this is bbc news — welcome if you're watching here in the uk, on pbs in america or around the globe. i'm mike embley. our top stories: president trump tells americans not to be afraid of covid—19 as he poses for photographers without a facemask after being hospitalised with coronavirus. don't let it dominate you. don't be afraid of it. you're going to beat it, we have the best medical equipment, we have the best medicines, all developed recently. democrat rivaljoe biden criticises the president forfailing to observe coronavirus safety measures. iview wearing this mask not so much protecting me but as a patriotic responsibility. all the tough guys say, "i'm not

wearing a mask, i'm not afraid". well, be afraid for your husband, your wife. —— i view. the british government says an investigation has begun into why nearly 16,000 coronavirus cases went unreported last week. stairway t0 heaven plays all our own work — the rock band led zeppelin win their copyright battle over accusations they plagiarised the opening of their iconic track, "stairway to heaven." in a highly choreographed departure president trump left the walter reed military hospital in washington where he was being treated for coronavirus and has returned to the white house. wearing a mask, he walked unaided down the hospital steps before boarding the presidential helicopter for the short flight home. moments after returning to the white house, donald trump climbed the stairs

to the balcony, took off his mask and posed for photographs. he appeared to downplay his infection, posting the words "don't be afraid of covid. don't let it dominate your life", a message repeated in a video released shortly after. ijust left walter reed medical centre, and it's really something very special, the doctors, the nurses, the first responders and i learned so much about coronavirus, and one thing that's for certain, don't let it dominate you. don't be afraid of it. you're going to beat it, we have the best medical equipment, we have the best medicines, all developed recently. and you're going to beat it. i went, i didn't feel so good, and two days ago, i could have left two days ago, two days ago i felt great, like, better than i have in a long time. i said just recently, better than 20 years ago. don't let it dominate, don't

let it take over your lives. don't let that happen. we're the greatest country in the world. we're going back, we're going back to work, we are going to be out front. as your leader, i had to do that. i knew there's danger to it but i had to do it. i stood out front, i led. nobody that's a leader would not do what i did, and i know there's a risk, there's a danger, but that's ok. and now i'm better, and maybe i'm immune. i don't know. but don't let it dominate your lives, get out there, be careful. we have the best medicines in the world and it all happened very shortly and they're all getting approved, and the vaccines are coming momentarily. thank you very much, and walter reed, what a group of people. thank you very much. mr trump's democratic party rivaljoe biden has been on the campaign trail in florida. speaking at a town hall event in miami he attacked the president for downplaying the wearing of masks. these pictures are from nbc news. anybody who contracts the virus

by essentially saying masks don't matter, social distancing doesn't matter, i think is responsible for what happens to them. if these people took off their masks, and they all have them on i noticed, and just all of a sudden got in a gaggle and started talking to one another, well, they're taking responsibility that in fact they should be held responsible for, because every major scientist and doctor and immunologist has said that's a very dangerous thing to do. the particles and droplets can stay in the air for a long time, longer than they thought, it can go beyond ten feet. there's all kinds of things they've learned and know. look, i view wearing this mask, not so much protecting me, but as a patriotic responsibility, and all the tough guys say "i'm not wearing a mask, i'm not afraid", well, be afraid for your husband, your wife, your son, your daughter, your neighbour, your co—worker.

that's who you're protecting having this mask on and it should be viewed as a patriotic duty, to protect those around you. a little earlier our north america correspondent, peter bowes gave this update. we've seen another extraordinary sequence of events just in the last few hours, and the good news, of course, is that the president is feeling well enough with the blessing of his doctors to return home to continue his recovery, although in that video we have just seen, he is suggesting that he is better and perhaps immune — i haven't heard of a single doctor who would agree with that prognosis so early on after his infection and his diagnosis, but what has got really people talking and angry and exasperated, the actions of the president since he returned and we have heard you talk about it, returning, climbing the stairs to the balcony and then posing for photographs, but first removing his mask and posing for photographs for quite

