police over its handling of allegations against former harrods owner mohamed al fayed. the bbc has learnt that the force only asked prosecutors to consider charging him in relation to two out of 21 women who accused him of sexual offences. those are the headlines. i am back at the top of the hour. now on bbc news, americast. americans have this great expression: drill down, kind of get under the hood/bonnet of something, get into the weeds of what it actually means. we're going to do that today with two things. abortion, which is drilling down on an issue, but also the swing states. and we're going to drill down into one of them, arizona — because, sarah, you are there. iam. i'm here in phoenix. so it's burritos for breakfast, tacos for tea when you're in arizona. and the sun is shining, of course, which is great. and you have, in arizona,

two of the drill down things at hand? because you've got the fact that it's a swing state — and it really is — but you've also got the fact that abortion is, what, literally on the ballot? yes, it is. and that's why i'm here, doing a story about exactly that, and whether the fact that there's a ballot initiative in which people are asked to vote whether they want to enshrine abortion rights into the state's constitution — whether or not that's going to drive up democratic support, whether it's going to drive up support for kamala harris. and one of the things we need to talk about is how can it be that there's, like, 60—odd percent in the polls for this abortion measure and she's below 50%? bit of a disconnect there. welcome to americast. americast. americast from bbc news. hello, it's sarah here. and as i mentioned, i'm in phoenix, arizona. and it's anthony. i am in the bbc bureau in washington dc. it'sjustin in the worldwide headquarters of americast in london, england. and it is also marianna, aka miss information —| also in the worldwide i headquarters in london. and we're talking about abortion today. so we should start with the simple facts of where we are with abortion,

or where the united states is with abortion. and it's pretty simple in a way. it used to be constitutionally guaranteed as a right for all american women. because of the famous case — roe v wade, the 1973 case. went to the supreme court and was decided by the supreme court. that right was then taken away by the dobbs decision and handed to the states. and that has been, it is fair to say, the cause of some considerable chaos when it comes to what abortion rights are available to women in the various areas of the us. and now — and this is what is really relevant to the election now, i guess, sarah — now what we have is a situation where, in some states, abortion is on the ballot because there are various measures to try to enshrine it in the state constitution so that it can't be overturned. and where you are, arizona is one of those places.

yeah. that's right. and that's why i'm here in arizona. and just to give you a picture of what it's like here in the south of the united states — since that dobbs decision, almost every southern state has significant restrictions on abortions. some of them ban it after 15 weeks of pregnancy, some after six weeks. some have a complete ban. they call it a "heartbeat bill" — as soon as a heartbeat can be detected. some have exceptions for cases of rape, incest, the life of the mother. some do not. there's a whole patchwork of laws across the united states now. and in ten different states in this election, voters are being asked if they either want to completely ban abortion or if they want to protect abortion rights. one way or another, abortion is on the ballot because it's like a little mini—referendum where voters are being asked to choose what abortion laws they want in their state. this happened in the midterms in �*22 as well. about five states voted on that. every single one of them voted by decent margins to protect abortion rights. yeah. and i think one thing you have to keep in mind here is that the reason there's a disconnect between the popularity of abortion

protections in these states and these laws banning abortion is that even a lot of these deep south conservative states, their legislatures that are more conservative on abortion, state legislators that are more conservative on abortion than the population in general. and so, instead of having the state capitals — the state legislatures — change the law to reflect public sentiment, the public has been having to go around the legislatures to put it directly on the ballot and have people vote on it. so that's why you saw places like kansas, where you have a very conservative legislature, end up legalising abortion through a ballot measure instead. and of course, the big question — and what we need to try and work out — is how this then might affect the presidential election or any of the other elections. once you've got abortion on the same ballot paper, essentially, as you've got kamala harris and donald trump's names, what does it do to that? yeah. and i feel we know very well

what kamala harris feels about abortion and how passionately she feels about it. i think it's probably fair to say she talks more passionately, vigorously and coherently about this subject, actually, than any other. and ijust wonder, marianna, whether that kind of comes across in the world that you look at and inhabit? whether there is this kind of sense that with harris you absolutely know what she thinks. with trump — because of what has happened, because of the supreme court justices that he appointed — you're not so sure? yes and yes. i mean, so much of particularly the social media content - that's been popping up, | especially on my female undercover voters' feeds, - not the male ones so much — and that's across the political spectrum for the women — i has been about this issue, about abortion rights. - and what's interesting, i think is how... - exactly that. there is a very, very clear position across the board i on the left in terms. of activating voters — i guess, particularly- targeting younger women. whereas when it comes to the kind of content l that's being recommended - to the right—leaning undercover

