7aMoDi

Welcome!

VOTED✔️

#Accepted! Dm here or in discord. T/C.

Yes @FaLcO?

VOTED✔️

Now in its sixth year, the XT4, Cadillac's smallest and most affordable SUV offering, has grown to become the brand's third-bestselling model, and yet it lives in the literal shadow of the Escalade and gets just a fraction of the attention garnered by the pavement-scorching Blackwing sedans. Such is life for subcompact luxury crossovers: leased often, loved rarely. Cadillac hasn't done a whole lot to stoke the fire since the model's 2019 launch, with revisions since then limited mostly to equipment changes. For 2024, however, the XT4 gets a more substantial update. It starts up front with a redrawn fascia that features a more horizontal motif, aping the look of the larger XT6 and the Lyriq EV. The exterior design tweaks extend to the tail and also bring a new look to the wheels. A new dash makes way for an ultra-wide (33.0-inch) curved-screen display, also lifted from the Lyriq. Behind the pretty face, things in the engine room are unchanged this year. All XT4s continue to be powered by a turbocharged 2.0-liter four-cylinder that musters 235 horsepower and 258 pound-feet of torque. It's mated to a nine-speed automatic transmission and drives the front wheels or, as in our test car, all four. The modest mill gives the lie to our test car's Sport badging, with a quarter-mile result of 15.4 seconds at 92 mph and the benchmark run to 60 mph taking 7.0 seconds. This segment doesn't exactly bristle with scintillating performers, but the XT4's 60-mph time trails rivals including the BMW X1 (5.4 seconds), the Volvo XC40 B5 and the Lincoln Corsair (both 6.1), and the Lexus NX350 (6.6). To its credit, though, the Caddy's 2.0-liter utilizes a twin-scroll turbocharger that helps reduce turbo lag, aiding drivability in the real world. Note that the XT4's rolling start, 5-to-60-mph acceleration time of 7.3 seconds matches the Volvo's and betters the Lexus's. The nine-speed gearbox is also game, willing to downshift in answer to a flexed right ankle. HIGHS: Sharper looking outside, screen-tastic new dash, well packaged. The direct-injected turbo four's induction honk is typical of the species, and it reaches 75 decibels under wide-open throttle, receding to 69 decibels at a 70-mph cruise. Both figures are noisier than what we measured in the Corsair, although the wide-open-throttle number is no worse than our results for an Audi Q3. One odd element of the all-wheel-drive XT4's drivetrain: It remains front-wheel drive unless the driver selects AWD via the console-mounted Mode button. And the car reverts to front-wheel drive at each startup, so all winter long, XT4 drivers must remember to stab at that second button if they want the benefits of all-wheel drive. Fuel economy estimates are fractionally different this year, with the AWD model's city figure up by 1 mpg and the highway number down by one, netting out to 25 mpg combined versus 24 previously. (The front-drive version also sees 1-mpg differences in its city and highway estimates, but the result is the same 26-mpg combined rating as before.) We got 26 mpg in our 75-mph highway fuel-economy test and averaged a rather disappointing 20 mpg overall. LOWS: No hybrid or PHEV powertrains, interior doesn't shout luxury, Sport in name only. Those EPA numbers are on par with others in