The Week: Assisted dying and pension reform
The Week: Assisted dying and pension reform
Adam, Chris and friends look back on the political week.
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#Week #Assisted #dying #pension #reform
Pelican News
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Far side of the moon once had erupting volcanoes too
Far side of the moon once had erupting volcanoes too
Volcanoes were erupting on the mysterious far side of the moon billions of years ago just like on the side that we can see, researchers say.
Scientists analysed lunar soil brought back by China’s Chang’e-6, the first spacecraft to return with a haul of rocks and dirt from the little-explored far side.
Two separate teams found fragments of volcanic rock that were about 2.8 billion years old.
One piece was even more ancient, dating to 4.2 billion years ago.
“To obtain a sample from this area is really important because it’s an area that otherwise we have no data for,” said Christopher Hamilton, a planetary volcano expert at the University of Arizona who was not involved with the research.
Scientists know there were active volcanoes on the near side, the part of the moon seen from earth, dating to a similar time frame.
Previous studies, including data from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, suggested the far side might also have a volcanic past.
The first samples from that region facing away from Earth confirm an active history.
The results were published Friday in the journals Nature and Science.
China has launched several spacecraft to the moon.
In 2020, the Chang’e-5 spacecraft returned moon rocks from the near side, the first since those collected by NASA’s Apollo astronauts and ******* Union spacecraft in the 1970s.
The Chang’e-4 spacecraft became the first to visit the moon’s far side in 2019.
The moon’s far side is pockmarked by craters and has fewer of the near side’s flat, dark plains carved by lava flows.
Why the two halves are so different ******** a mystery, said study co-author Qiu-Li Li from the ******** Academy of Sciences.
Li said the new findings reveal more than one billion years of volcanic eruptions on the lunar far side.
Future research will determine how the activity lasted so long.
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Pelican News
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US man arrested for vandalizing Tokyo’s Meiji Shrine
US man arrested for vandalizing Tokyo’s Meiji Shrine
STORY: :: TV Tokyo
:: An ********* man is arrested on
suspicion of vandalizing Tokyo’s Meiji Shrine
:: Tokyo, Japan
:: November 14, 2024
:: File
:: Police say the 65-year-old used his fingernail
to etch letters into a wooden pillar
Japan welcomed nearly 27 million visitors through September, a record pace, and their spending added 5.86 trillion yen ($37.5 billion) to the economy. But incidents of vandalism, public drunkenness, and “overtourism” at popular sites have sparked debate about how to handle the flood of visitors and those who flout the rules.
The suspect and his family arrived in Japan for sightseeing on Monday (November 11), the Jiji news service said. Security camera footage led police to arrest him at his hotel on suspicion of using his fingernail to etch five letters representing family names into the wooden pillar, Jiji said.
U.S. Embassy staff visited the ********* and are providing consular assistance, a spokesperson said, declining to give further details due to privacy concerns.
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#man #arrested #vandalizing #Tokyos #Meiji #Shrine
Pelican News
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5 Mid-Cap Movers Set to Benefit Greatly From Trump 2.0
5 Mid-Cap Movers Set to Benefit Greatly From Trump 2.0
As Donald Trump’s return to the White House edges closer, there are several mid-cap stocks with significant fair value upside potential.
Using the Investing.com stock screener, I identified five stocks poised to thrive in a Trump 2.0 era.
Together, these five companies offer a unique opportunity to benefit from expected pro-growth policies, regulatory rollbacks, and strong fair value upside potential under Trump’s influence.
Looking for more actionable trade ideas? Subscribe here for up 55% off as part of our Early Bird ****** Friday *****!
As Donald Trump’s anticipated return to the White House approaches, several mid-cap stocks with notable fair value upside, according to InvestingPro’s AI-backed quantitative models, appear poised for gains.
These companies are uniquely positioned to thrive under the anticipated pro-growth, deregulation-focused policies of a Trump administration, providing investors with growth potential and robust fair value upside.
Here’s a look at five stocks positioned to thrive under a Trump 2.0 era, along with the factors expected to drive each.
1. Ovintiv – Energy
Current Price: $44.72
Fair Value Estimate: $50.54 (+13% Upside)
Market Cap: $11.6 Billion
Why It’s Set to Benefit: Trump’s “drill, drill, drill” approach would ease regulations on fossil fuels, creating an ideal environment for U.S.-based oil and gas producers like Ovintiv (NYSE:) to capitalize on expanded drilling opportunities.
With a major focus on shale production and a robust asset base, Ovintiv could boost output in a supportive policy climate, likely resulting in a significant revenue surge.
OVV stock is currently trading at a bargain valuation, according to the AI-backed models in InvestingPro. Shares could see an increase of 13% from Thursday’s closing price, bringing it closer to their ‘Fair Value’ of $50.54 per share.
Source: InvestingPro
Wall Street analysts surveyed by Investing.com are even more optimistic and see the stock at $55.13 per share, implying upside potential of 23.3%.
2. Columbia Banking System – Financial Services
Current Price: $31.12
Fair Value Estimate: $36.48 (+17.2% Upside)
Market Cap: $6.5 Billion
Why It’s Set to Benefit: Expectations of deregulation are already giving banking shares a lift. Columbia Bank, a regional banking leader, stands to benefit from lessened regulatory pressures, enabling greater lending and higher margins.
With a strong customer base in lending, Columbia’s earnings and investment banking revenues may climb if restrictions are relaxed, creating a favorable landscape for growth.
According to the InvestingPro model, Columbia Banking System (NASDAQ:) stock is presently priced well below its ‘Fair Value’ estimate. Anticipated growth of roughly 17% from its current price could bridge the gap to $36.48 per share.
Source: InvestingPro
Furthermore, all 12 of the analysts surveyed by Investing.com rate Columbia Bank’s stock either as ‘buy’ or ‘hold’, reflecting a bullish recommendation.
3. Peabody Energy – Coal
Current Price: $27.05
Fair Value Estimate: $36.15 (+33.7% Upside)
Market Cap: $3.3 Billion
Why It’s Set to Benefit: Trump’s win could translate to relaxed environmental policies, enabling extended lifespans for coal-fired plants and boosting Peabody’s production and exports.
As one of the world’s largest coal producers, Peabody (NYSE:) is positioned to capitalize on new demand, especially if U.S. coal sees renewed market support. This favorable backdrop suggests substantial earnings upside if regulations remain relaxed.
The present valuation of BTU stock suggests it is a bargain, according to the InvestingPro model. There’s potential for a gain of almost 34% from its current price, aligning it with its ‘Fair Value’ target estimated at $36.15 per share.
Source: InvestingPro
Additionally, Wall Street has a long-term bullish view on Peabody Energy, with all five analysts surveyed by Investing.com rating the stock as either a ‘buy’ or a ‘hold’.
4. Atkore – Industrial Products
Current Price: $91.23
Fair Value Estimate: $135.21 (+48.2% Upside)
Market Cap: $3.2 Billion
Why It’s Set to Benefit: With a focus on electrical conduits and industrial materials, Atkore (NYSE:) would benefit from Trump’s expected infrastructure spending and supportive tariffs on domestic manufacturing.
Tariffs could bolster domestic sales as Atkore’s products support major U.S. infrastructure and development projects.
ATKR stock currently trades at a bargain valuation, as indicated by the InvestingPro model, reflecting strong investor expectations that construction demand may strengthen its core business. There’s a possibility of a 48.2% increase from its current value, moving it closer to its ‘Fair Value’ set at $135.21 per share.
Source: InvestingPro
In addition, Wall Street ******** optimistic on Atkore, as per an Investing.com survey, which revealed that analysts have a stock price target of $122.50, implying potential upside of roughly 35%.
5. Tutor Perini – Construction
Current Price: $27.56
Fair Value Estimate: $32.73 (+18.8% Upside)
Market Cap: $1.5 Billion
Why It’s Set to Benefit: Tutor Perini (NYSE:), a prominent infrastructure builder, could see gains from Trump’s pro-construction policies, including tax incentives and loosened restrictions on building.
The administration’s focus on easing supply shortages in housing and infrastructure could stimulate demand, driving significant revenue growth as Tutor Perini’s large-scale project pipeline meets expanding market needs.
The InvestingPro model indicates TPC stock is currently extremely undervalued. There’s a possibility of an 18.8% increase from the current price, bringing it closer to its ‘Fair Value’ estimation of $32.73 per share.
Source: InvestingPro
Furthermore, the sentiment among analysts polled by Investing.com is overwhelmingly positive, forecasting Tutor Perini’s stock to climb to $33.50 per share, projecting a significant upside of 21.6%.
Whether you’re a novice investor or a seasoned trader, leveraging InvestingPro can unlock a world of investment opportunities while minimizing risks amid the challenging market backdrop.
Subscribe now to take advantage of the 55% off amid the ****** Friday ***** and instantly unlock access to several market-beating features, including:
ProPicks AI: AI-selected stock winners with a proven track record.
Top Ideas: See what stocks billionaire investors such as Warren Buffett, Michael Burry, Bill Ackman, and George Soros are buying.
InvestingPro Fair Value: Instantly find out if a stock is underpriced or overvalued.
Advanced Stock Screener: Search for the best stocks based on hundreds of selected filters, and criteria.
Disclosure: At the time of writing, I am long on the S&P 500, and the via the SPDR® S&P 500 ETF, and the Invesco QQQ Trust ETF. I am also long on the Technology Select Sector SPDR ETF (NYSE:).
I regularly rebalance my portfolio of individual stocks and ETFs based on ongoing risk assessment of both the macroeconomic environment and companies’ financials.
The views discussed in this article are solely the opinion of the author and should not be taken as investment advice.
Follow Jesse Cohen on X/Twitter @JesseCohenInv for more stock market analysis and insight.
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Pelican News
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Anthony Albanese calls for calm on Donald Trump climate fears as he backs in ‘rules-based trade’
Anthony Albanese calls for calm on Donald Trump climate fears as he backs in ‘rules-based trade’
Anthony Albanese has talked up the potential benefit to Australia should Donald Trump make good on his pledge to walk the ******* States back on clean energy investment.
He made the comments as he prepares to stress to regional leaders the world cannot renege on “rules-based trade” and ruled out a stop to visit Mr Trump to make the case face-to-face after back-to-back summits in South America.
The Prime Minister will address regional leaders at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Peru on Friday (local time), where Mr Trump’s election win and subsequent trade and climate policy shake up will become the “backdrop” to high level talks.
The PM was on Thursday confident Australia’s relationship with the US would remain strong during Trump’s presidency, and he backed in ambassador Kevin Rudd amid calls for him to be sacked from the post.
Mr Albanese also revealed he had discussed an in-person meeting with Mr Trump during their phone call last week, but ruled out doing so on his way home from South America.
The PM said the pair had begun a “constructive relationship”, but on Thursday did not want to pre-empt how Mr Trump would change US policies — including what the impact of his proposed climate backpedaling and broad-based tariffs would be, including if it pushed more countries towards China.
But, he ultimately said change would likely be felt globally.
“I don’t want to pre-empt action for a government that isn’t in place yet. But obviously there’ll be some consideration. Because the ******* States represents a quarter of the global economy, the impact that they have is disproportionate accordingly,” Mr Albanese said.
