this is bbc news with the latest headlines for viewers in the uk and around the world. my name's mike embley. decision day in georgia — the votes are being counted in two runoff elections that'll decide the balance of power in the us senate. prosecutors in the us state of wisconsin say they won't bring criminal charges against the police officer who shot the black man, jacob blake, leaving him paralysed. us intelligence agencies confirm they believe russia was behind the serious cyber attack on government agencies revealed last month. los angeles struggles to cope with the latest surge of coronavirus. 0fficials warn they could see more than 1,000 deaths per day.

hello to you. voting in the us state of georgia ended just an hour or two ago and with those votes the balance of power in congress for the next two years will have been decided. that will also define how much a biden presidency is able to accomplish. no confirmed results yet. joe biden won the state in november's presidential election, but the two senate seats in georgia both went to runoffs. here's a quick reminder why this race in georgia is so important. in the senate there are currently 50 republicans and 48 democrats. there are two vacant seats. ifjon 0ssoff and the reverend raphael warnock win their races, democrats would be tied for power. then the vice president—elect kamala harris, a democrat of course, would have the deciding vote and that would give democrats control of both chambers of congress and the white house, meaning mr biden could get more of his agenda passed by the house and senate. he'd have more power. in atlanta georgia for us

is the bbc‘s larry madowo. yes, we are starting to see more of the results coming in now. 56% of the expected voters come in and the democratic candidates have a slight lead in both of those races. we see jon 0ssoff with about 87,000 votes more than his challenger in that race. also, in the other race we see reverend warnock with about 70,000 more votes tha n warnock with about 70,000 more votes than kelly loeffler so essentially he is beating perdue right now and the democrats essentially are leading but it is maybe a two—point lead, so it is almost meaningless at this stage because there is still a lot of the vote to be counted and it could all change, especially when the boats coming from the more republican leading northern counties in georgia. let's talk about the process

which has cost a lot of money. $833 million have been spent in the race and there has been attention not just from the race and there has been attention notjust from the states but from other states like texas, florida and as far as california, with a democratic canvasser who as california, with a democratic ca nvasser who came in from florida. why did you come here? i felt like i had to do something to protect american democracy that i feel is threatened right now. why do you think democracy is threatened? mostly because for decades the republican party has done so much to make life so has done so much to make life so much harder for americans over the past few decades, but the last four years i think that it the last four years i think thatitis the last four years i think that it is very clear that they are trying to suppress votes, suppress democracy itself. i think it was really important that at least we have two democratic senators who can maybe help joe biden democratic senators who can maybe helpjoe biden with narrow majority to begin to

restore american democracy. interesting you say that because the republican message in this race has been that the democrats raphael warnock and john is of radical leftists who will introduce socialism and destroy the american way of life —— 0ssoff. destroy the american way of life -- 0ssoff. i feel like thatis life -- 0ssoff. i feel like that is part of the problem, this misinformation. that is exactly what they would like vote rs exactly what they would like voters to think and they would like to do everything they can simultaneously to keep them away from the polls. that is why here in georgia it wasn't so why here in georgia it wasn't so easy to vote. you couldn't vote early up until election day. they stopped early voting for a week before election day, for a week before election day, for example. that wasn't necessary. so all the way from california. there is criticism of liberals like you coming from neighbouring states and thinking you know what's good for georgia. what do you make of that? i don't think this is about georgia, though i'm a big fan of georgia after this week. i think this is really about a

much larger federal issue. this is all about our country, really. we are altogether. don't think it is about california telling georgia anything. idid california telling georgia anything. i did not tell georgians how to vote. i didn't go and try to convince a republican to vote democrat. i only stayed with democratic vote rs only stayed with democratic voters to try to tell them "don't think your vote doesn't count because it really does and it's important. " count because it really does and it's important." thank you. laurie traktman, a democratic canvasser. that's laurie traktman, a democratic ca nvasser. that's important because president trump has consistently challenged the integrity of the vote and many feel they did not want to vote, we will essentially know whether that has suppressed the republican vote when we know the vote in the morning possibly. all through the night they will be counting. we heard from the secretary of state's offers that each county will knock off when they want but they will tell us how important this is, the national attention, and it's important to finish it as quickly as

