this is bbc news with the headlines... the united states has passed a grim milestone in the coronavirus pandemic, recording more than 20 million cases. research confirms the the new coronavirus variant discovered in the uk has a much quicker rate of transmission. if the new variant is not president, all of a sudden, instead of 30%, we get a massive increase. the number of cases could triple. a new era begins, as the brexit transition period ends and the uk completes its formal separation from the european union. and not so flash — the adobe internet plug—in for playing games is being discontinued after 2a years.

hello and welcome if you're watching on pbs in the us or around the world, and stay with us for the latest news and analysis from here and across the globe. the united states has passed a grim milestone in the coronavirus pandemic, recording more than 20 million cases. that's more than any other country in the world. according to the latest figures from johns hopkins university, there are now 20,007,119 cases of coronavirus in the us. 346,408 people have lost their lives during the pandemic. on wednesday alone, more than 3,900 people died of covid—19 in the us, a new daily record. let's speak to drjames mcdeavitt, senior vice president and dean of clinical affairs at baylor college of medicine in houston, texas.

that figure of 20 million, first of all, it's a very grim milestone. yeah, graham is a good word. happy new year to everyone. this year feels like the last year u nfortu nately. feels like the last year unfortunately. 20 million is a big number. that is as many people as died from heart disease and cancer. is anything going in the right direction? we are of course focusing on the vaccine, but that light at the end of the tunnel is still some way off. there are positives and negatives. let's start with the positives. the vaccine clearly is a positive, but to be honest, the vaccine is going to do very little to help with this current surge. it may help our health care providers, but it won't help our hospitals from filling up. herd immunity will be summer filling up. herd immunity will be summer time at the earliest. good we

have vaccines, but it won't get us out of the surge. i think we're starting to see a little bit of moderation in the hospitalisation rate, so maybe the curve is starting to bend a little bit. let us hope, because i think this will go on for another month or so. on the negative, the strain we found in florida and the us. if it becomes more contagious, that could be fuel that keeps the surge going even longer. the peak and houston was in july. are you worried you're going to surpass that in the next few weeks with hello yes, interestingly, weeks with hello yes, interestingly, we took comfort two or three weeks ago because we looked at ourjuly numbers and during that peak, we we re numbers and during that peak, we were only half of the hospitalisations at this time around. younger patients, perhaps. but it was a couple weeks ago, now

we are about to about 75%. i think we're going to surpass ourjuly level, and the health system starts to feel the strain. hopefully, we see this level off very soon, but i don't think anyone can predict when. we have to emphasise masks, distance, avoiding family gatherings, assume everyone you meet has coronavirus, because chances are they do. buckle down and keep up our practices. i was reading a letter you wrote about testing the emotional resilience of your front—line colleagues. how tough is this? extremely tough. ijust cannot say enough about our front line providers. we call them heroes, and again, i don't think it's easy for those words to roll off the tongue. these are people who are physically suffering, emotionally suffering, neglecting their families to take

ca re of neglecting their families to take care of people in our hospitals. so, we owe them a debt very difficult to pgy- we owe them a debt very difficult to pay. it's good of you to join us and thank you very much for your time. he was talking about the growing concerns about the new variant of the coronavirus. after more analysis confirmed it has a much quicker rate of transmission than the original strain. the variant has now been identified in at least 18 countries around the world after it was originally found here in the uk. our health correspondent dominic hughes reports. it might be a new year, but there's no letup in the pressure on hospitals in london and the south—east. a surge in seriously ill covid patients mean staff are being pushed to the limit. intensive care beds are a real pinch point. some patients are being moved from kent to bristol and plymouth where there is spare capacity. that in itself is not unheard of but doctors say it shows the pressures they are working under. if the number of cases don't begin to reduce fairly soon, and indeed reduce sharply,

