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– Over the last couple of years, we’ve spent a fair bit of time fooling around with Mercedes-Benz’s Distronic Plus With Steering Assist. Though we’ve experimented with other semi-autonomous systems, the Mercedes system currently seems to be the most predictable and confidence-inducing. The downside? The red hands that light up, reminding you to put your hands on the wheel, despite the fact that the Benz is caroming merrily down the
– From the September 2015 issue – Just as the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) was about to close the books on 2014, a year in which a record number of cars were recalled, it underwent a change in leadership. On December 22, Mark R. Rosekind, a former NASA researcher and member of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), was sworn in as administrator. The GM ignition-switch-defect investigation cast
By Marton Dunai ROSZKE, Hungary (Reuters) – Hungary made plans on Wednesday to reinforce its southern border with helicopters, mounted police and dogs, and was also considering using the army as record numbers of migrants, many of them Syrian refugees, passed through coils of razor-wire into Europe. In Germany, which expects to receive 800,000 of them this year, Chancellor Angela Merkel was heckled by dozens of protesters as she visited
By Lefteris Papadimas ATHENS (Reuters) – Greek President Prokopis Pavlopoulos is expected on Friday to call a snap election for next month, an official at the presidency told Reuters, ending fruitless coalition efforts among parties deeply divided over the country’s new bailout. Following last week’s resignation of leftist Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, Pavlopoulos asked a conservative and a radical left leader to try to form a new government and thereby avoid
By Hans-Edzard Busemann HEIDENAU, Germany (Reuters) – Dozens of protesters shouted at Chancellor Angela Merkel and waved placards with the slogan “traitor” on Wednesday when she visited an eastern German town where anti-refugee protests erupted into violence at the weekend. Merkel, one of Germany’s most popular postwar chancellors, vowed Germany would not tolerate xenophobia and repeated that the weekend scuffles, in which 31 police officers were hurt, were “shameful and
Some 50 migrants were found dead in the hold of a boat off the coast of Libya on Wednesday during a rescue operation which saved 430 other people, the Italian coast guard said. A spokeswoman for the Italian coast guard said the Swedish ship Poseidon, working with the European Union’s border control agency Frontex, had gone on Wednesday to help a boat in difficulty and had found the bodies. It
The United States plans to increase the number of military and humanitarian drills it conducts in the Asia-Pacific as part of a new strategy to counter China’s rapid expansion in the South China Sea, the Philippine military said on Wednesday. Admiral Harry Harris, commander of the U.S. Pacific Command, highlighted key aspects of the Pentagon’s freshly drafted Asia Pacific Maritime Security Strategy during talks with his Filipino counterpart, General Hernando
By Mohammad Stanekzai LASHKAR GAH, Afghanistan (Reuters) – The Taliban seized a district headquarters in Afghanistan’s Helmand province on Monday despite U.S. air strikes to repel them, and two NATO soldiers were shot dead by uniformed men on an army base in the area, a stronghold for militants and opium. The district of Musa Qala fell after the Taliban over-ran police and army posts in an offensive that lasted several
JUBA, South Sudan (AP) — South Sudan President Salva Kiir on Wednesday signed a peace deal with rebels, more than 20 months after the start of fighting between the army and rebels led by his former deputy.
SAN ANTONIO DEL TACHIRA, Venezuela (AP) — More than 100 Colombians carrying their possessions on their shoulders waded knee-deep across a river back into their homeland, fleeing a Venezuelan crackdown on illegal migrants and smugglers that is generating an increasingly angry dispute between the South American neighbors.
