this is bbc news — welcome if you're watching here in the uk or around the globe. i'm lewis vaughan jones. our top stories: tensions in minneapolis as protestors and police clash as curfew orders are ignored. police and national guard troops fire tear gas and flares are 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 tojoin the wanton destruction. police in the capital washington face missiles and fireworks, as curfews are imposed in a dozen cities including atlanta and denver. and chaos and rioting

in philadelphia sees some breaking into stores and looting as officers try to regain control of parts of the city. a new era for space travel as the first ever comercial rocket carrying people into space is successfully launched. welcome to bbc news. as night falls across the united states there are curfews now in place in 13 cities. but there are still plenty of protestors on the streets for a fifth night. they began in minneapolis on monday after the death of george floyd, an african american man from minneapolis who died as a police

officer knelt on his neck. since then some have turned violent with buildings set alight, shops looted and police vehicles torched. riot officers in los angeles have clashed with protesters. crowds have also gathered in new york, chicago detroit and philadelphia, and for a second day, protesters are trying to make their way to the white house in washington. police vehicles have been attacked, about a dozen on one street being vandalised. it has just passed eight o'clock there in los angeles, there is a scene like this or similar playing out and cities right gci’oss playing out and cities right across the united states, with peaceful protests in the afternoon giving way to battles

with police officers, buildings being attacked and stand—offs with riot police. we now think 30 cities have been affected by protests a nd 30 cities have been affected by protests and a dozen or so of those have decided to put cu rfews in place. dan mihalopolous is an investiagtive reporter for wbez chicago, the city's national public radio station. he told us what was happening there. well, i've been here all day, and there have been large protests but also violent protests here in chicago. i have seen cars, police vehicles burned. there have been some confrontations between police and protesters, a lot of graffiti on government buildings and high—end stores. the mayor had pleaded for the process to be peaceful. she said she agreed with all the 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 curfewjust began here a few minutes ago. ok, that's interesting you mentioned that. so the curfew has just begun. how do the police, the authorities there, try and implement it, if so many 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, as i mentioned. i just saw a united states postal service vehicle that had a message to skin trump alive graffitied on it. 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?

in seattle, despite mayorjenny durkan declaring an emergency citywide curfew from 5pm to 5am, to prevent violence, property damage, and to prevent the spread of covid—i9, protesters have continued to gather in their 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 radicalists of every direction, and it doesn't matter if it's left or right. but it's about being here, and standing up for the lives that are being hurt in the streetjust for being black. yes, we need to be safe. sorry, guys. loud banging

tom scheck, investigative reporter for minnesota public radio, brought us the latest from the scene in minneapolis. 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 protests there throughout the day today. 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 groups of people 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 and so what has happened is the governor of the state of minnesota has called in the national guard. he's also — the mayor of minneapolis has also said there is going to be a heavier police presence here tonight. they're not going to mess around. they're going to try and bring more order 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 in too 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 disperse, the police go to another area, and then what ends up happening is those 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're still here. we have brought you the latest from the state of minnesota, seattle, chicago. let's go to philadelphia now stopping these pictures a little earlier on of apparent looting there. there have been fires and properties, also a statue was attempted to be toppled by crowds, a curfew

introduced in philadelphia being ignored by some. sharmain matlock—turner is president of the philladelphia based advocacy group the urban affairs coalition. i asked herfor her thoughts on events there. no—one is happy that the protest, or some form of the protests, have turned into violence or looting or any of those kinds of things. we all — those of us who are fighting forjustice and to make sure that people of colour have equal access and are treated fairly in this country — want that to be the focus, and not the focus to be about people who have sort of taken over this movement, and moved it in a way that is not in our best interests. and is that what you believe? do you believe this is outsiders coming

