Tag Archives: investigating

Investigating Tesla’s Robotaxi Launch: Irregular Driving Captured in Video

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Major US transportation safety regulators are seeking information from Tesla following videos that appear to show the vehicles exceeding speed limits and autonomous robotaxis driving in the wrong lanes. The company unveiled its service in Austin, Texas, over the weekend.

Tesla has notably expedited the initial limited rollout of its Robotaxis, with some influencers being paid to showcase their experiences. However, rather than serve as effective promotion, these videos seem to have drawn the scrutiny of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), particularly as the cars struggled to adhere to traffic regulations.

“The NHTSA is aware of the mentioned case and is in communication with the manufacturer to gather further information,” the agency stated.


The debut of Robotaxi over the weekend featured about 10 “safety drivers” in the passenger seats navigating Austin’s designated areas. Tesla CEO Elon Musk promoted the launch as a significant achievement and committed to enhancing driving safety, but some influencers shared videos that appeared to show glitches or speeding incidents involving the Robotaxis.

One video shared by a Tesla investor, who previously hosted a podcast regarding the brand, displayed a Robotaxi wobbling after misinterpreting a left turn, crossing over a double yellow line before correcting itself. During this time, there were no oncoming vehicles.

In another clip, a pro-Tesla YouTuber praised a car for maintaining speed within legal limits.

Musk has placed significant stakes on the future of the carmaker tied to the Robotaxi program, having long presented a vision where millions of self-driving cars traverse cities globally. Both regulators and investors are closely examining whether Tesla can convert these prospects into tangible outcomes and if it can sustain its operations. Musk’s prolonged history of unmet promises.

“We anticipate millions of Teslas to function entirely autonomously by next year,” Musk declared during an earnings call in April, having made a similar assertion in 2019.

The NHTSA has not pre-emptively greenlit new technologies or driving systems, the statement mentioned. Instead, the manufacturer affirms that the vehicle meets the agency’s standards, while investigators assess potential safety defects. The NHTSA reviews the reports and related information to determine how to tackle road safety concerns.

“NHTSA will persist in enforcing regulations for all automobile manufacturers in accordance with the Automobile Safety Act and our data-driven, risk-based investigation methodology,” the agency remarked.

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Robotaxis has gained heightened significance for Tesla this year, particularly as first-quarter sales declined and profits plummeted by 71% year-on-year. Despite diminishing revenues, Musk asserted that Tesla’s Robotaxis are destined to be the future of transportation.

In addition to a preliminary inquiry into Robotaxis, the NHTSA is also conducting an open investigation that began in 2024 to assess the safety of Tesla’s “full self-driving” mode under conditions of reduced visibility. Tesla was reported to have deployed autonomous functions which resulted in a fatality of a 71-year-old woman in 2023 while driving in Arizona during sunset when glare affected road visibility.

Source: www.theguardian.com

European Journalists Investigating Paragon Solutions Spyware: A Press Freedom Perspective

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The intrigue surrounding the hacking deepens as researchers unveil new evidence indicating that two additional journalists were targeted by the same military-grade spyware utilized by Italy against activists.

Earlier this month, a parliamentary committee supervising the intelligence reporting agency confirmed that Italy employed mercenary spyware developed by Israel-based Paragon Solutions against two Italian activists.

Nevertheless, the same committee, which initiated an inquiry into the hacking scandal in March, stated that it could not ascertain the identities of those responsible for targeting prominent Italian investigative journalist Francesco Cancellato.

In a recent report from Citizen Lab researchers, Ciro Pellegrino, a close associate of Cancellato and head of the research outlet’s fan page, revealed that the Naples Bureau was also targeted by users of Paragon Solutions’ spyware. The Civic Research Institute reported that a third journalist, described as a “prominent European journalist,” was similarly targeted by the spyware.

This development unfolds as Paragon and the Italian government face mounting public scrutiny. Haaretz reported this week that Paragon offered to assist the Italian government in investigating the Cancellato incident; however, Italy allegedly declined the offer, with the Italian Security Agency expressing national security concerns.

