Rainstorm.

Windows 11 has received another preview build in the Dev channel, and it brings in a number of tweaks and additions, including beefing up a feature that should help your PC use a bit less electricity. That would be Content Adaptive Brightness Control (CABC), which as of preview build 23424, works not just with laptops on battery power, but when they’re plugged in – and indeed with desktop PCs too. What CABC does is intelligently dim (or lighten) certain parts of the screen depending on what content is being displayed, the idea being that it can cut back power usage without hampering the ‘visual experience’. In other words, the tweaking on the dimming front shouldn’t make any noticeable difference to the image you’re looking at on-screen, and it should save you a bit of power (and therefore cash, over time). The feature can be set to be always on, or it can be disabled, or alternatively you can choose to have CABC kick in only if you’re on battery power (on a laptop of course). What else is new for build 23424? There’s a new widget board which is now bigger, so it’s three columns wide (rather than two) and much roomier (assuming the device’s screen has enough real-estate to cope). Along with this, there’s the usual gamut of fixes and minor tweaks, all of which are detailed in the usual blog post(opens in new tab) published with every preview build. Notable pieces of minor tinkering include improving the speed of running searches within the Settings panel, and a change to produce better performance when playing games with a high polling mouse (a super-precise fancy gaming mouse, basically).

VideoCardz has published a leaked slide presumably from Nvidia's final presentation of its GeForce RTX 4070 graphics card. The slide reveals a final price of the add-in-board as well as some of its specifications. In particular, it says that the product will cost $599 and will have a total graphics power of 200W. Nvidia is expected to release its GeForce RTX 4070 graphics card in mid-April, but most of its specifications have been known for some time, albeit not from the company itself. The upcoming vanilla version of Nvidia's GeForce RTX 4070 shares the AD104 graphics processor with the RTX 4070 Ti, but has only 5888 CUDA cores operating at 1920 MHz – 2475 MHz. Just like the 'Titanium' version, the GeForce RTX 4070 features a 12GB GDDR6X memory subsystem with a 192-bit interface. The new graphics card is said to have a total graphics power of 200W, which is significantly lower than the TGP of Nvidia's GeForce RTX 4070 Ti (285W) and GeForce RTX 3070 Ti (290W). This would enable graphics cards makers to miniaturize cooling systems of the GeForce RTX 4070 and therefore maximize compatibility with more compact computer cases, which will be another reason why this board will likely enter the ranks of one of the best graphics cards available. Idle power and video playback power of the new board will also be lower compared to that of its predecessors, according to the slide. Despite having a heavily cut-down AD104 GPU, the GeForce RTX 4070 is expected to produce approximately 29 FP32 TFLOPS of computational power, which is comparable to that of the GeForce RTX 3080. However, the RTX 3080 possesses a 320-bit memory bus and an impressive peak bandwidth of 760 GB/s, which is substantially greater than the 504 GB/s bandwidth provided by AD104's 21 GT/s GDDR6X memory. In fact, even a GeForce RTX 3070 Ti has higher memory bandwidth (608 GB/s) than the newcomer. Meanwhile, the new graphics card is supposed to have a large L2 cache, which will likely compensate for a slower memory subsystem. Perhaps an interesting wrinkle of the slide is that Nvidia compares its GeForce RTX 4070 graphics card to its previous-generation GeForce RTX 3070 and RTX 3070 Ti offerings. With its Ada Lovelace GPUs, Nvidia has been emphasizing that its latest GPUs can rival or surpass higher-class previous-generation offerings at lower price. With its GeForce RTX 4070, it looks like Nvidia is betting on higher-performance and lower power at the same launch price. In any case, Nvidia has not announced its GeForce RTX 4070 officially and we cannot verify authenticity of the slide. Therefore, take the information with a grain of salt for now.

source WhatsApp has long been reported to work on a text editing feature. The feature had previously been reported to have been tested on both Android and iOS platforms. According to a new report, the feature is now being rolled out to select beta testers. However,the feature will be available only to WhatsApp on Android users currently. Since the iOS version has already been reported to be tested, it is expected to be rolled out soon. The social media platform is also reportedly working on an edit message feature. A WhatsApp update tracker WABetaInfo post states that WhatsApp's new creative tools will help users to edit images, videos, and GIFs by using new tools and fonts offered with the new feature. The text editor is now available for select beta testers along with the Android 2.23.7.17 update. The feature reportedly introduces to users the ability to quickly switch between fonts by tapping one of the font options displayed above the keyboard. Although changing the text font was previously possible, WhatsApp is now reportedly enabling users to quickly choose the desirable font. According to the report, text alignment can now also be set to left, centre, or right, offering users more control over text formatting inside images, videos, and GIFs. Users will also reportedly be able to alter the background colour of the text with this new feature, making it easier to distinguish important text from the rest. Calistoga, Courier Prime, Damion, Exo 2, and Morning Breeze are among the new fonts that have been made available to beta testers, the report adds. The WABetainfo report adds that WhatsApp will start rolling out the text editing feature to more users in the coming few weeks. The similar feature has also been found to be tested on iOS devices, so it is safe to say that an iOS version of the edit text feature will be available for beta testers soon. A recent report suggested that WhatsApp is also testing an edit message feature with a dedicated alert that will be visible to all participants in the chat. An edited message will reportedly appear with an ‘edited' label, the same way deleted message labels are visible in chats currently.

