good morning it sjune 1st. i m victoria derbyshire, welcome to bbc news. here are the headlines. primary school restarts for up to two million more children in england today but not everyone thinks the time is right what decision have you made about your child? if it doesn t feel right, we will halt it, we can reverse it, we can be dynamic about the way we bring children back. millions of vulnerable people in england and wales who were advised to stay indoors will be able to leave their homes for the first time in ten weeks if that s you, are you venturing out today? new rules on social gatherings come into force across the uk in england, six people from different households can meet up. fires near the white house as protests against the killing of george floyd, an unarmed black man in police custody, continue across the us. and thousands of people in the uk took to the streets yesterday in solidarity with the us protests. we ll hear the thoughts of choreographer ashley banjo and sayne holmes lewis, a youth worker. good morning. more than two million primary school children in england will be able to return to lessons this morning and there s also an easing of restrictions around businesses that can open and how we can meet up with friends and family. some scientists warn that lockdown measures are being lifted too fast. but the business secretary alok sharma said that the government was taking a very cautious approach. from today, all four uk nations will have guidelines in place allowing more than two people to meet outside. vulnerable people in england and wales, who have been advised to stay home since the lockdown began, will also be able to go outdoors again. shielding advice in northern ireland and scotland hasn t changed. the first phase in the reopening of schools has begun in england, with children in nurseries, reception, and years one and six allowed to return. and provided they meet safety guidelines, open air markets and car showrooms in england can also start to trade again. it comes as another 113 deaths were recorded in latest 2a hour period which brings the total number who ve died with coronavirus to 38,489. our first report is from danjohnson, who s been to meet some families preparing for their first day back at school in ten weeks. so you ve got your uniform already, jack? yes. time to getjack back to school again. ready! how do you feel about going back to school, jack? very, very, very, very happy. i ve never known my boy to be so excited. but he has always loved school. he misses his friends and he loves his teacher. so he s really excited to go back, yeah. i m a bit excited. five year old khadija is almost as enthusiastic. i do like maths and i am quite excited about maths. i m in two minds, but i think it s good for the children to interact more with their age group and also, they miss their teachers. they will find the playground s been fenced off to keep them apart. we ll start with three classes of five children in each and then slowly increase that. each of the year1 classrooms will have their own outdoor learning area. to create this sense of a bubble. it feels a bit like you re penning them in? ever so slightly, but i think it s more about keeping them safe. and the classrooms have been spaced in the hope of socially distant learning. their classrooms have changed quite a lot. we are going down from 30 children to five at first, then ten. a lot of children don t understand what a metre is, so telling them to be two metres apart is quite difficult. and it is normalfor them to come up and show you something in their book that they need help with. as social distancing will be difficult in that way. it ll be strange for them. that is why many parents don t share the confidence on show here. they wouldn t let us come back, surely, if it wasn t safe to do so, so i m confident this is the right time for them to come back. if it wasn t safe, it wouldn t be happening, but i m happy that the school will be doing things the best way they can. so, if they ve put certain things in place, i m happy for it to go ahead. but this is only happening in england and lots of schools won t go ahead. at least, not yet. we think it s currently unsafe. we don t think we should be going to this step. we want to see test, track, trace actually running, actually in place so we can see the number of cases are falling. we are also concerned that there isn t good enough advice about vulnerable parents, vulnerable grandparents or about vulnerable staff. but vulnerability can be defined by wealth as much as health. this is a poor part of london where many families have relied on school support during the lockdown. we re not talking about bringing 700 children back, we re taking it slow and steady and at any point with that plan, if it doesn t feel right, we will halt it, we can reverse it. we can be dynamic about the way we bring children back. and it isn t just a school rules changing. in england, you can now meet groups of up to six, the same as northern ireland. there is already eight in scotland, but i m just two households. wales is expected to make this same move today. those who ve been shielding across england and wales because of health conditions are now allowed out. social distancing is key, and what difference these changes make to the spread of the virus will be closely monitored. dan johnson, bbc news. let s look in more detail at how the rules vary across the uk: in england, groups of up to six people from different households can now meet outside. professional sport resumes today, with horseracing and snooker. people who had previously been asked to shield at home will also be able to go outdoors. in wales, people from two households are now allowed to meet outdoors. shielding advice has also changed, allowing more vulnerable people outdoors for exercise. in scotland, groups of up to eight people from two households have been able to meet outdoors since friday. advice for schools, shops and people shielding at home hasn t changed. and in northern ireland, there s no change to the rule that groups of six can meet outdoors. vulnerable people are being asked to keep following existing shielding advice. let s talk to our assistant political editor norman smith. just asking people, parents, if they are sending their kids back today, if they ve got toddlers, reception, year one, year six, some real agonising over non . i ve had nearly 2000 responses from mums and dads really having to think very carefully about the decision they make. i think the truth is we are going to see a really patchy and mixed response. some parents obviously deeply uneasy but i think what ministers are hoping is if you look at what happened in other countries when they opened schools, the first few days, a lot of parents did keep their children back but gradually, as children went about their daily school life and there wasn t an upsurge in infections and they seemed to be thriving, that tended to sort of build confidence and slowly, slowly, more parents send their children back and you sort of got a snowball effect, gradually the numbers in schools increased. that was the experience certainly in denmark, i know. i mean, allied to that has to be, i would think, a desire to try and make sure that test and trace is fully bedded in because they ve been all sorts of stories about a rather scratchy start, we haven t got the app up scratchy start, we haven t got the app up and running yet. also, the speed at which testing is done, obviously if you re going to have an effective test and trace system you ve got to get the test results back quickly. we are trying to move toa back quickly. we are trying to move to a 24 hour getting results back in 24 to a 24 hour getting results back in 2a hours but we are not there yet so there s still a way to go. but i think the hope is that gradually, pa rents think the hope is that gradually, parents will get, you know, more confident and that will lead to more schools being able to open and certainly, listening to alok sharma, the business secretary this morning, he was saying it was very, very sensitive moment and they had to be cautious. at this was his response when he was asked if they were moving too quickly, too soon? what i would say is that this is not a dash. these are very cautious steps that we are taking, they are phased and as you said yourself, this morning, we ve got primary school children in certain settings going back. we are reopening in a very cautious way outdoor markets. we are reopening car showrooms and we ve also set out in terms of other retail outlets which have been required to be closed, they will not be opened until the 15th of june. so it s right and proper that we do this in a cautious way. in terms of scientific advice, i mean, this is an issue that s come up over the last few days and we ve heard professor chief medical officers in the nhs, who has made the point that of course, scientific advice does differ but i think the key point is that what is the overall view from sage, the overall view from sage which of course is a scientific advisory group on emergencies which advises the government which advises the government on which some of the individuals you are referring to sit, the overall view is that we must do this cautiously, that is precisely what we are doing. and what they ve also said is that if people comply with the rules and the test and trace system is up and running which it has been since thursday, then there is a good likelihood that we will not reach the r value factor above one. the other interesting thing is the language we are hearing from ministers, there is no attempt to hector a strong arm teachers or pa rents hector a strong arm teachers or parents into going back to school. instead, the argument, the weight ministers are pitching this is about the welfare of the children come in other words, the damage done to children who have already been out of school for nine weeks or so, and particularly children from more disadvantaged backgrounds, where anecdotally, the evidence is they have not received the same sort of punctuation and support that perhaps children of more middle class families have and are therefore, all the progress that has been made in recent yea rs the progress that has been made in recent years in trying to close the attainment gap between better off and less well off children, risks reopening again. so they are trying to make this an argument more about what s in the best interests of children, rather than any in any sense trying to crank up the pressure on parents or teachers. thank you very much, norman. thank you for all your many messages, let me know what decision you have made regarding your own child if you are in england. 0ne viewer says 23 of the 30 in my daughter s class going back. another says neither of my children are going back, none of the year one parents in our school have opted to send their kids back today. i have so many of these. i will read some more throughout the morning. we will feed your thoughts into the conversation but let me know what decision you have made. police cars have been set on fire and shops have been looted in a sixth night of unrest across the united states. cu rfews are in force in nearly a0 cities, including the capital washington, as protests continue over the death of a black man in police custody. 0ur north america correspondent, david willis reports. shouting. this country is walking a fine and dangerous line. as a large and angry crowd gathered outside the white house, it emerged at one point at the height of the protests here on friday, president trump was ushered into an underground bunker by members of the secret service in the interests of his own safety. don t shoot, don t shoot! on several occasions in the last few days, demonstrators here have attempted to scale the walls. move back! and many were reluctant to conform with a newly imposed overnight curfew. as the president hunkered down, his presumptive democratic presidential opponent tweeted a picture of himself at the scene of one of last night s protests. joe biden promised to listen to the demonstrators and help shape the movement for reform. many protests have been peaceful and in minneapolis, where all this began a week ago, there was a moment when protesters and a national guard officer came together. shaking the hand. thank you. coronavirus elbow! nonetheless, george floyd s arrest on a minneapolis street corner and his frantic pleas for help have given rise to one of the most turbulent periods in recent american history. the white police officer pictured holding his knee to mr floyd s neck is due to appear in court later today. derek chauvin is facing charges of murder and manslaughter, but three other officers involved in mr floyd s arrest are still at large and there are growing calls for them to be brought to justice as well. donald trump has described these riots as domestic terrorism and blamed them on far left anarchist groups, but there are those who believe at a potentially pivotal moment in the struggle for racial justice here that without violence, their voices will not be heard. the president has called on state officials to deploy the national guard in cities where the violence has grown increasingly out of hand, but such is the extent of the crisis, he is facing growing calls to address the nation from the oval office. 0ur correspondent aleem maqbool is in washington for us right now tell us more about what s been going on. it s now about a quarter past fourin on. it s now about a quarter past four in the morning, isn t it? yes, i ve just four in the morning, isn t it? yes, i vejust got back four in the morning, isn t it? yes, i ve just got back from an extremely chaotic night on the streets in the american capital, six days of protests in minneapolis, george floyd died there. we ve seen the horrific video. here in washington it s the third night, certainly, the most chaotic of all. there have been pitched battles between security forces and protesters all night and after hours, it is finally starting to dissipate. nowjustice, no peace. these were protests against the killing of george floyd. but given the location, it was also a message to one person in particular. he needs to grow up, be a man, stop with the childish acts, the childish tweets, he needs to be a man. as night fell, the mood got angrier. i am here outside the white house, for the most part a peaceful protest but fires had been lit now. and the police keep firing gas into the crowds. and they fired other projectiles as well. and they were clearly on edge. it did little to dispel the impression police use unnecessary levels of force. at one point, charging our own cameraman. here we go. we got every right to burn it down. this is pain, right to burn it down. this is pain, right here, this is pain, this is the only way we can get it to them. they are not hearing us. it sjust words to them. they don t feel anything. and so for the president giving very little to those protesters to make them feel he is listening to them. his own supporters want him to come down harder on the protesters, that appears to be the sentiment that is winning the day at the moment. because there was no sense that the security forces on the streets today we re security forces on the streets today were trying to de escalate the situation. it was extremely confrontational approach. and given what this was all sparked by, and excessive use of force, that killed a man in minneapolis, a lot of people wondering how wise it is that the police keep on behaving this way towards the media and towards protesters across the country. thank you very much. thousands of people gathered in manchester, cardiff and london in solidarity with demonstrators in the united states. protestors walked to the american embassy in london and crowded together despite social distancing restrictions. they chanted black lives matter in reference to the civil rights campaign group. five people were arrested. and just after half past nine this morning we ll be looking at how black people in britain have responded to the death of george floyd, and to the outrage and protests which have erupted across the united states. the headlines on bbc news. lessons start again for some primary school children in england as the government begins to ease lockdown restrictions millions of vulnerable people in england and wales who were advised to stay indoors will be able to leave their homes for the first time in ten weeks there have been fires near the white house as protests against the killing of an unarmed black man in police custody, continue across the us. the big question then for parents in england are you sending your toddlers, reception, year i and year 6 children back to nursery and school today? mums and dads have clearly thought very hard about this, and there has been a fair amount of agonising for some. thank you for your many messages over the last 2a hours. 0ne viewer says he i m sending them back, i have to work i m a single parent and i have no choice. another reviewer says hello, my six year old daughter andi says hello, my six year old daughter and i have sickle cell trait so we are classed as vulnerable. i m just thankful i have my my daughter and one year old son can play in it. another bureau says i m endlessly arguing with my husband about whether or not to send out your six pack in, he thinks we should, i think we shouldn t. let me know what decision you did make. six year old. 0ne viewer says i was apprehensive about sending my daughter back, she was anxious to see her friends. we daughter back, she was anxious to see herfriends. we had an e mail saying the school did not have room for year six pupils, thankfully. and another bureau says my son is returning, year six, three hours a day, he s been on about returning and i m starting to feel anxious about it, i m also returning to work ina about it, i m also returning to work in a school but i know the schools will keep them safe, as safe as they can. it is however are of the unknown. thank you for those. reflecting some of your thoughts, there was so many of them. let s talk again to the headteacher of kempsey primary school in worcester who the last time we spoke, when the government first announced schools would be opening up to more pupils from june ist, told us she was ‘panic stricken . also mum of five, lucille whiting in suffolk who s not sending her six year old daughter freya back today. and dad of two ben anderson who is sending his five year old son arlo back today. hello, good morning to all of you. thank you so much for talking to us. are you reopening to reception, year one and year six children today? we are reopening on wednesday. we have two days of getting staff back in, some staff haven t been in for eight or nine weeks. going through the new procedures. looking at what we are doing for a start and end times of the day, generally just familiarising everyone with the new world that is primary school now. familiarising everyone with the new world that is primary school nowm was really struck the last time we spoke when you said you were a little panic stricken about the things you would have to put in place before these kids can come back. how are you feeling now? cameron, i will say i haven t had much sleep lately. much calmer. but i feel we have undertaken an extensive risk assessment that s taken days extensive risk assessment that s ta ken days and extensive risk assessment that s taken days and days and days and looked at every aspect of what we can do. i feel bad when the children are in school we will do the very best that we can for them. but it is still such an unknown. ifeel that when the children. the whole process of social distancing in a primary school is still quite a novel concept. will your children be safe ? novel concept. will your children be safe? yes, they will. yes. we will do everything within our power to make sure that the children who come into school are safe. let me bring in lucille. good morning. why aren t you sending your child back today? we already have had coronavirus, we came down with it, we started feeling unwell on the 24th of april. and we ve all actually been very u nwell and we ve all actually been very unwell with it for about six weeks now. when i say all of you, that s you, your husband underfive children, you ve all had 19 symptoms? yes. i ended up in hospital. i was sick so much i got dehydrated and had to go in for fluids. and then i ended up taking anti sickness medication for about three weeks, still taking it on and off when i have bad days. two of the children were very, very ill. and i think at the moment school is wonderful, absolutely wonderful, teachers, i think the of them. but we ve had a terrible fright, we are still experiencing postviral symptoms and i think it s more important at the moment to be together, particularly if i m still going to be home schooling three children. and i can only send one back in. you re not ready yet. when will you be ready, do you think?|j think will you be ready, do you think?” think we re going to monitor situation very carefully over the next fortnight, the next month. because of next fortnight, the next month. because of course next fortnight, the next month. because of course i want the children to go back in, it would be lovely for them to see their friends and obviously, the teachers are sending home lots of work, we are doing it every day, the home schooling aspect has been really, really good but we can home school them here and i work from home. sol home school them here and i work from home. so i can work around them. we are just going to monitor them. we are just going to monitor the situation over at the next month, see if the r rate goes up and make a decision at the end ofjune. that s really interesting, you will know gavin williamson, the education secretary says throughout the pandemic art decisions have been based on the best scientific and medical advice with the welfare of children and staff at the heart of considerations. the prime minister ‘s announced the five tests have been met and based on all the evidence we will move forward with her plan for a phased and cautious return of a limited number of pupils to primary schools. does that reassure you? not particularly. i think you ve got to wait to see what happens when the world reopens. to see, there might be a seasonal element to this, it might be like the cold and flu, it might start dying out over the summer months. but at the moment my children are still experiencing symptoms, i m still experiencing symptoms, i m still experiencing symptoms, i m still experiencing symptoms. i wouldn t potentially want to send my child in thinking we might still be infected, we might give that to other children, their grown ups. and at the moment, it feels a lot safer for her to be at home. understood. let me bring ben in, good morning. why are you sending your five year old son back today? why are you sending your five-year-old son back today? we felt really comfortable with all the information we were given from the school, we felt the school has gone above and beyond throughout this whole period of lockdown and putting steps in place to be able to make sure the return was a safe and comfortable as it is. it s very reassuring to hear parents like lucille saying if they ve got symptoms they are keeping their children away because that was obviously a big concern for us. is everybody going to be fit and healthy that s going on? we just thought from what we know of the virus and everything we ve heard about it, people who were asymptomatic would be staying away and those who were feeling fine and ready to get back into normal society will be doing that. we were just massively reassured by the school throughout the whole of last week, being sent pictures and updates of the areas they are putting in place, social distancing measures that will be there. we just felt very comfortable about sending our son felt very comfortable about sending ourson in. felt very comfortable about sending our son in. and how did he feel? he was very excited about going on, we we re was very excited about going on, we were concerned about that, for him it s the excitement, the social side of things, that was really important side of things for him. did you drop him off? yes. what was it like at the gates was everybody managing to social distance? they were. the school had a phased return, the three year groups going back in today, there were 15 minute increments between the groups. yes, the drop off points were very clearly marked. you were able to do that and it made, notoriously, you know what school gates are like, there s parents huddling around, having a chat after the kids have been dropped off, there was none of that this morning. very warm welcome from the teachers. lots of kids carrying lots of stuff, back after a few weeks but yes, the social distancing measures were in place. but the thing we were very cautious about and we spoke to the teacher very openly about this, arlo is five, in into your group with five and six year olds. you know, we know what those children are like, we we re what those children are like, we were concerned that maybe anyone getting a little bit too close, with the teachers pounce on them and tell them they cannot do that in the teachers reassured us, they would monitor that situation. they are not going to have everyone climbing over each other but given their age, they would just work within those boundaries. i can see the head teacher nodding as you were describing that. 0bviously you ve talked about that with your staff and you will over the next 48 hours before reopening on wednesday. what will you do if a couple of five year olds start hugging or a five year olds start hugging or a five year old falls over and needs a hug? the second scenario is one i ve been asked by parents and i ve said very clearly, if a child falls over and needs a hug, they will have one. at the end of the day, we are here to reassure children, to look after them and to love them. i m not going to step back and say to a child who is crying in the playground, i cannot pick you up. realistically, five and four year olds will hug and hold hands and do things like that, we cannot change that. but what we can say is explain to them and if we see them rushing to hug each other, we can gently say, or maybe divert their attention, we are also looking at lots of hand washing and doing things like that. but the reality is ina primary things like that. but the reality is in a primary school, particularly with the little ones, they don t understand social distancing and i ve been very clear with my parents about that. i mean, judging from the groups of young teenagers, i should say at the weekend, young teenagers older teenagers and some adults don t understand social distancing either! thank you all so much for coming in the programme and good luck to you all, we really appreciate talking to you this morning. good luck and thank you. thank you for all your many messages. really appreciate those. 