welcome to bbc news. as the west coast suffers more devastating wildfires, the rivals for the white house clash over the cause. when you have years of leaves, dried leaves, on the ground, itjust sets it up. it's really a fuel for a fire. if you give a climate arsonist four more years in the white house, why would anyone be surprised if we have more america ablaze? the british parliament gives initial approval to a controversial bill that could override parts of the brexit withdrawal deal with the european union. anger in lebanon — against politicians, corruption, and poverty — brings people onto the streets. lebanon is being eaten by poverty and, in communities like this, it is increasing the tension,

amd the anger and the fear, in places where guns are never far away. and life on venus? an extraordinary possibility emerges from the clouds above the planet. president trump has been visiting america's west coast to be briefed by officials on the wildfires that have so far claimed at least 30 lives and burned almost 5 million acres of land. blazes in california, oregon and washington state have been burning since early august. our correspondent aleem maqbool reports from oregon. it was like a journey into an eerie twilight zone. few have been allowed here since the fires

swept in with such rage. and though most people had scrambled to get out, with whatever they could, it was in this area that lives had also been lost. there were some we found wandering and bewildered, like larry. i've lost everything except what's in that bag. everything. and i didn't have insurance. out of — all the hosts had insurance, except for me. what made these fires are so lethal and record—breaking is the high winds that came with them — accelerating their frightening, destructive passage through vast areas of this state. we keep hearing from those who said they felt they were fleeing for their lives, and it's only when you're on the ground and you see the destruction — as we've been able to — and the warped landscape here,

that you start to get a sense of the nightmare that they were running from. donald trump has been called a climate arsonist by his democratic challenger, joe biden, who blamed global warming for all this, but in a visit to california, to be briefed on the fires, the president himself, said the fault lay elsewhere. this is one of the biggest burns we have ever seen and we have to do a lot about forest management. obviously forest management in california is very important. there has to be good, strong forest management, which i have been talking about for three years with the state so hopefully they will start doing that. this family has just been thinking of survival. we found them in a displacement camp. they've now fled fires three times, in three different locations, in the past week. my mom had ten minutes to get out of her place and she got the clothes on her back and the cat and that was it, and her house is

completely annihilated, it wiped out everything she owned and... and, you know, that's what we heard, the same with ours. we're not sure as of right now. it was sumer‘s town that i'd visited earlier. the signs aren't good. for all the politics, at the heart of this disaster are hundreds of thousands of americans who faced fear, displacement and loss. aleem maqbool, bbc news, in gates in oregon. well, the row over the unprecendented first has been deepening with the president blaming the fires on poor forest management and not climate change. appearing with mr trump, california's governor newsom, said state forest management could be better, but pointed out that more than half of california's land was under federal control. as they were briefed by state officials president trump disputed some of the information he was being told. we wa nt we want to work with you to really recognise the changing climate is what it means to our forests: the science, the site is going to be key because if we ignore our science and would

ahead in the senate think it's just about vegetation management, we're not going to succeed together protecting the audience. it will start getting cooler, you just watch.|j audience. it will start getting cooler, youjust watch. i wish science agreed with you.|j don't science agreed with you.” don't think science knows, actually. and the president's viewpoint‘s drawn some strong words from his democratic challenger for the upcoming election, joe biden. if we have four more years of donald trump climate denial, how many suburbs will be burnt in wildfires? how many suburban neighbourhoods will have been flooded out? how many suburbs will have been blown away in super storms? if you give a climate arsonist four more years in the white house, why would anyone be surprised if we have more of america ablaze? well, to discuss more on the political fallout, we can speak to scott rodd, who's a state government reporter at capradionews. can you just lay out for us the

political framework here? governor gavin newsome in california, he is no stranger to taking shots at president trump but there are times when you try to find common ground. he clearly laid out his belief that climate change is the main driver of these wildfires we are seeing in california in the western us and he didn't come at it too competitively. he appeared to find some common ground but did make clear that is his position in the state and federal government had to work on things such as forest management. historic is the word. some idea looking back out this season compares. well, the word historic is often thrown around to just mean big

or unusual but it truly has been, especially in california. all of the ten largest wildfires in state history have been this year and so far there have been 3.4 million acres burned and that is more than any other year on record. currently we have the largest fire in state history burning so it certainly is historic. with that comes consequences such as our pollution. certainly here in sacramento it's been bad but the cities with the worst air pollution worldwide are in the western us, portland, san francisco and seattle, so certainly a pretty dire situation right now. we hear all causes, forest management, lightning strikes, climate change. people seem to be building much more in forested area and there is a housing funding model which actually encourages that. there