Camera IconMr Albanese also revealed he had discussed an in-person meeting with Mr Trump during their phone call last week. Credit: for the Washington Post
Aside from trade, the unknown trajectory of Mr Trump’s climate and energy policies will have leaders at both APEC and next week’s G20 meeting on edge, given the president-elect’s intention to pull out of the Paris Agreement has raised questions about the future of net-zero and clean energy.
But on Thursday, Mr Albanese talked up the opportunity Australia had to potentially “benefit” from the Trump Administration’s change to climate change policy.
“The Inflation Reduction Act has seen considerable capital flows in the US, and if those investments aren’t there that would have some implications for the nature of the global economy,” he said.
“But we don’t pre-empt that government… certainly we see that Australia has great opportunity through climate action.
“We see that it’s important for our environment, but I also see this about economic opportunity. We have all the resources under the ground that will drive the global economy in the 21st century… We have a great opportunity to produce green hydrogen, we have the best solar resources in the world, and this represents an opportunity for Australia to participate in those measures.”
As for putting the case directly to Mr Trump, Mr Albanese has ruled out a stop in the US on his way home to join the chorus of world leaders trying to meet with the president-elect.
“I’ll have a meeting with President Trump when it is organised. We spoke about gathering, and I’m sure that will occur,” he said on Thursday.
“We’ve had a very constructive beginning to our relationship with a very constructive phone call, and it was very positive.”
The PM wants to instead focus on cementing free and fair trade in the region and shore up investment opportunities
In his intervention at the APEC leaders dialogue on Friday (local time), Mr Albanese will tout the positive global impact of decades of trade progress, and call for economies to hold the line and cooperate in the face of “confronting” challenges like global inflation, the energy crisis, and the Middle East and Ukraine conflicts.
He will also call for the region’s economies to re-commit themselves to “robust, rules based trade”.
“We must all work together… to prove that just as the past thirty years of breaking down tariff walls and building trade bridges has lifted millions of people out of ********, doubled real GDP and quadrupled per capita income, open, inclusive, rules-based trade ******** the best course and surest way to grow our economies and lift the living standards of our citizens,” he will say.
“None of us have to choose between deepening our engagement in the region or strengthening our supply chain resilience. Robust, rules-based trade enables and encourages us to do both.”
He will say “none of us have to choose between deepening our engagement in the region or strengthening our supply chain resilience”, and stress that cooperation is “fundamental” to meeting existing challenges and “seizing the opportunities ahead of us”.
Mr Albanese met with Indonesian President Prabowa Subianto on Thursday, where the pair discussed the close security relationship between the two countries, what impact Mr Trump’s presidency could have on the region; and the need to “de-escalate” tensions in the region.
Mr Prabowa said he was focusing on trying to improve Indonesia’s relationship with all its neighbours, and was looking to work with China to “lower the temperature”.
Speaking later, Mr Albanese said Mr Prabowo was looking to ensure there was “peace, stability and security” in the South China Sea.
“And that there is engagement and dialogue to make sure that there aren’t any incidents that can escalate quickly… It is important that there be engagement and communication so there isn’t any misunderstanding,” he said.
Mr Albanese is seeking to meet with ******** president Xi Jingping either on the APEC or G20 sidelines.
Before he left China, Beijing – through state media China Daily – nominated Mr Albanese as the leader other ********* allies should aspire to be like, praising him for his “strategic autonomy” amid “unprecedented geopolitical complexity and uncertainty” after Mr Trump’s election.
Mr Albanese also met with Peruvian President Dina Boluarte, where he praised Peru’s successful leadership of APEC this year and pledged to work closely with her on trade, climate and mining.
Mr Albanese also backed in Australia’s ambassador to the US Kevin Rudd on Thursday, after Mr Trump reappointed deputy chief of staff Dan Scavino. Earlier this week, Mr Scavino took to social media to suggest Mr Rudd’s time in Washington could soon be up because of previous disparaging comments about the president-elect.
“Ambassador Rudd’s doing a good job and that’s been recognised across the political spectrum in Australia, from Tony Abbott to Malcolm Turnbull to Peter Dutton and obviously to the *********** government,” Mr Albanese said on Thursday.
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Avowed System Requirements Revealed – What Do You Need To Run The Game on PC?
Avowed System Requirements Revealed – What Do You Need To Run The Game on PC?
·
·
November 15, 2024
Obsidian has revealed the minimum and recommended system requirements for running Avowed on a PC.
Avowed is an upcoming fantasy RPG with a vibrant open world that you can experience from first-person and third-person perspectives. Many players have wondered what specifications they might need to experience the game as the developers intended. Fortunately, Avowed’s minimum and recommended PC requirements are out now; check them out below.
Minimum System Requirements
OS: Windows 10/11 with updates
Processor: AMD Ryzen 5 2600 / Intel i5-8400
Memory: 16 GB RAM
Graphics: AMD RX 5700 / Nvidia GTX 1070 / Intel Arc A580
DirectX: Version 12
Storage: 75 GB available space
Recommended System Requirements
OS: Windows 10/11 with updates
Processor: AMD Ryzen 5 5600X / Intel i7-10700K
Memory: 16 GB RAM
Graphics: Graphics: AMD RX 6800 XT / Nvidia RTX 3080
DirectX: Version 12
Storage: 75 GB available space
The requirements aren’t too demanding, with players only needing an AMD Ryzen 5 2600 / Intel i5-8400 and AMD RX 5700 / Nvidia GTX 1070 / Intel Arc A580 to run the game. At the same time, 75 GB of storage space, 16GB of RAM, and DirectX Version 12 are essential for both Avowed’s minimum and recommended PC system requirements.
In other news, Avowed’s pre-order details have also been revealed. Phil Spencer has stated that the game wasn’t delayed due to quality concerns. What are your thoughts on Avowed’s system requirements, and will you play the game on your PC? Let us know in the comments or our new community forum!
For more from Insider Gaming, read about Amazon’s Tomb Raider Series seemingly casting Game of Thrones star as Lara Croft. Don’t forget to sign up for our weekly newsletter.
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#Avowed #System #Requirements #Revealed #Run #Game
Pelican News
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*** flying taxi firm pins hopes on investors as cash runs short | Aerospace industry
*** flying taxi firm pins hopes on investors as cash runs short | Aerospace industry
On a dreary November day in the Cotswolds, England, the VX4 – a cross between a plane and a helicopter – rose from an airport runway, hovered a few feet off the ground and set back down.
It might not have reached a heady altitude, but for its British owner, Vertical Aerospace, it was a crucial moment. The company, which has received millions of pounds in *** taxpayer support, is running short of cash.
Amid crunch talks with investors that could lead to the founder, Stephen Fitzpatrick, losing control of the business to a US hedge fund, the flight offered evidence that the electric craft could carry a person without needing a tether to the ground for safety.
Vertical has already had experience of what can happen if things go wrong. On a sunnier day last August, an unmanned version of the aircraft crashed into the runway after glue holding a blade on one of the eight rotors *******. The 3.7-tonne aircraft, plunged 30ft into a crumpled heap, with the blade landing 50 metres away. Nobody was injured.
The ****** and the cash crunch have underlined the difficulty of making flying taxis a reality after nearly a century of efforts. Vertical announced on Tuesday that it would delay the date its first aircraft would win *** regulatory approval to fly passengers by two more years to 2028.
Stephen Fitzpatrick founded Vertical in 2016. Photograph: Jeff Overs/BBC/Reuters
It had initially claimed the aircraft – with room for four passengers, 100 miles of range and top speeds of 150mph – would be in service by 2025. Stuart Simpson, Vertical’s chief executive, confirmed to investors this week that it has chosen the *** for a factory to build 200 aircraft a year. However, cautious regulators and suppliers put paid to the ambitious timeline.
A host of startups are trying to build flying taxis, known in the industry as electric vertical takeoff and landing (Evtol) aircraft. For a few years, they appeared to be making rapid progress as investors, fuelled by cheap money, sought out the Tesla of the air.
Flying taxi companies such as the US’s Joby Aviation and Archer Aviation as well as Germany’s Volocopter raised significant sums and built flying prototypes. The three biggest plane makers – Europe’s Airbus, the US’s Boeing and Brazil’s Embraer – have been drawn into the race via subsidiaries.
Vertical took advantage of that wave. Fitzpatrick, an entrepreneur whose investments have included a Formula One team and who derives most of his £800m fortune from his energy company Ovo, founded Vertical in 2016. It floated in 2021 on the US stock market with a valuation of $2.2bn.
However, rising interest rates and development delays have given investors pause before pouring in more money. Vertical’s share price has plunged 95% since the Covid pandemic bubble, valuing it at only $110m.
A US-listed rival, Lilium, last month filed for bankruptcy for its ******* subsidiaries and is seeking a buyer to save it. The ******** carmaker Geely was in talks to save Volocopter, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday, after its value also slumped. Britain’s Rolls-Royce has ended plans for a flying taxis business nearly three years after its aircraft broke the air speed record.
A prototype of a flying taxi, in development in the ******* ***** Emirates, is unveiled in the taxi rank outside Charing Cross railway station in London. Photograph: David Parry/PA
“There was a massive bubble,” said an industry source. “It’s starting to get to the pointy end.”
Long term, concerns remain over how flying taxis would be regulated in busy skies. But the industry received positive news as US officials issued rules on how such vehicles could be operated and pilots trained.
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Simpson told investors the company needed about $100m to cover its costs for the next year. It had £42.8m in cash at the end of September.
The immediate cash crisis could be eased if talks succeed with a big lender. Fitzpatrick and Vertical have been in discussions for nearly a year with Jason Mudrick, an ********* distressed-debt investor who made millions during the pandemic investing in “meme stocks” such as AMC Entertainment and GameStop.
Mudrick has offered to convert about half of his $200m in past loans to Vertical into equity, in exchange for a cash injection of up to $50m.
However, he wrote in a letter to Vertical’s board last month that he had been “denied at every turn by Mr Fitzpatrick as he refuses to accept the contractual dilution to his holdings” of about 70% of the company.
Existing shareholders would be left with only 20% of the company in the deal, although Fitzpatrick has been pushing for 30%. A deal could open the way to other investors making new equity investments. Candidates could include previous investors such as ******* Atlantic and ********* Airlines, as well as Microsoft and the control systems supplier Honeywell.
While Vertical boasts of a low-cost model of buying technology off the shelf from established suppliers, it is likely to need between $500m and $1bn to get through four years without revenues.
Simpson said he was “optimistic” about finding capital, despite investors expressing concerns about the delayed launch. But a further $500m investment in Joby last month by Toyota and $300m raised by Beta Technologies has reassured some investors that flying taxi companies can still find money – if they can prove the technology works.
“This is a difficult funding environment, and there has been a shakeout in the industry,” Simpson said. “I think we’re going to be one of the winners.”
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Pelican News
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Giant Uncrewed Submarine Put Forward By ******** Shipbuilder, Possibly Linked To Existing Design
Giant Uncrewed Submarine Put Forward By ******** Shipbuilder, Possibly Linked To Existing Design
A concept for an unprecedently large diesel-electric drone submarine, as big as some crewed types in service today, has emerged from China’s top state-run shipbuilding conglomerate. The design is said to be reconfigurable to conduct different missions, including attacks on ****** vessels, mine-laying, special operations support, and act as a mothership for smaller uncrewed underwater vehicles (UUV). There is a very strong possibility this is related to an extremely similar-looking mystery submarine that emerged in China six years ago.
