the largest single known piece of coral in the southwest pacific ocean. hello. donald trump's republicans have taken control of both houses of congress, the body which passes laws in the united states. it means his party will control all the elected levers of power which will make it easier to fulfill his agenda when he becomes president in january. among his latest nominations, the president—elect has picked congressman, matt gaetz as his attorney—general. he'd previousely been under investigation for sex and drug offences, which he denies. mr trump also plans to nominate florida republican senator marco rubio as secretary of state. he's chosen the former democratic congresswoman tulsi gabbard as his director of national intelligence. on wednesday, the president—elect

returned to the oval office for a meeting with presidentjoe biden. they both promised a smooth transfer of power injanuary. here's north america correspondent rowan bridge. donald trump arrived in washington on a wave of success, a president—elect at the height of his powers. it's nice to win. it's always nice to win. the republicans now control the presidency and both chambers of congress — the house and the senate. that means they'll hold all of the elected levers of power. i will end inflation. i will stop the invasion of criminals into our country. and i will bring back the american dream. cheering. on the campaign trail, donald trump promised to take the country in a very different direction. now he's poised to implement his ideas, and he has the backing of the political leadership in congress. it could be, i believe it will be, the most consequential congress in the modern era, the most consequential administration of the modern era, because, frankly, we have to fix almost every area of public policy.

so, what will be required of us is to plan deliberately and execute with precision. and that's what we're working on right now. thank you. and politics is tough. earlier, donald trump met with joe biden at the white house, a symbol of the changing of the guard that will happen in january. mr trump's moving quickly to nominate his team, but they'll have to be confirmed by the senate. his pick for defence secretary is pete hegseth, a former fox news host, who can't throw an axe. the drummer got quite a shock. now mr hegseth is set to shake up the military establishment, too. we should not have women in combat roles. it hasn't made us more effective, hasn't made us more lethal, has made fighting more complicated. gaetz. donald john trump. his pick for attorney—general, the chief legal officer of the united states, is no less controversial. matt gaetz was investigated for child sex trafficking but never prosecuted. but he is something that donald trump holds dear — a loyal follower of the president's agenda. he voted to overturn

the 2020 election result and will have the power to end the federal prosecutions of mrtrump. donald trump's choosing people in his own ideological image. from january, america will be taking a hard turn right. his picks reflect the new direction the united states will be taking. rowan bridge, bbc news, washington. cbs news correspondent jarred hill, who's in new york, told me that winning the house of representatives is a major boost for donald trump. just doing some of the math to look at the numbers, actually. and as of now, they do have a slight majority in the house, just enough to have the lead. there's still about nine seats that are left to be called in california, butjust based on the way that california counts. but again, it is undeniable that republicans are going to have leadership in in congress, in both the house and the senate. and this essentially means that it will be easier for president elect donald trump to push through some of the policies

that he would like to get through, easierfor republicans to push through some of those as well. and that could be everything from these sweeping immigration plans to any of the tax and tariff deals that he has also said that he would like to push through. what will be interesting, though, is to see, especially in the senate, is if there are going to be any members or enough members that democrats can sort of sway in their direction to, to at least try and block some of what they see as some of the more extreme measures. there typically are two of them that have been in the senate, lisa murkowski, as well as susan collins, who have been some of the more swayable members of the republican senate delegation, but it looks like the senate is going to have enough folks in the republican party there that they may not need to have those two swayable stay with their side, which, again, just gives republicans and president elect trump that much more ability to get through some of his priorities.

yeah. and in terms of appointments, how are the checks and balances going to work there? will he be able to pretty much get through whoever he wants? and obviously i bring a name up, which has been talked much about over the last 2a hours, and that's matt gaetz in terms of what we know about him and why potentially he might be a controversial pick for attorney general. yeah, i was going to say, sarah, who are you talking about? you were kind of coy there as you were asking. yes. matt gaetz is somebody that a lot of folks are raising eyebrows about on both sides of the political spectrum here because of the investigations that have been into him. and in fact, one of those investigations was happening within the house as we speak. there was expected to be a report potentially released regarding an investigation, an internal ethics investigation around matt gaetz centred around these allegations of sexual misconduct, as well as alleged attempts to obstruct federal investigations, government investigations into that situation there.

