Latest news with #Norwegian
Time of India
3 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Time of India
Norway Chess: Magnus Carlsen floors Arjun Erigaisi in endgame for sole lead
, the Dronacharya of endgame, showed no mercy against Arjun Erigaisi. Ruthlessness reigned in the fourth round of Norway chess meet in Stavanger on Thursday. Stunningly, the Norwegian World No. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now 1 had pointed out the correct 30th move (Qe7) to the world via a confession box during the live webcast. That move would have given Arjun the best chance to draw the game. Most importantly, Carlsen also explained the logic behind it. When you are a pawn less in the queen, double rook and pawns endgame, it's better to exchange queens first. Go Beyond The Boundary with our YouTube channel. However, Arjun allowed a rook trade first — human answer to the pressure on the board and chaos inside. And the queen exchange never happened. It was just a marginal inaccuracy, but Carlsen turned that into a cardinal mistake. Exclusive | Arjuna Awardee Vantika Agrawal: 'People still ask, 'Chess is fine, but what do you really do?'' He went for a rook exchange and played with such beauty and precision that both Stockfish (chess engine) and Caissa (chess goddess) would have doffed their hats to the endgame masterclass from the white side of an English opening game that lasted 48 moves. It was nigh impossible to stop Carlsen when he played at high level, especially after he drew his previous two classical games against Nakamura and Wei Yi and lost both in the Armageddon. Carlsen brought his king to the centre against Arjun while facing the checks in the queen and three pawns vs queen and four pawns climax to score three points. In his only previous game in classical format against Arjun (Wijk aan Zee 2023, Reti, Zukertort Symmetrical), the first grab had happened on the 28th turn. Carlsen had won with black pieces then. China no. 1 Wei Yi Exclusive: Norway Chess 2025, Indian chess stars & China's chess culture Stars aligned for Carlsen as D Gukesh defeated overnight leader Fabiano Caruana in Armageddon. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now It meant Carlsen moved into the sole lead with six rounds to go in this six-player double round robin elite event. He is on eight points followed by Caruana on 7. The bottom-placed Yi (4) is not too behind in terms of points. Both Gukesh and Arjun are joint fourth with 4.5 points each. On the women's side, joint leader K Humpy could not capitalise on R Vaishali beating co-leader Anna Muzychuk of Ukraine in Armageddon. Humpy lost in the Armageddon against China's women's world champion Ju Wenjun. Both Humpy and Muzychuk are on 7 points. Vaishali is sixth and last on 3.5 points.
New Indian Express
6 hours ago
- Sport
- New Indian Express
Stopped enjoying chess & took a break: Tari, Norway's one-time next Carlsen
STAVANGER: Elite sports across all disciplines have two things in common. The world champion and the urge to appoint a young prodigy as the 'next ' as soon as possible. Sport is filled with examples. Sachin Tendulkar, Zinedine Zidane, Roger Federer... they have all seen their fair share of replacements fall by the wayside for no fault of theirs. But it does offer a cautionary tale or two about the dangers of calling somebody the 'next Messi'. Aryan Tari has felt it too. As soon as he won an age-group World Championship in chess, he became the next Magnus Carlsen. Immediately after Tari's triumph in 2017, the newly-minted GM was expected to walk the same path as Carlsen. For some time, Tari did. He eventually became Norway's No 2 and needed fewer than 30 rating points to become a Super GM (2700 and above). Then, a fall. Not just in terms of rating points but the Norwegian felt 'burnt out'. "It's been strange, honestly," he tells this The New Indian Express on the sidelines of Norway Chess. One would normally expect Tari to be playing in the event but he isn't. In Stavanger, he's helping out Fabiano Caruana. "The last two-three years, I felt I had some tough moments and wasn't enjoying (chess) as much. I took a break and I'm now having a bit more of a balance between chess and other things as well." After enjoying a peak Classical rating of 2672 in July 2022, he's now at 2636. Elite chess is brutal as it involves a lot of travel, long hours of prep and can get lonely, especially without a team. The 25-year-old admits that he has felt lonely. "Chess can be very lonely as it's an individual sport. It's not always going to go like this (points his arm upwards), there will be ups and downs. You are travelling from tournament to tournament, hotel room to hotel room, very often alone. It can make you question 'what you are doing?' It can definitely be a tough sport. I was just thinking if there's more to life than just chess." Part of wanting to cultivate other things has sent Tari, who has featured in multiple Olympiads for Norway, back to university. "I'm now doing business at the University of Missouri," he says. But he will keep playing the game at the elite level. "I wouldn't say chess is now in the background, I love chess and will keep playing but when you are doing just one thing... it's always nice to get some new impulses. I recently qualified for the World Cup but I think I have more of a balance." When the conversation shifts to Carlsen, he readily accepts that 'there was a bit of pressure when I was 13-14'. "I don't think the chess world is really going to see another Magnus, maybe in the next 100 years, he's really unique. Okay, maybe there may be another Magnus just because of how popular chess is in India. But speaking of Magnus, he's sometimes not human to be honest. It can be hard to understand how he does what he does." Even as the watching world was keen to put a label, Tari wasn't one to compare. "I was just taking inspiration." He's now charting his own path.
