Monday, January 5, 2026
Lucid, Nuro, and Uber Unveil Global Robotaxi at CES
Industry's most luxurious robotaxi, offering riders an unprecedented in-cabin experience
Autonomous on-road testing, led by Nuro, began in December, marking an important milestone in service validation and path to launch later in 2026
Lucid Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: LCID), Nuro, Inc. ("Nuro"), and Uber Technologies, Inc. (NYSE: UBER), today unveiled the production intent vehicles that will be used in their global robotaxi service and introduced the Uber-designed in-cabin rider experience for the first time at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2026.
The companies also announced that autonomous on-road testing began last month, an important milestone in the development and validation of the robotaxi service ahead of its expected launch in the San Francisco Bay Area later this year. Nuro is leading the testing using robotaxi engineering prototypes supervised by autonomous vehicle operators, beginning in the Bay Area.
At the show, visitors will have a first look at the robotaxi, as well as the in-cabin rider experience. Highlights of the robotaxi will include:A next-gen sensor array featuring high-resolution cameras, solid-state lidar sensors, and radars that provides 360-degree perception. These sensors are integrated throughout the Lucid Gravity's body and in the purpose-built roof-mounted halo, which is a low-profile module designed to maximize visibility while preserving the vehicle's signature design.
Halo-mounted integrated LEDs help riders easily identify the correct vehicle, display rider initials, and provide clear status updates from pickup through dropoff.
An intuitive in-ride experience that builds on the unprecedented comfort of the all-electric Lucid Gravity, with interactive screens that let riders personalize their autonomous journey — from heated-seat and climate controls to music, as well as options to contact support, or request the vehicle to pull-over.
In-vehicle visualization that shows what the robotaxi sees and its planned path in real-time, including maneuvers such as yielding to pedestrians, slowing at traffic lights, changing lanes, and dropping off a passenger.
A versatile, spacious layout with configurations that comfortably fit up to six passengers and offer generous luggage space, creating a premium solution for group travel.
High-performance compute based on NVIDIA DRIVE AGX Thor, part of the NVIDIA DRIVE Hyperion platform, supporting the real-time AI processing and system integration required for advanced autonomous driving.
"The debut of our production intent robotaxi with Lucid and Uber is a significant milestone on our path to delivering autonomy at scale," said Dave Ferguson, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Nuro. "By bringing together Nuro's proven level 4 autonomy, Lucid's advanced vehicle architecture, and Uber's global reach, we're building a robotaxi service designed for real-world operations and long-term growth."
"Uber is proud to partner with Lucid and Nuro to bring a state-of-the-art robotaxi to market later this year," said Sarfraz Maredia, Global Head of Autonomous Mobility & Delivery at Uber. "By combining leading expertise in electric vehicles, autonomy, and ridehailing, we're building a unique new option for affordable and scalable autonomous rides in the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond."
"Our robotaxi program with Uber and Nuro is a key part of how Lucid is leveraging its technology to create a more sustainable future of mobility that is widely accessible," said Kay Stepper, Vice President of ADAS and Autonomous at Lucid. "Our engineering, range and interior comfort offers a unique platform, and when combined with Nuro's technology and Uber's scale, we are collectively building an experience like no other."
Autonomous on-road testing is part of Nuro's safety and validation framework, honed over years of commercial autonomous deployments. The program evaluates dozens of critical capabilities across the full autonomy stack including Nuro's end-to-end AI foundation model, which blends state-of-the-art AI with clear, verifiable safety logic for comfortable, reliable performance. In addition to on-road testing, the program includes closed-course testing and simulation to validate performance across a wide range of scenarios.
Pending final validation, the production intent robotaxi is expected to start production at Lucid's Arizona factory later this year.
The robotaxi will be on public display for CES attendees at NVIDIA's showcase at the Fontainebleau Hotel starting Monday, January 5 at 3:00 PM PT through Thursday, January 8th, 2026.
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/lucid-nuro-and-uber-unveil-global-robotaxi-at-ces-announce-autonomous-on-road-testing-302652775.html
AbbVie Challenges Amgen With $100M Upfront for Trispecific Lung Cancer Drug
The Illinois-based pharma has committed more than $1 billion in milestones to secure rights to ZG006 and join a who’s who of drugmakers targeting the DLL3 protein.
AbbVie is paying $100 million upfront for ex-China rights to a potential challenger to Amgen’s lung cancer drug Imdelltra. The deal gives AbbVie access to ZG006, a DLL3xDLL3 T-cell engager that Suzhou Zelgen Biopharmaceuticals recently took into Phase III.
