Off of sentinal 6. Blast off for a satellite that will track rising sea levels, improving our understanding of Climate Change. Hello and welcome to bbc news. The United States now has more than 12 million recorded cases of coronavirus. Its the worst affected country in the world and is experiencing a surge in the virus, setting records each day for the number of new infections. About 187,000 new cases were recorded in the latest figures released on friday for the previous day. The daily death toll linked to covid 19 has passed 2,000 people for the First Time Since may. Over the past week, there has been an average of almost 170,000 cases per day. Thats an increase of 67 . And according to covid tracking project, more than 80,000 people are currently hospitalized across the country. As well as the health costs of the virus, theres the economic costs. Millions of people have lost their jobs. This weekend, thanksgiving dinners are being distributed by foodbanks across the country to people in need of help. There are also concerns that travel during the thanksgiving holiday could make things worse. President trump has repeatedly played down the severity of the pandemic in the us. On saturday, he skipped an event at the 620 summit on covid preparedness, instead deciding to play golf. 0ur north america correspondent, david willis, joins us now. 0bviously obviously very disappointing figures there across the us but specifically what is happening in california . We are thing gcioss in california . We are thing across the country a surge in coronavirus cases, almost 200,000 new cases of the virus every day. In california, they are getting to around 11,000 a day, very worrying, the biggest surge since the summer time so the governor of california, gary newsome, has introduced an overnight curfew, coming into effect tonight, saturday night local time from ten pm until five oclock in the morning. The aim is being to prevent people from gathering in bars and clubs and in public places. The aim is as well to keep them at home, not mixing with other families but of course as you mentioned, the thanksgiving holiday is just around the corner and traditionally, that isa time corner and traditionally, that is a time when americans do get together. The tsa, the transport safety administration, the federal body which monitors these things, is saying that yesterday, friday, more than1 million americans used airports in the country. Just bring it up in the country. Just bring it up to speed with the reaction to the fact that donald trump was playing golf when other World Leaders were attending the summit . That is right. The us media court the president on the golf course at a time when a site meeting was going on, a virtual side meeting was going on to discuss Coronavirus Preparedness and mr trump has subsequently issued a series of tweets, making the point that this is a global crisis, not one that is directly, specifically linked to the United States. Also making the case that due to advanced therapeutics, as he puts it, and the skill of doctors, nurses and other health officials, fewer people are actually dying when they get the virus. That said, the death toll in the United States has a ready surpassed a 250,000 people. Other World Leaders attending the virtual g20 summit have urged the heads of rich nations to make sure coronavirus vaccines are affordable and available for all. The meeting is being hosted by saudi arabia but is being held virtually because of the pandemic. 0ur chief international correspondent, lyse doucet, has more from riyadh. A thoroughly modern moment. Many families have to meet like this these days. Even the powerful g20 family. The 84 year old saudi king presiding. Everyone at their own table this year. Every country struggling with the impact of the deadly pandemic. Its this summits top issue. Shall i take the mask off . The worlds wealthiest under pressure to help the poorest. At the beginning there was a big race between Different Countries to secure ppe, equipment, medication etc. The g20 role is definitely to make sure that everybodys safe. We cannot be safe unless everybodys safe. And from 10 downing street, a ten point plan for a green revolution. That future will only be possible if the worlds leading economies drive forward more ambitious action, more quickly to prevent further catastrophic Climate Change. A Virtual Summit robs leaders of those face to face moments which can make all the difference. It also steals the kingdoms chance to shine on a world stage, a stage also casting a harsh light on issues not on the g20 agenda. So, a light was shone on the streets of paris, on three saudi women in saudi jails. Human Rights Groups are calling for their release and many others. And here, another light show, on stones three centuries old. This is the town where the saudi kingdom was born. Leaders brought together as they keep their distance. The British Government has announced a tougher three tiered system of local restrictions will come into force in england when the current lockdown ends on the second of december. The Prime MinisterBoris Johnson is expected to set out his plan on monday. 0ur reporter, paul hawkins, is with me. What do we know about this new plan . Downing street late on saturday night made a statement that on monday it will officially announce that from december two, a week on wednesday, is the end of the four week lockdown in england and that the country is going to revert back to the three tiered system of measures that it was under prior to lockdown. 31, medium, tier two, it was under prior to lockdown. 