has been some recent reporting on that where the state is encouraging counties and local governments to build more. a lot of people think of los angeles and san francisco but much of california is forested land so when there is encouragement to build, a lot of it is in that forest wildlife interface so there is an encouragement to build more housing because there is a housing because there is a housing shortage that one of those consequences is that hours more houses and more apartment units are built right in that border with the wild land, fires will become more likely, human caused fires will become more likely and the threat of damage to struck jurors and potentially to human life grows with that as well. scott, thank you so much. new legislation which would allow the british government to override key parts of the brexit withdrawal agreement has passed an early

hurdle in the house of commons, even though the government admits it would break international law. the prime minister says the bill is needed to stop the european union imposing bans or tariffs on goods moving between northern ireland and the rest of the uk, if a trade deal can't be agreed. five former prime ministers have said it will damage britain's standing in the world. order. the ayes to the right 340. the nos to the left, 263. it's all rather complicated. our political correspondent jessica parker unpicks it for us from westminster it goes back to the withdrawal agreement, the divorce settlement that the eu and the uk signed off earlier this year, but borisjohnson, the prime minister of the united kingdom, says he is worried that extreme interpretations of that agreement could damage the integrity of the uk, the internal market, the movement of goods between all four nations, and be a problem as well for the northern ireland peace process.

that's his argument. so the government has put forward some legislation that could potentially give powers to override parts of that treaty in order to protect those elements that they say they are worried about, but a lot of people are crying foul over this. some people see it as a sabre rattling as the uk engages in trade talks, future trade talks with the eu. they think that northern ireland is being used as a political football by this government. some even suspect number 10 of trying to just blow up the talks altogether. both sides — the eu and the uk — insist they want to reach a deal overfuture trade, future cooperation but, with internal market bill, that is proving pretty controversial, moving through the commons and is a big cloud hanging over those trade talks which have not got long left to run now.

when a huge blast in the lebanese capital beirut claimed the lives of almost 200 people it also exposed long standing structural issues in a country already in crisis. corruption, distrust of politicians and crippling poverty have translated into factionalism and violence on the streets. six weeks after that blast at a storage depot in the port, our middle east editor jeremy bowen has returned to beirut to look at lebanon's chances of a better future. poverty and pain running through lives in tarik el jdideh, a stronghold of poor sunni muslims in beirut. taha grew up hard and died young, shot dead at 20 in a street battle with a rival family. like most of the people who gathered for his funeral the next morning, he was unemployed. ta ha's uncle moussa, like almost all lebanese, believes corrupt politicians blight their lives.

translation: we want decent people in the government. they need to understand the suffering of the people, notjust filling their pockets. the women threw rice at the coffin as if it was a wedding. the men raced it through the streets in mourning and to show their strength. gunfire. disputes often turned violent in this neighbourhood but they said the economic collapse is making it worse. it is very hard to see how this ends well. lebanon is being eaten by poverty, and in communities like this it's increasing the tension and the anger, and the fear in places where guns

are never far away. many who can leave the country are getting out. taha's father was hoping to find him a job abroad. razor wire can't protect the central bank from the anger of lebanese who have been locked out of their accounts, while elites transferred billions abroad. riad salameh has been governor for 27 years but he says the economic crisis is not the bank's fault. we are the central bank, we are not the government. so you think you are being forced to take the blame that others should accept? well, i'm not forced, i'm not accepting the blame. whoever is in power is responsible. people here don't believe the politicians any more. that's the problem. that's not my problem. it's a problem for lebanon, though, isn't it? i didn't vote for them. the leaders of lebanon's sects treat

power as a personal possession. graffiti lampoons the former warlords who have carved lebanon up between them since the end of the civil war. one is walid jumblatt. i can't say that i'm not, i'm part of the system, yes. is it healthy that in this country a lot of the ruling class, the top men in the country, are people who were the leaders, many of them warlords, in the civil war? not so healthy but sorry to say this was the solution to end the civil war in 1991. her husband was one of the firefighters killed in the explosion at the port. she is five months pregnant. she visits his grave every day. her grief mixed with rage and the failure of lebanon's leaders. translation: they're all criminals, they should all burn and be

chopped up like he was. that's what they deserve. beirut port is still not safe six weeks after the explosion. it took days to put out a big new fire in a warehouse containing tires and oil. this bankrupt burning country has an ultimatum from the french president. the aid they need to rebuild if they reform, sanctions if they don't. the army found more explosive at the port. the politicians haven't even agreed a new government, let alone a new future. what happens in lebanon matters to the rest of us. the world does not need another collapsed and broken state in its most dangerous and unstable region. and that is the risk right now if this downward spiral doesn't cease. jeremy bowen, bbc news, beirut. stay with us on bbc news, still to come: swirling in the clouds above venus — the extraordinary

possibility of life? 30 hours after the earthquake that devastated mexico city, rescue teams still have no idea just how many people have died. there's people alive and there's people not alive. we just can help and give whatever we got. a state funeral has been held for princess grace of monaco, at the church where she married prince ranier, 26 years ago. it looked as though they had come to fight a war. but their mission is to bring peace to east timor, and nowhere on earth needs it more badly. the government's case has been forcefully presented by mr badinter, the justice minister. he has campaigned vigorously for abolition, having once witnessed one of his clients being executed. elizabeth seton has spent much of her time at this grotto, and every year hundreds of pilgrimages are made here.

