News in Picture

After seven-and-a-half years, the American military's combat mission in Iraq formally ends today, though approximately 50,000 troops will stay to train and advise Iraqi security forces.

Our Diplomatic editor Mark Urban is in Washington for us where he has been speaking to veterans about what the Iraq war meant for the US. We'll discuss the legacy of the Iraq war and what the nature of future US interventions will be with Senator John Warner and the Iraqi Ambassador to the United States, Samir Sumaida'ie.

Also tonight, conservative Americans flocked in massive numbers to the Lincoln memorial at the weekend, the site of Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech 47 years ago. The rally which was hosted by the controversial Fox News TV host Glenn Beck, known for making racially provocative statements in the past. "It's like the damn Planet of the Apes," Beck said of America on his TV show recently in a segment on pension policy and President Obama.

The US is caught in a whirlwind of racially charged debates in the run up to the crucial mid-term elections, in which Republicans are battling to take control of Congress. Across the country there are heated debates over immigration and the building of mosques. America's conservative Tea Party supporters, worried about debt and government spending too, are portraying America's first black President as unpatriotic and "un-American" for his stance on these issues, and their message is selling.

Hilary Andersson will be considering how the Tea Party has captured many Americans' imagination by instilling fear of President Obama and his promise of transforming America, and asks to what extent racial fears are bound up with this.

The official memorabilia to mark Pope Benedict's September visit to Britain is already on sale - so if you purchase a papal t-shirt, a Swarovski bracelet or a baseball cap the proceeds will go towards the costs of hosting him. Tonight we'll be speaking to Chris Patten, who has been appointed by the prime minister to help arrange the tour, and we'll be asking him about the costs, the red tape, and the controversy surrounding the papal visit.

And we hope to bring you the latest on the revelations in Tony Blair's new book, being published tomorrow.

Do join Gavin at 10.30pm on BBC Two.

US Federal Reserve head Ben Bernanke is delivering a key policy speech as the US economy faces a sharp slowdown. He's telling fellow bankers what options - if any - remain to turn the stalling recovery around. So is the US on the verge of a double dip recession? We'll be hearing from our Economics editor Paul Mason.

Media execs are gathering in Edinburgh for the start of the annual international television festival, where the BBC Director General Mark Thompson is due to deliver the MacTaggart Lecture.

Last year one of the BBC's biggest competitors, James Murdoch, launched an outspoken attack on the corporation in his keynote speech, describing the BBC's ambitions as "chilling".

So how will Mr Thompson respond? Stephen Smith will be watching.

UK scientists have released draft sequences of the wheat genome which they think could make a vital contribution to securing global food supplies.

The researchers also say their efforts could help farmers around the world to develop new strains with greater yields. Our Science editor Susan Watts will be considering how significant a development it is, and we'll be joined in the studio by one of the team of researchers who made the breakthrough.

We'll be asking whether science holds the answer to feeding a population growing in size and prosperity.

Do join Gavin Esler at 10.30pm on BBC Two for Friday's Newsnight. And don't forget we'll be off-air for the bank holiday, but we're back on Tuesday 31 August - usual time and place.

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