kamala harris has released her medical records ahead of the presidential election, which conclude she is in "excellent health". following the disclosure, the democratic nominee accused donald trump of a lack of transparency over not releasing his own health records. stargazers have been treated to a glimpse of the "comet of the century" and it's the last time it'll visit earth for another 80,000 years. now on bbc news sumi, katrina and katty with path to the presidency. hello, welcome to this week's path to the presidency, a weekly conversation

between me, sumi somaskanda and katty kay in the run—up to the election day here in the us. it's been a very busy week here in the us. we're recording tonight very late on the night of thursday, october 10th. katy is in the uk this week, so she's not here with us live, but she has sent us her thoughts, which we will get to injust a moment. but sumi is here with me. she's in miami, in florida. hi, sumi. hi, caitriona. yeah, that's right. i'm in miami in a hotel room. and in fact, there was the prospect that i mightjoin you from a car driving back to miami because we were about two hours north of here, but we couldn't really make that work. so that's why we're speaking a bit later than usual. but, yeah, i'm here in miami because we've been covering hurricane milton, in the lead up to the hurricane and then the aftermath as well. and we have crews, of course, all across the west coast of florida, the gulf coast that was hit very hard

where the storm made impact. and we're actually on the east coast, because we're looking at some of the tornado damage that came through here, and that's what we have been doing, mostly speaking to people who evacuated before the storm, but also those who were hit by the tornadoes. and we sawjust an extraordinary damage wrought by the tornadoes. these are tornadoes that were spawned by hurricane milton, and they came through in a matter of minutes, really. and we got back a little bit earlier from saint lucie, which saw two tornadoes tear through. and it was really, really difficult to see. we saw a gas station where the entire roof had been lifted off, and it looked like somebody had picked up the entire building and just shook it up and then put it back down. everything was all over the place, and we were speaking to some families as well who are in a lower income area, and the insulation from the roof basically was torn out and spread everywhere across everyone�*s cars. they didn't know where they were going to sleep or spend the evening.

really just such terrible stories of people having to deal with the aftermath of the hurricane. but, i know, caitriona, you've been seeing this as well. it has become a big topic, especially in the aftermath of hurricane helene — mis and disinformation. this is something we've seen now enter the political debate. i mean, of course, we'rejust weeks away from the election, but despite the fact that we're seeing these catastrophic storms. so, hurricane helene two weeks ago and now hurricane milton, we're seeing this question of the political aspect of these storms as well. former president trump has been saying also directly on the campaign trail in rallies, that fema used up all its funds on housing for immigrants who have arrived in the country illegally. that is something that we know is not true. bbc verify has been reporting on this as well, and fema actually, has two pots of money. they're two separate pots of money. there is the disaster relief money. and then there is money

that is also used for housing for immigrants who do arrive in this country as they're putting in their asylum claims. but that pot of money for disaster relief is ring—fenced, so it is not like that is accessed for that housing for immigrants. we also saw this claim that in the aftermath of hurricane helene, that people who were impacted in north carolina, north carolina, were receiving checks of $750, and that's it. that's also not true. as we know, our verify team has been looking at that, and fema did hand out upfront payments of $750. but what was interesting is i talked to a city councilman from tampa bay, and i asked him about this mis and disinformation. i said, "is this something you're encountering?" and he told me, "we have encountered it, but we feel like government has gotten out in front of it." and then i pushed him a little bit harder on it on this question of fema — do people here trust the federal agency? and he said one of the issues is people were having

their claims rejected by fema. and he wouldn't say, you know, that this directly, but what he was essentially indicating is that fema needs to get in here quickly in the aftermath of hurricane milton to help people out and also deal with some of these claims. and it was a really interesting aspect of the coverage here to hear that there is frustration with fema and that could perhaps fuel frustration, caitriona. but i know this is something you've been seeing there in dc as well. yeah, we've been covering this back—to—back all week long. we've been speaking to local officials in all of the affected cities and communities. and what's been really striking is how local some of the relief efforts are that is the local fire chiefs, the local mayors, the local aid agencies on the ground who are really coming together. we're in a position now where the loss of life from this storm seems to have been relatively minimal. of course, one person killed is one person too many. but when you look at over

