Flenn.

A large explosion has killed at least eight people in the Colombian capital, Bogotá, the country's defence ministry says. The blast happened outside a school for police cadets in the south of the city. Thirty-eight people were reportedly injured in the blast which happened at 09:30 local time (14:30 GMT). Images show a charred vehicle in front of the General Santander school, which is located in a working-class area of Bogotá. Colombian President Iván Duque, who was in the west of the country at the time of what he said was an "attack", tweeted that he would return to the capital immediately. He said Colombians would not "bow to violence". Bogotá's mayor Enrique Peñalosa said he condemned the "terrorist act" but so far the authorities have not said who may be behind the explosion. Colombian radio station RCN tweeted footage of the scene of the blast. Car bombs were not uncommon during the decades-long conflict between the Colombian government and left-wing rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc). But local media say there has been no such blast in the past nine years. The Farc signed a peace agreement with the government in November 2016 and the group has since become a political party. Another rebel group, the National Liberation Army (ELN), however, is still active

The death toll from a suspected gas explosion in central Paris has risen to four after rescue workers found the body of a woman in the rubble. Two firefighters and a Spanish tourist were also killed in Saturday's blast at a bakery near a po[CENSORED]r area. Dozens more people were injured in the blast, which also caused damage in nearby streets. The cause was thought to be accidental, though other explanations have not been excluded, the Paris prosecutor said. Some 30 firefighters were involved in the search for a woman who had been declared missing, reports say. The body found on Sunday was in the process of being identified, a spokesman for the Paris fire service said. Search efforts would continue, he said, although rescue workers were no longer looking for anyone reported missing as such, he said. The latest casualty figures were nine people seriously injured, including one firefighter, and another 45 people with lighter injuries, including six firefighters, suffering from hearing or psychological difficulties, he added. Work was going on to reinforce the buildings hit by the blast, and residents "would have to wait a long time" before being allowed to return home, he added. The blast happened at the Hubert bakery at 6, rue de Trévise. A gas leak had been reported in the building and firefighters had arrived to deal with it when the explosion occurred. Around 150 people have been housed in temporary accommodation because of damage to nearby buildings.

Why it matters: Great news for anyone who likes to pack a ton of super-high resolutions photos, along with 4K/8K videos, onto their SD cards. At CES, Lexar has just announced the first 1TB SDXC memory card that you can now buy. Back in 2016, SanDisk unveiled a prototype SDXC card that also came with a one terabyte capacity, but a final commercial product never arrived. Now, it’s been beaten to the punch by Lexar’s Professional 633x line of SDHC and SDXC UHS-I cards, which have capacities ranging from 16GB up to 1TB. “Almost fifteen years ago, Lexar announced a 16GB SD card,” Lexar Senior Marketing Manager Joey Lopez said in a statement. “Today we are excited to announced 1TB of storage capacity in the same convenient form factor.” The highest-capacity card’s specs claim it has read speeds of up to 95MB/s and write speeds of 70MB/s, though its V30/U3 rating suggests we can expect sustained performance closer to 30MB/s. Back in 2017, Micron, Lexar’s then parent company, announced it was discontinuing the Lexar media storage business. But last August saw the brand re-introduced almost a year after being acquired by Chinese flash storage maker Longsys. Not surprisingly, the 1TB card doesn’t come cheap. Lexar lists the price at $499, though B&H has it available to order for $399.99, which is still $100 more than buying two 512GB SD cards. While SanDisk might have missed out on the first commercial 1TB SD card, the company just revealed a prototype 4TB thumb drive at CES featuring a USB Type-C interface. Hopefully, this is one product it will eventually launch.

An opposition presidential candidate in the Democratic Republic of Congo has filed an appeal against the result of last month's election. Martin Fayulu insists he won the vote and has demanded a manual recount, but the electoral commission declared rival Felix Tshisekedi the winner. Security forces have deployed near Mr Fayulu's residence. He accuses Mr Tshisekedi, also an opposition candidate, of making a deal with outgoing President Joseph Kabila. Announcing the appeal, Mr Fayulu's lawyer Feli Ekombe said, quoted by AFP: "The petition demands the annulment of the results proclaiming Felix Tshisekedi president of the republic. It was introduced yesterday [Friday]." On Saturday, Mr Fayulu repeated that the result did not reflect "the truth of the ballot boxes". The electoral commission also said the pro-Kabila coalition had won a majority of parliamentary seats. Several Western governments and the influential Roman Catholic Church in DR Congo have expressed surprise and concern at the declared results. Mr Kabila has been in office for 18 years and the result, if confirmed, would create the first orderly transfer of power since independence from Belgium in 1960. What does Fayulu say? Dozens of Fayulu supporters had gathered outside his residence in the capital, Kinshasa, to chant slogans against Mr Kabila and Mr Tshisekedi. However they fled inside the building when the security forces arrived on Saturday, Reuters news agency reports. Speaking earlier to BBC Africa editor Fergal Keane, Mr Fayulu said he would challenge the declared result in the constitutional court. "I will do whatever is possible for me to do to get the truth because the Congolese want change," he said. Mr Fayulu admitted such a challenge would have little chance of success as the court was "composed of Kabila's people" but he said he did not want to give his opponents any chance to say he had not followed the law. "Felix Tshisekedi has been nominated by Mr Kabila to perpetuate the Kabila regime. Because today the boss is Kabila," Mr Fayulu said. "Mr Kabila cannot stay and make an arrangement with someone who will not have any power... Mr Tshisekedi knows himself that he did not win." Mr Fayulu said he feared there would be violence if the electoral commission did not give the true figures "polling station by polling station" and that it was the right of all Congolese to demonstrate according to the law. Has there been any violence? Thousands of supporters of Mr Tshisekedi took to the streets to celebrate but those who backed Mr Fayulu also came out in protest. Violent scenes were reported in Kikwit, where at least two policemen and two civilians were said to have been killed. There were reports of several hundred students protesting against the result and being dispersed by tear gas in the town of Mbandaka. Protests were also reported in Kisangani but the south, where Mr Tshisekedi has broad support, was mainly celebrating. UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has urged all sides "to refrain from violence" and widespread unrest has not yet been reported.

