these are the main stories: in the united states, another 6.6 million workers have filed for employment in the last week. that brings the number of claims to almost 17 million injust three weeks. new figures also show that up to 60,000 americans could die with coronavirus, downscaling the earlier estimates. here in the uk, there is being another massive rise in reported deaths. but the prime minister, boris johnson, who is receiving treatment for coronavirus, has been moved out of intensive care at a london hospital. a spokesperson said his recovery is at an early stage. a new research suggests people living in areas with high pollution are more likely to die from the coronavirus pandemic. the study from researchers at the harvard public school of health found an overlap between deaths and other diseases associated with long—term pollution.

there's been a spike in deaths at a number of care homes in the uk since the outbreak began. deaths that care homes are not included in the daily figures which only reports those who have died in hospital. alison holt reports. at the castletroy residential home in luton they've now had 13 residents who have died from the coronavirus in recent days. for staff, a deeply distressing fight as they had try to protect the older and disabled people they care for. castletroy staff here have been working very hard to shield residents themselves and their own families, while continuing to provide the care and support needed by our residents. we send our condolences to the family and friends at this very sad time, because they are our family. many care staff feel the vital role they are playing in this fight against the virus is being largely overlooked. in care homes like this one, the vulnerability of their residents means

they are on the front line of dealing with the coronavirus. but for weeks now up and down the country they have been asking for more personal protective equipment and for testing. this sheffield nursing home is one of three run by the same care provider. i have visited them in the past to talk about the staffing and funding pressures already faced by the care sector. now across the homes they have had six residents die of covid—19 and 30 people are showing symptoms. we need support, the ppe, additional... we need extra funding to be able to pay staff agency rates. we need extra funding to be able to pay staff more agency rates. at the minute, it is just so challenging. we are just reacting daily to more problems. 90—year—old ellen lindley is a resident at one of their homes and her son says no

one on her corridor has the virus but understandably he is worried. the public authorities are supposed to protect these people. what are they doing? it seems to me the care homes are at the bottom of the pile again, and basically you're going to end up with these care homes being used as hospices. both councils and those representing care providers say getting the right equipment and testing for care staff needs to be a higher priority. we need greater recognition from all the system and also from the general public for the work that we do. there is a real need as well to make sure that when we see things like testing coming through for the nhs that social care is not forgotten. the government says it is distributing more protective equipment and stepping up testing. alison holt, bbc news. now on bbc news, it's time for the travel show.

my name is tony giles and i'm totally blind and severely deaf in both ears. now we're moving. feel the wind in my hair. i've spent the last 21 years travelling. i've visited over 120 countries. every continent in the world, including antarctica. my mission is to visit every country in the world. i started off in december planning this recent trip and i decided i'd just start in egypt, the top of north africa, and work my way through several countries to get to ethiopia. want to have a try of that? mm, it's good, it's quite sweet. yeah, right? it's my passion, it's what i do. it always makes me happy. it's the biggest challenge i can get.

when i'm travelling country to country, i usually take public transport. when i get to the city i'm visiting, i hear people get ready on a bus. the bus will pull up, stop. i usually wait for most people to get off. i get my backpack, get my stick out. meskel square, yes? bye— bye. bye—bye, thank you.

i follow the people. i can hear them so i know they're getting off. i'm looking for a phone shop. i will ask people, is there a shop nearby i can buy a sim card if i haven't got one. you can show me? thanks. excuse me, mate. yeah? could you help me put my new sim card in my phone? i use a website called couchsurfing and ifind local people on the website and they have profiles and i have a profile so i contact them. hello. is that mr happy? hi, this is tony, your couchsurfer. can you tell me how to get to your place, please? i'm going to take a taxi so what — where do i need to tell

him to go? 0k. alright. so i will see in about half—an—hour, a0 minutes. thanks very much. bye. i need to find a taxi now. taxi? where are you going? hello. i go to gotera. gotera? yeah, gotera, yeah. 200 birr. 200 -150? 0k, go on. i lost my dad when i was 15, i6. i lost my best friend when i was 16, i don't really talk about. it was a big loss for me. 0k. thanks. it sent me off into alcoholism for a good six to seven years. by the age of 2a, i was almost an alcoholic. once i got my head out of the bottle, i could see that there was a different road to go down. i was hung up about being blind for a long time, especially as a teenager, early 20s. and then i suddenly realised