200 having been killed by hurricane helene, the evacuation orders seem to have worked, seem to have been followed. people got out of the kind of at—risk areas ahead of time. but a couple of things struck me about this when you're talking about misinformation and disinformation as being quite extraordinary and a marker of the times that we live in. first was, you know, you're talking about all those claims that were made about fema, sumi. the fact that fema, a federal agency, had to put a fact—checking page on its own website debunking claims that are being made by politicians, because it's not just the former president donald trump who's been saying these things. of course, there have been other republican elected officials, members of the us congress, who have been saying that as well. that's quite extraordinary that a federal agency would have to do that. and the other quite extraordinary thing is when presidentjoe biden was addressing the nation on wednesday night in advance of hurricane milton arriving, and he was saying to people,

"if you haven't left by now, it's really approaching, please don't try and leave. shelter in place, hunker down, and try and ride it out as best you can." and he spent half of his address saying that. and then the other half of his address was spent with him criticising donald trump and saying how un—american he was and what nonsense he was talking about. and itjust shows you how politicised this has become that a candidate like donald trump is saying something and you would kind of expect that from candidates — the stakes are high. but a sitting president who is not seeking re—election is also using that moment to correct those claims, but also to really severely criticise the person that's running from the other party, and it's very difficult for kamala harris in all of this. i mean, we haven't seen her as much as we've seen donald trump, because she has to defer tojoe biden — he's the president. he's the one making the addresses to the nation.

it would be quite odd for her as vice president to be doing that. so, there's a lot interplaying here with this storm coming so close to polling day as it is. indeed, and i thought it was interesting to see a republican congressman from north carolina who i know you've interviewed in the past, caitriona, chuck edwards, also putting out a statement debunking some of these claims. important, of course, because there are members of his constituency who are affected by hurricane helene. so, that was a really interesting aspect to that. and i actually was listening to the interview you did as well with congresswoman luna from florida about this issue. and what was her response to this, this question of mis and disinformation? because, again, for her state as well, this is crucially important. she deflected the answer there, i would have to say. and she said, in relation to the $750, she said, "ok, that's emergency money, but we know how expensive things are in florida. and $750 won't get you very much if you've lost everything and you need fuel for your car,

and you need rooms and hotels and you need food and you need clothes," and so on. but there was an interesting bipartisan moment, actually, from the congresswoman, where she said she was awaiting a call from presidentjoe biden. so, she might have to cut short our chat because she was waiting on the president to call. we also heard the president say about the close contact that he'd had with the republican governor of florida, ron desantis, who, of course, was donald trump's one—time rivalfor the nomination, and then also in the running to be his vice presidential pick. and ron desantis has been doing so many press conferences and briefings in florida, as happens with governors of states. when they face these kind of things, they take on a huge profile and a huge role. and so, for all the kind of fighting and forward and backwards, there have been these bipartisan moments of, let's just come together and do something and help people who are so badly in need of help.

as you mentioned a little bit earlier, katty couldn't be with us for the recording, but she actually sent us a clip of her thought for the week. here it is. hi, guys, i'm sorry i'm not with you in person. i am in the uk and somehow, just, the time zone differences between what i'm doing over here and florida and dcjust didn't work out this time. but i have been having some really interesting conversations this week, and one with... i spent some time on the phone with a senior official in the harris campaign, and it wasjust so interesting to get a read of where they are. what are we, three and a half weeks out from polling day? and this official said to me that they felt more optimistic four weeks ago than they do today, and i've been kind of checking in with them regularly. and i would say that's what ijudged from the kind of tone of the conversation. but basically, they see the race tightening between trump and harris

and that they had that kind of surge after the announcement, followed through to the dnc and then after the dnc, as we've all seen right in the polls, the kind of momentum slowed down. and what they see is people coming home to trump. so, they say that they are running very much scared, which i think is an interesting way of phrasing it. they compared what they are doing in this campaign and with this campaign staffing, because i know that the staff has come under quite a lot of criticism, which they do not love, from democrats saying harris has not been out enough, she hasn't been doing enough interviews enough. and they don't love that kind of back—seat driving from people who used to run campaigns. but one of the things they said that compared to 2016, for example, was that robby mook, who was hillary clinton's campaign manager, was talking in terms of a landslide, really — you know, "we're going to win 400 electoral college votes." and they say they have a very different attitude and that they are the kind of, as they described it,