Iran got off to a dream start in the Asian Cup but ahead of Saturday's meeting with Vietnam, Saman Ghoddos is playing down expectations. Saman Ghoddos insists Iran are not allowing themselves to think of lifting the Asian Cup even after their sensational start to the tournament. Carlos Queiroz's men - the highest-ranked of the 24 nations involved in the competition - face Vietnam on Saturday on the back of a 5-0 thrashing of Yemen in their opening Group D fixture. Amiens forward Ghoddos rounded off the scoring in that rout as Iran delivered a performance to underline their credentials in many people's eyes as favourites to add to their three titles. That trio of crowns arrived in successive tournaments in the 1960s and 70s, but Ghoddos believes it is far too early in this year's event to start dreaming of possible glory for the current generation. "That's not a thought in our minds right now, because it's a long tournament and it's tough games," Ghoddos said. "We're just looking forward to the next game, and right now that's Vietnam. That's important for us, to just think about the next game and not think too many steps in front. "To be honest I haven't watched the other games, just to keep focused on my own game, so I don't know the level yet. "The coach and his team have analysed them and we have watched some videos. It's a good team, all respect to them. However, we are going to play our game and we are not thinking so much about the other team." Victory at Abu Dhabi's Al Nahyan Stadium will secure qualification to the last 16 for Iran, who stand 71 places above their opponents in the FIFA rankings. Vietnam's tournament got off to a heart-breaking start on Tuesday as they led twice before conceding a 90th-minute winner to a fine free-kick from Iraq's Ali Adnan. Head coach Park Hang-seo spoke of his immense pride at that display, but the South Korean was under no illusions as to the test that awaits his players on Saturday. "Hopefully we'll try to play better against Iran in the next game even though they are a much stronger opponent," he said. PLAYERS TO WATCH Vietnam - Nguyen Cong Phuong The striker netted Vietnam's second goal against Iraq and against tougher opponents in Iran, one expects he will have to make the most of any half-chances that come his way if his side are to avoid falling to successive defeats. Iran - Mehdi Taremi The Al-Gharafa forward was the star of the win over Yemen, scoring twice and laying on an assist for Sardar Azmoun. Iran will hope he can recreate that performance as they look to secure their place in the knockout stages. KEY OPTA FACTS - This will be the first encounter at the Asian Cup between Vietnam and Iran. - Vietnam have lost their last three Asian Cup games, conceding nine goals. They were unbeaten in their first two Asian Cup games (W1 D1), conceding just once. - Iran have won each of their last eight Asian Cup group-stage matches – a win against Vietnam will see the nation hold the outright record for successive group-stage wins. - Vietnam's defeat to Iraq in their 2019 Asian Cup opener was their first defeat in 19 international matches (W9 D9), with their previous loss coming in December 2016 against Indonesia. - Iran have conceded just one goal in their last eight Asian Cup games in the group stages, keeping a clean sheet in each of the previous six.

Last weekend I purchased some marijuana. Not from some friend of a friend of a friend, but from an actual dispensary in Boulder, Colorado. Boulder, like the rest of Colorado, has recreational marijuana dispensaries where you can purchase weed legally. It was cool. But while my partner had purchased legal marijuana in the past, I didn’t know the first thing about the standard operating procedure of bud buying. If you’re not a native, or are visiting a state just to get some cannabis while you vacation, you might want to adhere to a few easy to follow guidelines to make yourself a model dispensary customer. The dispensary, as well as the locals, will appreciate it. Keep Your ID Handy Visiting a dispensary involves proving you’re 21, and that means whipping out your ID. You’ll have to show it twice: first when you walk in the door, and again when you’re finally purchasing your recreational cannabis. Dispensaries are rigorous in their ID checks, with some scanning the IDs to ensure they’re legitimate. Bring Cash Don’t count on using your bank card for purchases at a dispensary. Since marijuana is still considered a Schedule I narcotic on a federal level, it’s illegal for dispensaries to use bank accounts to process transactions, and that means you aren’t able to purchase it with your debit or credit card. You’ll need cash in most situations. Some dispensaries have ATMs inside for your convenience, but you should call ahead to double check. Plan Ahead You should be prepared before you walk in the door and familiar with what you might be interested in purchasing. That means doing a little research beforehand, checking out the dispensary’s site and inventory, and asking friends more familiar with marijuana than you about the best way to get started if it’s your first time. Be sure to check their hours as well; some dispensaries are open late, some open early, and some are closed on certain days of the week. Cameras and Phones are a No-No You should shy away from last-minute lookups and sharing with the world your current weed-friendly situation until you’re home. I was nearly ejected from the first dispensary I visited simply because my DSLR was hanging off my wrist, despite it having a lens cap. Dispensaries have a pretty strict “no photos” policy that you should adhere to unless you want to get kicked out of the store. Be Nice to Your Bud Tender Your bud tender is your marijuana middleman, the person behind the counter that helps you pick the right product. That means you should treat them with the same respect you’d show your friendly neighborhood mixologist, and not like some stoner who just loves weed. They’re happy to help as long as you’re polite. It helps to think about your questions beforehand, so you’re not staring dumbfounded while your bud tender waits for your brain to catch up to your mouth. You shouldn’t feel obligated, but if you’d like to tip your bud tender, you should check the rules beforehand. Some states, like Washington, allow tipping as long as it isn’t linked to product pricing or used to avoid paying certain taxes. Smoke ‘Em if You Got ‘Em (at Home) Smoking marijuana in public is still illegal, despite the growing number of states legalizing recreational use. That means you can’t smoke it outside the dispensary you just walked out of. Some states, like Maine and Massachusetts, will fine offenders up to $100 for smoking in public.

Licensing red-tape violate First Amendment, says court in battle over timing algorithm Oregon's regulations stopping people in the US state from referring to themselves as engineers are unconstitutional, a federal magistrate judge has ruled. The decision was sought by Mats Järlström, a Swedish electronics engineer living in Oregon, who was fined in 2016 for calling himself an engineer in correspondence with state officials and doing math. The state rules prohibited individuals from representing themselves as engineers unless they had registered as professional engineers in Oregon. Unregistered engineers risked being fined simply for using the title in the state. Järlström in 2015 emailed the Oregon State Board of Examiners for Engineering and Land Surveying to explain that the state's automated traffic light camera system was flawed after his wife in 2013 received an automatically generated ticket while driving in Beaverton, Oregon. The equation being used to catch drivers passing through an intersection after a red light is "only applicable if you're stopping or going in a straight line," Järlström said in a phone interview with The Register. For explaining how to fix the camera system's math in an email to state regulators and for referring to himself as an engineer, he was ordered to pay $500 in 2016. Last year, with the help of the Institute for Justice, a legal advocacy organization focused on limiting the scope of government, Järlström challenged the fine and the state's professional regulations governing engineers. A victory for common sense The decision, by US Magistrate Judge Stacie Beckerman last week, converted a preliminary injunction granted in May 2017 into a permanent one. The injunction, which limits the application of the state's Professional Engineer Registration Act, allows Järlström to communicate his views about traffic light camera equations publicly and privately without the review of an Oregon-licensed professional engineer, provided that communication isn't done as a government employee or contractor. Also, it allows him to refer to himself as an "engineer" and bars the state from enforcing its Professional Engineer Registration Act against Järlström for such activities. The ruling, Järlström said, applies to himself and everyone else. "My wife is an engineer and she can now legally use her business card publicly," he said. Nonetheless, he said his victory wasn't complete because the judge did not completely invalidate the Professional Engineer Registration Act. He said that attorneys at the Institute for Justice are meeting to discuss whether to pursue an appeal. He contends licensing rules that may serve a legitimate purpose, such as prohibiting people from calling themselves medical doctors without proper licensing, shouldn't be applied to engineers not working in a public context. That is to say, while it may make sense to ensure that a registered professional engineer signs off on a bridge design, not every act of engineering has public safety implications. As noted in the judge's opinion, the Oregon State Board of Examiners for Engineering and Land Surveying has proposed modifying its rules to distinguish between the ill-defined term "engineer" and variants that will be licensed, namely"professional engineer" and "registered professional engineer." "It's maybe not 100 per cent over but for me it feels very good," said Järlström, noting that as a Swedish citizen living in America, he felt proud to be able to defend the US Constitution. "I think everyone will benefit from this because you need to be able to share ideas whether you're an engineer or not," he said.

