welcome to bbc news — i'm lewis vaughanjones. our top stories... the former president has been acquitted of inciting a mob to attack the us capitol. democrats failed to get the two thirds majority they needed. the charge related to the storming of the capitol injanuary. the senate's republican leader mitch mcconnell voted to acquit, but condemned mr trump. president trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day. after the acquittal mr trump called the trial �*the greatest witch hunt in history. president biden said the events reminded people that democracy was fragile. and in other news — thousands of demonstrators take to the streets in cities across myanmarfor a ninth

day as anger contines following the military coup. hello, welcome to the programme. the former us president donald trump has been acquitted in his second impeachment trial after last month's storming of the capitol building. the senate vote fell short of the two—thirds majority needed to find him guilty of the single charge of incitement of insurrection. seven republican senators voted with their democratic colleagues ten short of what was needed for conviction. our north america editor jon sopel begins our coverage. after four days of acrimonious

hearings, the second impeachment trial of donald trump came to a close and the vote, convict or acquit. the senatorjudges that the respondent, donald john trump, former president of the united states is not guilty as charged under the article of impeachment. several republicans did find him guilty, but not enough to convict. the leader of the republicans in the senate voted to acquit, but then launched a lacerating attack on donald trump and his behaviour. there's no question, none, that president trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day. no question about it. the people who stormed this building believed they were acting on the wishes and instructions of their president. the events of january the 6th when the trump—supporting mob marched on congress and ran amock, after the former president told them to march their will never be forgotten. closing arguments in this trial

set out dramatically different versions of events. the cold, hard truth is that what happened onjanuary the 6th can happen again. this impeachment has been a complete charade from beginning to end. the entire spectacle has been nothing but the unhinged pursuit of a long—standing political vendetta against mr trump by the opposition party. senators, please be seated. earlier, there was a mighty kerfuffle over whether democrats would call witnesses following a new disclosure about comments allegedly made by the president while the riot was going on. in the middle of the insurrection when house minority leader, kevin mccarthy called the president to beg for help, president trump responded, and i quote, "well, kevin, iguess these people are more upset about the election than you are". this wasn't in the script. at times the exchanges seemed to belong to the school playground...

laughter. ..rather than the senate floor. that's civil process! i don't know why you are laughing. it is civil process, that is the way lawyers do it. to have called witnesses would have prolonged the trial and is probably the last thing joe biden wants, holding up his plans to push through a covid relief package, and would make no difference to the trial outcome. but of course, the person most relieved by today's vote will be donald trump. he escapes conviction but he'll go down as the first us president in history to be impeached twice. jon sopel, bbc news, washington. let's look at how events unfolded on the 6th of january. at 8am that morning, president trump again tweeted allegations of vote fraud ahead of his rally in washington dc. at 10pm in the morning members of the proud boys movement,

a right—wing militia, are seen heading towards the capitol. at midday, president trump was speaking at a rally and urged his supporters to march to the capitol. and at 1:15 an officer calls for reinforcements. next, at around 2pm vice president mike pence is evacuated from the senate floor and nancy pelosi, speaker of the house of representatives is taken to a secure location off site. the president tweets his anger towards his vice president. later he asks the protestors to go home. footage shows a sprawling mob, and a sea of people on the capitol grounds. we can get the reaction now of two senior senators. first mitch mcconnell, the minority leader of the republicans. he voted to acquit donald trump. but he said events on the 6th of january wouldn't be forgotten and more action could still be coming. january 6th was a disgrace. american citizens attacked their own government. they used terrorism to try to stop a specific piece of domestic business

they did not like. fellow americans beat and bloodied our own police. they stormed the senate floor. they tried to hunt down the speaker of the house. they built a gallows and chanted about murdering the vice president. they did this because they'd been fed wild falsehoods by the most powerful man on earth because he was angry he'd lost an election. former president trump's actions preceded the riot and it was a disgraceful, disgraceful dereliction of duty.

now to the leader of the democrats in the senate, chuck schumer. he says justice has not been done and the american people shouldn't forget what had happened when rioters stormed the us capitol. by not recognising the heinous crime that donald trump committed against the constitution, republican senators of not only risked but potentially invited republican senators have not only risked but potentially invited the same danger that was just visited upon us. so let me say this. despite the results of the vote on donald trump's conviction in the court of impeachment, he deserves to be convicted and i believe he will be convicted in the court of public opinion. he deserves to be permanently discredited and i believe he has been discredited in the eyes of the american people and in the judgement of history. donald trump has released a statement. he accused the democratic party of getting a free pass to denigrate the rule of law and suppress other viewpoints.

