A new study found that technological advancements and the cost of batteries could support all vehicles being sold in the United States to be electric-powered by 2035.

Currently, only 1.8 percent of people in the U.S. have electric vehicles, with cost being a major factor, as well as the availability of charging ports. However, the study states the initial cost of electric vehicles should be on par with gasoline vehicles in approximately five years.

According to the University of California, Berkeley study's estimates, this will be driven by a drop in the cost of batteries and advancements in efficiency. In relation to the availability and cost of charging ports, it found that "the plummeting cost of wind and solar power have enabled a rapid and cost-effective expansion of a clean electricity grid, a cost-effective pathway" to expanding and establishing a public network of said stations.

"The upfront price of electric vehicles is coming down rapidly, which is very exciting. Because of battery technology improvements, most models now have a range of 250 miles, higher than the daily driving distance of most people, and now come with pretty astonishing fast-charging capabilities," said Amol Phadke, co-author of the report and a senior scientist at University of California, Berkeley.

For at least three or four years now, I have, together with my closest colleagues, been recognized as something of an authority of the ideology most of us just refer to now as "Wokeness." Spanning that time, certainly at least as far back as early 2018, I have frequently faced the challenging question of "how did this Woke stuff escape the university and go mainstream?" While we were doing the Grievance Studies Affair, in fact, we ended up in an epic argument about the issue that led to us giving a kind of quirky name to the difficulty we had in answering this question. We called it "crossing the Tim Pool Gap."

This challenge in communications gained this name for us in February of 2018, when Peter Boghossian, Helen Pluckrose, Mike Nayna, Tim Pool, and I all met at Peter's house, rather by chance, to have a discussion about this exact topic. In a heated discussion that went on for hours, we hit a major impasse in which we could not satisfactorily convince Tim of our thesis, and neither could Tim convince us of his. Tim argued that activists, especially in media, were the primary agents of change in Wokifying everything. We insisted that, while this may be, there was a significant university component as well and, further, that it was the root of the activist mentality. "Ideas like 'hegemonic masculinity' didn't come out of the sky! They came out of academia!" I still remember Peter yelling in frustration. The thing is, Tim wasn't wrong, and neither were we (there's something like a revolving door of bad ideas between these groups, who all fancy themselves activists in the same causes). We were so alarmed and frustrated by our inability to communicate the university-to-culture pipeline (or lab leak, as it might better be understood) that we referred to this challenging comms problem ever after as a search for a way to bridge the Tim Pool Gap, or "TPGap," in our private communications.

This is a question that deserves an answer though, because when something this pernicious takes hold of the core of a culture, we have a duty to understand how it was able to do so, so that, whether our culture stands or falls by it, future societies will not so easily be threatened. As indicated by the existence of the Tim Pool Gap, though, the answer to that question is complex and probably deserves a book's length to get anything better than a very cursory treatment. Certainly, the roles played by the Internet (thus democratization of information), social media (thus decentralization of publishing and broadcasting), and other infrastructural changes are significant. They are also beyond my scope, and I recommend the reader consult Martin Gurri's admirable book The Revolt of the Public, if not works by Marshall McLuhan and even the postmodernist Jean Baudrillard, for insights in that regard. So too have intentional agents who funded or promoted Wokeness as a tool for facilitating their own agendas or for waging political warfare by turning the West simultaneously stupid and wholly against itself. That said, media and academia also both played a role, as we argued, and I would refer readers to Tim Pool's analysis of the former and Helen Pluckrose's analysis of the latter — though until someone (I know, I'm someone...) takes on the bear of Critical Pedagogy in sufficient detail, that latter domain will remain a bit mysterious. I will touch on that aspect here, but I will only touch.

In August last year, Russia became the first country in the world to register a vaccine against Covid-19. But eight months later, despite Sputnik V's International success, there's been a slow uptake domestically for inoculation.

That's according to Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, who revealed that the current logistics are coping well, but too few people want to receive the jab.

This is despite internationally respected medical journal the Lancet publishing research in February showing that Sputnik V has an efficacy of around 91.6%, among the highest in the world. Russia also has two other registered vaccines, EpiVacCorona, produced by Siberia's Vector Center, and a third jab, named CoviVac.

