. so they're very, very worried about that. we heard of the mayor

of the west midlands andy street there about how they're also concerned that the data showing that a lot of that transmission is occurring within houses, within households and that is one of the big problems. that is why these new guidelines, new laws, in fact, are being brought in from tuesday. it means households cannot go into each other‘s homes. in scotland the number of coronavirus cases has risen in the latest 2a hour period to 221 new confirmed cases — the highest number in four months. 1.7 million people across the west of scotland have been placed under tighter coronavirus restrictions to try and control the spread of the virus. residents in north and south lanarkshire are no longer allowed to meet other households in their homes, which is similar to measures in place in glasgow city, east and west dunbartonshire as well as renfrewshire and east renfrewshire.

0ur scotland correspondent alexandra mackenzie has been looking at the data on the latest cases. new figures show that there have been 221 new cases of coronavirus in the last 2a hours. that compares to 175 from the previous day. almost half of those 106 of the new cases, are in the greater glasgow and clyde health board area, which is already under tighter restrictions than most of the rest of the country. and 48 of those new cases are in the lanarkshire health board area, where new restrictions came into place at midnight, in line with glasgow and the other areas you mentioned. people in lanarkshire from today will not be able to visit others in their homes and they will not be able to have people into their homes. hospital visits and care home visits will only happen

if they are absolutely essential. there are some exceptions. if you are within an extended household, you will still be able to meet up, and people providing care and support will also be able to go to each other‘s houses. but you won't be able to skip into another health board area and visit anyone there. you cannot visit anyone else in another home. these restrictions are already in place in glasgow city, east renfrewshire, renfrewshire and east and west dunbartonshire. the restrictions in those areas will be reviewed on monday but as i said, 106 new cases were reported there in the last 2a hours. the cabinet office minister, michael gove, has insisted ministers

had properly "thought through" the brexit withdrawal agreement — despite plans to introduce legislation to override part of it. the eu has threatened to take legal action if the uk government presses ahead with its proposals. 0ur political correspondent helen catt has more. this all relates to the withdrawal agreement that was signed and agreed between the eu and the uk last year, around this time last year in october. and in that, one of the key parts was coming up with a special arrangement for northern ireland, called the northern ireland protocol. and that was to make sure that there wasn't a hard border between northern ireland and the republic of ireland. it set out the sort of high—level way that would work in terms of whose customs territory northern ireland would be in etc. that left a lot of details and decisions that still needed to be made, and they are being thrashed out by a joint committee of the uk and the eu that has been meeting for most of this year. they have hit a sticking point on some of these issues.

what borisjohnson has said today is that he believes there is a serious misunderstanding between the two sides about what they thought they had signed up to. he is saying the eu interpretation of it is extreme. he says that if they couldn't find another agreement, then what could end up happening is that you could see the eu putting tariffs on goods going between great britain and northern ireland, which would effectively create a border down the irish sea. he is saying that is not acceptable, so he wants to create what he called a safety net by passing a uk law that would change the treaty that was already signed last year. it is very complicated. and the reason that is causing problems, or issues with conservative mps, is because if you do that and you use domestic law to change the international already agreed deal, they have admitted that that will breach international law, and that has made some conservative

mps worried about this. tobias ellwood, the chair of the defence select committee, explained why. it's not changed my attitude in wanting to support the prime minister and get brexit over the line. it's been a battering journey since that referendum, since the nation committed itself to leave the european union and we need to do that. the date of the 15th of october has been set, the next european summit. but in getting there, i don't want us to lose our way, to lose our reputation as a force for good, as an exemplar of upholding international rule of law. and i'm afraid that's where i find myself not wishing to support this particular bill, because it does mean that we will be challenging, unilaterally, a treaty. and that goes against the principles of everything we stand for. and there are other senior conservatives who are worried about that too. 0ne, bob neill, has come forward and said he will try to amend that legislation when it goes before parliament. the eu are also cross about this.

they've said it would be gravely damaging of trust and could impact on the free trade deal that's to be negotiated. the speed limit is being cut on four sections of motorway in england as part of a trial to reduce pollution levels. speeds will be reduced from 70 miles per hour to 60 in areas which have seen higher than recommended levels of nitrogen dioxide. the limit will be imposed 2a hours a day and its impact will be reviewed in a year's time the m6, m1, m5 and the m602 will all be affected. let's speak to our correspondent danny savage, who's on the m1 near rotherham. how is all of this going to work? fort is going to happen, if you live near a motorway anyway in the uk, at

times, the air quality isn't going to be particularly good at times. to tackle the government's targets on pollution, highways england are proposing to bring in these permanent 60 mph speed limit on four stretches of motorway. 0ne permanent 60 mph speed limit on four stretches of motorway. one is here over the viaduct between sheffield and rotherham. there is also the m602, and to stretches of motorway around the centre of birmingham. we are all fairly familiar if we use motorways with temporary speed limits being in place. the thing here is that there will be a permanent speed limit in place. for the first time, the default speed limit will not be at 70 mph on uk motorways. u nfortu nately limit will not be at 70 mph on uk motorways. unfortunately motorway in england, it will be 60. even in the dead of night, you cannot do 70. people will need to be aware of that

when using those motorways. because if you do drive at 70 in a 60, you will get a £100 fine. this is to reduce air pollution. it is an experiment for a year to see whether it works, to see whether it brings the quality of error in those stretches and those communities around those four stretches of motorway. —— air. around those four stretches of motorway. -- air. what difference do they want to make in the figures? government has set its targets of where it once it's to be. highways england says this will help go towards that but ultimately might not try to achieve what the government target is. they are saying that will only come from what they say is the tailpipe. changes to admissions in tailpipe. they say that's a long process over the next decade or so, where the government tries to get us out of petrol and diesel cars into electric and hybrid

cars, that will be the ultimate thing that will bring pollution levels right down. but for mao, for the next ten years or so, the vast majority of us are driving around in petrol or diesel cars —— for now. it will be an effort to try and improve air pollution in those particular areas where it is bad at the moment. going forward, they hope the whole network will get better because of improved technology. 0k. thank you very much. the first peace talks between the afghan government and the taliban have begun in the gulf state of qatar, after months of delay. the us secretary of state mike pompeo called the meeting "historic" as he arrived in doha for the opening ceremony. mr pompeo told the talks that the whole world was counting on the process to succeed. wildfires are continuing to burn out of control along parts of the west coast of the united states.

