severe weather and flash flooding in the northeastern united states has now killed at least 45 people. in new york, most of the dead drowned while trapped in their basement apartments. most of the two dozen people killed in newjersey were in vehicles overwhelmed by floodwaters. a british—born islamic state group member has pleaded guilty in the us to charges of conspiring to murder american hostages in syria. alexanda kotey�*s group, known as �*the beatles�* for their british accents, allegedly kidnapped, tortured and killed their victims, including journalists and aid workers. one of the most successful pop groups of all time, abba are reforming. the swedish superstars have revealed their first new song in decades. they've also announced that their avatars will be performing with a live ten—piece band in concerts at a purpose—built arena

in london from may. a public enquiry is looking into how religious organisations handle accusations of child abuse. it was found that many were morally failing children. religious leaders discourage the reporting of abuse to protect the reputations of abuse. �*, , f. protect the reputations of abuse. 3 , , . ., abuse. it's very difficult to form an — abuse. it's very difficult to form an identity _ abuse. it's very difficult to form an identity and - abuse. it's very difficult to form an identity and to . abuse. it's very difficult to form an identity and to be i abuse. it's very difficult to i form an identity and to be a whole person, when you are on your own. whole person, when you are on your own-— your own. this is sarah. born into the jehovah's _ your own. this is sarah. born | into the jehovah's witnesses, into the jehovah's witnesses, into the jehovah's witnesses, into a family dominated by the church. effectively you were sexually abused by both your father and your mother. your

father and your mother. your father when you were much younger? and your mother when younger? and your mother when you were a little bit older. and they had control over you. what was that like? i and they had control over you. what was that like?— what was that like? i don't really have _ what was that like? i don't really have words - what was that like? i don't really have words to - what was that like? i don't i really have words to describe what that was like, honestly stopping the sense of powerlessness, and hopelessness. powerlessness, and hoelessness. ., , ., hopelessness. sarah is not her real name- _ hopelessness. sarah is not her real name. she _ hopelessness. sarah is not her real name. she was _ hopelessness. sarah is not her real name. she was taken - hopelessness. sarah is not her real name. she was taken into | real name. she was taken into care. she settled by the sea for a new start away from the witnesses. for a new start away from the witnesses-— witnesses. they teach that everyone _ witnesses. they teach that everyone who _ witnesses. they teach that everyone who is _ witnesses. they teach that everyone who is not - witnesses. they teach that everyone who is not a - witnesses. they teach that. everyone who is not a witness as part of satan's world as they call it. that makes you as a young person terrified to trust anyone outside of the organisation and at the same time terrified to trust anyone inside of the organisation. it was very difficult. find inside of the organisation. it was very difficult.— was very difficult. and it is a attern was very difficult. and it is a pattern repeated _ was very difficult. and it is a pattern repeated across - pattern repeated across religious groups, investigated by this enquiry which has also examined the catholic and anglican churches. the examined the catholic and anglican churches. the way that leaders are _ anglican churches. the way that leaders are revered, _ anglican churches. the way that leaders are revered, the - leaders are revered, the culture of community and not

taking things outside of the community so dealing with everything internally, not making outside authorities aware that they can be looked at in the wider sense and make sure the root causes are tackled, discouraging victims from reporting even within the organisation.— organisation. and example sto - - in . organisation. and example stopping the _ organisation. and example stopping the jehovah's - stopping the jehovah's witnesses have a policy that all child protection allegations have to be reported to the police. but inside the church they also follow a biblical scripture which says that all allegations must be supported by two witnesses. this report says that the two witness rule should have no place in any response to child sexual abuse which often happens with no witnesses stopping the church says it is committed to protecting children and will consider this report. in the ultraorthodox jewish community, the enquiry heard about the concept of, not snatching, as one witness put it, on a fellow due to

outsiders. but campaigners are concerned that this report does not hold them hard enough. to not hold them hard enough. trr have to raise the bar for religious organisations and give them leeway because they have religion on their side. religion does not equal good enough safeguarding. what religion does not equal good enough safeguarding. what is short on a _ enough safeguarding. what is short on a solution _ enough safeguarding. what is short on a solution to - enough safeguarding. what is short on a solution to all - short on a solution to all this, but that's what those who suffered as children, including sarah, are now using their aduu sarah, are now using their adult voices to demand. now on bbc news, click. redesigning aeroplanes. the passenger pods hurtling people through tunnels. yes! yeah! woo! and fancy a flying car?