will this be a blank check for president—elect trump to push through anyone that he wants to? members of congress are saying no. they're saying that they are going to take this seriously, that that this is a serious, you know, endeavour, a serious part of theirjobs. everyone from matt gaetz, as well as democratic former democratic representative tulsi gabbard, who's someone who president—elect trump also recently named as his choice to be the top intelligence official in the united states, despite the fact that there are some questions around some conversations that she's had with bashar al assad of syria, as well as commentary that she's made regarding vladimir putin and russia. these are folks who might have a bit more of an uphill battle, because we've already heard some members of both the democratic and republican party in the senate saying that they have some questions there. but by and large, generally speaking, we do see a lot of this move along party lines. and so, again, if enough members of the party, of the republican party get behind those picks because they support president—elect trump, then they will

potentially go through. that was the cbs correspondent jarrett hill. dr richard johnson, a senior lecturer in us politics & policy at queen mary's univesity london, on discussed what this all means for trump's presidency. well, i would put the nominations into two categories at the moment. the first are the people who are on donald trump's vice presidential shortlist, and he's handing out the consolation prize. good consolation prizes, i would say. these are tulsi gabbard, kristi noem, even marco rubio and vivek ramaswamy, although not appointed to a cabinet level position. and then the second group, are the people in congress, either current or former members of congress, who were very loyal to donald trump when he was president, stood by him during the impeachment hearings. these are lee zeldin, who's been nominated for epa administrator. matt gaetz,

as your report mentioned, the proposed un ambassador, elise stefanik, and john ratcliffe, who's been named for cia director. and then, of course, the extra person that you also mentioned is pete hegseth, who although wasn't serving in congress, was a fox news presenter and was very supportive of trump. so in effect, these are the also—rans for vp and those who were very, very loyal to trump, mostly former members or current members of congress. but he's very clearly... they're loyalists, aren't they? they're people that are going to support him, are going to help what he wants to do is going to help put that into action? yes. and i would just say for your viewers that we need to understand the traditions of a us presidential cabinet, in contrast to, say, a parliamentary cabinet like in the uk. in the united states, the people who are chosen to lead cabinet positions are usually expected to be people who have some deep knowledge of that area of policy or subject expert.

that's not to say that politicians don't get nominated to the cabinet, but usually they've been very strongly associated with that policy area. and that, of course, contrasts with a parliamentary cabinet, where in many parliamentary systems in the westminster model, the person who serves in the cabinet is also a politician, a member of the house of commons, for example, in the british case. so we're very familiar here in the uk with cabinets full of political appointees, people who are politicians, full—time politicians. this cabinet so far, i think, is unusually political for a us presidential cabinet because he seems to... president—elect trump seems to have been selecting people with political loyalty as the overriding criteria, and then trying to find some kind of subject expertise latterly. i mean, matt gaetz is not one of the most distinguished judicial minds in the united states, in contrast to, say, merrick garland, who's the current attorney general underjoe biden,

who had been a member of the dc circuit court, the second highest court in the us. you know, in the past, you've had attorneys general who have been very, very senior legal officials. i think matt gaetz�*s credential for this is that he he has a law degree, which is is not saying that much. that was doctor richard johnson, who works at easter couege johnson, who works at easter college london. weather red alerts have been lifted in southern and eastern spain. overnight, large parts the country were hit with more torrential rain — just two weeks after more than 220 people died in flash flooding in valencia. it's the same weather system affecting malaga and other parts of southern and eastern spain. this map shows the areas worst affected. valencia which is still recovering from a year's worth of rain injust 8 hours last month — may now be hit with several months of rainfall.

