if i were the prime minister, i would apologise for the fact that we're in this situation with testing. throughout the summer, we were saying, "prepare for the autumn". instead, we had the exams fiasco. president trump says he will nominate a woman within the next week as his choice to replace the supreme court judge, ruth bader ginsburg. anti—government protesters in thailand call for reform of the political system and the monarchy. a hurricane and three spitfires fly over central london to mark the 80th anniversary of the battle of britain, following a memorial service at westminster abbey. now on bbc news, katty kay chairs a virtual debate which will examine the key issues of concern to voters in the us election campaign.

hello and welcome. i'm katty kay, and this is world questions: us election 2020. i'm in washington dc and i am video linking to leading politicians and members of the public from across america, all brought together to discuss the big issues of this election. members of the public will be putting their questions to our panel, remotely of course, it's the world we live in, and as this extraordinary election approaches injust over a month's time, there is an awful lot for us to discuss. the coronavirus pandemic, which has taken so many lives here, and changed even more, law and order, black lives matter, division, unrest, and of course the deeply changed state of the united states economy. so, let me introduce our panel. in kansas city, missouri, we have mayor quinton lucas, he is a democrat.

in washington, we have republican congressmen bruce westerman of arkansas just in the city at the moment, and over on the west coast we hope to be joined from california, compton california, by the city's mayor, aja brown, who is also a democrat, but we're sorting out technology. down in miami, florida, we have the mayor of that city, republican francis suarez. welcome to all of you. we will bring in of course our questioners during the course of this and let's go to our very first question which comes from daniel hopkins in wyoming. daniel, you have the microphone. put your question to our guests. yes, my mask was pulled off at walmart by an older gentleman, seems like everywhere i go if i'm wearing a mask i get a sideways glance. how can we stop the divisive argument over covid and mask wearing? daniel, thank you very much. it has been a big issue here in the united states, the issue of mask wearing. actually, a recent poll suggested that the majority of americans

support the idea of wearing masks in public, but we have all seen around the country opposition to mask wearing as well. mayor lucas, let me put the question to you. how can we stop this divisive argument over covid and masks in particular? i think we need to keep sharing the science and the data in connection with it. you're much less likely to spread covid—i9 if you are wearing a mask. communities that have mask rules and requirements are showing real results in limiting the spread of covid—i9 and i think all of us in the electoral office should be at least consistent in that message. this is one area where i will actually commend the white house, although sometimes the president undermines their own messaging, doctor deborah birx has travelled around the country saying how mask rules are important. she came to kansas city to say that very thing. that is helpful for us so people know it is notjust a big—city mayor or democratic governors that are saying it. that is everyone saying this

is important to enforce a long—term. congressman, let me go to you. i know that when you are here in washington, dc, as you are today, you will see a lot of people on the streets wearing masks. what is the situation back in arkansas? you get a mixed bag back home in arkansas. most people are obviously wearing masks. arkansas is a rural state, we have plenty of places where we can get out in the outdoors and do activities without masks. when in public, most people are wearing masks. it is a personal issue for me. i have already tested positive for the antibodies. i've donated plasma. so as far as i understand science, i'm immune to the disease, i do not think i can transmit it to others, but i can still wear the mask, because i want to be considerate of other people and to me it is about being responsible and doing what the health experts now say is the best way to control the spread of the virus.

congressman, do you think the president has been helpful in his messaging on masks? we heard him just recently in a debate on an abc town hall question whether masks were useful. would you like to see clearer messaging from the president himself? well, the president is now encouraging people to wear a mask. he wears masks, sometimes he doesn't wear masks when he is making speeches and neither do most other people when you are socially distancing and speaking, but i think the fact that he came out and promoted wearing masks helped a lot in my state, where the president is very popular and people were looking to his voice for direction on it. ok, let's go to our second question. it is still about the issue of coronavirus, which of course in a lot of the polling that we are getting in the run—up to this election, the coronavirus is still a very important issue for american voters.

190,000 american voters and the numbers rising have died and it is something that is very much on people's mind. let's go to rebecca injacksonville, florida. mayor suarez, from your own state, but further north. rebecca, you have your question for our panellists. yes, i had a stroke because of the pandemic and i went from getting $4000 a month to only $600 a month. that is what they are giving me for my disability to take care of me and my son. the rich are getting richer, how am i supposed to get back 0k? rebecca, thank you very much for your question. we send you our best wishes. of course a lot of people in this country have been affected medically and we are only still learning from the medical experts what the long—term implications can be of people who got strokes through covid, as rebecca there did

