this is bbc news. i'm lewis vaughan jones. our top stories: donald trump is not backing down — he questions if the presidential election can be honest, despite senior republicans distancing themselves from his comments. we want to make sure the election is honest and i'm not sure that it can be. i don't know that it can be. a race against time in france to avoid another deadly coronavirus wave, as the country reports a record number of new cases. the uk government unveils a plan to top up workers‘ wages as covid cases rise and fears of mass unemployment grow. constantly accused of kidnap because her child's a different race — how one mother's trying to change public prejudices.

hello and welcome to audiences in the uk and around the world. first, president trump is continuing to cast doubt on the results of the upcoming election in the united states, telling reporters that he's not sure the vote can be honest. in the past 2a hours, senior republicans distanced themselves from his reluctance to commit to a peaceful transfer of power if he loses in november. mitch mcconnell, the republican leader in the senate, tweeted "the winner of the november 3rd election will be inaugurated on january 20th. there will be an orderly transition just as there has been every four years since 1792." well, speaking a short while ago, here's what the us president said.

we want to make sure the election is honest and i'm not sure that it can be. i don't know that it can be, with this whole situation, unsolicited ballots, they are unsolicited. millions being sent to everybody. our north america correspondent, david willis, has more. well, lewis, i have to tell you it's deja vu all over again, really, isn't it? because back in 2016, when he was campaigning for president, donald trump said he may well refuse to accept the outcome because there could be a lot of people who commit fraud. well, fast forward four years and we have these claims now from mr trump, this time, focusing on postal ballots, which he says are a potential source of fraud. and that's significant because millions of people in america are expected to vote by post this time around, simply because they don't want to stand in long lines at a time of the coronavirus pandemic. now, mr trump says on top

of all of that that he may refuse to the outcome of the election if he thinks there is fraud. and that's caused a lot of disconcerted responses, even from people in his own party. we've had mitch mcconnell and mitt romney and others coming up to say they believe there will be a peaceful transfer of power. but it's worth making the point, lewis, that no american president has cast doubt on the american democratic system in this way ever before, hence the american civil liberties union put out a statement today, saying, "the peaceful transfer of power is essential to a functioning democracy." yeah, david, it's extraordinary, isn't it? we sit and do reports and interviews on countries across the world that legitimately have problems with the democratic functions. and we never thought really that me and you would be sitting here chatting about this for the united states? absolutely not.

and that's something that house speaker, nancy pelosi, embraced today when she addressed reporters about this. she said the president admires people who are perpetuating their role in government, and she referred to kimjong—un in north korea and vladimir putin, amongst others. and she said, "you are not in north korea, mr president, nor in turkey, nor in russia. so, why don't you just try for a moment to honour your oath of office?" but all of this clouds an already clouded electoral process. we have got of course a contentious nomination coming up for another supreme court justice, and indeed, such as the potential lack of clarity going into this presidential election, that it might actually be up to the highest court in the land at the end of the day, the supreme court, to determine the outcome of the november election.

david willis there. let's get more on this with geoffrey corn — a professor of law at south texas college of law, houston. thank you for coming on the programme. thank you for having me. let's talk about the basic constitutional process. what is the process for the handover of power between election and inauguration? article two of the united states constitution indicates the president and vice president serve for four year terms. those germs began onjanuary year terms. those germs began on january 20 and they year terms. those germs began onjanuary 20 and they expire onjanuary 20 and they expire onjanuary 20 and they expire on january 20. onjanuary 20 and they expire onjanuary 20. —— those terms. u nless onjanuary 20. —— those terms. unless the joint session of congress that receives the electoral votes from the states certifies that president trump has been re—elected, asjomo offers terminates, and he has to leave office. —— his term of office. i suspect there would be some directive to escort mr trump from the white house. how

