welcome to bbc news. i'm lewis vaughan jones. our top stories: donald trump and joe biden make rival tv appearances, as early voters head to the polls. twitter says it's investigating a global outage as millions of users weren't able to post or read messages. a warning to europe from the world health organization — impose new restrictions to save lives, as the continent reports more covid cases than the us and india. riot police in thailand clash with demonstrators, protesting against the king and the prime minister.

president trump and his challengerjoe biden have been holding two rival tv town hall events. they're instead of the second tv debate which was cancelled due to the president getting coronavirus. the biden campaign had its own virus scare on thursday with aides to kamala harris, the vice presidential nominee, testing positive. all this, as early voters rush to the polls. let's speak to our north america correspondent ben wright. an interesting evening there in the states, both rival candidates on their the same time. what has been happening? they were meant to be taking pa rt they were meant to be taking part in the debate, this was meant to be the night of the second presidential debate which was scrapped in president trump refused to take part in a virtual debate which the broadcasters suggested as an alternative because he was still, at that point,

recovering from coronavirus, so this is very much a second—best option, to networks going head—to—head with these two rival townhall events. president trump is on the stage, an outside stage in miami in florida and its been quite a robust hour so far taking questions both from the moderator but also from the audience. i think some of the highlights, he was asked point blank whether he would denounce white supremacy, something he did not do what he sort of sidestepped in the first debate. he did, more clearly than he did in the first debate, saying that he did denounce white supremacy. he was also asked about the conspiracy theory that is big online, qanon, and he said he knew nothing about it. many people speak about qanon you had been following the story and he will have seen, i'm sure, stories about qanon on his twitter feed over the last few months, but he claimed to know nothing about it. when i last checked in on that

townhall meeting, as we are calling it, he was being grilled about his tax arrangements, defending the amount he is said to have paid, saying he has lots of big, beautiful houses around the country but that is taxes are all in order but still not saying he will publish them as many are demanding so long way to go on that one, but i do not think anything particularly surprising at the moment, nothing which is going to harm him or help him in these last 2.5 weeks of the campaign and, remember, at the moment, he is consistently behind in the polls. he needs something to happen in the next few weeks if he has a chance of winning this and lea pfrogging your he has a chance of winning this and leapfrogging your biden if we believe the polls as they are at the moment. stay there, then, we are now going to look at the joe biden then, we are now going to look at thejoe biden townhall being moderated by abc news and he spoke of trump as make handling of the coronavirus. we need more teachers in our schools to be able to open, we need ventilation systems changed,

there are lots of things we know now and i laid them out in some detail. again, when i say ilaid them some detail. again, when i say i laid them out, i am not an officeholder. i am i laid them out, i am not an officeholder. lam running i laid them out, i am not an officeholder. i am running for office, i am officeholder. i am running for office, lam not officeholder. i am running for office, i am not vice officeholder. i am running for office, lam not vice president ora office, lam not vice president or a senator pushing this, sol do not want to say i, i, i, but we laid out exactly what needed to be done and take a look, we make up for percent of the world's population but we have 20% of the world's deaths. we have 210 plus thousand people dead and what is he doing? nothing. he is still not wearing a mask and so on. what else has come out of that tv townhall? as you would expect, there was a big contrast in tone. biden was reasonably conversational in his answers with the audience, expansive, exceptionally relaxed. i think the format suits him quite well. there was a lot of conversation about

covid and america's response and what he would do as president. he went so far as to say as far as he could as president, he would make a mask wearing mandatory or say that people should wear masks more strongly than president trump has done and he was asked if there was a vaccine if he would ta ke there was a vaccine if he would take it and he said there was a vaccine if he would take itand he said if there was a vaccine if he would take it and he said if the scientists said it worked and it was effective then of course he would and he would urge other americans to take it as well. he said just as i was coming to talk to you now, he was talking about he would try to really expand bipartisanship if he won this presidential race which i think is a huge contrast with president trump. he said if he became president, he was confident 4—8 republican senators might work with his white house on measures. we have no idea that is true or not, but he is trying to sound like he would be the sort of president who would begin to heal some of the division and polarisation we have seen over the last four years. that is