a long time, not returning his mask as he walked into the room, presumably there were secret service people there and other aides for the president. he then came back out and seemingly posed for more photographs, and the criticism, you only have to look at social media to see how many, many people feel about that and the kind of message that it is sending. yes, the idea that he should be saying don't be scared of covid, don't let it dominate your life on the day when even the official figures say that something like 210,000 americans have died. yeah, there's an argument that covid should have dominated the lives of some americans even more over the past few months and perhaps, just perhaps, the country wouldn't be in the position that it is now and by that i mean in terms of the message of taking precautions which clearly hasn't been a clear one from the white house. social distancing, always wearing a mask when you are with other people outside. clearly, other countries are also facing a current surge in numbers so america isn't

unique in the respect that covid and the numbers of people who are now still being infected, that isn't necessarily unique. nevertheless, there is a sense that things could be better, had the white house taken a different course of action. the president has been given aggressive covid treatments that doctors are calling ‘uncharted territory'. they include a cocktail of antibodies, the anti—viral drug remdesivir, which he'll continue to get at the white house, and the steroid dexamethasone which is normally used when patients become seriously ill. here's our medical editor fergus walsh. it seems the president's doctors have thrown everything they can at his infection, but getting an exact picture of his state of health hasn't been easy. the white house says president trump and the first lady tested positive for coronavirus on thursday evening. his doctor said as a precautionary measure, he was given a one—off infusion, a cocktail monoclonal antibodies. this is an experimental treatment by biotech firm,

regeneron, designed to reduce viral load. it's promising, but there's no proof it works. clinical trials arejust starting in the uk. by late friday morning, mr trump had a high fever and his oxygen saturation levels had dipped to 93%, just below the normal lower limit of 95%, and he was given oxygen for about an hour. in my experience, from looking after patients who typically present to hospital after being unwell at home for about 5—7 days, it's around that sort of time that they start to need oxygen, so it's entirely possible that donald trump may have been unwell or had an infection in the background for a few days before he tested positive and before coming into hospital. later on friday, president trump was flown to walter reed military hospital. there he was given a second drug, remdesivir — this is an antiviral,

which was approved in may as a covid—i9 therapy. a five—day treatment, it's been shown to speed up recovery and is used widely in the us. on saturday, the president was started on the steroid, dexamethasone. this works by dampening the body's immune system, which can go haywire with covid—i9, and it reduces inflammation in the body. it's been shown to help the sickest covid patients, those in hospital, on oxygen or a ventilator, but it's not recommended for patients with mild symptoms. if you wanted to divide these things with a straight line down the middle you'd say, on oxygen or on a ventilator, give dexamethasone. not on oxygen, not on a ventilator, don't give dexamethasone. but that's rather more black and white than the subtlety of a one—on—one clinical conversation and decision. covid patients who appear to be getting better can sometimes take a turn for the worse several days into the infection, so the president's doctors won't relax

until he's fully recovered. fergus walsh, bbc news. dr eric feigl—ding is an epidemiologist and senior fellow at the federation of american scientists in washington. here's his take on the president's actions. as an epidemiologist it's really frustrating that he took off his mask as the first thing he did when he re—entered the white house. he's still definitely infectious because on average, people are ten days infectious after they first show symptoms, so donald trump is definitely still infectious and the fact that he took off the mask, he has staffers who have to go to work and not all of them wear n95 masks. i think it's very risky and i think, honestly, he's been discharged from hospital way too early. although he can still get pretty serious medical treatment at the white house

but as you say, the point about his colleagues and his staff is, the white house is already a hotspot. yeah, absolutely. the white house is a hotspot and it's actually refusing to contact trace any of those at the recent supreme court nomination rose garden ceremony. they're actually actively blocking the cdc from trying to contact trace those attendees, which is just infuriating as an epidemiologist. and secondly, the actual white house has a very light fence when it comes to the safety, they've been relying on just one simple rapid testing and then after which, once you pass it, people go without masks and that has been very, very dangerous and clearly shows it's very flawed because an asymptomatic carrier who tests negative can easily pass through their system. the white house is not very safe right now, as a place to work. what do you make of