and who earlier was living on $4000 a month before covid—i9 is now because of having covid district, your employment situation has disappeared and now you are living on $600 a month with your son and it is just not enough to pay the bills, the round, the food and at the same time, as we have seen, there is something of a k—shaped recovery going on in this country. people who have money in the stock market which is booming, they seem to be getting better. people like rebecca who have very little, they are suffering. mayor suarez, you are in florida, you are not very far from where rebecca is, what can you do, what can politicians in this country do, to help somebody like rebecca? it is even harder and even more difficult for someone like her who is now getting so little, to be able to provide for her family. $600 a month injacksonville doesn't work, doesn't work in miami, so it is sad to see you know a family like hers who has suffered

so much, notjust medically, but now is suffering economically and so that is something that i think congress has to address. i think without a doubt, even though i am a republican mayor, i have urged congress to pass a second stimulus and maybe, as part of that, they should look at cases like rebecca's, specifically people who have been affected by covid to a point that that is creating a new disability and is making them unable to work and really look at what kind of disability benefits they are going to provide for someone who has become unable to work because of covid. congressman, let me go to you, because there is a bill that is in the house of representatives at the moment and there is a lot of negotiation going on, but frankly very little action from democrats or republicans up on capitol hill. yes, first, i want to tell rebecca that i regret the issues that you have had with covid.

unfortunately, we have seen that all too often across the country, as far as a revision to the cares act, everyone i talk to in congress wants to see that happen, but we have been unable to come to an agreement on what it would look like. we do need to put more flexibility in it. my state has a lot of money sitting in the general treasury that needs to be spent by the end of the year, based on the original cares act, and they need more flexibility on how they spend that. until congress acts again, they will not have the flexibility, much less any additional funding, which i think we need to do on the paycheque protection programme with some more flexibility there and we also need to look at additional unemployment insurance assistance in certain areas. it seems just grossly unfair, doesn't it, that some people in this country who have money in the stock market,

and the president referred to this earlier in his town hall, they are doing well? the stock market is doing great in america, but a lot of other people who have been hit by this pandemic, either lost their jobs like rebecca, or god forbid has health problem is because of it, they are hit hard and it is hard to see how they will get out of it. it is incredibly unfair, and i think one thing we have seen from the covid—19 pandemic, certainly in the us, is every problem that we had before is amplified now. every problem we had with housing, employment, racial disparities, health disparities, education, incredible areas of disparities, this has been incredibly challenging time, particularly for folks like rebecca, but also fair local governments. we are trying to provide solutions to so many people in our communities who are calling us and saying how can we get more resources?

how can we get more help? and we have not always been able to get access to that in the way we can. and we are seeing lots of unfairness, people who are able to weather this moment without much stress and i think the way we really need to try and fix his is we need to look out for people like rebecca, a lot of the people who are struggling in our country, rather than acting like covid—19 does not exist, which unfortunately i think some do, or acting like it does not seem to matter that much, which others do. we are also joint now, i'm very glad to say, by mayor aja brown, the democratic mayor of compton in california. thank you so much for joining the programme. thank you for having me, it is great to be here. thank you forjoining the programme and giving us your time. let's go to our next question.

it comes from justin, who is a chef in a knoxville, tennessee. just, over to you. opposing narratives. thank you, it seems americans are following two opposing narratives. on one side, there is mostly peaceful protests and there has not been justification for violence. 0n the other side, they are just called riots and wanting to destroy the nation. are either of these narratives true and if so which one? or is itjust a matter of perspective? justin, thank you, most of the question is really about the riots and the process that we have seen in the country and the two very views of them. are they left—wing conspiracy to destabilise the nation or are they part of legitimate protests and how you going to bring law and order back to the streets? it is worth pointing out that a princeton university study, i do know we have all seen pictures of the protests taking place around

the country, but a recent study did show that 93% of the racialjustice protests in the united states have been peaceful protests, not violent. yes, there has been violence in some places, but 93% of the protests have been peaceful. mayor brown, you havejoin the conversation, let me kick this off with you. how do we stop the violence that has been taking place and how do we clear up the perception of what these protests are actually about? first, i do not speak on behalf of black lives matter, but i can say as a black woman as a leader that there is an overwhelming desire forjustice at this time. what you have seen really elevate in the media at this period has been going on in our nation for hundreds of years. people have been shot down by police without answer or question and at this point, people are under immense

pressure and they are tired of being abused and tired of a system not acknowledging these injustices which are present in our laws and history. so when we specifically address the riots and as the study referenced the majority are peaceful, people want their voices heard and in order to stop people going to the streets and deterring people from taking matters into their own hands, there is a strong desire and need forjustice. people want to reform the police officers. they should be no reason that if police officers have a disciplinary issue, that that information should not be of record. we do not allow doctors or other professionals to practice without their licences and this is just the same for any other public official and that is something that we need to inherently understand. this is not about anger, this is about oppression and people wantjustice and we all deserve to live in peace.

