Latest news with #McGee
Korea Herald
3 hours ago
- General
- Korea Herald
Seoul to host UNC veterans, families to pay tribute to Korean War service
Veterans of the United Nations Command forces who fought in the 1950-53 Korean War and their families are to visit South Korea at the invitation of the Ministry of Patriots and Veterans Affairs, the ministry said Wednesday. The visit, scheduled from Thursday to Monday, is part of a commemoration of the UN Forces Participation Day, observed annually on July 27. A total of 55 participants are attending, including six veterans, 21 bereaved family members and 26 leaders of veterans associations from the 15 countries that participated in the war under the UNC flag. Throughout the three-year conflict, more than 1.9 million personnel from 22 countries served under the UNC flag, providing combat, medical and logistical support. As part of the event, the South Korean government will posthumously award the country's highest military honor, the Order of Taegeuk Military Merit, to the late US veteran Fred McGee. Then a US Army Pfc. McGee served from January to November 1952 as a member of Company K, 3rd Battalion, 17th Infantry Regiment, 7th Infantry Division. Even after his squad withdrew, McGee remained behind to assist in evacuating the wounded and dead bodies, according to the ministry. His daughter Victoria Seacrest is visiting Korea on his behalf, as McGee passed away in 2020 at the age of 89. Among the veterans visiting is 97-year-old Harold Simlak, the oldest in the group. He served from April to December 1951 as a US Army private first class in the 1st Cavalry Division and fought in the Battle of Hill 328 near Waegwan-eup, North Gyeongsang Province. Other visiting veterans include two Americans: Malcolm Williamson, who served from December 1950 to October 1954 as a petty officer aboard the USS Thompson, and Roy Hakuo Yamashiroya, who served from March to July 1953 as a private first class in the 7th Regiment, 1st Marine Division of the US Marine Corps. Also attending are Clifford Pearson from the United Kingdom, who served from March 1953 to August 1956 as a sergeant in the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers; Alphonse Martel from Canada, who served from November 1952 to November 1953 as a private in the Royal 22nd Regiment; and Estifanos Yimam from Ethiopia, who served in 1954 at guard posts along the heavily fortified Demilitarized Zone. The ministry has also invited 94-year-old South Korean Lim Chang-soo, who sheltered US Army Master Sgt. Ralph Kilpatrick for 77 days after he was separated from his unit during a retreat from the Geumgang defensive line in Daejeon in 1950. Lim will be presented with a plaque of appreciation. 'The government and the people will always remember and honor the sacrifice and dedication of the heroes who risked their lives to defend the Republic of Korea,' said Veterans Minister Kang Jung-ai. 'Through a range of international veteran support programs, Korea will continue to strengthen its solidarity with the countries that contributed troops to the United Nations Command,' she added.
USA Today
12 hours ago
- Sport
- USA Today
Former Wisconsin basketball guard signs professional contract
Taking his talents overseas!Congrats to @KamariMcGee on signing a deal with KK Jahorina! Former Wisconsin basketball guard Kamari McGee signed a contract with Bosnia's KK Jahorina on Tuesday. McGee becomes the third former Badger to sign a professional contract overseas, following Carter Gilmore (Netherlands) and Markus Ilver (Estonia). The 6-foot guard originally joined Wisconsin as a transfer during the 2022 offseason. He began his college career at UW-Green Bay, where he appeared in 30 games as a true freshman in 2021. Those appearances included per-game averages of 29 minutes, 11.6 points, 2.8 rebounds, 1.9 assists and 1.1 steals, plus shooting totals of 39% from the field and 27.5% from 3. McGee was an under-the-radar transfer addition by the Badgers entering the 2022-23 season. While he only averaged 7.1 and 8.2 minutes per game, respectively, during his first two seasons with the program (2022-24), the Racine, Wisconsin, native eventually emerged as a clear team leader and a key bench contributor. In 37 games as a senior in 2024-25, McGee averaged 21.9 minutes, 6.5 points, 2.7 rebounds, 1.8 assists and 0.9 steals, with shooting totals of of 45.7% from the floor and 45.9% from 3. He and Gilmore led a bench unit that became critical to the Badgers' success. The now-former Badger joins a KK Jahorina franchise that currently sits in sixth place in the Bosnian Division I basketball league with a 13-11 record. He will look to follow in the footsteps of Wisconsin great Nigel Hayes, who recently moved over to the NBA after an incredibly successful overseas career. Contact/Follow @TheBadgersWire on X (formerly Twitter) and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Wisconsin Badgers news, notes and opinion
Miami Herald
19 hours ago
- Automotive
- Miami Herald
Tesla driver gives damning testimony in fatal Autopilot crash trial