Yomiuri Shimbun
6 hours ago
- Automotive
- Yomiuri Shimbun
Most New Cars in Norway Are Evs. How a Freezing Country Beat Range Anxiety.
Salwan Georges/The Washington Post New cars parked at a port in Drammen, Norway. FINNMARK, Norway – Just a few years ago, almost no one drove electric vehicles up here. In this remote region north of the Arctic Circle – where reindeer outnumber people, avalanches can bury roads in winter and sunlight disappears for weeks – 'range anxiety' takes on a new meaning. Today, however, nearly all new car sales in Norway are electric. That's true even in Finnmark, the northernmost region in Europe's northernmost country. Norway is 'an unlikely place for a transportation revolution,' acknowledged Christina Bu, head of the Norwegian Electric Vehicle Association. At the Skoda dealership in Alta, Finnmark's largest city, salesman Orjan Dragland marveled at the transformation – how five years ago, every car on the showroom floor had a combustion engine, and now the inventory is all EVs. In 2024, nearly 90 percent of new passenger cars sold in Norway were fully electric. Of the cars sold last month, the EV share was 97 percent. By comparison, EVs last year accounted for 8 percent of new car sales in the United States, 13 percent in the euro zone and 27 percent in China. 'What happened' in Norway? Dragland said. 'The government happened.' Norway has one of the world's most ambitious climate targets. It is aiming to become carbon neutral by 2030, and cutting emissions from road traffic is an important part of that. While the push for EVs has played to people's green sensibilities, the real driver, arguably, has been economic: Generous government incentives, supported at least indirectly by the country's fossil fuel profits, have brought down the cost of owning and operating an EV. 'It's very cheap to drive,' said Ailo Haetta, 43. He had just driven his sister and her new husband to their wedding – which explained his traditional Sami dress and the 'Just Married' sticker on his electric Volkswagen. More-affordable EVs helped accelerate other aspects of Norway's effort to decarbonize its car fleet. Private entities became more willing to take the risk of installing charging stations. And as charging stations began to blanket the country, Norwegians grew more comfortable with EVs. 'The Norwegian experience is really about building confidence,' said transportation research scientist Simen Rostad Saether. Making EVs the more affordable choice It has taken 25 years for Norway to get this far. The government began championing EVs in the early 1990s, with the hope of growing a domestic EV industry while cutting carbon emissions. The Norwegian EV-makers failed. Norway today imports all of its electric vehicles. But Norwegian drivers proved eager to buy EVs souped up by government incentives. Most significant, the government made EV purchases and leases exempt from a 25 percent value-added tax (VAT) – cutting thousands of dollars from the sticker prices – as well as from import and registration taxes. As EVs began to outnumber gas-powered cars on the road, the government scaled back some of the perks. VAT is now assessed over a certain purchase price. EV owners no longer get out of paying city parking fees and annual road taxes. Exemptions from highway tolls and ferry fares have been replaced by discounts. Still, many EVs in Norway are cheaper than or comparable in price to combustion cars – and they cost less to maintain, especially in the context of Europe's high fuel prices (which in Norway incorporate a carbon tax). Elsewhere on the continent, gas-powered cars tend to be subject to lower taxes, and EVs often remain the more expensive choice. Felipe Munoz, an automotive expert at JATO Dynamics, noted that the price of compact electric cars averaged 32,700 euros in the euro zone last year, vs. 19,000 euros for gas ones. 'When you have these big gaps, you understand why people make the decisions they do,' he said. Norway's EV experiment has been made possible by something of a paradox: The country is Europe's largest oil and gas producer, which helps support Norwegians' aspiration to live green. Norway has invested its fossil fuel profits into what has become the world's largest sovereign wealth fund, a nest egg worth $1.7 trillion. Returns from that fund help cover government expenses, which in turn makes it easier to accommodate climate-friendly tax exemptions. The government estimates that between 2007 and 2025, it will have forgone approximately 640 billion kroner (about $62 billion) in various vehicle-related