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Lower Colorado River Basin California, Arizona, and Nevada agreed this week to cut water usage by about 14 percent between now and 2027, avoiding—for now, at least—a potentially devastating depletion of the Colorado River’s giant Lake Mead reservoir. The southwestern states reached the agreement along with Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming, which also depend on the river. Federal officials had called on the states to cut water usage by about twice as much, but the situation became less dire after heavy snow blanketed the Rocky Mountains this past winter, leading runoff into the river’s reservoirs to be an estimated 149 percent of the annual average. In recent years, a prolonged drought worsened by climate change reduced the Colorado River’s flow by about 20 percent. Lake Mead is at 30 percent…

What happened Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky got a promise of F-16 fighter jets and much of what he asked for in a surprise visit to the Group of Seven summit, which concluded this week in Hiroshima, Japan. After refusing for more than a year to supply Kyiv with U.S.-made fighter jets, President Biden reversed course and agreed to allow allies to send their surplus F-16s. But while at least five European countries have said they might be able to provide F-16s or help train Ukrainian pilots, no country has yet committed a single jet, and deployment and training will take months. In the meantime, the G-7—a group including the U.S., U.K., Italy, France, Germany, Canada, and Japan, plus the EU—also pledged nearly $20 billion in additional aid to Ukraine. Zelensky said…

The hardest part about setting the bar is you’ll forever be judged against it. Honda’s Accord has been a leader in the sedan market for years. Now there’s a new version and although it’s improved in many ways, the 2023 Accord doesn’t quite rise to the standard of the car that came before it. The base LX and next-step EX models come with a 1.5-liter turbocharged I-4 and continuously variable transmission. Fuel economy is about even compared to last year’s car and remains respectable. At 192 hp and 192 lb-ft of torque, the little engine is appropriately powerful. The turbo comes on quickly and makes the car pretty zippy off the line as basic midsize sedans go. Honda’s CVT remains one of the best, changing ratios quickly and smoothly and making the…

When other shooters discover my occupation, their most frequent questions are either, “What’s the best cartridge for concealed carry?” or “What’s the best self-defense load for a particular cartridge?” When it comes to cartridges for pistols, there’s not a lot of options … but as for load selection, the options are seemingly endless. I honestly believe there isn’t a “best” answer to either question, so my usual response is a firm: “It depends.” However, based on all the testing and research I’ve done over the years, I do have opinions. For most, I think the 9mm Luger is the best self-defense cartridge because it offers the best balance of terminal performance, handgun size/capacity and shootability. These are, of course, the reasons the FBI has returned to it. When it comes to ammunition, I…

What happened A legal battle over medication abortion appeared to be headed for the Supreme Court this week, after a conservative federal judge in Texas ruled that the Food and Drug Administration must reverse its approval of mifepristone, an abortion pill that’s been in wide use for 23 years. U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, a Trump appointee, said the FDA overlooked “legitimate safety concerns” when it approved the pill, part of a two-drug regimen used in more than half of U.S. abortions. The ruling marks the first time a judge has revoked FDA approval of a specific medication, and contradicts more than 100 scientific studies and two decades of use that support the FDA’s finding that mifepristone is very safe. Kacsmaryk said the FDA failed to consider the drug’s “psychological effects,”…

You might have seen headlines this week about the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra taking so-called “fake” moon pictures. Ever since the S20 Ultra, Samsung has had a feature called Space Zoom that marries its 10X optical zoom with massive digital zoom to reach a combined 100X zoom. In marketing shots, Samsung has shown its phone taking nearly crystal clear pictures of the moon, and users have done the same on a clear night. But a Redditor has proven that Samsung’s incredible Space Zoom is using a bit of trickery. It turns out that when taking pictures of the moon, Samsung’s AI-based Scene Optimizer does a whole lot of heavy lifting to make it look like the moon was photographed with a high-resolution telescope rather than a smartphone. So when someone takes…

PROS • Nicer, more feature-rich cabin • More power always welcome • Handles as well as—or even better than—before CONS • Is the styling too mature now? • Not particularly efficient for its size • Good luck getting one at its $44K MSRP VEHICLE LAYOUT Front-engine, FWD, 4-pass, 4-door hatchback ENGINE, TRANSMISSION 2.0L turbo direct-injected DOHC 16-valve I-4, 6-speed manual CURB WEIGHT (F/R DIST) 3,165 lb (62/38%) WHEELBASE 107.7 in LENGTH x WIDTH x HEIGHT 180.9 x 74.4 x 55.4 in ON SALE Now Shortly after the 2023 Honda Civic Type R made its debut, we had lots of questions. Is it going to be as great as before? Is the added power going to affect how it handles? Will it live up to our expectations? After spending a few days with the new Type R for our Car of the Year program, we’re…

Cars are becoming a niche commodity. Once the dominant form of family transportation, the “car” as we once knew it now toes the endangered segment list. Just 11 years ago we enjoyed our biggest MotorTrend Car of the Year field ever, at 35 entrants—triple the number of SUV contestants that year. Four years later, new SUVs outnumbered cars (by one), and now for 2023 they more than doubled our COTY field. And as cars get rarer, they’re also becoming rarified. The few remaining producers of mainstream econoboxes, compacts, and midsize sedans fielded no newcomers this year. In their place was a roster of mostly sporty or luxurious contestants. Among them, one outshone its own competitive set to a degree we don’t always see in our Of The Year contests: the…

LIBERTY What is code for malleable armor? “I wanted,” says Francesca Amfitheatrof, artistic director for watches and jewelry at Louis Vuitton since 2018, “to break away from Bravery, which was a historical collection in that it drew inspiration from the legacy left by Monsieur Vuitton.” Amfitheatrof has become known for the often elaborate narratives behind her collections—tales of inspiration from armor and Joan of Arc and outer space. “This year has a rather poetic dimension,” she says of her latest high jewelry collection, Louis Vuitton Spirit, her fourth for Vuitton. “I picture the Louis Vuitton woman as a mysterious creature, a strong character with something mythical about her. Those are the concepts I worked with. I wanted these pieces to conjure strong emotions and a powerful energy. Louis Vuitton Spirit brings together…

