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. it's the first weekend since some lockdown restrictions

were eased in england. local councils urged people today to stay away from beauty spots and beaches and, although some national parks have reported areas being busy, many people do seem to have heeded the warning, as andy gill reports. in normal times, more than 3 million day visitors come to the dales every year, and it's not hard to see why. the national park and local authorities, though, think it is too early to loosen the coronavirus lockdown. the big fear was that the car park would be full all week, and the river bank was going to be like blackpool when blackpool was busy and open, nobody social distancing. but as it is, we have a slow increase in the amount of people coming, that feel safe to come. but in grassington today, some people were taking advantage of the new guidelines, some travelling from harrogate and leeds. if you follow the guidance and you socially distance,

you make sure that you are not touching anything. we have not seen anybody, really, but everyone we have seen has been a friendly and kept to a safe distance. we feel fine. they reopened the car park here so visitors don't park in the centre of the village or on verges, and the idea is that that will reduce contact, and possible infections between tourists and locals. tourism is vital for this part of yorkshire, and they do want visitors back here once it is safe. one estimate is that the economy in this part one estimate is that the economy in this part of the yorkshire dales has taken a 30% hit because of the lockdown. striking the balance between saving lives and saving livelihoods is the challenge here as everywhere else. andy gill, the yorkshire dales, bbc news. now on bbc news, the travel show.

india. 70 years after independence, this emerging world power of more than a billion people, is still changing. i'm on a journey to two extremes of this vast subcontinent. it is crystals. it's hard crystal. white salt. you can taste it. i began in gujarat, in the far west. this is genuinely incredible. i'm in heaven. it's pretty crowded. and this week i have travelled 2,000 miles over to the north—east. i am on the banks of the mighty river brahmaputra and i am about to go to a very spiritual place. it is one of india's lesser—known regions. we're really high up, and just to my right is the border with bangladesh.

a part of the country that prides itself on its traditions. he makes it look so easy. but it's incredibly difficult. but it is also looking forward and embracing progress. so now i am on my way to go and see assam's very own eco—warrior. it is going to be an incredible adventure. india's north—east. a collection of eight states almost cut off from the rest of this vast country, but for a tiny strip of land. at partition, a large swathe of the region was sectioned off to become east pakistan which later became bangladesh, leaving the indian area landlocked. it is geographically and culturally out on a limb.

this is frontier country, little known to tourists and other indians alike. they call it the land of clouds but that is because of the severe monsoon season. hilly, remote and the air is so crisp and fresh and the views... well, simply spectacular. it is this cool climate that made the state of meghalaya and its capital shillong a popular retreat for the british during the colonial era. they dubbed it the scotland of the east. it is pretty crowded. but what about the city today?

there is only one way to find out. we can get on. i took a bus into the city centre. it is a modern industrial town these days, shillong. bus engine grinds alarmingly. i think those brakes may need some work. tell me, what do you think about shillong. this is your home city. what do you think?

more than half of meghalaya's population belong to the khasi tribe. and here at shillong's british—built polo ground, a traditional local sport is thriving here. but it sure ain't polo. every afternoon, hundreds of people gather from all around to take part in a really interesting daily ritual. this is called teer, derivee from the hindi word for arrow. a target is mounted and 50 archers have a few minutes to hit it as many times as possible. the significance of the sport dates back to the early 1800s when khasi warriors defended their homelands and not with guns nor swords, but with bows and arrows.

i am aiming for the target, obviously, which is? the small one. the small one there? 0k. why is it going to the ground? show me. get out of the way, everyone. here we go. don't move. now we're getting there! spectators get involved by taking bets on the number of arrows that hit the target. and, crucially, it is only the last two numbers of the total score that matter. they are all added up and the last two digits will be the result. 695 arrows. so 95 is the result.

meghalaya became one of the few states to legalise gambling in 1982. people here are very superstitious. they dream about their family, a dog, cat and they try to make it into numbers. so i have 200 rupees of my hard—earned money here. i want to gamble. can you show me how to do it? let's go to one of these counters. namaste. hello. i want to gamble on a lucky number, yeah? two digits. i want to go for... 39. and i will put 100 rupees on 39 and on my other bet i will bet on 77. can you fix it so i win? they laugh. it depends on your fortune.

