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BERLIN – Volkswagen Group’s supervisory board will meet on Tuesday to discuss a planned savings program ahead of its capital markets day on June 21, two sources close to the company said. The board will discuss cost-cutting measures amounting to at least 3 billion euros ($3.22 billion) across brands including VW, Seat, Skoda and Cupra, said one source. Germany daily Handelsblatt, which first reported on the savings program, reported that CEO Oliver Blume wants to curb duplicate development work and to better use German plants, particularly at Audi and VW. "The focus of the Capital Markets Day is on the power of the brands and the Group management model," a VW spokesperson said in an emailed statement, declining to comment in further detail. VW Group finance chief Arno Antlitz told Reuters in May that investors can expect an update at the June capital markets day on the company's financial targets and capital allocation plans. Core brand chief Thomas Schaefer said in an internal memo in May that the brand was targeting a 6.5 percent return on sales, compared to 3 percent achieved in the first quarter of this year. "Pressure is mounting. The Volkswagen brand must act," he wrote at the time. https://www.autonews.com/automakers-suppliers/vw-supervisory-board-will-discuss-322-billion-savings
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Katie Boulter has replaced Emma Raducanu as the British number one women's player following her run to the Surbiton Trophy semi-finals. Boulter, 26, will hold the top spot for the first time in her career when she plays at the Nottingham Open this week. Raducanu, 20, became British number one after her US Open triumph in 2021 but has been hampered by injuries since. "Naturally, I am very proud to join the women before me who have reached that historic spot," Boulter said. "However, my main goal remains on improving my ranking and continuing to work hard. "It's going to be an exciting summer as we are all very close in the rankings." Ranked 126 in the world following her three victories at Surbiton, Boulter is two places and 19 points above Raducanu in the latest standings, with Jodie Burrage (131), Katie Swan (134) and Harriet Dart (143) all close behind. Raducanu is set to miss the summer season - including Wimbledon - after undergoing hand and ankle surgery, which also kept her out of the French Open. At Wimbledon last year, Boulter recorded the biggest win of her career in beating former world number one and 2021 runner-up Karolina Pliskova to reach the third round of a Grand Slam for the first time. Leicester-born Boulter first picked up a racquet at the age of five before going on to represent Great Britain at eight. Her breakthrough year came in 2018, when she won her first ITF 25k and 60k titles, before reaching her first WTA quarter-final at the Nottingham Open as a wildcard. She reached a career-high ranking of 82 in 2019, however a stress fracture of the back kept her out for six months and disrupted her progress. Boulter has been drawn against compatriot Emily Appleton in her first match in Nottingham on Tuesday, with coverage of this week's tournament available on BBC iPlayer, the BBC Sport website and app and the BBC Red Button every day. https://www.bbc.com/sport/tennis/65845067
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Donald Trump’s federal indictment represents far more than a battle between the government and an ex-president over national security secrets that he kept in a stunningly insecure fashion. When Trump appears in court in Miami on Tuesday to be arraigned, a new clash will unfold between a judicial system rooted in the core principle that no one is above the law and an ex-president who has vowed, if returned to the White House, to purge the system of the accountability he now faces. A 37-charge indictment alleges that Trump mishandled national defense documents after he left office and tried to conceal his possession of highly sensitive classified materials from government investigators. It teems with evidence including photos and details of audio tapes. While Trump is entitled to the presumption of innocence like any other American, the indictment appears to underscore his personal belief that the law does not apply to him and that he has the power to do exactly as he likes. That behavior defined his administration and post-White House life. This indictment really is a reflection of the former president’s arrogance, his disdain for the rule of law, which is so repugnant to people who have worked in law enforcement, who have worked for the Constitution, bipartisanly over the years,” said former Watergate special prosecutor Richard Ben-Veniste on CNN’s “The Lead with Jake Tapper” on Friday. Even Trump’s own former attorney general, William Barr, called the indictment “very damning” on “Fox News Sunday,” pushing back on the former president’s claims that he’s a “victim” of political persecution. “He had no right to maintain them and retain them,” Barr said of the documents. “And he kept them in a way in Mar-a-Lago, that anyone who really cares about national security – their stomach would churn at it.” Countering Trump’s belief in his own omnipotence is at the core of this case. As special counsel Jack Smith said in a rare public appearance on Friday: “We have one set of laws in this country, and they apply to everyone.” This case, however, is unfolding in the middle of a presidential campaign in which the twice-impeached and now twice-indicted Trump is running on a platform of gutting the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Justice Department, intelligence agencies and any other federal bureaucracy designed to ensure the powerful obey the law. Late last year, he called for the “termination” of the Constitution, including all “rules, regulations and articles.” And he’s pledged on day one of a new administration to direct the DOJ to “investigate every radical district attorney and attorney general in America” for what he claims is the illegal and racist enforcement of the law. Trump has already pleaded not guilty to falsifying business records – charges that arose from Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s investigation of a hush money scheme. And he’s waiting to hear whether he will be charged in another special counsel investigation into the run-up to January 6, 2021, and a separate investigation into his attempt to overturn President Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory in Georgia led by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis. Trump has called for a “truth and reconciliation” commission to eradicate “deep state” spying, corruption and censorship – a code for what he claims is the weaponization of the justice system against him by political opponents. And he has styled his entire 2024 campaign as a drive for “retribution” – previewing a second administration that would be certain to test the rules and conventions designed to restrain the president even more than in his first term. Trump’s quest for limitless personal power recalls his claim in office that the power of the president is “total” – a false contention that the Constitution was written specifically to prevent. Reflecting Trump’s influence on the Republican Party, other GOP presidential candidates have also promised to flush out the FBI. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, for instance, has pledged to fire the bureau’s director, Christopher Wray – a Trump-appointed Republican – on his first day in the Oval Office if he is elected next year. At the North Carolina State GOP Convention on Saturday, on his first campaign swing since news of the federal indictment, Trump escalated his assault on America’s system of justice. “I stand before you today as the only candidate who has what it takes to smash this corrupt system and to truly drain the swamp,” he said. A GOP attempt to discredit the Justice Department Trump, who’s set to deliver remarks and hold a fundraiser at his New Jersey golf club after Tuesday’s court appearance, is getting help from Republican allies in attempting to discredit the legal institutions that seek to hold him accountable. They’re trying to win the classified documents case in a court of public opinion – in a way that may influence a future jury – long before the ex-president faces a trial. House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, for instance, claimed on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday that Trump as president had simply declassified all documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort – despite a lack of evidence he had done so. “He decides. He alone decides. He said he declassified this material. He can put it wherever he wants. He can handle it however he wants. That’s the law,” Jordan told Dana Bash. In the indictment, however, Trump is shown as saying he did not declassify some secret information that he kept and that as an ex-president he no longer had the power to do so. Not to mention, the law does not require documents to be classified for a crime to have been committed. Setting the tone for the GOP’s attempt to subvert the legal process, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy accused the Biden administration last week of being guilty of a “brazen weaponization of power” by targeting the current president’s possible future general election opponent. There are genuine questions over whether the indictment of Trump is in the long-term national interests of the country, given the extraordinary strain it is likely to put on the political and judicial systems and the certainty that yet another election will be tainted in the eyes of millions of voters who believe that Trump is a victim of persecution. It should also be noted that an indictment is only a selective airing of evidence in the case that benefits the prosecution and has not yet faced the test of cross-examination in court. Yet GOP criticisms deliberately ignore the evidence in the indictment of a staggeringly lax treatment of critical secrets, including about nuclear weapons. They also distort the indictment as an example of the Justice Department targeting a political opponent of the current president, despite the fact that it followed long-established legal procedures and was handed down by a grand jury in Trump’s home state of Florida, which found probable cause that a crime had been committed. Barr – whom Democrats contend shielded Trump by misrepresenting the findings of the Mueller report into his 2016 campaign’s links with Russia – said Sunday that the ex-president’s complaints about his treatment were not merited. “This idea of presenting Trump as a victim here, a victim of a witch hunt is ridiculous,” the former attorney general said on “Fox News Sunday.” “Yes, he’s been a victim in the past. Yes, his adversaries have obsessively pursued him with phony claims. And I’ve been at his side defending against them when he is a victim. But this is much different. He’s not a victim here,” Barr said. Why comparisons to Pence, Biden and Clinton cases do not apply Many Republicans argue that Trump is being unfairly singled out by the judicial system since Biden and Mike Pence were also discovered to have classified documents dating from their vice presidencies. But the cases are distinct because the two former vice presidents cooperated with authorities and returned the material. The Trump indictment allegedly shows the former president concealing evidence of documents in his possession that belonged to the government and that represented a risk to national security given their haphazard storage at his Florida resort. The DOJ has closed its investigation into Pence, but a special counsel probe into Biden’s handling of documents is ongoing. Others have pointed out that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was not prosecuted over classified material found on her personal email server. While the FBI found that she had been careless with the material, it said there was no evidence that she committed a crime. And many Democrats blamed ex-FBI Chief James Comey’s public statements in the case days before the 2016 election for helping to elect Trump. The latest Republican attacks on the judicial system threaten to undermine one of the pillars of American democracy, which worries many legal observers, including former Bush administration Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. “It is disappointing, quite honestly, because an attack on the Department of Justice is an attack on the rule of law. And that’s not good for this country,” Gonzales told Tapper on Friday. Trump tries to win the political battle, but the legal one will determine his fate Given that Trump is an ex-president running for president, this case will play out in two separate arenas – the courts and the campaign trail. The fact that the matter will be heard in Republican-run Florida could represent a risk for Smith given the need to secure unanimous jury verdicts. On the political front, it’s too early to say how this new case will impact the election. More than 60% of Americans say the federal charges Trump faces are very or somewhat serious, according to an ABC News/Ipsos poll fielded after news of the indictment, although about half say they see the charges against Trump as politically motivated. Similarly, in a CBS News/YouGov poll, 69% of Americans feel it would be a security risk if Trump “did have documents regarding U.S. nuclear systems or military plans in his home after leaving office,” yet the public splits over whether the national security risk (38%) or political motivations behind the indictment (38%) are a bigger concern. But most immediately for the GOP primary, neither poll suggests much movement in overall views of the former president, particularly among Republicans. After his first indictment in the Manhattan case earlier this spring, Trump’s polling numbers in the GOP race appeared to rise – underscoring how Republican voters have bought into his narrative about being politically persecuted. At a DeSantis campaign event in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on Sunday, attendees appeared to be convinced of claims by Trump and conservative media figures that he is being unfairly singled out. Kim Bielenberg, for instance, told CNN’s Kit Maher that while she liked Trump and thought it was time for a new candidate, the former president was being maligned. “(What) the Democrats are doing to Trump, it’s just too – it has nothing to do with running the country,” she said. “It just doesn’t seem like it’s a very fair playing field.” At the same time, however, photos of classified documents strewn carelessly around the ex-president’s home – in bathrooms, showers and on stage in a ballroom – could help Democrats drive home their argument that Trump, if he’s the eventual GOP nominee, is deeply unfit to protect the nation’s security as commander in chief. This week, however, Trump will be given his first chance to defend himself in a court of law using the right to a speedy and fair trial that is guaranteed by the Constitution that he wants terminated. https://edition.cnn.com/2023/06/12/politics/trump-documents-case-justice-system/index.html
