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Approximately 10,000 Soldiers are serving in Kuwait and surrounding areas, participating in Operation Spartan Shield. They are from the 3rd Brigade of the 1st Armored Division; the 40th Combat Aviation Brigade; the 32nd Army Air and Missile Defense Command; the 197th Fires Brigade; and the 69th Air Defense Artillery Br... |
Some 33,000 Soldiers are also scattered throughout Europe, where they are conducting theater security cooperation events in support of Operation Atlantic Resolve. They are in Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Poland, Latvia and Germany. This week, units from U.S. Army Europe began participating in Operation Iron Sword in Lit... |
About 9,000 Soldiers are supporting missions throughout Africa, including 1st Brigade of the 101st Airborne Division, and the 53rd Infantry Brigade Combat Team (Florida Army National Guard). |
Some 4,000 Soldiers are in the U.S. Southern Command area, where they are supporting humanitarian and training missions. |
More than 71,000 Soldiers are supporting exercises and operations in the Pacific and in South Korea. |
On Nov. 12, Eighth Army commander Lt. Gen. Thomas S. Vandal and his wife read the Thanksgiving storybook, "The Night Before Thanksgiving," to children at Yongsan Library, South Korea, during Thanksgiving Story Hour. About 50 children, accompanied by their parents, attended the event. |
"Reading habits are extremely important in the age of childhood, and Thanksgiving stories can give a positive impression to children," Librarian Kim, Son-chul said. |
When leaders of high rank become involved, he added, they set an example for children and personify the value of reading. |
Following the event, a Thanksgiving lunch that included chopped turkey and a Thanksgiving Day cake was served. |
President George Washington proclaimed Thanksgiving a national celebration in 1789. President Abraham Lincoln also proclaimed Thanksgiving a national celebration in 1863, during the Civil War. |
Lincoln said, "I do, therefore, invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a day of Thanksgiving." |
During World War II, President Franklin D. Roosevelt said, "May we on Thanksgiving Day and on every day express our gratitude and zealously devote ourselves to our duties as individuals and as a nation. May each of us dedicate his utmost efforts to speeding the victory which will bring new opportunities for peace and b... |
The driver of a Tesla Model S that crashed in Utah repeatedly misused the car's Autopilot system to check her phone then hit a stationary truck at 60 mph. |
SAN FRANCISCO — If you want proof people will push the limits of a technology, even if at risk to their lives, look no farther than last week's crash of a Tesla Model S in Utah. |
According to a report issued Wednesday by police in South Jordan, a suburb of Salt Lake City, the 28-year-old woman at the wheel of the $100,000 electric sedan engaged Autopilot — Tesla's driver-assist software that requires driver oversight — and then didn't touch the steering wheel for 80 seconds. |
Until she hit a stopped firetruck at 60 mph. |
That she walked away with only a broken foot likely warrants a separate story on how the Model S can handle a crash. But for the moment we're focusing on the fact that for half the length of your average pop song, the driver felt little need to monitor her vehicle's progress. |
The driver, whose name was withheld by police, couldn't be reached. But she had told police previously that she was looking at her phone while the car sped along on Autopilot. |
Police added that "the vehicle registered more than a dozen instances of her hands being off the steering wheel in this drive cycle," including two instances where she didn't touch the wheel for more than one minute. She touched the wheel briefly each time only after heeding a visual alert to do so that appeared on her... |
Human drivers' readiness to trust their cars' ability to take over some basic driving functions is becoming more apparent as automakers feverishly add driver-assist tech to their fleets. |
These features largely consist of basic heads-up systems that warn you about cars in a neighboring lane but increasingly will consist of so-called Level 2 technology, wherein multiple sensors work in concert to let the car take over for you in bumper-to-bumper traffic, with your monitoring. |
The reasons for this in-car tech arms race range from increasing safety (40,000 people died in U.S. road accidents last year) to keeping up with rivals (once only found in luxury cars, such tech is fast trickling down to entry-level models). |
But can humans be entrusted with tech that can lull us into a false sense of security and cause us to ignore automaker warnings about their fallibility? Last week's crash suggests maybe not. |
In a story last month focusing on the potential negative consequences of increasingly capable driver assist tech — essentially an automotive weigh station between regular cars and self-driving vehicles — an autonomous car expert seemed to predict the Utah incident. |
“These systems are designed not only for ideal environments like good weather and clear lane markings, but also for rational behavior, and humans are predictably irrational,” said Bryan Reimer, a research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who specializes in self-driving tech. |
"The question is, does the automation work so well and require so little of you that in essence a new safety problem is created while solving for another?" Reimer asks. |
The Utah driver's reliance on Tesla's Autopilot system wasn't limited to the moments before the May 11 accident. |
Citing data provided by Tesla engineers who checked the car's computer logs, police said the driver engaged Autosteer (which keeps a Tesla between lane markings) and Traffic Aware Cruise Control (which will account for moving cars ahead of you, though not a stopped truck) on multiple occasions during her drive, "regula... |
