Month: August 2022

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US

Instagram model Courtney Clenney charged with murdering boyfriend Christian Toby Obumseli in Florida apartment

Instagram model Courtney Clenney charged with murdering boyfriend Christian Toby Obumseli in Florida apartment

Social media model Courtney Clenney has been charged with second-degree murder over the April death of her boyfriend, Christian Toby Obumseli, Miami State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle said Thursday. Clenney, 26, was arrested in Hawaii on Wednesday on a charge of second-degree murder with a deadly weapon.

At a press Tuesday, Rundle described an “extremely tempestuous and combative conference relationship” between the couple that began in November 2020. According to Clenney’s arrest warrant, there had been “multiple incidents of domestic violence from both sides” during the relationship.

She said that security staff at the building documented “many instances” of loud arguments between the pair after they moved into the apartment in January 2022, adding that tenants as far as two floors above the apartment had complained to the building about the noise.

Rundle also showed a video from a building elevator in February 2022 that appeared to show Clenney shoving and hitting Obumseli. According to the arrest warrant, she had also been charged with domestic battery against Obumseli in a hotel in Las Vegas in July 2021.

Rundle said that the couple briefly separated when Clenney kicked Obumseli out of her apartment in late March, but he returned on April 1. Police were called to the apartment later that day, and Clenney appeared “intoxicated” at the time, Rundle said.

Hawaii-Model-Arrested
This photo provided by the Hawaii Police Department shows Courtney Clenney.

/AP


On the day of Obumseli’s death, he left the apartment at 1:15 pm and returned at 4:33 pm with sandwiches for the pair, Rundle said. Clenney called her mother de ella at 4:43 and spoke for six minutes, and called her again at 4:49 and spoke for seven minutes, Rundle said. At 4:57, she called 911 to report that Obumseli had been stabbed. During that time, neighbors called the building about a disturbance and security also called 911, Rundle said.

Rundle said Obumseli can be heard saying that he was dying and losing feeling in his arm on her 911 call, and that Clenney was heard saying “I’m so sorry.” When police arrived, Clenney was cradling Obumseli’s body, according to her arrest warrant. He later died of his injuries at the hospital.

Clenney later told police she had stabbed Obumseli after he grabbed her by the throat and shoved her against the wall, Rundle said. She allegedly said she ran to the kitchen, grabbed a knife, and threw it at him from about 10 feet away.

But Rundle said police did not find any evidence that Clenney had been harmed and said the medical examiner disputed her account of the incident, noting that Obumseli’s injury was much more consistent with a “downward strike” with the knife than with a throw from such a far distance.

Rundle said the chief medical examiner for Miami-Dade County determined that Obumseli was killed by a three-inch deep stab wound to the chest.

“The violent and toxic two-year relationship of Christian Obumseli and Courtney Clenney did not have to end in tragedy with Christian’s murder as a victim of domestic violence,” Rundle said.

In a recorded telephone statement to police documented in the arrest warrant, Clenney’s mother allegedly told authorities that she heard Clenney telling Obumseli to leave and Clenney saying that Obumseli was “lying.” Her mother did not say anything about her daughter being, the warrant said, and while she allegedly told investigators that she had not discussed Obumseli’s death with her daughter, the warrant cited a 5:25 pm text message from “mom” on the defendant’s phone that mentioned “self-defense” and told her not to speak with investigators without an attorney.

An attorney for Obumseli’s family said at the press conference the family “always believed that with a thorough and fair investigation, this day would come to reality.”

When why it took so long to press charges on the April incident, Miami police chief Manuel Morales said it was critical to ensure the charge would stand up in court.

“You only get one shot,” he told reporters. “You want to get it right.”

Hawaii County police said in a prior statement they assisted the US Marshals Service as they arrested Clenney in Laupahoehoe, which is on the Big Island. Officers used an arrest warrant issued by Miami-Dade County, Florida.

Clenney waived extradition during her initial court appearance Thursday in Hilo District Court, paving the way for her to return to Florida. She is being held at the East Hawaii Detention Center while she awaits that extradition, police said.

slate-copy.jpg
Christian Toby Obumseli

Facebook/Christian Toby Obumseli


Clenney uses the name Courtney Tailor on Instagram and OnlyFans, where she has more than 2 million followers.