The China State Shipbuilding Corporation (CSSC) has a model of what it is calling a “small special operations unmanned submarine” on display at this year’s Zhuhai Airshow. The event, which formally opened on Tuesday, is a military-centric showcase for ******** aviation, as well as ground-based and maritime developments.
701所の小型無人特殊潜水艦例のセイルが無い潜水艦の正体はこれか。ただ小型とは言いつつも軽く2、30mはあるであろうUUVとしてはかなり大型の艦になる。艦中央部は極めて大容量のバッテリーとして、同じく中央部の黄色いユニットはUUVか短魚雷か。 pic.twitter.com/ArEL6eZHJI
— お砂糖wsnbn (@sugar_wsnbn) November 10, 2024
The model shows a relatively traditional submarine design hull-wise, but with a very low-profile dorsal hump in place of a traditional sail. The model is a cut-away and a load of torpedoes, as well as a torpedo tube, is visible. A large central battery array, propulsion system elements driving a single unshrouded propeller at the stern, and other mission systems in the bow are also present. There is also a large collapsible mast at the rear, which is a typical feature on larger UUVs, including the Orca that Boeing is developing for the U.S. Navy.
Pictures said to show a CSSC product card available at Zhuhai, seen in the social media post below, indicate the model reflects a “Type A” configuration capable of carrying between eight and 12 torpedos and/or torpedo tube-launched missiles. A Type B variant that could accommodate six to eight special operations divers and their gear and a Type C version able to carry eight to 12 mines or “small” UUVs (or four “large” UUVs) are also mentioned.
小型無人特殊潜水艦の詳細高い機動性と魚雷,機雷,UUV,ダイバーなど多様なペイロードを搭載可。用途に応じA,B,C型3タイプを用意。全長:38-43m排水量:380-450t潜航深度:300-450m最高速力:20kt巡航:8kt航続距離水中連続:6ktで1000-3000nmtotal:6ktで10000nm動力:400kw LFPバッテリー＋DE発電機 pic.twitter.com/pFubbByWUt
— お砂糖wsnbn (@sugar_wsnbn) November 13, 2024
Depending on the version and loadout, the product card says the drone submarine’s overall length is between around 124 and 141 feet (38 and 43 meters) and its surfaced displacement is between 380 and 450 tons. The design will be able to ***** down to depths of (300 to 450 meters), as well as sail at a maximum speed of 20 knots and cruise at eight knots while on the surface, according to CSSC. Its underwater cruising speed is pegged at six knots. Stated maximum continuous underwater and surfaced ranges of 3,000 nautical miles and 10,000 nautical miles, respectively, both while traveling at a steady speed of six knots, are given on the card, as well.
For comparison, the *******-made Type 206 crewed diesel-electric ******* submarine (SSK) is (48.6 meters) long and has a surfaced displacement of 450 tons. The ******* Navy retired the very last of its Type 206s in 2011, but examples continue to serve with the Colombian Navy. CSSC’s “small” drone submarine is also larger than some crewed midget submarines in global service, such as North Korea’s (34 meter) long, 370-ton surfaced displacement Sang-O-class.
Tvabutzku1234 via Wikimedia" loading="lazy" width="960" height="720" decoding="async" data-nimg="1" class="rounded-lg" style="******:transparent" fifu-data-src="[Hidden Content];
A pair of decommissioned ******* Type 206 submarines. Tvabutzku1234 via Wikimedia
A North Korean Sang-O-class submarine that South Korea captured in 1996 now on display in the latter country. Idobi via Wikimedia
As another point of comparison, the initial prototype of Boeing’s aforementioned Orca, which is typically categorized as an “extra-large” UUV (XLUUV), is around 85 feet long and has a displacement of around 85 tons while on the surface. The Orca is a modular design and initial operational versions are already set to be longer and have greater displacements due to their school bus-sized payload sections.
The initial Orca XLUUV prototype, at right, and one with the additional payload section, at left. Boeing
What degree of autonomy CSSC might be envisioning for its new drone submarine design is unclear, but the product card describes the ability for human controllers to interface with the submarine via beyond-line-of-sight satellite communications and/or underwater acoustic links. The mast seen on the model would be key to sending and receiving data. More robust autonomy would be required for some of the proposed mission sets.
No explicit mention is made on the product card of any particular features to reduce the design’s acoustic or other signatures. As already noted, the model shows the design’s single propeller to be unshrouded.
A large and long-endurance drone submarine of this kind could be highly useful though for many missions, depending on its ability to operate autonomously, both in littoral areas around ********-controlled territory and further out to sea. The drone submarines could be used to form an underwater picket line in a particular area for extended periods of time. This, in turn, would also allow ******** forces to increase the submarine threat in that zone and otherwise bolster operational capacity, including in cooperation with crewed fleets, and do so at lower cost.
Submarines, in general, also offer valuable platforms for conducting intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance missions, and doing so discreetly. Just knowing that some number of these very large UUVs are out there, even if they are not overly difficult to detect by submarine standards, could be a complication for opponents, who would still have to devote resources to find them and at least track their movements.
A US Navy P-8 Poseidon maritime patrol plane drops sonobouys. Elbit Systems of America
The CSSC product card also explicitly mentions the potential for the drone submarines to support blockade operations, something authorities in Beijing routinely threaten to do to the island of Taiwan and that the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) actively trains for. The Type B configuration is also clearly intended to support special operations raids.
It’s interesting to note here that Taiwan state-owned National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology (NCSIST) and the island’s Lungteh Shipbuilding have also been working on a new larger UUV design equipped with a pair of torpedo tubes. You can read more about the Huilong, or “Smart Dragon,” which is still notably smaller than CSSC’s new drone submarine concept, here.
Military enthusiasts have captured photos of Taiwan’s domestically developed “Huilong” unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV) with torpedo tubes, revealing potential combat capabilities. pic.twitter.com/uBZ3AAGbCN
— TaiwanPlus News (@taiwanplusnews) October 24, 2024
All that being said, it is unclear how advanced any work on this ambitious drone submarine concept may be and how much progress, if any, there has been toward making it an operational reality. There are signs, however, that CSSC may have already made substantial headway on this design or a closely related one. In 2018, JN shipyard, a CSSC subsidiary, launched a previously unseen submarine design. A screen capture from a video that emerged the following year confirmed that it had a very low-profile dorsal hump in lieu of a typical sail. Independent naval analyst H. I. Sutton has estimated the design to be around 150 feet (45 meters) long based on available pictures, videos, and satellite imagery, which would be in line with the design CSSC has now displayed in model form.
A picture of the still mysterious submarine JN Shipyard launched in 2018. ******** Internet
A top-down look at the submarine from JN Shipyard with its very low profile sail. ******** Internet
It has been pointed out that there are certain differences between the drone submarine model at Zhuhai and the real low-profile-sail-equipped submarine, including in the shape and position of the diving planes. At the same time, it’s not uncommon for models to differ significantly from their real-world counterparts, as was just recently seen with the JARI-USV-A uncrewed surface vessel that also made its public debut at Zhuhai this year and that you can read more about here. Like the JARI-USV-A, the mysterious submarine from JN shipyard could also still be more of a testbed intended to help lay the groundwork for future operational designs.
An interesting UUV: armed, sailless. Title on the display is “small special warfare UUV” but seems rather large, based on the maintenance ladders and its payloads.
Reminds me a bit of the sailless submarine a couple years back, though differences exist (diving planes etc) pic.twitter.com/DvPFXk7B6A
— Rick Joe (@RickJoe_PLA) November 10, 2024
However advanced work on the design might be, CSSC’s “small special operations unmanned submarine” concept is yet more evidence of the ******** military’s broader uncrewed ambitions at sea, as well as in the air and on land. The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) continues to make significant strides in actually fielding drone capabilities across all domains.
The PLA Navy is also continuing to expand the size and scope of its crewed surface and underwater fleets with increasingly more advanced and capable designs. This is backed by massive domestic shipbuilding capacity that has increasingly prompted concerns among Western navies, including the U.S. Navy.
Time will ultimately tell whether or not CSSC’s drone submarine model at Zhuhai evolved into an operational capability, but there are signs that active work on the design maybe underway already.
Contact the author: *****@*****.tld
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#Giant #Uncrewed #Submarine #Put #******** #Shipbuilder #Possibly #Linked #Existing #Design
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Get a Chance to Win $50,000 Instantly with the EverydayRewards.io Scratchie Game Sweepstakes
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#Chance #Win #Instantly #EverydayRewards.io #Scratchie #Game #Sweepstakes
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Pete Hegseth, Trump’s pick for defense secretary, was investigated for alleged ******* ******** in 2017
Pete Hegseth, Trump’s pick for defense secretary, was investigated for alleged ******* ******** in 2017
Monterey, Calif. – Pete Hegseth, the Army veteran turned Fox News host selected by President-elect Donald Trump to be defense secretary during his second term was investigated for an alleged ******* ******** in 2017, Monterey, Calif. officials confirmed.
In response to multiple public record requests to the city, including one from CBS News, officials released a public statement late Thursday evening about a 2017 police investigation into Hegseth. The statement form the City Manager’s Office and Monterey Police Department contained few details about the case and said they would not make any other public statements related to the investigation.
The incident allegedly occurred somewhere between a minute before midnight on Oct. 7, 2017 and 7 a.m. on Oct. 8, 2017 at 1 Old Golf Course Road, the location of the Hyatt Regency Monterey Hotel. A police report was filed with Monterey Police Department three days later, on Oct. 12, 2024.
Co-anchor Pete Hegseth is seen on “FOX & Friends” on Aug. 9, 2019 in New York City.
John Lamparski / Getty Images
Police did not disclose the name or age of the alleged victim but did describe the injuries as “Contusions” “right thigh.”
The statement said no weapons were involved.
News of the ******* misconduct allegation was revealed on Thursday by Vanity Fair when the magazine reported that Trump’s incoming chief of staff, Susie Wiles, was briefed about the alleged ******* misconduct by Hegseth involving a woman, citing unnamed sources — one of whom reportedly said the incident took place in Monterey.
The allegation prompted a discussion among Wiles, Trump’s legal team and Hegseth, who described the allegation as a consensual encounter and a classic case of he-said, she-said, the magazine reported.
Timothy Parlatore, a former Trump lawyer who frequently represents current and former members of the U.S. military, told Vanity Fair: “This allegation was already investigated by the Monterey police department and they found no evidence for it.”
Hegseth is a veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan with a handful of military medals, including two Bronze Stars, and has undergraduate and graduate degrees from Princeton and Harvard.
Since 2019, Hegseth has been married to his third wife, Fox News producer Jennifer Rauchet. The two were married at Trump’s National Gold Club in Colts Neck, New Jersey.
Hegseth and his first wife, Meredith Schwarz, divorced in 2009. He and his second wife, Samantha Deering, divorced in 2017, the year he was investigated for the alleged ******* ********.
Disagreement over Hegseth’s qualifications
Following Trump’s Tuesday night announcement that he would nominate Hegseth to be his defense secretary, many have questioned whether the 44-year-old co-host of “Fox & Friends Weekends” can handle managing the Defense Department, which has a budget of $842 billion, almost three million employees and 750 military installations around the world.
