after claims he helped secure an honourfor a major donor. taliban officials have broken up a demonstration by dozens of women in kabul, who were calling for the right to work and to be included in the government. heathrow airport has criticised uk border force after passengers complained of "unacceptable queuing times". images on social media showed packed arrival halls at the london airport. thousands of chain stores have disappeared from british high streets this year though the rate of closures is now slowing down. and two more medals for great britain on the final day of the paralympics, with bronze wins in the men's badminton and men's wheelchair basketball. now on bbc news, it's time for click. this week we're going back to school, so pay attention class —

today we have robotics... archaeology... and. ..cookery? hey, welcome to click! we are back after a summer of silliness. i hope you managed to have some kind of break yourself. i tell you, the best thing about being back on this sofa for me is i get to see my good mate, back in her box! it's been weeks since we've done it like this, isn't it? how's your summer been, how are you? oh, it's good to be back and it's lovely to see you too. and my summer has been good, thank you. i've spent two hours a day working out, which is my idea of a break.

i know, i've seen your instagram, you've been hitting it hard! hmm. what have you been up to? i've been exercising my brain, i've been trying these, um, interactive puzzle books which i've become a bit of a fan of. on each page there's some sort of weird puzzle here and once you've worked out what's going on, you scan the qr code and it takes you to a website and tells you whether you're right or not. and that, ladies and gentlemen, is my idea of fun. goodness, and you must be cleverer than ever now? dangerously intelligent, that's me. but anyway, it's back to business now, and september means back to school. and hopefully the kids are going to get a whole year in the classroom. yeah, but because the last 18 months have been so disrupted, schools and kids now face a big challenge — and that's the fact that every child has had a different level of schooling and has different gaps in their education. but, it looks like machine learning might be able to help with the children's learning. four years ago we visited a school

which had started using century ai to bolster their teaching. this is software that assesses students as they learn, finding where the gaps are, and prompting them with teaching materials that suit their needs. what it will do is we track all your behaviours, and your mouse movements and how you learn. have they paused, are they scrolling up or down, what words are they looking at, how long are the words, has the child been guessing, have they been skipping, are they hesitating, have they taken longer to answer this question versus another one? well, you know if you know how long it takes for them to read across different subjects. so it's trying to analyse and learn how the student is behaving across the content. the really clever part is that it tracks learning across different subjects, so it can differentiate between a student who is struggling with a mathematical equation, and one who's struggling with how the maths question is posed. in that case it may suggest more literacy tasks.

when the pandemic hit, software like this became increasingly important as students were forced to learn from home. and during the first lockdown, united learning, one of the largest groups of schools in england, introduced another adaptive learning platform to 46 of their secondary schools. sparx maths has thousands and thousands of questions and thousands and thousands of hours of exemplification as well — videos explaining how to do certain operations. now, that means that no teacher ever has to sit down and work out a specific set of questions for specific children to do, �*cause the software understands at what point of learning those children are at. and also it marks those questions so the teacher doesn't have to sit for hours marking them in a book and correcting them as well, which i know from personal experience, can consume your entire life. over the past 18 months we've all needed as much help as we could get as our kids have flipped between school and home learning and we've flopped into bed each night exhausted

after being parents, teachers and workers. for some children, learning at home has helped them to blossom — but for many, tech will never beat the teacher. earlier in the year, i met andria zafirakou, the best teacher in the universe — and that's notjust according to her pupils, mind, she won the global teacher prize in 2018. the one thing that we have to bear in mind is that you know, by using technology in assessing young people, it's not as good as that 1—to—1 teacher experience, and having that 1—to—1 knowledge with a teacher willjust open up their mind a little bit more, and push them a little bit more to thinking about things which they've never thought about. there is no doubt that technology can be extremely beneficial in the classroom, but choices made by ai could set a direction for the rest of a child's life. and ultimately tech can only augment teachers and free up time

so that they can do what they do best — teach. of course, nothing can beat physically being in the classroom, but even pre—pandemic, some students weren't able to be at school — for example, those with serious illnesses. but now, thanks to the help of some robots, some of these children might able to attend classes remotely. jen copestake�*s been finding out more. and can you blink your eyes? that's so cool. qasim is a student at seven kings school in east london. he has a serious medical condition which means he hasn't been able to go out since the beginning of the covid pandemic, but comes to class instead in a robot avatar. how long have you been going to school like this, qasim? well originally, it was to do

with the lockdown and everything. also i had a surgery so that was also one reason. are you recovering from the surgery now? yeah. i have the impression qasim is a brave person. you come across very well qasim. oh, thank you. laughs. is this your first time working with a robot in this way or have you done it before? oh, it has been several months already, isn't it, qasim? so did theyjust say you're going to be working with a robot instead of a child? everybody was excited. there are 500 av1 robots going to school in this way across the uk and more than 1,500 in europe. it's controlled from a child's home via an app. where are you talking to us from? like, from my ipad at home. oh wow. they can control the movement of the robot on the table, change facial expressions, raise hands, and even sleep. is the blue meaning you're asleep? yes.

