Last updated: December 3rd, 2022 at 02:10 UTC+01:00
How do you increase the security of fingerprint-based biometrics? Well, how about instead of using a small scanner that can read one fingerprint at a time, you make the entire OLED screen capable of scanning multiple fingerprints simultaneously? It may sound like something out of science fiction, but Samsung is working on this technology as we speak.
And according to ISORG CEO during a recent interview, Samsung might have this technology ready for its OLED displays in just a couple of years.
Samsung announced it is developing an All-in-One fingerprint sensing solution for the next-generation displays, i.e., OLED 2.0, at IMID a few months ago. This technology will allow Galaxy smartphones and tablets to read multiple fingerprints simultaneously through their OLED displays.
Samsung to set a new standard for fingerprint security in 2025
According to Samsung Display, using three fingerprints simultaneously for authentication is 2.5×10^9 (or 2,500,000,000) more secure than using just one fingerprint. On top of these obvious security benefits, Samsung’s technology will work on the entire screen. Future Galaxy device users will no longer have to worry about placing their fingerprints in the right spot on the screen. With OLED 2.0 and this upcoming All-in-One fingerprint scanning solution, the entire screen can act as a fingerprint scanner.
Samsung hasn’t revealed exactly when it will have this technology ready for its Galaxy devices. However, ISORG says its own OPD (Organic Photo Diode) multi-fingerprint scanning technology is ready, adding that Samsung will probably use similar materials and processes for its All-in-One fingerprint scanner for OLED 2.0.
ISORG CEO predicts that Samsung will release its multi-fingerprint scanning technology in 2025. The tech will become the de-facto standard for security. At the same time, it’s unclear whether Apple will adopt this technology, considering that the latest iPhone models have replaced fingerprint unlocking with Face ID. Samsung will likely be the first OEM to introduce multi-fingerprint scanning and become the industry leader in this particular area.
House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy is moving swiftly to lock down the votes to claim the speaker’s gavel as a hard-right faction of his conference discusses whether to mount a long-shot challenge to complicate his bid and force concessions in the process, according to multiple GOP sources.
McCarthy privately spoke to his closest advisers and confidantes in a Wednesday morning phone call just hours after his party appeared on track to take the House but fell short of their bullish expectations of a massive GOP landslide. The California Republican tapped a group of members to be on his whip team that will help him secure the 218 votes in order to win the speakership in January, with GOP lawmakers on the call promising to “work hard to get him elected,” according to a source familiar with the matter.
But McCarthy’s easy ascension to the speakership will be determined in large part by the size of a potential GOP majority. If McCarthy maintains a narrow majority, then the pro-Trump House Freedom Caucus could stand in the way of his leadership ambitions. CNN has not yet projected a Republican takeover of the chamber.
A source familiar with the House Freedom Caucus’ deliberations told CNN on Wednesday morning that there are around two dozen current and incoming members who are willing to vote against McCarthy if he doesn’t offer them concessions. They are actively discussing putting up a nominal challenger to face McCarthy in next week’s leadership elections in an effort to force the GOP leader to give them more influence in how the House operates, the source said.
McCarthy sent a letter to the conference Wednesday afternoon officially declaring his bid for the speakership and asking members for their support, according to a copy obtained by CNN.
Next week’s leadership election is just the first step in the process. McCarthy would need to win a majority of his conference’s support next week to be nominated for speaker before a January vote when he would need 218 votes of the full House to win the gavel. The hope, the source said, is that if they back a challenger to McCarthy in next week’s elections, it would force the California Republican to cut a deal in order to secure their support in the January speaker’s race when he wouldn’t be able to afford to lose more than a handful of GOP votes in a narrow Republican majority.
The Freedom Caucus’ strategy will come into sharper focus by week’s end as members weigh their options and as incoming lawmakers come to Washington for initial meetings.
Among their demands: Making it easier for individual members to call for a vote ousting a sitting speaker, an idea that McCarthy has long rejected and one that was wielded over former Speaker John Boehner, a Republican from Ohio. The same source said that the Freedom Caucus wants more representation on the panel that makes selections on members’ committee assignments. They are also calling on GOP leaders to commit to slowing down the legislative process and give them more time to review even non-controversial bills.
McCarthy allies are touting his Tuesday endorsement from former President Donald Trump for the speaker’s gavel, something that could help with staunch Trump backers in the House GOP conference. Moreover, McCarthy has long moved to develop a good standing with even the most rebellious forces within the Freedom Caucus and has been in talks with some members of the group about their role in a GOP majority for weeks, according to Republican sources.
Plus, McCarthy allies believe Republicans will credit him for the hundreds of millions of dollars that his outside group raised and spent in key races. McCarthy has been calling victorious GOP candidates and members since Tuesday night.
McCarthy had hoped to pick up at least 20 seats to give him a cushion in both the speaker’s race and to help push through his agenda. It’s unclear if they can get there as many races remain too early for CNN to call.
This story has been updated with additional developments.
A new article from Wired calls Rust “the ‘viral’ secure programming language that’s taking over tech.”
