the heads of some of the world's biggest tech companies have appeared before washington lawmakers to defend their firms against claims they abuse their power in order to quash competitors. and to quash competitors. that their policies lead to political and that their policies lead to political bias. the tech giants argue their companies have spurred innovation. the appearance comes as congress considers tougher regulation. in an interview with bbc world news, dr anthony fauci, the man leading the us efforts to contain the coronavirus, has warned against politicising the pandemic. he also said he has been frustrated by people not sticking to the guidelines to halt the pandemic. the world health organization urges young europeans to act more responsibly. there's concern their behaviour may be behind the spikes in virus infections. the head of the who in europe says more needs to be done to make sure they understand the consequences of risky behaviour.

the duke of cambridge has been discussing mental health and football among other things with peter crouch, footballer, as part of his latest podcast was that he welcome the group to kensington palace with the original filming to kensington palace with the originalfilming before to kensington palace with the original filming before the lockdown. our real correspondence daniela relph has this story. the duke of cambridge, prince william, welcome to the podcast. as informal as we have seen him, a future king with a plane on the table chatting with the podcast tea m table chatting with the podcast team about dad gifts they have bought their wives. she is never going to forget that one. it was early on in the courtship. while most of his family go for horse racing —— horseracing, william said goodbye had become his passion, especially the beloved aston villa. i took george and charlotte to norwich. we try to sit there quietly but george got into it at the end. i tried to let him choose his own way.

it's become his way of campaigning to improve the mental health of men and getting over their monies. guys find it more difficult to relax and talk about mental fitness, even though we go to the gym. we all need to stay mentally fit. but when asked about his powers over the football association... gareth southgate isa association... gareth southgate is a great man. but if he had a bad run of form, would you sack him? yep, definitely. some curry for you boys? takeaway delivered to kensington palace from his favourite indian restau ra nt. from his favourite indian restaurant. amid the laughs and banter, the message from william was get more men talking. daniela relph, bbc

news. now on bbc news: our world. antarctica is one of the most remote and inhospitable places on earth. reporterjustin rowlatt travels to thwaites, the so—called doomsday glacier. antarctica — the world's most remote and inhospitable continent. this is the story of a team of scientists who are trying to get to thwaites, the so—called ‘doomsday glacier'. no—one's ever really been under thwaites, and what icefin's going to do is get up and close to the sea floor and allow us to see what's happening in kind of a real way. oh, oh! look at that! 0h! yeah! what happens to thwaites affects us all, because as it melts, it will drive up the sea level around the world. this glacier is part of a system. if it all of that goes, you could end up with upwards of three metres of sea level rise. but first, the scientists need to get there. it's so difficult to operate here. all the planes are grounded. they're saying we won't fly anywhere. one only does anything in antarctica with the cooperation of the weather.

antarctica is a place of extremes. it is the coldest, highest, driest and windiest continent on earth. capped by an ice sheet of up to five kilometres thick, this continent contains 90% of the world's ice. i begin myjourney in new zealand. i don't need your passport, that's all good. they say travelling to antarctica is like travelling to another planet, so here goes. the us air force provides the planes. the safety briefing may be

familiar, but nothing else about this flight is. i'm travelling with professor david vaughan, the director of science at the british antarctic survey. after flying due south for five hours, i get my first glimpse of antarctica, snow and ice stretching as far as the eye can see. finally, our destination — mcmurdo. we are heading to mcmurdo, which is pretty much straight off over there. it is the last fingerhold of civilisation, the most southerly town on earth, and the largest centre for scientific research on the continent. and, out across the sea ice,

the first peaks of the mighty tra nsa ntarctic mountains. keep it staying in place... it is here in mcmurdo that our expedition to the thwaites glacier begins. so thwaites glacier is vulnerable, and there is nothing stopping a collapse once it really takes hold. thwaites glacier is the size of britain and already accounts for 4% of global sea level rise. the fear is, if the melt rate increases, much of the west antarctic ice sheet could go, too. that could raise world sea level worldwide by more than three metres. why is the glacier changing? why is it being eaten away? it's being eaten away because there are winds up here, on the ocean's surface, that are actually driving currents away from this ice sheet. when that happens, this water comes in underneath, like this. this deep ocean water

is really warm. and that eats away at the glacier. this normally doesn't happen. these winds have been increasing, and so more of this water has been coming up onto the continental shelf and interacting with this glacier. the scientists say global warming has changed the wind patterns and sea currents, bringing warm ocean water to the front of the glacier. we have loaded the atmosphere with carbon dioxide, we've set the temperature going up, and... doctor britney schmidt is in charge of a nasa—funded robot submarine called icefin. the plan is to lower it almost half a mile through the ice to map conditions in the seawater below. so, britney, give me a tour of icefin. so, up at the front, we have sensors that are going to make measurements of the oceanography,