concerned are you of something like that actually happening?” think it is very unlikely, if there is something like that, i think it is more likely that there might be uncertainty as to the reporting from the states. these dates are required to report their electors, the allocation of electoral college votes to a joint session of congress that meets on january six. they opened the ballots, they tally the results and they announce a winner. if for some reason that process is delayed or held up, the term of office still ends onjanuary the term of office still ends on january 20, the term of office still ends onjanuary 20, and the succession statute, the federal statute on succession of authority indicates that the president and vice president are no longer able to serve, then the speaker of the house of representatives would assume responsibility as a temporary president until the joint session of congress certified a winner. that is interesting. so there is a plan in place, you

know, in the constitution, for what would happen if there is a dispute. 0n what would happen if there is a dispute. on a more realistic, if we don't think it will get that far, on a more realistic level, if there is uncertainty for days and days after the election about what has happened, how well set up is the us political system to deal with that uncertainty for days and days? well, we certainly had a preview in the bush— gore election, which caused a lot of anxiety and difficulty when vice president gore conceded defeat, that kind of terminated out. i think the real concern is the uncertainty as to who the winner of each state was, which would be the result of the states having to count male in ballots to allow the presidency make an argument publicly that the results on november the third might have shown him in a leading a state and then as the male in ballots are start getting counted, that any dissipates and then

disappears, and then he is arguing that is invalid and trying to persuade the states themselves to call into question who the winner of the state popular vote was. but i have a high degree of confidence that the states, the state governors, secretary of state and legislatures are not going to let that happen. we have heard from many states, both controlled by republicans and democrats, that they have high confidence in their mail—in voting system, and that is what really matters. if they have confidence, they will certify the results, they will send it to congress before january six, and then we will have a winner, even as mitch mcconnell says. we will know who the president is by january 20. great to have your analysis. thank you for talking us analysis. thank you for talking us through that process, professor geoffrey corn. thank you for having me. the french prime minister is warning it's a race against time to avoid a second coronavirus wave as bad as the first. jean castex said the public

must act now to stop a repeat of the peak in spring. it comes as the country records a record number of new cases since mass testing began. 16,096 cases were confirmed in the last 2a hours. i've been speaking to our reporter, mark lobel, about how the situation is developing in france. he says the prime minister, jean castex, is urging the french public to be more careful. if we were to look at some figures, lewis, in the last 24—hour period, 52 deaths have occurred, up from 43, and if we look at intensive care units in france, there's1,048 patients currently there. and in hospitals, generally, in france, with those patients with covid—19, it's almost 6,000. now, that's the highest it's been for two months. but it's five times less than the amount when it peaked in april. so, there's no sense there's

a national lockdown happening yet, but they're very worried about this rise in cases. yeah, good news in a sense those numbers of deaths are still so much lower than the first peak, but the trend is worrying, isn't it? so, what is the government doing now, then? the french prime minister is saying if the french public don't react in the way he's hoping, then he's hinting there will be severe restrictions, possibly leading to lockdowns. at the moment, politicians in paris have decreed that france's second city is in what they call ‘maximum alert‘ status. that means in marseille, pubs, bars, restaurants, are all closed for two weeks from saturday. there is fury among residents, some residents there and local politicians, they weren‘t consulted and they think it will push the problem elsewhere. they feel they are being picked upon. butjean castex was out on french television on thursday night, defending the plan. i don‘t think is going to watch on that one.

and then an ‘elevated alert‘ for paris and ten other cities where there will be a curfew in place for bars and restaurants from monday. and also, a rule of ten, so people won‘t be able to meet in public or private gatherings if you are more than ten people. and in terms of sporting events, there was an announcement on wednesday from the health ministry that 1,000 people would be the maximum at major sporting events. there was a question mark over whether roland—garros, the french open, would be affected by that. they received a statement from the prime minister which said they would be included. a blow to organisers, they were hoping for at least 5,000 a day. last year, quite different from the thousand that will allowed this year. there were 37,000 fans attending a day. briefly, what is happening across the rest of europe? well, the question is are we hitting a second wave? there are 3 million cases now in the uk and the eu combined.

