the iranian army said two of its soldiers were killed in the attacks. if the regime in iran were to make the mistake of beginning a new round of escalation, we would be obligated to respond. our message is clear. growing calls for de—escalation are pouring in from around the world. egypt, qatar and the uk are among the countries calling on iran to show restraint and break the cycle of violence. the united states has urged iran not to retaliate. iran should not respond. we will continue to work with allies to de—escalate the situation across the region. now on bbc news, americast. i've been thinking a lot about fast food — burger and fries, mostly, to be honest. that's because i'm on the road

and that's because it makes an almost constant diet and it's addictive. but also i think it's because i just can't stop seeing online those shots of donald trump serving the burgers, frying up the french fries, i mean, admittedly to a very hand—picked crowd of mcdonald's customers, but i think it must be seeping into all of our subconsciouses because the news that the trump campaign is accusing the uk labour party of election interference doesn't sound a lot like it's got anything to do with fast food. but when anthony and i were talking about it the other day, this is what he said. i mean, i can't emphasise enough how much of a, at least legally speaking, a nothing burger this is. what is a nothing burger, anthony? it's what it sounds like. it's a burger that has nothing in it. a substant. .. a substance—less, uh, a big zero. a salad? an everything salad?

so we've got nothing burgers or everything salads and everything in between to keep us going. well, then, that's going to be the gauge for the next few days, isn't it? between now and the election. when things happen, where are they on the scale between nothing burger and everything salad? welcome to americast. americast. americast from bbc news. hello, it's sarah. i'm still in atlanta, georgia. and it's anthony. i'm at the bbc bureau in washington dc. and it is marianna in london, in the worldwide headquarters. not for much longer, marianna. when are you coming over here? i am flying over on saturday, and then i'll be out and about with my undercover voters in tow. they're all. . .. they've packed all their suitcases, ready to go. hoping i don't lose any of them this time. well, i'm looking... i've never met them in real life. i'm looking forward to it. i hope we run into you somewhere. there we go. and you? and how has it been in georgia? what's it been like? well, i was at a trump rally

yesterday, which was actually quite good fun, i have to say, as these things go. i mean, my measure of that is, you know, how incredibly hostile people are towards media organisations like the bbc, and not very was the answer. and some quite exciting merch, better than i've seen at a few others. you can buy entirely sequinned spangled outfits with "make america great again" or other trump slogans written on them, maybe just "trump" emblazoned on the back of your kind of baseball style jacket. a wide, wide array of trump hats, including in shiny gold with red lettering these days, and the classic elon musk black hat with black embroidery on it. and, yeah, some pretty happy folk, i would say. although, of course, what's funny is, i mean, i'm in georgia because it's a key swing state, polls suggest it's absolutely tied, we don't know who's going to win, but then you go to an event like that and, for obvious reasons, everybody�*s entirely on one side so you're only hearing one side of the argument, but they're also all convinced that trump's obviously

going to win an overwhelming landslide, because as lots of people said to me, they don't know a single person who's voting for kamala harris. so obviously the country can't be as divided as the polls say, and trump's going to romp to victory. and sarah, in terms of, um, in terms of the legal cases, because when justin and i were out in atlanta, actually, at the beginning of the year, really, injanuary time for panorama, we spent a bit of time kind of talking about and looking at some of the cases that were unfolding, the legal challenges around voting. what's the state of affairs with that at the moment? well, there's a lot of them is the simple way of putting it. and notjust in georgia, although there are particularly a lot of them here in georgia. and without going into the details of absolutely everything, the broad premise is that a lot of lawsuits that are being brought at the moment are about who is and isn't allowed to vote. in lots of states, for instance, republicans are bringing lawsuits alleging that there are lots of illegal immigrants on the voting registers and that they shouldn't be allowed to vote but if they don't take legal

action, they will be able to cast ballots. of course, these lawsuits are based around stopping people you think might be about to vote for the opposition being able to vote at all. and they're not... they're not unusual. i mean, this does happen in every electoral cycle. there'sjust a lot, lot more of them this year. but the fear among a lot of people here in georgia and elsewhere is that they're also getting ready for challenges after the election. and that's really the purpose of them, that if republicans or, more particularly, trump supporters, don't get the result that they want, then they will flood the courts with litigation. in every state where it's tighter, trump thinks that he ought to have won, and that this will wrap everything up in the courts for weeks and weeks and weeks, really delay getting to decide who the president is. and... i mean, i interviewed steve bannon about, must have been about four months ago, just before he went into prison and he's just due to get out again, and he was really clear about this. he said, look, we have dozens