we would be in a situation where the health care infrastructure, notjust in london but across the entire country, is overwhelmed. and it's not just rising patient numbers. staff themselves are falling ill, meaning resources are getting stretched. everybody is reporting a lot of pressure. everybody is saying it's really difficult to off—load ambulances because our departments are full, because in turn our hospitals are full. it's very frustrating because you can't look after patients the way you want to and you feel helpless when you know there is a sick patient in an ambulance that you just can't get into a department because there isn't space. in order to provide some relief, the nightingale hospital in london is being made ready for non—covid patients, but still, hospitals report the situation remains very difficult. when we are seeing major london trusts, as we have seen in the media today, basically saying they are under real pressure, they are at more than double the normal rate of icu

admissions, then we see they are turning whole floors into additional icu space, that's when we know we are in a very, very challenging place. this surge in patient numbers is being driven by the new variant of the coronavirus. it is more contagious and is affecting more younger people. it's having an impact notjust on hospitals in london and the south—east, but right across the country. new research highlights the impact the new variant of the virus is having on the r number — the rate at which it spreads. under the lockdown, maybe over the course of two to three weeks, the cases would have decreased by something like 30%. but if the new variant is now present, with this increase in the r number, all of a sudden instead of this decrease of 30%, we get a massive increase, the number of cases over the same period could triple. so this is more or less the most serious change in the virus we have seen since the epidemic began. the best defence against the virus

remains maintaining social distance, good hand hygiene and wearing face coverings, but the big concern is as this new variant spreads the extreme pressures now evident in london and the south—east will soon be seen across the country. dominic hughes, bbc news. us senators have voted to overturn president donald trump's veto of a $740 billion defence bill. senators convened for a rare new year's day session to vote on a bill they had previously passed. president trump then vetoed the bill, saying he wanted certain protections for social media companies removed from the bill, and also objected to clauses allowing the renaming of military bases which honour confederate leaders. just in the last hour, the senate voted 81—13 to override trump's veto two days before a new us congress is sworn into office on sunday. the uk health secretary has defended

the british government's u—turn to keep all schools shut after the christmas holidays until the 18th of january. matt hancock said: schools in ten boroughs were due to open on monday, despite having higher rates of infection than other areas. the education secretary, gavin williamson, said moving to remote learning was a "last resort". labour say the government is ‘creating chaos' days before the start of team. danny thorpe is the leader of greenwich council, which was threatened with legal action for wanting to shut schools early for christmas. he spoke to earlier and gave me his reaction. 0ur officials have been in contact and we understand official confirmation is coming our way shortly. it would appear that this is indeed the direction of travel. it was only a few weeks ago that you got a letter from the government

threatening legal action if you stayed open —— if you didn't stay open? and i think it's important to recognise our numbers continue to rocket. 0n recognise our numbers continue to rocket. on that day when we received that legal direction, or infection levels of 254 per hundred thousand have gone above 800. so, i think we think this is the right decision. if the decision that notjust we welcome, but i know that schools, pupils, families across london will welcome tonight. the tears for pa rents, welcome tonight. the tears for parents, children and teachers, very late notice. i think that's extremely regrettable. 0ne late notice. i think that's extremely regrettable. one thing that's essential is we have a clear plan from the government that sets out how we're not only going to keep schools open, we've got to get some real a nswers schools open, we've got to get some real answers on vaccinations. if keeping schools open is a national priority, many people want to see

all schools start vaccinating. we also need to deal with online learning, but fundamentally, we believe that the absolute workplace —— worst place for children to be is in school. we need to make sure they are safe and make sure we have a strategy to support our most disadvantaged children who are worried about that attainment gap which is growing massively for them. covid—i9 vaccines are being rolled out around the world. almost ten million people have already received their first shot, but it's not being distributed evenly across the globe. some vaccine programmes are racing ahead. at the top of the list is israel, which expects to have vaccinated over 10% of its citizens by the end of this week. china has been able to vaccinate around four and a half million people. meanwhile, many vaccination programmes in africa are will not even start until the middle of the year, and the covax scheme, a who vaccine initiative,