“Rust makes it impossible to introduce some of the most common security vulnerabilities. And its adoption can’t come soon enough….”
[A] growing movement to write software in a language called Rust is gaining momentum because the code is goof-proof in an important way. By design, developers can’t accidentally create the most common types of exploitable security vulnerabilities when they’re coding in Rust, a distinction that could make a huge difference in the daily patch parade and ultimately the world’s baseline cybersecurity….
[B]ecause Rust produces more secure code [than C] and, crucially, doesn’t worsen performance to do it, the language has been steadily gaining adherents and now is at a turning point. Microsoft, Google, and Amazon Web Services have all been utilizing Rust since 2019, and the three companies formed the nonprofit Rust Foundation with Mozilla and Huawei in 2020 to sustain and grow the language. And after a couple of years of intensive work, the Linux kernel took its first steps last month to implement Rust support. “It’s going viral as a language,” says Dave Kleidermacher, vice president of engineering for Android security and privacy. “We’ve been investing in Rust on Android and across Google, and so many engineers are like, ‘How do I start doing this? This is great’….”
By writing new software in Rust instead, even amateur programmers can be confident that they haven’t introduced any memory-safety bugs into their code…. These types of vulnerabilities aren’t just esoteric software bugs. Research and auditing have repeatedly found that they make up the majority of all software vulnerabilities. So while you can still make mistakes and create security flaws while programming in Rust, the opportunity to eliminate memory-safety vulnerabilities is significant….
“Yes, it’s a lot of work, it will be a lot of work, but the tech industry has how many trillions of dollars, plus how many talented programmers? We have the resources,” says Josh Aas, executive director of the Internet Security Research Group, which runs the memory-safety initiative Prossimo as well as the free certificate authority Let’s Encrypt. “Problems that are merely a lot of work are great.” Here’s how Dan Lorenc, CEO of the software supply-chain security company Chainguard, explains it to Wired. “Over the decades that people have been writing code in memory-unsafe languages, we’ve tried to improve and build better tooling and teach people how to not make these mistakes, but there are just limits to how much telling people to try harder can actually work.
“So you need a new technology that just makes that entire class of vulnerabilities impossible, and that’s what Rust is finally bringing to the table.”
NEW YORK — San Diego Padres starter Joe Musgrove knew Sunday was the biggest start of his life and felt sick to his stomach all day.
The stakes were high. A winner-takes-all playoff finale pitching in front of a hostile New York City crowd at Citi Field. San Diego needed a strong start from the righty after the team struggled in Game 2 against the New York Mets.
As Musgrove contemplated the five-year, $100 million contract the Padres rewarded him with in August, he felt the weight of his team’s season falling onto his shoulders.
But as first pitch ticked closer and Musgrove warmed up in the Citi Field bullpen, he pulled aside Padres catcher Austin Nola to talk about the night ahead of them.
“I’m going to have the best start of my life,” Musgrove told Nola.
His premonition came true, as Musgrove went seven innings, allowing just one hit and one walk and striking out five batters, propelling the Padres to a 6-0 victory and punching a ticket to the National League Division Series and a matchup against the Los Angeles Dodgers. In the process, Musgrove made history, becoming the first pitcher in major league history to throw seven shutout innings and allow one hit in a winner-takes-all postseason game.
Throughout the evening, Musgrove relied on his fastball, cutter, curveball and slider to completely dominate the Mets’ lineup, retiring the first 12 batters of the game, good for the longest perfect-game bid in Padres postseason history. The Mets struggled to mount any offensive momentum against the Padres, with first baseman Pete Alonso tallying the only Mets hit of the evening in the fifth inning.
“You could see the resolve in [Musgrove’s] face and the demeanor he had,” Padres manager Bob Melvin said. “He was on a mission today.”
An odd moment came in the bottom of the sixth inning when Mets manager Buck Showalter requested a substance check on Musgrove as pictures circulated online of the Padres starter’s ear appearing to shine. Umpires subsequently dug their fingers inside and around Musgrove’s ear, but did not find anything that violated the rules.
Mets fans at Citi Field followed the inspections with loud boos aimed at Musgrove, with chants of “cheater” echoing throughout the stadium.
“We found nothing,” umpire Alfonso Marquez said.
Melvin took issue with the Mets asking to check Musgrove for foreign substances.
“The problem I have is that Joe Musgrove is a man of character,” Melvin said. “Questioning his character, that’s the part I have a problem with and I’m here to tell everybody that Joe Musgrove is above board as any pitcher I know, any player I know, and unfortunately the reception he got after that was not warranted.”
After the substance check, Musgrove struck out Mets catcher Tomas Nido and gestured toward the New York dugout, swiping under his nose. Musgrove said the foreign substance check by the Mets was “desperate” and the team’s “last attempt to get me out of the game.”
“It almost just lit a fire under me,” Musgrove said.
Showalter said the team was privy to information — including increased spin rate from Musgrove — that led to him asking the umpires to check for foreign substances. According to Baseball Savant, all of Musgrove’s pitches on Sunday night exceeded his season average of rotations per minute.