The office of Meloni did not respond to requests for comment. A debate on this matter, which has sparked outrage between the Italian opposition and Brussels MEPs, is slated for June 16th in the European Parliament.

The Guardian sought comments from Paragon regarding the latest updates and referenced communication to Haaretz, where they confirmed that they had terminated their contract with the Italian government following the revelation in February that Cancellato had been targeted. The Guardian initially reported on Paragon’s contract termination with Italy in February.

Like other spyware vendors, Paragon markets cyber weapons to government clients, ostensibly for crime prevention purposes. The company asserts that it sells spyware exclusively to democratic nations and prohibits its use by journalists or members of civil society.

So, who is behind the targeting of the two journalists?

“We’ve noticed considerable efforts to reassure our customers,” stated John Scott-Railton, a senior researcher at Citizen Lab. “The journalists’ devices displayed a clear digital fingerprint indicating Paragon’s involvement. It became even more intriguing, as we found fingerprints in both instances that corresponded to the same Paragon clients.”

A report from the Copasir Parliamentary Committee disclosed that Italy’s domestic and foreign intelligence agencies had contracts with Paragon in 2023 and 2024, with the hacking software being used under prosecutor authorization. The committee noted that the spyware was deployed to investigate fugitives, suspected terrorism, organized crime, fuel smuggling, and anti-smuggling operations.

It also mentioned that pro-immigrant human rights activists like Luca Casarini and Giuseppe Caccia were surveilled not for their human rights work but due to their connections with “irregular immigrants.”

Source: www.theguardian.com

Researchers receive compensation for investigating maple syrup. Additionally, he earns a salary for endorsing it.

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For over a decade, biomedical researcher Navindra Seeram praised maple syrup, calling it “hero ingredients” and “champion food,” and could have a wide range of health benefits.

Dr. Sheelam, dean of the University of New England’s Pharmacy, has published more than three dozen studies celebrating the power of maple. Much of his work is bankrolled by the Canadian maple syrup industry and the Canadian and American governments.

At the same time, he took on another role: Maple Syrup Pitchman.

“I am uniquely qualified as a world-leading researcher on the benefits of maple health due to its scientific reputation and reliability to promote the sale of maple products,” he wrote in his grant application. He assures Canadian industry leaders that he will always support Quebec’s maple, according to emails obtained in the request for public records.

As he spans the real-world meaning of his research and exaggerated health benefits, he distorted the real-world meaning of his research and exaggerated health benefits. Videos and press releases suggest that taking maple syrup can help stop illnesses like cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, and diabetes. Other scientists said they thought he exaggerated and misleading the test and the findings of his lab.

Industry funding is common in nutrition research and could become even more important as scientists tackle drastic cuts in the Trump administration. Dr. Seeram’s work illustrates the dangers of a science-sales intertwining that drives information that can shape consumer habits and public health.

At the University of Rhode Island, where he worked until last year, Dr. Sheelam oversaw a project awarded $2.6 million in US government funding, including grants aimed at explicitly increasing sales of maple syrup. That promotional work produced streams of Social Media Posts “The benefits of maple syrup: anti-cancer, antioxidant, anti-inflammatory agents.”

in video Posted on YouTube in 2019, Dr. Seeram said the nutrients in maple syrup “may prevent and/or delay the onset of conditions” such as “cardiovascular disease, metabolic syndrome, brain disease, etc.”.

However, his research found something more limited. Maple syrup contains small amounts of polyphenols in plant compounds that are generally considered beneficial. To demonstrate their effects, he tested highly concentrated maple extracts in lab settings rather than people’s consumption of commercial maple syrup.

Dr. Sheelam told the exam he believes in the power of natural medicines, part of the upbringing in South America. And he defended how he spoke about his findings. “No one can go back to quote directly from me.

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Source: www.nytimes.com

Investigating the UK’s lack of preparedness for the COVID-19 pandemic

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People demonstrate outside the UK COVID-19 Inquiry site in London in October 2023.

