this is bbc news — with the latest headlines for viewers in the uk and around the world. i'm aaron safir. france, italy and the czech republic become the latest countries to announce record numbers of daily coronavirus cases. with ten days to go, president trump casts his vote early in florida — a state he has to win to be re—elected. but his vice—president's chief of staff is confirmed to have covid—19. mike pence however has tested negative. lee kun—hee — the korean businessman who turned samsung into one of the world's biggest electronics companies — dies at the age of 78. and inflight food, without the flight — the airline that feeds its passengers but doesn't take them anywhere.

hello and welcome. more countries in europe are tightening anti—coronavirus measures with france extending a curfew and the italian government expected to announce more national measures. 10 of spain's 17 regions are calling on the government to call a state of emergency. europe is now the epicentre of the outbreak with the polish president andrej duda the latest world leader to be infected. his country's among a number across europe to register a record daily high in coronavirus cases on friday or saturday. david campanale has the latest.

alarm bells are ringing right across europe. the coronavirus pandemic continues to worsen in the czech republic, which has registered its worst daily figure yet for new infections — more than 15,000. over the past week, more people with the virus have died there, as a percentage of the population, than anywhere else in the world. but for top health agencies, concern extends to all but a handful of eu countries. they've declared now to be a critical moment. too many countries are seeing an exponential increase in cases, and that's now leading to hospitals and icus running close or above capacity and we're still only in october. we urge leaders to take immediate action. a string of countries, including russia, poland, italy, and switzerland, have again seen their worst daily figures yet for coronavirus infections. poland's second wave is far

bigger than its first. their number of new cases is 22 times higher than the highest number of cases in the spring, and deaths there over the past 2a hours have been the highest since the pandemic began. with the president admitting to testing positive, poland has moved to impose the highest level of restrictions across the whole country. work is under way to set up temporary hospitals. 500 beds are being installed in the conference rooms of the country's biggest arena, warsaw's national stadium. translation: we have an exceptional situation this year. i call for visits to the cemetery and family reunions, especially with the elderly, to be as limited as much as possible. in spain, the government will consider on sunday whether to bring in a new state of emergency. just days after registering more than one million confirmed virus cases, their regions

responsible for managing public healthcare have been heaping pressure on the government to give them the legal right to impose tighter restrictions. as in the first wave of the virus, the challenge is to ensure hospitals everywhere are not overwhelmed. but there are increasing reports of intensive care units under severe strain. in one particularly hard—hit area of belgium, liege, doctors have been likening the situation to trench warfare. in paris, a senior hospital administrator said the current second wave risked being worse than the first. restrictions across europe are being tightened, but many on the front line fear it's too little too late. david campanale, bbc news. the white house says that the chief of staff to the us vice president mike pence has tested positive for coronavirus. marc short is now in self—isolation. mr short has been a key adviser to the white house coronavirus task force, which is

chaired by mr pence. he is the second of the vice president's advisers to test positive for the virus. mr pence and his wife have both tested negative and a spokesman said they would maintain their campaign schedule. donald trump has voted in the us presidential election, in his adopted home state of florida. with ten days to go until the vote on november three, a record 57 million people have already cast their ballots. this is largely due to fears over coronavirus, with the country seeing record daily highs. both mr trump and his democratic challengerjoe biden have been camapigning in crucial states, that could swing the contest in their favour. the bbc‘s lebo diseko reports. thank you, sir. thank you very much. donald trump, moments after casting his ballot. no surprises for who. i voted for a guy named trump.

laughter. after that he was off on a whirlwind of stops in battleground states. he's hitting rallies in north carolina, ohio, and wisconsin. 2016 saw donald trump gaining momentum in the last two weeks. no doubt he's hoping to pull that off again. chanting: four more years! but today, the candidates presented two contrasting messages on the issue overshadowing this election. turn on television. "covid, covid, covid, covid, covid, covid." by the way, on november 4th, you won't hear about it any more. forjoe biden, a drive—through rally in pennsylvania, a chance to hit what he sees as his rival‘s achilles‘ heel. on friday, america reported its highest ever daily number of new coronavirus infections, more than 80,000. what i told in that debate, we're not learning how to live with it, you're asking us to learn how to die with it! and it's wrong! there's going to be a dark winter ahead unless we change our ways! joe biden is ahead in a number

of these key swing states, but it's not something he can take for granted. in 2016, hillary clinton, too, was ahead at this stage in the race, and so he's pulling out all the stops, bringing out his greatest weapon, his former boss. hello, florida! we can'tjust talk, we can't just imagine a better future, we've got to go out there and fight for it! we've got to outhustle the other side! we've got to vote like never before, and we've got to leave no doubt! more than 5a million people have taken up the option of voting early, so they've already had their say. but ten days is plenty of time for president trump and mr biden to make their closing arguments for those that haven't. lebo diseko, bbc news, washington. a little earlier i spoke to michael mcdonald. he's professor of political science at the university of florida and head of the united states elections project which tracks voter turnout. i began by asking whether any