31, medium, tiertwo, hi, t3 very high and this is part of the cobit winter plan and covid and more areas are expected to face higher levels of restrictions and before lockdown and this is because scientists to advise the government, also published a paper on monday thing those restrictions that were in place under the tiered system were not enough to start with. So, the tiered system that will come in from december two will be less then a National Lockdown that the country is currently under but it will not be, it will be less than a lockdown, but more restrictive than the tiered system that was in place before. Even though the office of National Statistics said the number of Coronavirus Infections appears to have levelled off in recent weeks, scientists are cautious. What does this mean for plans for christmas . Families across the country want to know whether they can travel or get together or not. Whether they can travel or gettogether or not. Right, what we can say is from thursdays, ministers will announce which areas of the country will go to which system and then mps will vote on that and then mps will vote on that and there could be a significant rebellion within the conservative party, it is reported that as many as 70 have written a letter to the pm saying they will vote down any restrictive message is. Just measures. Reports say families across the uk, notjust uk, scotland, island, involving a co ordinated approach, families could make up for a week over christmas ireland, several families for one bubble from the 22nd 28, pubs, restau ra nts, the 22nd 28, pubs, restaurants, churches, possibly open with guidance on how to celebrate christmas but these arejust report celebrate christmas but these are just report that the moment. Lets update you on some other coronavirus developments around the world. A massive coronavirus testing operation is underway in spains Autonomous Community of castile and leon. 25 of the residents of the provincial capital burgos are being tested, as the infection rate in the city doubles the regional average. It comes as the country reported highest weekly death toll during the second wave. Several hundred anti lockdown protesters have been roaming the eastern german city of leipzig after a rally they planned to attend was called off at the last minute. The city authorities had said the protest organisers certificate of exemption from Wearing Masks was incomplete. Thereve been reports of clashes between far right protesters and left wingers. Danish farmers have driven 500 tractors into the centre of copenhagen n protest at the cull of mink the government has ordered, to stamp out a coronavirus outbreak on furfarms. Right wing parties have accused the government of using the virus as an excuse to end furfarming. Turkey has gone into a nationwide partial lockdown this weekend, as part of new measures announced by president erdogan earlier in the week. People are banned from going out from 5 in the evening to 7 in the morning. The portuguese government has announced new restrictions to slow the spread of coronavirus, shortly after parliament approved a 2 week extension of the countrys state of emergency. Prime minister antonio costa has outlined new tiered restrictions, including extending the current nightly curfew to weekend afternoons and a travel ban during National Holidays in areas deemed at extremely high risk. Just hours before scheduled peace talks in qatar between the us secretary of state and the taliban, a barrage of rockets has hit residential areas of the afghan capital, kabul, killing at least eight people and injuring more than 30. The Islamic State group said it was behind the attack and had targeted government buildings and foreign embassies. It comes just days after the Trump Administration announced plans to withdraw two thousand troops from afghanistan. Secunder kermani reports. It should have been an ordinary day at school. Instead, panic and fear as these children run for safety. Cctv cameras captured the moment the rockets landed outside this popular bakery. Translation i was having breakfast when the rockets landed. 0ne hit a van belonging to a bakery. At least three people were wounded. They have been taken to hospital. A local resident filmed the rockets being fired from the street. This was the pick up truck the attackers used. How they managed to get it inside the city is a major cause for concern. The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility, but fighting between the government and taliban has been flaring across the country in recent weeks despite ongoing but slow moving peace talks in doha. Us secretary of state mike pompeo arrived there today to meet both afghan and taliban officials. Some progress on initial issues seems to have been made, but they havent even begun discussing a ceasefire or power sharing arrangement. Is is not part of the negotiations. In spite of the violence, us troops are being withdrawn from here. The new american president might look for another way forward, but the fear is the bloodshed is only going to get worse. Secunder kermani, bbc news. You are watching bbc news, the headlines as the number of confirmed coronavirus cases in the us exceeds 12 million thanksgiving dinners are distributed to people across the country impacted by the pandemic. The number of cases has now exceeded 12 million. A call for coronavirus vaccines to be available for all as leaders from the worlds biggest economies meet foran online summit hosted by saudi arabia. Republican officials in michigan have requested an an audit of the president ial vote in the largest county, home to detroit, after it was contested by donald trump. But the president s efforts to challenge the election result continue to fall short in the courts. In pennsylvania, a judge has rejected the trump campaigns attempt to throw out millions of mail in votes, describing the lawsuit as without merit. And now a new counter suit alleges the president s attempt to overturn the outcome in michigan violates the Voting Rights act. Im joined by one of the lawyers leading the suit, sam spitalfrom the naacp. Thank you for having me, and i should clarify that i am with the naacp legal department. Can you talk us through in the simplest possible terms, what your court case is about . Absolutely. 