the "nervous nellies" of campaigning, and they all run as if there is very much the possibility of losing. and one thing in particular really struck with me from that conversation, and they sourced it to jen palmieri, actually, who used to work on the hillary clinton campaign and who is now working in doug emhoff's office for the campaign. and apparentlyjen palmieri came in when she joined the campaign a few months ago in the early summer and in the summer, once vp harris was the candidate, said, "listen, we have to fundamentally change "the way we think about donald trump — "we have to stop thinking about him as a bad candidate and we have to recognise that actually he's a really good candidate and that he is very good at this particular thing of running for president." and i thought that was just a very interesting switch of mindset, because my impression covering the 2016 campaign, which i covered, was that there was a sort of dismissive attitude towards donald trump and also to his supporters, that famous basket

of deplorables phrase that she used much to her detriment, but that they kind of thought he was a joke, he didn't really know what he was doing. and i think this campaign is trying to treat donald trump much more seriously. and even though it was widely recognised that that kamala harris had a very good debate against donald trump, the kind of zeitgeist within the campaign is he is very good at doing what he does. he has a really strong sense of politics. sense of where he needs to do, and he has a very good sense of how to tap out his base and maximise people turning out for the polls. so, i thought that was a kind of really interesting just glimpse into the campaign's mindset that they definitely are running with the glass half full — that was the phrase they used. we see the glass half full every single day and it's the opposite of 2016. really interesting thoughts there from katty. i also was here covering the the 2016 election, and there was that dismissive, look—down—your—nose type

of attitude from the democrats, from the clinton campaign at donald trump. and as we've seen time and again, underestimate donald trump at your peril. but the messaging that we're hearing, i think, in the last week is not necessarily respectful of donald trump, and we do hear kamala harris refer to him as not a serious individual. exactly, yeah. and kind of undermining him. and particularly this week with what we were talking about there, those claims about the, the hurricanes and so on, it really feels like they're leaning into making him seem odd and weird — that expression that we hear from from tim walz — and this is not a serious individual who you want as your president handling hurricanes, handling international affairs. but i can see how they would be nervous in the harris campaign, because the polls are tightening, but they're not

really moving that much. the margins of error are there and the shifts are within the margins of error. so, you know, it's impossible to call this, and we've been travelling around states and you meet one trump voter, you meet a harris voter or a trump voter, a harris voter. it seems very evenly divided. and i thought it was interesting that elissa slotkin, the congresswoman from michigan, and i know, caitriona, you were reporting in michigan just a few weeks ago, and you were pointing out there is going to be a struggle for democrats in the state of michigan. she was heard at a fundraiser saying that their polling, their internal polling shows that kamala harris is, quote, under water in michigan. and thatjust goes to show that if you look at some of the latest polling, there does look to be a real struggle for the democrats and for kamala harris's campaign in some of those blue wall states. so, wisconsin and michigan a, bit closer or tighter so, wisconsin and michigan a bit closer or tighter and more in kamala harris's favour in pennsylvania. but that doesn't surprise me

so much that they are quite nervous, if that's the case. but as you said, caitriona, you know, if that rhetoric is changing and they're trying to take donald trump seriously as a good, strong candidate, it is not something that we're necessarily hearing from kamala harris when she's been out and about. the other point that katty was making there about interviews and people within the kamala harris team, getting her to do interviews and so on... i mean, we've seen her do so many interviews this week more in line with what we see from donald trump, because he's always doing interviews, isn't he? and i don't know, i have to question how influential doing news interviews actually are, and i say that in spite of myself and what we do and, kamala, donald, if you're listening, there's a space beside us! please come and talk to us. we'll happily do interviews. but i know people like us and politicos put a lot of truck in doing these interviews, and you have to be seen to be out there and taking questions and whatever. but i think normal people,

are going about their business. they're not necessarily sitting down and watching these interviews in the same way and making their mind up one way or the other. i mean, podcasts maybe are a bit different when you go and you speak to a very targeted audience — and let's be frank, a much younger audience who maybe the campaigns aren't reaching in any other way — those perhaps do have a greater influence, but i'm not sure the kind of formal sit—down tv interviews sway many voters. caitriona, what have you been looking at this week? well, the other big issue that's been pushing coverage of the presidential election out of the news cycles, of course, and potentially out of people's minds is the situation in the middle east. and we've said before that foreign policy is not generally an issue that moves voters' minds in this country. and so much of the world is concerned about who's going to be president and what that might mean for the middle east. that's not necessarily how voters here make their minds up when they go into the ballot box. and there was some really

