Stranded UK F-35 jet becomes unexpected star in Indian tourism campaign
The Royal Navy aircraft was forced to make an emergency landing at the airport of the state capital Thiruvananthapuram on June 14 and has been grounded ever since, despite efforts to repair it.
An AI-generated image of the stealth aircraft parked on the tarmac surrounded by coconut trees has gone viral after it was shared by Kerala's tourism department on Wednesday.
'This was part of our tourism campaign. It has been one of the most innovative and eye-catching ones… It's all in good humour and creativity,' Biju K., Kerala's tourism secretary, told Reuters.
In the viral social media post, originally created by entertainment website The Fauxy, the jet can be seen giving the state of Kerala five golden stars, calling it 'an amazing place'.
'I don't want to leave. Definitely recommend,' the image quotes the jet as saying.
'Though tourism is under the government, it has moved out of government space in promoting the destination,' said Roy Mathew, director of Stark Communications, the tourism department's brand promotion agency.
Kerala is among India's most popular tourist destinations, and markets itself with the tagline 'God's own country'. Last year, 22.2 million tourists visited the state.
It boasts natural beauty along India's south-western coastline and a rich heritage of classical dances, temple festivals and vibrant cuisine.
The Indian Air Force said last month it would help in the repair and return of the F-35, which made an emergency landing on June 14 when it was flying over the Arabian Sea off Kerala's coast.
A British High Commission spokesperson told Reuters the UK had accepted an offer to move the aircraft to the Maintenance Repair and Overhaul facility at the airport. The jet will be moved to the hangar once engineering teams arrive from the UK with specialist equipment, the spokesperson added.
The Royal Navy did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
UK's Minister for the Armed Forces Luke Pollard said in Parliament on Monday that a Royal Air Force crew were in Thiruvananthapuram and working with Indian counterparts.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
6 hours ago
- Yahoo
‘Vegas is not fun anymore': $9 cups of coffee and pricier rooms are steering travelers away from the vacation mecca
For decades, Las Vegas was considered a destination of bargains galore, offering 99-cent shrimp cocktails, $10 steak dinners and shows that cost no more than the price of a drink. But those days are long gone. Instead, think $9 cups of coffee, $100-a-person buffet spreads and a movie ticket that can set you back a whopping $279. 'Vegas is not fun anymore': $9 cups of coffee and pricier rooms are steering travelers away from the vacation mecca 'He cannot match my spending': I'm 65 and have $7 million. My boyfriend is 73. Should he release equity from his home so we can enjoy retirement? America's 63 million family caregivers are mostly unpaid, stressed and begging for help Dow left behind as S&P 500 soars to record after record. What gives? 'His income is limited': Should I pay $800 a month towards my husband's $67,000 student debt? It's prices like these that have some Vegas regulars saying the tourist and gambling mecca has lost its appeal. 'Vegas is not fun anymore,' said Amrita Bhasin, a retail-industry entrepreneur who has traveled there frequently for business as well as pleasure. Her pet financial peeve? The resort fees that hotels charge, which she said can add as much as $50 a day to the tab. Such complaints are coming at a time when Vegas has seen a sizable drop in visits. In June, hotel occupancy rates fell 14.6% versus the prior year, according to CoStar, a global provider of real-estate data, analytics and news. They were down 12.3% for the current month through July 19. Among the city's major hotel and gaming operators are such corporate giants as Caesars Entertainment CZR and MGM Resorts International MGM. Both companies declined comment for this story. Vegas tourism officials don't deny that the city is going through a dry spell, but they say it's reflective of tourism declines nationwide, particularly as foreigners hesitate to come to the U.S. 'Very little of the drop is a Vegas issue,' said Steve Hill, president and CEO of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority. Hill pointed to a significant decline in travelers from Canada as a critical factor, since Canadians have traditionally been the city's biggest international market. Specifically, Hill said the number of Canadian visitors has declined around 20% in Las Vegas. That dovetails with a broader U.S. trend, which shows a decline of nearly 19% in visits by our northern neighbors. David Cárdenas, a tourism expert who teaches at the University of Nevada's William F. Harrah College of Hospitality in Las Vegas, said foreigners are staying away from Vegas and other U.S. destinations for a host of reasons, from weak exchange rates to concerns about U.S. immigration policies under President Donald Trump. Canadians have also been particularly incensed over Trump's comments about making the country the 51st U.S. state, as has been widely reported, and that may be playing a role in their decision not to travel to the U.S. But plenty of travelers say Vegas has simply become a budget buster. And hospitality experts who know the city say the high costs are definitely a factor in the tourism slump. Philip Knott, an asset-strategy adviser and hospitality executive who has worked for companies operating and investing in Vegas, is one of those who view it that way. 