this is bbc news with the latest headlines for viewers in the uk and around the world. i'm lewis vaughan jones. splashdown! nasa astronauts splash down to earth after the first ever commercial crewed mission to the international space station. residents of melbourne, australia are waking up under the country's toughest coronavirus measures yet. a bbc investigation has found the number of deaths from coronavirus in iran is nearly three times higher than admitted. and a dramatic end to the british grand prix as lewis hamilton wins with

a puncture on the final lap. nine weeks after the first commercial rocket to carry astronauts was launched to the international space station, the mission was completed when the craft splashed down in the gulf of mexico. it's the first space capsule to land in water in 45 years, ending a test flight for the new astronaut taxi service provided by the californian firm, space x. our science correspondent rebecca morelle reports. 200 metres. brace for splashdown. copy, braced for splashdown. history in the making as the dragon capsule returns home. as you can see on your screen, we have visual confirmation for splashdown. applause. the first private spacecraft to bring astronauts back to earth.

dragon spacex, separation confirmed. their journey began from the international space station. the spacecraft‘s owned by us company spacex. inside, nasa's bob behnken and doug hurley are at the controls. as they hurtled through the earth's atmosphere, a heat shield protected them as temperatures reached up to 2,000 degrees celsius. then, at last, a glimpse from the earth. we are visual on four chutes out. parachutes slow the rapid descent before splashdown. splashdown. this move to the commercial sector marks a major change. with the spacex reusable rockets and capsules, the cost of space flight is coming down. spacex has done the whole thing, so they can launch, they can dock, they can orbit the earth in a spacecraft and they can return to earth.

and if you can do that safely, then anybody who chooses to — and if the company, in this case spacex — accepts their money, then anybody can pay to send somebody into space. racing to the scene, the recovery vessel. local boats have come to take a look, too. the scorched capsule is hoisted on board. there's a slight delay as noxious fumes from the landing are cleared. the hatch is now open. thank you for doing the most difficult part and the most important parts of human space flight. then, at last, the first breath of fresh air for two months. both astronauts now out and ready to head home to see theirfamilies. it's the end of their mission, but a new era in commercial space flight is just beginning. we all wish you a safe journey home and a happy reunion with your families soon, and we look forward to seeing you in person as well. rebecca morelle, bbc news. let's get more on this. laura forczyk is the founder of space analysis and consulting group astralytica, and is in atlanta, georgia.

thanks for coming on the programme. thanks for having me. what is the significance of this moment, then? this was the successful completion of what was called the demo ii mission, the first time a commercial company has ever launched astronauts to orbit in the first time nasa has ever contracted a commercial company to launch its astronauts to the international space station and this signifies a transition and thought from government only space transportation to commercial space transportation and a public private partnership between nasa and spacex and hopefully future companies as well. and what's the advantage of getting private companies like spacex involved? spacex can do things a little less expensively than had been done so right now, nasa is wrapping up contracts with the russian space agency, and most recently they contracted to fly astronauts in 0ctober, contracted to fly astronauts in october, i believe, or $90

million per seat whereas spacex can do that significant cheaper, about half as much, $55 million or so. not only that, spacex can open up the access not just to that, spacex can open up the access notjust to nasa astronauts but to other government agencies. their next mission which will hopefully launch next month in september will fly a japanese astronaut and the second crude mission they are planning will fly a japanese astronaut and a french astronaut and in the future they also hope to fly private space tourist so it really can open things up or government astronauts around the world as well as private space tourism flights. those private space tourism flights, that's what i wa nt to tourism flights, that's what i want to talk about. how far off are they realistically? realistically, we've already had several back in the early to thousands, there were, i believe, seven space tourist that flew with russia through a company called space