taxes, mostly because of EVs. Norway's wealth means its EV model may not be easy to replicate everywhere. But countries seeking to boost EV adoption wouldn't have to spend as much now, said Rostad Sæther, who is part of the SINTEF research institute. With EV prices dropping globally, he said, other countries could focus less on the cost of cars and more on encouraging infrastructure and trust. Building the charging network Gjermund Pleym Wik is such an evangelizer for EVs that he has organized electric-car convoys through remote, mountainous areas in the far north to ease people's range concerns. Salwan Georges/The Washington Post A taxi driver charges his electric car at a station in Alta, Norway 'Yes, you need to stop and recharge, but it works,' he said, jabbing his finger at a map on a blue display board at Alta's largest charging station. Norway is a long, narrow country with 60,000 miles of roads that snake around fjords and mountainous terrain. Wik, who works in public health, admits that he once miscalculated the distance of a trip and had to unplug a stranger's Christmas lights to recharge. But EV fans say that shouldn't be any more of a deterrent than the prospect of running out of gas. Norway has worked to ensure that drivers are never far from a charging point. Most people charge their EVs at home, and a legal 'right to charge' guarantees access for apartment dwellers. The country also has an extensive charging network – powered almost entirely by renewables – with 9,771 fast chargers in 1,684 locations, according to Lars Lund Godbolt, who maintains the government's database. Godbolt said the longest distance between two fast-charging stations in Finnmark is about 80 miles, and officials say Norway easily bests the European Union target of 60 km (37 miles) between fast chargers on major roads. In one sense, that might not be so hard to achieve in a nation the size of New Mexico. But consider that New Mexico has only 419 fast charging ports, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. In terms of population numbers, Norway is close to South Carolina. But when it comes to fast EV chargers, the gap is yawning: South Carolina has 633 fast charging ports, according to the federal database – around 11 per 100,000 people. Norway, on the other hand, boasts 174 fast chargers per 100,000. The lack of charging infrastructure remains a major barrier to EV adoption in the United States. And that hesitancy, in turn, is deterring private investment in infrastructure to support EVs. Building and maintaining chargers is expensive, and in many areas, there isn't enough driver demand to make stations profitable. To speed up deployment, the Biden administration launched the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) Formula Program, allocating $5 billion to help states build chargers along key highway corridors, with the goal of reaching 500,000 stations by 2030. The Trump administration, which opposes federal support for electric vehicles, has frozen funding for the program – a freeze that remains in effect although the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office has said withholding the funds approved by Congress is unlawful. In Norway, the government played an active role in initially establishing the charging network. In some cases, to ensure that chargers were placed at regular intervals on main roads, it subsidized up to 100 percent of the installation costs through competitive tenders from 'charging operators.' But since June 2022, new passenger EV charging stations have been built entirely on a commercial basis. (The government continues to support the charging infrastructure for heavy-duty vehicles.) As more charging stations appeared, consumer confidence grew. And as EV ownership expanded, more private entities were willing to take on the risk of building stations. With so many people driving EVs, charging operators could count on a healthy level of business. Some of the stations The Washington Post visited in Oslo offered WiFi and hot food in a small cafe – a place where customers charging their EVs could spend time, and money. Will Norway reach 100 percent? In 2017, Norway set a goal that by 2025 it would have 100 percent zero-emission new car sales. It is close but may fall a few percentage points short. Some climate advocates argue for a ban on imports of fossil fuel cars, like the one Ethiopia introduced last year. Others say reaching a percentage in the high 90s is good enough. 