voters, the content is much more based in religious- belief and, you know, very, very strong opinions - that are anti—abortion. but it tends to be . less so from trump's own profiles or those that relate to him, and more i so from supporters and fans who were resharing what he said. - and that's all quite interesting. - there's not a kind of clear, unified "this is what trump thinks about this, j and here you go". it strikes me, anthony... that's because there isn't a clear, unified view of what trump thinks about this. exactly. he says different things all the time. he's asked if he would support a nationwide ban on abortion. he doesn't say either way, in fact, but he refuses to rule it out. he will not rule out. he said both. yeah, exactly. and he says that, you know, abortion rights will be protected with him. but then he boasts that he was the president who put the supreme court justices. .. who appointed the supreme court justices, who got rid of roe versus wade.

he's trying to have it all ways on abortion. i think he knows it could be a problem for republicans. but at the same time, he wants to take credit with anti—abortion voters who like what he's done. so it's a very muddled position. on the right, you have this range of people, and we've all met them, some of whom are absolutely happy with abortion rights, indeed support abortion rights, and some of whom wouldn't support any abortion rights at all for anyone, even in the most extreme cases of rape and incest. and it has opened up an issue, it seems to me, anthony, that it's notjust... i mean, abortion is important, but it's actually notjust about abortion, is it? it kind of throws a whole thing open, which is the extraordinary vociferousness, if that is a word of the republican coalition. yeah. it's a challenge for donald trump to try to keep the people within his coalition who believe that abortion is murder. and if they believe abortion is murder, then they think it should be banned notjust in certain states, but everywhere. you can't allow murder to take place in california, but ban it in texas. so, you know, they have this hard line and donald trump is trying to keep them happy,

to point out how roe v wade got reversed, while also trying to convince the suburban women republicans who really care about abortion rights and care about woman's autonomy over their own body, keep them from bolting to kamala harris. that's such an interesting point that you raise there, anthony, because for all that kamala harris is very passionate and very eloquent on the subject of abortion rights... in fact, you know, it's something that she was on from the minute roe versus wade was overturned — she's been campaigning on. but a vote for her does not guarantee any more abortion rights in any way at all. there's so little, actually, that the president can do about that. and if it would be close to impossible for her to ever pass a federal law through congress guaranteeing the right to abortion, it's not abundantly clear what a harris vote will necessarily do for someone who cares about abortion rights. i suppose one of the things it might do if she were in for eight years — i know i'm getting a bit ahead of us all now — but if she were in for eight years and there were supreme courtjustices to be

appointed, that's kind of where this sort of thing is played out. as we know, with roe v wade ending and all the rest of it, and indeed with roe v wade in the first place. maybe it's not going to be a legislative thing it is in the end, going to go back to the supreme court and a change in the mood of the court and the personnel on the court. yeah, it was a 50—year battle for conservatives to get justices on the supreme court who would ultimately overturn roe v wade, so you could see democrats waging a lengthy battle to get more liberaljustices on the court that could find another reason to reinstitute roe v wade — maybe a different constitutional reason that legal scholars on the left might feel more comfortable with. because there were some concerns about that roe v wade decision back in 1973. you know, it's going to be a challenge for for democrats no matter what. it's not going to happen instantly. and what might happen is what kamala harris doesn't do if she becomes president rather than what she does. because if donald trump becomes president, there are things that he could do as president, such as limiting the mail transmission of abortion pills,

finding new ways to restrict access to these medicated abortions, that would make it much harder for women to have abortions. and certainly much harder for women to have abortions who live in states that have these bans already in place. yeah. and she says he's going to do those things. but here's the thing, though, sarah. i just wonder in all of this, whether donald trump has a kind of get out ofjail free card, though, which he's sort of playing? albeit that we're trying to pin him down. but actually, the fact that you can't pin him down is because a lot of people genuinely believe that in his heart of hearts, he's quite a social liberal, if not a libertine? well, let's look at what he's done. none of his actions would make you think that he's going to govern in a way that's liberal on abortion — even before he'd managed to appoint all those supreme courtjustices who would rule in an anti—abortion way. it is my profound honour to be the first president in history. to attend the march for life. he's campaigned pretty