Russian price tracking website e-Katalog has listed AMD's complete upcoming Ryzen 3000-series processor lineup. It’s notable that E-Katalog doesn't sell products. Instead, it lists pricing for a range of items, like household and computer equipment, electronics, home, and office products, much like PCPartPicker. While the specifications fall in line with the recent AdoredTV leak, these listings could be placeholders and should be taken with a grain of salt. However, if there is any truth to the listings, AMD could really shake up the processor market with the new Ryzen chips. The Ryzen 3000-series processors, allegedly codenamed Matisse, are purportedly based around AMD's Zen 2 processor microarchitecture, which makes them the successors to the current Pinnacle Ridge processors. However, unlike Pinnacle Ridge which was produced with GlobalFoundries' 12nm node, Matisse chips would be manufactured by TSMC on the 7nm production process. AMD Ryzen 3000 Series Specifications According to rumors, the third-generation Ryzen processors will reportedly receive both core and frequency upgrades. AMD is expected to bump up the Ryzen 3 3000 models four cores up to six, the Ryzen 5 3000 chips from six to eight, and the Ryzen 7 3000 parts from eight to 12. The introduction of Ryzen 9 3000 processors with up to 16 cores and 32 threads is perhaps the most surprising aspect of the recent leaks because it would effectively push the mainstream AM4 platform into Threadripper territory, much like Intel has encroached upon its own HEDT lineup with its mainstream Core i9-9900K. According to the listings, the Ryzen 3 3300 runs at 3.2GHz with a 4GHz boost clock and 50W TDP (thermal design power), while the Ryzen 3 3300X variant boasts a 3.5GHz base clock and 4.3GHz boost clock with a slightly higher 65W TDP. They are expected to cost no more than $130, which is almost unthinkable for a hexa-core chip. The Russian website lists the Ryzen 5 3600 at 3.6GHz with a boost clock that reaches 4.4GHz. As for the Ryzen 5 3600X, the chip reportedly has a 4GHz base clock and 4.8GHz boost clock. The non-X variant comes with 65W TDP and the X variant with a 95W TDP. Going up the Ryzen 3000-series ladder, the Ryzen 7 3700 is listed with a 3.8GHz base clock, 4.6GHz boost clock, and 95W TDP. The higher-end Ryzen 7 3700X flaunts a 4.2GHz base clock, 5GHz boost clock, and 105W TDP. Lastly, the Ryzen 3800X ticks at 3.9GHz with a 4.7GHz boost clock and is listed with a 125W TDP. On the other hand, the Ryzen 9 3850X is listed with a 4.3GHz base clock and a shockingly-high 5.1GHz boost clock with a 135W TDP rating. However, e-Katalog only listed the first, which could reinforce the rumor that AMD will release the Ryzen 9 3850X at a later date (May 2019).

Oh, dammit! Just when Santa’s gone and plopped all the presents on our Christmas list down the chimney, Suzuki comes along and teases us with this: the Jimny Sierra Pickup Style. It’s one of two rugged, adventure-based concepts that the Japanese firm will be taking to the Tokyo Auto Salon next week and, as we’ve missed Christmas, has rocketed straight to the top of our birthday present list. Based on Suzuki’s adorable 4x4 (a Top Gear Magazine Award winner, no less) the Sierra Pickup maintains the same boxy silhouette but has had the back seats ripped out and an angle grinder applied to the roofline to make room for a practical bed. More than that, they’ve swapped out the front grille and stamped an old school Suzuki logo on it, given it chunkier wheels and tyres, flared arches, some hooks to drag it face-first out of a bog and some LED spotlights at the back of the cab. Put simply, it’s awesome. But then this awesomeness is doubled down on thanks to an aesthetic attribute we haven’t seen since the PT Cruiser: faux wood panelling. Oh yes. Pickups not your thing? No worries. There’s also the Survive SUV Concept, a jacked-up more Bear Grylls-y variant of the cutesy cut-price G-Wagen alternative. Maintaining all of its roof (but now with roller shutter rear windows), it’s been built for the wilderness and has more clearance, all-terrain tyres, skid plates and an exoskeleton roll cage that doubles as a set of roof racks to fill with off-road clobber. There’s no word on engines yet, but it’s safe to assume they’ll both more than likely be fitted with the bigger 101bhp 1.5-litre motor. What we do know is that both cars will be unveiled at the annual tuning extravaganza in Japan next week. Now, if you’ll excuse us, we’re going to hunt for some cheap tickets to Tokyo.

Novak Djokovic admitted he had to "fight" to come back from a set down to beat world number 36, Hungary's Marton Fucsovics at the Qatar Open on Wednesday. The world number one survived a huge scare to eventually triumph 4-6, 6-4, 6-1. "For the first two sets he was the better player," said two-time Qatar Open champion Djokovic. "He played really well, smart, changing up the rhythm and the pace of the ball and moving me around. "I was kind of in a corner and I had to find my way and fight my way through." The match lasted exactly two hours, which was twice as long as the Serb spent on court in his first round stroll against Damir Dzumhur, where he lost just three games. A backhand winner eventually secured victory for Djokovic but the result was in doubt for a long time, with the Serb only breaking Fucsovics in the tenth game of the second set to ensure the match went into a final set shootout. Djokovic, the number one seed, will play fifth seed Nikoloz Basilashvili in the quarter-finals. The Georgian beat Russia's Andrey Rublev, the 2018 runner-up, 6-3, 6-4 on Wednesday. If he wins his last eight match, Djokovic is on course to meet Stan Wawrinka in the semi-finals after the Swiss also won on Wednesday, beating Chile's Nicolas Jarry 6-4, 7-6 (7/3). Wawrinka plays Spain's Roberto Batista Agut in the quarters. Also through is France's Pierre-Hugues Herbert who notched a second thrilling victory in as many nights by beating Germany's Max Marterer 6-3, 6-7 (6/8), 7-6 (8/6). Herbert, who beat second seed and world number eight Dominic Thiem 24 hours earlier, will play the winner of Fernando Verdasco and Tomas Berdych in the last eight.