'Vegas is now seen as overpriced,' he said, pointing to everything from expensive dining to hidden charges at hotels. 'All of those things are impacting booking.' Even without those hidden charges, hotels have gotten much pricier over the years. In 2015, the average daily room rate in Vegas was $124.42, according to CoStar. In 2024, it was $209.54, an increase of nearly 70%. It's not just about room rates, however. Visitors point to a variety of things that are hitting them in the wallet. Like that $9 cup of coffee, which is what you'll spend for a regular-size brew at Café Belle Madeleine, located in the Paris Las Vegas resort, a Caesars property. Or that $100 buffet, which is roughly what you'll pay for the spread on a weekend, including tax, at the Bacchanal, located at Caesars Palace. What about that $279 movie ticket? Technically, that's the price of a VIP package for what's called the Sphere Experience, a screening of the Darren Aronofsky film 'Postcard from Earth' plus a few preshow attractions at the Sphere, the $2 billion Vegas entertainment venue that opened in 2023. Even if you don't opt for the VIP treatment, a basic ticket starts at $89 for upcoming shows, according to what's listed on Ticketmaster. Officials with the Sphere didn't respond to a MarketWatch request for comment. Of course, value-conscious travelers will still find ways to save on a Vegas vacation. Lisa Nicole Jackson, a Los Angeles resident who visits Vegas about three times a year, said she always hunts for deals — and usually finds them. For example, she attended the Sphere Experience for free as part of a hotel package. Still, Jackson admits that there is the occasional reminder of how expensive Vegas can get these days. Her prime example: a $17 smoothie. Jackson also said she doesn't like the resort fees that hotels charge, especially when she feels the service and amenities aren't commensurate with the tacked-on cost. An example she cited was hotel pools that close relatively early in the day — 'like 6 p.m.,' she said of a recent experience. Vegas tourism officials say that deals can readily be found for hotels, particularly during the summer, which is considered the off-season in the city. And sure enough, one of the big deals being promoted right now by some establishments is waiving those pesky resort fees. 'We've got an offering for every budget,' said Hill of the city's Convention and Visitors Authority. As for things like that $9 cup of coffee, he said: 'You're not paying $9 for the coffee. You're paying $9 for the setting.' There's a reason that Vegas has a $9 cup of coffee, experts say, and that those $10 steak dinner deals of yesteryear are largely gone: Vegas hotels no longer rely as heavily on gambling revenue. Those steak-dinner deals were often loss leaders aimed at getting people inside to play the slots or hit the craps table. Now Vegas is about the setting, with elaborately themed hotels — yes, Paris in Nevada — along with restaurants helmed by celebrity chefs and performances by star entertainers. In the upcoming week alone, Beyonce, Kelly Clarkson and the Backstreet Boys are in town, and there are ongoing engagements by the likes of David Copperfield and Penn & Teller. The Vegas of today also demands a highly qualified workforce, one that requires good salaries and benefits, says Tony Abou-Ganim, a renowned bar professional who's been based in Vegas for more than 20 years and is now a managing partner at Libertine Social, a craft cocktail establishment at Mandalay Bay. 'It takes a $9 cup of coffee to provide that,' said Abou-Ganim. 'In turn, hopefully the guest experience is elevated.' But experts say there's no disputing that such costs can make Vegas seem out of reach for many middle-class travelers — the very same vacationers who helped put the city on the tourism map. As for Bhasin, the entrepreneur who has been a Vegas regular, she's fairly certain she'll be cutting back on her trips to the city, in large part because of the cost. Her next vacation there is with family, but she says the plan is actually to visit national parks far from the famed Vegas Strip. 'The only reason we're flying into Vegas is because the flight was cheaper,' Bhasin said. My ex-husband's benefit will be $2,600 at retirement age, and mine is $2,200. Can I claim on his record instead? 'If I was writing the checks at Coke, I wouldn't write the check for this,' one expert says about cane-sugar Coke Homeowners in these states are the winners if Trump ends capital-gains taxes for home sellers Newly built homes are cheaper than previously owned homes as builders ramp up price cuts Social Security Administration quietly corrects blog on taxation of benefits — but confusion persists Solve the daily Crossword
Washington Post
7 hours ago
- Washington Post
Trump bill adds $250 fee for some foreign travelers. Here's how it works.
