LOS ANGELES – For a businessman who perpetually struggles with broken promises, Elon Musk gave himself quite a to-do list Thursday night at Tesla’s long-awaited Hollywood unveiling of its driverless robotaxis. His slew of announcements during a 20-minute presentation were short on practical details and prompted investors to push Tesla stock down as much as 10% on Friday.

After traversing the fake streets of the Warner Bros movie studio set in a sleek, silver two-door “Cybercab” prototype, he promised that the company’s popular Model 3 and Model Y vehicles would be able to operate without driver supervision in California and Texas by next year.

Musk said the company would start building the fully autonomous Cybercab by 2026 at a price of less than $30,000, and showed off a robovan capable of transporting 20 people around town – which he said would reshape cities by “turning parking lots into parks.”

Later came the dancing humanoid robots that also mixed drinks at the bar, which Musk said Tesla will also eventually sell for $20,000 to $30,000 apiece. “I think this will be the biggest product ever, of any kind,” he declared.

Thursday night’s electronic dance music-infused event had the signature trappings of Musk’s salesmanship, but some Tesla investors and experts said they were hoping for more concrete details on how the company plans to transform from an automaker into an autonomous driving and artificial intelligence titan with a solid business plan.

Tesla shares were down 7.8% in midday trading. The stock, which has been pummeled since its record high in late 2021 by fears of cheaper EV rivals eating into Tesla’s market share, is up nearly 40% since April when Musk announced the shift to robotaxis. Still, shares are down 9% over the past 12 months, compared with a nearly 33% increase in the broad-market S&P 500 index. Musk had for years pledged to sell a car expected to start at about $25,000, a promise that investors saw as critical to winning new customers. Reuters reported exclusively on April 5 that Tesla had abandoned this project, initially sending Tesla shares down…[+]

SOUTH KOREA – Forget the fish tails, we mean women capable of holding their breath for minutes on end as they dive under the sea several hundred times a day. These are the haenyeo divers of South Korea, a community of women from Jeju Island who have been free-diving (without oxygen) to harvest seafood for centuries.

Now, with most of them in their 60s, 70s and 80s, their traditions and way of life are in danger as fewer younger women take up the profession, and with the ocean potentially changing beyond recognition. It’s these facts that prompted US-Korean film-maker Sue Kim to team up with female education advocate and Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafazai to share their story with the world, in their film The Last of the Sea Women.

The daughter of Korean immigrants, US-born Kim first came across the haenyeo when she was a child, holidaying in South Korea. “I was so struck by them for the same reasons that you see in the film – they were so incredibly bold and vibrant and confident. They were also so loud… fighting and laughing, and they just gave off this very big energy and occupied their space so unapologetically,” says Kim.

“I just fell in love with that entire vibe and big energy when I was a little girl. And so I grew up staying fascinated with them. They were a version of Korean womanhood that I was inspired by and wanted to emulate,” she adds. “I was so shocked that I did not know about the haenyeo, like so many people did not know, I said yes straight away,” explains Malala, who was a producer on the film. “The story really took on an urgency about 10 years ago when I found out that this was probably the last generation of the haenyeo,” explains Kim. “It became more of an urgent mandate to make sure someone documented… while we still had them and while they could still tell us their own story in their own words.”

The film follows the women going about their gruelling work during the harvest season and examines the challenges they face both in and out of the water. They head out to dive at 6am daily. They hold their breath for a couple of minutes, come back up to the surface and go back down again – between 100 and 300 times a session. Just imagine the fitness levels. They harvest for four hours and then spend another three or four shelling and preparing their catch.

There are various theories as to why women began to take over this traditionally male job so many years ago. The Visit Jeju website states that the number of men was low overall in the population due to a high portion of them dying on the rough seas while boat fishing. As a result, there weren’t many men to harvest the ocean, so women gradually took over the job. (BBC) …[+]

LEBANON – Israel has been pounding the Lebanese capital of Beirut and other areas in the south of the country at an unprecedented intensity since escalating its war against the Iran-backed paramilitary group Hezbollah. The Israeli strikes have often targeted crowded areas, leveling residential buildings, killing more than 1,400 people and displacing over 1 million others, according to the Lebanese government. Israel’s military accuses Hezbollah of intentionally embedding itself within the civilian population, and says it is striking weapons stores and other key infrastructure for the militant group.

Photo: A view of the wreckage of a residential area following the Israeli airstrikes on the neighborhoods of Ras Al Naba’a and Basta Al Fawqa, in Beirut …[+]

TENNESSEE – Breast cancer specialist, Dr Sonya Reid, says diet and lifestyle choices play a key role in breast cancer care, albeit 90 per cent of breast cancer cases do not have a clear cause for their development.

Speaking during Tuesday night’s online breast cancer forum, which was hosted by the Sarah’s Children Foundation, Reid, a breast medical oncologist at Tennessee’s Vanderbilt University Medical Centre in the United States, said there is not enough data to conclusively say that diet plays a role in the development of breast cancer.

“Obesity is linked to higher incidents of certain types of breast cancer, so that is lifestyle and dietary influence. The big question is, ‘What do I do, going forward? Do I go green-juicing, do I cut out red meat?’ Those are some of the big questions we always get, and I think we do not have enough solid evidence to point us in a particular direction to say that this diet is better than that diet,” said Reid.

“When patients show up at my clinic, one of the first things they start doing is try to dial back, and they say, ‘What did I do wrong? It must have been the deodorant I was using, or it must have been that I started eating a lot of burgers recently’. What we know is that for 90 per cent of breast cancers, we do not know why you develop breast cancer,” stated Reid. “You have the genetic causes, the 10 per cent of persons that have the gene and for whom we can say it is because you have hereditary breast cancer, but for the majority of cases, we do not know why. We know there are things that increase risk, but we also know some patients can have the worst lifestyle and never get cancer.” (Jamaica-gleaner) …[+]