The ice world known as Ultima Thule has finally been revealed. A new picture returned from Nasa's New Horizons spacecraft shows the little world to be two objects joined together - to give a look like a "snowman". The US probe's images acquired as it approached Ultima hinted at the possibility of a double body, but the first detailed picture from Tuesday's close flyby confirms it. New Horizons encountered Ultima 6.5 billion km from Earth. The event set a record for the most distant ever exploration of a Solar System object. The previous mark was also set by New Horizons when it flew past the dwarf planet Pluto in 2015. But Ultima is 1.5 billion km further out. It orbits the Sun in a region of the Solar System known as the Kuiper belt. There are hundreds of thousands of Kuiper members like Ultima, and their frigid state almost certainly holds clues to how all planetary bodies came into being some 4.6 billion years ago. The mission team thinks the two spheres that make up this particular object probably joined right at the beginning, or very shortly after. The scientists have decided to call the larger lobe "Ultima", and the smaller lobe "Thule". The volume ratio is three to one. Jeff Moore, a New Horizons co-investigator from Nasa's Ames Research Center, said the pair would have come together at very low speed, at maybe 2-3km/h. He joked: "If you had a collision with another car at those speeds you may not even bother to fill out the insurance forms." The new data from Nasa's spacecraft also shows just how dark the object is. Its brightest areas reflect just 13% of the light falling on them; the darkest, just 6%. That's similar to potting soil, said Cathy Olkin, the mission's deputy project scientist. It has a tinge of colour, however. "We had a rough colour from Hubble but now we can definitely say that Ultima Thule is red," added colleague Carly Howett. "Our current theory as to why Ultima Thule is red is the irradiation of exotic ices." Essentially, its surface has been "burnt" over the eons by the high-energy cosmic rays and X-rays that flood space. Principal Investigator Alan Stern paid tribute to the skill of his team in acquiring the image as New Horizons flew past the object at 3,500km at closest approach. The probe had to target Ultima very precisely to be sure of getting it centre-frame in the view of the cameras and other instruments onboard. "[Ultima's] only really the size of something like Washington DC, and it's about as reflective as garden variety dirt, and it's illuminated by a Sun that's 1,900 times fainter than it is outside on a sunny day here on the Earth. We were basically chasing it down in the dark at 32,000mph (51,000km/h) and all that had to happen just right," he said. Less than 1% of all the data gathered by New Horizons during the flyby has been downlinked to Earth. The slow data-rates from the Kuiper belt mean it will be fully 20 months before all the information is pulled off the spacecraft. What does New Horizons do next? First, the scientists must work on the Ultima data, but they will also ask Nasa to fund a further extension to the mission. The hope is that the course of the spacecraft can be altered slightly to visit at least one more Kuiper belt object sometime in the next decade. New Horizons should have just enough fuel reserves to be able to do this. Critically, it should also have sufficient electrical reserves to keep operating its instruments into the 2030s. The longevity of New Horizon's plutonium battery may even allow it to record its exit from the Solar System. The two 1970s Voyager missions have both now left the heliosphere - the bubble of gas blown off our Sun (one definition of the Solar System's domain). Voyager 2 only recently did it, in November. And in case you were wondering, New Horizons will never match the Voyagers in terms of distance travelled from Earth. Although New Horizons was the fastest spacecraft ever launched in 2006, it continues to lose ground to the older missions. The reason: the Voyagers got a gravitational speed boost when they passed the outer planets. Voyager-1 is now moving at almost 17km/s; New Horizons is moving at 14km/s.

When the RTX 20 Series launched not too long ago NVIDIA released a new features known as the NVIDIA OC Scanner that allowed for automatic overclocking of the GeForce RTX 2070, 2080, and 2080 Ti without voiding any warranties and such. This is a welcome feature for those who would love to get just a bit more out of their cards but are a bit gun shy about doing the work themselves. While most of us here aren’t too worried about the possible problems there are a lot of people who are. This feature is for them and it goes great with Pascal. But the did promise support for older cards as well and have now delivered on that promise with Pascal support in the latest MSI Afterburner and EVGA Precision X 1. In the past we already tested the OC Scanner with the RTX 2080 Ti and found the results to be more than favorable and coming pretty close to our manual overclocks. In today’s testing we’re not going into a long drawn out test sequence but rather just seeing how effective the EVGA Precision X 1 is at overclocking a GeForce GTX 1080 Founders Edition and how it benefits the 1440p crowd. Testing With PX1 Testing began with stock results and manual overclocking before moving into letting the NVIDIA OC Scanner do it’s thing. We also wanted to compare to a manual overclock where we bumped the memory speed up and set the fan to 75% to reduce thermal impact. We used Superposition in the Stress Test mode for a 5 minute run to gather core clock measurements. We used Firestrike Extreme for a Synthetic 1440p run to measure variances. We wrapped things up with a quick run in Battlefield V that matched the same as our previous PC Performance testing to see how changes were in an actual gaming scenario. Test Setup Components : Z370 GPU : GeForce GTX 1080 FE CPU : i5 8600k @ 5GHz Memory : 16GB Geil EVO X DDR4 3200 Motherboard : EVGA Z370 Classified K Storage : Adata SU800 128GB 2TB Seagate SSHD PSU : Cooler Master V1200 Platinum Using EVGA Precision X1 you can definitely tell it’s in beta phase still for a reason, it crashed about 3 times before letting me select the OC Scanner tab but once I was in it was smooth sailing. In our recent testing of Radeon Adrenalin 2019’s Auto GPU overclock, that was limited to Vega, we were left underwhelmed with the results. While overall the feature was welcome I feel the NVIDIA OC Scanner shows how auto overclocking should work. It works great, it’s straightforward, and shouldn’t be off putting to new builders who want to squeeze the most out of their systems without fear. It’s good to see the OC Scanner feature now available on Pascal cards and performing a bit better than I had expected, now when can we get it on Maxwell? My 980Ti wouldn’t mind seeing what it can do for it.

When one of the biggest "innovations" in smartphones in 2018 was the addition of a notch on the display, you know the industry has hit a rut. With fewer big technical leaps between generations, there's plenty of evidence that consumers are starting to hit the snooze button on upgrading their phones. A year ago, smartphone sales fell for the first time, and they've continued to be on the decline. Consumers aren't embracing Samsung's latest flagship smartphones, which come with only modest updates, and Apple has ceased reporting its iPhone unit sales numbers. That's poised to change in 2019. There are enough big upgrades worth talking about, from the advent of 5G (finally) to the debut of flexible, foldable smartphones. The completion of the merger between T-Mobile and Sprint -- still not a guaranteed deal yet -- could also shake up pricing plans and dynamics between carriers. Lastly, the ultimate fate of Huawei, which got thrown in the air when Wangzhou Meng, the company's chief financial officer, and daughter of its founder, was arrested by Canadian authorities. "Next year will be different," said Gartner analysts Mark Hung. Here's a rundown of what we expect in the coming year, including tons of buzz at CES. In a discussion about mobile, how can you not talk about 5G? The technology will get a decent kickoff at CES 2019, but you can expect the momentum to build through the year as carriers switch and more and more advanced cellular towers go up. Ever since Verizon said, three years ago, that it was going to start field-testing 5G, the term's been one of the hottest buzzwords in tech history. The huge bandwidth boost, responsiveness, and ability to handle multiple devices with varying connection speeds is poised to change our lives -- one day. Though carriers have all committed to a healthy number of launch markets, there'll be a race to see who can get to scale fastest. T-Mobile said it was committing to a nationwide network build-out by 2020. Before it can expand its early rollout, Verizon needs to move beyond its proprietary standard for the home broadband service and adopt the industry-standard 5G specifications. The company has declined to provide more specifics on its roll out. On the product side, look to giants like Samsung to go big with 5G, which is expected to roll out on multiple devices, including one version of the company's flagship Galaxy S10. OnePlus also said it expects to be among the first with a 5G smartphone, and Sprint and LG have vowed to launch the first 5G smartphone in the US. Foldable phones Foldable phones are either a gimmick or the next wave of mobile device design. But if nothing else, they add a new wrinkle and shake up the standard slab of glass or metal. Samsung offered a brief glimpse at its prototype foldable phone, and it's likely we'll see the real deal early next year. The folding mechanism may be little more than a novelty at first, but so was the curved display introduced in the Galaxy Round smartphone five years ago. Samsung provided a brief glimpse of its next big innovative phone. Eventually, that curved display technology made its way to Samsung's flagship Galaxy Note line, and it's standard on all Galaxy S phones. The key will be whether developers decide to take advantage of the fold-out screen -- that's why Samsung first showed off the phone at its developer conference. "Any time you have a significant departure on form factor, that engenders a lot of different products," Hung said. "There will be a lot of experimentation." Patrick Moorhead, an analyst at Moor Insights, hopes that experimentation involves larger foldable devices that go from a tablet to a full-fledged laptop. Samsung likely won't be alone. The FlexPai from startup Royole is the first foldable phone to hit the market, though it's unlikely you'll ever see it outside of China. Huawei and Lenovo are also working on foldable phone technology, and more companies will probably hop on the bandwagon. T-Mobile-Sprint? The will-they-won't-they romance of the wireless world continues into 2019. Ever since the deal for T-Mobile to buy Sprint was announced in April, the companies, especially executives from T-Mobile, have worked hard to sell the prospect of the combination. They've tried pushing the notion of cheaper, more-comprehensive 5G service and more coverage across the US as benefits of the deal.

