welcome to bbc news, i'm lewis vaughan jones. our top stories: live in the us city of minneapolis, tensions grow as curfew orders are ignored. police and national guard troops have fired tear gas, and some flares have been thrown back. the governor urges people to stay at home. and it's very clear on this. this is a very simple order. there is a curfew issued by the mayor, and backed by the state, that you shouldn't be on the streets tonight. and i will leave it at that. when you decide to take the decision to go out on the streets tonight, the assumption is that you're out there to join the wanton destruction.

three, two, one, zero, ignition. lift-off. go nasa, go spacex. god bless bob and doug. a new era for space travel, as the first ever comercial rocket carrying people into space is successfully launched. the uk government defends plans to ease lockdown, as scientific advisors say they fear restrictions are being lifted too quickly. i believe this is also a very dangerous moment. we have to get this right. the public in general to actually follow the guidance, don't tear the pants out of it and don't go further than the guidance actually says. renaissance in pisa. europe's most famous landmark is reopened following the coronavirus pandemic. welcome to bbc news. there is no sign at all of an end the protests that have spread all over the united states in the last five days.

they began to mark the death of george floyd, an african—american man from minneapolis who died as a police officer knelt on his neck. some have now turned violent, with buildings set alight, shops looted, and police vehicles set alight. riot officers in los angeles have clashed with protesters. crowds have also gathered in new york, chicago and philadelphia, and for a second day, protesters are converging on the white house in washington. in several cities, curfews have been imposed in an effort to prevent further violence. the tzar live pictures from minneapolis, we are an hour into that curfew and you can see that is what it looks like. —— these are live pictures. tear gas has been fired by police as people have been ignoring the requests of officials there to go home and to state at home. we will stay with these pictures of minneapolis. lets speak to dan mihalopoulos, an investiagtive reporter for wbez chicago, the city's national public radio station.

thank you very much forjoining us. thank you very much forjoining us. can you tell us what is happening, what has been happening, what has been happening, where you are? well, i have been here all day and they have been large protests, but also violent protests here in chicago. i have seen cars, police vehicles burned. they have been some confrontations between police and protesters, a lot of graffiti on government buildings and high—end stores. the mare had pleaded for the process to be peaceful, she said she agreed with all the problems that the protesters we re problems that the protesters were pointing out, but now she is very angry at the reaction of the protesters, the confrontations with police, and a curfew just began confrontations with police, and a curfewjust began here a few minutes ago —— mayor. a curfewjust began here a few minutes ago -- mayor. 0k, that's interesting you mentioned that. so the curfew has just began. how do the police, the authorities there, try and implement it if so many people are still out on the streets 7 people are still out on the streets? yes, there are still quite a few people out on the street. you can see some of

them behind me. theyjust clashed with police about half a block away here, and i guess the police will try to start clearing the streets. they have raised the bridges that go over the chicago river, and then a number of other things earlier in the day to try to isolate different groups of protesters from one another. and dan, this is going to be a very difficult question, but authorities have been talking all day about the difference between peaceful protesters and people out to make trouble. have you seen any difference? can you spot people, any difference, just how is that? yes, it's very difficult. you know, what you have here was a large crowd that was peaceful in large part, but there were a number of people who were vandalising buildings, asi of people who were vandalising buildings, as i mentioned. i just saw a united states postal service vehicle that had a message to skin jump alive graffiti on it. —— skin trump

alive. as i mentioned, there we re alive. as i mentioned, there were a number of police vehicles that were lit on fire and they did seem to be targeting some of the high—end stores a couple of blocks behind me in an area called the magnificent mail, which is the main shopping strip, with stores like cartier and such. it is mostly protesting against police brutality, but also a number of people obviously hoping for other structural changes. i am on live right now. and dan, if you can still hear me, any sense of numbers? i know it is difficult, you can't be everywhere at once, but just give can't be everywhere at once, butjust give our viewers watching around the world a sense of how many people are involved here. well, there were thousands of people, and one of the protesters of those thousands just interrupted me to tell me about the curfew, but we are about to... dan, we have just lost you just at the end there. we got an absolute sense of what you are saying