in and hijacking these protests? that is certainly what some officials have been saying today, right across the united states. but it is very difficult to disentangle who is there to deliberately set forth their own agenda and those people who are caught up in the original protests. well, ithink, you know, all of us will take a look at this and everybody will be doing investigations and reviewing that over time. but when i took a look at the people, and i've been watching the news as well, all day, and watching the film, and sort of seeing the people that i know and communities who work every single day to drive change, and have tried to make the world a better place for all of us, i didn't see those people walking up and down chestnut and walnut street, near where my offices, breaking into stores or starting fires. those are not the people that i see every day, who are doing that work. have you been surprised by what we've seen over the last few days, this incredible pent—up frustration and anger that has spilt out

onto the streets in so many cities across the country? no, i and definitely not surprised at the anger. i mean, if you watched that video of george floyd, i don't know how you could not be outraged. how could it not be painful? if you're a person of colour — i mean, i have a grandson, and ijust kept thinking, i mean, what if that were my grandson who were being treated that way? i mean, i still get nervous if i'm followed by the police in the city of philadelphia. as a matter of fact, i was followed several months ago just because someone had a car that was similar to mine. and i remember, you know, like, sweating at the wheel, wondering what the heck is going on here. so people of colour are — absolutely know that we are too often targets of the police

and of the power structure. and yet we try to fight through that, to continue to stand with and let you know what our humanity is, and that we absolutely do not deserve this kind of treatment. briefly, and i know this is an impossible question to answer briefly, i'm sure, but what are the concrete things that you want to see change as a result of this? well, in philadelphia, i'm excited to say that i was a big advocate for an african—american woman to be police commissioner. commissioner outlaw is something that all of us fought really, really hard to make sure that she was here, and we're here to support her and help her to be successful. so i think that that is extremely helpful. i think the other thing is we must continue the work of community policing. we have to connect the police department with the community in a way that they see everyone in the community as human, as people, and not

as us and them. right, let's take you to los angeles now, it's quarter past eight in the evening, still a lot lighter because of the time zones. lot lighter because of the time zones. we can still see there are people there on the streets, there has been what looks like looting of a shop. we don't know what led up to this incident here but it looks like goods being taken out of a shop there. there was, earlier on, a street full of police ca i’s on, a street full of police cars that were vandalised, about a dozen or so and los angeles, one of them set on

fire, and people have been in the streets blocking roads and coming into direct conflict with the police, and you can see a line of police officers there. a curfew has been ordered in los angeles and los angeles far from ordered in los angeles and los angeles farfrom alone ordered in los angeles and los angeles far from alone in that. we think about a dozen or so, possibly more now, have requested cu rfews and possibly more now, have requested curfews and place. they are asking their residents to stay at home, to stay indoors from around now, 8pm, 9pm in the evening untilfive in the morning. police efforts now is to try, as fireworks go out there in los angeles, police try and somehow marshall people and get people to go home and to leave the streets. and lots of these cities there have been peaceful demonstrations throughout the day. having speeches, there

we re day. having speeches, there were black lives matter organised marches, that did carry on peacefully, but the streets remain full of people and the clashes with police have been the result. we are keeping right across these protests, a wave of protests and around 30 cities right across the us and we are keeping across all the developments here for you on bbc world news. 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 are now several hors into their flight and they'e been live—streaming a tour of their capsule. 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 houses 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. as we work our way towards one of the windows, unfortunately, it is getting a little bit dark but i'm not sure if bob campana over here, we have just passed the coast over newfoundland and over the atlantic right now. to tell us more about the launch is leah crane, the space and physics reporter at the new scientist.

imean, the i mean, the astronauts having some fun, they are spinning around, they are playing with one of their sons dinosaurs in space, quite a surreal thing to see! great fun. of course, there is a very serious side to this. there was tension, people a bit nervous before launch, not guaranteed it would go 0k. it has gone 0k. what is this all mean, what are the consequences of this?” all mean, what are the consequences of this? i think it's really exciting it went well and like you said we were all on the edge of our feet, hoping everything would go well. what it means is that there is a new player in the human space flight game. up until now, only russia and china could send humans into orbit and now spacex can and that does not just orbit and now spacex can and that does notjust mean they can send nasa astronauts to the space station, they can also potentially send basically anyone you can afford a seat! yeah, sadly, not me at this

