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YouTube is offering Hollywood celebrities and entertainers a free detection tool to help combat their deepfakes, expanding the Google-owned video platform's efforts to guard against AI-driven impersonations.

Last month, YouTube introduced its likeness protection tool -- which helps identify content in which a person's face appears altered or generated using AI technology -- to government officials, journalists, and political candidates.

The platform is now extending access to entertainers including actors and musicians, who face a heightened risk of having their likeness misused -- potentially harming their careers and distorting shared realities.

"We're expanding our likeness detection technology to the entertainment industry: talent agencies, management companies, and the celebrities they represent," YouTube said earlier this week.

Likeness detection "looks for AI-generated content with a participant’s likeness, like a deepfake of their face, and gives them the power to find it and request removal."

The video giant added that celebrities and entertainers were eligible to access the tool regardless of whether they have a YouTube channel.

"YouTube opening its deepfake detection capabilities to public figures reflects a turning point in how platforms approach identity protection in the age of generative AI," Alon Yamin, chief executive and co-founder of AI content detection platform Copyleaks, told AFP.

"The technology to replicate a person's face, voice, and mannerisms has advanced faster than the safeguards around it, creating a gap that bad actors are already exploiting."

- High stakes -

The move comes after hyper-realistic AI videos of dead celebrities -- created with apps such as OpenAI's easy-to-use Sora -- rapidly spread online, prompting debate over the control of deceased people's likenesses.

OpenAI's app also unleashed a flood of videos of celebrities such as Michael Jackson and Elvis Presley.

Last month, OpenAI said it was shutting down its Sora app.

In February, Irish director Ruairí Robinson created a stunningly realistic clip featuring Brad Pitt fighting Tom Cruise on a rooftop using a two-sentence prompt.

The widely circulated clip, which sparked alarm across Hollywood, was generated with Seedance 2.0, an AI video generation tool owned by the Chinese technology company ByteDance.

Robinson also created other videos depicting Pitt battling a sword-wielding "zombie ninja," and another showing him teaming up with Cruise to fight a robot.

Charles Rivkin, the chairman and chief executive of the Motion Picture Association, called on ByteDance to "immediately cease its infringing activity," accusing it of disregarding copyright law that protects creators and underpins millions of jobs.

YouTube said it was working with leading talent agencies to refine how likeness detection can protect entertainers.

The video giant is "doing the right thing by providing these tools at no cost to the talent, so they can protect their real estate," Jason Newman of the management and production firm Untitled Entertainment told The Hollywood Reporter.

"Their real estate is their face. Their real estate is their body. Their real estate is who they are, what they do, how they say it."

The expansion of the detection tool follows complaints from high-profile Americans about YouTube's cumbersome process for flagging and removing deepfakes from the platform –- especially as AI accelerates the creation of fabricated content.

"For celebrities, executives, and other high-profile individuals, the stakes are especially high as deepfakes can be used to spread misinformation, manipulate markets, damage reputations, or falsely imply endorsement. Robust detection is no longer optional," said Yamin.

"Detection systems must be highly accurate, continuously updated, and paired with clear policies and swift takedown processes to be effective. 

"This won't eliminate deepfakes entirely, but it can significantly reduce their reach and impact by making it harder for manipulated content to go undetected or unchallenged," he added.

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Laura Jacobs thought she'd never wear animal fur, having witnessed years of protests over its use in clothing -- until suddenly she started spotting it all over New York.

Jacobs fished out the long mink her grandmother left her years ago and took it to a Manhattan furrier to give it a second act.

Fur "was stigmatized for so long," Jacobs told AFP, posing before a full-length mirror and assessing a potential crop.

But the return of real fur "fits with everything that's going on with recycling and bringing back vintage," she said.

"I never would have bought a fur coat," Jacobs said, adding that the thought of "killing animals like that" gave her pause.

But "this felt like I was recycling it," she said.

New York is thawing out after a particularly cruel winter that's included debates over fur's revival as influencers push the look and retail sites report a jump in searches for vintage pieces.

Business owners like Larry Cowit -- who inherited and runs his family's Madison Avenue Furs -- are celebrating a sales spike.

"I have girls as young as 20 years old walking in, coming in from college, and putting on a fox jacket," Cowit told AFP. "We haven't seen that in quite a while."

