this is bbc news. i'm martine croxall with the latest headlines for viewers in the uk and around the world. italy's prime minister admits coronavirus cases could rise, as the country is set to ease travel restrictions from earlyjune. translation: we are facing this risk and we must accept it, otherwise we will never be able to start again. the uk education secretary warns the longer england's schools are closed, the more children will miss out — as the government presses forward on plans to re—open them. barack obama delivers another scathing attack on the trump administration's handling of the pandemic. it's game on. germany's bundesliga becomes the first major european league to restart, playing to an empty stadium. music

and abba's waterloo has been named as the greatest eurovision song of all time by bbc viewers. hello and welcome to the programme — we start with the latest developments on the coronavirus outbreak in the uk, and globally. more than 310,000 people have died as a result of covid—19 around the world. people in germany have been protesting against lockdown restrictions put in place to contain the spread of the pandemic. the biggest gathering was in stuttgart, where 5,000 demonstrators turned out — others were held in berlin, munich and frankfurt. in wuhan, where the first cases were detected, authorities say they've tested three million people. but residents crowding

the test centres are worried that the very act of being tested could expose them to the virus. in india a court has detained nearly 70 members of an islamic missionary movement for allegedly spreading coronavirus in the city of bhopal. police say the group didn't disclose that its members had been to a large gathering in delhi in march — where most of the attendees tested positive. in the us the national high school graduation ceremony is taking place online — former president barack obama and a number of celebrities are taking part. the italian prime minister, giuseppe conte, says his country is taking a calculated risk by rolling back lockdown measures from next week. the country's daily death toll from covid—i9 has now fallen to its lowest since the 9th of march. mr conte admits there could be another rise, but says the country cannot afford to wait any longer. freya cole reports. italy's wait is almost over.

from monday day to day liberties will slowly resume and byjune three there will be even greater freedoms like domestic and international travel. but the process comes with a warning. translation: we are facing a calculated risk. to put it frankly, we know the contagion curve may rise again. preparations are taking place across the entire country to get ready for this new phase of life. beauty salons and shops can resume trade on monday. gyms and swimming pools will open on may 25. cinemas and theatres will follow in mid june. but measures must be taken to make sure people are kept as safe as possible. translation: we must accept the risk. otherwise, we will never be able to start again. we should wait until a vaccine is discovered and distributed, but

we can't afford this. italy has suffered immensely during the coronavirus pandemic. more than 31,000 wives have been lost, the third highest in the world. -- 31,000 the third highest in the world. —— 31,000 lives. the rate of new infections is now dropped providing a pathway to start opening up the country. the world's largest church is also opening on monday after a weekend of deep cleaning. a deluded corine solution was used to protect the 16th—century marble floors and buildings. —— a diluted chlorine solution. worshipers will be welcome back to st peter's basilica but numbers will be reduced as the church finds new ways in this new way of life. freya cole, bbc news. the uk government has sought to reassure parents about re—opening schools to some pupils in england from next month, saying the decision was based on the best scientific advice. teaching unions have expressed concern about whether schools can be made safe for staff and pupils in time

for the target date of the first ofjune. here's our education editor, bra nwen jeffreys. classrooms empty now in england, but in two weeks' time a few children are due to return. some teachers and parents remain fearful. today, the government said it was the right decision. there are some who would like to delay the wider opening of schools. school governors will be involved in the plans so i asked how they should weigh it up. they are going to be thinking about their legal responsibilities in terms of making each school safe. how are they meant to reconcile that conflicting advice they're getting from you and from local councils? what we would ask them to do is look at the guidance very carefully, and recognise the fact that we are there to provide the very best for every single child who goes to that school.

the best way of doing that, the best way of protecting children, the best way of giving them the best opportunities in life, is actually to have them coming back into school. schools are getting ready as best they can, changing classrooms, contacting families. parents will choose whether to send their children and some think it is time to start going back. i'm not waving a flag and saying, let's go back to school with 30 children in a class and have a normal school day. i think there needs to be some kind of schooling in terms of some kind of non—physical contact at school. ministers point to denmark where children began their return a month ago, but today teachers‘ unions here raised concerns, too many cases, too little testing, among their five priorities. we really want to get schools back open again as soon as it's safe to do so. we have five simple tests that the british medical association

on friday told us they agreed with our tests, and we think the government hasn't yet met them, but they are not obstructive tests. they are tests to encourage the government to meet them so that we can get back to school, but we are not there yet, though. the gradual return to school remains a hope. the scientific evidence remains under review. a finaljudgement in england at the end of the month, as schools in the rest of the uk remain closed. branwen jeffreys, bbc news. government ministers insist they will be led by the science when making decisions — so what does the science say about how children are affected? lauren moss explains. we've only known about covid—19 for under six months, and the science community is still learning about it. one of the big questions to answer is how are children affected. put simply, children seem to catch coronavirus as much as anyone else. the survey by the office