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he Hooden Horse is a utilitarian new-ish build pub located in a retail park on the fringes of Margate. It can’t be many people’s idea of a destination boozer but this changes around 8pm every Wednesday, when the place is enveloped in quiz mania. Local radio presenter Mark Cridland has hosted proceedings for the past seven years. “Some weeks it’s 13 teams, or it might be 30,” he chuckles from a corner table as he runs through a last-minute checklist, tucked away from the rapidly filling room. “We have our regulars who are hardcore quizzers. They’re the ones who will let me know if I mispronounce a word.” Every week, thousands of broadly identical scenes can be observed across the country, from the south coast to the outer fringes of the Highlands; from A-road chain pubs to the most idiosyncratic locals. These offerings range from casual to rabidly competitive. Some, such as Cridland’s, are often both. My trip to Thanet was one of several night-time visitations around the country, trying to chart the future of a very British institution. What sort of health was the pub quiz in? How did it work? And what did the apparently inexorable rise of professionalised pub quiz companies mean for a pastime more traditionally associated with homespun volunteer spirit? The pub quiz occupies its own specific corner of the British psyche. It is, after all, almost universally regarded as an invention from these isles. Some of the most reliable pub historians trace things back to late-1950s Merseyside and Lancashire, when about 4,000 people became involved in the organised quiz leagues that sprang up from Bootle to Southport, although the Guinness Book of Records makes mention of a night in Yorkshire dating from 1946. The Liverpool Echo of 30 October 1963 carried an interview with a Mr Jack Robinson, “one of the men who has been on the Merseyside quiz scene since it started”. “It’s a jolly good way of enjoying yourself,” said Robinson, “and learning at the same time.” Burns and Porter, the first mass-market pub quiz company, was founded in 1976 and soon dominated the nascent industry, producing a string of successful books and providing their services to the BBC. This was, as pub historian and author of the reference book Played at the Pub, Arthur Taylor, has noted, also the tail end of the first era of wildly po[CENSORED]r quiz programmes on British TV. Sharon Burns and Tom Porter were savvy marketers who pitched their wares as an easy way to boost trade on the quieter nights of the week. It was, as it has remained, an easy sell. Cheap to host, quizzes attract a regular clientele of dedicated and often obsessive regulars. Dr Patrick Chaplin is the avuncular chairman of the Pub History Society. He explains some of this enduring appeal. “You get the really serious people, the anoraks, but it can just be something you enjoy as a team. There are so many different aspects to it. There’s the clever buggers who want to win and those who just want to have a good time and a few beers.” For a few months in late 2022, my Wednesday nights were taken up with the quiz at my south London local, as part of a small and quietly competitive regular team. What had started as a pleasantly noncommittal excuse for a midweek drink with friends had ratcheted up a few degrees of intensity. The quiz was perfectly pitched: hard enough to serve as a challenge, yet accessible to the point where victory was a realistic prospect (we won twice, in faintly dramatic fashion). But something changed, for me at least, with the departure of our regular host, the drag artist Kate Butch. It wasn’t that their replacement wasn’t any good, or that the content of the quiz had declined. But something had shifted, a slight tilting in the vibe that led to our visits becoming less frequent. There are, perhaps, no hard rules to what does and doesn’t make a good pub quiz. Much depends on personal preference, although most of the devoted quizzers I spoke with tended to run through the same list. Fairness is critical, as is a robust mixture of questions and the sense that a degree of passion and thoroughness had gone into its composition. The last point is particularly important. Whether they came from professional companies or lone quizmasters, lazy, cookie-cutter offerings were to be abhorred. And the host is a crucial factor. Jennifer Woodbridge runs the regular night at Vinoteq, a Dover wine bar. She is also the partner of Mark Cridland: “I want people to talk, to become mates. The whole point is getting people together.” Diplomacy can be just as important as any finer feelings. “I’ve seen Biros thrown [and] people threatening to throw pints in faces,” she laughs. “There can be a lot of gloating and sulking.” Every pub has its own specific level of intensity. Susan Edwards runs the monthly quiz at the White Horse in Brancaster Staithe, north Norfolk, with all proceeds going to local charities. “There’s no pattern to who wins. No team ever dominates but we do have a core of about a dozen people who come every month. It’s a lovely social thing [for] the local community.”The pub quiz is sitting at an awkward moment in its history. During lockdown, Zoom offerings allowed some thin pretence of sociability to thousands across the country and made minor celebrities out of some, such as Jay Flynn, the pub landlord turned online quizmaster who raised £1.3m for charity during the pandemic. The pub quiz remains crucial to thousands of landlords who have struggled through a series of overlapping disasters, from Covid to jacked-up energy bills. In 2020, it was thought that more than half of UK pubs had a regular quiz. A more recent survey suggested that Durham was the country’s pub quiz capital with 24 weekly offerings in a city of 50,000, with Chichester, Wakefield, Salisbury and Preston making up the rest of the top five. As with many things pub-related, there is a tendency to think in enjoyably hazy cliches. The image of the local quizmaster toiling away at their labour of love, recompensed with nothing more than a few rounds from the bar, is a romantic one. The reality, however, is of a discipline that has been increasingly professionalised. Derbyshire-based Redtooth is the country’s largest provider, with more than 3,000 pubs and clubs a week receiving their weekly quizzes, while a cursory search reveals boutique firms with often desperately corny names, websites groaning under the weight of glowing testimonials. For some, this increasing slickness is pure progress. Questions are usually fresh and well considered. Paired with a capable host, they work as well as anything else, even if some have bemoaned the slow fading of the enthusiastic amateur quizmaster. Alex Douglas is the founder of Inquizition, the company responsible for my local’s quiz night, as well as dozens of others across London and beyond. An avid quizzer growing up, the musician began writing, and hosting, his first night at