votes were actually being counted yet. well, they're being prepared to be counted, but in some states those preparations can't begin until election day. and in a state like florida, actually, election officials are doing everything that they can to prepare those votes, all the way up to the point where they can be counted. so the election has begun, the counting hasn't. what we know than about these people who are out there, voting already? well, we have had a record number and, you know, all that grim news that we have just heard, that is a good new story. we were very concerned about the ability to cast votes during a pandemic and, fortunately, we are able to do that. we have sent out 85 million mail ballots to voters. voters are returning those in record numbers and they are voting in—person in record numbers. we are conducting an election, despite many concerns it would be difficult to do so.

and the fact that voters are spreading out the workload for election officials is also good news, because there was a concern with all the mail ballots, they would come back at the very end of the period and it would overwhelm the election officials. instead, we are seeing this come through in the early voting period and it is helping manage the election. michael, sorry to interrupt, do we know, these people who are now voting, do we know what age group they are in, which party they're voting for? what kind of information do we have about the votes that the parties can kind of count on as being locked in already? there is a lot of information to suggest the people who are voting at this moment are predominantly democrats. we have party registration data, we have some polling data who tells us that information. even the own parties when they model who they think their supporters are. they are saying that too. lots of democrats have voted

so far, particularly by mail. the in—person voting period will be very interesting to follow on election day. election day is when we expect a lot of republicans to be voting. the chairman of the south korean multinational samsung electronics, lee kun—hee has died. mr lee, who was 78, helped grow his father's noodle trading business into south korea's biggest conglomerate, with dozens of affiliates stretching from electronics and insurance to shipbuilding and construction. by the time he stepped back from the company in 2014, after suffering a heart attack, samsung was the world's biggest maker of smartphones and memory chips. it is also a major global player in lcd displays. samsung's overall turnover is equivalent to a fifth of south korea's gross domestic product, making it crucial to the country's economic health. in a statement, the company said:

a mass mobilisation of law enforcement officers has been ordered in nigeria. tensions have risen in recent days over allegations of police brutality. last week, in the commercial capital lagos witnesses said the security forces shot dead protestors. mark lobel reports. in defiance of calls for calm, authorities are overwhelmed as sporadic looting continues. this government warehouse in central nigeria is now emptied of food aid earmarked to help during the pandemic. but that's not how the people here see it. translation: during the lockdown they were just hiding the food.

it makes me wonder what kind of government we have. we've been suffering and many people have died from hunger. responding to the looting, the state's governor reinstated around the clock curfew. he said in a statement: the looting comes after two weeks of angry calls for change from young nigerians. it has become necessary for me to address you... president buhari's initial response on thursday failed to placate them. on saturday night he blamed hooliganism for dozens of civilian deaths. but amnesty international says they include at least 12 peaceful protesters who were killed by the nigerian army and police at two sites, including at this toll—gate in lagos on tuesday night during demonstrations against police brutality.

this protester‘s injuries means the 24—year—old has been told he needs his leg amputated. david varogbo remembers running away as a bullet hit his leg, breaking a bone. luckily, he says, those around him quickly dragged him to hospital. these are a week. and they don't want to go back to sleep. i'm not happy with the government. they can kill me right now for all i care. but the fact is i'm not happy with whatever they have been doing — right from childhood to this age i have nothing to write home about. lagos‘s curfew has now been lifted, but the clean—up won't sweep away the tensions. unrest and looting has spread to several states. the head of nigeria's police force on saturday told his officers "to use all legitimate means to halt a further slide

into lawlessness". he's also called for nigerians not to panic and help protect their communities from what he called "criminal elements". but his call may well fall on deaf ears in a country where the young are no longer eager to listen to the authorities. mark lobel, bbc news. for 49 days throughout september and october, a small fishing vessel has been sailing around the south pacific on a mission — to catch as many tuna as it can. but the crew on board are not so much hunter gatherers, as data—gatherers. because every fish they hook is tagged — and thrown back into the sea. and from that point on, it is the fish which do the data—gathering, because they are fitted with a gadget, which helps scientists determine their whereabouts, the depths they dive to, even sea temperatures, and light. to date the programme has tagged nearly half a million fish. on board the vessel, and now back on dry land

