this is bbc news. i'm shaun ley with the latest headlines for viewers in the uk and around the world. a blistering attack on british prime minister borisjohnson�*s handling of the coronavirus pandemic by his former chief adviser. when the public needed us most, the government failed, and i'd like to say to all the families of those who died unnecessarily how sorry i am for the mistakes that were made and for my own mistakes at that. tens of thousands of people died who didn't need to die. at least eight people are killed in a shooting at a railyard in sanjose, california. the gunman worked at the rail facility. a landmark ruling against the oil giant shell by a dutch court, ordering it to make big reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. belarus's president accuses western leaders of trying to "strangle" his country

as he faces international criticism over the arrest of an opposition journalist. and villarreal dash manchester united's hopes of europa league glory in gdansk after a marathon penalty shoot—out. hello, and thanks forjoining us. tens of thousands of people died needlessly in the uk from coronavirus — that's the startling claim of the former chief adviser to the british prime minister, borisjohnson. dominic cummings told members of parliament he believed the government had been guilty of disastrous failings. he described mrjohnson as unfit for the job and said he heard the prime minister say he'd rather see "bodies pile high" than order a third lockdown. britain has been one of the countries worst

hit by the pandemic. our political editor laura kuenssberg reports. reality or revenge? delving back into troubled recent history, dominic cummings�* day to give his version of events — a verdict of failure and an apology for his part. senior ministers, senior officials, senior advisers like me fell disastrously short of the standards that the public has a right to expect. when the public needed us most, the government failed, and i'd like to say to all the families of those who died unnecessarily how sorry i am for the mistakes that were made and for my own mistakes at that. he described the original expectation — a peak in early summer, protecting the most vulnerable. but as flaws in the numbers emerged, how rapidly plans were sketched out on whiteboards to accelerate to lockdown. showing if nothing changed, the nhs would collapse and the poignant line — who do we not save? and a prime minister unwilling

to take the disease seriously. in february, the prime minister regarded this as just a scare story. if we have the prime minister chairing cobra meetings and he just tells everyone, "it's swine flu, don't worry about it, i'm going to get chris whitty to inject me live on tv with coronavirus so everyone realises it's nothing to be frightened of," that would not help actually serious planning. only halfway through... i will first call the prime ministerto answer... ..the prime minister had to defend the claims next door. the handling of this pandemic has been one of the most- difficult things this country's had to do for a very- long time, and none of- the decisions have been easy. to go into a lockdown is a - traumatic thing for a country. mr cummings' real vitriol was saved, though, for the health secretary, who may notjust be able to run away from a long list of accusations. i think that the secretary of state for health should've been fired for at least 15,

20 things, including lying to everybody on multiple occasions in meeting after meeting in the cabinet room and publicly. whether, he claimed, misleading on testing, on ppe and putting people in care homes in danger. the government rhetoric was, "we put a shield around care homes and blah, blah, blah." it was complete nonsense. quite the opposite of putting a shield round them, we sent people with covid back to the care homes. the health secretary's team has rejected his claims, but then there were accusations that the prime minister wouldn't listen to mr cummings or the top scientists to bring back lockdown to save lives in the autumn as covid began to take hold again and cases rose. i said to him, "the whole lesson of what happened before is that by delaying, the lockdown came later, it had to be more severe, it had to last longer. surely we've got to learn the lessons from the past." the prime minister decided, no, and said, basically we're just going to hit and hope. did you hear him say,

"let the bodies pile high in their thousands"? i heard that in the prime minister's study. the pm's denied that, but was blasted by the man who helped him into number ten. fundamentally, i regarded him as unfit for thejob, and i was trying to create a structure around him to try and stop what i thought were extremely bad decisions. the relationship between dominic cummings and boris johnson is bitter and broken, so there's no surprise the former aide didn't hold back today. but whatever his motivations, dominic cummings was boris johnson's most senior adviser during the country's worst crisis in many decades, so his evidence can'tjust be brushed off as irrelevant. but after hours, for those who lost family, for those who've suffered, perhaps this most important verdict. tens of thousands of people died who didn't need to die. for the first time, someone who was involved in making the decisions during this crisis has come to that conclusion in public.