adventures, so it's happened in the past but there was a break and this is a new transition because it wouldn't be a government rocket that these private space travellers would go on, it would be a commercial rocket and probably less expensively than what roscosmos is able to fly now, roscosmos is able to fly now, roscosmos is listed in flying space tourists again and the more people can go up onto the international space station, one, i'm a scientist, and the more people who can go up, the more people who can go up, the more science more people who can go up, the more science can more people who can go up, the more science can be done, even if it's private number two, it opens up if it's private number two, it opens up access if it's private number two, it opens up access to a lot of different types of people, not just people you think up from the 1960s and 1970s but really a wide diversity of people can get a ccess a wide diversity of people can get access not only to the international space but commercial space stations as well. sign me up. great to talk to you. residents of melbourne, australia are waking up after an overnight curfew, imposed to tackle a surge in the number of coronavirus cases. they're now limited to an hour of exercise a day, no further than 5km from home. only one person per household

will be able to shop for essential items. there are 17,282 confirmed cases and more than 200 deaths in australia. the country had early success in suppressing coronavirus, but now there are fears that with fresh clusters in areas, including victoria, the situation there could change fast. sangita myska reports. guarding against an invisible enemy in the state of victoria. the authorities have acted quickly in bringing in strict measures to limit people's freedom. supermarket shelves lie empty as people in melbourne stock up

in preparation for tough new restrictions, including a night—time curfew that will last for six weeks. i am declaring a state of disaster across victoria. this will be in addition to the state of emergency that has operated throughout. this means that police and others have additional powers. we can suspend various acts of the parliament, we can make sure that we can get the job done. australia has had fewer confirmed infections and deaths than many other countries, but the worsening situation in victoria has the entire country on edge. on sunday, 671 new infections were reported. seven people died. the victoria state government says that previous disease control measures were working too slowly. residents will have to stay within five kilometres of their homes, and only one person per household is allowed to go shopping for food each day. schools and childcare centres will close.

some say even more needs to be done to keep the virus under control. in melbourne, unfortunately this situation we're in is worse because of leakage of quarantine. we have got to do a lot better with our quarantine if we maintain elimination. certainly places like western australia, they have the borders hard locked at the moment and letting nobody in their unless they are politicians and military going in. in melbourne, people try to maintain their new normal, as australia's strictest lockdown so far follows its deadliest week during the pandemic. sangita myska, bbc news. let's get some of the day's other news. one of the top doctors on the white house covid—i9 task force has warned that the us has entered a new phase in its fight against the virus. deborah birx said the disease was now a greater threat than when the outbreak began and cautioned people living in rural areas that they were not immune. the capital region of the philippines is bringing back a stricter form of quarantine for two weeks,

to tackle a surge in covid—i9 cases. it follows a warning from doctors and nurses that the country was losing the fight against the disease. more than 200,000 people have now died from coronavirus in latin america and the caribbean. brazil and mexico account for nearly three—quarters of those deaths. the number of deaths make it the second hardest hit region in the world after europe. a bbc investigation has found the number of deaths from coronavirus in iran is nearly three times higher than the government there claims. almost 42,000 people have died with covid—i9 symptoms, according to official medical records passed to the bbc by a whistle—blower. iran's health ministry has rejected this, insisting that the country's reports to the world health organization are accurate. behrang tajdin from the bbc‘s persian service has the story.

groaning. gasping forair in the last hours of life. this man became iran's first official coronavirus victim on the 19th of february. his brothers were doctors, and they posted this video on social media. after that, officials were left with no choice but to admit that covid—i9 was killing iranians. but it turns out his death from the virus was not iran's first. the bbc has seen what appear to be two official government documents. they contain every hospital patient they think was infected by covid—i9 and all those they suspect died with the virus. together, they show iran's epidemic started earlier and was far deadlier than the official said it was. now we know the first death was actually a full month before officials came clean.