0ur court case is based on the Voting Rights act of 1965, which is one of our nations most important civil rights laws and one of the provisions of the Voting Rights act is that there can be no intimidation, no coercion, nothing like that against anyone who is attempting to vote and the Voting Rights act defines voting quite broadly, to include not only the act of casting the ballot but also any step that is necessary to make the ballot count. So our suit is about the fact that we have seen a is about the fact that we have seen a co ordinated effort by the president of the United States, working with his campaign, to put pressure on state and local officials in michigan, not to count, literally to disenfranchise the vote of people from detroit and the surrounding counties. And that kind of pressure and coercion is the kind of conduct thatis coercion is the kind of conduct that is prohibited by the Voting Rights act. They will just argue that they are pursuing their legal right through the courts to contest the election result . I think actually if you see whats happening, that is not what is happening. The suits that have been failed by mr trump and his campaign have been consistently rejected and denied because there is a lack of evidence. If thats true, sorry to jump in, theyve been rejected, there without merit, why bother suing donald trump . If there is no evidence, these cases are just going to fail in the courts anyway. Two reasons. One is that there is a new strategy we are seeing, and this strategy is actually not about court cases, it is about seeking to pressure state and local officials not to count, not to certify votes and that is actually a different strategy and quite troubling strategy. The other reason why this is so important is that, this is literally an attempt to disenfranchise black people in this country. When you heard mr giuliani say at the press conference that he held just earlier this week, well, if you dont count wayne county, if you dont count detroit, the result changes. And the idea that the president of the United States and his campaign would be, in 2020, seeking not to count the votes of people in detroit, a predominantly black city, and falsely, over and over, alleging voterfraud targeted at black people is not a cce pta ble targeted at black people is not acceptable and it is something that we all need to stand up for in our democracy and say enough. Ok, thank you very much for your time. Thank you. A satellite thats considered critical for understanding the effects of Climate Change has been launched into space. Sentinel 6 took off on board a space x rocket from a launch pad in california. It will measure oceans and lakes and become the primary means of tracking global sea level rises. Data from the satellite will also reveal how huge masses of water are moving around the globe. Sentinel 6 was developed jointly by the european and us space agencies. Rolf densing is director of operations for the European Space agency. He explained the importance of the satellite. There is increasing sea levels, this has consequences for coastal areas, and these consequences will be better, more precisely mapped with sentinel 6 than ever before. Obviously the height of dykes will have to be re evaluated, major cities like amsterdam, new york, tokyo are concerned by the increase of sea levels and we need to protect millions of people from these effects. Europe is set to lift its flight ban on the boeing 737 max passengerjetliner injanuary after us regulators last week ended a 20 month grounding triggered by two fatal crashes. The European UnionAviation Safety Agency says that the 737 max is now safe to fly, after changes to the design of the jet that crashed twice in five months in 2018 and 2019 killing 346 people. French police have clashed with demonstrators protesting against a bill that could criminalise filming or taking photos of the security forces. Some protesters threw bottles at police and set fire to bins. Some so called yellow vest activists held up placards saying they would only put down their smartphones when the police put away the weapons that have caused serious injuries during two years of weekly demonstrations. Ethiopia says its troops have advanced further into the northern tigray region, seizing the town of adigrat from soldiers loyal to the local government. The tigrayan authorities said civilians had been killed in the fighting, but gave no details. Earlier the government in addis ababa rebuffed an offer from the African Union to mediate the conflict between it and tigray forces, as the humanitarian costs of the violence continues to mount. Will ross has more. The exodus goes on with thousands of fleeing and fighting every day. Spending two and a half weeks since the first shots were fired. No one here knows how long they will be forced to live like this. The conditions are tough. Translation we came here because there is no peace back on. So far, we have not received any aid, we are living in hunger and fear. We also struggle to get water. Their new homes are the ideal, sudan his face gets own immense challenges, lots of help is required from outside in order to ensure the refugees are looked after. Theres a serious concern that we do not act quickly with the resources needed, sudan already facing dramatic economic crisis and political challenges, to make this will unravel not only ethiopia but also sudan. The Ethiopian Government says it seized key towns from the authorities in charge of the tigray region. There are also talking tough and speaks of success on the battlefield. But it is impossible to know the true picture as all communication in the region has been cut off. The African Union is worried. The instability could threaten the region. There was what sounded like a breakthrough from the au chair. News that three former heads of state would be travelling to ethiopia to help mediate between the two sites. They both have plenty of first hand knowledge of how much devastation can be caused by war. But the government and the ethiopian capital has been quick to play down the mediation. In a statement, it said the Prime Minister will be meeting the au envoys, but dismissed news that they will be mediating between the government and the authorities as fake. The Prime Minister appears determined to fight on, to overthrow and arrest the tplf leaders, the politicians who for years dominated politics in ethiopia until he came to power two years ago. The un is prepared for more refugees in sudan. For now, it seems unlikely that the mediation efforts will bring about peace between the two sides and if this shifts into guerrilla style warfare in the mountains of tigray, the conflict could be long and the impact on civilians, devastating. Hundreds of Anti Government protesters in guatemala have vandalised and set fire to parts of the congress building, before being dispersed by riot police. The building in Guatemala City was empty at the time of the attack, which lasted for about 10 minutes. The protesters are opposed to a budget which was approved by congress on wednesday night. 