aims to protect 20% of the populations from 92 low and middle and income countries by the end of 2021. in the us, health authorities have missed their goal to vaccinate 20 million people by the end of 2020. the vaccine roll—out plan has been criticised for being ‘slow and disorganised'. i've been speaking with drew armstrong, senior editor for health care at bloomberg news, who is compiling a vaccine tracker for the whole of the united states, and he explained what has gone wrong. after the warp speed development of these vaccines, the united states deserved quite a bit of credit, we are certainly not seeing a warp speed delivery of the vaccines into people lost my arms. the goal is stated around 20 million by the end of last year —— people's arms. it appears that that the country will have only achieved a tiny, tiny fraction of that 3 million out of

those 20. it is only giving about 300,000 inoculations a day. these vaccines have a shelf life, so we are going to get to the point where they are useless? they have a shelf life once they've been brought up closer to usable temperature. that is not necessarily in danger while they're in deep freeze, at least not ina they're in deep freeze, at least not in a timeline. but it certainly does raise a lot of questions about what is happening to all these vaccines that have been distributed? even though that number of distributed vaccines is not as high as the united states would like, when they're sitting on a freezer shelf they're sitting on a freezer shelf they have no use at all. i did a significant about what is happening, why has this been so slow and will it pick up in the coming weeks? what is your tracker to show it in terms of the variations across the states? that's a great question because we seen some that's a great question because we seen some states in the us have had

remarkable success in getting out the doses that have been delivered. a couple examples, maine, south da kota, a couple examples, maine, south dakota, connecticut have used anywhere from 40 to 50% of the vaccine doses that they have had delivered, i'm sorry, ships to them. some are lagging quite significantly haven't only used 20% of the doses. huge variation across the us, and frankly, if you look at this globally where we see israel, where they vaccinated 10% of the population. anything on the scale is going to have teething problems, but the hope is that as we go along, lessons a re the hope is that as we go along, lessons are being learned. this process will speed up. lessons are being learned. this process will speed uplj lessons are being learned. this process will speed up. i think that's the hope, but if you look at... you see states and state level vaccine officials, they needed billions of dollars to implement this. states governments already

stretched by the last ten months of this crisis and saying they needed resources , this crisis and saying they needed resources, they have not got it in a few days ago. it's going to take a long time to get the money out to states. i think the us... it's clear that there are some missed opportunities that have happened here in terms of making this roll—out as fast as this year. a new era has begun for the united kingdom, after completing its formal separation from the european union. there will be changes to many aspects of life, from travel to security, migration and business. 0n the first day of the separation, there's been no reported disruption to freight across the channel between england and france. 0ur correspondent mark easton reports from the dover port. the dawn of the new year, and at the uk border in dover, the start of a new chapter for cross—channel relations. bonjour, monsieur! merci, my love. brexit is now a reality. these lorries needing to navigate a tangle of red tape,

customs checks and regulatory inspections, plus, of course, covid tests, before being permitted to cross the border. 25 miles outside the port, hgvs reach a police checkpoint on the m20. they need to have a kent access permit, nicknamed a kermit, to demonstrate their paperwork is in order. european truck drivers heading to the continent seemed sanguine about all the extra hassle. i have the permission to go, yes. was that difficult or was it an extra? no, no. has it been difficult for you today? no. it's ok. ilike england! good for you! traffic is usually light on new year's day but with details of the trading deal with the eu published less than a week ago, many import—export companies are delaying journeys, with fears of widespread disruption to freight in the next weeks and months. many shipments that we had booked for next week have been cancelled and they‘ re choosing

to get their supplies from europe rather than coming from the united kingdom. so i do see that there is going to be some problems, obviously, with suppliers. 1651 days since the uk voted to leave the european union, and finally brexit has become a reality. now we shall see what that choice means for our relationship with our nearest neighbours, and for britain's standing around the globe. today is the first day of our complete independence from the european union. technically, we were independent on the 31st of january last year, but of course we have just gone through the transitional period and now that is completed so we can say absolutely clearly that britain is a sovereign, independent state. taking control of our borders has meant new infrastructure, new it systems to speed up customs processing, but they remain largely untested. new inland borderfacilities — but the largest is still