hard on this, actually. he's trying not to lose the votes now of people who are a wee bit more moderate about it, but there's no reason to think he would be liberal in any way. because he sees political advantage in the route that he's gone down so far. and he said in 2016 he would appoint supreme court justices who would overturn roe v wade. he got elected and he did that. so i mean, they do see that. although i think, justin, what you're saying that could explain the disconnect between these popular ballot measures protecting abortion rights in swing states and the fact that donald trump, still in places like arizona, actually has a lead or at least is within the margin of error there. so maybe the voters, by telling pollsters this, they are demonstrating that they don't think that donald trump really is a threat to abortion rights, even if the evidence over his four—year term as president seems to point in a different direction. so that disconnect is absolutely fascinating, isn't it? if you look at the polls here in arizona, around about 60% of people are likely to vote in favour of abortion rights. and at the moment, fewer than 50% say that they would

support kamala harris. so you are talking about voters who will go into a polling booth and vote "yes" on abortion rights and then vote for donald trump. who could these people possibly be? well, that's what i was asking some of the people i met yesterday. i went to a postcard party. i've never been to anything like this before. it was really interesting. lots of campaigners writing out individual postcards with their own passionate reasons for supporting abortion rights and sending them off to voters whose addresses they'd got off the electoral roll. and i said to them, did they know anybody who was in this position? and they said, yes. they meet republicans all the time who are pretty passionate, actually, about abortion rights, but don't agree with democrats on really much else — like republicans on the economy, have always voted republican in the past and don't actually see any particular disconnect between voting for trump and abortion rights at the same time. anthony, it's about 60% of republican women, i think, maybe more generally say they support abortion rights. yeah, that sounds about right. and that's pretty close

to what it is nationally. i mean, abortion rights generally are popular and they are a winning issue for democrats. and that is why you've seen kamala harris lean into this so hard in a way thatjoe biden never really did, too, because joe biden, actually, he's catholic. he has a voting record when he was in congress of being in favour of some abortion restrictions. so, if you want to look at what changed when joe biden stepped aside and kamala harris came in, abortion being the central focus of the democratic campaign, that really became one of the big differences. and now democrats are leaning into, as you mentioned, these ballot measures — kind of the same way... and, justin, you probably remember this back in the early 2000 when it was republicans putting ballot measures to ban same sex marriages that they viewed as a way of getting their base voters out to vote in favour of traditional marriages. and that was an electoral wedge issue that was difficult for the democrats to try to campaign and explain away. yeah.

and i mean, to an extent it worked as well. and so the question then — for both of you, i guess — and marianne as well because you're seeing all of this on social media, is whether it's working this time. and i mean, sarah, first of all, a blunt question for you, but you're in arizona. you've talked to people about this issue. is it is it going to swing it in arizona for, for for trump v harris? very, very interesting question. what i've been trying to find out. let me tell you a little bit about what i've been doing. we had come here hoping that we were going to film with a group of anti—abortion activists who meet at their local church, and they crochet baby blankets. and we were going to go and speak to them. unfortunately, their diocese decided that they didn't want us to come and do that. so we found ourselves outside an abortion clinic where there is a vigil — a protest from anti—abortion campaigners. and they're determined to be there every day for a0 days to make their opposition clear, and also to campaign on this issue and ask voters to vote against abortion

rights in the ballot. and as we were there, a young latina woman came up, very passionately arguing in favour of abortion rights. and we were able to hear, just happening there completely organically in the street, a distillation of the argument. and this younger woman saying it's absolutely nobody else�*s business what women choose to do with their own bodies, that the government shouldn't be involved in health care decisions, and that how dare anybody tell her what to do if she was pregnant. with this really passionate anti—abortion campaigner who does fervently believe that every abortion is murder. trying to persuade this woman both to vote in favour of saving the lives of unborn babies, and also, and you hear this a lot from anti—abortionists saying it's not fair to women. because they're convinced that women regret abortions that they have had and that it ruins their lives.

and actually, you would be saving women from this fate. and they argued this out for a good half an hour in the street. i have to say, and it is an issue in which you very rarely find any meeting of minds whatsoever. and then, after this young woman went off, i was talking to the anti—abortion campaigner. and she is pretty savvy, actually. she said she wants no exceptions. a total, total abortion ban — because she thinks babies conceived of rape or incest are innocent children who should be allowed to be born, regardless of the circumstances. but she knows the state of arizona will never accept anything more than a is—week ban. so that's what she's campaigning for. so that was it all summed up in a nutshell there. i think it's been really, - really interesting seeing how emotive often the content is that's being shared - about this topic, zooming - in on often very extreme cases that allow people, i guess... it's that whole thing _ of focusing on one story rather than dozens of stories, because it then can kind i of hold people's attention

