the mayor of san francisco says she and political leaders across the bay area are imposing new lockdown orders and business restrictions to try and contain a surge in covid—19 infections. the us has recorded more than 1a million cases — the highest of any country in the world. trade talks between britain and the european union have been put on hold until prime minister boris johnson and the commission president — ursula von der leyen — hold direct talks on saturday. they'll try to bridge significant differences in three key areas — competition, governance and fisheries. the pentagon says president trump has ordered the withdrawal of nearly all american troops from somalia before he leaves office next month. some of the troops would be relocated to neighbouring countries, allowing for cross—border operations. officials say the few that remain will be in the somali capital mogadishu.

councils in greater manchester have become the latest to pause rapid testing for care home visitors because of concerns the tests don't detect enough infections. figures suggest lateral flow tests — which can produce a result within 30 minutes — miss about a third of the most infectious cases picked up by conventional laboratory tests. the government says rapid testing is a way of reducing, rather than eliminating, risk — and can quickly identify people who are carrying the virus. our health correspondent dominic hughes has more. at 96 years old, barbara has had enough of the coronavirus. do you find it annoying? well, it is a bit irritating. it's not a life, it's a bloody existence. sorry for the language! measures introduced in march to stop the spread of the virus at a care home means she's been missing the human touch.

impossible, awful! i want to grab them and...grr! ifeel like i am isolated. nobody to hug me or hold me, or me to hold somebody. i'd even hug you if this bloody thing wasn't there. now care homes are being offered testing kits that can provide a result in 30 minutes, known as lateral flow tests, to allow visitors to have that vital contact with their loved ones. but local councils in greater manchester, as well as sheffield, have advised that rapid testing for visitors is paused. care homes have to decide whose advice to follow. we will go with the national government guidelines. why? because these things have been put in place. it's not been made up. we're working with public health england, the world health organization, and for us, it's not a case of bring somebody in, have a test and they can go and kiss. we're still following our robust infection control procedures. the government says that overall, lateral flow tests are more than 76% accurate when carried out by lab staff,

but that isn't always the case. when they were used in a pilot project in liverpool, the tests were just 50% accurate when compared to the more standard swab test, and they only picked up 70% of the very infectious cases that would have been detected by the standard test. and experts warn that mass testing in liverpool exposed serious shortcomings. you will be telling just as many people with infection that they're all clear and they may well lower their guard, transmit more than they otherwise would have done, so that could wipe out any potential benefit that you would get. and then the other consequence is it consumes a huge amount of resources. trials of testing are under way in scotland and wales and plans are progressing in northern ireland. and these tests are meant to help students return home safely for christmas. the government says they can play an important role in identifying people who are infected but showing no symptoms, and help stop the spread of the virus. dominic hughes, bbc news.

now on bbc news, as part of our 100 women series, my avatar and me. the coronavirus pandemic has forced billions of our daily actions to go digital. social distancing has become a lifestyle and we are all able to work from home like never before. so how is all this going to transform our future reality and are we ready to fully merge ourselves with this new digital world? well, before the pandemic hit, i went to go find out what the digital humans of the future could soon be capable. hello i'm siren and i'm a digital human. is this the future, a world where hyper—realistic avatars do everything that humans can? america's tech community seems to think so. i think that if i could send my avatar off to have fun and party on my behalf

that would be a great thing. but in the virtual wild west, could women become nothing more than digital objects? i definitely want a better version of me. is that sort of unhealthy for people? whose beauty standards are designed by men sat behind a screen. obviously my inspirations were quite unrealistic you know? it's kind of like supermodels and barbie dolls. and who will control our avatars once we've gone? i just want to do what we started off doing and as much as that feels right to find out i've made my own avatar and entered the dystopian world occupied by our digital twins. when most of us think of avatars, we imagine a tall blue

movie character, but today they're being used in a very different way. avatars can be the digital copy of a human and they‘ re difficult to spot. from hollywood to the newsroom, avatars are going mainstream and our digital doubles could soon be working for us or maybe even replacing us. back in 2019, i travelled to la where some of this futuristic technology is being built by women. but with big investment from the gaming social media and porn industries, is it being built for women? to find out i'm going to need my own avatar. hello! this is luke from dna block, an avatar creation start—up. they've made digital copies of hundreds of celebrities and now it's my turn. how do i do that?