For many foreign nationals, a new visa fee will increase the cost of traveling to the United States by $250. The 'visa integrity fee,' included in the sweeping policy legislation that President Donald Trump signed into law this month, will require visitors traveling on a nonimmigrant visa to pay an additional $250. This group includes leisure and business travelers as well as international students from a wide range of countries such as India, China, Mexico, Brazil, South Africa and the Philippines. Applicants must pay this amount on top of other visa fees that often total nearly $200.
Gizmodo
8 hours ago
- Gizmodo
The Greek Small Town Doctor Who Knows AI's Secrets
On vacation in Greece since July 17, I figured it was a good opportunity to see how artificial intelligence was perceived in this small European Union country, which sits at the crossroads of Africa, the Middle East, and Europe. My curiosity was amplified by the fact that I was far from the famous islands like Santorini or Mykonos, which are typically overrun by tourists. The first four days of my trip took me to Ioannina, a town in the country's northwest, a region of mountaineers and shepherds. Here, unlike the sunbaked islands to the south, the landscape is dominated by lush green forests and imposing mountains. The heat wave sweeping through Greece this mid July has kept many tourists from tackling the area's hiking trails. Locals also told me that the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas has emptied the region of the thousands of Israeli tourists who usually visit each summer. In Ioannina, if you ask for fish, the waiters give you a look that says, 'What are you talking about?' It is a stark reminder that this is not the Greece of mythical beaches, but a world unto itself. This sense of remoteness made me even more curious. Was the technology that dominates every conversation in New York, in major American companies, and on Wall Street, even a topic of discussion here? On Monday, July 21, after admiring the sunset over the lake where Ioannina's residents gather, I found myself at a restaurant with friends of friends. There were four of us, including two locals: a doctor named Thomas Tzimas, a seasoned physician at the local public hospital, and an engineer named Aristotelis Yfantis. After holding back for the first part of the nearly four hour meal, I turned to Dr. Tzimas and asked if he used AI. He smiled. I immediately felt I had asked the wrong question, that I was projecting my tech saturated reality onto his. Just because my work revolves around AI does not mean everyone else does. But I was wrong. I had just stumbled upon one of the most AI savvy doctors I had ever met. Here, in a small town nestled among the Greek mountains, AI had already infiltrated the public hospital. He was not only using it daily but was also keenly aware of its flaws and had developed his own methods to counter them. His secret, he would tell me, was controlling the AI's 'temperature' to prevent it from inventing facts. Dr. Tzimas, 56, is an Internal medicine specialist. He is the director of the Internal Medicine Department at General Hospital of Ioannina 'G. Hatzikosta.' I might as well tell you right away: do not get Dr. Tzimas started on AI. With his calm and measured voice, he offers an endless stream of analysis on the subject. He walks you through his daily hospital routine, providing a fascinating glimpse into how large language models have been adopted here, and on the ground perspective I often feel is missing from my reporting back in America. First, Dr. Tzimas dismisses the most common fear. 'No, not at all,' the 56 year old says when I ask if he worries about being replaced. 'My job involves experience that AI cannot yet replicate. I need to listen to lung, heart, and bowel sounds, palpate patients, and examine them.' He continues, 'While AI might analyze a digital photograph of a skin lesion, it cannot palpate a patient and feel the intensity of pain or guarding. These are qualities that rely on a doctor's senses, like smelling a patient's breath to detect diabetic ketoacidosis.' The key, he told me, is human interaction. Observing a patient's demeanor and hygiene provides crucial information that an algorithm cannot easily process. 'AI helps save time,' he concedes, 'but it needs an experienced physician to input those essential details.' He is also a pragmatist. Any medical profession that does not require a human touch, he insists, is already on the path to being replaced. First on his list is radiology. He says specialists who interpret X-rays and MRIs are becoming obsolete because AI has grown extraordinarily good at spotting lung nodules, fractures, and subtle neurological conditions. Studies published in journals like The Lancet have shown AI models matching or even outperforming human radiologists in identifying cancers on mammograms. 'For an X-ray, there will be only one [specialist] to check to replace ten of them and just confirm what the system has diagnosed,' Dr. Tzimas said. 