source Elon Musk and dozens of other technology leaders have called on AI labs to pause the development of systems that can compete with human-level intelligence. In an open letter from the Future of Life Institute, signed by Musk, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak and 2020 presidential candidate Andrew Yang, AI labs were urged to cease training models more powerful than GPT-4, the latest version of the large language model software developed by U.S. startup OpenAI. “Contemporary AI systems are now becoming human-competitive at general tasks, and we must ask ourselves: Should we let machines flood our information channels with propaganda and untruth?” the letter read. “Should we automate away all the jobs, including the fulfilling ones? Should we develop nonhuman minds that might eventually outnumber, outsmart, obsolete and replace us? Should we risk loss of control of our civilization?” The letter added, “Such decisions must not be delegated to unelected tech leaders.” The Future of Life Institute is a nonprofit organization based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that campaigns for the responsible and ethical development of artificial intelligence. Its founders include MIT cosmologist Max Tegmark and Skype co-founder Jaan Tallinn. The organization has previously gotten the likes of Musk and Google-owned AI lab DeepMind to promise never to develop lethal autonomous weapons systems. The institute said it was calling on all AI labs to “immediately pause for at least 6 months the training of AI systems more powerful than GPT-4.” GPT-4, which was released earlier this month, is thought to be far more advanced than its predecessor GPT-3. “If such a pause cannot be enacted quickly, governments should step in and institute a moratorium,” it added. ChatGPT, the viral AI chatbot, has stunned researchers with its ability to produce humanlike responses to user prompts. By January, ChatGPT had amassed 100 million monthly active users only two months into its launch, making it the fastest-growing consumer application in history. The technology is trained on huge amounts of data from the internet, and has been used to create everything from poetry in the style of William Shakespeare to drafting legal opinions on court cases. But AI ethicists have also raised concerns with potential abuses of the technology, such as plagiarism and misinformation. In the Future of Life Institute letter, technology leaders and academics said AI systems with human-competitive intelligences poses “profound risks to society and humanity.” “AI research and development should be refocused on making today’s powerful, state-of-the-art systems more accurate, safe, interpretable, transparent, robust, aligned, trustworthy, and loyal,” they said. OpenAI was not immediately available for comment when contacted by CNBC. OpenAI, which is backed by Microsoft, reportedly received a $10 billion investment from the Redmond, Washington technology giant. Microsoft has also integrated the company’s GPT natural language processing technology into its Bing search engine to make it more conversational. Google subsequently announced its own competing conversational AI product for consumers, called Google Bard. Musk has previously said he thinks AI represents one of the “biggest risks” to civilization. The Tesla and SpaceX CEO co-founded OpenAI in 2015 with Sam Altman and others, though he left OpenAI’s board in 2018 and no longer holds a stake in the company. He has criticized the organization a number of times recently, saying he believes it is diverging from its original purpose. Regulators are also racing to get a handle on AI tools as the technology is advancing at a rapid pace. On Wednesday, the U.K. government published a white paper on AI, deferring to different regulators to supervise the use of AI tools in their respective sectors by applying existing laws.

source AMD has curiously taken a low-key approach to launching its value-centric A620 motherboards, burying the full details of its A620 announcement late on a Friday night, but the company has finally shared the full details and slide deck with us about its new range of value-geared motherboards. To reduce pricing, the motherboards will not support the full range of Ryzen 7000 processors at their full power levels — none of the Ryzen 7000 X-series processors are fully supported. These boards also eliminate some features of the more expensive AM5 motherboards, like overclocking and faster USB connectivity, in exchange for a lower price point. Even though AMD's Ryzen 7000 lineup currently tops our list of the best CPUs for gaming, the supporting AM5 motherboard platform and required DDR5 memory have earned a reputation for egregiously high pricing. AMD even recently ran a promotion that gave you up to $125 off if you purchased a chip, motherboard, and memory, but that has expired today. That makes for a well-timed release of AMD's budget A620 platform with at least one motherboard that will retail for $85, but early indications point to pricing exceeding $100 for several new boards. Unfortunately, that means the overall A620 lineup will likely also be more expensive than expected. We don't have US pricing for most of the A620 motherboards, but while ASRock has one board for $85 and another for $99(opens in new tab), ASUS announced EU pricing for three of its motherboards, with conversion to USD netting pricing of $151, $161, and $183. That's above what we expect for budget-class boards with reduced feature sets. We'll follow up with more US pricing as we receive it, but it seems there will only be a few budget-class boards with this generation of the A-series motherboards. AMD's B-series motherboards are designed to support every Ryzen 7000 model at its full TDP range, sometimes resulting in seemingly ridiculously overpowered boards for the lower-end chips. This results in superior performance and forward compatibility, but also high pricing for B-series motherboards compared to Intel's competing chipsets. In contrast, Intel doesn't require its B-series motherboards to support the full peak power limits of its more power-hungry high-end chips, so vendors can cut back on power delivery (VRMs, etc.) to reduce pricing. Naturally, this results in reduced performance with the highest-end Intel chips on its budget boards. AMD is now taking a similar approach with AM5. The A620 motherboards are designed to support chips with a 65W TDP, meaning models with a peak power consumption of 88W (PPT). Motherboard makers have the option to make more expensive models with support for higher power levels, but at its base, the A620 spec allows for a peak of 88W of power delivery. For those base models, you can install chips with higher TDP ratings into an A620 motherboard, and it will boot if the BIOS supports it, but the chip will not operate at its full peak power consumption (PPT). This means the highest-end chips will lose some performance in heavily-threaded applications due to VRM limitations on some boards, but AMD expects the reduced power delivery will not impact gaming much. In either case, this means that most bargain-basement A620 motherboards will only fully support non-X Ryzen 7000 models, as even the X-series Ryzen 5 chips all come with a 105W TDP. Not only do the boards not even support the base 105W TDP for the lowest-end Ryzen 5 X-series chips, but the 142W peak (PPT) is also 20% higher than the supported peak 88W PPT. That's a significant 76W delta. This approach falls outside AMD's standard AM5 policy thus far, but it mostly makes sense. Higher-end chips aren't a good fit for this class of lower-end motherboards, and the lower power delivery will ultimately reduce pricing for lower-end builds. Users can choose to step up to higher-end A620 models if they want support for an X-series chip to run at its full TDP. Additionally, this is the same approach that Intel uses for its lower-end fare. However, the fact that the X-series Ryzen chips all start at 105W means that the lowest-end A-series boards are significantly limited in their appeal. Overall, the new motherboards will fall into a lower price range than their B-series counterparts, but as you can see in the full slide deck we've included above, there are other sensible tradeoffs in features, with the boards stepping back from B650's one USB 20Gbps and six 10Gbps ports to two USB 10Gbps and two 5Gbps ports. A620 provides a x16 PCIe 4.0 connection but doesn't allow that to operate in a 2x8 mode like B650. A620 also supports a direct-to-CPU x4 PCIe 4.0 connection for an M.2 SSD port, but doesn't have the option for a PCIe 5.0 M.2 port like B650. This is a nice step up from the x16 PCIe 3.0 supported on the previous-gen A520, though. Of course, many bargain-basement A620 boards will only have one M.2 slot, but A620 has the same support for four SATA ports as B650. That's also two more SATA ports than the previous-gen A520 chipset. Header Cell - Column 0A620A520B650 CPU Graphics Support1x16 PCIe 4.01x16 PCIe 3.01x16 or 2x8 PCIe 4.0 CPU Storage Support1x4 PCIe 4.0PCIe 3.01x4 PCIe 4.0 / 5.0 CPU Chipset Uplink1x4 PCIe 4.01x4 PCIe 3.01x4 PCIe 4.0 Overclocking SupportNoNoYes Full TDP CPU Support65WUp to170WUp to 170W As before, the A620 chipset doesn't support manual overclocking, so changing voltages and frequencies or auto-clocking via Precision Boost Overdrive (PBO) is off-limits. Unsanctioned BCLK overclocking was possible on at least one A520 board, but for now, it's anyone's guess if that will be possible with A620. The A620 motherboards support memory overclocking via EXPO profiles up to DDR5-6000, but we're unsure if manual memory tuning is allowed. From what we've gleaned, these motherboards use the Prominitory 21 (PROM21) chipset, the same silicon used for AMD's X670 and B650 motherboards. The AM5 platform leverages a new chiplet-based approach for its chipsets, sometimes using two PROM21 chips for higher-end chipsets, but A620 will only include one chip. Surprisingly, AMD didn't develop lower-end chipset silicon for these budget boards, but re-use helps reduce design costs. It can also deliver cost benefits from higher-volume production. We have seen signs of a PROM22 chip that will come later, but with the same features as PROM21. Motherboards are coming from all of the usual suspects, including ASRock, ASUS, Gigabyte, MSI, and Biostar, but US pricing hasn't been announced for all of the A620 boards yet. We'll follow up with more details as they become available.