and they understand the kind of political argument at play. j so, when i've been looking - at my undercover voters feeds — particularly progressive . left emma, who is young, furthest to the left - of all the undercover voters, my fictional characters, um, with social media profiles i across all the main sites — - and both her and interestingly apolitical gabriella, i our undecided voter, have have been recommended quite a few videos and posts . from kamala harris' own campaign on this issue. i it's interesting when it happens on tiktok, i which is where it's happened for both of them, actually. l it's not necessarily- labelled as a political ad, but it is in the same i format as a political ad that's run elsewhere, and it is being run- like a video that then is being - pushed to their feeds. and in particular, - there's been this campaign video focusing on the story of amber thurman. - my daughter, amber, made me so proud. she was having complications. and tonight we are learning more about the death of amber thurman. the death of amber thurman was likely preventable if she'd had access to abortion care in her home

state of georgia. what happened to her was preventable. - my daughter is gone because of what donald trump did. - for 5a years, they were trying to get roe v wade terminated, and i did it, and i'm proud to have done it. the video continues on. it's, you know, got clips of amber's mum and who you heard there and friends _ and family, too. and it's that kind - of content that i'm... yeah. i'm seeing a lot - of sarah, and sarah, you've had a chance, i haven't you, to speak to amber's really close friend? yeah, i spoke to and i interviewed sarah baker, who was best friends with amber thurman, actually involved in this story a little bit as well,

because what happened was amber thurman was already a mother. she got pregnant again and didn't want to have the baby. she discovered that she had just fallen foul of some quite tight abortion restrictions in georgia, where abortion is banned after six weeks. so the two of them drove off together to north carolina, where, for various reasons, amber thurmond had to have a medical abortion, where you take one pill in the clinic and then another 12 months later, and that creates a spontaneous miscarriage. but what happened was not all of the foetal tissue was expelled. and a few weeks later, she had to go into hospital. she was in severe pain and at risk of infection. it's a really simple, quick surgical procedure that would sort that out, that gets done for women for all sorts of reasons all the time. but the doctors were terrified of whether they were going to fall foul of georgia's new abortion laws if they did this. so they left her for almost 2a hours, during which time she got infected. it went septic, and by the time they went in to intervene, she died in surgery. so it's a really sad story. and now herfriend and her family, as you heard there, are getting quite politically involved. people who said they'd never thought they would be campaigning or, you know, involved like this in politics before, but because they've been, you know, so affected

by this tragedy for amber. and that's the kind of thing, of course, that democrats are hoping will happen — that people either hear this story or others and suddenly people who never cared about politics before get interested and get out to the polls. that's the theory of how abortion on the ballot ought to help democrats. what's interesting is that, - you know, the swifty campaigns that have mobilised on social media and that have been. investigating for this- other podcast i'm doing, why do you hate me usa. they have quite specificallyj appealed to younger voters and particularly younger female voters on this basis. _ like, this is vital that. you come out and vote. if you look in the comments, you see both young women, | but then actually quite a lot - of mums and also grandmothers who are posting, saying i you must go out and vote for your daughters and your granddaughters and so on. i it's worth saying as well that my female right. leaning undercover voter —

so that's britney, - populist right britney — and she is very, very anti—abortion. and she has had lots - and lots of posts about that, including coming, for example, from religious influences, - people who post a lot - about these kinds of issues and will get thousands of views, tens of - thousands of views. and there's one that some some of that has been - based totally in kind - of evidence and opinion. some of it has really drawn on donald trump's claims i during the debate that about about "killing" l babies right up until full term, which has been sort| of very strongly shut down by kamala harris - and the democrats campaign. but again, kind of to to - counter the emotive videos, we were just talking - about the personal stories, those other stories, you know, those other kind of really - appealing to people - on the basis of, you know, people are being killed. some of this language, i again, that's being used online is hyper emotive. and you can see how it - motivates people who feel differently about abortion to act in a different way. i and that's where you get - to this position where donald trump kind of is appealing to those people on the - basis of the economy- or immigration or other issues.

