AmbiguousProps

The latest count of public EV chargers has swelled to 192,000. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, this number has doubled since the Biden administration took office and is continuing to grow at a rapid rate of 1,000 new chargers every week.

Along with the announcement comes the awarding of $521 million in grants to further expand charging access across the U.S. highway system. This includes 29 states, the District of Columbia, and two Federally Recognized Tribes—a total of 9,200 new EV charging ports.

"The Biden-Harris Administration has been clear about America leading the EV revolution, and thanks to the historic infrastructure package, we’re building a nationwide EV charger network to make sure all drivers have an accessible, reliable, and convenient way to charge their vehicles," said U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg. "The awards that we’re announcing today will build on this important work and will help ensure that the cost savings, health and climate benefits, and jobs of the EV future are secured for Americans across the country."

The growth rate is rather impressive, actually. In mid-January, the U.S. government reported more than 169,000 chargers were deployed and online, meaning a 14% growth in just seven months. The number of chargers deployed weekly has also grown by 11%—from 900 to 1,000—during the same period.

A critical security flaw has been disclosed in the WPML WordPress multilingual plugin that could allow authenticated users to execute arbitrary code remotely under certain circumstances.

The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2024-6386 (CVSS score: 9.9), impacts all versions of the plugin before 4.6.13, which was released on August 20, 2024.

Arising due to missing input validation and sanitization, the issue makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with Contributor-level access and above, to execute code on the server.

WPML is a popular plugin used for building multilingual WordPress sites. It has over one million active installations.

Polestar, the electric car manufacturer owned by Chinese-based giant Geely, will have a new chief operating officer starting next month. On October 1, Thomas Ingenlath, who served as CEO since the company’s inception as a standalone automaker in 2017, will step down.

Michael Lohscheller will take his place and try to transform Polestar from an EV startup into a bigger player in the automotive industry. Lohscheller was CEO at several other automotive companies in the last decade. Between 2017 and 2021 he spearheaded Opel, then moved to the position of Global CEO at VinFast. After just seven months, he jumped ship to Nikola, the maker of battery- and hydrogen-powered big rigs, where he acted as both president and CEO until September 2023, according to his LinkedIn profile.

In teaching materials it released last week, a module titled adolescents and intimate relationships for Secondary Year 3, suggested that teenagers who wanted to have sex with each other could "go out to play badminton together" instead.

The materials also include a form called "My Commitment" aimed at getting "young lovers" to attest that they would exercise "self-discipline, self-control, and resistance to pornography".

The new materials have raised eyebrows and attracted criticism for being "out of touch". But officials have defended the decision.

Meanwhile social media has been flooded with jokes centered around "playing badminton".

"FWB [Friends with benefits]?? Friends with badminton," read one comment on Instagram that had more than 1,000 likes.

"In English: Netflix and chill? In Cantonese, play badminton together?" read another Facebook post which was shared more than 500 times.

Even Olympics badminton player Tse Ying Suet could not resist from commenting.

"Everyone is making an appointment to play badminton. Is everyone really into badminton?" she asked on Threads with a smirky face emoji.

In teaching materials it released last week, a module titled adolescents and intimate relationships for Secondary Year 3, suggested that teenagers who wanted to have sex with each other could "go out to play badminton together" instead.

The materials also include a form called "My Commitment" aimed at getting "young lovers" to attest that they would exercise "self-discipline, self-control, and resistance to pornography".

The new materials have raised eyebrows and attracted criticism for being "out of touch". But officials have defended the decision.

Meanwhile social media has been flooded with jokes centered around "playing badminton".

"FWB [Friends with benefits]?? Friends with badminton," read one comment on Instagram that had more than 1,000 likes.

"In English: Netflix and chill? In Cantonese, play badminton together?" read another Facebook post which was shared more than 500 times.

Even Olympics badminton player Tse Ying Suet could not resist from commenting.

"Everyone is making an appointment to play badminton. Is everyone really into badminton?" she asked on Threads with a smirky face emoji.

Thousands of Fred Meyer workers in the Portland area plan to walk off the job early Wednesday, striking over alleged breaches of labor relations laws and amid contentious contract negotiations.

The United Food and Commercial Workers Local 555, which represents roughly 4,500 Fred Meyer workers across the Portland area, told The Oregonian/OregonLive on Tuesday that the strike would begin at 6 a.m. Wednesday and continue nearly a week, until 8 a.m. next Tuesday.

Thousands of Fred Meyer workers in the Portland area plan to walk off the job early Wednesday, striking over alleged breaches of labor relations laws and amid contentious contract negotiations.

The United Food and Commercial Workers Local 555, which represents roughly 4,500 Fred Meyer workers across the Portland area, told The Oregonian/OregonLive on Tuesday that the strike would begin at 6 a.m. Wednesday and continue nearly a week, until 8 a.m. next Tuesday.