‘ a a tunnel, saying it w a tunnel, saying it will stop a tunnel, saying it will damage the wider archaeological heritage of this unique setting. landscape to each side of the tunnel will be gouged out into deep cuttings with dual carriageways in the huge tunnel entrances, masses of concrete, major road interchanges to each side of the world heritage site. this is devastation on a major scale. they have been memory promises before to put the a303 into a tunnel but is this the moment stones and vehicles really pa rt com pa ny? this the moment stones and vehicles really part company? duncan kennedy, bbc news, at stonehenge. that takes us bbc news, at stonehenge. that takes us to the weather prospects, let's get the latest from chris fawkes. make the best of the sunshine when it comes along because the next few days are wet and windy. we saw some

sunshine in northern ireland but clouds are beginning to gather out west and this weather front will swing our way bringing a spell of heavy rain and some squally winds particularly this evening and overnight, so there is rain on the way. before we get there, for england and wales are still some sunshine left in the day. the same for scotland. wales and west in england seeing a few patches of cloud, bringing a few isolated, mainly light showers. a bit of light rain pushing into western scotland, that will turn steadier later in the day. mild, temperatures up to iii degrees, but overnight the band of rain starts to push on. we will have some strong gusts of wind, particularly ahead of the weather front, gusts of about 40—16 miles an hour, so it will be pretty gusty overnight. the rain quite intense for a short spell of time as well. relatively mild ahead of the front, about 11 degrees in london but fresher air in northern ireland and west scotland. for friday the band of rain which is clear of east anglia and the south—east of england

late morning but it was a blustery and north—western areas with frequent, fairly heavy showers. a few showers in wales and south—west england as well as the day goes by. temperature is about 10—14 c, the winds slowly easing through the afternoon across the south and east of the uk. this weekend a whole jumble of weather fronts are aimed at the uk. i think we will call this an unsettled looking weekend. the rain is going to be pretty intense and widespread, both saturday and sunday, and it's going to be quite windy as well through the course of the weekend too. in a bit more detail now, saturday, well, the strongest winds are around the irish sea coasts, south west wales and western areas of england could get gusts of 40—50 miles an hour. 0utbreaks gusts of 40—50 miles an hour. outbreaks of rain for most of us. brighter and drier for a time across the far north of scotland. mild, 12-16 c but the far north of scotland. mild, 12—16 c but not feeling so mild given the strength of the winds. the second half of the weekend, splodges of lou across the whole of the uk,

more heavy rain to come and some further strong winds. the winds get a bit stronger across the english channel coasts where gusts could reach 50—60 miles an hour. the main band of rain clears through. sunshine and showers follow. still some lengthy outbreaks of rain to scotla nd some lengthy outbreaks of rain to scotland and northern ireland and through sunday afternoon it will start to feel cooler and fresher. i think the main message is make the best of the sunshine when it comes along. the next few days looking pretty unsettled. chris fawkes there. a reminder of oui’ chris fawkes there. a reminder of our top story, the uk economy grew bya our top story, the uk economy grew by a record amount over the summer but it still smaller than before the coronavirus pandemic. that's all from the bbc news at one. it's goodbye from me. 0n bbc one we nowjoin the bbc‘s news teams where you are. good afternoon. it's 1.30pm and here's your latest sports news. it's already been delayed by seven months and 25 minutes.

after the 84th masters finally got under way, it's on hold due to bad weather at augusta national. defending champion tiger woods was due to tee off shortly before play was halted. the is—time major winner isn't in the best form heading into the tournament, but our golf correspondent iain carter says he shouldn't be written off. he has only had one top ten finish in eight tournaments this year, so there is nothing to suggest in the way that he has been playing that he could contend, but he is tiger woods. you write him off at your peril. he is going for a sixth masters title. you have to go back to the days of old tom morris in the 19th century to find a player who in their 405 has successfully defended a major title, but as we know with tiger woods, he is capable of extraordinary things. we will let you know when a player gets back under way. —— micro when play gets back under way.