the magic is behind here. so basically all these cameras they're going to take a picture of you at exactly the same time and then we're going to use process called photogrammetry to reconstruct you. so so this is going to be 360 high—definition. these cameras are going to capture every angle of my body and face down to the smallest pore and the photos will then be processed to make an exact replica of me. so what actually is an avatar? i think generally it's something that's like interactive or three—dimensional so it's kind of like a digital puppet? i think that's a good way of explaining it. so you have a digital puppet of yourself and we'll be able to do all sorts of things with it. this is digital avatar emilia happening now.

it is yeah. ok, no pressure no pressure. don't mess it up. this new technology means emilia can be puppeted in real—time across different platforms and by anyone without my input. while luke starts building my avatar i'm going to meet christine misano, the co—founder of dna block to see what i can do with my avatar and if she can earn me any money. christine is a former model. i think i've still got it so i think i can probably win. she's given up modeling so she can build her tech company but her avatar christine 2.0 is still being hired to work the catwalk, modeling digital clothes for fashion brands. as you see, avatar christine does get it perfect every time. so you probably do want to hire her but what's interesting about this particular version of her is that it's my body motion capture so that is my walk that is my stop and it is my turn around so she really is sort of embodying me on the runway there. what else can i do

with digital christine? well there's a ton of other uses for avatars. anything that you can really think of that a human can do digitally you can replace the navitor she can speak a bunch of languages she can speak asl. christine says the biggest growth markets for these hyper—realistic avatars are fashion advertising and digital assistants, but it's still early days for the technology. i really think that gen z and the younger generations, they're loving it and they're gonna be what the winners are gonna be and how much with such seemingly limitless opportunities it's no surprise that

everyone is trying to cash in on this technology including bitcoin billionaire crystal rose pierce. i'm meeting her at rouge mocap where we're going to train our avatars to fight so they can be used in the gaming industry. there are 95 cameras around the room tracking our every move. it only takes two minutes to calibrate those motions to our avatars. back at crystal's house, we test out our avatars new moves jump low kick go down low kick this is not looking good for avatar media. crystal is so optimistic about the future of avatars that she's about to have an avatar wedding where her guests attend live via virtual reality headsets. i really just want to explore all the worlds that are being created. i love the idea of my avatar

being able to do fantasy things as well as real world normal things. being a ceo and a mother and an advisor and an investor, i have a lot of roles and i think that if i could send my avatar off to have fun and party on my behalf, that would be even her six—month—old daughter aurora has an avatar. is she the first ever baby avatar? i think so, i think she's the first one that's gotten fully scanned. we'll see if she can be baby influencer. you know, any any movie or commercial or film that's using the babies or needs a baby for an avatar, having one already created out of a human likeness is a great thing and she's a perfect canvas she can be turned into any color hair, any color eyes. are you worried that when she grows up she might not be happy with her image being used in a certain way or being a game character? we'll hope that she's

happy with that. it's just like any child actor but at least this is this is a likeness rather than her actual self. crystal is confident that aurora's avatar is safe from hacking because she holds the key to its data through blockchain technology. if it were stored on a centralised database somewhere and someone else owned it and we just had the ability to use it, i'd be a little bit more worried about it. but the use of her daughter's image without her express consent has made me think about who owns the rights to my digital self and who's regulating what these avatars can get up to online. many of the industries investing heavily in avatar technology are the ones already known for the commodification of women's bodies — fashion, gaming, porn. could turning women into digital objects that can be controlled by anyone and easily edited make that even worse?