Porsche 935 What is it? It’s the Porsche 935, and it takes only a small amount of historic motorsport knowledge to understand it riffs off the gobsmacking 935/78 racecar, better known as Moby Dick. Revealed at the Rennsport Reunion at Laguna Seca as a 70th birthday present from Porsche to itself, it’s unsurprisingly track-only, so you won’t be rocking up to your local cars and coffee meeting in it. But, being non-homologated, you might also be struggling to find a race series for it. Instead, Porsche says it’s “geared towards clubsport events and private training on racetracks”. Yet it’s not a brutal racecar beneath. In fact, it’s the current-gen 911 GT2 RS, with its 690bhp 3.8-litre twin-turbo flat-six engine driving the rear wheels via a seven-speed PDK paddleshift gearbox. Which makes it about 150bhp shy of Moby Dick. Making it look altogether different from the GT2 RS is the carbon-reinforced plastic bodykit, which apes the swooping shapes of the 935/78 and lengthens the car significantly at the rear. You can’t miss the new wing, either, which makes the standard GT2 RS’s spoiler look – for the first time – rather meek. The 935 even has LED lights incorporated into the front spoiler, like the Porsche 919 Le Mans car. There are nerdy racing nods all over the 935, in fact. A wooden gearknob is a knowing wink at the 917. The side mirrors are nicked wholesale from the current 911 RSR endurance racer. The protruding shotgun tailpipes are inspired by the 908. The interior is vastly different to the one you’ll find in a GT2 RS, with just the one seat (below a handy escape hatch), a welded-in cage, a Cosworth-supplied data logger and a complex motorsport wheel. But if all of that makes it seem intimidating, there’s still comforting things like stability control, ABS and air-conditioning fitted. Which also means the 935 weighs 1,380kg. That may be 90kg less than the GT2 RS, but it’s almost 200kg more than a McLaren Senna, about the only car that presents itself as a potential rival in terms of price, power and intention. There’s less personalisation here, mind; all 935s come in Agate Grey with the Martini livery optional. You’d probably be a fool to not tick that box. Can I buy one? If you’re a gazillionaire with a Porsche dealer on speed dial, then yes, but you’ll need around £750,000 and to be one of the first 77 people in the queue. Too slow? Don’t fret – admire it from afar like the rest of us and buy a GT2 RS you might actually use, for a quarter of the price. Ares Panther What is it? It’s the return of pop-up headlights. A quiet moment of triumph for a truly distinguishing feature, unfairly consigned to history. They belong to the rather tasty new Ares Panther, which is inspired by the Seventies De Tomaso Pantera. Underneath sits a carbon/aluminium chassis from a Lamborghini Huracán, and a revamped version of that Lambo V10 – increased from 5.2 litres to 5.6 litres – producing 650bhp and 413lb ft of torque. The throttle response and gearshifts (from a seven-speed dual-clutcher) have also been sharpened, and we’re promised the whole thing will sound very good indeed. “One of the most significant characteristics of the Ares Panther is its voice. The sound produced from the naturally aspirated V10 is nothing short of a roar,” explains tech boss and big cat fanatic Matteo Vezzani. Can I buy one? Only 21 Panthers are scheduled to be built, each starting at €515,000. Ares Design has confirmed that all 2018 cars have already been ordered, with each one taking 24 weeks to build. Look out for Ferrari 250 GTO and 400i homages in the pipeline. Porsche 911 Speedster What is it? A roofless, two-seater 911 GT3-based chariot that can trace it roots back to the 1954 356 Speedster. A tonneau cover provides some dryness in the event of a shower, while the body is borrowed from the Carrera 4 Cab, modified with a carbon-fibre double-bubble rear deck and carbon front wings. The chassis, engine and ’box are from the 911 GT3, so 9,000rpm, 500bhp, RWD and a six-speed manual. Quite the recipe… Can I buy one? Be our guest. No price yet, but Porsche will build 1,948 (the original 356 was signed off in 1948) of them, and production is scheduled to begin early next year.

World number one Novak Djokovic said Monday that tennis' big four -- himself, Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Andy Murray -- were still the favourites to win Grand Slam titles in 2019. Despite a combination of age, injury and long-held prediction of a new generation of stars about to burst through, Djokovic insisted the four veterans remained the players to beat. "I think if we are healthy and playing well, the four guys still have probably the best chance to always win Slams," said Djokovic in Doha, ahead of playing in his season-opener, the Qatar ExxonMobil Open 2019. Djokovic is the favourite to dominate in 2019, having finished last season so strongly, overcoming an injury-hit start to the year to claim the Wimbledon and US Open titles. The 31-year-old also rose from world number 22 to number one, becoming the oldest ever player to finish the year as the highest ranked player in the world. His rivals, especially Nadal and Murray, are still battling back to full fitness, increasing the chances that the Serbian could add to his 14 Grand Slam titles. One more major win and he will overtake Pete Sampras to become third on the all-time list of Grand Slam winners. Only Federer (20) and Nadal (17) have more. Djokovic though insisted that "the next generation is already there" and singled out Germany's world number four Alexander Zverev, Croatia's Borna Coric, number 12 and Greece's number 15 Stefano Tsitsipas as the main threats. "It's a matter of time when we will see some of them competing in the last stages of Grand Slams," he added. Djokovic won a Qatar Open doubles match on Monday, partnering his brother Marko. In Doha, his main challenge is likely to come from Karen Khachanov who ended Djokovic's 22-match winning streak in November and number two seed Dominic Thiem.