telling us what the temperature is, and the salinity of the water, and how much oxygen is there. in addition to that, we have a forward—looking sonar here that allows us to map the three—dimensional cavities, so it allows us to see the shape of the ice and its texture. no—one's really been under thwaites, and what icefin's going to do is get up and close to the physics, get really close to the ice, really close to the sea floor, and allow us to see what's happening in a real way. how much of a challenge do you think this is going to be? well, it's always an impressive challenge to do anything here in antarctica, and much more so when you're, you know, 1,200 miles from mcmurdo. when you think about drilling through 600 metres of ice, drilled by the best people in the world, just to make an observation, it's quite a challenge. and then to operate a moving platform through there is pretty special, actually. icefin may have a big task ahead, but not the one as big that faced the men who stayed in this hut. so this is a truly unique historical site, literally

frozen in time. it is the base camp of captain scott's ill—fated 1911 attempt to reach the south pole. whispering: look at this. this is amazing. god, it's incredible. i'll tell you what strikes you first. it's — it's the smell. it really smells of kind of smoked fish. so there are all sorts of objects. the tin cans and the food they ate on the expedition. so we've got some — what's that, tinned salmon? that looks like a can of sardines. and here we've got cocoa, which was a huge drink for them. that was the drink of the polar explorers. they'd make cocoa. and dry, hard biscuits — ship's biscuits, baking powder. this is seal blubber. what they would do is kill

the seals on the ice, bring them back here. they'd eat the meat and use the blubber to burn their stoves to keep them warm. which is why it smells like smoked fish in here, because it is covered, you can see it is just covered, with soot from the blubberfire. it's actually really ghostly, ‘cause you get a sense of the people being here. scott himself, leaving from here with that great ambition to get to the pole, and then of course dying on the way back. and, like captain scott before us, our plans are frustrated by the antarctic weather. i'm beginning to understand why doing science here is so difficult. then i hear a crisis meeting has been called. the delays have got so bad, they're going to have to scale back some of the science. i want to find out what's going on. i managed to track down david vaughan. well, i think there's a lot

of ambitions at stake here. people have been working on these projects for several years already. so, when the bad news comes, i don't think it's quite yet but the delays are continuing. things are going to change, and that's going to mean a lot for some people. so can i come to the meeting? i'd rather you did not on this one, justin. i'm not allowed in? no. so you're not expecting — a difficult meeting, but? no, no, i think — but we just to people — let people get that news and process it, and think about what they're going they're actually going to when they actually get — finally get in the field. thanks very much. good luck. thank you. when the meetings over, i learned the weather is hampering efforts to supply spare parts to the plane we need to get to the thwaites glacier. there's parts coming down from new zealand to get those planes functional again. so we have to sit and wait.

how many days behind schedule are we now? uh, i don't really even... i don't know, actually. why count? i think we can still imagine that we can still do 100% of the tasks, but... you can still imagine? i can still imagine that we could do — with the following wind — 100% of the tasks. but time is getting very, very tight. people are getting a little itchy, and a little bit concerned. one only does anything in antarctica with the cooperation of the weather. suddenly the weather clears, and miraculously, it seems the project is back on track. it's all hands on deck to get the kit boxed up and transported to the airfield, ready to go. and the team are there, itching to get cracking. so we're super excited. we're out at lilyfield and we're finally about to get to the plane out

to wais divide. i can't wait to get out and start the next phase of the melt project. you can't fly straight to thwaites. there's no ice runway that can take these big planes. so the 1,300 milejourney is done in stages. wais divide is the project's staging post in the middle of the west antarctic ice sheet. this is where passengers, fuel and cargo are dropped off before being ferried on to the field sites on the glacier itself. the plan is only to stay here for a couple of days, but this being antarctica, it's not long before the weather changes again. so we've been out here for like, i don't know, an hour and a half, and this is the result. i think it gives you an idea of why it is so difficult to operate here.

all the planes are grounded, they're saying we won't fly anywhere for at least three days. keeping the camp from being overwhelmed by snow is a full—timejob for the snowploughs. the wind is gusting up to 50 miles an hour and the temperature is —20. check the snotcicles on this! oh, my god, that's absolutely horrible. oh, god. ergh. i can't get it off. i do manage to warm up but i realise something isn't quite right. my finger has gone all kind of white and it looks a bit burnt. i think you should go and see the doctor to see if it needs a dressing on it because it doesn't look right to me. david is worried it could be the early stages of frostbite, commonly known as frostnip. can you feel that? i can feel it but it doesn't feel the same as...

