West Ham reject Manchester City's £90m bid for captain
West Ham have rejected a bid of £90m from Treble winners Manchester City for captain Declan Rice.
City's offer was thought to have included an £80m initial payment but is short of the £100m the Hammers want.
Arsenal are expected to make a third bid for the 24-year-old England midfielder.
The Gunners' second proposal of an initial £75m in four payments, plus £15m in add-ons, was turned down by West Ham last week.
Rice's contract with the Hammers expires in 2024, although it has the option for a one-year extension until the summer of 2025.
Following the club's Europa Conference League victory over Fiorentina earlier this month, chairman David Sullivan said he was "99%" sure Rice would leave West Ham this summer.
Although they have lined up Chelsea's Mateo Kovacic in a £25m deal, the loss of Ilkay Gundogan to Barcelona means City manager Pep Guardiola is keen to bolster his midfield options, with Rice viewed as the ideal candidate.
Source- BBC
BET Awards 2023: The winners list
The BET Awards, known as "culture's biggest night," aired Sunday night live from the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles, honoring notable names in music, film, sports and entertainment.
Here is the list of awards announced during the broadcast:
Best Female Hip Hop Artist
Latto
Video Director of the Year
Teyana “Spike Tey” Taylor
Best New Artist
Coco Jones
Viewer’s Choice Award
"Break My Soul," Beyoncé
Best International Act
Burna Boy (Nigeria)
BET Her
"Break My Soul," Beyoncé
Lifetime Achievement Award
Busta Rhymes
Source- ABC
Facebook owner launches virtual reality subscription service
Facebook owner Meta has launched a virtual reality (VR) subscription service as it tries to make that part of its business profitable.
Meta says paying users will get access to two new games a month.
For the first three months of the year, the parent company of Instagram saw a $4bn (£3.1bn) loss in its VR unit.
Meta faces competition from firms including technology giant Apple, which unveiled its highly anticipated mixed-reality headset this month.
On Monday, the company said the Meta Quest+ service, which costs $7.99 a month or $59.99 for an annual subscription, was compatible with its Quest 2, Quest Pro, and upcoming Quest 3 headsets.
In 2021, Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg unveiled plans to build a "metaverse" - an online world where people can play games, work and communicate in a virtual environment, often using VR headsets.
"Over time, I hope that we are seen as a metaverse company and I want to anchor our work and our identity on what we're building towards," Mr Zuckerberg said.
In February last year, Meta unveiled several ambitious artificial intelligence projects, and Mr. Zuckerberg described AI as "the key to unlocking the metaverse".
The company reported a profit of $5.7bn for the first three months of this year, surpassing market expectations.
However, its Reality Labs division, which produces VR headsets and other products, reported a net loss of $4bn for the period.
Earlier this month, Apple unveiled its Vision Pro mixed-reality headset, in its first major hardware launch in almost a decade.
Apple's headset, which will be released early next year in the US, will be priced at $3,499.
That is considerably more than other headsets currently available in the market. Meta's VR headsets are priced between $299.99 and $999.99.
Source- BBC
Traffic Cops' Jobs Changing as Some Cities Ban Minor Traffic Stops
American roads are changing. Whether it's the challenging public discussion about the best way for police officers to conduct traffic stops or the rise in traffic fatalities during the pandemic, things are different out there. That's why, from Michigan to New York, strategies to make roads safer for everyone are changing, too.
In Michigan, the Ann Arbor City Council voted 9–0 earlier this month to propose a new law that would reduce police officers’ ability to pull someone over for "minor offenses." The proposed Driving Equality Ordinance draws a line between routine traffic stops and eventual incarceration outcomes for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC). The council's proposed solution is to take away an officer's right to pull someone over for minor offenses such as a cracked windshield.
The stakes for these pretextual stops can also be higher than being locked up, too. "The harms of traffic stops are not equally felt," the proposal reads. "More than a quarter of people killed in traffic stops are Black, despite Black people making up only 12 percent of the population." The proposal also notes that stops for minor offenses "are disproportionately carried out against people of color and return negligible public safety benefits."
"When you get pulled over, you have to wonder if I did something wrong or am I being profiled," the founding chairperson of Ann Arbor’s Independent Police Oversight Commission, Lisa Jackson, told local ABC 7 News.
A final vote on the proposed law is scheduled for early July. Bigger cities, including Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, have passed similar legislation in recent years, as Bloomberg has reported.