After earlier and incorrectly predicting his own arrest this week, former President Donald Trump veered into the more sinister business of predicting violence and catastrophe if he’s arrested. Whether the prediction turns into reality is another thing entirely. Trump’s reemergence into the headlines, as both a third-time presidential candidate and a potential defendant, is threatening to pull the country back into his reality. Trump has not been formally charged with any crime and denies all wrongdoing. Real world vs. Trump world Compare the lived reality where people interact, mostly in peace, and go about their lives with the Trump-centered, fake world available on social media. In the real world, Trump hasn’t been charged with anything. On Twitter, fake photos of his arrest generated by artificial intelligence have been viewed millions of times. In the real world, prosecutors have to form a methodical criminal case before they indict a defendant. On social media, Trump says everything is part of a plot against him. Positing the idea of violent retribution into the echo chamber of his Truth Social platform early Friday, Trump said it is “known that potential death & destruction” that would be “catastrophic for our Country” would result if a charge is brought against him. In a post Thursday, Trump went into all caps – the typographical equivalent of screaming – to declare his innocence and add, “OUR COUNTRY IS BEING DESTROYED, AS THEY TELL US TO BE PEACEFUL.” The veiled threats place a new form of pressure on Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who has already been threatened by Republicans in Congress with an investigation. Without naming Bragg in the Friday post, Trump said anyone who would charge him with a crime is “a degenerate psychopath that truely (sic) hates the USA!” CNN’s Brynn Gingras and Kara Scannell reported Friday that Bragg’s office received a package containing a white powder substance and a threatening note. They added that while authorities determined there was no dangerous substance, the package capped off a week where law enforcement has seen continual threats against the court, including several bomb threats, all of which turned out to be unfounded. Meanwhile, rather than condemn Trump’s latest post, top Republicans in Washington like House Speaker Kevin McCarthy refused to answer questions about it. Deepfake arrest photos The photos of Trump being arrested were created in jest by Eliot Higgins, founder of the investigative journalism group Bellingcat, who asked an AI art generator to make a photo of “Donald Trump falling down while being arrested,” according to The Washington Post. “I was just mucking about,” Higgins told the Post. “I thought maybe five people would retweet it.” Bellingcat, ironically, uses social media posts and other digital data to prove facts, uncovering crimes and investigating atrocities. CNN worked with Bellingcat, for instance, to uncover the Russian operatives who apparently tried to poison the now-jailed dissident leader Alexey Navalny. The group has also used social media to track down apparent war crimes in Ukraine. The fake photos, while requiring a double take, were clearly not real. But it is that first impression that can be misleading – and lasting. They fed Trump’s narrative of persecution, a visual manifestation of the drama he puts into his posts. Deepfake reality There’s more and more of this online, and it’s getting harder and harder to tell fiction from reality. Earlier this month, CNN’s Donie O’Sullivan had an incredible video report on the power of AI-generated audio. In addition to magically mimicking Anderson Cooper, he used an AI generator to call his parents. The computer sounded like his voice, but it was not O’Sullivan talking. While his mother later said O’Sullivan’s Irish accent felt off during the conversation, she did not catch it in real time. “When we enter this world where anything can be fake – any image, any audio, any video, any piece of text, nothing has to be real – we have what’s called the liar’s dividend, which is anybody can deny reality,” Hany Farid, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley’s School of Information, told O’Sullivan. There are many examples of deepfake photos and videos if not tricking people, then certainly causing harm – such as women whose faces have been deepfaked, without their consent, onto pornography. When something is repeated enough online or when a fake narrative takes hold, it can influence the real world. That’s certainly what happened on January 6, 2021, when conspiracy theories that blossomed online turned into an attack on the Capitol. “There is no online and offline world; there’s one world, and it’s fully integrated,” Farid told O’Sullivan with regard to the potential for AI to create a false reality online that bleeds into the real world. “When things happen on the internet, they have real implications for individuals, for communities, for societies, for democracies, and I don’t think we as a field have fully come to grips with our responsibility here,” he said. It’s something to be very careful of as we look at what could be a historic period in which a former president, current candidate, serial conspiracy theorist and master of social media potentially faces criminal charges.

The animal rights group Peta has condemned the use of live animals on set after a horse died during the production of Amazon’s television series The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. The horse had a cardiac arrest on 21 March, while the fantasy spin-off was rehearsing for its second season in the UK. “We are deeply saddened to confirm that a production horse died,” said a spokesperson for Amazon Studios on Sunday morning. “The incident took place in the morning whilst the horse was being exercised prior to rehearsals. “The trainer was not in costume, and filming had yet to commence. Both a veterinarian and a representative of the American Humane Association were present at the time. The independent necropsy has confirmed that the horse died of cardiac failure.” The horse was standing near 20 other horses when its heart stopped, sources told Deadline. More than 30 horses were reportedly on set that day. In a statement released shortly after the news broke, Peta said the show was “exploiting animals” and called for film and television productions to use CGI in place of real creatures. “It seems that living underground with the orcs is par for the course for the producers of The Rings of Power, because they have the option to use CGI, mechanical rigs and other humane methods,” said Peta’s senior vice-president Lisa Lange. “Peta is calling on the show’s creators – and all other producers – to take on a new quest without using any real horses.” All horses used in the second season of The Rings of Power were provided by the Devil’s Horsemen, a supplier of horses and stunt people in the film industry. The company has worked with big-name series including Game of Thrones and The Crown, as well as Hollywood productions such as Justice League and Transformers. The Lord of the Rings franchise has come under fire previously for its treatment of live horses. In 2012 the director Peter Jackson was criticised for the production of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. Animal wranglers on set alleged that three horses, as well as other farm animals, had died during production. In a response at the time, Peta launched a petition urging filmgoers to “refuse to see movies” where animals have been harmed. Jackson later denied the claims that any animals had been mistreated, calling them “unsubstantiated”. “The production regrets that Peta has chosen to make such a serious allegation, which has distressed many of the dedicated Kiwis who worked with animals on the film,” Jackson wrote on Facebook. The Rings of Power is a prequel to The Lord of the Rings set in Middle-earth thousands of years before the events of the film series. Its first season, which was filmed in New Zealand, became a blockbuster success for Amazon. The studio claimed it was the “biggest premiere in the history of Prime Video”, drawing 25 million viewers in its first 24 hours.

