years in prison for sexually assaulting young female athletes. larry nassar was jailed after a week of harrowing testimony from nearly 160 women — including olympic gold medal winners. donald trump says he's looking forward to being interviewed by robert mueller, the special counsel investigating alleged russian meddling in us elections. the president said he would give testimony under oath. it's not clear when any questioning will take place. flood alerts are in place in paris, and across france, as water levels keep rising. the seine has already overflowed its banks in some areas, while some metro lines and stations have been closed, along with tourist attractions including notre dame cathedral. it's the country's wettest january for at least a century. now on bbc news — click. this week, cars, bars and a police ride! i'm on my way to a reported incident

on one of las vegas‘s busiest highways. with the last rain falling overfour months ago, the oily roads mixed with the fresh water have become a lethal recipe for disaster. in the driving seat is sergeantjohn arias, from nevada highway patrol. he's using waycare, software that alerts him to an incident as soon as it's reported via someone calling 911 or through driving apps like waze and it provides him with details and the best route to get to the scene.

it'll tell me the location, what kind of accident, if it's debris, how long it's going and if there's any responders that are assigned to the call that are on their way. it constantly updates him on the situation as it develops. having a robust system in place doesn'tjust help with weather—related collisions. with our route 91 shooting that we had at mandalay, for the portion that we handled in the highway patrol, it's really getting the public that's on the strip off the highway as quickly as possible, or closing off the freeway so we can have those critical resources, fire, medical, ambulances, to get people to the hospital and quickly. in 2017, 15,000 crashes were tended to, with over 300 people dying on average each year in road accidents in nevada. getting emergency services to the scene as quickly as possible is critical.

we're gonna send injury to it and it's camera 217. the system has been running through the regional transportation commission's traffic management centre for the past three months. now because we're getting information through so many different data streams, not just the dispatchers, but we're getting it through social media, things like the waze app, so people are tagging them in as they're driving. because all of this is happening so quickly, we might have already sent out all of that information and had everybody in this room aware before the first 911 call comes in. so we're talking about possibly ten to 15 minutes of improvement in response time in some of these incidents. that's major when you're dealing with traffic incidents. waycare pulls in data from various sources — traffic signals, cctv cameras, in vehicle sensors and information from driving apps. it factors in things like what day of the year it is, the time of day and the weather. responding to incidents

rapidly is one thing, but the point is to be able to predict incidents before they happen, so the responders can be better prepared and in the right location. using deep learning, what we do is we look at the historical data, run it through algorithms to develop patterns that are emerging and tie it to what's happening now on the road. by doing that we're essentially able to look forward in time to identify where these incidents are likely to occur. unfortunately, waycare wasn't able to predict this one. the trooper‘s taking pictures. it looks like it's the rear. you can see how she was spinning out. she did a full 180 and struck right here. being able to foresee accidents here could really save lives. the hope is that as the data gets more sophisticated, the predictions will become more accurate. every day we get more and more evidence about what causes...

what triggers an incident and the artificial learning gets smarter and smarter and more capable. for nevada now, though, the initial results are promising. they get there faster, we clear it faster and that means less secondary accidents and, if you think about it, secondary accidents have... basically 18% of secondary accidents are fatalities. so we are reducing the fatalities on the road. and of course the goal is to prevent accidents altogether and richard taylor and lara lewington have been looking at some in—car technologies that may help make that a reality. at ces, as you might expect, there's a lot of interest in self driving cars and it's pretty clear that we are on a one—way street towards full autonomy. but that does still seem to be a way off, although we don't know exactly how far.

in the meantime, though, there is plenty of innovation to be seen before we reach our final destination. unsurprisingly, the move towards autonomated driving is focused largely on safety, with hyundai creating a system to intervene when we need it the most. the car's fitted with a combination of biometric sensors in the seat, they're tracking heart rate, and a low resolution camera which is tracking your facial movements. the reason it's low resolution is so that the refresh rate is quicker. so if there's a problem, if it seems you've lost concentration or you're drifting off to sleep, then the car can quickly react toautonomously be moved off the road to a safe spot. and the basic premise of this technology could be available injust a year. meanwhile, nissan has a different, even more futuristic twist on biometrics, using my grey matter. the idea of this system is really to provide an interaction between man and machine, between my brain and the ai.

and the concept here with nissan is that even in a world of autonomous vehicles, there will be roles for humans to play. after all, a lot of people do find driving quite a positive experience. it can interpret the signals coming from the human and actually enhance the ride. this so—called brain to vehicle tech currently involves wearing this bizarre looking electrode studded helmet to capture my brain activity and interpret the signals as much as half a second before my muscles do. so, as i'm about to say "change lane" or "hit the brakes", it will initiate the action for me, giving me a smoother ride, and yet still allowing me a sense of control. they do need to sort out that helmet, though. laughs oh, dear. i'm not driving very well here. and yet what we can't hide away from is the fact that when full autonomy does come to pass, it's not simply about cars. this is yamaha's concept motorbike.

