News
50-Year-Old Swedish Man Killed in Central Thailand
A 50-year-old Swedish man died instantly when the motorcycle he was riding crashed into a roadside ditch in Roi Et Thailand just days after meeting his Thai girlfriend online.
On Saturday afternoon, Stefan Mattias was discovered dead in a ditch on Suvarnabhumi-Ban Dong Mai Road in Suvarnabhumi district’s tambon Thung Sri Muang of Rai Et in northeast central Thailand..
After being notified of the accident at approximately 2.30pm, police and rescue workers rushed to the scene.
They discovered Mattias in the ditch, suffering from a broken neck and a deep gash in his right thigh. His motorcycle was severely damaged. It appears to have collided with a concrete sewer pipe in the ditch.
His heartbroken 27-year-old Suvarnabhumi district girlfriend said she met the Swedish man online two years ago and had kept in touch with him since.
Mattias had recently taken time off from work to travel to Thailand. She stated that they had met in person for the first time five days prior and had decided to marry.
He was staying at the woman’s home in tambon Jampakhan, and her relatives knew about their relationship.
On Saturday, after lunch, Mattias told her he wanted to ride his motorcycle around the neighborhood and take pictures. She cautioned him to ride carefully. Soon after, she learned of the fatal accident that occurred about six kilometers from her village.
Too Many Unsafe Passenger Vans on the Roads
The heinous road accident in Nakhon Ratchasima on Jan 23 night should serve as a wake-up call for Transport Minister Saksayam Chidchob to reconsider allowing converted vans to be used for public transportation.
The accident, in which 11 passengers died after the LNG-powered van crashed into the median of the Mittrapap highway and exploded, has reignited public debate about the safety and road worthiness of public vans, as well as whether policymakers are doing enough to protect public safety.
It should be noted that road safety experts have already concluded that public passenger vans, which are typically converted from personal passenger or even delivery vans, are unfit for use as public transportation vehicles and should be replaced with larger mini-buses. The junta government made it a legal requirement several years ago that operators of old public vans that had been in service for more than ten years replace them with minibuses beginning in August 2019.
However, the policy failed because Transport Minister Saksayam repealed the mandatory aspect of the requirement in 2019 and also increased the shelf-life of passenger vans from 10 to 12 years. Operators were instructed to improve various aspects of their service, such as installing GPS and providing safety equipment such as fire extinguishers and rubber hammers to smash windows when necessary, in order to improve safety.
The policy reversal was in response to public van operators’ lobbying for leniency due to the economic consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Mr. Saksayam has been outspoken in his belief that accidents are the fault of drivers, not the result of having unsafe public vans on the road. For instance, after another gruesome accident in August 2019 when 12 Lao migrant workers and their Thai driver were killed in Sa Kaeo, Mr. Saksayam was quoted warning the public that “passengers must not ride with drivers who look unfit behind the wheel”.
Mr. Saksayam has yet to make a public statement about the most recent accident. Apparently, the policy he advocates is ineffective in terms of saving lives.
It should be noted that most passenger vans in Thailand are LPG-powered. As a result, LPG gas tanks are frequently installed in the back of vans. When these vans are hit from behind, rescue operations become more difficult. One particularly heinous example was the recent Jan. 9 collision, in which a passenger van doubling as a student bus was struck by another vehicle in precisely this manner.
Rescue workers reportedly had to cut through metal to bring eight students trapped in the van out. The gas tank was damaged and caught fire as the volunteers used the tools required to pry open a way out of the van.
Minister Saksayam needs to get a grip on reality. His attitude toward road safety is highly dubious. Of course, reckless drivers contribute to road accidents, but appropriate and sturdy public transportation vehicles play an important role in mitigating this risk.
With the economy improving, the transport ministry should resume requiring van operators to decommission old vans. If Mr. Saksayam refuses to do so, other parties must include mini-bus safety proposals in their election manifestos.
These are entirely feasible changes, and the previous, albeit abandoned, policy incentivized operators with low-interest loans to smooth the transition. Of course, this would cost several billion baht, but given the number of road deaths across the country, it would be money well spent.
Thailand Reports Decline in Covid-19 Cases Despite Increased Tourism
Thailand Reports Decline in Covid-19 Cases Despite Increased Tourism

News
Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding, But Still Accounting 48% Search Revenue

