welcome to bbc news. i'm mike embley. our top stories: california's governor declares a state of emergency over the coronavirus. the state has confirmed at least 50 cases and its first death. with at least 100 virus deaths recorded so far, the highest outside china, italy closes schools, universities, cinemas and theatres. as super tuesday brings a dramatic political comeback forjoe biden, his billionaire rival michael bloomberg pulls out, giving his backing to the former vice—president. i have always believed that it sta rts i have always believed that it starts with uniting behind the candidate with the best shot to do it, and after yesterday puzzling vote, it is clear that candidate is my friend and a

great friend, joe biden. on the greek island of lesbos, more violence as locals clash with hundreds of refugees and migrants coming from turkey. and how our online streaming habit could be harming the environment. hello to you. this news just breaking as we come on air to you. the governor of california, gavin newsom, has declared a state of emergency over the coronavirus outbreak. that will allow the state to deploy additional resources to fight the virus. mr newsom's announcement came after the virus spread to 12 counties across the state, killing one person and infecting more than 50. we've had a number of incidences throughout the state of california —

no longer north, now in southern california. we have accordingly, with this new icu patient that passed away, entered into this next phase that has required me under the circumstances to advance a proclamation of a state of emergency in the state of california. chris buckler is in washington for us. we will have more on this from oui’ we will have more on this from our reporters soon. covid—i9 cases around the world are still rising. in mainland china, where the outbreak started, the number of deaths has now passed 3,000. france has confirmed that 285 people there have the virus, that's an increase of 25% on the previous day. italy has the biggest outbreak in europe and is shutting all schools, all universities, cinemas and theatres for at least 10 days. all professional sport in italy will be played behind closed doors for a month. at least 107 people have died there

and about 3,000 are infected. from rome, the bbc‘s mark lowen. an early easter break for pupils across italy. every school and university will now close from tonight in a bid to halt the virus. europe's worst hit country stepping up its response. it's a problem because we have to stop the exams, we have to stop almost all the activities in the classroom. maybe we can do something from home. but it's not the same, of course. parents and children are taking in the news. for some, the disruption is a price worth paying. it's not a question of panicking, but taking necessary measures to avoid the virus spreading out. her 9—year—old, ernesto, says he's happy because it means no studying and no homework. italy was the first in europe to ban all flights to china,

the first to cordon off whole towns, now the first to close all schools. a dramatic response to a deepening crisis. and perhaps an example of how other countries too may respond if their outbreaks continue to worsen. as cases and deaths rise, more towns in the north may be quarantined. cinemas and theatres could close. and the government is even set to advise tactile italians not to greet by kissing. so, how many rooms here are occupied? no one. none of them? empty. coronavirus fear is battering italy's economy, with hotels empty. 0wner giuseppe roscioli says he's had 90% cancellations and it's the biggest crisis in his 35 years. and if this situation gets worse, what will happen? we have the key, we can close the door. italy is now facing an unprecedented challenge and a desperate search for a remedy for the virus and for this country's suffering. mark lowen, bbc news, rome.

more now on the news that the government —— governor of california. it sounds dramatic. it is the first declaration. what does it actually mean? they are two states that have already declared two states of emergency and it is about getting access to resources, doing their very best to get money in order to try and tackle this problem and to stop the spread, and that is of particular concern for california at the moment because they have had their first death now connected to the coronavirus, a 71—year—old man who was on board a cruise ship stop that cruise ship return to san francisco two weeks ago and he got off, but the cruise ship continued on on its journey to hawaii and is now off the coast of california where 21 people are apparently showing symptoms of potentially

having the coronavirus. but again is causing concern in california. they will try and get them tested. when you look at the figures, it is very clear that california is worried. they say so far they have had something like 53 people who have tested positive, but there are 9000 people being monitored and that is really the worry that potentially this could get worse, and as a result, they wa nt a ccess worse, and as a result, they want access to money now to try to ensure they stop the spread before things get any worse. clearly this outbreak brings economic problems, it brings personal difficulties and tragedies. but politically, it isa tragedies. but politically, it is a problem for anyone seeking to be president potential voters are looking for a steady hand. absolutely. ithink voters are looking for a steady hand. absolutely. i think there isa hand. absolutely. i think there is a lot of focus now on exactly what the white house is going to do to respond to this. congress is now agreed on something like $8 billion to try and have money to make sure they can address any problems that emerge. you may remember