Since its arrival for the 2019 model year, the eighth-generation Hyundai Sonata has been an attention-grabber. Its premium looks and attractive features make it a compelling and different offering in a typically staid segment, and now it's getting a deep mid-cycle refresh. The 2024 Hyundai Sonata looks sportier and more futuristic, enough so that it could be confused for an all-new model, not one that's merely updated to keep it fresh another few years. As you can see, the 2024 Hyundai Sonata adopts the same basic exterior design that debuted here in America on the smaller 2024 Kona SUV. The main feature is Hyundai's Seamless Horizon Lamp, a long horizontal daytime running light that spans nearly the entire front end. The actual headlights are hidden in the black trim in the bumper, exaggerating the nose's low-slung look. If the refreshed Sonata looks wider to you, it's because of all those horizontal design elements that Hyundai added. A performance-oriented N Line variant is once again available, and it gets even more sharper angles and a honeycomb grille pattern. From the profile, things haven't changed much. Besides the new wheel designs, there isn't much to report here; the four-door coupe styling that debuted in the eighth generation continues for the 2024 model. The rear, however, gets a new design. A new H-shaped taillight takes over the rear, again connecting both corners and giving the back a wide appearance like the front. A new black trim piece on the rear fascia starts behind the wheels and expands up to house the license plate and dual or quad exhausts (depending on the variant). The black trim is also present on the ducktail spoiler, and while the shape of the trunk doesn't appear to have changed, it looks better than before. Inside, the 2024 Hyundai Sonata gets a whole lot of changes. New dual 12.3-inch screens make their way into the cabin, taking a page from other newer Hyundais, including the electric Ioniq 5. The overall feel of the cabin is modern and premium. With wood-like and aluminum trims, the Sonata's interior looks closer to a luxury sedan, and its horizontal design (sensing a theme?) makes the cabin seem wider. The push-button gear selector has been replaced by a short shifter on the steering column, freeing up some space in the center console. Hyundai didn't give any details on the infotainment system, but we can tell from the pictures that its design and graphics are new, and the dual 12.3-inch screens appear to be closer together than they are in other Hyundai/Kia vehicles with the same setup. We're happy to see physical buttons for quicker access to the infotainment, and the HVAC controls are now part of a touch display like what we've seen in the latest Genesis models. New ambient lighting will make the cabin feel more premium at night. What About Under The Hood? Hyundai didn't provide any powertrain details, but we expect the current engines and transmission to carry over. That means the 191-hp 2.5-liter naturally aspirated l-4 could continue to be the base engine, while the 180-hp 1.6-liter turbo-four would be the optional powertrain. The hybrid model has proven to be quite po[CENSORED]r for Sonata buyers, so we expect the 2024 model to offer a hybrid engine. We don't expect any changes for the 2024 Hyundai Sonata N Line either, so it's likely we'll see the 2.5-liter turbo-four engine with 290 hp and 311 lb-ft of torque. We've said wonderful things about the Sonata N Line, and we hope this model stays the same outside of its snappy new duds. The 2024 Hyundai Sonata will debut globally at the Seoul Mobility Show, but we expect it to arrive on U.S. shores later this year.

A Delta Air Lines passenger was arrested after opening one of the plane’s doors and sliding down an emergency exit slide as the plane prepared for takeoff from Los Angeles to Seattle Saturday, officials said. The incident on Delta Flight 1714 took place around 10:40 a.m. local time, while the plane was stationary at the Los Angeles International Airport, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. The plane, a Boeing 737, was on the runway holding to taxi for takeoff when the passenger exited the aircraft after activating the emergency exit slide, the FAA said. The passenger was initially detained by Delta staff before being arrested by local law enforcement, the statement read. “Customers are being reaccommodated on a new aircraft and we apologize for the inconvenience and delay in their travel plans,” the FAA said. The FAA is investigating the incident. CNN has reached out to Delta and Los Angeles airport police for additional information.