“The Pentagon is in need of real reform, and they’re getting a leader who has grit to make it happen,” said Trump’s pick for national security adviser, *********** Rep. Mike Waltz of Florida, in a post on the social media platform X. Waltz is a former Army Green Beret colonel.
Democratic Rep. Jason Crow of Colorado, who served in the Army’s elite 75th Ranger Regiment in Iraq and Afghanistan, said Hegseth was not “remotely qualified” to be defense secretary.
“The SecDef [secretary of defense] makes life-and-****** decisions daily that impact over 2 million troops around the globe. This is not an entry-level job for a TV commentator,” Crow said on X. “The Senate should do its job and deny this nomination.”
Hegseth’s controversial views
Hegseth is a longtime ************* and staunch Trump ally who has talked about changes Trump should make at the Pentagon.
He said the ****** Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Charles Q. Brown should be fired for “pursuing the ******** positions of left-wing politicians.”
And he believes women should not be in combat for the U.S. military, a point he reiterated last week in an interview with “The Shawn Ryan Show” podcast.
Ahead of then President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration in January 2021, The Associated Press reported that 12 U.S. National Guard members were removed from helping to secure the event after vetting by the U.S. military and FBI. The members made extremist statements in posts or text messages or had ties with right-wing militia groups.
Hegseth revealed during his interview Shawn Ryan, a former Navy SEAL, that he was one of the National Guard members removed from securing the inauguration.
James LaPorta
James LaPorta is a verification producer with CBS News Confirmed. He is a former U.S. Marine infantryman and veteran of the Afghanistan war.
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#Pete #Hegseth #Trumps #pick #defense #secretary #investigated #alleged #******* #********
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U.S. finalizes $6.6 billion chips award for TSMC ahead of Trump return
U.S. finalizes $6.6 billion chips award for TSMC ahead of Trump return
A logo of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) is seen during the TSMC global RnD Center opening ceremony in Hsinchu on July 28, 2023. (Photo by Amber Wang / AFP)
Amber Wang | Afp | Getty Images
The U.S. Commerce Department said Friday it has finalized a $6.6 billion government subsidy for Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s U.S. unit for semiconductor production in Phoenix, Arizona.
The binding contract — after a preliminary agreement announced in April — is the first major award to be completed under the $52.7 billion program created in 2022.
It comes just weeks before President-elect Donald Trump, who criticized the program, takes office.
In April, TSMC agreed to expand its planned investment by $25 billion to $65 billion and to add a third Arizona fab by 2030.
The Taiwanese company will produce the world’s most advanced 2 nanometer technology at its second Arizona fab expected to begin production in 2028. TSMC also agreed to use its most advanced chip manufacturing technology called “A16” in Arizona.
“When we started this there were a lot of naysayers who said maybe TSMC will do 5 or 6 nanometer in the ******* States,” Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said in an interview. “Actually they are doing their most sophisticated chips in the ******* States.”
The TSMC award also includes up to $5 billion in low-cost government loans.
Stock Chart IconStock chart icon
TSMC
Under the agreement, TSMC will receive cash as it meets project milestones. Commerce expects to release at least $1 billion to TSMC by year end, a senior official told reporters.
TSMC agreed to forgo stock buybacks for five years – subject to some exceptions – and share any excess profits with the U.S. government under an “upside sharing agreement.”
TSMC CEO C.C. Wei said in a statement the deal “helps us to accelerate the development of the most advanced semiconductor manufacturing technology available in the U.S.”
Congress in 2022 approved the Chips and Science Act to boost domestic semiconductor output, which Raimondo called essential to getting TSMC and other chips investment. No leading edge chips are currently produced in the ******* States.
“It didn’t happen on its own… We had to convince TSMC that they would want to expand,” Raimondo said, adding officials also had to convince ********* companies to buy U.S. made chips. “The market does not price in national security.”
Commerce has allocated $36 billion for chips projects including $6.4 billion for Samsung in Texas, $8.5 billion for Intel and $6.1 billion for Micron Technology. Commerce is working to finalize those agreements before Biden leaves office on Jan. 20.
Reuters reported on Saturday Commerce ordered TSMC to halt shipments of advanced chips to ******** customers.
Raimondo did not confirm the department issued a directive to TSMC but said the ******* States needs to play offense and defense with China.
“Investing in TSMC to expand here is offense – defense is making sure that neither TSMC nor any other company sells our most sophisticated technology to China and violates our export controls,” Raimondo said, adding she was not saying TSMC had committed any violations.
“We take national security seriously and we look into every potential problem, whether it’s with companies we subsidize or not,” she added.
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#U.S #finalizes #billion #chips #award #TSMC #ahead #Trump #return
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Donald Trump meets Javier Milei ahead of ************* summit
Donald Trump meets Javier Milei ahead of ************* summit
Donald Trump has said it was an “honour” to meet Argentina’s President Javier Milei in Florida ahead of a ************* investment summit.
The right-wing leader is the first foreign leader to meet Trump since his US presidential election victory on 5 November.
At a gala at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort on Thursday, Milei congratulated the president-elect and said it proved “that the forces of heaven [were] on our side”.
Milei is expected to attend the ************* Political Action Conference (CPAC) Investor Summit on Friday.
Argentina’s president first met Trump at the annual CPAC in February – where he rushed to Trump backstage, shouting “president!”, and gave him a hug before they posed for pictures.
Following Milei’s speech on Thursday, Trump said it was an “honour” to welcome him to Mar-a-Lago – calling him “a MAGA person”.
“The job you’ve done is incredible.
“Make Argentina Great Again… he’s doing that.”
Argentinian media previously reported that Milei would be seeking a free trade agreement with the ******* States once Trump took office.
“The elected [Trump] government feels much more comfortable working with me than with other governments, and that has commercial and financial implications,” Milei said, according to La Nación.
Tickets to the CPAC Investor Summit, an event in addition to the annual conference, cost up to $25,000 (£19,350).
CPAC claims to be the biggest annual gathering of conservatives in the US and describes itself as the oldest ************* grassroots organisation in the country – with a mission to “preserve and protect the values of life, liberty, and property for every *********”.
Reform *** leader Nigel Farage and former Prime Minister Liz Truss were among the speakers at the annual CPAC in February.
The *********** party won full control of the US government in the election earlier this month – something last achieved at the start of Trump’s first term in 2017.
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#Donald #Trump #meets #Javier #Milei #ahead #************* #summit
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Google Shielded Email Feature Reportedly in Development; Could Help Users Hide Email ID Addresses
Google Shielded Email Feature Reportedly in Development; Could Help Users Hide Email ID Addresses
Google is working on a new feature that could protect a user’s privacy while using apps that ask for their email address, according to a report. Strings of code spotted in one of the company’s applications reveal that a feature called Shielded Email is currently in development, and it could allow users to share email address ‘aliases’ when signing up for apps or newsletters. Apple already offers a similar feature on its devices called Hide My Email, for iCloud+ subscribers.
Shielded Email Feature Could Offer Email Aliases With Forwarding Support
Android Authority and AssembleDebug spotted a new feature while performing a teardown of the Google Play Services version 24.45.33 APK, which is dubbed Shielded Email. Various strings of code discovered by the publication give us an idea about the purported feature and how it might work, if it is eventually rolled out by the company.
According to the report, the Shielded Email feature will let users keep their email address private by generating an email alias when an application asks a user to provide their email address. One of the strings also suggests why the feature could come in handy — by protecting them from “online tracking and data breaches”.
It also appears that these email aliases will be capable of forwarding emails to a user’s real inbox, which could provide a buffer from services that send out spam emails. It’s currently unclear whether users will be able to generate multiple Shielded Email addresses (or aliases).
Google could integrate the Shielded Email feature with its Autofill functionality on Android smartphones, according to the publication — a screenshot of the Autofill settings section shows a new icon that depicts an email with a blue tag and the Google logo.
It’s worth noting that Google’s rival Apple already offers a similar feature called Hide My Email. This feature is available to iCloud+ subscribers and allows users to instantly generate email aliases instead of sharing their real email address with an application or website. Emails sent to these aliases are also forwarded to the user’s actual email inbox.
It’s unclear whether (or when) Google will roll out the new Shielded Email feature to users. Other details, such as availability and pricing (or whether it will be limited to Google One customers), are also currently unknown. but we can expect to learn more about the feeature and how it works in the coming weeks or months.
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Stablecoin Issuer Tether Moves Into Tokenising Stocks and Bonds
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#Google #Shielded #Email #Feature #Reportedly #Development #Users #Hide #Email #Addresses
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Police review three cases recorded as ********
Police review three cases recorded as ********
The Police Service of Northern Ireland has confirmed it is reviewing three cases recorded as ********, following the Katie Simpson case.
A Police Ombudsman report into the ****** of the County Armagh showjumper found that the police investigation was flawed and ******* her family.
The report said there had been “a general lack of investigative mindset”, which led to her ****** in 2020 being treated as ******** for several months.
Jonathan Creswell was later charged with her *******.
Creswell was found ***** at home aged 36 while standing trial in April.
In a statement to BBC News NI on Friday the police said: “Following the Katie Simpson case, the Police Service of Northern Ireland is reviewing three cases recorded as ********.”
Ms Simpson, 21, from Tynan in County Armagh, was taken to hospital with serious injuries after an incident in a house in County Londonderry, in August 2020.
Creswell, her sister’s partner, had called 999 and pretended he had found her hanging from a stairwell.
But police later came to the conclusion that he had beaten her before strangling her.
Ms Simpson was admitted to Altnagelvin Hospital where she ***** six days later, having never regained consciousness.
Multiple red flags were missed before Creswell was eventually charged with her *******.
The possibility of other such cases was raised by political representatives at a Policing Board meeting at the start of September.
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#Police #review #cases #recorded #********
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How British College Students Convinced Authorities That Flying Saucers Were Invading the U.K.
How British College Students Convinced Authorities That Flying Saucers Were Invading the U.K.
This story was originally published on Narratively, an award-winning storytelling platform that celebrates humanity through the most authentic, unexpected and extraordinary true narratives. To read more from Narratively and support the kind of ad-free, independent media its team is creating, you can subscribe to Narratively here at a 30 percent discount.
Neil Batey, a shaggy-haired, 15-year-old paperboy, was on his way to deliver newspapers when he spotted a strange object. It was early on a warm and still Monday morning, September 4, 1967. He had walked across a cricket field from his family’s home in Clevedon, a seaside town in Somerset, in southwest England, on his way to the newsstand to pick up his deliveries. He saw it as he came over Dial Hill, the town’s highest point. “Just off the footpath, in the long grass,” Batey says, “was a large silver flying saucer.”
It was a shiny disk, a little over four feet in diameter, with a dome shape on top, and it was emitting a strange mechanical beep. “If I’m perfectly honest, I didn’t know what it was,” Batey says. “But it was definitely flying saucer-shaped.” He hurried down to the newsstand and told the intrigued owner, Robert Seeley, what he had found. The pair sped in Seeley’s Humber convertible up to the hill, where Batey showed him the object. “He said, ‘Oh, my ****!’” Batey recalls. “And we both drove back to the paper shop, and he phoned the police.”