0ne viewer, rachel, says i wonder if you re discussing the return of children to school where their children to school where their children with special educational needs could be included as of my son is in yearten, needs could be included as of my son is in year ten, attending a special educational needs school and he travels to and from school in a taxi with a driver with three piers for anything up to two hours depending on traffic. no one seems to have considered this kind of scenario. and another viewer reckons you are four times more likely to be hit by lightning than get this virus if you are under 14. only three out of 55 scientists are saying it s too risky but it s ok for you to wander around supermarkets with your toddlers where they will be exposed to more people than being at school. another viewer, key worker says my daughter could have been at school during lockdown but i kept at home, she will be going back until i feel she is safe. and julie says to be fair i ama is safe. and julie says to be fair i am a key worker, the kids have had loads of fun at covid i9 am a key worker, the kids have had loads of fun at covid 19 school, lots more sports activities and yoga aren t just lots more sports activities and yoga aren tjust doing artwork or whatever. they are all on separate ta bles whatever. they are all on separate tables and because of small class sizes they get more individual attention than usual. thank you for all of those. keep them coming in. wright commits 9:30am, let s have a look at the weather, lovely and warm across the uk. here is carol. the grass pollen levels are very high today across northern ireland, most of england and wales. a lot of dry weather and sunshine, the outside chance of a shower in scotla nd outside chance of a shower in scotland and northern ireland. temperatures ranging from 22 in belfast to 25 of 26 in wales, the midlands and the south east. through this evening and overnight, clear skies, still a lot of dry weather. a front coming in across the north west will introduce more cloud to north west scotland and eventually by the end of the night some splashes of rain. it will not be a cold night, these temperatures represent towns and cities, temperatures will be slightly lower in rural areas. a lot of dry and sunny weather again tomorrow. a weather front slipping in across northern ireland and scotland, bringing more cloud and spots of rain. the chair across the north of england. top temperatures are likely to be 27 or 28. hello, this is bbc news with victoria derbyshire. the headlines: lessons start again for some primary school children in england as the government begins to ease lockdown restrictions. millions of vulnerable people in england and wales who were advised to stay indoors will be able to leave their homes for the first time in ten weeks. new rules on social gatherings come into force across the uk in england, six people from different households can meet up. there have been fires near the white house as protests against the killing of an unarmed black man in police custody continue across the us. well, the white x police officer seen kneeling on the neck of george floyd will appear in court in the united states today charged with third degree murder. violence has erupted in cities across the us on the sixth night of protests sparked by mr floyd s death. curfews have been imposed in nearly 40 cities, but have been mostly ignored. and these were some of the scenes in london yesterday, where thousands of people joined a peaceful march and rally, as reaction to the death of mr floyd spread across the world demonstrations also took place in some other uk cities and in berlin and toronto. 0ur reporter shamann freeman powell is here. and the reaction, the anger, is growing across the globe definitely. i think people are exhausted. thousands of people marched in the us embassy over the weekend and hundreds more took to the streets of cardiff and manchester also. in response to what happened to george floyd. but this is not the first time we ve seen images of black people dying after coming into contact with law enforcement. many are drawing similarities with another video that went viral around six years ago a man called eric garner who died after being put in a chokehold by an nypd officer. so black people in the uk and across the world are wanting to show solidarity with the us but also want to highlight the institutional racism that they see in the uk too because i think to many george floyd s death represents yea rs of many george floyd s death represents years of frustration over socioeconomic issues in all aspects of society not just socioeconomic issues in all aspects of society notjust in the us but in the uk too and this is reflected when i scroll through my timeline, i know many people feel the same but my timeline is flooded with images of young black people in the uk being stopped and searched or tasered and beaten. although the people i speak to see the videos are necessary but they are difficult to watch. lets have a listen. i feel like if someone had personally attacked me. the image of a white male police officer kneeling ona a white male police officer kneeling on a black man s neck. there is an internal fire within on a black man s neck. there is an internalfire within me on a black man s neck. there is an internal fire within me that starts to burn like a furnace. and i get angry, i get mad and i want to do something about it.” angry, i get mad and i want to do something about it. i was disgusted. i still haven t been able to watch the full nine minutes. i think it is traumatic. the first thing i think is, what if that was my brother, my boyfriend, my husband, my dad? there is like a list of black people that had been killed. when we see things like this all the time, i think sometimes even as black people, even though we are shocked, we are also desensitised to it. in 2015 there was a period where there was just people die in literally every week and it was, i can t breathe, don t shoot, i got my hands up. the person i started to become at the end of that wasjust i started to become at the end of that was just angry. i started to become at the end of that wasjust angry. i think that is what is so corrosive and danger del we re what is so corrosive and danger del were dangerous but institutional racism, you can feel emotionally and physically hurt even though it happens to someone across the other side of the world. it is a system of oppression, something that is happens over time. it is scary, really. the idea of. grey mac stop and search in the uk seems to be specifically targeting black people. those that live in glass houses shouldn t throw stones.” those that live in glass houses shouldn t throw stones. i think it s important for them to know that they are not alone. every single black person, no matter where you are from, i think we do all deal with similar struggles. black people are never afforded the position to feel co mforta ble. never afforded the position to feel comfortable. so nothing will change. let s speak to ashley banjo choreographer, founder of diversity, who says watching the footage of george floyd s death has prompted him to speak out about what happened in the us and what happens in the uk. and sayce holmes lewis, who runs mentivity, which mentors young black men. he says he was stopped by the police only yesterday. good morning, both of you. ashley, tell us why you want to speak out. thank you, victoria. i think it s obvious why i want to speak out. i saw that footage for the first time a few days ago, and i felt sick to my stomach. i was upset, i was angry and if i m honest, i looked at george floyd and i saw my dad, really. it felt like all of these expenses, you know, being pulled over, being wrongly detained, questioned, listening to my mum and dad speak about who was best to go infora dad speak about who was best to go in for a business meeting because my dad was black and my mum was white, and all of these emotions got stirred up in me and i thought to myself, enough is enough, this is so blatant, so wrong and so inhumane, i couldn t sit and say nothing. so you ta ke couldn t sit and say nothing. so you take it personally, the death of george floyd? absolutely. i feel like there is definitely a personal element to it. i have been there and i have felt racism my whole life. i also know so many people, so many good and decent people and i m lucky to be an industry is hugely accepting, you feel it nowhere near as much as other industries and other lines of work. but from being a kid, i ve grown up, i ve had to think about the colour of my skin, it s just part of growing up black. when i saw what happened to george floyd, i thought to myself, you know, this is not acceptable. it s not right. let me bring in sayce. you mentor young black men. i want to ask you how you felt when you we re to ask you how you felt when you were strolling to your social media and you end up watching the footage ofa and you end up watching the footage of a black man gasping for breath as a white police officer kneels on his neck. i mean, to be honest, i avoided it for the first day or so, because these incidents are too, now and it s important to protect your mental health in that respect and i have had situations. i don t see videos of white people being killed by police circulating to the same degree and the fact this is circulating in this manner it is like it is designed to impact us and obviously the injustice around it, not getting the justice we deserve, it is disheartening and it makes me very angry. it makes me very angry because we don t get the justice we deserve. how can you be chosen third degree murder and second degree manslaughter when you kill in full blood? what has happened to you yesterday and looked down?” blood? what has happened to you yesterday and looked down? i was delivering food to people, friends who have lost loved ones from covid 19. i was taking food to people who had lost family members. i was stopped by the police after being out for literally 30 seconds. they racially profiled me and said i was a drug dealer and they wanted to search me and said i would be detained. they searched me and then searched my vehicle. but i decided to film the altercation just raise awareness around it. you cannot stop people without reasonable cause. i am an upstanding black man in the community who mentor is young people in the community. ashley, you have never spoken publicly before about your own dad s experiences of contact with white police officers in this country. have you been stopped by the police because of the colour of your skin, do you feel was yellow it s hard, because in my heart, absolutely. i have been profiled, i ve seen it happened to my dad, i have been in the car with my dad, i have been in the car with my mum and dad, and going up if we we re my mum and dad, and going up if we were driving home late at night coming to work in the studio, every so blue lights, i knew instantly that the colour of our skin had something to do with it, but at the same time, i know so many police officers, so i don t want this to be just a message of hate, i don t want this to be a message of anger at all police officers. i think there are loads of good police, but at the same time, we need to recognise the issues, we need to recognise that racism is real and there are people in positions of power that abuse that power and they use it in the wrong way, and i think george floyd is the absolute pinnacle of that at the moment. i want to ask both of you, i ll start with you, ashley, do you, i ll start with you, ashley, do you think it is not only the responsibility of black people the combat and fight racism?” responsibility of black people the combat and fight racism? i think it is the responsibility of everybody as humans, whether we are white, black, yellow, brown, whether we are british or american, it is everybody‘s responsibility to turn this around, but i think power itself to really change things doesn t actually lie with black people and that s why i think it s so important, you need to stand up and you need to be part of this. sayce ? and you need to be part of this. sayce? the issue is that police are supposed to stand for integrity and a lot of them or not. what they are doing with racial profiling and stereotyping people based on a minority, i think that me personally, this has to change, in dialogue with the police with rigorous training programme might with regards. you are working with them, sayce? yes, people talk about unconscious bias. this is conscious, this is based on your worldview and the stereotypes you ve seen. i do think we have an issue in our community, hence we are doing the work we are doing. however, we have to get into dialogue with white people, we have to have honest conversations about racism. we are told that doesn t exist, the issue we are facing is that we are looking to different facets of society to solve the problem of racism rather than the structural inequality. ashley, eric garner has been mentioned, there is also michael brown, no george floyd, is his killing the tipping point? does this feel different? this feels different to me. i can t think in my lifetime when so many people have stood together or stood up and been so kind of passionately united in one front. there are millions and millions of signatures on the petition for the george floyd murder, and i think. iwould petition for the george floyd murder, and i think. i would like to think this will be the tipping point, i really want to believe deep down that this will cause change. but i also know that the arrest of one officer, you know, the sort of sharing of a few hashtags will not be enough, we need to keep the momentum, need to keep standing for what s right and we need to change things because it s clearly broken. i think this incident has lifted the lid off and allowed people that probably wouldn t normally get involved in this argument to become activated and involved and that s what s important, you need to keep that. i can see sayce nodding in agreement. i really appreciated, thank you both. keep up the good work. let s speak now to psychologist dr bernard hosford. he wants to talk about the kind of collective trauma, if you like, when it comes to strolling through social media and seeing the kind of horror we saw with the killing of george floyd. hello to you stop good morning. tell us your reaction. the effect on people are witnessing the footage and what it might trigger in them. well, it can be no doubt whatsoever that witnessing these types of events causes trauma, causes psychological trauma. interestingly, there has been a statement put out by the american psychiatric association to that effect, the american psychological association bass president has said this a racism pandemic. but there has been ongoing and systematic research which is found time and time again that witnessing these incidents of racial violence causes psychological trauma, causes post traumatic stress disorder, it causes depression, causes anxiety. so what should people do if they are triggered, if they have those kind of feelings? i think there is two parts. 0ne of feelings? i think there is two parts. one part which is about what the individual can do and certainly, the individual can do and certainly, the individual can do and certainly, the individual should go and seek professional help, ideally from a psychologist or from a therapist who has a deep understanding of the types of experiences that black and minority ethnic communities face. 0ften minority ethnic communities face. often that might be black psychologist. there is the type of support they can get from within the community. if the person has witnessed trauma from somebody who is near and close to them, then there is certainly an argument that they should also seek legal advice, because it may well be that they have a personal injury claim if they have a personal injury claim if they have suffered a psychological condition as a result of seeing somebody who is close to them brutalised or victimised by the police. and we have to remember that in the uk, black people make up about 12% of individuals who have the force used against them by the police, but only 3% of the population. so this is an ongoing problem. it s not just population. so this is an ongoing problem. it s notjust the situation of george floyd, we have seen similar problems here in the uk, lots of times officers have been exonerated, cases like mark duggan etc. so i think it is something the community overall is very anxious about, not just the community overall is very anxious about, notjust the black community, i think it is the white community as well. the other part of the equation, is not what the individuals do, it is what society does. i would almost say that the police officers that have been found to do this type of crime, they should be brought tojustice swiftly, they should have the most severe penalties meted out against them so that the communities, so that everybody can see thatjustice has been done. 0ften that everybody can see thatjustice has been done. often in my practice, i see people on a lot less evidence than this tried and brought to justice for murder and other charges stop at thank you very much for talking to us, we appreciated. we appreciate it. car dealerships can reopen from today in england, after closing in march in line with government coronavirus advice. would be buyers will now be able to talk with sales staff while following strict social distancing protocols, and potentially able to test cars alone, so long as trade plates and the relevant insurance are in place. retailers will then follow strict guidelines when handing over cars, including ensuring that the vehicles, keys and anything else you may touch are disinfected. ben thompson is atjaguar land rover lancaster, in reading. hello, ben. good morning. welcome to reading, and this, one of the first non essential retailers that are getting to open. car insurance, outdoor markets some of the first. the rest of the retailer is set to open within two weeks. this place has all sorts of measures in place to make sure it is safe. when i arrived this morning i had my temperature taken, hand sanitiser and reminders about social distancing, keeping two metres away and all this sort of stuff, constant reminders about how people need to keep a distance by trying to get business back up and running. when it comes to negotiating that sale, you will do it through these plastic screens, also some things in place to make sure it is safe. good morning, neil. lots of things in place to get you to this point, talk me through the last sort of ten weeks. you haven t been able to open, can you sell cars at a distance? it s all about trying isn t it? we can t we have gone to great digital presence but i think you need a personal touch. great digital presence but i think you need a personaltouch. we have touched on some of the things you had to do to make the front of the shop safe but a load of stuff that s been going on behind the scenes? just keeping our team and our customers are safe. we have been really busy writing detailed risk assessments for every single site, this one included. once you have got out of the car it will be fully sanitised. we have our teams in groups. so if your car in one group you can t mix with the other. the biggest difference has been in the workshop, we have an empty bay, then a bay with someone working, then an empty bay, so we get great social distancing from our team of the workshop. if you want to try out a car, toa workshop. if you want to try out a car, to a test drive, normally you would have one of you guys in the car with you. what guarantee is that you get the oarabag car with you. what guarantee is that you get the qarabag if it comes back half an hour late, that s fine. get the car back? you can really absorb yourself in the car, is it right for me, do i want to talk to the sales guy about it? talking about positives, loads of businesses i ve spoken to have had to clearly make changes to the way they operate. but a lot of those things have been quite good for them, things they will continue to do long after long dinner is over. what has been like for you? we were always going digital here online as a future for our business and it s really accelerated here. today you can buy a car from start to finish, all you have to do is come and get it, we will even bring it to your house. we wouldn t have got there that quickly without this. we ve been really busy on those projects for the last ten weeks and we ll keep doing that. yes, the showroom is really important but the pre process can all be done online. quite clearly you have a lot of pent up demand, lots of people coming back after having not been able to come for ten weeks but are you worried about demand in future? who knows with mike we are optimistic, we have great cars, especially at jaguar land rover. i think we have a lot of demand and this whole moved to private transport now, not public transport, we have already seen the impact of that, people who are saying they wa nt that, people who are saying they want to buy a car, that has been doubling. it won t take long to get back to what you might call normal levels. so there you have it, one of the first nonessential retailers to open, customers already hear this money but i will talk to some of them in the next hour. find out what they make of the measures that have been put in pleas to keep them safe. more from me a little later. it s a big day for sports fans, with competitive action allowed to return in england from today. one of the first major events to take place is horse racing but things will be a little different to what we re used to. our sports correspondent katie gornall is at newcastle racecourse to tell us more. it is going to look and feel very different. it has been three months on hold but horse racing will be back today in newcastle. they are limiting numbers, a whole raft of social distancing and hygiene measures in place. you can probably see behind me a big fence, and the road into the course is closed, effectively a ring of steel around the racecourse. very few people are allowed in. those people who are going and have had to have the temperature is checked, had to com plete temperature is checked, had to complete an online course as well. earlier in the week, i came down here to newcastle to see behind the scenes some of the things they ve been doing. a strict one way system in place inside the course, the jockeys have had a whole new changing room built as well with different parts so that they can socially distance. jockeys will be wearing masks this afternoon. the only time they will not be able to socially distance is during the leg up socially distance is during the leg up onto the horse. then when they come out, it is going to be quite an eerie atmosphere, no spectators in the stands, no bookies on the track, but not even the owners have been allowed in some numbers have been very strictly limited. i think there is just very strictly limited. i think there isjust a very strictly limited. i think there is just a relief that racing has been allowed to come back. they only got the go ahead on saturday, there has been weeks of preparation, because the lockdown has been a big hit to their finances, a £15 million hole in their finances as a result of the lockdown and that s something i was speaking to martin cruddas about earlier. £50 million. i was speaking to martin cruddas about earlier. £50 million. it is about earlier. £50 million. it is a massive relief and it is not a relief notjust for a massive relief and it is not a relief not just for racecourses but there is about 20,000 jobs that are dependent upon the ecosystem of the industry and it s really important for the protection of those jobs that we are back up and running. it s really important the owners have the confidence that there will be opportunities for their horses to race to keep them in training. and we face a massive challenge, because during the summer months, we are an attendance income led business and we face a massive challenge in dealing with that but i m sure we will. so, a huge amount of interest as you can imagine on this opening race here at newcastle. it s a ten race here at newcastle. it s a ten race car, 12 runners in each and somebody owners out there have got horses ready to run. course you cannot furlough horses or trainers, they still need to look after the horses, the horses need to be exercised and fed so there was a vast amount of horses out there all desperate to race. this was so oversubscribed, they were told they had 369 entries, they had to whittle it down. a little disappointed owners but also a lot of excitement as well. i think within the racing industry they know financially they need to get back on track, is a huge industry directly employing around 20,000 people but indirectly supporting around 70,000 so they feel it is vital to get back on track and get racing again full to buy think also there is a sense of responsibility but also of opportunity for the sport. they know the spotlight is on them now in a way it hasn t been for a number of yea rs way it hasn t been for a number of years and they are desperate to show that they can put on the racing safely here today. it all starts at one o clock and we ve got perfect conditions! we will have the weather ina minute. conditions! we will have the weather in a minute. thanks, katie. one person acting says, yes, having seen the plans in place at the school i feel comfortable. llama manor says, no, i school i feel comfortable. llama manorsays, no, iwouldn t school i feel comfortable. llama manor says, no, i wouldn t allow it anyway, i think the government is rushing things through. here is the weather. if you have an allergy to grass pollen, the levels are high or very high today. a lot of dry weather and sunshine, the outside chance of a show in scotla nd the outside chance of a show in scotland and northern ireland, temperatures ranging from 13 in lerwick, 24 in glasgow, 22 in belfast, 25 or 26 in wales, the midlands and the south east. through this evening and overnight, some clear skies, still a lot of dry weather but a front coming in across the north west will introduce workload across north west scotland and eventually by the end of the night, some splashes of rain. it will not be a cold night, temperatures representing towns and cities, it will be slightly lower in rural areas. a lot of dry and sunny weather tomorrow, the weather front slipping in across northern ireland and scotland bringing more clout and some spots of rain. the chair across the north of england. tomorrow s top temperatures likely to be 27 or 28. this is bbc news with the latest headlines for viewers in the uk and around the world. huge protests continue across dozens of american cities, as anger grows over the killing of an unarmed black man in police custody. there were violent clashes outside the white house. police fired tear gas at protesters and properties nearby were set on fire. talk about taking the gloves off, man. shaking a hand. despite some moments of solidarity, it s though to be the most widespread civil unrest america has seen since the assassination of martin luther king. lessons start again for some primary school children in england as the government begins to ease lockdown restrictions