Noelle Sciacca -- head of fashion at the high-end resale site The RealReal -- said "interest in fur has accelerated dramatically," with searches for vintage fur on their website nearly tripling in 2025 from 2024.

The trend is "booming across the board," she told AFP, "but real fur is clearly leading the surge."

Sciacca owes part of the interest to "sustainable, accessible resale options," which she said "has made consumers feel comfortable embracing fur as both stylish and thoughtful."

- Muddled public opinion -

The global fashion industry's use of fur has been on the outs for decades. 

Synthetic, cheaper alternatives have gained traction, and animal rights activists continue to push dropping the real thing.

Demonstrators recently urged Milan Fashion Week to go fully fur-free. New York's Fashion Week fur ban goes into effect in September 2026.

Many major designers have vowed to stop using it, including Prada, Michael Kors and Saint Laurent.

The European Commission meanwhile is reviewing a citizen's initiative that drew millions of signatures urging an EU-wide ban on fur farming. A spokesperson told AFP the commission would communicate in the coming weeks whether it would propose such a prohibition.

Yet the culture's court of public opinion has grown muddled, notably as concerns about fast fashion and petroleum-based materials grow.

"I always imagine all of the faux-fur coats being produced right now melting into a puddle of plastic. The idea of reuse and recycling can include vintage fur," Vogue archivist Laird Borrelli-Persson said in comments recently published by the fashion magazine.

"The question for me is whether wearing vintage fur increases the appetite for lookalikes -- either faux or new fur."

Real fur coats demand consistent upkeep. The skins contain natural oils, and garments not kept in a temperature-controlled environment -- ideally off-season in cold vaults -- can dry out and disintegrate.

"It's biodegradable," said Cowit.

But Ashley Byrne of animal rights group PETA said buying vintage under the banner of sustainability is "well-meaning but misguided."

She told AFP that shoppers who didn't grow up exposed to footage from inside fur farms should "understand that wearing any fur that came from the back of an animal who was tortured and killed is endorsing things that we're sure they do not want to support."

- Online influence -

Cowit said their ratio of vintage to new fur sales is now approximately 70 to 30. Pre-owned coats can go anywhere from $500 to $10,000, and the average mink is $1,500 to $1,800, he said.

He credits the internet with boosting business: "The influencers on social media have really changed the whole world."

Part of the online drive stems from the "mob wife" aesthetic that's trended on TikTok in recent years, looks featuring flashy jewelry, animal prints, and -- you guessed it -- fur.

Madison Avenue Furs' Instagram features Cowit's niece posing on the shop's balcony in a variety of plush coats recalling "Sopranos"-esque fashion.

Stylist Renee May, who stopped by with shoppers looking to modernize their grandmother's coats and check out new jackets, told AFP "a lot of my clients are wearing their furs again."

Nicole Bellmier, 36, called the look "very nostalgic."

"It's something to pass down to our children," her cousin Dominique Defonte added.

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Godzilla will be closer to audiences than ever before in "Godzilla Minus Zero," the film's Japanese director said.

"I don't think we've ever been able to get this close to Godzilla before," Takashi Yamazaki told AFP in an interview on the sidelines of CinemaCon in Las Vegas.

Yamazaki said the legendary monster's roars — as well as the thunderous sound of his footsteps — will reverberate through theaters in an unprecedented way.

He said this is thanks to advancements in cinematic sound and visual effects in movie theatres, a place he described as Godzilla's natural habitat.

The director — who helmed the 2023 box-office smash "Godzilla Minus One," which earned an Oscar for Best Visual Effects — said bringing audiences back to the cinema is not a matter of personal taste but a responsibility for filmmakers.

"It falls partly on us — the filmmakers — to constantly create new experiences and provide reasons for people to want to go to the movies and spend their time there," he said after presenting a preview of "Godzilla Minus Zero" at the industry's annual convention in Las Vegas.

The new movie, set to hit US theaters in November, stars Ryunosuke Kamiki and Minami Hamabe, and is set in 1949, two years after the events of "Minus One."

The production centers on the Shikishima family, who, "at the beginning of the film, are truly happy."