possible. thank you both. we'll bring you all of the developments live here on bbc world news. and in the meantime, why not take a look at our website where, among other things, we have this article explaining just why these two senate seats are so important, and how the maths is stacking up in american politics. larry just touched on that, of course. just log on to bbc.com/news. prosecutors in wisconsin say a policeman investigated over the shooting of the black man jacob blake in the city of kenosha last august will face no charges in connection with the incident. mr blake was hit several times and left severely injured during a confrontation with police outside a house, after a woman called the emergency services to report her boyfriend, who she said was not allowed to be on the premises. the incident sparked days of violent clashes in kenosha and elsewhere, culminating in two protestors being allegedly shot dead by an armed civilian. 0ur north american correspondent, david willis, tells us more. four months after the shooting

of jacob blake the local prosecutor in kenosha county decided there will be no criminal charges brought against the officer who fired those seven shots into mr blake's back and side. the officer in question, rusten sheskey, says that he acted in self—defence because mr blake was wielding a knife. that is a somewhat disputed claim, i might add, but the prosecutor feels that because the officer would claim in court the defence of self defence, that he would be unable to make a charge stick, a criminal charge against the officer, stick. so that is a very controversial decision indeed. jacob blake was left paralysed from the waist down after being shot in front of three of his children. they are preparing for protests

in kenosha county tonight. 500 members of the state national guard have been drafted in in anticipation of possible violence. we can talk now to paige fernandez who is policing policy advisor at the american civil liberties union. she joins us from philadelphia. thanks for your time. this was not a clear—cut case. do you think the result would have been the same if the victim was white rather than black? that is an interesting question and it is hard to say, because in this country the cases that we continuously see our cases of black people getting killed at the hands of police. quite frankly, i do not believe that had jacob blake been white that this would have been the result. in the prosecutor defending his decision to not press charges, in saying that

there was a valid self defence claim, he continuously mentioned that jacob blake claim, he continuously mentioned thatjacob blake not only had a knife but that officers had tased him multiple times and he continuously mentioned that jacob blake times and he continuously mentioned thatjacob blake kept getting up and he pulled on these racist tropes that we've seen throughout us history of angry black man having superhuman strength and posing a threat and being dangerous and that justifying an officer's actions. no, i don't think this would be the same case if jacob blake was white but i also think it's important to recognise that our criminal legal system is designed to protect officers and not black lives. i guess we have to note of course that the figures say that black people are three times more likely than white people to be killed by police. is this the end of the process? is this the end of the process? is there any appeal against this decision? there could be an appealand this decision? there could be an appeal and the family might be pursuing a civil lawsuit.

however, those are incredibly challenging because, again, the criminal legal system is truly designed to protect officers and to shield them from any form of accountability. and while today, if the officer had been charged, there might be a semblance of justice, i been charged, there might be a semblance ofjustice, i think it's important for us to remember thatjustice it's important for us to remember that justice would have been jacob remember that justice would have beenjacob blake can never being shot in the first place. there was an uproar of course about the incident. several people died in a shooting. kyle rittenhouse is facing six charges including first—degree reckless homicide. now we hear that the governor of wisconsin has called the national guard to deal with anticipated protests. how do you read that? i think it is inappropriate. we do not need a militarised response to protest. research consistently shows that when you have a militarised response to protest it escalates

confrontations instead of deescalating. the only reason law enforcement should ever be present at demonstrations is to facilitate the exercise of the first amendment rights, but we have seen over the past seven months that when law enforcement is present, all the national guard is sent, tensions are heightened and people are injured and hurt. it is inappropriate for them to be sent out and it is unjustified. thank you very much. let's get some of the day's other news: north korean leader kimjong—un has admitted his economic plan for the country has failed. speaking as he opened a rare meeting of his party congress he also said that mistakes had to be boldly admitted. the gathering in pyeonchang is only the second to be held in the last a0 years and will be watched closely by analysts for any reference to the us presidential election. the agent of the hollywood actress tanya roberts has confirmed that she has died, a day after correcting reports quoting him as saying she had already passed away. her best known role was starring opposite