Over in Washington, D.C., the city’s Department of Transportation has a different idea to reduce the number of traffic deaths, crashes, and other traffic violations. In partnership with The Lab @ D.C. (a part of the city government), the city will send text messages and physical mail to drivers who have had some sort of traffic citation or violation. The customized messages are meant to get drivers to think about their actions and will reference details about the driver’s vehicle, the violations it has been connected to in the past, and a warning that the vehicle is at higher risk of a crash than others because of this history.
According to the Washington Post, one of the mailers includes the text: "Someone in your household is driving dangerously. Your vehicle has a history of speeding and/or running red lights and this is placing the drivers and passengers of your vehicle at a high risk of getting into a crash."
The city created a list of 100,000 high-risk drivers, and a subset of these people will get the text or mail messages (or both). Drivers can opt out of the messages after the first one. During the 12-month program, the DOT and The Lab will then see which category of drivers, if any, see any noticeable improvements.
"The goal is to create awareness, regardless of whether or not anybody has signed off for specific alerts," The Lab director Sam Quinney told the Post.
Source- Car and Driver
Operation-Five Cays - June 21st , 2023
Officers of the Royal Turks and Caicos Islands Police Force today (June 21st) executed search warrants at three residences in Five Cays, Providenciales, this morning.
Led by Head of Crime, Safeguarding, and Public Protection Superintendent Dean Holden, the operation commenced at 5:00 a.m. and ended around 8:00 a.m.
Superintendent Holden said: “This was a joint operation among various departments within the RTCIPF. This operation was aimed at targeting, suppressing, disrupting, and dismantling gang and criminal activities in the Five Cays district.
Several of the recent crimes committed are by illegal firearms and the RTCIPF, namely its Serious Crime Unit and the Anti-Gang and Drug Unit have been working relentlessly to limit the scourge of organized criminal activities”.
Additionally, Superintendent Holden said today’s operation held THREE objectives.
- Disrupting organized crime rings within the Five Cays district;
- Create opportunities for intelligence gathering and evidence and
- Create opportunities to engage local communities, by reassuring them the police are taking positive action against the increase in illegal firearm use.
Gundogan out Kovacic in - what next for Man City?
Manchester City's imminent signing of Chelsea midfielder Mateo Kovacic and Ilkay Gundogan's departure are the first changes to the squad which landed last season's Treble - but are unlikely to be the last.
The 29-year-old Croatia international - who will arrive for an initial fee of £25m, potentially rising to £30m - looked like he would boost City's options in the heart of midfield.
But just hours later, the news came out that German midfielder Gundogan would be joining Barcelona this summer on a free transfer - making the reasons for Kovacic's signing a lot clearer.
Kovacic played 69 passes per 90 minutes last season - the fifth-highest total in the Premier League among central midfielders who played regularly.
He arrives with four Champions League successes to his name, three with Real Madrid, and provides the wealth of experience Pep Guardiola will be losing with Gundogan's departure.
Like Gundogan, he is able to play further forward despite preferring a more defensive role, although he does trail the German with just seven appearances per goal contribution to the former's three.
Kovacic has scored just 24 goals in 491 club appearances, compared to Gundogan's 110 in 557 career appearances.
The 32-year-old German midfielder's influence was crucial in the closing weeks of City's season with six goals in his final seven games - including a double in the 2-1 FA Cup final win over Manchester United.
It's no wonder Guardiola did not want to lose his captain but, after missing out on Jude Bellingham to Real Madrid, is Kovacic his replacement?
BBC Sport's Simon Stone, said: "It explains why City is close to signing Kovacic from Chelsea and makes you wonder if Guardiola will stop there.
"After all, there is the annual uncertainty around Bernardo Silva, while Riyad Mahrez lost his starting spot as the season came to an end and is sure to be the subject of interest.
"Further back, Aymeric Laporte won't want to risk his place in Spain's Euro 2024 squad by being on the fringes at City.
"Guardiola proved last summer he was not averse to selling what were felt to be key men to rivals when he allowed Oleskandr Zinchenko and Gabriel Jesus to join Arsenal.
"Over the years, City has been very good at knowing when to let players go. Gundogan may not be the last through the exit door before the summer is out."
So what changes are possible this summer?
Source- BBC
Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg agree to hold cage fight
Two of the world's most high-profile technology billionaires - Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg - have agreed to fight each other in a cage match.
Mr. Musk posted a message on his social media platform Twitter that he was "up for a cage fight" with Mr Zuckerberg.
Mr. Zuckerberg, the boss of Facebook and Instagram parent company Meta, then posted a screenshot of Mr. Musk's tweet with the caption "send me location".
"The story speaks for itself," a Meta spokesperson told the BBC.
Mr. Musk then replied to Mr. Zuckerberg's response with: "Vegas Octagon."