The new cold war is not playing out over a wall that divides a continent but in the pockets of millions of Americans. A congressional hearing focusing on the po[CENSORED]r TikTok video app on Thursday became the latest in a series of recent clarifying moments that laid bare not just the bipartisan hostility in Washington to Beijing’s new global heft but also the extent to which the growing superpower confrontation is beginning to be felt in multiple corners of American life. A five-hour grilling of TikTok’s CEO Shou Chew also underscored how China is being increasingly viewed not just as a rising threat to US security and economic dominance but also as an ideological challenge – one antithetical to America’s values and way of life, much as the Soviet Union was in the last century. The possibility that the Chinese-owned platform, which says it has 150 million US monthly users, could be used by the Chinese Communist Party to gather intelligence on millions of Americans was brought up repeatedly by lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. Members were also preoccupied with the possibility that young, developing American minds could be shaped by a torrent of Chinese-made content or information that could suppress US principles of political freedom and human rights or create confusion or false narratives about American foreign policy. Such arguments were encapsulated by Washington state GOP Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, who chairs the House Energy and Commerce Committee and set the tone for the hearing. “We do not trust TikTok will ever embrace American values – values for freedom, human rights, and innovation,” Rodgers told Chew. “TikTok has repeatedly chosen the path for more control, more surveillance, and more mani[CENSORED]tion.” “Your platform should be banned.” But Rodgers was not the only government figure who expressed deep suspicion of TikTok on Thursday. Secretary of State Antony Blinken fueled speculation that time may be running out for the app, which is beloved by millions of American teenagers but is already prohibited on federal government phones and on other official devices elsewhere in the West. Blinken said that he believed TikTok was a national security risk and should be “ended one way or another,” while adding, “there are different ways of doing that.” And House Speaker Kevin McCarthy backed legislation to effectively ban TikTok in the US. “I don’t know that we have to give the president the authority. I think maybe we may be able to do it ourselves and I’ll let it work in the House,” the California Republican told CNN’s Manu Raju. A clarifying moment The hearing was the latest in a recent sequence of events that have made the long predicted clash between the existing superpower, the United States, and the rising one, China, a tangible reality for millions of Americans. They include the drama over a Chinese spy balloon that floated across US skies in February before being shot down by US jets. And just this week, Chinese President Xi Jinping traveled to Moscow to offer legitimacy to Russian President Vladimir Putin after he was accused of war crimes by the International Criminal Court. Xi left no doubt that his purpose is to challenge the US-led international system that has been in place since the end of World War II, saying that China was ready to “stand guard over the world order.” Chew’s mission on Capitol Hill on Thursday was to convince lawmakers that TikTok is independent of Chinese government control and to show how the company has tried to demonstrate it is protecting the data of American users through an initiative using US servers known as Project Texas. That he failed so clearly to do so was largely because most of the lawmakers seemed to have made up their minds on the issue long ago. Wisconsin GOP Rep. Mike Gallagher, the chair of the new House select committee on China, said on “CNN Primetime” on Thursday that the key issue was not where the data of US users was stored, arguing that the core problem was that TikTok’s Chinese parent company controlled the app’s algorithm and was susceptible to pressure from the Chinese government. “They can use this app for spreading disinformation, influencing what news Americans see, influencing future elections,” Gallagher said. The government in Beijing did Chew no favors. Its commerce ministry said hours before the hearing that it would firmly oppose any US attempt to force TikTok’s Chinese-owned parent company, ByteDance, to sell the app to an American firm, warning that such a move would raise questions about the viability of Chinese and other foreign companies investing in the US economy. The statement only reinforced the belief of many American lawmakers that TikTok is far from independent and underscored their doubts about Chew’s claims that its data collection practices are similar to those used by many US internet firms. Chew insisted that his company was independent and not an arm of the Chinese government or the Communist Party. But despite not producing evidence or any proof to support their claims of potential interference from Beijing, the lawmakers said they didn’t believe him. There was a pageant of political performance in the hearing, as lawmakers from both parties relished a chance to show who could be tough on China. TikTok issued a statement bemoaning a day “dominated by political grandstanding that failed to acknowledge the real solutions already underway through Project Texas or productively address industry-wide issues of youth safety.” The hostility of some of the lawmakers illustrated how opposition to China has become one of the dominant organizing principles of Washington politics and a rare issue that unites both parties. But the tone of some of the questions and the disrespect shown to Chew also explained why some Asian American groups are worried that fierce hostility toward Beijing in Washington could translate into more intimidation and violence against Asian Americans across the country. ‘One of the geniuses of TikTok’ The essence of Washington’s distrust over TikTok’s capacity to protect data was reflected in repeated exchanges between Chew and the House committee over the firm’s Project Texas, which, if anything, appeared to leave lawmakers more skeptical than they had been before. This is because Chew was often unable to sufficiently assure lawmakers that the Chinese government wouldn’t access its user data in the future, even though he argued it would be contained in American servers on US soil. “I have seen no evidence that the Chinese government has access to that data; they have never asked us, we have not provided it,” Chew said at one point, causing Democratic Rep. Anna Eshoo of California to remark, “I don’t believe … that you have said or done anything to convince us.” Democratic Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee who has written legislation giving President Joe Biden more power to ban TikTok, explained why Washington perceives a video app as such a threat. “One of the geniuses of TikTok is it learns from you. Every time you’re on the site, it starts to get to know you, what you like better than even what you know. Do you want all that information ultimately residing under the guise of the Communist Party of China?” Warner said on “CNN This Morning.” “Number two, this is a powerful propaganda machine if it’s used that way. This is an incredible misinformation, disinformation machine. I’m not saying they’re doing it right now, but that potential, if President Xi in China wants to somehow invade … Taiwan, and suddenly folks not only in America but around the world are starting to see videos that reinforces that kind of message, that is a propaganda tool that makes every other possibility pale.” The broadening concerns about China’s massive intelligence capabilities are an increasingly frequent topic in Washington – especially in relation to the spy balloon drama and TikTok, and they were also due to spill over into talks on Friday between Biden and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in Ottawa. “We’ve consistently seen that the Chinese government use whatever tools it can to get information, get data that is going to be advantageous to its aims around the world,” Trudeau told CNN’s Paula Newton in an exclusive interview on Thursday. “And we’ve also seen that Chinese owned or Chinese directed companies are very much answerable to the Communist Party of China.” Trudeau’s comments underscore why TikTok’s time may be running out in the US – at least as part of a wider Chinese company. If the app was owned by a Belgian firm or one from Australia, for instance, there might still be concerns over its addictive properties and data protection, but it would not have to battle the impression it represents a dangerous window for a US adversary. As Thursday’s hearing showed, TikTok is caught up in geopolitical forces between the US and China that are far larger than even its vast consumer base and that raise questions that are proving impossible for it to answer – at least to the satisfaction of the US Congress.

Australia Museum says 20-year-old collection will help understand and conserve threatened animals, which are sensitive to climate change. As floods devastated Lismore, a group of ecologists waited anxiously for a break in the weather so they could move an important scientific collection of “spectacular” spiny crayfish to a new home at the Australian Museum. The samples of the crayfish were collected more than 20 years ago from deep within the rainforests of north-eastern NSW and southern Queensland by Dr Jason Coughran, a freshwater ecologist. Prof Nigel Andrew, the chair of science at Southern Cross University, said the collection of multiple species was a “valuable biological resource” helping scientists to understand and conserve the animals, which are highly susceptible to climate change. Years of discussions between the university and the Australian Museum had culminated in a plan for museum staff to collect the samples in Lismore on 1 March last year. But just days before they were due to arrive, unprecedented floods devastated the region. While the university’s Lismore campus never flooded, the museum team faced a nervous wait as they assessed the risk to the collection and of heading into the flood zone. Nearly two months later, on 26 April, it was deemed safe for the team to gather the collection and transfer it to the museum in Sydney. Prof Shane Ahyong, the head of marine invertebrates at the Australian Museum, said another week later the site again became inaccessible because of more flooding. “The floods continued to get worse and the disaster was in full train. So it was very serendipitous that we were able to get in just in time,” he said. Ahyong said spiny crayfish need pristine water to survive, unlike their inland cousin the yabby, which can tolerate poor water conditions. He said the crayfish have thorny armour – “like little battle tanks” – to protect them against predators, but they are susceptible to habitat change, whether from land clearing or natural disasters. “These can be quite large, spectacular animals,” he said, adding that they are also very diverse. “They only have very narrow distributions, so each river catchment down the coast basically has its own species.” Half of all spiny crayfish species in Australia were affected by the black summer bushfires, and efforts to protect the remaining po[CENSORED]tions are at risk from further natural disasters and climate change. The scientific collection, gathered in remote and hard-to-reach areas, enables scientists to make more accurate distribution maps of the animals as they continue to assess the affect of the fires, Ahyong said. Survey work stemming from the bushfires led to the discovery of 20 new species of spiny crayfish, in addition to the 54 known species. Many of these species are endangered. “These reference samples make a big difference, because we need to be able to study their anatomy precisely when we discover a new species and distinguish them from the known species,” Ahyong said. “Every specimen that we have increases the accuracy of the work.” Erich Wittstock, a laboratory team leader at Southern Cross University, said the donation of the collection to the Australian Museum meant the museum’s taxonomists could properly preserve specimens for the future. “Without this endeavour, the collection would have been lost,” Wittstock said.