do you ever put that on in the class? no. laughter. qasim, i'm just going to carry you to the next classroom. sure. at the end of the day, qasim is put away to charge. he's occasionally had to call his teachers to remind them to switch him on for class. there's something real about it — it's got a head, it moves, it talks. it's almost like qasim is embodied in the robot so it's brilliant! it feels absolutely fine actually. so we get quite used to it and we call the robots actually by the child's name, and because the child's voice is coming out of the robot, and they're quite often laughing and joking with us, it feels like a perfectly natural relationship — it's normal. so it's the first time i'd seen a robot interacting in this way in a classroom and it was quite unexpected. it really did feel like qasim's presence was coming through that robot, and the children in the classroom seemed to enjoy it too. the first prototype av1, 3d print, first prototype comp, which is a computer screen

with a robot body. the idea of interacting with robots as avatars rather than video screens came from karen dolva and her team at no isolation in oslo. raspberry pi in there. camera, microphone. so if a child raises a hand, these lights will light up. these are tiny led lights. then you have the antenna for good reception. you have the 4g module in here, you have the camera board so this is what will sit in the forehead of the robot and let you actually stream. karen found her experience at university to be isolating, and difficult to make new friends. this led to a period of loneliness and depression. i at least isolated myself. i don't think i realised how much i'd pulled away from everyone else until people started literally trying to get me back, which i'm very grateful for today.

karen started looking at isolation and loneliness in pensioners before redirecting attention to children in hospitals who couldn't get to class. they were using video conferencing to get lessons, but she wanted to make a more private way. we were out observing and actually saw a reaction where a kid logged on and everyone in class is saying, like, "you're looking ill", then the kid logs off again which is heartbreaking, like, you don't want that to be the experience you have when you show up in class. qasim is now looking forward to getting back to class in person, and should be able to start again this autumn. how long have you been away from school, qasim? i left some time in february, i think. january, february sometime. then i stopped again. i haven't been in quite a long time. what's that been like to shield

for such a long time? eventually, just, it's like, quite annoying i guess because you can't do anything. since the pandemic, we've really been amazed by the broad range of use cases we've seen, but also we've seen an extreme rise in the level of anxiety amongst students. and just by having that window into the classroom, they gain more confidence, they're able to speak with their peers and their teachers, and the idea of returning to school becomes less daunting. what do you guys think, having qasim interacting like this? i think that it's good from his point of view. he's able to ask the teacher for questions if he needs help. | if we didn't have this robot then| i don't think he would be getting the same education that he's getting now. - hello and welcome to the week in tech. this week we learned that apple boss, tim cook, recently received 5 million shares in the company that he has now sold for over $750 million. google yet again postponed a full

return to the office, announcing that its employees can work remotely until at least 2022. and vauxhall�*s managing director said that the global shortage of computer chips will continue to be a problem for the auto industry for the rest of the year. staying with transport, toyota has restarted operations of its autonomous vehicles at the paralympic village in tokyo. services were halted after vehicle hit a visually after one vehicle hit a visually impaired athlete last week. big news for gamers in china. the country's video games regulator that said gamers under the age of 18 will be only allowed to play for an hour each day on fridays, weekends and holidays. the move is part of a recent crackdown by the chinese government on the pastime, with a state media outlet calling online games "spiritual opium". and finally, if you're worried about robots taking all ourjobs, look away right now. agility robotics have

showed off their latest bipedal creation digit. the company claim that the weirdly headless automaton is well suited to highly repetitive tasks and it is meant to allow us humans to concentrate more on creative endeavours. i just hope someone told the robots that. insects are a sustainable, protein—rich food source, and i have already seen them grown vertically to feed chickens — although i am not sure it was that thrilled about it. oh my god, there is millions in here! but this much smaller smart insect farm has been designed to work in schools. it can fit on a kitchen counter and filters mealworms by life stage. this is one that is kind of in use right now. they lay their eggs through these holes and once they are big enough, then they will be able to actually crawl out of here. a heating pad warms from underneath.