That same morning, some 30 miles east, at Elm Tree Farm near the country market town of Chippenham, Wiltshire, Mary Puntis (then Mary Jennings) was woken by shouting. A 23-year-old teacher, Puntis was staying with her parents at their farm on the last day of her school’s summer break. “I worked on the farm during the holidays to help out,” Puntis says. “Dad had told me I could have a day off to get ready for school the next day. So I was in bed having a bit of a lie-in. And then Dad came shouting up the stairs: ‘Mary, get up! Get up, quick! Bring your camera! There’s a flying saucer in the field!’”
Puntis went downstairs and found her father, ***** Jennings, speaking on the phone with the police. “I think you better get up here,” he was saying. “There’s something in the field. I don’t know what it is. It looks like a flying saucer.”
“Oh yes, Mr. Jennings?” Puntis recalls the police dispatcher replying sarcastically. “Are there any little green men?”
“Well, I haven’t seen any, but you better get up here,” ***** said. Then he drove back to the field in his tractor.
“And I thought, ‘I better go, I suppose,’” Puntis says. So she and her younger brother, Martin, got in her Mini car and followed the tractor up a hedgerow lane to the field.
“Halfway up the field, fairly close to the hedge, I could see this silver disk,” Puntis says. She told Martin to wait in the car and trudged in rubber boots through the furrowed field to the object. Unbeknownst to Puntis, it was identical to the one Batey had just found. It was about the same width as Puntis’ Mini and had a perfectly smooth metallic sheen with no visible joins or openings. “The only way you could describe it was that it looked like a flying saucer,” she says. “We were just befuddled.”
Chippenham is about 20 miles away from Warminster, the site of Great Britain’s biggest mass UFO sighting. Over a prolonged ******* in 1965, around 200 witnesses saw unusual objects in the sky and heard strange sounds. Fiery and glowing lights and booming and droning noises were accompanied by mysterious occurrences, including power failures and birds falling from the sky. The phenomenon became known as the “Warminster Thing.” Experts and officials were unable to provide a satisfactory explanation, and the area became regarded as Britain’s epicenter for UFO sightings. Had the “Thing” returned?
Two police officers arrived and ordered Puntis and her father to move away from the object. Puntis describes the officers as nervous and cautious. “They wouldn’t go in the field to begin with,” she says. “They peered at it over the hedge.” Then a reporter from the Wiltshire Gazette & Herald arrived, followed by a uniformed flight officer from the nearby Royal Air Force (RAF) Colerne base.
Puntis handed the Gazette reporter her camera to take photographs. She says the RAF officer, David Pepper, “got quite brave” and approached the object. With the reluctant police officers, he lifted the heavy disk onto its side and was startled when it began to beep. Pepper told a reporter that he had never seen anything like it. “Eventually,” Puntis says, “the RAF decided they were going to take it away and ***** it up.”
By this time, the police and the Gazette had received reports suggesting that more of these “flying saucers” had been found across southern England. “I was talking to the Gazette man on the edge of the field,” Puntis says, “and it wasn’t too long before we realized that something big was happening.”
The objects found in Clevedon and Chippenham were two of six identical silver disks found on the same morning at equidistant locations along a plumb-straight line that bisected southern England.
A map of the locations where the six disks were found
Illustration by Julie Benbassat
Thirty miles east of Chippenham, in the village of Welford, Berkshire, postal worker Eva Rood found one of the saucers while on her delivery round. Baffled police took it to their station, where officials from the ******* Kingdom’s Ministry of Defense were called in to investigate, and ******* States Air Force military police from the local air base arrived to take photos. (The U.S. Air Force has maintained a presence in the U.K. since World War II.)
A fourth saucer was found another 30 miles east, at Winkfield, also in Berkshire, near NASA’s only U.K.-based satellite tracking station. One of the station’s engineers, Roger Kenyon, threw pennies at the silver disk to check that it wouldn’t explode. Then he turned it over to the police, who decided that the most appropriate response was to place it in their “lost and found” office. “Well, where else do you put something that comes under the heading of ‘Found’?” a police officer at the scene told the Daily Mirror.
Thirty miles east of Winkfield, at Sundridge Park Golf Club in the London borough of Bromley, caddy Harry Huxley found saucer number five. Police bundled the saucer into a van and transported it to their station, where the officers became so annoyed by the constant beeping that they dumped it outside while they waited for Ministry of Defense officials to arrive.
The sixth saucer wasn’t found until around lunchtime. This one was another 30 miles away, on vacant land in Rushenden, a village on the Isle of Sheppey, off Kent on England’s east coast—about 150 miles away from the first site at Clevedon. Police cordoned off the area, and the ***** brigade scanned the object with a radiation survey meter.
Stretched across England’s green fields and rolling hills, the six silver saucers appeared alien and otherworldly—but what were they? Were they from outer space? Were they from the ******* Union? Were they aircraft or pieces of aircraft? Fallen satellites or unexploded ******?
At Rushenden, a large crowd was gathering, and children were delighted by the arrival of an RAF helicopter that the Ministry of Defense had scrambled from the nearby base at Manston. Creating something of a slapstick spectacle, the RAF crew attempted to lift the unidentified object into the helicopter, but it was too heavy, so they dropped it. When it hit the ground, the saucer split open, spraying the crew with a putrid, gloopy liquid.
Back in Clevedon, the police had taken the first saucer, the one Batey had found, away on a roof rack. Batey had changed into his smartest shirt and tie and gone to the police station, where he was photographed with the saucer for newspapers and filmed with it for Pathé News. Two engineers arrived from local precision-tool manufacturer Willcocks to assist the police in identifying the object and figuring out what was inside. Adopting the kind of bumbling carelessness that characterized the overall response to the supposed invasion, they set upon the disk with a hacksaw and then attacked it with a chisel. Eventually, they managed to make a small *****—and also unleashed a foul stench.
Unidentified Flying Objects (1967)
“A smell as bad as bad eggs came out,” engineer Reg Willard told the Birmingham Post. Inside was the same off-white substance that had sprayed the RAF crew. “I know this sounds silly,” Willard added, “[but] I have read these science fiction stories and wondered if this was an alien attempt to establish life on this planet.” Despite concerns, Willard’s colleague was photographed dipping his fingers into the saucer to taste the substance. A sample was sent to scientists for more detailed analysis.
In Chippenham, officials took the saucer found by the Jennings family to a garbage dump. There, experts from a British Army ***** disposal unit attached specially prepared explosives and blew it apart—with little regard for the well-being of any potential alien occupants. Out poured the foul-smelling gloop, described by the Western Daily Press as a “pig-swill-like mixture.” When police and Army personnel inspected the guts of the wreckage, they found a secret compartment.
The engineers back at Clevedon, with their hacksaws and chisels, had also discovered the compartment, which contained a wired-together contraption consisting of a loudspeaker, a transistor with a mercury switch and an Exide brand battery. It now seemed unlikely that these UFOs were of extraterrestrial origin. As Willard told the Nottingham Guardian Journal, “They are made in Britain—not Mars.” The flying saucer invasion that had flustered and baffled police, military and government officials across Britain was a remarkable hoax.
Earlier that morning, around 2 a.m., a group of young men operating in six teams of two or three had fanned out across the breadth of southern England. Each team had a vehicle filled with camping gear. If anyone asked, they planned to say they were setting out to spend the night under the stars. But hidden beneath their gear, each of the six teams had a large silver disk. Under the cover of darkness, they separately placed these disks in six very specific locations. Then, they retreated from the scene and waited for their respective flying saucers to be discovered.
The young men were student engineers at the Royal Aircraft Establishment, a Ministry of Defense college and research base in Farnborough, Hampshire, right in the heart of southern England. And they were planning to pull off an extraordinary prank—the greatest UFO hoax the world had ever seen.
The hoax’s mastermind was Chris Southall, a 22-year-old with a chinstrap beard and half-frame glasses who was just coming to the end of his five-year apprenticeship. “We had to do quite a lot of work in advance to find good sites,” Southall recalls nearly 60 years later. “We looked on maps and went out looking for sites where we wouldn’t be spotted at night, but where people would find them in the morning.” A glance at the chosen locations on a map reveals they were selected with remarkable precision.
The idea was that the saucers would be planted at equidistant sites approximately 30 miles apart across southern England, in a straight line just above the 51st parallel, at a latitude of 51.3 degrees north of the equator. This specific formula represented a ley line, a mystical pathway that supposedly connects ancient sites across the earth with an invisible energy trail. Some UFO researchers have posited that ley lines could be navigational markers created by prehistoric civilizations to guide visiting alien spacecraft.
Southall was the only member of the group who believed in UFOs, and he reckoned that if aliens did invade, they would carve up the earth with landing spots based on these lines. He saw this as a fun way to test the authorities’ response to an actual invasion. The fact that several of the locations happened to be near secretive Air Force bases, a NASA tracking station and recent UFO “hot spots” only enhanced the ******.
“On the night of ‘laying the eggs,’ as we called it, we drove across the country and put them in the spots we’d figured out,” Southall says. The plan worked (almost) perfectly. The saucers were all quickly found and reported to the authorities—except for the sixth saucer, the one Southall had planted himself at Rushenden. Because no one found that disk organically, Southall decided to take matters into his own hands. He phoned the police, telling them he was a schoolboy who’d been out walking his dog when he came across something he thought might be a *****. Pretty soon, the scene was crawling with police and encircled by a helicopter, and an RAF crew was sprayed with the putrid goopy liquid.
Illustration by Julie Benbassat
Southall and the others returned to their dorm at the Royal Aircraft Establishment. “And then we just had to wait with bated breath to see what kind of publicity it got,” he recalls.
The aim was to promote the students’ Rag Week, an annual British tradition in which university students carry out stunts and pranks to “raise and give” (hence “Rag”) money for charity. At the time, costumed parades, sponsored challenges and eye-catching antics (such as attempting to build the world’s biggest sandcastle) were common, with participants shaking collection tins and buckets for donations around their towns. However, Southall and his friends had previous experience with creating much more ambitious and far-reaching stunts.
Two years earlier, in 1965, the young men had dropped a replica of NASA’s Gemini space capsule, complete with parachute, into the River Thames in central London, generating national headlines and official consternation. (“Mystery Capsule Found on Thames Bank,” read one headline. “It could be a hoax,” a police spokesperson told the Daily Mirror, “but we can’t take any chances.”) And in 1966, Southall had designed and built a 7.5-foot-tall mechanical ****** named Rodnee, which had embarked on a 30-mile charity walk from Farnborough to the capital. (“Rodnee the ****** Marches on London,” splashed the Daily Mirror, although a later headline revealed a setback: “Rodnee’s Engine Fails at Crucial Moment.”)
The UFO stunt was even more audacious. Work began eight months before its **********, in January 1967, in a workshop at the back of the students’ dorm. Southall made a plaster model of a flying saucer and used that to create a mold. Then he used the mold to make 12 fiberglass halves and stuck those together to make six saucers. These were coated with a specially formulated aluminum gel to give them an unearthly polished shine. The saucers cost around £30 to make (equivalent to around £465 or $600 in 2024), paid for out of the college’s Rag Week budget.
