Tesla told federal regulators that the headlights on 19,900 Model 3 and Model Y cars were up to nearly twice as bright as the law allows, then argued it shouldn't have to fix them because the defect was "inconsequential" to safety. — Read the rest

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For nearly a year now, Ford has been teasing big things at low prices from its next generation of EVs, a "Model T moment" built atop a new platform assembled in an innovative way. Today, we know the name and price of the first product to take advantage of that supposed moment: a midsize electric truck called Fathom that starts at just $28,350.

That's not exactly great news for fans of the Slate Truck, the new electric upstart that's leaning hard into its feature-free nature by painting itself as the ultimate DIY machine. Paint, though, is among the long line of modern niceties omitted to help the Slate Truck reach its starting price of $24, …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Late-model BMW owners are starting up their cars to find a commercial for Spider-Man: Brand New Day.

Responding to a request for information about the ad from The Autopian, BMW confirmed the animation is part of a broader partnership with the film:

"A few of our vehicles – including the BMW iX3 – were in the film, and a special edition iX3 was featured on the red carpet during last night's premiere in Los Angeles."

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Brussels is bracing for an unusual fight between the EU’s smallest country and a British ex-footballing legend.

Peter Shilton, the England goalkeeper who conceded the “Hand of God” goal from Diego Armando Maradona in 1986, has started a new life as an anti-gambling advocate after overcoming a decades-long addiction.

Despite being a diehard Brexit supporter, he’s become the poster boy of the European Parliament’s push to tax online betting in a bid to raise some much-needed funds to finance the bloc’s next €2 trillion budget.

But the campaign has run into strong opposition from Malta. The tiny island in the Mediterranean Sea, with a population of just over half a million people, is home to a burgeoning betting sector. It says that higher taxes will cripple its gambling industry, boost illegal operators and drive firms outside the bloc.

“[Malta] will not accept the introduction of any EU-level taxes designed to sustain the bloc’s spending,” the country’s Prime Minister, Robert Abela, told the Maltese Parliament in June.

But Shilton, who lost more than £1 million in betting on horse racing over 45 years and now runs his own gambling addiction charity, dismisses the arguments by Malta and the gambling lobbies as “window dressing.” He’s in favor of higher taxes as he wants to shrink advertising revenue that is used to lure in new gamblers.

“Deep down they’re after everybody’s money. Simple as that,” he told POLITICO during a visit to Brussels in June.

The topic has split the EU’s 27 governments, pitting gambling-heavy Southern European countries against their more supportive Western European peers, led by France. Capitals are already fighting even though the Commission hasn’t yet issued a formal proposal for the possible tax, which would ultimately need to be unanimously approved by governments.

It’s one of numerous budget battle lines being drawn, with Ireland — which is steering the talks as chair of the rotating Council presidency — set to restart negotiations to facilitate an overall deal on the EU budget before the end of the year.

That’s no mean feat given Dublin’s task to mesh competing spending priorities into a single budget — financing everything from farmers’ subsidies to foreign aid — that is acceptable for each of the EU’s 27 governments.

National capitals will have to unanimously approve new EU-wide taxes — known as own resources — to pay for soaring defense spending and post-Covid debt repayments if they want to avoid drastically increasing national contributions to Brussels.

Supporters of the gambling levy point to the fact that it would rake in over €13 billion throughout the next budget cycle and — for some, more importantly — address a serious public health issue. An estimated 80 million adults globally have experienced a gambling addiction, according to experts.

“We look on it [gambling] as an illness. It’s something that’s inborn in you and that can be ignited,” Shilton said.

Malta’s game plan

Malta has invested heavily in the gambling industry — including lotteries, betting and casinos increasingly operating online — which now accounts for around 12 percent of its gross domestic product.

These firms have relocated to Malta because of its light-touch licensing regime, business-friendly tax regime and balmy weather.

The country is “as dependent on the online gambling industry as Germany is on cars,” said an EU diplomat, granted anonymity to speak freely.

While gambling firms need local authorization to operate in most other European countries, securing the Maltese license is crucial to access banking services and gain a foothold in the EU market.

Malta-based firms dominated the German and Austrian online gambling markets before national regulators cracked down. This has prompted the Maltese government to refuse to recognize some court rulings and sanctions issued by other EU countries against its gambling firms.

Given its influence, it is hardly surprising that the gambling industry has found a friendly ear among Malta’s politicians in Brussels.

The Maltese president of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola, last year gave the opening speech at an international gambling conference in Rome that also featured Italian Foreign Affairs Minister Antonio Tajani.

“I’m more than a little proud that it started in my island home of Malta,” she said, referring to SiGMA, a Maltese events company that focuses on online gambling founded by Eman Pulis, a university friend of Metsola.

Betting lobbies say they oppose higher gambling rates on the grounds that they will fuel appetite for the illegal market, away from the grasp of EU rules.

“A higher tax would lead to worse odds for the customers … and it is relevant because access to the illegal markets in Europe is, obviously, one click away,” said secretary general of the European Gaming and Betting Association, Maarten Haijer.

Nicola Matteucci, an economist at the Università Politecnica delle Marche in Italy who has undertaken extensive research on the gambling sector, argued there is a “point where prices exceed a certain level and the demand [for gambling] diminishes. But it’s not as immediate as suggested by the industry.”