“I’m charged with doing what’s best for the New York Mets,” Showalter said. “If it makes me look however it makes me look or whatever, I’m going to do it every time and live with the consequences. I’m not here to hurt somebody’s feelings.”
The Padres will make their second appearance in the division series since 2006, with the only other appearance coming in 2020 when they lost to the eventual World Series champion Dodgers.
Los Angeles went 14-5 against the Padres in the regular season. The Dodgers ranked as the top offense in baseball in 2022, scoring 847 runs, while San Diego ranked 13th among all teams, scoring 705 runs. The Dodgers also had the lowest team ERA in baseball while the Padres ranked 11th.
Sunday’s win also guarantees that the Padres will play their first playoff home game with fans in Petco Park since 2006.
“It’s one of the best feelings about this night,” Melvin said. “We talked about it in the hitters meetings today. There’s a lot on the line here and there are a lot of reasons to be motivated and inspired. One of them is bringing this thing back to San Diego and giving them a postseason experience.”
With Musgrove pitching exceptionally well in the biggest game of his career, Mets starter Chris Bassitt had little room for error, but the Padres’ offense took advantage of every opportunity they earned early in the game.
San Diego’s offense came gradually throughout the course of the evening. Nola started the tally with a single to left field that scored first baseman Josh Bell and shortstop Ha-Seong Kim. In the fourth inning, Padres outfielder Trent Grisham — who led the Padres’ offense in the previous wild-card games with two homers — singled on a sharp line drive to center field, scoring Kim.
Bassitt left the game after four innings, allowing three runs on three hits, three walks and two strikeouts.
“I was just beating myself,” Bassitt said. “Looking back at the Atlanta start, I’m not sure how many runs they scored on walks, and then tonight I know they scored two guys on walks. Not too proud of that.”
The Mets’ bullpen did not fare much better. Third baseman Manny Machado added on in the fifth inning by hitting a line-drive single off of reliever David Peterson to right field, scoring outfielder Jurickson Profar to make the score 4-0. In the eighth, outfielder Juan Soto added some cushion by singling to left field off Edwin Diaz, scoring Kim and Grisham. The six runs from the Padres proved to be more than enough to punch a ticket to the division series.
The stakes are high for the Padres, who made blockbuster moves at the trade deadline for superstar outfielder Soto and reliever Josh Hader. San Diego also dealt with the fallout following the 80-game suspension in August of superstar shortstop Fernando Tatis Jr., who tested positive for a performance-enhancing drug.
The Padres have made significant financial investments in Tatis, Soto, Machado, Yu Darvish, Wil Myers and Blake Snell, expecting to contend for a World Series title.
Back in June last year when Microsoft announced Windows 11 for the first time, the company laid out the minimum system requirements for the new OS. At the time, such strict requirements caused a lot of commotion since even a couple of generations-old CPUs were deemed un-supported for Windows 11. And though the company later revised its compatible CPU list to add some more of Intel models, the other necessities like Trusted Platform Module (TPM) version 2.0 – or Platform Trust Technology (PTT) in the case of Intel -and Secure Boot remained unchanged. Some games too, like Valorant, were blocked on systems which did not have TPM 2.0 and Secure Boot so as to enfore anti-cheat measures.
Microsoft later explained in detail how such technologies like TPM 2.0 and Virtualization-based Security (VBS) took the security aspect of Windows 11 to the next level, and also demonstrated successful hacker attack on a system with TPM and other such security features disabled.
In case you are wondering when exactly the Redmond giant started adding in these requirements on Windows 10, Twitter user and prolific leakster Xeno spotted the change within the Build 21327 for the first time. This was available in the appraiserres.dll in the Windows 10 build 21327.
Did you know that Cobalt build 21327 is the earliest public build to mention that a TPM module would block your system from installing “Sun Valley”? pic.twitter.com/loUqZvM78c
— Xeno (@XenoPanther) August 27, 2022
Speaking of the appraiserres DLL file, there’s a workaround available for bypassing the system requirements check on Windows 11 which basically involved deleting this file.
Max Verstappen won the 2022 Hungarian Grand Prix from P10 with pitch-perfect execution of Red Bull’s strategy, while Lewis Hamilton finished second ahead of his pole-sitting Mercedes team mate George Russell.
Russell led on soft tyres and pitted on Lap 15, soft-shod Verstappen pitting from P5 a lap later to force Carlos Sainz to pit from the lead. Charles Leclerc meanwhile stayed out in the lead, extending his first stint until Lap 22. Russell led again but was passed by Sainz on Lap 31. So, from P4, Verstappen forced the issue with a second stop for mediums on Lap 39.
Crucially, with that stop, Verstappen had pulled off an undercut on Sainz and had an advantage on Leclerc too, the Monegasque starting on mediums to swap for the same compound after a lengthy first stint – and from the lead pitting from hard tyres well after Verstappen. The Dutchman cleared his rival with ease soon after that and it became clear that hard tyres weren’t the answer; Leclerc falling to P6 as he switched again for softs while Verstappen won by 7.8s.