the treatments the president has been getting? we know with this virus, there could still be quite difficult days ahead. absolutely. so he first got the regeneron monoclonal antibody therapy, which is not even fda approved, not even for emergencies. that synthetic antibody is a little bit aggressive, but understandable as a vip, but at the same time the dexamethasone that he got is very worrisome, because the who actually advises against dexamethasone for anyone with mild illness, it's only for serious and critical because it actually increases viral replication and suppresses your immunity unless you're in a very critical state. so in certain ways, the fact that they used that drug, granted he was on oxygen, is an extreme measure, and he's not entirely well yet, because this virus has a very see—saw kind of trajectory, and we know

from the uk recovery trial that one in four people who need oxygen still die down the road in 28 days, so he's not out of the woods yet, for sure. i've seen some of this treatment described as a sugar rush. you don't necessarily realise, when you're on them, how ill you are. exactly. the dexamethasone gives you, as you say, you feel like you can climb everest. it is a temporary energy rush. you feel better but you're actually not necessarily any better. you are better not because you have developed immunity from the virus, you feel better because you suppress the inflammation which, at the same time, suppresses your immunity and increases viral replication as the who doctor mike ryan today warned. he's definitely not out of all of this. the white house does have good medicalfacilities but we still have to see another week how he responds. the press secretary for the white house is the latest high profile figure in the trump administration

to test positive. kayleigh mcenamy said she wasn't experiencing symptoms but would quarantine. two other members of the white house media team, and some reporters, have also tested positive. stay with us on bbc news, still to come: stairway t0 heaven plays the rock band led zeppelin win their copyright battle over accusations they plagiarised the opening of their iconic track, "stairway to heaven." this was a celebration by people who were relishing their freedom. they believe everything's going to be different from now on. they think their country will be respected in the world once more, as it used to be, before slobodan milosevic took power. the dalai lama, the exiled spiritual leader of tibet, has won this year's nobel peace prize. as the parade was reaching its climax, two grenades exploded and a group of soldiersjumped from a military truck taking part in the parade,

and ran towards the president, firing from kalashnikov automatic rifles. after 437 years, the skeletal ribs of henry viii's tragic warship emerged. but even as divers worked to buoy her up, the mary rose went through another heart—stopping drama. i want to be the people's governor. i want to represent everybody. i believe in the people of california. this is bbc world news, our main headline: president trump tells americans not to be afraid of covid—i9. he poses for photographers without a facemask, after being hospitalised with coronavirus. tens of thousands of people in england may still be unaware that they've been in close contact with someone

who has covid. a technical issue in transferring positive results from laboratories led to almost 16,000 missing cases. all those who tested positive were informed. but their close contacts were not and thousands still haven't been traced. many of the cases are in parts of northern england already under local lockdown. the health secretary matt hancock told parliament the problems still havent been resolved and the incident should never have happened. the shadow health secretary jonathan ashworth said the missing results were "putting lives at risk". here's our health editor, hugh pym. testing and tracing continues today. but there are yet more questions about whether the whole system in england is working properly, with thousands of cases not recorded, so contacts of those testing positive were not followed up. the health secretary had to come to the commons to explain what went wrong. this incident should never have happened. but the team have acted swiftly to minimise its impact, and now it is critical that we work together to put

this right and to make sure that it never happens again. labour highlighted the failure to follow up contacts. thousands of people, blissfully unaware they've been exposed to covid, potentially spreading this deadly virus at a time when hospital admissions are increasing and we're in the second wave. this isn'tjust a shambles. it's so much worse than that. here is what we were told at the time about the number of daily reported cases up until friday, reaching around 7,000 by the end of the week. but now that the extra cases have been added in, here is what it looks like now — above 11,000. all the new data relates to england, with striking increases in some regions. in the north—west of england, for example, there were more than 8,000 extra cases reported — an increase of 93%. in the yorkshire and humber region, it was more than 4,000 extra cases — an increase of 113% on what we

