WASHINGTON – Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi told the U.S. Congress on Wednesday that the world’s two largest democracies can anchor stability and prosperity from the Indian Ocean to the Pacific in an aspirational speech that glossed over continuing divisions in the relationship.
Modi, who has ushered in closer bilateral ties since taking power two years ago, said that India and the U.S. have overcome “the hesitations of history” and called for ever-stronger economic and defense links between the two countries.
Modi paid tribute to the role of Congress, including through a civilian nuclear deal in 2008 that lifted U.S. export restrictions on nuclear technology to India and which is hoped to lead to a contract by mid-2017 for the construction of six power reactors by U.S.-based Westinghouse Electric Co.
Self-driving cars must increase safety at least twofold to make a real dent in the 38,000 lives lost on American roads last year, the U.S. auto-safety chief said as the federal government prepares to release rules for autonomous vehicles next month.
“I’d actually like to throw the gauntlet down,” Mark Rosekind, head of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, said Wednesday at a conference in Novi, Michigan. “We need to start with two times better. We need to set a higher bar if we expect safety to actually be a benefit here.”
Rosekind wouldn’t disclose specifics of the autonomous-auto regulations he said U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx will announce in July.
The NHTSA chief said those rules will speed the deployment of self-driving cars, which should begin to reduce road deaths that jumped last year to 38,300 from 32,675 in 2014.
BILLINGS, Mont. – Rangers suspended their attempts on Wednesday to recover the body of a man who wandered from a designated boardwalk and fell into an acidic hot spring at Yellowstone National Park, another in a string of incidents raising concerns over visitor behavior.
“They were able to recover a few personal effects,” park spokeswoman Charissa Reid said. “There were no remains left to recover.”
Colin Nathaniel Scott, 23, of Portland was with his sister and had traveled about 225 yards off the boardwalk on Tuesday when he slipped and fell into the hot spring in the Norris Geyser Basin, park officials said.
Associated Press and Bloomberg News
