welcome to bbc news. i'm mike embley. our top stories: president—elect on the president — joe biden says donald trump's refusal to concede the election is an embarrassment. how can i say this tactfully? i think it will not help the president's legacy. a long—awaited vatican report finds two popes, and other officials, ignored allegations of sex abuse against a former us cardinal. russian peacekeeping forces begin deploying in nagorno—karabakh, the peace deal has prompted celebrations in azerbaijan and angry scenes in armenia. and tributes are paid to the veteran palestinian peace negotiator, saeb erekat, who has died after contracting coronavirus.

joe biden, the man elected to be the next president of the united states, has said nothing can stop the transfer of power. a week after americans voted, mr biden has been continuing to build his administration despite president trump's refusal to concede defeat. mr biden said that was an embarrassment that would reflect poorly on mr trump's legacy. our north america correspondent, ben wright, has been looking at the current state of the transition process. this time four years ago, donald trump was meeting president obama at the white house for initial discussions on beginning that process of cooperating to ease the transition. none of that, of course, is happening, certainly not at that level. it doesn't seem there have been any discussions whatsoever between president trump and joe biden, but the work of transition continues

despite the unorthodox circumstances of all of this. of course, in the last 24 hours or so, president—elect biden has revealed the names of his covid task force which will be the number one priority of his administration when it takes power and when he was asked about this earlier in delaware, joe biden said that the work of transition would continue even though they were not getting the normal sort of cooperation. we are already beginning the transition. we're well under way. and the ability for the administration in any way by failure to recognise our win does not change the dynamic at all and what we're able to do. joe biden sounding very relaxed about the whole thing. that is his style, of course, but there are all sorts of rumours and who knows of any of them are true that the president may be planning more campaign—style rallies, he may be planning to sack the head of the fbi or even military action against iran. how is mr biden reacting

to all of that? yeah, because he is still president and will be until january the 20th and joe biden was quick to say that. he said donald trump remains in charge until the inauguration and we don't know yet how donald trump will choose to use this time. we have already seen the sacking of the defence secretary. there has been a rejig at the pentagon. you are right that the white house has suggested that he plans to use some time in the next few weeks to hold rallies in an effort to raise money for the legal challenges that the trump campaign is pursuing in a number of states in a hope of nibbling away at the vote count thatjoe biden has racked up. nobody thinks that will make any difference at all to the outcome. joe biden is the president—elect and will be inaugurated onjanuary the 20th, but he was very restrained, i thought, when he was asked about this earlier on. the furthest he went on expressing an opinion about the president's behaviour was this. ijust think it's an embarrassment, quite frankly.

the only thing that... how can i say this tactfully? i think it will not help the president's legacy. i think that, i know from my discussions with foreign leaders thus far, that they're hopeful that the united states‘ democratic institutions are once again viewed as being strong and enduring. a lot of republicans seem to be rallying around mr trump's position. i think the secretary of state in particular raised quite a few eyebrows with what he has been saying. you are right. republicans in congress and in the administration are sticking with the president for now and there is a bizarre situation where foreign world leaders including the british prime minister and the chancellor of germany have called joe biden for congratulatory conversations at the same time as the american chief diplomat

maintains the idea in public that he thinks there can be a second term to donald trump's presidency. it is a very strange situation but this is what mike pompeo said earlier on. there will be a smooth transition to a second trump administration. all right, we're ready. the world is watching what's taking place. we're going to count all the votes. when the process is complete, they'll be elector—selected. there's a process, the constitution lays it out pretty clearly. the world should have every confidence that the transition necessary to make sure that the state department is functional today, successful today, and successful with a president who is in office on 20th january in the afternoon will also be successful. let's get some of the day's other news: clashes have broken out in the peruvian capital between security forces and protesters angry at the impeachment of president martin vizcarra on corruption charges. police fired tear gas to keep