the segment, but many of this Caddy's rivals offer more economical alternative powertrains. The Corsair can be had as a hybrid, while the Lexus NX is available as a regular hybrid or a plug-in hybrid. Volvo and Mercedes, meanwhile, both offer an EV version of their small SUVs. Our test car was optioned with the Active Sport Suspension (adaptive dampers), a standalone item priced at a modest $700. We didn't find that the adaptive dampers lived up to their promise of simultaneously improving ride and handling. It's likely that the standard suspension setup would be more comfort-biased, and of course smaller wheels provide more tire sidewall to cushion sharp impacts. Rolling on 20-inch wheels (18s are also available), the XT4 let too much road harshness filter through, although body motions are well controlled. At the same time, we wouldn't characterize this car's cornering as lively—more like stolid, with plenty of understeer and lateral grip of 0.86 g. The steering has some weight to it but is not progressive in effort buildup. The XT4's big news is inside, in the form of a Really Big Screen. The digital instrumentation and the central infotainment screen merge under a single piece of glass that makes for an impressive presentation. Borrowed from the Lyriq EV, the new digital display features a Google-based operating system, and its resolution is as sharp as any you'll find. There's a welcome hand rest at the base of the screen, and we appreciate that Cadillac also has retained its rotary controller on the center console. Another plus is that there are still physical buttons for most climate controls. Apple CarPlay and Android Auto connections are wireless, although their displays aren't able to fully utilize the digital acreage. Look away from the outsize screen, and the interior is less dazzling. The subdued design doesn't scream luxury, and while the materials don't seem cheap, neither do they have the wow factor of some rivals, such as the Mercedes GLB or the (larger but no more expensive) Genesis GV70. Tall drivers may find that, even with a power-adjustable steering column, the wheel is too far away. In the rear seat, the cushion is comfortably up off the floor, and still headroom is good. Knee clearance is only just adequate for a six-footer sitting behind a similar-sized driver. Cargo space is pretty good for the segment, with 23 cubic feet behind the rear seat and 49 cubic feet with the rear seatbacks flattened. That translates to seven carry-on-size bags with all the seats up or 21 with them folded. The price of entry climbs by $1600 this year, the base Luxury going for $39,090 before options, while the Premium Luxury asks $42,690 and the Sport $43,190. That's with front-wheel drive; all-wheel drive tacks on another $2500 in all three cases. Our all-wheel-drive XT4 Sport was larded with more than $11,000 in extras, eroding the value proposition. The $57,215 as-tested figure puts it up against the 312-hp BMW X1 M35i or even a well-equipped Genesis GV70 2.5T. VERDICT: Latest updates won't push this Caddy into the spotlight. Stick closer to the starting price, and the XT4 makes a lot more sense. Even if it's probably never going to be celebrated in rap songs or race for pink slips at a drag strip. https://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/a46630606/2024-cadillac-xt4-350t-test/