roger moore in his last james bond film, a view to a kill, and her work in the charlie's angels tv series. washington has said that the recent cyber—attack on us government agencies was an intelligence gathering operation, probably of russian origin. government security bodies said they were penetrated through compromised software in a "serious" assault. let's speak tojon bateman, a cyber—security expert from the carnegie endowment for international peace who previously served as director for cyber strategy implementation in the office of the us secretary of defence. it is good to talk to you. how do you read this? well, what this statement shows today is that we are still very much in the early phases of this investigation, but the most urgent questions are which victims in the us government and the private sector fell victim to this attack, what data was actually stolen and

whether the hackers still have some kind of continuing foothold within networks that they could use for future cyber operations. sorry to interrupt you, but some sort of persistent access, that would bea persistent access, that would be a continuing problem. that is right. that would be very serious indeed. those are the critical questions that actually have not yet been a nswered actually have not yet been answered and were not answered today. what we did learn today isa today. what we did learn today is a bit more about the perpetrators and their motives. the us government is now saying that the attacks originated somewhere within russia, although that does stop short of actually blaming moscow, the russian government. and then calling this an intelligence gathering operation, although viewers should know that in cyberspace hackers can quickly pivot from intelligence gathering operation to something more destructive. you have raised a lot of serious questions. do you think we are likely to get answers or is this the kind of investigation that could go on for years? well, at a minimum there will be months of work understanding

exactly what took place. for example, we know that dozens of private companies have been hit and somewhere in the may be double digits of government agencies, government is saying perhaps under ten government agencies. but most of these names are not yet known. so a lot of victims are allowing others to take the heat and they are remaining silent for now. meanwhile the really critical questions are how such a serious hack was allowed to ta ke a serious hack was allowed to take place and what lessons we can take for the future. the secretary of state hinted that russia was behind the attack when it first came up. president trump then blamed china. how will investigators go about deciding who was really behind it? there is a process in place in the intelligence community and it is very objective. i was part of that process when i was an intelligence analyst. u nfortu nately intelligence analyst. unfortunately where things often hit disc is is in the

public disclosures of the assessment. it is very likely that the us government has good evidence at this point that russia was responsible for this at the governmental level, but still there is hedging in the official statements about this being geographically linked to russia without naming and shaming the russian government. that just shows shaming the russian government. thatjust shows how difficult it is to be an official in the trenches trying to keep your head down and avoid the president's ire. what we really need here is presidential leadership. thank you very much indeed. much more to come here on bbc news. stay with us if you can. we are expecting more details from that crucial senate run—off in georgia as well. still to come: a rowing revolutionary. the british man stranded in taiwan who decided to clean up the local environment.

this is bbc news. the latest headlines: —— the japanese people are in mourning following the death of emperor hirohito. thousands converged on the imperial palace to pay their respects when it was announced he was dead. good grief! after half a century of delighting fans around the world, charlie brown and the rest of the gang are calling it quits. the singer paul simon starts his tour of south africa tomorrow despite of protests and violence from some black activist groups. they say international artists should continue to boycott south africa until majority rule is established. around the world, people have been paying tribute to the iconic rock star david bowie who sold 140 million albums in a career that spanned half a century. his family announced overnight that he had died of cancer at the age of 69. the world's tallest skyscraper opens later today. the burj dubai, has easily overtaken its nearest rivals.

welcome back. very glad to have you with us on bbc news. the latest headlines: the votes are being counted in the us state of georgia in two run—off elections that'll decide the balance of power in the senate. prosecutors in the us state of wisconsin say they won't bring criminal charges against the police officer who shot the black man, jacob blake, leaving him paralysed. every part of the united kingdom is now in lockdown with people being urged to stay at home as the scale of the public health emergency becomes even more daunting. such is the depth of the covid crisis that the lockdown measures are widely expected to remain in force until march. the number of new cases reported in the uk in the last 24—hour period is more than 60,000 for the first time since the pandemic started. but there is some progress as more than 1.3 million people in the uk have been given the first dose of a covid vaccine including a quarter of

all people over 80 in england. elsewhere in europe, portugal's president has proposed extending the nationwide state of emergency, whilst italy has recorded more than 15,000 new infections — up by 50% on monday's figure. armed police are accompanying deliveries of the vaccine. denmark is putting new limits on the number of people who can join a public gathering, dropping from 10 to five, and is introducing a two—metre social distancing rule in public areas. and germany is extending its lockdown until at least the end of the month. people living in areas where in infection rates are particularly high will be forbidden from travelling more than 15 kilometres from their home, without good reason. here's chancellor angela merkel. translation: i have said again and again that the winter months, as the experts told us yesterday, are the months when the pandemic can be at its most virulent. with the combination of the mutated virus, which has already been detected here, it is absolutely necessary to take new measures.

