Latest news with #StreetView
Euronews
26-05-2025
- Politics
- Euronews
Fact-checking claims NATO troops are preparing to attack Russia
A video circulating online falsely claims to show British tanks ammassing in the Estonian capital of Tallinn as part of a NATO plan to "attack" the Russian city of St Petersburg. One post sharing the claim on X has been seen over 800,000 times. It wrongly claims that "NATO has arrived in Estonia. British soldiers and tanks in Tallinn plan to attack Saint Petersburg." At the time of publication of this article, no community notes cautioning users of the false information was added to the post on the Elon Musk-owned platform. The same claim has been amplified across several platforms including Instagram and Facebook. Euroverify found that the footage in fact shows the British Army's Royal Dragoon Guards in Tallinn on 24 February 2025 as part of a parade to celebrate Estonia's Independence Day. Over 1,000 Estonian Defence Forces (EDF) and NATO allied troops took part in that annual military parade to mark the 107th anniversary of Estonia's independence. Vehicles from the United Kingdom, France and the United States were part of the annual procession. Euroverify identified the site of the footage in the centre of Tallinn, near the Estonian Drama Theatre. The site can be seen in the image above captured from Google's Street View. The same address was closed for traffic during the parade to allow for the passage of tanks. A closer look at the number plate of the tank seen in the video (DT16AA) corresponds to a tank pictured by the Estonian press agency ERR taken during the Independence Day procession. According to fact-checkers at Reuters, the tank was pictured in Estonia between May and December 2024, proving that they had not "just arrived" in the Baltic country as online users claim. We can conclude with certainty that the video does not show a military escalation in Tallinn, but rather a tank being loaded onto a vehicle following the procession in February. The video has been re-circulating in recent weeks, accompanied by unfounded claims of a military escalation, just as troops from seven allied countries, including the UK and France, joined military drills in Estonia. Those drills, codenamed Exercise Hedgehog, are part of NATO's efforts to improve the "interoperability and integration" of allied forces, according to the alliance. The X account responsible for the false claim has made similar unfounded allegations about an impending "siege of Saint Petersburg" and constantly shares anti-NATO, pro-Kremlin disinformation Open source intelligence experts have linked the account to the Matryoshka campaign, described as a "coordinated" operation by the French cyber agency. Romania's new president, Nicușor Dan, has been officially sworn in, ushering in a tentative close to the worst political crisis to grip the European Union country in decades after the annulment of the previous election but several challenges lie ahead. Dan, a 55-year-old mathematician and former mayor of Bucharest decisively won the 18 May runoff, beating his hard-right opponent George Simion, who later challenged the results in the Constitutional Court but was rejected last week. At the inauguration ceremony in a joint session of Parliament, Dan signed the constitutional oath. In a speech afterwards, he promised to tackle Romania's economic woes and to be a president "open to the voice of society." "The Romanian state needs a fundamental I invite you to continue to be involved with all the social force you have proven, to put positive pressure on the institutions of the Romanian state so that they can reform," he said. "I assure you that I will be a president who listens to the voice of society and who is a partner to that society." The May election rerun was held months after the Constitutional Court voided the previous election in which the far-right outsider Călin Georgescu led the first round, following allegations of electoral violations and Russian interference, which Moscow denied. The court's unprecedented decision last year plunged Romania, which is an EU and NATO member, into a period of unprecedented political turmoil. The presidential role carries a five-year term and significant decision-making powers in national security and foreign policy. In the presidential runoff, Dan ran independently on an "Honest Romania" ticket, reaffirming Western ties, continued support for Ukraine and fiscal reforms. Addressing the economic challenges that lie ahead, Dan said that "put Romanian state is spending more than it can afford." "It is in the national interest for Romania to send a message of stability to financial markets. It is in the national interest to send a signal of openness and predictability to the investment environment," he said. Many observers viewed the