Both the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board are looking into the Utah crash and will make recommendations based on their findings. The investigations come as Tesla is trying to ramp up production of its entry-level Model 3 sedan, considered critical to both short... |
Both transportation agencies also are examining the details of a March crash of a Tesla Model X in Mountain View, Calif., in which Autopilot also was engaged. |
The Model X hit a center median and the driver was killed; Tesla said data shows he ignored multiple warnings to retake control of the car, but his family is considering a lawsuit based on the driver's past complaints about Autopilot's erratic behavior over the same stretch of highway. |
Tesla CEO Elon Musk recently blasted the media for playing up recent Tesla accidents, arguing traditional cars kill an average of 100 people a day and those stories go under-reported. |
"It’s super messed up that a Tesla crash resulting in a broken ankle is front page news," Musk tweeted this week. |
Tesla, along with other automakers with driver-assist tech, stresses in car manuals that Autopilot's various features — which work leveraging road information collected by on-board radar and cameras — require constant vigilance and failure to do so "may result in death." |
That cautionary stance stands in contrast to the somewhat misleading and omnipotent name for the system as well as various enthusiastic comments made by Musk over the years. |
“Long term, it’ll be way better than a person. It never gets tired, never has something to drink, never argues with someone in the car," Musk said at a press conference when Autopilot was added via a software update to Tesla vehicles in 2015. |
Long term, Musk may well be proven correct. Waymo, Google's self-driving car company, has been testing autonomous vehicles for the better part of nine years now and the few accidents reported typically are the fault of humans in other cars. |
But the problem with our current state is that "the most dangerous part (of today's driver-assist tech) is the handoff between humans and computers, because humans are too complacent and lax if the computer seems like it can do it on its own," says Karl Bauer, executive publisher of Cox Automotive. |
"That's an unfixable problem," he says. "There's almost no way around bad human behavior." |
In fact, he cautions that even if automakers suddenly made it more difficult for drivers to disappear into other tasks while driver-assist tech handles the road, some people will find a way around that. |
"Another bad habit of humans is they revel in finding ways to trick a computer," he says. |
True enough. Consider a product called the Autopilot Buddy, a $179 piece of magnetic plastic that fools a Tesla's steering wheel into thinking your hands are on it. No more nagging alerts. Or chimes. Or ... life? |
An increasingly popular concern is that robots will eat up labour’s share of income at an accelerating rate, leaving ordinary workers impoverished and unemployed. A common dinner conversation topic in Silicon Valley is universal basic income, and the typical argument advanced for UBI is that we are destined to indefini... |
Technological unemployment is always scary because it’s hard to understand what the future will hold. But despite spikes during brief periods of disruption, unemployment rates have not appreciated over the course of the last three centuries. |
Innovation is the only sustainable way to make society wealthier and better off. In terms of real GDP, Americans are on average more than eight times wealthier today than they were in 1917 2. In the 16th century, Queen Elizabeth was practically the only person wearing silk stockings. In the 21st century, any American w... |
In the past 30 years, we have experienced a complicated period of globalisation. Global inequality has actually decreased as emerging markets have prospered from market reforms. However, with global competition, prosperity in the West has been unequally distributed — many working class families have struggled in the fa... |
Imagine that you are an average American living in the late 19th century: a time when workplace fatalities were 30 times more likely than current levels, there were rampant disease outbreaks of typhoid, cholera, and tuberculosis, and many farmers were barely able to sell enough crops to survive. Even if you were a weal... |
You would have been justifiably worried about the future unemployment of the bobbin turners, candle makers, and small-time agrarians of your day. But hundreds of millions of new employment opportunities would open up, as living conditions continued to surge upwards. Neo-Luddite fears about technological unemployment ar... |
The “creative destruction” driven by innovation is scary because it’s hard to predict what a future, wealthier society looks like. Imagine explaining software engineering to your great, great grandparents! Here are 12 example ideas for areas where we might expect future jobs. |
As virtual reality hardware and software evolve, whole new historical novels and science fiction adventures will be tailored to people’s individual personalities. Demand will rocket for talented creatives or human actors who control dynamic avatars in personalised storylines. Hollywood and gaming industries will collab... |
The nanotechnology market has exploded since 2000, currently employing more than a million Americans and growing. As a result, we may see substantial advancements in semiconductor technology, hyper-targeted drug therapeutics, and aircraft construction. We may eventually see clothing that moulds to your skin and “utilit... |
Designing, building, and managing community marketplaces for brand and business purposes can probably also employ millions of Americans part time. UX designers and content writers; social media influencers such as style bloggers, YouTube stars and Instagram celebrities; digital marketing consultants, and other e-market... |