the data suggests that on some days in february and march, covid—i9 deaths were more than ten times higher than what officials were announcing. in total, 41,952 people have died in hospitals after the 20th ofjuly. three times as many as the official death toll. this figure puts iran amongst the five worst hit countries in the world. this is an extraordinary leak. the files include a vast amount of personal and medical details, names, addresses, phone numbers and whether they had a history of respiratory or cardiac disease. there are nearly half a million records listed in the two files. and the bbc has made strenuous efforts to authenticate the data. the whistle—blower told that passing on this information was dangerous but worth it. act or's voice: risking my life, i'm sending you the lists

of coronavirus infections and deaths in all the hospitals of the country. i urge you to publish these figures as you see fit, so we can save some patients' lives. why would iran cover up the true scale of the outbreak? the pandemic started in the run—up to parliamentary elections in february. it was only after those elections that iran started imposing some restrictions to stop the spread. as the economy was already in deep recession, the government let businesses reopen in the spring. the leaders of the islamic republic fear any sign of weakness may be used by its enemies. maybe that's why they hid the true scale of the pandemic. behrang tajdin, bbc news. stay with us on bbc news, still to come: with many people wary of international travel, many people in the uk have decided to stay closer to home for their summer break.

the question was whether we want to save our people and japanese as well and win the war, or whether we want to take a chance on being able to win the war by killing all our young men. the invasion began at two o'clock this morning. mr bush, like most other people, was clearly caught by surprise. we call for the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of all the iraqi forces. 100 years old and still full of vigor, vitality and enjoyment of life. no other king or queen in british history has lived so long, and the queen mother is said to be quietly very pleased indeed that she's achieved this landmark anniversary. this is a pivotal moment for the church as an international movement. the question now is whether the american vote will lead to a split in the anglican community.

this is bbc news. i'm lewis vaughan jones. our top story: the first commercial crewed mission to the international space station has splashed down off the coast of florida. now as we've been reporting, many countries in europe and asia are experiencing a recurrence of coronavirus infections with hong kong being hit by a third wave. the city had been praised for its success in handling the covid—19 pandemic but is now recording hundreds of new cases. so what's going on in hong kong, and what are the lessons for other countries? professor malik peiris is chair of virology at the university of hong kong. thanks very much for coming on the programme. good evening,

lewis. so what's going on there, why are the numbers creeping up? yeah, so this last month ofjuly, more than double the total number of cases for the total number of cases for the first six months of the year. essentially, we can see that there were multiple introductions of the virus in june, at the time when hong kong was lifting its social distancing measures and one of these introductions, more or less, exploded into the vast majority of cases that we see now, coming from this single introduction... crosstalk. by introduction... crosstalk. by introduction you mean someone by introduction you mean someone coming in. a mistake, essentially, at the border? that is correct. so we are sequencing the virus and fingerprinting it so we can see distinct strains of the virus. i see. so what about things like social distancing? what else has contributed to the

spread? so in june with the cases coming out of control, hong kong lifted its social distancing measures, relax them, so together with these introductions from outside it led this explosion and we believe that the introductions we re believe that the introductions were coming from a number of sources, one is seafarers, hong kong was allowing ships to change their crew in hong kong without any monitoring, without testing, without quarantine. aircrew was another source. and also, possibly, some of the people quarantine at home in contact with other family members who were not in quarantine. ic. so people at home spreading it to people they live with or nearby, they are not tracked and traced. what has hong kong done well? we have seen a couple of the

errors in your mind there that see numbers creep up with not tracking at something, but what has it done so well, especially initially? i think this socially distancing measures we re socially distancing measures were really successful and this is because not just were really successful and this is because notjust the authorities introducing them, but because the general public was implementing them very efficiently. so i think that has gone well. but it has shown that these measures can bring the outbreak under control, but, unfortunately, these are loopholes of introductions from outside were not stopped earlier. really good to get that explanation of where things are happening and why. thanks very much for coming on and talking to us, professor. but‘s professor malik peiris. thank you. the us state of florida is bracing for the arrival of storm isaias, which is expected to hit