“it fit it fit it ‘a “fig r ‘ait h: “fig“ itin 5 wit it u ‘u5 l5 55 ., 5 lit 55:55“ il5 55 flit right thing to do, but i the right thing to do, but i understand if people think it was a mistake and that i should have spoken to him about it. i did speak to him about it a few days later, but neither of us can remember exactly what i said because we were both in pretty bad shape. thanks very much. gary gibbon. cani can ijust can i just be can ijust be clear about that? yesterday, you had a face to face conversation with the prime minister about all the circumstances around this trip and those key two or so weeks. but he is known about your excursion north for about a month and a half? and he didn t ask you anything until yesterday? and a half? and he didn t ask you anything untilyesterday? so, regarding the first part of your question, yes, and essentially, what i ve just told you guys is what i told the prime minister yesterday. i went through it all. yes, he asked me about it all on, was it friday night, that the story broke?” me about it all on, was it friday night, that the story broke? i can t remember. so, it was when the story broke, when it was public, he was interested , broke, when it was public, he was interested, he didn t ask you anything before that? so. as i said before, we spoke about it in the week after it happened, i can t remember what day, but in the days following, we were both in bed ill, we had a few conversations on the phone. since then, it s a long time. asi phone. since then, it s a long time. as i said, i spoke to him about it then, i told as i said, i spoke to him about it then, itold him as i said, i spoke to him about it then, i told him about it, but to be honest, that was the least of things we we re honest, that was the least of things we were thinking. my movements we re we were thinking. my movements were not really part of our conversation. we were talking about. the health message of the government has been putting out there, you say you don t regret what you ve done, you say you acted correctly. we were talking about vaccines, about treatments, about hundreds of very important thing is, we did not spend a lot of time talking about me and where i was and my own circumstances. let me ask you about one of those very important things. with tracing perhaps kicking off in things. with tracing perhaps kicking offina things. with tracing perhaps kicking off in a big way in the coming weeks, people will be asked to isolate, the public health message will never have been more critical, perhaps. do you think public adherence to those instructions will be weaker or stronger as a result of your recent activities? well, i hope it won t affect it, and i hope that now that people know what actually happened, and that some of the false stories that have been circulating and driving a lot of people understandably mad and. about it. you stood up the central story in this allegation, in that you drove a very long way from home, when everyone was told to be at home. if there was more leeway in these instructions than we thought, why didn t you tell everyone about that? well. with great respect, gary. that distance. i am trying to a nswer gary. that distance. i am trying to answer the question. with great respect, it is notjust a simple matter of the regulations cover the regulations describe various exceptional circumstances vary and may not be possible to follow the rules. it does not say you must stay at home in all circumstances. it says that there are some circumstances in which you won t be able to follow these rules, and it seemed to me that i was in such an exceptional circumstance and i was trying to balance all of these very complicated things. people will be staggered to hear you say that, when the message was so clear stay home. is the fact that the prime minister can t do his job without you? the guidance says, if you re living with children. i am reading out the actual guidance. keep following this advice to the best of your ability. however, we are aware that not all these measures will be possible. what we ve seen so far is that children with, the appear to be less severely affected. it is nevertheless important to do your best to full of this guidance. and you know as well as i do that there are. that the deputy chief medical officer was discussing this, if you ve got a child that is four yea rs you ve got a child that is four years old, and neither of you can look after him, the guidance doesn t say you ve just got to sit there. so i think, as i ve said, i think i behaved reasonably in all of these. are given all of these circumstances and the different things i had to try and weigh up. jason groves. hi. you blame the media for this mess that you ve got ligament into. do you accept that whatever legal nicety you may have to say, that you haven t broken the letter of these regular is, you ve driven a coach and horses through the spirit of them, and that is why people are so cross about it? these regulations. i don t agree. you don t agree? no, i don t agree. let s go through it, shall we? you left london, with your wife, who had coronavirus terms. completely against the regulations. you re up in durham, and you decided to go for a drive, on a weekend, when, a few yards from here, the foreign secretary that weekend was telling us secretary that weekend was telling us to stay at home and save lives. you went for a drive, you sat by a river, you went for a walk in the wood. i mean, you may or may not have a way ofjustifying this to yourself, and possibly, there may even be some legal loophole, but you ve broken the spirit of it, haven t you? no, i don t think that i have. just to correct one thing. when we left, my wife did not have a cough, she did not have a fever, those were the two symptoms that we re those were the two symptoms that were mentioned. she was ill, she had thrown up, but as i said before, we didn t know whether or not she had covid or not. secondly, secondly, as isaid covid or not. secondly, secondly, as i said earlier on, the walk in the woods was on. was on private land, ididn t woods was on. was on private land, i didn t leave our property to go for a walk in the woods. and that s perfectly reasonable behaviour. you stopped on the way back from castle bar stopped on the way back from castlebar not. yeah, i was driving back from castlebar not and my child with a four year old, was in the car seatin with a four year old, was in the car seat in the back, he said, dad, i need to go to the toilet. we pulled into the side of the road, he jumped out with my wife, i don t think any reasonable person would say that i behaved, that that s bad behaviour. you ve plainly had a tough time, i don t think anyone would argue with that, but there s lots of other people who have had a tough time. i would like to finish by. we had a letter today from andrew and sarah in wiltshire, their daughter and son in law live ten miles from them and they ve got two children. they came down with covid, and they said, imagine our frustration living so near and yet not being able to help, it was a big sacrifice that we made. and they feel like mugs now. i mean, they want you to resign. did you offer to resign, when you saw the prime minister? no, i have not offered to resign. did you ever consider it? no, i have not considered it. as i said, i think it is reasonable to say that other people would have behaved differently, in different ways, in this whole situation, but as i stressed, i was trying to balance lots of competing things. if i hadn t worked here, for example, then you could very easily say that 0k, then you could very easily say that ok, icould then you could very easily say that ok, i could just have stayed in an isolated cottage for weeks afterwards. but i was involved in lots of things involving crucial questions of vaccines, trying to get scientists involved in the effort, trying to get money moved, trying to get regulations moved out of the way. and i thought that if i could return to work, then i should seek to return to work. and i would stress that i took expert medical advice before i moved, to say. and i actually went through the whole details of what i ve just told you, i went through, on saturday the 11th, on day 15 sorry, is that day 14 or 15, a country memo. but anyway. it is day “i. so, yes, saturday the 11th. on day 14 is when i took medical advice, day 14 of symptoms, and i was told then that, you re clear to. i said, can i go back to work monday tuesday? and i was told, yes, given what you ve explained, you are not a danger to the public now, you can safely go back to work and you can hire para childcare. given that, i thought that i ought to go back to work and do what i could in this emergency. 0k, do what i could in this emergency. ok, thanks. mrcummings, how many mr cummings, how many miles is it from your house, the house you are staying in in durham, and barnard castle, where you went?|j staying in in durham, and barnard castle, where you went? i don t know how any miles it is, it is roughly half an hour. right. so, there are people without gardens come on never mind access to private land and woodland, who haven t made unnecessary car journeys woodland, who haven t made unnecessary carjourneys like that for more than two months now. they ve been following rules that you helped for and create. so, where the public stupid to follow these rules to the letter, rather than looking for loopholes, like you did? erm, no, of course the public were not stupid to follow the rules. and i wasn t looking for loopholes. i was looking to try to do the best that i could a complex situation, where i was trying to weigh up the safety of my child with trying to get back to work, and a lot of difficult decisions to make around that. how does your trip to barnard castle have anything to do with the safety of your child or your work? because, as i expend, i had been very ill, on the sunday, the 12th, i had said to my wife, right, let s pack up the car and go back. i ve been cleared by the doctor to go back to work. and she said, and i think it was perfectly reasonable, a few days ago you could barely stand up. you said that your eyesight was weird and it seemed to be weird, we shouldn t just embark on weird and it seemed to be weird, we shouldn tjust embark on a 270 mile, whatever it is, journey, and then end upfinding whatever it is, journey, and then end up finding halfway through that you actually can t drive that far. so, we should get in the car and see if you can actually drive. the only way to avoid this problem would have been just to say, i am just going to stay in durham, which i could have done but i didn t think was the right thing to do. so, one has to make. i had been told by expert medical advice that i wasn t a danger to the public, and that i could go back to work in number 10 downing street on the monday tuesday. and therefore i was trying to do that in the safest way possible. and i think that that was a reasonable thing to do. that doesn t make any sense, why do you have to make a half hourjourney each way to barnard castle, why not drive a little bit of the way to london and then go back if you want feeling well? i mean, to be. we didn t think of doing that, to be honest. we just thought, didn t think of doing that, to be honest. wejust thought, ok, let s whizz down the road and see how i feel. do you regret not thinking about it? erm, do i regret notjust trying to drive to london and see if ican do trying to drive to london and see if i can do it? do you regret taking a half hour journey to barnard i can do it? do you regret taking a half hourjourney to barnard castle and sitting for 15 minutes, as you say? as i said, i think it was a reasonable thing to do. perhaps you re right and we should have just cracked on and tried to do the whole trip. but the whole point was, i had been extremely ill, my vision had been extremely ill, my vision had been a bit weird, we were all going to go back, my wife said we should. we should drive down the road and see if you can actually drive and see if your vision is weird or if you are ok. i thought that s a good idea, i should do. as i stress, i had that s a good idea, i should do. as istress, i had been that s a good idea, i should do. as i stress, i had been cleared to go back to work. so, the application that i shouldn t have been driving back to london, i don t think is reasonable. because i had spoken to a doctor about it and i had been cleared to come back to work. you mention your wife a lot. if you and your wife felt that you had done nothing wrong, why did both your articles in this right two in the spectator micro from a few weeks ago make absolutely no mention of you being in durham? because i said, my house in london was already and is now the subject of some very unpleasant actions, and why on earth would i mention another house that i was in, where i ve got two elderly pa rents, was in, where i ve got two elderly parents, and other relatives living there, who now today also have a lot of unpleasant things going on wrong around their house, too? i don t think i was obliged to do that. why write such a detailed article at all? my wife is a writer, i don t tell her what to do. you wrote one, too. you re not a writer.|j tell her what to do. you wrote one, too. you re not a writer. i wrote a few sentences about. about what it was like to be with mary. nicola. thank you, mrcummings. was like to be with mary. nicola. thank you, mr cummings. you said that you sought expert medical advice before returning to london from durham. did you seek any such advice before making the initial trip to durham? no, i didn t. and we re trip to durham? no, i didn t. and were you confident, or how could you be confident that you wouldn t be putting anybody else at risk by making that trip? so, the point was that i knew that i could get to a place that was completely isolated. i knew that i had a full tank of petrol, i could drive to a place where i was completely isolated from everybody else. i knew that if me and my wife could not look after our small child, there was a 16 year old and a 20 year old, 50 metres away, that i could call and say, we need help. they are old enough to look after a child, and also young enough to be in the least at risk category. if i d stayed in london and a similar thing had happened and i would have had to get somebody else there and expose them to danger, or invite them into the house, which would also have exposed them to danger. the way that i did it seem to me to be the safest thing for everybody in the circumstances. and in fact as it turned out, i didn t have to put anybody in that house in danger, because although we we re house in danger, because although we were both ill, and i couldn t look after a four year old, my wife could. so, as i stressed, i think that in all the circumstances, it was the most sensible thing to do. you mentioned you had a full tank of petrol before you left, but did you have to fill up before you came back? was that another stop you made? no, we drove up and then we went back. i am pretty sure we called in and filled up with petrol on the way back. but remember, at this point, i had been cleared to drive back to work so i don t think in any way that was breaking the rules. i think it isjust important to be clear exactly how many stops you ve made, because you have disputed some of the accounts that have been reported. on the way up, i did not stop at all, and on the way down, cannot be entirely sure, but i am 95% sure i did stop on the way back and fill with petrol. but that might be wrong. you said in the statement you read out, you try to exercise your judgment in statement you read out, you try to exercise yourjudgment in doing the best thing for your family? people up best thing for your family? people up and down the country have been trying to do the best for their families, you talked about complicated circumstances, so many people have those, competing caring needs for children and elderly people. most people that me and my colleagues here have spoken to, did not think what you did was within the rules. regardless of whether they had the opportunity to make such a journey. there are single parents who have had covid i9 and have had to care for even younger children than you. because that is the situation they found themselves in and they were following the advice issued from this building. how can you not feel apologetic towards them for undermining the rule that you helped to create? obviously, i feel extreme sympathy for single mums who would have been in sucha for single mums who would have been in such a terrible situation. but all i can do, all i can do is repeat what i said before, on that evening my wife had just been in a situation where she felt barely able to look after our child. i was essentially surrounded by people who were either testing positive, or had symptoms for covid. it seemed perfectly likely that i would have it and could not look after a child. in fa ct, could not look after a child. in fact, that is exactly what happened. the next day i was ill and i got extremely ill a couple of days later andi extremely ill a couple of days later and i could not look after a child. i could barely move to be honest. if both of us had been in that situation, we would have needed help. and in that scenario, what would have been best for everybody? would it have been best for my 17 year old niece to walk 50 metres and look after our child, or would it have been best for me to be here, calling 999? i think that what i did was the most reasonable thing in the circumstances given that my nieces and my sister had very kindly said if there is an emergency we will help. finally, before you made the decision to drive up to durham, did you make any inquiries with neighbours or friends to see if they orany neighbours or friends to see if they or any other people in london who may have been able to help you, should you have needed help looking after your son? i didn t know, because as i said, anything like that. first of all, i don t think it would have been reasonable to ask someone, some it would have been reasonable to ask someone, some friend to come and expose themselves to a deadly disease where my 17 year old niece has already volunteered to do it for me. to be honest, i didn t really think about that. i thought, i am lucky, if this nightmare does happen then that is the best thing for everybody. thank you. nicola. sorry, sorry, matt. why weren t you honest with the public before now and before friday about your trip to durham? in what way was i not honest? we were asking daily at the numberten honest? we were asking daily at the number ten briefing, where were you working, people would have understood, your difficulties at the time, why weren t you honest about that? there has been a long string of inaccurate stories about me for months, after month, after month. the truth is, answering a lot of these things does not necessarily clear up confusion. it frequently has led more confusion. so you are not worried that you are admitting being honest with the public that you are travelling for durham for understandable circumstances could have sent out the wrong message to other families? i was worried, i was worried about the whole thing. not just the situation in the 14 days, but in the time since friday night, there weren t any good options. do you regret not laying out clearly, when you came back to avoid security problems, being honest to the public? i do, i think i problems, being honest to the public? i do, i thinkl said problems, being honest to the public? i do, ithinki said at problems, being honest to the public? i do, i thinkl said at the beginning of my statement, in retrospect it would have been better to set this out earlier on, but we have to make judgments about these things in number ten. ourjudgment at the time was, if we try and start explain everything it would lead to more confusion. that often happens around here. but there has been all of these reports, did i go back a second time, did i go back on the 19th of may, was the third visit? by this morning, there seem to be so much confusion about so many things the prime minister and i and others thought the best thing to do now, the only thing to do now is to actually just come the only thing to do now is to actuallyjust come out and discuss it and lay the whole thing out, including my child being ill and all that stuff. regardless of who s fault it is, this whole episode is already having an impact on people s behaviour. government scientists are warning of more people will die and the police have said it will make their job the police have said it will make theirjob harder. regardless of whose fault it is, why shouldn t you resign, draw a line under it and hope the government regains control over this pandemic?” hope the government regains control over this pandemic? i hope that now that people have heard what happens, i think, as i have stressed, in a very complicated situation, i behaved reasonably and i tried to do the thing which are minimised risks to everybody, given the different things i had to weigh up. i hope that having heard this that the people will say, ok, we understand the situation and we understand why he did it. some people, i am sure will think, i would have done this differently all that differently and, you know, perhaps they are right. iam not and, you know, perhaps they are right. i am not saying that having laid all of this out, i am not saying i know i am right. iam saying, this is what i did at the time, this is why i did it at the time, this is why i did it at the time, iwas time, this is why i did it at the time, i was trying to weigh up competing things and i thought going back to work and help at the whole disaster. many people have said i shouldn t have done that. disaster. many people have said i shouldn t have done thatm disaster. many people have said i shouldn t have done that. if the episode does rumble on, will you review your position? sorry? will you review your position in a week or so you review your position in a week or so if it keeps distracting?m you review your position in a week or so if it keeps distracting? it is up or so if it keeps distracting? it is up to the prime minister. i am here to do the best i can for the government to try and change the country for the better in lots of ways, to get more investment into the nhs, to do all sorts of things that we have talked about during this crisis. i have been trying to do the best i can to make the government machine work as well as possible. if the prime minister thinks i should stop, that is not for me to decide, it is up to him to decide. you have said there is a lot of things you wish you had done better, broadly, what areas do you wish you had done better over this pandemic? it is not for me to answer other questions about government policy over this. that is a job for the prime minister and he will be giving a conference later on. what i was saying was, you know, i know that i have made mistakes in dealing with this thing going right back to january. i think that my behaviour in these 14 days, when people hear everything that happened, i hope the people will agree that it was reasonable. they might not think they would have done the same thing, but i hope they would agree it was reasonable calculations in all the circumstances. and i don t think what i did in these 14 days was a mistake, but i certainly made a lot of other mistakes, i make mistakes every day. thank you. caitlin. thank you. you have already said, mr cummings, there was an available empty property at your parent s farm. it was not a second home, to which travel to is banned, but it is a privileged position. do not think it is one rule for most of us and one rule for everybody else who can bend it slightly because they have the luxury of an empty house lying around? no, as i have said i don t think that is the case. the reason i went to that place is because it seemed like the safest option given the considerations. i was weighing up the considerations. i was weighing up what is the safest thing for my child, what is the safest thing in terms of how to get back to work and help with this emergency. what is the safest thing in terms of the problems with my current house and i was having to weigh all these things up was having to weigh all these things up and make a decision in a very short period of time. lots of people would have liked to have weighed up the safest options for the child and had the opportunity to go to an empty, save space. did you not have any thoughts, i should be going through this in the same way everybody else is? i should be staying at home and doing everything ican?