hello and welcome to bbc news. i'm lewis vaughan jones. first, donald trump's efforts to overturn the result of the us presidential election have suffered further setbacks. the state of georgia has certified its results, showing thatjoe biden beat mr trump by over 12,600 votes. and after meeting mr trump at the white house, senior republicans from michigan said they had seen no information that would overturn mr biden‘s victory in their state. i'm joined now by nomia iqbal in washington.

donald trump's legal attempts to overturn this election not going his way? they are not, but it is not stopping him from still pushing ahead so today, we saw that georgia had certified the votes, confirmed that it will go tojoe biden. but donald trump can still demand a recount, but is still his right because in terms of numbers of votes thatjoe biden had, it does fall within the margin and donald trump today had a press conference and it was about covid—19 and about vaccines but he came out and saidi vaccines but he came out and said i won the election. i got more than 73 million votes. of course, joe biden got many more votes tha n course, joe biden got many more votes than that and the telly is coming up to nearly 80 million. i think that gives us an indication that donald trump is still going right ahead with his plans to try and get the projections overturned. and what about senior republicans there, nomia? many of course

will privately accept thatjoe biden won the election. what about publicly? it is a tricky one for them. i think the republicans are, generally speaking, doing what they have done over the last four years which is not really stand up to donald trump and perhaps many of them are hoping it will be settled in the courts because of course, in orderfor any settled in the courts because of course, in order for any of these lawsuits to work, there needs to be evidence and already three states have dismissed donald trump's lawsuits. i also think it is worth remembering that donald trump did get a huge amount of votes a nd trump did get a huge amount of votes and he has changed the demographics of the republican party. it used to be seen as a public of the rich and he has brought more working—class votes a nd brought more working—class votes and white collar voters. and i think the republican party does not want to alienate those voters and so i think at the moment, they are not publicly turning their back on donald trump and seemingly standing the course with him. 0k, standing the course with him. ok, thanks nomia. the world could be a step closer to a useable covid—i9 vaccine after the drugs company

pfizer and its partner biontech filed for emergency authorisation of their vaccine in the us and countries around the globe. if approved, it will begin to be rolled out from next month. 0ur north america business correspondent michelle fleury has more on the next steps. look, i think these are unprecedented times, and we've seen the development of a vaccine take place in a much more compressed timeline than historically has been the case. having got through that phase where you have developed the vaccine and the test results are showing positive signs, the next hurdle in the process is that regulatory approval, and what we see now is pfizer going to regulators around the world, trying to get permission. in the us, it is called emergency use — in other words, when a drug has not been properly been fully tested, there are conditions under which it can gain approval to be used, and that's what it's doing in america. it's also doing that in the eu.

we understand it is trying to do that in the uk. they are in talks with regulators around the world because, clearly, this is going to be in huge demand — notjust here in america where i am, but obviously globally. everybody will be keen to get their hands on this as soon as it gets through the necessary hurdles that we are talking about today. 0ur our thanks to michelle. the eldest son of president trump has tested positive for coronavirus. in a statement, a spokesperson said donald trump jr, who is 42, had been diagnosed at the start of the week and has been quarantining at his cabin since receiving his test result. the statement added that donald trumer had been completely asymptomatic so far. in the final weeks of president trump's time in office, the usjustice department says an american man convicted of spying for israel and jailed for 30 years has completed his parole and is free to leave the united states.

jonathan pollard, a former us navy intelligence analyst, passed classified documents to israel during the late days of the cold war. he was released from prison in 2015. let's get more on the us presidential election now. joel goldstein is a professor at the st louis university school of law and hejoins me now. ink you very much for being on the programme. good to be with you. -- thank you. are you getting a sense of these legal challenges simply are not going anywhere for donald trump in the white house? it certainly seems that way. he had multiple lawsuits, they have been dismissed or ruled against him. the allegations that his lawyers have made have not been backed up with any evidence that has been forthcoming. the number of lawyers who have withdrawn from representing him, it seems to be the end of