American adolescents are suffering an epidemic of anxiety and depression. Why? What’s happening to kids? Every available marker shows that over the past decade rates of anxiety, depression, and suicide have surged among children and teens in the U.S. The pandemic clearly made the problem worse—but the problem predates Covid, and it is consistent across regional and demographic lines. From 2009 to 2017, depression spiked 69 percent among 16- to 17-year-olds, according to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health. From 2009 to 2021, according to a Centers for Disease Control study, the share of high school students feeling “persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness” rose from 26 percent to 44 percent—the highest level ever recorded. Younger people are afflicted as well: Suicide is now the second leading cause of death…

Fall is now in full swing and most trappers know what to expect market-wise. Times have been tough in terms of fur prices for many years now, and most trappers know to keep their profit expectations low. We keep hoping that things will change, but we seem to be stalled at the bottom of a cycle with very few indications that anything will change. In a nutshell, prices this year will almost undoubtedly resemble what they were last year. Not much has changed on the global scale — war in Russia, economic uncertainty, and COVID-19 still impact social gatherings, city-wide lockdowns in China, and consumer confidence throughout the world. We face some tough issue when it comes time to sell, and we face tough issues when it is time to fill…

Google this week disclosed plans to infuse its dominant search engine with more advanced artificial-intelligence technology, a drive that’s in response to one of the biggest threats to its long-established position as the internet’s main gateway. The gradual shift in how Google’s search engine runs is rolling out three months after Microsoft’s Bing search engine started to tap into technology similar to that which powers the artificially intelligent chatbot ChatGPT, which has created one of Silicon Valley’s biggest buzzes since Apple released the first iPhone 16 years ago. Google, which is owned by Alphabet Inc., already has been testing its own conversational chatbot called Bard. That product, powered by technology called generative AI that also fuels ChatGPT, has only been available to people accepted from a waitlist. But Google announced that Bard…

The liver is the largest internal organ in the human body and amazingly has over 500 different functions. In fact, it is the second most complex organ after the brain and is intrinsically involved in almost every aspect of the body’s metabolic processes. The liver’s main functions are energy production, removal of harmful substances and the production of crucial proteins. These tasks are carried out within liver cells, called hepatocytes, which sit in complex arrangements in order to maximise their efficiency. The liver is the body’s main powerhouse, producing and storing glucose as a key energy source. It is also responsible for breaking down complex fat molecules and building them up into cholesterol and triglycerides, which the body needs but which are bad in excess. The liver makes many complex proteins,…

Fashion trends in the 1990s were brutal. The music was better than today’s, sure, but watch an old Seinfeld rerun—why is everyone dressed like an outcast from the Eddie Bauer catalog? Or what about the clothes on Friends? Or worse, the hair? That weird overgrown bob not only had a real name (The Rachel) but was also a real thing real people copied. Walking around the grocery store in 1995 was just weird, to say the least. (I have no room to talk, as my standard outfit from 1992 to ’97 was a tie-died Lollapalooza T-shirt under a pair of Dickies overalls and a matching flannel and/or beanie.) Of course, cars in the ’90s followed trends, too. Some were great, and some, well, have you seen anyone walking around rocking…

We don’t blame you if you think to yourself, “Here we go again; MotorTrend is about to laud yet another 911 GT3.” We also won’t apologize, because few cars deserve the consistency of praise given to the latest 911 GT3 range, from the standard GT3 that won our 2022 Performance Vehicle of the Year award to the next-level-and-then-some GT3 RS we drove for the first time recently (January 2023). Now we’ve taken a 2022 911 GT3 Touring with a manual transmission to our testing grounds to see how the “least extreme” version gets on with its job. The wing delete is the only significant performance-altering change between the GT3 and GT3 Touring models, thanks to the aerodynamic downforce lost by replacing the large, fixed version with an active rear spoiler and…

1 UNITED STATES Pence: Trump put me in danger in Capitol attack Mike Pence offered a rebuke of his one-time boss Donald Trump, saying history will hold the former president accountable for his role in the January 6 attack on the US Capitol. Pence, then vice-president, was in the Capitol when thousands of Trump supporters breached the building in an attempt to stop Congress certifying the 2020 presidential election, which Trump lost to Joe Biden. Throughout the siege, Trump sent several tweets, one calling on Republicans to “fight”. He also criticised Pence for certifying the results. Some rioters chanted: “Hang Mike Pence.” A makeshift gallows was erected outside. Pence was spirited to safety by Secret Service agents. Last Saturday at the Gridiron dinner in Washington, Pence told guests: “President Trump was wrong. I had no…

1 UNITED STATES Push to get lawmakers’ support on debt ceiling deal Political leaders appeared bullish on Monday that they could sell a bipartisan compromise debt ceiling deal to enough lawmakers – overcoming criticism from left and right – to avert a first-ever national default on the $31.4tn the US owes creditors. Despite the diplomacy and even arm-twisting still required this week, Joe Biden left the White House to head to Delaware on Monday. The president declared: “There is no reason why it should not be done by the fifth,” referring to Congress passing legislation on the debt ceiling before the US is predicted by the treasury secretary, Janet Yellen, to run out of money to pay its bills after 5 June. But the deal, agreed by the Democratic president and the Republican House…

When Melanie and Chris Hill arrived in Palm Beach to visit his grandparents in 1985, the couple anticipated an antiques shopping bonanza to help fill their shop in Tuscola, Illinois. Instead, they bought a business, Kofski Antiques, and relocated to Florida. By the late ‘80s, the Hills had taken the business to another level. They owned five warehouses and employed 60 sales staff, staging eight major estate sales a year that magnetized interior and landscape designers, as well as bargain-hunting homeowners. Waiting lines formed at 5 a.m. for the 9 o’clock opening. Carleton Varney also established his lemon-yellow Dorothy Draper showroom in the area, and it continues to showcase his legacy. And years ago, Devonshire, the antique English garden shop, found its niche selling exotic decorative items that co-owners Nelson Hammell…

I love speaking at user group meetings. There aren’t as many Apple user groups out there as there used to be, and these days the meetings are mostly over Zoom, but as someone who mostly speaks with developers, PR people, and media types, it’s refreshing to speak to people who are much more purely enthusiastic about Apple and its platforms. User groups also tend to do a good job of exposing the concerns and pain points of Apple customers who aren’t doing this for a living. It’s a great perspective shift. Last month, I spoke to a group that made it pretty clear what Apple is doing that is making them unhappy. The particular complaints that floated to the top were, I think, instructive about where Apple needs to make changes…