And that was despite a 360-degree spin that almost cost Verstappen at the final corner and forced him to make another overtake on Leclerc.
Hamilton started seventh on mediums, cleared the Alpines, pitted for mediums and stayed out long to ensure he could finish the race on softs, which ensured he could pass the likes of Sainz and then Russell to finish second.
1
Max Verstappen VER Red Bull Racing
1:39:35.912
25
2
Lewis Hamilton HAM Mercedes
+7.834s
19
3
George Russell RUS Mercedes
+12.337s
15
4
Carlos Sainz SAI Ferrari
+14.579s
12
5
Sergio Perez PER Red Bull Racing
+15.688s
10
Having started on pole, Russell couldn’t convert that to a win, his soft-medium-medium strategy seeing him end up third ahead of Sainz, who was cost by slow pit stops to finish fourth behind the Mercedes. Sainz still held off Sergio Perez by a second, while Leclerc couldn’t use his soft tyres to pass Perez and ended up sixth behind the Red Bull on another disappointing day for the Scuderia.
Lando Norris beat the Alpines to seventh, while Fernando Alonso finished P8 at the expense of team mate Esteban Ocon. Sebastian Vettel scrapped with Lance Stroll to lead his Canadian team mate for P10.
Pierre Gasly took P12, comfortably ahead of 13th-place Zhou Guanyu. Mick Schumacher was next, while Daniel Ricciardo could only manage 15th thanks to a five-second penalty ahead of the other Haas of Kevin Magnussen – who was involved in a minor collision early on.
Williams were next, Alex Albon finishing ahead of Nicholas Latifi in P17 and P18 respectively, while a spin saw Yuki Tsunoda finish 19th and last for AlphaTauri.
Valtteri Bottas stopped five laps from the end to bring out a Virtual Safety Car and a last-place classification for the Alfa Romeo.
AS IT HAPPENED
Spots of rain threatened to add even more drama to a weekend that has already seen Nicholas Latifi lead a session, George Russell take his maiden pole position to keep the Ferraris of Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz at bay – and then Max Verstappen qualify 10th ahead of team mate Sergio Perez.
Meanwhile, Pierre Gasly would begin from the pit lane with a new power unit, something Red Bull also opted to fit for both drivers after their qualifying glitch, but, given special dispensation to do so by the FIA, neither Perez nor Verstappen took grid penalties.
The drivers sported a range of Pirellis, Russell on used softs from pole, Lando Norris taking used softs from P4, his team mate Daniel Ricciardo following suit (from P9), along with Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez (new softs). Further down the top 10, Lance Stroll, Yuki Tsunoda, Alex Albon, Sebastian Vettel and Pierre Gasly would begin on new softs while the rest of the grid opted for new medium compounds.
The lights went out to end the feverous anticipation, Russell holding off a charging Sainz, who tried to pry the lead around the outside of Turn 1 while Hamilton cleared the Alpines – Fernando Alonso baulking at Esteban Ocon squeezing him at Turn 1 – to go into fifth, Verstappen up to eighth and Perez ninth after Lap 1. The Virtual Safety Car was then deployed for collisions between Magnussen and Ricciardo and another between Vettel and Albon, but the caution was swiftly withdrawn to restart the race on Lap 3.
2022 Hungarian Grand Prix: Pole-sitter Russell battles to stay ahead at start in Hungary
Russell gained a jump on the Ferraris as the VSC withdrew, Hamilton tailing fourth-place Nroris, while Verstappen was badgering the Alpines of Ocon in P6 and Alonso in P7, Perez also giving chase. Alonso exclaimed that he was “much faster” than Ocon but on Lap 5 the two-time champion ran wide at Turn 3 and Verstappen swept by for P7.
Verstappen made another move on Lap 7, prying P6 off Ocon and now it was reigning champion versus seven-time champion for P5, Perez behind using DRS and going round the outside of Turn 2 soon after for P8 at Alonso’s expense. Perez would wrestle seventh off Ocon two laps later to make it a Red Bull six-seven.
Magnussen had made it into the fight for points but was forced to pit on Lap 7 after his early scrap with Ricciardo; the Alfa Romeos had fallen down the order with poor starts, Bottas 12th and Zhou Guanyu 16th.
Russell’s gap to Sainz stood at around 2.5 seconds as the counter reached Lap 10 of 70 but the Mercedes driver had a set of soft tyres to nurse, as did Norris and the Red Bulls. Norris soon found himself creating a bottleneck with both Hamilton and Verstappen tailing him for that coveted fourth-place spot and a shot at the Scuderia.
Norris found it a struggle to hold off the Mercedes
Hamilton enjoyed a superior run to Turn 1 on Lap 12 and went round the inside of Norris for P4, Verstappen going around the outside of the McLaren just after that to leave him sixth ahead of Perez – who would take that place off him with DRS one lap later.
Verstappen began to complain, with some colourful language, that his clutch was slipping, and soon he would drop off Hamilton’s rear wing; Leclerc would ask his pit wall if Sainz could speed up. Indeed, Sainz was picking up the pace having cut the gap to 1.2s by the start of Lap 15, DRS his privilege one lap later when the call to box was given. Sainz skipped the pit entry and instead, it was Russell who stopped for mediums – Verstappen following – to emerge sixth at the start of Lap 17.