interesting polling, actually, from the pew research centre on this. and just to say who pew is, it's a nonpartisan, nonprofit, non—advocacy polling group, so they don't make any recommendations, they literallyjust ask people what they think. and they had polling out around the october 7th anniversary, trying to get voters views of the middle east crisis, and they spoke to a good, chunky poll of about 10,000 people. so, that's a lot more representative than what we normally see. and a majority of people, 61%, said they wanted the us to play a role diplomatically in resolving the war. and that's a sizeable increase on people who had said that earlier in the year. and perhaps in contrast to the views of people in other countries around the world, only 31% of americans think israel's operation against hamas in gaza is going too far. and another one—third say they're unsure whether it's going too far, whereas we see views from other countries that people say it is going too far

and there is a humanitarian crisis there. and another 40% — so four in ten americans — are really concerned about america becoming directly involved in the conflict in the middle east. and that's really a place, i think, where the campaigns and this issue can maybe have an impact when it comes to military, when it comes to deployments. you know, we keep hearing that mantra from former president trump and his campaign about how much calmer and safer the world was when he was in office and a pledge to return it to that. and that's a really important message to me, as you know, message, as you know, here, for people who have family members in the military — they don't want them deployed into wars on the other side of the world, where they don't see that they have a vested interest, that they're concerned about their sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, partners, friends, whatever, being sent into very, very risky places. so, i did a little bit of digging into how military communities might be minded to vote, and it was really

interesting, actually, because we've seen, obviously, a lot of military references from both campaigns, particularly around the vice presidential candidates and military families — and military veterans are traditionally a group that lean republican. but they swung away from trump in 2020 by about 2% generally across the nation. but if you look at places where there are military bases, they swung away from trump by 8% in 2020. now, these might seem like small percentages, but this race is going to be won in the margin, so that matters. then you look at where are these military bases, where are these military families? and the biggest military base in america is in...north carolina. oh, there you go. one of the battleground swing states that we're talking about. the fifth largest one is in georgia, another battleground swing state that we're looking at talking about. really big bases in michigan, really big bases in pennsylvania as well. so, potentially issues around

deployment of the us military, a role for the us military is something that will shift voters in these states, where, as we keep saying, just really matter so much. those are fascinating statistics, caitriona. and it certainly makes me think about the fact that the military records of tim walz and jd vance have also been brought up a few times here. the fact that they're both veterans, the running mates, of course, for kamala harris and for donald trump. and it really feeds into the line. i know we've been discussing this in the past few weeks in the podcast as well. the question that donald trump's campaign keeps asking in campaigns, of course, is to say, or in rallies as well as to say, was your life better off four years ago? and one of the points they make there is that the world wasn't in the, quote unquote, chaos that it is in now. and certainly if you look across the globe, people might have that perception of the world right now with not only the war in the middle east, but of course, the war

in ukraine ongoing as well. and so, that is such an interesting point that you made also on the polling on how people feel about the us�*s role. what i do wonder is how much voters hold kamala harris accountable for the fact that there hasn't been a diplomatic solution. if they want the us to play a diplomatic role, do they see this as so far, president biden�*s, quote unquote, failure? because until now, he seems to have been stymied by the israeli prime minister, benjamin netanyahu. and also, his secretary of state, antony blinken, despite his shuttle diplomacy as several trips to the region, they haven't been able to move forward a ceasefire and hostage release in gaza, nor have they been able to to dial down those tensions in lebanon, as you were mentioning the escalation there. so, i guess what's not clear to me yet is how much people really hang that on kamala harris. and i think that's probably limited in a way, because it isn't really her lane to get into and discuss, is it?

