gaming telefoon
Military leaders are rattled by a list of 'woke' officers that a group urges Hegseth to fire
Nederland’s Walker signs with NavyNo secrets as Bucs visit Dave Canales, Panthers for NFC South showdownQatar tribune Agencies US austo giant General Motors announced Tuesday it will abandon its robotaxi development efforts after a highly publicized incident last year stymied its progress in the autonomous vehicle field. The Detroit-based manufacturer plans to merge the Cruise robotaxi vehicle unit with GM’s technical teams to concentrate on developing advanced driver assistance systems for personal vehicles, a statement said. The company said it abandoned the Cruise project “given the considerable time and resources that would be needed to scale the business, along with an increasingly competitive robotaxi market.” It marks a major turnaround for GM, which bought the Cruise startup in 2016 and has since spent billions of dollars to make the operation viable. “A robotaxi business is not General Motors’ core business,” said GM CEO Mary Barra in a call with analysts. But Barra said GM’s commitment to autonomous technology “is unwavering.” Honda, an investor in Cruise, had planned to launch a robotaxi service in Japan in 2026, but the Japanese group will now “reassess the project’s future and make necessary adjustments, including potential cancellation, once Cruise finalizes its restructuring,” Honda’s US subsidiary told AFP. The halt of operations comes a year after Cruise was forced to suspend all operations in San Francisco after one of its self-driving cars dragged a woman who had first been hit by a hit-and-run driver in the city. Cruise lost its operating permits from regulators, paused expansions into other states and laid off 900 employees - a quarter of its workforce. Shortly before the incident, California authorities had allowed for expanded driverless taxi services in San Francisco, giving the go-ahead for Alphabet-owned Waymo and Cruise. Copy 13/12/2024 10
But alongside his stark warning of the threats facing Britain and its allies, Admiral Sir Tony Radakin said there would be only a “remote chance” Russia would directly attack or invade the UK if the two countries were at war. The Chief of the Defence Staff laid out the landscape of British defence in a wide-ranging speech, after a minister warned the Army would be wiped out in as little as six months if forced to fight a war on the scale of the Ukraine conflict. The admiral cast doubt on the possibility as he gave a speech at the Royal United Services Institute (Rusi) defence think tank in London. He told the audience Britain needed to be “clear-eyed in our assessment” of the threats it faces, adding: “That includes recognising that there is only a remote chance of a significant direct attack or invasion by Russia on the United Kingdom, and that’s the same for the whole of Nato.” Moscow “knows the response will be overwhelming”, he added, but warned the nuclear deterrent needed to be “kept strong and strengthened”. Sir Tony added: “We are at the dawn of a third nuclear age, which is altogether more complex. It is defined by multiple and concurrent dilemmas, proliferating nuclear and disruptive technologies and the almost total absence of the security architectures that went before.” The first nuclear age was the Cold War, while the second was “governed by disarmament efforts and counter proliferation”, the armed forces chief said. He listed the “wild threats of tactical nuclear use” by Russia, China building up its weapon stocks, Iran’s failure to co-operate with a nuclear deal, and North Korea’s “erratic behaviour” among the threats faced by the West. But Sir Tony said the UK’s nuclear arsenal is “the one part of our inventory of which Russia is most aware and has more impact on (President Vladimir) Putin than anything else”. Successive British governments had invested “substantial sums of money” in renewing nuclear submarines and warheads because of this, he added. The admiral described the deployment of thousands of North Korean soldiers on Ukraine’s border alongside Russian forces as the year’s “most extraordinary development”. He also signalled further deployments were possible, speaking of “tens of thousands more to follow as part of a new security pact with Russia”. Defence minister Alistair Carns earlier said a rate of casualties similar to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine would lead to the army being “expended” within six to 12 months. He said it illustrated the need to “generate depth and mass rapidly in the event of a crisis”. In comments reported by Sky News, Mr Carns, a former Royal Marines colonel, said Russia was suffering losses of around 1,500 soldiers killed or injured a day. “In a war of scale – not a limited intervention, but one similar to Ukraine – our Army for example, on the current casualty rates, would be expended – as part of a broader multinational coalition – in six months to a year,” Mr Carns said in a speech at Rusi. He added: “That doesn’t mean we need a bigger Army, but it does mean you need to generate depth and mass rapidly in the event of a crisis.” Official figures show the Army had 109,245 personnel on October 1, including 25,814 volunteer reservists. Mr Carns, the minister for veterans and people, said the UK needed to “catch up with Nato allies” to place greater emphasis on the reserves. The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said Defence Secretary John Healey had previously spoken about “the state of the armed forces that were inherited from the previous government”. The spokesman said: “It’s why the Budget invested billions of pounds into defence, it’s why we’re undertaking a strategic defence review to ensure that we have the capabilities and the investment needed to defend this country.”