If Elon Musk is right, in the next 10–30 years, advances in spaceflight technologies will create an entirely new economy in our Solar System. Construction of new habitats on the Moon and Mars will create colony design, terraforming jobs, and work building vehicles to handle the new terrain. We will see everything from ... |
When the Baby boomers age out of the workforce, they will require high-quality residential assistance with health, hygiene, transportation, meal preparation, housekeeping and more. Given how spoiled Baby boomers are, these wild children of the 60s and 70s will no doubt respond well to new forms of attention and enterta... |
Our newly-minted sharing economies are a creative expansion of the service industry. You can now serve someone else by renting them your room on AirBnB, giving them an Uber ride in your free time, or renting them your power tools. Information technology is expanding our capacity to serve each other by performing new ki... |
Technological breakthroughs in fracking and the renewable energy sector have created jobs for millions in America. As energy technologies develop and drive down prices, this industry will continue to expand. In addition to creating jobs for technologists and scientists working on carbon capture, petrochemical refining,... |
Professional coaching will be in high demand as the American economy moves forward, also creating new jobs in the millions. New technology will quantify aspects of your emotional reactions, self-discipline, baseline outlook, and a new class of psychological coaches will emerge to help people improve their personalities... |
Scores of new jobs will open up at the juncture of data analysis and human opinion. Businesses will look to collect data on aspects of the marketing, design, features and more while also testing potential markets by sending out exploratory surveys. Amazon’s “Mechanical Turk” is the prime example of this form of man/mac... |
As technology enables a greater number of talented individuals to create large amounts of wealth, a plethora of staff roles will emerge for executive and personal assistants: individuals to whom people can delegate organisational, administrative, and communication tasks. Tens of millions of people wish they had house a... |
Jobs requiring direct human contact and interpersonal energy will emerge in the millions. New technology will open up richer worlds of human interaction as we develop new techniques for measuring and understanding our humanity. Nursing jobs, jobs in psychiatry and psychological therapy, business consulting work, human ... |
CRISPR/Cas9 and other new techniques in synthetic biology are now making it possible to genetically engineer plants and animals from scratch. Some groups are already drafting plans to revive mammoths in Siberia for environmental purposes (and hopefully anyone planning Jurassic Park will be more careful with the raptor ... |
But Doesn’t AI Destroy All Jobs? |
Many of our friends believe that we are on the brink of developing superhuman artificial intelligence which will replace human labour, radically transforming our productivity function. Views that AI poses a serious existential threat or constitutes an incomprehensible inflexion point in the history of our species have ... |
While some view AI as a kind of salvation, others have responded with anxiety. Policy rooted in fear tends to be irrational and repressive. The pro-jobs response to disruptive innovation is to cultivate a flexible economy that can swiftly adapt to technological change. First, we should increase upward mobility by makin... |
Second, we should make it easier for entrepreneurs to start new firms and employ more people in new forms of work. Wealth is only ever actually created from the bottom-up, with free people employing their distinctly human creativity and finding ways to serve and employ others. To make sure we’re creating new jobs we ne... |
Fear is the wrong response to technological unemployment. Focusing on economic flexibility and adaptability — with special attention to eliminating the barriers we’ve accidentally created to the mobility of the working classes — is the right response to technological disruption. With sound policy in the context of a fr... |
Technological unemployment is scary for those affected — but has always gone hand in hand with economic progress. In the next few decades, we will continue to invent new ways to entertain, educate, serve and delight others, employing billions in the process. Populists will predictably vilify innovation — fear and hatre... |
Joe Lonsdale is a partner at 8VC, and as an entrepreneur founded companies including Palantir, Addepar, and OpenGov. |
1. See: Wyatt, Ian D. and Daniel E. Hecker. “Occupational Changes During the 20th Century.” Monthly Labor Review, Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2006. https://www.bls.gov/mlr/2006/03/art3full.pdf. |
Defending champions India were held to a goalless draw by Malaysia but managed to maintain their pole position in the points table in the Asian Champions Trophy hockey tournament in Muscat. |
Both India and the Asian Games Silver medallists Malaysia now have 10 points each from four outings in the preliminary round-robin league, with India topping the standings on basis of a superior goal difference. |
The Indian team were off to a nervy start as they wasted several scoring opportunities early in the match. |
They had a spate of chances early in the contest, only for Hardik Singh to fritter away a scoring opportunity. Harmanpreet Singh's penalty corner flick was blocked by the Malaysian goalkeeper and Mandeep failed to get a touch on long diagonal ball. It happened twice in the first quarter. |
In the second half, the Indian strikers were not allowed space to enter the circle until the closing stages, when they forced two penalty corners but could not produce a goal-bearing shot. |