PROS • Feels a lot like the original • More practical than the previous sedan • Manual version is quite fun CONS • Powerband is too narrow • Among the slowest WRX models ever • The automatic option isn’t fun LIMITED; GT VEHICLE LAYOUT Front-engine, AWD, 5-pass, 4-door sedan ENGINE, TRANSMISSION 2.4L turbo direct-injected DOHC 16-valve flat-4, 6-speed manual; cont variable auto CURB WEIGHT (F/R DIST) 3,400 lb (60/40%); 3,538 lb (61/39%) WHEELBASE 105.2 in LENGTH x WIDTH x HEIGHT 183.8 x 71.9 x 57.8 in ON SALE Now The Subaru WRX has long been the enthusiast’s default choice for an all-weather sport compact. With rally-bred heritage, standard all-wheel drive, and potent turbocharged engines, the WRX has mastered its domain—especially since Mitsubishi vacated the space when it canned the Lancer. By that measure, the new WRX is primed for success. Longer, lower, wider, and stiffer…

The process of pasteurisation is a centuries-old method of preparing food, giving it a longer life in larders and today on supermarket shelves. Since the 11th century, people have been using heat to battle against microorganisms to preserve their food. Ancient Chinese wine makers used hot clay jars to heat wine before burying them in cool soil to preserve them. However, it wasn’t until the late-19th century that a name was attributed to this process. Pasteurisation is used to combat the harmful pathogens that reside within raw foods, often referred to as spoilage microorganisms. These can be transferred to our bodies when we consume these foods in their raw state. Pathogens such as E. coli and Salmonella can be found in raw milk, and when ingested can cause serious health issues.…

There’s a common theme in AR build trends: whatever permutation of Stoner’s brainchild is selected by military and law enforcement special operators will be reflected in the home-builds of those who construct their guns to be relied upon in hard times. This logic has merit. These units often train more rigorously and more consistently than larger conventional units, putting their carbines to work more often. It would then stand to reason that whatever general configuration of AR they settle on would be the result of an aggressive cycle of “test, train, use, improve.” With that in mind, we examined the current trends in SOF carbine configuration and fused in some high-performance parts available on the open market to build our own rendition of the general-use special operations AR. Our base for…

SPECS Vehicle Layout Front-engine, AWD, 5-pass, 4-door truck Engine 2.5L turbo port- and direct-injected DOHC 16-valve I-4 Power (SAE Net) 281 hp @ 5,800 rpm Torque (SAE Net) 311 lb-ft @ 1,700 rpm Transmission 8-speed twin-clutch auto Curb Weight (F/R Dist) 4,124 lb (56/44%) 0-60 MPH 6.0 sec EPA City/Hwy/Comb fuel econ 19/27/22 mpg ON SALE Now Base Price $37,425 As tested $38,020“Time to see if Hyundai’s little pickup was worth the long gestation period.”Alisa Priddle The Hyundai Santa Cruz is coquettish. It’s been playing hard to get since we first laid eyes on the compact lifestyle truck concept at the 2015 Detroit auto show. It created enough buzz that execs said it was a surefire addition to the company’s car-heavy lineup. For years we pestered Hyundai for updates on when…

You may have already seen them in restaurants: waist-high machines that can greet guests, lead them to their tables, deliver food and drinks and ferry dirty dishes to the kitchen. Some have cat-like faces and even purr when you scratch their heads. But are robot waiters the future? It’s a question the restaurant industry is increasingly trying to answer. Many think robot waiters are the solution to the industry’s labor shortages. Sales of them have been growing rapidly in recent years, with tens of thousands now gliding through dining rooms worldwide. “There’s no doubt in my mind that this is where the world is going,” said Dennis Reynolds, dean of the Hilton College of Global Hospitality Leadership at the University of Houston. The school’s restaurant began using a robot in December, and Reynolds…

Dublin European regulators this week imposed a record $1.3 billion fine on Meta, Facebook’s parent company, saying it violated European Union privacy laws by transferring users’ data from Europe to the United States, where U.S. intelligence agencies could theoretically access it. Ireland’s Data Protection Commission gave Meta until October to stop sending user data from the European Economic Area—which includes EU countries plus Iceland, Liechtenstein, and Norway—across the Atlantic. Meta said it would appeal the “flawed, unjustified” decision, saying it set “a dangerous precedent for the countless other companies transferring data” internationally. Industry groups are calling for clarity on what data they can and can’t transfer. American tech companies have been clashing for years with regulators in Europe, where online privacy and security protections are much stronger. Racism in soccer Valencia, Spain Spanish fans…

What happened The Biden administration said it was “encouraged” this week after new asylum rules instituted after the lifting of Title 42 did not result in an expected surge of migrants at the border. Last week President Biden sent 1,500 troops to the border and warned things would get “chaotic” after the end of the Covid-related public-health order, which for three years allowed border agents to summarily expel migrants. But after more than 10,000 migrants a day sought to cross the border just before Title 42 ended, much stricter asylum rules adopted by the administration under a restored policy called Title 8—including a five-year entry ban on migrants who try to enter illegally—cut the influx by half, with fewer than 5,000 migrant encounters a day. The five-year ban in particular “has…

“The historian,” wrote Frederich Von Schlegel, “is a prophet looking backwards.” We certainly made more than our share of predictions in the ’90s; we were right about some, wrong about others, and downright embarrassed by a few. Here are a half-dozen of our 1990s projections and their eventual outcomes. 1990: Volkswagen Should Bring Back the Beetle In his June 1990 column, MotorTrend editor Jack Nerad recounted a chat with a Volkswagen PR rep who fretted about the company’s sinking market share. Nerad’s suggestion: Bring back the Beetle. “Volkswagen has lost its reputation for low-cost, reliable ‘transportation’ cars to the Japanese and Koreans,” he wrote. The PR man scoffed—surely Nerad didn’t mean the Beetle? “I wasn’t proposing the reintroduction of a several-decades-old model,” Nerad said. “I was suggesting fresh, modern mechanicals under a…