New NYPD technology has some people doing a double-take and asking questions.

It's a robot shaped like a dog.

Monday afternoon at 344 East 28th Street, cops responded to a man barricaded after a domestic dispute.

Sadly, it's an all-too-common situation, but it drew attention.

It was one of the first times the public has seen the new NYPD digidog, bristling with cameras and microphones. It's able to approach danger and feed back live pictures and sound.

Defense needed, but did not get, perfect performance from expert Barry Brodd

Welcome to our ongoing coverage of the Minnesota murder trial of Derek Chauvin, over the in-custody death of George Floyd. I am Attorney Andrew Branca for Law of Self Defense.

Today started off with a major shift in the court's proceedings, with the state resting its presentation of its case in chief, and the defense beginning its presentation of its own case in chief to the jury.

Up to this point the defense was limited to playing (if you'll forgive the metaphor in this context) on defense. With all the witnesses so far having been called by the state, it was the state that controlled not only who would testify at all, but also the scope of that testimony. While the defense had the privilege to cross-examine those witnesses, cross-examination is limited to the scope of direct questioning. That is, if the state didn't ask about it on direct, the defense couldn't ask about it on cross.

Some 37 people in Denmark are requesting compensation over adverse effects they say were suffered after getting a Covid-19 jab. Most of the cases are related to AstraZeneca's vaccine, which the country has stopped using.

A total of 29 people have applied for compensation for side effects believed to be linked to the Swedish-British jab - which was renamed Vaxzevria last month - the Danish Patient Compensation Association said in a statement on Thursday. A further eight people applied for compensation in connection with the coronavirus jab made by Pfizer.

The side effects cited in the applications range from mild fever and discomfort to such extreme conditions as paralysis, blood clots, miscarriage, and even death. In Denmark, patients are eligible for state-sponsored compensations if they suffer rare or severe adverse effects of any medicines. The relatives of patients who have died can also receive compensation.

On Monday, in the wake of the shooting of Daunte Wright in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, on Sunday, the ice cream company Ben & Jerry's, famous for its championing of left-wing causes, tweeted that America's police system "can't be reformed" and "must be dismantled."

Ben & Jerry's wrote, "The murder of #DaunteWright is rooted in white supremacy and results from the international criminalization of Black and Brown communities. This system can't be reformed. It must be dismantled and a real system of public safety rebuilt from the ground up. #DefundThePolice."

Extinction Rebellion's latest stunt is to campaign for vegan school meals because dairy products "discriminate against non-white people." Any credibility they have left is being eroded as they become a parody of themselves.

Some of the woke warriors within Extinction Rebellion may well be the dumbest and most intolerant people on planet Earth. And this world's not short on stupid intolerance.

They would not though, of course, accept that they are behaving in exactly the same way as the people they claim they most despise.

Their basic argument is one that most people would probably agree with. How could you not? They're demanding that governments across the globe take action against climate change because if they don't, most life on Earth will die. Slowly. Your grandchildren won't be able to breathe. That's a pretty persuasive argument.

The US drug overdose death toll climbed during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to preliminary data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The CDC data shows that more than 87,000 Americans died from drug overdoses in the 12-month period that started in October 2019 and ended in September 2020 — the most recent statistics, which were published on Wednesday.

Overall, the preliminary data found a 29 percent increase in overdose deaths in the 12-month period ending in September 2020, when compared to the year period ending in September 2019.

The largest increases in drug overdose deaths occurred in the 12-month periods that ended in April and May 2020, months early in the pandemic when many states had some form of shutdown in place and more workers lost jobs.

The death of a woman who received the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine is under investigation by federal health authorities as part of a broader probe into potential "adverse side effects" from the vaccine.

Virginia State Vaccination Coordinator Danny Avula released a statement on Tuesday that confirmed the March death is being investigated by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention over a potential link to the vaccine.

The Virginia death was reported to the CDC's Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, Avula said.

Johnson & Johnson said on Tuesday that it would pause its clinical trials and delay the rollout of its shot in Europe until the probe in the U.S. was ironed out.