California regulators have changed course and opened a pathway for the public to get self-driving cars of the future that lack a steering wheel or pedals.

It's not going to happen soon, because automakers and some tech companies are still testing prototypes.

But, in a shift, the state's Department of Motor Vehicles said in a revision of draft regulations released late Friday that the most advanced self-driving cars would no longer be required to have a licensed driver if federal officials deem them safe enough.

The redrafted regulations will be the subject of a public hearing Oct. 19 in Sacramento.

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-autonomous-vehicle-california-20160930-snap-story.html

The airwaves and newspaper headlines were filled with talk of infidelity and impeachment. When the votes were counted, the result was a shock: For only the second time since the Civil War, the president’s party had gained seats in the House of Representatives.

Republicans learned a lesson. “It was a huge blunder,” said Scott Reed, a GOP strategist, recalling the party’s 1998 midterm debacle and the sympathy the attacks on Bill Clinton engendered for the president and then-First Lady Hillary Clinton.

So it is inexplicable to Reed and many other Republicans that Donald Trump is seeking to recover from his stumbling debate performance by dredging up Bill Clinton’s womanizing and escalating his attacks on a former Miss Universe whose transgression, Trump suggests, was putting on a few pounds.

In a predawn barrage unleashed Friday on Twitter, Trump made an unsubstantiated charge that Alicia Machado, the 1996 pageant winner, had performed in a sex tape. He also asserted that Hillary Clinton helped Machado become a U.S. citizen just so the Democratic presidential nominee could cite the former beauty queen's past difficulties with Trump in an attack during Monday night’s debate.

http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-trump-20160930-snap-htmlstory.html

Most of Donald Trump’s Republican presidential primary rivals have come around to his candidacy, but their donors are staying away.

Nearly 95% of those who first gave to his GOP primary opponents are sitting out the general election, and of those who are still giving money, many are lining up behind Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton instead, according to a Times analysis of donations over $200.

Trump has out-raised Clinton $7.4 million to $2 million among donors who supported his 16 GOP rivals. But that much support for Clinton is notable in a race where her Republican rival is struggling in the money contest.

Clinton brought in $292 million to Trump’s $82 million through the end of August. Add in loans, transfers from joint fundraising committees and super PAC money, and the gulf grows, with $530 million for Clinton and $186 million for Trump, according to Federal Election Commission records through Aug. 31, the most recent period for which figures were available.

http://www.latimes.com/projects/la-na-pol-gop-donors-20160930-snap/

If the first step to fixing your problem is acknowledging you have a problem, Donald Trump is in some serious trouble. We're 10 days from his second debate with Hillary Clinton, and while most voters and virtually every sane observer agree that Trump did poorly in the first debate, a spate of reporting suggests that his campaign, and especially Trump himself, are in a state of deep denial about what happened and what he needs to do in order to have a different outcome next time.

But that's not all. Because of the format of the second debate, Trump stands to do even worse than he did in the first debate, and Clinton could do even better.

I'll explain why that is in a moment, but first, let's take a quick tour around Trumpland today.

- The New York Times reports that because of Trump's short attention span and staff chaos, his preparation for the first debate devolved into him and a few advisers including Rudy Giuliani and Roger Ailes sitting around shooting the breeze: "There were early efforts to run a more standard form of general election debate-prep camp. . .But Mr. Trump found it hard to focus during those meetings, according to multiple people briefed on the process who requested anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. That left Mr. Ailes, who at the time was deeply distracted by his removal from Fox and the news media reports surrounding it, discussing his own problems as well as recounting political war stories, according to two people present for the sessions."

http://www.heraldtribune.com/zz/elections/20160930/analysis-first-debate-was-defeat-for-trump---heres-why-second-could-be-massacre

DURHAM, N.H. (The Borowitz Report)—Asked at a town-hall meeting on Wednesday to name his favorite foreign leader, the Libertarian Presidential candidate Gary Johnson seemed stumped at first before finally responding, “Obi-Wan Kenobi.”

The host of the town hall, MSNBC’s Chris Matthews, appeared initially taken aback by Johnson’s answer, but the former New Mexico governor went on to defend it vigorously.

“Obi-Wan Kenobi is a Jedi Master, Chris,” Johnson said. “More than anyone else, he taught me that the Force is already strong with me.”