a self—driving racing vehicle that should be able to do speeds of over 120 mph, although not on actual roads you'd hope. but whatever the form of autonomous vehicle, it'll need to interact safely with pedestrians and cyclists too, a challenge ford are hoping to overcome in their vehicles. initially cyclists will have to be seen by the vehicles and we are building perception into our autonomous vehicle that allows it to detect the cyclists, objects, understand their intent and ensure that we can be safely navigating in the same space. and ford are just one of the big brands that have called on the help of nvidia, whose processes, combined with intelligence software, can make the environment around the vehicle safer. for example, using lidar sensors to alert a driver who is about to open a car door onto a cyclist. and ai is fuelling other experiences inside the car, too.

speech recognition specialists nuance power many of today's in—car interactions and they showed off how they'll look in future as well. today we think about the assistant as something that we interact with using voice, but there are other modalities. of course we have the screen, we have touch, but maybe we can use gestures and in this particular prototype we introduced eye tracking, as a way of helping the assistant understand what am i, as a driver, looking at and then i can ask questions about my environment. so if i see a coffee shop in front of me, i can just ask a question about it. what is the user rating of this coffee shop? starbucks coffee has a user rating of three stars. so the other part of this system is that there are microphones placed in different parts of the car, which means the ai can respond according to where the different passengers are. so here on the passenger

seat i can say, "hello, dragon, i'm cold". 0k, raising the temperature in zone two to 71.0 degrees. there's definitely a trend towards making ourjourneys more enjoyable as well as safer. toyota have even updated their happiness tracking concept car, aiming for a more pleasurable journey and even suggesting where you might want to go, for anyone who needs their car to tell them. since you are a foodie, i'll tell you something interesting. there are many options around union square from casual dining to michelin starred. high—end restaurants as well as popular cafes. do you like it? yes. that was a bit of fun, but i didn't need the al to tell me that i was ready for dinner. sushi? yeah, let's go. let's go. welcome to the week in tech. it was the week that ford announced it will invest £8 billion in electric cars in

the next five years. a flaw in a vr porn app called sinvr left 20,000 users‘ names and e—mail addresses exposed. and hackers managed to steal $100,000 worth of cryptic currency by hijacking a server that hosts a web—based wallet for virtual currency. it was a busy week for crypto currency, as bitcoin encountered its biggest daily crash in four months. it is thought fears over increased regulation, particularly in asia, were behind the downturn. a contraceptive app previously thought as effective as the pill has been criticised by a swedish hospital for a number of unintended pregnancies they say were linked to the app. the company behind it the app, natural cycles, defended the product, saying that as with any form of contraception it isn't100% effective. they are now launching an internal investigation, however. and i bet you didn't expect the latest nintendo offering to include, well, a whole load of cardboard. the latest add—ons for the switch console are cardboard packs, turning the controllers into a fishing rod, a motorbike

and even a robot suit. gimmick or brilliant? and, finally, a rescue with a difference, as a drone was used to save two swimmers off the coast of nsw in australia. lifeguards were being trained to use the rescue drone when practice became a reality and the drone was launched, dropping a flotation device to the teenagers. the whole rescue took just 70 seconds. in this trendy part of downtown las vegas, these passengers are waiting to hop on a special kind of ride. for the past two months, french autonomous vehicle company navya has been offering free bus rides to the public. admittedly it doesn't travel far, itjust does a loop around the block with one stop at a doughnut shop. hmm, well, at least they're getting a taste of the future! down the road, though, i'm waiting to catch a more private ride which i've booked on an app.

as if by magic the door opened! laughs the team were still ironing out a few issues, shall we say. i think this is the first genuinely autonomous vehicle i've been in where there really is no driver and there really is no place for a driver. there's just safety man here... laughs ..and that's it. safety man has an xbox 0ne controller down by his side. navya is certainly not alone in this space. uber and google‘s waymo have been battling it out for some time to become the first fully autonomous cab sharing service. self driving cars use a lot of sensors to be able to navigate the road safely. perhaps one of the most important is lidar. this is what enables the car to judge its surroundings. and the design of these sensors is at the heart of waymo

and uber‘s court case. navya's car is no different, it too uses lidar to look around. interestingly what it's not doing is looking at the traffic lights to judge what colour they are. they've fitted special sensors to each traffic light and those sensors talk to the car. so that doesn't sound very scalable to me. that sounds like you wouldn't be able to put this sort of technology on the open road without fitting every single traffic light in the us with these sensors. this is much morejust for predetermined routes for these kind of shuttle vehicles. now, while i've been riding around in this particular smart vehicle, dave lee has been up in reno, not that far away, looking at a system that's making use of data collected by vehicles like this to help an entire city to move more smoothly. there's been great strides made in self driving technology over