he went on to say... also adding... and we've received the first words on the acquittal from president biden. in a statement released by the white house, the president acknowledges the outcome but writes that he also goes on to say: and then says:

we spoke tojennifer kerns, who's a republican strategist and the conservative host of all american radio. she says it was unlikely that you were going to have 17 republicans vote to convict trump. well, i predicted this would be the likely outcome. you know, it was very unlikely that republicans were going to have 17 senators go up on a conviction vote, even though there were six republicans earlier in the week that supported the proceedings. but i think this was largely a dog and pony show to punish president trump for the actions ofjanuary the 6th. and i shared here on this network, i don't think president trump himself in his remarks that day incited the riots, but i do think there were many people around him, aides and advisers, who certainly stoked this flame. so hopefully now we can move on with the business

of the american people. however, i think president trump is not out of the woods yet. word is, our reporting is that chuck schumer is planning to take something to the floor of the us senate and that is the invocation of the 14th amendment of the united states constitution that actually, i think would have a good chance of passing because the democrats did win back the majority in the us senate. that would actually rob president trump of being able to run for office in the future as president. i think they are going to go to the drawing board fairly quickly to draw up that legislation. 0k, we don't know whether that's going to happen or not. say it doesn'tjust for the time being and nothing does happen, would you be happy that someone, as mitch mcconnell described donald trump, practically and morally responsible for storming the us capitol and there are no consequences for that? well, i think the free market will speak in the united states of america.

myself, and i know many other republicans are ready to move on, we are sort of done with... sorry, hang on. if a democratic president was in charge and held a rally, asked people to go, everything we know that's happened and stormed the us capitol on the floor of the house, you would say, let's just move on? well, look, i've listened to and i've read the transcript and there were more than 10,000 words that president trump uttered that morning. he spoke for one hour and 15 minutes, i've gone through the tape several times looking for that one statement that really incited a riot. look, the fbi has even said that the riots were planned long before by groups that were spread across the country in different areas and were not coordinating with the trump campaign. so in terms of directly convicting him, ithink they did the right thing. look, there are millions of people still out of work in this country, i'm disappointed that this is how the democrats chose to wield their new—found power.

i thoughtjoe biden should have called down to the senate and said look, if we really want unity in this country, let's forget this impeachment thing, let's move forward, let's have a day of service for covid—i9, let's get people back to work in america, let's not focus on the last four years. we spoke to anna greenberg, who's a pollster for the democratic party. she says it was a much more bipartisan vote for impeachment than many expected. everyone knew that he would not be convicted and i think people were surprised 57 senators actually voted to convict. it was a much more bipartisan vote for impeachment than i think anybody could have expected. and what value has it, given that donald trump has succeeded twice, he's been acquitted twice and we've seen family members tweeting pictures of him as a boxing champion, having these two wins under his belt, what good does it do for the democrats? i think it was incredibly

important that the house managers laid out a very clear and compelling case that, you know, it's pretty hard to refute about his level of responsibility for what happened at the capitol. it will be important for history, it'll be important for anything that happens in the future that is initiated by him. sure, he didn't get convicted, but it was very important to lay out the case for moral reasons, for historical reasons. you know, his movement is not over, it's not done. people already, senators who voted for his impeachment are being censured, people are getting threatened. it is incredibly important for the people to know who are behind this that we are all over it, it's not going away. so, yeah, he wasn't convicted but it's not like we are moving on. are you scared at all that this plays into his narrative, that there is a big witchhunt in washington, he is the outsider and being victimised?

not particularly. that's what he's been saying for five years. he is complaining that he actually won the popular vote in 2016, so he's been complaining about this for a long time. the fact that he's been permanently banned from twitter has pretty effectively silenced him. i don't think it's any surprise he saying this, it's the same thing he's been saying for years and years, he has his core set of supporters, he's not persuading anybody. in fact, if anything you've actually seen a decline in both favourability for the republican party since the election and a significant, tens of thousands of people have actually withdrawn from the republican party, like literally gone to the secretary of state's office and gotten rid of their republican registration. so i don't think this witchhunt stuff is going to carry much water. 0k, just lastly, if you are right and democrats are right and this was the right thing to do and he was guilty, what does it say about the state of american politics that there was an acquittal today? you know, if a mob invaded parliament and try to kill mps i think you guys would do it too. i think it was the right thing to do. it speaks to the polarisation

of american politics, it speaks to the very different channels of communication information that people are subjective. people are subject to. people who watch fox and the dark web, you know, had a very different experience of this impeachment than anybody else in this country, itjust speaks to the ongoing divisions in this country. this is bbc news. the headlines: us senators have voted 57 to 43, to acquit donald trump on charges of inciting insurrection at his second impeachment trial in washington. thousands of burmese have returned to the streets across myanmar for a ninth day of protests against the military coup at the start of the month. let's go to myanmar next, where the military leaders of the coup have released the names of seven opposition activists they want arrested. large demonstrations against the military takeover have continued across the country. paul hawkins has more. an eighth successive day of demonstrations. this was yangon city on saturday afternoon. hundreds of thousands still marching and still ignoring