the Regent in Balham, south London, back in January 2011. “[It started] as a side hustle,” he says. “It was an exciting time. Other pubs started to want them because they’d heard how good it was.” Despite their growth, the format has broadly remained the same. Word puzzles, picture and music rounds, as well as a high-stakes “wipeout round” to close the game. Writing the questions alongside his two business partners is a painstaking process, taking about 60 hours a week between them, before being fired across to in-house verifier Rob, “who we call ‘the robot’, he’s just incredible”. The more venues they’ve accumulated, the higher the stakes: “If there’s a medical question, for instance, you might have a doctor or a nurse in the room. You have to research things so thoroughly. Of course, it has to be perfect but you can’t get too bogged down. It has to be fun as well.” On a damp Tuesday night in mid-April, I made my way down to a pub about a mile from my local. My partner and I had been meaning to try out the quiz night for several weeks. If not quite a shock, it felt odd to be presented with the latest Inquizition offering. It was as good and evenly judged as ever, though it was hard to shake the slight feeling of deja vu and deflation. All the right questions were being asked, just in the wrong pub. The host felt unfamiliar, as did the setting. We got through it fine, though the cosiness and vaguely conspiratorial feeling of the best quizzes was missing. This evidently wasn’t the case in Margate. I had wanted to know what kept Mark Cridland coming back, year after year. It was the buzz, although there had been changes during his time in the hot seat. “I’ve seen quite a few places bringing in the online quizzes,” he explained. It wasn’t something he felt much enthusiasm over. “People have told me that it isn’t the same as having a quizmaster. For one thing, you can’t argue against the computer.” At heart, it was a simple format, with simple joys. “People love to argue the toss over anything. It’s a little community, isn’t it? And that’s what pubs are made for.” https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/jun/12/you-cant-argue-against-a-computer-has-the-pub-quiz-lost-its-soul
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If you've ever passed by a field of horses at night, you've probably noticed that they rarely lie down to sleep. So why do these mammals sleep standing up? The answer is one of survival: Horses slumber while standing to balance their need for sleep against the ever-looming threat of predators. Horses come from a long line of prey animals in the family Equidae, and sleeping on their hooves is an adaptation against predation. "Standing gives them a literal jump on predators and a better chance of getting away than if they were [lying] down," Karen Waite, an equine specialist at Michigan State University, told Live Science in an email. Simply put, horses are big animals, and it takes time and energy for them to get off the ground. A standing horse is therefore much better able to run away when roused from sleep. According to BBC Science Focus, the same goes for other large prey herbivores, such as zebras, bison, elephants and giraffes, all of which are capable of sleeping on their feet. Related: Why do horses wear shoes? Horses have specialized anatomical features that enable them to stay on their hooves while catching some z's. These features, known as a "stay apparatus" include a series of tendons and ligaments — soft tissues that connect muscle to bone, and bone to bone, respectively — that run throughout both the forelegs and hind legs, according to Waite. When a horse relaxes its leg muscles, the stay apparatus ligaments and tendons act as tension bands that stabilize the shoulder, knee and ankle joints in the legs. This enables the horse to remain standing without having to maintain much tension in their muscles. But while horses do most of their sleeping while standing, they do need to lie down for more restorative sleep. "Horses will spend most of their time sleeping standing up, but they don't actually reach full REM sleep when they're standing," Sarah Matlock, a senior instructor of equine behavior at Colorado State University, told Live Science. During rapid eye movement (REM) sleep in humans — when a sleeping individual's eyes move rapidly under closed eyelids — dreaming can occur, and so muscles become temporarily paralyzed so we don't act out our dreams. During REM sleep,the brain also consolidates and processes new information for long-term memories. People who don't get enough REM sleep may experience problems with mental concentration and mood regulation, a weakened immune system and less cell growth. Adult horses are often able to get by on as little as 5 hours of sleep per day, and they can get most of it while standing up. And while standing horses can achieve "slow-wave," or deep, dreamless sleep, but an adequately rested horse requires at least 25 minutes of REM sleep per day, which can only happen while lying Because of this, horses must lie down every day. If they don't, they may experience sleep deprivation, which can be a serious health risk for a horse. For instance, putting it at risk of injury from falling, according to the American Association of Equine Practitioners. "Horses that don't get enough REM sleep can be misdiagnosed with narcolepsy," Matlock said. "Like, they might fall over while you're riding them." Because standing while sleeping is an adaptation to avoid predators, horses need to feel comfortable and safe before they are willing to lie down and sleep, Matlock said. In feral horse po[CENSORED]tions, if multiple horses lie down to get REM sleep at the same time, there will always be at least one horse that remains standing, likely to watch for potential predators. "If they don't feel safe in their environment, or they don't have other horses with them, or if they're isolated, then they're less likely to feel safe enough to lay down to sleep," Matlock said. https://www.livescience.com/animals/land-mammals/why-do-horses-sleep-standing-up
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The western Indian state of Gujarat is on high alert as an extremely severe cyclone is due to hit parts of it on Thursday. Biparjoy - a cyclone over the Arabian Sea - is predicted to move towards the state's coastline in the next two days. Heavy rains and high tides have been forecast in several coastal districts in the state. People have been told to avoid visiting beaches and fishermen have been asked to not go out into the sea. The Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) said on Monday that the cyclonic storm was likely to move northwards until 14 June and then move "north-northeastwards and cross Saurashtra and Kutch and adjoining Pakistan coasts between Mandvi (Gujarat) and Karachi (Pakistan) by noon of 15 June". It added that the storm could have a "maximum sustained wind speed of 125 to 135kmph (77 to 84 mph)" and could go up to 150kmph. Biparjoy - which means disaster or calamity in Bengali language - has intensified into an "extremely severe cyclonic storm" - the second highest category used by the IMD to classify tropical storms. Until Saturday, the cyclone was expected to avoid Gujarat and move towards Pakistan's coastline. However, India's weather department has now issued warnings to local authorities in Gujarat and has asked them to make preparations to evacuate people if needed. People in coastal areas have been asked to stay indoors on the day the cyclone is likely to make landfall. The Gujarat government has deployed national and state disaster response teams in areas likely to be affected by the cyclone. The cyclone is expected to bring rains to a few other states along India's western and southern coast as well. The IMD has forecasted heavy rains in some regions in Maharashtra, Karnataka and Goa states in the coming days. BBC News India is now on YouTube. Click here to subscribe and watch our documentaries, explainers and features. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-65874966