Generally speaking, if you ask a bunch of car enthusiasts if they want a street version of [insert virtually any race car here], the answer will generally be "yes." This goes double when the race car is based on a highly anticipated model like the 2024 Ford Mustang Dark Horse. Ford CEO Jim Farley recently tweeted a video of the new Ford Mustang GT3 race car doing some test laps around Sebring Raceway. He followed up that tweet by simply asking "Should we make a road version?" Spending just a few moments reading the replies will more than prove that our theory is sound. People were practically trying to get their pre-orders in via tweet at the mere thought of a 2024 Ford Mustang GT3 road car. We can't say that we blame them for wanting it, or Farley for posing the question. Porsche has been making road versions of its race cars for decades and it's worked out pretty well for that company. The same can be said for Chevrolet and the Corvette. Ford's most recent foray into that arena was the GT supercar, which was developed largely in reverse—it was made to go racing; the road version was a required homologation special. Considering that the upcoming Mustang may be the last pure ICE 'stang from the automaker, it seems like the perfect candidate for a racy overhaul. Besides, Ford did make a point to announce GT3 racing when the new Mustang was revealed, noting how its GT3 racer (and other motorsports-ready 'stangs) would be based on the Mustang Dark Horse. Therein lies a small rub, though—if the GT3 racer is built off the Mustang Dark Horse, wouldn't a roadgoing GT3 racer just be... a Dark Horse? Hey, obviously a mention in a tweet is hardly "confirmation" that a roadgoing Ford Mustang GT3 car apart from the Dark Horse is imminent. If such a standalone GT3 model were to happen, it would likely not be for the 2024 model year, as Ford probably wouldn't want anything to steal the Dark Horse's thunder. However, if there are any conspiracy theorists out there who believe the Dark Horse may be a "feeler" for a 2025 GT3 model, we wouldn't dismiss them completely. We're definitely going to keep it in mind the next time we're granted time with Jim Farley or any other Mustang product execs. If there are answers to be had, we're going to do our best to dig them up. For now, all we can do is put our chins in our hands and daydream about the possibility of a GT3-derived 2024 Ford Mustang for the street.

At least 11 people were killed after powerful storms and at least one tornado pummeled western Mississippi on Friday night, damaging homes and knocking out power for thousands, officials said Saturday morning. The National Weather Service confirmed a tornado hit the towns of Silver City as well as Rolling Fork, which one resident described as obliterated following the storm’s devastating path. “I’ve never seen anything like this,” resident Brandy Showah told CNN. “This was a very great small town, and now it’s gone.” The tornado damaged homes and buildings, gutted trees and tore down power lines in the area, she said. The tornado was moving at 50 mph when it was located over Rolling Fork just after 8 p.m. CT, the weather service said. Showah’s grandmother’s home suffered roof damage, and its air conditioners have been ripped out, Showah said, but her grandmother is safe. Most of the trees in her grandmother’s yard have been downed, including one that her grandfather planted 50 years ago. “My friend was trapped in her home a few houses down, but we got her out,” Showah said, adding that there are still people who live next to her grandmother trapped in their homes. She said all the power in her grandmother’s area has been knocked out. CNN has reached out to officials in Rolling Fork for additional details. The same “large and destructive” tornado was also confirmed near the community of Coila, according to the National Weather Service, which issued a tornado emergency – the most dangerous type of tornado warning – in Rolling Fork, Silver City and nearby Anguilla. At least eight deaths were recorded in hard-hit Sharkey County, which is roughly 60 miles northwest of Jackson, according to county coroner Angelia Easton. Three others were killed, and at least two people are in critical condition in Humphreys County, emergency management director Royce Steed told CNN early Saturday morning. Tens of thousands without power In response to the desolation in Mississippi, the state has activated its medical support efforts, including additional ambulances and other emergency resources for those affected by the onslaught of deadly storms, Gov. Tate Reeves tweeted late Friday. “Search and rescue is active,” Reeves wrote. “Many in the MS Delta need your prayer and God’s protection tonight.” Tornadoes or severe storms that occur at night have the greatest potential to be dangerous because people are less likely to be notified in time if they’re asleep. The threat of severe storms persisted overnight for certain areas across northern Alabama and middle Tennessee, which faced tornado watches and warnings early Saturday. The storms knocked out power for more than 100,000 homes and businesses across Alabama, Mississippi and Tennessee as of 3:45 a.m. ET, with more than 50,000 outages reported in Alabama alone, according to tracking site PowerOutage.us. In Morgan County, Alabama, storm debris stretched for about a mile, according to a tweet from the county’s sheriff’s office. First responders rescued seven people who were trapped at a group home as trees and power lines collapsed on homes, the sheriff’s office said. The agency also responded to an overturned trailer and an overturned camper with persons trapped inside.

source Markets have changed their mind — again — about what they think the Federal Reserve will do next week regarding interest rates. In a morning where more banking turmoil emerged and stocks opened sharply lower on Wall Street, traders shifted pricing to indicate that the Fed may hold the line when it meets March 21-22. The probability for no rate hike shot up to as high as 65%, according to CME Group data Wednesday morning. Trading was volatile, though, and the latest moves suggested nearly a 50-50 split between no rate hike and a 0.25 percentage point move. For most of Tuesday, markets indicated a strong likelihood of an increase. Chairman Jerome Powell and his fellow Fed policymakers will resolve the question over raising rates by watching macroeconomic reports that continue to flow in, as well as data from regional banks and their share prices that could provide larger clues about the health of the financial sector. Smaller banks have been under intense pressure in recent days, following the closures of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank, the second- and third-largest failures in U.S. history. The SPDR Regional Bank ETF fell another 1.5% on Wednesday and is down more than 23% over the past five trading days. In a dramatic move Sunday evening, the central bank launched an initiative it called the Bank Term Funding Program. That will provide a facility for banks to exchange high-quality collateral for loans so they can ensure operations. Inflows to impacted banks could be reflected through their share prices to indicate how well the Fed’s initiative is working out to maintain confidence in the industry and keep money flowing. Central bank officials also will get data in coming days to see how active banks are in using the facility. If banks are using the BTFP to a large extent, that could indicate significant liquidity issues and thus serve as a deterrent to raising rates. The last public report on that data will come Thursday, though the Fed will be able to monitor the program right up until its two-day meeting starts Tuesday. The wagers on which way the Fed ultimately will go followed a rocky morning on Wall Street. Stocks were sharply lower in early trading, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average down more than 500 points. Just as concerns started to diminish concerning banking sector health, news came that Credit Suisse may need a lifeline. Switzerland’s second-largest bank slumped after a major Saudi investor said it would not provide more capital due to regulatory issues. The slump came even as economic data seemed to lessen the urgency around controlling inflation. The producer price index, a measure of wholesale pipeline prices, unexpectedly dropped 0.1% in February, according to the Labor Department. While markets don’t often pay much attention to the PPI, the Fed considers it a leading indicator on inflation pressures. On an annual basis, the PPI gain dropped to 4.6%, a big slide from the 5.7% reading in January that itself was revised lower. The PPI peaked at a rate of 11.6% in March 2022; the February reading was the lowest going back to March 2021. Excluding food and energy, the core PPI was flat on the month and up 4.4% year over year, down from 5% in January. “The strong likelihood of continued rapid core PPI disinflation is at the heart of our relatively optimistic take on core [personal consumption expenditures] inflation and, ultimately, Fed policy,” wrote Ian Shepherdson, chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics. “Markets don’t pay much attention to the PPI, but the Fed does.” The PPI data coupled with a relatively tame consumer price index report Tuesday. Markets last week were pricing in a potential half-point rate hike this month, but quickly pulled back.

