Tesla CEO Elon Musk said the company intends to make significant investments in India in the near future, following a meeting with Indian prime minister Narendra Modi in New York on Tuesday. 

Im confident that Tesla will be in India and well do so as soon as humanly possible, Musk told reporters, adding that he hopes to visit the country personally in 2024.

On Twitter, Modi said the two had multifaceted conversations on issues ranging from energy to spirituality. The prime minister invited Musk to invest in the countrys electric vehicle and commercial space sectors, according to a tweet from Indias foreign ministry.

A new factory

Teslas CEO suggested earlier this year that the electric carmaker would announce the location of a new factory by the end of the year. The company currently has several factories in the U.S., as well as plants near Berlin and Shanghai. It has also announced a new factory in Monterrey, Mexico, which is expected to start operations in 2024.

Modi isnt the only head of state lobbying Musk for a Tesla factory. Both Indonesian president Joko Widodo and South Korean president Yoon Suk-yeol pitched their countries in meetings with Teslas CEO over the past year. France, Spain and Italy are also vying to be the home of what would be Teslas second European factory.

A Tesla investment in India would be a significant turnaround from an earlier effort to break into the market in 2021. India charges high import duties on electric vehicles, and demanded that Tesla invest in local manufacturing before it reduced them. Tesla, in contrast, said it wanted to import cars first to test the domestic appetite for EVs.

Recent trips to India by Teslas executives suggest the company is now open to building an India-based plant. The carmaker is very seriously looking at India, said deputy technology minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar to Reuters in May.

Modis U.S. visit

Indias prime minister is currently on a state visit to the U.S. He will meet President Joe Biden on Thursday, and is expected to meet U.S. CEOs like Apples Tim Cook and Microsofts Satya Nadella.

India hopes to gain from the worsening relationship between China and Western governments, particularly the U.S. The country is expected to buy drones from the U.S. during Modis visit, as well as sign an agreement to manufacture jet-fighter engines domestically. 

There is unprecedented trust between India and the U.S., Modi told the Wall Street Journal before his visit. 

Yet India maintains close relations with Russia, even after the latters invasion of Ukraine last year. The country buys half of its military equipment from Russia, according to the Wall Street Journal and is also a major customer for Russian oil.

Critics argue that the Modi government has taken a more anti-democratic and Hindu nationalist turn. Several dozen Democratic lawmakers have called on Biden to raise human rights concerns with Modi during his state visit.

White House officials say Biden will do soin private, according to Politico. 

Eight-time major champion Tom Watson wants answers on the PGA Tours new business partnership with Saudi backers of LIV Golf, asking in a letter Monday to Commissioner Jay Monahan if the deal was the only way to solve the tours financial hardship.

That was one of several questions posed by Watson in the letter, which was obtained by The Associated Press and was sent to Monahan, the PGA Tour board and my fellow players.

He said the questions were compounded by the hypocrisy in disregarding the moral issue.

On the day after Wyndham Clark became the latest major champion by winning the U.S. Open, focus shifted back to an issue that has consumed golf for the last three years. It took a stunning turn June 6 when the PGA Tour announced it had joined with Saudi Arabias national wealth fund and the European tour to put commercial businesses under one roof.

Monahan has referred to it as a framework agreement and he had few answers for players in a meeting two weeks ago at the Canadian Open. A Player Advisory Council meeting is scheduled for Tuesday ahead of the Travelers Championship in Connecticut.

Monahan, who stepped away for a medical situation on Wednesday, is not expected to attend. Two of his top executives are in charge of the tours day-to-day operations.

The tour said in the June 6 announcement that Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the governor of the Public Investment Fund, would be chairman of the new company and Monahan would be the CEO. Two PGA Tour board members, Ed Herlihy and Jimmy Dunne, would join them on the executive committee.

The deal contains assurances the tour would keep a controlling voting interest in the new commercial entity regardless of how much the PIF contributes, according to a person who has seen the agreement.

The person, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the deal has not been made public, said the agreement allows for a financial investment from PIF and pooling the three parties current and future golf-related investments. That would include LIV Golf.

The agreement said the new companys board would have majority representation appointed by the PGA Tour, the person said. The PGA Tour would still have full authority on how it runs its competition.

Still missing are key details such as the future of LIV Golf. Dustin Johnson and Bryson DeChambeau have said they are planning for a 2024 season.

Meanwhile, Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., suggested Sunday that congressional hearings could be held within weeks.

Blumenthal is chair of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. He said on CBSs Face the Nation the subcommittee wants facts on what went into the deal and who was behind it and details on the structure and governance of the new company.