'There's a lot of debate over: 'Do we really need the last 2 or 3 percent? Could those people have a hybrid? Should we use our energy to fight the last percent?'' Rostad Sæther said. Norway still has a ways to go in transitioning its fleet of vehicles on the roads. Last year, it became the first country where EVs outnumber gas cars. But as a result of past encouragement of diesel as a transition fuel, diesel vehicles account for about a third of all cars and trucks – and those may last for years. Some Norwegians have bought an EV not as a replacement but as a second car – to test it out. Askill Halse, an economist at TØI, a transportation research center, said Norway has seen a 'big increase' in car ownership and a modest uptick in overall traffic, despite other policies aimed at reducing driving. Environmentalists argue that the goal should not be more electric cars, but simply fewer cars. In Finnmark – known for its northern lights, striking fjords and vast tundra expanses – there is lingering discomfort with EVs. Last year, 74 percent of new car sales in the region were electric, lagging the national numbers. Proposed copper mining projects, vital for EV batteries, have drawn criticism from Indigenous Sami communities and environmentalists. 'Maybe they should search somewhere where the people aren't as close to the nature,' said Ann-Kristine Bongo, 48, a reindeer herder who drives an EV. Interviews with locals highlighted other concerns: inconvenient charging apps, long waits at charging stations and reduced winter range. The Norwegian Automobile Federation determined that EVs have an average range loss of about 20 percent in cold weather. Opting for a heat pump to warm the cabin, rather than relying on the battery, can help. One driver said he wears a snowsuit on exceptionally cold days to save battery on cabin heat. Carpenter Tormod Simonsen, 21, said he didn't yet trust an EV for traveling to the mountains. 'I've gotten stuck many times – road closures, avalanches,' he said, filling up his gas-powered Volvo at a gas station in Alta. 'If I just drove in the city, okay. But in the mountains? You need to trust your ride.' A growing number of Norwegians, though, are being won over, with many citing cost as the primary motivator. Taxi driver Tommi Olsen estimated that switching to an EV has cut his expenses by about 20 percent. Alta's main taxi company is now 75 percent electric, aiming for 100 percent by October. Even electric snowmobiles are appearing. Tour guide Jørgen Wisløff tested one for northern lights tours at his 'ice hotel.' But it costs $6,000 more than the gas version. So he said he'd consider buying it if the government offered tax breaks to make the price more competitive. Wisløff said he's happy, though, with his white electric Ford Mustang, which he noted was cheaper to buy than its gas equivalent. It gets 400 km on a full charge in winter and 500 km in summer – or about 250 miles and 310 miles. With charging points every 70 km (45 miles) or so on his journeys, he said, he rarely worries. 'That's why it's working here in Norway,' he said.
Hans India
8 hours ago
- Sport
- Hans India
Carlsen leads after round 4, Gukesh wins
Stavanger: World No. 1 Magnus Carlsen showed his class with an instructive victory in the endgame against Indian No. 2 Arjun Erigaisi. The Norwegian superstar, who had lost two Armageddon games in the last two rounds, made a strong statement with this win on home turf. In the game between World Champion Dommaraju Gukesh and World No. 3 Fabiano Caruana, the American was leading almost the whole game, with significant winning chances. However, he could not convert his advantage due to Gukesh's superb defensive skills. Gukesh then went on to win the Armageddon game convincingly. Earlier, World Champion Gukesh took down World No. 2 Hikaru Nakamura in the third round, cementing his title credentials with a bold performance. This win could not come in a better moment for the Indian prodigy following two painful losses in the first two rounds. On the opening day of Norway Chess, Gukesh suffered a loss at the hands of world No.1 Magnus Carlsen. He then lost to Arjun Erigaisi in the tension-filled all-Indian encounter but the world champion bounced back in round three with a win over Nakamura and a fourth round win against Caruana. World No. 2 Hikaru Nakamura against Chinese star Wei Yi was a hard-fought, exciting draw in classical portion of their matchup. Wei Yi ultimately triumphed in the Armageddon tiebreaks, securing the all important extra points. The Norway Chess Women's tournament saw another action-packed day with a decisive win for newcomer Sarasadat Khademalsharieh against Tingjie Lei.