400 people on board a passenger ferry that ran aground off the finnish aw land islands in the baltic sea, have been told theyll have to stay there overnight. The viking grace got into difficulties in high winds close to the port of mariehamn. Its so close to the shore that people nearby say they can almost touch the ferry. The ferrys owner, viking line, says thereve been no injuries and the mood onboard remains calm. Divers have confirmed there were no leaks in the hull. The ship had been heading from the swedish capital, stockholm, to turku in finland. Archaeologists in italy have uncovered the remains of two men who died in the volcanic eruption that destroyed the ancient roman city of pompeii nearly two thousand years ago. They believe the pair may have been a master and his slave seeking refuge in a large villa. Nina nanji reports. Two victims of the mighty vesuvius found frozen in time. 0ne believed to be a man of high status. The other his slave. The remains were found during an excavation of a large villa on the outskirts of pompeii. The ancient city was engulfed in a volcanic eruption nearly 2,000 years ago, burying it and its residents in ash. Translation the two victims found in the last days are an incredible and extraordinary testimony of the morning of 25th october when the eruption took place. These two victims were perhaps seeking refuge when they were swept away by the pyroclastic current at nine oclock in the morning, when the plume gets to pompeii, destroying the higher part of the city completely, killing everybody in its path. Officials say the wealthy man was aged between 30 and 40. The other aged between 18 and 23. Evidence shows that before the disaster he suffered from crushed vertebrae, which indicate he was a slave who did manual labour. After the remains were uncovered, casts were created using impressions the bodies had made in the hardened ash. The ruined city remains a rich source for archaeologists. It is also one of italys most visited tourist attractions, although for now tourism has stopped due to the coronavirus measures. Nina nanji, bbc news. I will be back with the headlines in a couple of minutes time, plenty more online, as always. You can reach me on twitter im lvaughan jones. Im Lewis Vaughan jones, im Lewis Vaughanjones, this is bbc news. Hello there. On saturday the southern half of the uk had mild, cloudy weather. Further north things were quite different. It certainly felt colder in the wind. Showers as well. In between those different sorts of weather weve got this weather from here. Its not producing much rain but its going to stall towards the south coast of england. It is heading a little further south. Its allowing that colder air to move further south across more of the country. As we head into early sunday morning, these are the sort of temperatures were looking at. They could be down to one or 2 degrees across eastern scotland, northeast england and Northern Ireland for that much milder in southern england where we still got a lot of cloud. It will brighten up a time but the thicker cloud and pop of rain and drizzle not too far away. Could return to south wales as well. Elsewhere decent sunshine. Showers mainly Northern Ireland frequent coming into northern and westerner scotland winds release of the day, wont be as windy as it was on saturday. But typically around seven to ten celsius was up those temperatures will fall quickly. Across more sheltered eastern areas with those clear skies was up still a few showers continuing towards the west. We need to look to the west to see where our weather is coming from early next week. Because Atlantic Winds south westerly winds heading ourway in these weather fronts will bring some rain as well. A bright enough start for many eastern parts of the uk but chilly early on monday. Some sunshine too. Cloud amounts will tend to increase with patchy rain here and there. Most rain setting in over the hills of western scotland, some rain for Northern Ireland. Those temperatures gradually creeping up at around nine to 11 celsius, getting milder. Move things on into tuesday and rain is still stuck mainly across scotland and Northern Ireland. Generally dry england and wales and always brighter with more sunshine as you head further east across england and wales where its going to be drive up with a southerly wind temperatures continuing to rise back up to 12 or 13. Quite widely, things will change later in the week, not least because that weather front will take rain into england and wales on wednesday. Then we start to see High Pressure building and later on in the week. For the early part of the week rain around most of it around scotland and Northern Ireland was up it will be turning milderfor the second half of the week with High Pressure, lighter winds, it will be cold with some frost and some fog. This is bbc news, the headlines the United States has exceeded 12 million cases of the coronavirus since the pandemic began. Its one of the worlds worst affected countries and is setting records each day for the number of new infections. Thanksgiving dinners are being distributed to people affected. World leaders attending the virtual g20 summit have urged the heads of rich nations to make sure coronavirus vaccines are affordable and available for all. The meeting is being hosted by saudi arabia but is being held virtually because of the pandemic. The British Government has announced a tougher three tiered system of local restrictions will come into force in england when the current lockdown ends on december 2nd. The Prime MinisterBoris Johnson is expected to set out his plan on monday. The government has confirmed it will make major changes to the way it assesses the value of big spending projects a move which would benefit Northern England and other regions. The chancellor, rishi sunak, said the changes were part of the governments levelling up agenda. Theyll be announced in the Spending Review next week, as our Business Correspondent katy austin