the past decade or so, but the thing about autonomy is that it's often tested in bright, clear conditions. the real world is much more distracting. in fact, it's notjust darkness that's difficult for existing autonomous technologies. whether it's through rain, snow or just far up ahead on the road, there's a lot self—driving vehicles struggle to see. important work is taking place at the university of reno, nevada, that's attempting to solve that problem, making autonomy more intelligent. and it all begins here, on the corner of 15th and virginia. so at that corner, we have a lidar sensor.

that lidar sensor used to be on the autonomous vehicle. but we move it from the vehicle to the intersection, so it can track each pedestrian here, each vehicle here... what kind of things is that picking up? is it recognising who people are? no, it only recognises this is a pedestrian, or this is a vehicle. it does not recognise who the person is. think of this intersection as providing more eyes to an autonomous vehicle. it could detect a threat and communicate that to a car heading in its direction, telling it to slow down, beware. so what these sensors are doing, in essence, is giving autonomous cars more eyes on the road. yes. so theyjust know more about what is coming up ahead. exactly, so no black spots. part of the same programme is this connected car, a modified lincoln that can not only drive itself around, but also communicate with other vehicles and components in the city, signalling its intentions to others.

the hardware that you see is pretty similar to what you're going to see in most autonomous vehicles, if not all of them. where we really distinguish ourselves is in the software. so our research focus is on what i call social intelligence. we're trying to build machines that understand people, and understand human social behaviour, and can predict what other people are going to do and then act appropriately. it's a skill that humans have. we navigate driving effortlessly, even though we can't read other people's minds. and it's a skill that computers are going to have to have if they're ever going to drive cars in the world with the rest of us. and then there's that challenge of making the technology work in difficult conditions. inspired by an earlier project to help drones see in the dark, the team at the university's autonomous robots lab has combined lidar, radar and cameras that use advanced image recognitions.

not only does this dramatically improve what a car can comprehend, it's also pretty cheap. once that technology is safe and ready, the plan is to deploy it on electric buses like this one. until then, the team plans to use the autonomous tech to gather large amounts of data in preparation for a self—driving future. this bus, made by california—based proterra, is already out on reno's roads, but right now with a more traditional type of driver. it's not autonomous yet. the idea is to, at some point, focus on that project. however, right now we're focusing on data collection for what we call the living lab, and data collection that is going to be used for the intelligent mobility programme. for the foreseeable future, these buses will gather data for the living lab programme in reno, a city that perhaps knows more about what's going on on its streets than almost any other city in the world. that was dave. and now to something we've been

hearing a lot about recently — augmented reality. now, it works by overlaying graphics on top of the real world, and while ar games like pokemon go have enjoyed global success, the most hyped bit of ar kit, magic leap, is still waiting to be released. ar remains a technology that promises more than it delivers, but, by combining ar with al, researchers in florida are hoping to create new ways to train people to perform complex tasks. marc cieslak took their ar kit for a test—drive, or should that be a test—flight? the university of central florida has a long—established relationship with the simulation industry, helping create simulated experiences for everything from driving to supermarket shopping. the simulation lab here's latest project is a bit more high—flying

than high street, though. as long as we've had pcs, we have had flight simulators. but if you're really serious about learning how to fly, then you need an aircraft and a human pilot to teach you what to do. this lab is about to be transformed into an aircraft cockpit with the help of this augmented reality headset, and when i put it on, it'll also provide me with my very own virtual captain. called project cap, it is a collaboration with aerospace giants boeing. necessary information. sure, i've doubled my flow and ready for your take—off brief. give it your best try. the aerial cockpit is designed as a training simulator for pilots. they can brush up on skills, or practise in almost any environment. it does feel as if i can reach out

and touch the controls, and i'm very much tempted to. and i do that, and of course there's nothing there. thin air. 0k, cap, you seem to have a better idea of what to do in this aircraft. so, call for taxi. roger, you are clear to start number two. ready. at the moment, cap responds to a very small number of voice commands or questions. beacon. 0n. mic check. mic check — one, two, three. but this can still be useful for training pilots. augmented reality gives us a chance to bridge the things trapped in the digital world and the things around us. how can we start to merge those things together in effective ways? how can we create holograms right before you, for things that would be less safe if you were to do them in the real world, or that you might need additional information, besides what you can build around you in the real world? closed and locked. looks behind him to check that. vr 140. it's a very convincing illusion