in honolulu, was marine biologist giulia anderson. we're alsojoined from new caledonia by tuna behavioural ecologist joe scutt—phillips. thank you both forjoining. you got involved, it was not your mainjob but you became involved in the tagging of the fish. talk us through how that works because they can get pretty big, can't they? yes. they definitely get big. we we re they definitely get big. we were not working with the largest class sizes, they can break largest class sizes, they can brea k two largest class sizes, they can break two metres if they are allowed to swim in freedom until their long life is done. we work with 1's where, if we get, you know, 110 centimetres thatis get, you know, 110 centimetres that is a big fish. either so you have that coming up on a rod and reel which is an exciting experience or, heaven

forbid, it comes up in one of oui’ forbid, it comes up in one of our other forms of collecting them, which i dangle as that was our primary format we have to haul them in by hand over the side from a fixed hook. it gets to be very physical and very moment at a time when you have a big fish coming in one after another over the rail like that. it is very wonderful to bea like that. it is very wonderful to be a part of a team that can work with that kind of environment because everyone has to be on point and it is very, quite an honour to be a pa rt very, quite an honour to be a part of this fluid mechanism thatis part of this fluid mechanism that is working fish like that but at the end of the day we are all exhausted. it sounds like a very good experience, to prepare you for something though i don't know what. your actual role was as a sample scientist will stop what does that mean? what were you on the

boat to do? my actual training is asa boat to do? my actual training is as a geneticist so i took a dual purposejob. there is as a geneticist so i took a dual purpose job. there are fish that come on board that for some reason or another would be low probability of surviving if we threw them back in the water. a small number of the fish that come on board but we still want to make sure that the information we get from them is worthwhile. so those fish are biopsied. we take a significant amount of data out of stomach car —— stomach contents and size that we proxy into weight. all sorts of inferences can be made so that is separate from the people who we re is separate from the people who were standing at cradles and tagging fish. i also had some of my own research going on which, a geneticist is more

likely to be finicky about ci’oss likely to be finicky about cross contamination of samples and all these other little details than somebodyjust being asked to take a genetic sample so it was useful to have me on board to take samples, hopefully make it more efficient for genetics. so that is your role on the boat. now, joe, you are taking the data and interpreting it and, hopefully, learning something useful. talk us through what kind of data you obtained and what the applications are. judy has broken down crate well. we have been running these cruises for 15 years now as part of our monitoring programme for the largest and best manage tuna fishery in the world. it chiefly gathers two kinds of information. the tagging, where either external data tags are put into fish and they are released back into the ocean

and then we monitor what happens to those fish via their recaptures from fishes in the future, all the small electronic tags, the size of a double—a battery, that are implanted inside the body of the fish and, in effect, turn it into a monitoring device that records its environment and how it reacts. this data allows us to make direct observations of fishing pressure that is happening on the population of tuna, how they react to their environment. the other kind of group of data that is collected thatjulia was talking group of data that is collected that julia was talking about is the biological sampling and where is the tagging tells us about the future of the fish that we have encountered, the biological sampling tells us about the life of that fish before the day we bumped into it. together those two sorts of data help us build a picture of the state of the stock, how

healthy these stocks are, our best estimates of the fishing pressure and the natural mortality and how they react to their environment and potential environmental change. and, quickly because we are short on time. tuna is one of the most popularfish for time. tuna is one of the most popular fish for people to eat right around the world. are you optimistic that we are managing this resource carefully as a species? all three major tuna species? all three major tuna species in this region, in the western and central pacific are estimated to be in a healthy state and it is because of monitoring programmes like this that we are able to constantly watch what level the fishing pressure is occurring and is climate change starts to manifest more and more, we are able to adaptively give advice to the management of this resource. i'm glad to hear that. i'm sorry to interrupt you we will have to leave it there. thank you both for your

time. france has recalled its ambassador to turkey for consultations after president recep tayyip erdogan insulted his french counterpart. ambassador herve magro had only been accepted as the french envoy in august this year. he has been recalled following remarks mr erdogan made about president macron. translation: what can one say about a head of state who treats millions of people from a different faith group in his country this way? first of all, check your mental health. president macron, speaking after the beheading of a teacher in a suspected islamist attack, described islam as a religion "in crisis" worldwide and said the government would present a bill in december to strengthen a law that separates church and state. the french presidency condemned mr erdogan‘s statements, saying outrage and rudeness were undiplomatic, and urged mr erdogan to change

the course of his policy. a major clean—up has begun at one of syria's most iconic castles. a team of volunteers started clearing vegetation from the krak des chevaliers site, which dates back to 12th century. the plan aims to protect the unesco—listed fortress from forest fires which destroyed huge swathes of the coastline earlier this month. soumer daghastani has more. with pickaxes and shovels, this group of young volunteers have been working tirelessly to clean up one of the world's best preserved crusader castles. years of neglect and fighting have left their marks on the walls. but recent forest fires in the region ignited fears of further damage and prompted conservationists to act.

