this is bbc news with the latest headlines for viewers in the uk and around the world. 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 present, with this increase in the r number, all of a sudden instead of the decrease of 30%, we get a massive increase. all primary schools in london are to remain closed for the start of term after a u—turn by the british government. the us senate has delivered a rebuke to donald trump in the dying days of his presidency, over—riding his veto of a defence bill. 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 3900 people died of covid—19 in the us, a new daily record. in california, san diego public health officals confirmed three more cases of the new, more infectious strain of coronavirus discovered in the uk, bringing the total to four. they say this means the new variant could be widespread there. let's speak to dr craig spencer, a front—line doctor and director of global health in emergency medicine at columbia university medical center in new york. thank you so much for talking to us. first of all, your reaction to this awful milestone the us has now passed. you are right, this is indeed a really grim milestone and it is reflective of how bad this pandemic has been in 2020 especially in the us. but i think it also portends how bad at least the first pa rt portends how bad at least the first part of 2021 is going to be. i know we all want to usher in the new year

with new hope, but at least here in the us, the next few months and really the next few weeks are going to be some of the darkest and most difficult of the pandemic. you work on the coronavirus front lines, don't you? you are there at the coal face. what is your experience? all throughout the us, we have had these very experiences. new york city in march and april, we were just yet over the head. we had so many cases, pouring in with sick patients every few minutes. record numbers of people dying it seems like every single day. the net spread all throughout the country but the problem is that now we have 125,000 people hospitalised around the us which is again a record and that number has been growing nearly daily since october. we also just don't have a lot of likability in our system. we have providers who are exhausted and a system trying to grapple with record numbers of cases and try to roll a vaccine to health ca re and try to roll a vaccine to health care workers at the same time. a lot is going on and it is hard for

eve ryo ne is going on and it is hard for everyone to keep up especially at the pandemic worsens. how worried are you about this new variant that has now come out in the us and obviously is causing a lot of issues here in the uk and in other countries as well? we have heard this bad and multiple other countries and now we are hearing about it more here in the us and will likely hear about many more cases in the coming days. i'm concerned obviously for all the reasons about transit stability and all the other reasons others have expressed that this new variant is concerning. from the us are i'm especially concerned because so much of the way we have responded has been set in partisan tones and we politicise much of the things that will protect us against the original as well the new variant. things like wearing masks and distancing us so much of that has become politcised that i'm worried that if we have a more dress with a bullet strain circulating and we will still have some of the same difficulties getting people to really follow the simple public health measures we've

been asking forfor some simple public health measures we've been asking for for some time. but we have had some challenge getting a cce pta nce we have had some challenge getting acceptance on because they have been so politcised. do you think that the change in the presidency will make a difference or not then later in january? difference or not then later in january? i think eventually it will for sure. but we are going to be having more days of record deaths and more days of record hospitalisations until them and even after then and nothing can change in one minute so much of how we have responded over the past year. it's going to take time to turn this ship around and think will certainly get better but a new administration is going to need time and resources and will need all of those of the things that have not been really in place over the past few months in the past year to respond and that will take time. every day in every delay u nfortu nately mea ns time. every day in every delay unfortunately means more infections and more lives. of course as we speak the vaccine is being rolled out across the us. how much hope does that give you or do you think thatis does that give you or do you think that is going to take time to have a proper impact? the vaccine is the way this pandemic ends for sure.

u nfortu nately way this pandemic ends for sure. unfortunately what we have seen here in the us is that despite record speedin in the us is that despite record speed in development and the research behind this, the roll—out has been especially slow. we were told we would have 20 million doses and people vaccinated by yesterday and people vaccinated by yesterday and then it was 20 million doses delivered and now the reality is probably somewhere around 3 million doses actually given. about one ninth of what we were hoping for. this is unfortunate because we need this quickly. we have more doses that need to get out and when neither logistics and the problem has been the last mile of this has not been funded. we have not focused on this as well as we focus on the science and the next few weeks is really going to show because we are going to need to increase the scale and speed of this roll—out and all indications are that we are still going to face some significant bottlenecks. 0k, doctor, thank you again for taking the time to talk to us again for taking the time to talk to us here on bbc news. thank you. well, as we've heard, there are growing concerns about a 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. it's now putting enormous stress on british hospitals. 0ur health correspondent dominic hughes reports. it might be a new year, but there's no let—up 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's spare capacity. that in itself is not unheard of, but doctors say it shows the pressures they're 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's reporting a lot of pressure. everybody is saying that 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 in the way you want to, and you feel helpless when you know there's a sick patient in an ambulance that you just can't get into your 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're in a very, very challenging place. this surge in patient numbers is being driven by the new variant of the coronavirus. it's more contagious, and it's affecting more younger people. and 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've 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 a 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 that we've 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 that 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. covid—19 vaccines are being rolled out around the world. almost 10 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 11.5 million people. meanwhile, many vaccination programmes in africa 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 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 disorgansied". drew armstrong of bloomberg news is compiling a vaccine tracker for the whole of the united states,