Her Miami defense lawyer, Frank Prieto, told CBS Miami that she was in Hawaii while in rehabilitation for substance abuse and post-traumatic stress disorder.

“I’m completely shocked, especially since we were cooperating with the investigation and offered to voluntarily surrender her if she were charged,” Prieto said before the Thursday press conference. “We look forward to clearing her name in court.”

Prieto said the two were together for about two years and their relationship was complicated.

“It was clearly a toxic relationship, (they) had their ups and downs and, unfortunately, it culminated with his death,” he said.

Prieto said Clenney was actively seeking professional help to process the trauma experienced on the night of the stabbing.

Obumseli’s family said that he was a soft-spoken man and the idea that this was warranted is unthinkable, CBS Miami reported.

“We have no cause to believe that this was a case of self-defense. Toby was raised with a, by a very strong family with strong morals, strong values, he does not come from that,” said Karen Egbuna, a cousin of Obumseli who also appeared at the press conference.

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Categories
Business

Drivers warn Australians about the MG3: ‘Deserves to be in hell’

Straight-talking Aussies have unleashed on a car currently taking the country by storm as one driver describes the vehicle as a 'truly hateful car' (pictured, the MG3 Excite in white)

Straight-talking Aussies have unleashed on the MG3, a Chinese-made car that’s soaring up the sales chart across the country.

Normm Jean wrote a scathing review of the MG3, which can be purchased for $18,990 drive-away, making it the cheapest new car in the country.

MG made its debut as one of Australia’s highest-selling marques in March 2022 and has kept its place in the top 10 thanks to big sales of all three of its models – including the MG3, the best-selling vehicle in its segment.

The vehicle comes in three specifications, the Core priced at $18,990, the Core with navigation at $19,400 and the Excite, which has a price tag of $20,490.

He said he had been ‘unfortunate’ enough to take the Excite model for a spin and that he soon found he and the car were incompatible.

Straight-talking Aussies have unleashed on a car currently taking the country by storm as one driver describes the vehicle as a 'truly hateful car' (pictured, the MG3 Excite in white)

Straight-talking Aussies have unleashed on a car currently taking the country by storm as one driver describes the vehicle as a ‘truly hateful car’ (pictured, the MG3 Excite in white)

One MG3 owner described it as a 'truly hateful car' and said people were better off buying a second-hand car. Pictured is a stock image of a man driving a car

One MG3 owner described it as a ‘truly hateful car’ and said people were better off buying a second-hand car. Pictured is a stock image of a man driving a car

‘The salesperson told me she didn’t think I would like it when she gave me the keys to the demo Excite model, so we were starting off good,’ he said.

Mr Jean explained he was around 177cm tall and ‘not a giant’, but struggled to find a comfortable position in the hatchback.

‘Not to mention the rattles that a car with 50 km shouldn’t have,’ he said.

The car enthusiast complained there was only one cup holder, no digital speedometer, and the sun-visors were too small.

‘The plastic on the A-Pillar is so poorly fitting that it doesn’t like up with the windscreen properly,’ he said.

He said that in 2019 the MG3 Excite was selling for $17,490 drive away.

‘The exact car is now $20,490. It hasn’t been updated, or refreshed. It’s just had its price hiked up. I told my friend it was a sh*t heap and went back to the dealer.

For most of its history, MG was associated with British open-top roadsters but that changed with the collapse of Rover in 2005, which saw the Chinese state-owned SAIC group take over (pictured is Scottish actor Ewan McGregor with a classic MGA from 1962 )

For most of its history, MG was associated with British open-top roadsters but that changed with the collapse of Rover in 2005, which saw the Chinese state-owned SAIC group take over (pictured is Scottish actor Ewan McGregor with a classic MGA from 1962 )

‘In conclusion, if the MG3 was $12,990 drive away, I would absolutely buy one. Because it’s so cheap, who cares?

‘Drive the wheels off it, and send it to the wreckers when it’s stuffed. But there is no way on earth that I would spend $21,000 on this car.’

Mr Jean told Daily Mail Australia the car’s popularity was down to the reputation MG earned in the 1960s as the makers of a classic English sports car.