coventry was once the heart of british automotive manufacturing, dubbed britain's motor city. but it's moved with the times. now hosting the institute for future transport and cities at coventry university, playing an important part in the future of autonomous, sustainable and connected transport. and in a city where the first ever british car was manufactured, research has moved to the next evolution of the automobile — the autonomous vehicle. for a few years now, we've been told that driverless cars are just around the corner. and on this programme,

we've taken a few for a spin. but before they can truly become a reality, we need to know that we can trust them just as much, if not more, than a human driver. and if this driverless world comes about, it will be transformative — not just for the drivers, but also for the cities, so we may need to rethink some of the basics. we're used to a lot of congestion on our roads but it seems here like this model of autonomous vehicles seems to actually overcome some of that congestion. so we know that people spend a lot of time driving around cities, creating congestion, looking for a parking space. with fully autonomous parking, you need fewer spaces. so that will reduce the requirement in infrastructure and in cities for the real estate needed for parking solutions. the vehicle will literally drive itself into a car park, find its spot, recognise the white lines and pull in and park itself. clearly, the technology

has come a long way, but before our streets can be filled with autonomous vehicles, the companies need to figure out how to train them and we as a society need to be confident with the rules and the choices that we allow them to make. zoe kleinman�*s been finding out more. this is what we were promised. i took a ride in this truly driverless car from russia around the streets of las vegas last year. it was both terrifying and weirdly underwhelming. turns out the car was a much more sensible driver than most humans i know. it took me three attempts to pass my driving test — none of it was my fault, obviously! — but perhaps i should have come here to cambridge, where the tech firm five has developed a sort of driving school for driverless cars. five runs endless simulations to ensure that driverless car tech responds safely to challenges on the roads. one small scenario has nearly 500,000 possible variations. like me, our virtual car does

not pass every test first time in the simulation. any driver will tell you it's those unusual moments on the road that you weren't expecting that pose the most danger. a kangaroo runs out in front of you. what? it's happened! it prompted the firm drisk to created the world's largest virtual library of edge cases. we are creating the first true driving test for autonomous vehicles, and the idea behind it is when autonomous vehicles are arriving in the uk, how will the government know that they are safe for uk streets? but getting the data to build the library hasn't been easy because people don't tend to report near misses. we've had stories of people driving around roundabouts and seeing somebody take the wrong turn and driving along the motorway the wrong way. 0ne individual described an experience of having sheep appearing from nowhere as they were turning around a corner. this driverless car

is like a bit of a hive mind. there is a fleet of them currently driving around london, clocking up hours and hours and hours of experience, which they then all use in order to make them better drivers. london—based wayve doesn't actually make its own cars. instead, it builds the brains for others. we're not going to get there by taking technology from one or two decades ago and trying to commercialise it with brute force and billions of dollars of capital. things like machine learning — this is the technology that is going to power the future. wayve's idea is that its cars record theirjourneys, share their data with a central hq and the useful bits feed into its learning and then back out to all of the vehicles with its brains in their boots. try having a go at the moral machine — a game set up by mit scientists to explore how humans think driverless cars should react in various scenarios. warning — they're all horrible. oh, this isjust awful!

you saw examples where people were willing to sacrifice poorer people to save richer people, or heavier people to save more athletic people. what i would consider to be immoral, yeah. fortunately, none of us is in charge of deciding who cars should kill, but that's not what's holding them back. when we think of self—driving cars, it's easy to forget quite how much we as humans actually do when we're driving, so the future of autonomous vehicles not only relies on navigating difficult roads, but also reacting to new situations, and now potentially passing a government driving test. and i don't know many humans who pass their test first time. zoe there. now, when it comes to the future of transport, sustainability is key — and that's notjust on the ground.