it depends on my fortune? i did have a dream last night that a strange dog walked past me and that dog had the number 39. is that the kind of dreams we all have? who knows. wish me luck. it is a tense moment as the numbers are counted. 310, 320... and my dream turns out to be a shaggy dog story. 77 was my number. 97 was the result. still, two of my lucky numbers, nine and seven. next i head out of the city to explore the region's famed khasi hills and villages. incredible to think that

despite landscapes like this, the north—east is one of the least visited areas of india. but things are slowly changing. we have been travelling out of shillong into the countryside towards the bangladesh border for about two hours now and it has been bumpy and rough roads until suddenly we reached this bit and it is beautifully smooth road. it would not look out of place in a major town. and we're heading towards a village with an interesting reputation. the khasi hills are the only place in the world where you find bridges grown from the roots of the india rubber tree, or ficus elastica. we learnt how to construct them during the 1840s. this bridge was meant for the villagers to cross the river when they came back to their daily life, mainly agriculture.

during that time there was no partition, no bangladesh, no pakistan so we had that link. during monsoon, the khasi hills are hit by record—breaking downpours, more than 20 feet of rain in a month. these are some of the wettest places on the planet. but people here have found an ingenious way to harness nature in order to prevent the village from being cut off by floods. what are they doing? now they are tying bamboo to cross on both sides of the river so that the roots of this tree will be woven along these bamboo. bamboo act as a scaffolding which helps to connect roots from trees growing on opposite riverbanks. this is skilled and

occasionally dangerous work. thanks to continuous repairs, bridges like this have stood firm for generations. and will probably remain for many more to come. so we leave meghalaya and head to assam, passing through some of the 25,000 tea plantations that have made this region world—famous. we are on our way tojorhat, a few hundred kilometres from india's border with china, and the jumping—off point for our next adventure. i am on the banks of the mighty river brahmaputra and am about to go to a very spiritual place, the island of majuli, one of the biggest river islands in the world. there are 150,000 people on the island and only six ferries

each day, so each one is really crammed. looking at the list of prices for all the different categories, passengers, 15 rupees. that's ok, reasonable. you go down past vehicles and animals have to pay. a buffalo has to pay a5. a bull, cow, 30. an elephant has to fork out 907 rupees. perhaps, fortunately, none of these creatures were travelling with us today. and, incredibly, after a few last minute panics, we are set to go. i climb onto the corrugated aluminium roof tojoin men who do this trip day in and day out. starting in tibet,

the brahmaputra river is nearly 2000 miles long. it is second only to the amazon in the volume of water that rushes through it. there is an interesting game of cards going on here. i think we are playing whist. i feel like we should join in, but it may be a private game with high stakes. we arrive at majuli and it is turmoil again trying to get off the boat. to avoid a queue, there is a sneaky way out which involves climbing onto another boat and going down the steps that way. do you know what? i think i will take that one. here we are on land. it doesn't look quite

as spiritual as i imagined, but if you look away into the distance it isjust one big, flat land of desert. let's see. majuli island is home to 22 monasteries, or satras, initially established in the 16th century by the assamese guru sankardeva. boys are instructed from a very young age in the religion he preached, vaishnavism, an offshoot of hinduism. the monks are celibate, and according to their beliefs they worship only one god, follow a vegetarian diet and reject the caste system.

and here at uttar kamalabari, the doctrine includes this special artform. this form of classical dance is now recognised by the authorities as a genre in its own right, and many of these monks have performed around the world. playing drums and percussion. that was amazing — thank you very much indeed. i know you spend a lifetime learning the skills of this, but can i have a go? can i try? like this? arm is through here. yeah? yeah. 0k. first place, here.

hits drum. here? wrong one. very good! thank you. one, two, three, four. there are 64 positions in this classical dance, and i'm having trouble with the first two. playing drum. without the grace as well — no grace whatsoever. he makes it look so easy, but it is incredibly difficult. and i don't think — i am going to leave it to the experts. you know, sometimes you just have to give up and let them carry on. playing drums and percussion.

an exquisite performance. but there is one problem, one very big problem, and that is that this island may simply not exist in just a few decades‘ time. hard to believe at the moment, but there is a genuine worry that majuli will be submerged and destroyed within 20 years. in the last 70 years it has shrunk in size by two—thirds, and a majority of the original 65 monasteries have gone. every monsoon, the brahmaputra river swells, eroding the terrain around it.

bit by bit, the land is disappearing. but there is hope. so now, i'm on my way in a tractor to go and see a man whose life's mission has been to try and tackle the flooding that's afflicting majuli. he is basically assam's very own eco—warrior. sadly these are areas that get completely deluged when the monsoon hits. there's some water there that we have to cross. for the last 36 years, jadev payeng has taken on an extraordinary challenge — to save this land from vanishing.