this part of a rather u nfortu nate process. this part of a rather unfortunate process. professor, u nfortu nate process for unfortunate process. professor, unfortunate process for many people. i'm assuming many senior republicans also, i'm intrigued about their role because many who will privately know the game is up but are not publicly declaring it. how much damage is this doing for them going forward? well, i think it has been damaging. i think part of what he is doing is trying to make it more difficult for president—elect biden. at it really is, it is challenging the stuff of democracy in america. the sanctity of the vote. the validity of our voting. he has made wild allegations without any substantiating evidence. i think that has, unfortunately, caused some people to doubt the validity of elections but there has been no evidence that is

cast any doubt on the fact that vice president biden has one by more than 6 million votes. —— won. is assigned you think of political discourse in the us that there is no evidence, it has been tested in court several times already and no evidence forthcoming thus far. and yet it doesn't seem to matter to many people. yes, i think it is a disturbing trend. the fact that many people seems to be convinced that two plus two equals six, or at least are willing to explore that possibility. and i think as was indicated earlier on your programme, none of the republican leaders have been quiet, although increasingly some republican leaders are starting to take issue with the president. senator alexander today said, suggested it was time to move on. there have

been of course the official homeland security department, who president trump fired, that it was the most secure election in history. and so forth. so we are beginning to see some republicans who are standing up and saying enough is enough. fascinating stuff. thank you for coming on, professor. joel goldstein. good. good to be with you. the prime minister has expressed full confidence in the home secretary, priti patel, despite a report into claims of bullying, which found that she broke the rules on ministerial behaviour. it's led to the resignation of the man who wrote the report, sir alex allan. his inquiry looked into allegations about priti patel‘s conduct as a minister in three different government departments. here's our deputy political editor, vicki young. he's standing by her. boris johnson's taken months to give his verdict on the home secretary's behaviour, which an independent report described as "bullying." priti patel shouted and swore at staff,

but the prime minister's judged that she didn't break ministerial rules. i asked her what she thought about the criticisms in the report. are you a bully? well, i'm here to give an unreserved apology today, and i am sorry if i have upset people in any way whatsoever. that was completely unintentional. and, vicki, i'll be very candid. you know, the work that i do here, in this department and across government, is deeply challenging, so if i have upset people, that has been completely unintentional. that was not my intention. the prime minister's adviser on ministerial standards found that the home secretary: despite these findings

from sir alex allan, the prime minister has the final say and has disagreed. sir alex has resigned. in overruling his independent adviser, the prime minister has made a huge political decision. downing street points to what they call "mitigating circumstances" — the fact that no—one mentioned the home secretary's behaviour to her at the time, and that she's apologised. ms patel‘s friends think she's been the victim of snobbery and sexism. but some of this has been contradicted by sir philip rutnam. he resigned in february as the most senior civil servant at the home office. reporter: sir philip, how much confidence do you have in the inquiry? in a statement today, he said he wasn't asked to give evidence, and says he did repeatedly advise ms patel that she needed to treat staff with respect. his former department has also been criticised for being inflexible and unsupportive, but the home secretary says the culture has now changed.

at the time, of course, — it says this in the report — that issues were not pointed out to me, we were not being supported, obviously, in our work, but this is a challenging department. people listening will think you're making excuses, and actually, there is no excuse for somebody in a senior position treating others badly. vicki, there are no excuses. i'm absolutely giving an unreserved, fulsome apology today. i cannot be any clearer about that whatsoever. but labour say priti patel should resign or be sacked. the prime minister has said that he loathes bullying and yet today, he has comprehensively failed a test of his leadership, when he's had a report on his desk precisely on that issue. sir alex allan couldn't have been clearer — that the home secretary has not consistently met the high standards of the ministerial code. hanging onto priti patel will be a popular decision with conservative party members, but it will bring mrjohnson more political pain.