the more people i met, i realised they wanted to be around me not because i was blind or different, but because of who i was, my personality. driving along a straight road, a bit of a wind. still smell the car fumes, they're everywhere. hello, mr happy. it's tony. i think i'm at your street, at your place. i'm opposite a restaurant. i can smell the food, but i'm not sure how to get to you. apparently i'm by the gates someone‘s told me. it's tony. i think i'm at your street, at your place. i'm opposite a restaurant. i can smell the food, but i'm not sure how to get to you. apparently i'm by the gates someone‘s told me. hey—hey, tony!

hello! guess who's here. mr happy. yeah, i'm glad, i'm glad to see you. good to meet you. how are you? thank you very much for coming. you found it already. wonderful, yeah. welcome to addis, my place already. thank you. he's a really nice guy, really friendly. as his name would say, happy. full of energy and was really happy to meet me, i was really excited to meet him. take a step. yes, there you go. you have it all easy. welcome to your couchsurfing place. thank you. your happy home. my space, yeah, thank you. this will be your sleeping spot. 0k, just a mattress? yeah, that's a mattress. i mostly even sleep here. 0k. i like to sleep on the floor. great, yep. one of the main components about my travelling is food. eating food, talking about food, sometimes buying food and cooking. hello. i'd like to buy shiro, please.

i was very fortunate that mr happy very kindly offered to cook for me some local ethiopian food. how much is that altogether? 70. 70? i bought some shiro, and also a kilo of tomatoes and a kilo of chilli. people are lovely, very, very helpful, very kind. some people speak a little bit of english. sometimes it can be confusing, especially if there's a lot of people pushing each other, all shouting for the same thing. even when you can see,

you don't really quite know what you're buying. what is shiro exactly? shiro is like a powder made of chickpeas. 0k. it is like one of the staple foods that we have here. so we call this dancing shiro time because the shiro kind of bubbles out and then dances. and you just cook it here, where the heat is coming from? yeah, where the heat is coming from, we have a charcoal here, so natural fire—making. do you want to have a try of that? give me your hand.

you just put it here and then you can just put it to your mouth and taste it. nice. it's good, it's quite sweet. yeah, right? that's from the tomato. i hope it tastes as good as it smells. of course, ready for it? yeah! lunch is here. what a nice smell, lunch! thank you very much. hungry? 0h, very hungry. great. so we have our shiro in the centre, which is like the focal element of the food. and then we have a couple of vegetables. do you like kale? yep. kale is like our green vegetable. then we have some tomatoes by the side, and some chillies. mostly we take time to bless the food in a way. we kind of give it a good vibration

in a way so just take a few seconds to be just grateful and thankful for having this food. thank you very much. great. the other thing cultural in ethiopia as we eat together, is something called "gursha". gursha. gursha is basically feeding each other. it is like, i made a bit of like a bite and then ijust give that to you. beside the content of feeding a person, it is also a sign of respect and care. it's like a mother feeding a child, so there's some care into it. it is a culture that we do here. so i'm going to give you one of that now. are you ready? this will be interesting. open your mouth and you have yourfirst gursha... wow. nice. this is incredible food. people, you have to come to ethiopia and eat this food. you like it? it's delicious, it's tasty, it's a little spicy, it's a little...so rich. at least four or five different textures in this one dish i can

taste on my tongue. so now is your turn to give me a bite of that. see how you do the gursha. gursha. here it comes. you are like a pro. having this little ceremony, eating traditional ethiopian food with a lovely person, who i now consider my friend, is a wonderful experience. it's very humbling. to be able to share and exchange cultures is so wonderful. it is hard to describe, really. very emotional. i can't pick up a book and think, let's go to this place or let's go to that place. so i had to have the research, i had to have the knowledge beforehand and i have a very, very good memory so i plan my route before i travel. i don't know who i'm going to meet, i don't know what's going to happen and to me that is all an adventure, it is exciting. many people say i could not do that, i couldn't imagine it. but i've never really seen so me, i don't worry about it because i don't know. it is all the unknown and that is what i love and enjoy.