and dozens of these lawsuits ready to file the minute the polls close. and that was months ago, they were preparing to challenge any results that they don't like and see if they can get them overturned in the courts. yeah. and in georgia, the controversy right now is swirling around a requirement, a rule that was passed that requires hand counting of all the ballots. it's not a retabulation by hand, it'sjust counting to see, ok, you know, the machines figured there were 1,000 ballots in this precinct, we're going to count them by hand and see if we come up with 1,002. democratic groups immediately sued to try to block that. and they have found several judges who have agreed and put that hand counting requirement on hold. the concern, of course, is that this happened too late, they don't have the manpower to do it — i mean, i know when i'm sitting with a deck of cards and i try to count to see if there are 50 cards in the deck to make sure it's a full deck, i come up with a different number each time. now, imagine trying to do that for 5,000 ballots.

that is what democrats are saying is the concern here. and, so, at least for the moment, uh, they'rejust going to machine count. there are some rules on audits and things that happen after the fact that are still in place, but this mandatory hand count of every single paper ballot, that is right now on the shelf. marianna, i don't know if you know that, particularly around election time, disinformation can swirl around really quickly and really easily, and that people read things on the internet and then believe them and pass them on. yes, sarah. unfortunately, um, iam becoming, slash have been, slash currently am, far too familiar with all of the stuff that's swirling around now at the moment, um, with unfounded allegations of voter fraud or some that are real things, but they're extrapolated and so on and so forth. what sort of stuff has been coming your way? a very real world example of that was talking to trump supporters yesterday. a lot of them all told me exactly the same story, and it was something that i had not come across so i was a bit confused about where

they were getting this from. but they told me that in one county in georgia, where there's already early voting going on right across the state, that the voting machines had been turning republican votes into democrat ones, that this had happened several times over, but that they were really, really relieved that this had been caught. and all the voters whose votes had gone wrong had been called back to the polling station and allowed to vote again so they thought it had all been fixed. but...but you know, it was starting the controversy around this idea that was around in 2020, as well, that machines would actually change your vote. so i started looking into it a little bit. here's what actually happened. one voter went along, cast their vote, got the little printout slip at the end, and it didn't reflect who she had voted for for president. so presumably she wanted to vote for donald trump and it came out saying "kamala harris." so she told an election worker who worked out that it had been user error, that she'd pushed the wrong button when it came to trying to vote for the president. so they voided that ballot. they let her vote again, and that was it. end of story.

but she mentioned something on facebook which got shared, i think, only 12 times before marjorie taylor greene, the georgia congresswoman, picked it up. millions of views on x when she started exaggerating this story. the statement that came out from the electoral commission here explaining what happened has had fewer than 180 views. and that's the whole problem, isn't it? it's like this stuff will happen and can happen. you know, there's a kind of problem or an irregularity or something kind of goes a little bit wrong. often it's resolved, but someone might post about it online anyways. and then that single thing absolutely takes off and feeds into existing narratives about voter fraud, many of which were completely unfounded and have been and remain completely unfounded. and the thing is, so many of the narratives that are spreading on social media right now, to be honest, are the same kinds of ones that we saw spread around the 2020 election and afterwards. right. and if you remember back to 2020, while joe biden won a comfortable electoral college margin, in a lot of those states that put him over

the top, he won by relatively narrow vote totals — 10,000, 14,000 votes in arizona. you know, across the blue wall states of michigan, pennsylvania and wisconsin, also very close. and that evening even, donald trump came out and instead of conceding defeat, he said that he actually did win the election. and, of course, it's difficult to forget the absolute infamous telephone call that donald trump made to the georgia secretary of state, brad raffensperger, who, interestingly, is still the secretary of state and will be in charge of this election in georgia here this year as well. and that phone call was recorded so we could hear what it was that donald trump said when he was basically asking him to find just enough votes to put him into victory. donald trump: | just - want to find, uh, 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have. and so i guess there are questions now to what you were just saying,

sarah, about... about how to avoid a repeat of what happened last time. and, to be honest, looking at my social media feed, the undercover voters�* feeds everywhere, i'm already seeing, um, a proliferation of unfounded allegations about voter interference and voter fraud and real stuff that's being twisted and everything else. um... i guess the problem with it is that there are some people who've never accepted that biden won in 2020. i think it's become an article of faith. i think you've got to a point where... i think when i arrived in the states about three years ago, a minority of republicans and trump voters thought that the election had been stolen. more might have thought that there were some abnormalities but, you know, it was quite small, the number of people who would actually say that there had been a concerted conspiracy to steal the election from donald trump. now, you really rarely meet a trump supporter who won't say that. if you ask them, most of them volunteer the idea that joe biden is not a legitimate president, that trump won that election.

