this is bbc news, the headlines: lawyers in the us city of minneapolis have set out their opening arguments in the trial of a white former police officer accused of killing george floyd. the prosecutor replayed the full nine—minute video showing the former officer kneeling on mr floyd's neck as he struggled to breathe. prosecutors in new york have expanded their criminal case against ghislaine maxwell, the british socialite accused of grooming young girls for herformer partner, the sex offender jeffrey epstein. she denies all charges. the new count involves a fourth alleged victim — a 14—year—old girl. ships have started sailing through the suez canal after the giant container vessel that blocked the channel, for almost a week, was freed. tug boats that took part in the rescue honked their horns in celebration. egyptian officials say the backlog will be cleared in around three days. now on bbc news, the travel show.

this week on the show, working in travel through a year of lockdown. we're doing a virtual livestream, and tonight we are focusing on the plague. seeing spain from the skies. and rebuilding zanzibar�*s house of wonders. it was famous for being an early adopter of electricity and the very first elevator in east africa was in this building. that is actually how it got its name all those years ago, the house of wonders. hello, and welcome to zanzibar.

this is stonetown, zanzibar city's historic quarter, known for its atmosphere and the cause of that besides these really nice winding alleyways are the buildings. the architecture is from all over. there is an omani palace, an indian temple as well as styles left by european colonisers. however, the end of last year spelled disaster for one of the city's most famous buildings. more on that later. first, though... this week, the uk marked a full year since it first went into coronavirus lockdown, with a day of reflection, observed up and down the country, to commemorate the lives lost. for around 3 million people that work in britain's tourism industry, it has been a year of worry and uncertainty. initial reports suggest employment in the sector might have dropped by 10% last year, but with hundreds of thousands of vaccinations taking place each day and the prospect

of restrictions easing in the weeks to come, we went to edinburgh to find out whether tours and professionals are hopefulfor the summer and how theirjobs have changed over the course of the pandemic. rajan tells us more. with its castle, its cobbled streets and the annual fringe, reportedly the world's biggest arts festival, the scottish capital attracts more visitors to the uk than any other city outside of london, which means it's been hit particularly hard by ongoing travel restrictions. below the royal mile, the main street in edinburgh's old town, one attraction is figuring out how to welcome visitors while keeping its doors closed. i'm kitty, i'm the guest experience manager here at the real mary king's close. we are in the heart of edinburgh. a lot of people think that we are underground, however that's technically not true.

in 1753, and the royal exchange was built and they built it right on top of four tiny little streets. what this did, was it perfectly preserved the rooms, the houses and streets that we can still explore today. normally, this warren of passages and homes dating back to the 17th century draws around 250,000 visitors a year, but the pandemic has meant they have had to improvise. obviously we are closed so we can't open to the public but what we want to do is bring the close to people at home. we are doing a virtual live stream and tonight we are focusing on the plague. we are looking at the comparisons, specifically 1645 which was when the worst plague ever hit edinburgh and when you look at what we are going through today, it's quite unbelievable how similar it all is. the biggest one would be isolation, staying at home. if you thought you had the plague, if you were starting to feel a little bit sick, you'd hang a little white

flag outside your house that basically said, "don't come near us, we've got the plague", and it would alert the right people to bring in food and beer because you couldn't go out to get your shop, so it's almost like your tesco delivery but in 1616. so we have just finished our dress rehearsal for the live event tonight and it's always exciting to get, especially when we have the close set up like this, it's not our day—to—day. there's always a bit of nerves in case you say something silly orforget your lines. good evening, and welcome to the real mary king's close. thank you for tuning in to be with us here tonight. the hour—long webcast has taken six people a month to prepare.

but other tour companies have decided against these big online events. forth boat tours is a family—run business that have been operating cruises around the firth of forth since 2006. they've not organised virtual tours, saying they can't compare to the personal, physical experience. i think the main focus point here is the iconic forth rail bridge along at the end there, that's the one that people come to see. they travel from all over the world to come and join us to go on a trip underneath the rail bridge. pre—pandemic, they'd also expect thousands of visitors from within the uk, but their tours have only been able to operate for 13 weeks over the past year. it's been a tough year to keep everything ticking over and to get everything and keeping up with new guidance to

allow us to operate. i tend to spend a lot of my time out on the water between the tours here, dinghy sailing, paraboating, all of that has just stopped, it's just not happened. it's been difficult. with different parts of the uk opening up at different rates, some companies have expressed concern about their ability to attract staycationers. following announcements made last week, forth boat tours plan to open up again at the end of april, when it is still uncertain whether scotland will permit non—essential travel from the rest of britain. yeah, i'm excited to get in the water. i have some optimism about the summer, i hope that we will get staycations. i think it is really important that people get a summer of activity and they are allowed to go and explore further afield from where they are. it is a big shame that the international tourists, it's probable that it doesn't look like they will be back soon. the other thing that we have got that we use a lot

