Renault unveiled its new autonomous concept car at the Paris Motor Show 2018 and it gives us a look at what the future transport might look like.

The EZ-Ultimo has no space for a driver, it can fit a maximum of three passengers, everything is 100% electric and it looks like a luxury lounge inside.

Watch the video to find out more.

Produced by Charlie Floyd. Filmed by David Ibekwe

A former Rice football player has been arrested and charged in connection with the March death of his former teammate, Blain Padgett.

The Harris County (Texas) District Attorney’s Office announced Friday that Stuart Mouchantaf, 25, sold an opioid to Padgett that led to his death. According to a news release, Padgett believed he was buying Hydrocodone (more commonly known as vicodin), but he was instead given Carfentanil — an opioid that has been used as an elephant tranquilizer and is 5,000 times as potent as heroin.

“Users better beware that even a spec of this drug can kill you,” Harris County DA Kim Ogg said in a statement. “And dealers, you are on notice that if your product kills people, you will be prosecuted for causing a death, not just dealing drugs.”

Mouchantaf is being charged with “delivery of a controlled substance causing death” and could face between five and 99 years in prison if found guilty. He was being held on $250,000 bond as of Friday morning, according to jail records, and is due to make his initial court appearance Monday. Online records did not indicate whether Mouchantaf had obtained a lawyer.

Padgett, a junior defensive end at Rice, was found dead in his apartment on March 2 after he did not show up for a workout. He was 21 years old.

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Mouchantaf and Padgett played together at Rice in 2015, when the former was a redshirt senior and the latter was a true freshman. Mouchantaf recorded 51 tackles over three seasons at the school, while Padgett was viewed as a key player on the Owls’ defensive line prior to his death.

“Don’t go a day without telling your kids and your parents, and your brothers, sisters that you love them, because you never know,” Padgett’s mother, Wyndi, told KTRK-TV in Houston earlier this week. “Also, make good choices, you know, and be informed because I think Blain knew about choices like drinking and driving, but I think this is something that’s fairly new, at least it’s new to us. But don’t take anything from anyone unless a doctor has prescribed it for you. Period. You don’t know what’s in it.”

Contact Tom Schad at tschad@usatoday.com or on Twitter @Tom_Schad.

 

Scott Olson/Getty

• US equity markets were under pressure Friday after a solid jobs report pushed the unemployment rate down to 3.7%, its lowest since 1969.
• Traders continue to watch the bond market closely, as the 10-year hit 3.24%, its highest since 2011.
• Tesla shares were hit hard after Elon Musk took a swipe at the Securities and Exchange Commission on Twitter and hedge fund billionaire David Einhorn compared the company to the failed US bank Lehman Brothers.  

US equity markets were hit hard for a second straight day Friday, with all of the major averages sporting losses of at least 1% at their lows. Heavy selling pushed the tech-heavy Nasdaq down by as much as 2.1%. 

Friday’s weakness comes after the Bureau of Labor Statistics said the unemployment rate in the US fell to 3.7% in September, the lowest since 1969. Nonfarm payrolls rose by 134,000, fewer than expected and slowed in part by the wrath of Hurricane Florence. Almost 300,000 workers, most likely in industries like hospitality in which they’re paid only if they show up, said the storm kept them away from their jobs. 

The solid jobs report sent long-dated US Treasury yields to their highest level in over seven years, with the benchmark 10-year up more than 5 basis points to 3.24%. The recent strength in economic data has traders grappling with the possibility that the Federal Reserve could raise interest rates more quickly than expected. Those rate hikes would make it more expensive for companies to borrow money, and potentially choke off economic growth sooner than anticipated.

Heavy selling battered tech stocks for the second day in a row. This time the electric-car maker Tesla was in the crosshairs, down more than 7%, after CEO Elon Musk took a swipe at the Securities and Exchange Commission on Twitter.

“Just want to that the Short-seller Enrichment Commission is doing incredible work,” Musk tweeted Thursday evening. “And the name change is so on point!”

Tesla shares were also pressured by hedge fund billionaire David Einhorn appearing on CNBC and comparing the company to the failed US bank Lehman Brothers. Apple fell about 2% after Einhorn said he was selling shares in fear China would retaliate against America’s trade policies. 

Elsewhere, Netflix sank more than 4% and is now more than 15% below its record high of $423.20 that was set in June. 

On the upside, General Electric popped after laying out the contract details for Larry Culp, its new CEO. Culp will receive an annual salary of $2.5 million and have the potential to earn another $300 million if GE’s stock price rises by 75% over the next four years, according to CNBC. He has the chance to earn $3.75 million in annual bonuses. 

Looking ahead to next week, earnings season kicks off with Walgreens Boots Alliance reporting on Thursday and JPMorgan, Citigroup, and Wells Fargo all releasing their quarterly results on Friday. 