Adrian Dennis/AFP via Getty Images

“The UK prepared for the wrong pandemic” This is the key conclusion from the first part of a government inquiry looking at the UK's response to the COVID-19 pandemic, in particular its preparedness and resilience.

“In 2019, it was widely believed, both in the UK and abroad, that the UK was not only well prepared to deal with a pandemic, but one of the best-prepared countries in the world. This belief proved dangerously wrong.” Heather HallettThe former judge leading the UK's coronavirus inquiry Video Statement Released at the same time Reports“The reality is that the UK was ill-prepared.”

“I have no hesitation in saying that the processes, plans and policies of the UK-wide civil emergency response arrangements have let down the people of all four countries,” Mr Hallett said. “There were serious errors on the part of the government and serious failings in the civil emergency system. This cannot be allowed to happen again.”

The main reason the UK was unprepared was because it planned on the assumption that the pandemic would be caused by a dangerous influenza strain or something similar, the report concluded, “which resulted in risk assessments being narrowly limited, excluding other types of pandemics.”

The next biggest mistake was assuming that because influenza spreads easily from person to person, there would be no way to stop the spread of a pandemic pathogen. “Plans were focused on dealing with the effects of the disease rather than preventing the spread of the disease,” the report said.

As a result, at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, there were no plans to implement measures such as border controls, lockdowns, testing people or contact tracing to identify people who may have the coronavirus and stop them from infecting others.

“There was no preparation whatsoever for the fact that hygiene measures at the border might be necessary to protect the population,” the former health minister said. Matt Hancock Part of the problem, the inquiry said, is that because responsibility for health measures has been devolved between England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, it is not clear who can implement such measures.

The UK government also did not consider the possibility of a lockdown being necessary: ​​”There was no plan to introduce a lockdown.” Mark Woolhouse “Lockdowns were an ad-hoc public health intervention devised in real time in the face of a rapidly evolving public health emergency,” researchers from the University of Edinburgh in the UK said in a study.

Testing and tracing was envisioned as part of any response to new pathogens, but the capacity to do so was limited because it was assumed that any new infectious diseases would only have a small number of cases.

“One of the first lines of defence against a pandemic is containment, and this requires a test, trace and isolate system that can be rapidly expanded to meet the demands of a large outbreak,” Mr Hallett said. “This did not exist in the UK when the COVID-19 pandemic began.”

“The UK government's only pandemic plan, developed in 2011, was outdated and inadequate,” she said. “The UK government never applied or adapted it, and the principles on which it was based were ultimately abandoned, along with the 2011 strategy itself.”

The report does not explore the consequences of those failures, but a summary released with the report states that “further preparations could have avoided some of the enormous financial, economic and human costs of the COVID-19 pandemic.”

The inquiry will also look into decision-making and political governance in Westminster, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, the impact on health systems across the UK, vaccines, medicines, anti-viral treatments, government procurement and PPE. [personal protective equipment]; the care sector, test and trace, the impact on children and young people, and the Government's business and finance response.

The latest report quoted a civil servant as saying: Chris Wormald “There's been a lot of discussion, of course, about countries like South Korea, who handled COVID very well. In fact, they had much higher standards of containment than we did, and that was a key difference.”

One of the aims of the review is to help the UK better prepare for the future. “The evidence overwhelmingly suggests that another, more infectious and deadly pandemic is likely in the near to medium term,” Hallett said. “This means that the UK will face another pandemic – one that, unless we prepare better, will cause untold suffering and huge economic loss, with the most vulnerable in society suffering the most.”

“This is a most urgent report because we are still not fully prepared for the next pandemic.” Duncan Robertson Loughborough University, UK Post to X.

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Source: www.newscientist.com

FTX: Investigating the disappearance of funds

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SAm Bankman Fried, the former CEO of bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX, oversaw a dramatic collapse that led to losses of billions of dollars for customers. In a court filing, he claims that all debts owed by FTX will be fully repaid. However, the US government views his statements as disconnected from reality.