the bbc has learned that millions of public sector workers in england, including teachers and police, could face a pay freeze next year. there are 5.5 million public sector workers, but it's thought that nhs staff may be exempt from the measures. new figures show that government borrowing hit £22.3 billion last month — the highest 0ctober figure since monthly records began in 1993. 0ur economics editor faisal islam has the details. 2020 has been a year of public servants keeping the country going in tough times and the nation showing its appreciation. a government trying to cope with huge borrowing is now planning pay freezes to help save billions, surprising teachers such as alan in walsall. we've kept the country going, to allow the rest of the economy to get back on its feet a bit. we've done things and have gone out of our way to do ourjob,

but at the same time we're not being recognised for that, so i think it would be grossly unfair. nathan also helps kids to school. a coach driver in buckinghamshire, he says public sector wages should reflect the lockdown economic turmoil. now is not the time for a pay rise. whilst everyone else in the private sector is worrying whether they will have a job by christmas, this is unfair. us drivers have had to take a 20% wage cut. now, this has resulted in me being on a smaller hourly rate than when i was 18. that is precisely the government's argument, too — that fairness demands pay restraint. today, representatives of firefighters, policemen, teachers, other civil servants condemned the idea of a pay freeze. during the middle of the pandemic, we then give them the body blow they you're gonna have a pay freeze for three years. these are some of the lowest paid workers in this country. they have given so much. we have clapped them on a thursday night and yet, at the end of it, what are we doing? nhs workers are expected to be exempt from any freeze,

but there is a sea of red in the public finances. it is not fair that private sector workers should take all of the pain from the pandemic and public sector workers should be virtually completely immune from it. and separately, there is a point about what we can afford. the government borrowed more than £22 billion last month. that's more than it spent on policing across the uk, a record for october. but with a new lockdown and extended support, annual borrowing is heading closer to £400 billion — a peacetime record. the unions are furious but they think they have the public on their side, in this year of all years, against the government's fundamental argument that there are billions to be saved from the public sector wage bill. for a chancellor more used to signing multi—billion rescue cheques, this is tricky politics, but the detail of this pay freeze, whether it is chilly or arctic, depends on, for example, the length — we'll get that detail at the spending review.

as the economy continues to suffer, the bulk of the tough decisions on tax and spend are to be put off — but not for public sector workers. faisal islam, bbc news. just six weeks remain before the end of the brexit transition period, where the uk has been following eu rules on a temporary basis, to allow for a new trade deal to be thrashed out. it's been a fraught process, and talks have stopped for a short time, because one of the eu team tested positive for covid—i9. over the months, deadlines have come and gone. but now that it's crunch time, how ready are we? here's our political correspondent alex forsyth. sunday night, six minutes past six, heading into dover for the boat to france. this is a familiarjourney for lorry driver, vic. he's been moving goods to and from europe for years. he kept us a video log of a recent trip. it is relatively easy. all you do is show your passport, and i'm presuming that'll

go out the window. it is all about to change. new trade rules come into play injanuary. goods moving between the uk and eu will be subject to new customs controls and checks, some phased in, but still, for drivers and traders, a whole new system to grapple with. we're now leaving in calais. straight off the dock and away we go. i doubt that'll happen in january. the driver is almost going to have to have a briefcase full of new paperwork. in lincoln, permits and papers are piling up as the boss of vic's firm prepares. his transport company specialises in international haulage. he fears, after some brexit false starts, not all businesses have realised this time change is coming. there's a sort of feeling of, we've all been here before, and it's been put back a couple of times, and i think that hasn't helped, and add covid to that, that hasn't helped, either. but i certainly foresee

severe disruption in the first few weeks as far as goods moving to and from the uk are concerned. in kent, work is under way on this new lorry park to help both process vehicles and manage traffic. the fear is lorries backed up, supply chains disrupted. to try and avoid that, hgvs will need permits to enter kent, to show they are prepared. all part of government efforts to keep things flowing. but some local residents aren't convinced. it will be very interesting to walk up here onjanuary ist and see what's happening. it will no doubt be completely inaccessible by vehicles, because they'll be queueing right round the motorway exits in both directions. preparations by government have ramped up. there are checklists, guidebooks, help centres for hauliers, millions spent on technology and infrastructure. but it is late in the day. the diggers are still in the ground, with six weeks to go. whether we reach a trade deal with the eu or not,

