Californian

A Cessna 208B Caravan kitted out with an autonomous flight system from Reliable Robotics recently took to the skies north of Hollister in California, without any humans aboard – though the aircraft was supervised remotely by a pilot on the ground.This is not the first time that Reliable Robotics has taken an unmanned Cessna to the air. Its autonomous flight technology – which includes avionics, software, mechanisms, comms, remote command interfaces and a backup system – allowed a remotely-piloted Cessna 172 Skyhawk to…

WASHINGTON —  Kevin McCarthy has some company as he heads for the House exits.Although they don’t agree on much these days, members of Congress are on the same page about one thing: It’s an especially miserable time to have their job, especially if you represent California.With California’s Dec. 8 filing deadline to decide on running for reelection just days away, seven Golden State members of Congress have opted to leave — with four retiring outright rather than run for another office. That list grew on Wednesday with…

It can be an odd thing having Nancy Pelosi as your next-door neighbor.Especially when the House minority leader and her husband open up their bucolic Northern California estate and vineyard on the banks of the Napa River to the likes of Google’s Eric Schmidt, wealthy environmental activist Tom Steyer and Gov. Jerry Brown.“When all the black SUVs are circling around the property — like planes gathering over O’Hare Airport — that is when you know they are here,” Susanna Kelham, who owns a winery next to the Pelosi property…

To the editor: Californians should be excited about the prospects of another one of their legislators becoming speaker of House, but that is not necessarily the majority opinion in California. (“Kevin McCarthy would do anything to be House speaker. That’s the problem,” Opinion, Dec. 30)Many in the state do not admire Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield) because of his cowardice, his duality and his vindictiveness. His rhetoric is never inspiring or original, and at the moment he does not seem to even have the respect or…

The iconic open-topped Mini Moke is officially returning to the US after a 40-year hiatus, but this time the highway-legal Moke Californian will be sporting an electric drivetrain with a 50-mph top speed and a per-charge range of 80 miles.Project Buckboard began in the late 1950s with the aim of developing a lightweight vehicle for the military, which could be parachuted into warzone and quickly get troops to where they needed to be. A number of prototypes were designed by Sir Alec Issigonis and John Sheppard, but the…

Remember those fun little Jeep-like MOKE cars from the heyday of 1960s open-top fun-mobiles? Just months after landing a $55M funding deal, MOKE International is bringing them back to the US for the first time in decades with its new MOKE Californian model. MOKE Californian returning to US Some of our readers may remember that Mokes were Jeep-like British cars first built in the 1960s. They grew popular across much of Europe before expanding to cities in Asia and North America, aided by a slew of celebrities that…