Russell came out of the pits – his stop slightly slow – only to find Alonso trying to battle him around the outside of Turns 1-4, but the Mercedes just hung on.
Sainz took his stop on Lap 17 but it wasn’t ideal either and he was released between the Alpines in P6, with Alonso and Verstappen behind him. Crucially, Sainz was now on the same tyre as Russell but with Ocon the obstacle between himself and the pole-sitter. Ocon was cleared with ease on Lap 19 (when Perez pitted and emerged 10th in traffic) and so Leclerc was in the lead, 11.5s ahead of Hamilton and another 7.5s ahead of Russell as the ticker reached Lap 20.
Leclerc extended his first stint
Hamilton took the cue to stop from P2 on Lap 20, but with Verstappen lighting up the sectors, the Dutchman successfully managed to undercut the Mercedes that emerged in P7. The reigning champion was comfortably up the road in P5 having cleared Alonso just as Hamilton had stopped for another set of mediums, Verstappen taking another place off Ocon on the following tour.
That new set of mediums not only gave Verstappen an undercut on Hamilton, plus two places off the Alpines, but the pace to threaten then-leader Leclerc, who was forced to cover off the Dutchman with a solid stop for mediums on Lap 22. That released Russell back into the lead, Leclerc emerging ahead of Sainz.
Alpine’s strategy was contrarian: Alonso pitted for hards on Lap 22 while Ocon came in for the same compounds two laps later. Ocon emerged in battle with his team mate and Ricciardo then saw an opportunity, pouncing on the pair at Turn 3 to jump them and go 10th behind the yet-to-stop Alfa Romeos – while Alonso was left frustrated having failed to get past his team mate.
To add insult to injury, Aston Martin’s Stroll would soon take P12 off Alonso, passing Ocon by Lap 30, as the Alpines began to struggle. Vettel compounded Alpine’s woes, picking off Alonso two laps later and then Ocon on Lap 39.
Russell’s lead over Leclerc was dropping as the Monegasque driver turned up the pace and on Lap 27 the Ferrari was in DRS range of the Mercedes, having a look but declining not to pass into Turn 1. The following lap saw a more committed attempt to take the lead, but Russell held Leclerc off in a wheel-to-wheel skirmish on the downhill run to Turn 5.
The battle continued, Russell going slightly wide at Turn 2 on Lap 29 but Leclerc declining not to try a move down the hill, instead trying that on Lap 30 – the Mercedes driver taking unconventional, wide lines to tempt the Ferrari before swooping into the apex to deny him the lead fairly but sternly.
Russell and Leclerc put on an enthralling show
Leclerc kept his cool and the finally sent it on Lap 31, DRS giving Leclerc a run on the Mercedes and late braking giving Leclerc the lead around the outside of Turn 1. They say that when it rains, it pours, and Russell now had Sainz and Verstappen catching up to his rear wing – while numerous drivers began to report drizzle on their visors at the halfway mark.
Sainz preyed on Russell’s Mercedes but could only hover around DRS range. But Leclerc proved his pace on the fresh set of mediums, extending to a 4.8-second lead by Lap 39. It was then that Verstappen broke the seal and went for an aggressive undercut strategy by pitting for another set of mediums, Leclerc reacting to pit for hards on Lap 40 and Russell changing to mediums a few seconds later.
Verstappen’s undercut worked, the stop releasing him ahead of Russell and closer to the hard-shod Leclerc. Leclerc’s tyres were cold, and Verstappen was too; the Dutchman swept past the Ferrari down the inside of Turn 1 on Lap 41. Although Sainz was leading Hamilton, Verstappen had executed a brilliant strategy that potentially gave him the net lead of the race.
At the penultimate corner, a puff of smoke signalled that all was not right as Verstappen got on the throttle and spun 360 degrees, putting him back behind Leclerc and allowing Russell a chance to overtake Verstappen at Turn 1. Russell couldn’t make the move, however, and Verstappen shrugged off his spin to pick the pace back up, closing back up to the rear wing of Leclerc and passing him once more at Turn 2 on Lap 45.
Back at the front, Sainz and Hamilton were yet to take their second stops with Verstappen chipping away at a 12-second gap to the lead – and drivers still reporting light drizzle.
Sainz chose to take his second stop on Lap 48 for softs, but the tyre change was slow and saw him emerge fifth ahead of Perez – who had stopped five laps prior. Yellow flags briefly flew as Stroll and Ricciardo pitted in tandem and collided in the fight for P11 at Turn 2, with the Australian receiving a five-second time penalty.
With Sainz having taken his second stop, Hamilton was in the lead on Lap 51 – Verstappen just 3.5s behind. Leclerc, meanwhile, was third but only half a second ahead of Russell as the medium tyres seemed at this stage the superior option. Hamilton decided to pit at the end of that tour, diving in for a set of softs and emerging fifth ahead of Perez.