the governor of oregon says they could bring about the greatest loss to human life and property in the state's history. in california — smoke and ash have turned the sky red. the fires — which have been burning for 3 weeks — have scorched millions of acres, destroyed thousands of homes, and killed at least 25 people. sir terence conran, the designer and retailer best known for creating habitat, has died at the age of 88. the design museum, which he founded in 1989, said he was a visionary who "promoted the best of british design, culture and the arts around the world." tim marlow is the director and chief executive of the design museum, which sir terence founded in 1989. we heard from him a little earlier. he fought to the end as he fought throughout his life and remained good—spirited and concerned with other things, not himself,

but with the museum and where it was going. so this is a really sad day. i've been inundated from the design and architectural world with messages expressing sadness. he touched many lives, and he was loved within that community, that world. for many of the younger generation today, they will find it intriguing that his legacy they are hearing is that he revolutionised contemporary britain. he changed the way we live, we shop, we eat. can you explain that and put it into context for us, please? yeah. before conrad's retail empire, before terence took on the restaurant world in this country, before terence, when he was younger, helped with the festival of britain, we were really stuck in the past. he talked about people who were miserable and hadn't had fun for a long time. and although that may sound slightly reductive, i think there is a lot of truth in the post—war condition in which britain found itself. he had a kind of drive

to make a difference. he believed in making above all other things. in fact, the thing that he lamented to the end of his life was that britain was not the workshop it once had been and could and should be. there are signs that that is changing, but we all owe it to him and to ourselves as a nation to make sure we make more. but terence decided to do it all, as it were, notjust to work with designers, but to make sure the quality of products available to people which were both affordable and of the right quality. he pushed that and in a sense, it's so difficult to assess now for people who haven't seen what things were like before, but it's not overstating to say he had world class careers as a designer, retailer and businessman and as a philanthropist. so he made design and art accessible, and bringing it back to modern britain today, the comparison would be ikea, wouldn't it? what did he make of that?

i think he was proud that he pioneered flatpack furniture in britain well before ikea did. he had a wonderful twinkle in his eye. i remember once interviewing him for bbc radio and he insisted that we did the interview outside the design museum in its previous location at shad thames because he wanted to finish a damn good cigar and he wasn't going to put it out to do the interview inside. but as he said with this twinkle in his eye, "i have undoubtedly changed the sex life of europe". and i looked at him and he said, "in my promotion of the duvet". so these aspects of modern living which are functional and practical, but also incredibly subtle in the way they have changed things. that was what terence stood for. but he knew his design history. he was interested in the legacy of modernism that britain had been slow to engage with and he realised that britain was ripe for that. there was an energy in britain that went back to the industrial revolution that we shouldn't let go of.

toots hibbert, frontman of the legendary reggae band toots and the maytals, has died at the age of 77. one of jamaica's most influential musicians, he helped popularise reggae in the 1960s with songs like pressure drop, monkey man and funky kingston. he even claimed to have coined the genre's name, on 1968's do the reggay. hibbert‘s family said he died on friday. he had recently been treated in hospital for suspected coronavirus. now it's time for a look at the weather with tomasz shafernaker. most of us have had a decent day of weather today. some hazy sunshine. this is what it looks like at 6pm. temperatures around 21 in london. for most of us, high teens. cooler, wetter and turning windier in the

north—west of the uk. the rain will turn heavy for a time at least in western parts of scotland. elsewhere, because england and wales, it will be predominantly dry overnight. maybe a bit of rain around the lake district. in the south and south—east, we are talking clear skies. tomorrow, south and south—east, we are talking clearskies. tomorrow, rain south and south—east, we are talking clear skies. tomorrow, rain could be particularly heavy around the western isles. we could be getting around 100 millimetres of rain, so to extre m es around 100 millimetres of rain, so to extremes there from the very wet and blustery north—west of the country to warm and sunny in the southeast with highs of up to 25 degrees. temperatures will be rising in the week ahead. somewhat of a short hop spell on the way. —— hot spell.

hello this is bbc news with me, lukwesa burak. the headlines... "0n the edge of losing control" of coronavirus — a stark warning from one leading scientist following a sharp rise in cases. it comes as a further 3,497 cases are confirmed in the uk. this is still a very widely distributed infection, it's across the whole of the uk and, by every measure, the numbers are going up. the university of oxford & astrazeneca have restarted clinical trials of their coronavirus vaccine which was halted after a volunteer fell ill. boris johnson defends his

plans to over—ride parts of the brexit withdrawal agreement — saying the eu is looking to "carve up and divide" the uk. sir terence conran — the british designer who revolutionised retail and decor — has died aged 88. now on bbc news... it's global questions — a month after lebanon's catastrophic explosion in the port of beirut, what next for the country's crisis hit economy and political system? hello and welcome to this edition of global questions with me, zeinab badawi. this week we ask if lebanon's political system is broken. the beirut explosion has led to a huge backlash against the country's ruling class, who are blamed for decades of corruption and mismanagement. could the anger this time lead to a real change in direction?