that emerge. you may remember that last week president trump was accused of being somewhat dismissive of the dangers. it has changed entirely. the vice president is going to visit a factory where facemasks are being made and he is travelling to washington state and of course washington state has got in some ways the biggest problems of anywhere in the us because they have had ten people die as a result of the coronavirus. in the greater seattle area, there is a great deal of concern. so this is really a white house trying to show it is getting on top of this problem before it becomes any worse stop of course the health authorities are saying that there is a real fear things will get worse because of community spread. chris, thank you very much for that. talking of people who want to be president... the billionaire michael bloomberg has ended his campaign for the us presidency and endorsed former vice—presidentjoe biden. the round of super tuesday primaries in 14 states have left mr biden the frontrunner to stand for the democratic

party against donald trump in november's election. michael bloomberg's only victory was in the tiny territory of american samoa. he explained why he was leaving the race. if you remember, i entered the race for president to defeat donald trump. and today, i am leaving the race for the same reason — to defeat donald trump, because staying in would make it more difficult to achieve that goal. more detail now on exactly what happened on super tuesday from our north america editor. tonight's cbs news projects biden has one in virginia. he will get the biggest share of the 99 delegates. no-one predicted that. joe biden's campaign which a week ago was held below the waterline and sinking without trace was suddenly skipping along the waves. he notched a win after win in the most dramatic turnaround of political fortunes. they are very much

alive! and make no mistake about it... this campaign will send donald trump packing! this campaign is taking off! at bernie sanders's rally in vermont, they were hoping for and had been predicted a much better night. it's all the 78—year—old senator turning his fire onjoe 78—year—old senator turning his fire on joe biden. 78—year—old senator turning his fire on joe biden. we are not only taking on the corporate establishment. we are taking on the political establishment! his supporters watched with anxiety and some paranoia. is bernie sanders going to be the democratic party nominee? yes, he is. ithink democratic party nominee? yes, he is. i think the democratic party nominee? yes, he is. ithink the democrats are conspiring to make sure he gets locked out. burning or nobody, 100%. bernie or nobody? evenif nobody, 100%. bernie or nobody? even if that lets donald trump infor even if that lets donald trump in for anotherfour even if that lets donald trump in for another four years? that

isa in for another four years? that is a tough one, but yes. the billionaire mike bloomberg last night discovered that money can't buy love and can't buy votes. he is out, but is throwing his weight and more significantly, his fortune behind joe biden. they must decide what does metabolism of must now decide what she is going to do. it is a slugfest between two very old heavyweights, joe biden and bernie sanders. bernie sanders has the grassroots organisation, butjoe biden has omentum. 0rjoe—mentum as they are counting —— by calling it, and that counts for a lot. the greek island of lesbos is the latest flashpoint in the migrant crisis. aid agencies have complained their staff have been assaulted and intimidated as they try to cope with people coming by boat from turkey. the governor of lesbos has apologised for the violent actions of some local residents. hundreds of migrants and refugees have arrived on the island since friday when turkey opened its borders.

jean mackenzie reports from lesbos. where are you from? congo. how old are you? ten. ten? these are lesbos's newest arrivals, trapped on the island, now behind bars. i've been here for three days. three days? yeah. what's it like in here? not enough food, no sleeping. we want to go to a better place, not here. hundreds of migrants from afghanistan, syria and the congo have made it across the sea since turkey opened its borders last week. most have been kept in this holding pen. can they leave or are they detained? they can leave? no, so they are detained? for years, this island has been overcrowded. more than 20,000 refugees now live in a camp that was meant forfar, far fewer, stuck here while europe struggles to agree on what to do with them. thousands make their way from the camp to the port,