a claim the government's always disputed or tried to ignore, but one day will have to answer in full. laura kuenssberg, bbc news, westminster. police in the us state of california say at least eight people have been killed in a shooting at a railyard. others have been injured. the gunman worked at the facility in sanjose. he later took his own life. mark lobel reports. this light rail service yard south of san francisco is now a crime scene. a bomb squad was dispatched after an employee shot his valley transportation authority colleagues. then it's thought he turned the gun on himself at around 6:30am. this is a horrific day for our city. and it's a tragic day for the vta family. these folks were heroes during covid—19. the buses never stopped running, vta did not stop running. theyjust kept at

work, and now we are really calling on them to be heroes a second time. with haunting echoes of past shootings in this area, anxious families enter a reunification centre to find out about loved ones. unfortunately, this is not the| first time that our community has been through . something like this. this isn't the first time _ that my team has done something like this. it's particularly concerning that this horrific shooting played out in this silicon valley tech hub in california, a state with some of the strictest gun laws in america. our hearts go out to the victims and their families. what's clear, as the president has said, is that we are suffering from an epidemic of gun violence in this country, both in mass shootings and in the lives that are being taken in daily gun violence. that doesn't make national headlines. this isn't the first disgruntled employee to hit the headlines in this way, and the fear is it won't be the last. mark lobel, bbc news. let's get some of the day's other news. 160 people are feared dead after a boat sunk in the niger river in north—west

nigeria. it's one of the deadliest accident in recent months. authorities at the scene said 180 people were on board, more than the ferry could transport. only 20 people have been rescued alive so far. president biden has ordered the us intelligence agencies to deliver a report on the origins of covid—i9 within 90 days. some reports in the us media have been suggesting there's growing evidence that the virus could have emerged from a laboratory in wuhan, rather than from contact with animals. dozens of villages along india's bengal coast have been hit by a severe cyclone. thousands of homes have been destroyed, and at least two people have been killed. winds of up to 86 mph have now weakened, but rising waters from the torrential rainfall have breached river embankments, swamping low—lying areas. mali's interim president and prime minister resigned. their announcement comes two days after they were arrested by the military. they were taken to a military base outside the capital on monday after a cabinet reshuffle in which two military officers were sacked.

the colonel who detained them also orchestrated last year's coup. environmental campaigners have welcomed a landmark ruling by a dutch court which ordered the oil giant shell to make big reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. the decision is only binding in the netherlands, but it could influence judges elsewhere. anna holligan reports. "a violation of human rights" was how the climate campaigners described shell's ongoing investment in fossil fuels. cheering. the dutch branch of friends of the earth, along with six other groups and more than 17,000 dutch citizens, brought the case to court, arguing that the oil giant's transition to clean energy wasn't going far orfast enough. thejudge agreed the corporation had to be more ambitious in reducing

its carbon footprint and delivered a precedent—setting verdict. translation: the court orders royal dutch shell| to reduce its co2 output and those of its suppliers and buyers by the end of 2030 by a net of 45% based on 2019 levels. this is the first time that judges have compelled a company to emit less carbon dioxide by changing its policy. this is an historical day. it's for the first time in history that the judge has decided that the large polluter royal dutch shell should stop causing dangerous climate change. this will have an enormous impact, not only on shell itself, but on major polluters throughout the netherlands and globally. in response to the judgement, shell acknowledged that urgent action is needed

on climate change. translation: we are working hard to become a netzero - energy company by 2050. thousands of people in shell. are working on that every day. we're investing billions - in that, and although we're moving in the right direction, we're being asked _ to speed this up. i've been speaking to shell over the last few days, and they've been telling me they are making efforts. they don't believe the court is the right place for this, but there is no doubt this verdict could set off many more around the world as campaigners see that their battle to protect the planet can also take place in courtsjust like this. energy executives globally were watching, too, conscious that if shell can be legally obliged to change, so could they. anna holligan, bbc news, at the district court in the hague.

