could julian assange finally be heading to the us to face charges of espionage? ajudge in london is set to rule on his case later. # walk on. and tributes to gerry marsden, the singer of you'll never walk alone who's died at the age of 78. hello to you. we begin in the us. president trump is facing robust criticism after putting pressure on an election official in georgia to overturn joe biden‘s victory in the state. the president was heard to make the requests during a recorded telephone conversation, which was released by the washington post newspaper. vice president elect, kamala harris, described his actions as a "bold abuse of power". our reporter paul hawkins has the details. impeachment, the russia scandal and catching covid in the middle of a pandemic. the trump presidency has been a rollercoaster ride, so on one level, perhaps we shouldn't be surprised. after all, donald trump himself said... losing is never easy. not for me, it's not. but, on another level, no—one could have foreseen that the president of the united states would ask georgia's top election official to find enough votes to overturn november's results. the call lasted an hour. a lawyer for the state refuting the president's unsubstantiated claim that ballots had been shredded and voting machinery had been removed. the secretary of state added... the president then called him a child and threatened him with possible legal consequences, adding on twitter, "he has no clue." mr raffensperger tweeted back: condemnation of the call has been swift. well, it was, yes, certainly the voice of desperation. and it was a bald—faced, bold abuse of power. the president's refusal to accept the result has split his own party, with the former republican leader of the house of representatives saying it was difficult to conceive of a more anti—democratic and anti—conservative act. well, it's tough to be shocked anymore by what the president does, but this was truly shocking. but 11 republican senators, led by ted cruz, are still planning to challenge the election result when it's officially certified on wednesday. we live in a world where tripoli really does not matter anymore evidently. at least here in the us, in american media, truth does not matter. it is all about propaganda from the liberal media. donald trump is holding an election rally on monday night in georgia where two republican—held senate seats are up for grabs in tuesday's election. polling suggests both races are tight, with the outcome deciding who controls the upper house of congress. but with donald trump questioning the voting process in georgia, will republicans still turn out to vote? paul hawkins, bbc news. so many questions. lawrence douglas is a professor at amherst college, massachusetts. lawrence recently wrote a book on the legal and constitutional consequences of a refusal by president trump to acknowledge defeat in the election. welcome to the program. so from your perspective, has the president in this case broken the law that prohibits interference in elections? again, ithink interference in elections? again, i think when it comes to trump, it is less like he is engaging in violations of federal law. again, you could arguably make the case that he has violated this federal statute that criminalises intimidating or trying to coerce people into trying to engage with acts of election fraud. i think more generally it is just this pattern we have seen throughout this presidency of trampling on norms. and i think that of course is, it has been going on for years and he has never really had to pay a political price for his trampling on this sort of soft underbelly of constitutional democracy. i was going to say, we got use that haven't we in this term as president. i think the question is what impact will this have now? but i guess we can say, maybe we can look at two possible things. one is could it have have an effect on the run—off elections we will see in georgia on tuesday january for. maybe that is possible. at least from my perspective, maybe the silver lining from this is that first, some republicans might take his claims of fraud seriously and think that well, if the electoral system is reached to begin with why should i even vote. and secondly, it is possible that some more moderate republicans and independents will be so appalled by the president's blatant interference in the electoral process that they will cast their ballots for the democrats. that is one possible outcome. the other outcome is you know, what is going to happen on january six you know, what is going to happen onjanuary six which is when congress convenes in a joint session to satisfy the results of the election. and what is somewhat astonishing is that you will continue to have republican lawmakers in both the senate and the house and willing to challenge the results and willing to support the president in these unprecedented attacks on the integrity of our electoral process. but when you say there are republicans who are still willing to challenge the results, i mean, how many would you say because many republicans have actually called on the president to accept the outcome of the selection? that's right. but if we look at congressional lawmakers in the house, a p pa re ntly lawmakers in the house, apparently about 140 of them are willing tojoin apparently about 140 of them are willing to join on apparently about 140 of them are willing tojoin on in challenging the electoral certifications from the various states. and if you look at the senate, you're talking about close to a dozen. i thinkjust in the news broadcast preceded me coming onto your show, ted cruz, the senator from texas who is also —— was also a presidential candidate and probably would be in 2024 is leading the charge in the senate. on what level you can say, well that is certainly not a majority of republican lawmakers and yet it is a very substantial number, a very alarming number of republican signing on to this profoundly antidemocratic project. alright, we got to