translation: the wildfires that broke out in the area pushed us to make this plan because they were everywhere. fires were successfully put out on the 16th of this month and we were scared for the castle. which is like a home to us. so we launched this plan. the fortress was built in the 12th century by a mediaeval catholic military order called the knights of stjohn. and like in medieval times, the castle became battleground during the country's long civil war. it fell into rebel hands in 2012 and endured heavy bombardment before it was recaptured by government forces. translation: the castle is now recovering and we can say that we have moved one step in that direction. in 2018 the castle opened its doors to visitors and around 23,000 people visited. it might be some time before tourists return to snap pictures from the top

of its massive walls. but for now it has been given a makeover which will hopefully preserve it for generations to come. the coronavirus pandemic has meant many countries have closed their borders — and few people actually want to fly. in singapore — they're encouraging customers to return to airports — but they'll be staying firmly on the ground. the bbc‘s tim allman explains. doesn't this all look reassuringly familiar? check—in at changi airport, it's as if covid—19 didn't exist. but these passengers know, they won't be travelling very far. instead, they have paid for the pleasure of in—flight food without the actual flight. the food is pretty amazing. it's better than the one they sell here on the flight.

as with any normal plane, there are different levels of service on offer. for $40, you can slum it in economy. for the best part of $500, you'll have a first class suite all to yourself. looking forward to bringing some singapore airlines hospitality back to the sky but also we're on the ground obviously. the a380 dining experience will be a wonderfuljourney for many, many people today. everyone has allocated seats to make sure nobody gets too close to one another. and in—flight entertainment is available to distract the youngsters. let's face it, this is unlikely to be the salvation of the airline industry, but it is a start. tim allman, bbc news. i must admit i'm a conversation with some of my colleagues in the newsroom about that story, not everyone is convinced. i will be back with more at the top of the hour and you can

a lwa ys top of the hour and you can always keep up—to—date with the latest on our website. i can be found on twitter. for watching. hello. saturday brought some extremely wet and rather blustery weather for many parts of the uk. it was a particularly soggy end to the day in eastern and south—eastern parts of england. not quite as wet for most of us on sunday. still some heavy showers around, some blustery winds, but some sunny spells in between. you can see the speckled shower clouds here pushing in on our earlier satellite image. and it's this stripe of cloud here that brought the heavy and persistent rain for many during the first half of the weekend. that is now clearing away. low pressure still very much driving the weather, so it is going to be another windy day and that wind coming in from the west will drive a fair few showers across parts of northern ireland, western scotland, the western side of england and wales, and quite a few i think blowing in across southern counties of england as well. not as many showers across the north—east

of england or eastern scotland. and we will see some spells of sunshine. but it's going to be windy for all of us. these are the average wind speeds. the gusts will be higher than that. we could see gusts of 50 mph or more in the most exposed places in western scotland, where the showers could well turn into a spell of more persistent rain through the afternoon. temperatures 11—14 degrees, a fairly cool feel. and it stays rather cool and blustery as we head through sunday night and into the early hours of monday. as you can see, there'll be further showers moving in from the west. some clear gaps in between those downpours, and temperatures generally in a range between 5—8 degrees. now, monday is another sunshine and showers day, but a bit of a shift in the focus of those showers. they will increasingly become focused across northern ireland, england and wales, whereas for scotland, i think things should start to turn a little bit drier and we will see some spells of sunshine. not as windy by this stage, but temperatures still struggling a little bit between 11—14 degrees. it does stay unsettled, though,

through the coming week. low pressure taking up residence to the north—west, a deep low out in the atlantic, so that'll drive strong winds and showers across the uk, some longer spells of rain at times. and it may well be that for the end of the week, this weather system brings some more persistent wet weather, so the outlook looks like this. there will be some heavy rain at times and some brisk winds, a very unsettled autumnal week on the way.

this is bbc news —

the headlines: covid—19 continues its fast spread throughout europe. many countries are hoping to slow transmission by imposing new restrictions. france, the czech republic and italy have seen a record number of daily cases. poland's president — andrzej duda — has tested positive for the virus and is in self—isolation. donald trump has voted early in the us presidential election in his adopted home state of florida. with ten days to go, a record 57 million people have already cast their ballots. this is largely due to fears over coronavirus, with the country seeing record daily highs. the white house says marc short — chief of staff to the us vice president, mike pence — has tested positive for coronavirus and is self—isolating. mr short has been a key adviser to the white house coronavirus task force. mr pence and his wife have both tested negative.