|am staying at home and doing everything i can? i am not sure i can usefully add to what i have said. i was trying to balance these three things about the safety to my child. the point about it wasn t some nice place to be, if you had been there you would see it is sort of concrete blocks. the point about it was, not that it was a nice place to be, but it was the safest place to be in the circumstances and it meant i didn t have to expose other people to risk u nless have to expose other people to risk unless i absolutely had to in a critical emergency. and i thought that the regulations, as i stress, the regulations say we are aware not all these measures will be possible if you are living with children. i had a wife who had already said, she was close to not being able to look after a child. i was thinking, this might be me tomorrow. in fact, it was me tomorrow, what do i do then? if you imagine this situation, if both of us had been unable to look after him, the way that i organised it was the way that in which the smallest risk to the smallest number of people was actually going on. and given that and the other things i was also thinking about, i think it was also thinking about, i think it was also thinking about, i think it was a reasonable thing to do. but as i stress, i can understand that some people might say, you know, it is your own fault if people are making threats at your house. that is not a good reason to leave. we have all had to stay, you know, other people will make their own judgments about this whole thing. i don t think there is much more i can say. he also mentioned that you have made other mistakes in dealing with the pandemic since january, can you point us to any more of them? as i stressed, at some point in the future i will be happy to go through all the different things i think i got wrong. i would also point out that lots of the media reports about what i have thought, what i have said, what i have done are com pletely said, what i have done are completely false. for many years i have been writing about the dangers of pandemics. last year i wrote explicitly about the danger of coronaviruses, i stressed that the importance of government planning and that i was worried that people we re and that i was worried that people were not taking it seriously enough. a lot of media reports have tried to claim that i sort of pushed it off and didn t realise what a danger it was. and i think no reasonable person can come to that conclusion if you look at what i have said and what i have written over the last few years. what i have written over the last few yea rs. i what i have written over the last few years. i took it extremely seriously, i took it extremely seriously, i took it extremely seriously a few years ago. i encourage other people to take it extremely seriously. but i have made other mistakes in terms of how i have dealt with things since january the show. it is one of those mistakes herd immunity? no it is not on the things that have been written about that are completely wrong. what is your message to conservative vote rs what is your message to conservative voters who voted this government in for the first time in the north who wa nt for the first time in the north who want new out of downing street and out of this government? what is my message to them? well, i think. i ve made mistakes in how i ve dealt with this, all sorts of things in government, i don t think i made a mistake about these 14 days that are in question. and i would urge. i would stress to people that they should not believe everything they read in the newspapers, or everything they see on tv, because lots of the things that are reported not in fact the case. i hope that i ve set out today what the actual facts of it are, and i hope that people will think, even if they disagree with me, that i behaved reasonably in these circumstances. anybody else like to ask any questions? could you just go back to what you said about barnard castle ? back to what you said about barnard castle? a inaudible. well, after recovering from this disease myjob, one of thejobs, my job is one of the jobs which say you should go back to work if you can do. well, with respect, i think it is very relevant, because i was allowed to drive back to london and go back to work. you said your vision. inaudible then, you didn t just go for a drive, you went to a beautiful nature spot.|j just go for a drive, you went to a beautiful nature spot. i think, to beautiful nature spot. i think, to be honest, the state that everyone was in, it is nothing to do with a beauty spot, and contrary to lots of the reports, i wasn t sightseeing, i did not go to the castle, i wasn t looking around, there are lots of things that have been said about this that are not true. we just went for a test drive, drove east, this that are not true. we just went fora test drive, drove east, east south. and ended up pulling in by the side of the road, by a river, on the side of the road, by a river, on the outskirts of town, and my wife andi the outskirts of town, and my wife and i discussed it and said, the outskirts of town, and my wife and i discussed itand said, ok, you can drive, this feels safe, let s go back, and go back to work. as i say, i was entitled to go back to work, i was encouraged to go back to work, i think it was the right thing to do. but i think it is also reasonable to try and do it safely. for everybody else on the road as well. isn t the fundamental point that this is not really about legality, it is about the extent to which all of us. about how to implement the rules. i have spoken to scientists and they are very, very worried about what you have done, by your example. if you have done, by your example. if you feel that there are circumstances, special circumstances, special circumstances, you don t have to follow the rules. for example, quite soon, many of us are going to be getting a telephone call from a contact racer, saying, you have been in contact with somebody who has got it, and stay at home for 14 days. many people will say, i have not got symptoms, it might be money, my family is going to be put at risk, i am just going to follow my own judgment. and if people do that, contact tracing is not going to stop the spread of this virus. so, yes, it is true that various scientists have said, well, we think that what mrcummings did might have said, well, we think that what mr cummings did might cause problems. but i would stress that a lot of the things which they think i did,i lot of the things which they think i did, idid lot of the things which they think i did, i did not do. but you did exercisejudgment. did, i did not do. but you did exercise judgment. yes, did, i did not do. but you did exercisejudgment. yes, but did, i did not do. but you did exercise judgment. yes, but with great respect, robert, you are allowed to exercise judgment. the rules explicitly say that, as i stressed to you before, the rules explicitly say that when you re living with small children, you have to exercise yourjudgment in that situation. that is what the rules say. the rules are not millions of pages long explaining exactly what you do in every possible circumstance, and if you try to write rules like that, they could easily cause more trouble rather than less trouble. so of course, people have to makejudgements than less trouble. so of course, people have to make judgements about these things. some of the people who said that what i did is encouraging people to behave badly are doing so thinking that as per various media reports, that i went to stay with my pa rents. reports, that i went to stay with my parents. i did not in any meaningful sense stay with my parents, i was not in the same house as my parents, i never went in the same house as my pa rents, i never went in the same house as my parents, it s not true to say that i went to visit my parents, it is not true to say that my parents help with childcare. all of these things have been reported. that is not what happened. if you re on the kind of contract where you don t turn up to work, you don t get paid, you may say, well, iam work, you don t get paid, you may say, well, i am going to ignore the isolation, because it is going to cost me money. well, with respect, that situation does not apply to me, and that s not what i was saying. no, it doesn t apply to you, but what i am saying is, the moment you introduce an element of, i have got to protect my family, the risks come that less clear and obvious. but as i stress, robert, that less clear and obvious. but as istress, robert, with that less clear and obvious. but as i stress, robert, with great respect, i am i stress, robert, with great respect, iam not i stress, robert, with great respect, i am not introducing an element of discretion orjudgment, the rules necessitate that you exercise. if you look at the actual official rules on the nhs website, you can t do anything but exercise judge in these circumstances with a small child. it doesn t go into lots of different circumstances and say what to do. there is no regulation covering the situation that i found myself in on friday night. i had to exercisejudgment myself in on friday night. i had to exercise judgment about what to do, weighing up all of these different things. ok, thank you very much, everybody. take care. studio: so, there we are, dunnett cummings, ending that very long news conference, more than an hour, in fa ct, conference, more than an hour, in fact, in the garden of downing street, in shirtsleeves, he made a statement about his journey to durham with his wife and son, and then took questions from the journalists mother you can see them in the garden of downing street. some pretty hostile questions amongst them. and he defended his decision to drive to county durham with his wife and child despite the coronavirus restrictions. he says he believes he behaved reasonably, and does not regret what he did. now, he also said that the rules say, when you re living with small children, you re living with small children, you can exercise your own judgment. he says, he has not considered resigning, he said he made the journey to his parents home in cou nty journey to his parents home in county durham because of fears over a lack of childcare if he became incapacitated, but also because he had fears for his family s safety if they were in their london home. mr cummings said he did not look for childcare arrangements in london and he did not check with the prime minister before he made that journey, something he says may have been a mistake. he did confirm that he did, once he was in durham at his pa re nts he did, once he was in durham at his parents property, he did, with his wife and child, drive to barnard castle, about half an hour away. that was simply to make sure that he was able to make the journey back to london, that he was safe to make that journey, it was london, that he was safe to make thatjourney, it was a sort of test drive, he said. so, that was what dominic cummings has been saying. what has been the reaction so far while he s been talking, from within the conservative party? we already heard for the mp for thirsk and malton, kevin hollinrake, who called ita malton, kevin hollinrake, who called it a detailed and fair expiration for events, and went on to say, in my view, time to move on. the mp for sherwood and the chief whip, called it. time to move on and focus on solving this massive national challenge of covid i9. and we also had this tweet from simon clarke mp, the minister for regional growth and local government. well, let s get some analysis from our chief political correspondent, vicki young, who is at downing street. quite an extraordinary political spittle, it has to be said for club chief advisor to the prime minister giving a very long, detailed statement in the garden of downing street and really being interrogated by the journalists? yes, something i m sure he would have hated having to do, and the fa ct have hated having to do, and the fact that he has had to explain himself i think is recognition that there is a problem here. so, he has had to give more detail, but i think striking that overall, he says he has no regrets about what he did, that he hasn t considered resigning, he accused the media of fuelling anger by printing and talking about false stories, although a lot of what was in the public domain he has confirmed today. and saying that he thinks he acted reasonably and sensibly and used hisjudgment. and i think that is the core here, to all of this. he talked about the reams of guidelines but said people have to use their common sense, suggesting that they have to exercise theirjudgment. i think a lot of people watching this might accept that he hasn t broken the law broken the rules, but they may well think that actually, overall of these weeks, they ve been interpreting them far too strictly, because, if you re allowed to do this and it doesn t break the rules, then why haven t other people been doing it? he talked about exceptional circumstances, again, i think a lot of people would have said, well, we were in those circumstances as well, and we didn t behave like this. and on the detail of it all, i think there are still some issues here, particularly that other trip that he made, when he went to barnard castle, talking about driving to test his eyesight. now, i think that really well because a few people to raise their eyebrows, about all of that, that seems like a strange them to do. now, he may win plaudits for being so open, for putting himself out there to expand himself, taking detailed questions from journalists, whether it is changing one s mind on what they feel about this is another matter, and ultimately, of course, it is only the prime minister s opinion that matters, because he is the one who decides whether or not he will stay in his job. and boris johnson tried to defend him yesterday at that news conference but mrcummings yesterday at that news conference but mr cummings effectively said at the beginning that he had been sent out there, or certainly he and the prime minister and others in downing street had agreed, that the only way to try to defuse this whole extraordinary row was for him to go out there and face the music? yes, and the prime minister apparently said to him that he should go and say to people directly, and talk to them directly and explain how he had explained it to the prime minister himself. and i think there is another issue here, which is that it s not really fair on other cabinet ministers to have to go out and defend dominic cummings, when they haven t spoken to him themselves. that is not really their job. they ve got other things that they want to be doing. so, they oversee decided that strategy was better. but this story has been around, actually, behind the scenes, not that we knew about it, but the daily mirror and the guardian have been working on this for several weeks, they ve been asking questions and not getting any response from downing street. and this idea that dominic cummings talked about confusion about some of the things that had been said, well i think the other slight problem was that he didn t come out with a statement on friday when this broke, neither did downing street, nothing formal, for quite a few hours. so i think he does accept it would have been far better if he had come out and said some of this at the beginning. but clearly he thinks the people have already made up their minds, and some people have got it in for him but actually he may not be able to change their minds at all. but he feels that by explaining himself, it might help and people might see things from a different perspective. he talks about the very competitive situation he was in and trying to explain how he acted in a way that he felt was the least risk to other people, making clear at all stages that he didn t go close to other people and that he did socially distance, didn t go near his parents and didn t go near other people. for the moment, thank you very much. outside number 10 downing street. let s get some more reaction from jerryjones, who we were talking to before the news conference. former adviser to theresa may. and also alex two, former adviser to david cameron. jerryjones, first of all, you watched it all, what did you make of that, was that a convincing performance, do you think, from dummett cummings? it was clearly a difficult experience for him, it was very long and nobody could doubt the fa ct very long and nobody could doubt the fact that he did answer every single question that was put to him. i think it will have bought him some time and you could see that the chief whip and other senior figures within the conservative party, showing a lead, that they now hope that other mps will follow, in terms of saying that this was a persuasive argument from dominic cummings. i do wonder how much of this could have been avoided, though, if he had not just answered some straightforward questions rather earlier. he blames the media, clearly feels very aggrieved about a bunch of stories that he you are false. well, you only have to think back, for example, to alastair campbell s labour, new labour media machine, one of the first rules they put in place was that of rapid rebuttal. if somebody says something that is wrong, get out and correct it. whereas the current administrations approach seems to be dictated by dominic cummings, which isjust ignore it, rise above it, treat it with, as some of those journalists, clearly very angry journalists, some of them, feel that they have been treated and marginalised in a way that doesn t show them the sort of respect that their questions deserved. alex, do you agree with that, downing street could have answered these questions ages ago? could have done and probably should have done. we we re done and probably should have done. we were discussing it before he did the conference and i thought he needed to do it. i thought he did it extremely well and i think he answered the questions that needed to be answered. i found it compelling, i don t think there are questions that remain to be asked. he answered everything that was asked of him. they must have been quite frustrating, questions repeated by journalists quite frustrating, questions repeated byjournalists who wanted to ask the same question that had been asked ten times before him. he held his tongue and answered every one of those questions. in terms of the specifics of what he said, he confirmed he did go to barnard castle, he drove the two test his driving, test his eyesight, effectively, he was worried about his eyesight. vicki young was saying it might strike people as strange that you would go for a drive to test your eyesight with your wife and child, potentially if you re eyesight wasn t good, putting other road users in some danger? some of the more colourful elements in the story are going to be pulled over by his critics. that is one that is causing a degree of merriment and disbelief already on social media. dou btless, disbelief already on social media. doubtless, particularly who don t have any great fondness for dominic cummings or his argument. when he was asked about his second home, it is not a nice place to be, a bunch of concrete blocks. again, many people would give their eye teeth to have a second home of any sort they could repair to in a situation of stress, as dominic cummings found himself in. in general, i think the problem is this has gone far enough that positions on both sides are really entrenched. i don t think he will have persuaded too many people, the central allegation against him ata time the central allegation against him at a time we are all being told to stay at home, he travelled nearly 300 miles, is proven and acknowledges to be correct. he never responded to the question after that over a series of weeks. i think this has got some way to run and i think it means it will be a drawn out agony, a distraction for the government at the time they need, and we as a population need it least. the only crumb of good news, by the end of that news conference, it was getting quite boring. i would think that he and his colleagues would suggest that if they can bore the media to death, this will be a feeding frenzy for the next 48 hour spot if they can play a straight bat are no new revelations can come to light, they can this out. but it will be really distracting, really damaging and the last thing the prime minister needs and the last thing we need as a country.” prime minister needs and the last thing we need as a country. i found it pretty absorbing. alex, do you think he will have persuaded some of his critics that he did the right thing? yes, i do. furthermore, the very nature of any individual being ganged up on by a group means they attract sympathy. it is difficult not to feel sympathy for an individual standing before a crowd that dislikes him. jerry is right, it is clear some of these journalists were very angry and have taken it personally and they have not been treated with enough respect. i would think some of this has demonstrated how you can rise above it and should ignore journalist and seek to get his message to the country. i feel a bit like i have been booked to be a talking head in the post match analysis for the salem witch trials. some of these people just absolutely hate him. i don t mean the people who chase him down the street, i mean some of the people in that garden as well. ok, alex dean, former adviser to david cameron and jerryjones, former adviser to theresa may. that news conference from dominic cummings in downing street. we can get some reaction now from the acting leader of the liberal democrats, ed davey. thank you for being with us. what did you make of dominic cummings central defence that he didn t break the rules ? defence that he didn t break the rules? the rule set if you are living with a small child you can exercise your own judgment and that is what he did? i wasn t convinced at all. i think he made the situation worse, from not giving any apology, saying he didn t regret anything and then he went test driving to say he worried about his eyesight. come on! then he said he wa nted eyesight. come on! then he said he wanted to go back to work even though his wife had contracted covid and that s against the rules, you are supposed to self isolate. i think the millions of people who made huge sacrifices to keep to the rules, probably millions who are watching will actually be deeply worried that the prime minister s chief adviser did break the rules andi chief adviser did break the rules and i think they will be asking questions about that and they will be pretty angry. the prime minister now has got to decide what to do. this is a question over the prime minister sjudgment. when this is a question over the prime minister s judgment. when his closest adviser has clearly breached the rules, there is no doubt about it, it is simple, he should go. he says he didn t break the rules, that is the whole point. well he is reading different rules from the rest of us. maybe he didn t break the rule he thought applied to him, but he certainly broke the rules that apply to the rest of us. and that apply to the rest of us. and thatis that apply to the rest of us. and that is the problem. this is very serious. we are in a national public health crisis, the government s m essa 9 es health crisis, the government s messages and public health have to be listened to. you need the country to follow that advice. but why would people do that if the people at the very top are breaking those rules? the prime minister doesn t act now, frankly, he is not fit to lead the country during this crisis. what did you make of alex dean saying there, the former adviser to david cameron, it is like the salem witch trials, a witch hunt and people piling on unnecessary pressure on unnecessary pressure onto dominic cummings?” unnecessary pressure on unnecessary pressure onto dominic cummings? i am afraid alex isn t getting the e mails and text messages many mps are getting from ordinary people. if you listen to some of the news programme and looking at the opinion polls are what ordinary people are thinking, they are alarmed they make all the sacrifices, didn t see their loved ones, didn t go to family gatherings like weddings all the funerals of their nearest and dearest and they stuck to the rules, as they were instructed to by the prime minister, but dominic cummings didn t. i think alex is trying to give some breathing room for his friends. well, iam give some breathing room for his friends. well, i am sorry, that will not wash. it is really clear that the rules were broken and it is really clear that dominic cummings should go. do you give him credit at least for hosting that news conference, for sitting there for more than an hour and taking some hostile questions from journalists? you know, i feel sympathy hostile questions from journalists? you know, ifeel sympathy for individuals, whether they have got covid orchids they are are worrying about whether they are trying to a nswer about whether they are trying to answer difficult questions. that is not the issue. the country is in a huge crisis and we need to focus on getting the testing, tracing an isolation