The disks’ innards were filled with almost 60 pounds of goopy gunk—actually a simple flour and water paste. “When you let it go off, it turns into this rancid jelly,” Southall says. (This is also where the putrid smell arises, either from the mixture being left out for too long or because the flour itself has gone bad.) “The idea was that if they cracked it open, they might think it was a ***** alien or something.” Southall and his friends also built the electronics that made the beeping sound designed to help people find the saucers. “It was powered by just a tiny little battery,” he says. “That’s all you needed.”
Farmer ***** Jennings looks at the object he found in a field near Chippenham on September 4, 1967.
Photo by Tibbles / Daily Mirror / Mirrorpix via Getty Images
It didn’t take long for the saucers to land in the media. Evening newspapers and local television bulletins reported the emerging story. Speaking about the saucer that Batey had found in Clevedon, police sergeant John Durston told the Bristol Evening Post, “The object does look just as one imagines a spaceship should look. I have contacted my headquarters, and they are getting in touch with all sorts of people.” He added, “It looks just like a flying saucer,” but cautioned, “There’s always the possibility that someone silly might have put something on Dial Hill to cause a panic.”
On Monday evening, around 12 hours after the first saucer was found, a reporter linked the flying saucers to previous Rag Week stunts and called the Royal Aircraft Establishment to ask if those same students were behind the UFO hoax. “We owned up,” Southall says. They had hoped the mystery would last a little longer. But the hoax became the story. “So we got a second day of publicity. And lots of international publicity.”
The headline in the local Western Daily Press was “The Big Flying Saucer Hoax.” The Daily Mirror ran a front-page story and center spread featuring photos of Batey and Southall under the headline “How the Saucers Hoax Got off The Ground.” “The Great Invasion From Outer Space was unmasked last night for what it was,” the national newspaper reported, “an amazing hoax by a group of bright young men … a leg pull that started a search for little green men.” Across the Atlantic, the New York Times’ headline was “Aviation Students Hoax Britain With Flotilla of ‘Flying Saucers.’” Half the world away from southern England, Australia’s Canberra Times simply said, “Student Hoax Fools Britain.”
Southall and his colleagues were jubilant. They fielded phone calls from reporters, met with photographers and traveled to television stations. “We did it to publicize our Rag Week,” Southall told reporters at the time. “We aim to raise £2,000 for local charities, and this was the best way of drawing attention to it. We also thought we would give the police an exercise in dealing with alien spacecraft, because it could happen one day. We didn’t mean to cause chaos—in fact, we were rather surprised that it caused all this fuss.”
The fuss had involved—and embarrassed—the police, the military, the Ministry of Defense and the Royal Aircraft Establishment, as well as numerous officials, engineers and experts. While the students’ previous stunts had generated a lot of local interest, this one had spread around the globe and entwined the highest levels of authority. As Southall’s colleague David Harrison told the Reading Evening Post, “We haven’t received a reprimand from any officialdom yet, but we are half expecting that we will get a bit of a telling off.”
There was one response the group hadn’t anticipated. During the press calls, several reporters asked the same surprising question: What did the hoaxers know about a seventh flying saucer that had been found on the same day on a major thoroughfare in central London, less than a mile from both the Houses of Parliament and Buckingham Palace? This mysterious “seventh saucer” looked a little bit like the other six, and police were investigating where it had come from. Southall did not know anything about it and answered honestly: “It was nothing to do with us.”
“It was every bit as intriguing as the old TV science fiction thriller ‘The Quatermass Experiment,’ which told of weird, egg-shaped objects full of gas whining down to earth as the spearhead of an invasion from outer space,” wrote the Newcastle Journal following the UFO hoax. “Judging by the coverage in national newspapers,” the Runcorn Weekly News reported, “it was the most successful space stunt of recent times.”
UFO researchers were impressed, too. Richard Beet, secretary of the Surrey Investigation Group on Aerial Phenomena, told the Farnborough Chronicle that it was “a very clever hoax,” adding that he wanted to acquire one of the saucers for an exhibition. The newspaper reported that “an ********* television company has rung up the Rag committee asking to buy one of the ‘spaceships’ to build a show around it.” Still, as Harrison had feared, the Chronicle also said that “officialdom” had taken a “dim view” of the stunt, and police were considering pressing ********* charges.
A Somerset Police spokesperson handling the Clevedon case refused to comment to the press about suggestions that the students could be prosecuted but said “those responsible” would likely be interviewed. Wasting police time was a ********* offense, and newspapers reported that the students might also be charged with littering in the countryside and “causing a public mischief.” The investigation of the six saucers had entangled five separate police forces across southern England, including London’s Metropolitan Police, based at Scotland Yard. Perhaps more importantly, the hoax had caused consternation and red faces in the government offices of the Ministry of Defense.
“If we’d done it now, we’d have been in jail,” Southall says. He held an emergency meeting with his colleagues at their dorm to discuss the possibility of prosecution. “We were nervous about it,” he recalls, “but it was all so exciting. And, of course, we’d been up all night, and then we were trekking off to television studios and things like that. We were so zonked out that it was hard to get too worried about it, and we were just going with the flow.”
In Clevedon, Batey’s saucer was held by police as evidence. “We’re not giving them back their saucer,” said Durston, “not for the moment, anyway.” But Durston said he would be very surprised if the Somerset Police pressed charges.
Chief Inspector Frank Dummett of the Wiltshire Police, responsible for investigating the Chippenham saucer, seemed to take the prank with good grace. “It was obviously a very elaborate hoax,” he said, “exceedingly well organized and must have cost a good deal of money to carry out.” In Bromley, a Kent Police spokesman said, “We are taking it like gentlemen,” and there was “no question of prosecution.” But in Welford and Winkfield, the Berkshire Police force was less forgiving, saying it was still considering action against the hoaxers.
As for the Royal Aircraft Establishment, the prestigious institution at the center of the ****** decided that the students would not face punishment. The institution’s chief engineer, F.H. *****, said, “I want to say publicly that I thought it was a very fine effort. In spite of the fact that there have been some people who don’t approve, I personally do.”
It was the seemingly incompetent response to the hoax that caused the most embarrassment. Another UFO research group, the National Investigation Committee for Aerial Phenomena, wrote to the Ministry of Defense, criticizing a “complete lack of cooperation” among the departments involved in the official response and offering its own services in the future. “One hesitates to think of what might have happened had one or more flying objects actually landed,” the letter said.
Declassified files show that the Ministry of Defense regarded the incident as an “(obviously very successful) practical joke.” But the documents also suggest that officials feared the response to the high-profile hoax might reveal secret details about investigations into actual UFOs and potential plans for dealing with a real alien invasion.
A letter held at the U.K.’s National Archives shows that the Ministry of Defense wrote to an RAF intelligence officer involved in the Bromley saucer investigation, advising him not to comment to the media about any of the equipment he had used in examining the objects, nor about any of his previous or subsequent “‘UFO’ work.” According to another letter, the officer from Bromley (whose name is redacted) was “responsible for investigating all UFO sightings in U.K. airspace,” suggesting he was a 1960s British version of FBI Special Agent Fox Mulder from “The X-Files.” A restricted staff memo indicates how seriously the U.K. took the incident by stating that the officer should be reminded of his obligations under the Official Secrets Act, U.K. legislation that protects sensitive information, including information related to national security. To the U.K. authorities, this was more than just a joke.
In the end, despite—or perhaps because of—the Ministry of Defense’s involvement (and the potential embarrassment of national security secrets being revealed if the case were prolonged), Southall and the other students were not prosecuted and faced no further action. They had, after all, pulled off the stunt for a good cause. Several of the hoaxers also participated in a more traditional Rag Week event—a sponsored walk in “flower power” costumes. Southall, “****** his flying saucers,” according to the Farnborough Chronicle, walked 41 miles. The UFO hoax’s publicity generated extra donations and helped the Rag committee reach its charity fundraising target of £2,000 (equivalent to around £31,000, or nearly $40,000, in 2024).
A newspaper article about the hoax
Farnborough Chronicle / Courtesy of Paul Brown
But that wasn’t the end of the story. Although the flying saucer invasion had been exposed as a hoax, some refused to believe the explanation. In Bromley, a witness named Cynthia Tooth, described in the Newcastle Journal as the wife of an advertising executive, claimed she had seen the saucer found on the golf course fall from the sky in the middle of the night and described “a steady bright light, surmounted by a flashing light.”
There were other strange sightings on the day of the hoax, too. In Lower Spanton, near where Puntis and her father found the Chippenham saucer, villagers and schoolchildren reported seeing a silver “flying bubble” in the sky. “It was very large and very high and glinted and shone in the sun,” local Michael Smith told the Western Daily Press. “I never saw anything like it before.”
In Bicester, north of where the U.S. Air Force photographed the Welford saucer, a group of motorists stopped their vehicles on a country lane to watch a silver, cigar-shaped object floating in the sky in broad daylight. “I’ve never believed in this sort of thing before,” witness Raymond Richardson told the Reading Evening Post. “But this made me go cold all over.” It’s impossible to know what they saw, but each of these witnesses believed they’d seen something out of the ordinary, most of which could not be traced back to the students’ hoax.
And then there was the so-called seventh saucer, found on the same day as the six fake ones, on a traffic island at Kingsway, central London, outside the Rediffusion television studios—in a building that had previously been the administrative headquarters of the RAF. The silver-gray saucer, about three feet across with two protruding antennae, was found by Jack Grant of Wandsworth, who said he didn’t dare touch it. It was taken away in a van by police and seemingly disappeared—with no record of what happened to it. “Probably another hoax,” wrote the Daily Mirror. “But then, you never can tell.”
Official records show that 362 “unexplained aerial sightings” were reported to the U.K. Ministry of Defense in 1967, up from 95 in the previous year.
Batey and Puntis, now ages 72 and 80 respectively, recall their UFO encounters with—mostly—good humor. Batey’s media appearances led to teasing at school. “I got the ***** taken out of me mercilessly by younger kids,” he says. More positively, Batey was contacted by a long-lost cousin in Australia who spotted his photo in a newspaper. He bears no resentment toward the hoaxers. “It was just a bit of fun,” he says. “I was an avid science fiction fan, anyway. It was quite impressive. I would probably have done it if I’d been a bit older. I would have taken part gleefully.”
“We thought it was absolutely brilliant,” Puntis says. “Really, really clever. Because they had plotted these six places across the country, and they had gone to an awful lot of trouble to identify sites that were exactly the same distances apart. And one happened to be our field. It was wonderful. It’s been a talking point for, well, 57 years. And people are still talking about it.” Puntis now lives in a house she built in that same field.
As for the great UFO hoax’s mastermind, today Southall is an environmental activist who builds eco-friendly geodesic domes rather than flying saucers. “We grow our own food and provide our own heat from wood and solar, and all that kind of stuff,” he says. He got into self-sufficiency right after finishing his engineering apprenticeship. “I lived off-grid on the Isle of Man for 9 years, and after that, I lived in a commune for 20 years, so I’ve had all sorts of adventures through my life.”
Southall is still amused when he thinks of the blundering official response to the saucers. “It’s a bit shocking, isn’t it, really?” he reflects. “Because they could have been real, they could have had strange, slimy creatures inside or whatever. They didn’t know when they cracked them open that this slimy stuff was paste. At the time, I was well into science fiction, so I would have liked to have thought they’d take it a little bit more seriously, at least initially.”