desperate to leave. these flare—ups have angered locals and that anger has turned to violence. migrants and journalists have been attacked. and an aid centre has been set on fire. some aid workers are now leaving the island. the medical clinics, which treat hundreds every day, have been closed. why are you locking up? because we have a lot of problems on the island with ngos. we're having a lot of riots with the ngos. it looks like we are dealing in a war zone and this unpredictable security situation is something that we never experienced before. recent videos show the greek coastguard firing at people trying to cross the sea. we show these to the island's governor. they have received such orders to shoot, but in the air, not on the people. look, look.

that's the migrants being hit on the head by the coastguard. yes. what do you think about that? i reject. i don't like it. i don't like this behaviour. it doesn't represent me. as greece scrambles to secure its borders, european leaders have offered hundreds of millions of pounds to help. we don't want money, we want not to have a problem. the point is not to get money. the point is not to have a problem. let's spare their money. let's send the money back. a navy ship arrives to take the new arrivals to the mainland, but thousands are left behind, on this island that no longer wants them. jean mckenzie, bbc news. one of europe's biggest regional airlines — the british carrier, flybe — is on the verge of collapse, threatening thousands of jobs. the airline looks likely to go into administration — a form of protection for creditors. flybe was saved earlier this year when it was taken over

by a consortium including virgin atlantic, but it's in trouble again because the coronavirus outbreak has sent bookings into a slump. jon kay reports from flybe headquarters. (tx nexto —— jon kay reports from flybe headquarters. touching down in exeter, one of flybe's last flights of the day. but what will be taking off tomorrow? these are not passengers with luggage, but mechanics taking their tools home from the compa ny‘s headquarters at the end of the runway. they'd come in especially to collect their kit, even before any official announcement. we are not allowed to tell you anything. nothing. have you been told what's happening? no. it has been an anxious few weeks for the 400 staff here, and tonight, they've been arriving, desperate for news. i don't know anything either way, so... have you been given any indication what's going on? none. sorry, guys. we literally don't know. we know as much as everybody else on the news. where does that leave you? who knows?

questions also for flybe passengers arriving into exeter tonight. they told us the company provides vital roots and is an important part of this region's economy and beyond. tonight, speculation is unsettling. i mean, it's not great. it is handy having it here. i work in greenwich and it cuts 2—2.5 hours of the travelling time by being able to fly. it will be detrimental to the whole of the south—west if we can't get from plymouth and have to drive to exeter. the next stop is bristol. meanwhile, as more staff turn up to find out what is happening, a delivery of pizzas. a long night ahead after a difficultjourney for flybe. john kay, bbc news, exeter. stay with us on bbc news. still to come: why venezuela's president is urging women to have as many as six children for what he called the good

of the country. first, the plates slid gently off the restaurant tables. then suddenly, the tables, the chairs and people crashed sideways and downwards, and it was just a matter of seconds as the ferry lurched onto her side. the hydrogen bomb. on a remote pacific atoll, the americans had successfully tested a weapon whose explosive force dwarfed that of the bomb dropped on hiroshima. i had heard the news earlier, and so my heart went bang, bang, bang! the constitutional rights of these marchers are their rights as citizens of the united states, and they should be protected even in the right to test them out, so that they don't get their heads broken and are sent to hospital. this religious controversy — i know you don't want to say too much about it — but does it worry you that it's going to boil up when you get to the states? well, it worries me, yes,

but i hope everything will be all right in the end, as they say. this is bbc news. the latest headlines: california's governor declares a state of emergency over the coronavirus after reporting the state's first death and confirming at least 50 cases. super tuesday has marked a dramatic political comeback forjoe biden as the billionaire mike bloomberg offers to support the former vice—president. the president of venezuela has urged women to have as many as 6 children for what it calls the good of the country. nicolas maduro was speaking at an event promoting women's health. venezuela is in the grip of a long—running political and economic crisis. shortages are widespread. between 2013 and 2018, according to the un children's agency unicef, 13% of venezuelan children were malnourished.