Tesla is back in court over its autonomous driving system. This time, the EV maker is being sued by the family of Naibel Benavides, who was killed in 2019 by a runaway Tesla that had FSD engaged. The vehicle, driven by George Brian McGee, sped through a T intersection at 62 miles per hour and T-boned an empty parked car. Related: Chinese carmaker close to clearing big obstacle to autonomous driving The parked car's owners were standing outside the vehicle when they were struck. Benavides, 22, was killed in the crash, and her body was found about 75 feet from the crash site. Dillon Angulo, her boyfriend, survived the crash but was left with a severe concussion and multiple broken bones. Angulo is also suing for compensation for medical expenses, while the family is suing for wrongful death, pain and suffering, and punitive damages claims. Like other cases involving FSD in the past, Tesla blames the crash on driver error. "The evidence clearly shows that this crash had nothing to do with Tesla's Autopilot technology,'' Tesla said in a statement to Bloomberg. But on Monday, McGee painted a different picture when he took the stand in federal court. McGee dropped his phone while driving down the street on that fateful night. He was searching for his phone when his Tesla Model S killed Benavides, but he says neither he nor the autopilot engaged the brakes. "I thought it would assist me if I made a mistake," McGee, 48, a partner in a Florida private equity firm, told a jury in the U.S. District Court for Southern Florida, according to the New York Times. "It didn't warn me of the car and the individuals, and hit the brakes." The plaintiffs say that Autopilot has defects that prevented the car from braking on its own or warning McGee that a crash was imminent. Related: Tesla faces its most serious court battle in years Judge Beth Bloom has already ruled that the plaintiffs can seek punitive damages, but the amount they are seeking is unknown. Meanwhile, Tesla's lawyers are painting McGee as negligent and solely responsible for the crash. "He's rummaging around for his phone, and he runs through the intersection," Joel H. Smith, a lawyer for law firm Bowman and Brooke, said in his opening statement. "This can happen in any car, at any time. This is not about Autopilot." Tesla has filed documents showing that McGee's foot was on the accelerator just before the accident, pushing the car to 62 miles per hour, well ahead of the posted 45 mph speed limit. But the plaintiffs have countered with video showing that the Autopilot system identified the parked vehicle and T-boned it anyway. They also argue that automatic emergency braking is standard in most U.S. vehicles, including McGee's. This isn't the first time Tesla has been sued for Full Self Driving crashes, and it won't be the last. Tesla has three upcoming trials over fatal FSD-related crashes in the next nine months in California. However, according to Bloomberg, only a handful of FSD crash cases have gone to trial. Tesla usually "resolves" these cases before they reach a courtroom. However, Tesla has won two previous jury trials in California, one for a fatal crash and one for a non-fatal crash. Both times, the collision was ruled to be driver error. The judge allowed this case to go to trial. "A reasonable jury could find that Tesla acted in reckless disregard of human life for the sake of developing their product and maximizing profit," Judge Beth Bloom wrote in an order issued on July 7. Related: General Motors sued by US state over scary privacy invasion The Arena Media Brands, LLC THESTREET is a registered trademark of TheStreet, Inc.
The Star
a day ago
- Automotive
- The Star
Tesla driver testifies Autopilot failed to prevent fatal crash
MIAMI: The driver of a Tesla car that killed a woman in 2019 testified July 21 in federal court that the company's Autopilot driver-assistance system failed to warn him of an impending accident or engage the brakes. The driver, George Brian McGee, was driving his new Tesla Model S on a dark, two-lane road in South Florida when his phone fell to the floor and he bent to find it. That's when he failed to see that the road was ending in a T-intersection and that an SUV was parked on the other side, with two people standing next to that car. Neither he nor Autopilot hit the brakes, and the Tesla crashed into the SUV at 62mph (99kmph), killing a 22-year old woman and gravely injuring her boyfriend. In a civil case in federal court in Miami, McGee said on the witness stand that he was responsible for keeping his eyes on the road even with Autopilot engaged. But he also said he had been relying on Tesla's semi-automated driving system to serve as his co-pilot, and thought it had the ability to avoid such a crash. 'I thought it would assist me if I made a mistake,' said McGee, 48, a partner in a Florida private equity firm. 'It didn't warn me of the car and the individuals and hit the brakes.' The case, in the US District Court for Southern Florida, was filed by the family of the woman killed in the crash, Naibel Benavides, and her companion, Dillon Angulo. The plaintiffs are seeking unspecified damages from Tesla and aim to convince the jury that Tesla was partly responsible for the crash. The case claims Autopilot has defects that kept the car from braking or warning McGee of the collision. The plaintiffs also contend that the system's design is flawed because it allows drivers to become distracted. The judge in the case, Beth Bloom, previously ruled that the plaintiffs could seek punitive damages against Tesla, saying in a recent order that 'a reasonable jury could find that Tesla acted in reckless disregard of human life for the sake of developing their product and maximising profit.' The case represents a considerable risk to Tesla. The automaker and its CEO, Elon Musk, have built Tesla's brand on the idea that its cars are nearly capable of driving themselves. Tesla offers an advanced version of Autopilot that it calls Full Self-Driving and last month started trials of a limited autonomous taxi service in Austin, Texas. A loss in this case could dent Tesla's reputation and hurt its sales and stock price, at least in the short term, said Sam Fiorani, an analyst at AutoForecast Solutions, a market research firm. 