that there is a pilot in here with me. any questions? do we have a specific altitude restriction? a year in development, cap himself is actually modelled on a real pilot. we had an opportunity to take some of our friends who are pilots, in this case one in particular, and see if he would actually subject himself to a full—body scan, to then be able to use him as our avatar. so that's who we have, an actual pilot who knows the mannerisms and gestures that we can put into that virtual pilot's seat. but is this another instance of technology putting people out of theirjobs? no, not at all. it's to provide student pilots with the opportunity to practise interpersonal skills before they actually get to a flight training centre with real pilots. we can provide them with a greater breadth of experiences, through introducing different variables,

such as different cultural types or personality styles, that they can practice with. i do wonder about other applications for this sort of kit. somebody that might be able to teach you how to drive a car, for instance, or teach you how to operate various bits of equipment and machinery. some of the work that we had done before doing the work with boeing was in things like medical simulation, being able to have holographic overlay so that you could see the x—rays laid on top, exactly placed, onto ct scans or mris. those are things that we think hold great promise, not onlyjust because they'll help with visualisation, but they might also lead to better quality of care, or lifesaving, because you have better access to data right when you need it. so one day, beyond the cockpit, cap‘s digital descendants might help teach us how to do all kinds of things. and, from boeing to boozing, i'm on my way to the tipsy robot,

where mixology has been given a hi—tech makeover. here, the drinks are shaken and served by these two chaps. i can even invent my own cocktail, by choosing from some of the 120—odd spirits hanging from the ceiling, or, i assume, all of the 120—odd spirits in one. can i do that? no, i can't do that, apparently. these droids can mix 100 cocktails an hour between the two of them. now, that sounded impressive, until i discovered some human bartenders can do ten times that. and that's it for click in the us for this week. don't forget you can follow us on twitter, where you can see loads of extra backstage videos and photos. although, trust me, you don't want to see what happens after i have one or two of these. cheers, see you soon. hello there.

after the downpours and gales of wednesday, the weather prospects for thursday look a little bit quieter. this curl of cloud here, that was storm georgina now pushing off to the north—east. what we now have feeding in is this speckled cloud, some showers pushing in from the atlantic, in fact, some heavy showers coming thick and fast into northern ireland through the first part of the morning. also some showers pushing in across the west country into devon and cornwall, some of these could be on the heavy side. seven degrees there in plymouth. there will be some sunny breaks between those showers, and that mixture of sunshine and showers extends across wales and into the west midlands. a cooler, fresher start to the day, four degrees in birmingham. you will notice a lot of showers across northern ireland at this stage, could be some hail and thunder and perhaps some

wintryness over high ground. certainly the chance for wintry weather over higher ground in scotland. temperatures in aberdeen, three degrees, four there in edinburgh. some sunny spells. showers into north—west england, but across north—east england, the east midlands, east anglia and the south—east, should be getting off to a dry start to the day with spells of sunshine, cooler and fresher than it was on wednesday morning. through the day will bring this cluster of showers eastwards across just about all parts of the country. some of them could be heavy, could be thundery with some hail mixed in. some wintryness over the high grounds in the north pennines, the southern uplands, but there will be some spells of sunshine too and temperatures of around 5—10 degrees. a fairly chilly feel i suppose, but it won't be as windy as it was on wednesday. now, during thursday night into friday, the showers will take time to fade away, but in western areas particularly they will ease as the winds ease as well. it could turn cold enough for a touch of frost because this little bump in the isobars,

this little ridge of high pressure will be toppling in during friday morning. so actually after a frosty start for some, we're looking at a decent day. spells of sunshine, bit of patchy cloud and thickening cloud into the west later on ahead of this weather system, into the west later on ahead of this weather system, but i suspect it will stay dry until sundown wherever you are. those temperatures of around 4—9 degrees. but those temperatures will start to climb into the weekend, we start to bring in a more south—westerly wind. mainly dry in eastern areas on sunday, a fizzling weather front from the west, but temperatures climbing all the while because we will group bringing mild air from the south—west, so on sunday it will be a pretty mild—feeling day. generally large areas of cloud, some sunshine too particularly down towards the south—east, some outbreaks of heavy rain into northern scotland, a windy day and a mild one too, 9—13 degrees. welcome to bbc news, broadcasting to viewers in north america and around the globe. my name is mike embley. our top stories: judgement day for a serial abuser.

dr larry nassar gets up to 175 years in prison after heart rending testimony from team usa gymnasts. we were ultimately strong enough to take you down — not one by one, but by an army of survivors. i will carry your words with me for the rest of my days. donald trump says he'd "love to" be questioned under oath about allegations of russian meddling in the presidential election. a veteran us diplomat quits his role advising myanmar on the rohingya crisis, saying aung san suu kyi lacks moral leadership. # i'm still standing after all this time... and still standing, but goodbye yellow brick road.