and i don't know whether they've changed their minds about that or whether it has just gone into the bloodstream of the trump movement. and i don't think you could hold your head up among a group of trump supporters and say you think the 2020 election was fair because ijust don't think you're allowed to say that any more. yeah, i think it gets back to something that you observed earlier in this podcast, which is that all the trump supporters you talk to think he's certainly going to win this time around because they don't know anyone who isn't a trump supporter. i mean, it's so insular. it's, uh... it's such a kind of a tight community that they don't hear any kind of dissenting voices. and that's the same thing i heard when i was on the campaign trail in 2020. i remember having a conversation with a trump supporter who was convinced donald trump was going to win because he said everyone he knows supports donald trump, he never sees anyone supporting joe biden, no—one ever turns up atjoe biden's rallies. so, all the evidence in their mind points one direction and then when the results are a different direction,

itjust...they can't cognitively process that, there's a disconnect. anthony, you'll remember two years ago in the midterm elections, there was a bit of a divide among the republican candidates, among those who were out—and—out election deniers, saying that the 2020 election was stolen and those who weren't, who just didn't want to talk about it, didn't think that it was a vote—winner to be discussing it. and in a lot of cases, we saw the election deniers not do that well. and that's why it ended up that the democrats performed a lot better in those midterms than people expected them to. there doesn't seem to be that level of controversy this year about whether or not you're an election denier. jd vance, you know, he plays it carefully, he won't say absolutely overtly on the record that the election was stolen, but there's just not so much focus now, i don't think, on whether people dispute those results and whether it makes you a kind of illegitimate candidate. yeah. i think what you hear from republican candidates now is they don't want to look into the past, they're focused on the future, that happened four years ago. you know, they dismiss it.

and jd vance tried to dismiss it that way during that debate he had with tim walz, although he did come out and pretty directly say he thought that donald trump won the election after being badgered and pressured by reporters for weeks. but i think it's an understanding among republican politicians that, you know, the leader of their ticket is saying this, they have to kind of fall in line behind it, but the less they talk about it, the better. marianna, of course, we know all too well that if there are controversies around any of the results, they'll spread really, really quickly on social media. do those platforms think that there is a responsibility to try and guard against huge amounts of misinformation and disinformation going out there? so i think it's interesting because there has been kind of in a similar way to the one you just described, actually, this sort of narrative arc surrounding the social media companies, insomuch as after the january 6th riots and everything that happened following the 2020 election, there was immediately a lot of pressure on the social media companies and quite serious questions about, you know,

allegations of failings on their part to remove posts or take stuff down, their employees who spoke about how sort of stressful and difficult it was being inside the companies at that time. and so i remember thinking back in 2021 that perhaps we'd see this big change that...that, you know, there would be so much pressure on the social media companies, they would have to really, really be on top of this kind of stuff next time there was an election anywhere, to be honest, but particularly in the united states. since then, though, the crucial change has been that elon musk has, as we talk about a lot, um, uh, he's bought twitter, which is now called x, and he's kind of ripped up the old social media rule book, in that sense. he prioritises freedom of expression above all else, which means that he is not, um, keen on removing particular posts, labelling them. they sometimes still do do that. they have community notes, where people can fact—check stuff themselves. but he is — the way that the company works now is really different to how it worked even back in 2020.

and i know that from speaking to people who've worked at the social media companies. you know, they — back in 2020, there were specific teams that were dedicated to dealing with election misinformation. there were employees who worked specifically on what we call sort of threat disruption — so allegations of foreign interference or influence operations, and so on. so many of those people do not work at the companies any more, and have told me previously that theirjobs have not been replaced. i should say all the companies, by the way, would say that they're doing loads to protect users and protect the users�* voice, and so on. now, anthony, i know we can't keep you any longer, you've got to run. where are you running to? i'm heading back to my home state! i'm going to houston, texas, where there is a really interesting senate race going on. of course, you know, ted cruz, the senate republican who ran for president in 2016, and has been the source of controversy, and a prominent critic of the biden and harris campaign — he is actually in a dogfight with colin allred,