Markets Insider

On March 16, 2015, I received an email saying that there has been an attempt to break into my Gmail account and that I needed to change my password immediately. The blue “change password” button looked indeed quite tempting on the screen of my phone, but before pressing it, I noticed that the address from which the email was sent was a bit strange: no-reply@accounts.google.com.mail.com

The mobile version of Gmail would normally cut off part of this address and most users would not notice its weird tail. But I did.

In the coming months, I kept receiving such emails which I ended up sending to four cybersecurity organisations. Investigating the emails, they all reached the same conclusion: that the hacker group APT28, also known as Fancy Bear and Pawn Storm, was behind these phishing attempts.

And I was not the only one targeted by APT28. Dozens of other Russian journalists, activists and NGO workers received such emails, and so did state institutions of many Western countries.

A year later, Fancy Bear became known internationally. In July 2016, the whistle-blower website WikiLeaks published the contents of the Democratic National Committee’s mail server, which some believe ended up costing Hillary Clinton the presidency. The hack was attributed to that same cyber group.

Over the past two years, Russian hackers have also been accused of attacking NATO, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), the International Olympic Committee, the World Anti-Doping Agency, various ministries in Denmark, Italy, and Germany, the Joint Investigation Team tasked with investigating the downing of flight MH17 over Ukraine, and various other institutions in the Czech Republic, Poland, Germany, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Ukraine, Norway, etc.

In the fall of 2017, Russian hackers attacked the election campaign of Emmanuel Macron ahead of the French presidential vote and released a number of files and emails. But in doing so, they made one major mistake: they left behind metadata which contained a Russian name – Georgy Petrovich Roshka.

I, along with a number of colleagues, was able to identify this man as a member of the special army unit 26165 of the GRU. A year later, the US Department of Justice published a list of 12 GRU agents, some of whom are members of that same unit, who are accused of being behind the DNC server attack.

Now, more than three years after the first phishing attempt on my email, the tables have turned. The hackers failed to obtain my personal information, but I have succeeded in uncovering theirs. As I’m writing this, I have on my screen a list of 305 potential GRU agents with their names, surnames, passport numbers and even their mobile phones.

All of them had registered their cars at the same address in Moscow, Komsomolsky Prospekt 20, the address of unit 26165. The reason we were looking for these registrations in a publicly available traffic police database is that one of the GRU officers the Netherlands is accusing of trying to hack into the OPCW has a car registered to that address.

The man in question, Alexey Morenets, was named as one of four GRU agents caught in April in a parking lot in The Hague while trying to hack into the OPCW. The Dutch authorities also uncovered that the four were looking into hacking a laboratory in Switzerland that had tested samples of the substance used in the poisoning of former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal in Salisbury, UK, earlier this year. Apart from hacking equipment, Dutch police also uncovered a taxi receipt for a trip from the GRU office directly to an airport in Moscow. It is kind of funny that a GRU agent would keep such an incriminating receipt, probably hoping to expense his taxi ride after coming back from the “business trip”.

Apart from car registration records, another way for us to uncover GRU agents has been their passport number sequencing. A few weeks ago, British authorities released the passport details of the two Russian men, Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, they suspect of being behind the Skripal poisoning. We noticed that their passport numbers were almost completely identical except for one of the last digits. Our investigation showed that there are other GRU agents who have passports with this sequence of numbers.

When I wrote in September about the blunders of the GRU, I did not even think that it would be so easy to uncover the names of hundreds of potential agents. If journalists like me are able to access this information through open source investigations, then imagine what western intelligence services can do.

Over the past few years, the Kremlin has used the GRU for a number of subversive operations abroad including assassinations, cyber attacks and infiltration of border territories. Every time, it has denied responsibility but has also failed to properly cover up its tracks.

Today there is so much evidence uncovered of Russian intelligence operations abroad, that even people in Russia, where Petrov and Boshirov became internet memes, do not believe the Kremlin’s claim to innocence.

If the GRU’s mission was to incite divisions and instability in the West, it seems to have failed. As a result of Russia’s aggressive intelligence activities, the West has formed an increasingly united front against it and even spoilers like Donald Trump and Brexit will not be able to bring it down.

New sanctions on Russia are being prepared, and it seems that hopes for a rapprochement or a restart in relations have been dashed.

While in 2016, Trump was able to challenge speculations of Russian involvement in the DNC hack, today he no longer can. We have plenty of evidence about it and other crimes, and we have the identities of the perpetrators with their names, passport details and even mobile phone numbers.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial policy. 

WASHINGTON – Now that the Senate has moved to advance Brett Kavanaugh, four conflicted senators will decide the fate of President Donald Trump’s nominee for the Supreme Court.

The quartet of senators – Republicans Susan Collins of Maine, Jeff Flake of Arizona and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, and Democrat Joe Manchin of West Virginia – have given mixed signals on what they’ll do when the final vote occurs, which is expected as early as Saturday.

Their votes are crucial because Republicans control the Senate by a razor-thin 51-49 margin and can afford only one defection unless a Democrat such as Manchin backs Kavanaugh. If the vote is 50-50, Vice President Mike Pence would break the tie in favor of Kavanaugh. 