very much his pitch. thank you for that round—up and we will bring you more on the debates and a clip from the president trump debate when that finishes when we are allowed to bring you those clips. we can now speak to democratic strategist robin swanson. thank you for coming on the programme. thank you having me. in the last hour, we spoke to a republican strategist who is very, very talented, trying to spoke to both at the same time, i don't if you have been managing to do that but what have you been picking up?|j have you been picking up?|j have been getting clipper fatigue trying to go from one channel to the next. i do think that it channel to the next. i do think thatitis channel to the next. i do think that it is kind of a sad state of affairs that we can't even agree to have our presidents and presidential candidate on the same channel, so i think that speaks to how divided the country is right now. i would say the good news is that the townhall format allows for you to actually hear the answers

which we were unable to do during the presidential debate, but i think tonight will end up being more of a ratings war thanit being more of a ratings war than it was about presidential politics, to be honest. interesting. what about the content, then? has anything stood out to you about what has been said? yeah, i mean, going back—and—forth to both, the biggest contrast is that the donald trump townhall was much more heated. he was being asked some very pointed questions about his handling of coronavirus and bothjoe biden and donald trump asked about that, but obviously donald trump is accountable for what is happening in the country right now, so that was a more heated debate than the interview with joe biden. heated debate than the interview withjoe biden. it was much more sanguine and calm, so i aptly think donald trump will win the ratings war which he loves to talk about ratings, but that does not

translate to voters. the perceived wisdom is that whoever is ahead in the polls just need to avoid any major m ista kes just need to avoid any major mistakes for the evening to be a success. do you thinkjoe biden is on course for that or not? yeah, you know what? i watched and i found not? yeah, you know what? i watched and ifound it promising. i do not think he will pick up a tonne of new folks. those of us who work in campaigns, the biggest cam concern is october surprises and goodness knows we have had ourfairshare of and goodness knows we have had our fair share of surprises and goodness knows we have had ourfair share of surprises in the months leading up to october so we do not need more surprises. you know, the last one being the president having covid himself, so, you know, anything is game in 2020. i think we are prepared for that. joe biden is a leading in the polls, but i am an analyst who thought that hillary clinton was going to do well in the last election, too, so i think there is a healthy scepticism of what the polls are telling us of what the polls are telling us andi

of what the polls are telling us and i think for democrats, at least, that will make as work all the harder to deliver on what we think are going to be good results. just very briefly, before you go, do you think when everyone wakes up tomorrow any of this will change anything dramatically?” do not, i do not. there will be a few clips that are replayed from each of the townhall is and then people will move onto the next. thank you for speaking to us. twitter says it's investigating after a global outage. users weren't able to tweet, and were sent error messages saying "something went wrong". twitter says the the issue was caused by an inadvertent change made to their internal systems. our tech reporter james clayton joins us live from san francisco. hopefully you can explain what on earth that sentence means.” will read you the full statement from the last hour, we identified this was made by an inadvertent change we meet our internal systems. twitter

should be working for everyone within the next few hours. something very similar happened to this in february and we do not know what happened. it could have been a developer pressing the wrong button. we simply do not know, but it does appear that this is not a hack and that's what people were worried about. last time something similar to this happened when verified users could not was because of a hack. the crucial point here is that it does not appear to have happened this time. james, why is it such a big new story? why do people get so animated when a service just do people get so animated when a servicejust drops do people get so animated when a service just drops out even for a couple of hours? it's basically the message boards for the world. donald trump usesit for the world. donald trump uses it as a place where he puts all of his press releases. it isa puts all of his press releases. it is a place that has become hugely influential. along with facebook, people, particularly in times of covid when people are at home, are on their phones checking what is going on in the world and so what