a former nfl football player, a congressman from the dallas area. the polls show it's a tight race, so i'm going to go there. allred is having a rally with kamala harris, who will be in houston on friday, and i'm going to see if maybe this time, at last, democratic hopes of winning the state road state—wide race in texas could be realised. it should be interesting to be on the ground there. and i will note also, and i will note also, we've been talking about we've been talking about donald trump and his goings on. donald trump and his goings on. he's going to be in austin. he's going to be in austin. this is — finally, he's this is — finally, he's going to sit down for that going to sit down for that podcast interview with joe podcast interview with joe rogart _ rogart _ 0h! 0h! that'll be interesting. that'll be interesting. we don't know when that'll be we don't know when that'll be broadcast yet, do we? broadcast yet, do we? that really will be that really will be interesting. interesting. yeah, texas at the centre yeah, texas at the centre of politics — woohoo! about how people are preparing of politics — woohoo! they laugh they laugh not exactly a swing not exactly a swing state, but nonetheless... no. state, but nonetheless... no. ..you've found an excuse to get ..you've found an excuse to get back there, anthony. back there, anthony. absolutely, i'll get some absolutely, i'll get some barbecue, some tex—mex. barbecue, some tex—mex. i'll be happy. i'll be happy. yeah, i'm going yeah, i'm going to catch my plane. to catch my plane. goodbye, everyone. goodbye, everyone. bye, anthony! bye, anthony! see you soon, anthony. see you soon, anthony. sarah, i think it's sarah, i think it's so interesting, what you were so interesting, what you were

saying earlier in the episode, saying earlier in the episode, about how people are preparing for what they see to be sort of allegations of voter fraud already, like how they're gearing up for the legal cases and to challenge it, and everything else. there's another set of people that i've been chatting to who are gearing up for the election, but more so for threats of violence, concerns about, i guess, the erosion of faith in democracy. i spent some time with some of the election workers in a place called jefferson county, in colorado, and i have to say, they were so hopeful, they were so positive that they really want to reassure people about how democracy works. they're having tours, offering tours of the election centre, including to people that believe conspiracy theories, because they really want them to see, you know, how secure it is, how the process works, how the machines work, everything else, erm, yeah, in a kind of bid to make people feel a little bit perhaps guarded against, or protected from believing some of the unfounded claims that are spreading. but they're doing so while receiving a huge amount of online abuse, threats — you know, so much so that they don't even tell

people that they work in sort of elections and protecting elections. and some of these are elected officials, but, you know, they are apolitical in the sense that theyjust are meant to run the elections. some of these people are volunteers, like, there are people who are doing it in their spare time, and have never experienced anything like this. and i think my real worry, over the next few weeks, is that people like that, who are seen as complicit in these unevidenced plots, and complicit in fraud,

battle against him, and he now owes them $150 million. but they went through an absolutely dreadful time, genuinely frightened of going out of the house, receiving death threats, people posting their addresses online. it was absolutely awful, what happened to them. and a lot of people who are preparing to work at the polls, both, you know, overseeing the votes on election day and people who are involved in the count here in georgia are genuinely scared. i mean, a lot of them say they feel this has to be done, they're doing their duty, upholding democracy by getting involved, but they're frightened for what it could mean, what the consequences could be for them afterwards. and, i mean, this is an unprecedented situation that's really quite frightening. and how likely do you think, sarah — and i know we shouldn't play in the game of predictions, but here we are — how likely do you think that there is some kind of violence afterwards that feels not dissimilar to january the 6th? or do you think it's kind of impossible to tell right now?

i think there's definitely the potential and the threat for there to be disruption, and/or even violence after the election. i personally think it's unlikely to be a repeat of january the 6th. a lot of the groups and organisations, like the proud boys and the oath keepers who were there, they don't want to get involved in any of that — because remember, hundreds of people are in jail after what happened after the january 6th riots. but, because of all of the election court cases that we're likely to see, which will be brought state by state, challenging that state's results, a lot of the focus is going to be on each state capital, rather than on washington, and it'll all be being fought out long before january the 6th, as well. this will be through november and december. so, i think if there are flash points, they're much more likely to be somewhere like atlanta or pennsylvania, or detroit, or anywhere in these key states where people think that the result hasn't gone their way, that they're waiting for the state supreme court justices to rule, or something like that, tension could get really high around that.