not ready to open. fingers are being firmly crossed. what the government is trying to do is essentially buy itself more time in a few more areas. they will be waiving import controls on goods coming into the uk to allow them to get the necessary systems and infrastructure in place to be able to manage that. the government accepts there will be bumpy moments as people adapt to the new post—brexit environment but insists that today marks the moment when the united kingdom takes back control of its destiny. mark easton, bbc news, dover. let's look at some of the day's other news. the new york stock exchange says it will delist three chinese telecommunications firms because of their alleged links with china's military. the move comes after president trump signed an executive order in november barring us investments in chinese companies that were seen as a threat to national security. rescuers in norway have found a body in the debris of homes swallowed up by a landslide near 0slo on wednesday. it's the first confirmed fatality. homes were buried under mud — some left teetering over a crater

caused by the slide. nine people, including children, are still unaccounted for. in less than three weeks, mr trump will be leaving the white house and joe biden will take office, marking a dramatic shift in us politics. 0ur senior north america reporter anthony zurcher, takes us through his predictions for the year ahead. of course, the biggest topic in us politics in 2021 is that there's going to be a new president leading the country. donald trump's time in the country. donald trump's time in the oval office is coming to an end and on january the oval office is coming to an end and onjanuary 20, the oval office is coming to an end and on january 20, joe the oval office is coming to an end and onjanuary 20, joe biden will be sworn in as the 46th president of the united states. normally the first hundred days of the presidency, the president focuses on his agenda and his priorities at a time when his political capital is at the highest. joe biden pretty

much has his agenda already set for him. 100 million shots in the first hundred days. his administration is going to be responsible for rolling out a coronavirus vaccine in an efficient and equitable manner. applause after that, joe biden will have to focus on the subtitle and economic impact of the pandemic. millions of american households are facing financial ruin, large swathes of the us economy all facing financial devastation. state and local government budgets are facing massive deficits because of the chinese tax revenue —— climbing task revenue. he wants to pass and aid package in the first days of his administration, and only after that can he focus on other parts of his critical agenda. he wants to expand on health reforms passed by barack 0bama. take on the cost of student

debt or address climate change. the ham viciousness of this agenda will be determined within the first week of 2021 -- be determined within the first week of 2021 —— the effectiveness. if democrats win both they will control the senate and the house of representatives and the white house for the first time since 2010. at the republicans win one, and it is two more years of divided government and probably legislative... the other big question is what donald trump does next. he's heading down to florida, where he continued to protest the election results from there, challenging democrats and trying to undermine joe there, challenging democrats and trying to underminejoe biden's administration. 0r trying to underminejoe biden's administration. or will he decide to start his conservative media company that can compete with fox news or position himself or one of his children to run for president in 2024? the former presidents, when they leave the white house, tend to try to stay at above the political

fray. in 2021, with this ex—president, donald trump may be leaving the white house, but as far as us politics are concerned, it doesn't seem like he's going to go anywhere. 0ur senior north america reporter, anthony zurcher, looking ahead to a new year in us politics. the once popular computer software, adobe flash player, that was used to stream videos and play games online during the early days of the internet has officially been discontinued by its maker after 24 years of service. at its height, the technology was installed on almost all computers. but it was plagued with security problems and failed to transition to the smartphone era. our technology reporter chris foxjoins me now. is that really what finished it off, the lack of the transition? yeah, the lack of the transition? yeah, the transition to mobile was something it really struggled with. at the time, they focused on the

called flashlight, which was a lighter version that could be used on feature phones. but it was very intensive on the battery and obviously, when you are using a mobile device, every life is important. the full version of flash was not good of the battery. steve jobs wrote an open letter on/ which was absolutely blistering. he said he didn't want it on the iphone or the ipad because it was too intensive on the battery. it was security risk and he also accused adobe of trying to make a close internet. a lot of people said how it turned out as apple has done that. it's got its own close ecosystem. that letter was scathing on adobe and it never made it onto the iplayer. what about the animations in the games now? there's work to make an open source flash player called raffle which can do most things/ used to do. it can play