Matteucci said that most gamblers will be undeterred by slightly higher taxes and worse odds as they are not fully rational consumers.

Anti-gambling groups reason instead that higher taxes will reduce the sector’s spending on commercials, preventing would-be punters from getting sucked in to gambling in the first place.

“Higher taxes will therefore mean less gambling advertising overall and many people would regard that as a public benefit,” said Derek Webb, the founder of the Campaign for Fairer Gambling advocacy group.

Club Med joins Malta

Malta has joined forces with fellow Mediterranean countries — Italy, Portugal and Spain — to challenge the mooted tax which was first proposed by the Parliament’s socialist lawmaker Victor Negrescu, said four diplomats with knowledge of the discussions.

According to the European Commission’s estimates, seen by POLITICO, a 3 percent tax on the net turnover of the online gambling sector would generate an estimated €1.9 billion per year.

With its big online gambling market, Spain is expected to be among the biggest financial losers, should the tax go ahead. It is estimated to be on the hook for €414 million per year, almost a quarter of the total amount. That compares to a projected bill of €165 million per year for Malta— a disproportionality high amount for such a small country.

Portugal is also reluctant to back the levy. It fears that higher taxes would eat into revenue brought in by state-run betting and lotteries that is currently channeled to the charity Santa Casa da Misericórdia de Lisboa‘s healthcare and youth support programs, said a Portuguese official.

Meanwhile, given the relatively low uptake of online gambling, Italy’s misgivings have surprised anti-betting advocates. Rome is expected to pay a mere 7 percent of the proposed new levy — a significantly lower proportion than its regular EU budget contributions.

However, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party has previously been receptive to the gambling industry. Last year its MPs passed a resolution encouraging the reversal of a ban on professional football clubs advertising gambling firms.  

LONDON — The U.K. capital’s transport authority has granted approval for Wayve and Uber to begin giving rides to members of the public in autonomous vehicles.

Transport for London (TfL) said it licensed 15 modified vehicles operated by the companies, which have a partnership, as “Private Hire Vehicles” (PHV) on a trial basis.

In a statement, London-based startup Wayve said the licenses were “an important step forward” that will allow it to begin giving rides to a small number of passengers later this summer ahead of a full public launch.

Wayve said its vehicles “are designed to operate autonomously, and will do the driving,” though under TfL’s rules, a licensed PHV driver must be present and responsible for the vehicle at all times.

“Safety is our top priority,“ a TfL spokesperson said. “Any new vehicle licensed to carry passengers on London’s roads must align with our Vision Zero goal of eliminating all deaths and serious injuries from collisions on London’s streets by 2041.”

Successive U.K. governments have sought to make the country a European pioneer in self-driving technology.

The Department for Transport opened a permitting scheme for companies to operate commercial robotaxi services without a human driver in May. Applications for that scheme — which is separate from TfL’s PHV regime — continue to be assessed by central government with input from local transport authorities including TfL.

Getting licenses isn’t the only obstacle facing robotaxi services. A survey by the London Assembly’s Transport Committee this month identified widespread opposition to autonomous passenger vehicles among the capital’s inhabitants, with just 29 percent of Londoners saying they support the roll out.

An armed suspect was arrested late Sunday afternoon at Trump National Golf Course in Rancho Palos Verdes just days before the President Donald Trump’s fundraiser set to be held there, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said Tuesday.

The man, identified as 38-year-old Jeanine John Taele, was observed by plainclothes federal agents taking photographs and videos and appearing to monitor security-planning activity. Once he was detained in a parking lot on the golf course, deputies found a 16-round magazine in his pocket, the advisory from the sheriff’s department said. In a subsequent search of his car, investigators said, they also recovered a loaded pistol and an additional loaded magazine.

Sheriff’s detectives and FBI agents executed a search on his home in the Southern California city of Downey on Monday, where they said they found more firearms, ammunition, body armor, multiple notebooks containing “concerning statements” and two radio signal devices.

In the advisory, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said that the case had been presented to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office and that investigators had not identified any credible ongoing threats to the community. A public information officer for the sheriff’s department could not immediately answer whether there would be additional security for Tuesday evening’s event, which is still scheduled to take place.

Trump traveled to Los Angeles for a Republican National Committee dinner at his own Trump National Golf Club, where the White House said he would “tout his wins for the people of the Golden State.”

Trump will “draw a sharp contrast between his commonsense agenda and the radical policies of Democrats like Gavin Newsom, who keep raising taxes, inviting rampant fraud in taxpayer-funded programs, and protecting illegal immigrant drug dealers, rapists, and murderers,” White House spokesperson Olivia Wales said in a statement earlier in the day.

Newsom, for his part, slammed Trump’s trip, with spokesperson Tara Gallegos saying in a statement the president is “coming to Los Angeles to raise money while wildfire survivors are still waiting for the federal recovery funding he promised 18 months ago.”

“Californians deserve a President focused on helping families rebuild — not raising money for himself at his golf course,” Gallegos added.

Newsom said later in a statement that he hopes that the visit “brings long overdue federal recovery funding directly to the families rebuilding after the LA wildfires.”

The White House could not be immediately reached for comment.

Lindsey Holden contributed to this report.