you have shared this with me on television before, so i'm sure you are ok with me bring it up. you yourself have had an incident of stopped by the police erroneously. absolutely, and my story is not unlike many others and this is something that i have encountered my whole life. i'm married to a black man, i have a twin brother, this is something that black people have been having to shoulder since our existence here in this nation, and it is so sad that we have to have these conversations with our children to beware of police and we have seen 70 instances where people are complying with law enforcement and they are losing their lives, so it is not a fact that people are against the police of fighting the police. people are complying and still losing their lives and this is a human rights issue. this is not about black or brown people or white people, it is about human rights. it is time for us to accept and acknowledge and really have a plan of action that will provide equality for all the people.

congressman, is this about law and order or about justice and equality? we live in a great country where we have a first amendment that guarantees a right to peacefully assemble and protest and we should all fight for that with everything that we have, but we also have to call, when there is a riot, it is a riot. when people are harming other people, damaging property, that is when we have to have law and order. this idea of defunding the police i think is one of the worst messages that we can put out to our country right now. it is hard to get people... which, by the way, we should be clear is not the position ofjoe biden, he does not say he wants to defund the police. in fact, it is the opposite. there is a lot of talk about defunding the police, i can tell you the republican position, and we had a press conference on the capitol steps yesterday, where we committed

to funding the police with an additional $1.75 billion and also buying 500,000 body cams. i was disappointed in a senator from south carolina who put forward a well thought—out bi—partisan police reform bill and he was called a token when he did that and that bill failed to get out of the senate, so there have been some honest attempts, well thought out attempts, to address the issue and it is unfortunate that even that gets caught up in politics. mayor lucas, where do you stand in this debate, in this balance? we hearfrom the president that it is about law and order, he evokes the possibility of armageddon on the streets of american cities ifjoe biden

is elected and yet we see the videos time and time again and we do know that a black person in america is three times more likely to be shot by police than a white person is. yet it seems are the two side hearing each other? i think reasonable people hear each other. mayor brown speaks the truth and it is something that everyone, certainly who is black in this country, but i think a whole bunch of other people, at least know, recognise, and recognise as a problem, challenge and concern. this is one area where i have grave discomfort from the rhetoric of the president of the united states, and from the rhetoric of a lot of folks who are in leadership in our country. this is about a moment of people saying can we have justice? can we have accountability in our police departments? can we do better? and i do not know why it has to be controversial that people are actuallyjust saying, largely peacefully, hey, let's do better as a country and other community. let's just try our best to make sure

people feel like they are respected, and if they do not feel like they are less than someone else. what is interesting interesting about mayor brown's comments is you can mention she has a husband, brotherand her own experiences and i can imagine there are probably dozens of situations where they can point to yes, i was treated different, asks more questions, i was walking my college campus and had to show an id or that they never did that to someone i was walking with he was white. that is about, and i try not to be too partisan, but nevertheless, the president is being reckless and i think you're tearing the country apart with this rhetoric. it is a complete wedge issue, it is not even dog whistling any more, it is dog barking. i hope we can a presidential debates about how we can do better, maybe people have different views on policing, but this is not some sort of thing where a bunch of radicals are trying

to take over the country and make it a marxist republic of some sort. descriptions otherwise are tearing us apart. mayor suarez, he has a republican president, you're a republican, he's the presidentof your party. yes, and i want to start by acknowledging what mayor lucas and mayor brown said. there is no doubt in this day and age that we can all recognise there is an issue. i can tell you that in miami, all of the protests are, i would say, 90% plus of the protests are in time extremely peaceful. and there is something that mayor lucas said that really caught my attention and he is absolutely right that there is always an opportunity to do better. we should always be striving to do better. introspective, looking at ourselves, what are our faults and biases? sometimes conscious and sometimes unconscious.

in our communities, often they want to be able to get up, go to work, do theirjob, they do not get caught up in a lot of things that go on in dc. it is funny because i have done a lot of national news on coronavirus and every so often i will get in an interview where they will ask me some at dc i willjust last. they asked me and i look lost, because i do not sit down all along and try and work out what is going on in washington, dc, i know what is happening in my community so i can make my community the very best it can be. i think most average people are doing that and sometimes they also express anger and frustration when they see things that are disrupting of their lives. i'm racking my brains to wondering whether i have ever asked you a dc inside question. it was not you, absolutely not. it was not you at all at. we have one final question and unfortunately a person who sent us this question cannot be with us in person because they are dealing

with fires in oregon, so this comes from doolin who had sent us this. having a paid friend of the fossil fuel industry and power for another four years will be detrimental to the life of our planet and we do not have much left to sustain what sustains us. do you agree that climate change is the biggest issue for this election? will ask you to keep your answers brief. in a city like ours, climate change is one of the biggest issue is much that i do not know if it's the biggest for the election, but it is certainly a critical issue and it should be one of the most important issues, because it is a viability going forward and i think one of the things that i have seen in the debate is a lot of it is based on semantics in terms of how you talk about certain things, for example seas rising dressing flooding.

