While that's all far more chaotic and destructive than even some of the worst behavior that Waymo's robotaxis have been guilty of, the in-game autonomous vehicles nonetheless resemble the company's earlier-generation Chrysler Pacifica vans. The expansion is called 'A Safehouse in the Hills' and is available starting December 10. It's not clear if the vans in the trailer have been, in true Grand Theft Auto fashion, hijacked by playable characters, or if they've gone rogue. It seems likely it's the latter, though, as Rockstar Games says players will be encouraged to 'stop the development of a mass surveillance network in an all-new action-packed adventure' as part of the DLC. (The trailer also teases a storyline that involves an AI assistant named 'Haviland,' so the tech world in general appears to be a part of this particular storyline.) Waymo has said it will deny government requests for the footage its vehicles capture if those requests are 'overly broad and unlawful.' But its robotaxis have nevertheless drawn criticism for being part of a growing surveillance state. That frustration has contributed to the company's vehicles becoming a target of multiple instances of vandalism. Waymo SUVs have been burned, smashed, and had their tires slashed in different cities over the last few years....

In its latest retreat from India's crowded online retail market, Walmart-backed fintech giant PhonePe has wound down its Pincode e-commerce app and will shift the business toward B2B services for offline merchants. On Thursday, PhonePe founder and group CEO Sameer Nigam said operating a consumer-facing quick-commerce app had become a distraction from the company's core focus on small retailers. The company instead wants to concentrate on helping stores 'achieve operational efficiency, improved margins and visibility,' he said, citing this as its primary objective. PhonePe launched Pincode in April 2023 as a major push into e-commerce, building it on the Indian government-backed Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC). The hyperlocal app offered groceries, medicines, food, electronics, and home decor from neighborhood shops. It rolled out first in Bengaluru and later expanded to other cities. Within a little over a year of launch, Pincode pulled out of most categories except food. Earlier this year, the app shifted to a quick-commerce model, offering 10-minute deliveries through local kirana shops and retailers in cities such as Bengaluru, New Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, and Pune. The company also expanded the service to 10-minute medicine deliveries in Bangalore, Mumbai, and Pune in April....

That extraordinary figure represents nearly one-quarter of all Syrians who fled fighting during the 13-year civil war to live abroad. It is also a strikingly fast pace for a country where insecurity persists across broad regions. The scale and speed of these returns since the overthrow of Bashar Assad's brutal regime on Dec. 8, 2024, raise important questions: Why are so many Syrians going back, and will these returns last' Moreover, what conditions are they returning to' As an expert in property rights and post-conflict return migration, I have monitored the massive surge in refugee returns to Syria throughout 2024. While a combination of push-and-pull factors have driven the trend, the widespread destruction of property during the brutal civil war poses an ongoing obstacle to resettlement. By the time a rebel coalition led by Sunni Islamist organization Hayat Tahrir al-Sham overthrew the Assad government, Syria's civil war had been going on for more than a decade. What began in 2011 as part of the Arab Spring protests quickly escalated into one of the most destructive conflicts of the 21st century....

Trump said it was a 'total disgrace' that South Africa hosted the November event, citing allegations of a 'white genocide' against Afrikaner farmers. This is vigorously denied by the South African government which says such claims are 'widely discredited and unsupported by reliable evidence'. In this episode of The Conversation Weekly podcast, we speak to Carolyn Holmes, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, to trace the history of the links between white nationalists in the US and South Africa. She says: Listen to The Conversation Weekly via any of the apps listed above, download it directly via our RSS feedor find out how else to listen here. A transcript of this episode is available via the Apple Podcasts or Spotify apps....