michael burger is head of the sabin center for climate change law at columbia law school. he toild me how significant the ruling could be. as mentioned during the earlier footage, this is a decision from a lower court in the netherlands applying dutch law to a dutch company, and in that sense, the impact is immediately limited to the netherlands and to shell. but at the same time, there are activists, environmental organisations and governments around the world that are watching this case, that have been watching this case, and they're seeing the outcome and they may well decide to pursue similar action in their own courtrooms. that's an interesting question, as you said about it being a lower court as well, because presumably it would be surprising given the kind of commercial implications for shell that it wouldn't appeal a decision like this. what are its prospects of being able to do that, of actually getting permission

to even do that, because as it is a precedent—setting case, presumably it has to be confirmed by a higher court ultimately. i do assume that there would be an appeal of this decision. we did see a similar case in the netherlands before with a case filed against the government through to the supreme court of the netherlands, and i think that there is a lot riding on this case. the precedent is very persuasive, and shell probably does not want to just let it stand. and briefly, for other companies looking at this, do you think it will alter their behaviour in case this turns out to be something that has legal legs internationally? that's quite possible. you know, it'll be... i think there'll be a lot of people watching closely to see how fossil fuel companies around the world respond to this case. you know, they may well decide to wait and see what happens on appeal or they may decide to get out ahead of the legal

curve, as it were, and start increasing their ambition and the rapidity of their own greenhouse gas emissions now. stay with us on bbc news. still to come, preserving the work and personal possessions of professor stephen hawking. music. in the biggest international sporting spectacle ever seen, up to 30 million people have taken part in sponsored athletics events to aid famine relief in africa. the first of what the makers of star wars hope will be thousands of queues started forming at 7am. taunting which led to scuffles, scuffles to fighting, fighting to full—scale riot, as the liverpool fans broke out of their area and into the juventus enclosure. the belgian police had lost control. the whole world will mourn the j tragic death of mr nehru today. he was the father of. the indian people from the day of independence. the oprah winfrey show comes to an end after 25 years and more than a500 episodes.

the chat show has made her one of the richest people on the planet. geri halliwell, otherwise known as ginger spice, has announced she's left the spice girls. argh, i don't believe it! she's the one with the bounce, the go, girl power. not geri, why? this is bbc news. the latest headlines — borisjohnson�*s former chief adviser delivers a relentless attack on his handling of the covid crisis. at least eight people are killed in a shooting at a railyard in san jose, california. the gunman worked at the rail facility. the president of belarus has accused his critics of trying to "strangle" his country in his first public comments since a ryanair plane was forced to land in the capital and an opposition journalist onboard was arrested.

alexander lukashenko accused the west of waging a hybrid war against him. sarah rainsford reports from minsk. in minsk, appearances are deceiving. this is a country in deep political turmoil. we were heading to meet a womanjust plunged into the heart of it. she asked to meet in the open on the edge of town because anna's daughter is now in a kgb prison, arrested with her opposition activist boyfriend when their flight over europe was diverted by force to belarus. the last anna heard from sofia was a text message. itjust said, "mum." the next was a video confession taped by her interrogators. it seems clear it was done under duress. anna is still reeling. translation: we are in such a state that we keep - saying to each other, "this can't be happening."

we don't believe it's happening to us, to our daughter. anna says sofia wasn't even part of the protests that swept belarus last year, as minsk turned red and white with crowds calling for president lukashenko to go. nine months on, everything has changed here. the mass arrest of opposition supporters and people's own fear have cleared the streets of protesters. but alexander lukashenko is still very much in power, and today he made a defiant address to the nation from right here in the country's parliament. he called new sanctions over the diverted plane a western plot to try to topple him. translation: our ill-wishers have changed their— methods of attack. they've crossed many red lines and the boundaries of common sense and human decency. they've moved from plotting riots here to strangling us.