up in the skies, the race is on to decarbonise aviation. companies are looking at different ways to be able to make air travel more environmentally friendly. and marc cieslak�*s been looking at some of the more dramatic solutions. here's the problem — the environment. we as a species are negatively impacting it in lots of different ways. aviation contributes to just over 2% of global emissions. pre—pandemic, the number was predicted to rise fast. the problem with aeroplanes are those. and the fuel that they run on pollutes the environment when it's made and when it's used, so engineers, scientists

and aerospace companies are looking at ways of cleaning up the stuff that comes out of those. if we're going to allow people to keep on travelling, then we're going to have to make aircraft which are far more efficient. and so there will be a real pressure to develop technologies, new shapes of aircraft, new propulsion systems that fundamentally reduce the fuel burn of aircraft. here at the university of cambridge's whittle laboratory, they specialise in work relating to turbomachinery. there are several projects and technologies being developed here that are considering sustainability and new methods of powering aircraft. there's a wide variety of different projects under way encompassing different kinds of aircraft, from new engines and components for big commercial airliners to projects like this one — testing out the efficiency of distributing lots of electrically powered propellers across an aircraft's wing. so one of the advantages of electric propulsion is that rather than having one

or two largejet engines, you could have many smaller electric motors powering the aircraft and they have a very similar efficiency, whether they are very small or very large, so we might see aircraft with maybe a dozen propellers in front of them and that allows us to design smaller wings and more efficient wings. solutions like this have potential for smaller, lower—range aircraft, but for bigger aeroplanes with longer range, the look and design of the outside and inside of these airliners that we're all familiar with could change, leading us to designs like this one — the blended wing. concepts like this offer big advantages in terms of saving fuel due to the aircraft's shape, generating large amounts of lift. they also reduce noise as a result of the engines being mounted above the wing. and more recently, there are blended wing concepts exploring hydrogen as a fuel source that produces zero harmful emissions. but these radical designs, like the blended wing,

come with their own issues. the technology is very important but it's getting the infrastructure to go with that technology which would radically change on the airport level as well. it would change the fuel that implies an entire infrastructure to bring that fuel into the airport as well. they'll also do away with windows for passengers. the wing blending into the cabin means you just can't have them. instead, there's a suggestion that passengers will have virtual screens, which should make up for the lack of a real view. well, that's where hybrid technologies come in — aircraft which look like a conventional airliner gas engines on the wings but with an additional electric fan behind the tail. this is a concept known as boundary layer ingestion. now, boundary layer ingestion is a technology which is aimed at taking the flow that

forms over the surface of an aircraft, the flow that's on the surface is what usually forms the wake behind an aircraft and causes the drag. the idea we have is to have a fan that's wrapped around the back of the fuselage and so itjust ingests all of this parasitic flow at the back of the aircraft and takes that in and reenergise it and turns it into useful thrust. time is the enemy here, though. aerospace is traditionally a very conservative industry. can a significant amount of research and development occur in time to address the world's urgent climate issues? so if we're going to decarbonise aviation by 2050, then we need to get down to 19805 levels

of emissions by 2030. so if you're looking at radically new concepts, you need to be able to work in a hardware—rich environment, you need to be able to build and test a lot of things, because many of those ideas are going to fail. here in bedfordshire, blue bear systems specialise in building uavs for commercial and military use. they're leading a consortium, including engineers from cambridge, in designing a propulsion system for a small, zero emissions aircraft. the project, called inception, is part funded by the uk government. blue bear are now testing using flying scale drones. this is going to produce a full—size working project in two years. but hopefully by 2030, there will be electric aircraft which people can pay to buy a ticket and fly around on. in the future, commercial aircraft will undoubtedly be more environmentally friendly. but we as individuals will also need to address the impact of and the amount of flying that we all make. hello and welcome

to the week in tech. it was the week the uk government announced the creation of a central nhs digital database will be delayed by two months, due to privacy concerns. for many, many years there has been four modes of transportation moving humans around the globe — planes, trains, automobiles and boats. but now there might be another one coming into the mix. 0utside las vegas, in the desert of nevada, is the virgin hyperloop. this is a pod—based transport system that the company hopes will be the future of mass transit. the idea for this proposal was proposed in 2013 by tesla and spacex boss elon musk. the idea is quite simple — put people in a pod, put that pod in a tube, and shoot that pod down the tube at the speed of an aircraft. and that is exactly what the virgin hyperloop is working on making reality. it goes directly to your destination, doesn't stop

