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Metro Long Island Politics World News Search Type to Search Search US News San Francisco power outage left 130,000 in the dark as self-driving cars stalled in middle of streets By Nicholas McEntyre Published Dec. 20, 2025, 11:30 p.m. ET Today's Video Headlines 00:22 / 00:49 San Francisco plunged into darkness when nearly 30 percent of the city was struck by a power outage, which brought vital transportation, such as self-driving cars, to a grinding halt on Saturday night. Over 130,000 houses and businesses were left in the dark, largely in the northwest part of San Francisco, including the Richmond,...

The EU looks set to scrap a landmark 2035 ban on new petrol and diesel cars on Tuesday, as part of a package of reforms aimed at supporting Europe's embattled auto industry. Carmakers and their backers have lobbied hard for Brussels to relax the ban over the past year – in the face of fierce competition from China and a slower-than-expected shift to electric vehicles (EVs). Set in 2023, the ban was a cornerstone of the EU's environmental Green Deal, which has come under increased pressure from businesses and right-wing politicians as the EU seeks to bolster its industry.

The car world is taking a long look at its EV offerings as major brands decide to kill off some of the very models that, just a few years ago, were touted as the way forward for automakers. With a new administration, slashed tax incentives for EVs, and wonky pricing, tariffs, and inflation, some surprising cuts are being made. Checking in on the state of EVs with Art Wheaton, automotive expert and director of labor studies at Cornell University ILR School in Buffalo, New York, he confirmed in a recent call, “It’s a brutal market. And the current administration isn’t...

Carl Junction (MO)Police Department has two brand new electric vehicles from the Tesla Model Y line. One is for the detective division while the other is for the patrol division. Officer Amos Bindel has been driving it and told us the performance has been great.

In January, when the Trump Administration reduced electric vehicle subsidies, environmentalists confidently asserted that the rest of the world would reject such an approach. Now, nine months later, it seems everyone is following his lead. In Canada, Prime Minister Mark Carney paused an electric-vehicle sales mandate due to kick in next year.In Great Britain, Prime Minister Keir Starmer has weakened his government’s timetable for the adoption of EVs.The European Union is on the verge of rolling back its 2035 target for eliminating carbon-dioxide emissions.“Automakers have been saying that consumers aren’t adopting EVs as quickly as expected, and government efforts to...

The status quo is not going to cut it for Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney at his Tuesday meeting with President Donald Trump in Washington. With an unemployment rate of 7.1%, the highest level in nine years and half a percentage point higher since the start of this year, Canada’s economy is faltering. Steep tariffs Trump slapped on cars, steel and aluminum — key Canadian exports to the United States — are making matters worse. And Carney’s meeting is happening just as Trump is prepared to deal another blow to the Canadian economy: tariffs on softwood and lumber, among the...

It seems that the world of technology—including the automotive industry—is undergoing a “re-buttoning” phase. While touchscreens remain a dominant feature in vehicle interiors, automakers are revisiting the value of physical controls as drivers rediscover their importance. Driving, after all, is one area where practicality and safety demand simplicity. But what’s driving this shift in design philosophy?” Rachel Plotnick, an Associate Professor at Indiana University Bloomington and something of a “button guru,” has been studying this tactile resurgence for years. As the author of Power Button: A History of Pleasure, Panic, and the Politics of Pushing (2018), Plotnick has explored the...

(08-29) 15:20 PDT SAN FRANCISCO -- As many as 14 people were injured this afternoon by a motorist who drove around San Francisco running them down before he was arrested, authorities said. Seven of those injured were in critical condition, police and firefighters said. Authorities have identified the man who was arrested as Ohmeed Aziz Popal, who has an address in Ceres. Authorities said they believe Popal was the same driver who ran over a 55-year-old man walking in a bicycle lane in Fremont, at Fremont Boulevard near Ferry Lane, just after noon. That victim died. Popal was arrested at...

Do you spend too much time in your car? Your local state authorities think you do — and they’re quietly pushing through laws that will give them the power to do something about it. Meet Massachusetts Senate Bill S.2246. Introduced by state Senate Majority Leader Cynthia Creem, it sets the stage for a future where the government tracks and potentially limits how many miles you drive each year. This isn’t a fringe proposal — it’s working its way through the legislature right now, and similar ideas are being tested in other states across the country. Is this really about emissions...

The F1 champion Niki Lauda had a horrifying accident in Germany in August 1976, 49 years ago this week. He was not expected to live, let alone race again. After defying all expectations, he told the BBC in 1977 how he willed himself to stay alive. When Formula 1 racing driver Niki Lauda spoke to the BBC in 1977, his face bore testimony to the trauma he had endured during the German Grand Prix. Trapped inside the burning wreckage of his smashed Ferrari on the Nürburgring circuit, Lauda had been badly scarred and had lost part of his ear to...

