The Times - UK (2022-04-13)

the times | Wednesday April 13 2022 2GM 35

Forget flowers, nothing

says I love you like

sending fish by drone

Page 36

A routine traffic stop turned into a

bewildering experience for a San Fran-

cisco police officer when he discovered

he had pulled over a driverless car.

Video captured the moment the

officer peered through the window of

the Chevrolet Bolt at a set of traffic

lights.

Realising the autonomous electric

vehicle was empty, he tried and failed to

open the door before heading back to

his own car.

The Bolt, operated by the ride service

Cruise, drove away as if it had decided

to make a run for it.

Onlookers can be heard laughing,

Driverless car bolts after police stop

with one saying: “Ain’t nobody in it —

this is crazy.”

The video was posted on Instagram

this month and went viral over the

weekend as social media users made

jokes at the expense of the police

department.

Cruise insisted on Twitter that its

vehicle had behaved exactly “as intend-

ed” and the video showed the car trav-

elled only a short distance before stop-

ping on the other side of the junction

with its hazard lights flashing.

“Our AV yielded to the police vehicle,

then pulled over to the nearest safe lo-

cation for the traffic stop,” the company

said. “An officer contacted Cruise per-

sonnel and no citation was issued.

“We work closely with the police on

how to interact with our vehicles, in-

cluding a dedicated phone number for

them to call in situations like this.”

It is thought police tried to stop the

car because its headlights were turned

off at night.

Cruise said that its vehicles set a “new

standard in safety”, using more than 40

sensors to map surrounding objects. It

is one of three companies authorised

to use driverless cars for commercial

services in designated parts of San

Francisco.

The company was founded in San

Francisco in 2013 by Daniel Kan and

Kyle Vogt and is valued at more than

$30 billion.

Peter Stubley

for first time since Franco

In his speech to the Cortes in Valladol-

id, Mañueco conceded some ideologi-

cal ground to Vox, which wants to

replace the Law of Democratic

Memory relating to the civil war,

arguing that it is biased towards the los-

ing Republican side.

He resisted concessions on a gender

violence law — which Vox wants to

abolish — and said only that an

additional “domestic violence” law

would be passed.

Mañueco defended the new joint

executive, describing it as “without

complexes” and which would work “as

a team”. Previously he rejected an offer

from the Socialists to permit the PP to

govern as a minority by abstaining in

votes in return for joining their cordon

sanitaire around Vox.

Donald Tusk, the leader of the PP’s

European partners, has called the

coalition with Vox “a sad surprise — at

the end of the day it is a capitulation. I

hope it is just an incident or an accident,

and not a trend in Spanish politics”.

El Diario, a left-wing news website,

called it “unprecedented in all of

Europe, where the extreme right will

govern for the first time together with a

traditional right-wing party”.

All eyes are now on Feijóo, who has

not yet announced whether he will

attend the inauguration ceremony next

week, where he will be obliged to pose

for the cameras with Abascal.

President Macron accused Marine Le

Pen of talking “rubbish” about Europe,

saying she had a secret plan to drive

France out of the EU but did not dare tell

voters, as campaigning for their

presidential run-off moved into top gear.

On a visit to eastern France, Macron

accused his rival of extremism,

dishonesty and cowardice. He said that

Le Pen would follow the path trodden

by David Cameron, which would end in

France’s divorce from the EU.

With polls predicting a tight race, the

president contrasted his own “clear”

views on Europe with what he

described as a disguised push for

“Frexit” by the leader of the National

Rally. “This election is a referendum on

Europe,” he said.

Macron is convinced that although

complaints about Brussels are wide-

spread in France, most voters have no

desire to walk away from the EU and are

suspicious of Le Pen’s Euroscepticism.

In Strasbourg, the city that is home to

the European parliament, he described

the EU as a “treasure” that had pre-

served peace on the continent and

helped France through the Covid crisis.

As supporters cheered and chanted

“Vive l’Europe”, he said: “This ‘long live

Europe’ is cry of hope and of pride”,

adding: “Europe is a space of peace,

culture and democratic values but it is

threatened.” He said that Le Pen’s

policies were based on nationalism and

“nationalism is war”. If she came to

power, France would become like

Hungary under the populist Viktor

Orban, “where rights are meticulously

and progressively reduced”.

Le Pen, 53, who once said she wanted

France to follow Britain out of the EU,

has softened her position, and now says

that she wants to reform the bloc from

within. At a press conference she said

that she aimed to transform the EU into

an association of nation states

and to reduce the French financial

contribution.

She denied wanting a Frexit but said

that she would be happy for a “people’s

initiative referendum” on the issue. “It’s

up to the French if they want to with-

draw [from the EU],” she added.

Macron said: “Marine Le Pen is talk-

ing rubbish when she says would not

pay [the EU’s] bills and that she will

change the rules on her own.”

In a reference to Cameron, who also

wanted EU reform before the 2016

referendum in Britain, he added: “There

are people who have tried that in the

past and they have had problems.”

Macron said: “[Le Pen] wants to leave

but she does not dare say so. That’s

never good. She says that she wants an

alliance of nation states but she is going

to find herself in a corner and she is

going to try to come up with an alliance

with her friends.”

He said that the only EU countries

willing to join her would be Poland and

Hungary, which have right-wing

governments. “It would be a strange

club. I don’t think it is a club that would

be good for France. I don’t think it

would be good for Europe.”

He said he had “changed” the EU and

that the “EU has changed the life of this

country”, ensuring vaccine supplies

during the pandemic and funds to

rebuild the economy after the crisis.

On a walkabout before his speech,

Macron was accosted by a voter who

said: “I have never seen a more rubbish

president. You are a Machiavellian

manipulator.” Macron told the voter he

was being aggressive and had no

argument to substantiate his criticism.

Earlier Macron, 44, visited a hospital

in nearby Mulhouse, which was among

the first towns hit by Covid-19 in March

2020. He alluded to Le Pen’s pro-
      Russian positions in recent years and
      compared her to Donald Trump, who
      advocated the use of hydroxychloro-
      quine to treat Covid-19 despite medical
      scepticism.
      “I do not forget what Marine Le Pen
      said during the health crisis. She wanted
      to treat everyone with hydroxychloro-
      quine and she wanted to vaccinate
      everyone with a Russian vaccine that
      the World Health Organisation said was
      inefficient and she quite methodically
      criticised the measures by the [French]
      government, without which we would
      not have made it through.”

Macron accuses

Le Pen of having

secret ‘Frexit’ plan

France

Adam Sage Strasbourg

moments after the accident, which

took place late on Sunday. “I can’t

explain the experience of hanging

in the air in a car at night, total

darkness. I thought I was going to

have a heart attack,” he said.

Sushila Devi, who was rescued on

Monday, said she had died “a

hundred deaths” while waiting for

help. “It feels like I have been

reborn,” she told The Times of

India. Video showed a bloodied

woman in a daze being led to safety

through the doors of her blood-

spattered cab. Another showed a

terrified child being winched with a

rescuer into a helicopter.

A middle-aged man clinging to a

rope suspended from a helicopter

lost his grip and fell to his death.

Rescuers believe that one car

scraped against a rock on the

descent from Trikut temple,

snapped its cable and hit another.

The 766m track is almost 400m

above ground and carries 25 cars.

TRIKUT

HILLS

Cable car

station

Cable car

top station

500ft

INDIA

Calcutta

Trikut hills

Cable car

route

A man clings to a cable while a child

is pulled into a helicopter during the

rescue operation in northern India