at every place along the way, it does that electrically, autonomously and does it inside of a tube. click visited this spot in 2016, and frankly there wasn't much of anything to look at. itjust sounds so radical, so ground—breaking, it's hard to imagine it ever happening. in the few years since they have come quite a long way. and in november of last year, they successfully completed their first passenger test. they travelled 500 metres in 15 seconds, going as fast as 107mph. yes, yes! josh was on board for the maiden voyage. it was absolutely incredible, it was, like, surreal to be sitting inside of a hyperloop and the ride itself, you felt a little bit of acceleration, sort of like you would have in a sports car. so this is just a beta version of the pod. the final one is expected to be a lot bigger, think the size of a bus, but also a lot easier to get into. the full—size pod is expected to fit around 25 people, but more importantly than that, it's going to house all of the tech that makes this

hyperloop system work. now that's important because if something breaks or goes wrong, all they have to do is remove the pod and fix it somewhere else, instead of going into the tube and potentially disrupting a lot of travel. one of the key components of hyperloop travel is the ability to go really, really fast. so they designed away for the pods to levitate using opposing magnets, which in theory will help it go as fast as an aeroplane. the pods will travel in tubes about this size, and should be able to reach speeds of up to 670 miles per hour. that is fast enough to get you from london to paris in under half an hour. the system of tubes can be built on land, over water or underground, and maybe, just maybe one day, across oceans. but building an entirely new infrastructure across a city or country will

take a lot of work, and a lot of money. but virgin's hyperloop system isn't the only one being developed. underneath the streets of las vegas is another hyperloop tunnel, this one by the boring company — yes, the one owned by elon musk. his system will essentially be a underground motorway. old tv shows and movies may have led us to believe the future of transportation will include flying cars, but maybe the modern day version of that is actually a pod flying through a tube. that was cody. now, electric vehicles are becoming commonplace on many roads. but the problem is, you've got to charge them, and it's not always as simple as we'd like it to be. so how about putting down the lead and opting for a spot of wireless charging, courtesy of the road? just think of it as being like putting your mobile phone on a wireless charger. the aim of this taxi isn't to be fully recharged, butjust to get a bit of a boost while it's waiting at a taxi rank without any passengers.

but maybe we are missing something here. why worry about recharging the batteries, when we could just be swapping them? stephen beckett has been to taiwan to look at some other ways electric vehicles could be powered. this is taipei's famous, or perhaps infamous, "scooter waterfall". it is one of the main routes into central taipei for thousands of commuters every way. it is mind—boggling how many mopeds there are here. thousands of them, and theyjust keep on coming. and you know what, you really get a sense ofjust how much pollution these guys are probably causing. this is the same spot a few weeks later, and believe it or not a good chunk of those bikes aren't producing any pollution at all. this is publicity stunt for gogoro, a taiwanese start—up pioneering the use

of electric scooters in taiwan. everybody is moving into cities and living on top of each other, and the need for adopting electric transportation as a cleaner mode of transportation. but here comes the problem — chicken and egg. without the proper infrastructure, nobody will ever adopt a mobility solution that is electric, because charging in these big cities are next to impossible. and this is gogoro's solution to that problem. riders own special electric bikes, but not the batteries inside them. instead, when they are running low on power, they visit a station like this to swap out their flat battery and pick up a fully charged one. a subscription of around $10—30 a month gives you access to any of the 1,400 swap stations around taiwan. gogoro estimate their customers have saved around 80,000 tonnes of c02 between them — that's roughly 25,000 across the world flights. over in san francisco, one company has a different take on the battery swapping business. these are drive—in swapping stations from startup ample. you just park up and within minutes a series of robots remove the empty batteries from your vehicle and swap

in fresh ones. it is an idea that is also being championed by chinese electric vehicle maker nio. they plan to build 500 stations across china this year. at the moment, ample's system can swap batteries into compatible electric vehicles in under ten minutes. by the end of the year, they say that will be down to just five. quite a big difference from the hours it can take to fully charge an installed battery. each charging bay is about the size of a couple of parking spaces. at the moment, there are five in and around san francisco with plans for more soon. cities is a very tough problem. the grids are not set up to deliver a tremendous amount of charge, and so putting fast chargers can be a challenge. one thing we do is, because we can actually have the ability to slow charge the batteries and choose when we charge it. because you separate charging batteries from putting them into the car, we can actually use renewable energy. the hope is the idea