There are very, very few details, Blumenthal said. But remember, what we have here is essentially a repressive, autocratic foreign government taking control over an iconic, cherished American institution for the clear purpose of cleansing its public image, he said.

One key to the agreement was ending all litigation. The PGA Tour and Saudi-backed LIV Golf filed a motion on Friday to dismiss with prejudice the antitrust lawsuit LIV players filed in August, the countersuit the tour filed in September and even a PIF appeal to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to avoid having to give depositions in the lawsuits. They cannot be refiled.

Monahan has said the lawsuits a trial date was not expected until at least the middle of 2024 with plenty of filings in between had contributed to a significant hit to the tour.

Watson said in his letter: Is the PIF the only viable rescue from the Tours financial problems? Was/is there a plan B? And again, what exactly is the exchange?

He mentioned hypocrisy twice, especially as it relates to criticism from groups such as 9/11 Families United on the tours reversal.

My loyalty to golf and this country live in the same place and have held equal and significant weight with me over my lifetime, Watson said. Please educate me and others in a way that allows loyalty to both, and in a way that makes it easy to look 9/11 families in the eye and ourselves in the mirror.

Watson isnt alone among his questions. The Justice Departments antitrust division has been reviewing the golf landscape since last summer, and now it is starting to look at the tours agreement with the Saudis and whether it violates federal antitrust laws. The inquiry is in its early stages, as the agreement is barely 2 weeks old and still is being finalized.

Monahan has said everything in the framework agreement would be subject to board approval.

Blumenthal told CBS he thought a hearing would be possible within weeks.

The American people deserve a clear look at the facts here, he said. Again, not prejudging what the conclusions will be. But what the Saudis are doing here is not taking control of a single team or hiring one player. They are, in effect, taking charge of the entire sport, and its not just a Saudi individual. It is the regime.

Andrew Tate, a social media personality known for expressing misogynistic views online, was charged in Romania with rape, human trafficking and forming a criminal gang to exploit women, prosecutors said Tuesday.

Prosecutors also filed charges against Tates brother, Tristan, and two Romanian women in a court in Bucharest, Romanias capital, the nations anti-organized crime agency said.

In a statement, the Directorate for Investigating Organized Crime and Terrorism alleged the four defendants formed a criminal group in 2021 in order to commit the crime of human trafficking in Romania as well as the United States and Britain.

The agency alleged that seven female victims were misled and transported to Romania, where they were sexually exploited and subjected to physical violence by the gang. One defendant is accused of raping a woman twice in March 2022, according to the statement.

Tate, 36, has resided in Romania since 2017. The former professional kickboxer has repeatedly claimed Romanian prosecutors have no evidence and alleged the case is a political conspiracy designed to silence him.

Tates spokesperson, Mateea Petrescu, said Tuesday that the brothers were prepared to demonstrate their innocence and vindicate their reputation. The two men are expected to attend a hearing in Bucharest on Wednesday morning, she added.

Tates legal team are prepared to cooperate fully with the appropriate authorities, presenting all necessary evidence to exonerate the brothers and expose any misinterpretations or false accusations, Petrescu said.

Under Romanian law, a judge has up to 60 days to assess the files in the case before defendants are sent to trial.

The Tate brothers, who are dual British-U.S. citizens, and the two Romanian suspects were detained in late December in Bucharest. The brothers won an appeal on March 31 to be moved from police custody to house arrest.

At the time, Tate was a hugely successful social media figure with more than 6 million Twitter followers, many of them young men and schoolchildren. He previously was banned from TikTok, YouTube and Facebook for hate speech and his misogynistic comments, including that women should bear responsibility for getting sexually assaulted.

He returned to Twitter last year after the platforms new CEO, Elon Musk, reinstated Tates account. Hope Not Hate, a group campaigning against far-right extremism in the U.K., has warned that Tate continues to attract a huge following among young men and teenage boys who are drawn to his misogynist, homophobic and racist content by the luxurious lifestyle the influencer projects online.

Romanias anti-organized crime agency, known as DIICOT, said the seven alleged victims were recruited with false declarations of love and taken to Romanias Ilfov county, where they were forced to take part in pornography. The women were allegedly controlled by intimidation, constant surveillance and claims they were in debt, prosecutors said.

Prosecutors ordered the confiscation of the Tate brothers assets, including 15 luxury cars, luxury watches and about $3 million in cryptocurrency, the agencys statement said.

Several women in Britain also are pursuing civil claims to obtain damages from Tate, alleging they were victims of sexual violence. In a recent interview with the BBC, Tate denied spreading a culture of misogyny and accusations that he manipulated women for financial gain.