will vernon reports. spanish streets deluged once again. this time, the province of malaga bore the brunt of the storm. thousands were evacuated away from rivers that had burst their banks. local residents struggled to get to safety. hospitals, schools and transport were disrupted. emergency services warned people to expect more flash floods here over the coming hours. and in valencia region, people are braced for further flooding to come. the alert level in some areas has now been raised to red. translation: they have told us to go home - because of the storm. heavy rains are coming so we should stay at home and in high areas if we can. only two weeks have passed since more than 200 people were killed here in spain's worst natural disaster in decades, after a year's worth

of rain fell in just one day. while the latest storm isn't expected to be as strong, large amounts of mud remain and drainage systems are blocked — even small amounts of rain could lead to more misery. experts say this year's floods have been made much worse by climate change. we know that there are links to climate change. we know that when we have storms that are otherwise conducive for the production of very intense thunderstorms and rainfall, a warming atmosphere allows those storms to contain significantly more moisture. but many spaniards blame the authorities for their plight, saying the lack of readiness and slow response to the floods has only made things worse. the spanish government has admitted mistakes were made. will vernon, bbc news. andrew poole is an expat who now lives in benamargosa — one of the worst—affected towns. so, we are about a0 minutes away from malaga in a little

village in the mountains. very much a rural village. normally, the river that flows through is dry. it is actually used as a local car park. we got an alert on our phone in the evening before the storms hit, a red alert for the whole area. and then water started to come down and it didn't stop. and then it got worse and the water level started to rise. teatime yesterday, the river itself burst its banks, right in the heart of the village. as you can see behind me, they have been working, emergency services, the locals, everyone is pulling together, working all the way through the night, just trying to clear some of the roads in and out so that people that have been trapped by the flood waters, the emergency services can get in to see them. but everyone�*s houses, businesses, fully decimated. it is just so sad. i am so sorry. we are just sharing pictures now. there was a lot of criticism in valencia about the lack of help from local authorities. how much support are people getting where you are?

we have been really lucky here. i think without the red warning, there would have been a lot more casualties. as far as i am aware, i don't think there has been any here. we were fully prepped to stay indoors and stay away from the floodwaters. the authorities themselves, they have been on site since the banks first, been in boats, risking their lives and there are no complaints from the locals this end, as far as the local authorities are concerned. that is really good to hear. i can imagine that you have been seeing those pictures of valencia, obviously, we knew what had happened there. obviously when those red alerts were issued yesterday, you must have been fearing the worst. yes, very much so. it is the first red alert, i think, that has ever been issued in the malaga province as well. so it really heightened everyone�*s senses and people have been a lot more sensible than perhaps they would have been otherwise. from the town that isn't far from malaga. around the world and across the uk. this is bbc news.

welcome back. the uk chancellor will unveil plans later today for a big pensions shake up. rachel reeves wants to create pension "megafunds" — designed to help unlock billions of pounds of investment in businesses and infrastructure. she says britain's pension funds are currently "too small" and are holding back the economy. earlier i spoke to our business correspondent theo leggett, who told us more about what is being proposed. any chancellor will be looking for sources of money that can fund investment, and pension funds are very tempting. the problem with small funds is that they tend to be inherently low—risk. if you don't have a huge amount of money and you have obligations, you can't afford to lose it. when you get to bigger funds, they have greater scale. they can afford to take a bit more risk. so the thinking is that if you pool lots of small funds, in this case the 86 bits of the local government pension scheme, put them all together, and mega funds, then each fund will have something between £40 billion and £50 billion to invest, and they'll be able to take a bit more risk, they'll be able to invest in infrastructure, able to invest

in start—ups, technology companies, that kind of thing, without harming their core objectives. and that could give an economic boost. and this is something that other countries do. and we should say, when we're talking about teachers pension funds, we're talking about civil servants, that kind of. ..local government workers. absolutely. and if you look at the ones that rachel reeves herself has been pointing out, australia and canada both did this kind of thing, pooled all their local government assets. they now have extremely powerful pension funds which invest in the uk along with other markets. one of them has invested in a number of uk airports, for example. so if you have the money, if you have the scale, and there are very large government pension schemes in operation around the world, you can wield that clout. and she thinks that could unlock some £80 billion worth of investment in the uk economy. the downside of this, of