Several states are banning books and criminalizing the teaching of controversial topics. What’s become verboten? Is censorship growing? Yes. Recently passed state and local legislation is dictating what schools may or may not teach and what students may or may not read. A record 2,571 different titles were banned or censored by school districts, states, and other government entities in 2022, according to the American Library Association—a 38 percent increase from the previous year. Nearly 60 percent of those bans were aimed at classrooms and school libraries, and most of the targeted books were by or about racial minorities or LGBTQ people. Broad, vaguely defined prohibitions on teaching “critical race theory” and other allegedly divisive topics in classrooms have compelled 1 in 4 U.S. teachers to alter their curricula. In Florida, a…

Rumors picked up again recently that a new 15-inch MacBook Air will be Apple’s next major Mac release, possibly at the Worldwide Developers conference, according to Mark Gurman’s latest report. But whether we get it before, during, or after WWDC, this much is true: It will instantly become Apple’s perfect laptop. That may seem like a stretch, but hear me out. Assuming the rumors and our own assumptions are true, the 15-inch MacBook Air will be the ideal laptop for nearly every user, with its combination of size, processing power, and value. The MacBook Air is already Apple’s most popular laptop, and a 15-inch model would be the jewel of the lineup. Here’s why. THE RIGHT SIZE Apple offers MacBooks in four different sizes: 13.3 inches (13-inch MacBook Pro), 13.6 inches (M2 MacBook…

“Ready or not, it’s over,” said Melissa Healy in the Los Angeles Times. The federal government’s three-year-old pandemic state of emergency expired last week, although the still-evolving virus has killed 1.1 million–plus Americans and by the end of 2023 will have cost the U.S. economy a staggering $14 trillion. Early this month, Covid continued to exact a weekly toll of some 77,000 infections and 1,000 deaths. Still, prior infections, vaccination, or both have now given nearly all Americans some level of immunity, and new variants have evolved to become more infectious but less lethal. As Covid lost “two-thirds of its initial killing power,” Covid deaths dropped by 47 percent between 2021 and 2022. For the past year, “the overwhelming majority” of deaths have occurred among people over 75. Regional and…

Q TOM SMITH, MILTON Is my home Wi-Fi network safe? A Safe how, exactly? Safe in terms of nefarious radio waves that might get through your tin foil helmet? Gosh, reader, let’s look at the wealth of evidence on your lunatic auntie’s Facebook wall, certainly looks like an open and shut case, doesn’t it? Get out of here. Safe in terms of your skeezy neighbour finagling their laptop onto your connection and downloading something dodgy? Modern wireless security is not the easily smashed excuse for a protocol that ‘protected’ early WEP networks. Nobody’s getting through WPA2 without serious tools and a fair amount of laziness on your part: as long as your password doesn’t appear in any known hacks and him next door isn’t able to read the matrix you’ll probably be alright. Safe…

Killeen, Texas An Army private who complained of being sexually harassed by her superior as well as peers at Fort Hood was found dead last week, three years after a female soldier who had reported sexual harassment at the sprawling military base was murdered. The private, Ana Basaldua Ruiz, 20, died weeks after telling her mother about being sexually harassed, her family said. Fort Hood, which is notorious for high rates of sexual assault, said “no foul play is evident” at this point in the investigation, and her family said Ruiz appeared to have died by suicide. In 2020, Vanessa Guillén, 20, went missing after reporting sexual harassment, and her remains were found two months later. Her suspected killer, also a soldier, shot himself before he could be arrested. An independent…

Thanks to weapons from the U.S. and other NATO allies, Ukraine is regaining territory from Russia’s army. How much has Ukraine received? More military aid than the U.S. has committed to another country in a single year since the Vietnam War. Since Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion, the U.S. has provided $17 billion in military support and another $50 billion in humanitarian and economic aid. About 50 nations have contributed weapons, but the U.S. leads the way by far, spending roughly twice as much as all European Union countries combined. The weapons provided include anti-tank missile launchers such as the Javelin, shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles, 1.5 million artillery shells, tanks and other armored vehicles, body armor, radar systems, and other cutting-edge war-fighting supplies. That defense funding—augmented by U.S. intelligence’s precise targeting of Russian artillery,…

Making connections The hyoid in the neck is the only bone that isn’t connected to another bone The human body is composed of an estimated 7 octillion (which written out is 7,000,000,000,000 ,000,000,000,000,000) atoms, making up over 75 trillion cells. At the atomic level, the human body comprises about 60 elements, but the function of many of them is unknown. In fact, 99 per cent of the human body is made from just six elements (see chart for specific percentages). Like all other life discovered to date, we are carbon-based; the biomolecules that make up our bodies are constructed using frameworks made up of carbon atoms. Carbon is almost unique among the elements; it is small in size and can make four covalent bonds to other atoms, allowing it to form the backbone of…

PROS • Return of the light, fun BMW coupe • Excellent I-4 and I-6 powertrains • Longer wheelbase improves second row CONS • Lacks some standard safety systems • Center console lacks storage space • Occasionally glitchy infotainment system 230i, M240i VEHICLE LAYOUT Front-engine, RWD, 4-pass, 2-door coupe; front-engine, AWD, 4-pass, 2-door coupe ENGINE, TRANSMISSION 2.0L turbo direct-injected DOHC 16-valve I-4; 3.0L turbo direct-injected DOHC 24-valve I-6, 8-speed automatic CURB WEIGHT (F/R DIST) 3,535 lb (50/50%); 3,876 lb (53/47%) WHEELBASE 107.9 in LENGTH x WIDTH x HEIGHT 179.0 x 72.4 x 54.8; 179.4 x 72.4 x 55.3 in ON SALE Now A slow clap for BMW bringing a new 2 Series to the lineup. There isn’t much appetite in this world for compact, playful sport coupes, yet here the 2 sits. It does more than that, though—while the second-generation car has grown, it remains…