for national statistics, published this week, suggests that one in 400 people in england has coronavirus and it also found that children are just as likely to test positive as adults, but they don't appear to develop symptoms which are as serious or be as vulnerable to it. more than 211,000 people have died in hospitals in england from covid—19, 12 were under the age of 19, most had underlying health conditions. we know from the current information that children have fewer symptoms and appear to have different transmission dynamics to adults, and it looks like they probably have shorter or fewer viral excretions from coughing or speaking, but we can't be sure for certain and we certainly need more research in the area. so, if children catch coronavirus, how likely is it, then, that they can carry it and also spread it? any increase in social mixing could lead to an increase in the r number, the rates of transmission. children are super spreaders

of other diseases like flu, but we just don't know how infectious they could be if they have little or no symptoms. there is the possibility, although it seems slight, that children might transmit it to other children or to staff members, but again what evidence we have suggests it doesn't happen very much, but opening schools does mean we have a social hub which is where teachers will meet other teachers and other parents so there will be increased mixing and there could be some spreading as a result of that. it's early days as we begin to take steps to emerge from the lockdown. what we learn in the weeks and months ahead will shape what our new normal becomes. lauren moss, bbc news. primary children in denmark have been back at school for a month now. it was the first country in europe to reopen its primary schools, after containing the virus early on. there have been fewer than 550 deaths there so far. many other countries are looking to the nation for a blueprint as to how to reopen schools elsewhere.

mette rose nielsen, a teacher in copenhagen, told me how their classes are adapting to allow children to return. i think we have adapted quite well. first of all, there is the dilemma, the fact that you have to allow children to be children. we have tried to structure a lot of logistics in the schools under a great deal of logistics to make it work. and also to be very aware of the childrens‘ well—being. and one of the things that we do to structure the day for the children, to prevent them being too close together, prevent the transmission, of the disease, if there is any, is, for example, to divide the children into little groups of ten children. and then we have kind of this bubble where the children play with the children in their group, and we have also asked the parents to make

playgroups for children when they are at home in the same groups. how difficult is it to get young children to understand the need to keep apart? well, i teach first grade, and in denmark the children are about seven or eight years old. i think the parents have prepared the children very well. from the health authorities, they also had a video showing them how to wash their hands. i think the children have done pretty well, compared to their age. it is difficult for children. they want to play football and hug each other. and if a child is crying or they are nervous, they also need a hug. you have to give them that. there is always the balance between the strict guidelines and the common sense you have to exhibit. what are the benefits of this, if there are any at all?

when we have the children in small groups, what we have seen is that some of the children blossom very much from this. in smaller groups, some of the children feel more safe. i have seen children play different types of games to what they are used to, and be more active, for example, in breaks. and the other thing is that you can be more... you can be more concerned with one child at a time in the classroom, because there are not so many children to attend to. so it's easier to help each child. and you can also do more creative work with the children. and we have done a lot of outdoor teaching, where we have had good cooperation with the local youth school. we have been to a little forest, doing bingo with teaching, about insects.

all of these things, outdoor teaching. and sitting outside in the schoolyard, and reading, you can do a lot of things. you have to think more creatively, but it is part of it. because of the small groups, it is easier to be more creative and to have more attention to specific children. and for some children to actually blossom from this. mette rose nielsen, a teacher in copenhagen. this is bbc news — the main headlines. italy's prime minister has said coronavirus cases could rise, as the country is set to ease travel restrictions from earlyjune. but that the cancer can't afford to wait for a vaccine. —— country can't afford. the uk government has defended its plan to reopen schools in england next month, and warned that the longer they are closed, the more children will miss out. barack obama has delivered a scathing attack on the trump administration's handling

of the coronavirus pandemic. the former us president, said many officials weren't even pretending to be in charge. he made the comments in an online address to thousands of students from historically black colleges and universities. 0ur north america peter bowes joins us live. —— north america correspondent. this comes at a time where president trump has dismissed another official this time from the state department. yes, this is the inspector general in the state department essentially an independent government watchdog. and he was in a very late—night announcement on friday night dismissed by the president who said he no longer had confidence in him and that he will be out of the job within a month. this is the fourth time now in a matter of weeks that the president has dismissed people in similar positions whose job it is

essentially to investigate those numbers of the government where complaints exist and in this case, reportedly and there has been some reporting over the last few weeks about this is that this was instigated by mike pompeo the secretary of state because he was being investigated himself over alleged irregularities in the allegation is that he used some members of his staff, government members of his staff, to carry out personal errands for him and his wife. things like picking up take away food and picking up his dog from the groomers. this inspector general is now out of ajob, he is inspector general is now out of a job, he is being replaced by someone a job, he is being replaced by someone who worked as an aide to the vice president and is very likely therefore to be within president trump's comp and the question is what will happens that investigation of mike pompeo going forward? as far as barack obama is