could initially be a hit with ride sharing and last—minute delivery fleets who need to recharge quickly and get back on the road. if you are a ride sharing driver you might spend 10—12 hours a week at a charging station, waiting for your car to charge, and earning a lot less money. whether or not ample can convince owners and vehicle manufacturers to adopt their take on the tech, batteries like this could play a key role in addressing some of the issues hampering the uptake of electric vehicles. but we can't talk about the future of transport without mentioning flying cars. the question is, are they ready to take off yet? nick kwek�*s been finding out. over the years we have seen passenger drone demos, hoverboards and jetwings. 0ne manufacturer from the netherlands though, thinks it has finally cracked it — well, almost. here it is, the pal—v liberty, on british soil. shall we take it for a spin?

let's go. eh... sadly, this precise model in the uk is unable to fly. it's had its parts decommissioned. but across the north sea, i am assured it does this. like you find in most aircraft, you have the throttle here to control the power to the engines, the joystick between my leg which controls directions, so left or right or forward or back, and the pedals which were used for driving now control the rudderfor yaw. it can carry enough fuel to fly for up to three hours. of course on the aviation frontier, safety is a work in progress. german outfit lilium's all—electric prototype went up in flames last year, around a month after another jet from israeli start—up eviation caught fire during testing. meanwhile, boeing has pressed paws on its innovation unit, next.

backed by uber and toyota, joby aviation plans on bringing a flying taxi service to our airways. 0ther established car companies are piling in too. general motors has unveiled a flying cadillac concept and with funding from innovate uk and hyundai, coventry is set to receive a pop—up airport for the flying vehicles of tomorrow. but time is of the essence. pal—v has been going for two decades, but last summer received road certification, one of the very few in the world to do so. it is now working on air certification and it's promising customers keys as early as next year. similar solutions are being touted by its rivals, or as pal—v sees them, welcome competition. that is it for our future of transport special. as ever you can keep up with the team on social media, find us on youtube, instagram, facebook and twitter at @bbcclick. thanks for watching and we will be back next week. bye— bye.

hello there. we're finally going to see some changes to the weather this week and into next week things look quite different. but in the short term we are ending the week on a similar note with this area of high pressure continuing to bring in a lot of cloud. on a similar note with this area of high pressure will continue to bring in a lot of cloud across the uk with limited clear spells. there will be a few glimmers of brightness around, particularly western scotland in the morning but generally a cloudy start. in to the afternoon favoured spots to see some sunshine developing more widley wil again be across scotland, northern england and parts of northern ireland and also

southern england towards south wales and this is where we will see the highest temperatures in the low 20s. 0therwise where we hold onto the cloud, it will be around the mid to high teens for most. as we head through friday night it looks like it's going to be another cloudy one. across central and northern areas with clear spells across the south. but temperature wise, no more than ten to 1a celsius. we are starting to importing our winds from a more southeasterly direction to start the weekend as our area of high pressure finally begins to retreat eastwards. it looks like it will bring some slightly drier air in from the near continent. we should see will see some holes in the cloud from the word go across central and southern areas. some sunny spells here with further north varying amounts of cloud and a little bit of sunshine but generally a lot of cloud. could see a few showers across southern and western areas into the afternoon but many places

will be dry. temperatures around 21 or 22 for the high around the high teens though further north and east with the cloud. for sunday we see this feature runs to the northwest of the country. that's going to bring thicker cloud, more of a breeze, out breaks of rain, northen irleand, northwest england and northwest wales later in the day. some of this ring could be quite heavy. further south, it is a drier picture for sunday afternoon, lighter winds coming in from france. and we should see increasing amounts of sunshine into the afternoon. temperatures responding to 2a degrees in the south. 0bviously because of more cloud the wind and the rain in the north and not quite as warm. and next week, we'll will start to import some warmer air the continent and some southern areas across the south on monday and tuesday, given some sunshine we could see those temperatures creeping around the mid 20 celsius and a little bit warmer and further north too.

welcome to bbc news, i'm mark lobel. our top stories: at least 45 people are dead, after record rainfall causes flash flooding across the north—east of america. a british—born member of the islamic state group pleads guilty to charges of conspiring to murder american hostages in syria. in afghanistan, a new normal, with the taliban setting up a government, as those who still want to get out await their future. and japan is the first nation to host the paralympic games twice, but what's it like to be a disabled person living there?