to a huge night for both scotland and northern ireland, with both nationsjust one match away from qualifying for next summers european championships. for scotland, you need to go back to 1998 for the last time the mens' side reached a majorfinals. that was the world cup. tonight, that could all change. a win against serbia in belgrade and they'll seal a place at next summer's euros. i was still playing the last time scotland qualified. it was a very, very long time ago. so, yeah, there is definitely a generation that's missed the atmosphere and the feeling that you get with a nation when you do qualify, that proud feeling, so hopefully this group can deliver. there's been a setback for scotland's opponents serbia this morning. influential midfielder and crystal palace captain luka milivojevic has tested positive for coronavirus and will now miss tonight's match. there will be no fans in belgrade, but in belfast there will be exactly 1060, as northern ireland take on slovakia at windsor park. that's how many are allowed in due to social distancing. northern ireland ended a 30—year

wait for a trip to a major finals, by reaching euro 2016 and could now make it back—to—back european championships with a win later. captain steven davis says victory tonight will be for the fans and he's looking forward to have supporters back in the stadium. hopefully that will help us. we are obviously disappointed we can't have a full house because whenever you have a game of this magnitude you want the fans who have followed you through thick and thin to be there and try and enjoy the moment. obviously it's been difficult times for a lot of people and a lot of people will be looking to tune in and, as i say, hopefully we can put a smile on their face, give them something to look forward to in the future off the back of what's been a difficult year so far. also tonight, england will play the republic of ireland in a friendly, but they'll be withoutjoe gomez. the liverpool defender will miss a "significant" part of the season, after having surgery on a knee injury he suffered while in training for england. wales are also in action tonight — they face the usa in a friendly. the football association have

asked the government for special exemption to allow their nations league match against iceland to take place at wembley. it's in doubt because iceland play in denmark days before that and currently there is a travel ban on people arriving from denmark. the ban is due to be reviewed on saturday, with germany a potential neutral venue for the nations league game. after resigning as the chairman of the football association on tuesday, greg clarke has now stepped down as vice president for world football governing body fifa. his resignation comes after he used outdated and offensive racial comments in a parliamentary select committee hearing. he was also criticised in relation to comments about gay players. jack willis will make his england rugby union debut on saturday, in their opening autumn nations cup match against georgia. eddiejones has named the wasps flanker alongside maro itoje, while billy vunipola will start at eight. it'll also be a big day

for ollie lawrence, who will start a test match for the first time. he had previously made his debut in the six nations win against italy last month. that's all the sport for now. you can find more on all those stories on the bbc sport website. that's bbc.co.uk/sport. thanks very much indeed. jane with all the latest sport there, more in the next hour. a very good afternoon, you are watching bbc news. i will take you through the next few hours of coronavirus news and more besides. we will start with today's figures around the economy. more now on the economy which saw record growth betweenjuly and september as the country begins to recover from the recession brought about by the coronavirus lockdown in spring. as a quick reminder, gdp, or gross domestic product is the value of all the goods and services we make and sell. it's measured each three months, or quarter of the year,

and what we're looking for is growth. growth means more money around. more money means morejobs. january to march, the first quarter, took a bit of a hit. two and a half percent. if you remember, things were slowing down globally because covid was tightening its grip. and the last few days of march was when britain went into lockdown. april, may and june saw a massive contraction. the economy shrunk by a fifth, breaking all records. uk manufacturers and building sites were shut down. 0ffices, pubs and restaurants, nonessential retail pulled the shutters down and the ripples were enormous. latest figures forjuly, august and september show record growth of 15.5%. however, as we can see from this graph, the expansion wasn't enough to reverse the damage caused by the pandemic and in september, growth was only i.i%, suggesting that the recovery has lost momentum. the bbc‘s economics editor faisal

islam spoke to the chancellor, rishi sunak, and he started by asking him what the risks of a so—called double dip recession were. well, what the figures today show is that the economy was recovering over the summer, but yes, that recovery is slowing down coming into the autumn and it is likely that has continued as a result of the health restrictions that we had to necessarily put in place to suppress the spread of the virus, but i think there are reasons for cautious optimism. improvements in mass testing being rolled out, news on the vaccine, though early days, and on the economic side, recognising that it is going to be a difficult winter. 0ur priority remains to protect as manyjobs as possible, so we have extended the furlough scheme and we have seen the welcome news today of the creation of 20,000 job placements for young people through the kick—start scheme as i do not want people to be left without hope or opportunity. looking at international comparison, both on the health outcomes and also on gdp, we are not on the right end of international comparisons.