Chelsea: Enzo Maresca confident in Premier League referees after David Coote scandalMiddle East latest: Israeli strikes in Gaza kill more than 50 people, including kidsIrving scores 23 as Mavs beat Knicks, improve to 4-1 without Doncic
Vincenzo Italiano insists he saw improvement , but admits ‘you will be punished for errors’ at the level of the Champions League. The Rossoblu knew this was a must-win game, but they crumbled to their fourth consecutive defeat and are now practically out of the Champions League. It was the same old story this evening, with an early Thijs Dallinga effort disallowed for offside, then giving away cheap goals at the other end. Ngal’Ayel Mukau managed to score twice for LOSC at the Stadio Dall’Ara by making the most of poor defending, around the temporary equaliser from Jhon Lucumi on a Charalampos Lykogiannis free kick. “Compared to the other games, I thought the team was more present all over the pitch, we were more aggressive, but gave away two such cheap goals,” “We should’ve also continued with that furore after equalising, but we fell for the same error again and that second goal knocked the wind out of our sails.” The joy and enthusiasm of the equaliser lasted only for three minutes before LOSC restored their advantage and from then on, Bologna crumbled. “At least we managed to score a goal at last, but the victory is still not coming. We had a few opportunities to improve that today, but we were up against a quality opponent and I thought the overall performance was an improvement,” added Italiano. “We could’ve done more seeking Freuler behind their strikers, as he had a lot of space to build out from the back in a different way. We only did it in fits and starts, but there were overall some good moves down the flanks, it was just a shame we gifted those goals. It felt from the touchline like a game we could turn around, but we lost that intensity that we needed.” With one point from five rounds, Bologna are practically out of the running for a play-off spot and their Champions League campaign should come to an end in January. “We have been able to get out of a negative period in Serie A, aside from the last game where we were down to 10 men. We’ve improved a lot with three consecutive victories, so our objective is to keep improving in the league and climbing a few more positions,” insisted Italiano. “The trouble in the Champions League is that games are won and lost on details, so you risk defeat with the slightest issue, and that is what happened to us tonight. In all five matches, we played well, but then lost due to details either with our finishing or in defence. You cannot afford those errors at this level, you will be punished. “We will now go home and try to prepare for the game with Venezia. That is on Saturday, so we don’t have time to work on these details in training and the team is not accustomed to that sort of schedule. I do feel we can improve and whittle down a few of these defects that are costing us dearly,” concluded Italiano.The bus ride was familiar. The playing field, the atmosphere surrounding the biggest game of the season, too. 12/4 - 4:00 PM Football Final Shabazz 24 Rumson-Fair Haven 26
Trump Cabinet picks, appointees targeted by bomb threats and swatting attacksNEW YORK (AP) — They have seen him smiling on a hostel security camera, but don’t know his name . They found the backpack he discarded while fleeing, but don’t know where he’s gone. As the search for UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson’s killer goes on, investigators are reckoning with a tantalizing dichotomy: They have troves of evidence, but the shooter remains an enigma. Police don’t know who he is, where he is, or why he did it, though they are confident it was a targeted attack instead of a random act. “The net is tightening,” New York City Mayor Eric Adams said Saturday. Hours after he spoke, police divers were seen searching a pond in Central Park, where the killer fled after the shooting. Officers have been scouring the park for days for any possible clues and found his bag there Friday. Late Saturday, police released two additional photos of the suspected shooter that appeared to be from a camera mounted inside a taxi. The first shows him outside the vehicle and the second shows him looking through the partition between the back seat and the front of the cab. In both, his face is partially obscured by a blue, medical-style mask. Retracing the gunman’s steps using surveillance video, police say, it appears he left the city by bus soon after the shooting Wednesday morning outside the New York Hilton Midtown. He was seen on video at an uptown bus station about 45 minutes later, NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said. This undated photo provided by UnitedHealth Group shows UnitedHealthcare chief executive officer Brian Thompson. AP With the high-profile search expanding across state lines, the FBI announced late Friday that it was offering a $50,000 reward for information leading to an arrest and conviction, adding to a reward of up to $10,000 that the NYPD has offered. Police say they believe the suspect acted alone. Police provided no updates on the hunt Saturday, but investigators are urging patience — even with a killer on the loose. Hundreds of detectives are combing through video recordings and social media, vetting tips from the public and interviewing people who might have information, including Thompson’s family and coworkers and the shooter’s randomly assigned roommates at the Manhattan hostel where he stayed. “This isn’t ‘Blue Bloods.’ We’re not going to solve this in 60 minutes,” Kenny told reporters Friday. “We’re painstakingly going through every bit of evidence that we can come across.” The shooter paid cash at the hostel, presented what police believe was a fake ID and is believed to have paid cash for taxi rides and other transactions. He didn’t speak to others at the hostel and almost always kept his face covered with a mask, only lowering it while eating. But investigators caught a break when they came across security camera images of an unguarded moment in which he briefly showed his face soon after arriving in New York on Nov. 24. Police distributed the images to news outlets and on social media but so far haven’t been able to ID him using facial recognition — possibly because of the angle of the images or limitations on how the NYPD is allowed to use that technology, Kenny said. On Friday evening, investigators found a backpack in Central Park that had been worn by the gunman, police said. They didn’t immediately reveal what, if anything, it contained but said it would be tested and analyzed. Another potential clue, a fingerprint on an item he purchased at a Starbucks minutes before the shooting, has so far proven useless for identifying him, Kenny said. Bullets lie on the sidewalk at the scene outside the Hilton Hotel in midtown Manhattan where Brian Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, was fatally shot, Wednesday, Dec. 4, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Stefan Jeremiah) AP Aided by surveillance cameras on nearly every building and block, police have been able to retrace the shooter’s movements. They know he ambushed Thompson at 6:44 a.m. as the executive arrived at the Hilton for his company’s annual investor conference, using a 9 mm pistol that resembled the guns farmers use to put down animals without causing a loud noise. They know ammunition found near Thompson’s body bore the words “delay,” “deny” and “depose,” mimicking a phrase used by insurance industry critics . Kenny said the fact that the shooter knew UnitedHealthcare group was holding a conference at the hotel and what route Thompson might take to get there suggested that he could possibly be a disgruntled employee or client. Investigators know from surveillance video that the shooter fled into Central Park on a bicycle and ditched it around 7 a.m. near 85th Street. He then walked a couple blocks and got into a taxi, arriving at 7:30 a.m. at the George Washington Bridge Bus Station, which is near the northern tip of Manhattan and offers commuter service to New Jersey and Greyhound routes to Philadelphia, Boston and Washington. Investigators don’t know what happened next. They are searching through more surveillance video but have yet to locate video of the shooter getting on a bus or exiting the station. “We have reason to believe that the person in question has left New York City,” Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch told CNN on Friday. Police have determined from video that the gunman was in the city for 10 days before the shooting. He arrived at Manhattan’s main bus terminal on a Greyhound bus that originated in Atlanta, though it’s not clear whether he embarked there or at one of about a half-dozen stops along the route. Immediately after that, he took a cab to the vicinity of the Hilton and was there for about a half hour, Kenny said. At around 11 p.m. on the night he arrived, he went by taxi to the HI New York City Hostel. It was there, while speaking with an employee in the lobby, that he briefly pulled down the mask and smiled, giving investigators the brief glimpse they are now relying on to identify and capture a killer. More in Nation-World News Jubilation and gunfire as Syrians celebrate end of Assad family’s half-century rule Syrian government appears to have fallen in stunning end to 50-year rule of Assad family ‘Duck Dynasty’ star gets heartbreaking health news: ‘There’s no curing what he has’None
CMC Publishes 2024 Sustainability ReportI’m A Celeb fans call episode ‘most emotional ever’ and a ‘hard watch’ as campmates and viewers break down in tears
Trump calls for immediate ceasefire in Ukraine and says a US withdrawal from NATO is possible
(The Center Square) – Homeowners in the market for washers and dryers may have better-performing options to choose from in the near future due to a bill limiting the extent of energy efficiency mandates on laundry appliances passing the U.S. House. The Republican-led House Resolution 1612 , or Liberty in Laundry Act, would prohibit the Secretary of Energy from enforcing energy conservation standards for clothes washers or dryers that “are not cost-effective or technologically feasible.” Rep. Andy Ogles, R-Tenn., who introduced the legislation, said the move is a response to the “slew of woke, ‘environmental’ nonsense rulemaking attempts” by the Biden administration and U.S. Department of Energy. “I have spent much of my time in Congress fighting back the federal government’s vast overreach into the lives of hardworking Americans,” Ogles announced after the bill’s passage Tuesday. “Americans should be able to do their laundry in peace without the input of Big Brother.” Earlier this year, the DOE finalized new updated standards for residential clothes washers and dryers which aim to cut costs and pollution. It estimates the regulations will reduce nearly 71 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions–equivalent to the combined annual emissions of nearly 9 million homes–and up to $39 billion on Americans’ energy and water bills over the next 30 years. House Democrats opposed the legislation's passage, saying "absolutely no one" stands to benefit from the law and accused Republicans of trying to curry favor with special interest groups. "H.R. 7673 guts popular energy efficiency standards for laundry machines – standards that save Americans money on their utility bills and reduce dangerous greenhouse gas pollution at the same time," said Energy and Commerce Committee Ranking Member Frank Pallone, Jr., D-N.J. "These efficiency standards create certainty for manufacturers and they protect consumers from rising costs. And, in the case of these laundry machine standards, they also reduce water use – a benefit that could greatly aid drought-prone regions around the nation." But the less electricity and water laundry appliances use, the less effectively they tend to perform, according to an Oct. 2024 report by the Institute for Energy Research. “Historically, appliances meeting Energy Department standards have often underperformed and have higher costs,” the report stated. “The Biden-Harris administration is imposing a series of regulations that are raising appliance prices and compromising quality for homeowners.” Unless the bill is signed into law, laundry appliance makers have until March 2028 to comply with the new rules.