Old Trafford has had no notable modernisation for almost 20 years. Photograph: Peter Byrne/PA With Ineos sources suggesting a new ‘Wembley of the North’ could be in the works, we assess the options Isn’t Old Trafford good enough as it is? No. Old Trafford is 114 years old and tired with no notable modernisation since Malcolm Glazer bought the club in 2005. Sir Jim Ratcliffe, the incoming 25% owner, wishes to address this. One option is to build a new stadium on the land that surrounds the current one which, according to Ineos sources, could be billed as “the Wembley of the North”. How would that work? The idea would be to construct a bespoke state-of-the-art facility with a capacity of about 100,000 that would cost more than £3bn. Alongside this glittering new jewel in the club crown could be boutiques, restaurants, fast-food eateries, a multiscreen cinema, a club museum and copious other attractions that would make this a destination venue. Think the £2bn Tottenham Hotspur Stadium but even grander to ensure bragging rights befitting England’s record 20-times champions and Ratcliffe’s sense of ambition as United’s moderniser. Thus “the Wembley of the North” soundbite. ‘Wembley of the North’: really? Erm, kind of. Yes, because Old Trafford’s failure to be a venue for Euro 2028 points to its decrepit, fading condition as a relic from the 1990s so a reset is required. No, because, actually, it can already be billed as the de facto Wembley of the region. Why: because despite being decrepit, the 75,000-seat ground has a storied history dating from 1910 graced by Billy Meredith, George Best, the Sirs Matt Busby and Alex Ferguson, Eric Cantona, Cristiano Ronaldo, plus copious others. And it is comfortably England’s biggest football stadium besides Wembley. Could government money go towards this? Probably a no on this, certainly with regard to a sizeable chunk of the finance required. United could lobby the government for finance as part of its levelling up project and although there may be a few million pounds – possibly in tax breaks – for the project, the Guardian has been told by those with knowledge of the plans that because this is a private business initiative the money, in the main, will have to be sourced from this sector too. How likely is the building of a new stadium there? Call it 60-40 in favour. Ratcliffe’s arrival nudges up the likelihood because he has (so far) demonstrated he means business, embodied by the hiring of Omar Berrada from Manchester City to be the new chief executive. But there should be caution because even with the $300m he is injecting into the club later this year that raises Ratlciffe’s holding to 28%, the six Glazer siblings remain majority owners and their track record regarding Old Trafford is unimpressive. When Ratcliffe’s deal was announced on Christmas Eve it was said he would “provide an additional $300m intended to enable future investment into Old Trafford” but it could also be used for other purposes. How long would the project take? Six to eight years. Where would United play during construction? Good question. United sources have previously indicated it may not be possible to play at Old Trafford while a new stadium was being built. Across town there is a 53,000-seat stadium (soon to be 60,000) but could United really play at City’s Etihad Stadium? One answer is that once fans of each team became used to it, why not? The Milan clubs, for example, share San Siro, and United used City’s former ground, Maine Road, when Old Trafford was bombed during the second world war and in the 1950s for three European games because their stadium lacked floodlights. If the Etihad is a no-no then this presumably rules out Anfield for the same reason (Liverpool are even fiercer rivals) so maybe the new Everton stadium? Or, how about the Wembley of the South: Wembley. After all, according to the tired joke, the vast constituency of United’s fanbase are Londoners. What would happen to Old Trafford? It may be downsized to become the women’s and academy stadium. Or somehow reconfigured to be the site of the museum. Any alternatives? Yes. A revamp of Old Trafford. However, the train track adjacent to it means limitations. https://www.theguardian.com/football/2024/feb/07/manchester-united-and-the-future-of-old-trafford-key-questions-answered