My artwork was not on the walls, there was furniture missing, the glass panel on my staircase was shattered What’s the worst that can happen?” I thought when I put my house on Airbnb. While I didn’t have a warm feeling about strangers sleeping in my bed, I was intrigued by the idea. I was recently divorced and I bought my home, with three bedrooms and views of New York’s Hudson River, at the end of 2016. It represented a new chapter for me. Its contemporary architecture isn’t for everyone, but I was seeking to simplify my life. My two teenage boys stay with me half the time. Last December, I put the house on Airbnb and rented it four or five times. The listing explicitly said no parties. Then a request came through to book the house for one night on New Year’s Day. It was from a young man, probably in his early 20s. He had one review but it was terrific. He told me he owned a small record label and wanted to use the house to get some Instagram shots. I’d had a model with the same request before, so it wasn’t unusual. The night before the booking, on New Year’s Eve, two couples with infants had stayed and I spent three hours with a cleaning crew to get the place ready – changing sheets, cleaning the hot tub on the roof. By the end, the house was pristine. The guest arrived at 3pm and was respectful. He said there might be a couple of people coming over, but that was it. I picked up my boys and we stayed down the road at my mother’s apartment. I went to work the next morning, and around noon, which was checkout time, I texted the guy to say I was heading over. As I approached, I noticed his car wasn’t in the driveway. Then I saw that he’d texted to say he’d woken up late and could I give him half an hour. So I went and bought a sandwich. When I got back I saw three or four cars in the driveway. I threw my food down and knew I was screwed. Inside there were about 12 young adults, all trying to clean. The floors looked like someone had poured Jägermeister and champagne everywhere and then danced on them. Everything seemed wrong: my artwork was not on the walls; there was furniture missing; the glass panel on my staircase was shattered; even the floor didn’t seem level any more. Then I noticed they were using my best sheets and towels as mops. Without raising my voice, I pointed to the guy I’d rented to and gestured for him to walk over to me. I felt like a father about to lecture his son: “What the [CENSORED]? What did you do?” He was remorseful and said things had got out of control. I asked how many people had been there and he said, “20, 25.” I wasn’t buying it. I didn’t know what to do next. I told them no one was leaving and I called the police and Airbnb. When a police officer turned up, he said it was a civil matter, before adding: “We were here last night.” I couldn’t believe no one had contacted me. One of the neighbours said they thought it was my kids and they didn’t want to get them into trouble. I lectured all the kids and had some call their parents. Ultimately, it was just stuff and I knew it would be OK. But I felt a massive disappointment in humanity. That night, it wasn’t hard for me and my boys to find Instagram pictures and videos of the party. It was horrifying to see so many people in the house, jumping up and down on the furniture and windowsills. They broke my hot tub and tiles in the bathroom; when I looked in the rubbish bags, I saw all my drinks bottles empty, as well as broken glasses and towels. I found an image online of the invite that said, “Mansion Party” with my address. There had been 300 people there. Boys were charged to enter; girls got in free. Airbnb didn’t get back to me. After three days I decided to call the local press and share the videos we’d found to try to get the company’s attention. Airbnb then got in touch and apologised. I can’t disclose the amount it has paid me for the damages, but a year later repairs are continuing. The floor is still uneven. When I look back at the video now, I find it funny. There are much bigger problems in the world. Right now, I’m out of the Airbnb business; I want to get back to simplifying my life.

The World Food Programme has demanded Yemen's rebel Houthi movement stops diverting desperately needed food aid from people in areas under its control. A survey by the UN agency said people in the capital Sanaa had not received rations to which they were entitled. The WFP said lorries were illegally removing food from distribution areas, with rations sold on the open market or given to those not entitled to it. There was no response from the Houthis, but they have denied diverting aid. The UN says some 20 million Yemenis are food insecure and that 10 million of them do not know how they will obtain their next meal. The WFP said the misappropriation of aid came to light in a review conducted in recent months, prompted by an increasing number of reports of humanitarian food for sale on the open market in Sanaa. Checks unearthed fraud being perpetrated by at least one local partner organisation tasked with handling and distributing food assistance, according to the agency. The local organisation is affiliated with the Houthi-run education ministry. "This conduct amounts to the stealing of food from the mouths of hungry people," said WFP Executive Director David Beasley in a statement. "At a time when children are dying in Yemen because they haven't enough food to eat, that is an outrage. This criminal behaviour must stop immediately." The WFP said its monitors had amassed photographic and other evidence of lorries illicitly removing food from designated food distribution centres. They also found that the selection of beneficiaries was being mani[CENSORED]ted by local officials and that food distribution records were being falsified. Some food relief was being given to people not entitled to it and some was being sold for gain at markets in the capital, according to the WFP. Yemen has been devastated by a conflict that escalated in 2015, when a Saudi-led coalition intervened after the Houthis seized control of much of the west of the country and forced President Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi to flee abroad. At least 6,800 civilians have been killed and 10,700 injured in the fighting, according to the UN. Thousands more civilians have died from preventable causes, including malnutrition, disease and poor health. Mr Beasley warned the Houthi authorities in Sanaa that unless they took immediate action to end the diversion of aid the WFP would "have no option but to cease working with those who have been conspiring to deprive large numbers of vulnerable people of the food on which they depend". Earlier on Monday, the Associated Press reported that factions and militias on all sides of the conflict had blocked food aid from going to groups suspected of disloyalty, diverted it to combat units or sold it for profit. On 13 December, the rebels and Yemen's government agreed to a UN-brokered ceasefire in the key Red Sea port and city of Hudaydah, which is crucial for the delivery of aid supplies. On Saturday, the Houthis said it had withdrawn its fighters from the port and handed over control to the coast guard. But UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric questioned the claim, saying such steps could only be credible if all other parties could observe and verify them. Mr Dujarric also said the Houthis had failed to honour an agreement to open a humanitarian corridor along the Hudaydah-Sanaa highway by Sunday as agreed.