if we do get a double dip, won't that be down to specific policy problems here in the uk with your government? no, i think if you look underneath the numbers, what you are seeing is in this country, social activities like going out with your friends for a meal, to see a show somewhere, those kind of activities, hospitality, leisure, they comprise a larger share of our economy than they do for most other countries, especially most other european countries, so when you have a situation like we have, where you essentially say you cannot do any of those things, you cannot see your friends and family, you cannot go out places because we have closed them, that is obviously going to have an outsized impact on our economy relative to others and that is why the figures are as they are. do you think the lockdown can and will be lifted in the first week of december? yes, i am very confident that the measures we have put in place will do the job that we need them to do. that we will be able to exit this

national set of restrictions on the 2nd of december. go back to a more localised tier approach. i think that is an effective way to deal with this and hopefully provide people with as much of a normal christmas as possible, recognising that it is clearly not going to be as it used to be. there is a cloud of uncertainty, particularly for exporting businesses, over our trade relationship. just 50 days or so, still do not know if tariffs are going to be applicable. do you accept that that is causing real problems for exporting businesses right now? it is notjust good enough to say get ready. first of all, on the progress on the talks, i think there is a deal to be done. that will require goodwill and a constructive attitude on both sides. that is what the teams are hard at work trying to achieve now and i wish them well. with regard to our trading relationships, in all cases they are going to change and that is something that we have known now for a while, regardless of the exact shape of the deal. the change in the relationships means that we need to get businesses ready. we have been helping them to do that with enormous investments in customs support, changes at the border, awareness campaigns, working with them individually and i'm confident that all that

work has helped many, many businesses prepare for the changes that are coming. are you preparing right now, in this building, in the treasury, for a further breach of the treaty we signed, of international law, with the finance bill as regards northern ireland? well, with regard to northern ireland, our priority remains to protect the good friday agreement, make sure that we can have the free flow of trade within our united kingdom. the measures that we have put in place are a safety net to ensure and make sure that if there was not good faith and co—operation from our partners and we could not protect the agreement, we would be able to act to do that, but they are there as a safety net and insurance and we very much hope that they are not necessary. but you have somewhere prepared for the measures here from the treasury as regards to tariffs in the finance bill that would be a breach of international law? no, what has been proposed already and is currently working its way

through parliament are a set of measures to provide that insurance net, to ensure we can have that free flow of trade within the united kingdom and in doing that, protect the good friday agreement and as i said, there is great progress. the talks are ongoing. if people approach all of that with an attitude of goodwill and constructive spirit, hopefully we can get the thing sorted. hasn't this gambit over a no deal, australian terms, whatever you want to call it, hasn't this gambit been proven to come to nothing because of the president of the united states, the new one, joe biden, will alienate our relationship with the us if you go through with it? if you go through with no deal and it is breach of international law, the us are going to be furious, the new president. the president and the prime minister had a very constructive conversation just recently and i think congratulations to president—elect biden and kamala harris and as a dad of two young girls, it is exciting to see the first female vice—president

for the inspiration that that is going to provide to many. i think there will be lots we will be able to work on very constructively with the us. climate change being at the top of the list. i think it is something that we are very committed to tackling in this country. we are going to be chairing cop next year, international leadership on this issue. it is something that the president—elect biden has become ——spoken very passionately about as well during the campaign and i think there will be an enormous mass of good work we can do together in our journey together to net zero. can i just ask you about downing street? what is going on in downing street? are they fighting like ferrets in a sack? is it meltdown in downing street? are your eyes on the job at hand? everyone in our building comes into work, focuses on what matters the british people which is suppressing the spread of this virus and working hard on improving testing and rolling out mass testing and protecting people's jobs and incomes and that is my focus. that is the focus on everyone in our building. we are working very hard at it and that is what will continue.

the chancellor, rishi sunak. at five o'clock this afternoon the business secretary alok sharma will give a coronavirus briefing from downing street. you can watch that live here on the bbc news channel. just a reminder of this afternoon's headlines. and it has waiting times are at the longest in 12 years,. the uk economy grew by a record amount over the summer, 15 and a half percent, but the economy is still smaller than before the coronavirus pandemic and there are warnings it will slow again. turmoil in downing street. 0ne will slow again. turmoil in downing street. one of the prime minister's closest advisers quit as head of communications in behind the scenes infighting. the coronavirus r number in scotland is "hovering around one and may actually be slightly below one", according to first minister,