lil michaela is an instagram influencer. she's also an avatarand hasi.6 million followers with so much marketing potential, the company that created her is now worth at least $120 million. jennifer powell is a talent agent who's just started to represent avatar influencers. i'm at her office to find out whether these idealized digital models are going to

the rest of us. i don't think i feel comfortable with it being exactly me is that sort of unhealthy for people i think well when you shoot campaigns as a real person there's retouching and there's editing that happens so i feel like this is kind of just editing before you're actually putting her out there but those types of people are invariably men men who are defining what these avatars look like. she is tall dark skinned slim and the first avatar supermodel she's been hired by vogue cosmo mobile network provider ee and the fashion brands balmain and a less and this is her creator camera and james wilson. what is she do? shoe do is she looks like a digital entity of her own

she's a character that i'm kind of developing the visual aspects for i was really inspired by gaming just before i create a cheetah black desert has really really in—depth character creation and it inspired me to want to kind of recreate these kind of really personal, really unique characters but some of the things that inspire me, you know, often they are to sexualize. do you think it's gonna be bad for people's body image comparing themselves to these perfect avatars? when i created her obviously my inspirations were quite unrealistic. supermodels and barbie dolls, kind of dated concept of beauty ideals. which is why i don't went on to create bren, another model, once i understood the impact these models could have, i thought it was really important to create. bren is a plus, a curve model, who has stretch marks, and has kind of natural imperfections that everyone has, and has a much more realistic body proportion.

has, and has a much more realistic body proportionlj guess my concern is realistic body proportionlj guess my concern is that having these digital avatars is just going to reinforce these very male centric standards of beauty. i think that is a really important point and i think that is why i really want to encourage women to get involved with this space. at the moment it is a very kind of male dominated industry and i'm very male dominated industry and i'm very aware male dominated industry and i'm very aware of that, even as a quy very aware of that, even as a guy myself, you know, i walk into a room where we are talking about virtual influences, and it is 90% guys. iam not influences, and it is 90% guys. i am not the only one who shows these concerns about male centric duty standards. when shudu was first created come received a lot of backlash for defining beauty on black women in on that image. he has no employed a number of black models, like misty bailey, who have become the inspiration for shudu's walk, style and posers. amabadu, a formerjournalist, is helping to create shudu's back story, reclaiming the narrative the black women. back story, reclaiming the narrative the black womenm is like magazines and public ‘s

coming up and asking to interview shudu, and being a similar she doesn't actually have a voice, so i create advice, i create that personality in her own words, going forward we want to develop it further. a lot of black women were upset about the concept of shudu. how are you trying to change that? we have spoken extensively about theissuesit have spoken extensively about the issues it has four models in the industry, especially black female models. how do we then create an avatar that can impact this? how do we facilitate a larger conversation of making change and seeing diversity and inclusivity in the industry?” am starting to see a future reality where the real amelia can be relaxing on a beach while amelia 2.0 works on tv, never ageing, never having a bad day, and never dying. so what happens to my avatar when

i'm no longer around? so, i did a series of facial scans, 3d facial scans, that are going to be used in an innovative way. so, this is molly, we scanned her head, 105 different times, with105 her head, 105 different times, with 105 different expressions. we have the eyes, and we start adding eyebrows, teeth, i know that it looks really creepy! the process is really creepy. molly is the late wife of self confessed others are evangelist alec henry. as she battled terminal breast cancer she underwent 3d scanning so that her avatar could continue to explore the virtual world after her death. i mean... how is this for you, looking at it? we we nt this for you, looking at it? we went through this together. molly was part of this process, so we molly was part of this process, so we got to laugh about it together. it is definitely

creepy as hell, but there is a compartmentalising. i've seen so compartmentalising. i've seen so much of this before, so that it isjust a little business as usual. it was, you know, on one hand it was like a lark, let's do it, and it will be fun, and on the other hand, there was something sort of unspoken but, like... you know, there is something serious that stop this is something she had to live with, that we both had to live with, that we both had to live with, that we both had to live with every single day, her mortality. do you think that stop you greeting? no. i know that grief is such a difficult and complicated process, but... yeah, ithink and complicated process, but... yeah, i think there are parts of this that has helped with the greeting. i don't think it is stopping the grieving process. i think that is going to happen the matter what. i am not trying to be a black mirror episode. do i see myself, you know, hanging out with virtual molly? no. idon't know, hanging out with virtual molly? no. i don't need an avatar to do that. as an avatar