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It appears that Nvidia plans to introduce its cheapest Ada Lovelace-based graphics cards — the GeForce RTX 4060 with 8 GB of GDDR6 memory onboard — on June 29, 2023, according to reputable leaker MEGAsizeGPU that tends to be accurate when it comes to Nvidia's launch plans. However, as this information is from a leak, consider it cautiously and with the required amount of salt. Based on a document published by the leaker, Nvidia and its add-in-board (AIB) partners will ship GeForce RTX 4060 products to the channel on June 12, so the cards will be in stock shortly. Nvidia wants reviews of graphics cards carrying a $299 MSRP to be published in June 28 and reviews of boards with a non-MSRP price tag to be released on June 29. On the same day, the product, which has all chances to become one of the best graphics cards available this summer, will be on the shelves. The GeForce RTX 4060 is expected to use the AD106 GPU, which comes with 3072 CUDA cores, and is paired with 8GB of 17 GT/s GDDR6 memory via a 128-bit interface. This new AIB comes with a GPU that features notably fewer active CUDA cores compared to the GeForce RTX 4060 Ti, which has 4352 CUDA cores, indicating a significant disparity in performance between the two. However, the power consumption of the RTX 4060 model is estimated to be up to 115W, which is considerably lower than that of the RTX 4060 Ti model. The relatively low power consumption will enable makers of graphics cards to experiment designs for both the printed circuit board as well as cooling system. Therefore, expect both compact GeForce RTX 4060 boards with single-slot coolers or with low-profile PCB as well as cards featuring large cooling systems that will promise extended overclocking capability. It is noteworthy that the document published by @Zed_Wang also notes the GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16 GB, which is potentially a very interesting graphics card for gamers, but only indicates that this will be available in July without clarifying the date. Keep in mind that while the leaker is reputable and tends to have actual documents, plans can change and this is still an unofficial source. That said, take the information with a grain of salt. https://www.tomshardware.com/news/nvidias-geforce-rtx-4060-alleged-launch-date-revealed
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Video game fans around the world flocked to shops on Friday to get their hands on the new edition of "Zelda", one of the most successful franchises in history and now central to the success of Japanese giant Nintendo. Gamers queued hours before shops opened in cities from Paris to New York and Tokyo, desperate to be among the first to play "Tears of the Kingdom", featuring the exploits of Princess Zelda and elf-like warrior Link. Standing in line outside a Paris store before midnight, 19-year-old Taylor Meguira told AFP the previous entry in the franchise's storied cannon, 2017's "Breath of the Wild", had been a "real revolution". "Knowing that there is a sequel coming out in an hour or a little less, it's just incredible, it just makes me so happy," he said. In Tokyo, Yutaka Hirai, 30, queued with dozens of others, telling AFP the seemingly endless scale of previous Zelda games helped draw him in. "I want to find the same wide open spaces and adventure in this game as in the previous ones," he said, confessing he had played the previous title for "over 100 hours". Early reviews have gushed about the game, giving it a score of 97 out of 100 on metacritic, a site that compiles ratings from reviewers. The Zelda franchise has sold 125 million copies worldwide since its first edition in 1986. It helped forge "open world" games where the player is free to roam in virtual landscapes—an idea later taken up by titles ranging from "Grand Theft Auto" to "Skyrim". Potential blockbuster But its main challenge this year will be to boost earnings for Nintendo and prolong the life of its Switch console, which experts say is approaching the end of its life after more than six years on the shelves. Earlier this week, Nintendo posted better than expected profits but issued a gloomy forecast for the year ahead. The Zelda game is expected to be "by far the biggest contributor to Nintendo's sales this year", said Serkan Toto, an analyst at Kantan Games. Charles-Louis Planade, an analyst at Midcap Partners, reckons "Tears of the Kingdom" could become "the best-selling game in history," potentially approaching $1 billion in revenue. And so far, reviews have backed up the hype. "It is easy to forget how to find the fun in adult life. Games such as Zelda help to remind you that if you look at things the right way, it's everywhere," wrote Keza MacDonald in a five-star review for the UK's Guardian newspaper. The franchise has come a long way since its 1980s launch, which was something of a gamble for a company then best known for "Donkey Kong" and "Super Mario Bros". -'A pioneer'- The first edition, "The Legend of Zelda", plunged gamers into an unknown universe largely without instructions. "The scale of the game was huge at a time when most games were finished in an hour or two," said Kiyoshi Tane, an author specializing in the history of video games. "It was something of a pioneer of what open-world games would become." It was a smash hit and pushed the boundaries of game design for the next two decades. After a slump in quality that saw fans drift away from the franchise, designers rethought the game entirely and created "Breath of the Wild" in 2017. That game launched at the same time as the Switch and has since become the best-selling edition of Zelda by far. https://techxplore.com/news/2023-05-zelda-shelves.html