The employees, who made clothes for western clothing brands, were legally entitled to the money after losing their jobs Workers at Style Avenue factory in El Salvador which closed in May 2023, laying off about 250 workers. Photograph: Courtesy of Ministerio de Trabajo y Previsión Social de El Salvador More than £4bn in wages has been withheld from millions of garment workers making clothes for western clothing brands over the past 15 years, according to new estimates on severance “wage theft” in the global fashion industry. The Worker Rights Consortium (WRC), a labour rights investigative organisation, says that garment workers have been denied billions of pounds of legally mandated severance pay, which they should have received after being sacked or losing their jobs due to brands cancelling orders or factory closures. Severance pay is financial compensation that workers are legally entitled to if their employment is terminated or the business closes. “It doesn’t grab headlines, but when workers lose their jobs and are then denied severance they spent years earning, it has devastating consequences for them and their families,” said Scott Nova, executive director at the WRC. Nova said the issue of severance “theft” was a “hidden crime” in the global fashion industry that received little attention, while victimising millions of workers across the world. “Apparel brands have known about severance theft for years but have done nothing to stop it. Their voluntary labour standards have allowed them to ignore the problem with impunity,” Nova said. The WRC highlighted an ongoing case involving workers at a factory making Disney products in El Salvador, which it claims owes 250 workers a total of £1.4m in severance pay. For some, their share of the total is the equivalent of more than two years’ wages. The factory, Style Avenue, which made branded sportswear, ceased production in February 2023 and closed in May, making hundreds of workers unemployed. Disney had granted a licence to Outerstuff, a US designer and manufacturer of licensed children’s sports clothing, to make Disney children’s clothing. The clothing was made at the factory and was co-branded with the logos of US National Football League (NFL) or National Basketball Association (NBA) teams. The WRC says that one of the owners of the factory was temporarily jailed for failing to pay healthcare and pension contributions for employees. Instead of being paid what they were owed, the WRC says that Style Avenue employees were paid about £45 each, less than 1% of their legal entitlement. The WRC claims that this failure so far to pay workers made Outerstuff an outlier in the industry and that as companies making clothes for certain brands, including for the NFL and the NBA, were subject to enforceable labour standards, that obliges them to repay stolen severance pay. In response to the WRC’s claim, Outerstuff claims that the WRC’s analysis is factually inaccurate and denies that it is obliged to pay the severance money. However, after the Guardian approached Outerstuff for comment, the company confirmed it would pay nearly $1m. In a statement to the Guardian, Outerstuff said it “takes and has consistently taken worker rights very seriously. We manage a structured, global compliance programme that outlines and requires a code of conduct for all our suppliers. At this time, despite our strong feeling that we have met all licence requirements, Outerstuff is nonetheless working on a structured plan that will provide nearly $1m in finances to the workers as soon as possible.” Nova said: “In addition to Outerstuff, you have Disney with annual revenue of $89bn, the NFL and its teams with $18bn, and the NBA with $11bn. With combined revenue of $120bn, you would think these brands could scrape together $1.8m to pay the workers who sewed their onesies the money they earned.” Disney, the US National Football League and the NBA have also been contacted by the WRC to appeal for them to intervene in the dispute. They did not respond to requests for comment from the Guardian. One former worker at the factory said she had been working at Style Avenue for 12 years and is now facing destitution after losing her job and not getting her severance pay. “They never told us the factory was going to close but when it did, I knew they had to pay us severance,” she said. “I was owed $7,700 in total. The factory told us they would pay us 50% of what we are owed but they never did. I have debts to pay off and since I haven’t been able to make payments, the interest is accumulating. We have had to borrow money for electricity and water. I haven’t been able to buy clothing or shoes for my children.” Another worker who said she worked at Style Avenue for more than 10 years said that, after the factory closed, she went to the Ministry of Labour for her severance calculation and was told she was owed $12,000 (£9,500). “My monthly salary at the factory was $360 (£282) but that never covered my living expenses. Not getting my severance has had a big impact. Our house has a tin roof and water is coming in but I don’t have money to fix it. I can’t buy food or get medicine for my stomach infection.” The WRC says that severance wage “theft” has spiked since Covid shuttered high streets and led to clothing brands cancelling millions of pounds worth of clothing orders with their overseas suppliers. As a result, hundreds of thousands of garment workers lost their jobs as factories closed and brands continued to cancel or reduce orders in an attempt to recoup the losses they suffered. Shortly after the pandemic, WRC investigations found that workers had been denied nearly $1bn in severance pay and other unpaid wages from 2020-2022. In 2022, a coalition of more than 200 rights groups urged brands to sign a binding agreement with unions to establish a global severance fund that they would pay into to help workers who had lost their jobs and were not paid what they were due. https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2024/feb/05/garment-workers-have-lost-out-on-4bn-of-severance-pay-says-rights-group