it's no surprise many belarusians are keeping their heads down these days. as a new summer begins, very different from the last. sarah rainsford, bbc news, minsk. a federal court in melbourne is due to rule in a landmark class—action case brought by eight teenagers and a nun that seeks to stop the expansion of australia's coal production. the young people behind the case are organisers behind australia's school strike 4 climate campaign, which marched in sydney last week. the suit targets the planned expansion of a coal mine in new south wales. our asutralia correspondent shaimaa khalil has been examining the potential impact of the case. these eight young people, these eight students have presented a class—action to the federal court in melbourne asking them effectively to stop the environment minister from approving an extension of a coal mine in new south wales known as the vickery extension project.

their argument is that sussan ley, the australian environment minister, has a duty of care towards young people, towards the next generation, to protect them from the harmful and devastating effects of climate change. and by approving this extension, she'll be in violation of that duty of care. their argument goes on to say that this extension will contribute about 100 million tonnes of emissions in the next 25 years. so, the basis of their argument is about intergenerational equity in climate change, which means that whatever projects are put in place right now will be harmful for them in the future as adults. now, we're still waiting for a ruling on this. it will come in the next hour or so, but if approved and if the judge agrees with those eight young people and their litigation adviser guardian, the nun, sister bridget arthur, it will be a landmark ruliing because it will mean that this makes it difficult, then, for other coal projects to be

extended in the future. coal is a hugely important export for australia's economy, isn't it? how concerned is the federal government and indeed the state government in new south wales about this potentially? well, look, we haven't really heard an official reaction to all of this. i think the australian environment minister was approached. she said that she couldn't comment with the case still ongoing, but as you say, coal is hugely important. australia is one of the biggest exporters of coal, if not the biggest exporter in the world. this goes into the heart of domestic politics here in australia. prime ministers have risen and fallen with their approach to the fossil fuels. this is the basis of the country's wealth. this conservative government, scott morrison's conservative government, has won elections based on their support for the fossil fuel industry. and, of course, the basis of their argument is that this

creates jobs, this contributes to the economy, which needs to recover after the covid—19 pandemic. so, we'll have to wait and see now which arguments will prevail at least in this particular case that is now in front of the melbourne federal court. in football, the spanish team villarreal have won the europa league after beating manchester united in one of the most extraordinary penalty shoot—outs in football history. the match in the polish city of gdansk finished 1—1 after extra time. then 21 players in a row scored in the shoot—out until the manchester united goalkeeper david de gea had his effort saved. the bbc�*s olly foster was in gdansk and sent us this update. it has been an incredible europa league final here in gdansk. the unheralded, the unfancied spaniards villarreal are the new champions after appearing in their first major european final. they were really the underdogs against manchester united,

the british team. they fielded a really strong attacking line—up, but it was still villareal who went into half—time1—0. so, it went to penalties. and what a shoot—out we had to decide this trophy. it went to 10—10, every outfield player scored their penalties. so, it went to the keepers, their turn. geronimo rulli for villarreal scored his past david de gea. they swapped round, and david de gea had his penalty saved by rulli. they win the penalty shoot—out 11—10. they win the europa league, an incredible story for the spanish side. manchester united will be kicking themselves, and of course there were 4000 fans from the clubs here to watch it. and it will be the spaniards who will be celebrating long into the night here on the baltic coast. there's a push underway to preserve the scientific papers and personal possessions

of professor stephen hawking. the objects include childhood letters, scripts from his tv appearances, as well as his ground—breaking research into black holes. our science correspondent pallab ghosh has more. there is nothing like a eureka moment of discovering something that no one knew before... he was the world's most inspiring scientist. his research, photographs and letters are his legacy to the world, and they're to be saved for the nation. ah, here he is, yeah. 0h, brilliant. his son, tim, sees many of them for the first time, including a letter that his father wrote to his dad when he was just six. "dear, father. once upon a time, some pirates were loading some treasure..." i think it shows a sort of tenderness in his relationship with his father. you know, he had a very loving

relationship with his dad, as i did when i was at the age he was when he wrote the letter. here he is as a student. motor neurone disease went on to debilitate his body, but not his mind. this is his most important scientific paper on black holes, which have such strong gravity that not even light can escape. in a covering letter to a leading journal, he writes immodestly... his script from the simpsons is an important part of the collection. he had an enormous sense of humour. i that comes out through interviews that people i will have seen through that kind of characterisation, i willing to be in the simpsons, for a little fun to be taken. - if what that did was help to. communicate about science. the contents about stephen hawking's office will be transferred to the science museum in london. most iconic of all is his wheelchair, a symbol of the physical challenges he faced and also the strength and determination he had to overcome them.