present moment, even though i would love to go! is this a significant step to essentially space opening up? i think so. i think it is maybe an early step ata think it is maybe an early step at a really big one because this is really the first time that anyone other than a government superpower that anyone other than a government superpower has been able to send human beings into space and hopefully soon, there will be more and more companies who are able to do this and it will get cheaper and cheaper and a step towards making it an more everyday phenomena instead of this exciting event that we watch online today. it could be something that happens more regularly. and the us have reconfigured their commitment to space, going to the moon and mars, what is the big plan? the big plan is eventually to go to mars but right now there is a very audacious smaller plan to

launch humans to the moon in 2024, which is called the artemis programme, and it is very fast. they announce the programme last year, maybe two yea rs programme last year, maybe two years ago, and they are already hoping to get humans on the moon again, very quickly. it is sort of a step towards that although not necessarily a direct step up i know, do you think they will make that 2024 deadline? honestly, iam sceptical that they will make the 2024 deadline. i think it will happen but i don't think that quickly! fascinating stuff. good to talk to you. thank you for your time. let's get some of the day's other news: the number of recorded coronavirus cases around the world has now passed six million. the latest milestone was announced byjohns 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 has now registered more than 33,000 new cases of the coronavirus. the country is now the second—worst affected country in the world. the al—aqsa mosque compound injerusalem is set to reopen after being closed for two months due to covid i9. its doors will be open from sunday but details of the re—opening have not yet been finalised. president trump has said he is postponing next month's summit of the g7 advanced economies until september. mr trump said he wanted to invite other countries to the meeting, including russia, calling the g7 a "very outdated group". 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. pisa's leaning tower helps attract 5 million tourists to the area each year, until it was closed three months ago, in italy's response to the coronavirus pandemic. translation: we need tourism. pisa needs to be able to restart. the tower is the symbol of this restart, for pisa and for all the pisans. on saturday, the first step of this restart began, in fact, the first of more than 280 steps, as people climbed the tower once again. translation: we came from florence on purpose because we think that we can fight the virus only by starting to live again, with all of the safety measures and here all the conditions are right to do so.

the reopening comes as italy, one of the countries worst hit by coronavirus, eases its lockdown measures but, with just 15 people allowing in at one time, it is not quite business as usual. translation: in addition to the rules on sanitization, spacing, etc, we have relied on technology and on this electronic tool. it's a tag which is activated and begins to vibrate and illuminate when two people climbing the spiral staircase that leads to the top of the bell tower 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, if not more, than the reopening we did in 2001, after i! years of closure. we want to give an important signal to the country, we are moving forward in the name of great beauty. great beauty will save italy. matt graveling, bbc news.

taking it straight back to the united states were right across the country there are waves of protests. this is los angeles. coming up to 8:30 p.m., the light starting to fade and the street lights coming on and they will be eliminating hundreds, if not thousands, of people on the streets, along with police and police barricades and police barriers. there are now thought to be 30 or so cities where there have been protests and demonstrations and, tonight, we think around a dozen cities have used cu rfews think around a dozen cities have used curfews to try and order people off the streets to stay at home. this is the fifth night of protests after george floyd, an unarmed black man, was held down by a police

officer on the back of the neck for nearly nine minutes. that police officer has been charged with third—degree murder. the three other police officers who we re three other police officers who were with him have not, and protesters have been calling for that to change. there were calls by official city leaders, state governors, for people to stay at home, to go home, to protest peacefully during the day but not to protest violently during the night. that does not seem to have worked in many cities from philadelphia, chicago, new york, and los angeles. los angeles, of course, no stranger to this kind of thing. los angeles has seen race riots before and tonight the so—called you've angels is being haunted by demons again tonight. — — city of angels.

i'm lewis vaughan jones. 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—i3 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 24 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 24 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 a police man was charged with the murder of african american, george floyd. 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 to the international space station. here, private tenants are more likely to be in financial difficulty