"They have finally found a balance in what it means to be a family," Yamazaki said. "And then, once again, they are confronted with utter despair and a horrific tragedy."

The director added that audiences will be able to identify with the sheer effort required to summon the strength to recover and find the will to go on living. 

For the 61-year-old filmmaker, taking on a sequel presented specific challenges — chief among them, the task of outdoing himself.

"'Godzilla Minus One' was, fortunately, highly acclaimed and has become one of the most beloved Godzilla films of all time," he said. 

"That benchmark has become a new obstacle. Little did I know I was feeding my enemy," added the director.

But the chance to take a second pass at the monster gives him the opportunity to do things he couldn't last time around.

"I wasn't able to do everything with 'Godzilla Minus One,'" said Yamazaki. "So, one of my own new challenges is to put images and visuals on the screen that no one has ever seen before in a kaiju film." 

In the teaser the director presented at CinemaCon, Godzilla is seen face-to-face with the Statue of Liberty in New York.

The image caused a stir in the room, but Yamazaki cautioned that — beyond the expectations the clip generated — "the film will feature Japan much more than people imagine."

"That scene is very important for the character in the film, and it is a very impressive kind of scene," he added.

But "the focus was on the story, and on finding what was best for the narrative." 

In the streaming era, Yamazaki also insisted on the importance of the big screen for Godzilla -- and how the monster, having been born on it, could only truly be at home when he looms many feet tall on a giant projection.

"I think [Godzilla] really needs to rely on certain experiences that we can only have inside movie theaters," he said. 

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A US soldier faces charges for using classified information to bet on online prediction markets related to the US operation to capture former Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro, the Department of Justice said Thursday.

US Army soldier Gannon Ken Van Dyke, 38, of Fayetteville, North Carolina, allegedly made over $400,000 by using the online platform Polymarket to bet on outcomes related to US forces arriving in Venezuela's capital Caracas and deposing Maduro -- an operation he helped plan and execute, according to justice officials. 

The US military launched strikes on Caracas on January 3, arresting Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores and whisking them to New York to face drug trafficking charges.

"Our men and women in uniform are trusted with classified information in order to accomplish their mission...and are prohibited from using this highly sensitive information for personal financial gain," Acting US Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a statement.

Van Dyke faces one count of wire fraud, one count of an unlawful monetary transaction and three counts of violating the Commodity Exchange Act, according to the indictment. 

The indictment marks the latest instance of insider information being used to bet on the actions of the second Trump administration.

Earlier in the year, six accounts on Polymarket made $1.2 million after betting that the United States would attack Iran on February 28, the day the war in the Middle East began.

No arrests have been made in connection with those bets, and so far there is no evidence US President Donald Trump or White House officials are linked to the transactions.

- Conflicts of interest -

Democratic lawmakers and other critics have accused Trump and his family of having conflicts of interest since the beginning of his second term.

In March, Trump posted on his Truth Social platform about "very productive" talks with Iran, sending oil prices downward and stocks surging -- and people who placed the flurry of futures trades beforehand likely pocketed tens of millions of dollars, according to calculations by a market operator for AFP. 

Members of the Trump family have also made hundreds of millions of dollars in profits from cryptocurrencies, a market he has sought to deregulate.

And Trump's son Donald Jr. is a partner at 1789 Capital, which made a multi-million investment in Polymarket last year, leading the prediction market to name him as a company adviser.

If Van Dyke, who used Polymarket to wager, is convicted on all counts, he faces a maximum sentence of 50 years in prison. 

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King Charles III heads to the United States on Monday with transatlantic tensions over the Iran war and the Epstein scandal's long shadow threatening to intrude on the landmark visit.

Both Buckingham Palace and the British government have said the four‑day trip will honour the historic relationship between the two countries as the US marks 250 years of independence.

Charles's first US state visit as monarch comes at the request of the UK government and President Donald Trump and will be made with Queen Camilla, according to the palace.

However, as the American leader's war with Iran drives a rare wedge between London and Washington, it has generated considerable controversy. 

Trump has repeatedly lambasted British Prime Minister Keir Starmer over his war opposition, alongside his government's immigration and energy policies.

"This is not Winston Churchill that we're dealing with," Trump grumbled in March, adding the so-called special relationship was "not like it used to be". The American leader has also mocked the perceived state of Britain's armed forces -- of which the king is commander-in-chief.