the sounds and cartoons on the internet archive, which is if you look up an old website and find what is to look like, they're trying to preserve some flash animation. they have a collection of about 2000 and animations that went viral in the early days of the internet. there a kind of get it to play these animations, but a lot of things will be lost in this, which a lot of people think is a shame. what should people think is a shame. what should people do if they still got flash on the computer that home? from today, adobe is not issuing any more security updates for flash and they've encourage people to uninstall it. you can find most website don't use it any more. things like youtuber bbc iplayer, they've moved away from flash. from they've moved away from flash. from the 12th of january, adobe will make it so that flash will not play the animations. the instructions on their website if you want to uninstall. what were your highlights? it was certainly when i

was at school. there was a website called new grounds, which was like the youtube of flash. there was one called salad fingers, a gangly, green man with long, creepy fingers. but animators, i spoke to the animators who made salad fingers, and he said he moved onto youtube because you could more effects. you can have these three minute long and animations that were terms and —— so small in terms of file size. 0nce you don't have that restraint any more, you can do a lot more on youtube. glossy effects and things like that. flash kind of became redundant. chris, really good to talk to you. don't forget you can get in touch with me and some of the tea m get in touch with me and some of the team on twitter.

i'm @bbcsimonmccoy. you're watching bbc news. hello, good evening. there is no real sign of things warming up anytime soon. this cold weather certainly with us for the next few days but probably for the next week or more. there will be some wintry showers at times. 0n the earlier satellite picture, you can see speckled shower clouds being brought down on the northerly wind. some slightly more widespread cloudy weather that's been affecting parts of england and wales today, bringing some spots of rain, some bits and pieces of sleet and snow as well. that will tend to clear away southwards, although it will stay quite misty and murky, i think across parts of the south—east. and some showers still in that northerly wind, northern ireland, northern and eastern scotland. down the east coast of england, some of those showers will be wintry. where you see clear skies for much of the night, it's going to be very cold indeed, —7, maybe —8 in one or two sheltered spots.

so into tomorrow, a bit cloudy and murky to start off across east anglia and the south—east. then, it is a sunshine and showers day. the showers again being blown in on that northerly wind. so, through northern ireland, west wales, devon and cornwall, parts of northeast scotland, the eastern side of england, but even if you keep sunshine through the day, it will feel chilly. those are the top temperatures through the afternoon — 2—5 celsius. these showers in eastern england are likely to drift further inland through parts of the midlands and into wales. could even get a brief covering of snow in places through saturday night. as we get into sunday, a subtle change. because this area of high pressure to the west shifts up to the north. as the high changes shape, the wind direction change as well. instead of the northerly winds we are going to have a north—easterly wind. a subtle shift but it will focus the showers into eastern areas and provide a bit of shelter out west. so northern ireland, wales, the south—west should see drier weather was sunshine on sunday. but that the north—easterly

wind will be quite wet. it is to feel quite raw i think with temperatures on the thermometer 4—6 celsius. could feel colder than that. into the start of next week, still high pressure to the north. quite a few white lines here on the chart. quite a few isobars that shows that we will keep that brisk northeasterly wind. the blue colours on the chart, the air is still coming from a fairly cold place. so, low temperatures to take us right through the coming week. and there is the chance of some rain, sleet and snow at times.

this is bbc world news, the headlines. 0n the first day of the new year,

the united states has passed a grim milestone in the coronavirus pandemic — it's the first country to record more than 20 million cases of covid—19. research confirms the the new coronavirus variant discovered in the uk has a much quicker rate of transmission. the imperial college study suggests transmission of the new variant tripled during england's november lockdown it's been confirmed that all primary schools in london are to remain closed for the start of term — after a u—turn by the uk government. leaders of nine london local authorities had written to the uk education secretary gavin williamson urging him to rethink the decision. a new era begins, as the brexit transition period ends and the uk completes its formal separation from the european union. borisjohnson said the uk had "freedom in our hands" and the ability to do things "differently and better". now the long brexit process was over. but opponents of leaving the eu maintain the country will be worse off. now, rebecca morelle looks back on how scientific endeavour