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California becomes first US state to mandate solar on homes


Portugal president vetoes gender law

The law would have allowed those from the age of 16 to change their legal gender without a medical test.


Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Officials say solar energy will more than pay for itself, and homeowners could see significantly lower utilities costs per month

California has become the first US state to mandate solar panels on new homes and apartment buildings built after 1 January, 2020.

The California Energy Commission unanimously approved the plan, making it the state's next big step towards ending greenhouse gas emissions.

State law already requires that 50% of all electricity comes from non carbon-emitting sources by 2030.

The mandate still requires approval from the Building Standards Commission.

Critics have been quick to note that the solar panel mandate will add between $8,000 (£5,900) and $12,000 to a home's cost.

The Energy Commission estimates, however, that homeowners will only see an additional $40 to monthly mortgage payments.

At the same time, the commission said they will save $80 on heating, cooling and lighting costs per month.

The new mandate does offer exceptions where solar power is not feasible or cost effective, such as homes located entirely under shade.

Builders will have the option of adding solar panels to individual homes, or building shared power systems for a group of homes.

Current homeowners would not be required to add solar to existing homes, though many in the state have done so using government rebate programmes.

California has invested over $42m in solar energy to date, and the mandate will likely give a further boost to the solar industry statewide.

Image copyright EPA Image caption California has invested over $42m in solar energy to date

The Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) already ranks California as the top state in the US when it comes to solar energy.

Nearly 16% of the state's electricity last year came from solar.

Abby Hopper, SEIA president, said on Twitter that California's mandate demonstrates "that promoting home solar makes sense".

The California Building Industry Association has been working with the Energy Commission on the new standards for the past decade, according to ABC News.

The Building Standards Commission is expected to make a decision later this year.

Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption How Sharon turned her life around

Lynn Jurich, co-founder of solar installation company Sunrun, told the New York Times that large market expansions like this make it "very cost effective to do".

"There's also this real American sense of freedom of producing electricity on my rooftop," Ms Jurich told the Times.

"And it's another example of California leading the way."

California is already ahead of schedule with its long-term energy goals: the California Public Utilities Commission reported that they will likely meet the 2030 goal 10 years ahead of schedule.


Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption "It was a nightmare, it wasn’t safe enough to drive"

BMW is extending a UK recall of its cars after the BBC's Watchdog found that vehicles could cut out completely while they are being driven.

It is recalling 312,000 vehicles: the BMW 1 Series, the 3 Series, the Z4 and its X1 petrol and diesel models made between March 2007 and August 2011.

BMW initially recalled 36,410 petrol cars last year over safety issues.

It said it now recognised there may have been similar problems in cars not covered by the first recall.

The German carmaker initially recalled cars in the UK after Narayan Gurung, who was travelling with his wife on Christmas Day in 2016, died when their Ford Fiesta crashed into a tree to avoid a broken-down BMW in Guildford, Surrey.

BMW advert 'promoted dangerous driving'

The BMW had suffered an electrical fault, causing its brake lights to fail and resulting in the vehicle stalling on a dark A-road.

An investigation by Watchdog has found that the fault could affect a wider number of cars.

Image copyright Gurung family Image caption Narayan Gurung was killed on Christmas Day in 2016 when his car swerved to avoid a stalled BMW

One BMW owner, Mwape Kambafwile, told the BBC how his BMW 3 Series car had cut out completely while he was driving in December 2016.

"I just thought to myself if I was driving on the motorway with my family in the car, that could have been very dangerous," he said.

'Furious'

Mr Kambafwile said he took his car to BMW who called the next day to say that they had found the fault, which looked like "the cable had burnt out and no current was passing through the fuse box".

BMW allowed Mr Kambafwile to take the car home without any warning not to use it, he said.

He refused to drive the car and was furious to later discover that petrol versions of the same vehicle had been recalled for the same fault.

It recently emerged that BMW had failed to tell the UK's Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency about the electrical fault in some of its cars that led to the death of Mr Gurung.

Image copyright Getty Images

BMW said it had worked with the DVSA and rejected suggestions it had ignored instructions or provided incorrect information.

An inquest revealed that the carmaker had received complaints of an electrical issue that caused a total power failure as early as 2011.

BMW recalled 500,000 cars in the US in 2013, as well as in Australia, Canada and South Africa.

Commenting on Watchdog's investigation, BMW said: "We now recognise that there may have been some cases of similar power supply issues in vehicles not covered by the original recall.