In turn, Starmer has stepped up his public criticism of the war, while stressing the breadth and depth of UK-US ties in defending the state visit. An early April YouGov poll found 48 percent of Britons support cancelling it.

"Often what the monarchy is able to do, through the bonds that they build, is reach through the decades in a situation like this," Starmer told MPs when asked why the trip was going ahead.

Trump -- a vocal admirer of the royals whose mother was Scottish -- told the BBC on Thursday the visit could "absolutely" help repair relations, praising the king as "fantastic".

- 'Politics' -

Charles, 77, showcased his diplomatic skills during Trump's state visit to Britain last September, with Royal Holloway University of London monarchy expert Craig Prescott noting he is "generally very good" at navigating such occasions. 

Prescott said the independence anniversary provided a useful "get out" for the British side to argue the trip is "not about Keir Starmer and Donald Trump, per se".

But he acknowledged it was "that little bit closer to politics" than usual and Charles would likely address the "very big elephant in the room" in a coded way in his speech Tuesday to the US Congress.

The first British monarch to address Congress since his mother, the late queen Elizabeth II, in 1991, he will mark the two countries' shared history and deep ties, the palace has said.

"He might refer to how the special relationship has perhaps waxed and waned over time," Prescott predicted, arguing Charles has proven to be a "better speaker" than his mother. 

But Graham Smith, of the anti-monarchy campaign group Republic, argued the king will "go through the rituals without offering anything of substance". 

The only critical thing "about this pointless trip is how Trump behaves," he said on X. 

Meanwhile, the scandal around late US sex offender Jeffrey Epstein threatens to encroach on the highly choreographed tour.

Charles has faced a major crisis over the friendship his brother Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, previously known as prince Andrew, had with the late billionaire, who died in prison in 2019.

The longstanding controversy intensified after Andrew was arrested in mid-February following new revelations over their links.

- 'Out of touch' -

The king, who stripped his disgraced brother of his titles in October, said "the law must take its course" in a rare personally signed statement.

Andrew, who remains under police investigation, has not been charged and has denied any wrongdoing.

Several US lawmakers have unsuccessfully urged the ex-prince to testify before Congress about Epstein.

Democrat Ro Khanna wrote to Charles in March requesting the king meet victims privately, while the family of late Epstein accuser Virginia Giuffre made a similar demand.

Palace sources have told UK media a meeting "will not be possible", arguing it could "impact on (police) inquiries, or the proper course of the law".

Khanna told The Times this month that declining would make Charles look "out of touch" and "diminishes the credibility of the monarchy for future generations".

But he added acknowledging the survivors and their struggle for justice in his Congress address "would go a long way".

The visit, which will see the royals have tea with Trump and first lady Melania and attend a state dinner, appears meticulously planned to avoid unscripted moments.

Only photographers will capture Tuesday's Oval Office meeting between Trump and Charles, limiting chances for the king to be blindsided by the unpredictable US leader and reporters. 

Charles and Camilla will visit New York on Wednesday, touring the 9/11 memorial, before departing Thursday for Bermuda for his first visit to a British overseas territory as monarch.

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A contentious bill to legalise assisted dying in England and Wales was set to fail Friday after running out of parliamentary time, having been stuck in the UK's unelected upper house.

In a historic vote last June, the lower House of Commons backed legalising euthanasia for adults who have been given less than six months to live and can clearly express a wish to die.

But more than 1,200 amendments to the bill have been introduced in the second chamber, the House of Lords, meaning it will not pass before the end of the current parliamentary session.

Under the proposed change in the law, Britain would emulate several other countries in Europe and elsewhere that allow some form of assisted dying, including Belgium and the Netherlands.

But both chambers of parliament must approve the legislation for it to become law, and bills that are still in progress when a session ends usually fail.

Supporters of the bill claim opponents in the Lords deliberately blocked the law by introducing over 1,000 amendments.

A debate on the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill is scheduled for Friday, with the end of this parliamentary session expected to be announced imminently.

More than 200 peers signed a letter late on Thursday saying the bill "will fall as a result of deliberate delaying tactics pursued by a minority of peers opposed to its passage".