The Pentagon said Tuesday that it overestimated the value of the weapons it has sent to Ukraine by $6.2 billion over the past two years about double early estimates  resulting in a surplus that will be used for future security packages.

Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh said a detailed review of the accounting error found that the military services used replacement costs rather than the book value of equipment that was pulled from Pentagon stocks and sent to Ukraine. She said final calculations show there was an error of $3.6 billion in the current fiscal year and $2.6 billion in the 2022 fiscal year, which ended last Sept. 30.

As a result, the department now has additional money in its coffers to use to support Ukraine as it pursues its counteroffensive against Russia. And it come as the fiscal year is wrapping up and congressional funding was beginning to dwindle.

Its just going to go back into the pot of money that we have allocated for the future Pentagon stock drawdowns, said Singh.

The revelation comes as Ukraine moves ahead with the early stages its counteroffensive, in an effort to dislodge the Kremlins forces from territory theyve occupied since a full-scale invasion in February 2022. The counteroffensive has come up against heavily mined terrain and reinforced defensive fortifications, according to Valerii Zaluzhnyi, the commander in chief of Ukraines armed forces.

Russia, meanwhile, has been bombarding the Kyiv region with dozens of Shahed exploding drones, in an assault that has exposed gaps in the countrys air protection after almost 16 months of war. Officials said Ukrainian air defenses downed 32 of 35 drones that were launched by Russia early Tuesday.

The Pentagon has repeatedly used presidential drawdown authority to pull weapons, ammunition and other equipment off the shelves, so that it can get to Ukraine far more quickly than going through a purchase process.

Based on previous estimates announced June 13, the U.S. had committed more than $40 billion in security assistance to Ukraine since Russia invaded. Using the new calculation, the U.S. has actually provided less than $34 billion in aid.

Officials have not been able to give exact totals for the amount of money that remains for the drawdowns or for the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, which provides longer-term funding to purchase weapons, including some of the larger air defense systems.

The U.S. has approved four rounds of aid to Ukraine in response to Russias invasion, totaling about $113 billion, with some of that money going toward replenishment of U.S. military equipment that was sent to the frontlines. Congress approved the latest round of aid in December, totaling roughly $45 billion for Ukraine and NATO allies. While the package was designed to last through the end of the fiscal year in September, much depends upon events on the ground, particularly as the new counteroffensive ramps up.

President Joe Biden and his senior national security leaders have repeatedly stated that the United States will help Ukraine as long as it takes to repel the Russian forces. Privately, administration officials have warned Ukrainian officials that there is a limit to the patience of a narrowly divided Congress and American public for the costs of a war with no clear end.

Members of Congress have repeatedly pressed Defense Department leaders on how closely the U.S. is tracking its aid to Ukraine to ensure that it is not subject to fraud or ending up in the wrong hands. The Pentagon has said it has a robust program to track the aid as it crosses the border into Ukraine and to keep tabs on it once it is there, depending on the sensitivity of each weapons system.

Singh said the accounting mistake wont affect the ongoing delivery of aid to Ukraine.

New Yorkers with takeout-heavy diets soon wont have to contend with an overwhelming array of unwanted plastic spoons and chopsticks. Restaurants face new fines for supplying them.

The city on Tuesday recommended fines ranging from $50 to $250 for restaurants, food delivery and third-party courier services that send utensils and other items like soy sauce and ketchup packets to customers who didnt ask for them, the result of the so-called Skip the Stuff bill that was signed into law in February. The rule is aimed at decreasing plastic waste generated by restaurants, according to proposed regulations published Tuesday.

Theres still time to stockpile. Restaurants will only receive warnings until July 1, 2024, when the financial penalties begin to take effect.

Were happy this law focuses on education first by initially providing a warning for violations, then doesnt propose the maximum fines allowable, and also places responsibility on the third-party delivery apps to help restaurants comply, said Andrew Rigie, an executive director for the NYC Hospitality Alliance, a nonprofit that advocates for the restaurant and nightlife industry.

The Skip the Stuff law follows a series of bans on single-use plastics, including plastic straws (except by request) and plastic bags. In 2019, the city began enforcing a ban on plastic foam takeout containers. 

A rift between the billionaire co-founders of Two Sigma Investments over the firms organization and succession plans, as well as other disputes, could pose a threat to its clients.  

Ongoing disagreements between John Overdeck and David Siegel, who started the quantitative hedge fund in 2001, were so strained that the firm took the rare step of citing them as a material risk in a March 31 regulatory filing. The Wall Street Journal reported on the disclosure earlier Tuesday. 