Donald Trump and Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum have spoken on the phone this morning as Mexico seeks an agreement with its biggest trading partner ahead of Trump’s 1 August deadline. “Mexico will continue to pay a 25% Fentanyl Tariff, 25% Tariff on Cars, and 50% Tariff on Steel, Aluminum, and Copper. Additionally, Mexico has agreed to immediately terminate its Non Tariff Trade Barriers, of which there were many,” Trump said in a Truth Social post. Trump said his administration would continue talking to Mexico over the next 90 days (“or longer”) with the goal of signing a trade deal. He...

The Senate is weighing a major change to federal fuel-economy rules that would kneecap the policy that dramatically reduced gas consumption and helped create fuel-efficient cars like the Toyota Prius hybrid. Republican senators are proposing a change to the Corporate Average Fuel Economy, or CAFE, rules as part of President Trump’s wide-ranging tax and spending bill. If enacted, the proposal would eliminate fines for violating CAFE, all but nullifying rules that for generations have pushed automakers to churn out ever cleaner and more fuel-efficient vehicles. That technology has saved two trillion gallons of gasoline over the past 50 years, according...

AI-driven ­vehicles stand the chance of being hijacked by terrorists and used to deliver mass casualty attacks without the need for a suicide bomber, a U.N. report warns. The report, Algorithms and Terrorism: The Malicious Use of Artificial Intelligence for Terrorist Purposes, details ways emerging AI technologies could be weaponised by extremists and was first covered by The Times. Self-driving cars, drones and other automated systems to target crowded public spaces could all be seized and remotely controlled by terrorists to deliver deadly consequences in crowded public spaces. U.N. Report Warns Terrorists Could Weaponize Driverless Cars as ‘Slaughterbots’ LOS ANGELES,...

The GOP-led Senate voted Thursday to take away California’s ability to set its own tailpipe emissions standards, effectively killing the country’s biggest driver of EV investment. The vote was 51-44. The move nullifies a measure, enacted by the state in 2022 and later adopted by 11 other states, banning the sale of new gasoline-powered cars by 2035. The House already passed the same resolution. Now it heads to President Trump for his signature. U.S. carmakers and auto dealers argued that keeping in place the waiver—which permits California to set stricter emissions rules than the federal government—could cripple the industry by...

WASHINGTON, May 19 (Reuters) - The U.S. Transportation Department is expected to declare that fuel economy rules issued under then President Joe Biden exceeded the government's legal authority by including electric vehicles in setting the rules, automakers said on Monday. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the department's National Highway Traffic Safety Administration on Friday submitted its interpretive rule, "Resetting the Corporate Average Fuel Economy Program" to the White House for review. He said in a statement the prior administration had "illegally used CAFE standards as a backdoor electric vehicle mandate – driving the price of cars up."

In today’s environment, buying a new car has become a stretch for many households - fueling demand in the used-car market. But not all used vehicles are created equal, and reliability plays a major role in long-term ownership costs.For buyers looking to avoid expensive repairs down the road, brand reputation is more important than ever.In this graphic, Visual Capitalist's Marcus Lu ranked the best used-car brands of 2025, using data from Consumer Reports.Data & MethodologyTo come up with these reliability scores, Consumer Reports asked its members to report how many problems they’ve had with their vehicles over the past 12...

We have been strong supporters of this Congressional Review Act effort because the automobile market is clearly interstate commerce. And Biden let Calfiornia take the lead to eventually ban internal combustion vehicles nationally.Banning gas cars is wildly unpopular. This may explain why every House Republican and 35 House Democrats – the biggest bipartisan vote on a green issue in recent memory – voted to let Americans drive the car of their choice.These are the 35 Democrats who voted yes, including two from California and six from New York:Next up is the Senate. Maybe.The Senate Parliamentarian is reportedly taking the puzzling...

It looks as though trade progress is being made with Japan, as concessions about automobiles were reported on this weekend, signaling that Trump administration could be heading towards a revised agreement with the key ally nation. Japan may loosen auto safety rules for U.S. imports to address President Trump’s concerns over the low number of American cars sold there, Nikkei reports. With differing safety standards between the two countries, Tokyo is eyeing crash test regulations as a possible trade concession, according to Nikkei. During a White House meeting, Trump criticized Japan’s trade surplus and poor U.S. auto sales. Cabinet-level talks...

President Trump on Monday suggested he might temporarily exempt the auto industry from tariffs he previously imposed on the sector to give carmakers time to overhaul their complex supply chains. Mr. Trump told reporters gathered in the Oval Office that automakers "need a little bit of time" to relocate production from Canada, Mexico and elsewhere to the U.S. Car manufacturers' supply chains are tightly interwoven with other nations, making it almost impossible to make vehicles entirely in the United States. Because U.S. automakers source many of their car parts from key trade partners, including Canada, Mexico and China, a fully...

The supply of many foreign-made goods into the US is likely to grind to a halt as a result of President Trump’s tariffs, sources told The Post Monday. A baseline tariff of 10% was applied to many countries Saturday, with heftier percentages applied to the “worst offenders,” which levy high tariffs on US goods they import, in two days. Companies producing everything from toys to luxury wristwatches said they are holding off shipping goods — risking America going from the land of plenty to the land of plenty unavailable. The first luxury items to leave circulation: Jaguar, Range Rover and...