spain at the top with over 700,000 cases, and as we were discussing marseille, in southern districts of madrid there is a severe lockdown where people are not allowed to leave their houses were asked not to unless for work or essential medical reasons. the highest figures since mass testing began. that height, that level, the government has brought in new rules, curfews on pubs and restaurants from 10pm, this rule of six where you cannot meet more than six people inside or outside your house, and they are encouraging people to go to the work from home again. the us city of louisville has just entered a second night under curfew after wednesday night‘s violence which saw two police officers shot. angry demonstrations followed

a decision by the kentucky authorities not to prosecute anyone over the death of breonna taylor — who was killed during a police raid in march. in the past few hours, the curfew has been extended into the weekend. meanwhile, a man has been charged with the shooting of the two police officers. let‘s get some of the day‘s other news. one of the most powerful officials in the vatican, cardinal angelo becciu, has unexpectedly resigned from his office. the cardinal, who‘s a close ally of pope francis, had become embroiled in a scandal involving the purchase of luxury property in london. the matter, which is now under investigation, has already led to others stepping down. cardinal becciu denies wrongdoing. borisjohnson‘s urged world leaders to commit to deeper cuts in carbon emissions once the coronavirus crisis is over, and said he wants to bring forward the date for phasing out new petrol and diesel cars. in a virtual meeting of the un climate action group, he said the uk would generate hundreds of thousands of newjobs with a green industrial revolution. but environmental experts have

expressed scepticism. vietnamese police have seized more than 320,000 used condoms that were to be illegally resold to unsuspecting customers — that‘s according to local media. footage show dozens of bags in a warehouse that was recently raided in the southern binh duong province. a woman, who was believed to be the owner of the warehouse, has been arrested. the former wimbledon champion, boris becker, has been warned he could be jailed for up to seven years if found guilty of concealing information about his financial assets. the 52—year—old, who was declared bankrupt in 2017, is accused of not disclosing details about bank accounts, share holdings, and a flat in london. he pleaded not guilty to 19 charges at a london court. stay with us on bbc news. still to come: constantly accused of kidnap because her child‘s a different race. how one mother‘s trying to change public prejudices.

ben johnson, the fastest man on earth, is flying home to canada in disgrace. all the athletes should be clean going into the games. i'm just happy that justice is served. it is a simple fact that this morning, these people were in their homes. tonight, those homes have been burnt down by serbian soldiers and police. all the taliban positions along here have been strengthened, presumably in case the americans invade. it‘s no use having a secret service which cannot preserve its own secrets against the world and so, the british government has no option but to continue this action even after any adverse judgement in australia. concorde have crossed the atlantic faster than any plane ever before, breaking

the record by six minutes. this is bbc news. our main headline: donald trump has again questioned if the presidential election can be honest. that‘s despite senior republicans distancing themselves from his comments. just want to take you to the scene live in washington where the body of late supreme courtjustice ruth bader ginsburg, who died last week at age 87, continues to lie in repose outside the supreme court so members of the public can pay their respects. there has been an outpouring of public mourning for the iconic liberal justice, who became a pop culture icon in recent yea rs. earlier president donald trump

went to pay his respects but was booed. this is how he was greeted. vote him out! vote him out! vote him out! vote him out! vote him out! protesters outside the supreme court were chanting, vote him out as he was paying his respects. let‘s turn to coronavirus in the uk now — more than a million people have already downloaded the government‘s contact—tracing app for england and wales, on its first day of release. anyone over 16 is being encouraged to use it on their smartphone. it can warn if you‘ve been in close contact with someone who‘s been infected. but the health secretary for england, matt hancock says it won‘t be a legal requirement for people to self isolate, if the app says you should. here‘s our medical