Calver Weir, Derbyshire: Quite how many there are in the bare alders is hard to tell, but to hear them is pleasure enough A female siskin collecting seeds from alder cones. Photograph: Phil Gates It’s interesting to reflect that until the 19th century, breeding siskins were confined to the northernmost Scottish pinewoods. Even now they’re erratically spread and often no more than wandering winter visitors to this county. This was the perfect place to find them. The Derwent ran under the road bridge as a glimmering black plane then vanished into a skein of alder branches along each bank. Siskins love alder seeds, and even above the river roar I could hear their distinctive “be-Doo” calls. Perhaps the best way to convey the species’ tiny size – it measures approximately 12cm and weighs 12g – is that I could see the birds in the bare alders only when they moved. The flock rotated around the canopy in a random churn, birds pinging bough to bough in search of seeds, so that it was almost impossible to estimate their numbers. Even worse, as I made a tally I could never relocate them the moment they landed, so that the count never proceeded beyond about fifteen-ish. I guessed, therefore, that in total there might be 20. Then they flew sequentially, one after another, to an adjacent alder. I logged the whole thing. There were 56. Needless to say, the tree into which all moved still looked as bare as its predecessor. It was as if they had vanished into the grey winter light. Yet I could hear them and that was more than enough. The odd title “siskin” derives from a German equivalent Erlenzeisig (erlen simply means alder) but the zeisig element was almost certainly taken from an older Czech word čižek. Language fails miserably before siskin sounds but the Middle European name is beautifully onomatopoeic of the song’s prelude. It is a weird invertebrate wheeze that rounds out and swells into a jumbled run of liquid twittering notes. Best of all is when a male delivers the whole thing during an aerial display. He appears little more than a silhouetted blob bounding above the treetops, except that the wingbeats are slow and deep and exaggerated, and his creaking song unfurls among all that cold air like brightly coloured streamers in the hands of a dancer.