so, i think you might see smaller incidents flashing around the country, rather than you will one central assault on dc injanuary. i would say that some of the conspiracy theory groups that i investigate online are deeply suspicious that january the 6th now was what they'd call a "false flag" kind of event, that they were sort of... there were people who pretended to be trump supporters, or that they were somehow tricked into rioting there — again, kind of contrary to all the evidence available to us. and it's for that reason that i think those people wouldn't head again to the capitol, because they've sort of decided that's not going to work, or it's kind of part of the conspiracy theory. there's a name for it, they call it the "fedsurrection". yeah, the fedsurrection! so, not an insurrection... yeah! ..but one that was inspired by the feds, the fbi, or the federal government, or something. so, yeah, once something's got a name, then there are people believing it, aren't there, when there's a fedsurrection going around? and we have reached quite a, kind of, i don't know — i don't know whether it is

shocking now, it feels a bit shocking — sort of state of affairs that, for example, when we were planning our trip to america, we're thinking about, you know, can we make sure that our flights are changeable, in case something does happen after the vote, and we might need to stay, and there's some kind of, you know, in my case, social media—inspired violence on either side? because it is also worth saying that, you know, the assassination attempt that happened injuly, and the other examples of kind of breaches of security targeting donald trump, those have come from people targeting donald trump. and so, there's a level of violence, i guess, political violence we've been seeing from committed activists on either side that could again, be pretty scary for everyone involved here. and you sort of don't know how it'll play out. right, i think that is all we've got time for, because you need to dash off, sarah, and go and chat to some more people out and about in georgia. but before we do go, what is it behind you? i've been looking, trying to figure it out. yeah, this is our episode that we always do in vision, as well, if anybody wants to watch it on youtube or the news channel. and, well, this, marianna, you'll see this in real life next week. this is what a pop—up podcast

americast studio looks like. and that sounds quite grand. what it actually consists of is some bunting, some little american flags that we've got, a small american sign that we've propped up on the bed in a hotel room. they laugh but nonetheless, it's a lot better than i often do when i'm filming this on an iphone by myself in a hotel room. and this is what you've got to look forward to when you join the pop—up podcast studio. i'm excited for the pop—up lifestyle, yeah! they laugh very excited. and that is all for this episode of americast. if you want to listen to more episodes, head over to bbc sounds. bye!

hello there. the weather's looking pretty mixed this weekend, but i think a lot of places should see some dry and sunny weather. greater chance of seeing some sunshine around tomorrow for england and wales. eastern scotland not doing too badly, but we will see most of the wind and rain across scotland and northern ireland both today and tomorrow, and for all areas compared to the last few days, temperatures will be a few degrees down. so this weather front working its way into scotland, northern ireland will bring the heavy rain, the strong winds, whereas further south it should be drier with lighter winds. best of the sunshine towards northern and western england and for wales, a bit more cloud towards the east and south—east, but it should slowly brighten up later in the day. wet and windy weather, though, pushes into the north west of scotland and northern ireland and temperature—wise, a few degrees down on the last few days. generally the low to mid—teens.

now, that rain in the north and the west sinks southwards across england and wales tonight, but tends to fizzle out as it reaches southern areas. so by the end of the night most places will be dry and clear and a lot chillier. touch of frost for scotland, northern ireland. a few blustery showers into western scotland. don't forget clocks go back one hour. so as we start sunday morning it will be chilly. lots of sunshine around and we should see a lot of sunshine in eastern scotland before the skies start to cloud up generally here for scotland, northern ireland, with outbreaks of rain pushing in during the afternoon. but england and wales will stay dry with lighter winds, plenty of sunshine but a fresher day to come, i think, ten to 11! degrees. so that's the weekend out of the way. into monday, we've got quite a few weak weather fronts across the country. westerly winds bringing some slightly milder air back in, but there will be a lot of cloud around, i think on monday, with some splashes of rain across central, northern and western areas. glimmers of brightness appearing to the east of higher ground generally, and temperatures will be

a little higher — 15, 16, maybe 17, in the brightest spots. as we head into tuesday, start to this area of high pressure building, and that should kill off most of the weather fronts. the winds turn lighter, so it'll be a little bit of a cloudy, murky start, i think, to tuesday. any splashes of rain across southern england will slowly ease away and then many places will be dry. we should see a bit more sunshine around central, northern and eastern areas. always a bit more cloud towards the west and again feeling quite mild. and we hold on to that settled theme for the rest of the week. a lot of cloud around by the end of the week though. turns sunnier but colder from the north. take care.

live from london, this is bbc news. iran says it has to defend itself, after overnight air strikes by israel, but also recognises its responsibilities towards regional peace and security.

growing calls for de—escalation from around the world. egypt, qatar, the us, and uk are among countries urging iran to show restraint. iran should not respond. we will continue to work with allies to de—escalate the situation across the region. cheering. in other news, with less than two weeks to go until the us election, beyonce endorse kamala harris�* bid to become president. i am not here as a celebrity. i am not here as a politician. i am here as a mother. cheering. hello, i'm martine croxall. israel has fired missiles into iran overnight, saying it hit military targets in the country. in the last few hours,

iran's foreign ministry responded to the attacks, saying it's entitled