Google is so closely associated with its key product that its name is a verb that signifies “search.” However, Google’s dominance in that sector is dwindling.
According to eMarketer, Google will lose control of the US search industry for the first time in decades next year.
Google will remain the dominant search player, accounting for 48% of American search advertising revenue. And, remarkably, Google is still increasing its sales in the field, despite being the dominating player in search since the early days of the George W. Bush administration. However, Amazon is growing at a quicker rate.
Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding
Amazon will hold over a quarter of US search ad dollars next year, rising to 27% by 2026, while Google will fall even more, according to eMarketer.
The Wall Street Journal was first to report on the forecast.
Lest you think you’ll have to switch to Bing or Yahoo, this isn’t the end of Google or anything really near.
Google is the fourth-most valued public firm in the world. Its market worth is $2.1 trillion, trailing just Apple, Microsoft, and the AI chip darling Nvidia. It also maintains its dominance in other industries, such as display advertisements, where it dominates alongside Facebook’s parent firm Meta, and video ads on YouTube.
To put those “other” firms in context, each is worth more than Delta Air Lines’ total market value. So, yeah, Google is not going anywhere.
Nonetheless, Google faces numerous dangers to its operations, particularly from antitrust regulators.
On Monday, a federal judge in San Francisco ruled that Google must open up its Google Play Store to competitors, dealing a significant blow to the firm in its long-running battle with Fortnite creator Epic Games. Google announced that it would appeal the verdict.
In August, a federal judge ruled that Google has an illegal monopoly on search. That verdict could lead to the dissolution of the company’s search operation. Another antitrust lawsuit filed last month accuses Google of abusing its dominance in the online advertising business.
Meanwhile, European regulators have compelled Google to follow tough new standards, which have resulted in multiple $1 billion-plus fines.

Pixa Bay
Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding
On top of that, the marketplace is becoming more difficult on its own.
TikTok, the fastest-growing social network, is expanding into the search market. And Amazon has accomplished something few other digital titans have done to date: it has established a habit.
When you want to buy anything, you usually go to Amazon, not Google. Amazon then buys adverts to push companies’ products to the top of your search results, increasing sales and earning Amazon a greater portion of the revenue. According to eMarketer, it is expected to generate $27.8 billion in search revenue in the United States next year, trailing only Google’s $62.9 billion total.
And then there’s AI, the technology that (supposedly) will change everything.
Why search in stilted language for “kendall jenner why bad bunny breakup” or “police moving violation driver rights no stop sign” when you can just ask OpenAI’s ChatGPT, “What’s going on with Kendall Jenner and Bad Bunny?” in “I need help fighting a moving violation involving a stop sign that wasn’t visible.” Google is working on exactly this technology with its Gemini product, but its success is far from guaranteed, especially with Apple collaborating with OpenAI and other businesses rapidly joining the market.
A Google spokeswoman referred to a blog post from last week in which the company unveiled ads in its AI overviews (the AI-generated text that appears at the top of search results). It’s Google’s way of expressing its ability to profit on a changing marketplace while retaining its business, even as its consumers steadily transition to ask-and-answer AI and away from search.
Google has long used a single catchphrase to defend itself against opponents who claim it is a monopoly abusing its power: competition is only a click away. Until recently, that seemed comically obtuse. Really? We are going to switch to Bing? Or Duck Duck Go? Give me a break.
But today, it feels more like reality.
Google is in no danger of disappearing. However, every highly dominating company faces some type of reckoning over time. GE, a Dow mainstay for more than a century, was broken up last year and is now a shell of its previous dominance. Sears declared bankruptcy in 2022 and is virtually out of business. US Steel, long the foundation of American manufacturing, is attempting to sell itself to a Japanese corporation.
SOURCE | CNN
News
2024 | Supreme Court Won’t Hear Appeal From Elon Musk’s X Platform Over Warrant In Trump Case