editor, fergus walsh. advert: now based on apple and google‘s privacy preserving technology, the app will help us safely live our lives, protecting you and others. much delayed, but finally available for download in england and wales. the nhs covid—19 app can be used to check in at bars and restaurants and tell you the coronavirus risk level where you live, but its main function is contact tracing. the app uses bluetooth, and if you come into contact with others who‘ve downloaded it, that will be recorded on each of the phones. let‘s say i test positive. that result will be sent anonymously to the nhs. if i‘d been within two metres of someone for at least 15 minutes, perhaps sat near them on a train, they‘ll be sent an alert telling them to self—isolate. the app keeps secret who‘s received those alerts, so self—isolation will be voluntary, unlike those contacted through nhs test and trace, where it‘s mandatory.

this allows us to find, all of us, to find contacts that we wouldn‘t otherwise know. because if you‘ve been sitting near somebody on a bus, for instance, you might not know who they are, so if you test positive, you couldn‘t tell the contact tracers that. a million people downloaded scotland‘s tracing app within a week of its launch. northern ireland‘s app has also proved popular. for those with covid symptoms, finding out fast whether they are infected is vital so that contacts can be traced. new figures show that fewer than one in three people in england who attended a covid testing site are getting their results within 2a hours. it was a return to home—schooling for the mcguire family from cambridgeshire last week, after two—year—old sian

got a fever. they managed to book a test slot. getting a test like that and one that was — we didn‘t have to travel 150 miles for, it was a half—an—hour drive so, actually, i thought, "this is really good". but a week on, they never heard back. we still don‘t have the government‘s test and trace result — day eight. it‘s so frustrating. actually, it felt so much worse than the original lockdown. in the end, they paid £150 for a private test and got the result last night. negative! yay! yay, you can go back to school. the government set a target of 500,000 tests a day by the end of october, double the amount done now, but making sure people get their results back quickly will be another challenge. fergus walsh, bbc news. the uk government has outlined plans to try to protect millions ofjobs and the economy over the next six months, as coronavirus restrictions limit growth. under the new scheme,

people who are unable to work full time will have their wages topped up by the government. they have to work at least a third of their normal hours to qualify. iam announcing i am announcing the newjob scheme. the government giving businesses in depressed demand the option of keeping employees inajob on the option of keeping employees in a job on shorter hours rather than making them redundant. the chancellor has insisted the government can only support jobs which are viable. he admitted this would lead to a rise in unemployment. i cannot save everyjob — no chancellor could. but what we can and must do is deal with the real problems businesses and employees are facing now. facebook says it has dismantled three networks of fake accounts which could have been used by russia‘s intelligence services to disrupt the upcoming us election. the company says the accounts used fake identities,

and could have been used to leak hacked documents. it comes as facebook prepares to launch an "oversight board" next month. users will be able to file appeals to the board, which will have the power to over—rule facebook‘s moderators and executives, including mark zuckerberg. our technology reporter james clayton has more. i think what‘s really clear is that facebook are worried and they are worried because there is a lot of disinformation on their platform form and it‘s a real headache for them. what happens when trump starts talking about postal fraud? what happens if trump says going forward, he‘d won the election when the declared result was a biden win? and so there are lots of difficult decisions going forward, and i think what‘s interesting is this oversight committee which has been talked about for some months now, is actually going to be up and running before that election and, in theory, that will help facebook because they can say, "look, if this is a really difficult decision,

we will hand that over to the committee." that said, this committee will potentially take up to 90 days to make decisions. it acts more as a supreme court but passes down a law that it acts more as a supreme court passing down case law that facebook than enacts, so if facebook suddenly get caught up in very, very acute problems with all sorts of claim, and counterclaim close to the election, i‘m not sure this oversight committee is going to help that much. next, adopting a child can be a challenging experience but imagine being accused of kidnapping your new baby. that‘s what regularly happens to keia, an african—american woman who adopted a white child. here‘s her story. how much you love your momma? this is princeton and his adopted mum, being the nanny, being stopped in restaurants. she captured this moment with a stranger at princeton‘s nursery.