Trump Cabinet picks, appointees targeted by bomb threats and swatting attacksAnge Postecoglou does not seem prone to introspection and rarely succumbs to self doubt but maybe, just maybe, a little part of Tottenham’s manager wishes he had never left Glasgow. Things were so much simpler for the Australian when he was hoovering up trophies during his Celtic tenure. Back then Angeball not merely entertained but pretty much worked and he revelled in putting Rangers in their place. Such old certainties seemed cruel chimeras as Postecoglou failed to turn back time here, leaving his current Spurs players heading back to the airport nursing a record of only one win in their last eight matches. In truth a draw was the least Rangers deserved from a Battle of Britain punctuated by a soundtrack featuring renditions of “Sacked in the morning” aimed for Postecoglou’s ears. It was a bitterly cold night with temperatures hovering around freezing point by the Clyde but nothing could surely rival the inner chill Tottenham fans must have felt as they watched Philippe Clement’s side enhance their chances of direct progression to the Europa League’s knockout phase, leaving their guests contemplating the lottery of the playoffs following January’s final two initial stage games. Perhaps everyone had underestimated a Rangers side currently third in Scotland’s Premiership. After all they kicked off unbeaten in their previous eight fixtures and as Nedim Bajrami forced the excellent Fraser Forster into a fine save involving Tottenham’s former Celtic goalkeeper’s fingertips coming between the ball and the top corner it was easy to see why. By then Timo Werner was already underwhelming with every touch and a ferociously fast counterattacking Rangers dominated. At times Tottenham’s defence lived extremely dangerously with Forster required to save smartly from Vaclav Cerny before Bajrami somehow failed to connect with Jefté’s gloriously inviting cross that demanded to be tapped in from close range. After a slide to 11th in the Premier League and considerable debate about both the feasibility of “Angeball” and his own job security, Tottenham’s manager was in need of a restorative night on his first return to Govan but, instead, he looked increasingly stressed. For all his past success with Celtic Postecoglou won only one of his four visits to Ibrox with his old employers and here he could have done without needing to deploy Archie Gray out of position as an emergency centre-half in a defence badly missing, among others, the injured Micky van de Ven. When Forster again saved superbly from Cerny, with his feet this time, it was clear that Gray and co were struggling to cope with Rangers’ alacrity on the break. It did not help that the visitors treated the ball as a toxic object. With the exception of the efficient Yves Bissouma, they forfeited possession with alarming frequency as Clement’s players revelled in closing them down at ferociously high tempo, leaving James Maddison and co no time to sprinkle any stardust on proceedings. Rangers deservedly took the lead early in the second half. It started with a deep, lofted cross from James Tavernier and concluded with Hamza Igamane unleashing a sublime left footed shot that left Forster utterly helpless and Pedro Porro doubtless reflecting on how easily Igamane had dodged him. At least it served to galvanise Spurs and with Jack Butland finally making some important saves an equaliser beckoned. It finally arrived when Dominic Solanke and Maddison belatedly showed their class deconstructing the home rearguard before the substitute Dejan Kulusevski slipped a deceptive left-foot finish beyond Butland’s reach. Although Tavernier’s fine block subsequently denied Solanke, another substitute, a goal only further Forster brilliance prevented Cyriel Dessers from claiming a late home winner that would only have amplified those “sacked in the morning”choruses.