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Uber will pay $1,000 in credits to certain commuters in the US and Canada who ditch their cars for five weeks in favor of public and other transport services, it said Thursday, in its latest effort to drum up business and help reduce emissions.

The ride-hailing and food delivery platform operator has, for several years, battled for the adoption of environment-friendly electric vehicles and has pledged $800 million to support its driver partners’ shift entirely to EVs by 2040.

It has partnered with rental car company Hertz to offer Tesla cars as a rental option for its drivers in the US and Europe, although it is not clear how much of its total fleet currently comprises EVs.

Under the “One Less Car” initiative,Uberwill select up to 175 car owners in Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington DC, Miami, San Francisco, Toronto, and Vancouver, based on certain eligibility, for the five-week program beginning July 22.

They will get $500 in credit redeemable on the Uber app, a $200 voucher for car rental or carshare services and $300 for use on alternate modes such as public transport.

A similar initiative by Uber in Australia last year showed that commuters mainly took to walking, cycling and ride-share after ditching their cars.

The move comes as transport operators, including major US airlines, expect robust tourist activity and travel this summer.

According to Uber, the US has 233 million private vehicles, about 80 million of which are driven less than 10 miles a day on average.

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UK

Jon Ruben remanded into custody on child cruelty charges after children fell ill at summer camp

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August 2, 2025

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Jon Ruben remanded into custody on child cruelty charges after children fell ill at summer camp

A man has been remanded into custody charged with child cruelty offences after allegedly lacing sweets with sedatives.

Jon Ruben, 76, of Ruddington, Nottinghamshire, appeared at Leicester Magistrates’ Court on Saturday after youngsters fell ill at a summer camp in Stathern, Leicestershire.

He has been charged with three counts of wilfully assaulting, ill-treating, neglecting, abandoning or exposing children in a manner likely to cause them unnecessary suffering or injury to health.

The charges relate to three boys at the camp between 25-29 July.

A general view of the scene in Stathern, Leicestershire, after a 76-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of administering poison at a summ
Image:
The scene in Stathern, Leicestershire. Pic: PA

Ruben spoke only to confirm his name, age and address.

Police received a report of children feeling unwell at a camp being held at Stathern Lodge, near Melton in Leicestershire, last Sunday.

Officers said paramedics attended the scene and eight boys – aged between eight and 11 – were taken to hospital as a precaution, as was an adult. They have since been discharged.

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Police said the “owners and operators of Stathern Lodge are independent from those people who use or hire the lodge and are not connected to the incident”.

Leicestershire Police has referred itself to the Independent Office for Police Conduct, after officers initially reported the incident as having happened on Monday, only to later amend it to Sunday.

It is still unclear when officers responded and whether that is why the watchdog referral has been made.

Ruben will next appear at Leicester Crown Court on 29 August.

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Science

New Inelastic Dark Matter Model Could Bypass Current Limits of Particle Detection

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August 2, 2025

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New Inelastic Dark Matter Model Could Bypass Current Limits of Particle Detection

A group of physicists at the University of São Paulo’s Institute of Physics has proposed a model of the behaviour of dark matter (DM) in the presence of dark energy (DE) that is compatible with current astronomical observations. A model of inelastic DM can be realised from light-weight particles, which are collectively interacting through the massive vector mediator, and the model is an alternative explanation for DM relics in the universe. Importantly, this framework may have the potential to circumvent the experimental hurdles for the detection of DM that have thus far kept it in the dark. The findings are published in the Journal of High Energy Physics, and its authors believe it has the potential to “revolutionise” how particle physics analyses are conducted in the future.

Light Mediator ZQ Offers New Clues to Elusive Dark Matter and Its Cosmic Origins

As per the users’ report, they have developed the following new model: a heavy, stable DM from a light, unstable one. This can be expressed as a heavy stable DM due to a heavy unstable one, which may give rise to the “thermal freeze-out” in the universe. It doesn’t just interact with visible matter but with dark matter as well, and that’s how you get the new observational windows.

To explain why the dark matter has not been observed until now, the model further involves a decay of the unstable dark matter χ2 to some species not disturbing the CBR, and thus also not presenting a visible/observable decay signal. The picture is consistent with current astrophysical and experimental constraints, avoiding simpler `vanilla’ DM scenarios.

ZQ-induced vector mediators are light portals connecting the two sectors and may mediate the direct interactions between the dark sector and the SM particles. The black line indicates the region in the parameter space where dark matter can be hiding unobserved — this is to be addressed in future experiments.

The study suggests the search for dark matter should pivot from the “discovery frontier”, in which exquisitely sensitive instruments scan for signals, to the “intensity frontier”, which seeks ever-finer measurements to tease out anomalies. Future experiments will seek to dig more deeply into these unexplained corners of particle physics with a new online tool.

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Science

Massive 200-Light-Year Cloud May Be Channeling Matter to the Milky Way’s Core

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August 2, 2025

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Massive 200-Light-Year Cloud May Be Channeling Matter to the Milky Way's Core

Astronomers have found a vast, never-before-noticed reservoir of stellar material, hundreds of light-years across, lurking in a cold, dark, starless swath of our galaxy. It’s dubbed the Midpoint Cloud and was identified using the Green Bank Telescope; it appears to channel dense clouds of material into the heart of our galaxy. It harbours active regions filled with dense dust lanes and star formation possibilities. These lanes could be bringing twisted matter into the galaxy’s central bar, shaping how stars form in this extreme environment and offering a rare snapshot of the first stages of a galaxy’s evolution.

Newly Found Midpoint Cloud May Be Key to Star Formation in the Milky Way’s Core

As per the study, researchers at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory and Green Bank Observatory confirmed the size and shape of the GMC based on mass, density, and movement. The gassy chaos in the cloud mirrors the caustic turmoil at the galactic centre, yielding measurements from a faint object that says something about an energetic event 200 light-years distant. That could be a link from the field-like tranquillity of our own Milky Way’s disk to the mayhem of its core.

Perhaps analogously to gas channels, a thick dust lane in the Midpoint cloud could supply the central stellar bar fragment with fresh gas, again supporting an interpretation that star formation is inhibited in this region by the strong gravitational potential. But regions like the Midpoint could collect such thick gas, spurring the birth of new stars.

The team classified Knot E as a compact gas clump whose material has been eroded by both star radiation and a maser, or microwave emission, within a cloud. A shell-like feature suggests earlier supernova explosions, like those the deaths of massive stars in the region might have initiated.

The Midpoint cloud Larry Morgan, of the Green Bank Observatory, discovered is a valuable clue in our knowledge of how galaxies evolve and form stars near their centers. The finding could give scientists a way to learn how matter flows inward across the cosmos, one hidden cloud at a time.

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