a gritting lorry overturned in devon, as drivers were warned only to travel if absolutely necessary. the flakes came down thick and fast across large swathes of the uk. this was a snowy scene in newport. four coronavirus vaccination centres in south wales were forced to shut. the met office says by the middle of the week, the cold and wintry conditions will give way to wet and windy ones, leading to fears of flooding. simon jones, bbc news. now it's time for a look at the weather, with nick miller. hello. still some very difficult conditions on the roads this evening, if you have to be travelling, particularly into the midlands. the snow will eventually clear away southwards tonight. the last of it clearing the far south—east in the early hours, turning very icy behind that. and with these wintry showers that pep up across northern scotland as the night goes on. —7, —8, could be yours, with the deepest snow in the midlands. we start off on monday morning with a widespread frost, widespread ice,

too so still treacherous on untreated roads, pavements, again if you have to be out in the morning. but many of us tomorrow will have a drier and brighter day. there will still be these showers in scotland. rain, sleet on the coast. inland, sleet. some snow into the hills. maybe one or two for northern ireland and the far north of england but many of us will stay dry with broken cloud and sunny spells. it'll be a little less cold. it does get milder for a time for many of us with the exception of some of us in scotland as we go through the week ahead. with that it will be turning wetter. it does mean more rain before it turns colder again next weekend.

hello, this is bbc news. the headlines... more than 70 cases of the south african variant of covid are identified in the uk amid concerns the vaccine may be less effective against it. ministers say numbers are being closely monitored. we have enhanced contact tracing to do everything we possibly can to stop them from spreading. the number of covid—19 cases in the united states passes 25 million, with the number of deaths soaring to nearly 418,000. israel announces it will ban incoming flights from monday evening until the end ofjanuary in order to try and contain the spread of coronavirus. some enjoy the wintry conditions as snow and ice sweep across the uk, but severe weather warnings

are in place for many areas. and celebrations in china, as 11 gold miners who'd been trapped underground for two weeks are rescued. now on bbc news... this time last year, the city of new orleans was getting ready to celebrate its mardi gras festival. but, as with most cities around the world, coronavirus put pay to those plans. last year, new orleans was celebrating. there was no sense in new orleans that there was anything serious. but in the crowds, there was a virus which before long would stop the music. here we are in this great tourist city and now we've come to a screeching halt. this was like being on a movie set that everybody had left. now this famous music city faces an uncertain future.

0ur government, they didn't tell us until it was too late. and its musicians face life without the crowds they live for. it's a cultural extinction, cultural genocide. february in new orleans is supposed to be mardi gras season, everybody's in a good mood, partying. the bars are open, a great place to have a good time. mardi gras is like an everyday party, and it's free. it's the greatest free party on earth. last year, mardi gras brought over a million tourists to the streets of new orleans.

to me, it's about family and friends and celebration and about love. mardi gras day, we always have upstairs. sophie lee runs a restaurant with live music in the city's famous french quarter. so there's my kids, my friends�* kids... you could imagine, it's pretty messy. but gloriously messy. the actual mardi gras season isjust a part of a long tradition. trombone player delfeayo marsalis is part of the city's most famous musical family. we grew up in new orleans. my father ellis played piano. my eldest brother branford played saxophone, quentin plays trumpet. yeah, if you love music, you should definitely know what's happening down here in the crescent city. it really does electrify that inner beast in people, kind of let their hair down and enjoy themselves at a level that they don't usually

get a chance to do. troy carter is a local senator and a member of the famous zulu krewe, who parade on fat tuesday, the biggest event in the mardi gras calendar. zulu kicks off mardi gras rolling at 7:00am, and then every other parade follows zulu. i've got my makeup on, and my wig, and my grass skirt. and when you turn onjackson avenue, if it's raining, if you're hungry, if you're tired... that is all exchanged with a euphoria that you would never, ever, ever believe. when you'd see the oceans of people, you get a burst of adrenaline that carries you for the next five hours.