protesters from the congress building where the speaker was sworn in as replacement president. guatemalan officials have called off a rescue operation at the site of a huge landslide caused by tropical storm eta where dozens of people are thought to buried. the national disaster agency said the conditions in the village of queja had become too dangerous to continue. almost 90 people remain missing. italy, the first european country badly hit by the pandemic, has recorded its worst daily figure for coronavirus—related fatalities since mid—april. 580 more people have died. britain has registered its worst daily number of deaths since may, 532. the head of the english football association, greg clarke, has resigned after using out—dated and offensive language when discussing diversity in the sport during a meeting with lawmakers. clarke was criticised for using a racially offensive term when referring to black footballers. the 63—year old apologised, but later quit saying his comments were a ‘disservice

to ourgame‘. air pollution in delhi has reached its worst level this year. officially it is listed as severe and local residents say the smog is making their eyes and throats hurt. november is usually the worst month for air quality in india, as farmers burn stubble, but those who are breathing the air say the clearer skies they enjoyed during the coronavirus lockdown earlier this year make it feel worse than usual. a vatican report, that took two years to complete, has found two popes and top officials from the catholic church ignored allegations of serial sex abuse by a former cardinal in the united states. this is theodore mccarrick who was expelled from the priesthood last year — the first cardinal ever to be defrocked over sexual abuse. vatican officials say they found popesjohn paul ii and benedict xvi had been told of mccarrick‘s assaults, but chose to believe his denial. here's our rome correspondent mark lowen.

well, here it is. the ago—page report that took two years of work and interviewed 90 witnesses, some of them in interviews up to 30 hours. and it really is a damning litany of cover—ups, complicity, and errors notjust by individuals, but of the entire culture within the catholic church that allowed cardinal mccarrick to rise to the top echelons of the church — in spite of serial allegations of abuse over the decades. in terms of the implications for popejohn paul ii, now a saint — he was declared a saint in 2014 — he is said in the report to have been warned and told of mccarrick‘s crimes. and yet he chose to believe three american bishops who concealed his crimes instead. mccarrick himself wrote a letter to the then—pope john paul ii denying all the allegations against him, moving on to benedict xvi as pope, who was also informed of his crimes both against

adults and minors, but he chose not to impose sanctions, instead simply asking him to lead a lower—profile life. then with pope francis himself, who was informed of some of the previous allegations then waited until 2017 when there was a concrete proof, in the words of the report, of an allegation of a crime against a minor, which was presented to pope francis, then pope francis took action, ordering this report and stripping mccarrick of the priesthood and forcing him out of the college of cardinals — the first cardinal ever to be forced to resign over sex abuse. so really this is a very damning read about years of top officials believing the predator and not the victims, sweeping crimes under the carpet and then really it finally came to a head with pope francis who is credited with taking action against mccarrick, but the vatican as a

whole, the catholic church, does not come out well from this report. they will be hoping that this is a watershed moment in the sex abuse crisis to show that nobody is above the law, not even a cardinal and that they will finally get to the bottom of this. they still have a mountain to climb to try and tackle the sex abuse crisis, one of the gravest crises in the modern history of the catholic church. the head of the catholic church in england and wales has been heavily criticised for putting the reputation of the church ahead of its duty to survivors of child abuse. the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse examined more than 3000 accusations up to 2015. it said cardinal vincent nichols had not shown "compassion towards victims in the recent cases". cardinal nichols told the bbc he offered to resign but pope francis wanted him to stay in his post. russia is deploying hundreds of peacekeeping troops to nagorno—kara bakh and surrounding territories, after it brokered a peace deal between armenia and azerbaijan. over the last six weeks, more than a thousand people have

been killed — most of them were ethnic armenian fighters. more than 100,000 have been displaced. the region is internationally recognised as azerbaijan's, but it has been run by ethnic armenians since 1994. the deal triggered celebrations in azerbaijan, and angry scenes in armenia, where protesters called for the resignation of the prime minister. our international correspondent, orla guerin, reports from the azerbaijani capital baku. a nation buoyed up by victory. no social distancing in baku. for azerbaijanis, there is plenty to celebrate in the overnight peace deal signed, sealed and delivered by russia. and just look at the president, ilham aliyev. he's mocking the armenian prime minister, nikol pashinyan.