Yahoo
10 hours ago
- Lifestyle
- Yahoo
School leavers party for weeks on midnight buses, and Norway says it's gone too far
After 13 years of school, Selma Jenvin-Steinsvag and her classmate Aksel were running to catch the Oslo metro in red overalls. "After that all our written exams will be done," said Selma, 18. The sight of school-leavers, known here as russe, walking around in colourful overalls is something of a coming-of-age tradition that brightens up the weeks before Norway's national day on 17 May. That marks the day the russe can finally relax after their exams and have one final party. But for increasing numbers of young Norwegians, the parties have been starting weeks earlier, well before their exams have finished. And there is one side to the celebrations that has increasingly alarmed parents and politicians alike - the russebuss. "It's a party bus! We go out every night for a month, we get drunk, we're partying with our friends and it's just fun!" says 19-year-old Edvard Aanestad, who is finishing school on the west side of Oslo. The fear is that all the weeks of partying as well as the peer pressure involved are having a detrimental effect on teenagers' overall wellbeing, as well as their grades. A small fortune is often spent renting the buses and decking them out and many school-leavers go into debt to pay for it all. "A russebuss drives all night from around midnight until early morning. We play really, really loud music and party all night," says Edvard's friend, Henrik Wathne, who's 18. Alongside all the fun, there have been complaints that the celebrations result in heavy drinking, drug use and little sleep. There are also concerns that many teenagers feel left out because they cannot afford the cost. And all of it currently coincides with the exam period. Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store said last year that he too had enjoyed his graduation, but the party bus culture had spun out of control. His intervention followed years of public debate, with objections from authorities as well as many of the school-leavers and their parents. "We are worried about some negative trends in our schools and neighbourhoods, and within Norwegian youth culture in general," says Solveig Haukenes Aase, whose eldest child is graduating this year. Her two younger children are yet to start high school and she complains that the culture affects younger teenagers too: "In recent years, it has also started to have an impact on middle school kids." Together with other parents she formed a group aimed at making the environment for young people safer. "The attitude of school authorities previously was that it's a private matter, that the russe celebration is something that happens in your spare time," she told the BBC. "But there has been a change in mentality among teachers, principals and school authorities, and it's now widely acknowledged that the new russe culture has a huge impact on the school environment." Norway's minister of education, Kari Nessa Nordtun, said it had been "a problem for many years that the celebrations and the exam period have been intertwined". She told the BBC that school-leavers had experienced difficulties in concentrating on exams because of the partying and that results had declined because of it. "The celebration has also become highly commercialised and exclusionary, and we see that these negative effects are spreading all the way down to lower secondary school. "We want to put an end to social exclusion, peer pressure and high costs for many young people. We are now working to create a new and more inclusive graduation celebration." The plan now is to ensure that from next year celebrations are moved to the post-exam period. The party bus tradition dates back to Oslo in the early 1980s and tends to be more prevalent among some of the more elite schools. But it has now become national in scale and Ivar Brandvol, who has written about the tradition, believes the whole point of the bus has now changed, so that the bus celebrations no longer involve the whole school class but a more select group instead. "Another change is the amount of money you need to be a part of a bus-group. Some of the bus-groups will have a budget up to 3m krone (£220,000) even if they choose to just rent it," he says. "Sound-systems are shipped from all over Europe. To pay the bills, the groups will often sell toilet paper to friends, family and neighbours for a little profit. But the kids have to sell tons of toilet paper to earn enough, and usually end up using savings and getting into debt." There is a broad acceptance in Norway that the school-leavers' party bus culture has to be scaled back. The government is also worried about potential risks to teenagers' safety, as they dance on buses that are driven around during the night. "We want this year's graduating class to be the last class that is allowed to use converted buses with sideways-facing seats and standing room while driving," says Jon-Ivar Nygard, Norway's Minister of Transport. "We can no longer send our young people off in unsafe buses." For many prospective school-leavers in Norway the government's plan goes too far. "The government wants to take away the sideways seating on the buses and just have group seating. I think it's the wrong way to go," complains Edvard Aanestad. And when it comes to addressing problems of inclusivity on the buses, he and his friend Henrik believe the authorities are taking the wrong approach. Only half of the 120 school-leavers in his year were part of a party-bus group, and they agree part of the reason was the high cost. But the two young men say they spent years planning their celebrations, even getting jobs on the side to pay for the whole experience. "This isn't going to help tackle exclusion," warns Edvard, who points out that banning some of the buses will mean there will be fewer buses to go around. "If anything, it's the opposite, so it's the wrong way to go."