now that she has become a saint, it is expected that this area will be inundated with tourists. the mayor and local businesses regard the anticipated boom as yet another blessing of saint elizabeth. this is bbc news, the latest headlines: as fires continue to devastate the us west coast, the rivals for the white house clash over the cause. an international team of astronomers have found what they believe is the strongest evidence yet that life may exist on the planet venus. they've detected traces of a gas in its atmosphere that they can't explain. it is normally produced by living microbes, and the team have yet to come up with another explanation. our science correspondent pallab ghosh explains. venus. could it be home to extra—terrestrial life? there's new evidence that it might be. astronomers have discovered a gas called phosphine

in the planet's atmosphere. they think it could have been produced by tiny microbes living in the clouds. i was really surprised, i was pretty shocked as well, and, at first, i didn't quite believe the detection, ijust couldn't believe that we'd found it but then once we set out and independently detected it through another telescope, that's when i knew we really had a solid detection of phosphine through two telescopes and that it was real. the discovery was confirmed by the alma telescope in the mountains of the atacama desert in chile. it's one of the most powerful arrays on earth. the discovery of life on another world would be one of the greatest scientific discoveries ever made, but the researchers aren't making that claim. at least, not yet. the gas could have been produced by some other means, but its presence on venus is still a sensational finding.

it's the strongest evidence that astronomers have ever had for the existence of alien life. but the big problem is that venus is hostile to life. a soviet spacecraft landing ini982 confirmed scorching temperatures, up to 460 degrees celsius, and clouds of concentrated sulphuric acid, able to disintegrate any living thing in seconds. but some think that, even here, life could be possible. there is a habitable zone, a range of altitudes, on venus where it is not too hot and not too acidic, that life that we understand here on earth, so—called extremophile life, extremely hardy survival superhero—type cells, could survive that environment in the venusian clouds. many scientists still think that the conditions on the planet are too harsh to support life and that there is another explanation for the presence of the gas, but, at this stage, it's hard to completely rule out the possibility

that alien life might exist on one of our nearest planets. pallab ghosh, bbc news. let's talk to someone who's been following this very carefully, australia's official astronomer—at—large, fred watson, who joins us now. fred, very good to talk to you. you know far better than me this search for bio signatures for signs of extraterrestrial life has been what of the biggest questions in science for a very long time. what do you make of this? rank you, mike. it is an extraordinary discovery. there is no question about that. you put your finger right on it because bio signatures are really the way we expect to find living organisms, notjust on the planets of the solar system but perhaps on the rocky planets of other stars. so what we have donein other stars. so what we have done in the world of astronomy has tried to identify exactly what it would be in the spectrum signature of the atmosphere of a planet that

would tell you living organisms we re would tell you living organisms were present, and actually phosphine is one of the compounds that has been identified. and suddenly, here we have it showing up in the atmosphere of the planet venus. and ultimately, what it does is give us the perfect opportunity to make it — forgive the pun, an acid test of whether that phosphine really is a bio signature because in the end, we can actually send space probes to venus. at the moment, it is an open question but it will eventually be resolved. yes, when do you think it might be possibly resolved ? yes, when do you think it might be possibly resolved? what happens next and could this shift the focus of exploration away from mars? i don't think you will do that. i mean we are very committed, the whole world is very committed to sending text oratory spacecraft to mars. there are three on their way there at the moment. and mars is perhaps still be very best candidate for signs of present or past life because it

is the world most likely earth. venus, it is the same size as the earth, but it is very different. so the next steps are going to be, first of all, to map the cloud decks of venus more accurately than we have been able to do so far, unhappily means more observations with the alma telescope you just heard about a few minutes ago. but in the end, it is not to be a spacecraft that visits the upper layers of venus‘s atmosphere, perhaps a spacecraft that can deploy something like an airship to ta ke something like an airship to take direct examples of whatever it is there. that would be, you know, assuming that future ground based observations don't rule out the possibility of life, which so far they haven't done and we really don't see any possibility about. fred, just very briefly if you could. i know there is a venus that —— theory that venus was a less terrifying and climate about a billion years ago. and this might bea billion years ago. and this might be a leftover press about. and also be a leftover press about. it is a big question but what kind of life

may it have been? who knows. venus is thought to once have had a temperate climate. so we would — it only with flights of imagination that you go into alien life forms of the same kind that we. microbes are by far the most likely, maybe once upona time far the most likely, maybe once upon a time venus was teeming with microbial life and what we're seeing now are the last vestiges of the. it is a very intriguing question. fred watson, thank you so much. great pleasure, thanks. here in london, a new digital exhibition of photographs taken by people during lockdown has been launched by the national portrait gallery. the project was led by the duchess of cambridge and involves more than 30,000 photos. it's designed to capture the resilience of people at one of the most challenging periods of our history. sarah campbell has more. moments captured on camera during lockdown, every picture telling a story. titled be safe daddy, a cuddle between a father and daughter before his next shift working as a paramedic.