"what has happened, pashinyan?", he asks. "this will probably be the talk of the town for many years." in the armenian parliament, it was more of a scandal. protesters cried betrayal... ..attacking the prime minister's nameplate. he said the deal was unspeakably painful, but there was no other choice. so azerbaijan gets to keep the gains made in battle in recent weeks. that includes the second largest city in nagorno—karabakh — but not the capital. armenia has to withdraw from swathes of territory it occupied around the disputed region. russia gets boots back on the ground in this corner of the caucasus‘. its peacekeepers and its

tanks already rolling between the two sides. tell all the world, we‘rejust coming home. that‘s a home she has never seen. her parents were pushed out of nagorno—karabakh nearly 30 years ago. so, could she live there now with armenians who remain? yeah, we can live. like, what is the problem with us? but, actually, it takes a long time. maybe years? yeah, maybe years, maybe, i don‘t know, decades. maybe only our own sons, our daughters, our sons will see this. crowds are coming and going here, young and old, family groups. people have been gathering to celebrate and there is a real sense here that a key victory has been achieved after many long years of waiting. it‘s notjust the end of the past six weeks of fighting, it‘s the recovery of territory that is seen here as a missing piece of the homeland.

many on both sides fought and died for that territory in the last war in the 1990s. today, plenty of visitors at the alley of the martyrs in baku. the peace deal does not return all of nagorno—karabakh. so, for azerbaijan, it‘s not a complete victory. but, for armenia, it is a crushing defeat. orla guerin, bbc news, baku. stay with us on bbc news. still to come: the scramble to meet the logistical challenge of distributing hundreds of millions of doses of coronavirus vaccine when it becomes available.

this is bbc news. the latest headlines: us president—elect, joe biden, says president trump‘s

refusal to accept defeat is an embarrassment that would reflect poorly on mr trump‘s legacy. he said nothing can stop the transfer of power. a long—awaited vatican report has found that popesjohn paul ii and benedict xvi ignored allegations of serial sex abuse against the now disgraced us cardinal, theodore mccarrick. joe biden has flagged up his intention to build and expand on obamacare — the affordable care act. and justices in the us supreme court have just signalled they are not minded to strike it down, although they have been hearing arguments to invalidate it, brought by texas and other republican—led states. mr trump‘s administration, which has long promised to remove and replace the act, joined the court action. in two hours of legal argument, the judges seemed sceptical about the republican argument that the entire law must fall if a single key provision, the so—called individual mandate, is ruled unconstitutional.

abbe gluck is a left—leaning professor of health law at yale university. she explains what‘s at stake. first of all, the stakes cannot be overstated. the affordable care act has transformed a fifth of our economy, the entire american health care system and brought new benefits to more than 100 million americans, including 20 million who would lose their health care if the whole law is struck down. the entire sector would be abandoned. the challengers here, including the trump administration, are trying to wipe the entire law off the books. they‘re arguing that provision you mentioned, the mandate, is unconstitutional because the republican—led congress after 70 attempts to repeal the law was able to do one single thing, reduce the penalty to zero for not complying with it. challengers argue without a penalty, it‘s not a tax. it was valid under congress‘s power to tax, so it should go. that matters little. the mandate has not been enforced, it‘s not important to the law, but they go further and say this one provision is so important to the rest

of the statute the whole law should go down — preposterous because congress, in fact, failed to repeal the law and decided to leave it standing. to be fair, many republicans feel it‘s a kind of socialised medicine, don‘t they? that it‘s the state doing too much, it should be more up to individuals. there was a lot of nervousness among democrats at this time, about this particular challenge. how is this more conservative bench affecting the case? so you‘re correct. there was a concern because of the death of ruth bader ginsberg and her replacement byjustice amy coney barrett, but there‘s also concern because this is an existential challenge to the entire law. notably to your point, this is out of the first affordable care act challenge in which we‘ve had many conservative legal scholars siding with the law because the case is still politically minded, but the concern was always that the court would be political and would strike the entire statute down. today‘s arguments were very encouraging in the opposite direction.