strategy to ease the lockdown. we need to focus on getting the ppe kit to the front line staff and care staff. we need to deal with the tragedy going on in our care homes. that is what we need to be doing. unfortunately, mr cummings has become a complete destruction and the prime ministers macro failure to act is making dealing with coronavirus worse. i hope conservative mps will now stand up. some of them have been pretty brave in the last few days, but i don t think the prime minister will listen to anyone else other than conservative mps going to the wit‘s office and saying, this is unacceptable. it is the prime minister sjudgment now unacceptable. it is the prime minister s judgment now that is on the line. if he continues to support dominic cummings and not the mood of the people who made the sacrifice, i am afraid his colleagues on the conservative backbenchers will want to ask, is this the man to lead the country? mr cummings did say he may have made a mistake in a couple of areas, for example, not telling the prime minister before making the journey. but on the whole he was unrepentant, i don t regret what i did,i unrepentant, i don t regret what i did, i haven t offered to resign, what i did was reasonable. he was askedif what i did was reasonable. he was asked if you wanted to apologise to the british people and he didn t. what do you make of that?” the british people and he didn t. what do you make of that? i thought the lack of contrition suggested a degree of arrogance that is alarming. i would degree of arrogance that is alarming. iwould have degree of arrogance that is alarming. i would have thought he would have listened to people who had been responding to the news reports and i thought he would be worried that his actions had caused real confusion. at a time when we need clarity and we need certainty. but there was none of that from mr cummings. ithink but there was none of that from mr cummings. i think some humility and contrition, an apology was the least he could have done. personally, i think he should have resigned because he remaining imposed is getting in the way of the government tackling this health crisis our country is facing. ed davey, of the liberal democrats, thank you for your time. you are watching bbc news. let s speak to professorjohnathan ball, professor of molecular virology at the university of nottingham, reaction from him as well. what did you make of what mr cummings had to say? quite frankly, it was pretty astounding. not least the fact his admission that he hadn t explored childcare provision from people who live in and around london. it is somewhat odd and then to make the preference to travel more than 200 miles up, one would assume fast roads and then putting other people at risk. notjust other road users, but if he was involved in an accident and had to stop and seek medical care, he is putting other people at risk. it was pretty astounding and it is a shame it is a continuing distraction from the important coronavirus issues that surround us at the moment. he said people are angry and there is understandable anger about what he did because it is based on media misreporting? i don t think it is, if you think about the single journey made north because that was a decision he personally made, it was a preference. let s face that, he preferred to make thatjourney at a time when so many other people, thousands, if not of thousands of people up and down the country in similar positions who are doing the right thing and staying at home and self isolating for the 14 days are not going out and not travelling to second homes to seek the tranquillity of the north east. second homes to seek the tranquillity of the north-east. he said, actually he didn t break the rules because the rule say if you are living with a small child you can exercise your discretion, what do you think of that? if that is how the rules stand, that is how he has interpreted them and if that is the correct interpretation, i am not a law enforcement officer but it goes against the spirit of the guidance which is to self isolate and not put other people at risk. by making that journey north he has put people at risk on the journey. if not when he arrived, he has self isolated. it is the journey from london to the north east which is, to my mind, pretty selfish. he is not apologising, he says he doesn t regret what he did. do you think, this is a wider question, it will affect the way the public in future obey or disobey the guidance they are giving to the rest of this coronavirus crisis? i think once you start introducing grey areas, areas that are open to your own personal interpretation, then it is bound to a road that guidance. it is bound to lack clarity, so people can think, if it doesn t apply to him, it doesn t apply to me. it was pretty inconvenient, i needed to look after this or do something for my wife, my children or my family, than u nfortu nately children or my family, than unfortunately it does make it very difficult to enforce that. do you think what he said today in the news conference in downing street, will that have persuaded or convinced any of his critics that maybe they were wrong and he was right?” of his critics that maybe they were wrong and he was right? i question how it was four, the intended audience? i suspect a few disenchanted and disgruntled conservative mps and may be conservative mps and may be conservative supporters. i think to most people up and down the country, they would see it for what it is, which is trying to wriggle out of what was an incredibly bad decision on his part. i am slightly astounded that he claims his return back to work when he was suffering, or thought he had some eyesight problems, was to help with the science. i thought we had some excellent scientists leading the response and i am not sure he had the same scientific credentials, but maybe i am wrong. professor johnathan ball, professor of molecular virology at the university of nottingham, thank you for talking to us and giving us your reaction. we can get more from harry lambert, special correspondent for the new statesman. what did you make of it? well, i think a big what did you make of it? well, i thinka big part what did you make of it? well, i think a big part of what dominic cummings was saying this afternoon was his idea that the media was at fault, this idea of the false narrative. i think that really needs to be pushed back against, because the reality is, we only got this information today because the media pursued the story. the typical reaction, or attitude, from pursued the story. the typical reaction, orattitude, from no 10 towards the media, has been to ignore reporters, and often even to give them false information. cummings himself once said to me that the media were approximately 100% irrelevant to his goals. and the fact is, today, they aren t irrelevant to his goals, today, he needs to speak to us, because he has left so many reporters in the dark. i twice spoke to his parents this weekend and tried to understand the situation better, and i think today s conference is really 72 hours later than it should have been, if not many weeks late. where getting answers but were getting them very slowly. and i think his transparency this afternoon, or at least suppose a transparency, just puts into relief the way that he has performed throughout this crisis, which is to say very little, and hope the situation goes away. but today he said a lot, not a little, a lot, that was a news conference that was a very lot, that was a news conference that was a very long, lot, that was a news conference that was a very long, more lot, that was a news conference that was a very long, more than an hour, it was slightly delayed, but once it got going, it lasted more than an hour, he made a long statement, then he was questioned at huge links, interrogated, really, by journalists, so he couldn t have been more full and frank today? i m not sure about that, i think we should put him under a real investigation, if you think that this is everything. there are many, many questions still left to be answered, and we can t suggest that in halfan answered, and we can t suggest that in half an hour, we have got through those facts. what are the questions you would still want to see answered, that you don t feel he managed to answer this afternoon? for a start, the very idea that the guidance has this exception that allowed cummings the discretion to make this decision is not clear at all. if you look at the guidance in more detail, the general exception that he s claiming isn t really there. orat that he s claiming isn t really there. or at least it is highly contestable. so, there is much more to this story than we re getting. the question is whether no 10 feel able to push past the reality, and the reality is that the next election is four years away. so the calculus perhaps is that they can weather this storm and by the time weather this storm and by the time we all cast votes in 2024, dominic cummings will not be not only not on the ballot, but he won t be in no 10. sol the ballot, but he won t be in no 10. so i think the key question is, how long does this last? for how long can boris johnson how long does this last? for how long can borisjohnson ignore the pressure that he continues to be under? because the story is not over. and apart from the rights and wrongs of it, and we can continue to debate those, from a pr point of view, do you think the government got this badly wrong?” view, do you think the government got this badly wrong? i do, and i think that is the key message here. which i think i was emphasising at the top here, that the way this no 10 operation has approached the press has been deeply ineffective, and has only led to the kind of situation that dominic cummings is now blaming the media for. if you do not inform anyone about where you are why you went there, or the reasons why you did something, then the press will naturally. if there are reports of you being in durham, they will report that and they will try to understand why you were there. if he had come out on saturday and explained the situation with the clarity that we seem to have got today, then that would have beena very have got today, then that would have been a very different situation. so i hope the no 10 operation learns from this instance, and in future crises, decides to be up front early in the process of. harry lumber, special correspondent at the new statesman, good to talk to you, thank you very much. and we can talk to lisa mckenzie, who is a sociology rift research fellow at the london school of economics, who is in durham. thank you very much indeed for being with us. what did you make of what dominic cummings had to say, ori of what dominic cummings had to say, or i suppose the really important question is, do you think you will have convinced his critics out there around the country that actually, he did do the right thing by driving his family up to durham? well, actually, i work at the university of durham now, i am actually, i work at the university of durham now, iam not actually, i work at the university of durham now, i am not at the lse anymore, so i am a lecturer at the university of durham, and i live in durham now. i ve been talking to a lot of my neighbours, actually, today, about what they think about dominic cummings, you know what most people are thinking is, yeah, he s a rich, elite man, and he s done whatever he wanted to do. that s not quite big news, for most people. most people already know that this is what happens with politicians, elite media people, you no, they set the rules, they don t always, the rules don t always apply to them. so, i don t think that is big news, but i think what people are most worried about, working class people in this country, they are worried about rent, they‘ re in this country, they are worried about rent, they re worried about the redundancy letters and e mails that are properly going to come through in a few weeks. so i think one of the things that has been said today about the media, i m not sure why they make it such a massive deal about this, if only they were making such a massive deal about the probably millions of people who are going to be struggling to pay rent and getting redundancy notices. so, you think this is a. you don t think the media should be making so much of this story at all? it s not that they shouldn t be making so much of it, i think the last guest said, dominic cummings has said. my said, dominic cummings has said. my and not a media person, i m just a lecturer at durham university, and i were on working class communities throughout the country, so, my take on this is, it s not personal. so, for the guy that was just on earlier, who said, dominic cummings has said that the media is 100% irrelevant. you no, ithink has said that the media is 100% irrelevant. you no, i think they perhaps need some reflectivity in this, are they going for dominic cummings, because he doesn t like them rather than perhaps thinking about this in a wider context, where, yes, ithink about this in a wider context, where, yes, i think people are annoyed that he s done whatever he wa nts, annoyed that he s done whatever he wants, but i m going to be really honest now, most people in this country are not shocked that an elite, rich man does whatever he wa nts to elite, rich man does whatever he wants to do. we have got bigger problems right now. all right, lisa mckenzie from durham university, many things indeed for giving us your take. so, let s just many things indeed for giving us yourtake. so, let sjust remind ourselves now of some of the key points from that news conference that we ve just had from dominic cummings in the garden of number 10 downing street. dominic cummings, chief advisor to the prime minister. and he told reporters that he knows that people are angry but he does not regret what he did, he referred to his trip to county durham during the lockdown whilst he and his wife we re the lockdown whilst he and his wife were ill with suspected coronavirus and he said he believes that in all circumstances, he did behave reasonably and legally, and that he has not offered his resignation to the prime minister. now, he also confirmed that he, his wife and child, did travel to durham tuesday in what he describes as an isolated cottage on his father s farm, 50 metres away from his parents. he said they did not stop during that journey north, and that once at the property in durham, he had no direct contact with any of his family. his sister dropped shopping outside their property instead. but he did admit he did not tell the prime minister, borisjohnson, admit he did not tell the prime minister, boris johnson, before admit he did not tell the prime minister, borisjohnson, before he made that journey. he minister, borisjohnson, before he made thatjourney. he said in hindsight that might have been a mistake. mrcummings hindsight that might have been a mistake. mr cummings explained that before returning to london, he and his wife and child did take a 30 mile round trip to barnard castle. now, that, he said, was a means of testing if he was well enough and safe enough to drive following some issues with his eyesight whilst he had been ill. he said it was reasonable to take a short drive to see if i was fit to return to london. he went on to deny that he had returned to durham later on in april, despite an eyewitness account. he said that was absolutely not true. he said he could prove his location using photographs and data on his phone. the truth is that i had argued for lockdown, i did not oppose it. but these are stories created a very bad atmosphere around my home. i was subject to threats of violence, people came to my house shouting threats, there were posts on social media encouraging attacks, many people on tv showed pictures of my house. i was worried that given the severity of this emergency, this situation would get worse and i was worried about the possibility of leaving my wife and child at home or a and often into the night while i work in no 10. i thought the best thing to do in the circumstances was to drive to an isolated cottage on my father s farm. at this farm, my pa rents my father s farm. at this farm, my parents live in one house, my sister and her two children live in another house, and there is a separate cottage roughly 50 metres away from either of them. my tentative conclusion on the friday evening was this. if we are both unable to look after our child and under my sister or nieces can look after him. my nieces are 17 and 20, young enough to be in the safest category. they had extremely kindly volunteered to do so if needed. but i thought if i do so if needed. but i thought if i do not develop symptoms, and there isa do not develop symptoms, and there is a testing regime in place at work, i would is a testing regime in place at work, iwould be is a testing regime in place at work, i would be returned to work if i tested negative. in that situation, i could leave my wife and child behind in a safe place. safe with support from family for shopping emergencies, safe in the sense of my home becoming a target and safe from everybody else because they are completely isolated on a farm and could not infect anybody. contrary to some media reports, there are no neighbours in the normal sense of the word, the nearest other homes are roughly half a mile away. so in this scenario i thought that they could stay there for a few weeks, i could go back to work, help colleagues and everybody including the general public would be safe. i did not ask the prime minister about this decision. he was ill himself and he had huge problems to deal with. every day, i have to exercise myjudgment to deal with. every day, i have to exercise my judgment about things like this and decide what to discuss with him. i thought that i would speak to him when the situation clarified over the coming days, including whether or not i had symptoms and whether there were tests available. arguably, this was a mistake, and i understand that some will say that i should have spoken to the prime minister before deciding what to do. so, i drove the three of us up to durham that night arriving roughly at midnight. i did not stop on the way. when i worked the next morning, saturday the 28th of march, i was in pain and clearly had covid some terms, including a bad headache and a serious fever. clearly, i could not return to work any time soon. for a day or two, we we re any time soon. for a day or two, we were both ill. i was in bed, my wife was ill but not ill enough that she needed emergency help. i got worse, she got better. during the night of thursday the 2nd of april, my child woke up, he threw up and had a bad fever. he was very distressed. we took medical advice which was to call 999, an ambulance wasn t sent, they assessed my child and said he was going to hospital. i could barely stand up, my wife went with him in the ambulance, i stayed at home, he stayed the night in the hospital. in the morning, my wife called to say that he had recovered, seemed back to normal, doctors had tested him for covid and said that they should return home. there were no taxis. there were no taxis, i drove to the hospital, picked them up drove to the hospital, picked them up then returned home. i did not leave the car or have any contact with anybody at any point on this short trip. the hospital s roughly five miles or something away, two miles, three miles, four miles, something like that. a few days later, the hospital said that he tested negative. on sunday the 12th of april, 15 days after i had first displayed symptoms, i decided to return to work. my wife was very worried, particularly given my eyesight had seemed to have been affected by the disease. she did not wa nt to affected by the disease. she did not want to risk the nearly 300 mile drive with our child, given how ill i had been. we agreed that we should go for a short drive to see if i could drive safely. we drove for roughly half an hour and ended up on the outskirts of barnard castle town. we did not visit the castle, we did not walk around the town. we parked by a river. my wife and i discussed the situation, we agreed that i could drive safely, we should turn around and go home. ifelt a bit sick. we walked about 10 15 metres from the car to the riverbank nearby. we sat there for about 15 minutes, we had no interactions with anybody. i felt better, minutes, we had no interactions with anybody. ifelt better, we returned to the car. an elderly gentleman walking nearby appeared to recognise me. my wife wished him happy easter from a distance but we had no other interaction. we headed home. on the way home, our child needed the toilet, he was in the backseat of the car. we pulled over to the side of the road, my wife and child jumped out into the woods by the side of the road. they were briefly outside, i brieflyjoined them, they played for a little bit and then i got out of the car and went outside and we were briefly in the woods. we saw some people at a distance but at no point did we break any social distancing rules. we then got back in the carand distancing rules. we then got back in the car and went home. we agreed that if i continued to improve, then the next day we should return to london and i would go back to work. we returned to london on the evening of monday the 13th of april, easter monday. i went back to work in number ten the next morning. at no point between arriving and leaving durham did any of the three of us enter my parents house or my sisters house. our only exchanges we re sisters house. our only exchanges were shouted conversations at a distance. i can understand that some people will argue that i should have stayed at my home in london throughout. i understand these views, i know the intense hardship and sacrifice that the entire country has had to go through. however, i respectfully disagree. the legal rules inevitably do not cover a ll the legal rules inevitably do not cover all circumstances, including those that i found myself in. i thought, and i think today, that the rules, including those regarding small children and extreme circumstances, allowed me to exercise myjudgment circumstances, allowed me to exercise my judgment about the situation i found myself in, including the way that my london home had become a target. with all of the capacity of the situation, i accept that there is room for reasonable disagreement about this. ican reasonable disagreement about this. i can also understand some people think i should not have driven at all anywhere. i had taken expert medical advice. it was 15 days after symptoms and i had been told i could return to work and employ childcare. it was reasonable to make a shortjourney before embarking on a five hour drive. the alternative was to stay in durham rather than go back to work. i believe i made the right judgments, i can understand people may disagree with that. i have explained all the above to the prime minister. at some point during the first week when we were both sick and in bed, i mentioned to him what i had done. unsurprisingly, given the condition that we were in, neither of us remember the conversation in any detail. that was dominic cummings in his hour long news co nfe re nce dominic cummings in his hour long news conference in the garden at downing street. he was interrogated by journalist. let s downing street. he was interrogated byjournalist. let s talk to some journalists now. what did you make of what dominic cummings had to say, he didn t apologise or say he regretted what he done, he blamed the media for misreporting but he did seek to explain why he did what he did? i felt it was an extraordinary press conference. it was extraordinary he didn t apologise, or show contrition. was extraordinary he didn t apologise, orshow contrition. he did givea apologise, orshow contrition. he did give a very full account of his actions, but that account raised a huge number of questions. he says he didn t break the guidelines and he is not sorry about what he did. i think it is clear looking at his account, it looks like he did break the guidelines. why did he go back to work at number ten when he thought he had contracted covid. why did he drive 260 miles across the country? if you have problems with your eyesight, why would you do a 30 mile test drive with your wife and child in the car? what happens if your eyesight deteriorates and he was stuck out, when you shouldn t be out anyway, with your wife and child in the car. ijust don t think it was very in the car. ijust don t think it was very convincing as an account. if we take a step back, if we leave the details of what happened, what is extraordinary about this, we had an advisor, the prime minister s top adviser giving a press conference foran adviser giving a press conference for an hour, that is longer than government press conferences during this crisis. it shows a breathtaking level of arrogance and self regard. dominic cummings has been occupying the news agenda of this country for the news agenda of this country for the last three days, as we seek to get information about whether he broke the rules or not. really important questions for the press to ask. it has distracted the machinery of government from the most pressing issue at hand, which is the government s response to this pandemic. not only that it has muddied the message, muddied the government s public health messaging and people are more confused as a result and lies will be put at risk. ijust cannot result and lies will be put at risk. i just cannot understand, result and lies will be put at risk. ijust cannot understand, even if dominic cummings thinks what he did was right, i think it is ratcheting up was right, i think it is ratcheting up the debate. why wouldn t you come in the national instincts and for the public good, why didn t he say, idid the public good, why didn t he say, i did these things, i think i was right, but i appreciate the public think i was wrong, i have caused too much controversy and i m stepping down. that is absolutely the right thing and that is what he should have done. do you think he will get credit, at the very least, for facing the music, he was therefore more than an hour and facing some hostile interrogation from the journalists in the garden?m hostile interrogation from the journalists in the garden? it was gripping stuff, it was a bit like watching the star witness all the defendant in a massive old bailey trial, standing in the dock being interrogated by a qc. the rose garden of course, was great scene political dramas. and the last one i can remember is ten years ago and david cameron and nick clegg were in there. the government have thrown there. the government have thrown the kitchen sink at this, they have brought absolutely every detail out and that is the clear strategy. there was an element of playing the sympathy card. there were bits when dominic cummings look quite contrite, look at me, i have got a sick child, he was taken to hospital, my wife was ill and i was help trying to run the country. put yourself in my shoes. i m not sure that will wash with everybody, it might win some people who were undecided over. but he has brought through, he has nailed some of the inaccuracies such as the second trip that he took from london, the bluebell woods and the police, one or two of those have been nailed but a lot of other cans have been open. why go on a 30 mile test drive and if your eyesight is not good, why are you even thinking of driving? why could his wife not driving the first place, nobody asked that question whether his wife was able to drive? a lot of questions to be answered and because i think he has thrown everything at this, if this doesn t work, the spotlight turns on borisjohnson. because dominic cummings admitted a couple of weeks ago he told borisjohnson about this, so the prime minister agreement to this trip had been given. so the press conference we going to hear shortly inside number ten with the prime minister, it is a very, very high stakes press co nfe re nce very, very high stakes press conference now. what do you make of that, what happens with politically inside number ten now? he said he hasn t offered his resignation and does not intend to. borisjohnson is standing by him, what is the political price the prime minister will pay, do you think? there are still a lot of very angry people?” think it is potentially a huge price. some people have said it is just a westminster bubble issue and no one else outside the s w one area ca res no one else outside the s w one area cares about this and i just don t think it is true. i think a lot of people up and down the country are very angry. you have got conservative backbench mps who have made their feelings clear. they say they are getting a lot of feedback from constituents. i think that the prime minister will be hoping it is, let s ride the storm out and see if it goes away, i have got a majority of 80. but i think the serious question he has to answer, and i think that is so strange about this, this episode is doing a lot of damage to the government politically. why hasn t boris johnson asked for dominic cummings resignation? why has he defended dominic cummings to the point where it is undermining the government health communications and putting lives at risk? why is borisjohnson so reliant on one man and one adviser? that has to be the question for borisjohnson. adviser? that has to be the question for boris johnson. many thanks to both of you for your time and analysis and let s go back to our chief political correspondent, vicki young, who has been with us throughout the afternoon. as the dust settles on that extraordinary piece of political theatre in the rose garden of downing street, where do you think this leaves boris johnson and his government?