'And it's easily done on CT scans and MRI scans. Those specialties will soon be replaced by AI.' Next, he says, are psychotherapists. The explosion of mental health apps and chatbots like Woebot and Wysa are already offering AI driven therapy services. believes these tools are poised to compete directly with human therapists for basic counseling, especially for patients who cannot afford or easily access face to face care. 'In psychoanalysis, you don't prescribe medications,' he explained. 'A psychiatrist that has a severely schizophrenic patient or depressed patient has to prescribe drugs. With therapy, you go talk to them. AI will replace therapists.' Before I could process that, Dr. Tzimas revealed that some surgeons are also on the chopping block. He is referring to the human operators of surgical robots like Intuitive's da Vinci system, a multi armed machine that allows surgeons to perform minimally invasive procedures with greater precision. He believes it is only a matter of time before AI directly controls these robots, enabling operations to be performed autonomously. 'Do you know that there are robots who perform surgery nowadays? But they're controlled by humans,' he said, seeing my surprised look. 'Yeah! They can be controlled by AI systems. That's coming.' For now, AI has become his invaluable assistant. 'My previous boss would write his thoughts on paper, and his secretary would type them out,' he says. 'Now, I dictate notes into my iPhone, copy and paste them into an AI system, and it generates a professional email. It also transcribes typed documents from referrals into digital archives, saving me tons of time.' One of the most complex parts of his job, he tells me, is navigating the politics between medical staff, which requires diplomacy and a delicate balancing act. This is where AI shines. 'I use a 'negotiator GPT' prompt that makes answers very diplomatic,' he says. 'When there's a conflict among junior doctors, I have to be strict but also prevent further conflict. This AI acts like an accomplished diplomat, helping me craft replies in our communication platform that smooth over issues.' He also uses it to tailor patient care after a hospital visit. 'I believe certain aspects of a dietician's role, specifically the creation of detailed dietary plans for patients, could be largely automated,' Dr. Tzimas said. 'Imagine a patient with cystitis who shouldn't eat fatty foods, but they don't know what 'fatty food' means. With a nutritional prompting AI, it can issue a detailed diet, explaining that even seemingly lean foods like lamb can be fatty if broiled.' However, the biggest impact that AI has in his job is in the diagnosis of patient symptoms. Dr. Tzimas uses a recent example of a patient who came to the hospital with a fever, after inhaling dust in a sheep and goat stable. After inputting the symptoms and the results of basic tests, AI identified Q fever as a potential diagnosis. A blood sample was sent to Athens for a specialized test. 'Although it came back negative and the final diagnosis was unrelated, the AI system identified Q fever as a potential possibility, which opened our horizons. Without AI, Q fever might not have been on our list,' he said. His biggest concern is the AI's configuration. He quickly realized that AI hallucinates, or makes things up, far too often. But the tool is too important to discard. So, to limit these fabrications, he focuses on a specific setting called 'temperature.' 'If the temperature of AI is 1, they hallucinate,' he explained. 'For the medical field, it has to be 0.3. That makes them so strict, they cannot fantasize things. They stick to the facts.' Temperature is a parameter in AI language models that controls randomness. A high temperature, near 1.0, encourages AI to be more creative and unpredictable, which is great for writing a poem but potentially dangerous for diagnosing a disease. Lowering the temperature, closer to 0.3, makes AI more focused, deterministic, and fact based, reducing the risk of these hallucinations. 'If you prompt AI with very strict protocols, they do not hallucinate,' Dr. Tzimas said, as I pushed him on the reliability of his tools. In Ioannina, for Dr. Tzimas, the debate about whether AI will change medicine is irrelevant. It already has. He uses it for diagnosis, staff communication, and even teaching junior doctors. His perspective reveals both the promise and the peril of our AI future. On one hand, therapy, radiology, and surgery may never look the same. On the other, a simple software setting, the difference between a temperature of 1.0 and 0.3, could be the difference between a correct diagnosis and a catastrophic error. I left the dinner stunned. Seeing a small-town doctor adopting AI so aggressively, I wondered whether the gap between the technology haves and have-nots might grow at a slower pace than I feared. At least in Ioannina, the gap seemed a little less immense.