source Canarsie cow to meet fellow celebrity escapees at rescue center where animals live on vast pasture: ‘She’ll be ecstatic’. It’s been one hell of a week for the Canarsie cow, a black angus calf who started this week on her way to a slaughterhouse and will end it settling into her new home on a New Jersey farm. After she escaped a truck hauling her from a Pennsylvania farm to certain death at Saba Live Poultry in Canarsie, Brooklyn, she went on a rampage through the streets. Slaughterhouse employees and workers at a nearby pizza shop tried to catch up with her, in a chase that lasted several minutes. Though the liberated calf was eventually subdued and brought to the slaughterhouse, she found a hero in Mike Stura, owner of Skylands animal sanctuary and an animal rights advocate who makes a habit of rescuing renegade livestock. Stura secured the cow’s release during a three-hour phone call with the farm owner and the manager of Saba Live Poultry, which Gothamist described as “tense”. Stura would not comment on exactly how he clinched the deal – he does not want to reveal his methods – but he did make clear that he does not pay for any animals. (A worker at Saba declined to comment.) “Paying money would be counterproductive to my goal,” Stura, who is vegan, told the Guardian. “We don’t want there to be any slaughterhouses, so how can we be animal advocates and pay them at the same time?” The cow, whom Stura will name once he has a sense of her personality, will now live out her life on Skylands, a New Jersey animal rescue where over 400 animals live together on 232 rolling acres of pasture. Visitors can go for a day trip or stay at the farm’s bed and breakfast to meet other celebrity livestock, like Freddie, another slaughterhouse escapee who made headlines after bolting from a cage in Queens, and Brianna, who jumped from a transport truck as it sped down Route 80 near Paterson, New Jersey. Stura made plans to meet with the truck driver transporting the cow for a handoff on Wednesday morning. He drove three hours into Pennsylvania to pick her up. When he got there, the driver was nowhere to be found. “I was there at 2pm sitting in my truck like a dumbass,” he said. After waiting all day and night, Stura said he was “about to give up and go live on Facebook to say I guess they screwed me over”. But “five minutes” before he planned to go live, the truck driver called Stura. He was at their meeting point. Stura drove over immediately, and had the cow on her way back to Skylands by lunchtime on Thursday. When they get to the farm, the cow will enter an isolated area and wait for a veterinarian to come check her out. “I’m sure she’s going to be a nervous wreck,” Stura said. Once the vet gives her OK, the cow will enter the general po[CENSORED]tion of the pasture. Stura suspects she will room in a pen led by Emma, a Jersey cow who “acts like a mother” and “keeps the kids in line”. “My guess is that she will be ecstatic to meet them, and I know that whatever group she goes in with will jump around like maniacs,” he said. “They love to welcome new animals. Cows are extremely inquisitive.” What makes a cow decide to run for it? “I believe animals know when they will be slaughtered, but more are so petrified they just shut down,” Stura said. “There are a few who say, ‘I gotta go man, I just gotta go,’ and if they see an escape they just go for it. I do think they’re different from the others – not smarter, they just have more of a fighter response. And I notice that the ones I rescue are always a pain in the neck. They’re kind of free-thinkers and have something that enables them to run instead of just standing there.” Stura said that he is “not your typical” animal rights advocate. “I’m a truck driver, I’m 240lb, I’m a Harley-Davidson guy,” he explained. “I’m not a peace and love, hippy kind of person. I’m not good enough to be one of them.” But something about being with animals brings out “infinite patience” in him. It’s one of the reasons why he felt compelled to save the cow, even though the timing could not have been worse for him. On the day Stura headed to Pennsylvania to pick up the cow, his girlfriend was in the hospital for a planned surgery. “I hate myself for that, but for the past 13 years, there’s been no me without animals,” he said. (Stura’s girlfriend encouraged him to make the trek, and is recovering well.) So what’s next for the cow? “Hopefully, she’ll live 20-some-odd more years, and pass away at old age,” Stura said. “You should see these animals when they flourish. You would never believe they were the same ones who ran away in the first place.”

source The last time we were discussing the Volkswagen ID.Ruggdzz was in 2020. At the beginning of that year, a battery-electric ID.Ruggdzz was going to join the Icons division of the ID lineup, perched on the MEB platform like the ID.Buzz, and rebirth the VW Thing with square lines and all-wheel drive. Come September 2020, the ID.Ruggedzz — renamed after VW relented on its consonant-to-vowel ratio — was still trying to find its place in the market alongside a reborn all-electric ID.Buggy concept. By December, the Ruggedzz and the Buggy were dead as VW focused on continued problems with software written for the volume ID models — problems that still aren’t resolved, in fact. Despite the public hiatus, Autocar reports the Ruggeddzz is still in the works, now based on the Ford Ranger’s T6 platform that also supports the new Volkswagen Amarok. The outlet spoke to VW Commercial boss Carsten Intra, who confirmed “It’s still on the agenda,” the two automakers still taking stabs at electrifying the chassis. As Autocar points out, an Amarok-based off-roader would do for VW what Ford does with the Ranger, turning that American pickup into the Everest in certain global markets like Australia. Speaking of Oz, Ford Australia is said to be handling the brunt of the engineering work for the conversion, with Ford HQ in Michigan assisting. It’s said the body-on-frame architecture needs to fit at least 110-kWh of battery capacity to provide the necessary towing and range. The Amarok would be a smaller truck than the F-150 Lightning, but that battery capacity number sits between the 98-kWh and 131-kWh pack sizes for the Lightning and we haven’t heard anyone being impressed with the full-sizer’s towing range yet. VW designers worked up a concept Ruggeddzz when the plans were to have the thing in production by 2023, that model has never met the public. Since we know there’s going to be an electric Ford Ranger (unless it gets canceled), an electric Amarok-like SUV seems a best-case scenario for both automakers. As things stand, we figure we won’t get this particular electric VW the same way we don’t get the ICE Amarok, VW bringing the impending Scout EV brand to the U.S. to satisfy our electric hardcore 4×4 lust. Reuters reports the Germans are talking to Foxconn’s Foxtron Vehicle Technologies about a Scout platform, and to Magna Steyr about an assembly plant in the U.S. to build it.