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Samsung Galaxy S23 FE (Fan Edition) is said to be in development and could be launched later this year. While the company did not launch the rumoured Galaxy S22 FE last year, the Galaxy S23 FE recently bagged the Safety Korea battery certification hinting at an imminent launch. It carries the model number SM-S711 and the battery is listed with the model number EB-BS711ABY. The smartphone's specifications have also recently surfaced online. It is expected to succeed the Galaxy S21 FE that was launched last year. A listing via Galaxy Club of the rumoured Samsung Galaxy S23 FE has surfaced on the Safety Korea battery certification in South Korea. The smartphone was spotted with the model number SM-S711 whereas the battery is listed on the site with the model number EB-BS711ABY. Though the listing doesn't reveal the battery capacity, it points to the upcoming arrival of the Galaxy S23 FE. The report also adds that the phone's battery is produced by Amperex. In addition to these, the Galaxy Club report also states that the handset has been spotted on Samsung's firmware servers with the model number SM-S711, believed to be the Samsung Galaxy S23 FE. How the Feature on Wear OS 4 to Switch Phones Without a Reset Will Work While the latest developments don't disclose any key specifications of the Galaxy S23 FE, an earlier report suggests that the smartphone could be powered by an in-house octa-core Exynos 2200 5G SoC. It is also rumoured to feature up to 8GB of LPDDR5 RAM and up to 256GB of UFS 3.1 inbuilt storage. The handset may feature a triple rear camera unit comprising a 50-megapixel primary camera. The other two sensors could be a 12-megapixel ultra-wide-angle camera and an 8-megapixel telephoto camera with up to 3x zoom support. On the front, the Galaxy S23 FE is said to be equipped with a 12-megapixel sensor. Other leaked details include a 4,500mAh battery and a 25W wired charging support. Additionally, the report also suggests that the phone could launch in select regions in Q3, or as early as July or August this year. Samsung Galaxy A34 5G was recently launched by the company in India alongside the more expensive Galaxy A54 5G smartphone. How does this phone fare against the Nothing Phone 1 and the iQoo Neo 7? We discuss this and more on Orbital, the Gadgets 360 podcast. Orbital is available on Spotify, Gaana, JioSaavn, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and wherever you get your podcasts. https://www.gadgets360.com/mobiles/news/samsung-s23-fe-battery-certification-listing-launch-expected-galaxy-report-4114654
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Contra
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Based on the 2024 Ford Mustang Dark Horse, the GT3 version is a factory-backed race car. Along with a race-tuned 5.4-liter V-8 and unique suspension, the Mustang GT3 features carbon-fiber body panels and extreme aero bits like its huge rear wing. Ford says the GT3-spec Stang will start competing around the globe next year, with entries in the 2024 World Endurance Championship and the 24 Hours of Le Mans. The Ford Mustang GT3 is what happens when the new V-8-powered Dark Horse model is transformed from a badass street car into a full-blown race car. Making its debut today on the eve of this year's historic 24 Hours of Le Mans, Ford says it is officially entering the Mustang in the global FIA GT3 category. Ready to Race This time next year, the factory-backed Mustang GT3 will compete in the 24 Hours of Le Mans. But that's after it'll compete in other racing series starting earlier in 2024. Among those are the World Endurance Championship and IMSA's GTD Pro Class. The former series will see two entries by Ford's first customer team, Proton Competition out of Germany. The latter will feature a pair of entries from Ford Performance's factory team, which will be managed by Multimatic Motorsports and kicks off at the 2024 Rolex 24 at Daytona. Ford Performance had help developing the GT3 Mustang from a couple longtime partners. Multimatic will help build and support the race cars, while M-Sport will build the engines, which are race-tuned 5.4-liter V-8s based on the new 5.0-liter Coyote engine that develops 500 horsepower on the Mustang the Dark Horse. Other upgrades on the GT3 variant include a rear-mounted transaxle and a unique suspension that uses an unequal-length double-wishbone setup. Show Pony Wearing a flashy livery by Troy Lee, who is said to rank among the top motorsport designers, the GT3-spec Stang also showcases Ford Performance's fresh logo. The simplified design will be plastered on all of FP's racing creations, advertisements, and you name it. Beneath that colorful wrapper are a whole lot of carbon-fiber body panels. There's no mistaking the GT3 variant for anything other than a Mustang, but its appearance is significantly altered. All four fenders balloon out, making it much wider. There are myriad cutouts for improved airflow and cooling too. Its face is positively menacing, with exposed carbon fiber surrounding the lower front air intake. Above are a set of fog lights to better illuminate the track during nighttime racing and in situations with poor visibility. Out back there's an enormous swan-neck wing that sprouts from the sloping roofline rather than the decklid. The protruding rear diffuser also looks like it could sever a limb or two. Inside, the Mustang GT3 looks nothing like its street-legal counterpart—okay, the door handles are familiar. It's otherwise stripped down for maximum weight reduction, fitted with a roll cage for improved rigidity and safety, and there's a single Recaro racing seat facing a steering wheel that seemingly has more buttons and switches than Volkswagen's entire lineup of electric vehicles. https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a44132134/ford-mustang-gt3-race-car-revealed/
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Novak Djokovic is one win away from a record 23rd men's major title after moving into the French Open final by beating Carlos Alcaraz in a contest ruined by an injury to the Spaniard. With an enthralling match delicately poised at one set each, Alcaraz pulled up early in the third with cramp. He twice carried on after treatment but Serbia's Djokovic took full advantage to run away with a 6-3 5-7 6-1 6-1 win. Djokovic, 36, will play Casper Ruud or Alexander Zverev in Sunday's final. Norwegian fourth seed Ruud was last year's beaten finalist, while German 22nd seed Zverev is back in the semi-finals after suffering a serious ankle injury on court at the same stage 12 months ago. Coincidentally, before Zverev's return to the last four, this year's opening semi-final was also cut short by a physical issue - although thankfully top seed Alcaraz's problem was not of the same gravity as the German's injury, which kept him out for several months. But it was enough to spoil an encounter which was blossoming into a classic. "First and foremost I have to say tough luck to Carlos," Djokovic said in his on-court interview. "At this level the last thing you want is cramps and physical problems. I feel for him, I feel sorry, I hope he can recover and come back pretty soon. "He knows how young he is, he's got plenty of time ahead of him and he will win this tournament many times." Follow live text and radio of the French Open men's semi-finals Alcaraz, 20, hit a forehand into the net on Djokovic's second match point, bowing his head as he trudged to the net, where the third seed waited to embrace his younger opponent. Djokovic applauded Alcaraz off the court along with the crowd, but only after the two-time champion received some boos as he celebrated reaching another final by pointing to the sky. The mood turned more celebratory as Djokovic took the post-match microphone, with fans chanting the former world number one's name. "It is tough for him not knowing whether to retire or finish the match but congratulations to him for showing fighting spirit and hanging in," Djokovic added. "I just tried to stay focused, stay present and not think too much about what was happening on the opposite side of the net." https://www.bbc.com/sport/tennis/65860442