'All of the stock value in the company is based on the future and the future is autonomous,' Fiorani said. The automaker's car sales have been falling in recent months partly because of a backlash against Musk, who has become a leading supporter of conservative political parties around the world. He was also one of President Donald Trump's closest advisers and donors until the two men fell out recently. In court, Tesla lawyers have argued that McGee was solely responsible for the crash. 'He's rummaging around for his phone and he runs through the intersection,' Joel H. Smith, of Bowman and Brooke, said in his opening statement. 'This can happen in any car, at any time. This is not about Autopilot.' Court documents and other testimony have revealed that McGee had his foot on the accelerator pedal just before the accident. That pushed his car's speed to 62mph (99kmph), above the 45mph (72kmph) limit that Autopilot would normally enforce on the road where the crash took place, Card Sound Road near Key Largo. Pressing the accelerator also overrode the part of Autopilot that is able to brake when it detects obstacles or other vehicles. The plaintiffs have presented videos from the car that showed that the Autopilot system identified the parked vehicle, the end of the road and Angulo but did not activate the brakes. Expert witnesses have also told the jury that the car was equipped with two other systems that were capable of slowing or stopping the car. One, called automatic emergency braking, is standard on most vehicles sold in the United States and is supposed to brake even if the accelerator is depressed. McGee's vehicle had a third system that is supposed to stop the car if it determines that the vehicle is about to leave the roadway. The SUV was parked on a gravelly area that Autopilot had marked as outside of 'driveable space,' video from his car showed. Autopilot can be activated on Card Sound Road although Tesla owners' manuals say the system should not be used on such undivided roads. General Motors and Ford Motor Co. offer similar systems that can be used only on divided highways and can't be used on Card Sound Road. 'My professional opinion is that Tesla Autopilot is defective because it allows it to be operated in domains it wasn't designed for,' Mary Cummings, a George Mason University professor who is an expert in autonomous driving systems and for a time worked at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, testified last week as a witness for the plaintiffs. Part of the plaintiffs' case also focuses on what they said was Tesla's ineffective way of getting drivers to pay attention to the road while they were using Autopilot. McGee's 2019 Model S monitored whether he was paying attention simply by requiring him to touch the steering wheel, sometimes only very briefly. But it could not tell if he was looking at the road, and at times his Autopilot system continued operating even when his hands were off the steering wheel for several minutes. Tesla's means of monitoring driver behavior 'cannot prevent misuse' and represent a 'crucial safety gap' in Autopilot, Cummings said in her testimony. In 2023, Tesla issued a recall of all Autopilot-equipped vehicles to make its driver monitoring system safer. An earlier civil suit filed by the plaintiffs against McGee was settled. The parties have not disclosed the terms of that deal. – ©2025 The New York Times Company This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
New Indian Express
a day ago
- Automotive
- New Indian Express
Looming over two cases threatening Musk's car company is a single question: Can he be trusted?
'I've seen punitive damages go to the hundreds of millions, so that is the floor,' said Miguel Custodio of Los Angeles-based Custodio & Dubey. 'It is also a signal to other plaintiffs that they can also ask for punitive damages, and then the payments could start compounding.' That Tesla has allowed the Miami case to proceed to trial is surprising. It has settled at least four deadly accidents involving Autopilot, including payments just last week to a Florida family of a Tesla driver. That said, Tesla was victorious in two other jury cases, both in California, that also sought to lay blame on its technology for crashes. Lawyers for the plaintiffs in the Miami case argue that Tesla's driver-assistance feature, called Autopilot, should have warned the driver and braked when his Model S sedan blew through flashing lights, a stop sign and a T-intersection at 62 miles-an-hour in an April 2019 crash. Tesla said that drivers are warned not to rely on Autopilot, or its more advanced Full Self-Driving system. It says the fault entirely lies with the "distracted driver" just like so many other 'accidents since cellphones were invented.' Driver McGee settled a separate suit brought by the family of Benavides and her severely injured boyfriend, Dillon Angulo. McGee was clearly shaken when shown a dashcam video Monday of his car jumping a Key West, Florida, road and hitting a parked Chevrolet Tahoe which then slammed into Benavides and sent her 75 feet through the air to her death. Asked if he had seen those images before, McGee pinched his lips, shook his head, then squeaked out a response, 'No.' Tesla's attorney sought to show that McGee was fully to blame, asking if he had ever contacted Tesla for additional instructions about how Autopilot or any other safety features worked. McGee said he had not, though he was heavy user of the features. He said he had driven the same road home from work 30 or 40 times. Under questioning, he also acknowledged he alone was responsible for watching the road and hitting the brakes. Summarizing the testimony, Tesla said in a statement after the court adjourned that McGee had "stated the simple truth that we all know: If he had just paid attention to the road instead of searching for his dropped cell phone and pressing the accelerator —which he was doing for over a minute before the crash — this tragic accident would never have happened.'