With one Mercedes briefly stationary, the other was flying. Russell was right on the diffuser of Leclerc’s Ferrari in the fight for P3, and on Lap 54 he made the move for P2 with ease around the outside of Turn 1. Verstappen was eight seconds up the road, and Leclerc’s side reacted by pitting him for softs.
Hamilton soon proved to be the fastest man on track, passing Sainz – both drivers on softs – at Turn 1 on Lap 63. Russell soon found himself in the clutches of his team mate and now we had an intra-team battle for P2 at Mercedes, Hamilton getting a better exit from Turn 1 on Lap 65 and prying the place away – team boss Toto Wolff watching on from the Mercedes garage.
Bottas reported a loss of power on Lap 68 and the Virtual Safety Car was then deployed to slow the field, Verstappen leading ahead of Hamilton and Russell. The VSC was withdrawn in the middle of Lap 69, from where Verstappen comfortably led to win by nearly eight seconds. Perez was in the clutches of soft-shod Leclerc but the Ferrari driver couldn’t salvage P5 on the final lap, ending up three-tenths behind the Red Bull in P6.
With Mercedes completing the podium in a mirror image of the top-three standings at Paul Ricard, Sainz finished fourth from second – one better than he had from P19 in France.
Leclerc missed out on the top five
Norris ended up seventh as the last driver on the lead lap, shrugging off a slow pit stop earlier on to overhaul both Alpines, Alonso having finished in eighth and well behind the McLaren, Alpine’s medium-to-hard one-stopper having failed to reap major reward.
Stroll made it into the top 10 at Bottas’s expense on Lap 63 but the two Aston Martins then made contact – something they avoided on the last lap in France – with medium-shod Vettel soon passing his soft-shod team mate to take P10.
Pierre Gasly managed to finish an anonymous P12 after his pit lane start, comfortably ahead of Zhou but well behind Stroll. Though Mick Schumacher was passed by Ricciardo early on, the German finished ahead of the Australian, thanks to his five-second time penalty for his earlier tangle with Stroll.
Albon led Latifi, who said that his car was “all over the place, a disaster, literally”, with Yuki Tsunoda 19th and only ahead of the stationary Alfa Romeo of Bottas, thanks to a Lap 36 spin at the chicane.
The rain stayed away but there was a cloud over Ferrari, who entered Hungary looking for a one-two finish yet were once again outscored by Mercedes, while Verstappen pulled off a highly unlikely win part in thanks to an ingenious Red Bull strategy.
Verstappen took a second consecutive win; Hamilton took fastest lap and a fifth consecutive podium
Key quote
“I was of course hoping I could get close to the podium, but very tricky conditions out there. But we had a really good strategy, we were really reactive and always pitting at the right at time, I think we had some good out-laps and at the end even with 360, we won the race!
“It was very good, I was battling a lot of guys, so it was a lot of fun out there… a crazy race and of course very happy that we won’t it” – Max Verstappen, Red Bull
What’s next?
Red Bull enjoy a 97-point lead in the constructors’ championship; Verstappen has an 80-point lead in the drivers’ standings, and the teams and drivers have a break to reflect on the first half of the season. Action resumes with the Belgian Grand Prix on August 26-28.
As Russia tightens its chokehold on supplies of natural gas, Europe is looking everywhere for energy to keep its economy running. Coal-fired power plants are being revived. Billions are being spent on terminals to bring in liquefied natural gas, much of it from shale fields in Texas. Officials and heads of state are flying to Qatar, Azerbaijan, Norway and Algeria to nail down energy deals.
Across Europe, fears are growing that a cutoff of Russian gas will force governments to ration fuel and businesses to close factories, moves that could put thousands of jobs at risk.
So far, the hunt for fuel has been met with considerable success. But as prices continue to soar and the Russian threat shows no sign of abating, the margin for error is thin.
“There is a very big and legitimate worry about this winter,” said Michael Stoppard, vice president for global gas strategy at S&P Global, a research firm.
Five months after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Europe is in the grip of an accelerated and increasingly irreversible transition in how it gets its energy to heat and cool homes, drive businesses and generate power. A long-term switch to more renewable sources of energy has been overtaken by a short-term scramble to make it through the coming winter.
The amount of natural gas coming from Russia, once Europe’s largest source of the fuel, is less than a third of what it was a year ago. This week, Gazprom, the Russian energy giant, throttled back already sharply reduced flows in a key pipeline from Russia to Germany, sending European gas futures prices to record levels.
Within a day of Gazprom’s announcement, the European Union called for a 15 percent cut of gas use throughout the bloc.
This move away from Russian natural gas — almost unthinkable after a decades-long embrace of Siberian gas delivered via pipelines stretching thousands of miles — is sending shock waves through factory floors and forcing governments to seek alternative sources of energy.
The multipronged effort to uncover alternatives to Russian gas has largely made up for the shortfall. Despite Gazprom’s cutbacks, supplies of natural gas in Europe in the first half of 2022 have been roughly equal to those of the same period last year, according to Jack Sharples, a fellow at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies.