The Octagon is the competition mat and fenced-in area used for Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) bouts. The UFC is based in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Mr. Musk, who turns 52 later this month, also tweeted: "I have this great move that I call "The Walrus", where I just lie on top of my opponent & do nothing."
He also tweeted: "I almost never work out, except for picking up my kids & throwing them in the air."
Meanwhile, 39-year-old Mr. Zuckerberg has already been training in mixed martial arts (MMA) and has recently won jiu-jitsu tournaments.
Twitter did not provide a statement when contacted by the BBC for comment.
The exchanges have gone viral with social media users debating who would win the bout, while others have posted memes including mocked-up posters advertising the fight.
Earlier this month, Meta showed staff plans for a text-based social network designed to compete with Twitter, sources have told the BBC.
It could allow users to follow accounts they already follow on Instagram, Meta's image-sharing app.
It could potentially allow the company to bring over followers from decentralized platforms such as Mastodon.
A Meta spokesperson confirmed to the BBC that the platform was in development.
The text-based network - which has a working title of P92 - could turn out to be a greater rival to Elon Musk's Twitter than either BlueSky or Mastodon.
Source- BBC
Jennifer Lawrence says 'It really is hard to make a comedy where you're not offending people'
In No Hard Feelings, she plays Maddie, a broke Uber driver who responds to an advert from two parents looking for a woman to date - and sleep with - their introverted teenage son.
While it's rated a 15 in the UK, the film is an R in the US - which means anyone under the age of 17 would need to be accompanied by an adult to see it in the cinema - and is being billed as the return of R rated comedies to theatres.
Lawrence told Sky News she thinks the world needs comedy at the moment - and if audiences find some of the content offensive, then maybe that's a good thing.
"I think it's time for just a good old-fashioned laugh," she said. "And it really is hard to make a comedy where you're not offending people. Everybody in some sense will be offended by this film - you're welcome."
Lawrence's co-star Andrew Barth Feldman - who plays Percy, the teenager Maddie is being paid to seduce - agrees.
"We need to be able to engage with being offended," he said. "There was and is like a big overcorrect because we realized there were so many things that we were joking about that we shouldn't be... and I think this movie does a really good job of continuing to push limits while still engaging with the conversation that the things that these people are doing are wrong, and not a good idea."
"Something we learned from the old-time comedies is mean comedy is not really funny," Lawrence added. "You know, making somebody feel bad about themselves - other than me making fun of me. But the way that we did it is fine, we figured it out."
Lawrence had been looking for the chance to explore her funny side on screen for a while. "I was definitely always open to a comedy," she said. "I wouldn't say I was like: 'I really want my character to try to have sex with a young person', but I just read it and it was the funniest thing I'd ever read."
No Hard Feelings was actually inspired by a real advert on the US listings site Craigslist, which Lawrence and writer/director Gene Stupnitsky found themselves discussing over dinner one night.
"He showed me the Craigslist ad and we were just laughing about it," she said. "Our whole dinner was just talking about the kind of people who would write the ad - and so that's kind of in my mind where I thought he would go with the movie."
But rather than the parents, the film focuses on Maddie and Percy - the teenage son of an overprotective mother and father, who seemingly has no interest in dating.
While Percy's an extreme case, Barth Feldman found plenty to relate to in the character.
"My generation - and we see this so much with Percy - we're the first generation that was born with iPhones in our hands," he said. "And so there is just a sense of compulsion and fear and comparison that is so constant with us.
"[Percy] is stuck in this bubble - the world outside is all on his phone and his parents want to bubble-wrap him and he hates it, but it's safe for him; but he needs to break out, he needs to learn that he can make his own decisions and truthfully, put the phone down for a little bit."
No Hard Feelings isn't the only film Lawrence has been promoting lately, having also appeared at the Cannes film festival in May for the documentary Bread And Roses, which she co-produced.
The film looks at the women living under Taliban rule in Afghanistan and is something of a passion project for Lawrence.
"You watch it on the news and you know that it's just going to eventually fade out of the news and I didn't want these women's lives to just be a quick story that everybody forgets about," she said. "So I spoke to my producing partner about how to get cameras in a Taliban-run Afghanistan, and we found Sahra Mani, who is an Afghan filmmaker, and we told her this is what we want to do.
"Obviously it was extremely dangerous for her and for the three women that participated... and thanks to Sahra and these amazing women's courage, we have this footage that hopefully will explain and put more light on women's suffrage in Afghanistan, which is just unbelievable."
Source- Sky News
Amazon accused of tricking Prime customers
The US has accused Amazon of tricking customers into signing up for automatically renewing Prime subscriptions and making it difficult to cancel.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the country's consumer rights watchdog, made the claims in a lawsuit.