For most of its history, MG – also known as Morris Garages – was associated with British open-top roadsters, but that changed with the collapse of Rover in 2005, which saw the Chinese state-owned SAIC group take over.

Since then, MG has become synonymous with budget SUVs and hatches made in China – a far cry from its 1924 origins as a sports car badge.

‘It’s based on the badge,’ he said.

‘If you take the MG badge off them, they are just a cheap Chinese-made car that’s similar to a 2004 Hyundai Getz.’

‘The 1.5 engine and 4-speed car deserves to be in hell. It’s slow, and I mean slow. I can only compare it to a 1.2 Kia Picanto, but even that felt better.

‘But by far the worst thing for me, I couldn’t get the seat to lower, nor could I get the steering wheel to go high enough for me to get even remotely comfortable.’

Normm Jean has issued a scathing review of the MG3 Excite (seen here in blue), which can be purchased for $20,490 drive-away to Facebook page 'S*** Cars of Australia'

Normm Jean has issued a scathing review of the MG3 Excite (seen here in blue), which can be purchased for $20,490 drive-away to Facebook page ‘S*** Cars of Australia’

Another motorist who asked to remain anonymous, described the MG3 Excite as a ‘truly hateful car’ and said people were better off buying a second-hand car.

‘There is a place for these types of cars, for people who want to get from A to B and don’t really care for a car or a brand,’ he said.

‘However, to charge $21,000 for a car of this quality, you would be better off buying a second-hand Corolla, Yaris or Mazda 2.

‘They are what I feel a very expensive disposable car that has been disguised as something cheap and cheerful.’

MG has previously said buyers also didn't care that it was Chinese owned and Chinese built - and that sales are soaring accrross the country because the vehicle has a seven year unlimited kilometre warranty

MG has previously said buyers also didn’t care that it was Chinese owned and Chinese built – and that sales are soaring accrross the country because the vehicle has a seven year unlimited kilometre warranty

An MG spokesperson told Daily Mail Australia that in becoming the number-one seller in the segment, it has beaten its new vehicle rivals.

‘The continued popularity of the MG3 is testament to how many Australians have found this model to suit their needs both in style and performance,’ they said.

‘Additionally, for peace of mind, the MG comes with a comprehensive seven-year unlimited kilometer warranty and access to more than 100 dealers around Australia and New Zealand.’

Danny Lenartic, MG's general manager of electric vehicles in Australia and New Zealand expects the marque to become a big part of Australia's automotive future

Danny Lenartic, MG’s general manager of electric vehicles in Australia and New Zealand expects the marque to become a big part of Australia’s automotive future

Earlier in the year, Danny Lenartic, MG Motor’s general manager of electric vehicles in Australia and New Zealand, told Daily Mail Australia he expects the mark to be a big part of Australia’s automotive future.

Mr Lenartic said buyers also didn’t care that it was Chinese-owned and Chinese-built despite Communist President Xi Jinping’s trade sanctions against Australia.

‘Country of origin to me today isn’t as important as the core values ​​that the people behind the brand stand for,’ he said.

‘The MG history has always been a value brand, so it’s always been the affordable sports car, that’s how it gained its popularity.

‘Realistically, the core values ​​of MG haven’t changed – for me, we’ve held on to that identity.’

KEY FEATURES OF THE MG3

The MG3 Auto offers value, personality and most importantly, style.

It comes in three specifications:

MG MG3 AUTO CORE – FROM $18,990 DRIVEAWAY

• 15″ Alloy wheels

• Rear parking sensor

• Rear view camera

• LED ‘London Eye’ daytime running lights

• 4 Speaker audio system w/ Yamaha 3D Sound Field

• Leather trimmed steering wheel with contrast stitching

• Tartan fabric trim seating

• 1.5l engine

• 8” color infotainment screen with Apple CarPlay™

MG MG3 AUTO CORE WITH NAV – FROM $19,490 DRIVEAWAY

KEY FEATURES IN ADDITION TO MG MG3 AUTO CORE:

• Satellite Navigation

MG MG3 AUTO EXCITE – FROM $20,490 DRIVEAWAY

KEY FEATURES IN ADDITION TO MG MG3 AUTO CORE WITH NAV:

• 16” Two-tone machined alloy wheels

• Body color door mirrors with integrated turn signal

• 6 Speaker audio system w/ Yamaha 3D Sound Field

• Rear spoiler

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Categories
Technology

The top 10 worst movie tie-in video games ever

The top 10 worst movie tie-in video games ever

While definitely not as common as they used to be, movie tie-in video games are generally viewed as the absolute bottom of the barrel in terms of video game entertainment.