The standout performer in this comeback has been liquefied natural gas, chilled to a condensed liquid form and transported on ships. L.N.G. has essentially switched places with piped gas from Russia as Europe’s main source of the fuel. About half of the supply has come from the United States, which this year became the world’s largest exporter of the fuel.
Looking toward the end of the year, European countries are pushing energy companies to fill salt caverns and other storage facilitieswith gasto provide a margin of safety in case Russia shuts down the pipelines.
Europe’s gas storage has now built up to about 67 percent of overall capacity, more than 10 percentage points higher than a year ago. Those levels create some comfort that European countries might reach something close to the European Union’s target of 80 percent full before winter.
Our Coverage of the Russia-Ukraine War
Grain Blockade: A breakthrough deal aims to lift a Russian blockade on Ukrainian grain shipments, easing a global food crisis. But in the fields of Ukraine, farmers are skeptical.
An Ambitious Counterattack: Ukraine has been laying the groundwork to retake Kherson from Russia. But the endeavor would require huge resources, and could come at a heavy toll.
Economic Havoc: As food, energy and commodity prices continue to climb around the world, few countries are feeling the bite as much as Ukraine.
Inside a Siege: For 80 days, at the Avtostal steelworks, a relentless Russian assault met unyielding Ukrainian resistance. This is how it was for those who were there.
But concerns are still mounting, and there are many reasons the European effort could fall short as colder weather approaches.
Russia is well aware of the European Union’s campaign to store enough gas to fend off a cutoff this winter and wants to impede it, analysts say, by causing pipeline flows to dwindle. And all sorts of weather issues — an exceptionally cold winter, a storm in the North Seathat knocks out Norway’s gas production or a busy Atlantic hurricane season that delays L.N.G. tankers — could tip Europe into energy shortages.
“We are getting close to the danger zone,” said Massimo Di Odoardo, vice president for gas at Wood Mackenzie, a research institution.
Reflecting these worries, European gas futures prices have doubled in the last two months to about 200 euros a megawatt-hour on the Dutch TTF exchange, around 10 times the levels of a year ago.
The astronomical cost of energy in Europe is putting a wide variety of industries on the defensive, forcing changes that may help make the European Union’s voluntary 15 percent gas savings target attainable. The International Energy Agency recently forecast that gas demand in the region would fall 9 percent this year.
For instance, a steel mill owned by ArcelorMittal on Hamburg’s busy harbor in Germany has for years used natural gas to extract the iron that then goes into its electric furnace. But recently, it shifted to buying metal inputs for its mill from a sister plant in Canada with access to cheaper energy. Natural gas prices in North America, while elevated by historical standards, are about a seventh of European prices.
“Natural gas costs so much that we cannot afford” to operate in the usual way, said Uwe Braun, chief executive of ArcelorMittal Hamburg.
Few analysts or executives expect the situation to ease in the coming months. Instead, the winter may well prove to be a nail-biter with energy-intensive industries like metal smelters and makers of fertilizer and glass under pressure.
News of plant closures or production cutbacks is already trickling in. In Romania, ALRO Group said recently that it was closing production at a large aluminum plant and laying off 500 people because high energy costs made it uncompetitive.
In some countries, including Britain and Germany, energy companies have not yet fully passed these costs to their customers, meaning the hardest blows are yet to come.
“The biggest risk at the moment is an explosion of household and industrial energy prices this winter, which the public and industry can barely deal with,” said Henning Gloystein, a director at Eurasia Group, a political risk firm.
Shipments of liquefied natural gas, the chief alternative to piped-in gas from Russia for much of the continent, remains a costly alternative. And Europe’s growing appetite for L.N.G. may be hurting other regions of the globe that rely on the fuel.
Europe has essentially been bidding liquefied gas away from other markets, chiefly in Asia, where China, Japan and South Korea are major customers. Europe is “taking L.N.G. away from markets that are not prepared to pay the prices that Europe may be prepared to pay,” Ben van Beurden, chief executive of Shell, a provider of L.N.G., told reporters on Thursday. “That is a very uncomfortable position to be in.”
Countries like Germany and Romania are also taking other steps, includingbringing back coal-fired electric power plants or delaying their retirement. The idea is to minimize the amount of gas used at power plants to generate electricity and save it for essentials like home heating or running factories. On Thursday, the International Energy Agency forecast that global coal demand this year would reach almost nine billion tons, matching its peak of 2013.
Many uncertainties remain. Although Europe has about two dozen terminals to receive liquefied natural gas, none are in Germany. Berlin is scrambling to build as many as four of these installations and has set aside €2.5 billion ($2.55 billion) to rent four L.N.G. processing vessels, but it is not clear if any of them will be online quickly enough provide much help this winter.
Weather may also be crucial, and not only in Europe. A frigid winter in Asia, long the primary market for liquefied gas, would heighten the competition with Europefor what analysts say is a limited global supply of L.N.G.
It is also hard to see where else large increases of gas would come from. “If we lose Russian supply entirely, there is not very much headroom to increase supply from elsewhere,” Mr. Sharples of the Oxford Institute said.