chancellor merkel there, of course. ambulance workers in los angeles have been told not to transport hospital patients who have extremely low chances of survival. the directive comes as officials warn the region could soon hit more than 1,000 covid—related deaths per day, with hospitals overrun with patients. la public health confirming the county has reached more than 11,000 deaths. meanwhile, concerns have also been raised about the roll—out of the vaccine. we are going to leave that for a moment and go straight to our guest. dr anne rimoin is an infectious disease epidemiologist and professor at ucla fielding school of public health, shejoins me live from los angeles. good to talk to you. i know you are very busy indeed. what they have just described, i are very busy indeed. what they havejust described, i guess, is triaged. the kind of thing you see at a disaster? absolutely. we're having tsunami of cases of covid here in los angeles county and our hospitals are really very much

feeling the strain. we have almost 8000 people hospitalised with covid—19, just in la cou nty with covid—19, just in la county alone. and our hospitals are county alone. and our hospitals a re really county alone. and our hospitals are really stretched to the limit. ambulances are circling, waiting for hours to be able to offload patients, so even if you can get an ambulance to ta ke you can get an ambulance to take you to the hospital you have to wait for care. this is a problem not only for those people who are coming in with covid—19 and complications from covid—19, but if you are sick with anything, if you need emergency medical care, if you have a stroke, a heart attack, appendicitis, you get into a car accident care is going to be difficult to get because it is not only about the number of beds we have here is about infrastructure, it's about a lack of oxygen being available, and it's about a lack of staff. so we are in very dire straits. as medics have seen around the world, what happens with covid

impacts all sorts of other patients, people stick with all kinds of other problems. this is very tough for ambulance workers, literally making life and death decisions. absolutely. anybody who is on the front line is definitely having to make very difficult decisions right now and working really stretched to the nth degree. 0n the problem is this has been going on for months, but now with all of this fatigue on top of it, now they are hitting the hardest part of the pandemic to date and what we know is people have been getting together for the holidays, we don't have terrific compliance here in los angeles county or in many places and so we anticipate that this is only the beginning of what could end up being a very, very dark january. of what could end up being a very, very darkjanuary. we are told there are also concerns about the rollout of the vaccine. can you see a way through this, some way to bring the numbers down? i mean,

listen, we had this incredible, fast, getting this vaccine out of development and into freezers, but the problem is that there hasn't been funding from the federal government to the states to now be able to get these vaccines deployed into the population. they spent my entire career working places like the democratic republic of the congo and working on maximisation programmes and i think, you know, here in the united states we are not used to it and it's a loss of logistics. this did start of the christmas holidays and so one of the rings that i can see is that i think that we will start to work out some of the issues with the logistics and it will get better, but this has been a rough start. professor, thank you very much indeed for your time. it's my pleasure.

today is the feast of epiphany or three kings — an essential part of christmas in spain. the annual parades were cancelled because of the pandemic, but across the country, even the coronavirus couldn't deprive children of their presents. daniel wittenberg reports. gold, frankincense, myrrh, and facemasks. in normal times millions packed the streets across spain to greet the three kings and their gifts on the feast of epiphany. but this year even royalty had to get creative. instead of the usual lively processions, in barcelona the three kings arrived by boat to deter any crowds. the grand landing could only be watched on tv. in the ca nary islands, tenryu's only be watched on tv. in the canary islands, tenryu's three kings was symbolically inoculated against covid—19 to send a message of hope as the vaccine begins to roll out in every region of spain translation: the vaccine is the best gift that science has offered us so we can once again enjoy ourfriends,