leave it there but you for being on the program professor. five days after it was approved for use in the uk, the first doses of the oxford coronavirus vaccine will be given to patients in the next few hours. the government says the jab‘s rollout is a pivotal moment in the pandemic as covid cases continue to surge in the uk. our health correspondent, anna collinson has the lastest. too many, the oxford—astrazeneca vaccine is seen as a game oxford—astrazeneca vaccine is seen as a game changer in the fight against the coronavirus. it's cheaper than the buyers are bion tech jab and doesn't require super cold storage which makes it easier to transport, particularly those living in care homes. the uk has ordered an hundred million oxford—astrazeneca doses. from today, more than 500,000 will be delivered at a small group of hospitals before expanding toa of hospitals before expanding to a thousand centres by the end of the week. i hear particularly from a general practice colleagues up and down the country that they are raring to go. they are really, really busy but they also know this is the best thing they can do to protect their patients. so as supply allows, more sites will be able to offer the vaccine and that's exactly what we need to aim for. a million people have already received the pfizer vaccine but there are 30 million more in the priority groups, including frontline health workers and adults aged over 50. rapid delivery is vital so as part of its biggest homeland operation in peacetime, members of the armed forces will help with the rollout. the prime minister says tens of millions will be vaccinated in the next three months. for our country, we can see how were going to get out of this with great clarity now. we can see how the vaccine can really, really help us. there will be a 12 week wait for the second dose despite some concerns from some scientist, the government's top advisers insist this approach will ensure more people are protected faster. with hospitals under extreme pressure during the toughest month of the year, the race is now on between a more contagious variant of the virus and uk's two vaccines. anna collinson, bbc news. let's get some of the day's other news. the indian manufacturer of the oxford—astrazeneca coronavirus vaccine says the government is preventing it from supplying other countries. the serum institute said india wanted to protect its own people first. it's set to be the world's biggest covid—19 vaccination programme, with 300 million people expected to be innoculated byjuly. the japanese government says it is considering declaring a state of emergency to halt the spread of coronavirus in the tokyo region. restaurants and karaoke parlours must now close two hours earlier than before, and businesses serving alcohol must close by seven in the evening. the body of a seventh victim has been found after a landslide in norway on wednesday. more than 30 houses were destroyed when the ground they were built on slipped away. three other people are still missing in the village of ask, near oslo. members of the us house of representatives have voted to retain the democrat, nancy pelosi, as speaker. ms pelosi had been expected to win, despite her party's reduced majority in the chamber after november's election. in the last hour, a malaysian coroner has delivered a verdict of misadventure into the death of french—irish schoolgirl nora quoirin, whose body was found in the jungle in 2019. the 15—year—old, who lived in london, had gone missing from an eco—resort outside kuala lumpur, where she'd been on holiday with herfamily. the bbc‘s howard johnson joins me now from manila. howard, tell us more about this verdict. well the coroner reached this verdict after five months of evidence, 48 witnesses appeared, lots of them via video link because of coronavirus concerns. what she said today was based on what she had heard was that she believed nora had simply wandered off alone. this deaf by misadventure effectively rules out some criminal involvement —— death. she said she believed nora had simply wandered off and got lost in this abandoned palm oil plantations. the family had a lwa ys plantations. the family had always insisted that they believe she had been kidnapped because of this element that she had ever got his walking unassisted and had according to them never wandered off alone. but what we saw back in august of 2019 was that she had disappeared from this resort and 10 days later they found her body in a stream in this palm oil plantation and that when they did an autopsy, they found that she had died because ofa found that she had died because of a ruptured upper contestant caused by extreme stress and lack of food. so today, the coroner effectively said because of no other evidence suggesting there was a criminal involvement in the case, that she had simply wandered off alone and had died as a result of starvation. howard johnson, thank you with the latest from manila on that. stay with us on bbc news, still to come: tributes to gerry marsden, the singer of you'll never walk alone, who's died at the age of 78. the japanese people are in mourning following the death of emperor hirohito. thousands converged on the imperial palace to pay their respects when it was announced he was dead. good grief! after half a century of delighting fans around the world, charlie brown and the rest of the gang are calling it quits. the singer paul simon starts his tour of south africa tomorrow despite of protests and violence from some black activist groups. they say international artists should continue to boycott south africa until majority rule is established. around the world, people have been paying tribute to the iconic rock star david bowie who sold 140 million albums in a career that spanned half a century. his family announced overnight that he had died of cancer at the age of 69. the world's tallest skyscraper opens later today. the burj dubai, has easily overtaken its nearest rivals. this is bbc news, the latest headlines: a recording is released of president trump urging georgia's secretary of state to "find" enough votes for him to be able to overturn joe biden's electoral victory. five days after being approved for use in the uk, the first half a million doses of the oxford university—astrazeneca vaccine are ready to be given out. the wikileaks website has called for charges against it's founder julian assange to be dropped, ahead of a judge's decision on whether to extradite him from the uk to america. he's wanted in the united states in connection with the publication of classified documents ten years ago — he's currently being held at belmarsh prison near london, after breaching his bail conditions two years ago. our world affairs editor, john simpson has the story. julian assange set up wikileaks as a crusade to reveal corruption and abuses right around the world. light them all up. come on, fire! this, for instance, is a video of american soldiers firing from a helicopter at iraqi civilians in baghdad. the us military tried to keep it secret but assange broke their code and made it public. in 2010, he handed hundreds of thousands of us diplomatic cables and military logs to newspapers around the world, uncovering huge numbers of american intelligence secrets and agents. soon after that, sweden issued an international arrest warrant for assange, alleging sexual assault. when the high court in london decided he should be extradited to sweden, assange broke bail and took refuge in the ecuadorian embassy. the united states must renounce its witch—hunt against wikileaks. in 2014, i went to see him in the embassy, which was only the size of a large flat. it's a difficult situation. other people are in more difficult situations. before the 2016 us election, wikileaks published secret democratic party e—mails which damaged hillary clinton and may have helped her opponent, donald trump, to become president. it alleged the hacking came from russian agents. sweden's case against assange for rape came to nothing. but finally in 2019 ecuador allowed the british police to arrest him and he was sentenced to 50 weeks in prison for breaking bail. the us government started proceedings to extradite him. various newspaper editors say this is an attack on press freedom but one american expert says the true charge against assange is hacking government secrets. i think that the story about assange should be a truthful one. there's a lot of stuff being peddled. the discussion about what wikilea ks is will change significantly and you won't see so many journalism outlets, so many organisations, ngos to support journalism, making political claims about what are really unsupportable claims about this being a political prosecution. it's simply not. assange's lawyer disagrees. this means any journalist reporting upon the crimes of a foreign nation, reporting truthful information about human rights abuses, war crimes, can be extradited. and the most dangerous aspect of this is that not only can you be extradited but when you return to the united states, as they're saying in this case, you will not benefit from constitutional protections which is a terrifying precedent. jen robinson there ending that report from john simpson. we will keep you up—to—date on that story. time for a full round—up of the sport now. hello, i'm sarah mulkerrins with your sport briefing for monday. we'll start in the english premier league with manchester cityjust four points off the top of the table, after a ruthless display saw them beat chelsea 3—1 at stamford bridge and increase the pressure on frank lampard. pep guardiola's side were without a number of first—team players following an outbreak of coronavirus at the club, but they stunned chelsea with three goals in the first half from ilkay gundogan, phil foden and kevin de bruyne. their unbeaten run now goes to eleven matches and they're just 4 points behind the current leaders liverpool and manchester united. the premier league is weird for everything. this is a stadium without people and we have nine players positive in our group so... players positive in our group so... everything is weird, it just took the focus in the game, the guys have to relax. they have two, to be calm and make the effort and i think hopefully in the premier league we can be the last six, seven, eight games. i am sure our people will be proud for the way we played today. in italy, milan remain a point ahead of city rivals inter at the top of serie a after wins for the top two on sunday. milan played most of the game with 10 men but it didn't stop them winning 2—0. rafael leao with a cracking second to secure the three points. skiing — and petra vlhova won the women's world cup slalom in zagreb on sunday. the slovakian — who's the reigning world champion — led after the first round, and remained in front after the second. she edged out katarina liensberger by 5/100ths of a second to retain the title she won last year — and claim herfourth world cup victory of the season. liverpool are back in action on monday night. the english premier league leaders are away to southampton, and will no doubt be looking for a win after manchester united moved level on points with them at the top of the table. but liverpool have won only four of their past 14 away games in the league, drawing six and losing four. we wish it would not be that close but i am not surprised so we have our situation and all the other clubs have their situation and now southampton have asked for other things and we have to be ready again and then aston villa and then man united. so yes, this season is a tough one for the supporters. if you are neutral, then you will love it. i'm pretty sure course because it will go to the wire, probably. elsewhere, south africa are well on top heading into day two of the 2nd test against sri lanka in johannesburg. the tourists were skittled out for just 157 — with anrich nortje taking 6 for 56. south africa will resume on 148 for1 in reply, with dean elgar 92 not out. they lead the two—match series 1—0. you can get all the latest sports news at our website — that's bbc.com/sport. but from me sarah mulkerrins and the rest of the sport team, we'll see you again soon. gerry marsden, the leader of the british band gerry and the pacemakers, has died at the age of 78. he was, perhaps, best known for his version of "you'll never walk alone" — a hit adopted by fans of marsden's local football team, liverpool. daniela relph looks back at his life. # walk on, walk on...