when you talk about flooding in miami, everybody gets on board. the economics of dealing with climate issues are now really coming together with the solutions in terms of solar and a variety of different things that make sense economically and so, you know, it makes it a lot easier to implement because most sites converge on it, so i think a lot of it is mowing together which is what is becoming a more bipartisan issue. —— marrying together. i don't know if climate change is such a big issue in missouri, you do not get hit by hurricanes or fires oi’ flooding, but you do have a lot of farmers and i'm interested if they think it is the biggest issue in this election? i think they would probably say no, although it is something that is a great effect to limp. great effect to them. i think it's more a reflection

of politics and everything else, but i do not think it is the most important issue, but in kansas city we have haze every night from the fires out west. its travels that far. we do too here in washington. no—one is immune, hurricanes come up and drop right in the midwest, there it says a lot there is a long—term climate change issues are no matter where you are, you are dealing with there. congressman, is climate change the most important issue in this election? i have seen national polls that show the number one issue in the election is the pandemic and finding a vaccine and an end to the pandemic. so i would say that is the number one issue in the election. that is not to downplay the importance of the environment and being good stewards of what we have. i have the only licensed forester in a congress and

forests are the key to the healthy environment with clean water and clean environment. and in some places we get dry conditions, the fires are going to get that much worse with too much fuel in force. we need to apply the science and reduce the intensity and occurrences of these fires and it is a crying shame that we are not doing this and not in an all—out effort locked arm in arm to make these changes. mayor brown? i live in california, and climate change is an everyday reality from the issues and the environment in general, emissions, smog, i have seen the evolution of air quality of the last 20 years and now we are dealing with fires and historic proportions. i believe that the preservation

of life supersedes the the main priorities are our health, the pandemic, economic issues are the issues of everyday people, it is urgent to be concerned about climate, but if you are concerned about whether or not they will have shelter, or for their children, whether they will be able to be safe and have a good quality of life is paramount at this time. and that is it for world questions: us election 2020. thank you to our esteemed panel, our questioners who has helped us cover some of the really big issues that are facing the country in this election and of course to all of you for watching. from across america and around the world, from me katty kay in washington, goodbye.

hello. the week ahead promises to some pretty dramatic changes in our weather. this weekend, we held onto a late taste of summer, with a good deal of sunshine, and has more of that to come for monday and tuesday, and from a week onwards, we will be plunged into autumnal conditions, wetter, windier, and a good deal colder as well. sunday abroad as blue skies to a large portion of the uk. this was of such a little earlier. but in some areas, more in the way of lingering cloud. you can see how it rose here across parts of argyll and bute's coast. it did take a while, though, for things to brighten up. the difference is we have through this evening of overnight, unlike the last couple of

nights, thanks to a change in wind direction, the cloud will move away. so these guys will become clearer across eastern scotland overnight, quite a chilly night in some rural parts of scotland, and further south, white on the map first thing on monday across eastern wales, the midlands and eastern england, some cloud and may be some fog forming her first cloud and may be some fog forming herfirst thing on cloud and may be some fog forming her first thing on monday. that could pose a problem for the morning rush hour. but should burn off quickly, we are still looking at temperatures locally into the mid 20s, up to 20 in newcastle, much warmer here as the cloud shifts offshore. introduce the comedy weather front towards the north—east sta rts weather front towards the north—east starts to make inroads, wetter by the afternoon for western scotland, parts of northern ireland by the evening, and he went picking up. warm as well, but as i said, wednesday is when things start to change quite dramatically, this

weather front moving through overnight tuesday into wednesday, quite a chilly start to the north of the uk on wednesday, we can position the uk on wednesday, we can position the rain exactly for the end of the week, a number of fronts and plate making it very complicated, but it is wetter, windier, and the biggest change which we can be more precise about is the switching to arctic air. into the icy blues bite thursday and friday with a nagging northerly wind. a dramatic change in the weather across the uk through the weather across the uk through the course of the week ahead. london's temperatures for example, 24 and 25 monday and tuesday, just 13 on friday, with some sunny spells.

this is bbc news. the headlines at 4... the government says the country is at a tipping point, as it prepares to introduce tough new fines for anyone in england who is told to self—isolate but fails to. if everybody follows the rules then we can avoid further national lockdown is. national lockdowns. but we have course have to be prepared to take action if that's what's necessary. the labour leader says sorting out the problems with testing should be ministers top priority. if i was the prime minister, i would apologise for the fact we are in this situation with testing. throughout the summer we were saying prepare for the autumn. instead, we had the exams fiasco. president trump says he will nominate a woman