election outcome as crucial to maintaining Romania's place within Western alliances, especially as the war continues in neighbouring Ukraine. At the same time, the continent scrambles to arm itself as the United States' commitment to European partners has waned under US President Donald Trump. As Dan begins his mandate, he faces the immediate challenge of nominating a prime minister who can garner the support necessary to form a government, a tall order in a country where a rejection of the political class led to the emergence of figures like Georgescu and Simion. Dan will also have to contend with a string of other crises, such as a large budget deficit, deep societal divisions exposed by the chaotic election cycle and the war that drags on next door. Cristian Andrei, a Bucharest-based political consultant, says that forming a new cabinet will be "a major test" that will indicate whether Dan is capable of mediating between the fragmented political parties. "Dan will face fierce resistance from the state apparatus and old politicians in his pursuit to start reforms," he told The Associated Press. "Although the economic crisis is urgent, the political and societal divisions are those that the new president has to address in the longer term." He added that, with populism growing in popularity, a deeper political crisis was "put on hold and a new one will be in the making" ahead of future elections. "The success of his presidency will decide if we can avert such a crisis or not," he said. A day after he won the presidency, Dan had a call with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, in which he conveyed to Rutte that Romania "will remain a steadfast ally" within the alliance. Dan first rose to public prominence as a civil activist with his Save Bucharest Association, tasked with saving built heritage and fighting against illegal real estate projects in a system he described as a "real estate mafia." He won hundreds of lawsuits. He also joined a wave of anti-corruption protests that gripped Romania through the mid-2010s. In 2016, he founded the reformist Save Romania Union party, at the time largely viewed as an anti-corruption party, but later left. In 2020, he successfully secured the mayorship of Bucharest and was elected last year for a second term. As mayor, Dan tackled some key infrastructure projects, such as modernising Bucharest's ageing residential heating systems, which previous mayors have been accused of neglecting.
Wales Online
14-05-2025
- Sport
- Wales Online
Welsh rugby team stripped of promotion and docked 10 points after WRU probe
Welsh rugby team stripped of promotion and docked 10 points after WRU probe The club had seven days to appeal, which ended on Tuesday, May 13 Crumlin RFC (Image: Google Maps/Street View ) Welsh rugby club Crumlin RFC have been deducted 10 points and denied promotion for fielding an ineligible player in two matches. The Welsh Rugby Union has confirmed the Admiral National League Four East club will not be promoted despite finishing in the top two, with local rivals RTB Ebbw Vale taking their place. Prior to the deduction, Crumlin had finished one point ahead of RTB and were under the impression they had been promoted, with Gwernyfed finishing as champions. However, the WRU confirmed Crumlin have now been deducted 10 points after an investigation found they fielded an ineligible player in two matches across the course of the season. It's understood the individual plays at a much higher level normally, with Crumlin accused of registering him under a false name. Join WalesOnline Rugby's WhatsApp Channel here to get the breaking news sent straight to your phone for free A WRU Spokesperson said: "The WRU can confirm that Crumlin RFC has been deducted 10 league points following the fielding of an ineligible player in two separate fixtures. Article continues below "The 10-point deduction which was determined by the Union's Competitions Management Committee on 6th May has been formalised following the completion of a seven-day window in which the club had the right to appeal. "As a result of the points deduction, RTB Ebbw Vale has been successfully promoted, and the new league structure will be released to all clubs in the coming weeks. "Both clubs have been officially informed of the outcome this morning." Crumlin are not the only side in East Four to suffer punishment, with Crickhowell, Bedwellty and Whitehead also being docked points this season. Next season, RTB Ebbw Vale will be playing in Admiral National League Three East, with the likes of Nantyglo, New Panteg and Fleur de Lys. Crumlin will remain in East Four and will be going up against the likes of Abertysswg and Oakdale, who have dropped down from the division above. Article continues below Crumlin RFC declined to comment when approached by WalesOnline.