Following heated confirmation hearings, explosive public protests and a last-minute FBI investigation into sexual misconduct allegations, Kavanaugh’s ascension to the nation’s highest court will depend on these four senators:

Susan Collins:

Collins voted to end debate on Kavanaugh’s confirmation, paving the way for a final vote. But that doesn’t mean she’s a “yes”‘ for the nominee.

Collins said she’ll reveal whether she plans to vote for Kavanaugh at 3 p.m. Friday on the Senate floor.

Collins, a swing vote on a number of key issues the Senate has dealt with in recent years, said she was “appalled” by Trump’s tweet last month criticizing Christine Blasey Ford. Ford has accused Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her at a party in suburban Maryland when both were in high school 36 years ago.

Kavanaugh has vehemently denied the allegations. 

Jeff Flake:

The Arizona Republican frustrated his fellow Republicans last week by forcing the GOP leadership to agree to a FBI investigation into the allegations of sexual misconduct against Kavanaugh.

Flake said he would vote against Kavanaugh if the investigation found the allegations were true or that he lied during his confirmation hearing.

The FBI report found no evidence corroborating Ford’s story. But it’s unclear whether that automatically means Flake will support Trump’s nominee to the nation’s highest court.

Flake later told reporters he would support confirmation unless something significant changes.

On Friday, Flake voted to end debate and advance Kavanaugh’s nomination for a final vote.

Lisa Murkowski:

The Alaska senator was the only Republican Friday to vote against moving forward on Kavanaugh, calling  it a “very, very difficult” decision.

While her “no” vote on the motion to end debate suggested Murkowski is inclined to oppose Kavanaugh, the senator sounded as if she was still anguished and uncertain.

“I believe that Brett Kavanaugh is a good man, I believe he is a good man,” she said. “But it just may be that in my view he’s not the right man for the court at this time,” she said. “This has truly been the most difficult evaluation of a decision that I’ve ever had to make and I’m made some interesting ones in my political career.”

Republican Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, a member of the GOP leadership, said he would be “very surprised” if Murkowski switches her vote.

Joe Manchin

It’s not a huge surprise that Manchin voted for Trump’s nominee considering he’s running for reelection in a state the president won by nearly 42 percentage points over Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election.

Manchin, like Collins, also has split with his party from time to time. He was the first Democrat to meet with Kavanaugh when the nominee was meetnig with senators on Capitol Hill in July.

But if Murkowski and Collins vote against Kavanaugh, a “yes” vote from Manchni would mean the difference in confirming the president’s nominee. If that’s how the vote unfolds Saturday, expect Democrats to put extreme pressure on Manchin to oppose Kavanaugh.

Contributing: Eliza Collins, Deborah Barfield Berry, USA TODAY

 

 

 

 

 

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The gaze of a nation fell onto Alaska’s Sen. Lisa Murkowski as the Senate prepares to begin its final debate on judge Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court.

Murkowski on Friday morning was the only Republican to vote against a procedural move advancing Kavanaugh’s nomination, setting up a showdown that may have to be broken by Vice President Mike Pence. Alaska’s other senator, Dan Sullivan, voted in favor of the measure, which passed 51-49.

Murkowski told reporters she decided to oppose the procedural measure as she walked to the Senate chamber minutes before the vote.

“I believe that Brett Kavanaugh is a good man, I believe he is a good man. But it just may be that in my view he’s not the right man for the court at this time,” she said Friday after the vote. “This has truly been the most difficult evaluation of a decision that I’ve ever had to make and I’ve made some interesting ones in my political career.”

She added: “I value and respect where my colleagues have come down from and their support for the judge I also think that we’re at a place where we need to be thinking again about the credibility of the institutions.”

Murkowski will speak on the floor later Friday more about her decision after sitting stone-faced at her the Senate floor desk for much of the vote. At one point during the vote, fellow Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine leaned in and the two of them chatted. Collins put her right hand on Murkowski’s arm rest.

Murowski is facing intense pressure back home to oppose Kavanaugh. The Alaska Federation of Natives, a critical group that backed Murkowski in her 2010 re-election bid, “strongly” opposed Kavanaugh’s bid. The group came out in opposition in early September “because of, among other things, his views on the rights of Native peoples.” Murkowski told CNN she spoke to Kavanaugh about the group’s concerns. The state’s independent governor has also opposed Kavanaugh’s nomination, in part because of concern that he would rule against Native rights.

Democratic Sen. Kamala Harris of California urged voters to keep the pressure on:  “There are now 30 hours until a final vote on Judge Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court. Don’t stop calling your senators and telling them to vote NO. Keep up the fight.”

Murkowski has faced the consequences of her votes before: In 2010, she lost the Republican primary to a Tea Party challenger but won a write-in campaign to keep her seat.

More: Divided U.S. Senate votes to advance Brett Kavanaugh nomination to Supreme Court; final vote unclear

More: ‘We’re just really trying to keep up a presence here;’ Kavanaugh protesters persist despite uphill battle

More: Sen. Jeff Flake says he plans to vote yes on Kavanaugh unless something big changes

 

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