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A portrait of mathematician Alan Turing is thought to be the first artwork by a humanoid robot to be sold at auction – fetching $1,084,800 (£836,667).
One of the most advanced robots in the world, Ai-Da, a pioneering humanoid artist, also set a new record in the art world with the sale of “A.I. God”, at Sotheby’s Digital Art Sale.
The large-scale portrait far exceeded its estimated value of $120,000 to $180,000 (£93,000 to £140,000).
The BBC will bring you comprehensive coverage of the 2012 MotoGP season, which begins in April.
Qualifying from every race will be available on the BBC Red Button* and the BBC Sport website (UK users only).
We’ll also be showing full coverage of the 125cc and Moto2 races, including qualifying.
You can follow BBC presenter Matt Roberts and pit-lane reporter Azi Farni on Twitter, and you can debate all the major talking points on Matt’s blog throughout the season.
And if you miss any of the action, live don’t worry – we’ll be looping all qualifying and race action on the Red Button* immediately after it’s happened.
*Some red button coverage may not be available on Freeview – further details here
Or you can watch the race again on the BBC iPlayer for seven days after it has happened.
If you have any questions about the BBC’s motorsport coverage please first consult our main FAQs page.
New Zealand’s Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has formally apologised to victims of abuse in care homes, following an inquiry into one of the country’s biggest abuse scandals.
The historic apology, delivered in parliament, comes after a report found that 200,000 children and vulnerable adults had suffered abuse while in state and faith-based care between 1950 and 2019.
Many of them included people from the Māori and Pacific communities and those with mental or physical disabilities.
The government has since promised to reform the care system.
“I make this apology to all survivors on behalf of my own and previous governments,” said Luxon on Tuesday.
“It was horrific. It was heartbreaking. It was wrong. And it should never have happened,” he added. “For many of you it changed the course of your life, and for that, the government must take responsibility.”
The inquiry, which Luxon described as the largest and most complex public inquiry ever held in New Zealand, took six years to complete and included interviews with thousands of survivors of abuse in state and faith-based care institutions.
The ensuing report documented a wide range of abuses including rape and sterilisation, and forced labour.
It found that faith-based institutions often had higher rates of sexual abuse than state care; and civil and faith leaders fought to cover up abuse by moving abusers to other locations and denying culpability, with many victims dying before seeing justice.
The findings were seen as vindication for those who found themselves facing down powerful officialdom, the state, and religious institutions – and often struggling to be believed.
The inquiry made over 100 recommendations, including public apologies from New Zealand authorities and religious leaders, as well as legislation mandating suspected abuse to be reported.
Luxon said the government has either completed or is in the process of working on 28 of these recommendations, and will provide a full response next year.
He also announced a National Remembrance Day to be held on 12 November next year to mark the anniversary of Tuesday’s apology.
“It is on all of us to do all we can to ensure that abuse that should never have been accepted, no longer occurs,” he said.
The foreign secretary has dismissed his previous criticism of Donald Trump as “old news” and insisted he would be able to find “common ground” with the president-elect.
When he was a backbench MP in 2018, David Lammy described Trump as a “tyrant” and “a woman-hating, neo-Nazi-sympathising sociopath”.
But in his first interview since Trump’s victory, he told the BBC’s Newscast podcast the president-elect was “someone that we can build a relationship with in our national interest”.
Lammy praised his election campaign as “very well run”, adding that: “I felt in my bones that there could be a Trump presidency.”
In the interview, Lammy was challenged over comments he had made about Trump before he was foreign secretary.
In 2019, ahead of Trump’s state visit to the UK, Lammy also posted that the then-president was “deluded, dishonest, xenophobic, narcissistic” and “no friend of Britain”.
Pressed over whether he had changed his mind, Lammy said the remarks were “old news” and you would “struggle to find any politician” who had not said some “pretty ripe things” about Trump in the past.
“In that period, particularly with people on Twitter, lots of things were said about Donald Trump,” he said.
“I think that what you say as a backbencher and what you do wearing the real duty of public office are two different things.
“And I am foreign secretary. There are things I know now that I didn’t know back then.”
Asked in if Trump brought up his previous comments when the pair met for dinner in New York in September, Lammy said: “Not even vaguely.”
“I know this is a talking point today, but in a world where there’s war in Europe, where there’s a tremendous loss of life in the Middle East, where the US and the UK genuinely have a special relationship, where we got someone who’s about to become again, the US president, who has experience of doing the job last time round, we will forge common interests,” he said.
“We will agree and align on much and where we disagree, we’ll have those conversations as well, most often in private.”
Lammy called the incoming president “a very gracious host” who offered him “a second portion of chicken” during their dinner.
Sir Keir Starmer sidestepped a call by new Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch for Lammy to apologise for his past comments on Trump, at Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday.
In his Newscast interview, Lammy was also asked about the potential impact of Trump’s policies on UK trade.
He described Trump as “warm about the UK,” especially toward the Royal Family, and noted he “loves Scotland”.
But during the election campaign, he vowed to dramatically increase taxes, or tariffs, on foreign goods imported into the US.
Such a move could hit billions of pounds’ worth of British exports, including Scotch whisky, pharmaceutical products, and airplane parts.
Asked if the UK would seek a special trade arrangement so there were no extra tariffs on British exports to the US, Lammy said: “We will seek to ensure and to get across to the United States, and I believe that they would understand this, that hurting your closest allies cannot be in your medium or long-term interests.”
Lammy also said Trump was “correct” in his argument that Europe had fallen short on defence spending.
He called for a “clear” pledge from European governments to boosting military spending but could not say when the government would reach its target of spending 2.5% GDP on defence.
Lammy argued another state visit for Trump next year would be a “tall order” as they “take a while to organise”.
State visits are the highest level of diplomatic visit to the UK and traditionally involve a state banquet hosted by the monarch and a carriage parade along the Mall.
But Lammy said the government “generally want to be generous with our American friends”.
Reform UK Leader Nigel Farage, who spent US election night in Florida as Trump’s guest, said it would have been “impossible” for Lammy to “carry on” as foreign secretary if he had stuck by his previous comments.
But he warned that the “problems” in Lammy’s relationship with Trump would come from other issues, such as “giving away the Chagos Islands, where there’s a very important US naval base”.
Farage added he was “supremely confident that with the right negotiation, [the UK] can avoid” trade tariffs threatened by Trump, in an interview with BBC Wales.