professor, this may be a big question, but i have to ask you to be brief about it. we are hearing this term severability and many people, including me, will not understand it. can you explain? sure. severability is a presumption that are quite applies and it says when the court invalidates one provision, should the rest of the statute fall to pieces? the court says no, we strongly presume the law is severable, it can be cut and the rest of the statute will stand unless congress indicates otherwise. this whole case is about what congress said. did congress say strike down the law? no. did congress imply it wanted to continue the law? yes, because congress left the affordable care act standing after 70 failed attempt to repeal it. more american states have tightened restrictions to limit the spread of coronavirus on a day when more than 60,000 people were receiving hospital treatment for the disease, a new record. a member of president—electjoe biden‘s coronavirus advisory board — dr michael osterholm —

said there was now no question that hospitals in the us were about to be overrun. one hospital in idaho had to turn away patients at the weekend because there was no room. the infectious diseases expert, dr anthony fauci, said that although people were tired of social distancing, they needed to persevere until a vaccine was available. the companies behind an experimental coronavirus vaccine say they‘ll apply for emergency approval to use it before the end of this month. if approved, one of the challenges that follows will be, how to get the drug to those who need it. here‘s our global health correspondent tulip mazumdar as the scientists offer a glimmer of hope, the grave—diggers continue their grim task. all around the world, loved ones are laid to rest. so, with the news this week of a potentially very effective vaccine, countries are racing to prepare for a possible roll—out. this is an absolutely unprecedented situation we find ourselves in today with over 200 vaccine candidates,

40 of them in clinical development within ten months of a new virus being discovered. but actually getting any successful products into communities is an epic logistical task. keeping vaccines cold or even deep—frozen on a colossal scale will be one of the key challenges. health workers will also have to locate vulnerable elderly people in very remote areas because, as the world health organization has repeatedly said, doing this protects all of us. no one is safe until everyone is safe. we know that demand for a successful vaccine will far outstrip supply in the initial months. so, three of the big global health and vaccine organisations have come up with a new system called covax. it aims to ensure everyone, anywhere in the world who needs the vaccine most gets access to it first. it wants to procure 2 billion doses to protect at least 1 billion people

in the next year. first, health workers, then the over 65s will be prioritised. so what you really want is a situation where you can begin to roll those vaccines out, to begin to dampen down the epidemic, but if you have a region that has a raging epidemic, you may want to put more priority in that region to be able to bring it down than another place that already has pretty good control. most rich countries are still making side deals directly with pharmaceuticals though. the uk, for example, has signed up for more than 300 million doses of six different vaccines. the us hopes to get 300 million doses of various vaccines by january. but remember, all of this is a bit of a gamble. the world health organization says any vaccine for covid—19 must be at least 50% effective, and we are going to need more than one. we simply don‘t know yet how much protection these other vaccines could give or how long

any protection will last. the wait for life to return to some semblance of normality continues, but we are edging ever closer to that goal. tulip mazumdar, bbc news. the chief palestinian negotiator saeb erekat has died at the age of 65. yolande knell looks back on his life. you might not have known his name, but you‘ll have seen his face. for three decades, whenever palestinian and israeli leaders met, saeb erekat took a prominent place. the president urged... fluent in english, he studied in the us and the uk before becoming a key figure in the secular fatah movement back in the occupied west bank. in 1991, he drew attention, wearing his palestinian keffiyeh scarf at the madrid peace conference. he was close to the palestinian leader, yasser arafat. and with the breakthrough oslo

peace accords, he became a peace negotiator... applause ..sticking to thejob after president mahmoud abbas took over through rounds of on and off talks. a viable two—state solution is the only way... he was a strong advocate of the two—state solution — the long—standing international formula for peace abandoned by the trump administration. he opposed arab gulf states normalising relations with israel but remained a moderate voice. and the only way to have peace in this region is to solve the palestinian question. is to solve the israeli—palestinian conflict. is to end the israeli occupation. saeb erekat had a lung transplant in the us in 2017 and had earlier survived a heart attack. his health deteriorated soon after testing positive for covid—19. palestinians will feel his loss strongly, at a time when relations with israel are at a new low and prospects for the creation of an independent palestinian state, the goal of his life‘s