The Star
14-05-2025
- Automotive
- The Star
Inside a Google Street View car: A celebrity on wheels
NEW YORK: The online job posting was cryptic. A driver was needed, that much Joe McCallen knew. The mission? That was secret. When he stepped inside the tricked out Honda HR-V – outfitted with a 9-foot turret on the roof, a customiSed screen covering the centre console and a back seat filled with computers – McCallen realised he was helping Google map every corner of the world. In his Google Street View car, McCallen has driven 100,000 miles in three years, patrolling Midwest and East Coast roads. He drives from just after sunrise to just before sunset, while cameras on the roof take photos that get spliced together into panoramic images. Because of him and countless other drivers, anyone in the world can log onto Google Maps and travel virtually along 12 million miles of roads in 110 countries. It's the closest thing humans have to teleportation. 'I love doing it,' McCallen, 63, of Tampa Bay, Florida, said. 'The places you go to, the people you see. Stuff you just can't write.' Driving a custom Honda HR-V with a nine-foot camera turret, McCallen is accustomed to being cheered or treated like a minor celebrity by pedestrians on his sunrise-to-sunset shifts. — GRAHAM DICKIE/The New York Times When he accepted a lucrative severance package from an asset management role in his 50s, he took a couple years off. Then he tried out a few other finance jobs. But he wanted to do something completely different. Driving for Google, he has stopped for moose, seen an unexpected showing of the Northern Lights in Maine and struck up deep conversations with strangers at rural diners. On a Friday morning in March, McCallen let a reporter tag along for a ride through a 30-block area in New York's West Village. Nearly every pedestrian who walked by took photos, waved, pointed or nodded at the car like they had just seen a minor celebrity. (Not Justin Bieber or Rihanna level. More similar to that time I saw Josh Hutcherson in the Financial District; an 'isn't that that guy from that thing?' double take.) The first Street View model, which launched in 2007, was cobbled together into a bulky black top hat-like fixture and strapped onto a van and driven around Mountain View, California. Engineers fixed bugs and solved hardware errors with makeshift fixes straight out of the television show Silicon Valley. To prevent condensation from building up in the cameras, drivers covered their cameras with socks at night, said Ethan Russell, a senior director of Google Maps. Some drivers forgot to take the socks off the next morning and traveled for hours with the camera only capturing a cotton-polyester blend. Pedestrians wave to a Google Street View custom Honda HR-V on the roads of Manhattan on March 14, 2025. — GRAHAM DICKIE/The New York Times Eighteen years later, Street View is no longer relying on socks. Planes with Google's cameras on the bottom are flying overhead. Satellites assist. People are able to submit their own images to Street View, essentially turning anyone with a smartphone into a Street View driver. Street View cameras have captured Machu Picchu, the Great Barrier Reef and Antarctica. A Google Street View car in Palo Alto, Calif. on March 11, 2025. Google's sleek new camera model will allow any car with a roof rack to become a Street View car. — GRAHAM DICKIE/The New York Times Google's sleek new camera model will allow any car with a roof rack to become a Street View car. The cars will no longer need to be transported overseas. Looking to the future, Russell and his team are focused on expanding Street View's capabilities with artificial intelligence, which has long helped blur faces, license plates and addresses on the platform. Soon, information from a business' storefront (such as its hours or its phone number) could be gleaned from Street View images and then appear in search engine results. There are a couple drawbacks to the experience. Street View has faced privacy concerns. Drivers constantly stress about overpasses that threaten to clip the 9-foot-tall ostrich neck on their roof; Arrested Development got that right. And McCallen gets flipped off a lot. On that warm Friday morning, McCallen dropped us off by the sidewalk and sped off to map his designated 30 blocks of the West Village. After that, he would drive back down to Florida to continue his quest to map the world. McCallen plans to sign up for another year working for Street View. 'For now, it's perfect,' he said. 'I'm flexible, and so I just go with the flow.' – ©2025 The New York Times Company This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
The Drive
13-05-2025
- Automotive
- The Drive
1,000 People Are 'Driving' Across the US One Photo at a Time on Google Maps