and he explained what has gone wrong with the roll—out. after the warp speed development of these vaccines, which i think the united states deserve quite a bit of credit for helping push forward, we are now seeing certainly not a warp speed delivery of the vaccines into people's arms. the goal was stated around 20 million by the end of last year at this point, and that was already revised downward, and it appears that the country will have only achieved a tiny, tiny fraction of that, 3 million out of those 20. and it's only really giving about 200,000-300,000 inoculations a day at present. these vaccines have a shelf life, so are we going to get to the point where they're useless by the time they get to people's arms? well, they have a shelf life once they've been defrosted and brought up closer to a usable temperature. that shelf life is not necessarily endangered while they're in deep freeze, at least not on the timeline we're talking about.

but it certainly does raise a lot of questions about what is happening with all these vaccines that have been distributed and are they being used efficiently. even though that number of distributed vaccines is certainly not as high as the united states would like, they're even of no use at all when they're sitting on a freezer shelf somewhere. and so, i think it's raised significant questions in this country about what is happening with this, why has this been so slow and will it pick up in the coming weeks? in the us, the republican—controlled senate has overturned donald trump's veto of a $740 billion dollar defence bill, handing the republican president the first veto defeat of his presidency weeks before he leaves office. seeing none on this vote, the yeas are 81, the nays are 13. two thirds of the senators voting, a quorum being present, having voted in the affirmative, the bill on reconsideration is passed, the objections of the president of the united states to the contrary notwithstanding. mr trump had criticised a clause that would lead to the removal of the names of confederate generals from us military bases.

the move is seen as a humiliating rebuke of the president. all primary schools in london are to remain closed for the start of the new term after the uk government bowed to pressure from councils. schools in ten areas were due to open on monday after the christmas break, despite having higher rates of infection than other areas where learning would be remote. the health secretary, matt hancock, has said... 0ur education correspondent danjohnson has been giving us the details behind the move. well, this announcement dates back all the way to last year, but actually only two days, when the government said that from monday, primary schools in most of london and some of the surrounding areas — essex, kent — needed to close for two weeks, that primary school children wouldn't be able to go in on monday. but not all the london boroughs. ten were left out. and it wasn't even consistent

in terms of which ones. it was a bit of a patchwork that the government painted across the capital. and there wasn't even any sense between which areas had high virus rates and which weren't, so very quickly people were questioning how these decisions had been reached, why isn't there consistency across london. and the government has been challenged by council leaders, by london's mayor and this evening it's announced a reversal, another u—turn. and from monday, all the primary schools across london will be closed for at least two weeks, and that is, as you said, to try and get the virus numbers down because the rates are high in these areas. so, for at least two weeks, that's more time that children are going to be spending learning at home, it means more parents are going to find childcare, potentially from monday morning, for a fortnight. and the opposition party, the teaching unions are saying this is another chaotic example of decision—making from the government, from the education secretary. 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 in england, yes. was that difficult or was that an extra...? no, no.

has it been difficult for you today? no. it's ok. ilike england! good for you! traffic's 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 of last year, but, of course, we've just gone through the transitional period. and now that's 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 customs facilities, but the largest is still not fully 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. iran has told the un's atomic watchdog that it plans to start enriching uranium to a level far higher than that allowed under the international nuclear deal. the country intends to enrich to a purity of up to 20%. this remains well short of the 90% required to make an atomic bomb, but under the international nuclear accord, iran was supposed to stay below 4%. a panel of indian medical experts has recommended the emergency use of a coronavirus vaccine, a key step towards starting a nationwide immunisation programme. india's drug regulator is expected to follow the committee's advice and give final approval to the jab produced by astrazeneca and oxford university. a nationwide mock drill of what will be the world's largest immunisation drive is scheduled

to begin on saturday. rescuers in norway have found a body in the debris of homes swallowed up by a landslip near oslo on wednesday. it's the first confirmed fatality. emergency workers managed to get into the crater on foot for the first time, but nine people, including children, are still unaccounted for. vince soodin reports. it's a race against time. rescuers are accelerating the search for children, women and men hidden in a huge, dark crater filled with clay. but it's a high—risk operation, as the ground is still not safe and workers are surrounded by precarious clay walls. emergency workers have managed to get into the crater on foot for the first time. they have to carry styrofoam boards to spread their weight in areas where ground remains unstable. today, the first body was recovered. translation: we found one person. unfortunately, they've