the military crackdown on the protest. the latest tactic by the coup leaders, suspending laws stopping security services from detaining suspects or searching private property without court approval. they've also released the names of seven opposition activists they accuse of disturbing tranquillity, a rarely use charge. human rights watch says over 300 people have now been detained, many of them during night—time raids. we have neighborhoods now who are trying to organise, they are using pot banging when it looks like the police or military are coming into the area to possibly arrest someone, to warn people. so it really has become a situation where the crackdown is now going after anybody that the military identifies as leaders of these protests. meanwhile, football is also playing its part in the protests. outside the country's national stadium, many of the country's top footballers have also been making their voice heard. translation: we will only play football on the street _

until we get democracy. we won't play for the national team under the military dictatorship. we are protesting to send that message. translation: we're football players, but we are also - citizens of myanmar. we know people have relied on each other in this moment, so people from sport are participating in this revelation too. the us is still the only country to impose sanctions on myanmar�*s military so far, with the rest of the world still wondering whether to follow suit, the protests and the arrests go on. paul hawkins, bbc news. kingsley abbott is the director of global accountability at the international commission ofjurists, a geneva—based human rights organisation. he told us more about the latest legal actions taken by the authorities against pro—democracy activists. seven campaigners are now wanted

under the penal code for threatening public trans quality and that carries a penalty of imprisonment for up to two years. it is an old, colonial law and it is often used to criminalise free expression and it should have been repealed years ago. the law is so vague and broad it could be used to arrest anyone on any pretext. it is all taking place against the backdrop of other developments. the military issued an order for warra ntless arrests, warrantless searches, the detention of people without court oversight. the bottom line is, the military is completely above the law. these developments are a full frontal assault on human rights and rule of law in myanmar. how do you see this being changed? is it a case of international pressure, can you see the military backing down? no one knows where these protests are going to go,

but fears of returning to myanmar�*s bloody past is at the front of everybody�*s mines. the situation is escalating, rather than de—escalating. what is remarkable is the level of solidarity we are seeing across ethnic groups, age groups, different professions, it is not just about politics and aung san suu kyi this time, it is about wanting democracy and rejecting military rule. we are witnessing a very intense social upheaval. the international community needs to come together as one voice and address the situation. i don't mean the west and the us, but india, japan, china and others who have an interest in stability in myanmar and the region. what about the protesters themselves, the images we have just seen, lots of young people borrowing techniques from other protests in the region? incredible images,

in some ways it reminds you of other protests we have seen in the region over recent years in hong kong and in thailand and elsewhere. what we are seeing is the youth are internet savvy, they are connected to the world and they were just starting to become global citizens and now they are seeing their futures being ripped away from them. they really need protection at this time during the social upheaval. borisjohnson says he hopes to begin lifting lockdown restrictions in england from next month starting with schools, then non—essential shops, followed by pubs and restaurants. mrjohnson also said people will have to learn to live with coronavirus. some scientists have warned against easing restrictions too quickly even if the vaccination programme remains on target. here's our political correspondent, jonathan blake. day by day, thousands more injections to vaccinate people against coronavirus. by monday, the government is confident it will have met its aim of offering 15 million people

theirfirstjab. on a visit to a vaccine manufacturer in teesside today, the prime minister said he was cautiously optimistic about covid—i9 being contained long—term. new therapies are being discovered the whole time, which are enabling us to reduce mortality, improve our treatments of the disease, so, yes, i do think that, in due time, it will become something that we simply live with. effective vaccines are crucial to allowing restrictions to be lifted. the government's promised a more detailed timeline soon. but borisjohnson gave some idea of the order in which things would open up. starting with schools, we very much hope on march the 8th, that's got to be the priority, our children's education, our kids' education is our number one priority, but then, working forwards to getting non—essential retail open as well, and then, in due course,

as and when we can, prudently and cautiously, of course, we want to be opening hospitality as well. but, some advising the government warn that, even with effective vaccines, a resurgence in cases can't be ruled out. i don't believe anyone expects we are suddenly going to lift all the social restrictions. i don't think really anyone's thinking that way. that we are going to just immediately lift them and not care what happens. but, if for some reason we did choose to pretend itjust wasn't here any more some point, then, yes, there is the potential to go back to a wave that is a similar size to the one that we are in now. a drink in the spring sunshine might feel a long way off, and downing street has dismissed as speculation talk that pubs and restaurants could be serving us outside in april, but the more people get vaccinated, and the more the government talks about living with coronavirus long—term, the more the pressure to get life back to normal will grow. if it is the same level as flu, we don't think for a second of locking down the country over flu. there will come a point