‘ do you think this leaves boris johnson and his government? a lot of the facts we did already know about and a lot of the issues that were a problem for dominic cummings and the government are still there. it was interesting listening to mr cummings using his common sense, that people had to look at the guidelines and there were always exceptional circumstances. a lot of people watching this will think, maybe i have been interpreting the rules far too strictly. and that is the danger, it undermines the message. 0f danger, it undermines the message. of course dominic cummings can stay in hisjob, it is up to the prime minister to decide, but it is at what cost and a lot of tory mps were concerned about the prime minister standing by his adviser, but actually maybe losing the authority that he has and people looking at it and saying, this isn t the right thing that he should be doing. they will be weighing all of that up, there will be others that say mr cummings going out there and being transparent and answering as many questions as he could was the right thing to do. although he probably should have done it a little bit earlier, rather than downing street saying we will not waste time answering some of these allegations because they are false. overall, the problem is going to be with the guidelines, people now looking at them and saying, hang on a second, these are more open than i thought and that could be a problem as we continue to do with the plan where people will be asked to isolate in the future and at one point, there might be more requirements for lockdown measures. so still a problem, i think for the government. but they will hope people will lose interest in this and it goes away. although some of our commentators have suggested, although it answered some questions, many questions may be, it raised other questions like why did he and his family take that trip to barnard castle, supposedly to test his eyesight? was that putting other road users at risk and so on? the point about this is, there are exceptional circumstances and it does say that, buried in a lot of these guidelines and most people are not reading them, they are relying on ministers, the prime ministers and scientists standing here every night and talking about it. they were not emphasising exceptional circumstances, the message was clear, stay at home and people did know what was being asked of them. the reason you are asked to stay at home because it does get complicated. if you drive, you have to fill up with petrol, you might need to go to the toilet. all these things increase contact but dominic cummings said he was very careful and doesn t think he did anything that meant the illness was going to be transmitted. but again, i think there will be other people watching that and saying they would have liked a bit more contrition and they would have liked him to apologise for what he did. many thanks, vicki young talking us through that extraordinary bit of political theatre in the garden of downing street. huw edwards is here with the national news in the few minutes, but first a look at the weather. hello there, we have had warm temperatures but the warmer temperatures but the warmer temperatures were in the south. we will see some of the warm air recirculate around the high pressure and it wafts northwards. temperatures for many will be rising a few degrees. the top temperature today reached 27 degrees in teddington and that is just into the 80s fahrenheit. it felt warm in the sunshine and light winds and just down the road from teddington is how the sunny skies are locked in the hamilton area, about three miles away. towards the north west of the uk it is clouded over in northern ireland and scotland through the afternoon and this cloud is a cold front and has been bringing rain across northern ireland and scotland. as it moves into our area of high pressure over night, it wea ke ns how of high pressure over night, it weakens how we could see a few patches of rain perhaps getting into northern england and north wales but it won t amount to much. for many of us it will be dry over night and it will be a mild night, temperatures ten to 14 degrees. tomorrow, the weather front continues southwards. areas of cloud working in across england and wales and for some across central and eastern parts, andi across central and eastern parts, and i sunrise to start the day. through the afternoon the cloud thins further so hazy spells getting through and it will be warm again with temperatures in the low to mid 20s. for the far north of england, northern ireland and scotland there will be more sunshine around through the afternoon, fresher feel to the weather but still feeling warm in the sunshine. highs of 17 to 20 celsius. on wednesday, the warmer air starts to recirculate and push northwards. this weather front could bring a few splashes of rain to northern ireland but not amounting to two much. the fresher air is still over central and northern scotland, but the humid air is in the south and that is where we will see sunshine and the warmer temperatures. temperatures reaching 20 to 25 degrees with some of the warmeraircoming into 20 to 25 degrees with some of the warmer air coming into northern ireland through the afternoon. into thursday, the warmer air pushes northwards. in scotland in glasgow towards the end of the week we could see temperatures up to 24 degrees and similar weather into the weekend ahead as well. further south, across england and wales that s where we will likely see the highest temperatures and temperatures peaking at around 27 celsius later on in the week in central england. the prime minister s top adviser, dominic cummings, denies doing anything wrong when he drove hundreds of miles to his parents home during the lockdown. in a news conference at downing street, mr cummings said he did not regret his decision because of exceptional family circumstances, and rejected the idea that he d undermined the government s own instruction to stay home. in this very complex situation i tried to exercise my judgment the best i could. i believe that in all circumstances i behaved reasonably and legally, balancing the safety of my family and the extreme situation in numberio, and the public interest and effective government. we ll have the latest on the statement by mr cummings and the reaction to it. also on the programme. people in england make the most of the bank holiday weather after some the lockdown restrictions were eased. concern over a rising demand for children s social services in england, as vulnerable children emerge from lockdown. and we talk to the syrian doctors helping the nhs in the fight against the pandemic. good evening. the prime minister s top adviser, dominic cummings, has denied doing anything wrong when he drove to his parents home during the lockdown last month. in a news conference at downing street a short while ago, mr cummings said he did not regret his decision to travel 260 miles from london to durham with his wife who was ill and their four year old son because he claimed none of their usual childcare options were available.
protesters and police have clashed as curfew orders are ignored in minneapolis and several other us cities. there are now curfews in place in 13 us cities. demonstrators are calling forjustice after the killing of african american, george floyd, by a police officer. england s deputy chief medical officer has warned of a very dangerous moment in the fight against coronavirus. professorjonathan van tam said easing the lockdown would not affect the infection rate, but he urged the public not to tear the pants out of the new guidelines. the first commercial spacecraft to carry people into space has successfully launched from cape canaveral in florida. the capsule, built by elon musk‘s spacex, has two astronauts onboard, and they are now on their way to the international space station. here, private tenants are more likely to be in financial difficulty than home owners because of the pandemic, according to a new study. the report by the think tank the resolution foundation says many renters have seen their incomes fall. the government insists it s taken action to support tenants, including banning evictions for three months, as our business correspondent, katy austin explains. paying the rent has become too much for denny while her hair salon is shut. her landlord has agreed to postpone two months‘ rent, to be paid back in future. at the moment we owe april and may, and thenjune is due the 1st ofjune. i feel sick, actually. because at the moment, now, that s obviously one of our biggest outgoings, the rent. citizens advice estimates 2.6 million tenants expect to fall behind on rent because of coronavirus, and the resolution foundation think tank says one in five private renters have been furloughed or lost theirjob. it says they are struggling with payments more than homeowners. going into the crisis they had lower levels of savings, for example, and critically they also spent considerably more of their income on housing costs in the first place. government has brought in measures to try and help struggling tenants. in march, evictions were banned for three months but a committee of mps has warned a crisis is looming in the private rental sector. citizens advice says further measures will be needed when the eviction ban ends in late june. what we want the government to do is make sure that there is protection for people who have fallen into arrears due to coronavirus, and then also to accept and make sure the landlords have to put in place things like affordable repayment plans. landlords say they are working out solutions with tenants wherever possible. the ministry responsible for housing said support for renters and landlords is being kept under review. katy austin, bbc news. now on bbc news, our world. new york has been the epicentre of america s coronavirus outbreak, with nearly 30,000 deaths in the state so far. as the virus took hold in march, doctors and nurses from across the us answered new york s call for help. this is the story of four of those on the frontline told through their video diaries as the crisis unfolds. a warning this programme contains scenes some viewers may find may find distressing. new york city has been the global epicentre of coronavirus. the president said this is a war, i agree with that. this is a war. more people have died here than in any other city in the world. there s been times when i have walked out of the er and said to myself, what in the world just happened 7 things got so bad that the governor of new york pleaded for help. i am asking healthcare professionals across the country, please, come help us in new york now. this is the story of some of the nurses who answered the call. and the besieged new york doctors fighting to stop their city being overwhelmed. i saw the row of ambulance stretchers waiting to be triaged and i thought to myself, we re losing, we re losing. ellie, come here! i m christina ferguson and in a week, i will be heading out to new york to help in the bronx at one of their hospitals. i m travelling with a co worker of mine, and having the skills, critical care for me, er for him, we decided, let s do it. this is the first time i have ever gone on an assignment such as this. this is a little bit different going into the epicentre of a pandemic. this is one of my suitcases. i was there for september 11, so naturally it feels like i should go back, you know, to be a part of this and help out in any way ican. i have seven bags, there is the insta pot. i was thinking about some of the things i was packing up. as a nurse, this is what we went to school for. this is what we do. going to new york for this whole covid crisis is basically like that, it s like throwing yourself into the situation. you don t think twice about it, you re just going. here we are at our favourite lake. my daughter and i do a lot of outdoorsy stuff, and it is something we re really going to miss. but i would like to take these moments to think about the things i can come back to. i do have my trunk packed, all the medical supplies that were donated. we ll get ready to hit the road. so the day has come, it is a 17.5 hour drive, and reality is sinking in and we re on our way. i have my sleeping beauty and her best friend. i had some conflict about bringing her along but i don t want fear to steer me away from what i want to do, and we have had many conversations. we ll just take it one day at a time. some gorgeous views, it s kind of serene all at the same time knowing that once we get out of these mountains and into the city, there s no telling what s going to be waiting there for us. there s always some fear going into such a traumatic environment, but the moment i walk into the er, it s go time. on march the 13th, new york city recorded its first covid i9 death. i m not we could have fathomed how big this could ve been. within a month, more had died from the virus than in 9/11. i never really ever imagined in my life i would see the density of human suffering. we will never think about healthcare in the same way. new yorker, doctor eric cioe pena is working at an emergency covid hospital that has been set up on staten island. ijoke with people that i don t remember the days of the week anymore, i don t remember how many days i ve been doing this. ijust count it like coronavirus day 67, or something. new york has been through a lot and this is certainly testing us to our limits. but i think we are all hopeful this is going to get better. it s been a marathon. we have been acting like it s a sprint. it s as if we were immediately post hurricane. except the problem is, it wasn t like the hurricane came, hits the coast and then moved away. then we could start recovering. imagine a hurricane sitting over your city for 50 days. vacations have been deferred, birthdays have been deferred. all we re doing is basically sleeping and coming to work and dealing with coronavirus. so, i have finally made it to my hotel room. a cute little kitchen. there is my famous insta pot. nancy is a critical care nurse who will be working in the same hospital as doctor cioe pena. i left my daughter this morning but i m sad to leave her but i know she is in good hands. here is the bathroom, this is where the action is. make up, hair, i don t know what. a shower. it looks kind of cosy to me and i think i m going to be very happy here over the next eight weeks. christina and derek will be working in the bronx. there s our hospital. the burrough with the highest death rate in new york. we came two days early to get a tour. a lot of sick people. they re coming in quick. that right there is exactly what you think it is. they re about to take a truck away from the hospital. by early april, the situation in new york is so bad that refrigerated trucks are being used as makeshift morgues, and mass graves dug to deal with the number of bodies. so, it s the morning of my first shift. didn t really sleep very well last night. i m working a 12 hour shift today and tomorrow. so, i m just keeping my fingers crossed for the best. alrighty, wish me luck. this is my first shift and all day today, we ve been going through testing and honestly everywhere isjust go time. we re doing the best we can. i heard the other day that if you can work in the bronx er, you can work anywhere. so, hopefully we get through these 13 weeks with my sanity. so we just finished our shift today, trying to decontaminate and disinfect everything. she s already taking off her shoes. laughs don t lose this now. we keep everything in a bag separated. it s unlike anything i ve ever seen before. to see so many critical patients coming in at one time. the ambulances were non stop. it seems like every two or three minutes, there was an ambulance coming in. there are other cases where you know the situation is not going to end well. whenever i see it to this degree, it s almost as though death is sitting on some of these patient‘s shoulders whispering in their ears. there s been times when i walked out the door and said to myself, what in the world has just happened? time to get out of here. nancy has been assigned to work in one of her hospital s pop up intensive care units. so thirsty. ..which have been created to do with the overflow of covid 19 patients. time to go back. no rest for the weary. with these pop up icus, the issue is the lack of access to equipment we need to take care of the patients. the nurses are spending a good majority of their time running around hospital trying to find supplies. i think all of the nurses are doing the best that they can but it s definitely stressful. it was busy, it was definitely an experience today. i got in there and they were so short staffed that they tried to give me four icu patients, which is kind of unheard of. usually, two is the norm, three is a lot. but four, there was no way. so we ll see how it goes. i m on foranother12 hour shift tomorrow. it s going to some strengthjust to get myself upstairs. it has become all consuming. i m getting reminded by my family to take small breaks, especially when i m with my kids. when i m at home, there s almost like this guilt that i m not still there. there is much more fighting to do. there has been a lots of absentee fathering unfortunately. i got home early enough to put my son to bed last night and the thing he was sad about yesterday was that he doesn t get to see me, which breaks my heart. he s going to remember me not being there more than the pandemic and the virus and that hurts. it s definitely something that leans on me and affects me, and affects them. after i get my scrubs on and my compression socks, every nurse should wear compression socks. we re at high risk, the virus is everywhere. no matter how many times we wash our hands, no matter how many times we sanitise, the risk is very high. i have a scrubcap. right now, we have 40 people agency nurses from our agency picking up the work for the nurses that are out sick. there are more of us working in the er right now than the regular employees. it s extremely busy, it s just a constant flow, one after the other, after the other. an ambulance brought in an elderly person, about 15 minutes, 20 minutes later, they were brought out in a body bag. they come in alert, and then it is mind blowing how fast theyjust go. after this is over and healthcare workers don t get the therapy they need to process the stuff, i think the statistics are going to be high with suicide attempts in healthcare workers, so there is something we really have to watch out for. as somebody who works in psych, i know that it s a possibility. well, we just finished our first two days in a row. i m wiped out, i m tired. you don t realise how much it takes, wearing all of this ppe. my head feels like it s 100 pounds heavier on my neck. it s been a long night, it s after midnight, we ve been here since noon and it s time to hit the road, decompress and. shower! both chuckle. nancy has just finished a shift on a covid unit where all of the patients are dependent on a ventilator. generally, those people that are in that unit are not likely to survive. since this whole virus situation started, there s only been two patients who have made it out of the unit and survived that s very, very little. the age range was pretty great. there was a patient there who was 26, which i thought was really eye opening because it just further reiterates how the covid virus affects everyone. but this young girl and she s still there and she s still fighting for her life and it s sad. home, sweet home! sighs. time to get these scrubs off. ugh, my feet are killing me! it s been a long day. pants they are going to go into the basket. sighs. i think now people are exhausted and i think people just want respite. i think the nurses want to get back to what they were doing, you know, before this happened. their units have been turned so upside down. but i think at this point, people are just ready to quit quit the covid crisis, i mean, not theirjob. you know, as a nurse, we give all of our energy to others and keep none for ourselves. i think that s why we re always tired. across the city in the bronx, the virus is highlighting stark inequalities. you have the projects, lower income housing, a large immigrant population. we are seeing mostly impoverished individuals, you see the black and latino community as well. these are essential workers, you know? they re the bus drivers, they re the janitors, they re those that deliver food, deliver mail. and so, while many people are able to quarantine themselves, or they have the luxury of working at home, essential workers don t have that opportunity, so it gives them an increased chance of being exposed to the virus. black and latino new yorkers are dying at twice the rate of white residents of the city. after developing symptoms of fatigue and a headache, christina has been sent home from the hospital. i was crying. i was just more scared because i didn t want to be like some of the patients that we ve seen i mean, they get really, really sick. ..and today, she s going for a test. if it is positive, ijust hope that i have built up some type of immunity. i m pretty nervous. i m hoping it s not, but ijust feel like a truck hit me and my muscles hurt. any symptoms right now? uh, just fatigue and a headache still. and my stomach is not right. you ve got to tilt your head back all the way back, as far as you can. 0oh! great. all right, you re all set. it takes 2a hours to know the results so that s going to be really hard, to sit and wait on the results. so if things, for me, get really bad, to where i have to go in the hospital, derek has graciously told me he ll take care of chloe and the dog. if it gets really bad and i don t make it out of the hospital, then chloe and i have had the discussions about, you know, where she would go and who she would go with. if christina tests positive, she ll be one of the growing number of infected nurses. and some are becoming gravely ill. when i was training in brooklyn, there was a nurse there who worked the night shift and she kind of has this reputation of being a battleaxe, and i obviously grew to love her and knew that she had the biggest heart in the world. and i was told today by a colleague that she s in critical care in the icu on a ventilator with coronavirus. um, and this is, uh, symbolic of a lot of the angst and the hurt that happens with healthcare workers because we re not only watching patients die but you re also hearing about colleagues that are suffering and so, it feels like an attack on all fronts it feels like it is a personal attack, it s a professional attack, um, and it s hard sometimes, i think, to see past that and to get through that, because it s really an acute stress and it feels like it s unravelling a lot of our lives as healthcare workers. that is the most challenging part is that these patients are kind of alone and the families are not able to be there. there was a gentleman that i was caring for and he wasjust not in a good way and i was holding his hand. i was like i m going to go get some coffee and i m gonna come back . i came back with the coffee and he was dead. yeah. he died. so, i was gone maybe 15 minutes. and there was nobody with him. so it was sad. and i felt, to some extent, that i did a disservice because i wasn t there and i went to get coffee. so, um, i hate that. um, i hate that more than anything. and then after that experience, you just flip back into nurse mode, you know? now you have to just do what you have to do. a well known er doctor here in new york who battled to save the lives of so many others. 