these changes will happen come january, because we've left the customs union and the single market. the government says its systems should be in place in time, but there is a real worry that businesses don't have long enough to be ready. at this manufacturer's in kent, there is uncertainty. they export engineering parts to the eu. they are ready for new systems but don't know about tariffs, which are still subject to trade talks. there is a large amount of nervousness. we understand the process, we understand that we've got to change our paperwork. we also believe there's going to be tariffs, but if you go on the website, it doesn't really tell you what it's going to be. it always says, "to be confirmed". wacky races, here we go. for those like vic, on the front line of trade, the changes brexit will bring really are now just a few weeks away, with much still to be done to keep things moving. alex forsyth, bbc news. it's 75 years since

the surviving leaders of nazi germany went on trial at nuremberg. they stood accused of the deaths of millions of people. fergal keane reports on the legacy of the world's first international war crimes trial. the scarecrow wears the coat of a nazi mass murderer — placed there by a son who condemns the crimes of his father. my name is niklas frank. i am the son of the butcher of poland, hans frank, who was executed in the nuremberg trials in 1946. in a london garden, a woman mourns a murdered sister. they were monstrous. they were not human beings, those nazis. they were tried in the nuremberg trials. a few got a death sentence, but a lot got away with it.

archive: judges from britain, america... it was a trial of crimes that defied the imagination. nazi leaders faced a court that established the principle of internationaljustice. 75 years later, we've been hearing from some of those who've lived in the long shadow of nuremberg. vengeance is not our goal. nor do we seek merely a just retribution. my name is ben ferencz. i am the sole surviving prosecutor from the nuremberg war crimes trials. ben is now 100 years old. i don't need to repeat the horrors that i partially witnessed. he prosecuted the einsatzgruppen trial, the roving killing squads who murdered a million people. like leah epstein and her brother, max, ordered to strip

before being shot in latvia in 191“. ben ferencz was jewish but, despite the horror of the evidence, he believed justice demanded he set his personal feelings aside. i was able to turn myself into a robot. i didn't see people as being jewish or notjewish. they killed also communists, they killed gypsies. i succeeded very well in regarding all the people who were victims as human beings. frank was a willing and knowing participant in the use of terrorism in poland... among the notorious defendants was hans frank, governor of occupied poland, seen here in sunglasses. 4 million died under his rule. his son, niklas, pictured with his father as a child of the nazi elite, long ago

denounced hans frank. do you believe in the death penalty? do you believe that that was the right course of action? no, i am completely against the death penalty, but really, i think, my father had deserved the death penalty — for one reason, that he should himself experience the same death fear which he distributed about hundreds of thousands of innocent people. so many deaths to account for. ida bach was ten years old when she was murdered. she left her sister while in hiding in order to return to her mother. they perished in auschwitz. she would have been alive, my sister, if she had come with me, but she left my hand. and that, i felt guilty all the time. when they put those german leaders on trial at nuremberg,

did you feel any sense of satisfaction? no, it was notjustice for me, not at all. how many were hanged? to me, it was too good to be hanged after what they'd done, you know? nuremberg was a beginning, but the story at its heart — of massacred minorities, of intolerance — stains humanity still. fergal keane, bbc news. thousands of opposition supporters in belarus have paid their last respects to an activist who died after a clash with suspected plain clothes police. witnesses say 31—year—old roman bondarenka was beaten severely when he tried to stop agents ripping down the opposition's red and white emblems. the exiled figurehead, svetla na tsi kha novs kaya, said he was killed by government thugs. the interior ministry has denied involvement.