happens on twitter and facebook is hugely important, so when it goes down, not only is it a sort of why has that happened, but it is also a situation where you are kind of thinking, is this a cure? is this a secure platform? is this a cure? is this a secure platform 7 it is this a cure? is this a secure platform? it does make people worry, i suppose, that they have a lot of information on their and it seems to be going down and it happens, you know, not infrequently. twitter and facebook, of course, in the news, all over the news for so many reasons just this week for accusations from the right of censorship by not linking through to newspaper articles. it's just impossible for these platforms to avoid criticism or, at least, being the centre of new stories at the moment. exactly, three weeks to go until the election and they are trying to moderate that platform and they are being accused of all sorts of things from the left and from the right. facebook took down a presidential tweet the other day because he said that covid

was not as bad as flu, so when you are having to make these incredibly difficult decisions all of the time, you are going to get a lot of flak, so we have three weeks to go until the election. i think we have to get used to that. tensions are going to be really be raised in the next few weeks andi raised in the next few weeks and i think twitter and facebook in particular are going to expect a lot of incoming from both trump supporters and biden supported. that means we will have to get you back on to expend it to us. thank you very much, james. the european union is now reporting more covid cases than the us, more than india and more than brazil. the world health organization warned today that european governments must impose tough new restrictions in order to save lives. in france, that means a curfew will come into force on saturday in nine cities, including paris and millions of french people won't be allowed to leave their homes from 9pm to 6am. from paris, lucy williamson sent this report. time moves slowly in the cafe around the sorbonne. but student social life, virtually unchanged for centuries, has accelerated

infections in cities like paris, marseille and lyon. matil is studying management here, and agrees that this curfew is for them, but will it work? i don't think that it will work. if i didn't have a test, i think i will go out with people and do parties at 21—6am. the curfews are being imposed on france's worst hit places, the paris region and eight other cities, including marseille, toulouse, lyon and lille. hotspots which span the length and breadth of france, these may be targeted local restrictions, but together, they add up to a national problem. what the government is desperate to avoid is a national solution — some medics are already calling for another nationwide lockdown. translation: for several months now, we have adopted a tailored strategy.

we have opted for targeted measures, city by city, area by area, rather than generalised bands. we rely on trust with local officials, first and foremost the mayors. i want to say it again, without them, we would not succeed. the government has been careful to consult local leaders after accusations it was sidelining them last month. but there is still lots of opposition. the mayor of marseille says she's very angry about the cu rfews. "we know where infections happen," she said, "companies, "ca nteens, public transport. "we are putting the sticking plaster in the wrong place." almost half the life—support beds in paris are already full of covid patients, staff at this hospital said they were preparing for a marathon, not a sprint. one nurse we spoke to broke down as he described the past six months. "for us, it's not just numbers," he said, "it's names and faces."

lucy williamson, bbc news, paris. stay with us on bbc news. still to come: how the so—called latino vote is playing an important role in the run—up to the us election.

this is bbc news. our main headline: donald trump and joe biden take part in simultaneous tv appearances, as early voters head to the polls. let's stay with this now. earlier we had a clip from joe biden's town hall appearance. let's listen to president trump, who's just finished his town hall appearance on nbc news. here he is answering a question about qanon — the conspiracy theorists who believe that democrats are part of a global paedophile ring.

let me ask you about qanon. it is this theory that democrats area is this theory that democrats are a satanic paedophile ring and that you either saviour of that. now, can youjust and that you either saviour of that. now, can you just once and for all state that that is com pletely and for all state that that is completely not true and disavow qanon in its entirety?” completely not true and disavow qanon in its entirety? i know nothing about qanon.” qanon in its entirety? i know nothing about qanon. ijust told you. you just told me about what you tell me does not necessarily make it fact. i know nothing about it. i do know nothing about it. i do know they are very much against paedophilia. they fight it very hard, but i know nothing about it. they believe it is a satanic cult run by the deep state. i'll tell you what i do know about, i know about antifa and the radical left and how violent and the radical left and how viole nt and and the radical left and how violent and vicious they are and that they are burning down citizens run by democrats, not by republicans. qanon is nuts