developer, alex is using digital molly to showcase the potential of the technology. he says she won't be available to his clients, but he will continue to develop our character and may even incorporate artificial intelligence. i felt weirdly defensive of my avatar when i made it. i sort of thought, this is really fun, i want to change this. but then the thought of somebody else changing it or using it in a way that i was not in control of felt quite... not violating, but it felt weird. yeah. i mean, there is a deep trust that molly and i had. did she leave kind of an avatar well in a way? no. she didn't need to, imean, there a way? no. she didn't need to, i mean, there was a trust. we talked about it. i don't want to control molly in her afterlife. i just want to control molly in her afterlife. ijust want to do what we started off doing and

as much as it feels, as much as that feels right. i know that she would be thrilled if her avatar became a popstar. thrilled. it seems to me many of the pioneers in avatar technology are relying on their instincts because the legal guidelines are still being established as different industries seek to capitalise on this technology, protecting our image will become increasingly important, especially if you are female. it has all made me feel a bit more nervous about the creation of my own avatar. i feel like i've just put my finger prints on the internet, and now anyone can on the internet, and now anyone ca n a ccess on the internet, and now anyone can access them. before leaving los angeles, i went back to dna block to see what christine is going to do with the avatar she has created for me. we think you should own it. it looks like you, it acts like you, it talks like you, it will be a digital representation of you,

and that we are just there to license it out to anybody who wishes to use it, or whom you approved to use it. so how will we choose to use this technology going forward? and what role will digital humans be taking in our post pandemic lives? one year on from my la trip, the technology is progressing at lightning speed, but many of my concerns are still the same. i caught up with some of our contributors to find out what has been going on since we last spoke. do you think the pandemic has changed people's attitude to advertise? last year people thought of this is very flimsy attack, fast forward a year, we really kind of see that, you know, people are kind of living more online, and there is a bigger need for content. a bad time for the world, but a good time for the world, but a good time

for avatars. we did a tv show called the masked singer, a singing show here in the us, and they wanted to have avatar is, augmented reality performers, so that they could basically shoot live on camera and the avatars would be automatically generated on top of that stop but what we really been focusing on is refining our products so that we can do projects scale. and if your thoughts and ambitions on digital humans changed at all? i hope we will be able to use them ina i hope we will be able to use them in a responsible manner. what we see now is that when you give creative people a tool, they want to make all sorts of stuff about. there still aren't many rules and regulations about what you can and cannot do with digital avatars, or who benefits from your digital image. and what about my avatar, amelia 2.0? well, 2020 has been a very busy yearfor my digital well, 2020 has been a very busy year for my digital between.

i've been featured in some video games and worked as a chat box. i have walked the ru nway chat box. i have walked the runway for new york and paris fashion week, modelling clothes from designer mahlon brought on. my avatar has also been signed up by a new start—up called hour one to carry outermost interviews as in hr assista nt? outermost interviews as in hr assistant? where do you see yourself in five years? while i did consent to all of these jobs, so far i haven't made any money. but with the pandemic and finding us to our homes and computer screens, curtains digital humans soon lose their novelty altogether? cameron james wilson is already exploring new creative frontiers. do you think people wa nt frontiers. do you think people want different things now?” would really love to see fashion brands experiment more with nonhuman characters, you know, things that are a little bit more different, out there. it is really inspired by my love for science fiction movies and comics. she isjust kind of

