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Elon Musk’s Cybertruck found to be more dangerous than infamous Ford Pinto: report

A new report has come to a disturbing conclusion for Elon Musk's Tesla Cybertruck — the model is far more dangerous than even the infamously "explosive" Ford Pintos of the 1970s.
Automotive site FuelArc compiled the report after gathering "a full year of data for the Cybertruck" and pitting it against a decade worth of statistics for the Pinto, which was produced from 1970-1980.
FuelArc found that the fatality rate per 100,000 units was 14.52 for the Cybertruck and 0.85 for the Pinto, concluding that the Tesla model was "17 times more likely to have a fire fatality than a Ford Pinto."
The Ford Pinto had a troubled safety record. Its rear-mounted fuel tank design made it prone to fires in collisions, resulting in numerous fatalities. The company was accused of prioritizing cost-cutting over safety and faced billions in lawsuits. The Pinto recall and its impact on automotive safety regulations became a landmark case in consumer protection.
The site considered two Cybertruck crashes and one "incident" that happened "in their first full year on American roads." A crash in Piedmont CA killed 3 people, while a crash in Baytown TX killed one person.
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"The authors of the Cybertruck analysis openly acknowledge caveats in their methodology," reported Mother Jones. "First off, Tesla— the car’s manufacturer and one of Musk’s companies — has not confirmed how many Cybertrucks it has sold. FuelArc puts its best guess at 34,438, based on 'a variety of means, including piecing together public reporting.'
"Secondly, the five Cybertruck fatalities include the one that occurred in Las Vegas ... outside Trump International Hotel, when an Army soldier fatally shot himself before the car, packed with fireworks, exploded. Musk claimed in a post on X that the explosion was “unrelated to the vehicle itself.” Thus, the FuelArc analysis acknowledges that this fatality is 'controversial' since the driver’s cause of death was reportedly a self-inflicted gunshot wound, and the burns occurred after his death."
Musk threatened to sue reporters who implied the vehicle's design contributed to the explosion and fire in the Las Vegas incident.
Despite the "caveats," Mother Jones reported that "There are other reasons, beyond the latest analysis, to be skeptical" of the Cybertruck's safety.
For one, "It has reportedly not been crash-tested by the NHTSA or the nonprofit Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, nor has Tesla released its own safety data on the Cybertruck."
Mother Jones concluded, "Musk bragged around the time of its release that it would “be much safer per mile than other trucks.” But his claims of superiority were quickly disproven, given that Tesla recalled the truck seven times last year alone — an astonishingly high amount — including once over a trapped accelerator pedal that could increase the risk of a crash, estimated to affect more than 3,800 units, according to the NHTSA."
Read the Mother Jones article here and the FuelArc report here.
Ex-Trump aide thinks his racist hires are unraveling his 2024 winning coalition

Former Donald Trump staffer Alyssa Farah Griffin thinks that the reelected president is hurting himself by welcoming racist staff into the administration.
Speaking on "The View" Monday, the panel of co-hosts attacked a 25-year-old Elon Musk staffer who admitted in past social media posts that he was racist. However, another person who was fired during the previous Trump administration for attending a white nationalist event — Darren Beattie — was brought back to be acting undersecretary for public diplomacy and public affairs, she pointed out.
Ana Navarro, a Republican communications strategist and Never Trumper, rattled off a list of Trump's recent targets.
"What they're signaling is this," she said. "FBI agents who worked on January 6th, bad. DEI employees, bad. DOJ Civil Rights employee, bad. USAID employees who help the poor and sick all over the world, bad.
"But racists are welcome in the Trump administration."
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Griffin said that Vice President J.D. Vance's statements are what struck her because she, too, doesn't "believe in cancel culture. I believe in consequence culture."
"This is different," Griffin continued. "We're trying to gauge if this Trump administration is the same as the first. In the first, somebody who attended a white nationalist rally — and that came to light, he was fired. In this Trump administration, he's a spokesperson for the United States State Department."
She recalled the 2024 election, in which Trump "built a multiracial coalition" of supporters from Black and Latino voters.
"Doubling his numbers with young black men, five points higher with Asian Americans. He seeks to understand those gains he made by having people espousing these hateful, bigoted views associated with him," said Griffin.
‘Start off with the J6 Choir’: Steve Bannon pushes Trump to upend Kennedy Center calendar

MAGA activist Steve Bannon pressed President Donald Trump to have the so-called J6 Choir of formerly imprisoned Jan. 6 rioters perform at the Kennedy Center after the commander-in-chief installed himself as chairman of the performing arts institution.
"That's the high church of the administrative state deep state," Bannon opined during his Monday War Room broadcast. "He's appointed himself chairman. The J6 Choir should come and have it. We should have a special program there."
"They're crushed over there," he continued. "President Trump, now as chairman, ought to fire them all and ... just reprogram the whole thing."
"I strongly believe you start off with the J6 Choir having them in the evening's entertainment and invite all the first guests that should be invited — should be the J6 prisoners. Invite them and their families," he continued. "Just watch the meltdown of the Washington elite. Watch the meltdown."
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"Oh, by the way that, the premium ticket holders down front, you're giving up your seats for the J6 families. Think that [would] get their attention? That culturally, you'd break them."
This week's Kennedy Center schedule was set to begin with a "Dance for Parkinson’s Disease" program.
Judge hits Trump admin for refusing to obey restraining order on funding freeze