49 year old dr lorna breen took her own life after weeks of treating patients with covid 19. she died in virginia sunday. when i heard about doctor breen, i wasn t surprised. it s tragic. and in the same day, we heard about an ems technician who also killed himself, and ijust think it s the tip of the iceberg. the other day, i was talking to a tech who was responsible for putting the bodies in the bags. and he said that s all i did, day after day. i would put a body in a bag, take it downstairs and then there was no room downstairs they were just everywhere. that s when the trucks came. they would fill it up with 55 bodies, it would leave and then another truck would be right there, they d fill it up. he said it was horrible. i said you have to talk to somebody about it. it will never go away. the end of a really long and hard week. ijust finished the zoom memorial service for a colleague dr lorna breen. lorna was a former colleague and friend and, last sunday, took her own life. you know, her family says that it was related to the stress of coronavirus, and that really hurt. in addition, the head nurse that i think i mentioned in one of my previous diaries passed away last week as well. a nurse manager that i know also passed away. and an intensivist downstate, where i trained, also passed away. so last week really, for me, was the worst week of this. it really did feel like a war. and any other event you would stop, you would mourn, you would be with people. tough week. i hope next week s a little bit better. by early may, hospitals are finally starting to see fewer admissions and fewer deaths. and new york is beginning to ease lockdown restrictions. it has been a crisis, and a painful one. but we re coming out of the other side. christina s coronavirus test was negative but she and her daughter chloe have returned to missouri. i will talk to you guys tomorrow. nancy is about to head back to maryland to see her daughter and mum. and derek is continuing in the bronx. it has been a great adventure, it is challenging, but the whole thing has been great. over 100,000 people have died from coronavirus in the us since march. just under 30,000 of those are in new york state. it has survived what its governor called a war. now, it has to come to terms with how life has changed. we tickled the brink in new york. the system was about to collapse. it completely disrupted normal in every sense of that word. there is no normal anymore. there s no going back from this. we will honestly never be the same again. hello there. saturday brought more dry, sunny, and warm weather across the whole of the united kingdom. now, it was a fine end to the day in london and west london did quite well for temperatures. heathrow got up to 26 degrees. but for the most part on saturday, the highest temperatures were across the north and the west of the uk with kinloch here in the highlands of scotland, the nation s hotspot with highs of 27. we re going to see similar kind of temperatures for these western areas as we get on into sunday as well. now over the next few hours, most of us are going to keep the clear skies but probably some low cloud and some fog begin to push onto the eastern shores of scotland and although temperatures in the towns and cities between around 8 13 degrees, in the countryside the coldest spots get down to about 3 degrees so it will be quite chilly for some of you to start sunday morning. sunday, well, that low cloud and fog can take the first few hours of the morning to clear away from east scotland. maybe a bit of misting this as well in north east england. but otherwise, a sunny start to the day and a sunny afternoon. now, the highest temperatures in scotland probably again to the north west of the country, the highlands doing ok with highs probably reaching around 25 26 degrees celsius here. you might see another 23 or 2a for westernmost areas of northern ireland. and some of the highest temperatures in england across western areas and wales too. you could see highs locally hitting around 27. now for monday s forecast, the high pressure is still in charge of our weather, so we ve got more of that dry weather to come. more of the sunshine as well. temperatures still on the high side for the time of year, looking at highs of 2a in glasgow, 26 or so in cardiff, but from then on we re going to start to see the weather changing somewhat because an area of low pressure is going to start to develop to the north of the uk and move in as we head towards tuesday and wednesday. so, that is going to be bringing some cloudy skies with rain or showers pushing southwards and as well as that, the area is going to be getting cooler. so temperatures will be coming back down close to normal for the time of year and normal isn t something we ve seen for quite a long time. so, scotland is going to be cooling down as you can see, there will be some rain and showers around as well as we go through tuesday and wednesday. perhaps some of the heaviest rain actually working through during tuesday night. further southwards across england and wales, still hanging onto some warm sunshine on tuesday but the change comes really on wednesday with thicker cloud. again, rain or showers working in. that s your latest weather.
this is bbc news welcome if you re watching here in the uk or around the globe. i m lewis vaughan jones. our top stories: tensions in minneapolis as protestors and police clash as curfew orders are ignored. police and national guard troops fire tear gas and flares are thrown back. the governor urges people to stay at home. and it s very clear on this. this is a very simple order. there is a curfew issued by the mayor, and backed by the state, that you shouldn t be on the streets tonight. and i will leave it at that. when you decide to take the decision to go out on the streets tonight, the assumption is that you re
from the edd on your unemployment benefits. we ll be here every day at 3:00 tu liveand on live stream tonight, new reporting on the former police officer, derek chauvin, charged in the murder of george floyd in minneapolis. what we did not know about a plea deal that fell apart. prosecutors confirming chow vin was negotiating a guilty plea to local and federal charges, so, what changed? as george floyd s brother appears before congress today, saying his brother did not deserve to die over $20. and what he said when asked if he believed his brother s killing was premeditated. also tonight, as we come on the air, the urgent hunt for a gunman who opened fire on a police station. investigators do believe the shootings are connected. residents ordered to shelter in place. and what authorities have just revealed tonight. after military leaders said the time has come to discuss changing names of u.s. military bases named after confederate leaders, tonight, president trump saying this will not happen, saying they are part of a great american heritage. and nascar late today revealing they are now banning the confederate flag. the coronavirus here in the u.s. alarming news tonight involving the spike in cases right now across more than 20 states. some hospitals told to enact emergency plans. and some authorities now talking about a potential for a stay at home order again. and the race for a vaccine tonight. tens of thousands of americans now volunteering to be injected with experimental vaccines. so, what could this mean about timing for a vaccine here in the u.s.? the voting chaos in georgia overnight. voters in lines well after sundown. some in line for six hours or more. what caused this and what does it mean with the presidential election just five months away? and there is breaking news tonight in the case of those two missing siblings. the discovery on that property and what their heartbroken grandparents are now saying. and we pay tribute tonight to a renowned debate coach, eight decades at texas southern university. tonight, right here, his students on what he would expect from them in this moment. good evening and it s great to have you with us on a wednesday night. we re back from houston tonight, where thousands came from all over to pay their respects to george floyd, his family, remembering him as a gentle man, a loving father, an imperfect man, but saying his name will now stand for the push for change, for justice. and tonight, what we did knnot know about the officer charged with murder now. how close was he to a plea deal, and why did it fall apart? and on capitol hill today, one of george floyd s brothers telling lawmakers, enough is enough. pleading with them to stop the pain of police brutality. breaking down, asking, what was his brother s life worth? we have learned prosecutors and that former officer, derek chauvin, were closing in on charges until the day before his arrest. chauvin now faces up to 40 years behind bars if convicted on all charges. and tonight, as we come on the air, an urgent hunt now for a man who opened fire on a police station. we have it all covered for you. we re going to begin with abc s alex perez in minneapolis again tonight. reporter: tonight, the stunning revelation, as prosecutors mulled charges against fired minneapolis police officer derek chauvin, he was angling for a deal to plead guilty on federal civil rights charges and to murdering george floyd. as prosecutors were walking up to the podium on may 28th, the deal had just fallen apart. another development that i could tell you about. unfortunately, we don t at this point. reporter: chauvin charged with third degree murder the next day, upgraded to second degree the following week. mr. floyd, what do you hope to tell the committee today? justice for george. you don t do that to a human being. you don t do that to an animal. his life mattered. all our lives matter. black lives matter. i just wish wish i could get him back. those officers, they get to l e live. for him to do something like that, it had to be premeditated and he wanted to do that. intentional? yes, sir. reporter: and tonight, those chants of the streets turning into demands for reform. minneapolis police chief faced with the possibility his department could be disbanded, unveiling his own plans for change today, revealing the department will no longer negotiate their current contract with the police union and new, real-time technology to track cops accused of misconduct and intervene. chauvin had 18 complaints against him, but was only disciplined twice. under the new rules what would have happened to someone like chauvin, who had all these complaints? we could have intervened much earlier, if there were problematic behaviors brought to our attention right away, we could have made appropriate measures. reporter: back on capitol hill, george floyd s brother demanding more accountability from officers. george wasn t hurting anyone that day. he didn t deserve to die over $20. i m asking you, is that what a black man is worth? $20? this is 2020. enough is enough. powerful testimony. we here the demonstrators behind you tonight, alex. and we know there s late word that one of the other officers who was charged in this case, thomas lane, we remember, he was on his fourth shift as an officer that night, a rookie, there s news on him this evening? reporter: well, david, according to jail records, former officer thomas lane was released from jail just a short time ago, late this afternoon. he posted $750,000 bail and has been released. you ll remember that s the officer who in court shifted blame towards the veteran officer on the scene that night, derek chauvin. now, as for the changes here at the minneapolis police department, the chief tells me, today was just the beginning. he expects to make several announcements in the weeks ahead. david? all right, alex perez, thank you. and as i mentioned at the top tonight, there is an urgent hunt at this hour for a gunman who fired on a police station in california, shooting a deputy in the face and then a body found a mile away, someone shot dead. authorities do believe it s related. that community put on lockdown. reporiglice oilng. reporter: police describing the shooter as a male in his 20s or 30s. they re urging residents to shelter in place. gunfire erupting early this morning around 3:15 a.m. in downtown paso robles. the pd is advising they can hear gunfire coming from the east side of their station. reporter: the gunman shot and wounded a sheriff s deputy in front of the station. taking gunfire. at the dmv! copy. taking gunfire on ninth street at the dmv. keeps shooting at us! gunfire is coming from a soh. reporter: around 7:00 a.m., police discovered the body of a man near an amtrak station less than a mile away from the police department. the victim was shot in the head from close range and believe the shooting is connected. within the past couple of minutes, authorities released a picture of the gunman. they say, without a doubt, he set out to kill police officers and this is the third time that members of law enforcement have been ambushed here in california in just the past couple of weeks. david? the scene playing out tonight. will, thank you. we have been reporting here on the growing pressure across this country, from demonstrators and supporters, to take down confederate symbols. tonight, late word nascar is taking action, banning the confederate flag at all nascar events. driver bubba wallace wearing a t-shirt i can t breathe in recent days. u.s. military leaders have expressed a willingness to discuss renaming bases named after confederate generals. but tonight, president trump says that won t happen. saying they are part of a great american heritage. here s our chief white house correspondent jonathan karl. reporter: president trump today firmly shot down the idea of changing the names of military bases named after confederate generals, tweeting, quote, my administration will not even consider the renaming of these magnificent and fabled military insulations. in case anybody missed his tweets, he dispatched his press secretary to read his words allowed. these very powerful bases have become part of a great american heritage and a history of winning, victory and freedom. reporter: it comes just after thannounced, the secretary of defense and the secretary of the army are open to a bipartisan discussion on the topic. around the country, signs of the confederacy are coming down. now nascar is announcing a ban on confederate flags at all event. tonight, racing star bubba wallace car will bear the words black lives matter. there are ten u.s. army bases named after confederate soldiers. among those calling for that to change is retired general david petraeus, who boat in the atlantic of the, quote, irony of training at bases named for those who took up arms against the united states and for the right to enslave others. he added, we do not live in a country to which braxton bragg, henry l. benning or robert repd lee can serve as an inspiration. acknowledging this is imperative. the president wouldn t answer questions today on his decision. while the white house makes an impassioned defense of bases named for pro-slavery confederate soldiers, the president has yet to propose any specific reforms of police practices in the wake of george floyd s death. on cop toll hill, republicans have tasked the only african-american republican senator to take the lead in coming up with a plan. we should all want to follow the lead as it relates, to, a, making sure we get something acomplained, and not just having pieces of legislation they are for show. reporter: the white house press secretary said today the president is working, quote, quietly and diligently, to come up with a plan to address the concerns of the protesters, but we have heard nothing specific. the ideaitg eye by most police officers. that s an idea that democrats and some republicans say would make it easier to hold the police accountable for their actions. david? jon karl live at the white house. jon, thank you. i want to get right to martha raddatz tonight, because martha, the army said the defense secretary was, in fact, open to discussing renaming military bases named after con fed rat generals, but you heard what the president said today, essentially saying this won t happen. so, where does it stand tonight? reporter: well, david, the decision is technically up to an assistant secretary of the army, but given what trump has said, that would likely be professional suicide. but as you know, it was just last week that secretarial of defense mark esper spoke out publicly against the president s threat to use active duty military to quell protests and there has also been a growing chorus of retired military officers blasting trump s decision-making, so, you can t rule out the base names changing, but for now, that seems unlikely, david. all right, martha, thank you. now, the news this evening on the coronavirus, the number of cases spiking in several states across this country. and there s news tonight on a potential vaccine. tens of thousands of ams volunteeo get injected wi penal horizon. so, what could this mean for any timeline for the rest of the country? here s matt gutman on that. reporter: tonight, the u.s. government saying tens of thousands of volunteers will soon receive injections with one of three of experimental vaccines. those injections are part of third phase of vaccine trials, the stage before possible approval. and dr. anthony fauci now saying there are no garn teens, but he s cautiously optimistic about at least one of them working. we could have a vaccine either by the end of this calendar year or in the first few months of 2021. reporter: moderna beginning phase three trials in july, followed by the university of oxford and astra-zeneca s vaccine in august and johnson & johnson in september. the goal, to test the vaccine s safety and effectiveness. that, as at least 20 states plus puerto rico seeing increases in new cases, and eight states reporting rising hospitalizations. in texas, hospitalizations jumping 40% since memorial day. officials there say it s too early to tell if that s because of reopening, the protests or both. and inlte te min o of icu beds. in mid-may, the projection for covid deaths was 600. right now, the projection is 4,500, correct. that s a pretty significant change. that s an alarming trajectory. reporter: david, the goal of a phase three trial is to determine how well a vaccine works. that s why they re casting a wide net, up to 90,000 volunteers. half of them will be given a placebo, the other half, the actual vaccine. it will be later determined how many show the presence of antibodies. david? matt gutman, thank you again tonight, as well. we re also following that developing headline in the case of two missing siblings from idaho. their step-father was in court today facing charges now after human remains were found on his property. and what the children s heartbroken grandparents said late today. here s marcus moore. reporter: tonight, the grandparents of two idaho children, missing since september, say their bodies have been found. but police not confirming they are the remains of 17-year-old tylee ryan and her brother, 7-year-old j.j. vallow, discovered during aer er iseart chad daybell s home, their mother s new husband. we are aware that those remains are the remains of children. reporter: daybell appearing today before a judge today via zoom, facing two felony counts of destruction, alteration or concealment of evidence. mr. daybell, do you understand the allegations on both counts that have been brought against you? i do. reporter: mom lori vallow already behind bars after refusing to tell police where the children were. lori? can you tell me where your kids are? reporter: the couple under a cloud of suspicion for months after a string of deaths in the family. marrying in hawaii weeks after daybell s first wife died. vallow s husband killed last summer by her brother, who later died himself. friends and family insisting lori changed after meeting daybell, a religious author. after lori s arrest, daybell telling us the kids were safe. is there anything that you would like to say to people who are concerned about the kids or concerned about you and your wife, anything at all you want to say to them? just grateful for any support. reporter: tonight, j.j. and tylee s family saying, we are filled with unfathomable sadness that these two bright stars were stolen from us, and only hope that they died without pain or suffering. lori vallow and her husband are both being held on $1 million bail and, david, daybell is due back in court in july. marcus, think. when we come back tonight, the voting chaos in georgia overnight. and severe storms coming tonight from michigan over to new york. we have the track in a moment. but when you have the chase mobile app, your bank can be virtually any place. so, when you get a check. you can deposit it from here. and you can see your transactions and check your balance from here. you can save for an emergency from here. or pay bills from here. so when someone asks you, where s your bank? 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i m on board. don t stop taking eliquis unless your doctor tells you to, as stopping increases your risk of having a stroke. or aorl b. while takingmabruisesily- -anit may taklo usualy ding. li bruing. tell a and if your ability to afford. .your medication has changed, we want to help. finally, the legendary debate coach. eight decades at texas southern university, teaching until the end. and tonight, his students determined to make him proud. dr. thomas freeman was born on june 27th, 1919 in richmond, virginia. i came, the 60s, the 70s. reporter: he was tsu s debate coach and he was a legend. his students winning thousands of competitions over the years. dr. freeman remembering the moment dr. martin luther king jr. approached him at a dinner. he stuck out his hand and said, dr. freeman, you don t remember me, but i remember you. you taught me. reporter: dr. frsrom turning. he was still shaping minds. we spent time with the debate time. just a positive, beautiful experience that i ll never forget. reporter: the debate team president. and you talk about a man that came to work every day, at even 100. when we weren t there, he was still at work. reporter: and every student remembers their first interaction with dr. freeman. he would point to the piles of prose, of poetry in his office, telling the students to select something. and then, to read it. it was about more than debating, it was presentation, how to carry yourself, how to be heard. this was y fe interacting with dr. freeman. yes. he does that with every single one of us. and you re really nervous, because you have never done this before. i went in there, like, i want to debate, because i want to be a lawyer, and he ll say, louder! make sure to correct you, s. reporter: never say it that way again. yeah. reporter: and they all told me they know what he would expect in this time. it s a heavy time in america. and what would dr. freeman want from each of you in this moment? i think that dr. freeman, because he has always encouraged us not only to be articulate, l in which we can have the best outcome for ourselves. meaning that he s always pushed us to do our best. it s in our motto, we all know what we do, we do well, what we don t do well, we don t do it all. reporter: the faces that you see, black, white, latino, from every race, every background, every story, part of these protests. do you sense it s a turning point? absolutely do. reporter: what s your message to the country right now? there s always hope. that you can always be better. that you don t have to settle. i think the message would be, there s power in your voice. you should definitely use it. definitely. reporter: well, i would say to your debate team, keep winning. we ll try. keep winning. vowing to carry the torch. it s about more than winning, he would say, and they already made dr. freeman proud. thank you for watching here tonight. i m david muir. for all of us here abc have news, have a good evening. good night. i wanted my hepatitis c gone. i put off treating mine. epclusa treats all main types of chronic hep c. whatever your type, epclusa could be your kind of cure. i just found out about mine. i knew for years. epclusa has a 98% overall cure rate. i had no symptoms of hepatitis c mine caused liver damage. epclusa is only one pill, once a day, taken with or without food for 12 weeks. before starting epclusa, your doctor will test if you have had hepatitis b, which may flare up, and could cause serious liver problems during and after treatment. tell your doctor if you have had hepatitis b, other liver or kidney problems, hiv, or other medical conditions. .and all medicines you take, including herbal supplements. taking amiodarone with epclusa may cause a serious slowing of your heart rate. common side effects include headache and tiredness. ask your doctor today, if epclusa is your kind of cure. statues and symbols of racism are coming down. some by protesters, others by community leaders. thanks for joining us. in the wake of black lives matter across the country, communities rethinking names on buildings, memorials and statues. the bay area is no different. there s now movement to remove sir francis drake statues and more in marin county. it s eggs within eggs. it is called cosmic embrace. the marine resident isn t exactly well known but follows the signatures and some of his work is getting to be that way. i looked at it once or twice. i thought it was don quixote. reporter: not