Washington — Trump Media, The Supreme Court announced Monday that it will not hear an appeal from social media platform X about a search warrant acquired by prosecutors in the election meddling case against former President Donald Trump.
The justices did not explain their rationale, and there were no recorded dissents.
The firm, which was known as Twitter before being purchased by billionaire Elon Musk, claims a nondisclosure order that prevented it from informing Trump about the warrant obtained by special counsel Jack Smith’s team violated its First Amendment rights.
The business also claims Trump should have had an opportunity to exercise executive privilege. If not reined in, the government may employ similar tactics to intercept additional privileged communications, their lawyers contended.
Supreme Court Won’t Hear Appeal From Elon Musk’s X Platform Over Warrant In Trump Case
Two neutral electronic privacy groups also joined in, urging the high court to hear the case on First Amendment grounds.
Prosecutors, however, claim that the corporation never shown that Trump utilized the account for official purposes, therefore executive privilege is not a problem. A lower court also determined that informing Trump could have compromised the current probe.
Trump utilized his Twitter account in the weeks preceding up to his supporters’ attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, to spread false assertions about the election, which prosecutors claim were intended to create doubt in the democratic process.
The indictment describes how Trump used his Twitter account to encourage his followers to travel to Washington on Jan. 6, pressuring Vice President Mike Pence to reject the certification, and falsely claiming that the Capitol crowd, which battered police officers and destroyed glass, was peaceful.
Supreme Court Won’t Hear Appeal From Elon Musk’s X Platform Over Warrant In Trump Case
That case is now moving forward following the Supreme Court’s verdict in July, which granted Trump full immunity from criminal prosecution as a former president.
The warrant arrived at Twitter amid quick changes implemented by Musk, who bought the company in 2022 and has since cut off most of its workforce, including those dedicated to combating disinformation and hate speech.
SOURCE | AP
News
The Supreme Court Turns Down Biden’s Government Appeal in a Texas Emergency Abortion Matter.

(VOR News) – A ruling that prohibits emergency abortions that contravene the Supreme Court law in the state of Texas, which has one of the most stringent abortion restrictions in the country, has been upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States. The United States Supreme Court upheld this decision.
The justices did not provide any specifics regarding the underlying reasons for their decision to uphold an order from a lower court that declared hospitals cannot be legally obligated to administer abortions if doing so would violate the law in the state of Texas.
Institutions are not required to perform abortions, as stipulated in the decree. The common populace did not investigate any opposing viewpoints. The decision was made just weeks before a presidential election that brought abortion to the forefront of the political agenda.
This decision follows the 2022 Supreme Court ruling that ended abortion nationwide.
In response to a request from the administration of Vice President Joe Biden to overturn the lower court’s decision, the justices expressed their disapproval.
The government contends that hospitals are obligated to perform abortions in compliance with federal legislation when the health or life of an expectant patient is in an exceedingly precarious condition.
This is the case in regions where the procedure is prohibited. The difficulty hospitals in Texas and other states are experiencing in determining whether or not routine care could be in violation of stringent state laws that prohibit abortion has resulted in an increase in the number of complaints concerning pregnant women who are experiencing medical distress being turned away from emergency rooms.
The administration cited the Supreme Court’s ruling in a case that bore a striking resemblance to the one that was presented to it in Idaho at the beginning of the year. The justices took a limited decision in that case to allow the continuation of emergency abortions without interruption while a lawsuit was still being heard.
In contrast, Texas has been a vocal proponent of the injunction’s continued enforcement. Texas has argued that its circumstances are distinct from those of Idaho, as the state does have an exemption for situations that pose a significant hazard to the health of an expectant patient.
According to the state, the discrepancy is the result of this exemption. The state of Idaho had a provision that safeguarded a woman’s life when the issue was first broached; however, it did not include protection for her health.
Certified medical practitioners are not obligated to wait until a woman’s life is in imminent peril before they are legally permitted to perform an abortion, as determined by the state supreme court.
The state of Texas highlighted this to the Supreme Court.
Nevertheless, medical professionals have criticized the Texas statute as being perilously ambiguous, and a medical board has declined to provide a list of all the disorders that are eligible for an exception. Furthermore, the statute has been criticized for its hazardous ambiguity.
For an extended period, termination of pregnancies has been a standard procedure in medical treatment for individuals who have been experiencing significant issues. It is implemented in this manner to prevent catastrophic outcomes, such as sepsis, organ failure, and other severe scenarios.
Nevertheless, medical professionals and hospitals in Texas and other states with strict abortion laws have noted that it is uncertain whether or not these terminations could be in violation of abortion prohibitions that include the possibility of a prison sentence. This is the case in regions where abortion prohibitions are exceedingly restrictive.
Following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, which resulted in restrictions on the rights of women to have abortions in several Republican-ruled states, the Texas case was revisited in 2022.
As per the orders that were disclosed by the administration of Vice President Joe Biden, hospitals are still required to provide abortions in cases that are classified as dire emergency.
As stipulated in a piece of health care legislation, the majority of hospitals are obligated to provide medical assistance to patients who are experiencing medical distress. This is in accordance with the law.
The state of Texas maintained that hospitals should not be obligated to provide abortions throughout the litigation, as doing so would violate the state’s constitutional prohibition on abortions. In its January judgment, the 5th United States Circuit Court of Appeals concurred with the state and acknowledged that the administration had exceeded its authority.
SOURCE: AP
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