These are video games created often in short time frames, with limited development cycles, budgets, and anything else that you need in order to make a decent video game.

But, as with anything, some are worse than others.

So here, we have compiled the top 10 (in no particular order) worst of the worst, the rock bottom, the absolute dredge of them all for you to enjoy.

10. E. T. The Extra Terrestrial (1982, Atari)

While older than most people reading this, this game is often credited as having caused the video game market of 1983 to crash. The game itself was boring and bland, featuring awful graphics (even for its time) and repetitive tasks.

Rumor has it that Atari only gave developers five weeks to develop the game for the Christmas season, which would explain the lack of… well, gameplay in the video game. A huge number of these games were returned, Atari fell into bankruptcy, and, as the legend goes, the remainder of the stock was buried in a New Mexico landfill somewhere.

9. Tomorrow Never Dies (1999)

Remember golden eye 64? Remember how much fun it was to stay up late into the night with three of your best friends, getting mad at each other over picking Oddjob, or someone who grabbed the Golden Gun first? Those were good times. What if the next game released in the 007 franchise was worse in every conceivable way?

Tomorrow Never Dies did away with the first-person view, instead choosing a third-person view. The game only featured a story mode, lacking any multiplayer whatsoever. If they had named this game anything else, it probably would have been fine, but coming hot off the heels of the success that golden eye 64 was, it led many to see this as a downgrade in every way.

8. Marvel’s Avengers (2020)

Crystal Dynamics has done some good work in gaming, don’t get me wrong, but avengers fails in a lot of ways that don’t make sense. The launch of avengers had some serious game-breaking bugs tethered to it, and while most of them have been ironed out over its lifespan, one of the game’s core problems hasn’t been – how content dry and unrewarding it is to play.

The game has a decent story mode, but once you complete it, the only way to progress is to complete multiplayer missions, which are the same boring, repetitive missions that every other games-as-a-service game has. The multiplayer is not fun, and that’s the biggest advertising point of the game. Please just make another Legacy of Kain game, Crystal Dynamics.

7. Saw 2: Flesh and Blood (2010)

“Hey, what if we took a movie that was relatively unique in the horror genre for its interesting puzzles and turned it into a boring action video game?” said the developers of Saw 2: Flesh and Blood. I may be paraphrasing.

The puzzles are boring, the dialogue is boring, you’re having to repeat puzzles often because they do not explain how the puzzles work, and the majority of downtime in between puzzles are filled with quick-timed events. Low amounts of checkpoints means that you’re often having to redo several rooms multiple times.

6. Cat Woman (2004)

Not unlike the movie of the same name, cat woman did extremely poorly with critics and players alike.

Genuinely awful voice acting combined with seemingly malfunctioning camera controls and a mash-one-button-until-you-win combat style made this game an easy one to pass up.

5. Street Fighter: The Movie: The Game (1995)

In the games industry, there’s an unfortunate expectation that a video game made to tie in with a movie is gonna suck. So what happens when a movie is made based on a video game – that is then turned into a video game itself? It’s like an inception of bad video games.

This soulless shell of a game lacks even the most basic things that Street Fighter II had, namely its charm. Seeing Dhalsim stretch-punch or Ryu throw Hadoukens is timeless, but seeing digitized versions of the actors playing these characters doing the same is just painful.

4. James Cameron’s Avatar: The Game (2009)

Picture this: you’ve just seen Avatar in theaters, and it was a wondrous journey through what cinematic effects can look like in 2009. You can’t get over how cool the fight scenes were, how beautiful the landscapes were, or how intricate the sex-hair thing was. So you rush to your local store and immediately spy a copy of Avatar: The Game. Surely it must look just as good, right?

While the game does tackle events prior to the movie, expanding the lore of the world a bit, the graphics looked awful – I can think of a few late-gen PS2 games that looked nicer – the gameplay was bland and repetitive, made worse by the linear paths you have to walk in the game.