source LondonCNN — One of Boris Johnson’s most uncomfortable afternoons as a politician is over. The former British prime minister faced over three hours of grilling before a parliamentary committee that is investigating whether or not he knowingly misled Parliament regarding breaches of Covid-19 guidance and rules inside 10 Downing Street when he led the country. The question being asked was not if he misled Parliament: we know that he did and he accepts so. The question is not if rules were broken: we know that they were, after more than 100 fines were issued by the police to individuals working in Downing Street for attending gatherings that violated regulations. And we know that after a detailed report by a senior civil servant, Johnson has accepted full responsibility for what went wrong on his watch. He told the committee: “I was not trying to cover up or conceal anything. I said what I said in good faith based on what I honestly knew and reasonably believed,” he said, admitting that “did not mean that I believed that social distancing was complied with perfectly.” Lawmakers on the committee rebuffed Johnson’s innocence by putting it to him that it “must have been obvious to you at the time, and even more obvious on reflection afterwards as this whole thing broke around you, that it was in breach of workplace guidance,” as Conservative Bernard Jenkin put it. What is in question is whether or not Johnson knew at the time he was making a false statement to Parliament when he said in December 2021 that guidance and rules had been followed “at all times.” In his opening remarks to the committee on Wednesday, Johnson asked members to remember that this statement was made before the police investigation or civil service report into the “Partygate” scandal had been published. His suggestion, it seemed, was that hindsight is a wonderful thing, so it was only after these investigations that it became clear Johnson’s statement was incorrect. The central point of Johnson’s defense is three-pronged. First, he said it is “illogical” he could have known at the time that rules or guidance were broken because much of the photographic evidence the committee had published was taken by the Downing Street official photographer. Why, Johnson asked, would he ask a photographer to document events that he thought were illegal? Second, Johnson presented a detailed understanding of the guidance. In response to the same photographs, which show Johnson giving a speech at a gathering where social distancing is clearly not being observed, the ex-PM makes a technical argument. He said that the guidance acknowledged that social distancing was not always possible. The guidance, as Johnson put it, “was followed to the best of our ability, given the circumstances … we could not have an electrified forcefield around every individual.” In other words, the guidance allows for the guidance to not be followed to the letter. Finally, Johnson said that his advisers had told him at the time that he would be correct to say that guidance was followed at the time. Multiple advisers have denied ever giving him such assurances. Johnson’s evidence was met with a frosty reception from the members of the committee – even those from his own Conservative party. He was admonished for his rambling answers and as the hearing went on was ridiculed for the perceived logical inconsistencies in his defence. At one point, a senior Conservative lawmaker even joked at the irony of Johnson relying on evidence in a report that he had previously criticized as partisan. What could happen next to Johnson The heated exchanges between Johnson and the committee members are important, because it is these seven MPs – four of whom are Conservatives – that will decide if Johnson knowingly misled Parliament and what punishment he should receive. At the soft end of the scale, a humiliating apology could suffice. At the other, he could be forced to face a recall election that he could easily lose. It’s worth noting that some of the harshest questioning came from Conservative MPs. That could be because they want to be seen as impartial in a cross-party committee, but it could also be because so many Conservatives are furious with Johnson for dragging the party’s poll ratings down and destroying trust in Conservative governance. Even if Johnson’s political career is over, he is still capable of causing divisions in the United Kingdom’s ruling party. People in the committee room laughed at the absurdity of what was happening – a photo of Johnson being presented with a birthday cake and confirming his interior designer was present at the event, to give one example of many. But some of Johnson’s most loyal supporters were also present, seething at the questioning and glaring furiously at those seemingly enjoying watching the former leader squirm. The longer this went on, the angrier he seemed at being treated like a punch bag. Johnson’s job on Wednesday was to provide sufficient doubt that he lied in Parliament. He needed to provide a plausible account that when he told Parliament no rules or guidance was broken, he sincerely believed that to be the case and it is only subsequent evidence that has made him realize he was wrong. Pointedly, Johnson told the committee: “I apologize for inadvertently misleading this house but to say that I did it recklessly or deliberately is completely untrue, as the evidence shows. Whatever we got wrong, I believe that officials in number 10 and the cabinet office and indeed all of the Whitehall departments should be immensely proud of their efforts to protect this country from a loathsome disease.” How much all this matters in the broader context of the Partygate scandal, trust in politics and Johnson’s integrity is another question entirely. Poll after poll shows that the public believes Johnson broke Covid rules. Even members of his own party, according to polling published by the most influential Conservative publication, Conservative Home, says most believe he broke the rules and should not return as PM. Beyond what this loss in po[CENSORED]rity means for Johnson personally, it is worth remembering why this scandal resonated so much with people. Many Brits sincerely believe that while they were locked up at home, doing their best to stop the spread of a deadly disease and being unable to say goodbye to relatives who died, Johnson and his Downing Street team were partying as though they were above the rules. No one’s skin is thick enough to brush that off. The evidence against Johnson is undeniably greater than the evidence in his defense. But the question being asked of the committee is both extremely narrow and specific, but also opaque. And it is, to some extent, impossible to answer with full confidence by anyone other than Johnson himself. Which brings us back to what Wednesday’s hearing was really about. During his opening statement, Johnson said that he wanted all of the evidence out in the open so that, “Parliament and public can decide for themselves.” This is what it really boiled down to: whether or not the committee and wider public believe Johnson is an honest and trustworthy person or whether he is lying to spare his reputation further damage. In the eyes of the vast majority of the British public, that question has already been answered.

sursa Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu has warned there are fewer steps left to take before a potential "nuclear collision" between Russia and the West, the reactions coming after a British official said Challenger 2 tanks to be offered to Ukraine would be equipped including depleted uranium ammunition, reports AFP and Reuters. "Today I found out that Great Britain (...) announced not only the delivery of tanks to Ukraine, but also shells containing depleted uranium (...) If this happens, Russia will have to respond accordingly," he declared Putin to the press after the meeting with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping. Speaking in London on Monday, British Secretary of State for Defense Annabel Goldie said that some of the shells that will be equipped with the 14 Challenger 2 tanks that Britain will give to Ukraine to help in the war with Russia will be armor-piercing shells. containing depleted uranium. Asked about this statement on Tuesday, Russian Defense Minister Serghei Shoigu told the press that "another step has been taken, and there are fewer and fewer steps left". Asked to specify if he was referring to the approach of a "nuclear collision" between Russia and the West, he confirmed that this was what he meant. "It was not by chance that I said about the steps. They are fewer and fewer," he warned. Depleted uranium munitions, used in the NATO bombing of the former Yugoslavia in 1999, are used in anti-tank projectiles, being particularly effective in armor piercing. However, these projectiles have very harmful effects on the health of people in the areas where they are used. "Of course, Russia has something to answer for" in this case, warned Minister Şoigu. Before him, the spokeswoman of the Russian MFA, Maria Zaharova, described the London plan as a repetition of the "Yugoslav scenario", recalling that this type of depleted uranium ammunition causes cancer and contaminates the environment.

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