The pact, detailed in a Shanghai stock exchange filing first reported by Fierce Biotech, has AbbVie committing $1.075 billion in milestones to secure rights to ZG006. AbbVie will pay up to $60 million in near-term milestone payments based on clinical progress and fees related to licensing options, if it activates the China option.
ZG006 is operating in a popular space. Amgen is leading the pack after validating the concept of targeting DLL3 to treat small cell lung cancer (SCLC) with Imdelltra, a bispecific antibody that binds DLL3 on tumor cells and CD3 on T cells. Imdelltra received full FDA approval in extensive SCLC in November, after securing an accelerated nod in 2024.
ZG006, also known as alveltamig, is designed to improve on Imdelltra by binding to two distinct DLL3 epitopes on tumor cells and CD3 on T cells. The candidate’s trispecific T-cell engager design could drive efficacy against tumors with low DLL3 expression.
Zelgen, also known as Zejing Biopharmaceutical, reported Phase II data in SCLC last year. The biotech saw a 66.7% response rate in 27 heavily pretreated patients. All the patients had received at least two lines of therapy, with most previously taking an anti-PD-(L)1 checkpoint inhibitor. Nearly half the patients had received at least three lines of treatment.
Investigators retrospectively evaluated DLL3 expression, revealing that levels of the target were low in 21 of the participants. Zelgen reported a 71.4% response rate in an analysis that pooled the 21 patients with four participants who had medium DLL3 expression.
Imdelltra’s approval, meanwhile, was based on a Phase III trial that reported a 40% response rate in 99 SCLC patients who had tried at least two prior therapies.
Zelgen’s analysis included fewer patients, all of whom were enrolled in China. Responsibility for showing whether ZG006’s potential edge over Imdelltra holds up in larger global studies will fall to AbbVie, which joins many of its peers in the DLL3 space.
Merck, for instance, acquired the trispecific DLL3 T-cell engager MK-6070 when it bought Harpoon for $650 million in 2024. Daiichi Sankyo later paid Merck $170 million for a stake in the program.
Other Big Pharmas have irons in this fire as well. Boehringer Ingelheim has a bispecific DLL3xCD3 T-cell engager in Phase II. Roche has a Phase I trispecific antibody targeting DLL3 with bivalent CD3xCD137 binding. Targeting the costimulatory immunoreceptor CD137 is intended to increase efficacy.
Roche added a DLL3-directed antibody-drug conjugate to its pipeline in early 2025, also going to China to license a molecule in a $1 billion-plus biobucks deal.
Alleged JD Vance home vandal is son of wealthy doctor, Dem donor — who recently changed name to Julia
The deranged hammer-wielding vandal who busted several windows at Vice President JD Vance’s home in Cincinnati is allegedly the son of a prominent millionaire family — and appears to have been going by “Julia” in recent weeks.
William DeFoor, 26, was arrested early Monday after allegedly shattering four windows at Vance’s home. Police said that DeFoor was attempting to break into the home around midnight.
The Vances, who moved into the vice president’s official residence in Washington, DC, after the inauguration, were not in Ohio at the time.
It’s unclear whether DeFoor identifies as transgender or nonbinary, but he recently appeared to be posting under the name Julia DeFoor. Cops listed the suspect’s name as William, and his gender as male.
In his mugshot, DeFoor has an unkempt, matted mullet – and a dead-eyed stare.
DeFoor’s father, also named William, is a successful Harvard University graduate.
He boasts a decades-long history as a pediatric urologist in Cincinnati and works as a professor at the University of Cincinnati’s College of Medicine.
The family lives in a $1.3 million house in the city’s wealthy Hyde Park neighborhood.
The elder DeFoor donated thousands to Kamala Harris’ failed presidential campaign in 2024 after years of small contributions to a PAC that lobbied for urologists, according to federal records.
He is also a longtime Democratic supporter, according to his public contributions. He donated upwards of $5,000 to former President Joe Biden and former Vice President Kamala Harris’ respective campaigns in 2020 and 2024.
He also previously backed a federal assault weapons ban in the wake of the Uvalde Elementary School shooting, according to his Facebook.
The younger DeFoor appeared to have a fall from grace after graduating from the Summit Country Day School in 2018, where he was hailed as a candidate for the US Presidential Scholars Program.
He had a brief two-year stint at the University of Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music, but appeared to drop out in 2020, according to his Facebook. He said earlier this year he was attending Cincinnati State Technical and Community College.