3. Evil Dead: Hail to the King

I cannot imagine watching Evil Dead 2having a wonderful time, and then picking this game up and trying to play through it. Hail to the King lacks pretty much everything that made Evil Dead 2 or Army of Darkness work, instead attempting to emulate some action-horror games that had come out before it.

Fixed camera angles are fine in some games, but the game has to be built around them for it to work. This game has problems with enemies swarming you, and you are unable to deal with them due to the camera perspectives.

2. Every Shrek Game That Isn’t Shrek SuperSlam

I don’t really have the energy to go into why all but one of the Shrek games are bad. In short, they’re poorly paced, have game-breaking bugs, are boring and feature repetitive gameplay. Instead, I want to focus on why SuperSlam is a great game.

SuperSlam is technically a bad game, in terms of gameplay and execution. It’s a broken platform/arena fighter, with several characters able to commit to ‘infinite’ combos that generally just make it unfun – in theory.

What makes it fun is that an entire competitive esports community has formed around the broken game, figuring out how the game works within how broken it is. To this day, tournaments are held online, with new players joining in to try to win.

1. Aliens: Colonial Marines (2013)

This one is a pain for me, personally. Alien is such a cool series, with a lot of lore and a lot of good horror sequences – Alien: Isolation is arguably my favorite movie tie-in game because of how oppressive and well-done the horror in that game is. Enter Colonial Marines: a game with broken AI, to the point where Aliens will crab-walk right past you while they try to figure out their pathing, or get caught in level geometry because the developers couldn’t figure out hitbox collision. The graphics were extremely bland for their time, especially when you compare it to the alpha footage that leaked before release, which looked incredible.

What’s worse, however, is the vast number of promises that the developers gave prerelease that were simply not true. It was a giant mess from beginning to end, and Alien fans the world over were truly disappointed.

Written by Junior Miyai on behalf of GLHF.

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Categories
Entertainment

Grease was a problematic film ahead of its time

Grease was a problematic film ahead of its time

The message for wannabe Sandy’s was simple. To be the ultimate fantasy and object of male desire you should be thin and blonde, kind and intelligent, come from a good home, wear ankle-length twin sets, respect your body and say no to boys trying to sexually pressure you while also being jaw-droppingly sexy and willing to drive men wild by wearing skin-tight outfits and red lipstick.

For those who looked to Rizzo, things were a little murkier. She was motivated by having fun instead of getting straight-A grades, disliked good girls, brought booze to sleepovers and snuck out windows when they got boring. She could be mean and cruel, but also cuttingly funny and self-aware as she proved in the wistful tune Worse Things I Could Do.

Newton-John's sweet character Sandy had to learn to become sexy in Grease – a character arc the actor said she didn't take too seriously.

Newton-John’s sweet character Sandy had to learn to become sexy in Grease – a character arc the actor said she didn’t take too seriously.Credit:

As a kind of cautionary tale to girls who saw themselves in Rizzo, she was forced to endure being called “sloppy seconds” by Danny and faced her classmates gossiping about her potential teen pregnancy after she made the seemingly reckless decision to have unprotected sex with her boyfriend.

By the end of the film, though, Rizzo and Sandy are friends and as a reward for making peace with the good girl, Rizzo gets her man and her period.

Before her death, Newton-John discussed how the film had aged and Sandy’s role within that, telling ITV, “I know there were some criticisms about me wanting to change to be like him. It’s a movie and it’s a fun story and I have never taken that too seriously.”

Stockard Channing, who played Rizzo, called Sandy’s evolution of good girl gone bad “a moment of empowerment” for young women of the time and said her own character was “someone who enjoyed sex”, noting the inclusion of such a character onscreen in the 1970s was still relatively rare and positive for women.

So would a film that puts blonde beauty and virginity on a pedestal rake in $160 million at the box office today? Probably not. But would a storyline in which young women make their own decisions about their sexual desire and visual identities in spite of male attention still resonate? Absolutely.

For every nonsensical scene, like a middle-aged man appearing as an angel and telling a teenage girl to go back to high school to continue her studies in the doo-wop Beauty School Dropoutthere are thoroughly modern moments in characters like Mrs Murdoch, the school’s mechanic teacher, a woman who shows the boys everything they know about cars or Frenchy feeling lost about her future and not knowing what career path to take.