London The EU said this week it would launch legal action against the U.K. after Boris Johnson’s government introduced legislation to amend the agreement on how goods are moved between Northern Ireland and Great Britain. When the U.K. was negotiating its exit from the EU, the main sticking point was how to avoid a hard border between Northern Ireland, a British province, and Ireland, an EU member. The compromise—which Johnson personally praised and promoted—was the Northern Ireland Protocol, which requires customs checks for goods to and from Northern Ireland. But now, Johnson wants to remove some checks to placate unionists in Northern Ireland who say the province is being treated as a foreign country. The EU said it flat-out refuses to renegotiate any portion of the Brexit treaty. Deportation policy in turmoil London The…

HUMAN BEINGS ARE terrible at foresight—especially apocalyptic foresight. The track record of previous doomsayers is worth recalling as we contemplate warnings from critics of artificial intelligence (A.I.) research. “The human race may well become extinct before the end of the century,” philosopher Bertrand Russell told Playboy in 1963, referring to the prospect of nuclear war. “Speaking as a mathematician, I should say the odds are about three to one against survival.” Five years later, biologist Paul Ehrlich predicted that hundreds of millions would die from famine in the 1970s. Two years after that warning, S. Dillon Ripley, secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, forecast that 75 percent of all living animal species would go extinct before 2000. Petroleum geologist Colin Campbell predicted in 2002 that global oil production would peak around 2022. The consequences,…

After much waiting—only four years late!—the electric Tesla Semi’s initial customer, PepsiCo, has taken delivery of its first examples of the big rig. We got a look at the trucks at an event celebrating the transformation of the beverage and snack conglomerate’s Modesto, California, Frito-Lay plant into an emissions-free pilot project as its aims to achieve zero overall emissions by 2040. The revamped facility’s 500,000 square feet are dedicated to turning potatoes and corn into Lay’s, Ruffles, Doritos, Cheetos, and Fritos, all powered by a massive on-site solar facility and local renewable energy projects and backed by 2.7 MWh of on-site battery storage. Helping the factory distribute its snacks throughout the American West are three electric BYD 8Y yard tractors, six Peterbilt 220EV electric box trucks for local last-mile deliveries, 38…

The groves of southern Lebanon had been quiet for nearly 17 years. But as farmers tended to orange trees and banana crops last Thursday, rocket men lurked among them, readying the biggest barrage fired into Israel since the war of 2006 and taking a startled region to the precipice of another conflict that leaders on both sides of the border fear will be worse than all before them. In Beirut and Tel Aviv, an escalation seemed imminent. But as a troubling afternoon wore on, the apocalyptic showdown between Hezbollah and Israel that had been widely predicted started to fizzle. Rhetoric was of measured responses. Israel was content to blame Palestinian groups and put a distance between them and Hezbollah. War could wait for now. But as two mortal foes continue to stalk…

Chris Hemsworth plunged into Arctic waters, dangled high above a canyon while climbing a rope, fasted for four days, and prepared for his own eventual death—all in the pursuit of living longer. In Limitless With Chris Hemsworth, a six-part National Geographic documentary streaming on Disney+, the actor doesn’t just rely on a physique honed during a decade of playing Thor in movies. He challenges mind as well as body in a quest to develop habits that might extend life. His, and ours. Experts guide him. Some of their tips sound familiar—eat less, exercise more—but others, not so much: Accept reality. Harness stress. Before this project, Hemsworth had “always trained specifically for a movie,” where the goal might have been “to have abs this summer or whatever. And it was more superficial. I always…

Seattle A 48-year-old man was arrested last week after allegedly yelling racist threats outside the house of Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) while carrying a .40-caliber handgun. A neighbor said the man, who lives just half a mile from the first Indian-American woman elected to the House, yelled “Go back to India!” and “I’m going to kill you!” near midnight. The neighbor also said the man drove by Jayapal’s home three times yelling profanities. Jayapal, 56, was home at the time and said the man tried to pitch a tent in front of her house. She said home security cameras documented his threats, but prosecutors did not immediately file hate-crime charges, citing a lack of hard evidence. As violent threats toward public officials escalate, Jayapal said, it would be a “terrible sign”…

“After spending a year with the Odyssey, we’ve learned a lot, and we’re sad to see our faithful companion go.”Ed Loh Base Price $39,635 As Tested $39,635 Service Life 12 months/18,258 miles Average Fuel Econ 19.3 mpg Options None Problem areas Cross-threaded wheel bolt Maintenance cost $218.31 (2x inspection, oil change, tire rotation) Normal wear $0 3-year residual value* $37,700 (95%) Recalls None *IntelliChoice data; assumes 42,000 miles at the end of three years. Dear Honda Manufacturing of Alabama employees, When we first received your Obsidian Blue Pearl 2021 Honda Odyssey EX-L (VIN ending in 7577), we were elated to finally have the opportunity to use a minivan for one of its many intended purposes: kid hauling. Over the past few years, our editorial team has gone through a bit of a baby boom, including a new arrival for yours truly, so…

RINGED BY AQUAMARINE waters, Santa Rosa Island is a folded landscape of canyons, mountains, and hanging sea cliffs. But there’s more here than meets the eye. Archaeological intrigue lingers on this temperate isle, the second largest in California’s Channel Islands National Park. While digging in the island’s Arlington Canyon in 1959, archaeologist Phil Orr discovered two femurs that he suspected dated back thousands of years to the late Pleistocene epoch. That alone was not unique. Orr conducted fieldwork on windswept Santa Rosa for more than two decades. During his many expeditions, he excavated entire villages of the Chumash people and numerous graves and middens, as well as the large bones of pygmy mammoths, which roamed the area around 12,000 years ago. But nearly 40 years after Orr’s discovery, John R. Johnson, Orr’s successor…

Rishi Sunak cut a relaxed figure as he sat in shirtsleeves, clutching a Downing Street mug, chatting to journalists on the plane to the G7 conference in Japan last week. One question ruffled his smooth demeanour, though: what did he make of Nigel Farage’s eye-opening comments the previous evening? Brexit had “failed”, the former Ukip and Brexit party leader had said. Britain had “not actually benefited … economically” from leaving the EU. And who was to blame for this sorry state of affairs? “Useless” Tory governments. Sunak bristled at these remarks. “I voted for Brexit, I believe in Brexit … as chancellor and prime minister I am actually delivering the benefits of Brexit as opposed to talking about it,” he said. He had reason to feel sensitive. More serious than Farage’s jibes…