nicola sturgeon. she said it "suggests some progress has been made in recent weeks" in stopping the spread of the virus, but warned there are still "very significant" regional variations in infections. ms sturgeon was speaking to msps in the scottish parliament. the total number of positive cases reported yesterday was 1,212. that is 6.1% of all tests reported yesterday and the total number of cases now stands at 77,660. 474 of the new cases are in greater glasgow and clyde. 231 in lanarkshire, i4i in lothian, 76 in fife and 76 in ayrshire and arran. the remaining cases are spread across eight other health board areas. there are 1,207 people currently in hospital. that is 28 fewer than yesterday and 98 people are in intensive care, which is five more than yesterday. i also regret to report that in the past 24 hours,

a further 45 deaths have been registered of patients who first tested positive in the previous 28 days. the total number of deaths under that daily measurement is now 3,188 and again, i want to convey my deepest condolences to everybody who has lost a loved one. we will also shortly publish the latest estimate of the r number in scotland. we expect that it will show that the r number in scotland is still hovering around one and may actually now be slightly below one. that suggests some progress has been made in recent weeks and it reinforces the message that we are seeing from some other indicators. the current tough measures and people's compliance with these measures are undoubtedly having an effect. but we must be aware that the national figures mask some very significant regional variations, which is of course why the levels approach is appropriate. as i said on tuesday, we are concerned firstly about local authorities where transmission

is rising again, albeit from a relatively low base and that includes some areas in levels one and two, where restrictions are not as tight and so the virus does have more opportunities to spread. so to people in these lower—level areas, please don't drop your guard. you must still take care and abide by the rules. secondly, we are concerned about some areas, particularly across the central belt, where case numbers have stabilised but they have stabilised at a stubbornly high level. that creates a risk for the winter period and it also makes the risks associated with the christmas period higher as well. so we will be considering this carefully over the next few days and assessing whether further action is required. nicola action is required. sturgeon speaking just a little nicola sturgeon speaking just a little earlier at hollywood. —— hollywood. there are more patients in hospitals in wales with covid—19 than at any time,

including the peak of the pandemic. latest figures show 1,529 beds are occupied — these include 983 beds occupied with confirmed covid—19 patients. earlier my colleague geeta spoke to our wales correspondent, tomos morgan, who's been taking a look at those figures. 20% of all patients in hospitals across wales are now covid related patients. however, the number of patients in critical care on ventilators with coronavirus is only 40% of the capacity it was during the height of the first wave. now, as you may know, we in wales, we havejust come out of the firebreak, the second, two—week lockdown we have had here in wales. up until the end of the firebreak, there were a couple of areas in wales that had the highest rate of transmission of coronavirus across the whole of the uk. however, now as we have exited the firebreak and the lockdown, numbers seem to be decreasing across wales when it comes to transmission. but of course, the hospital numbers

are still pretty high as people recover from the illness. as we know, when it comes to any sort of figures on coronavirus, things are delayed so no doubt this will have a knock—on effect as well. we won't realise and see if people have recovered, and see if the hospital admissions have decreased, until about two or three weeks' time. what does this mean for anyone who will, you know, is worried about getting a bed either for covid or another condition? about hospital capacity? so, hospital capacities are relatively full at the moment. as i say, when it comes to the critical care beds and the situation across wales, there is still room and capacity there at the moment. we haven't reached or seen the levels that we had during the first wave. some of those so called nightingale hospitals, those areas of the country, those football stadiums, the rugby stadiums across wales, are beginning to return now to other people's hands out of the nhs,

so even though the hospital admissions are quite high and they are much higher than they have been during the pandemic in wales, it does appear, and it seems to be, my understanding from the nhs, that even though they are full at the moment, the capacity over the next few weeks should be decreasing as we've had this lockdown just over the last two weeks just passed now. the government has rebuked china of breaching its legally binding agreement over hong kong and breaking promises over the territory's autonomy. the foreign secretary dominic raab hit out at beijing as pro—democracy lawmakers in hong kong quit their legislature. the 15 opposition members resigned in protest against the dismissal of four of their colleagues for backing independence. china says the resignations are a blatant challenge to the authorities and support for the pro—democracy lawmakers would fail. the chairman of

hong kong's democratic party, wu chi—wai, said the so—called "one country, two systems" form of government, under which hong kong was allowed a degree of freedom after it was returned to china, is now effectively over. the separation of power is a very constitutional power that common people can enjoy to check and balance the government acts of today and the days after. we lost our check and balance power and all the constitutional powers in hong kong all rests in the chief executive's hands. and we all know that. the chief executive of hong kong, because of the constitutional arrangements, is basically a puppet for the central government. so today and the days after, it is the end of one country, two systems.