work, look increasingly dim. yolande knell, bbc news. golf now — and the masters starts at augusta on thursday, seven months after it was originally scheduled. many players, like spain‘s jon rahm seen here on the 16th hole, have taken to the course for some practice before the tournament tees off. and if this effort, slightly sped up, is anything to go by, he might just be the man to beat! and all on his 26th birthday. a birthday to remember. that's about it for now. there‘s much more for you anytime on the bbc website and on our twitter feeds. i‘m @bbc mike embley. thank you very much for watching.

hello. the mist and fog some of you‘ve seen over the past few days, not as much of an issue over the next 24 hours or so. reason on wednesday behind that is that it‘ll be a little bit too windy at times, and that wind could bring in thicker cloud with rain in the north and west. these are the weather fronts responsible, they‘ll only slowly push their way through, so many eastern areas will be dry through the bulk of the day. but it is here across east anglia southeast that we start off with the coolest conditions and 1—2 mist and fog patches. they‘ll be fairly short—lived though, and will lift up and clear. as we said, much of wales, good part of england will stay dry. there could be some patchy drizzle in the west, but across ireland and into western scotland, rain will come and go all day. and you can just see this narrow band of bright colours — an indication there will be some pretty intense rain particularly during the afternoon. overall a fairly mild day, tempered somewhat by the breeze, and that wind will be strongest particularly

towards the west. these are the areas that will see winds over 40 mph, it may be touching 50 mph at times. most gusty though on that bright band you can see there, the heavy rain pushing its way through eastwards across scotland, particularly across england and wales as we go through wednesday night and into thursday morning, allowing clearing skies behind, thankfully temperatures not dropping too much. as we go into thursday morning, coolest conditions, unlike on wednesday morning, will be in the west. wet weather to begin with on the far east of scotland and across east anglia. quite windy here, but that wind will clear away with the rain. that little brief ridge of high pressure, a window of fine weather before more cloud and rain arrives. so for many of you, a dry day with some sunshine, as well. best of the sunshine in western areas through the morning — make the most of it, clouding over into the afternoon. patchy rain or drizzle possible by the end of the day, heaviest of the rain and western scotland into the west of northern ireland. a little bit cooler than recent days. as we go through thursday night and into friday, that rain will spread its way eastwards. it‘ll push through mainly during the night for many

of you, lingering across some eastern areas first thing. sunshine comes out, a few showers in the west, but by and large, the daytime at least will be a dry day for many. again, a little bit cool in the breeze compared to how we start the week. but as we go into the weekend, low pressure close by with sets of weather fronts pushing through. we‘ll have to watch just how deep this area of low pressure gets into the northwest on sunday. could be particularly wild and windy here. so while there still will be some rain at times this weekend, better chances of sunshine between the downpours on sunday.

the us president—elect, joe biden, has said the transition process is well under way, whether the trump administration acknowledges his projected election victory or not. mr biden told reporters that donald trump‘s refusal to concede defeat was an "embarrassment" and would reflect poorly on the president‘s legacy. a long—awaited vatican report has found that popesjohn paul ii and benedict the sixteenth ignored allegations of serial sex abuse against the now disgraced us cardinal, theodore mccarrick. the report found that both pontiffs had been told of mccarrick‘s assaults but chose to believe his denials. russia has been deploying troops in nagorno karabakh

after armenia and azerbaijan signed a deal to end the military conflict in the disputed region. fighting there since september has left several thousand people dead. the peace deal has prompted celebrations in azerbaijan, and angry scenes in armenia. the city in the eye of the covid storm... you took us scousers for granted. now we stand shoulder to shoulder with the north west. ..first into the top tier of restrictions... have you got a mask? put it on, mate. it feels like we‘re in the land of the living dead. ..now the first place to get mass testing. i bit their hand off and i said absolutely, yes, let's have it, let's bring it on. this is a message for the people of liverpool. for you.