round one of the legal battle between media personalities, rebekah vardy and coleen rooney, has ended. thejudge ruled that wayne rooney "clearly identified" mrs vardy when she made allegations about social media stories being leaked in tabloid newspapers. their disagreement broke out in october 2019, when coleen rooney attempted to find out who was behind fake stories about her. david silito reports. coleen rooney, rebekah vardy — both famous for being married to premier league footballers, both with high—profile celebrity careers. and the issue — who was leaking stories about coleen rooney to the papers? she had a suspicion and set up an instagram account with some fake stories, and limited access to just one other account — rebekah va rdy‘s account. rebekah vardy says she didn't leak anything, and began legal proceedings. and so, at the high court today,

the lawyers gathered for round one of vardy versus rooney. this was, of course, only a preliminary hearing to decide if that post was directly pointing the finger at rebekah vardy and rebekah vardy alone. the judge decided it was, and so a victory for rebekah vardy and, for coleen rooney, a cost of £22,913.50. the law is a costly business. and coleen rooney and rebekah vardy are being given a couple of months to see if they can resolve this and avoid a high court libel battle. david sillito, bbc news. freak ice storms in russia's far east have prompted a state of emergency with thousands left without power, but one man's thankful to still be alive after a near miss in the city of vladivostok. there he is in the red jacket, clearing snow off his car as something catches his eye and he runs. and that something was a huge concrete slab breaking off from the side of the building next to him. he escaped unharmed.

you can reach me on twitter — i'm @ l vaughanjones. the weather now, with darren bett. hello there. on friday, we saw temperatures slowly rising as milderaircame in from the atlantic, together with a lot of cloud. but over this weekend, it's cooler air that's going to return across the uk, with temperatures set to drop a bit. now, we've seen the milderaircome in, thanks to south—westerly winds bringing in that cloud. this strip of cloud here is a weather front. that's producing the rain that we are seeing at the moment and it's moving very slowly southwards. now, that weather front will take the rain southwards. as it does so, the rain becomes light and patchy, but it pushes away the milder air steadily through the weekend, with cooler air then following from the north. and that's going to bring in some showers, mainly for scotland and for northern ireland. but we start the weekend with mild air across england and wales.

it's colder in northern scotland early on saturday morning. it's windy here as well. and then we've got our band of rain on that weather front. that rain will soon move away from southern scotland, northern ireland, heading into northern england in the morning, and then down through wales, into the north midlands later on in the day. to the south of that, generally dry. a lot of cloud but a hint of sunshine now and again. it's quite mild air still here, so temperatures 13 degrees. further north, it's getting colder through the day. there will be some sunshine, but those showers could be quite heavy and blustery, as well, because it's going to be quite a windy day, especially for northern scotland, where we're looking at gales, gusts of 70 miles an hour for a while in the northern isles. now, through saturday evening and saturday night, that band of clouds and rain, becoming light and patchy, heads down to southern england. elsewhere, we'll see clearing skies away from those showers continuing mainly in scotland. and the winds will gradually ease as well, so it points to a colder night. temperatures could be easily down to 4 or 5 degrees. but across southern parts of england, south of the ma, mainly, we could be left with a fair bit of cloud on sunday. a little rain now and again but on the whole generally dry.

further north, more in the way of sunshine. we keep some showers going across northern ireland, and in particular into scotland. again, they could be quite heavy. it's going to be a cooler day, i think. for many places, temperatures are going to struggle to make double figures. but it won't be as windy on sunday. now, looking ahead into the early parts of next week, and the wind direction changing back to more of a south—westerly. a little bit milder, but we've got weather fronts on the scene as well. they're going to bring cloud and rain. it looks like the wettest weather through monday, and into tuesday, will be across more northern and western parts of the uk.

this is bbc news. the headlines: donald trump's efforts to overturn the us presidential election result suffer further setbacks. the state of georgia certifies its results after a recount confirmed joe biden as the winner. and senior republicans from michigan say they've seen no information that would overturn mr biden's victory in their state. the prime minister gives his full support to the home secretary priti patel, despite an inquiry upholding claims she bullied staff. the move's forced boris johnson's advisor on ministerial conduct to resign. ms patel says she's sorry if she upset anyone. the government has asked the uk medicines regulator to formally assess the pfizer—biontech coronavirus vaccine. if approved, it will be rolled out from next month. it comes as data suggests that infection rates are levelling off in england and scotland, and decreasing in wales and northern ireland.