this is the real music, you know? this is the real thing. and it's really what many forms of music try to imitate, that realness. i mean, that's real heart of new orleans music. it hits you, and it's real. trump: you may ask. about the coronavirus, which is very well under control in our country. we have very few people with it and the people are getting better. they're all getting better. there was no sense in new orleans that there was anything serious that was happening. we had the whole mardi gras season and there was never a single mention that there was a pandemic. maybe we had heard whispers that there was something

going on somewhere else. it was something that was going on in italy at that point. bethany boltman�*s charity provides free healthcare to 2,600 musicians in new orleans. friends of mine got sick during mardi gras. they thought they had a terrible case of the flu. but they continued to go to work because they have to have the income for theirfamilies. we were gearing up for a lot of festivals, especially in march and april, festival season. i'm sure before march, i hadn't heard about the pandemic with any level of seriousness. i realised that there was a terrible problem in new orleans because our managing director and i had been to a conference in washington, dc. and one of the speakers, he said, there are cases

of covid around the country. you have got to be careful, this is serious and it could kill you. 13 days after mardi gras, new orleans got its first case of covid—i9. we were in our regular legislative session and the governor called a press conference. today, the louisiana department of health confirmed the first presumptive positive case of covid—19, commonly called coronavirus, in the state of louisiana. at that point we had very few deaths anywhere, we certainly didn't have any in louisiana. unfortunately, it quickly multiplied, and before you knew it, it was 10, and then 20, and then 30 and then 100. it was almost like wildfire. in the weeks that followed the first positive case, louisiana had the fastest growth rate of the virus in the entire world.

a lot happened in a short period of time. it seems like i really heard about it not long before i contracted it. so it wasn't something that we considered very seriously probably until that second week in march, and at that point it was a little late. and then we started seeing it go through the club. members of troy's mardi gras zulu krewe started to get sick. as real as it was to see the news and read the newspaper and hear of people, when you started hearing about people that you know, your personal friends, it was a punch to the gut like you wouldn't believe. it was terrifying to me because suddenly you're faced with a terrible virus and musicians in new orleans, they make their living

in crowds. they make their living on stages playing with people. how are you doing? just grateful for whatever we could bring in. so thankful. i thought about what would happen if our economy had to shut down and people who were already struggling to make ends meet, what was going to happen to them? new orleans is a city built on tourism and live music. the virus hitjust at the start of the festival season. for the business, january to june is where we make our nut. it's how we pay our bills, because summer slows down. it's an extremely busy and extremely lucrative time for us. derrick freeman is a musician who has lived in new for who has lived in new orleans for

almost 30 years. multiple festivals every weekend, including the jazz and heritage festival, which is a huge festival. so we're pretty busy, normally. but by march 18, new orleans was the epicentre of a statewide outbreak with nearly all 300 cases and seven deaths concentrated in the city. festivals started to get cancelled. we can handle that, is what the mood was at that time. then jazz fest got cancelled, french quarter festival got cancelled, everything started getting cancelled. that's when the dire, devastating mood took over. we are hereby mandating that residents stay home whenever possible. we are telling our people and our businesses to stay home.

there was nobody on the street, there were no tourists, there were no cruise ships. it was just so quiet. even after katrina, when 80% of the city was underwater, there were still pockets of music. but this was just like being on a movie set that everybody had left. at that point, there were so many people that were sick and that was so difficult. it was weird because it was a sunday. i think that day, i lost 16 of my gigs in april. a barrage of emails, like cancelled, cancelled, cancelled, postponed.

watching my calendar go white. everybody was panicking andjust being like, these things aren't happening. traumatising, is the word. the week that the city locked down, over 70,000 people applied for unemployment benefits in louisiana. the state usually receives 1,500 claims a week. we got cut off in march. we lost everything. the federal government passed a stimulus bill at the end of march to provide relief for businesses that were closed because of the pandemic. they gave us money to essentially help us get through 2.5 months. thinking that we'd be open byjuly. when it was supposed to be jazz fest time was when it really hit everybody. because your calendar is telling you, you're supposed to have four gigs today. and now everybody is either on unemployment or trying

to figure out how to get on it. then the fall gigs started getting cancelled. then it was like, wait a second, how long is this gonna last? it was a whirlwind. many of the artists unfortunately kind of live from gig to gig. they don't have a nine to five that you're going to get a cheque every two weeks like clockwork. they don't work, they don't eat. the covid relief money came in. you have to demonstrate, have receipts and have paid your taxes. and many of the artists don't have that. there are just a lot of things that when you think of the guy or gal that blows a horn in a corner bar, they may not live that way. by the end of march, louisiana had over 5,200 positive cases of covid—19, with the majority concentrated in new orleans.

