this is bbc news. the headlines: day two of the olympics in tokyo is getting underway on day one of the games the host nationjapan picked up its first medals — winning gold and silver injudo. thousands of people in the western united states, are spending the weekend in evacuation centers, as wildfires continue to burn across the region. more than 80 large wildfires in 13 us states have burnt around 1.3 million acres in recent weeks. thousands of people have marched through the streets of the hungarian capital budapest, to mark the largest gay pride gathering in the country's history. it comes after viktor orban's right—wing government pushed through a law banning the portrayal or promotion of homosexual or transgender content to people under—18.

lightning has partially destroyed two properties in hampshire as the heatwave comes to an end in some parts of the country. weather warnings are in place across southern england and wales for flooding, hail and strong winds. duncan kennedy's report contains some flashing images from the storms. this is how the week—long heat wave came to an end for the two houses in hampshire. the lightning struck one of the rooves, causing a fire, which then spread to the property next door. neighbours say they were woken up by a huge noise. we heard an almighty bang, and i mean a really loud bang. and slowly, starting on this side, as you can imagine, where it got hit, and then slowly but surely then it worked its way across both of them. so, we watched the roof catch fire, we watched the whole thing collapse. and then, the fire tenders turned up and they did a greatjob at putting the fire out. two women escaped unharmed, but this is what the destructive power of lightning can lead to. it is purely random, very unlucky.

fortunately, they were woken up by the storm and they knew how to get out of their houses, they prepared, so they managed to safely make their way out. the storms became a spectacle right across southern counties. with the lightning came torrential rain. the met office issued a yellow alert, and says high gusts of winds and some flooding are possible in southern england over the next 48 hours. duncan kennedy, bbc news. now it's time for the travel show. this week on the travel show: outrunning covid at the olympic games. the big names rocking central park this summer. siberia's mystery blast craters. you have an exploding crater on land. that is not something i imagined. and the fears for the future of flamenco.

hello and welcome to tokyo. the host city for this summer's olympic and paralympic games and thronging with tourists and sport fans from all over the world. ok, maybe not. the state of emergency declared earlier this month following a new wave of covid cases means that international and now local spectators are not allowed in to any events in and around tokyo. nonetheless, trainers and medical staff have headed

here from all around the world for a more subdued games. there were plenty of people here in tokyo who were delighted to see the olympic opening ceremony on friday. even if they had to resign themselves to only being able to watch it live on tv rather than in person at this vast stadium. however, they could be in the minority as recent survey showed that just over 50% of people here did not want to see the games go ahead. japan has declared a state of emergency for tokyo that will run throughout its hosting of the games. and public concern has grown over what impact the influx of thousands of athletes, support staff, officials and press from overseas could have on the infection rate. for me, like many people here in tokyo, the olympics has been a real rollercoaster.

back in 2019 tickets for athletics and diving events and then last year they were not even sure if the olympics would go ahead and then we were told this year that our tickets would have to go back into another lottery because of limited capacity of the stadiums and then finally, two weeks ago we were told that there would be no spectators at all in any tokyo events. and here there was meant to be a fans zone with a big screen tv, but that idea was quickly quashed. pre—covid, japan was originally expecting around 35 million visitors in 2020. but now only vaccinated athletes and officials can attend the tokyo games this year. that number has been massively reduced. and with a capacity of the olympic village limited, many of tokyo's hotels are playing host to athletes and sports support staff from all over the world with strict sanitising protocols, regular testing and in some cases, curfews

and other restrictions now in place. this hotel was not allowed to tell me which teams would be staying here but they were willing to show me some of the adjustments they had made to ensure that their sporting guests have a happy and healthy stay. in addition to ensuring the hotel is covid secure, the carpenters here have also been busy at work in readiness for some extra tall special guests. we had requests for larger beds so these are wooden bases for the extension and we will have 12 of them. so i can assume you will have some very tall athletes staying? you are correct. the normal size bed is two metres so we're extending it by 30 centimetres. here we are. this is the room where we have put a larger bed for our guests. wow.

this is a big bed. good, hey? and you cannot notice where our carpenters have made the extension. very neat. and it is notjust a good night sleep that the olympic competitors need. nutrition plays a vital role in their performance so the kitchens here have had to adjust their menus accordingly. they want at least eight different salad bars, celery, cucumberand broccoli, you know? i have designed a menu, here i have added three carbs, five different vegetables. three protein. the nutritionist and the chef look at it and they come back to us and see if it is ok or not. so it all has to go back to their nutritionist? yes. so i see we have salad, grains, is there a dessert? a little dessert. we cannot have too much sugar because when you add sugar...