They proved that the West values swift shipping at reasonable prices much more than the lives of Palestinian children. This photo released by the Houthi Media Center shows Houthi forces boarding the cargo ship Galaxy Leader on Sunday, Nov. 19, 2023. Yemen's Houthis have seized the ship in the Red Sea off the coast of Yemen after threatening to seize all vessels owned by Israeli companies. [Houthi Media Center via AP] The British and American air strikes on Yemen since January 12, launched with support from Australia, Canada, and the Netherlands among others, demonstrate yet again how most Western nations value their money and profit much more than human life. Israel’s devastating war on Gaza, the first livestreamed genocide in history, has claimed more than 27,000 Palestinian lives, many of them children, since October 7. Most of the Gaza Strip has been reduced to rubble and over a million people have been displaced due to relentless and seemingly indiscriminate Israeli bombardment. The near-total siege on the Strip, meanwhile, brought survivors to the brink of starvation and forced doctors to perform amputations without anaesthetics using unsterile tools. In the face of this undeniable humanitarian catastrophe, Western governments took no meaningful action. In fact, both US President Joe Biden and UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak repeatedly made it clear that they will continue to unconditionally support Israel’s onslaught on Gaza and efforts to “eradicate Hamas” whatever the human cost may be for the Palestinians. In the end, it was not the killing and maiming of tens of thousands of civilians, but a number of non-fatal attacks by Yemen’s Houthi fighters on commercial ships passing through the strategically important Bab al-Mandeb Strait that sprung Western nations into action. Clearly, the dollars and pounds lost to the rapid rise in shipping costs caused by the attacks proved more valuable to the leaders of “the free world” than rivers of Middle Eastern blood. The Bab al-Mandeb Strait, which leads into the Red Sea and up to the Suez Canal, is one of the most crucial waterways for international trade. It is estimated that 12 percent of all global trade, including most exports of petroleum and natural gas from the Gulf, passes through the Strait, amounting to $1 trillion of commerce per year. Located east of the Mediterranean Sea, Israel relies on this trade route for most of its goods. The Houthis say it was this dependency that prompted them to start intercepting Israel-bound and Israeli-owned ships passing through Bab al-Mandeb. They said they will stop the attacks if Israel agrees to a ceasefire in Gaza, or at least allows sufficient humanitarian aid in. The Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping, conducted in ways reminiscent of Hollywood action movies, have so far led to no loss of life among the civilian crews of targeted ships, but inflicted significant economic damage on Israel and its backers. It is estimated that since the start of Houthi attacks, Israel’s main port in Eilat saw an 85 percent drop in activity. These attacks also caused some major shipping companies, including British Petroleum and Shell, to entirely suspend their operations in the Red Sea. The suspensions led to severe delays in goods deliveries as well as unprecedented increases in shipping costs. According to the latest available figures, typical shipping prices are 329 percent more expensive today than before the beginning of the disruption in this key shipping route in November. The attacks also increased the po[CENSORED]rity of Houthis both in Yemen and across the region, and led to the rebranding of the Iran-backed armed group as an honourable and noteworthy resistance force against Western imperial aggression. Western nations could have, of course, avoided all this and saved many, many Palestinian lives, by simply compelling Israel to put a stop to its genocide in Gaza and end its occupation of Palestinian territories. Rather than upsetting Israel by telling it to stop killing Palestinians, however, the leaders of the West decided to embark on yet another bombing campaign against one of the poorest countries in the world. With this move they showed not only that they do not care about mass murder when it is committed by one of their allies, but also that they value profit margins of Western commercial giants much more than Middle Eastern lives. Of course, none of this is in any way surprising, or out of the ordinary. After all, in capitalism, human life – be it Palestinian, Yemeni, American or British – is just another commodity. Western governments function in a ruthless economic system where dystopian concepts like “value of a statistical life (VSL)” are normalised. VSL aims to calculate the amount of money that a society would realistically be willing to pay to save a human life. It assigns humans a monetary worth that goes on to inform government policy. If a certain lifesaving measure is deemed more expensive than the VSL of those it would save, then the policy is not implemented. For example, in 1975, the US Department of Transportation rejected a regulation to install safety bars at the rear of all trucks, which would have reduced the number of fatalities in collisions, because it deemed the cost of implementing the policy would exceed the VSL of those that would be saved as a result of it. If the US government is willing to allow American civilians going about their lives in the United States to die preventable deaths at the altar of capitalism, it is not surprising that it scrambled together an entire task force to protect commercial ships from an anti-West resistance group in the Red Sea. Furthermore, while it is very rare for Western governments to take meaningful action – military or otherwise – to save human lives, and especially non-Western lives, it is very much part of their routine to wage war for economic gain. The 2003 Iraq war, for example, is largely accepted to be a war fought for “big oil”. The war killed more than a million Iraqis, and caused unprecedented instability that birthed further conflict and misery, but provided companies like the BP with profits of many billions. Late last month, explaining his decision to attack Yemen alongside the US, Britain’s Sunak claimed “We cannot stand by and allow these attacks to go unchallenged. Inaction is also a choice”. The hypocrisy in this sentence is staggering. The British prime minister only acknowledged that inaction is indeed “also a choice” when Houthi fighters decided that they would take action, and hit the capitalist West where it hurts – in its wallet – to try and put an end to Israel’s relentless attacks on the Palestinians. He has been very much content with inaction for four long months as Israel killed, injured, displaced and starved more than two million human beings in Gaza with complete impunity. In fact, he is still very much content with taking no action, other than a few empty statements and sending a little aid, to save Palestinian lives. The Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping have not been able to put an end to genocide, or deliver a lifeline to the Palestinians suffocating in Gaza. Nevertheless, they managed to expose the West’s priorities, and its seemingly inherent inability to recognise and respect the value of life, and especially that of the Palestinians. The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance. https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2024/2/7/houthis-couldnt-stop-genocide-but-exposed-the-wests-moral-bankruptcy