and that there were thousands of people out on the streets. and, thank you very much for speaking to us, and to stay safe out there on the streets of chicago. let's ta ke let's take you back to those live pictures of minneapolis, because this is the epicentre of events there and they have been thousands of people on the streets there, and we have seen the curfew be ignored by many of them. and clashes with police as we are ticking now towards the evening and the nighttime across the united states, as the light begins to fade. we will see how that affects people out on the streets. i've been speaking to david mindich, who is a professor ofjournalism. hejoined us from downtown philadelphia, where protests are taking place. yeah, so i'm standing right in front of city hall. city hall's behind me, where the protest began at noon.

i was there. it was very peaceful. people were socially distancing and chanting, passionate, but there was no overturning cars and things like that. later, a couple of police cars were set on fire. behind me, there's a starbucks that was torched, and there's a fire engine behind me that just put out the flames about an hour ago. so it was a very tense situation in downtown philadelphia just even about an hour ago. and talk us through the situation with curfews. we know they're trying to be imposed in cities across the us. yeah, i haven't heard there's a curfew in philadelphia. the philadelphia police really restrained themselves. i thought it was actually impressive that both sides didn't seem to have too

many confrontations, except for that things were — there's graffiti all over the place, a couple of cars were overturned. so there was a lot of physical damage, but i haven't heard report of injuries or deaths in downtown philadelphia. just give us a sense of the atmosphere, then. you've described what has been happening. how are you feeling safety—wise? i feel relatively safe. i live a block away from here. philadelphia is built around city hall, so city hall is the very centre of philadelphia, and that's where most of the protests happen. and that's where it began today. and then the protesters marched to the museum area, where there's a larger protest, and then that's where i heard more rioting began. and i should also say that philadelphia has a long tradition of unrest between

the police and the communities. there was actually a bombing of a compound in 1985, and the police commissioner, then mayor, whose statue stands right in front of city hall, was responsible for dropping a bomb on this community that really dispersed and destroyed a lot of homes. frank rizzo was the police commissioner, then mayor, and his statue — protesters tried to tear it down today, but the police came in and stopped them. david filling us in on the situation in philadelphia. he said there was not a curfew at that time, we believe that is now one of the cities which does have a curfew in place. in seattle, despite mayorjenny durkan declaring an emergency citywide curfew from 5:00pm to 5:00am, "to prevent violence, property damage, and to prevent the spread of covid—i9", protesters have continued to gather in the hundreds. vehicles including police cars have been set on fire,

and vandalism and looting has been seen in the city centre. police have been firing tear gas to disperse the crowds, though many have detiantly stayed put. protecting the lives of black people and people of colour, we need to be here to defend the american people. and the police officers are not doing it. there is going to be radical lists of every direction, and it doesn't matter if it is left oi’ it doesn't matter if it is left or right, but it is about being here, and standing up for the lives that are being hurt in the street just for lives that are being hurt in the streetjust for being black —— radicalists. yes, we need to be safe, sorry, guys. seems there in seattle. let's

go to washington, and you can see darkness is setting in, just gone 10pm there, and another stand—off between protesters with their hands in the airand protesters with their hands in the air and police. earlier on in daylight hours there were protesters behind barricades, against the wall of police officers there as well, not too far away from the white house. let's go now to los angeles. let's go now to los angeles. let's check in with what is happening there. it is just 7:10pm there, of course, with the different time zones across the different time zones across the states, states, so a little earlier, little more daylight, and it seems there are fire engines putting out a fire. we have seen over the last couple of nights buildings set on fire in different cities, vehicles set on fire in different cities, and earlier on in los angeles, it was actually one of the first place this afternoon where we saw a police car on fire ina where we saw a police car on fire in a row of ten or so, doesn't police cars, that were