but it's kind of less- clear what kamala harris' message is to those voters, because it's so clear- and strong when it| comes to abortion. yeah. funnily enough, of course, we did another episode this week precisely about what men want. i have met lots of male voters who feel very, very passionately on both sides of the argument about abortion. but here, i've only spoken to women — and not by design. they've been the only people that i have come across campaigning for this. and at this postcard writing party i was at last night, i did speak to a couple of young women who said it was the first political thing they'd ever done in their lives. they never imagined that they would be involved in campaigning. and that each of them had persuaded somebody, in one case, this woman's mother, to register to vote. mother's 62 years old, never voted once. but she said, "look, you grew up with the constitutional protections of roe versus wade, and you didn't have to worry about abortion rights. i now do have to worry about that. so please register to vote and get out there and vote on this ballot measure to protect these abortion rights for me." and she figures her mum will probably vote for kamala harris while she's there. and it's that kind of grassroots thing, of course, that the democrats are really

hoping might make a difference. i still think, even now, with days really to go and with people already voting — that's the other thing we ought to say. people are already... are they in arizona, sarah? maybe not. yes, they can. they can. i went i went past an early voting station. i couldn't find anybody in it to ask them how they'd voted. so i don't know if they're rushing to the polls in arizona, but hundreds of thousands record numbers of people have voted in georgia already. they are storming the polls there. yeah. it's started. and so all the arguments that we're having and all the arguments the politicians are having, and trump and harris are having, those people who have already made up their minds are already beginning to vote in large numbers. and of course, that also then brings up this whole business of how the votes are going to be counted and what the various legal ramifications of the various ways of voting in various states are going to be. and it all brings us down to, i suppose, number one, we don't know who's going to win. number two, though, we don't know whether there's going to be a result on the night or even in days afterwards.

and that, you know, talk about drilling down. we then get to this real issue of 2024 being really uniquely unpredictable in every possible way. that's it. that's all we've got time for. if you want more brilliant analysis, you can listen to the podcast on bbc sounds. bye. americast. americast from bbc news. hello! we've been seeing some pleasant autumn weather across many parts of the uk this afternoon, but for the second half of the weekend things look very different. our first named storm of the season, storm ashley. and particularly for the west of scotland, this brings the threat of severe gales.

coastal flooding disruption is looking pretty likely. now, on the satellite picture you can see this storm developing, this vast shield of cloud in the atlantic, an area of low pressure which is going to be deepening as it approaches our shores, see more and more isobars forming in the centre of this low. where we see a low deepening rapidly as it approaches the uk, that always brings with it the threat of some strong winds. and so we have this met office amber warning that's been issued for western scotland for tomorrow. 70—80 mph wind gusts are looking likely. this afternoon things are a lot calmer. we've had this band of rain across some eastern parts. that's continuing to clear. some good spells of sunshine. small chance of a shower and temperature—wise.

north to south, 13 to 17 degrees. as we head into this evening briefly, things will turn quite chilly under those clear skies, but we see cloud and rain gathering out towards the west, heavy rain at that pushing its way eastwards and through the second half of the night gales will start to develop across some western coasts. temperatures by the end of the night, 8 degrees in aberdeen, 1a degrees in plymouth. some mild air in association with our storm system, which will be approaching from the west. this band of heavy rain driving its way quite quickly eastwards. some sunny skies behind, but some hefty, thundery downpours into northern ireland and western scotland. and here the winds really ramping up through the afternoon. it's going to be a windy day for many places, but those gusts of 70—80mph — perhaps a bit more across those western parts of scotland — so that is likely to bring travel disruption, coastal flooding. temperatures, 12—18 degrees for most of us. now, as we head through sunday evening, you can see this area of low pressure passing to the north of scotland. still a real squeeze in those isobars. so, still some very windy and showery weather for a time. things slowly calming down on monday, although we do have the chance for some rain to push in across the

south east of england. elsewhere, though, things looking drier, quieter and a bit calmer.

live from london, this is bbc news. israel's military carries out a series of air strikes in the southern suburbs of beirut after the prime minister, benjamin netanyahu's home is targeted by a drone from lebanon. there's been no let—up in israel's offensive against hamas in gaza, with dozens of palestinians killed in refugee camps across the strip in the past 2a hours. questions for the metropolitan police over its handling of accusations made against mohamed al fayed. should the harrods owner have faced criminal charges before he died? donald trump and kamala harris both campaign in the key battleground state of michigan. with just two weeks to the us presidential election, we'll have a special

report from georgia. liam payne's father reads tributes outside the hotel in argentina where the one direction star died. hello and welcome. the israeli military has carried out a series of air strikes in the southern suburbs of beirut. the idf issued evacuation warnings to residents in several districts in the area, which it says is a base for hezbollah. this latest strike comes after the home of the prime minister, benjamin netanyahu was targeted by a drone from lebanon. a spokesman said neither the prime minister nor his wife were in the building at the time, and that there were no casualties. the seaside home is in the town of caesarea. these pictures show police outside the building on saturday morning.

mr netanyahu's office has released this statement