when there will be a death rate from covid, but it's at a normal level, and we have to cope with that. obviously, we have to still try and prevent it, but we accept it. i think we have to. there is an acceptance in government that this lockdown must be the last in england, so, while ministers feel the frustration, they are proceeding with caution. jonathan blake, bbc news. this should've been one of the mostjoyous weekends in brazil's calendar. rio carnival, is one of the biggest parties in the world but this year it's been cancelled. it's hit businesses hard in a country already devastated by the pandemic. tanya dendrinos reports. streets abuzz and overflowing with people and colour, this is what rio typically looks like during carnival. february 2020 saw parties in full swing. fast forward a year, and the scene is very different. translation: compared to other years everything is paralysed. - we are praying and are

grateful for the little that is still coming in, but without carnival, there's no movement. the financial toll is undeniable. translation: everything - financially depends on crowds. we need a crowd to sell beer for people to get togetherfor a party, a birthday, a football match. all this involves a crowd and the pandemic cancelled all crowds. the pandemic has called out our work 100%. but this has all come about because of the harrowing human cost of the pandemic. brazil is one of the world's worst affected countries with more than 9.7 million coronavirus cases and the number of deaths approaching 240,000 and counting. in a tribute to the victims, rio's sambodrome, usually the beating heart of carnival, has been eliminated. has been illuminated. the hope is for a triumphant

return in 2022. for that, all hopes are pinned on the success of the vaccines and so comes the need for diversification. translation: the coolers that we use annually - for carnival were needed at health sites for the storage of vaccines. what we have bought for carnival, we have donated to the health ministry with a small adjustment for the storage of vaccines for millions of health sites throughout brazil. for now, the sequins and feathers remain nice too. tanya dendrinos, bbc news. a reminder of our top story. the former us president donald trump has been acquitted in his second impeachment trial after last month's storming of the capitol building. the senate vote fell short of the two—thirds majority needed to convict him on the single charge of incitement of insurrection. that is it from me.

you can reach me on twitter — i'm @lvaughanjones. iam i am lewis vaughan—jones and this is bbc news. hello. the temperatures in the isles of scilly reached ten celsius on saturday evening and that's the first time we've had double figures in the uk in a week. so the sun is now setting on this spell of bitterly cold weather. for all of us in the week ahead, things will be much milder. we'll notice it by day and by night. but it means the return of spells of rain on what will be quite a blustery week. already as sunday begins, milder air is nudging into western parts. for many of us, it's one last cold morning as temperatures hover close to freezing. there is a bit of wet weather moving in from the atlantic, and for scotland and northern england, there's a chance of seeing some freezing rain, rain that freezes instantly as it hits any surface and that could make things treacherously icy in some spots as we go through sunday. so, do have that in your mind if you plan

on making a journey. for all of us, it will be cloudy and there will be outbreaks of rain spreading eastwards as the day goes on, and it will be windy, particularly across the irish sea coasts, northern ireland, western scotland and into the outer and inner hebrides, and we'll see gusts up to around 70 mph, so some big waves. but if you're outside, you'll notice it feeling much milder. whereas across the eastern parts, still another cold day but not quite as cold as it's been. and temperatures will continue to rise as we go through sunday night. cloud and outbreaks of rain still across parts of england and wales going into monday morning. elsewhere, some clearer spells and a few showers. these are the temperatures as we start off on monday morning. many of us didn't even reach that for a high in the past week. the air is coming from a different direction, low—pressure dominating things now. pulling in airfrom the southwest, on that flow, we will get these wet and windy weather systems at times. but this flow is from a different, warmer direction and lifting temperatures

above the average for this time of year for some of us. still a bit of rain affecting parts of the eastern side of england as monday begins. some showers pushing from southwest to northeast elsewhere, but for many of us, a large part of the day will be dry. some breaks in the cloud and a few sunny spells. 13 celsius in london, nine in glasgow. it stays mild for the rest of the week. there will be further spells of rain, it will be blustery, but what a different week from last week.

this is bbc news. the headlines: donald trump has been acquitted in his second impeachment trial, after senators failed to reach the two—thirds majority of votes needed to convict him. the former president was facing one charge of inciting an insurrection after protesters stormed the us capitol building in january. seven republican senators voted with democrats by 57—43 to convict mr trump, while others openly condemned his conduct. meanwhile, he's put out a statement vowing to carry on fighting with his "beautiful, patriotic followers". and in other news, myanmar�*s military leaders, who seized power almost two weeks ago, have released a list of seven opposition campaigners they want to arrest. it comes as the army performs night—time raids, following mass protests against their coup. now it's time for the week in parliament.