it doesn't feel the same as the other fingers. it feels a bit numb. frostnip is a freezing of the tissue but not a permanent freezing of the tissue. no ice crystals in the deep tissue like you would with full frostbite. so i haven't actually killed the top of my thumb just yet? not just yet. for the next couple of days, it's going to be more likely to get frostbite. the cold and the wind and the vast distances here make the logistics of a project like this very challenging. two ice—hardened ships brought hundreds of tons of fuel and cargo to a remote ice shelf. then, specialists snow vehicles hauled it 1,000 miles over land. everything was previously done by aircraft and then as science projects grew, and equipment grew, there became a need to do it more efficiently and cost effectively. each machine will pull up to 70 tons. these vehicles have transformed the science we can do in antarctica, increasing the scale, the number of people, the number of scientists we can bring to bear on these problems.

six people can deliver all the cargo for maybe 30 scientists, and then we can deliver the fuel that can operate five or six airplanes. wejust truck along, day from day, nobody really knows where we are and then we just suddenly turn up. delivering bounty — bladders of fuel instead of sacks of presents. presents would be very welcome because even in these extreme conditions, there are some traditions that have to be kept up. so what are you doing? i'm preparing us for christmas at the south pole. and christmas is not christmas without a few carols. they tried to get us to sing, but we didn't practice. we don't have a song so we told somebody else. who are we competing against? lower thwaites. how many people at lower thwaites? less than here. how many? five people. 3,2,1... # jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way.

# oh what fun it is to ride on one—horse open sleigh. cheering and it doesn't stop there, i knew i was spending christmas on the ice and was all set to have to forgo my turkey dinner — how wrong i was. and i made some salmon, turkey, ham. that is quite a christmas spread. oreo cheesecake. it looks amazing, hey. it's great. all in western antarctica. all in the middle of nowhere! christmas is over and the storm has blown itself out. time to load up for the final 400 miles to the glacier. not in one of the big planes this time, in something much smaller. this is a twin otter — rugged, reliable and great on short runways, perfect for working out here

on the ice. we're headed to the place where the base of the glacier goes afloat. it's called the grounding line, and is where this glacier is melting. an advance party are already on thwaites glacier. theirjob — to map the area where the scientists are going to be deployed to make sure it's safe. the glacier is littered with deep crevasses, which could be lethal. this is actually the first open crevasse we've driven into. you can see the layers here don't connect with these layers over here. this is a void, the actual crevasse itself, which is the one right here. another team survey the site to pinpoint exactly where the grounding line is. it has taken almost five weeks but we're finally at the front of the glacier. until this year, only four people had ever been here before.

we made it! oh my god! hello, friend. this is where icefin going to be deployed but first, they need to drill a hole, or rather melt one, using hot water to bore down almost half a mile into the ice. so task one — create a vast reservoir of water using this huge rubber bath which the scientists call a flubber. we need ten tons of water again. 10 tons? so 10,000 litres of water? when we want to do the drilling, we'll pump that water using these large borehole pumps and those heaters over there. they're essentially boilers. they're like an oversized domestic boiler. heat the water, get it hot enough to melt the ice, put it down the hole. it's taken us what, five, six weeks to get here. huge amounts of resources have gone into bringing the fuel and all the stuff you need.

how does it feel to be, kind of, the top of the... the cutting bit. there's a serious sense of responsibility. there's a huge amount of money, time and effort gone into this by a lot of people to get us here. so many things can go wrong and if you lose the borehole, then you've lose all the fuel you need to make the borehole. you're ultimately fuel—limited. you've got a certain number of drums that we can use and once that's gone, it's game over. with the snow melted, it is time to start drilling and this involves unwinding the longest hosepipe you've ever seen. threading the hose through the wench, goes around this capstan and then that drives the hose up and down the hole. they fire up the boilers and it is melting time. this is an historic moment — the first time anyone has tried to drill down through the front of what is the most important glacier in the world in terms of future sea level rise.