offered us so we can once again enjoy our friends, family, offered us so we can once again enjoy ourfriends, family, and especially our grandparents. having spent months out of school and even been completely barred from leaving the house for six weeks in the spring, it's been harderfor for six weeks in the spring, it's been harder for spanish children to be good this year. but in the capital, madrid, and around the country where cu rfews were cut around the country where curfews were cut short and families could meet in small groups they were finally shown something to celebrate. translation: we know that 2020 has been a bit complicated, so both as our, casper, and they have decided to come, not only with thousands of gifts, but we will hope that this 2021 will be much better. the pandemic may have rained on spain's parades, but the fireworks that lit up the skies make sure it was still the most magical night of the year. daniel whittenburg, bbc news. when peter lowe retired last year, he decided to leave britain to visit his son in taiwan. then came the pandemic and he

was unable to return home. so, he turned his efforts to spearheading a clean—up campaign for the tamsui river. what started out as a one—man campaign to clean up the trash has now become a fully fledged movement. here's his story. i enjoy boating, always have. after i got stuck here, i thought, "i need to get a boat sorted out," because obviously i wanted to go out and do some boat rowing on the river. so that's what i did. what i saw firstly was a beautiful river, beautiful wildlife, and a beautiful area. then i looked a little bit closer, and i started seeing rubbish in the river. plastic bottles, that kind of things, and also in the mangroves up here and down there. plastic hanging from the mangrove trees, and i thought, "this is a bit strange."

so i thought we could do something about it, so i started collecting rubbish from the river. ifelt sad, actually, very, very sad, because i know the effects it has on wildlife. that is it finau. thanks for watching. hello there. temperatures have been plummeting away in the night, especially across the glens of scotland, —10 or —11 celsius here. but there's just a hint as we go into next week that we're exchanging the cold wind we have at the moment for something a little milder coming in off the atlantic, but still quite a lot of stagnant cold air. and actually for the meantime, we've got that northeasterly or north—northeasterly again with us through the day ahead. so, icy to start with some snow showers around and some freezing fog, particularly scotland and northern ireland. these showers will have a little bit of wintriness in them as well, and temperatures are close enough to freezing to concern us with ice — and there are warnings out for ice in some areas. the details are on the website. so, really bitterly cold for some, that hard frost to start in the north. but wednesday sees a little ridge of high pressure for the north, still that feed of northeasterlies bringing further showers initially into east anglia, the south—east, and the channel islands.

there mightjust be an easing in activity here as we go into the afternoon — still a peppering of wintry showers for northern and eastern parts of england. perhaps a fewer for eastern scotland and northern ireland but later in the day, we've got our next weather system approaching. but for many, despite some sunshine and a lot of dry weather around, it will stay cold particularly where the fog lingers, below freezing in these areas. but then through the evening and overnight, we have this coming into that cold air. so, readily turning to snow even at lower levels for scotland and for northern ireland. so, it won't be as harsh a frost here through the coming night but, nevertheless, we are likely to see more snow quite widely. and it will be a harsher frost further south for some and with freezing fog across central and southern areas, too. so, thursday, we'll see that fog slow to clear, stagnating in some areas. fewer showers for east anglia and the south—east, and for the channel islands — we've got the northerly instead which will push our weather front southwards. not a great deal of weather on it, but enough to give a light covering of snow, and then the cold air with snow showers follow behind. snow to low levels once again. so, even though we're bringing in a weather front inland off the atlantic, at that stage, it's not getting any warmer. but what we will find is high

pressure builds in behind it. so, that will weaken our weather front and bring in some drier weather potentially as we head towards the weekend. just the hint that temperatures start to lift a little next week. but for the meantime, cold weather warnings on the website.

this is bbc news. the headlines: votes are being counted in the us state of georgia in a tight race which will determine which party controls the senate. democrats are keen to oust two republicans, which would give them control of both houses of congress, as well as the white house, and give a biden presidency much more power. prosecutors in wisconsin are saying a police officer investigated over the shooting of jacob blake in the city of kenosha last august will face no charges. the shooting by a white officer left mr blake, a black man, paralysed and sparked riots. washington has said that the cyber attack on government agencies was an intelligence gathering operation most probably of russian origin. ajoint statement from the national security adviser, the fbi and the intelligence services said the agencies were penetrated through compromised software. the attack was described as serious.