India's chief coach Harendra Singh slammed his team for the missed chances. |
"I am not happy. We cannot miss chances like this in international hockey," he said. |
LOS ANGELES, Sept 8 (Reuters) - The collapse of Corinthian Colleges Inc. and the abrupt shutdown of several other for-profit campuses this year have left tens of thousands of students wondering about the future of their education - and their debt. |
For many students, starting over after a shut-down may be the best option, because it means they would be eligible to have their federal student loans “discharged,” or erased, from that institution, said Robyn Smith, an attorney with the National Consumer Law Center. But they could not transfer any credits. |
However, if the student continues with another college - called a “teach out” deal - the loan discharge option would evaporate, said Rohit Chopra, student loan ombudsman for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. |
Student loans also typically cannot be discharged if the college is sold, even if the new institution discontinues the student’s program. |
Some students may try to finish their educations at other for-profit schools, especially if they’re close to graduation or they’ve used up most of their available grant aid. Grant programs such as Pell Grants and GI benefits have lifetime limits, and aid spent on aborted educations reduces the amount left for starting ... |
“This is a complex situation,” Smith said, and the information students receive from the colleges often “is not that helpful” in clarifying their options or rights. |
High student loan default rates have drawn attention to the for-profit college industry, which enrolls 13 percent of college students but accounts for 46 percent of defaults, according to the U.S. Department of Education. Consumer advocates have long questioned the industry’s business practices, saying students are oft... |
A U.S. Government Accountability Office undercover probe in 2010 found that four of the 15 colleges it investigated encouraged students to commit fraud with financial aid applications and that all 15 made “deceptive or otherwise questionable statements” to its applicants. |
Corinthian, which operates the Heald, WyoTech and Everest chains, has been the target of several state and federal investigations. In June, the federal Department of Education temporarily shut off the company’s access to federal financial aid, saying Corinthian failed to produce documents that were part of an investiga... |
The 21-day restriction was enough to send Corinthian into a tailspin, since the vast majority of its revenue comes from federal student loans and grants. In July the company agreed to sell or shutter most of its 107 campuses. |
Corinthian is one of the largest for-profit college companies, with more than 70,000 students and 12,000 employees. Other for-profit schools that have run aground this year include Anthem Education, which had 41 campuses before filing for bankruptcy in August; BioHealth College Inc, which filed for bankruptcy in July a... |
Many states have student tuition recovery funds that may help reimburse those who prepaid tuition at closed schools, although Smith questions whether the funds have enough money to handle the expected deluge of student requests. The Student Loan Borrower Assistance site, which is run by Smith’s National Consumer Law Ce... |
The Department of Education encourages students to contact the companies servicing their student loans to find out how to get a discharge. |
Similar relief typically isn’t available for private student loans. Some lenders offer partial discharges when schools close, “but that’s rare,” Smith said. Students should contact their lenders to see what options, if any, are available to them, Chopra said. |
Some students at Corinthian schools have complained that administrators have left them in the dark about what’s happening to their campuses or offered misleading assurances that they didn’t have to worry about the changes. |
If students don’t understand their rights and options, they may accept teach-outs or other deals that preclude them from erasing what may turn out to be unpayable debt, Smith said. |
Students of failed or troubled colleges also may be targeted by other for-profit institutions eager to scoop up new customers, regardless of whether their programs can help the students find jobs. |
Smith encourages students at troubled schools to research their options, including studying at a local non-profit community college, which usually offers similar vocational training at a lower cost. |
Community colleges may not be as flexible with scheduling as for-profit schools and it may take somewhat longer to get a certificate or degree, Smith said. |
Who is Mira Ricardel and why did Melania Trump want her fired? |
Mira Ricardel barely lasted seven months as deputy national security adviser before First Lady Melania Trump issued an unprecedented call for her dismissal and President Donald Trump moved to fire her. |
In those few months on the job, Ricardel generated a long list of enemies and developed a reputation for shouting at subordinates, plotting against White House officials she disliked and leaking stories about her administration opponents to the press. One source familiar with the situation said Ricardel's firing is due... |
Current and former colleagues of Ricardel paint a picture of a committed conservative and national security expert with a strong personality. One former colleague described her as someone who doesn't "suffer fools" or have a nuanced touch when it comes to navigating the shoals of internal politics. A White House offici... |
The former State Department and Pentagon official made enemies of heavyweights within the Trump administration, feuding with chief of staff John Kelly, his deputy Zach Fuentes, and locked horns with Defense Secretary James Mattis, according to people familiar with the White House intrigue. |
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