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Grease is a film that has somehow managed to last the distance not in spite of its dichotomies, but because of them. Just when you think its dated and reductive and gone too far, a character says or does something so forward-thinking it leaves you feeling shell-shocked. And before you have time to think about it, everybody has burst into song and dance. As a viewer, you find yourself oscillating between cringing one minute and joining the chorus the next. It doesn’t make
sense, but maybe it doesn’t have to.

For all its flaws, it’s hard to imagine a world in which people won’t always be at least a little bit hopelessly devoted to greaseeven when its car inexplicably ascends into the clouds never to be seen again.

Find out the next TV, streaming series and movies to add to your must-sees. Get The Watchlist delivered every Thursday.

Categories
Sports

Collingwood Magpies ready to face Sydney Swans in top-four clash, as the bandwagon fills up

Collingwood Magpies ready to face Sydney Swans in top-four clash, as the bandwagon fills up

I can’t help but have a level of admiration for their resurgence under Craig McRae and for what they’ve already achieved.

It seems like there’s a contagious combination of trust and selflessness. For all the unnecessary focus on Jack Ginnivan, or the fascination with Jordan De Goey, this is not a team built on individuals.

Young Magpie Beau McCreery has made an impact this season.

Young Magpie Beau McCreery has made an impact this season.Credit:AFL Pictures

This Collingwood outfit is more blue collar.

It starts with the leaders, with Scott Pendlebury and Steele Sidebottom accepting what you would normally describe as “lesser” roles. They put the greater good before their reputations. No longer the main men of the midfield, they’ve set the example for all of their teammates that if you simply play your role good things can happen.

While Nick Daicos has had an incredible first year, also bringing the best out of his brother Josh, there are other more unheralded Magpies.

Beau McCreery just cracks in every week. He’s got genuine speed and toughness and sets the tone in terms of the forward pressure that’s become so crucial.

With his long hair, Nathan Murphy can sometimes be mistaken for Darcy Moore and has become a really solid understudy in defense. He’s shown a willingness to leave his opponent and support when needed.

Brayden Maynard is an absolute bull and someone who, I believe, could lead this club when Pendlebury eventually retires, such is his influence through his physical presence.

There are others like Darcy Cameron, who has had a standout year, and Ash Johnson, who’s been lively in his four AFL games.

Finally stringing matches together, I’ve always thought Jamie Elliott’s best would make him an All-Australian.

Young star Jack Ginnivan with coach Craig McRae.

Young star Jack Ginnivan with coach Craig McRae.Credit:Getty Images

He offers a real point of difference to, say, a Charlie Cameron or Tyson Stengle. He has a certain power that allows him to be more of an aerial threat, and against Melbourne he again showed how dangerous he can be.

Before the Demons clash, I said if the Pies won, I would finally start to believe, yet somehow that result didn’t completely convince me.

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So, why, if there’s so much positivity, are some of us not completely sold? The Melbourne game summed up that doubt pretty well. The Demons beat them in all the key statistics, except for where it mattered – on the scoreboard.

Despite winning, the Pies can be dominated for long periods in a game. In many of the matches they’ve won they’ve had less control, but their opponents haven’t hurt them.

When it has been “their turn”, they’ve generally been really damaging. That points to great forward efficiency but is also incredibly hard to sustain and if you find yourself in trouble against the best teams in finals, there’s not always a way back.

That slight patchiness is why I’ve again tipped against Collingwood this weekend against Sydney in what will be a huge top-four battle. The Swans also give you a chance, so it looms as a really intriguing clash.

If the Pies can make it a dozen wins on the bounce, then maybe, just maybe I’ll jump on the bandwagon, albeit very late.

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Categories
Australia

Sydney apartment tower has support columns installed to ensure safety

Sydney apartment tower has support columns installed to ensure safety

It sparked an emergency inspection by government engineers, including the state’s chief emergency engineer. While they found “no immediate safety risk” to residents, they recommended that monitoring focus on a so-called transfer structure, which shifts loads to other parts of the tower.