There are other wild cards. Until the gas crunch hit, the Dutch government set in place a plan to wind down the enormous Groningen field in the northern Netherlands — one of the few major sources of natural gas in mainland Europe — because of local anger over earthquakes caused by gas extraction.
Some observers question the government’s continued reluctance to awaken what Mr. Stoppard of S&P Global called a “sleeping giant” that could put very substantial amounts of gas — perhaps 40 percent of Germany’s annual consumption — back into the grid.
The Dutch government has decided to hold off on permanently closing the gas wells because of “the uncertain geopolitical developments,” but it insists it will consider using Groningen only “in the worst-case scenario, if people’s safety is at risk.”
“As president, it is my job to keep our country strong and secure. We have to counter Russia’s aggression, put ourselves in the best possible position to outcompete China, and work for greater stability in a consequential region of the world,” Biden wrote Saturday in an op-ed for The Washington Post.
“To do these things, we have to engage directly with countries that can impact those outcomes. Saudi Arabia is one of them, and when I meet with Saudi leaders on Friday, my aim will be to strengthen a strategic partnership going forward that’s based on mutual interests and responsibilities, while also holding true to fundamental American values,” he added.
The President’s visit has drawn criticism given that US intelligence has deemed Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman responsible for ordering the murder of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi. As a candidate for President, Biden had pledged to make the kingdom a “pariah.”
In his op-ed, Biden also said he will be focused on a more integrated and stable Middle East, calling the region “essential to global trade and the supply chains we rely on” while also noting how critical Middle East energy supplies are in light of sanctions on Russia following its invasion of Ukraine.
“And a region that’s coming together through diplomacy and cooperation — rather than coming apart through conflict — is less likely to give rise to violent extremism that threatens our homeland or new wars that could place new burdens on U.S. military forces and their families,” Biden said.
Biden tacitly criticized his predecessor, former President Donald Trump, for abandoning the Iran nuclear deal and said his administration will “continue to increase diplomatic and economic pressure until Iran is ready to return to compliance with the 2015 nuclear deal, as I remain prepared to do.”
The President is also set to travel to Israel during the visit. He touted US security assistance for the country in his op-ed, while also noting, “Working with Congress, my administration restored approximately $500 million in support for Palestinians.”
Biden is set to travel to the region on Wednesday.
The bridge between Browns and Baker Mayfield has been obliterated. Thursday’s report from Jake Trotter of ESPN.com shows just how bad it has gotten. Even if the Browns need Mayfield due to a lengthy Deshaun Watson suspension, Mayfield seems to be dead set against it.
So what happens next? The Browns hold his rights for 2022. Mayfield holds a ticket to $18.8 million in guaranteed pay. The Browns have nothing to lose by waiting. Mayfield has nothing to gain by delaying the inevitable.
Here’s a simple solution. It’s the same one the Browns and receiver Odell Beckham Jr. reached in November. Mayfield reduces his guaranteed pay, and the Browns let him go.
It’s unclear what it would take to strike a deal, if Mayfield would be willing to reduce his salary — and if the Browns would be willing to release him in exchange for taking less.
But it’s worth exploring. Mayfield could make back the difference with another team this year. If he doesn’t, he’ll nevertheless be in position to set himself up for a strong payday in 2023.
It may be far too late for the Browns and Mayfield to agree on anything. The sooner they’d work out a deal like this, the sooner Mayfield could find a new landing spot, with more than enough time to get ready to have a great season in 2022.
In this photo illustration Elon Musk Twitter seen displayed on a smartphone screen with Twitter logo in the background in Chania, Crete Island, Greece on April 23, 2022.
Nikolas Kokovlis | Nurphoto | Getty Images
Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, could be required to pay Twitter a termination fee of $1 billion, under some circumstances, such as if Musk fails to secure enough debt funding to complete his $44 billion deal to buy the company, according to a new SEC filing.
From the filing (Parent refers to the special corporation Musk created to buy Twitter):
As described above, if the conditions to Parent’s and Acquisition Sub’s obligations to complete the Merger are satisfied and Parent fails to consummate the Merger as required pursuant to the Merger Agreement, including because the equity, debt and/or margin loan financing is not funded, Parent will be required to pay Twitter a termination fee of $1.0 billion.
On the other hand, Twitter will owe Elon Musk a $1 billion break-up fee should it fall through if it accepts a competing offer, or if shareholders reject the deal, according to the same filing.
The deal is slated to close by Oct. 24, but could be delayed for up to six months for antitrust clearance or other reasons.
Musk offered to buy the company at $54.20 per share and take it private. He said in a filing earlier this month that he received commitments for $46.5 billion to help finance the deal, including $25.5 billion in debt financing from Morgan Stanley Senior Funding and other firms, and $21 billion in equity financing.
If the deal is completed, it would represent the end to a remarkable saga that kicked off when Musk disclosed a large stake in Twitter, where he’s been a devoted user for years. Soon after, Twitter said that Musk would join the board, only to reverse course on the plan a few days later. After that, he offered to buy the company.
Musk has said Twitter should operate as a digital public square that is tolerant of different viewpoints.
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