The latest car news, reviews, and features. As you're reading this, nearly 1,000 people are traveling across the United States in the same car. It's not a real car, of course; it's Street View-based software called Internet Roadtrip, made by developer Neal Agarwal, and the road-trippers vote every couple of seconds to decide where they're headed off to next. The journey began in Boston, Massachusetts earlier this month, and there's absolutely no telling where it will go or when it will end. The interface is refreshingly simple. Most of the screen is taken up by images collected from Google Maps, a small steering wheel that moves, and arrows that indicate where the car can go. The column on the right side of the screen provides real-time details such as how many drivers are online, the number of votes that each option is getting (sounding the horn is surprisingly unpopular), and the number of miles driven since the beginning of the road trip (about 450 as of writing). There's also a live chat which reminds me of the chat rooms that were popular in the 2000s, both in terms of the design and in terms of the random shit people digitally blurt out, and a radio at the bottom. If you want to 'drive,' it's as easy as clicking on an arrow. Open the site, click on the direction that you want to take the car in, wait about four seconds for the other drivers to make a choice, and the steering wheel will veer in the direction that receives the most votes. Every intersection spawns a heated debate in the old-school chat. Of course, sometimes there's only one way to move: Forward. You can't shift into reverse, for better or worse. You even have to vote to change the radio station because, remember, everyone's in the same car. It's kind of hard to go anywhere on purpose when people keep pulling the car into strip mall parking lots. Internet Roadtrip There has to be at least some sociological and philosophical value in this experiment. Beyond that, the Internet Roadtrip is a cool way to see the country, and discover sights that you likely would have never stumbled upon otherwise. The car's in Scarborough, Maine, at the time of writing, not terribly far from the Canadian border. What will happen if we get there? Will we keep driving and explore the Great White North, or head back south? Nothing moves especially fast on this road trip, but we may not have to wait long to find out. Shoutout to the developer's many other games and absurd curiosities over at Got tips? Send 'em to tips@
Miami Herald
12-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Miami Herald
7 times lottery players tried their luck — and won big prizes. See the stories
National 7 times lottery players tried their luck — and won big prizes. See the stories Lottery players test their luck every day. A Maryland woman's broken down car led her to delay replaying her Keno To Go tickets, but the wait ended with a $50,014 win. In North Carolina, a man took a random shot and bought a $2 Hot 50s Fast Play ticket, scoring $121,399. Take a look at the stories below. A woman got Keno To Go tickets from a bar in Maryland and ended up winning a big prize. Getty Images/iStockphoto NO. 1: WOMAN'S BROKEN DOWN CAR HELPS HER WIN BIG LOTTERY PRIZE IN MARYLAND. 'LOOK AT THIS!' The woman and her husband were 'so surprised.' | Published May 30, 2024 | Read Full Story by Helena Wegner The man said he didn't believe the app he used to verify his win was correct, Ohio lottery officials said. Getty Images/iStockphoto NO. 2: LOTTERY PLAYER GETS 'CONGRATULATIONS' MESSAGE IN GAMING APP AND WON'T BELIEVE IT. 'NAH' The cashier 'scanned it and ... screamed,' the winner told Ohio lottery officials. | Published May 31, 2024 | Read Full Story by Lauren Liebhaber Kyle Brogden bought his winning lottery tickets at the Murphy Express in Oxford, which is about a 50-mile drive north of Raleigh. Street View image from Oct. 2022. © 2024 Google NO. 3: WIFE REFUSED TO FALL FOR HUSBAND'S NC LOTTERY PRANK — BUT HE WAS TELLING TRUTH It's tough not to believe when he suddenly had all that money. | Published June 4, 2024 | Read Full Story by Mark Price A North Carolina man 'randomly' bought a $2 lottery ticket at this Food Lion in Mocksville and he won a six-figure prize. Street View image from June 2015. © 2024 Google NO. 4: MAN 'RANDOMLY' BUYS $2 LOTTERY TICKET AND WINS BIG IN NC. 'JUST A SHOT IN THE DARK' "Oh my ... this is happening,' he said. | Published June 12, 2024 | Read Full Story by Mark Price A Maryland woman won $50,000 in the June 22 Powerball drawing after she used extra cash on hand to buy a ticket, lottery officials said. Getty Images/iStockphoto NO. 5: POWERBALL PLAYER BUYS TICKET WITH $4 AND WINS BIG. THEN FRIEND KEEPS TICKET SAFE The Maryland mom said she hid the ticket at her friend's home until she could claim her prize. | Published July 4, 2024 | Read Full Story by Olivia Lloyd A lottery player scored a huge windfall in North Carolina. N.C. Education Lottery NO. 6: LOTTERY TICKET SOLD IN NC IS WORTH $25,000 A YEAR FOR LIFE. WHERE DID WINNER BUY IT? Here's what we know about the big win. | Published November 15, 2024 | Read Full Story by Simone Jasper A man won big after buying a $10 scratch-off, Maryland Lottery officials said. Getty Images/iStockphoto NO. 7: LOTTERY PLAYER LANDS THIRD BIG WIN WITH $10 SCRATCH-OFF IN MARYLAND. 'EXTREMELY HAPPY' 'This time, it's going into my house. The stock market's not so good these days.' | Published March 3, 2025 | Read Full Story by Paloma Chavez The summary above was drafted with the help of AI tools and edited by journalists in our News division. All stories listed were reported, written and edited by McClatchy journalists.