concerned, it is two weekends ina row concerned, it is two weekends in a row when he has spoken out about what is going on in the white house almost opposed to what was not going on. and perhaps it is a sign of things to come over the coming months as the election campaign gets under way here and his latest comments following what he said a week ago when he described the trump administration response to the coronavirus as an absolute disaster, now he is essentially saying that "those in charge don't know what they're doing." and his message to those young people, thousands of young students from predominantly african—american schools is that it african—american schools is thatitis african—american schools is that it is up to them in the future to essentially take matters into their own hands in terms of the decisions that they make moving forward. peter, thank you very much. peter, thank you very much. peter bowes. a brazilian military general with no medical experience has taken over as interim health minister. eduardo pazuello spent most of his career as a logistics specialist and was the military

co—ordinatorfor the rio olympic games in 2016. his predecessor, nelson teich resigned less than a month after taking thejob, following disagreements with president bolsonaro over his handling of the coronavirus pandemic. 19 people have been arrested at a protest in london's hyde park against the lockdown. around 300 people gathered, saying they object to their rights of freedom of movement and freedom of speech being restricted by the government's measures to limit the spread of the virus. police in the polish capital, warsaw, have used tear gas against demonstrators protesting about the restrictions imposed there. hundreds of protesters gathered in a central square, in a demonstration that's illegal under the current lockdown rules, which ban large gatherings. it follows smaller protests by business owners, who say the authorities are not giving them enough support. scientists in britain have begun a trial of sniffer dogs to see if they can be trained to detect the presence of coronavirus before symptoms appear. the clinical trial is being

boosted by half a million pounds of investment from the uk government with the hope that if the scheme works each dog would be able to screen around 250 people an hour. the german football league has become the first major competition in europe to resume, since coronavirus lockdowns brought the sport to a halt in march. six bundesliga matches took place without spectators. with near empty stadiums, and some social distancing protocols in place, it was anything but an ordinary saturday of match action, as jenny hill reports. music there's is a passion which endures. fans who'd follow their team anywhere as they do now with watching from a distance. cheering and applause "two hearts beat inside me," sabina tells us. "of course as a dortmund supporter, i'm glad it's back. but it doesn't feel

right like this." they call them ghost games. no crowd to roar victory, lament defeat. an odd prospect for the players who quarantined for a week before the match. off pitch, strict social distancing. it's two months since they've last played. that doesn't seem to have thrown dortmund off their stride. dortmund just scored and you could hear a pin drop out here. it's hard to believe a top—flight game of football is going on inside that stadium. the german football league admitted this is largely about money. they feared smaller clubs would go out of business if they didn't resume matches. for this footballing nation, a strange day. polls suggest the majority of germans think it's too soon to play again. some league players and staff have already tested positive. even as dortmund celebrated in the new style today, there's no guarantee that this season will run its course. jenny hill, bbc news, dortmund.

this year's eurovision song contest winner should have been crowned in the netherlands this evening, but the event was, of course, cancelled due to the pandemic. instead, the bbcjoined broadcasters across europe to showcase the 41 songs which would have competed this year. no winner was chosen — but bbc viewers voted abba's waterloo their favourite eurovision song ever. the band's bjorn ulvaeus made a special appearance from his home. and it still remains one of the most genuinelyjoyous events of the tv year. and it's so disarmingly european. it so allows you to escape and be happy. even forget about the coronavirus for a little while. eurovision commentator, ben royston, watched the event. definitely worth the effort.

something had to happen tonight to have eurovision night without eurovision. .. it would've been unthinkable. and i think the broadcaster over in the netherlands had put so much work into organising eurovision this year, all the songs had been chosen from all of the competing countries and it was only right that those artists got their moment in the spotlight tonight. but how can anything ever be a substitute for the real thing? it can't be, it can't be but you cannot have a competition if the artists were all performing from home or if they were using music videos because it is not a level playing field. you have the swedish song that was picked in front of 30,000 people in an arena that was going wild and the danish song was picked in an empty arena because they already started the lockdown in denmark. there was no way to create a fair competition this year. so it had to be cancelled. and the show that they put

on instead was a really good show for the evening. what did you make of bjorn from abba making an appearance? everybody knows and a lot of people clearly love waterloo so to have him there must‘ve been pretty special. i think so, we don't often hear much from members of abba and when we do they very rarely talk about eurovision. some of the biggest stars on the earth who have grown from eurovision aren't that keen to talk about it. i think that is a sign that eurovision is becoming very mainstream again and it is very popular again. to see him on the show was a really good thing for eurovision. what was the best moment of the programme they put out for you? for me personally, i think seeing all the 41 singers performing love shine a light was great because that was the uk's last winner.