all vandalised and damaged. a cu rfew was all vandalised and damaged. a curfew was ordered in parts of the city of los angeles, like many cities across the usa right now. that curfew may be keeping some people at home, but certainly not others. hundreds and thousands of people on the streets across the us. let's go to minneapolis now, of course, the epicentre of these protests. there have been quiet and peaceful protests throughout the day, with people marching, people saying the phrase i can't breathe, which of course was the phrase that george floyd said, the unarmed black man who was held down, the back of his neck, in the street in minneapolis, and died later. so they were using his words and they were laying flowers a nd words and they were laying flowers and giving speeches, but in minneapolis, the authorities there wanted a cu rfew, authorities there wanted a curfew, they wanted that to be listened to, and it doesn't

seem that has happened. the protesters have gathered there and stayed there throughout this evening. let's speak to tom scheck, investigative reporter for minnesota public radio. just checking you can hear me, first of all. i can, thank you. great stuff, so thank you very much for being with us. just talk as to what is happening there now. if you go this way about two blocks, what you're basically going to see is the minneapolis fifth police precinct, and there's a lot of protest there throughout the day to day. what ended up happening 30 minutes ago is the police started to shoot teargas, some rubber bullets, and they have dispersed the crowd. we saw a heavy police presence kind of moving and dispersing a crowd that had several hundred, if not thousands, of people. and at that point, the crowd has dispersed throughout the area. so now there's people shooting fireworks, there's people driving quickly up and down the roads, and we're still trying to get a good sense of what the police are going to be doing

next. tom, tom, just talk us through this curfew. it was supposed to be in place about an hour ago. did just have no effect at all, or did of people actually head home? so there we re actually head home? so there were some people who did head home, but there were a lot of people here who were violating the curfew, who decided to stay. my colleague who was at the fifth precinct earlier said that he talked to a lot of people who said, no, we're not going to leave. we want to protest what happened here a few days ago and we want to keep up the pressure on police to arrest three more police officers who have not been arrested yet. and so what has happened is the governor of the state of minnesota has called in the national guard. he is also... the mayor of minneapolis has also said there is going to be a heavier police presence here tonight. they are not going to mess around. they are going to try and bring more ordered to the city, because frankly in the last few nights there wasn't this presence that occurred this early. and is it your sense, tom, you know, the problem with trying to enforce a curfew like this, even with more numbers of police and

national guard, is if you have too many people into many different locations, it is just a real tactical struggle to actually impose a curfew. right, look, and the governor talked about this, and the difficulties of it today, the governor of minnesota, because he said what ends up happening is there is a police presence, they come in, they knock out a bunch of people, the people dispersed, the police go to another area, and then what ends up happening is those folks gather again or they go toa folks gather again or they go to a different area. and so that's the frustration that law enforcement has at this time. but the protesters say they have a right to be out here, they feel like they have the ability to be out here, and so they are still here. 0k, tom. we will leave it there, but thank you so much. that is a really clear explanation of a fairly chaotic situation on the ground there in the city, but thank you very much for talking to us. we will leave the protests for the time being.

the first commercial spacecraft to carry people into space has successfully launched from cape canaveral in florida. the capsule, built by elon musk‘s spacex, has two astronauts onboard, and they are now on their way to the international space station. the astronauts have been live streaming a little tour of their capital. take a look... now that we are in zero gravity, we were requested to do a backflip, i am going to do a side spin which is a little bit of a permutation on that request so hopefully you can see what it is like to actually float in zero gravity. and it was notjust doug and i who accomplished the launch here, we have others aboard. we have this apatosaurus with us. we have two boys who are super interested collecting dinosaurs between the two of us and the apatosauraus made the trip into space today with us and that is a supercool thing for us, for us to do

with both of our sons. that was the astronauts both having quite a good time as you can see from that. interestingly, they are able to relax because they are spinning around above us. but at the launch things were slightly more tense because it was a significant moment. these are steps towards a new era of space flight. nasa's doug hurley and bob behnken the first astronauts to launch from american soil in almost a decade. and this is the rocket — built by spacex, a company about to make history by carrying people into space. bob, doug, have an amazing flight. and enjoy those views of our beautiful planet. three, two, one, zero, ignition, lift off! the falcon 9 and crew dragon.