the eventual aim is to reconstruct his entire office. there are very few scientific spaces that survive, so actually having stephen's office is wonderful because he is extraordinary, but it sends a big, powerful message about the prestige of science as well. future generations will now be able to learn about the life and work of a man who inspired us with his brilliance, courage and humanity. pallab ghosh, bbc news. let's leave you with some pictures that professor hawking would have appreciated. stargazers around the world have been treated to a special sight — a huge supermoon, also called a flower moon, in the night sky. it is the closest full moon to the earth of the year making it look much bigger and brighter than normal. in some areas of the southern hemisphere, the supermoon coincided with a lunar eclipse, the first time that has

happened in almost six years. we will leave you with those pictures. you are watching bbc news. thanks so much for your company. hello. it feels like it's been a while since i've been able to say this, but on thursday, most parts of the country will be dry. it's been one of those months, hasn't it? notjust dry, it should feel a little bit warmer, and that's after quite a chilly start. even though temperatures in single figures for most, rural parts of southern england, wales, northern ireland could drop down to 1—2 celsius at first light. so, there could be a touch of frost around. dry and sunny here. a bit more in the way of low cloud and mistiness across parts of scotland and eastern england, but that will break up. although it will stay grey in shetland through the day. sunshine turning hazy across western areas later. maybe a few spots of rain in west cornwall, fermanagh, and an isolated shower down eastern parts of england and eastern scotland. but the vast majority dry, and temperatures in the mid to high teens. now, into the evening and overnight, we will see the return of some wet weather, particularly in the west. a lot of low cloud with that.

quite a murky start to friday morning, but notice the temperatures, double figures for some. coolest where we've got the clearest skies towards the east of the country. and it's here where high pressure is building in as we go into friday. and what that does — stops that weather front moving much further eastwards and it will decay in situ. damp and drizzly, quite murky across western areas to begin with. brightening up a touch, but there'll still be some rain and drizzle around into the afternoon. eastern areas favoured for the cloud breaking up, some sunshine, particularly in the north east of scotland, away from some coasts that is. and temperatures are down a little bit on thursday, but if you get some sunshine, it should still feel quite pleasant. but the temperatures will be on the rise further as we go into the weekend, and there will be more sunshine developing. we will start saturday fairly cloudy, especially in the west. still one or two light drizzly showers. isolated shower further east, most will be dry, increasing amounts of sunshine through eastern areas. and by this stage, a few more spots will be getting to 20 degrees. parts of southern england and western and northern scotland are best favoured for that. into sunday, though, after some morning mist and fog patches,

bluer skies for most. it will be a sunny day, little bit of fairweather cloud and some hazy sunshine out towards the north and the west. but by this stage, could be hitting 22 degrees in parts of scotland, maybe up to around 22—23 in the south east of england. but with the sunshine out, the warmth, you may be tempted towards the coast, but our recent chilly spell has had an impact on sea surface temperatures. be brave. temperatures for some only around 8—9 degrees. then, as we go into bank holiday monday, well, it's high pressure and the warmth and sunshine lasts in the south. there's a chance of a return of some rain in scotland and northern ireland. bye for now.

this is bbc news,

the headlines... the british prime minister's former chief adviser has described borisjohnson as unfit for the job. in a parliamentary public hearing, dominic cummings said tens of thousands of people died needlessly from coronavirus, because of disastrous failings by the government. britain has been one of the countries worst hit by the pandemic. eight people have been killed and others wounded after a gunman opened fire in a railyard in san jose, california. the gunman, who worked at the railfacility, also died. there have been 230 mass shootings so far this year across the united states. environmental campaigners have welcomed a landmark ruling by a dutch court which ordered the oil giant shell to make big reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. the decision is only binding in the netherlands, but it could influence judges elsewhere.

lewis will be here with a full summary