here in the forth is cruise ships and i think they have been in limbo for a wee while too and hopefully they return soon as well because they play a big part in whojoins us on our tour. in the centre of the city, guesthouse owner vivian is feeling cautious about the next few months. she doesn't plan to open until mid—may despite restrictions lifting as early as april 26. i don't see that there is going to be a return to normality for edinburgh this summer. i think people will only want to come to the city when they are guaranteed they can go for a pint around the corner or they can sit in the museum and take their time to look at things. the tattoo for example has said it is going ahead but the festival hasn't decided so i think people like to see what is going to happen from that. she has only been open five days over the past 12 months. guesthouses across scotland have called for more government support, after they were ruled ineligible for £6,000 top up grants, paid out to thousands of hospitality businesses,

including restaurants and hotels. yes, i miss meeting guests and visitors from all over the world, but it's hit me, financially, the hardest. money has been tight, funding from the government has been tight, it is my home as well as my business and i have still a mortgage to pay which i have had to pay every month, still, as well as all the bills that come with owning a house, owning a guesthouse. i'm not ready to throw the towel, i'm still fighting to keep alive and keep going with the business that i have which is a good business when it is open and there's travellers here. i want the key thing to be taken away from this is to remember the resilience of the people of edinburgh. it was a really, really tough difficult time that they lived through...

thanks again forjoining us tonight, folks. stay safe and be resilient. goodbye! smashed it! well done! it's a different type of excitement we are feeling just now, of all these hours of work and research, but you are not getting that immediate reaction that you do with your guests when they are on site. and as a team we are looking forward to welcoming guests again. and the close is hoping to open again in mid—may, a couple of weeks after edinburgh's accommodation, attractions and shops are set to reopen themselves on april 26th. well, international travel is still months away for most of us. we are all watching those infection rates really carefully. in the meantime, we have found some creative new ways

for you to soothe your itchy feet and see a bit of the world from your couch. easter�*s coming up in april, and normally thousands of pilgrims head straight for st peter's square in the vatican for the big services. last year they were live streamed as visitors were forbidden from going. but if you are more interested in the art and the history on show there, there are some great virtual tours available on the vatican museum's website including some rooms normally not open to the public. and just around the corner in rome, the mausoleum of augustus opened earlier this month. it was built in 28bc and has been hidden for 100 years, largely overlooked. a few years back, ade went to see how the restoration work was progressing. it's hard to believe that in its heyday, these walls were three times higher than they are now

and they were covered in white marble. of course, none of us can go there and visit yet but the team at fondazione tim has spent a lot of time and effort putting together the story of the mausoleum, which is told in an interactive timeline on their website. let's hope we can all go and visit soon. new york city is beginning to look ahead to a time when it can get its actors and musicians performing again. ny pops up is a festival of hundreds of surprise performances that began in february and will run until the tribeca film festival injune. the shows are unannounced and unticketed to stop too many people from gathering in one place, and you will be able to catch some of them on the festival's instagram and facebook sites. and an annual highlight of the uk sporting calendar, the oxford cambridge boat race, takes place on 3 april, but not in its usual place on the thames in london.

for social distancing reasons and because there are safety concerns at hammersmith bridge, it's all taking place behind closed doors at ely in cambridgeshire. the flat fenland there should provide some atmospheric backdrops to the race, but the big attraction in those parts is ely�*s enormous norman cathedral and, of course, its resident tour guide dave, who you'll find on the website. you must remember this is a medieval cathedral. it is out to get you. so mind your head. still to come on the travel show: we meet the spanish pioneers of aerial photography. and disaster at the house of wonders — how to fix zanzibar�*s heritage showpiece. it won't be as it used to be. it will be a repaired house of wonder. so don't go away.

next this week to spain, and we are with the family who has spent almost 70 years photographing the country from the air. collectively, they have amassed more than a million pictures documenting a period in which the country's landscape has been transformed by mass tourism, so we asked them to open their archives for us and share some of those images.

next this week, zanzibar, a short hop from the tanzanian coast. i'm doing a little bit of exploring through the winding streets of its capital. i think i'm lost! but i kind of like it, actually. these alleyways snake through stone town, which is zanzibar�*s historic quarter, and they are quite beautiful — actually, the whole place, all of this island, is really stunning.