the east coast shortly. it's weakened to a tropical storm after lashing the bahamas. but forecasters warn it could strengthen back to a hurricane before making landfall. florida governor ron desantis is urging people to be prepared. don't be fooled by the downgrade. we do think it will be upgraded back to a hurricane later on this evening. even if it's tropical storm force winds, you can pretty much be assured that you are going to see power outages — that is certainly a 70 mph wind will be enough will be enough to take down trees and limbs, and that obviously interacts with power lines. so that will happen, and people should be prepared for that. staying in the us. more than 1,300 firefighters are battling a blaze that's burning out of control in southern california, threatening thousands of people and homes east of los angeles. the so—called apple fire that broke out near the city

of san bernardino has so far charred more than 20,000 acres, sending up columns of smoke visible from hundreds of miles away. at least 2,600 homes and nearly 7,800 people have been evacuated so far. the bollywood star amitabh bachchan has been discharged from hospital after being treated for covid—19. mr batchan, who is 77, is one of india's most renowned actors. —— mr bachchan, who is 77, is one of india's most renowned actors. his daughter in law, the actress aishwarya rai bachchan, and her eight—year—old daughter recovered from the virus and left hospital earlier this week. with many popular holiday destinations in europe affected by a growing number of travel restrictions, many people in the uk have decided to stay closer to home for their summer break. it's providing welcome support to tourism which, like so much of the economy, shut down throughout the spring. it's also helping to rebalance the loss of foreign visitors. danny savage reports from cumbria in the north of

england. in the lake district, tourism is coming back to life, but it's not like it used to be. take, for example, getting onto one of the lakes... so, you've got to wear a face mask on the boat? you have to book online in advance, and these tourist boats are classed as public transport, so familiar rules apply. announcer: it is a legal requirement that face coverings are worn by passengers... what's really good is that customers are reporting back that they've got confidence in the covid—secure measures we've put in place and they're happy to be out on the lake. who wouldn't enjoy being out on this? a holiday in the lake district, though, is weather—dependent. let's just say all this water has to come from somewhere, and there's deep frustration among many businesses and visitors that during lockdown the weather was basically perfect, but since then, it's been anything but. when you live in the uk, you know what to expect from the weather usually, so you come prepared, don't you? it isn't what we hoped for, because we should be in lovely

sunshine in minorca, but, actually, it's nice to get away after so many weeks of lockdown. it's quite nice not to have the whole airport stress. yeah. you canjust shove everything in the back of the car and go. these little hire boats are selling well. the desire for self—isolation is doing wonders for self—hire. we've recently visited this deserted campsite at brothers water. it's back in business, but it's far from normal. we're only operating at about 50% occupancy because of the social—distancing measures. people who would normally have gone abroad are turning up. there is definitely a lot of people camping with us that have never camped before, they've never thought to camp before, they've really enjoyed it, which has been brilliant. they‘ re embracing it. we should be in egypt, but looking at it again, you think, my goodness, this is always here, this will always be here, and, yeah, you just feel as if you've come home sometimes, when you come back to these places. it's absolutely

beautiful and inspiring. we should have flown to lanzarote on sunday. they've missed out on all of the spring tourism, so to come back here to help out the campsites, to help out the lake district, it's a no—brainer, really. at the other end of the market, the benefits are also being felt. it's been crazy busy... here, spain's loss is cumbria's gain. people are anxious about travelling internationally, so itjust means that we're having an influx of bookings. the reality is we're a 29—bedroom hotel here. we don't actually have any more space. we're disappointing people when they ring, and we're telling them we don't have rooms available until september. with virtually no international tourists, visitor numbers are down. the lakes hopes it can extend this year's season for as long as possible. danny savage, bbc news, cumbria. lewis hamilton has won the british grand prix for the seventh time in his career in dramatic fashion, crossing the finish line with just three working wheels, after getting a puncture on the final lap. usually the race sees 140,000 fans descend on silverstone,