were originally told. civic leaders affected by restrictions in the north—west say policy must be reconsidered. somebody should be checking this. this is a national government implementing a system and making decisions that are predicated on that evidence. and the evidence, now we find, has been faulty. so how does the system work? tests of hospital staff and patients are analysed at nhs and public health laboratories. these seem to be working well. testing for the public and most care homes at drive—through centres or with kits is partly done by private companies. they then send the swabs to the big lighthouse labs to analyse tests. these were set up by the government and are run by private companies and universities. they then pass on results to public health england to be fed into the test and trace system for contacts to be followed up. this is where the it problems have occurred. phe says the issue has now been resolved, but wider challenges

for people using the testing network remain. a surge in demand caused delays last month and these are still happening. jarrod was tested on friday and still hasn't had a result. he and his flatmates, who are key workers, are having to isolate and stay off work. things should be in place by now, really, so it makes it difficult for people who are trying to do the right thing. so i can certainly understand the frustration, anxiety and stress it produces in other people who may not be as lucky to have people delivering food and, you know, support them through a challenging time, really. the challenge for the government remains — bolstering confidence in a testing system which in recent weeks has fallen short of where it should be. hugh pym, bbc news. in france the number of people in intensive care has reached more than 1400, for the first time since the end of may. paris is being placed on maximum alert on tuesday, meaning bars will be forced to close for two weeks. bars in paris have continued to draw large crowds of people, often flouting physical distancing and mask—wearing guidelines.

lucy williamson is in paris. well, after days of negotiations, the government has decided that only bars have to close. restaurants can stay open as long as they follow strict new social distancing rules. the trouble is that the vast majority of places in paris — cafes, bistros, this place behind me — fall between those two definitions so they're having to completely reorganise their staffing and menus in order to stay open. i've just been speaking to the owner of this place, who says he expects just to break even at best, and that he thinks people are already starting to regroup in studios and flats rather than coming out to the bars. and i know there will be many owners tonight sitting down with a calculator and simply working out whether it's worth their while to reopen tomorrow at all. let's get some of the day's other news: international flights have resumed in peru, after nearly seven months of restrictions, which were introduced to try to curb the spread of the coronavirus.

the government has allowed flights of up to four hours to and from the capital, lima, as part of a gradual reopening plan. terrestrial borders remain closed. ireland is re—introducing stricter nationwide coronavirus restrictions after a surge in infections. from midnight on tuesday, people will be asked to stay in their county of residence and organised indoor events will be cancelled. restaurants and pubs will be barred from serving customers indoors, employees encouraged to attend workplaces "only if absolutely necessary" and religious services will be moved online. the cleanup continues in france and italy after heavy rains caused significant flash flooding, killing at least seven people. the storm destroyed homes and washed away roads, while coastal areas areas on the french riviera were also devastated. rescue workers have stepped up their search efforts amid fears up to 20 people are missing. one of the greatest rock bands of all time, led zeppelin, have won a long—running legal battle over claims it stole

the opening guitar riff from its 1971 song stairway to heaven. the band, one of the best—selling rock acts of all time, was handed victory after the us supreme court declined to take up the case. paul hawkins reports. it's opening guitar riff is iconic, stairway to heaven, by brock legend stairway to heaven. this is jimmy brock legend stairway to heaven. this isjimmy page who created the band speaking to the bbc about the song. the idea of stairway to heaven is to have a piece of music, a composition, whereby it would keep on folding into more layers back his lawyers have beenin layers back his lawyers have been in american courts for six yea rs been in american courts for six years arguing he was not a fraud. the claim that stairway to heaven was ripped off by another song, taurus, by a band

called spirit. the claim was logged by the estate of the band's late front man, randy wolfe. they argued they became familiar with the song after the two bands played together in1970, a year the two bands played together in 1970, a year before stairway to heaven was released. both jimmy pageant lead singer robert plant argued they had never heard of the song until ten yea rs never heard of the song until ten years ago. the jury did not believe them instead they believed evidence from musicologists saying descending physical patterns was a common musical device. for example you can hear it in chim chim cher—ee mary poppins. at the heart of the debate was whether this was blatant copying or the natural evolution of music which borrows from other

genres, which jimmy paige himself admits. it started with quite fragile exposed acoustic guitar playing in the style of the poor man's sebastian bach. now the supreme court has said it will not hear the appeal so the originaljudgement is final, not that the lawyer from randy wolfe's estate is saying... # the stairway to heaven to evans... #. millions of dollars in compensation but that has not stopped fans from continuing to debate.