and real leaders karl conspiracy theories conspiracy theories. he may be right. i just don't know about qanon. you do know. i don't know. this week we've been looking at the state of the us presidential campaigns in the key electoral state of florida. from miami, our north america editorjon sopel sent this report. this is donald trump's hispanic armada making a splash against miami's famous skyline. around 200 boats. it is chaotic, noisy and exuberant. if every election throws up a new way of campaigning, this is 2020's innovation — the boat parade. the president's son eric is the star attraction. eric, are you feeling confident? how are you feeling? you tell me how it looks, right? is there love in this country or is there love in this country? tremendous love. we're going to win this thing. if you look at the polls, donald trump is facing, well, very strong headwinds. he is being outspent. in key battle ground

states, he is down. but among hispanic voters, his head is above water and in this critical state, that could be a vital lifeline. the hispanic and latino vote in florida is critical. many of these latinos have already seen what the rhetoric is on the left side, pushing socialism, free stuff. they don't want it, they are hard—working americans that are here and they want the freedom to choose. they want donald trump. both sides are pouring millions into ads for the hispanic tv market. so i said to my people, slow the testing down please. joe biden... even on spanish language stations, there is no escape from the election. adios. for president, did you vote for biden or trump? i voted for biden. biden? thank you. but the hispanic vote is not a monolithic block, as this democratic canvasser in little havana explains. here the community is not just the latino vote. it is the cuban vote, the honduran vote,

the venezuelan vote. and so it is important to kind of understand where these people are coming from. joe biden was here earlier in the week and though he has a spring in his step, polls suggest he is doing way worse among latino voters than hillary clinton was four years ago. but why? the number two in the democratic party for the crucial miami dade district gives a brutally candid answer. the trump administration has run a playbook which has been sheer genius for the past three years and basically itjust says, democrats are socialists. and that is hurting you. so when you come from a country in latin america that everything you have had was taken away from you under the guise that it is a socialist government which is really a left—wing dictatorship, then when you hear that the democrats are socialists, you're running away. as these trump boater voters discovered today, the climate in florida changes fast. predicting whether it will be sunshine or heavy rain come november 3rd

is decidedly risky. jon sopel, bbc news, miami. the saudi—led military coalition and yemeni houthi rebels have undertaken the largest prisoner exchange, since the conflict in yemen began over five years ago. more than a thousand detainees have been transferred following two years of un brokered talks. gareth barlow reports: smiles are rare in yemen after more than five years of brutal conflict. thousands have been killed by bombs, thousands killed by bombs, thousands killed by bombs, thousands killed by blockades restricting basic necessities like food and medicine. but on thursday, after two years of negotiation, there were celebrations. hundreds of fighters returned home after the saudi led military coalition and yemen's

houthi movement agreed to the largest prisoner exchange since the conflict began. translation: i have been a prisoner in saudi arabia for 3.5 years. we were subject to torture and insults, but this deepened our faith and trust in god. we are ready to be sent to the front lines. and that's been the issue for the two sides, deciding who should be released and considering what they may do after being transferred. the deal‘s brokers say their focus has been humanitarian rather than political. translation: our role in this operation is neutral. we do not have any interference in the names that are on the left. we just facilitate the transfer process, make sure the prisoners are well and check up on their health following the precautionary measures taken due to covid. this is the reality of five years of conflict. yet many children

return to the shell of their school, no windows, no doors, no desks, but despite the ruinous consequences of the conflict, there is hope. the un special envoy for yemen told the security council he hoped the security council he hoped the exchange would build confidence and momentum towards further agreements. a call echoed on the ground. translation: this deal must be the beginning of other one says this issue is humanitarian before being military or political. therefore this one must be an introduction, otherwise we have to have pressure cards which will push the enemy to accept other gales. as we still have saudi and sudanese prisoners. and that's the reality, whilst the number of people handed over is impressive, thousands more remain detained and 80% of yemen's population require a vital aid. this crisis is far from over. finally, karl burges —