but today it was a much quieter affair due to coronavirus restrictions. here's our sports editor dan roan. once the action got under way, hamilton made his pole position count immediately, getting into a decent lead. and it was something of a procession. elsewhere, there were a couple of crashes, which meant the safety car was used on a couple of occasions. and that seemed to frustrate hamilton. but all seemed well until the last few laps when, first, his mercedes team—mate valtteri bottas got a puncture, which meant that he finished back in 11th, now 30 points behind hamilton in the championship. and most dramatically of all, in the penultimate lap, the same happened to lewis hamilton himself, remarkably. he got a puncture as well. at that point, he was around 30 seconds ahead of the red bull of max verstappen. now, his team took the fateful

decision to bring him into the pits just before that incident to change his tyres in what was a successful bid to record the fastest lap and get a point. but had they not done so, had they kept their man out there on the circuit, he would've overtaken hamilton because he was effectively on just three tyres for the final lap. and that meant that in the final reckoning, it became an incredibly dramatic finale. hamiltonjust clinging on byjust over five seconds to secure a record seventh british grand prix victory. it puts him on course, of course, for a record—equalling seventh world championship crown. next weekend, he'll be back here and expected to reinforce and strengthen that bid. once again, of course, there'll be no fans here. what happened earlier on was surely one of the most dramatic ends to a british grand prix. just a shame that there were no fans here to witness it. dan roan reporting there. and

that's it from me. i will be back with the headlines in a couple of minutes. you can reach me on twitter. i'm @lvaughanjones. i'm lewis vaughan jones i'm lewis vaughanjones and this is bbc news. hello there. it took until the last day in july for temperatures to get above 30 degrees celsius. we only have to wait until thursday or friday this week before we see 30 degrees in august. but it won't be for the start of the week. we've got a little ridge of high pressure building in, which has been easing the showers back overnight. so, actually, it's going to be quite a chilly start this morning, but with plenty of sunshine before the shower cloud gets bubbling away. so, there will already be a few showers in north—western areas anyway, and with a weak weather front brushing past here, that will tend to merge those showers a little bit. but plenty of drier weather for the south—east of scotland, possibly fewer showers than sunday in northern ireland. and, again, just a scattering for england and wales, but by the afternoon, particularly in eastern areas, they are likely to turn heavy with some thunder around, slow—moving downpours. but away from the showers in the sunshine, feeling pleasantly warm, but the wind will be picking up in

the north—west of scotland. why? because we've got our next weather front on its way in. so, through the course of the night, it's likely to turn quite wet through northern ireland and also quite mild with lots of low cloud around, so a very different feel to our weather, i think, across north—western areas as we head into tuesday. in fact, through tuesday and wednesday, it does look wetterfor a time, some significant rain around and some stronger winds. but, again, it doesn't last. so, this is the low pressure which will be responsible for that rain, 50—60 mm over the highlands of scotland, tightly packed isobars denoting some stronger winds for many through tuesday and wednesday further south as well. the rain looks it'll be a feature mostly for scotland and northern ireland, but there will be low cloud and drizzle setting in across northern england, wales, the south—west while southern and eastern areas may well stay largely fine and dry and warm with some sunshine around. clearly not feeling warm further north despite the mild air here and all the moisture. which will continue to fall, that rain, as we go through tuesday night and into wednesday. some uncertainty as to how far south it's going to come, but again the high pressure's closer to the south. so, if those weather

fronts do come southwards, the likelihood is they won't produce much rain, they'll just fizzle out. and then the high pressure builds later in the week, just pushing those or nudging those weather fronts further north again. and allowing the temperatures to rise, mostly for england and wales, but some warmer, drier weather coming in further north for scotland and northern ireland as well. bye— bye.

this is bbc news. the headlines: the first crude mission by a private company to the international space station has safely returned to earth. the spacex dragon crew shall off the coast of florida. thus's administrators say emission's success month beginning of a new era in human space flight. one of president trump's top medical advisers has warned that the us is entering a new phase in its fight against the coronavirus pandemic. deborah birx said the disease was "extraordinarily widespread", and a greater threat than when the outbreak first began. an investigation by the bbc‘s persian service has found that the number of people who have died with covid—19 in iran is nearly three times higher than the government has