live now to neighbouring colombia. we can speak now to selene soto, who's a lawyer at the non—profit organisation womens link worldwide. i know you are venezuelan. what is going on with this announcement? i am a senior attorney at women's link worldwide. this would raise maximum concern to women's organisations because it is clearly a n attem pt organisations because it is clearly an attempt that to curb womenchoices. we are not reproductive midteens but. but what are seeing with the crisis in venice the state does not addressing the severe impact the humanitarian crisis is having on rights affecting women and girls. for example, in an emblematic public hospital in caracas,, there is

no water service. women face imminent risk when they go into labour or when they go in, because if they suffer with an emergency, there was no blood in the hospital. the health system has collapsed at but it's particularly affecting women because they don't have access to these specialised services that they need. so as you are making clear, this is a country that can barely cope with its existing population. thousands of bled the country, of course. what is the response as far as you can tell to the ——in the country to this responsibility, pressure being put on women? unfortunately, there hasn't been any response. this hospital i was talking about was granted precautionary measures from the commission of human rights last year because the extreme risk that women are facing and up until now, the state hasn't given any response to these decisions on the commission. the national

organisations are saying women are being forced into motherhood because they don't have any options. even other organisations like the human rights commission or the un high commissioner have identified the impact is so severe, this is making women leave the country or they decide to migrate to other countries to seek treatment of healthcare that they need. just very briefly, if you don't mind, we are slightly limited for time. what does it say to you about the maduro government that he has made this call. at a time when these rights are at the centre of many public baits, in order to move forward in protecting these rights, u nfortu nately in protecting these rights, unfortunately in venezuela there is only historical setbacks that are put women in situations compared to the last century. thank you very much indeed for your input. climate change caused by humans contributed to the weather conditions behind the recent bushfires in southeastern australia.

that's according to a team of leading climate scientists at the world weather attribution group. it's the first time a definitive link has been made and it could help motivate political change. freya cole reports. the flames arrived earlier, lasted longer and were worse than predicted. thousands of firefighters were deployed every day, putting their lives on the line to battle buyers which were volatile and vicious. it was dry, from a prolonged drought and temperatures were scorching hot. the first time, a team of scientists can prove that human made climate change intensified these conditions which in turn intensified the severity of the bushfires. the warning is very stark and i think that we really got to understand, i don't like the phrase "new normal) ——", what we're doing

is entering into a rapid transition of associated with rapid warming and we're going to start seeing the earth's system responding with catastrophic responses. the most catastrophic responses. the m ost rece nt catastrophic responses. the most recent bushfire season in australia has been dubbed the black summer. 33 lives were lost, millions of animals were killed in the flames destroyed 11 million had tears of bush and forest. by minister scott morrison was heavily criticised for his response and is governed's lack of climate policy. some senior ministers still dispute there is a link between the bushfire crisis and a warming planet. the pressure is on australia's leadership to do more. tens of thousands of people are engaged in climate protests a nd people are engaged in climate protests and have vowed to fight on. looking to the future, this study predict that have global temperatures climb by two degrees, which is on the cards, the likelihood of a similar bushfire season would

be at least four times more likely. an alarming prediction, given the scale of destruction. freya cole, bbc news. streaming music, movies and tv is hugely popular, of course, but there's concern about what it does to the environment. all that data requires data centres — hundreds of thousands of them around the world — many using electricity generated by burning fossil fuels. the figures suggest it now creates about the same volume of carbon emissions as flying. this from our environment correspondent claire marshall. when we post a video or a photo or save something to the cloud, it leaves our device and travels through different networks. maybe through cables under the ocean to a building called a data centre, where it's stored. when we want to see it, this data is exploded into thousands of pieces, each one travelling a different route. when they get to a device, they put themselves back in the right order. so the internet, or the cloud, isn'tjust in the air. it exists in buildings like this one. i'm in london's docklands, where fruit and veg used to be traded on these streets. now it's data, huge amounts of it. in this building, thousands