the dessert is more like a bite. energy bowls. so what are we making today? apricot cashew bites. this is what olympic athletes will be eating. that is good. not quite the dessert i was expecting. i think everybody is getting used to the new normal, getting to ease with the fact that these olympics are now without spectators so there is a drop in demand. however, everybody is still preparing for the groups that are coming, the people they have to look after and making sure the event is well executed. traditionally, every olympic games always now has a small army of local volunteers who sign up to help ensure that visitors have the best experience possible.

but with the ban on spectators and overseas tourists, many of the volunteers have either been stood down or seen their duties changed. where do we get the bus from? you are here now. mak san was looking forward to meeting travellers from all over the world, but now he is using his english to help out at the press centre instead. i wish the olympics would succeed without any problems. are you looking forward to seeing some athletes and some olympic events? yes. i love sports. i was a pe teacher. so this is your dream job? yes. my dream job. of course, a modern olympic games is not just about sport. there is usually a whole host of marketing opportunities, corporate events and collectables associated with each games.

daniel, tell me about these pins. every national olympic committee likes to have their own pin and athletes, it gives them an opportunity to give them, a gift from their country to somebody from another country that they may not necessarily interact with. this rwanda versus godzilla... what is? we have the rwanda team mascot against godzilla. it is an epic pin. this is a mega mecha. moving parts pin. that is great. there is an entire network of collectors from all over the world. it is known as the unofficial olympic sport, collecting pins and trading pins. so, unfortunately, there are many collectors who would normally come to the games just to go pin trading and just to collect. it will be a little more difficult this time around

to get their hands on some of these prized possessions. it is estimated that back in 2019, over a quarter of a million fans from overseas travelled to japan to see the rugby world cup championship. staying, on average, a16 nights and each spending around £11000, or5500 us dollars on their trip. so hopes were high that the postponed olympics would bring in even bigger numbers, more revenue and greater positive publicity for the country. i don't think there has ever been any event that had the demand that the tokyo 2020 had. they really wanted to come and experience japan. the japanese hospitality, the food, the culture. it is only the fourth time in history that there has been a summer games held in asia so i think itjust provided a unique catalyst for the entire world to go, "i want to be there."

and, i guess, that is what makes it incredibly disappointing. so no matter how you feel about the games, tokyo 2020 is happening at a unique and historic moment in time. and many people will want to capture that and reflect on it. the shops here are still full of memorabilia and souvenirs. how much will be sold, however, is unclear given the lack of overseas tourists. one thing is clear, however. you can expect souvenirs to maybe become items in their own right. because they certainly represent a very different olympic games.

the edinburgh festival looks a bit different this year. they are going ahead. the international festival has moved many of its performances outside and kicks off with a three day event in the royal botanic gardens. the fringe, meanwhile, mixes its socially distance live in person shows with a live online offering that starts on august six. new york is planning what some people are calling a mega—concert on the great lawn of central park. bruce springsteen, paul simon and jennifer hudson will headline the event, which is part of week—long celebrations of the city's reopening. 60,000 people are expected to go, with different sections allocated to vaccinated and unvaccinated spectators. berlin's museum island has a new landmark, the humbolt forum. this vast building brings together the ethnological museum and the museum of asian art in one enormous reconstructed baroque palace.

its remit is to be a symbol of tolerance and diversity, but there has been controversy over its decision to house artefacts looted from parts of the world once colonised by europe. and barely a year goes by without dubai opening something enormous. this time it's the world's deepest pool. deep dive dubai goes downjust over 60 metres and holds enough water to fill six olympic—sized swimming pools. they have built an abandoned city at the bottom to explore, along with a library and an arcade. still to come on this week's travel show: the blast craters causing confusion in siberia. and with one final click of the castanets, a flamenco venue saying goodbye

for the last time. so don't go away. next this week, we are in russia on the remote siberian peninsula of yamal. scientists they have noticed enormous blast holes appearing in a landscape and it has had them scratching their heads. so we thought we would catch up with them to find out more. i first heard about these craters when i was contacted by a reporter in 2014, i came back to my e—mail and thought this is a crazy e—mail i got, this person is talking about these craters and i didn't have accessibility to the news, ijust didn't believe it. i got back to the us and i read a little more and wow, this is a thing that happened. the fact that there could be a new geochemical process that we never imagined would happen, have an exploding crater on land is just not something that when i think

about the processes that can happen on the earth, the fact that there could be a new geochemical process that we never imagined would happen, have an exploding crater on land is just not something that when i think about the processes that can happen on the earth, is not something that i imagined. how important are these?

