Tear gas and water cannon were deployed by police in Slovenia’s capital, Ljubljana after thousands of demonstrators upset over mandatory Covid-19 passes tried to block a major highway and were accused of assaulting the media.
The Slovenian government made Covid-19 passes mandatory for almost all shops, services, and workplaces in mid-September, as the nation faced one of the worst coronavirus spikes per capita in Europe. The measures have angered many, and Wednesday saw the third major protest against the restrictions.
A huge crowd gathered at Republic Square outside the parliament in Ljubljana to demand the lifting of the Covid-19 pass mandate, as well as the resignation of the government. Police estimated attendance at the unsanctioned rally at around 10,000, while the organizers insisted the number was 10 times higher.
With the parliament heavily guarded by riot police, the people, most of whom neither wore masks nor observed social distancing, began a march towards the suburbs, waving flags and chanting, while a police helicopter circled above.
Police intervened when the procession reached the Ljubljana Ring Road and tried to block it, spraying the crowd with water cannon and using teargas to make them disperse.
After the violent outbreak, the march changed course, with demonstrators making their way back to Republic Square where the rally continued.
The protesters were also angry with some local media outlets over their coverage during the pandemic.
Crews from Kanal A and POP TV commercial broadcasters said they were assaulted while covering the event, with people tossing objects at the journalists and spitting at them. A security guard accompanying the crews was lightly injured, according to the Slovenian Press Agency (STA).
A water cannon was also used as the crowd tried to make a stop outside the headquarters of public broadcaster RTV Slovenija.
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The rally took place on the same day Slovenia announced the temporary suspension of Johnson & Johnson’s Janssen vaccine in response to the death of a 20-year-old woman who suffered blood clots and bleeding in the brain two weeks after receiving the shot. The vaccine will remain on hold while the Health Ministry investigates whether there is a link between the shot and the complications suffered by the woman. The victim’s father attended the protest and addressed the crowd.
Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Jansa slammed the rally on Twitter, insisting that attacks, threats, and violations of Covid-19 rules had nothing to do with the constitutional right to assembly. The prime minister also urged the Interior Ministry to intervene as, according to him, the police were unable to contain the protests.
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Slovenia, which has a population of around 2 million, has seen more than 292,000 infections and over 4,500 deaths since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. The country’s vaccination drive is lagging behind many of its European neighbors, with around 48% fully vaccinated.
Memory masters Kingston are one of the brands that’s quietly been there for PC gamers over the decades. They may not be right up in our faces with GPUs and monitors, nor at our fingertips via keyboards and mice, but many of the best Kingston products hum beneath the surface of the most powerful gaming machines, providing swift storage in the form of SSDs and that all-important memory middle man of your PC, RAM.
RAM is vital to the smooth running of your PC and games – the more processes you have running, the more RAM you should have, and the faster it should be. Beyond the raw amount of RAM in gigabytes, you also want your RAM to be have high clock speeds (calculated in MHz) with low latency (calculated in CL timings).
The latest Kingston FURY range of DDR4 RAM strikes that balance between speed, latency and price, channelling the company’s decades of experience into these beautifully designed wafers of memory.
Here are the latest products in this exciting new range. Note that all the below are backed by Kingston’s trusty lifetime warranty, and designed to get the most out of Intel and AMD-based systems and CPUs.
Kingston FURY Beast DDR4
(Image credit: Kingston)
Smoothly stream your playthroughs of the latest triple-A games without a hitch thanks to the Beast – a 3733MHz powerhouse designed for desktop PCs. The Beast takes advantage of both Intel’s XMP and AMD Ryzen-based overclocking solutions, which are the safest and speediest way to crank up those clock speeds to the next level.
Clock speed: 3733MHz
Latency: CL15-CL19
Module size: 4GB-32GB | Kit size: 8GB-128GB
Kingston FURY Impact DDR4
(Image credit: Kingston)
In this day and age, the idea of turning your laptop or notebook into a solid workstation-gaming-rig hybrid isn’t so unthinkable, especially when you can load it up with RAM like this. Kingston’s FURY Impact DDR4 SODIMM RAM is Ryzen and Intel-XMP-ready, pushing clock speeds up to an impressive 3200MHz.