Apartment owner Corrie Ford said she was infuriated at the length of time it had taken to put the back-propping in, given the structural engineer had raised concerns about the building last year.

“In the background there seems to have been some acknowledgment that there might be a safety issue with the building and the back-propping has been put in place to ensure the safety of residents,” she said.

Bright & Duggan, which was appointed compulsory strata manager by a tribunal, said the owners’ corporation had decided to take a precautionary approach and install the temporary columns.

“We are not taking risks. We believe it is the developer’s responsibility. Toplace is ultimately the party that is responsible for the quality of the building,” managing director Chris Duggan said.

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“But we are not going to wait for them to do it. We will attempt to get the costs back for the temporary propping.”

The owners’ corporation will seek to recover the cost of the temporary columns as part of legal action it has under way against Toplace in the NSW Supreme Court over alleged defects in the building.

Toplace said an independent engineer, who had modeled the structural adequacy of the building, had not identified any need for immediate safety measures to be undertaken.

The developer said NSW Public Works Advisory, which inspected the building on August 1, could not identify cracks or other evidence that an engineer hired by the owners had observed.

Toplace said it had undertaken ground-penetrating radar scanning of columns a day later, and the independent engineers that it had hired concluded that allegations about the need for immediate safety works to secure the building were incorrect.

In April, the state’s building watchdog ordered To place to conduct rectification work after finding a serious defect in the construction of load-bearing walls in the building’s basement car park. At the time, it was the second order issued to place in three months to fix defects in the tower.

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Categories
US

How CNN, Fox, MSNBC covered it

How CNN, Fox, MSNBC covered it

Categories
Business

Elon Musk says Tesla Semi electric truck deliveries will begin this year

Elon Musk says Tesla Semi electric truck deliveries will begin this year

After three years of delays and broken promises, Tesla claims its Semi electric truck will finally be delivered to US customers from later this year.

Jordan Mulach
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Tesla CEO Elon Musk claims the electric-car giant will finally deliver its Semi truck to US customers before the end of 2022 – three years later than originally promised.

Order books for the Semi are open for US buyers, with Tesla requiring customers to place a $US20,000 ($AU28,300) deposit to secure a place in the queue.

Tesla’s first commercial vehicle has a claimed driving range of 500 miles (805km) when empty in its top-of-the-range variant, which is priced from $US180,000 ($AU255,000) plus on-road costs.

A less-expensive variant is also offered, priced from $US150,000 ($AU212,000) plus on-road costs with a shortened claimed driving range of 300 miles (482km).

Powered by four electric motors which drive the rear wheels, Tesla claims the Semi can accelerate from zero to 100km/h in five seconds when it is unladen.

With a full payload of 36,287kg, the Tesla Semi can allegedly achieve a zero to 100km/h time of 20 seconds, while reaching 60mph (97km/h) up to five per cent grade.

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While it is unclear if the Tesla Semi will be sold in Australia, the electric truck features a centrally-mounted driver’s seat – making it ambidextrous, unlike the currently left-hand-drive Cybertruck.

However, the Tesla Semi’s width might prevent it from being legal on Australian roads.

Australia only allows trucks which are up to 2.5 meters wide, while Tesla has said the Semi is between 30 and 50 millimeters wider than this limit.

Jordan Mulach

Jordan Mulach is Canberra/Ngunnawal born, currently residing in Brisbane/Turrbal. Joining the Drive team in 2022, Jordan has previously worked for Auto Action, MotorsportM8, The Supercars Collective and TouringCarTimes, WhichCar, Wheels, Motor and Street Machine. Jordan is a self-described iRacing addict and can be found on weekends either behind the wheel of his Octavia RS or swearing at his ZH Fairlane.

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Categories
Technology

This Mac hacker’s code is so good, corporations keep stealing it

This Mac hacker's code is so good, corporations keep stealing it

Patrick Wardle is known for being a Mac malware specialist — but his work has traveled farther than he realized.

A former employee of the NSA and NASA, he is also the founder of the Objective-See Foundation: a nonprofit that creates open-source security tools for macOS. The latter role means that a lot of Wardle’s software code is now freely available to download and decompile — and some of this code has apparently caught the eye of technology companies that are using it without his permission from him.