trying to find people that i can help me with on line. i found this guy called mike, a local guy, who seemed really interesting, good fun. i says i was coming to addis, want to meet up? have a coffee or have a chat about ethiopian life and culture? tony? mike, hi, good to meet you. thanks for coming. welcome to ethiopia. have a seat. ijust really wanted to meet you and find out a bit more about ethiopia and what is going on in addis. likewise, i really wanted to meet you, when we contacted. we recently had change in government so it was not an election but by popular demand a new government has come up to power. it is a new government, a young leader, a kind of visionary. the people's man. the first time most people

would have heard about ethiopia would have been 1985, the band aid and live aid, the famine. but there is more than that, what's more to ethiopia? that image stayed in people's minds and shuttered everything else. when the famine was over and we were back to safe times, nobody was reporting on that. like, if you take the farming side, ethiopia is the fifth—largest country in the world with the number of livestock. it is not as depicted. 0k, mike, where are we going? now we are going to the headquarters of the african union. so there, we are going to see a statue, a new statue

that was just inaugurated and it is a statue of haile selassie, our last emperor. i've heard of him. if you do this, you are getting a nice picture, and if you turn the camera sideways, because it's... vertical, yeah. tony, you're a nice photographer. thanks. yeah. awesome. yeah, yeah. you have a talent for pictures. yeah, just shoot and point, hopefully something comes out. how important is haile selassie to ethiopian people? for some, he was a hero, for others he was a villain. because whenever you occupy a throne, those are the things, the two balls you juggle. he had tried to modernise the country. so he did work a lot on education, that was one of his main interests. my grandfather was a big fan of him. he said, he used to come

to their school, randomly, just to check on what the students were being fed. every time he would come, he would bring them grapes, apples, oranges. and how was he viewed by young ethiopian people today? haile selassie is immortalised, he is iconic. if you bring your hand, and interlace it here, and you do this... yeah, yeah. it goes back to unity. yeah, yeah, of course. so, we are heading into north addis. we are going to see an art gallery, an art gallery for blind and visually impaired people. i'm assuming some kind of tactile art exhibition.

different textures to make a picture or pictures. that's what i'm assuming. we'll find out when we get there. thank you. the entrance? hi, tony. welcome. hi. welcome to my studio. thank you, i'm really looking forward to it. let me show you one of the art pieces. wow. so, we're touching a piece of art. these are people, who are laughing. this is their mouths. 0k. this is their nose. this is their eyes.

these are like buttons, are they? yes. so it is a face. you can see their hands, they are screaming, happy, expressing themselves. do you like it? it's really good, it's really interesting. it really gives a blind person a better understanding of expression of people. it's amazing. it's really inspiring. so many times you go to art galleries with your friends, and you sort of feel excluded. touching this made me feel included. a christian cross. actually art i can appreciate. i felt equal. it was really nice, really positive.

i feel just like anyone else looking at art. radio: ethiopia's number one station for news, music and entertainment? that's us, 105.3 afro fm! driving through addis one afternoon, got a bit hungry, so got a taxi to stop at a food stall on the street. i went in and talked to the guy there. i was talking to him and telling him my story, i travel around the world and i'm blind. we're about to go live on air. are you ready? yep! he said, do you want to come on my breakfast show? i said, yeah, that would be cool, yeah. talk to the people, share my story, maybe inspire a few people.

good morning, good morning, good morning, ladies and gentlemen. how're you doing? it's the best breakfast in town, your voice of motivation, inspiration. every single day. i'm sitting here with an amazing person, tony giles is here in the studio. he is a blind person, but also partially deaf, but he has managed to travel to 138 countries around the world. good morning, everyone. the question i have for you right now, i'm sure a lot of our listeners are wondering as well, what are the main challenges you face doing this project you've been doing? one of the most difficult ones is getting money out of atm machines, cash machines. i have to find somebody i can trust. i have to check them out, listen to their story, how they're sounding, figure out that i can trust them and go to the cash machine with them. they help me to read the screen, i can press the buttons and put my information in, and once i get the money, i have to ask them, what denomination are these? i can't read a menu in a restaurant, so i have to have an idea