this is bbc news with the latest headlines for viewers in the uk and around the world. i m mike embley and these are our top stories. britain s prime minister says he regrets the ‘confusion and anger‘ as his special adviser admits making long journeys during the anti virus lockdown. no, i don t, i don t regret what i did. as i said, i think reasonable people may well disagree. misses the scene live right now in hong kong where the hong kong chief executive carrie lam has defended china s security law, causing it fence against violent protest. calling it a defence. brazil s virus death rate overtakes the united states but the government is still refusing to lock down the country. the who suspends testing of hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for covid 19, warning the drug could damage the health of some people. already struggling with a mass of problems, haiti battles covid 19 an aid worker tells us of shortages in vital equipment. hello. in an extraordinary press conference, the top adviser to britain s prime minister has given a defiant defence of his behaviour dominic cummings has been widely accused of flouting coronavirus lockdown rules. he says he doesn t regret driving his family hundreds of miles from london, at a time when his wife was showing symptoms of covid 19, to get help with childcare. here s our political editor laura kuenssburg. morning. the rule is unwritten, but it is real. advisers aren t meant to be the story. reporter: when ordinary people were obeying the rules and staying home, mr cummings. already, this is day four of headlines about dominic cummings. he s made a career out of trying to rewrite political convention. even for him, this was astonishing. using the downing street garden, normally reserved for world leaders, to explain, or to apologise, or perhaps fight back. sorry i m late. i know that millions of people in this country have been suffering. thousands have died. many are angry about what they have seen in the media about my actions. i want to clear up the confusions and misunderstandings. first, i was worried that if my wife and i were both seriously ill, possibly hospitalised, there was nobody in london we could reasonably ask to look after our child and expose themselves to covid. my wife had felt on the edge of not being able to look after hi m safely a few hours earlier. i was thinking, what if the same, or worse, happens to me? there is nobody here i can reasonably ask to help. i thought the best thing to do in all the circumstances was to drive to an isolated cottage on my father s farm. at this farm, my parents live in one house, my sister and her two children live in another house, and there s a separate cottage 50 metres away from either of them. my tentative conclusion on the friday evening was this. if we were both unable to look after our child, then my sister or nieces could look after him. i did not ask the prime minister about this decision. he was ill himself and he had huge problems to deal with. every day, i have to exercise my judgement about things like this and decide what to discuss with him. i thought that i would speak to him when the situation clarified over the coming days. on sunday 12 april, 15 days after i first displayed symptoms, i decided to return to work. my wife was very worried, particularly given that my eyesight seemed to have been affected by the disease. she did not want to risk a nearly 300 mile drive with our child, given how ill i had been. we agreed that we should go for a short drive to see if i could drive safely. we drove for roughly half an hour and ended up on the outskirts of barnard castle town. i felt a bit sick. we walked about io ism from the car, to the riverbank nearby. we sat there for about 15 minutes. we had no interactions with anybody. this is where it began. on the 27th of march, watch mr cummings running out of work. he d just discovered his wife had fallen ill. worried about child care, they drove that night more than 200 miles to the family s farm in county durham. mr cummings, the next day, developed severe symptoms, but his wife recovered and was able to look after their 14 year old. at some point, he told the prime minister he had gone north, but it s not known when. and on 12 april, having somewhat recovered and taken medical advice, the family went on that test drive, 30 miles away. and on the 13th, the family drove back to london. do you regret what you did? because many people in this country have made heartbreaking sacrifices in the last couple of months in order to stick to the rules that you were part of putting together. and many people may have listened to you and think you made your own interpretation. and do you understand for some people, it seems as if there was one version of the rules for you and one version of the rules for everyone else? no, i don t regret what i did. as i said, i think reasonable people may well disagree about how i thought about what to do in these circumstances. but i think that. i think that what i did was actually reasonable in these. in these circumstances. will the public tolerate his reliance on the small print? walking away, did he believe his explanations have got him off the hook? his boss wanted to make announcements about the next stages of easing the lockdown. but while he might still have looked unfamiliar with the details, he had to defend him still. good evening. you knew that your chief advisor had gone against the spirit of the lockdown rules, whether driving 30 miles to a local beauty spot when he was in county durham, supposedly to test his eyesight, or not self isolating straightaway when his wife had symptoms. dominic cummings would not express any regret about any of that this afternoon. do you? i didn t know about any of the arrangements in advance. we had a brief conversation in which i think dominic cummings mentioned where he was. but i have to tell you, laura, at that particular stage, i had a lot on my plate and really didn t focus on the matter. i do regret the confusion and the anger and the pain that people feel. i really did want people to understand exactly what had happened. and so that s why we had the statement and the very extensive questions that we did today. the prime minister is standing by his adviser, famed and feared for believing that rules are there to be broken. that s always come for big political danger for dominic cummings. now it couldn t be closer to home. laura kuenssberg, bbc news. in hong kong, carrie lam, the chief executive, has been defending china s new security law she s calling it a safeguard against violent political protests. she insists it is not a violation of the territory s autonomy and she s criticised international leaders who ve supported protesters resisting the legislation. national security legislation asa national security legislation as a matter for national security legislation as a matterfor a country, it s the case in any country. it doesn t matter the country has a unitary system or a multi party system or a federal system. now, legislation on national security is always a metal matter for the central authorities. so for overseas politicians making such comments, they probably are practising double standards. now, i think there is no one country that will allow an important matter like national security to be flawed in any way or to have a void in any way. this weekend, after months of quiet, there was a fresh surge of protests against that law proposed by the government in beijing that many think would radically change hong kong s unique status. opponents say it is a direct attempt to limit freedoms and silence critics. there have been another 800 deaths in the past 2a hours in brazil. the total number of infections now puts it second to the united states globally. but despite the crisis, president bolsonaro has played down the threat from the virus, and repeatedly argued that a lockdown would be unnecessary and harmful to the economy. i spoke to karabekir akkoyunlu who is is a political science professor at the international relations institute at sao paulo university. i pointed out that some people are surprised the country is opening up at this point, but president bolsonaro does seem to have a lot of support. brazil is a massive country, continent sized country so the picture is not the same everywhere but if we want to take a general look at it, it s country with deep structural socio economic and geographic inequalities in a country that has gone through a debilitating economic recession over the past five years. it hasn t come out of that crisis really before it confronted the coronavirus crisis. the economic crisis has made people poorer, rolled back social services, including the health services in various states. so it s no wonder that it s confronting the pandemic in such a severe way. it should have taken particularly proactive action because it was not positioned to tackle such a crisis in the first place in a very strong position and it needed seamless co ordination between different levels of decision making. instead, what we are seeing since the beginning of the pandemic, is crisis and division at every single level, whether it s the federal government level, whether it s the federal government and state governors. between state governors and the mayors. between the federal executive and the congress, or within the executive branch and cabinet of president bolsonaro himself. now, president bolsonaro seems to be playing to his solid support base, which is about 30% of the electorate percentage hasn t gone down, even though the president seems to have lost support from other groups and political actors who have in late 2018, but he seems to believe that any sticks to catering to his support base, 30%, he is going to come through this crisis relatively undamaged. and it s cost him, of course, his position has cost him three health ministers. does he have a point, though, that the economic risk as he sees it is more damaging than the health risk? there is no question that countries like brazil, as i mentioned, with deep inequalities, and which have suffered through economic crises recently, will have a major economic impact from this crisis, from the health crisis, but many experts believe the dichotomy of economy versus health is a false dichotomy, that you cannot really forsake the help of millions of people of people and expect for your economy to persevere, to go through the crisis. ina sense. forgive me, just one point i wanted to clear up with you if we have the chance very quickly, if you don t mind. the figures are pretty extraordinary in brazil. is it likely too the figures are not reliable, that the real figure is much higher? they are most probably unreliable in the sense that brazil is doing relatively little testing so real figures so realfigures are likely to be much higher. in fact, a recent study by the medicalfaculty at the sao paulo university, where i am at as well, estimated that actual figures might be some 15 times higher than what s announced. of course, it s a very vast country and different states are coping with the situation in better ways than other ones. the world health organization has temporarily halted the testing of the drug hydroxychloroquine as a possible treatment for covid i9 because of safety concerns. the drug, traditionally used to treat malaria, has been described by president donald trump as game changer in the battle against the virus. imogen foulkes reports from geneva. there are so far no known treatments or vaccines for covid i9, but there are many clinical trials of many different drugs to try to find them. one drug, hydroxychloroquine, is already in use as a treatment for malaria. some, among them president donald trump, think it could work against covid i9 too. he s even taking it himself. i m taking it, hydroxychloroquine. when? right now, yeah. couple of weeks ago, i started taking it, because i think it s good. i ve heard a lot of good stories. the world health organization has repeatedly said there is no scientific evidence so far that hydroxychloroquine can treat covid i9, let alone prevent infection with it. the who had been running clinical trials to test anecdotal reports that it might be beneficial. now, those trials have been stopped after a study suggested the drug could cause heart problems and might even increase deaths among covid i9 patients. the executive group has implemented a temporary pause of the hydroxychloroquine arm within the solidarity trial while the data, the safety data, is reviewed by the data we safety monitoring board. the who said the decision to suspend trials was a precautionary measure. now, it will gather more data on safety before deciding whether to continue testing. however, it said patients taking hydroxychloroquine for established reasons, such as malaria, should continue to do so. imogen foulkes, bbc news, geneva. stay with us on bbc news. still to come: the boy and the bear meet the italian 12 year old being praised for his cool handling of a very risky situation. 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 7:00am. 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 juve ntus enclosure. the belgian police had lost control. the whole world will mourn the 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 4,500 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 has left the spice girls. argh, i don t believe it. she s the one with the bounce, the go, girl power. not geri, why? welcome back. very glad to have you with us. this is bbc news. the latest headlines: the top adviser to the british prime minister has given a defiant defence of his behaviour after he was accused of flouting coronavirus lockdown rules. the world health organization has suspended testing of hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for covid i9, after a study suggested the drug could cause serious health problems. a british couple is co ordinating efforts to help a hospital in haiti prepare for a spike in coronavirus cases which they believe could overwhelm the country s healthcare system. the country has just 60 ventilators for a population of 11 million and is ill prepared for the pandemic. the bbc‘sjon hunt has more. while in britain, we may be past the peak of the pandemic, in haiti, cases are rising sharply. at this hospital set up by a uk charity, they are having to improvise, making ppe out of raincoats and diy masks. uh.this is actually made out of a ladder. rob dalton is an a&e nurse from surrey, volunteering for the charity. i ve been working six days a week, sometimes too busy to to get to eat and things. there s so much to do here. they need all the help they can get. the preparation of the hope health action hospital is being co ordinated from crawley, in west sussex. the charity s founders say one of their biggest challenges is access to oxygen. there s no access to a ventilator at a hospital. there s only 15 20 icu beds for the whole country. so we are focusing more on provision of oxygen, but that can be a struggle. we ve invested to get a number of oxygen concentrators out to the country in the last couple of weeks, which just arrived over the weekend. the charity is also doing community outreach work to teach social distancing and promote good hand washing. you can have ten people living in a one bed house, which means that self isolating is just nearly impossible, and communities all function really closely together. with donations from the uk, they ve been able to set up an isolation ward for covid i9 patients and a triage system. the peak of the pandemic is due in haiti in the next two weeks. john hunt, bbc news. well, sandra lamarque is the head of mission for doctors without borders in haiti, speaking from port au prince earlier, she told me that the country is not prepared to fight this outbreak and is already facing an increasing number of virus related deaths. the country is not prepared to deal with an epidemic and outbreak of such proportions. so what we re trying to do, we ve just opened a hospital specialised in care for patients suffering from covid i9, and specifically for severe cases. we ve also helped public hospitals protect themselves with setting up triage facilities and isolation beds, but this is not enough and a lot more effort is required. and so called barrier measures, of course, very difficult even in countries with advanced health systems. in the slums of port au prince, it must be nearly impossible, and with that very porous border from the dominican republic. absolutely, haiti is one of the most densely populated countries in the caribbean, and especially in the slums, where we work the population density is extremely high. it s impossible for people to stay isolated, and it s nearly impossible to implement. people need to go about their business on a daily basis. access to hand washing facilities, access to sanitation is also extremely limited in this area. the situation at the border is another worry. every week, we estimate that 20,000 people cross the border from dominican republic to haiti, and a lot of them are importing the virus, u nfortu nately. at the border, there is no proper system in place to test people, or screen them for fever, or put suspected cases in quarantine. so, due to this, a lot of people are probably importing cases from dominican republic next door, which is at the moment the main cluster in the caribbean. it must be so difficult, i mean, you must have problems everywhere you look, don t you? the hurricane season is supposed to be particularly active this year, and i supposed none of this has stopped the gang violence. i think your hospitals are still dealing with gunshot wounds daily, aren t they? exactly, one hour ago we received four gunshot wounds in our emergency centre, in one of the most violent slums in port au prince, and over the last week we ve received a couple more as well. this is worrying because not only are we worried about covid i9 itself, we are worried about the continuity of access to healthcare for every pathology, for pregnant women, for gunshot wounds, for asthmatic people. and this is a worry, actually. last week, two hospitals, two prominent hospitals in port au prince, the capital city, had to close down because they did not have personal protective equipment for their staff, and they feared infecting their staff or other patients, so they had to close down, limiting even more access to healthcare for the population. and sandra, very briefly if you don t mind, what do you most need, and where are you going to get it from? can you get it? we mostly need oxygen equipment, we need personal protective equipment, and it s really hard to get them into the country, due to shortages worldwide. some doctors on the front line of the national health service here in the uk arrived as refugees. fergal keane has been to meet syrian doctors who told him they want to repay the kindness and generosity they ve received since they came here. dr ahmad alomar is a syrian refugee, now working at royal oldham hospital in manchester. here, he is checking on a patient admitted with a severe cough. arriving in 2014, ahmad and his family found safety in britain, and he brought precious skills. nurse: where s my chocolates? laughter. he has a presence that puts other staff at their ease. i ve only had one day off! having struggled with mass casualties in besieged aleppo, he is well placed to offer emotional support to colleagues. during these difficult times in syria, i ve learned how to cope with stress. i ve learned how to manage. when the covid pandemic started here, i realised that it would be a very difficult time, because nobody had ever had similar experience. more than half syria s health facilities have been destroyed or damaged. hospitals have been targeted by the regime and its russian allies. the british surgeon david nott, here wearing the colourful cap, trained syrian doctors in emergency surgery in besieged aleppo. it s left me with a broken heart, because there are so many millions of people as refugees now, and they need to go home, but they re too scared to go home. and it is a dreadful situation, that they re still u nfortu nately having to cope with. there is an irony in this, of course, in that you went there to help them. they re now here helping you. yes, it s true, absolutely true. and it s wonderful. here in aleppo, working under siege conditions, one of the young doctors he trained. ayman alshikh became a highly skilled trauma surgeon. now ayman is in manchester, a friend of dr ahmad, and studying for the exams that will allow him to practise in britain. he wants to repay the welcome and peace he has found here. i imagined our colleagues here, that they are suffering, they need help. they need any hand they can have with them. i can understand their feeling now, and it s really exhausting during these uncertain times. ahmad has found security here, and work he loves. but he yearns for home, a return he knows is impossible while the regime is in power. a doctor no longer able to help his own country helps save lives here. may i feel your hand, please? our good fortune, syria s tragedy. fergal keane, bbc news, manchester. americans have marked memorial day a chance for the nation to honour who died serving in the us military. the president visited fort mckendrick in baltimore. the historic battle site was actually an inspiration for the star spangled banner, america s national anthem. mr trump invoked that tune while honouring those on the front lines against the coronavirus. meanwhile, the man who will take on mrtrump in november s election also paid tribute. former vice presidentjoe biden left his home to make his first public appearance in two months, laying a wreath at a veterans park in delaware. that s it for now. when you so much for watching. hello. if you re looking for rain through this week, well, there is not very much in the forecast. but what i can offer you is plenty of warmth. in fact, during monday, to the south west of london, temperatures got very close to 27 degrees. we ll see more very warm weather over the next few days. on the satellite picture, though, you can see this stripe of cloud that s been working its way in towards the north west. not bringing an awful lot of rain, though. this is a frontal system, but one which is weakening very quickly, so really wejust have a band of cloud sitting in place across parts of england and wales through tuesday morning. maybe the odd spot of drizzle around, but generally speaking it ll be dry, just with a bit more in the way of cloud generally than we had during monday. conversely, for northern ireland and scotland, well, here we see long spells of sunshine. still quite breezy in the far north, and a little bit on the cool side here, i suppose. but, the further south you are, top temperatures getting up to 25 degrees. now, as we move through tuesday evening, our old weather front will still be sitting in place, but reallyjust a band of cloud at this stage. could be a little bit misty and murky for some coastal spots in the south and the west. and then we see some more cloud starting to work in towards parts of northern ireland. but generally it s a dry night, and not a particularly cold one, with lows between 7 14 degrees. so, during wednesday, high pressure still very much in charge. but this warm front here will be introducing more cloud, and maybejust nosing some rain into the western side of northern ireland and potentially the west of scotland. there is a bit of uncertainty about just how far east this rain will get. but, to the south of this band of cloud and patchy rain, well, that s where we have the very warm air. so temperatures down towards the south, cardiff, london, into the middle 20s celsius. not quite as warm as that across the northern half of the uk. but, as we move towards the end of the week, as this area of high pressure moves its way a little bit further eastwards, well, more and more of us get to feel the effects of some very warm air. and i think, on thursday, we will see plentiful sunshine across most areas. a bit more cloud across scotland, maybe just the odd shower across the northern half of the country, but the vast majority will be dry. but those temperatures up to 26 degrees there in cardiff, 22 in glasgow, but a little bit cooler for some of those north sea coasts. that s a trend that will continue on into friday. and as we head into the weekend, well, those temperatures stay pretty high for the time of year, and very little sign of rain for most of us.
this is bbc news. the headlines: britain s prime minister, borisjohnson, has said he regrets the confusion and anger caused by his chief adviser‘s long journeys across the uk during the anti virus lockdown. but he has reiterated his support for dominic cummings, who s insisted he didn t violate the rules and doesn t regret what he did. brazil has recorded the world s highest number of deaths from covid i9 in a single day. the latest figure was 807. only the united states has more cases, in total, but brazil s official figures are thought to be very much under estimated. president bolsonaro is still refusing to implement a national lockdown. hong kong s chief executive, carrie lam, has been defending china s new security law, insisting it would be a safeguard against legal process and would not violate the territory s autonomy. she criticised international leaders who supported protesters resisting the