there are all kinds of influences — persian, arabian, african, of course, and european. this was a trading city. a real crossroads. people would come here for spices. but sadly, slaves too. one of the world's last open slave markets is marked by a powerful memorial. stone town was made a unesco world heritage site in the year 2000 and ever since, experts have complained about the condition of many of the old buildings here, the state of their conservation being a particular concern. and then in december last year, catastrophe. screaming zanzibar�*s most famous buildings, the house of wonders, collapsed during restoration work. two people died and the city's cornerstone 0mani palace was left in ruins. the palace was built in 1883 by the second

sultan of zanzibar. it was designed to impress. the front door, for example, was made wide enough to enter on an elephant. it was famous for being an early adopter of electricity, and the very first elevator in east africa was in this building — it's actually how it got its name all those years ago, the house of wonders. i came here knowing there was going to be damage, but that is a lot of damage. is there a possibility to restore it? for the time being we're just protecting it from further collapse. but after the completion of this first phase of protecting the building, we are going to reconstruct the building in iron to ensure that the building will come as it was before, and it will be super. to help the restoration closely match the original building, experts from the university of cape town have been here with 3d scanners to digitally map the remains. i was shocked, obviously, right? because 20% of the building was not there any more. it was really a very spectacular building and it's —

and in east africa, probably one of the more important buildings. we also documented the house of wonders in 2019, which turned out to be very fortuitous — now, we have a very accurate record of what it looked like. so the engineers see construction, engineers see architects can now create an exact replica. i very much hope it can will reconstructed and i'm sure the capability is there, the expertise is there, actually, no — no question, and the will is there, so i hope there is gonna be another house of wonders in a few years' time. jamila grew up in the shadow of the palace and she'd had concerns about its condition for many years now. i stayed here, i played here, i know this place very well because i was almost in tears to see the house of wonders falling down. we are trying to see that it is being rebuilt and maintained as it used to be, but it won't be as it used to be — it will be a repaired house of wonder.

we are very, very sorry. the buildings have affected every individual person in zanzibar, who really like this country, because we say that is our face, that is our an icon. so it holds our value. it represents us worldwidely as a cultural heritage town, so its collapse has really affected us psychologically. we are not happy. you hear so much about the natural beauty of africa, like its wildlife, and very little about the architecture. many of the old low—lying swahili trading settlements along the east coast are at risk from rising seas and coastal erosion. it's going to take a lot of money and a lot of will to preserve and restore this fascinating history forfuture generations. well, unfortunately, that's all the time we have left for today. next week, lucy's here to revisit some of our favourite

adventures in south america. including the time i lived like a gaucho in argentina's wetlands. this is one of the craziest things i've done in my entire life! the water does not taste very good. and there's miscellaneous things — some slimy, some spiky — rubbing against most of my body! and remember, you can join our adventures by following us on social media. we're in all the regular platforms. for me, mike corey, and the rest of team here in beautiful zanzibar, keep planning your adventures and we'll see you next time. hello. monday brought us the warmest day of the year so far, with temperatures in the southeast at 20.1; celsius, and things will get even warmer

over the next few days. so a lot of warm, sunny weather, but not everywhere. some wet weather holding on across the northwest of scotland, really quite persistent rain there. and then later this week, from around thursday onwards, things are turning colderfor all of us with the return of some overnight frosts as well. for now, here's the weather front that's slow moving across the northwest of scotland. that's producing further outbreaks of rain, we could see some localised flooding for northern and western parts of the highlands, also for the western isles and the northern isles. elsewhere, a dry story, quite cloudy for parts of northern ireland, southern scotland and the far north of england. but the cloud should thin and break up through the day, long spells of warm sunshine further south and light winds. temperatures up to 23 degrees across the southeast of england. but above 20 for england and wales, up in the high teens for scotland and northern ireland. through this evening and overnight, we see that rain persisting again across the western half of scotland, but it will start to edge its way gradually

a little bit further south. temperatures first thing wednesday morning won't be quite as chilly as first thing tuesday morning, so typically between 7—9 celsius. now as we head through tuesday night into wednesday, there is the weather front, which slowly during wednesday morning will start to filter its way a little further south. so the rain's continuing across parts of scotland through the day, very slowly, some of it nudging across northern ireland. really, england and wales staying dry once again on wednesday, and with those clear, blue skies, it will be another warm day. very warm in fact for march, between 19—23 degrees once again, but things starting to turn a little bit cooler across scotland and northern ireland too. 11 or 12 here, and single figures across the northern half of scotland. that's down to the fact that this weather front is introducing colder air from the north towards the end of the week. as that slips its way down towards the south, the blue colours are going to return to the map. so this colder air moving in from an arctic direction, and that is going to feel very

different as we head towards good friday and into the easter weekend as well. so certainly turning colder later this week, some wintry showers possible, but the next few days looking warm for many of us. bye— bye.

welcome to bbc news — my name is mike embley. our top stories. the death that shook the world: a police officer who knelt on george floyd's neck stands trial in minneapolis. both sides lay out their cases. you'll hear it and you'll see at the same time while he is crying out mr chauvin never moves. the knee remains on his neck. sunglasses remain undisturbed on his head and itjust goes on. derek chauvin did exactly what he had been trained to do. the use of force is not attractive, but it is a necessary component of policing. brazil's president, reshuffles his cabinet — as latin america's largest country descends into further covid—induced chaos. freed at last: the giant container ship that's blocked the suez canalfor almost a week — is sailing once again. and — beijing is accused of using questionable tactics

in its attempt to control what's said about china's