it's taken 3,000 years, but finally the tasmanian devil has been reintroduced into the wild on the australian mainlaind. the fiesty marsupials, known for their loud growl and powerful jaws, have been released into a specially prepared forest north of sydney. it's thought early human hunters or packs of dingoes forced the tasmanian devils into extinction on the mainlaind after a fatal disease first struck in the mid—1990s. and it is now estimated that fewer than 25,000 still live in the wild on the island of tasmania, a reminder of our top story: donald trump returns to the white house, three days after being hospitalised with coronavirus. within minutes he had removed his protective mask and urged americans not to be afraid of covid 19. there is much more for you any time on our website and twitter feed. thank you very much for watching.

hello there. i thought i'd start with a reminder of just how grim a start to the month we've had. across a swathe of southern england and parts of eastern scotland too, over recent days, we've seen more rainfall than we'd expect to see in the whole of the month of october. and we're only in the first week, of course. winchcombe is in gloucestershire — 118mm here over recent days, compared with the october average of 81mm. now, we have got a bit more rain to come, over the next couple of days, but i'm going to zoom out into the west atlantic, because this is a developing area of low pressure, and it could bring some really heavy rain across those areas that have already seen a lot of rainfall this month, so more on that in just a moment. for the time being, we do have rain around right now. we've got some patches working across from northern ireland, pushing eastwards across wales and england, and another line

of rain from an occlusion that's bringing some wet weather at the moment to south—west scotland and the far north of england. temperatures to start the day about 8—11 degrees. now, we are going to see further patches of rain pushing eastwards across wales and england through the day. i suspect they could become quite lengthy patches of rain, quite persistent rain for a time, across north wales, merseyside and greater manchester. further showers for west scotland and northern ireland. becoming windy in the south—west through the afternoon, where we could get gusts of wind of 50—odd mph. the best of the sunshine for eastern scotland. but for many of us, it will be quite cloudy, with just a few sunny intervals coming and going. now, for wednesday, probably overall a little bit more in the way of sunshine but again we've got showers around. those showers particularly affecting northern and western scotland and, given that wind direction, we might see a few sneaking down the irish sea, into north wales and north—west england as well. temperatures coming down a degree or so, highs for most between 13 and 15 degrees. now, on into thursday's forecast, these weather fronts that had been forecast to bring the majority of rain across england and wales are actually going to push

a little bit further northwards now on the latest model runs. and that sees rain potentially going as far north as the central belt of scotland, maybe even north scotland for a time. now, further southwards, we will see some rain at a time moving across england and wales. but it's this trailing front that could cause some issues, not just through thursday, but actually thursday night and into friday, because that front could become aligned to give some lengthy outbreaks of rain across parts of england and wales and some of those parts where we've already seen a lot of rainfall so far. so we could see some further localised flooding towards the end of the week.

this is bbc news, the headlines: president trump has urged americans not to be afraid of covid19 — and not to let it dominate their lives. he was speaking after retuning to the white house from three days of hospital treatment for coronavirus. his doctors say he's "not yet out of the woods. his democratic party rival for the presidenchoe biden has criticised the president forfailing to observe virus safety measures. campaigning in miami, he accused mr trump of irresponsibility for saying masks and social distancing don't matter. he urged people to protect themselves for the sake of their loved ones. tens of thousands of people in england still might not know that they're at risk of contracting covid—19 — after nearly 16,000 cases were missed off government records. those people who tested positive were told, but their contacts weren't. the opposition labour party says lives have potentially been put at risk as a result.