The alleged vandal has a tricky mental health history, including a 2024 sentence for two counts of vandalism at a local interior design company.
Instead of a standard conviction, DeFoor was sentenced to two years of mandatory mental health treatment, which is still ongoing, according to court documents obtained by Cincinnati.com.
In April 2023, DeFoor was charged with trespassing at the UC Health psychiatric and emergency services. He was originally held on a $10,000 bond — but a judge determined he was not mentally competent to stand trial and the counts were dismissed in a Nov. 8 filing that year.
DeFoor is charged with obstructing official business, criminal damaging or endangering, criminal trespass, and vandalism, according to Hamilton County jail records.
His first court appearance is scheduled for Tuesday.
Trump cuts off $10B in funding to five blue states for child care, social services over fraud fears
The Trump administration is cutting off more than $10 billion in social services and child care funding meant for a handful of Democrat-led states over concerns that the benefits were fraudulently funneled to non-citizens, officials told The Post Monday.
The Department of Health and Human Services will freeze taxpayer funding from the Child Care Development Fund (CCDF), the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program, and the Social Services Block Grant program.
At least $7.35 billion in TANF money will be prevented from going to California, Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota, and New York.
The CCDF funding block of nearly $2.4 billion affects all those states.
Another $869 million from the Social Services Block Grant coffers is being kept from all five states as well.
The funding pauses were to be announced via letters to each state sent Monday, citing concerns that benefits were fraudulently going to non-US citizens.
The HHS Office of Inspector General found more than six years ago that New York City improperly billed the federal government for more than $24.7 million in child care subsidies.
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) blasted the Trump administration’s decision to pull back funds.
“To use the power of the government to harm the neediest Americans is immoral and indefensible,” Gillibrand said in a statement. “This has nothing to do with fraud and everything to do with political retribution that punishes poor children in need of assistance. I demand that President Trump unfreeze this funding and stop this brazen attack on our children.”
HHS also previously sent letters in December to Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey asking whether the billions of taxpayer dollars helped unlawfully “fuel illegal and mass migration,” The Post first reported.
Those inquiries were followed by probes the Treasury Department and House Oversight Committee also launched into the mounting fraud scandal, which involves several nonprofits linked to the Somali community in the Twin Cities.
Around 130,000 illegal migrants resided in Minnesota as of 2023, an increase of around 40,000 from 2019 and roughly 2% of the state’s population, according to the Pew Research Center.
The Somali diaspora population in the state tops 100,000, most of whom live in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area.
Federal prosecutors have already secured dozens of convictions related to $250 million in funds stolen by one of the Somali-linked organizations, Feeding Our Future, which used the ill-gotten gains to purchase luxury cars and real estate holdings.
First Assistant Minnesota US Attorney Joe Thompson has since alleged, however, that the “magnitude cannot be overstated” and claimed fraudsters skimmed as much as $9 billion.
“What we see in Minnesota is not a handful of bad actors committing crimes. It’s staggering, industrial-scale fraud,” Thompson told reporters in a Dec. 18 news conference.
YouTuber Nick Shirley ramped up the pressure by visiting around 10 child care centers in the state that took $111 million in taxpayer funds — a little less than half of which appeared to be open, subsequent reporting from the Minnesota Star Tribune confirmed.
Walz acknowledged the concerns about fraud in a press conference Monday at which he also announced the end of his third run for the governor’s office.
“We cannot effectively deliver programs and services if we can’t earn the public’s trust,” the Minnesota Democrat said, before taking a shot at President Trump and his “allies in Washington.”
“We’ll win the fight against the fraudsters, but the political gamesmanship we’re seeing from Republicans is only making that fight harder,” he added.
Trump fired back in a Truth Social post Monday: “Minnesota’s Corrupt Governor will possibly leave office before his Term is up but, in any event, will not be running again because he was caught, REDHANDED, along with Ilhan Omar, and others of his Somali friends, stealing Tens of Billions of Taxpayer Dollars.”
“I feel certain the facts will come out, and they will reveal a seriously unscrupulous, and rich, group of ‘SLIMEBALLS,'” the president also said.
“Governor Walz has destroyed the State of Minnesota, but others, like Governor Gavin Newscum, JB Pritzker, and Kathy Hochul, have done, in my opinion, an even more dishonest and incompetent job. NO ONE IS ABOVE THE LAW!”
Reps for the governor’s office in each of the five states did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
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