Keeping things cool inside a laptop is critical, and the Impact takes that into consideration with its modest 1.2v power draw, ensuring no-noise, low-temperature performance.
Clock speed: 3200MHz
Latency: CL15, CL16, CL17, CL20
Module size: 8GB-32GB | Kit size: 8GB-64GB
Kingston FURY Renegade DDR4
(Image credit: Kingston)
The Renegade is for those that accept no compromises in memory performance, and want their PCs future-proofed until the end times. Boost those frame-rates, iron out that choppiness while broadcasting, and splice together the next viral video at a searing 5333MHz.
With the Renegade, you can do all the above at the same time and you still won’t notice any slowdown.
Clock speed: 5333MHz
Latency: CL12-CL20
Single module: 8GB-32GB | Kit size: 16GB-256GB
Which FURY will you unleash into your next PC? Whatever you go for, you should consider matching it up with one of the upcoming Kingston FURY SSDs. For more info on those, and all things Kingston, stay tuned on the Kingston site, or join the community across their social channels on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.
NASA’s Mars helicopter Ingenuity canceled flight 14 due to failures in its flight control system. Originally, Ingenuity was designed to live one month and execute five demonstration test flights. Like other NASA technology, Ingenuity pushed beyond its initial limits. Today the Mars helicopter has more than doubled its original intended lifespan and number of flights.
Weeks before the canceled flight NASA had warned that flying on Mars was becoming more difficult with each passing day due to the variations of the Red Planet’s seasons. Seasonal variations on Mars are so extreme that they affect atmospheric density. Like all helicopters, Ingenuity must boost performance to overcome atmospheric changes.
Related: We Won’t Hear From Any Mars Rovers For At Least Two Weeks – Here’s Why
Ingenuity made the autonomous decision of canceling flight 14 after detecting an “anomaly” with its main control mechanisms. The helicopter is programmed to run pre-flight tests. During the last test, it detected that two flight-control servo motors did not respond as they should. The two upper rotor swashplate servos oscillated with an amplitude of approximately 1 degree compared to their commanded position. A change in 1 degree may seem small but from the perspective of the small helicopter about to fly on Mars, it was critical enough to shut down the flight.
Three days before the canceled flight the helicopter had conducted a high-speed test required to compensate for atmospheric density changes in Mars. The test pushed Ingenuity’s rpm to the highest level ever, reaching 2,800 rpm. The high-speed test was needed to know if it was safe to fly with high rpm levels.
Servos are a critical part of Ingenuity’s anatomy. They control a swashplate mechanism that adjusts the pitch of rotor blades which in turn controls the helicopter’s position and orientation during flights. Ingenuity has six servos, three on each swashplate. “Servos are critical to stable and controlled flight,” NASA said. NASA is working on two theories to understand what went wrong and how to solve it. One theory is that the helicopter has doubled its original flight design capabilities and the stress begins to show. The second theory is that during the high-speed rpm test the servos were affected.
On Earth, the solution is an easy fix, replacing servos in drone helicopters is normal. However, Ingenuity is millions of kilometers away from Earth, which rules out running to the store for a new servo. NASA is left with two main solutions, including the possibility of disabling “abnormal” servos if they have redundant systems, or programming flight commands to adjust to the servo malfunction. All vehicles on Mars, including Ingenuity, will be on a communication blackout due to the Solar Conjunction. The team will use these two weeks to test solutions and get back Ingenuity on the game by the time communications with Mars are reestablished.
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New Zealand has voted to strengthen a counter-terrorism bill, now criminalizing the planning of attacks after a knifeman inspired by Islamic State recently left several injured, despite being trailed by police for weeks.
Parliament passed the bill on its third reading on Thursday, voting to amend two previous pieces of legislation that took effect in 2002 and 2012 in order to empower authorities to go after suspected terrorists.
Should the law receive final royal approval, anyone determined to be “planning” or making “other preparations” for an attack will be subject to a number of warrantless police powers, including those pertaining to entry, search, seizure, and surveillance.
The legislative push is long in the making, with calls to strengthen the country’s counter-terrorism laws growing louder following the infamous Christchurch shooting in 2019, in which a gunman massacred 51 people and injured another 40 in a shooting rampage at two different mosques.