go nasa. go spacex. godspeed, bob and doug! this is a huge step for us. it's a huge step for the commercial ventures. and i think it's important for the world to realise that we're going into space to stay and we're going to continue on to then the moon and then on to mars. looks like we saw a zero g indicator... about ten minutes into the flight and the pull of the earth has gone... dragon separation confirmed. ..and then the final stage of the rocket gently detaches. dragon is now officially making its way to the international space station today. but this is just the start. they have to come home safely and make sure that all the systems, the parachutes and everything gets them home safely, it is not until the mission is back on earth that we will know that it's been a complete success. thanks for flying with falcon 9 today. we hope you enjoyed the ride. good luck and godspeed.

for the astronauts, their journey is just beginning. the future of private space flight has truly arrived. rebecca morelle, bbc news. the number of recorded coronavirus cases around the world has now passed six million. the latest milestone was announced by john hopkins university in the united states. more than 367,000 people are known to have died, with the us continuing to top the list of both infections and deaths. brazil, russia, the united kingdom, spain and italy are the other worst affected countries. brazil itself has posted another record number of confirmed cases in the past 2a hours with more than 33,000. it's also recorded a further 956 deaths in the last day, bringing the total number there to more than 28,800, which is more than france. england's deputy chief medical officer, has warned the nation

is facing a "very dangerous moment" in the fight against coronavirus. professorjonathan van tam said the scientific consensus was that easing the lockdown in england next week would not affect the infection rate, but he urged the public not to "tear the pants" out of the new guidelines. 0ur political correspondent, chris mason, has this report. helen's bay beach in county down today. in northern ireland and in scotland, groups are already allowed to gather outside. england and wales will follow on monday. new rules grant us more freedom, but require us to make morejudgements about what is safe. in bournemouth, the lure of the beach, the challenge of social distancing. in york, the prize of a pint, and, yes, exactly the same challenge. with the number of coronavirus cases falling, ministers say the time is right for a more liberal approach, but some of those advising our political

leaders have concerns. if we make multiple releases of the lockdown at the same time, we won't know what is causing the inevitable jump in cases. and we don't have an established "test, track and isolate" process to follow these people up. so we're at a very risky point, where we could take the lid off a pot that is still bubbling in places, and it risks overflowing in these places. regent's park in london earlier, and primrose hill too, as the labour mayors of london and greater manchester also worry loosening the rules has come too soon. so, at this afternoon's government news conference, iasked... what do you say to those scientists and others who say that you're easing the lockdown in england too quickly? we haven't got that much headroom. that's why the prime minister has been clear that we need to proceed in a very cautious way.

i believe, and you'll recall i was at the podium when the disease activity was very high in the uk, and i said it's a very dangerous moment. i believe this is also a very dangerous moment. we have to get this right. the public in general to actually follow the guidance, don't tear the pants out of it, and don't go further than the guidance actually says. professor van—tam knows how to turn a phrase and make a point. he was also asked directly about dominic cummings, the prime minister's most senior advisor, who among other things drove 50 miles to test his eyesight during the lockdown. the rules are clear, and they have always been clear. in my opinion, they are for the benefit of all, and in my opinion, they apply to all. questions about mr cummings keep coming. questions about loosening the lockdown will, too. chris mason, bbc news.

the leaning tower of pisa is among the tourist attractions in italy that's re—opened after an easing of coronavirus restrictions. however, numbers will be limited to 15 at a time and all visitors will be provided with an electronic device which goes off if someone breaches social distancing rules. matt graveling reports. this famous landmark has never been short of support. tower of pisa attracts 5 million tourists to the area this year until it was closed three months ago in italy's response to the coronavirus pandemic. translation: we need to reason. pisa needs to restart. the tower is the symbol of these start. on saturday, the first step of the restart began in fa ct step of the restart began in fact the first of more than 280