and it is that kind of thing that "we will never win again and have done badly for years," itjust remains people that we have won it five times, we just need to send the best on. and that is hard when there is 41 of 42 countries competing. it was good to see the united kingdom's successes brought to light in the show tonight. how did you watch it though? because the point of eurovision if you are not actually there on the night and of course many people do try to travel to the host nation is to get the together with friends maybe, eat food from the countries taking part, dress up, put flags out, you can't do that at the moment. we had the flags up, we had the flags in the window. it was me and my husband sitting here watching it with the cats. normally i'm in a press centre with 2500 journalists. it was a bit of a culture shock but is eurovision and it is in your blood, you enjoy it in any way that you can really. what will happen next year, who will host it?

they announced it tonight during the show that it will be in rotterdam next year. even though they missed out this year in the end, they will host it next year. and a number of the singers that were going to rotterdam 2020 have been told that they will be selected again. others won't be so for example but the swedish act is not about to participate in the national final the year after they have won it. —— not allowed to participate. sweden will have a different participant next year whereas a country like israel has said that the artist deserves to go to eurovision so they will automatically be the country's choice. ben royston. eurovision commentator speaking to me earlier. the american nascar racing season gets underway on sunday after a 3 month delay caused by coronavirus. the event at darlington raceway in south carolina normally attracts thousands of race fans but will be held behind closed doors.

each team has been limited to just 16 personnel including the driver and strict social distancing measures have been put in place. the teams are set for a busy period to make up for lost time with 7 races in 11 days. a reminder of our top story.... italy's prime minister has said coronavirus cases could rise , as travel restrictions are set to ease from the beginning ofjune. guiseppe conte said italy must accept the risk otherwise the country will never be able to start again. there will be no quarantine for those entering italy and — you can keep up to date with all the latest news about covid—19 on the bbc website. you'll also find features on, the uk's, five—tier coronavirus—alert system —

and how yourjob compares to others in term of exposure to the virus, that's all at bbc.com/news — or download the bbc news app. hello there. temperatures are set to climb over the next two days. by the middle part of the coming week, some parts in the south be up to 26 or 27 degrees. a lot of dry weather around, the further west you are in the uk there is a chance for rain. 0n the satellite you see patchy cloud across the british isles today and then this straight moving in from the atlantic which will bring in rain for some of us of next one four hours. an increasingly warm feel of the coming days. first sunday we see ran across the northern half of the uk. north wales in northern england the onslaught of drizzle and out today and the rain across northern

ireland and scotland will fizzle around lunchtime but we are expecting wet weather to return from the west into the late afternoon. the southsea spells of hazy sunshine, lay twins here, more of a breeze the further north you are and thus temperatures as well as 17 degrees in aberdeen, 20 may be 21 towards the south—east of england, 9 degrees in lower wreck but shipment will spend much of the day under sunny skies. but as we had to sunday night we will see these outbreaks of rain once again pushing across northern areas. for the south predominantly dry with some spells and nautical nine, a mild one. 9—11 degrees as we begin monday morning and monday's weather set up as a similarone, monday's weather set up as a similar one, high—pressure to the north, there is a bit of a gap between these two frontal systems. even across northern areas there will be a fair amount of dry weather. we see these topics of rain drifting away from mainland scotland and across to the northern isles, for amounts of cloud and similar for for amounts of cloud and similarfor northern

for amounts of cloud and similar for northern ireland and england. further spots dry with southern... again 23 degrees in london. as we go into tuesday another fine, dry and largely sunny day for much of england and wales but for much of northern ireland and scotla nd much of northern ireland and scotland we see cloud and splashes of rain but not all the time. temperatures between 14-18 but the time. temperatures between 14—18 but for the south and east york, highs of 25 a26 and we could touch in the south on wednesday. by thursday, increasing chance we could see rain spreading from the west and it will start to turn a bit cooler.

this is bbc news.

the headlines... italy's prime minister has said coronavirus cases could rise as travel restrictions are set to ease from the beginning ofjune. guiseppe conte said italy must accept the risk otherwise the country will never be able to start again. the uk government has defended its plan to reopen schools in england, and warned that the longer they're closed, the more children will miss out. teaching unions say they're not convinced that it's safe for more pupils to return byjune. barrack obama has delivered another scathing attack on the trump administration's handling of the pandemic. the former us president said many officials didn't even pretend to be in charge. mr obama made the remarks during an online address to students from historically black colleges and universities. and now on bbc news, annita mcveigh has more information and health advice on the coronavirus outbreak in this special programme.