As for the witness who saw one of the fake saucers fall from the sky and the mysterious seventh saucer that he had no involvement with, Southall can give no explanation other than offering a well-accepted truism: “It’s a funny old world out there, I tell you.”
Paul Brown writes about history, true ****** and sports. He also pens a newsletter called Singular Discoveries about unusual true stories from forgotten corners of the past.
Jesse Sposato is Narratively’s executive editor. She also writes about social issues, feminism, health, friendship and culture for a variety of outlets. She is currently working on a collection of essays about coming of age in the suburbs.
Julie Benbassat is an award-winning illustrator, painter and animator.
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The M4 MacBook Pro has a secret feature that boosts its display
The M4 MacBook Pro has a secret feature that boosts its display
Apple announced several improvements to the M4 MacBook Pro’s screen
It also secretly added a new display tech
This change could improve motion and ****** gamut performance
If you’ve bought an M4 MacBook Pro and get the feeling its display looks even better than it did on previous models, you’d be right. Apple has kept very quiet about it, but there seems to be a new technology at work inside the laptop’s screen, and it could be providing a handful of worthwhile benefits.
The discovery was made by well-known display industry expert Ross Young, who has a strong track record when it comes to Apple leaks and rumors. Posting on X, Young said that the new MacBook Pro is using quantum dot tech that is “very efficient” and provides “as good or better ****** gamut and better motion performance” compared to the previous technology used in MacBook displays.
Despite this performance increase, Apple didn’t mention the quantum dot upgrade when it revealed the M4 MacBook Pro in October. However, there was one clue that something might have changed: the maximum screen brightness for SDR content was increased from 600 nits all the way up to 1,000 nits – a significant improvement.
In our 14-inch M4 MacBook Pro review, we described the display as “gorgeous” and noted that its increased SDR brightness made it “quite effective at remaining viewable and usable in direct sunlight.” At the time, though, we had no idea about Apple’s quantum dot treatment, which has remained well hidden until now.
Getting the green light
(Image credit: Future / Lance Ulanoff)
Back in 2015, Apple said that it considered quantum dot technology for its screens, but ultimately rejected it because it involved using the toxic element cadmium. Apple has long made environmentalism a key part of its product strategy, and that likely wouldn’t have jived with the inclusion of a harmful element in the display.
However, the new quantum dot tech used in the M4 MacBook Pro can be achieved without the use of cadmium, Young explains. This, alongside its improved efficiency, presumably gave it the green light from Apple, allowing the company to enhance its MacBook Pro displays without the environmental concerns.
The next question is whether quantum dot screens will make their way to other devices. Apple sometimes shares technology between the MacBook Pro and the iPad Pro, so it’s possible that Apple’s flagship tablet might follow its laptop in the future.
Sign up to be the first to know about unmissable ****** Friday deals on top tech, plus get all your favorite TechRadar content.
Whether Apple will actually go ahead with this move – or bring quantum dot panels to some of its other products – ******** to be seen.
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Pete Hegseth, Trump’s pick for defense secretary, was investigated for alleged ******* ******** in 2017
Pete Hegseth, Trump’s pick for defense secretary, was investigated for alleged ******* ******** in 2017
Monterey, Calif. – Pete Hegseth, the Army veteran turned Fox News host selected by President-elect Donald Trump to be defense secretary during his second term was investigated for an alleged ******* ******** in 2017, Monterey, Calif. officials confirmed.
In response to multiple public record requests to the city, including one from CBS News, officials released a public statement late Thursday evening about a 2017 police investigation into Hegseth. The statement form the City Manager’s Office and Monterey Police Department contained few details about the case and said they would not make any other public statements related to the investigation.
The incident allegedly occurred somewhere between a minute before midnight on Oct. 7, 2017 and 7 a.m. on Oct. 8, 2017 at 1 Old Golf Course Road, the location of the Hyatt Regency Monterey Hotel. A police report was filed with Monterey Police Department three days later, on Oct. 12, 2024.
Co-anchor Pete Hegseth is seen on “FOX & Friends” on Aug. 9, 2019 in New York City.
John Lamparski / Getty Images
Police did not disclose the name or age of the alleged victim but did describe the injuries as “Contusions” “right thigh.”
The statement said no weapons were involved.
News of the ******* misconduct allegation was revealed on Thursday by Vanity Fair when the magazine reported that Trump’s incoming chief of staff, Susie Wiles, was briefed about the alleged ******* misconduct by Hegseth involving a woman, citing unnamed sources — one of whom reportedly said the incident took place in Monterey.
The allegation prompted a discussion among Wiles, Trump’s legal team and Hegseth, who described the allegation as a consensual encounter and a classic case of he-said, she-said, the magazine reported.
Timothy Parlatore, a former Trump lawyer who frequently represents current and former members of the U.S. military, told Vanity Fair: “This allegation was already investigated by the Monterey police department and they found no evidence for it.”
Hegseth is a veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan with a handful of military medals, including two Bronze Stars, and has undergraduate and graduate degrees from Princeton and Harvard.
Since 2019, Hegseth has been married to his third wife, Fox News producer Jennifer Rauchet. The two were married at Trump’s National Gold Club in Colts Neck, New Jersey.
Hegseth and his first wife, Meredith Schwarz, divorced in 2009. He and his second wife, Samantha Deering, divorced in 2017, the year he was investigated for the alleged ******* ********.
Disagreement over Hegseth’s qualifications
Following Trump’s Tuesday night announcement that he would nominate Hegseth to be his defense secretary, many have questioned whether the 44-year-old co-host of “Fox & Friends Weekends” can handle managing the Defense Department, which has a budget of $842 billion, almost three million employees and 750 military installations around the world.
“The Pentagon is in need of real reform, and they’re getting a leader who has grit to make it happen,” said Trump’s pick for national security adviser, *********** Rep. Mike Waltz of Florida, in a post on the social media platform X. Waltz is a former Army Green Beret colonel.
Democratic Rep. Jason Crow of Colorado, who served in the Army’s elite 75th Ranger Regiment in Iraq and Afghanistan, said Hegseth was not “remotely qualified” to be defense secretary.
“The SecDef [secretary of defense] makes life-and-****** decisions daily that impact over 2 million troops around the globe. This is not an entry-level job for a TV commentator,” Crow said on X. “The Senate should do its job and deny this nomination.”
Hegseth’s controversial views
Hegseth is a longtime ************* and staunch Trump ally who has talked about changes Trump should make at the Pentagon.
He said the ****** Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Charles Q. Brown should be fired for “pursuing the ******** positions of left-wing politicians.”
And he believes women should not be in combat for the U.S. military, a point he reiterated last week in an interview with “The Shawn Ryan Show” podcast.
Ahead of then President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration in January 2021, The Associated Press reported that 12 U.S. National Guard members were removed from helping to secure the event after vetting by the U.S. military and FBI. The members made extremist statements in posts or text messages or had ties with right-wing militia groups.
Hegseth revealed during his interview Shawn Ryan, a former Navy SEAL, that he was one of the National Guard members removed from securing the inauguration.
James LaPorta
James LaPorta is a verification producer with CBS News Confirmed. He is a former U.S. Marine infantryman and veteran of the Afghanistan war.
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REVEALED: Lavish entourage of partners behind Indian Test team includes Bollywood actress, politician & model
REVEALED: Lavish entourage of partners behind Indian Test team includes Bollywood actress, politician & model
They may boast billions of diehard fans and hundreds of millions of dollars in net worth between them, but behind India’s stacked cricket team is a lavish entourage of wives and girlfriends with star power.
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Avowed Pre-Order Details and Game Editions Revealed
Avowed Pre-Order Details and Game Editions Revealed
Avowed is set to release on February 18, 2025, and the developers, Obsidian, have just revealed the title’s pre-order details and different game editions available for *****. A premium edition, which provides players with up to five days of early access and other content, is also up for grabs.
Avowed’s pre-orders are live now, and players can purchase the standard edition for $69.99. It is worth noting that Avowed is also available on day one with Xbox Game Pass. The standard edition provides players access to the base game and no additional content.
Regarding the Premium Edition for Avowed, players have two choices for their pre-orders: digital or physical. The Digital Premium edition costs $89.99 and provides five days of early access, two premium skin packs, and access to the Digital Artbook and Soundtrack. The Premium Edition Steelbook is priced at $94.99, and it comes with an additional Avowed Steenbok and Map of the Living Lands on top of the digital edition content.
Moreover, players who have pre-ordered the Standard Edition of the Avowed or are playing the game through Game Pass have an option to upgrade. For the price of $24.99, you can receive all the premium edition digital content and up to five days of early access, allowing you to enter the game from February 13.
The Avowed Digital Artbook and Soundtrack consists of “behind-the-scenes artwork from the team and music by composer Venus Theory”. Players will receive the Eora Collection Set and Obsidian Collection Set for the two premium skin packs. Eora is a throwback set inspired by characters and regions from Pillars of Eternity. On the other hand, Obsidian is inspired by the developing studio, featuring sleek, ****** outfits.
In other news, Phil Spencer has stated that Avowed wasn’t delayed due to game quality. Also, read about Obsidian stating that the game doesn’t need a 60 FPS mode. Are you going to pre-order Avowed? Let us know in the comments or our new community forum!
For more from Insider Gaming, read about Amazon’s Tomb Raider Series seemingly casting Game of Thrones star as Lara Croft. Don’t forget to sign up for our weekly newsletter.
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Meet the Little-Known Company Yielding 11% That Continues to Deliver Monthly for Income Seekers and Is Making Patient Investors Notably Richer
Meet the Little-Known Company Yielding 11% That Continues to Deliver Monthly for Income Seekers and Is Making Patient Investors Notably Richer
One of the best aspects of putting your money to work on Wall Street is that you don’t have to conform to any blueprint. With thousands of publicly traded companies and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) to choose from, there’s a very high probability of finding one or more securities that matches your investment goals and risk tolerance.
But among the countless ways investors can build their wealth on Wall Street, few have proven more successful over long periods than buying and holding high-quality dividend stocks.
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Image source: Getty Images.
Companies that regularly dole out a dividend to investors are almost always profitable on a recurring basis, time-tested, and capable of providing transparent long-term growth outlooks. In other words, they’re typically established businesses that have demonstrated to investors they can navigate challenging periods and thrive during long-winded economic expansions. These are just the type of companies we’d expect to increase in value over the long run.
But you don’t have to take my word for it. Recently, the investment advisors at Hartford Funds updated their data from a report released last year (The Power of Dividends: Past, Present, and Future), which examined the degree of outperformance between dividend stocks and non-payers over the long-term.
According to Hartford Funds, in collaboration with Ned Davis Research, non-payers produced a modest average annual return of 4.27% between 1973 and 2023, and did so while being 18% more volatile than the benchmark S&P 500. On the other hand, dividend stocks more than doubled up the average annual total return of non-payers over the previous half-century (9.17%), and were also 6% less-volatile than the S&P 500.
While dividend stocks have a phenomenal track record of making patient investors notably richer, studies have also shown that risk and yield tend to go hand in hand.
For example, a company with a struggling operating model and a declining share price has the potential to lure income seekers into a yield trap. Since yield is a function of payout relative to share price, companies with ultra-high-yields (i.e., yields that are four or more times greater than the S&P 500’s yield) require extra vetting by investors.