i was under quarantine for about a month. my dad had contracted covid not long after me, probably around the same time, so there was concern for him. i didn't know what was happening with my own health. we begin tonight with breaking news. the death of a new orleans music icon, ellis marsalis. the 85—year—old. .. my dad passed on april the 1st. i got out for his funeral. it was serious, it was really serious. and my only advice to people is, don't get it. because you never know. eight weeks after mardi gras, 30 members of the zulu krewe had tested positive for the virus and eight had died. the pain and the mixed emotions that we felt, losing zulu members,

really made everybody started to rethink the significance of the role that mardi gras played in spreading covid. in may, the centers for disease control named mardi gras as one of the few superspreader events that accelerated the spread of covid—19 in new orleans and across the country. and nowjust imagine, all that i've described to you about mardi gras, all that i've described to you about the revelry and the inhibitions being thrown to the wind, any thought of safety or caution has been extinguished with fun and joy and merriment. now overlay that with a dreaded virus. that has no smell, no visual impact. it's in the air. and thousands of people arejust breathing it in. all these parades and people

out in the streets and catching beads and going to parties, and there was evidently rampant covid, which was not being talked about at all. the centres for disease control have since said that the cases were low and seemed contained, and so federal and local authorities didn't recommend restricting large gatherings at that time. our government, they didn't tell us. they didn't give us any sort of guidelines on what to do until it was too late. listen, as painful as it would have been, as unpopular as it would have been, had the leaders of new orleans known that this was a possibility, we could have cancelled mardi gras. god only knows how many lives we would have saved.

to date, over 7,500 people in louisiana have died from covid—19. live music venues are still closed after ten months. you don't want to show too much sadness in your demeanour, you know, because people are looking at us to be entertained, so we're trying to a maintain good front for that. but in our private conversations with other musician friends, it's a desperate situation, without a doubt. at the end ofjuly, the extra money put into unemployment benefits to help americans suffering the impact of the pandemic was cut. sustainability is going to be a problem for us, especially since, um, unemployment benefits and all that got cut. louisiana pays the lowest in unemployment benefits in the united states. derek is receiving

just $97 a week. where i'm going to be a month from now, i have no idea. and that's the part that's scary to me. there's no live music. there's no timeline of when live music will be allowed. the money sophie was given by the government also ran out injuly, and for six months she's been relying on her savings to save her business while she waits for a second stimulus package. it feels desperate. five new places closing every week, it's heartbreaking. friends of mine. it's devastating. and i might be that person too, in a few months. we don't know. i hope not, i'm going to fight, but it could be me. it's a cultural extinction, you know what i'm saying? cultural genocide.

it'sjust not the same place, without the culture, it's just another place. with federal support cut back, some closed music venues are handing out food to out of work musicians and hospitality workers. one of the meals for musicians things that we've been doing, since march, over 20,000 meals. we're hoping to start having shows again maybe in the spring. delfeayo has also stepped in to help, inspired by a tribute he saw to his late father. i'd driven past a music store, peaches records, and they had a sign out there that said, "thank you ellis marsalis for keeping new orleans music alive." and i thought about that and thought, perhaps we can get some funding to the musicians. i thought that would be a good

way to pay tribute to my dad because he helped so many musicians. today, he's handing out cheques to try and help struggling musicians. all right, y'all, i'm delfeayo marsalis. i want to thanks y'all for coming out and more importantly, thank you, y'all, for what you've all been doing so many years. the way we got it set up in here, we've got four tables inside, we've got the hand sanitiser — just come on in. so far we've gotten over 320 applications. it's tough on the musicians, but they don't complain so much. many of them are just very thankful and appreciative. what's your name? peters? the difficulty is the lack of camaraderie, and what that does for our spirit and our soul.