"In order to reassure customers with concerns about the safety of their vehicles, we are voluntarily extending the recall.

"We are therefore announcing today that we will take the proactive step of expanding the existing UK recall to cover all vehicles potentially affected by the power supply issue."

BMW said that it will open a customers' complaints line and will contact affected owners directly.

Watch Watchdog at 8pm tonight on BBC One


Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan

A campaign calling for the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to step down has flooded social media.

The campaign comes after Mr Erdogan, who has ruled Turkey for 15 years, said in a speech to Parliament on Tuesday that "if one day our nation says 'enough', then we will step aside".

Seizing up on this statement, many Turks have taken to the hashtag #TAMAM, which translates as 'enough', to say they have indeed had enough.

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The hashtag has been used almost two million times since Tuesday evening, with many social media users strongly criticising the president and the ruling AK Party.

As the trend gathered momentum, pro-government accounts mobilised to launch a counter hashtag, #DEVAM - which translates as "carry on".

The showdown between the rival campaigns has been called "one of the largest political hashtag wars in internet history" by Professor Akin Unver, who is a Fellow of Cyber Research Program at the Centre for Economic and Foreign Policy Research.

One Instagram user depicted the battle between #TAMAM and #DEVAM as a fight between superheroes.

Mr Erdogan's comments come amid heightened political tensions after the president called a snap election to be held on 24 June.

Muharrem Ince, who is the presidential candidate of the opposition Republican Peoples' Party used the phrase to suggest "time's up" for Mr Erdogan.

Syrian cartoonist Iad Wawil used the hashtag to share an illustration suggesting Mr Erdogan may be haunted by his "TAMAM" comments.

Image copyright @iadtawil

Many thousands simply tweeted #TAMAM, while others got creative with the ways they shared the anti-Erdogan slogan.

Some spelt it out with green peppers and some used their limbs to form the word.

Despite the rapid growth of the hashtag and the fiercely critical nature of many posts, Mr Erdogan remains popular in Turkey having brought sustained economic growth to the country.

The rival hashtag #DEVAM was launched later on Tuesday by pro-government users and has been used over 300,000 times.

Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu used the hashtag to claim the government "will carry on with our blessed cause for a more prosperous and powerful Turkey,"

Some Erdogan supporters used variations of #DEVAM to ask those critical of the president what they have had enough of.

"Enough of what? Of the fight against terror? Of a completely independent Turkey that stands tall against the world? Of the homeland? Of the state? Enough of what? We will continue to the end" one user wrote.

Other users linked the anti-Erdogan #TAMAM campaign to the 2013 anti-government Gezi Park protests.

Taylan Kulaçoğlu posted that the authorities were "mad about this TAMAM issue... because it reminds them of the opposition that organised on Twitter prior to Gezi".

Skip Twitter post by @TaylanKulacogIu Bu T A M A M mevzusuna AKP'lierin çıldırmasının tek sebebi sadece seçimler değil, Gezi öncesi Twitterda örgütlenen muhallefeti anımsattığı için bu denli yükleniyorlar, korkuları biraz da bundan..

Neyse, Günaydın T A M A M ! pic.twitter.com/wv6A6D5ARN — Taylan Kulaçoğlu (@TaylanKulacogIu) May 9, 2018 Report

While #TAMAM has been widely used to criticise the government, censorship by the Turkish authorities is prevalent and well documented.

Twitter's Transparency report 2017 revealed that Turkey was at the top of the list of countries that had asked the social media platform to remove content.

Reflecting on this governmental control, prominent lawyer Kerem Altiparmak suggested that if a million people are using the term TAMAM on social media, the number of people who wish to express the notion, but don't, must be much higher.

Skip Twitter post by @KeremALTIPARMAK İşe başvururken, terfi alırken, ihaleye girerken, nefes alırken bile sosyal medya hesaplarına bakılıyor. Bu korku iklimine rağmen milyonlarca T A M A M yazılıyorsa gerçek T A M A M ların on milyonlarla ifade edilmesi gerekiyor. — Kerem ALTIPARMAK (@KeremALTIPARMAK) May 9, 2018 Report

Turkish authorities have previously restricted access to social media sites including Twitter and Facebook, and blocked all access to Wikipedia in 2017.

Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, referenced the hashtag while calling on Mr Erdogan to "unblock Wikipedia and to listen to the people".

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