You’ll never be the best you can be if you aim to be 100% productive every minute of your workday. It’s impossible to work nonstop without paying a price, be it a decrease in quality, output, or safety. We all need breaks. If you’re new (or newish) to working from home, you might be tempted to compare your at-home break schedule with one you used to follow in your place of business. For instance, you might be thinking, “Would I have spent 10 minutes opening a package if I had been at work? or “I’m not usually this distracted when I’m at work.” Don’t do it. WHY YOU SHOULDN’T COMPARE THE BEFORE AND AFTER First, anyone who has worked remotely for a long time will tell you there’s no sense in comparing your…

What happened President Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy reported incremental progress in debt-limit talks this week, but remained far from an agreement ahead of a looming June 1 default deadline and the possibility of economic catastrophe. The two sides are “nowhere near a deal,” McCarthy told GOP lawmakers in a closed-door meeting early this week. Spending cuts remain the biggest point of contention. Biden has agreed to cap 2024 spending at 2023 levels, but Republicans demand actual cuts to social safety-net spending and an agreement to set spending caps for the next six years. Biden wants to reduce the deficit by including the defense budget in the freeze, raising taxes on the wealthy, and closing some corporate tax loopholes—measures Republicans adamantly oppose. Republicans have proposed stricter work requirements for recipients…

London Britons “should think carefully about their plans” for holiday travel, Interior Minister Suella Braverman said this week, because strikes by railway and airport workers will bring “undeniable, serious disruption.” Up to 3,000 passport control officers at airports nationwide, including Heathrow and Gatwick, plan to walk off the job for eight days around Christmas and New Year’s over a pay dispute. British soldiers will be sent in to check passports, but with more than 10,000 flights coming in to the affected airports between Dec. 23 and 31, international travelers will likely face extremely long lines. The rail workers’ union is also on strike, and fewer trains are running. Serbian minority revolts Pristina, Kosovo Kosovar Prime Minister Albin Kurti asked NATO peacekeeping troops to intervene this week after minority Serbs blocked roads and shot at…

In Florida, a pugnacious lawman finds himself face-to-face with a band of neo-Nazis riding the rising tide of hate, said Danielle Paquette in The Washington Post. Daytona Beach, Fla. — Did Sheriff Michael J. Chitwood know how easy it was to make a laser weapon? Did he know that a laser weapon could be remote-controlled, shoot invisible beams, and blind him in 1/15 of a second? “Do you have any idea how cheap it is to build a laser weapon that can start fires, blind for life, and even cause dark-colored skin to outright explode?” read the email pinging his iPhone, subject line: You are an enemy of the American people. “Seems likely,” Chitwood muttered, forwarding the message to the deputy now charged with investigating messages he deemed threatening. “Scumbags.” The “scumbags” had emailed…

What happened President Biden made a daring and dramatic show of support for Ukraine this week, with a surprise visit to Kyiv and a speech in Poland where he vowed that support from the U.S. and its allies “will not waver.” On the cusp of the war’s first anniversary, Biden arrived in Kyiv after a long, clandestine trip that required him to leave Washington on an Air Force jet in predawn darkness, land in Poland, and travel to the Ukrainian capital via a 10-hour train ride. He spent five hours in Kyiv, meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, visiting the U.S. Embassy, and walking along the Wall of Remembrance war memorial amid the sound of air-raid sirens. Biden, the first U.S. president to travel to a war zone not occupied by…

I BET I can make you roll your eyes: I think I have ADHD. I imagine you are thinking: “Of course you have. How kooky. How creative. Now, go away and post about it on social media.” If so, I totally understand. Since I first saw a list of ADHD symptoms in the mid-2000s and had an “aha” moment, I have lost count of the number of times I have talked myself in and out of seeking a diagnosis. At first, it was because the idea felt ridiculous. Back then, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder – to give it its full name – was for fidgety schoolboys. Fully grown women with a career and family need not apply. Nearly 20 years later, I still feel ridiculous, but now it is because ADHD is…

CHRIS BROAD, KENT Q Will buying new tech make me happy? A New tech is a way to make your life easier, smooth out certain tasks, increase your enjoyment of media, up your comfort levels. It’s about incremental improvements, and occasionally just throwing some money at fun or your hobbies. If that quality-of-life boost makes you happy, job done. But Guru knows well enough that making a compulsive tech purchase is like making a compulsive donut purchase. It’s delicious, but it won’t chase the black dog away for long. Perhaps, though, you could focus your tech purchases on improving lifestyle habits that might send you along the correct path. You don’t even need to spend much; you could shell out a small amount on a fitness watch (the Mi Smart Band 6 is…

“BOMBSHELL,” screamed the conservative website The Federalist. “The crime of the century,” trumpeted Republican Rep. Jim Jordan. “Who should go to jail for this?” demanded GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene. They were among the many allies of Donald Trump who pretended that a new report on the FBI investigation into the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia was “Watergate times 10, or 100,” said Jonathan Weisman in The New York Times. The explosive reaction stood in striking contrast to the actual report, the result of a four-year investigation by special counsel John Durham, who in 2019 was tasked by then–Attorney General William Barr with probing possible malfeasance in the Justice Department’s Russia investigation. Durham’s inquisition “produced no startling revelations” and yielded only two acquittals and a guilty plea on minor charges.…

DID YOU KNOW? No trace of Babylon’s famous ‘hanging gardens’ remains; some experts believe they were in Nineveh instead Mesopotamia was home to some of the very first cities in existence, leading many to link it to the birth of true civilisation. The origin of these cities is still unknown today, although many theories exist. One suggestion is that the development and building of temples created a place where people would gather, and thus served as points of contact between different groups of people. Others believe that people sought sanctuary from natural disasters. As the Mesopotamians were able to develop technology to help them control the nearby rivers, such as levees, they could ensure a good crop. They had no need to be nomadic, and were able to settle in one place…

The horsepower war is over. The handling war is on. Cars like the Audi RS 5 Coupe and Sportback with the Competition Plus package and Porsche’s stunning new GT3 RS—vehicles we’ve driven in just the past few months—suggest a paradigm shift is coming in the performance car business. In an era when modern EV technology means pretty much anyone can build a 2,000-horsepower car that will launch so hard it’ll shred your intestines on the way to an insanely quick 0–60 time, developing internal combustion engines that pump out ever more power to deliver marginal improvements in acceleration times and top speed is increasingly a zero-sum game. But building a road car chassis with hardware and software that allow enthusiastic and engaged drivers to be whole seconds faster around a racetrack than…