course, is it is taking risks with people's retirement money. so there has to be a balance drawn between saying this is great, it's a source of cash, it's a lot of money, and saying, hang on a minute, there have to be limits as to how much risk you can afford to take, because you do not want those funds to get into trouble. ok, so what's been the reaction to this plan? well, she hasn't made her speech yet. obviously it's being trailed at the moment, but the reactions always are... the reaction is, to a certain extent, it's expected. this is rachel reeves trying to take the initiative again after a budget which has caused a certain amount of controversy. let's say there are people out there warning that you have to be careful with pension funds, at the same time, you know, britain does need investment. this is one source of money. some people have been arguing for this for a very long time. and don't forget, she's not the first chancellor to say we need to put more pension fund money into infrastructure and the like. and that was our business

correspondent. the president of argentina, javier milei has recalled his delegation from the un climate summit — cop29 — which is taking place in azerbaijan. mr milei has previously said global warming is a socialist lie, and has threatened to withdraw from the paris climate agreement, though he has not yet made good on that threat. ana lamas, argentina's under—secretary for the environment, said she had received instructions from the foreign ministry, but had not been given a reason. and let's stay with climate, because india's capital delhi — has overtaken the pakistani city of lahore as the most polluted city on earth. according to the swiss group i-q-air — delhi's air pollution index had reached a18 on thursday — which is defined as severe. a good rating is between zero and 50. the indian city has to deal with smog every winter — as cold air traps dust, emissions and smoke from illegal fires.

our india correspondent arunoday mukharji in delhi, and our pakistan correspondent caroline davies in islamabad — joined me to discuss the impact on both countries. it certainly isn't the kind of tag that india would like to show off to the world as it tries to project an image of a developing country, which really is trying to make a name for itself on a global stage. but if i could, i'm not sure how much you can make out behind me. of course, i'm on a very busy road. the buildings behind me are clouded in a thick blanket of smog, and that's the kind of picture that greets us almost every morning for the past few days, when you step outside of the houses of our homes, there's a burning sensation in your eyes. your eyes start watering very fast. your throat starts itching. there's a hoarseness. there's also a shortness of breath because you're trying to breathe in as little as possible. i know that sounds difficult, but psychologically you start trying to take shorter breaths, which leaves you breathless. most of the time. now, of course, there are some people who have the option of staying indoors by keeping their doors and windows shut, keeping those very expensive air

purifiers on 21w. but then there are many other people who can't afford purifiers whose jobs are outdoors. you can see the traffic — just gives you a sense of how many people need to be out and about. and that is the reality for a majority of the residents here in the national capital region, as they brave this kind of hazardous weather. and you pointed out some of those figures, we really feel the impact of those figures. the biggest concern is doctors and experts have said several families have gone to doctors with respiratory complaints over the last one week at least. this has been recorded by various surveys that have been conducted. there is a big concern, especially for the elderly as well as children. this is this entire area is a suburb of delhi, which has a lot of residential high rises. and all these residential high rises have a common park. every evening around this time, you see a lot of children coming out to play. but that sight has completely disappeared over the past few days because parents just don't want to send their children. just imagine those numbers

that you mentioned. imagine small children going out to play in this kind of air is certainly a huge cause for concern. and the problem is this is an annual affair. but experts say the government still hasn't been able to fix it, and most of the solutions are quick fix and reactive rather than pre—emptive. okay, in delhi, thank you for that. so caroline, we can see behind you very similar pictures to those we saw in delhi. i suppose the question is, is it that lahore has got better in terms of pollution, or that delhi has simply got worse? i'm in islamabad, but i hear the numbers are much lower than we're seeing in lahore. they're lower than we're seeing in delhi. but you can see the images behind me. it's still incredibly smoggy. and this is when we're hovering at around the 200 mark on the air quality index. whereas the numbers that we've seen in the course of the last couple of weeks have been extraordinarily high. here in pakistan, it's been about 2000, has been hit in one of the cities in multan. and that was over the course of the weekend.