so this idea that what is the cause of these, is this something that is new that is happening, is this related to climate, is this something that is a risk to people who are in the arctic, to the gas and oil infrastructure, which is quite close to the area where these craters have been occurring? and then is there some long—term impact on global climate, because there is methane that is coming out of these craters? it is an area where there is very thick layer of ice called tabular ice, and there is also an area where there is a lot of cryo—pegs, which is an area of ground that is within the frozen permafrost, so it is an unfrozen sandwich, it is surrounded by permafrost, it is unfrozen ground, and the idea of how these forms is that these very deep deposits of gas are sort of finding their way to this unfrozen pocket, this cryo—peg or italic, and then as pressure builds up it raises the ground

up, and it explodes. how many more of them are out there? what we're trying to do is use satellite data to view these what we have first done is create a change detection map which is an automated method of picking up pixels on the peninsula that have changed in some way. that algorithm was built based on sort of what we know about the craters. so once we have this change in texture map we have a team who are using high—resolution imagery to look through each one of these pixels and say, does this look like a crater, does this look like something else, and from there once we have something that we think looks like a crater or could have been a crater, we are getting a series of very high—resolution imagery to try and figure out where these forms.

why are they happening now? it is really tricky to identify. i would not be surprised and i do think it is likely that warming temperatures are at least in part contributing to making the ground unstable, allowing these explosions to happen. to me they are more an indicator of what is happening, and a very shocking indicator of what is happening in the arctic. and there is nowhere else on the planet that i know of where climate change is causing the physical structure of the ground to change. it is quite startling.

the unfolding mystery of siberia's enormous blast craters. right, to spain next an art form that so many of us see on our holidays. flamenco happens in venues called tablaos, which like so many venues have had to close the good. we have met some dancers in madrid who are now facing an uncertain future.

that's it for this week. coming up next time: christa is here with some of our favourite memories of new york city. from historical landmarks to hidden treasures. and the time she was made to face her public speaking demons once and for all.

and i was like, oh! don't forget you can catch up with our more recent adventures on the bbc iplayer and we are on social media two. just search bbc travel and you won't be far off. but until next time, he planning, stay safe and we will see you very soon. goodbye. good evening. the weather story is on the change, and we've seen signs of that today with some contrasting conditions out there. yes, there were early—morning thunderstorms across southern england, and then those eased to a legacy of cloud for much of the day.

further north and west, we've had some beautiful sunshine, and yet again, some warmth — not the extreme warmth, but 25 degrees. that's 77 fahrenheit. it looks likely that we see that north—south divide through the night with clearer skies to the northwest. but low pressure really dominating the story over the next few days, and that could trigger off further thundery downpours overnight tonight for southern england and for south wales, and that'll continue into the early hours of sunday morning. so, at risk, then, of some showers here. there'll be quite a lot of cloud as well spilling in off north sea coasts, the clearer skies the further north and west. it's not going to be a cold night. temperatures will hold up quite widely into double figures, perhaps quite a humid feel generally down to the south, with 16 degrees to start off sunday morning. so, sunday, once again, we could see some sharp, thundery downpours first thing in the morning, with this area of low pressure really not going very far, very fast at all. the best of the dry, brighter weather is likely to be further north and west. the lion's share of the sunshine will be in scotland

and northern ireland. early—morning cloud should thin and break across northeast england, the risk of those showers across east anglia and down to the southeast are likely to linger for much of the day. if you keep some sunshine, the highest values are likely to be once again into the mid—20s. now, this more unsettled theme is set to continue into monday with the low pressure just drifting its way further north and east up through the north sea. that means the further east is likely to see more in the way of showers. so, monday is a messy mix, really, of sunny spells and scattered showers. the best of the sunshine is likely to be out to the west, and we could see temperatures once again into the mid—20s. but some of these showers could bring a lot of heavy rain in a short space of time, so the weather story is certainly on the change. last week, it was extreme heat and lots of sunshine. our week ahead keeps those showers and certainly, a notable difference to the feel of the weather, with temperatures just below where they should be for the time of year.

this is bbc news. i'm sarah mulkerrins, live in tokyo, where day 2 of the olympics is now underway. surfing and skateboarding are both making their olympic debuts today at the games. their olympic debuts today at the games. on day 1, the host nation, japan, picked up its first medals, winning gold and silver injudo. i'm lewis vaughan jones, in london. the rest of the day's headlines: wildfires in northern california force thousands into evacuation centres, while a covid outbreak in oregon puts firefighters into quarantine. thousands of hungarians join the annual pride march and protest against a new anti—lgbt law. and the uk army safely detonates a world war ii bomb

on the site of a new housing estate.