U.S. District Judge John McConnell issued an order directing the Trump administration to immediately obey a previous restraining order halting a funding freeze for the National Institutes of Health and two Biden-era laws.
In a Friday filing, 22 state attorneys general accused the administration of not obeying McConnell's order to unfreeze federal spending for grants and loans. The White House's Office of Management and Budget (OMB) claimed that the order did not apply to specific federal programs.
On Monday, McConnell sided with the state attorneys general.
"The broad categorical and sweeping freeze of federal funds is, as the Court found, likely unconstitutional and has caused and continues to cause irreparable harm to a vast portion of this country," McConnell wrote in a five-page order.
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McConnell's order instructed the OMB to "take every step necessary" to restore funding for the Inflation Reduction Act, the Infrastructure Improvement and Jobs Act, the National Institutes of Health, and other agencies covered by the restraining order.
‘No, they wouldn’t’: Trump vows Palestinians will never return to homeland under Gaza plan

Donald Trump intends to exclude Palestinians from the "beautiful" development he envisions after the U.S. occupation of Gaza.
The president announced last week that the U.S. should take control of the region after nearly a year and a half of Israeli bombardment, and he told Fox News host Brett Baier in an interview that aired Monday morning that displaced Palestinians would not have a right to return.
"We'll build beautiful communities for the 1.9 million people," Trump said. "We'll build beautiful communities, safe communities. Could be five, six, could be two, but we'll build safe communities a little bit away from where they are, where all of this danger is. In the meantime, I would own this. Think of it as a real estate development for the future. It would be a beautiful piece of land, no big money spent."
Baier asked specifically whether the Palestinian people would be allowed to return to their homeland.
"No, they wouldn’t," Trump said. "Because they’re going to have much better housing, much better – in other words, I’m talking about building a permanent place for them because if they have to return now it would be years before you could ever – it's not habitable. It'll be years before it can happen. I'm talking about starting to build, and I think I could make a deal with Jordan. I think I could make a deal with Egypt. We give them billions and billions of dollars a year."
Trump has mused about developing beachfront property in Gaza for years, and he said Tuesday afternoon during a joint news conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that he would turn the devastated area into the "Riviera of the Middle East."
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Six arrested after migrants’ bodies found on French beach

Authorities have arrested six people after the bodies of two migrants were found on a northern France beach following a failed bid to cross the Channel and reach Britain, French prosecutors said Monday.
After a record year for deaths in the Channel, crossing attempts have continued in the middle of winter, despite sometimes freezing temperatures.
The six people arrested are aged 19 to 50 and of Afghan, Sudanese and Iranian nationality, the Boulogne-sur-Mer prosecutor's office said.
The first body, a man in his 30s of Afghan origin, was found on the sandy beach in Berck in the the Pas-de-Calais region, with a second spotted less than two hours later just 300 meters (nearly 1,000 feet) away, authorities said.
The men were migrants attempting to swim to a small boat already in the water that would take them across the Channel.
"Around 60 migrants were waiting in the water to board," the prosecutor's office told AFP.
Only 24 of them managed to board, while 37 others were rescued, it added. The two bodies were found a few hours later.
The migrants who did make it on board the vessel, however, later headed back to the French coast for reasons that remain to be specified, authorities said.
Bodies have repeatedly washed up on beaches around Calais in recent months as makeshift migrant boats capsize or suffer from chaotic embarkations that leave some passengers in the water.
"A total of 230 people" were rescued at sea on Sunday, according to French maritime authorities.
Among those rescued was a group that set off for Britain in the morning but their boat deflated, leaving 57 people in the water near Gravelines, including one person found unconscious and two who had hypothermia.
That was followed by a boat carrying 38 people that issued a distress call, and another 19 people who were pulled off a skiff that kept going with dozens more passengers aboard.
Near Dunkirk, 42 passengers were rescued, including two who had to be airlifted to hospital.
In the evening, a patrol boat rescued 33 people who failed to make it across the Channel after setting off that morning.
At least 77 migrants died trying to reach Britain last year, according to French authorities, making 2024 the deadliest year on record for the crossings.
Both London and Paris have vowed to crack down on the people smugglers who are paid sometimes thousands of euros by migrants to organize the crossing to England.
But the issue has also repeatedly caused tensions between the French and British governments.
Paris has claimed that London's lax enforcement of employment rules attracts migrants.
There have been high-profile arrests of people smugglers, but activists say the traffickers are now trying to pack more people into the small boats, making the crossings even more dangerous.
© Agence France-Presse