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However, a knife attack in Auckland earlier this month – said to have been inspired by Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) – provided more direct impetus for the terrorism bill. Though the attacker, identified as Ahamed Aathil Mohamed Samsudeen, had been under law enforcement surveillance for 53 consecutive days and police strongly suspected he was planning violence, they had no legal pretext to detain him before the attack. The new bill aims to remedy such issues going forward, empowering police to take more aggressive action ahead of a planned incident.
Last year, prosecutors attempted to charge Samsudeen with a terrorism offense, saying he had recently bought a large hunting knife and was found with IS propaganda material in his possession. However, the case was later thrown out, as a judge determined the knife and videos alone were not enough to proceed with criminal charges. The judge also noted that New Zealand law at the time made few provisions for terrorist plots, focusing instead on attacks themselves, saying this “could be an Achilles’ heel” in the justice system.
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The Genshin Impact community is always looking forward to new playable characters. Because miHoYo only announces new characters a patch or two before they release, there are still quite a few leaked or rumored characters that don’t have a release date yet. It is possible, however, to make an educated guess about which of these leaked characters may be coming soon.
When it comes to character speculation, there are few things to keep in mind. There have been instances when characters are announced or known about but then don’t release for quite some time. For instance, Ayaka, who was a beta character but only released at the end of July, or Cyno, who was announced in the region roadmap released last year and still doesn’t have a release date. Additionally, the current characters that are being released also seem to be Inazuma characters as that is where the story of the game is currently focused. That’s not to say that Liyue or Mondstadt characters can’t also become available, but it seems like the Inazuma characters are in the spotlight, for now.
Related: Genshin Impact 2.2 Livestream: Date, Start Times, & How To Watch
The only confirmed new playable character so far is Thoma, who should be available in Version 2.2. There are, however, some other Inazuma characters that could also become playable. Yae Miko played a rather significant role in the 2.1 Archon Quest and in the Inazuma storyline, as a whole. As the Raiden Shogun’s closest companion, it wouldn’t be a surprise if Miko were to get her own banner. Because the new characters releasing at the moment seem to be oriented around Inazuma, it is possible that Miko will be releasing in the next few updates. Gorou, a leader of the Sangonomiya Resistance, has also yet to be given a release date. Considering he has already been introduced in the storyline, it is likely that he may also be releasing soon.
And then there is Kamisato Ayato, Ayaka’s elusive brother and leader of the Kamisato Clan. Ayato has yet to make an appearance in-game, but it has been possibly leaked by former Genshin Impact leaker Sukuna that Ayato may be coming soon. There has been no official word on Ayato – his appearance isn’t even known – but he is rumored to be a Hydro claymore user. Another as-yet-unseen character that may be coming soon is Arataki Itto, who is mentioned by Sayu and Yoimiya as being the leader of the Arataki Gang. Itto is rumored to be a Geo user by Dimbreath on Twitter, whose account has sadly been deactivated.
All of the above characters are somehow connected to Inazuma and are, therefore, most likely to be coming soon with new updates. However, there are also a few Liyue characters that have been leaked recently. The most likely of these characters to be releasing soon is Yaoyao, who used to study alongside Xiangling and now works for Ganyu. Her arrival may coincide with the Mid-Autumn Festival – or the Moonlight Merriment Event in Genshin Impact – which is currently underway. The 2.2 livestream this Sunday would be the perfect time to announce her. It is also possible that Yaoyao could be the first playable Dendro character added to the game. As the Dendro region, Sumeru, is the next stop for Genshin Impact’s storyline, it would make sense to start introducing the element now.
Yunjin and Shenhe are also Liyue characters that have been leaked. Yunjin will likely be releasing in the future since there is no indication that she is coming soon. Shenhe may not be playable at all, as there isn’t even official artwork for her, and it is rumored that her design was used for other characters. There are also other characters that have been in the game that have yet to be made playable – namely Baizhu and Scaramouche. As Baizhu is a Dendro character – and may have connections to the Chasm – he will probably not be made available in 2021. Scaramouche, on the other hand, is a bit of a wild card. Though he may at some point be made playable, it is possible that he will never get his own Banner. For now, however, players will just have to wait for confirmation from miHoYo to learn when new Genshin Impact characters are coming to the game next.
Next: Genshin Impact: Why More Fatui Harbingers Shouldn’t Be Playable
