Uber is testing self-driving cars on city streets; The biggest reason a startup fails, and more news

Uber confirmed it has been testing self-driving cars in Pittsburgh for weeks. Why Pittsburgh? Narrow and hilly streets, haphazard parking, rainy and snowy weather and aging infrastructure, project director John Bares tells TribLive. But there is something in the wild even worse than terrain in the pursuit of a trustworthy autonomous vehicle, Bares says: "We've got a long way to go until we can figure out people."

The White House and House Republicans agreed on a plan to help Puerto Rico avoid bankruptcy on $70 billion in debt. The bill still has to actually be passed by Congress and signed by President Obama before a July deadline. But the deal comes despite a massive PR campaign by a shadowy group arguing this arrangement amounts to a bailout that would bankrupt old ladies — the first of many, to boot. 

#Chart: What's the biggest reason a startup fails? Turns out it was a terrible idea:

Theranos informed regulators it has thrown out results from its proprietary Edison blood-testing devices for 2014 and 2015, the Wall Street Journal reports. The tech is "the main basis for (the company's) $9 billion valuation," based on a 2014 funding round, and voiding and revising thousands of reports "might have thrown off health decisions," the WSJ says. This move is "one of the most dramatic steps yet taken by Theranos," which is trying to persuade regulators not to impose stiff sanctions.

Wreckage from EgyptAir flight 804 still eludes searchers in the Mediterranean sea. No cause has been ruled out this early, before even the airliner's onboard flight recorders have been recovered. But it is known that the Airbus A320 "veered 90 degrees off course and then rotated a full 360 degrees as it plunged from 37,000 feet to below 20,000 feet before vanishing from the screens," as reported by The Wall Street Journal.

#Quote

“We’re working on much bigger failures right now... Some of them are going to make the Fire Phone look like a tiny little blip.”

— Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos

Veteran CBS newsman Morley Safer died at 84. The Vietnam war reporter and long-time 60 Minutes correspondent "was in declining health" when he announced his retirement only last week, CBS reported. Safer spent 46 years at the network, seamlessly shifting between hard reporting and some of the most memorable celebrity profiles ever aired.

This is a stick up: First, you have to believe in the inevitability of self-driving cars. Then you have to put aside that self-driving cars will never be allowed to cause accidents.

Now absorb this: Google has obtained a patent "to coat autonomous vehicles with a sticky substance so that if they hit a pedestrian, the person would be glued to the car instead of flying off." I'll just leave it there.

Cover art: A Bengal Tiger named Akasha dives into the water at Six Flags Discovery Kingdom on June 20, 2012 in Vallejo, California. On the first day of summer, temperatures in the San Francisco Bay Area ranged from the mid seventies by the coast to mid nineties inland.