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Across Uzbekistan, a network of about a hundred banks of high-resolution roadside cameras continuously scan vehicles’ license plates and their occupants, sometimes thousands a day, looking for potential traffic violations. Cars running red lights, drivers not wearing their seatbelts, and unlicensed vehicles driving at night, to name a few. The driver of one of the most surveilled vehicles in the system was tracked over six months as he traveled between the eastern city of Chirchiq, through the capital Tashkent, and in the nearby settlement of Eshonguzar, often multiple times a week. We know this because the country’s sprawling license plate-tracking…
by Sarah Kuta Last updated: 2:00 PM ET, Mon December 22, 2025 MSC Magnifica is back on the water after a major refurbishment.After spending the past two months in dry dock at Palumbo Malta Shipyard in Malta, the refreshed MSC Cruises vessel has begun winter sailings in the Mediterranean. In January, the ship will depart on a 132-day world cruise. Next summer, the vessel will sail from Warnemünde, Germany, through Northern Europe before returning to the Mediterranean later in the year. The vessel will also offer world cruises in 2027 and 2028. The ship now features an MSC Yacht Club,…
France’s national postal and banking services were knocked offline by a suspected distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack on Monday, according to an announcement by La Poste. The postal service called the attack “a major network incident” that was disrupting “all of our information systems.” La Poste’s online mail and banking services, website, and mobile app are among the services that are temporarily unavailable, per a machine translation of the announcement, which said customers could still carry out banking and postal transactions in person. The banking branch of the company La Banque Postale also published an announcement about the cyberattack, which was…
A Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 airplane arrives at Los Angeles International Airport from San Francisco on March 28, 2025 in Los Angeles, California. Kevin Carter | Getty Images News | Getty ImagesSouthwest Airlines’ profits fell 42% in the first nine months of the year compared with the same period in 2024. But its stock has been on a tear.Southwest shares are up nearly 24% so far in 2025, more than any other U.S. passenger carrier. Industry profit leaders Delta Air Lines and United Airlines are each up about 17% each this year.Southwest stock this week hit a two-and-a-half year high.…
Developers and companies are increasingly deploying AI agents and chatbots within their apps, but so far they’ve mostly been restricted to text. Digital avatar generation company Lemon Slice is working to add a video layer to those chats with a new diffusion model that can create digital avatars from a single image. Called Lemon Slice-2, the model can create a digital avatar that works on top of a knowledge base to play any role required of the AI agent, like addressing customer queries, helping with homework questions, or even working as a mental health support agent. “In the early days…
CAIRO (AP) — A boat belonging to an Egyptian pharaoh was put on display Tuesday in the Grand Egyptian Museum’s exhibition hall while being reassembled in real time. The cedarwood boat, one of two that were found that belong to King Khufu, was pieced together starting Tuesday morning as dozens of visitors watched. The assembly of the 42-meter (137-foot) -long vessel, which sits next to its already-assembled twin that has been on display, is expected to take around four years, according to Issa Zeidan, head of restoration at the Grand Egyptian Museum. It contains 1,650 wooden pieces. King Khufu ruled…
by Brian Major Last updated: 12:10 PM ET, Mon December 22, 2025 Curaçao continued a growth trend in tourism performance, welcoming 65,378 overnight visitors in November, a nine percent increase compared with November of 2024.South America and North America posted double-digit increases, with South American arrivals up 21 percent and North American arrivals up 19 percent. Arrivals from Europe increased four percent. Contrasting those figures was the Caribbean’s 27 percent decline.In absolute numbers, Europe remained the main source region with 26,006 overnight visitors, followed by North America with 22,105 and South America with 13,596 overnight visitors. According to Immigration Card data,…
Amazon is expanding its AI-powered digital assistant Alexa+ with new capabilities. The company announced on Thursday that it’s adding four new integrations to the service that will allow the assistant to work with Angi, Expedia, Square, and Yelp starting in 2026. These additions allow customers to book hotels, get quotes for home services, and schedule salon appointments, among other things. With Expedia, customers can compare, book, and manage hotel reservations, or tell Alexa their preferences to get personalized recommendations. (e.g. “Can you find me pet-friendly hotels for this weekend in Chicago?”) The new services join Alexa+’s existing integrations with Fodor,…
It feels simple: You shop, find something you want and click to buy. It shows up today, overnight or tomorrow. We’ve gotten used to that speed. But that convenience comes with a climate cost.Multiple factors shape the environmental toll of a delivery. These include the distance from a fulfillment center, whether the shipment rides in a half-empty truck, how many trips a driver makes in the same area and the type of transportation used to move the package.When customers choose faster shipping and earlier delivery dates, the system shifts from optimized routing to whatever gets the package out fastest, and…
In anticipation of a busy holiday travel season, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) says it’s prepared to cap off a record year.The agency is fully staffed and anticipates screening a projected 44.3 million travelers at U.S. checkpoints between Friday, December 19, 2025, through Sunday, January 4, 2026. Heaviest traveler volume is forecast to be around 2.86 million on Sunday, December 28, followed by Dec 19, 20, 21, 27, and 29. In 2024, the busiest travel day was Friday, December 27, when TSA screened just under 2.85 million travelers.“TSA expects 2025 to be another record setter following major improvements this year…