slowly, slowly, the drill melts a 30cm hole down through tens of thousands of years of ice deposits. you can see it's looking ok. it's not looking bad. a bit glazed. probably better than we both expected. after 36 hours, they finally break through to the sea below — mission accomplished. now it is time for icefin to take centre stage. as it's lowered through the glacier, brittany and the team ready themselves to pilots the robot submarine. it's more than a mile to where the warm ocean water meets the ice, and along the way icefin gathers crucial data. we're driving forward slowly. it's a real moonscape. it almost looks like

it has craters on it. that is weird. it is weird. we rolled up on this maybe half a metre of this very clear ice, and you could see the sediment—rich ice right above it through the ice layer, which was something i'd never seen before. this is incredible. it's seriously like another planet. what is going on? we should let other people know, because this is really cool. are you ready for weird? dude, i'm so excited. get ready to have your brain blown. so this is a clear layer of ice. this part has a bunch of sediment particles in it. but let me introduce you to your new friend. there is a whole bunch of anemone things burrowing out of the ice. wow! see the little tentacles? piloting your own vehicle underneath the ice is a pretty cool experience. to get to the grounding zone, you can kind of see the water

column narrowing, the ice coming down at you, the sea floor coming down to you and there is a huge rush of energy. look at that! singing we do see warm water making it all the way back to the grounding zone, which is changing the base of the glacier right to the boundary zone. we are coming right up to the grounding zone now. no—one else is above us. that's ok, we're the only people in the world right now. we're seeing a whole new crazy thing. that place is really important because it controls how much ice is coming off the continent and at what rate. so taking a vehicle like this right there to map it out in detail means that we can really start to figure out exactly what is going on. we've been talking about this for seven years, and to finally actually make it there isjust incredible. oh, yes! that's so cool!

because of all the delays, the time spent at the grounding zone is shorter than planned, but icefin managed to complete five missions — one more than expected — and collected a huge amount of data. the thwaites team is delighted. this season has been tremendously successful. we've seen the warm water coming up from the continental shelf and making contact with the ice, and we've measured the rate of that melt. and to know that we are in a position to begin to understand those changes in a way that actually can shape the future of policy, and of people's lives, that's a humbling thing. as we leave, we fly over the main front of the glacier. the epic forces that are tearing the ice apart are all too obvious here.

in some places, the ice has broken up completely, collapsing into a jumble of icebergs. i'm surprised, myself, sitting here thinking about it, how emotional i am. i think it is, yeah, it's shocking and we should all be upset by what's happening here. do you come away feeling upset that what you've seen is a process of destruction, of destroying a huge body of ice? no, ifeel like i understand the planet, hopefully better. it's better to know how things are happening than to guess at it, or to hope it goes away. we know there's been change that we'll have to accommodate, and this story is about how do we get together and try to fix things to make the world sustainable for ourselves and future generations?

hello there. so far this month we have seen temperatures around or below the seasonal average. quite a lot of cloud and rain at times too. but by the end of this month, friday, a hot spell is likely for much of the uk and we could see the hottest day of the year so far on friday. we could see temperatures reached 3a celsius. pressure chart shows for thursday we have low pressure to the north and west. that will bring more cloud and outbreaks of rain for northern ireland and northern england and perhaps north wales. that rain will be pushing into scotland as we move through the day. some of the rain will be quite heavy as it exits northern ireland. but brightening up for northern ireland and southern scotland, for england and wales, though, a fine dry day from the word go. with sunshine turning

increasingly warm and humid with the mid upper 20 celsius, and a bit cooler further the north. through thursday night, that rain will continue to move northwards across scotland and become confined to the north but for much of the country, there will be a warmer and a clear night and those temperatures generally between 11 and 15 or 16 degrees across the south. that takes us into friday. we really tap in into some very hot air across northern spain and france on this southerly breeze that will push this warmth northwards right across the country, but low pressure out towards the west means the weather fronts will encroach into western areas, destabilising the atmosphere so we can see showers or thunderstorms through the day. many of us starting off dry sunny and warm and it will be hot day for much of the uk. with this band of cloud with rain on it and maybe some thunderstorms, northern ireland, then western parts of scotland and west of england and wales later in the day. those temperatures, widely the mid to upper 20s celsius. and for east wales, midlands, south of england, we could see 31 to 3a degrees in the southeast. i can imagine that could be the hottest day of the year

so far. a chance of some showers and thunderstorms developing in response to that heat through friday evening and friday night. that front continues to work its way in from the west. introducing cooler airjust in time for the weekend. it will be noticeably different, the feel of the weather this weekend. cool and fresher, temperatures fall lower into sunday and we will see a mixture of sunshine and showers in those brisk west winds. most of the showers in the north and the west.

to bear on these problems.

a very warm welcome to bbc news. my name is mike embley. our top stories: tech titans in tiny boxes. four of the biggest names in technology get a grilling at a congressional hearing over claims they're stifling competition. talking to the bbc, the expert leading american efforts to contain the coronavirus warns against politicising the pandemic. there is a considerable degree of political divisiveness to a level that everyone admits, you don't need me to make that declaration. the world health organization urges young europeans to act responsibly. there's concern their behaviour may be behind the spikes in virus infections. and, colonial britain's role in shaping america's contentious racial present — the latest in our series,