Author: damazah@gmail.com

Carmakers that focus on selling fossil fuel engines are at risk of being “woefully behind” on technology by the end of the decade, according to the boss of Rivian, an Amazon-backed US electric carmaker.RJ Scaringe, Rivian’s founder and chief executive, said the car industry has reached a “fork in the road” in the choice between short-term profits and the heavy investments, particularly in software, that will be required to survive.In an interview this month in London, he said many have chosen profits, ramping up the production of petrol or hybrid pickup trucks and SUVs in the US and Europe.Much of…

The Home Office is to introduce new “capped safe and legal” routes for asylum seekers to arrive in the UK later this year.The department said it would allow organisations like universities, community groups and businesses to sponsor refugees who apply to come to Britain, a model based on Canada’s asylum system.Alongside the new asylum route, the government said it would press ahead with changes to how human rights and modern slavery laws are applied to asylum applications, which the government says will root out “vexatious” claims.Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said the new system would protect “genuine refugees” while “closing loopholes…

Nature, Published online: 26 June 2026; doi:10.1038/d41586-026-02059-6Nature staff discuss how apes share a rhythm of laughter, and how AI use may degrade skills in medicine and computer science.

The Toronto Maple Leafs have selected Gavin McKenna with the No. 1 overall pick in the 2026 NHL Draft. One of the most dynamic playmakers in this draft class, McKenna should give the Maple Leafs an offensive boost immediately.McKenna just wrapped up his freshman season at Penn State, and the transition from junior hockey to the collegiate level wasn’t a smooth one initially. However, after a slow start, McKenna found his groove and finished the season with 15 goals and 36 assists 35 games. His 51 points ranked third in the Big Ten, and McKenna led the Nittany Lions to…

Mass movement can have a walloping impact. Whether in military parades or Olympic opening ceremonies, Busby Berkeley routines or the corps de ballet, a vast number of bodies chiming together in precise formation equals automatic wow factor.Australian choreographer Stephanie Lake knows it, and her piece Colossus, which was originally made in 2018, has been performed all over the world. Clips from it went viral online. Now it has a UK premiere with a cast of 60 students from the London Contemporary Dance School – enough of them to fill the stage of the Queen Elizabeth Hall.Just the physical power of…

FreedomIt began with the chance to define a new set of laws and governance, to reject the inherited trappings (or traps) of class.AspirationThe term “American dream” wasn’t officially coined until 1931, when the popular historian James Truslow Adams published the best seller “The Epic of America.” It codified the idea of the dream as “a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for every man, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement.” Which later came to mean material attainment and conspicuous consumption.StabilityFor some, however, the dream had less to do with aspirational excess than…

Survivors clawed through mountains of brick and concrete with their bare hands across Venezuela’s earthquake-shattered north on Friday, hushing each other to listen for whispers of life and praying to reach people still trapped under the ruins.At a small hospital in La Guaira, the worst-hit state, Juan David Arsia, 17, said he had spent 21 hours under rubble. “I was there with my mom, and I could hear her screaming,” he said. “I would yell to her, ‘Don’t give up, mom, have faith — don’t give up.’”Under the wreckage with a fractured leg, Mr. Arsia could hear other trapped people…

Children with battered faces and broken legs. A patient facing his third night on a gurney in a hospital yard, his IV held up by a tree branch. A morgue designed to hold two bodies was packed with 30. Deprived of electricity, the morgue’s refrigeration units failed, and the heat accelerated decomposition. The stench was overwhelming.Two days after a pair of history-making earthquakes struck Venezuela, hospitals and morgues in Caracas and the nearby state of La Guaira were overwhelmed with patients, with the dead and with family members hoping to find their loved ones alive. Doctors who have spent years…

Chams Holding Company Plc has announced the appointment of Segun Oloketuyi as the Chairman of its Board of Directors, effective 9 July. The board approved the appointment in line with the company’s governance processes and applicable regulatory requirements, Chams Holding stated in a regulatory filing on Friday. Mr Oloketuyi’s appointment comes as the tenure of the Founder of the Chams Group, Demola Aladekomo, ended after 40 years of strategic leadership at the company. “The Board expresses its sincere appreciation to the outgoing Chairman for his invaluable contributions, exemplary leadership, and dedicated service to the Company,” Chams Holding stated. Before his…

Thousands of Venezuelans are feared dead after two major earthquakes struck the country less than a minute apart on Wednesday evening.People felt the ground shake across the north of the country, including the capital Caracas, as the earthquakes struck just outside the northwestern town of Yumare around 6 pm locally. The second shock, with 7.5 magnitude, was the largest to hit the country since 1900.So far 164 people have been confirmed dead and more than 971 are injured, according to interim president Delcy Rodríguez, who was sworn in after the US captured the former authoritarian president Nicolás Maduro in January.The…