steps as people climb within tower again. translation: we came from florence on purpose because we think we can fight the virus by starting again. the reopening comes as italy, one of the countries most hit by the coronavirus, eases measures but with only 15 people in at one time, it is not quite business as usual. translation: we have relied on technology and on this electronic tool, a tag activated which begins to vibrate when two people climbing the spiral staircase come too close to each other. 30 years ago, the tower closed for work to prevent a collapse. it is hoped this reopening will also signal a more stable future. translation: this is an exceptional event, comparable to the reopening in 2001 after 11 years of closure. we want to

give an important signal to the country, we are moving forward into the name of great beauty. great beauty will save italy. matt graveling, bbc news. let's go back to the united states. waves of protests taking place across the city ‘s of the united states. this is los angeles, fires have been burning not just los angeles, fires have been burning notjust in los angeles but other cities. in la there we re but other cities. in la there were peaceful protests earlier in the day. roads were blocked as people came out onto the street and then please because we re street and then please because were destroyed. about a dozen of them in one street. 0ne were destroyed. about a dozen of them in one street. one set on fire and it seems other fires have been burning as well. a curfew is in place officially in los angeles and about a dozen other cities right across the united states. it may be keeping some people at home but not all. thousands

are still in the streets, still protesting and still angry. this is bbc news. hello there. saturday brought more dry, sunny, and warm weather across the whole of the united kingdom. now, it was a fine end to the day in london and west london did quite well for temperatures. heathrow got up to 26 degrees. but for the most part on saturday, the highest temperatures were across the north and the west of the uk with kinloch here in the highlands of scotland, the nation's hotspot with highs of 27. we're going to see similar kind of temperatures for these western areas as we get on into sunday as well. now over the next few hours, most of us are going to keep the clear skies but probably some low cloud and some fog begin to push onto the eastern shores of scotland and although temperatures in the towns and cities between around 8—13 degrees, in the countryside the coldest spots get down to about 3 degrees so it will be quite chilly for some of you to start sunday morning. sunday, well, that low cloud

and fog can take the first few hours of the morning to clear away from east scotland. maybe a bit of mistiness as well in north—east england. but otherwise, a sunny start to the day and a sunny afternoon. now, the highest temperatures in scotland probably again to the north—west of the country, the highlands doing ok with highs probably reaching around 25—26 degrees celsius here. you might see another 23 or 2a for westernmost areas of northern ireland. and some of the highest temperatures in england across western areas along with wales too. you could see highs locally hitting around 27. now, for monday's forecast, the high pressure is still in charge of our weather, so we've got more of that dry weather to come. more of the sunshine as well. temperatures still on the high side for the time of year, looking at highs of 2a in glasgow, 26 or so in cardiff, but from then on we're going to start to see the weather changing somewhat because an area of low pressure is going to start to develop to the north of the uk and move in as we head towards tuesday and wednesday. so, that is going to be bringing some cloudy skies with rain or showers pushing southwards and as well as that,

the area is going to be getting cooler. so temperatures will be coming back down close to normal for the time of year, and normal isn't something we've seen for quite a long time. so, scotland is going to be cooling down as you can see, there will be some rain and showers around as well as we go through tuesday and wednesday. perhaps some of the heaviest rain actually working through during tuesday night. further southwards across england and wales, still hanging onto some warm sunshine on tuesday but the change comes really on wednesday with thicker cloud. again, rain or showers working in. that's your latest weather.

this is bbc news, the headlines: protestors and police have clashed as curfew orders are ignored in minneapolis and several other us cities. there are now curfews in place in 13 us cities. demonstrators are calling forjustice after the killing of african american, george floyd, by a police officer. england's deputy chief medical officer has warned of a "very dangerous moment" in the fight against coronavirus. professorjonathan van tam said easing the lockdown would not affect the infection rate, but he urged the public not to "tear the pants" out of the new guidelines. the first commercial spacecraft to carry people into space has successfully launched from cape canaveral in florida. the capsule, built by elon musk‘s spacex, has two astronauts onboard, and they are now on their way