and so his lifelong calling began. jadev is known today as the forest man of india. he began planting trees so the roots would bind the soil, soak up excess water and prevent the land from being eroded by flooding. from a barren landscape he has created a forest the size of new york's central park. and he feels this will be more effective in saving nearby majuli

than following government flood protection schemes. so we are now going to do the ritual that every guest that comes here is asked to do, which is to plant a tree. what kind of tree is this? so i'm going to put this in here, yeah, that's good. jadev has spoken at environmental summits all around the world, and his roll—call of guests is equally international.

and i do know that everyone who plants a tree, when it grows, they put a plaque down with their name on it, so i will have that privilege. fantastic, thank you. and so to my final day in assam, and a different kind of ritualistic celebration of nature. if there is one recurring theme throughout my trip in the north—east, it's the sense of community, kind of everywhere really, and there is nothing better to illustrate that than this. a local village going down to the river to celebrate harvest.

this community was started in 1939 by a young woman who came from the mountains in search of food. she founded this place because it was better for her, because it was closer to the water and civilisation, so finally she brings herfamily here, followed by her brother and this particular village is the entire family, her own clan... they all come from that one woman? really. fascinating, wow. this is a much—loved annual celebration, and people of all ages gather to muck in, using fishing methods that have been passed down through generations. dig it in, yeah. stamping, stamping. then you put it towards you... you have to pull the stick, yeah. and look! laughs. you can't see it, that is just full of fish, it's full of fish.

this is today's catch? wow! that is pretty good! and this, you will cook now? speaks in local language. yeah? excellent. so my track across india, from border to border, is almost over, and it has been a real journey of discovery for me off the beaten track. this isn't india on tap, the kind of instant gratification which some people are accustomed to. but the rewards, if you make the effort, are immense. asnake! can they bite? yeah, it does. it bites — is it poisonous? no, not much. not much? can i get out now?

hello. temperatures are set to climb over the next few days, peeking over the middle of next week with highs of 26 or 27 in the south. a lot of dry weather as well, but the further north and west you are, the further north and west you are, the greater the chance of seeing some outbreaks of rain. that's the case on sunday, this frontal system across northern parts of the country, but keeping things dry down to the south. that front running up against this area of dry pressure, keeping things high in the south, and that squeezed between the high pressure under frontal systems pushing in from the west will drive the air from the south — an increasingly warm feel over coming days. for sunday we see some rain across the northern half of the uk. northern wales, northern england, the odd spot of rain

which will peter out through the day. across northern ireland and scotland, it will fizzle out through lunchtime, but more wet weather from the west into the late afternoon. further south, spells of hazy sunshine and light winds here, more of a breeze the further north you are, and those temperatures — 17 in aberdeen, 20 to 21 towards south—east england. just 19 degrees in lerwick but shetland will spend much of the day under sunny skies. as we head through sunday night we will see these outbreaks of rain once again pushing through northern areas. further south predominantly dry with some clear spells and certainly not a cold night — actually quite a mild one. nine to 11 degrees as we begin monday morning. monday's weather set up is a similar one. high—pressure to the south, frontal systems to the north. a bit of a gap between these two frontal systems, so even across northern areas there will be a fair amount of dry weather. we see these outbreaks of rain drifting from mainland scotland and across the northern isles. then something a little dryer with a fairamount of then something a little dryer with a fair amount of cloud. and a similar story

for northern ireland and northern england. further south, dry with some spells of sunshine, and slightly warmer, again, 23 degrees in london. into tuesday, another fine, dry and largely sunny day for much of england and wales, but for northern ireland and scotland, again we see some cloud and some splashes of rain at times, but not all the time. temperatures here between 1a and 18, but the further south and east you are, highs of 25 and 26. we could touch 27 in the south on wednesday. by thursday, the increasing chance we could see rain spreading from the west, and it will start to turn a bit cooler.

this is bbc news, i'm samantha simmonds 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 early june. ba rack obama delivers another scathing attack on the trump administration's handling of the pandemic in an online address to graduating students. and to graduating students. all those adults who you used and all those adults who you used to think were in charge and knew what they were doing, turns out they don't have all the answers. the uk education secretary warns the longer england's schools are closed, the more children will miss out, as the government presses on with plans to re—open them. it's game on — germany's bundesliga becomes the first major european league