steve mcdonell has more from beijing. well, there are one or two independent members, but apart from that, the rest of the members of the legislative council are all in the pro—beijing camp. it's the first time since the hong kong handover that we have had no effective opposition at all inside that mini parliament. the crucial thing is not so much that the four members were sacked or even that all the rest of the pro—democracy block quit. the most crucial thing is that there has been change to the way in which that place is governed. beijing has empowered its surrogates in the hong kong administration, especially carrie lam, to be able to be effectively dismiss any opposition politician it deems to be insufficiently loyal to the motherland. i'm sure any politician in the world would love that power, to get rid of anyone

in the opposition they don't like, just being able to say, "you are showing insufficient loyalty to our programme, our city, our country." for that reason, many members of the pro—democracy block think that isn't a tenable institution any longer. what you had in terms of the separation of powers in that city is very fast disappearing and in terms of this new power, for example, carrie lam was able to sack those initial four members of the democratic block without the courts having anything to do with it. so in the future, it's hard to say whether or not anybody at all in the pro—democracy camp will even bother standing for that institution. what i think will happen is that they won't fill those positions until next september when there is supposed to be an election anyway. or in the previous september, the legco was supposed to have an election, it was delayed by a year.

already the sitting group of legco members are just filling those seats until next september when the election happens again and that is when there will be another election. but under the new arrangements, carrie lam can disqualify people from standing, for example. she has already ruled out certain key members of the pro—democracy camp and i think in the general community there, the vast majority of whom voted for the pro—democracy camp in the most recent local council elections, i'm not sure how much faith they would have in that process at all and they may not even turn out to vote. bear in mind, that the legco was only ever half elected, the other half has always been appointed by a stacked pro—beijing committee to ensure that the pro—democracy camp can never gain control of that institution.

much more coming up from tpm. now it's time for a look at the weather with chris fawkes. hello there. the weather over the next few days is looking pretty wet and often pretty windy as well. so we've got to grab the sunshine when it comes along. earlier today, most of us did see some sunshine. that was northern ireland early this morning. just to the west, there is cloud gathering and some rain on the way thanks to this weather front here that will be pushing its way in. just ahead of the weather front, the isobars pinch together, so we're looking at a spell of windy weather to take us through this evening overnight. the winds quickly building across northern ireland before strengthening across scotland, england and wales as well. gusts could reach around 40 or maybe 50 mph around some exposed western areas with this band of rain heavy and squally, so the rain coming down very heavily for a short time as well. temperatures overnight still into double figures towards the south—east, it will be mild but things cooling off somewhat behind that weather front in scotland and northern ireland.

0n into friday, this band of rain, still strong winds, pushing across east anglia and south—east england before clearing. a bit of sunshine for a time, showers then move in pretty quickly for scotland, northern ireland and western areas of england and wales as well. the showers could be quite heavy. at the heaviest and most frequent across the north west areas of the uk. in the sunshine, temperatures for most between around ten and 14 celsius, so it will stay pretty windy. as we go into the weekend, even stronger winds are on the cards thanks to these weather systems that are pushing north eastwards from across the uk, bringing spells of rain as well. the weekend, not the greatest of weekends. 0ften wet and there will be some strong winds to contend with as well. saturday, it looks to be pretty widespread and heavy as well. the winds look strongest towards parts of wales and perhaps into western areas of england as well. gusts could reach around 50 miles per hour during the course of saturday for these areas, so blustery conditions. temperatures on the face of it

still mild, perhaps not feeling all that special given the strength of the winds and the rain coming down as well. sunday's chance doesn't look much better, outbreaks of rain, a few clearer, drier slots, strong winds to come and potentially some very strong winds towards the south coast of england. gusts here could reach 50 to 60 mph. rain still heavy and temperature starting to drop away as well. so this weekend looking particularly unsettled.

this is bbc news. the headlines: the number of people waiting more than a year for hospital treatment in england hits its highest level since 2008 as a result of the corona pandemic. you can't stop people having heart attacks, or strokes, or slipping on the ice and breaking their wrists or hips, but you can control the flow of coronavirus patients. the uk economy grew by a record amount over the summer. 15.5%, but the economy as a whole is still smaller than before the pandemic and there are warnings that it will slow again. that recovery, slow coming into the autumn, it's likely that that slowdown will be continued given the necessary restrictions we've had to put in place to control the spread of the

virus. turmoil