Get the scoop on noteworthy products Apple released in the first quarter and see if any entice you enough to make a purchase. YELLOW IPHONE 14 In March, Apple released a canary yellow iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus in honor of spring. The only distinguishing feature of this new release is—you guessed it—the color. Lots of banana-phone jokes have made their rounds, but here at iPhone Life, we do agree it’s a lovely shade. Like with all other iPhone 14 and 14 Plus models, the price starts at $799. M2 MAC MINI Next up is a new generation of Apple’s popular Mac mini, the tiny desktop computer that’s also the cheapest entry to the Mac lineup. Like with all 2023 Macs, the mini is outfitted with an M2 chip, the second generation of…

Some of America’s top universities are rejecting the tyranny of U.S. News & World Report’s annual lists. What are colleges upset about? For decades, the annual U.S. News & World Report rankings have been the arbiter of college prestige. The lists, and others like them, sway students’ and parents’ decisions and influence everything from professor hiring to alumni donations to university spending priorities. But now dozens of elite law schools and medical schools have begun boycotting the rankings, arguing that obsessive competition for a top spot warps academic priorities. Top-ranked Yale Law School initiated the protest last fall, after its dean, Heather Gerken, said the U.S. News method of determining rank was “profoundly flawed.” Harvard Medical School, also ranked No. 1 by U.S. News, quickly followed, refusing to provide the publication with…

Retailers say they’re under an assault by robbery rings of unprecedented aggression and scale. How bad is the problem? “It is just out of control,” said Lisa LaBruno, an official at the Retail Industry Leaders Association. In a Business.org survey of 700 small businesses last year, 54 percent reported a rise in shoplifting and 23 percent said they were robbed daily. Both small and large retailers are sounding the alarm: Last year a CVS official told Congress shoplifting was up 300 percent over pre-pandemic figures; in December, Walmart CEO Doug McMillon warned that spiking theft could lead to higher prices and/or store closures. Retail theft reports were up 52 percent over 2021 in Philadelphia last year; in New York City, they rose 45 percent. Nearly a third of all shoplifting arrests in…

I could use a Mac upgrade, but I’m a cheapskate and I’ve put it off. The performance of my old Mac is fine for what I do. A lot of great deals have popped up recently for the 14-inch MacBook Pro, but I haven’t made the investment. But you know what would finally make me spend my money? A Mac with Dynamic Island. Dynamic Island is a new user interface element that was introduced with the iPhone 14 Pro. With this phone, Apple redesigned the front notch to a pill shape, but instead of leaving it as something on the screen that you try to ignore (as you did with the notch), Apple decided to give it a name and make it a key way to interact with the phone. Apple’s Dynamic…

Billionaire Twitter owner Elon Musk is again sounding warning bells on the dangers of artificial intelligence to humanity — and claiming that a popular chatbot has a liberal bias that he plans to counter with his own AI creation. Musk told Fox News host Tucker Carlson in a segment aired Monday night that he plans to create an alternative to the popular AI chatbot ChatGPT that he is calling “TruthGPT,” which will be a “maximum truth-seeking AI that tries to understand the nature of the universe.” The idea, Musk said, is that an AI that wants to understand humanity is less likely to destroy it. Musk also said he’s worried that ChatGPT “is being trained to be politically correct.” In the first of a two-part interview with Carlson, Musk also advocated for the regulation…

Components of blood Blood is a mix of solids and liquids, a blend of highly specialised cells and particles suspended in a protein-rich fluid called plasma. Red blood cells dominate the mix, carrying oxygen to living tissue and returning carbon dioxide to the lungs. For every 600 red blood cells, there is a single white blood cell, of which there are five different kinds. Cell fragments called platelets use their irregular surface to cling to vessel walls and initiate the clotting process. “Red blood cells are so numerous because they perform the most essential function of blood” Blood is the river of life. It feeds oxygen and essential nutrients to living cells in the body and carries away their waste. It transports the foot soldiers of the immune system, white blood cells, which…

Erika Kurtz New Moon “The most daring thing we can do is to remain radically old-school,” says Erika Kurtz, the second-generation leader of Delaware-based New Moon. If it seems like a surprising perspective in an era of technological wizardry, consider where her journey began: At 17, she traveled to Nepal with her father, John Kurtz, a painter who parlayed his fine art skills and love of antique rugs into original designs for a luxury rug line and partnered with an artisan community in the south Asian country to make it. That first trip morphed into a mission that would guide Erika when she took over a decade later. “I want to champion the human side of rug weaving. The idea of fast fashion isn’t just terrible for the environment; it eradicates the…

PROS • Slick EV integration • Crushingly normal, unlike most EVs • Channels core BMW traits CONS • Eco-minded tires can be loud • Awkward ingress/egress • Limited center-console storage space eDRIVE40; M50 VEHICLE LAYOUT Rear-motor, RWD, 5-pass, 4-door hatchback; front- and rear-motor, AWD, 5-pass, 4-door hatchback MOTORS, TRANSMISSIONS Brushed synchronous electric, 1-speed automatic CURB WEIGHT (F/R DIST) 4,708 lb (45/55%); 5,012 lb (48/52%) WHEELBASE 112.4 in LENGTH x WIDTH x HEIGHT 188.5 x 72.9 x 57.0 ON SALE Now Look at the BMW i4, then look at a current BMW 4 Series Gran Coupe. The two four-door hatchbacks are virtually identical, their shared platform flexible enough to support both electric and gas-powered models. Cover the i4’s badges, and it’s tough to identify as an EV—save for the lack of exhaust pipes and its blocked-off kidney grilles. Typically, gas cars converted to EVs don’t feel…