Overdeck and Siegel, who are the only members of the firms management committee, have failed to agree on defining roles and responsibilities for C-level executives and chief investment officers, according to the filing. They also disagree over the firms design and management structure, corporate governance and succession plans.

A spokeswoman for New York-based Two Sigma, with about $60 billion of assets under management, declined to comment. 

If such disagreement were to continue, the advisers ability to achieve client mandates could be impacted over time, Two Sigma wrote in the filing. 

The tensions are already affecting the ability of employees to fully implement key research, engineering or business initiatives, the firm said in the filing. It could also affect Two Sigmas ability to attract and keep talent. 

A group of senior modelers who worked under Overdeck threatened to quit if Siegel didnt take a step back, the Wall Street Journal reported. As for Two Sigmas succession plans, Overdeck wants to keep an operating role, while Siegel prefers handing control to a chief executive officer and having the duo stay in their chairman roles, according to the Journal.


About one-fifth of people who relied on fertility treatment like in vitro fertilization (IVF) for their first child are likely to get pregnant naturally in the future, according to an analysis using birthing data across 40 years. 

Researchers at the University of College London evaluated the likelihood of subsequent pregnancies for those who depended on fertility treatment to have their first childusing 11 studies encompassing over 5,000 women from 1980 to 2021. The findings were published Tuesday in Human Reproduction.  

Our findings suggest that natural pregnancy after having a baby by IVF is far from rare. This is in contrast with widely held views by women and health professionals and those commonly expressed in the media, that it is a highly unlikely event, Dr. Annette Thwaites, author of the study and researcher at the EGA Institute for Womens Health at the University of College London, said in a press release. 

Since IVF was first introduced in the late 1970s, its become much more widespread as the WHO reports about 9% of men and 11% of women have infertility issues. 

A 2018 Pew study found a third of Americans have either used fertility treatments or know someone who has used them; In 2019, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported slightly over 2% of U.S. pregnancies occur from assisted reproductive technologies (ART); Around the same time, since the start of the technology, over 8 million babies had been born globally using IVF. 

Education on fertility 

Researchers consider the findings to be particularly important, as many people may not realize that they can conceive naturally following fertility treatment.

Oftentimes, people are just being referred directly to IVF clinics, even if theyve got a chance to conceive naturally, Dr. Neel Shah, an OBGYN and the chief medical director at Maven, tells Fortune. Weve seen more of that trend over time.

As people navigate their specific fertility circumstances, the study highlights the importance of accurate information so people understand their chances and can make decisions. Shah says providers should focus on providing patients with the right services, by understanding their particular symptoms and circumstanceswhich can be challenging as about a third of infertility cases are unexplained.

IVF is like the pitstop on the journey. What people want is the shortest pathway to a healthy baby, he says. If ARP is the right way to do it, then we should make sure people have access, but if they are able to conceive naturally, we should be helping them with that.  

For those who may assume they cannot conceive naturally, it could lead to them becoming pregnant again quickly or when they arent readywhich could be problematic for both the health of the caregiver and child.

Dr. Shema Tariq found out her odds of conceiving naturally were extremely low, so she underwent six rounds of IVF to have her son. At age 43, she says she was told her odds for having another baby naturally were less than 1%. But less than a year later, she found out she was pregnant. 

My GP briefly mentioned contraception to me after he was born, but we both laughed and agreed that it wasnt relevant. It never occurred to me that I might get pregnant (despite being a sexual health doctor), she says in the press release. She has been the most wonderful surprise, but when we first found out I felt overwhelmed and unprepared for another pregnancy.

As infertility can lead to a range of mental and physical health challenges, its important for those looking to have a child to be armed with the right information.

People want the shortest pathway to having a healthy baby, and so its actually one of the only areas of health care we have such a clear objective function Shah says. The big takeaway from this study is that were not doing that right now.

More Articles ...

  1. The world's best restaurant was just announced in a city that's quickly becoming a foodie paradise
  2. Elon Musk's Twitter promised employees at least half their bonuses last year and then didn't pay up, lawsuit says
  3. Tesla's charging network moves closer to becoming the industry standard as yet another carmaker joins its fold
  4. The ADHD drug shortage is spreading as supplies of a popular alternative to Adderall run worryingly low
Page 22 of 1160

Newspapers

Spinning loader

Breaking News, data & opinions in business, sports, entertainment, travel, lifestyle, plus much more. IdigNews.com is the leading news source for the internet  users...

           

Business

Entertainment

POST GALLERY