loved ones separated by glass in last precious moments. and empty, three—year—old leo's mother who took the picture, says she experienced panic and a fear that this would be the new normal. this was a project initiated by the duchess of cambridge, herself a keen photographer, and she along with four otherjudges had the job of whittling the thousands of entries to just 100. i felt really strongly that i really wanted to try and create a portrait of the nation that captures the fears and the hopes, and the feelings of the nation at this really extraordinary time. the images convey the difficulties faced by so many. kerry hales from bridge end after three hours working in ppe titled her portrait, this is what broken looks like. in the first kiss, a father captures the moment his newborn son tries to kiss his mother despite the plastic barrier.

the judging process was very interesting and moving. obviously, going through all those images and seeing all these different stories, some of which are joyful and heartwarming, some of which are very moving and harrowing — i think it is something that resonates with all of us. a rainbow playground at a school in norfolk. short cut features a tense diy haircut using dog clippers. and taken by big sister marcella, home—schooling in dagenham. congratulating all of those who submitted a portrait, the queen has said in a statement that she had been inspired to see how the photographs have captured the resilience of the british people at such a challenging time. sarah campbell, bbc news. people have been making the most of the sunshine and unseasonable warmth in france, which is in the midst of an early—autumn heatwave. temperatures were forecast to be 10 to 15 degrees above average for this time of year. meteo france revealed a number of september heat records on monday. bourges hit 35.6 degrees, its hottest september day since 1961.

that is it for now, thank you for watching. hello there. we had the warmest september day on monday since 2016. for many it was a case of blue sky and sunshine. it was a beautiful september afternoon. why am i showing you jersey? well, it was jersey that had the top spot with 31 degrees. not far behind was charlwood, in surrey. that was the highest temperature across mainland uk, with london hot on its heals with 29 celsius. and the reason being, this area of high pressure centred across europe, that's allowing this southerly flow to drag in some very warm air all the way from africa. so we're seeing temperatures unusually high for the time of year, but things will change subtly as we go into tuesday, with weak weather fronts bringing some showery outbreaks of rain to start the day. it's going to be a relatively mild start, however. double digits quite widely across the country. but there will be some rain,

not the heavy persistent rain that we have seen, and it will weaken as we go through the afternoon a little. more cloud into south—west england, maybe south wales and north—west england. can't rule out an odd isolated shower as we go into the afternoon. but we keep, for many of us, dry, settled, sunny conditions, light winds and plenty of warmth to go with it. temperatures again quite widely mid to high 20s. we might see 30 degrees perhaps nearer to east anglia, through tuesday afternoon. things changing again though, as we go through the middle part of the week. it stays largely dry. there's no significant rain in the forecast but it will turn noticeably cooler. that is because high pressure will stay with us, but it's going to be centred across the north of scotland and, as the winds swing around in a clockwise direction, that means more of a north or north—easterly, over the next couple of days, and that means a notable difference to the feel of the weather in scotland, northern ireland northern england and, in particular, along those north sea facing coasts. so that could drag in a few isolated showers, and maybe even some mist and fog. here, temperatures 13—17 degrees. and further south, though, we mightjust see those temperatures peaking at 25 celsius — that's 77 fahrenheit.

high pressure is not going too far away at all. another high moves in, keeping things very quiet indeed but noticeably cooler as we go through the week. so no significant rain in the forecast, but temperatures perhaps falling down to where they should be for this time of year. take care. jeremy bowen, bbc news, beirut.

this is bbc news — the headlines: donald trump is visiting california — with record wildfires still burning. he claims the fires are the result of poor forest management, not climate change. his election rival, joe biden, says the president's policies are contributing to natural disasters. new legislation which would allow the british government to override key parts of the brexit withdrawal agreement has passed an early hurdle in the house of commons even though the government admits it would break international law. five former prime ministers have warned it will damage britain's standing in the world. an international team of astronomers believe they've found the strongest evidence yet that life may exist on the planet venus. they've detected traces of a gas in its atmosphere which is normally produced by living microbes. they've yet to find another explanation, but the temperature on the surface of venus