Kim Leadbeater, the MP who introduced the draft bill in late 2024, vowed to try again at the next session.

She insisted she will "keep pushing for a safer, more compassionate law until parliament reaches a final decision".

"This delay, this lack of a vote, this lack of choice has a real human cost," said campaigner Rebecca Wilcox outside parliament on Wednesday.

Wilcox is the daughter of popular British broadcaster Esther Rantzen who is terminally ill and has spearheaded the campaign for a law change.

"I can't help feeling unbelievably furious that we are here again when we should be celebrating a vote," she told the PA news agency.

- Coercion fears -

Critics including the Christian Medical Fellowship (CMF), which represents medical professionals opposed to assisted dying, said they were "relieved" that a bill they regarded as flawed would not become law.

The bill's failure to progress highlighted "a difficult but important truth: it is not possible to construct an assisted suicide service that is safe, equitable, and resistant to placing unacceptable pressure on the most vulnerable", a spokesperson said in statement to AFP.

Supporters of the bill say legalised euthanasia will give people with an incurable illness dignity and choice at the end of their lives.

Under the proposed legislation, any patient's wish to die would have to be signed off by two doctors and a panel of experts.

They would have to be able to administer the life-ending substance themselves.

Opponents of the bill in the upper house include Paralympian Tanni Grey-Thompson.

She has said she is not opposed to the principle of assisted dying but is against the bill in its current form due to worries about the vulnerabilities of disabled people and possible coercion.

The demise of the bill comes as a healthy 56-year-old British woman said she planned to take her life at a Swiss suicide clinic in coming days, in an illustration of the complexity of the issue.

Wendy Duffy has said she is determined to end her life due to overwhelming grief at the loss of her only child in a freak accident, according to a report in the Daily Mail.

Lawmakers in the self-governing British dependencies of Jersey and the Isle of Man have already approved euthanasia legislation but the moves are still awaiting royal assent.

Lawmakers in Edinburgh in March rejected a bill in the devolved Scottish parliament to legalise assisted dying.

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Arsenal can reclaim the Premier League summit this weekend as in-form Manchester City focus on the FA Cup, while Tottenham and West Ham battle to avoid the final relegation spot.

Mikel Arteta's Gunners have watched their imposing nine-point lead vanish quickly, with City currently top on goals scored.

One relegation spot remains to be decided after Wolves and Burnley dropped into the second tier this week while the battle for European football is tight.

AFP Sport looks at three talking points ahead of the action:

Arsenal's last chance

Manchester City and Arsenal are locked together on 70 points, with five games left. Both teams have a plus-37 goal difference.

Two things separate the teams -- the number of goals scored and experience of getting over the line.

City, who have netted three more times than Arsenal, have never failed to go on and win the title having led after 33 games or more in the Premier League.

The Gunners, who lost 2-1 at the Etihad last weekend, can return to the top with a win or a draw at home to Newcastle, with City taking on Southampton in the FA Cup semi-finals.

The following week, Mikel Arteta's men play first, meaning they could be six points clear before City face Everton on May 4.

Perennial runners-up Arsenal, who have the easier run-in on paper, must shrug off their recent collapse and put the pressure back on City.

The Blues, currently topping the table for the first time since August, are favourites but it is not over yet.

Spurs scrap

Tottenham desperately need a win at relegated Wolves on Saturday to restore hope that they can avoid dropping down to the second tier for the first time in nearly 50 years.

The London team, now under the leadership of Roberto De Zerbi, are still winless in the Premier League since December after conceding a late goal in last weekend's draw with Brighton.

Spurs, 18th in the table, are two points from safety with five games left.

This week the club posted an advert for a lead psychologist as De Zerbi focuses on improving the squad's mentality.

"I have no time to see negative people, to see sad players or sad assistants," the Italian said after the Brighton match.

West Ham, in 17th spot, host Everton on Saturday while Nottingham Forest, three points above the Hammers, travel to face Sunderland on Friday. Leeds, on 40 points, are all but safe.

Analysts Opta predict Spurs will go down but a win could inject new confidence into the side.

Champions League race alive

The heat has come out of the race to finish in the top five, with Manchester United, Aston Villa and Liverpool all comfortably on course to secure Champions League football next season.