It cited allegedly "manipulative" website designs.
Amazon rejected the charges, calling them "false on the facts and the law".
More than 200 million people subscribe to Prime globally. The service, which offers shipping perks, access to streaming movies, and more, costs $139 a year or $14.99 monthly in the US and £95 per year in the UK.
The FTC said Amazon used website designs that pushed customers into agreeing to enroll in Prime and have the subscription automatically renewed as they were making purchases.
The company attempted to make it difficult for users to opt out of auto-enrolment because "those changes would also negatively affect Amazon's bottom line", the agency alleged in the complaint, filed in federal court in Seattle.
It also said Amazon put customers seeking to cancel through a cumbersome "four-page, six-click, fifteen option" process, which the FTC said was known internally as "Iliad" in a nod to the Greek epic about the "long, arduous Trojan War".
Though Amazon altered the cancellation process shortly before the lawsuit was filed, the FTC said the company's tactics broke laws aimed at protecting shoppers.
"Amazon tricked and trapped people into recurring subscriptions without their consent, not only frustrating users but also costing them significant money," FTC Chair Lina Khan said.
The FTC is seeking a court order to force Amazon to change its practices, as well as financial penalties of an unspecified amount.
Amazon said it had been in the middle of discussing the issues with the agency when the lawsuit was filed without notice.
"The truth is that customers love Prime, and by design, we make it clear and simple for customers to both sign up for or cancel their Prime membership," the company said.
The FTC has repeatedly warned online firms against using "dark patterns" to manipulate shoppers.
It had been investigating Amazon's Prime program since 2021.
It said the company had attempted to delay the probe on multiple occasions, including by refusing to deliver documents in a timely manner.
Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf, a senior analyst at Insider Intelligence analyst said the FTC was "making an example of Amazon".
"It's quite common for companies to make it more difficult to cancel an account than it is to create one," she said.
Source- BBC
Tesla wins as Texas requires state-backed charging stations to include its plug
Tesla Inc. scored a series of victories for its charging technology on Tuesday, capped by Texas saying it would require EV charging companies to include both Tesla's standard as well as the nationally recognized CCS if they want to be part of a state program to electrify highways using federal dollars.
Reuters was the first to report both that electric pickup truck maker Rivian was backing Tesla and that charger maker BTC Power would support the standard. Those announcements follow decisions by General Motors and Ford Motor Co. to add Tesla charging technology, shunning efforts by the Biden administration to make the Combined Charging System (CCS) the dominant charging standard in the United States.
Texas - home to Tesla's headquarters and a new car factory complex - is the first state that will mandate Tesla's charging technology, giving a boost to CEO Elon Musk's hope of making it the national charging standard.
"The decision by Ford, GM, and now Rivian to adopt NACS changed requirements for Phase 1" of the rollout, the Texas Department of Transportation said in an email to Reuters on Tuesday, adding that it would require direct current fast chargers to have one CCS and one North American Charging Standard (NACS) connector.
Texas's decision will put a ton of pressure on other states to adopt Tesla's NACS, said Lew Cox, director of business development at MD7, which helps companies deploy chargers.
"It’ll effectively make a NACS the new charging standard," Cox said.
The U.S. Department of Transportation earlier this year said that charging companies must provide the CCS to be eligible for up to $7.5 billion in federal funding to build new, high-speed chargers on 7,500 miles (12,070 km) of the nation's busiest highways.
The Federal Highway Administration on Tuesday acknowledged the industry was rapidly evolving. The growth of the nation's EV industry is a sign that public investments are paying dividends, but the policy is always under review, said a Federal Highway Administration spokesperson.
"Our technical experts are having active conversations with automakers, charger manufacturers, and standards-setting bodies to ensure federal investment continues to support a reliable, convenient, and user-friendly charging experience for all drivers," the spokesperson said.
The federal dollars are flowing through the states, which are empowered to tailor their own guidelines as long as they meet minimum federal standards. States are expected to award the first round of funding through the remainder of the year.
Since the Ford and GM announcements, top U.S. charging companies like ChargePoint and EVgo said they would look to add the same standard to their U.S. chargers.
Other states like California, Iowa, and Michigan are reviewing the shifting charging market. And at least one other state is considering giving applicants bonus points on applications if they include the Tesla charging ports.
Tesla shares rose 1.2 percent in extended trade, after closing up 5.3 percent on Tuesday.
Tesla said in the U.S. there are approximately 2,000 Supercharger locations and more than 21,000 Supercharger stalls, which represents approximately 60 percent of the fast-charging plugs operational in the country.
Source- Automotive News