how do you know him? how do i know him? i'm not a teacher, no. i'm not his babysitter. keia and her husband ricardo fostered winston when he was a baby and adopted him when he was two. we went to the hospital and we saw him for the first time. for me, it was just like love at first sight. like, oh, my gosh, he so tiny. but she didn‘t realise how rare the situation was until she went to a foster class and met several white couples caring for black children. we were the only african—american family that had a white child. the other families were like, "we don‘t go through that," and they were crying and they were like, "we feel so bad." the couple from north carolina have two other adopted children, karleigh and ayden, as well as keia‘s biological daughter zariyah. but keia is frustrated at the way some people treat her family.

it‘s sad that we have to defend our family all the time against misconceptions or racism or people being just plain rude. so she‘s been using social media to challenge perceptions. every 10 negative things we get, if we get a positive one, then i feel like ok, the world is moving in a different direction. a sheep... a sheep! make sure you‘re checking your own vices, prejudices. people who adopt trans—racially are change agents, because we love just to love. i think you will be just fine. it‘s like any other parent parenting their child. back soon. more online.

and i‘m on twitter. this is bbc news, bye—bye. hello again. if you went outside on thursday, i‘m sure you noticed a certain autumnal chill in the air. but was it really cold enough for snow? well, actually, this wasn‘t snow, it was a massive hail storm that went through the bradford area and the 0tley area, quite close to leeds in west yorkshire. and you can see the roads and the pavements turned white as those accumulations of hail built up. it must‘ve been quite some storm. now, the satellite picture shows low pressure over the uk with storm clouds rotating around it, and over the next few hours, we are going to see plenty more of those big showers. areas to watch out for, well, west wales in pembrokes hire and also into cornwall, could see some particularly heavy showers here. we‘re also going to see a band of persistent rain affecting

parts of east anglia. now, as we go on through friday, pressure builds actually in the west, and this area of low pressure‘s slow—moving. so, the isobars are going to pinch together. the winds are going to blow even more strongly. it will feel even colder. yes, a day of sunshine and showers, but prolonged outbreaks of rain across parts of eastern england. and there‘s going to be some very strong winds in east anglia. gusts could reach in excess of 60 mph, strong enough potentially to bring down a tree or two, so there could be some transport disruption. and there‘s heavy rain in the forecast, too, particularly lincolnshire into parts of east anglia with around 20—a0 millimetres orso, perhaps a bit more in places. we could also see some localised flooding, but away from the east, some sunshine,

feeling really cold, though, given the strength of those northerly winds. and they continue to blow into saturday, albeit slightly less strongly. another cold start to the day, and the threat again of a bit more rain running down into parts of east anglia in particular. further west, pressure‘s building a bit, a drier kind of day, showers fewer and farther between. temperatures still struggling and still feeling cold in the wind, and cold nights around as well. through saturday night, cold enough for some frost patches in the countryside in scotland. we‘ve still got those northerly winds with us as well across eastern parts of england. still potentially a few showers or spots of rain. further west, brighter with sunshine. winds turning lighter here, so perhaps not feeling quite as chilly. the forecast into next week, it stays unsettled with low pressure with us. those temperatures coming up a few degrees. that‘s your weather.

this is bbc news. the headlines: republican leaders in congress have said there will be an orderly transfer of power should president trump lose november‘s election. he appeared to cast doubt on the transition on wednesday — again raising questions about the probity of the vote with so many ballots likely to be cast by mail. the french prime minister‘s warned it‘s a race against time to avoid a second coronavirus wave as bad as the first. it comes as the country records a record number of new cases since mass testing began — with more than 16,000 people testing positive in 2a hours. the british chancellor of the exchequer‘s announced plans to replace the current furlough job support scheme for workers, as the country tries to contain coronavirus infections. rishi sunak said his primary goal remained to support the labour market but he warned he wouldn‘t be able to save everyjob. now on bbc news.