You won’t believe what the Jeep Grand Cherokee Trackhawk does when you engage launch mode. I couldn’t. It was bloody hilarious. Afterwards. Fairly shocking during it, if I’m honest. So you come to a halt, press the button with the drag strip traffic light markings on it, apply as much pressure as you can on the brake pedal – a useful graphic on the dash tells you exactly how much (my left leg maxed out at 108bar), wallop the throttle and note that you are already moving forwards. Yep, the Trackhawk is that eager to get going. Or, to put it another way, 400mm Brembo stoppers aren’t strong enough to prevent 707bhp of supercharged V8 getting going. You release the brakes. The rear wheels spin, the nose heaves into the air, there’s a furious bellowing and out of the windscreen you note that the horizon line has also changed. The front left tyre must now be flat, you deduce. It’s not, it’s just that the rotating masses of the 6.2-litre V8 place so much stress on the chassis that it rocks over to one side. While your brain is processing all of this and working out the right course of action (Lift! Lift! LIFT! is the primary message), 2,429kg of prime US beef has got its head up and is determinedly hurling itself onwards. It does so in a moderately loose and wayward fashion that brings to mind actual bulls. Rodeo ones. 11.81 seconds later, a chance to breathe. The on board performance app tells me I’ve just done 0-60mph in 3.2secs. It’s lying, but not much – 3.44 is what spills out of our timing gear. Faster than an Aston Martin DBS Superleggera, Lotus Exige Cup 430, Audi RS5, even Jaguar’s ultimate F-Type SVR. It’s the fastest SUV we’ve ever tested, not only to 60mph, but far beyond: 100mph in 8.00secs, the quarter mile in – you guessed it – 11.81secs at 119.3mph. And this on greasy December tarmac. The Lamborghini Urus, when we get round to testing it, is going to have its hands full with this one. The Range Rover Sport SVR (figures 4.5secs, 10.1 and 12.8 at 112.2mph) we have brought along can only look on in dejected misery as the macho Jeep thunders about, supercharger wailing. An SUV shootout then, where one can be taken out and shot immediately. It’s what Elvis did to his De Tomaso Pantera after all. Hold it. Judgement, even of machines as power focused as these, cannot be that binary. It’s not like the Range Rover’s a complete weakling, is it? A 5.0-litre supercharged V8 lurks in there and in isolation 567bhp and 516lb ft are colossal outputs. But more than that, there’s a philosophical overlap between these two that ties them together and separates them from the likes of the Porsche Cayenne Turbo and Lamborghini Urus. Those two are both highly professional, chock full of clever electronics to negate roll and sharpen dynamics. They’re heavyweight sports cars. These two took inspiration from a different direction: the muscle car. The connection is physical for the Jeep – the engine is lifted straight from the mighty Dodge Challenger Hellcat. Outwardly I’m not sure you’d guess it. Not in silver at any rate. The wheels are only 20s to the Range Rover’s 22s, and the bodywork is no more aggressive – both have a similar collection of bonnet vents, black-work grilles and bluff, windswept noses. Attitude, too – boosted in the Jeep by fattened wheelarches, in the Range Rover by the way the body crouches over those giant wheels. Both feed power from supercharged V8s to all four wheels permanently via eight-speed automatic gearboxes. On the centre consoles of each you’ll find a rotary controller to adjust set-up. In the Trackhawk it starts at Tow, then runs through Snow, Auto, Sport and Track. The SVR, being a Range Rover, leans off-road as well as on – its controller runs the full gamut from rock crawl to racetrack. Both are suitably thunderous at start up. Of the two, the Range Rover delivers the more traditional V8 burble and roar, the Jeep a slightly cleaner, higher note, overlaid almost permanently by the shrill supercharger whine. Don’t worry, both can be heard clear across a supermarket car park. From there on things separate out. Only one can be described as sophisticated. You get in the Range Rover Sport to be greeted by this stunning cabin, all soft leather and flush fitting touchscreens. It’s deeply tasteful, so nicely done you’ll happily forgive the occasional electrical glitches that are bound to be part of the ownership experience. The surroundings make the noise, when it comes, seem naughtier, dirtier. And it does come. When you really clog it, it’s like all the glass falls out of the rear windows. The noise intrusion is enormous, the clarity remarkable. And it’s fast, it really is. As fast as could be deemed sensible. It pulls like a locomotive, responds urgently to the throttle and does a good job of making mincemeat of 2.4 tonnes. Back off and it cruises calmly. The ride’s not soft, but noise fades and the outside seems to be a long way away. The biggest refinement disrupters are the front seats, which are a little on the firm side. It’s pretty handy around corners too. It manages its 2.4 tonnes well, and although the steering is maybe a heartbeat slow and ever so slightly sticky, it will get itself down a tricky road with stability and control. It even feels pretty good under brakes, and once in a corner, you feel the power transfer rearwards to aid corner exit. You have confidence that it’s going to go where you point it and not do anything alarming in the process. Yes, it might lack the bite and crispness of a Cayenne, but against its rival here… No contest really. For starters even in a straight line the Trackhawk rides as if all four wheels are doing something slightly independent of each other and none are communicating adequately. It feels unsettled. And stiff. The adaptive dampers have clearly been tuned in the full knowledge that first and foremost they have to cope with 707bhp. Which is a big ask when you don’t have clever anti-roll systems. It’s not really the right tool for a cross-country charge. The steering is inert and only gets worse when you add lock, the gearbox is never quite in the right gear unless you pull the inconveniently-placed paddles, there’s a bit of chassis shake and the sense is of a car not fully in control of itself. Which, if you’re in the mood for it, makes it an absolute hoot to drive. Yes, it’s all a bit ramshackle, but after coping with every corner you get to hoof it up the next straight, nose in the air, supercharger shrieking away, gearchanges being smacked clumsily through. And, for all the flaws, that does make you hoot with laughter. It’s proper old school 12mpg entertainment and easy on the integrity. But then you remember it’s £90,000. Yes, the Range Rover is over ten grand more, but it actually feels like a £100k car. The Trackhawk doesn’t. The cabin is a mess compared to the SVR’s, and the plentiful kit (825-watt Harman Kardon, panoramic roof, Carplay adaptive cruise) can’t disguise the cheapness of the plastics, the tacky trim and sloppy switchgear. You can point to five spacious seats and a generous boot (electric tailgate is frustratingly slow – you can be back in the car and on the move before it’s closed) and claim it’s a family car. But I guarantee that unless you have a house full of like-minded muscle car fans, they won’t enjoy it as much as you. It just feels a bit wayward, even when you’re not using all 645 torques. And even if you love muscle cars, and have a wallet that can cope with £100 fill ups every 280 miles, you have to admit that the 385g/km CO2 emissions (SVR 290g/km) are maybe a bit… inappropriate. The Trackhawk is as mad as a honey badger, a proper riotous, hold-tight-here-we-go blast, but it’s tough to recommend, even in TG land. The SVR may have been around for a few years, may be easy to overlook amongst the new raft of hot SUVs, but it still hits the fast SUV high notes bang on. Jeep Trackhawk Score: 7 Specs: 6166cc V8 supercharged, 707bhp, 645lb ft, 4wd, 8spd auto, 0-62mph in 3.5sec, 180mph max, 16.8mpg, 385g/km CO2, 2429kg Verdict: A wheeled rock concert: loud, raucous, sweaty and slightly unhinged Range Rover Sport SVR Score: 8 Specs: 5000cc V8 supercharged, 575bhp, 516lb ft, 4wd, 8spd auto, 0-62mph in 4.5sec, 176mph max, 22.2mpg, 290g/km CO2, 2377kg Verdict: A wheeled last night of the proms: proud, triumphant, rowdy in the right way.