The Conservative MP is best known for the financial chaos he unleashed during 38 days as chancellor of the exchequer. Kwasi Kwarteng, former UK chancellor of the exchequer, at an interview in London, UK, on Tuesday, January 30, 2024 [Hollie Adams/Bloomberg via Getty Images] This week, controversial UK Conservative Member of Parliament Kwasi Kwarteng announced his decision to step down from politics and will not be standing at the next general election which has to take place by January 28, 2025, but could be held this year. Kwarteng, 48, has served as the member of Parliament for Spelthorne, Surrey, since 2010 and has also held senior cabinet positions in government. He is likely to be best remembered for the financial chaos he unleashed during his 38 days as chancellor of the exchequer in 2022. “Yesterday I informed my Association Chair of my decision …” he wrote on X. “It has been an honour to serve the residents of Spelthorne since 2010, and I shall continue to do so for the remainder of my time in Parliament.” His post sparked a mixture of taunts and criticism from commentators and left-wing legislators, among them satirical congratulations for having managed to “wreck the economy” of a country in less than three weeks. Who is Kwasi Kwarteng? Kwarteng’s election to Parliament as a Conservative member for Spelthorne in the 2010 UK general election coincided with his party’s return to power after 13 years of Labour rule. As then-Conservative Party leader David Cameron became prime minister in a Conservative-led coalition government with the Liberal Democrats, the London-born Kwarteng was just about to turn 35 and his future looked bright. But other than having been born to highly accomplished immigrant parents from Ghana – his father was an economist and his mother a barrister – Kwarteng arrived in the House of Commons at Westminster with a CV typical of many Conservative politicians. Indeed, like many of those who have taken high positions in a Conservative government before him, he was educated at the elite private school, Eton College, which he attended on a scholarship, and then at the University of Cambridge. A year as a Kennedy Scholar at Harvard University followed, and then a return to Cambridge where he completed a PhD in economic history in 2000. Ten years later, and following spells as a financial analyst in the City of London and as a columnist for the right-wing newspaper, The Telegraph, Kwarteng, who has been married to solicitor Harriet Edwards since 2019, was elected to one of the oldest legislatures in the world. Why was his time as chancellor so short and controversial? By the time he was picked to be chancellor by then-Prime Minister Liz Truss in September 2022, Kwarteng, the first Black Briton to occupy this lofty office of state, had cut his teeth in other ministerial roles. Under the previous prime minister, Boris Johnson, he was secretary of state for business, energy and industrial strategy. However, his time at the helm of the nation’s finances took a disastrous turn when the free-market champion presented a mini-budget to Parliament, which included 45 billion pounds ($56.85bn) of unfunded tax cuts for the rich, sending the financial markets into a meltdown. Tim Bale, politics professor at Queen Mary University London, recalled that Kwarteng’s plans “crashed the pound, put pension funds under pressure and sent interest rates shooting up, costing anyone with a mortgage far more than before and shredding the Conservatives’ reputation for economic competence”. As a result, Truss, who had been part of the 2010 Conservative Party intake, sacked her chancellor just 38 days after first appointing him. Kwarteng’s replacement as chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, reversed most of his predecessor’s mini-budget, but the damage to Truss’s reputation also proved politically fatal. The crisis prompted her to fall on her sword after just 44 days in office, making Truss the shortest-serving prime minister and Kwarteng one of the shortest-serving chancellors in British political history. Kwasi Kwarteng, then chancellor of exchequer, departs 11 Downing Street to present the UK’s fiscal plans in Parliament, in London, UK, on Friday, September 23, 2022. What he announced ultimately sent the financial markets into freefall and resulted in his sacking [Chris J Ratcliffe/Bloomberg via Getty Images] How have people reacted to his decision to step down as an MP? Kwarteng, likely aware that his announcement on X would prompt many Britons to robustly remind him of his inglorious past as head of the UK Treasury, opted to disable the reply function on his post. But that did not stop the pile-on elsewhere, with opposition politicians quick to recall Kwarteng’s time as chancellor in 2022. Jess Phillips, a member of Parliament from the opposition Labour Party, was scathing. “Kwasi Kwarteng made everyone’s mortgages rise, his tenure as chancellor a dangerous embarrassment,” she wrote on X. Other Britons on social media were equally mocking, including author Otto English who posted on X: “Kwasi Kwarteng leaves a remarkable legacy. And I have every faith that his achievement will live on for decades to come. After all, not many people can claim to have wrecked the economy of a major economy in under three weeks.” Is Kwarteng the only Conservative MP to announce he is quitting at the next election? Far from it. Kwarteng, who, despite it all, remains widely admired for his high intellect, is just one of more than 50 Conservative parliamentarians who have decided to bail out at the next UK general election. According to Professor Bale, recent opinion polls indicating that the opposition Labour Party will electorally wipe out the Conservatives, have made many of the party’s sitting legislators all too aware of “which way the wind appears to be blowing”. “Many of them prefer to jump before they’re pushed by their voters – it’s easier on the ego and means they get a head-start in the post-Westminster job market, which is never as big as many assume,” said Bale. He added, “Opposition in the UK political system is a pretty thankless task – you’ve virtually zero influence on policy and, until you look like winning again, even those journalists who used to take you out for lunch all the time lose interest in anything you have to say.” https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/2/7/who-is-kwasi-kwarteng-and-why-is-he-stepping-down-from-british-politics