#. gerry marsden. # with hope in your heart...# with one unforgettable anthem. # and you'll never walk...#. he was as much a part of liverpool's story as the mersey ferry and the anfield kop. # alone...# girls scream. born in toxteth, his career began at the legendary cavern club in the early ‘60s. gerry and his band, the pacemakers, were spotted by beatles manager, brian epstein. he gave them a song that had been turned down by the fab four and adam faith. # how do you do what you to me...#. how do you do it was a huge hit on both sides of the atlantic. we'd never heard ourselves on tape before and it got to number one and we were very pleased. the beatles were upset and so was adam, i think. he chuckles. newsreel archive: the girls are at the top of their screaming form, if the reception they give to gerry and the pacemakers is anything to go by. # i like it, i like it...#. more followed, as the mersey beat swept the world. # the funny feeling being here with you. # and i like it more with every day. # and i like it always hearing you say you're liking it too...#. # so, ferry, cross the mersey...#. but it was as a singer of gentle ballads for which he'll be remembered. ferry across the mersey was a nostalgic expression of his love for liverpool. # walk on, walk on...#. and then, with a song from a rodgers and hammerstein musical, gerry marsden struck a chord with fans at his beloved anfield. # you'll never walk... the band may have split up in 1966, but as he proved nearly half a century later, at the 25th anniversary of the hillsborough disaster, musically and emotionally, he'll always be a part of the heart and soul of the club. gerry marsden, who's died at the age of 78. gerry marsden, who's died at the age, of 78. next here of course we have all the latest business news. we'll be looking at the fact that this is the first full trading week of 2021, so what does that mean for the uk and the european union in terms of goods going across the border? we've got one viewer in touch who says, "let's see how long it takes for the cheese from france and spain to get to our shelves at the supermarkets". just some of the issues many of you are discussing at the moment was also of course throughout today we will have coverage of the ostrich —— oxford astrazeneca vaccine rollout that happens today at several hospitals and of course gp surgeries across the country. lots of detail on our website as you can see here so do takea website as you can see here so do take a look to find out the very latest information. i will be back in the —— in a moment with the latest business stories. hello. 2021 has certainly started on a cold and wintry note. through the weekend we have seen sleet and snow from many places, not everywhere, this was near sheffield on sunday afternoon. there's also been heavy rain showers around. over the coming few days the story stays the same, staying cold with a mix of rain, sleet and snow, mainly over hills, the snow. some sunshine but often quite windy conditions, particularly through monday and tuesday. we have high pressure sitting to the north of the uk, low pressure down towards the south, south—west and in between those two areas, we're drawing in that cold wind coming in from the north—east of the north sea so that brings showers on monday, rain for east anglia and the south—east and the channel isles and further north, one or two wintry showers over the pennines, southern uplands and one or two over the higher ground of wales. a good deal of sunshine developing for many areas, it will be a windy day, though, with gusts over 40 mph along the coast of east anglia and through the english channel. temperatures up to about 4—6 degrees, below average for the time of year and feeling colder when you add that wind—chill. moving through monday evening, overnight into tuesday, we've got more showers feeding in from the north sea on the north—easterly wind and it could be ice and snow around for parts of eastern scotland and north—east england as well. temperatures overnight not quite as cold as recent nights but still getting down to freezing or below, the coldest across the north—west. heading into tuesday, a similar day to monday, watch out for ice and snow once again, particularly for eastern scotland, northern england and further rain showers to come for east anglia and the south—east of england and the channel isles, this stubborn area of cloud and rain persisting. another cold day with some sunshine and around 3—6 degrees and still are wind—chill on tuesday. moving through into wednesday, high pressure tends to move away towards the west so we are in between weather systems heading into wednesday, a quieter day and the breeze turns to a northerly direction for the middle to the end of the week. probably quite a bit of sunshine, still a few showers for eastern england, one or two for the south—east and channel isles as well. and it is staying cold for the time of year with temperatures only about 1—4 degrees on wednesday. bye for now. this is bbc news with the latest headlines for viewers in the uk and around the world. britain is facing the first true test of its brexit preparations today, with thousands of lorries expected to make the channel crossing for the first time since the country left the eu's single market and customs union. where will the world go with its vast mountains of discarded goods? china has now closed its doors to all imports of solid waste. and we meet the trainers who make lots of money out of old sneakers. learn how you could too.