well, i appreciate you coming out today. from a mental health standpoint, it's really important for the musicians to get back as soon as they can. most of their lives have been designed to make people happy. and now that's taken away. i'm sure it's going to be tough for a while, no question. live music probably will be the last thing to return, and it makes sense. the musicians will be ready. but i see it, you've got to look at it, like, just give me a chance. let me get back out

on the field, coach! that's what they're saying. applause. late last year, the mayor of new orleans announced that the mardi gras parades will not take place in 2021. derek doesn't know what other festivals are happening either. i don't think any of them are going to happen, u nfortu nately. springtime, i don't see it happening. we would already be getting acceptance or rejection letters to these festivals by now. still unable to play live shows, derek is playing a live stream at his friends venue, which has been closed ten months because of the pandemic.

it will be strange playing in front of a room with no people. never done it before. at least we're not disturbing the customers! my only concern is the energy, because now we have to manufacture that energy, it's not organic. hopefully it doesn't affect the music too much. people are losing it. i mean, they need it as much as we do. it's part of the fabric of our culture. this is one of the efforts, last—ditch efforts to try to keep it going. it's to everybody�*s advantage for new orleans to come back. �*cause, you know, it'sjust what american culture is. it started here.

it's the root, the foundation of american music. and once you crack the foundation, you know, eventually the whole house falls down. live music will return to new orleans one day. but how long can its musicians wait? hello. even where it's still snowing this evening, the snow will eventually clear into tonight, and then a widespread frost, icy night to come and start to monday. some of the highest snow totals today have been in the midlands. we have seen the area of snow moving

across southern england, wales, northern ireland, but it stalled here into the midlands, parts of east anglia. this is where it's been snowing for the longest. even reached parts of northern england, but it's all going to clear away southward. the met office amber warning for snow in the midlands expires this evening. of course, it will turn very icy behind it. the last of the snow clearing the far south—east into the early hours, and these wintry showers in northern scotland will pep up as the night goes on. so an ice risk here as well. plus two in stornoway. —7 or —8 could be yours where the snow is deepest in the midlands as monday begins. with all of that ice around, treacherous conditions, road, pavement, if you have to be out in the morning. for many of us, monday will be a drier, brighter day. there are these wintry showers still around in scotland. rain and sleet around the coast. sleet, snow inland, especially into the hills. one or two for northern ireland perhaps feeding into the far north of northern england. but away from these, much of the uk during monday will be dry, broken cloud, sunny spells, a little less cold. still some wintry showers for scotland, northern ireland and northern england going into monday night. the ice risk continuing here.

indeed, where any of that snow has melted during the day, it re—freezes overnight and into tuesday morning. then on tuesday, something different, something from the atlantic. weather fronts heading our way. that will bring in cloud and some outbreaks of rain, very slowly pushing further north and east as tuesday goes on. eventually reaching some colder air and even a bit of snow to end the day across the pennines, southern uplands in scotland before this system fades away overnight and into wednesday morning. it will still be quite cold at this stage, but change is afoot from wednesday. going to see more vigorous weather systems coming in from the atlantic with more rain. that is of concern to areas that have seen some flooding. not as much rain as last week but of course areas affected by flooding are super sensitive to further rain so we do need to keep an eye on that as the week goes on. but with these weather systems for a time for many of us it will be turning milder. although it could well be that cold air hangs on for much of scotland, maybe parts of north—east england. milder and wetter for many of us

for a time before it turns colder again into next weekend. goodbye.

the south african covid variant. more than 70 cases have been identified in the uk. amid concern the vaccine may be less effective against this variant, numbers are being closely monitored. we have enhanced contact tracing to do everything we possibly can to stop them from spreading. we'll be looking at how ministers hope to control transmission of new variants with tighter travel restrictions. also tonight: an snp roadmap to a second independence vote, as nicola sturgeon faces more scrutiny over the handling of harassment claims against her predecessor. relief and joy in china, as 11 miners are rescued after two weeks trapped underground.

enjoying the winter wonderland. but the snowy conditions mean severe weather warnings for many areas.