Last week, FTX administrator John Ray III, appointed to manage the bankruptcy proceedings, accused Bankman Fried of orchestrating a massive fraud and living in a state of delusion. Ray dismissed the claims made by Bankman Fried’s lawyer that no one suffered harm as “categorically, callously, and patently false.”


Banker Mann Fried faces sentencing tomorrow after being convicted of fraud and money laundering conspiracy in the collapse of his cryptocurrency exchange. His potential 100-year prison sentence contrasts with a requested six-year term from his lawyer. The US government seeks a 40 to 50-year sentence for the 32-year-old former CEO who defrauded customers of $8 billion.

The Justice Department asserts that Bankman-Fried’s attempts to downplay his crimes and seek a lighter sentence reveal a dangerous potential for future fraud. The disputed bankruptcy proceedings for FTX may continue long after his release.

FTX: New technology, old embezzlement

This crypto entrepreneur created a façade of philanthropy by using client funds for personal luxuries, influencing political figures, and promoting the pseudo-altruistic philosophy of effective altruism. Recent testimonies have labeled FTX’s collapse as traditional embezzlement.

During the trial, evidence showed that $11.3 billion meant for customers was only $2.3 billion, with the rest diverted to investments, political contributions, and real estate, with little financial record-keeping. Wray likened the situation to a severe disaster caused by Bankman Fried’s deception.

Source: www.theguardian.com

Searching for the exomoon: Investigating a moon orbiting a distant planet

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Many years ago, at that time david kipping When he lived in London, he would walk home through the city and look up at the moon. For astronomers, its dimly glowing presence was a nightly source of inspiration. “It reminded us that satellites are waiting for us around exoplanets,” he says. “It made sense that we should look for them.”

It would be exciting to discover an exomoon, a natural satellite of a world outside our solar system. First, the moon may play a key role in determining the habitability of its host planet by dampening its wobble and promoting a stable climate, in the same way it did for Earth. there is. There may also be strange and wonderful configurations, such as a lunar ring or a moon with its own moon. But the most interesting thing is that some of them may be more suitable for life than exoplanets.

Kipping, now at Cornell University in New York, is part of a small community of astronomers exploring solar moons. At least statistics are on your side. About 5,500 exoplanets have been discovered so far, some of which may have dozens of moons. The problem is that it’s not easy to prove its existence. Two previous sightings of Kipping have been hotly debated.

But now there’s hope on the horizon, with many new ways to explore these objects, from monitoring rogue planets that have abandoned their stars to monitoring exoplanets’ gravitational wobbles. Armed with these new technologies, and new telescopes also in development, the Moon will…

Source: www.newscientist.com

Researchers Are Investigating the Decline in Sperm Counts Globally

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The year was 1974. While newspaper columnists were busy talking about the development of in vitro fertilization and the possibility of “test tube babies,” the surprising discovery about male fertility completely escaped their notice.

Two doctors, Iowa State CM Kinloch Nelson and Raymond Bunge, compared semen samples from that time with historical data. Dramatic changes in a man’s sperm count Over the past 20 years. In 1951, one milliliter of semen contained 107 million sperm. By the 1970s, that number had fallen by more than 50% to just 48 million people. The average volume of semen per ejaculation also decreased.

By the 1990s, the problem began to receive considerable scientific attention, although some researchers remained skeptical. They blamed differences in technology or the fact that most of the research involved men already undergoing treatment for infertility. Those doubts are now diminishing. “There is a tremendous amount of scientific evidence showing this decline,” he says. Albert Salas-Huetos at the University of Rovira y Virgili, Spain.

For researchers like Salas-Huetos, the big question is no longer whether this so-called “Spermageddon” is really happening, but why and what to do about it. Research is beginning to uncover environmental toxins that may be the culprit, as well as other lifestyle factors that contribute to the problem. With a better idea of the prime suspects, we may finally be able to put the brakes on this trend, or even reverse it.

decreased sperm count

around the world 1 in 6 people have problems…

Source: www.newscientist.com