there is a sensor below that aluminium plate. while other sensors keep humidity in check. it will turn a fan on so it draws off any excess. as well as leftover veg, mealworms can eat things like stale bread, old coffee grounds, and even polystyrene. even their waste is not wasted. you can use it like this for putting it in your plants. the students in hong kong are some of the first to use the device to grow edible insects. they have been making bug burgers, and learning that larvae can become lunch. what is your favourite thing about the worms? my favourite thing is eating them. because the flavour of the mealworms are very funny. it is crispy and the flavour is like peanuts. like peanuts!

wow. has it made you think about the environment and about animals more? yes, because the mealworms use less land than cows or pigs. given that animal agriculture is behind 87% of greenhouse gas emissions, insect cooking lessons could be the education we all need. i think in the world, or in hong kong, we have to promote this idea of green eating habits. but there are other curricula benefits too. all types of students can be involved. so it makes them more popular and general education for all the kids. schools around the world are already experimenting with different projects. nordic students have been coding the device, complete with light up alerts. green, blue... kids in quebec dug into mealworm treats, as did gontrand, the blue dragon lizard.

of course there is nothing stopping people using these kits at home either. you just have to have space in the kitchen — and, well, the stomach for it. that was paul. i actually ate roasted mealworms from a prototype insect farm when i was in china a few years ago. what did they taste like? crispy, meaty and not that bad really. oh, but still. now it's time for a lesson in can you guess the gadget! what do you think this is? insect toaster. what do you take me for? no, it does this. he has knobbly knees! and turned out toes! and a poisonous wart at the end of his nose! that is my dating profile. it's also a well—known children's story. of course it is, the gruffalo, love the gruffalo. this is yoto, an audiobook player for kids, which you just pop these card into. it is hands—on for kids to use solo

but also it has an app that lets parents play content from their phones, or send stories to play from the device. but with so much free content out there, you do wonder why people may want another platform or another subscription service. a lot of it comes down to the actual user interface, so we built yoto from the ground up for children, and there really was nothing else available without a screen that parents could reallyjust trust their children with. the child is fully in control of the player, they put in the cards that they want, they can change the volume, they can do everything without the parent intervening. and the parent at the same time knows that it's a safe and secure environment. the yoto player has 400 cards already but it can also play radio, be used as a bluetooth speaker, or be programmed to help with sleep training. of course there are other devices that do similar things, as well as the streaming giants which have their own offerings. like spotify kids, an app

which is just for kid friendly music and stories. there is also amazon kids plus which has books, movies, tv shows, educational apps and games. bell rings. that is the school bell, which means we are moving onto our final of the day. and its history. oh no! i was always a bit scared of my history teacher. oh no, it is really interesting isn't it, how the teacher makes a definite difference to whether you enjoy the subject or not. but no, this is a historical mystery with technology doing its bit to help. sound good ? yes sir. laughs. 0k. simon hancock picks up the trail. the town of warwick in the heart of england. i actually grew up near here, and let me tell you, it is absolutely dripping in history. from its famous castle to the market square, everywhere you look, there it is. small wonder then, that it's pored over by historians, amateur and pro alike,

who all try to take these visual clues and re conjure the stories that happened here in the past. but today, i have been asked to help with an historical mystery deep underground. through this very small hole, through which the fire brigade are going to winch me. so... oh, my goodness. 0k. are you afraid? afraid of what? i am not brilliant with enclosed spaces, shall we say. but...yeah. you didn't mention that before. well, you didn't mention it was like this small, that's why. under here, going metres down, there is a well which near the bottom has an entrance to an unexpected and unexplained tunnel — one which some think could be part of a wider network of tunnels under warwick's streets. there have always been whispers around here about the existence of tunnels, butjust how many are there, and what were they used for?

it's these questions which have hooked the harvey brothers. it is like a little puzzle, it is like a puzzle with bricks in and rocks in and a well, and a lot of people in warwick are like, theyjust want to talk about tunnels and never really want to investigate, they prefer to have the myth. i don't want to have the myth, i want the facts. alex and joe bring more than their passion to this quest, though. they also run a vr company called rivr, and they think vr can help figure out why this tunnel is here. the fire brigade can't always be on hand, and so today after my safety briefing i will be helping to capture images from the tunnel to help build up a photogrammetric 3d model of it.