of the national dish of each country i visit. in ethiopia it's quite easy, injera. probably one of the other biggest challenges for me is crossing borders. i have to hand my passport over to someone, and i don't know where that passport goes, and i have to hope it's going to get back to me. what keeps you going, when you are faced with challenges? how do you keep your chin up? when i get tired and i think i can't do it anymore, i think about my best friend. he died when i was young. he had a serious disability, and he couldn't move most of his body. i always think of him, he inspired me. i've got it easy compared to what he has. just keep going, yeah. ladies and gentlemen, here you have it. the one and only tony giles here in the studio. it was such an amazing, inspirational story. yeah, i have dark days. not so many now. one of the main reasons i started travelling was escapism, escapism from my emotions. i can do things

physically, that's easy. i run away from my emotions. i couldn't deal with relationships for a long time. because i thought an everyday relationship would end the same way as my relationship with my friend, i thought. people would go away. i thought that's what would happen with a relationship. and for a long time, it did. i realised that there's more to life. i could stop grieving. i still occasionally gets dark days. but the way you overcome them, the way i overcome them, is, i think, when i get up tomorrow, i think, what's the next challenge? i know people love me. so that's enough. some people might say i'm on the extreme edge of travel, and the extreme edge of disabled people.

i do worry sometimes, when i'm giving talks, doing interviews, am i going to put people off? am i going to make people think, wow, that's incredible, that's so out there, i couldn't do that, i couldn't possibly. i wonder if in a weird way, maybe i discourage people. i guess ijust thought i'd have to tell it and let people take from it what they will. without people, i wouldn't be able to travel. i think it's a two—way thing. people are helping me, and i'm given something back. i show them there's an alternative way. they say, how do you travel, how can you see? why have you come to my country, you're blind. i tell them, well, i come to eat the food and meet the people

and hear the music and walk on the terrain up and down the mountains. i can feel it all through my skin and my feet and that's how i see a country. the terrain around the churches on the outside is up there with some of the toughest places and terrain i have visited. i just want to be normal. it's just so frustrating. got to be strong all the time. it's the only way i can travel, the only way i can cope.

hello there. most parts of the country will be dry and warm today. yesterday was the warmest day of the year so far in wales with temperatures of 23.5 degrees in cardiff, similar temperatures again today and some parts of southern england may reach 25 degrees. yesterday under the cloud in newcastle was only 9 degrees so today will be warmer, a bit warmer across central and southern parts of scotland. over the weekend we will see the high temperatures getting squeezed down towards the south—east of england, it will start to seem cooler from the north, significant change for all of us on monday with cool and northerly wind. these are the temperatures that we start off with on friday so mild even in the south where we have clearer skies. much milder across northern scotland this time but there will be rain to clear away from the northern isles and then we see some sharp showers coming in across scotland, perhaps the far north of england before it brightens up and we get

sunshine, the rain holding off until the evening. sunshine across england and wales and the high—temperature is likely to be in the midlands, wales towards the south—east of england 2a maybe even 25 degrees. some of that heat could trigger thundery downpours late in the day across north wales moving to northern england and there is also wet weather coming into parts of scotland as well. there will still be showers around on saturday morning across scotland and the north of england. those should tend to fade away and they should all brighten up again and for much of the country should be dry into the afternoon. a few sharp showers developing in wales in the south—western that means the high temperatures are more likely to be in the south—east of england. 26 degrees is possible. more significant changes are coming in on sunday. northern parts of the uk will be cooler and cloudier, further south we will have some sunshine but there is more likely to be showers developing across more southern parts of england and wales. those could be heavy and thundery. 22 degrees still possible in the south—east with the heat is beginning to ebb away.

and that is because we have a change in the wind direction. while we will see the back of the showers eventually it is a cold area of high pressure moving down from the north and bringing with it more northerly wind and some stronger wind overnight and into monday. it may blow in more cloud across the eastern side of the uk, sunshine further west but the high—temperature this time is 1a degrees. for many, those temperatures are below average for the time of year.

welcome to bbc news. i'm simon pusey. the headlines: a further 6.5 million us workers file for unemployment as president trump announces plans to reduce the economic impact of coronavirus. in the uk, another massive rise in the number of reported deaths. but pm boris johnson is out of intensive care. the australian researchers studying a new phase for testing the vaccine. mission control: and liftoff. and getting away from it all —