of servers and they're capturing and storing and sending all our data. there are now hundreds of thousands of these energy hungry data centres. the problem is that many are powered by fossilfuels. this is that us state of northern virginia, known as the internet capital of the world. this is one of the coal—fired power stations supplying it with electricity, belching carbon dioxide, a potent greenhouse gas. it belongs to dominion energy, the largest provider, which generates much of its power by burning fossilfuels. microsoft and google are here. amazon has built 55 data centres. we think of amazon as a giant online supermarket but actually the company makes far more money building and renting data centres. most of the residents are pretty clueless as to what is right here. alex rue is campaigning for the tech companies to use green energy.

processing large amounts of data on a daily basis. these data centres are consuming large amounts of energy to process that data to stay operational in a 24—7 environment. dominion energy told us they were committed to net zero carbon and methane emissions by 2050. amazon said they were working towards 80% renewable energy by 2024, and 100% by 2030. technology is adapting quickly. data centres are more efficient than ever but there is a whole new challenge — 5g. 5g will generate much more traffic and demand much more power, which is not good for climate change. we've all got to change. i think the internet‘s got the power to help us control and reduce climate change but we need to change some of our more frivolous behaviour. streaming videos and standard definition rather than hd saves four times the omission and using wi—fi rather than three or 4g uses a third of the

energy. hello. 0verall, thursdayi think would be too bad a day across the majority of the uk. there will be some decent sunshine, just a few showers here or there. quite a chilly start with some patchy frost and fog. the one major exception is the far south of the uk. had area of low pressure ploughing into the continent bringing very heavy rain into trance and it will just glance southern counties of england to the first type of the day. so looking pretty wet as that low works its way to the south, certainly i think from the latter part of the rush hour into the lunchtime period, across the south—eastern quadrant of the uk, the rain will come as far north as essex, it should

gradually clear come the afternoon. in contrast, elsewhere behind the area of rainfall, showers pulling into east anglia. the west of scotla nd east anglia. the west of scotland and northern ireland. temperatures struggling a little of the many of us, hires on seven or eight degrees. come thursday evening, below pulls away. we will see organised showers coming in from the west. with white —— light winds ahead of it, temperatures likely to fall. whether our showers, ice could be a significant risk across western britain on friday. this front though is kind of affairs of the rain daphne through friday daytime more showery than coming ina daytime more showery than coming in a solid and persistent lock and it may ma nifest persistent lock and it may manifest as some thickening cloud for a time as it drifts in from the west on friday. most likely to gcc showers, scotland, northern ireland, western wales and the far south—west of england. far

south, showers around. the weekend, another big area of low pressure heading our way, shouldn't be anywhere near as severe as the teacher we saw last weekend, and the worst of the rainfall should sweep through overnight saturday into sunday. sofa saturday, well, yes, a lot of cloud around a lot dry weather, rain through the afternoon in northern ireland and scotland. temperatures on saturday, around average for the time of year. we are talking around nine or 10 degrees. is this system rolls through overnight, temperatures in some spot may come up temperatures in some spot may come up as a temperatures in some spot may come up as a plume of warm air is ahead of the front but the sunday, we are plunged into cooler conditions behind it and some quite sharp showers around. some sunny intervals at times as well. temperatures look similar on the face of it for sunday but it will deal chillier on sunday as we pick up chillier on sunday as we pick upa chillier on sunday as we pick up a north—westerly wind.

this is bbc news, the headlines: california has declared a state of emergency over the coronavirus, after reporting the state's first death and confirming at least 50 cases. more than 80 countries have reported cases so far. italy has the biggest outbreak in europe — more than 100 people have died. the billionaire, michael bloomberg, has ended his campaign and endorsed the former vice president, joe biden, who emerged as the frontrunner to stand against donald trump in november's presidential election. the greek island of lesbos has become the latest flashpoint in the new migrant crisis affecting parts of europe. the governor of lesbos apologised for the actions of some residents. aid agencies say they have been assaulted as they try to cope with refugees coming by boat from turkey.