In-form Brighton have not given up the chase, even though they are five points behind fifth-placed Liverpool and have played a game extra.

Fabian Hurzeler's men, who destroyed hapless Chelsea 3-0 this week, have won six of their past eight league games to stay in the hunt.

And the side that finishes sixth could still qualify for Europe's top club competition, giving extra incentive to a clutch of clubs from Brighton, in sixth spot, all the way down to Fulham, in 12th.

For that to happen, Villa would need to win the Europa League and finish fifth in the Premier League.

Fixtures (all times GMT)

Friday

Sunderland v Nottingham Forest (1900)

Saturday (1400 unless stated)

Fulham v Aston Villa (1130), Liverpool v Crystal Palace, West Ham v Everton, Wolves v Tottenham, Arsenal v Newcastle (1630)

Monday

Manchester United v Brentford (1900)

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The United Nations on Friday said a three-year effort to immunise children who missed routine vaccinations due to the Covid-19 crisis was on course to reach the 21 million target.

The pandemic, which swept around the world in 2020, severely strained health systems and disrupted vaccination campaigns, resulting in a resurgence of infectious diseases such as measles and polio.

The UN's World Health Organization and the UN children's agency UNICEF, plus Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance said in a joint statement that the so-called Big Catch-Up campaign "is on track to meet its target of catching up 21 million children".

The vaccine drive concluded in March.

While final data is still being compiled, by the end of December 2025, the campaign had reached an estimated 18.3 million children aged one to five across 36 countries in Africa and Asia with more than 100 million doses of life-saving vaccines.

Of those children reached, an estimated 12.3 million had never received a vaccine dose before, while 15 million had never previously received a measles vaccine.

Besides reaching those children, the agencies said the drive had also improved immunisation programmes, making them better equipped to identify older children who were not on the system, having missed earlier doses.

"By protecting children who missed out on vaccinations because of disruptions to health services caused by Covid-19, the Big Catch-Up has helped to undo one of the pandemic's major negative consequences," said WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

- Anti-vaccine content -

But not all is rosy.

Vaccines are facing a tide of misinformation and disinformation, the agencies said, while cuts in foreign aid spending were also taking their toll.

The statement said chronic gaps in routine immunisation were "plain to see", with measles outbreaks rising in every region with around 11 million cases in 2024.

The surge is compounded by "declining vaccine confidence in some previously high-coverage communities".

The WHO's vaccines director Kate O'Brien told reporters that while the person parents trusted most on vaccination remained the health worker they interact with, "what is really troubling and a very high concern to all of us is that there has been evermore a politicisation of vaccines and of health".

Gavi chief executive Sania Nishtar added that "we are up against a social media engine which has an incentive to promote disinformation, and I think that needs to be strategically tackled".

"The social media algorithms promote hate, disinformation and lies. Put a good piece of information out there and you will have no traction," she said.

Ephrem Lemango, global chief of immunisation at UNICEF, said social media algorithms "tend to reward outrage over accuracy, and there is so much anti-vaccine content" that it has it own "economy behind it".

"So we do need better content that is disseminated through these platforms," he told a press conference.

The continued decline of foreign aid spending and sharp funding cuts to global health "have seriously affected delivery of immunisation services. This will likely reverse hard-earned progress," he added.

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The world's biggest car show opens Friday in Beijing, with hundreds of thousands of auto fans expected to descend on the Chinese capital to size up the latest sleek, teched-out models on the market.

Legacy overseas brands such as Volkswagen, Toyota and BMW once dominated in China, but have lost market share in past years to domestic firms that beat them to the electric vehicle revolution and undercut them on price.

Chinese manufacturers including BYD, Xiaomi and Xpeng are now also at the forefront of integrating AI software and autonomous driving technology into their EVs.

The Auto China exhibition, hosted at two side-by-side venues in the capital, will span 380,000 square metres (four million square feet), according to organisers -- sprawling more than 50 football pitches.

More than 1,400 vehicles from hundreds of foreign and domestic companies will be on show from Friday, when the show opens to industry professionals and the media, and later to the public from April 28 until May 3.

Domestic brands are expected to fight to out-wow competition with upgrades in autonomous driving, battery charging and futuristic transportation.