a young man from utah — was out for a casual afternoon jog, when it turned into a life—or—death situation, after he came across a mountain lion and her cubs. i was just out from my kind of morning... it was actually kind of an afternoon trail run and i ran into some wildlife. bleep! and now have a mama cougar who is really mad because she things i'm going to hurt her kids, so she was just doing what she was supposed to do. this is when i... nope! get the bleep away! the scariest part for me was when she kind of charges three times at me. go away! no! and that third time is when she got probably within four feet of me and i was like, oh, my gosh, i honestly almost squinted my eyes like, this is going to hurt.

come on, dude. i don't feel like dying today. i really wanted it to end because these six minutes were very long. actually, i was able to pick up a rock and toss it and it kind of startled her or hit her a little bit and, like, ok, then she left. dammit, ok. yeah, so, thatjust happened. right now, it almost feels like a dream. very surreal, it's kind of like, wow, this could have ended so badly. i'm glad it ended the way it did. i was able to get home to my family and the mama cougar is able to get back to her baby cubs. don't forget you can get in touch with me and some of the team on twitter —

i'm @lvaughanjones this is bbc news, bye—bye. hello there. we're moving into a quieter spell of weather. it may only be short—lived, mind you. essentially we've got high pressure dominating but again the centre of the high pressure is towards the north of the uk, hence those winds off the north sea as we've seen over the past few days bringing with them a few showers as well. probably not as many showers today compared with what we had yesterday. and more places will be dry with a little sunshine. but it will be a chilly start to the day on friday especially where we've got the clearer skies in the west. we start with a few showers mainly for the eastern parts of england. they'll run their way through lincolnshire through the midlands towards parts of wales and some showers in the extreme south—east of england, the odd one possibly in northern ireland too. but more sunshine for south—west england and more

sunshine for northern england. and the best of the sunshine in scotland, i think, will be across the western side of the country. for many parts of scotland, it looks cloudy. it's going to be a cool day as it was yesterday. that cloud continues to push down across scotland into northern england. one or two showers continuing into the night, may be a few more showers arriving in the far south—west of england as well but probably not quite as cold early on saturday morning compared with friday morning. those temperatures under the cloud at around 6—7 celsius. the weekend looks quiet, little or no wind. the winds very light, we have a lot of cloud around, many places will be dry and still quite cool. got a few showers towards the south coast of england, the south west. the odd one from the cloud across england and wales and a bit of drizzle coming in across northern and eastern scotland perhaps into the north—east of england. that's going to make it feel quite cold. temperatures struggling to make double figures in northern scotland. 12—13 again is going to be a fairly typicalfigure, a lot of cloud around too. and on the whole, it looks quite cloudy on sunday but if anything, the cloud is a little bit thinner for many areas, so a better chance of seeing some sunshine. a better day for the south west

of england for example. but signs of a little rain just beginning to arrive in northern ireland, perhaps the north—west of scotland, and that's a sign of things to come really because if we look further ahead into the early part of next week, instead of high pressure dominating the weather, the pressure is falling and low pressure is going to take charge. you can see we've got a number of weather fronts on the scene as well. so, we can tidy that up really into just this sort of headline because the early part of next week looks like it's going to be a big change in the weather to wet and windy conditions, maybe not quite as chilly as the weekend.

this is bbc news. the headlines...

donald trump and joe biden have been holding separate town hall events, instead of the second tv debate which was cancelled due to the president getting coronavirus. while questioned by the moderator, mr trump declined to condemn online conspiracy theories involving him. twitter is investigating a global outage as millions of users weren't able to post or read messages. twitter says there's no evidence to suggest it was caused by a security breach or hack, and there will be more updates to come. the world health organization has given a warning to european countries to impose new restrictions to save lives, as europe reports more covid cases than the us and india. a curfew will come into force in france on saturday in nine cities. for the first time since the spring national lockdown,