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Former President Donald Trump’s announcement on his social media platform that he has been indicted by the US Department of Justice raised more questions than it answered. He’s been indicted on seven counts, CNN reported. Jack Smith, the special counsel coordinating federal investigations related to the former president, has never spoken publicly about what federal prosecutors have been doing in the nearly one year since FBI agents searched Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort. And we may not know much more until next Tuesday, when Trump has been ordered to appear at a federal courthouse in Miami at 3 p.m. Here are some of the answers we have so far: Has this ever happened before? No. Absolutely not. No former president has been charged with a federal crime. Neither has the front-runner for president from a major political party. Maybe the trial of former Vice President Aaron Burr for treason in 1807 is an analog, but probably not. We are, as is so often the case with Trump, in uncharted territory. Another indictment? Wasn’t he already indicted? Yes and yes. Trump was indicted back in March by the Manhattan district attorney on state charges related to hush-money payments to a former adult-film star in 2016. The new indictment involves completely different charges, brought by the federal government and related to his handling of classified documents after he left the White House. Why isn’t Trump being charged in connection with January 6 or his effort to overturn the 2020 election? He may yet be. Smith is also overseeing other investigations related to Trump, including those regarding the January 6, 2021, insurrection and the 2020 election. Wasn’t classified material also found in President Joe Biden’s home? Yes. And there is a special counsel investigating that too. The major difference in the Trump case is that he actively tried for around a year to keep from handing documents over to the National Archives, which owns them after a president leaves office. What exactly is in these new charges? We know that there are seven counts, and according to CNN’s reporting, one of them is related to a conspiracy allegation. Trump is facing a charge under the Espionage Act, his attorney Jim Trusty said on CNN Thursday, as well as charges of obstruction of justice, destruction or falsification of records, conspiracy and false statements. There are some other things we can infer, including that people other than Trump are likely to face charges. “All conspiracy means is an agreement between two or more people to violate the law, a meeting of the minds,” said Elie Honig, a senior CNN legal analyst and former assistant US attorney, appearing on CNN Thursday night. What laws may have been broken? The following comes from CNN’s Marshall Cohen: Prosecutors revealed the specific statutes that they were investigating when they searched Mar-a-Lago last year, a search that uncovered dozens of classified documents, even after Trump’s team swore they turned everything over. However, that was before Smith took over the probe as special counsel, and it doesn’t mean these are the only possible crimes. But it provides a roadmap of possible charges – because when seeking the Mar-a-Lago search warrant, prosecutors needed to convince a judge there was probable cause that they’d find evidence of these crimes. The first is 18 USC 793, which is part of the Espionage Act. That federal law deals with the illegal retention of “national defense information,” a broad term that encompasses classified documents and other sensitive government materials. This law can apply to people who are authorized to handle classified information but knowingly kept the material in an unsecured location, or to people who aren’t supposed to possess the information in the first place. The second is 18 USC 2071, which deals with the illegal removal of government records from US custody. The third is 18 USC 1519, which is obstruction of justice. This could come into play if prosecutors conclude that Trump or his aides intentionally tried to impede their inquiry – by moving boxes around so prosecutors wouldn’t find classified documents, by possibly questioning complying with subpoenas including for surveillance tapes that prosecutors believe captured the movement of the boxes, by failing to fully comply with a subpoena, or by falsely swearing that all classified files had been returned. The FBI search was nearly a year ago. Has DOJ been sitting on these charges? Probably not. Smith was not even involved in the case at that point. Every indication is that government lawyers have been busy building a case. In fact, Smith has recently been using a second grand jury in Florida. CNN has reported multiple details in recent weeks about witnesses that have appeared in recent months before grand juries. It wasn’t until March that they questioned an aide who was in the room for the meeting when Trump was recorded seeming to motion to papers with classified material on his desk. RELATED: CNN has obtained a transcript of the recording. When will we know more? Trump is set to appear Tuesday at a federal courthouse in Miami. Until then, anything we hear on the matter is likely to come from Trump. Miami? Why isn’t he being charged in Washington, DC? Great question. CNN’s Evan Perez reported Thursday night that federal officials were scrambling with the logistics of how to prosecute the former president in Miami, and he noted that there had long been an assumption that federal charges against Trump would be in Washington. However, it does make some sense for the case to be in Florida. That’s where Trump now lives most of the year, and it is also where the FBI conducted a search of Mar-a-Lago and carted away boxes containing classified material. There are other reasons. Trump has dismissed legal setbacks in New York – his company was convicted of tax evasion and he was found liable for sexual abuse – with the argument that New Yorkers are politically opposed to him. That argument will be more difficult in Florida, a state he won in both 2016 and 2020, although President Joe Biden carried Miami-Dade County. “The fact that this is being charged in Florida is enormously significant,” said Honig. “Legally, I think it’s the right move by DOJ, because they’re going to avoid a messy question about venue.” Which Florida judge will oversee the case? Someone you might remember. Aileen Cannon, a federal district judge appointed by Trump, has been initially assigned to oversee the new federal criminal case. She is the same judge who, after the search warrant was executed at Mar-a-Lago last year, deferred to Trump’s attorneys and raised legal eyebrows on the left and right by agreeing to appoint a third-party special master to review documents seized at the property. That special master appointment, which may have had the effect of slowing down the investigation, was ultimately overturned by a conservative panel of appeals court judges. It will be interesting to see if Cannon remains on the case. How long will this take? Will it be done before the election? Unclear but unlikely. Both Honig, a Trump critic, and Robert Ray, an attorney who defended Trump in his impeachment trial, said on CNN Thursday that given that the Manhattan DA’s case is already scheduled and given the length of time it takes to prosecute a federal case, it seems far-fetched that this could be concluded before the 2024 election. What happens if Trump wins and the trial is not concluded? It goes away, said Ray. “He would control the Justice Department … if it’s still pending, he just dismisses the case.” Will this make Republicans turn on Trump? Be skeptical. The former president was impeached twice, tried to overturn an election, sued repeatedly, indicted in Manhattan and so much more. He’s still the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, according to polls. And Trump is guaranteed to drum up support based on these latest charges, all part of what he alleges is a yearslong “witch hunt.” “He could actually weaponize his campaign against these indictments,” the Democratic strategist and CNN analyst David Axelrod predicted Thursday night. “I think that’s what we’re going see, just as we did here in New York. He is going to say, as you say, ‘They’re coming after us. They’re trying to take our voice away.’” What’s below are answers to some questions we got after Trump’s March indictment in New York that still apply. The most-asked question is also the easiest to answer. Can Trump still run for president while indicted or if he is convicted? Yes, absolutely. “Nothing stops Trump from running while indicted, or even convicted,” the University of California, Los Angeles law professor Richard Hasen told me in an email earlier this year. The Constitution requires only three things of candidates. They must be: A natural born citizen. At least 35 years old. A resident of the US for at least 14 years. As a political matter, it’s maybe more difficult for an indicted candidate, who could become a convicted criminal, to win votes. Trials don’t let candidates put their best foot forward. But it is not forbidden for them to run or be elected. Other restrictions don’t apply to Trump There are a few asterisks both in the Constitution and the 14th and 22nd Amendments. Term limits. The 22nd Amendment forbids anyone who has twice been president (meaning twice been elected or served half of someone else’s term and then won his or her own) from running again. That doesn’t apply to Trump since he lost the 2020 election. Impeachment. If a person is impeached by the House and convicted by the Senate of high crimes and misdemeanors, he or she is removed from office and disqualified from serving again. Trump, although twice impeached by the House during his presidency, was also twice acquitted by the Senate. Disqualification. The 14th Amendment includes a “disqualification clause,” written specifically with an eye toward former Confederate soldiers. It reads: No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. The indictment in New York City with regard to the hush-money payments to an adult-film star has nothing to do with rebellion or insurrection. Federal charges related to classified documents likely do not either. Potential charges in Fulton County, Georgia, with regard to 2020 election meddling or at the federal level with regard to the January 6, 2021, insurrection could perhaps be construed by some as a form of insurrection. But that is an open question that would have to work its way through the courts. The 2024 election is fast approaching. Could Trump vote if he was convicted? If he was convicted of a felony at the federal level or in New York, Trump would be barred from voting in his adoptive home state of Florida, at least until he had served out a potential sentence. Where do you find an impartial Trump jury? As Trump is among the most divisive and now well-known Americans in history, it’s hard to believe there’s a big, impartial jury pool out there. The Sixth Amendment guarantees “the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed.” A Quinnipiac University poll conducted in March asked for registered voters’ opinion of Trump. Just 2% said they hadn’t heard enough about him to say. But New York empaneled an anonymous jury in a sexual abuse lawsuit brought by the former advice columnist E. Jean Carroll. Could Trump ever be jailed? We’re getting ahead of ourselves. He hasn’t been tried, much less convicted. The idea that Trump would ever see the inside of a jail cell still seems completely far-fetched. Hasen said the Secret Service would have to arrange for his protection in jail. The logistics of that are mind-boggling. Would agents be placed into cells on either side of him? Would they dress as inmates or guards? Top officials accused of wrongdoing have historically found a way out of jail. Former President Richard Nixon got a preemptive pardon from his successor, Gerald Ford. Nixon’s previous vice president, Spiro Agnew, resigned after he was caught up in a corruption scandal. Agnew made a plea deal and avoided jail time. Burr, also a former vice president, narrowly escaped a treason conviction. But then he left the country. But people do routinely serve prison time for retention of classified documents, conspiracy and obstruction. We are a long way from that. If Trump is jailed, would the Secret Service go with him? We’ve gotten this question multiple times, but it seems too premature and unprecedented as to be answerable at the moment. Let’s let the legal process play out. Clearly the Secret Service is responsible for the former president’s safety, even if that is in jail. This story has been updated with additional information. https://edition.cnn.com/2023/06/09/politics/criminal-indictment-trump-what-matters/index.html
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Europe's oldest aardvark will be "greatly missed" following his death, a zoo has said. Colchester Zoo's animal care team had noticed Afer had become less active in recent weeks and a vet was called on 3 June. The 32-year-old was euthanised after the results of his blood test and his welfare were considered. The Essex zoo confirmed the death of the father-of-five on its website on 8 June. Aardvarks are found in savannahs, grasslands, woodlands, and bushlands in Africa and they are nocturnal creatures. Afer was born on 7 May 1991 at Royal Burgers Zoo in The Netherlands and arrived at Colchester Zoo in 2017. Ottis, Estie, and Njaa Njaa were three of his five offspring born in Colchester and they have since been transferred to other zoos across Europe as part of a breeding programme. The only aardvark left at Colchester Zoo is OQ, who mothered them, and staff said she will receive "extra attention and enrichment". "This was a very sad day for everyone, Afer had a wonderful personality and will be greatly missed by the animal care team as well as many visitors who adored him," Colchester Zoo said. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-essex-65855955
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We would like to find out more about the experience of paternity leave across the UK. If you are a father in the UK, did you take paternity leave? If not, tell us about why. For those who have taken it, how long were you off for? What did it offer you, your child and your partner? Did you feel you were able to take sufficient leave? If not, what was the impact? If you have more than one child, please tell us about how your experience of paternity leave differed. Do you think the system needs to change – and if so, how? Share your experience We want to hear about fathers' experience of paternity leave across the UK. Please share your story if you are 18 or over, anonymously if you wish. For more information please see our terms of service and privacy policy. https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/jun/09/uk-fathers-share-your-experience-of-paternity-leave