no—one really knows when it was, but you just get a sense that it must have been hundreds of years ago. it really is very tight, but the fire brigade are a reassuring presence. they were pump air down here to keep it safe — and wow, it really is something. imagine the effort it took to hack through all this sandstone. whoever made these tunnels really wanted to do it. but nobody knows what they were for. this is the section i'm to take images of. it is really hard to pick up, but on the ceiling someone has used a burning candle to graffiti their name. 20 metres down the tunnel it's blocked by rubble, so frustrating. just what lies beyond? some think it may lead to the church cryptjust 100 metres away, but one local historian thinks there may have been a more prosaic use for it. i think we would all like to believe, and we would all like to imagine that these

are secret tunnels that connect a kind of murky underworld of residents from times gone by. i think the reality is traditionally that tunnels that have been discovered in and around warwick have had a very functional purpose, and that is principally as culverts to move waste and water out of the town, out of the roads, out of houses, into wells and into waste. whoa. laughs. you know, you still get the feeling, don't you? the next day i am checking out my work at the vr studio. it really does feel like i am back underground. it's a very lifelike experience. and there's that graffiti we couldn't see yesterday. you see on the roof here, the graffiti was made candlelight. it says "0. tibbits, 1894." could this reallyjust be a waste tunnel?

our historian has never been down himself, but now it's been scanned, it can. been scanned, he can. what do you make of it? yeah, so my first impression is across the two different types of construction in here. ifind it quite interesting, up above we have this red brick, large parts of warwick were completely gutted by fire in 1694—95, and so this would certainly correlate to this being built maybe when the houses up above were demolished and rebuilt after the fire. of course what really interests me is down below, this sandstone tunnel, because this looks like it has been really carved quite aggressively and quite vigorously into the rock. if this is just a waste tunnel, why is it so big? you know what, it's a very good question. my instinct before coming down here was that it was carved quite large because of course people would be coming down here, so they are not going to crawl around carving, they will need space to really kind of chip in. it is far larger than i expected, and i think that does question whether this was solely and indeed

originally only for waste. so the mystery continues, but the harvey brothers are in this for the long game. i see this project going on quite a long time. i feel like i couldn't really put it to bed until we have scanned the whole of warwick, above and below ground. it's fascinating seeing the correlation, for me, fascinating when i see the models, where you see the tunnel underneath the ground, and now we can determine where the buildings on top of the ground are in relation to the below ground. alex and joe are already using their vr tunnel to bring history alive for local schoolchildren. still, for some, vr can never quite beat the real thing. that's a tourist attraction, isn't it? i can see people doing that. anyway, that's it from us for this week. as ever you can find the team on social media, on youtube, instagram, facebook and twitter at @bbcclick. thanks for watching, class dismissed! bye— bye.

hello there. just when you thought summer was over, temperatures are set to climb over the next few days. and certainly for today, it's going to be a little warmer than it was yesterday in most places, but with the chance of some rain across the north—west of the uk. so as we head through the afternoon, then, most places england and wales will see some spells of sunshine, staying a bit misty and murky across coasts in the southwest, eastern scotland holding onto some brightness at least for a time, but for western scotland and northern ireland, we see thicker cloud and some outbreaks of rain, with a strengthening breeze. but temperatures are going to be a little higher than they were yesterday, 20 degrees for glasgow, 2a for cardiff and for london,

somewhere in the south getting to 26 degrees potentially, with just the small chance of the odd late shower, but most places remaining dry. not so further north — we have this band of rain, that will sink a little further southwards overnight, getting down into parts of northern england, turning very misty and murky for western coasts of wales and the south—west of england, and some fog patches developing elsewhere as well. a very mild and muggy start to monday morning. we will have this band of cloud and patchy rain in place across northern england and northern ireland, the rain will peter out but it will stay quite cloudy for many northern parts of the uk. further south, early mist and fog clearing to give sunny spells in many places and that sunshine will let temperatures as high as 27 degrees. and even further north, 21 aberdeen and 22 there in belfast. and there is more warmth to come. high pressure to the east of us bringing a southerly breeze, quite a brisk breeze at times as we head into the middle part of the week. but drawing this very warm air

up in our direction. you will feel that, particularly given lots of sunshine, and on tuesday, we can expect largely sunny skies after morning mist and fog has cleared. away from the far north of scotland, here it will stay quite cloudy. but look at the temperatures. 2a to maybe 28 or 29 degrees down towards the south, and for wednesday, very similar weather in most places. some good spells of sunshine around butjust the chance of some showers and thunderstorms starting to creep in from the south—west. but ahead of that, a very warm if not hot day for some of us. however, things do look set to change for the end of the week. it's going to turn more unsettled, with some rain at times. temperatures are a little lower by this stage but still quite respectable for this time of year.

good afternoon. the chief executive of one of prince charles' charities, the prince's foundation,

has temporarily stepped down