Manchester City returned to winning ways ahead of their blockbuster showdown against Premier League leaders Liverpool with a 3-1 win at Southampton. The defending champions ceded ground to Jurgen Klopp's side with back-to-back defeats versus Crystal Palace and Leicester City, and they once again let an early lead slip as Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg – later sent off for a reckless lunge on Fernandinho – cancelled out David Silva's 10th-minute opener. A James Ward-Prowse own-goal on the stroke of half-time, moments after the Southampton midfielder had penalty claims rejected, and Sergio Aguero's injury-time header steadied City nerves before the break. Pep Guardiola's men replace Tottenham in second and trim the deficit to the summit to seven points, while Burnley's win over West Ham means only goal difference is keeping Southampton out of the bottom three. Charlie Austin stole in behind the City defence, only for heavy touch to let him down, before Riyad Mahrez and Bernardo Silva had no such problems down the Southampton left as they deftly set up David Silva for an assured finish. Mahrez and Sergio Aguero both went close to doubling City's advantage but, after Ederson brilliantly kept out an Austin header, makeshift left-back Oleksandr Zinchenko carelessly gave away possession in the 37th minute and Hojbjerg clattered home emphatically. Zinchenko was then fortunate to see a clumsy challenge in the box on Ward-Prowse go unpunished – the Southampton man's disappointment compounded as he lucklessly put Raheem Sterling's cross through his own net. An eventful half for the Ukraine international concluded with a pinpoint cross that Aguero headed beyond Alex McCarthy's lacklustre attempts to save. The Southampton goalkeeper partially redeemed himself by standing up to Sterling when a slick one-two with Bernardo Silva in the 55th minute picked apart his defence. City were again close to a fourth when Aguero turned to lash against the top of the crossbar left-footed. Mahrez was substituted after he missed an 80th-minute one-on-one, while Hojbjerg was dismissed for his ugly challenge late on. What does it mean? All eyes on the Etihad on Thursday The closely fought title battle many have anticipated this season has threatened to go up in smoke over recent weeks, with City buckling under the strain of Liverpool's relentless pace. Guardiola's men again showed vulnerabilities before half-time that will not have gone unnoticed on Merseyside, but victory over their rivals would trim the deficit to four points and set up a 2019 to remember in the Premier League. Danilo adds sharpness to City Benjamin Mendy's latest knee injury and Fabian Delph's red card at Leicester necessitated Zinchenko's latest free-form interpretation of the left-back role, but right-back has also been a problem for City of late, with Kyle Walker has turning in a succession of tired performances. Danilo's return from an injury-ravaged spell has taken the England defender out of the firing line. The Brazilian snapped into early challenges and passed sharply to get the visitors up and running at St Mary's. A move over to left-back to reintroduce Walker and spare Zinchenko from Mohamed Salah et al might be in the offing this week. McCarthy comes up short Goalkeepers are a notoriously self-critical breed and McCarthy will not look back on this performance with any particular fondness. It feels harsh to be too critical over the Ward-Prowse own-goal, although the Saints keeper did get a decent enough touch on the deflected ball. Aguero did well to direct his header down but, if Southampton are to succeed on such touch assignments, those are saves McCarthy has to be making – as he belatedly did from Sterling and Mahrez after half-time. What's next? A season-defining outing awaits City, while a similarly tough task is on the agenda for Southampton when they travel to Chelsea on Wednesday

History will be made on Tuesday when Nasa's New Horizons probe sweeps past the icy world known as Ultima Thule. Occurring some 6.5 billion km (4 billion miles) from Earth, the flyby will set a new record for the most distant ever exploration of a Solar System object by a spacecraft. New Horizons will gather a swathe of images and other data over the course of just a few hours leading up to and beyond the closest approach. This is timed for 05:33 GMT. At that moment, the probe will be about 3,500km from Ultima's surface and moving at 14km/s. When its observations are complete, the robotic craft will then turn to Earth to report in and begin downlinking the gigabytes of information stored in its memory. Mission scientists, gathered in a control centre at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, are excited at what lies in prospect. "It's electric. People across the whole team are ready. They're in the game and we can't wait to go exploring," says New Horizons' principal investigator Prof Alan Stern. The probe is famous for making the first ever visit to the dwarf planet Pluto in 2015. To reach Ultima, it has had to push 1.5 billion km deeper into space. Virtually nothing is known about this next target for New Horizons, however. Telescopic measurements indicate it is about 20-30km across, although scientists concede it could actually be two separate entities moving very close to each other, perhaps even touching. The next couple of days will tell. Ultima is in what's termed the Kuiper belt - the band of distant, frozen material that orbits far from the Sun and the eight major planets. There are probably hundreds of thousands of Kuiper members like Ultima, and their frigid state almost certainly holds clues to the formation conditions of the Solar System 4.6 billion years ago. "About one day out we'll turn on all our instruments," explains mission scientist Dr Kelsi Singer. "We'll take black and white images; we'll take colour images. And we'll take compositional information... This is just such a new object because we've never been to an object like this before. It's hard to predict but I'm ready to be surprised by what we find." Why is New Horizons visiting Ultima Thule? Nasa wanted to explore something beyond Pluto and this object was reachable. Remarkably, it was only discovered four years ago by the Hubble telescope. Initially catalogued as (486958) 2014 MU69, it was given the more catchy nickname of Ultima Thule (Pronounced: Tool-ee) after a public consultation exercise. It's a Latin phrase that means something like "a place beyond the known world". Like many Kuiper belt objects of its size, it is likely to be composed of a lot of ice, dust and maybe some larger rock fragments, which came together at the dawn of the Solar System. Theory suggests such bodies will take on an elongated or lobate form. Think potato or peanut. Distant telescopic observations suggested its surface is very dark, with a bit of a red tinge. That darkness (it reflects only about 10% of the light falling on its surface) is the result of having been "burnt" through the eons by high-energy radiation - cosmic rays and X-rays. New Horizons will study Ultima's shape, rotation, composition and environment. Scientists want to know how these far-off worlds were assembled. One idea is that they grew from the mass accretion of a great many pebble-sized grains. What can we expect from the flyby? Don't blink, you might miss it. Unlike the encounter with Pluto in July 2015, there won't be increasingly resolved images on approach to admire. Ultima will remain a blob in the viewfinder pretty much until the final hours of the flyby. However, the much reduced separation between the probe and Ultima (3,500km versus 12,500km at the dwarf planet) means that finer detail in the surface will eventually be observed. Features as small as 33m across should be discernible if the pointing of the cameras is spot on. Because New Horizons has to swivel to point its instruments, it cannot keep its antenna locked on Earth while also gathering data. Controllers must therefore wait until later on New Year's Day for the probe to "phone home" a status update and to start to downlink some choice pictures. The "hey, I'm healthy and I've got a treasure trove of data" message should be picked up by Nasa's network of big radio dishes at 15:28 GMT. Just how big a challenge is this flyby? In some ways, this event is more difficult than the pass of Pluto. The object in the viewfinder is almost a hundred times smaller. New Horizons will get closer than at Pluto, which is good for image detail; but it means that if the pointing is off, the probe could be sending back pictures of empty space. And this really is a major concern. Because Ultima was only discovered four years ago, its position and movement on the sky are much more uncertain than the coordinates for Pluto. Every image taken on approach has been used to refine the navigation and timing models that will be critical to the control of New Horizons during the flyby. And, remember, all this is being done at a distance of 6.62 billion km (4.11 billion miles) from Earth. At that separation, radio signals take six hours and eight minutes to reach home. What is more, the data rates are glacial - around 1,000 bits a second. It will be late on Tuesday before the first of a few choice images is downlinked, and it will be September 2020 until every last scrap of data from the flyby is pulled off New Horizons.