i mean, joe biden is still the president. he is the leader when it comes to foreign policy of this country. and it's another place where it's very hard for her to be speaking and saying things you know, that aren't in lockstep with the president, who is there having these conversations, as we saw earlier this week with prime minister netanyahu. and the point that former president trump makes and his campaign make about the world being safer and not in that chaos, as you're saying there is that getting out of them is now the issue. like, we can'tjust turn back a clock and end conflicts as much as so many people would want to and get their loved ones back and wish all of this death and destruction hadn't happened. but when you come to think, how do you get out of it, there isn't much daylight between the positions of donald trump and kamala harris. they've both pledged unwavering support for israel. they've both said they wouldn't be in the business of withdrawing military aid from israel, which is what we see many other places

calling on the us to do and calls within the us as well, for there to be some kind of sanction for the biden administration to use some kind of leverage there. so, in terms of how they get out of it, we haven't heard too much from either of them because, i mean, this is an intractable conflict. there's a reason why we haven't been able to get to a peace dealfor a year now. and i think it's probably at this point going to be pretty safe to say that we won't see that for a few weeks now ahead of the election will be. so, it could very well play a big role. but i think we're going to wrap it up there, caitriona. i'll say good night to you. it's obviously late here in florida and late there in washington, so perhaps a good point to end it. yes! this is one of our our late—night recordings of path to the presidency, of which there will be plenty more because the day is rolling in soon. we will be there on election night, and of course, we'll be in the studio bringing all of the results as they come in — or as they don't,

as the case may be. but yeah, i will... i don't know if i'll see you soon because i'm off to arizona, so we may be ships passing in the night once again. nice to see you on the screen. yes. talk to you soon. bye— bye. good afternoon. it was a colder start to this morning, many of our temperatures in low single figures, a bit of patchy frost and just the right amount of high cloud reflecting the sunlight to produce a very beautiful sunrise indeed for many of us. we are set to keep those sunny skies for the rest of today, it will be dry, but the sunshine will be hazy with plenty of high cloud again, certainly feeling chillier than it has been. the colder air is marked in blue here, and it gets swept away as we head into next week when things will turn warmer, but also wetter. more on that in just a moment. it is looking dry the rest of the day today, still quite windy down towards the north sea facing coasts,

a brisk north—westerly. the cloud thickening from the west, lots of high cloud, but the cloud thick enough across parts of northern ireland to produce a few patches of rain perhaps into north—west scotland too, and temperatures a lot lower than they have been. generally 8—11 c north to south, but still may be milder than that towards the far south and the west, because of an approaching weather front. it will bring outbreaks of rain across much of england and wales as we head through tonight. some clearer skies further north, and towards the south temperatures will gradually rise through the night as that milder air seeps in. we are starting off with plenty of cloud for england and wales tomorrow morning. the outbreaks of across east anglia will gradually clear, the best of the sunshine for the far north of england, across much of scotland and northern ireland tomorrow. but it is still cold towards the north, the milder air starting to filter through, though, further south so higher temperatures here. we draw in a southerly wind as the high gradually pushes further eastwards on tuesday so it could be quite a murky start with that moister air,

a bit of mist and fog around, but some sunshine, probably best towards the north of high ground, outbreaks of rain pushing into north—west scotland and northern ireland later on. temperatures again in the mid—teens in celsius for much of england and wales, a little chillier further north, turning quite wet from the west on wednesday. some of this rain could contain the remnants of ex hurricane milton. but look at the temperatures on wednesday, in all of that mild air, we could see highs of 21 celsius towards the south. it's cold for the rest of today. temperatures rise next week but wet and windy at times. bye— bye.

live from jerusalem, this is bbc news. live from jerusalem. israel's prime minister benjamin netanyahu says he has urged the un secretary general to remove peacekeeping forces from combat areas in southern lebanon. meanwhile israeli authorities

say hezbollah continues to fire missiles towards northern israel — following the 300 missiles they say were fired on saturday. in other news — king charles leads tributes to scotland's former first minister, alex salmond, who died yesterday at the age of 69. kamala harris challenges her election rival donald trump to release his medical records to prove he's fit to become us president. and spacex prepares for a fifth test flight of its starship rocket — the largest flying object ever to take off from planet earth — injust over an hour to take off from planet earth — in just over an hour. thank you for watching bbc news. the latest in the past hour from this region. news. the latest in the past hourfrom this region. the israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu has now merged un secretary—general antonio guterres to remove peacekeepers

known as unifil from their