But this doesn’t mean all ultra-high-yield dividend stocks are necessarily trouble. With the proper evaluation, ultra-high-yielding gems can be found. In fact, some of the safest supercharged dividend stocks might just be companies you’ve never heard about.
Story Continues
Image source: Getty Images.
Although mortgage real estate investment trusts (REITs) are the typical go-to for investors looking for supercharged yields, I’d argue there’s an even better way to secure a gargantuan annual yield and more than double your money every decade. Meet little-known business development company (BDC) PennantPark Floating Rate Capital (NYSE: PFLT), which is currently yielding 11% and doling out $0.1025 per share on a monthly basis!
A BDC is a company that invests in the equity (common and preferred stock) and/or debt of middle-market businesses. “Middle-market” companies are typically unproven micro- and small-cap businesses that may or may not be publicly traded.
When PennantPark lifted the hood on its fiscal third-quarter operating results for the ******* ended June 30, it was overseeing a nearly $1.66 billion investment portfolio. Although it held an assortment of preferred- and common-stock equity totaling $208.6 million, the roughly $1.45 billion in debt securities it owns makes it a predominantly debt-focused BDC.
Since most middle-market companies are unproven and lack access to basic financial services, PennantPark is able to generate a market-topping yield on its loans. During the June-ended quarter, its weighted average yield on debt securities was a scorching-hot 12.1%, which is almost triple the yield you’ll receive from a 10-year Treasury bond.
However, the biggest advantage PennantPark Floating Rate Capital brings to the table can be seen in its name. The entirety of its debt-securities portfolio is based on variable rates. With the Fed increasing interest rates at the fastest clip in four decades between March 2022 and July 2023, PennantPark’s weighted average yield on debt investments surged by a peak of 520 basis points from where things stood on Sept. 30, 2021.
Although the nation’s central bank has kicked off a rate-easing cycle, returning to a historically low federal funds rate of 0% to 0.25% doesn’t look to be in the cards. With the Fed slow-stepping its monetary policy shift, there’s plenty of runway for PennantPark to generate superior yields from its debt investments.
The steps PennantPark’s management team has taken to protect its principal also explains its success. For instance, the company’s roughly $1.66 billion portfolio, including equities, is spread across 151 companies, which works out to an average investment size of $11 million. No wager is too big to upend PennantPark.
What’s more, 99.9% of the company’s debt investments (all but $1.2 million) are of the first-lien secured variety. First-lien secured debtholders find themselves at the front of the line for repayment in the event that a borrower seeks bankruptcy protection. Despite working with generally unproven businesses, only 1.5% of PennantPark’s debt investments were on non-accrual (i.e., delinquent), as of June 30.
Since going public in 2011, PennantPark Floating Rate Capital has delivered a 187% return to its shareholders, including dividends. Though this doesn’t hold a candle to Wall Street’s prominent tech stocks, it’s a phenomenal return for a monthly dividend payer that can sustain its 11% annual yield.
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Sean Williams has positions in PennantPark Floating Rate Capital. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Meet the Little-Known Company Yielding 11% That Continues to Deliver Monthly for Income Seekers and Is Making Patient Investors Notably Richer was originally published by The Motley Fool
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Bitcoin: Is the Powell-Fueled Pullback a Dip-Buying Opportunity?
Bitcoin: Is the Powell-Fueled Pullback a Dip-Buying Opportunity?
Bitcoin’s recent dip raises questions about whether its post-election rally has run its course.
Despite Powell’s hawkish remarks, Bitcoin’s long-term bullish trend ******** intact.
Key support levels will determine if Bitcoin’s rally can continue or if further corrections are ahead.
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‘s recent decline of over 3% marks the first significant dip since its rally began following the US Presidential election on November 5. While the pullback can partly be attributed to comments from Jerome , the central question arises: Has the so-called “Trump rally” in Bitcoin and altcoins run its course?
The surge in Bitcoin’s price after Donald Trump’s election victory can largely be credited to his promises to support the crypto sector, which had investors bullish. Bitcoin recently hit a new record of $93,129, thanks to both these promises and the broader crypto market dynamics.
Yet, external factors—such as a relatively calm election and Trump’s clear victory—also contributed to this rise. With Trump securing a non-controversial win and a majority in the Senate, risk appetite increased, bringing traditional investors into the crypto fold.
Another catalyst was the ‘s 25-basis point interest rate cut, which, though expected, served as a buying excuse for many crypto investors. With the market buoyed by the ‘s actions, Bitcoin seemed poised for even greater highs, possibly breaking the $100,000 mark.
However, Powell’s hawkish stance in his recent speech has put the brakes on the crypto rally. Powell asserted that the US economy ******** strong and that interest rates won’t be cut hastily, dampening market expectations for a December rate cut. As a result, Bitcoin and the broader crypto market have seen significant sell-offs, particularly in Bitcoin ETFs, as short-term investors seize the opportunity to take profits.
Despite the recent downturn, the broader bullish trend ******** intact. Stable political prospects in the US, coupled with expectations for a strong economy, should help maintain investor appetite for risk. However, with the recent surge in Bitcoin’s price, these corrections may pose risks for short-term traders. That said, many investors are viewing these dips as opportunities to buy the dip, anticipating a potential altcoin rally as Bitcoin continues to gain ground.
Bitcoin’s dominance rate has been fluctuating, especially after Powell’s remarks. While Bitcoin’s dominance has rebounded, many altcoins have experienced sharp reversals, indicating that the market may be in a transitional phase. As we assess the current state of the market, it’s clear that the first wave of the Trump effect on cryptocurrencies is priced in, and short-term support and resistance levels are now critical.
Current Support and Resistance Levels for Bitcoin
Looking at the charts, Bitcoin has lost some momentum after hitting record highs this week. It touched the $90,000 range briefly but ******* to sustain that level, dropping to $87,000 after recent sales. Support has held at this price zone since early this week.
Bitcoin’s bullish trend, which began in September, saw it close above the $80,000 resistance level last week. This week, Bitcoin tested the $92,470 resistance level, a key Fibonacci point. However, rapid selling at this level suggests that Bitcoin may struggle to break above it for now. If Bitcoin fails to hold the $87,200 region, we could see a dip to $84,700, with further declines possible if it drops below $80,000.
On the weekly chart, Bitcoin broke the midline of its upward channel this week, signaling a possible continuation of the long-term bullish trend. Should the price pull back further, $85,700 could serve as a critical support level. If Bitcoin holds above this level, a rally toward $105,500—a key Fibonacci target—******** a real possibility.
In summary, Bitcoin’s recent dip, while notable, could be a buying opportunity for long-term investors, especially if it finds solid support at key levels. The broader bullish outlook ******** intact, but market watchers should closely monitor technical levels for any signs of deeper corrections.
***
Disclaimer: This article is written for informational purposes only. It is not intended to encourage the purchase of assets in any way, nor does it constitute a solicitation, offer, recommendation or suggestion to invest. I would like to remind you that all assets are evaluated from multiple perspectives and are highly risky, so any investment decision and the associated risk belongs to the investor. We also do not provide any investment advisory services.
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Former BOE member on what Trump’s reelection could mean for the ***
Former BOE member on what Trump’s reelection could mean for the ***
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Squawk Box Europe
John Gieve, former deputy governor at the Bank of England, speaks to CNBC’s Silvia Amaro about monetary policy and Trump tariff implications.
07:25
5 minutes ago
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Typhoo Tea teeters on the brink of administration
Typhoo Tea teeters on the brink of administration
Typhoo Tea is set to appoint administrators as the 120-year old brand’s sales slump, losses widen and debts rise.
The company has filed a notice at court “which affords the company some breathing space to explore solutions”, Typhoo’s chief executive Dave McNulty told the BBC.
The firm has been trying to turn itself around for some time.
However, it suffered a setback after trespassers damaged its former factory in Moreton, Merseyside in August followed by a ***** at the same plant in October.
“Given the delicate nature of this we are not in a position to comment any further,” said McNulty.
Typhoo has reportedly appointed accountancy firm EY to handle the administration.
The company’s losses widened to £38m from £9.6m in the year to the end of September 2023, which are the most recent results available. Sales fell to to £25.3m from £33.7m.
The results also revealed £24.1m worth of “exceptional costs”, some of which relates to the break-in at the Moreton plant, which was shut down last year.
Typhoo said: “During August, a group of organised trespassers broke into the Moreton site and occupied it for several days.”
It added that the trespassers caused “extensive damage” and made the site “inaccessible”.
It said a lot of tea was rendered unusable and it was unable to fulfil some orders to customers.
Not reflected in the results were the impact of a ***** in October at the same Moreton plant.
Local ***** services told local publication Wirral Globe that the ***** broke out on 1 October, with firefighters working throughout the night to put the blaze out.
Typhoo Tea was founded in 1903 and is widely seen as one of the ***’s main tea brands, alongside the likes of PG Tips, Tetley’s and Yorkshire Tea.
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Tired of signing up to services or websites only to be spammed? Gmail could get a ‘shielded email’ feature to save you from all that stress
Tired of signing up to services or websites only to be spammed? Gmail could get a ‘shielded email’ feature to save you from all that stress
Code for a ‘Shielded Email’ feature is in the Google Play Services APK
You’ll seemingly be able to use a temporary email address to avoid spam
Doing so could also avoid your real email being leaked in a data breach
Gmail could offer the ability for users to create temporary email addresses, for signing up to online accounts or services they may be unsure about, allowing people to hide their real email address and avoid being spammed in the future (or perhaps worse dangers than that).
Android Authority got the scoop on this after digging around in the inner workings of the new 24.45.33 release of the Google Play Services APK, which contains references to ‘Shielded Email’ and a bunch of clues as to how this feature will work.
You’ll be able to create a shielded email – a temporary (Google-generated) email address different from your actual Gmail address, the mail to which gets forwarded to your Gmail inbox – when you’re forced to enter an email to sign up for an app, for example, or a website.
In these cases, with an unknown or less trustworthy firm, if you enter your real email address, you might then be spammed repeatedly by the company or website you’ve signed up with. When that inevitably happens, you can simply turn off that secondary email address – just bin it – and voila, no more spam emails.
As one of the strings of text in the hidden bits of code puts it: “To control spam, you can turn off forwarding at any time in your Google Account.”
Getting out of that bind is obviously not as simple as that if you’ve provided the company with your real email address.
(Image credit: Dell)
Analysis: Security benefits
What’s also important to note is that this could be a real lifesaver of a security feature in some ways. By which we mean if you gave your real email address to a company that had lax security, and that outfit then suffered a data breach in which your email was compromised – that’s obviously very bad news. If you used a shielded, temporary email, and that’s leaked instead, then that’s no big deal – just bin it, as noted above, and the problem is solved.
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This is a pretty cool addition for Gmail then – assuming it happens, of course. Right now, all we have is some code hanging around in the background, which might ultimately come to nothing. The good news is that Android Authority has also noticed a mention of shielded emails appearing in Google’s Autofill settings menu on Android, so that’s a positive glimmer of hope this is really happening.
And for those of you thinking – this sort of one-off or temporary email feature is nothing new, and you can get it from a variety of sources – well, yes, that’s true. However, having the functionality right there, integrated into Gmail, would be a considerable boon in terms of seamless access to temporary emails, with no fuss or messing about.
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