Wardle will lay out his case in a presentation on Thursday at the Black Hat cybersecurity conference with Tom McGuire, a cybersecurity researcher at Johns Hopkins University. The researchers found that code written by Wardle and released as open source has made its way into a number of commercial products over the years — all without the users crediting him or licensing and paying for the work.

The problem, Wardle says, is that it’s difficult to prove that the code was stolen rather than implemented in a similar way by coincidence. Fortunately, because of Wardle’s skill in reverse-engineering software, he was able to make more progress than most.

“I was only able to figure [the code theft] out because I both write tools and reverse engineer software, which is not super common,” Wardle told TheVerge in a call before the talk. “Because I straddle both of these disciplines I could find it happening to my tools, but other indie developers might not be able to, which is the concern.”

The thefts are a reminder of the precarious status of open-source code, which undergirds enormous portions of the internet. Open-source developers typically make their work available under specific licensing conditions — but since the code is often already public, there are few protections against unscrupulous developers who decide to take advantage. In one recent example, the Donald Trump-backed Social Truth app allegedly lifted significant portions of code from the open-source Mastodon project, resulting in a formal complaint from Mastodon’s founder.

One of the central examples in Wardle’s case is a software tool called OverSight, which Wardle released in 2016. Oversight was developed as a way to monitor whether any macOS applications were surreptitiously accessing the microphone or webcam, with much success: it was effective not only as a way to find Mac malware that was surveilling users but also to uncover the fact that a legitimate application like Shazam was always listening in the background.

Wardle — whose cousin Josh Wardle created the popular Wordle game — says he built OverSight because there wasn’t a simple way for a Mac user to confirm which applications were activating the recording hardware at a given time, especially if the applications were designed to run in secret. To solve this challenge, his software used a combination of analysis techniques that turned out to be unusual and, thus, unique.

But years after Oversight was released, he was surprised to find a number of commercial applications incorporating similar application logic in their own products — even down to replicating the same bugs that Wardle’s code had.

A slide from Wardle and McGuire’s Defcon presentation.
Image: Patrick Wardle

Three different companies were found to be incorporating techniques lifted from Wardle’s work in their own commercially sold software. None of the offending companies are named in the Black Hat talk, as Wardle says that he believes the code theft was likely the work of an individual employee, rather than a top-down strategy.

The companies also reacted positively when confronted about it, Wardle says: all three vendors he approached reportedly acknowledged that his code had been used in their products without authorization, and all eventually paid him directly or donated money to the Objective-See Foundation.

Code theft is an unfortunate reality, but by bringing attention to it, Wardle hopes to help both developers and companies protect their interests. For software developers, he advises that anyone writing code (whether open or closed source) should assume it will be stolen and learn how to apply techniques that can help uncover instances where this has happened.

For corporations, he suggests that they better educate employees on the legal frameworks surrounding reverse engineering another product for commercial gain. And ultimately, I hope they’ll just stop stealing.

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Entertainment

‘The lies have to stop’: Kevin Federline leaks Britney Spears’ alleged rows with sons

'The lies have to stop': Kevin Federline leaks Britney Spears' alleged rows with sons

Kevin Federline has leaked videos of Britney Spears seemingly telling her kids off.

The 40-year-old pop icon’s ex-husband recently claimed that their sons Preston, 16, and Jayden 15, haven’t seen their mother “for months”.

He claimed the boys had “decided” they didn’t want to see their mother or attend her recent wedding to Sam Asghari, and suggested the teenagers were embarrassed by her revealing Instagram posts.

The ‘Gimme More’ singer denied that her social media posts are anything to do with her not seeing them and branded the comments as “hurtful”.

And now, the feud has escalated after the 44-year-old former backup dancer posted – who was married to Britney between 2004 and 2007 – two clips of the mother-of-two allegedly rowing with her sons, and claimed that his boys gave him permission for the footage to be made public because “the lies have to stop”.

He captioned the videos on Instagram: “I cannot sit back and let my sons be accused in this way after what they’ve been through. As much as it hurts us, we decided as a family to post these videos.

“This isn’t even the worst of it. The lies have to stop. I hope our kids grow up to be better than this.”

The videos are poorly lit and filmed by the teenagers. Britney is also unaware she is being filmed.

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