Xpeng -- founded just over a decade ago -- said it plans to showcase "the latest progress in robotics and flying cars", as well as a new smart driving system.

Foreign automakers, meanwhile, are increasingly collaborating with local companies to keep pace with technological advances.

BMW has partnered with Chinese battery maker CATL, while Audi is using Huawei's driving assistance systems and Volkswagen is developing EVs together with Guangzhou-based Xpeng.

- Fierce competition -

This year, companies will also jostle to sell space, analysts say, with roomy SUVs' new growth area targeting customers prioritising seating and comfort.

China "has become a customer retention and replacement/upgrade-driven market, and these big SUVs address that need," independent analyst Lei Xing wrote in a blog this week.

Firms have flooded the domestic market in recent years with trade-in schemes, offering huge discounts to customers to give up their old auto for a new one.

The fierce price war led Chinese officials last year to call for tighter price monitoring and improving long-term regulation of competition.

But newcomers appear unfazed, Lei wrote, naming at least eight EV brands from Chinese automakers that have cropped up over the last two years.

Electric cars, which China dominates, are also getting a boost as spiralling oil prices from the Middle East war nudge drivers away from fossil-fuel powered models.

Companies are vying to outlast the competition on range.

Xiaomi's CEO Lei Jun recently completed a 1,300-kilometre (800-mile) road trip from Beijing to Shanghai in the new SU7 Pro electric sedan -- stopping just once to charge during the 15-hour drive.

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Second-ranked Nelly Korda fired a bogey-free seven-under par 65 to seize a two-stroke lead after Thursday's opening round of the LPGA Chevron Championship, the year's first major women's event.

The 27-year-old American, seeking her second Chevron title in three seasons and her second victory of the year, birdied two of her last three holes at Houston's Memorial Park.

"The wind was picking up here and there," Korda said. "Through the trees it was definitely gusting so I had to lock in on a couple of yardages here and there.

"Overall, I just felt really good, though, out there."

Thailand's Patty Tavatanakit and South Korea's Lee So-mi shared second on 67.

China's Liu Yan, Japan's Yuri Yoshida, France's Pauline Roussin-Bouchard and 20-year-old American amateur Farah O'Keefe shared fourth on 68.

Korda, the 2024 Chevron champion, won the season-opening Tournament of Champions and has three runner-up LPGA finishes since.

After firing her second-lowest opening round in a major since the 2022 Evian Championship, Korda said she had learned a key lesson about the course, a first-time host of the event.

"I would say miss in the correct spots," Korda said. "It's all about the second shot in on this golf course. The rough isn't too high so if you don't hit your driver too great, it's OK, but it's still about placement going into the greens."

After birdies at the 12th and par-five 16th on her front nine, Korda birdied the first three holes after the turn, hitting a five-foot putt at one, a 6-iron to six feet and made putt at the par-three second then sinking an eight-foot putt at the 12th to grab a share of the lead.

A six-foot birdie putt at the par-three seventh lifted Korda into the solo lead and she sank a five-foot birdie putt at the par-five eighth to stretch her lead before a closing par.

It was Korda's first bogey-free round since the second round of the 2024 Women's British Open.

Patty, a 26-year-old from Bangkok, won her first LPGA title and only major triumph at this event in 2021 when it was known as the ANA Inspiration and played in California.

Her bogey-free start included birdies at the par-five first, third and eighth holes as well as the par-three 15th and par-four 17th.

"I feel like I was just out there enjoying the moment," Patty said. "It wasn't perfect. I wish I would have hit my driver a little bit better.

"I was able to scramble around and save some good pars. It's still not like where I want it to be. At the same time I'm not out there to chase perfection. My job is to get the ball inside the hole as fast as I can and I feel like did that really well."

Lee, seeking her first major triumph, began her round on the back nine and made birdies at the 10th, 13th and par-five 14th, first, third and eighth before ending with her lone bogey at the ninth.

"Recently I've been having problems with my shots. I think the problem is I was trying to hit it so perfectly," Lee said through a translator.

"One part I improved was my mental game, and also before the round I practiced my putter more than usual. I think that helped a lot."

Thailand's top-ranked Jeeno Thitikul, seeking her first major title, opened with a 74.

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