Nick movie: ANGEL OF DEATH Time: Hollywood Hub Netflix / Amazon / HBO: N/A Duration of the movie: 90Mins Trailer:

Music title: Malu Trevejo - Luna Llena (Official Video) Signer: Malu Trevejo Release date: 2017/09/22 Official YouTube link:

VOTED

Please man, don't lie. Please don't lie You didn't even screenshoots what the players said about changing the map You just screenshoots med what you wanted, I did not screenshoots the players' words because this is not worth reporting and you make report for what? for 70 ammo you lose? are you serious about that?! You looks serious from your name lol, Btw, I changed the map from zm_farra to zm_foda because players said that More than 7 players not 2 or 3 like u said.

I changed the map because more than one player asked me to do so I changed it in the first few minutes I didn't change it because I don't like zm_farra I mean I didn't change the map according to my own desire, I changed it because the players wanted to The players said "pls change map to foda, deko2 or foda_v2 Unfortunately, I didn't take a photo of their speech Because this is not really worth reporting against me. More than 5 players wanted to change the map so I did! Idk where's the mistake?

Yes! @FaLcO?

Voted

VOTED

Mercedes-Benz's electric van justifies its high price with class-leading range and a high-quality cabin while illustrating why EVs are well suited for the delivery sector. Mercedes-Benz's march toward electrification contains multitudes. On one end of the spectrum we have the EQS SUV, an egglike craft adorned with ambient lighting and wall-to-wall screens full of crisply rendered graphics. And all the way over on the other side is the 2024 Mercedes-Benz eSprinter. The electric variant of the long-running Sprinter commercial van eschews the EQS SUV's fripperies, but its quiet, smooth, and responsive operation—not to mention this latest version's much-improved range and efficiency—demonstrates why electric vans will proliferate in the coming decade. Mercedes launched the Europe-market electric Sprinter in December 2019, but its meager range barely eclipsed 100 miles under the right conditions, making it a difficult proposition for North America. This second-generation eSprinter, however, is ready to go the distance in the U.S., starting with a single configuration—a high-roof body with a 170.0-inch wheelbase and a 280.4-inch overall length. Packing a 113.0-kWh lithium-iron-phosphate battery, the eSprinter should have a range of 273 miles on the optimistic European WLTP test cycle, with an impressive 329-mile estimate on the WLTP city-specific cycle. Stateside measures tend to be far lower, but we believe it should get around 230 miles of EPA range. On our drive, the eSprinter's dashboard readout displayed 181 miles of range at the start. A two-hour, 69-mile drive loop that included hilly terrain and highway driving dropped that to 129 miles, with a claimed efficiency of 2.0 miles per kWh, which would align with our top-tier guesswork. Given the van's size and heft (curb weight is a C/D-estimated 6900 pounds), 200-plus miles seems adequate for the eSprinter's intended function of local deliveries. A standard heat pump helps mitigate cold-weather efficiency issues, and Eco and Maximum Range drive settings improve range by limiting power, although we can't imagine many drivers will want to downgrade to the latter's lethargic 107-hp output cap. When it's time to recharge, the eSprinter handles up to 115 kW on a DC fast-charger, with the battery going from 10 to 80 percent in a claimed 42 minutes. The maximum Level 2 charging speed is 9.6 kW. The eSprinter's rear-mounted electric motor comes in two differing outputs. The 134-hp version costs $3430 less than the high-output variant (the one we drove), which produces 201 horsepower and 295 pound-feet of torque. The immediate acceleration that we've experienced in many EVs wasn't present, although highway merges weren't too much of a challenge. The van remained adequately responsive above 55 mph, but you'll want to stick to the right lane given the 75-mph limiter. The accelerator has a fair amount of resistance, so moving forward with purpose requires a deliberate, assertive pedal prod—a reminder to the driver that juice isn't infinite. This predictable response eliminated any surprising acceleration surges, crucial when piloting something of this stature through narrow spaces. The eSprinter offers multiple levels of regenerative braking, including an automatic setting that uses sensors to predict the amount of regeneration required based on the traffic ahead—similar to the feature in the EQS. The system also serves as a coach, displaying a small icon on the dash when it wants you to lift off the accelerator to activate regen. While this automatic mode doesn't suffer from the alarming phantom pedal movement that we've experienced in Mercedes's consumer EVs, we preferred handling the regen duties on our own. The strongest setting doesn't allow for full one-pedal driving, but it provides consistent, predictable deceleration down to a crawl. What surprised us most was the large van's road manners. The vehicles we drove carried 440 pounds of stuff, far under the 2624-pound maximum capacity, but still a better barometer than driving it totally unladen. The eSprinter shrugged off big bumps with ease, adeptly absorbing most impacts and minimizing rear-axle hop. On curvier, 55-mph mountain roads, the eSprinter's handling impressed, with little body roll and fairly precise steering that inspired enough confidence to keep up with more nimble traffic. Inside, the eSprinter is nearly identical to its combustion-powered counterpart. The leather armrests are well cushioned, and the seats are comfortable and supportive but also extremely upright—the cargo-area partition wall prevents any sort of reclining. The upscale-looking black central binnacle sports a high-quality display running the latest Mercedes infotainment system, which includes the "Hey Mercedes" voice assistant. There are practical storage cubbies throughout, while a flat floor helps the cabin feel (sort of) spacious, and an optional rear-camera mirror vastly improves rear visibility. The eSprinter enters a growing segment, where it faces off against the Rivian EDV, the Ford E-Transit, and the Ram ProMaster EV. A starting price of $74,181 puts the eSprinter far above the Ford and the Ram, yet it still undercuts the Rivian. But, according to Mercedes's estimates, the eSprinter outdoes the field in terms of range. While the Benz's payload and gross vehicle weight rating are on par with the Rivian's, the cheaper Ford and Ram both boast payload capacities over 3000 pounds, with the E-Transit topping the chart at up to 3880 pounds. https://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/a46628568/2024-mercedes-benz-esprinter-van-drive/