“We’re on the same page about this, aren’t we, Bill?” he asked his running mate, the former Massachusetts Governor William Weld, who smiled weakly and shifted awkwardly in his chair.

http://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/gary-johnson-says-his-favorite-foreign-leader-is-obi-wan-kenobi

Source: AFP

Samsung is in discussions about "potential safety issues" concerning some of its washing machines after a class-action lawsuit complained the appliances were exploding, the company said Wednesday.

The news comes after the South Korean electronics giant recalled millions of its Galaxy Note 7 smartphones following a series of battery explosions.

Samsung is "in active discussions" with the US Consumer Product Safety Commission on issues with top-load washing machines manufactured between March 2011 and April 2016, a company statement said.

"In rare cases, affected units may experience abnormal vibrations that could pose a risk of personal injury or property damage when washing bedding, bulky or water-resistant items," it said.

Read more: https://www.yahoo.com/news/samsung-eyes-fix-complaints-exploding-washers-214657248--finance.html

---

Does Samsung make any consumer products that don't explode or catch fire?

The world's largest radio telescope began operating in southwestern China Sunday, a project Beijing says will help humanity search for alien life.

The Five-hundred-metre Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope (FAST), nestled between hills in the mountainous region of Guizhou, began working around noon, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

Built at a cost of 1.2 billion yuan ($180 million), the telescope dwarfs the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico as the world's largest single-dish radio telescope, with twice the sensitivity and a reflector as large as 30 football fields, it said.

FAST will use its vast dish, made up of 4,450 panels, to search for signs of intelligent life, and to observe distant pulsars -- tiny, rapidly spinning neutron stars believed to be the products of supernova explosions.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/worlds-largest-radio-telescope-starts-operating-china-072255142.html

When Donald Trump began his improbable run for president 15 months ago, he offered his wealth and television celebrity as credentials, then slyly added a twist of fearmongering about Mexican “rapists” flooding across the Southern border.

From that moment of combustion, it became clear that Mr. Trump’s views were matters of dangerous impulse and cynical pandering rather than thoughtful politics. Yet he has attracted throngs of Americans who ascribe higher purpose to him than he has demonstrated in a freewheeling campaign marked by bursts of false and outrageous allegations, personal insults, xenophobic nationalism, unapologetic sexism and positions that shift according to his audience and his whims.

Now here stands Mr. Trump, feisty from his runaway Republican primary victories and ready for the first presidential debate, scheduled for Monday night, with Hillary Clinton. It is time for others who are still undecided, and perhaps hoping for some dramatic change in our politics and governance, to take a hard look and see Mr. Trump for who he is. They have an obligation to scrutinize his supposed virtues as a refreshing counterpolitician. Otherwise, they could face the consequences of handing the White House to a man far more consumed with himself than with the nation’s well-being.

Here’s how Mr. Trump is selling himself and why he can’t be believed.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/26/opinion/why-donald-trump-should-not-be-president.html

Donald Trump's threat to undo President Barack Obama's detente with Cuba unless President Raul Castro abides by Trump's list of demands is provoking widespread anxiety among ordinary Cubans, who were paying little attention to the U.S. presidential campaign until now.

Trump had been generally supportive of Obama's reestablishment of diplomatic ties and normalization of relations, saying he thought detente was "fine" although he would have cut a better deal.

Then, in Miami on Friday, the Republican nominee said he would reverse Obama's series of executive orders unless Castro meets demands including "religious and political freedom for the Cuban people and the freeing of political prisoners." Castro said in a speech the following day that Cuba "will not renounce a single one of its principles," reiterating a longstanding rejection of any U.S. pressure.

While Hillary Clinton maintains an electoral college advantage, Cubans are suddenly envisioning the possibility of a U.S. president who would undo measures popular among virtually everyone on the island, from hard-line communists to advocates of greater freedom and democracy.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trumps-cuba-position-provokes-anxiety-174042018.html

Source: AFP

Boeing said Wednesday it obtained a US government license to complete a sale of planes to Iran Air, moving closer to the first such deal since the 1979 Islamic revolution.

The aerospace group said it remained in talks with Iran Air on a final sales agreement after the two sides reached a preliminary deal in June. The deal is valued at as much as $25 billion.

"Any final sales agreement would have to adhere to the license we've been issued," said Boeing spokesman Mark Sklar.

The June memorandum of understanding covered the sale of 80 planes to Iran Air. Boeing will also lease 29 other planes to Iranian national carrier under the deal.

Read more: https://www.yahoo.com/news/boeing-says-received-us-license-sell-planes-iran-191734887.html