London Prominent Con-servative lawmaker Dominic Raab resigned as Britain’s deputy prime minister last week, after an investigation determined he had bullied underlings. The inquiry examined eight formal complaints, spanning four years and involving 24 people, alleging that Raab had abused staff members during his stints as foreign secretary and Brexit secretary, and concluded that two complaints had merit. While Raab hadn’t sworn or shouted, the report said, he had been “persistently aggressive,” intimidating subordinates by describing their work as “utterly useless.” Raab’s resignation letter was unrepentant, saying his dismissal would set a “dangerous precedent” by “setting the threshold for bullying so low.” Moving fascist remains Madrid Spain this week exhumed the body of José Antonio Primo de Rivera, a fascist leader who supported the dictatorship of Gen. Francisco Franco, as part of an ongoing…

The vaping industry turns 20 this year, but Ira Simeonidis fears the golden age of e-cigarettes is already wafting away. “It’s a bit destroyed,” said the organiser of Hall of Vape, Europe’s largest vaping trade fair, held in Stuttgart this month. His festival once drew more than 20,000 visitors, who attended talks, partied with DJs and browsed rows of exhibits by renowned designers showing off their latest “mods”, elaborately crafted devices for inhaling nicotine – and other substances of choice. “It was for professional and passionate vapers,” Simeonidis said. “A community thing, to get together, drink beer, vape and see each other once a year.” But no more. While the festival was suspended for two years during the Covid-19 pandemic, the vaping world transformed. Markets around the world have been flooded with mass-produced disposable…

a. Lisa Jhung Categories: Trail and Road Running Shoes Location: Boulder, Colorado Freelance journalist, editor, and author Lisa Jhung has researched, tested, and written about running shoes for more than 15 years. She coordinates a fleet of female shoe testers out of Boulder and says her home office is a perpetual obstacle course of cardboard boxes and piles of shoes. A high school jumper and occasional sprinter/hurdler, she started running—really running—after walking off the collegiate volleyball team and swiftly progressed to road and trail races of any distance, triathlons, multiday adventure races, and mountain running. She’s happiest testing rugged trail shoes on gnarly terrain. b. Eugene Buchanan Category: Boats Location: Steamboat, Colorado Eugene Buchanan spent 14 years at the helm of Paddler magazine as publisher and editor in chief. As a freelance journalist, he has written about…

You get faster ports and two drive bays in the OWC miniStack STX hub for Mac mini or Mac Studio. The miniStack STX matches the Mac’s own Thunderbolt 4 bandwidth and its SSD drive bay will support the fastest NVMe M.2 SSDs. By comparison, Satechi’s rival Stand & Hub for Mac mini features 5Gbps USB-C and USB-A ports and slower SATA M.2 SSDs. Combined with the Mac mini’s own roster of ports, with the ministack STX you will have six fast Thunderbolt 4 ports and two USB-A ports, plus the mini’s own ethernet and HDMI ports. The OWC miniStack has one upstream Thunderbolt port that connects to the Mac, and three downstream Thunderbolt 4 ports. With Thunderbolt 4, you can create three independent daisy chains with up to five total Thunderbolt…

Looking at our 15-strong 2023 Car of the Year field, it’s apparent we’re witnessing the form’s decline. Our field is not only smaller than in recent years but also more “foreign.” The Detroit Three sell a total of 10 cars between them. Add Tesla and Lucid into the mix, and that number balloons to a whopping 13. A decade ago, the Detroit Three alone sold upward of 30 car models. This year’s COTY field featured just one American car. But what if we’re looking at the car’s decline the wrong way? What if we’re being colored by recent biases? What if the traditional car—typically a three-box design with a distinct hood, body, and trunk—was a historical anomaly? Was the SUV’s rise inevitable? Looking back at the bestselling vehicles of the past 100…

I’ve heard several people ask rhetorically why racing matters. I haven’t conducted anything resembling a scientific survey, but it’s as if the emergence and proliferation of electrified automobiles, ongoing grandiose fantasies of autonomous driving, and even the anticipated rise of the machines (i.e., artificial intelligence) tells them motorsports’ days are numbered. It’s an odd—ignorant, really—hot take when you consider interest in multiple racing series around the world is on the rise. IMSA’s season-opening Rolex 24 saw a record crowd of an estimated 50,000, much of which series officials attribute to interest in the new era of various manufacturer-backed hybrid-powered Prototype-class cars. The NTT IndyCar Series is healthier than it has been for years, and Formula 1—once the Fabergé egg of motorsports to millions of racing fans while forever struggling to establish…

The System Preferences app in macOS has been there since the very beginning, and it’s showing its age. A tiny, largely unchanging rectangle sized for the tiny displays of the early 2000s, it’s past time for Apple to create a new, modern settings app for the modern Mac. And in theory, that’s what the System Settings app in macOS Ventura is supposed to do. It’s a new app, clearly inspired by the Settings apps on iOS and iPadOS. That’s not a bad idea since so many Mac users also use those platforms, and it makes sense that Apple’s platforms harmonize. The problem is that, with a month or so to go before macOS Ventura goes final, the System Settings app in the beta is a bit of a disaster. Unless things change…

Far-right parties in Sweden and Italy just had electoral breakthroughs. Why? Where is the far right growing? In the last month, far-right parties in Sweden and Italy shocked the world with their electoral successes. The Brothers of Italy, a descendant of Mussolini’s fascist regime, garnered 26 percent of votes to place first in the Italian election—up from 4 percent in 2018. Led by Giorgia Meloni, who has spoken of “LGBT lobbies” and claimed American billionaire George Soros finances “mass immigration,” the party uses a fascist slogan and a logo that was created for neofascists in the 1940s. Meanwhile, in Sweden—a country known for tolerance and a robust social safety net—the far-right Sweden Democrats placed second in September elections with 20 percent. The party has roots in a neo-Nazi movement and campaigned on…

How we communicate and the method we choose can make all the difference to the outcome. Workers have long been frustrated when the mode of communication is wrong for the message, because it’s ineffective, reduces productivity, or wastes people’s time. WHAT WE CAN LEARN FROM ALL-REMOTE ORGANIZATIONS? Remote organizations must necessarily think harder about workplace communication than in-person organizations, because they don’t have the same options as in-person teams. Remote organizations, which tend to be younger, also don’t typically have the same cultural baggage that older organizations do. Older organizations are more likely to be set in their ways. A classic example is a company whose culture gives undue significance to in-person meetings. People believe that the in-person meeting is the best way to, for example, kick off a project or regularly check…