my little experiment, you know. for me, 3d models have always been about escapism, you know, this kind of fantasy world that iam kind this kind of fantasy world that i am kind of creating. covid restrictions on global travel bands have not stopped cameron's portfolio of digital supermodels from booking jobs and travelling to exotic locations. we put together our own fashion show and partnered, and we showed that at miami swim week stop so it is a really beautiful dreamlike location inspired by some of the most amazing faces. i would like to go. a lot of people we re like to go. a lot of people were really amazed to see the potential of 3d fashion shows. they understand the designers may not have a choice, but to use an avatar now, and that may be the best choice right now for them. but not all fashion designers were so quick to adjust. when the pandemic first hit, many were unprepared for the financial investment and

time still needed to create higher quality avatars. i think the industry that has kind of benefited most from advertisers obviously the gaming industry. imean, obviously the gaming industry. i mean, that is where avatars really live. the game with occasionalfashion is really live. the game with occasional fashion is something thatis occasional fashion is something that is slowly happening, and i think 2021 is going to be a big yearfor think 2021 is going to be a big year for fashion think 2021 is going to be a big yearforfashion and think 2021 is going to be a big year for fashion and gaming think 2021 is going to be a big yearforfashion and gaming to come together. you also have to realise that these models can have an impact, it can be a very positive impact, it can be a negative impact, and you have to be super responsible. in addition to never overtake responsibility, and we have to be super careful when we are pioneering in this new industry. so, as avatar technology gets cheaper, faster and easier to use, keep a lookout for the next wave of post pandemic avatars. they could soon be appearing on a screen could soon be appearing on a screen near you.

hello there. it's been a wintry scene for many parts of the uk. we started with some widespread snow in scotland. that then turned to rain and so the most of any snow that's falling right now is really over the higher ground. but, more recently, there has been some snow through the midlands, particularly over the peak district. but it's been a messy picture because we've had these bands of cloud bringing wet weather swirling around an area of low pressure together with some stronger winds. that low pressure, though, will tend to move down into france, so, for a start, the winds will ease and through the weekend we should be turning drier as well. but we're still in cold air. with some clearing skies by the morning across some parts the midlands, eastern

england, we are likely to find a frost and likely to find some icy conditions as well. elsewhere across the uk, it won't be quite as chilly, not going to be as cold as last night in scotland. there's more cloud around, there's wetter weather too. and the wetter weather across wales, western england will become confined to the south—west. we have a few showers breaking out, running into some eastern coasts of england but for many, it will be turning dry with some sunshine. the weather improving in northern ireland as well and those showers in scotland becoming fewer with sunshine especially in the south—west. another chilly day, not as windy as it was on friday but those temperatures 4—7 degrees. heading into the evening, clearer skies in the evening allowing those temperatures to fall quickly but we are likely to find some cloud and wetter weather just running into the far east of scotland and into the north—east of england as well. that'll keep the temperatures up here, perhaps, but elsewhere we're likely to find frost, probably more widely, and it brings the risk of some icy patches as well. not only that, but quite foggy by the morning and across the south—east of england, east anglia. that should tend to lift, perhaps only into low cloud, mind you. and we will still keep some cloud coming into the north—east of england, perhaps the midlands, bringing with it a few showers.

the odd shower around elsewhere but also some sunshine. probably the best temperatures will be in wales and the south—west, 8, maybe 9 degrees but in the cloud further east, it's going to be colder, around 4 celsius or so. early next week, we've got one area of low pressure running to the south—west of the uk, another one threatening to come in off the north sea. and that will bring some wetter weather probably on tuesday into parts of scotland, but early next week, generally it is going to be dry. it is going to be cold and could be quite grey, with some patches of persistent fog.

else this is bbc news our top stories: new lockdown on the streets of san francisco to help curb a surge in coronavirus cases. brexit trade talks are paused after eu and uk negotiators fail to reach agreement. president trump orders the withdrawal of nearly all us troops from somalia — officials there call it a morale boost for terrorists. and — a special report from beirut four months after the explosion which killed more than 200 people. the government knew that the dangerous chemicals were being stored here. so did thejudiciary. so too did the port authorities. it was only the lebanese people who were being kept