now, in terms of, as you say, this is not a competition that either country particularly wants to be at the top of this particular chart. we've seen these figures fluctuate over the course of the last two weeks. lahore has on occasions been over a thousand. i checked earlier today and at one point it was sitting at over 1,500. so these figures and these cities that are sitting at the very top, they're all part of the same problem in the same region. and in fact, there have been images that nasa have shown where you can see the smog and see how thick it is from space. that gives you an idea of how how potent this smog is. one of the major issues — i've been speaking to some climate scientists as well, about what has been going on and why this smog is still sitting here over pakistan for over two weeks now over some of these major cities, including lahore. they've said that this is a large amount to do with the fact that there hasn't been any rain, there hasn't been much wind, it hasn't moved the smog on. so instead it's just accumulated. it's built up, its spread across. so it's notjust in lahore, it's across a large amount of punjab as well, and even spread into nearby

khyber—pakhtunkhwa too. so this is a major issue that similarly to india, there's been a lot of criticism that this has been an ongoing problem. this has happened on a regular basis and yet the long term solutions just haven't been put into place. and our correspondents reporting to us there. japan's sake brewers hope a unesco heritage listing can boost its rice wine's global appeal. sake, the drink of choice for the nobility in the tale of genji — japan's most celebrated work of literature — has been widening its appeal, boosted by the growing international popularity of japanese cuisine. sake officials make no secret of their hope that it will boost global sales, helping the age—old tradition stay alive amid competition from beer, wine and other beverages. sake exports from japan total over $265 million a year, with the biggest destinations being the us and china.

gosh, it certainly is big business. talking of business, after half past the hour, there will be a full round—up of all the global business news. stay with us here on bbc news. hello. it will turn colder this weekend but much colder as we start the new working week. what we have today is a bit more cloud across southern scotland and northern ireland with some bright spells. thicker cloud coming in across the far north of scotland. and for england and wales and in between these areas of cloud, something brighter with variable and some sunny spells. temperatures ii to 15 degrees,

so round about average orjust above for this time of year. into this evening and overnight, we will see a return of patchy mist and fog forming in some western areas. there will be clear skies in parts of the south, the temperature falling away low enough for a touch of frost here and there. although those temperatures will fall down to three degrees in aberdeenshire, here there will be more of a breeze and it will not feel quite so cold. into tomorrow and we do have mist and fog to lift and we have got cloud sweeping southwards with patchy light rain and drizzle on it. heavy rain comes in across the far north of scotland. it is a narrow band so it will move through quite quickly. sunny skies across eastern scotland, central and eastern england and wales, with highs up to 13 degrees. then as we move through the course of friday you can see how our weather fronts in scotland sink overnight. on saturday it will introduce colder air with the next front behind that introducing the really cold air. on saturday, you can see

the weather front sinking south with its cloud and patchy rain. it will be quite a windy day with gales in the far north. increasingly wintry across the far north of scotland on the hills and mountains. temperatures 7 to 9, but still mild for the rest of the uk. that first weather front sinks southwards during saturday and this one comes in bringing some rain. we have also got this one sinking south, introducing the cooler air behind it. that will continue to filter southwards, you can see the milderair hanging on in the south, but also into monday. we really will notice the difference in the temperatures. recently we have been around or above average, but by the time we get into the early part of next week our daytime average temperatures could be 5 degrees, much colder at night with frost and minus one.

the uk finance minister unveils the "biggest pension reform in decades" — in the hope it will boost economic growth. oil supplies are forecast to outstrip demand next year as global needs dwindle. and back in fashion — shares in burberry soar as investors try on its turnaround plan. welcome to business today,

i'm tadhg enright. here in the uk, chancellor rachel reeves is planning what she calls the "biggest pension reform in decades" in an attempt to boost the economy. the government wants to merge the uk's 86 council pension schemes into a handful of "pension megafunds". the council pension funds currently have investments worth around 354 billion pounds. reeves is keen for the uk to follow a similar pension model to canada and australia. in those countries, pensions of local government workers are pooled into a handful of funds, which make big investments around the world. separately, the government also wants to set a minimum size limit on defined contribution schemes in the private sector, which manage around £800 billion of investments. as faisal islam reports. after a chilly reception from some retailers to her budget tax rises,

the chancellor is now in search of some fast growth in the economy.