been confirmed dead. we're working intensively to search the area, and it's a risky search. many are affected by this tragedy. there are people who have lost their houses, everything they own, and now, also family members. this father is one of those waiting for news. his girlfriend and 13—year—old daughter are missing. translation: i wish i could switch places with my daughter. she could be here, and i could be missing. it is unreal. i never thought this could happen. a giant army vehicle, called a paver, has been sent. it's equipped with a steel bridge in which rescuers can move along, but the ground is still too shaky for the 50—tonne machine to be deployed. a vigil was held for those missing on new year's eve. police have said the search will continue during the night. heavy rainfall is believed to have made the soil under the homes unstable. there will now be questions

as to why the construction was permitted in the first place. vince soodin, bbc news. the once popular computer software adobe flash player, that was used to stream videos and play games online, has officially been discontinued. at its height, the technology was installed on almost all computers, but it failed to transition to the smartphone era. our technology reporter chris fox says flash was very popular during the early days of the internet. it was certainly something i used to look at when i was at school. there were these... a website called new grounds, which is actually still going. but it was like the youtube of flash, and there were all these surreal strange cartoons. there was one called saladfingers, which was a gangly green man with long creaking fingers. kind of the weird kind of comedy that was all around at the beginning of the internet. but the transition to mobile was something flash really struggled with. at the time, they were focusing on something called flashlight, which was a lighter version of it

that could be used on feature phones back when we were all using things like nokias. but it was very intensive on the battery, and obviously when you are using a mobile device, battery life is important. the full version of flash wasn't very good for the battery. and stevejobs in 2010 wrote an open letter called thoughts on flash, which was absolutely blistering on flash. he said he didn't want it on the iphone or the ipad because it was too intensive on the battery, it was a security risk and he also accused adobe of trying to make it a closed internet. a lot of people would say how it's turned out is that apple has done that, it's got its own closed ecosystem. but that letter was scathing on adobe flash, and it never made it onto the iphone. there's work to make an open source flash player called ruffle, which can do most of the things that flash used to do for animation. it can play the sounds and the cartoons and things like that. and the internet archive, which is known for that wayback machine, if you look up an old website and you want to find

what it used to look like, they're trying to preserve some flash animation. so they've got a collection of about 2000 flash animations, famous ones that went viral back in the early days of the internet. so there is a project to kind of still be able to play these animations, but a lot of things will be lost in this, which a lot of people think is a shame. 2020 was a difficult year for people of all ages. so how do younger generations feel the year affected them and their futures? the bbc has been gauging some of their views. i've been alone in lockdown for three months. it's been really, really hard. i mean, i don't like being alone, so it's been an experience, like a bad experience for me. in two ways, 2020 has been really shocking. first would obviously be the coronavirus pandemic.

for me personally, because i live in hong kong, i'd say the second thing that was really shocking would be the national security law in july cos that was also very life—changing. well, because we had to lockdown and stayed home, it really made the world much smaller. it made young people realise their importance in politics or how important politics is when dealing with crisis. i think everyone is still feeling varying degrees of loss and adjustment. we're not out of this for at least another year in my mind. 2020, especially during the pandemic, you really did see a lot of people banding together and helping out. you saw groups of people going out to share packs of food with people that were homeless, and i thought that was very inspiring. i think health is the most important thing. you know, in china, young people have the great pressure of leaving all the houses, cars, living standards. so, sometimes we sacrificed our

health, we cannot bring the money to our graves. it doesn't matter anymore. i think for 2021, ijust need to be more flexible and not have too many plans and expectations. 2020 is the year that everything changed, and i truly believe and feel in my gut, in my heart, in the stars, that we are entering into a new era. 2020 has shown the extent of our potential, and 2021 is now the time to make good use of that potential. i wish everyone can go back to our normal life, no matter people in china or in other countries. i hope the virus can be solved. happy new year! speaks italian. speaks portuguese. speaks chinese. the views of sangha people around the globe. that's it for me and the team. thanks for watching. bye—bye.

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. on 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 with sunshine on sunday. but that the north—easterly wind will be quite brisk. 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:

a u—turn by the british government — as it confirms all primary schools in london are to remain closed for the start of term. the city's mayor said the government had ‘finally seen sense'. research confirms the new coronavirus variant discovered in the uk has a much quicker rate of transmission — the variant has now been identified in at least 18 countries around the world. the us struggles to roll out the covid vaccine, as the number of cases continues to surge to above 20 million — according to thejohn hopkins university. nearly 350,000 americans have died. a new era begins, as the brexit transition period ends and the uk completes its formal separation from the european union. # last christmas, i gave you my heart. and 36 years after its first release, wham's ‘last christmas' finally tops the uk music charts.