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Waymo expands pause to four cities as robotaxis keep driving into floods

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Waymo has now paused service in four cities because its robotaxis are struggling to deal with heavy rain and flooded roads, a problem that already prompted the company to issue a recall last week.

One of Waymo’s robotaxis was spotted driving through a flooded street in Atlanta, Georgia, on Wednesday before it ultimately got stuck for about an hour, according to local news reports. The vehicle was recovered and removed from the scene, Waymo told TechCrunch. Waymo says it paused service in the city, just like it has in San Antonio, Texas, while it figures out a solution.

“Safety is Waymo’s top priority, both for our riders and everyone we share the road with. During a period of intense rain yesterday in Atlanta, an unoccupied Waymo vehicle encountered a flooded road and stopped,” the company said in a statement.

Waymo also halted service in Dallas and Houston because of severe weather across Texas this week, the company confirmed to TechCrunch late Thursday. The expansion was first reported by Bloomberg News.

A Waymo spokesperson said the company also paused service in Dallas and Houston out of an abundance of caution for the forecasted severe weather.

Waymo admitted that it hadn’t finished developing a “final remedy” for avoiding flooded areas when it issued its software recall last week. Instead, the company said that it shipped an update to its fleet that placed “restrictions at times and in locations where there is an elevated risk of encountering a flooded, higher-speed roadway,” according to documents released by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).

But even those precautions apparently were not enough to stop the Waymo robotaxi from entering a flooded intersection in Atlanta. Waymo told TechCrunch on Thursday that the storm in Atlanta produced so much rainfall that flooding was happening before the National Weather Service had issued a flash flood warning, watch, or advisory. The company said those alerts are part of a larger set of signals it relies on to prepare the vehicles for poor weather.

“NHTSA is aware of this incident, is in communication with Waymo, and will take appropriate action if necessary,” a spokesperson for the safety regulator told TechCrunch regarding the robotaxi that got stuck in Atlanta.

This is not the first time Waymo has struggled to quickly stamp out problematic behavior with its robotaxis. When people started to notice Waymo robotaxis illegally passing stopped school buses last year, the company shipped a fix that was supposed to address the issue — only for its fleet to continue making illegal maneuvers around school buses.

Waymo’s behavior around school buses is at the center of one of two sets of active investigations into the company.

Both the NHTSA and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) are looking into this problem. Waymo has already produced a batch of documents for the NHTSA, all of which were redacted to the public. On May 15, the NHTSA sent a second document request to Waymo because the company’s initial response “necessitates that [NHTSA] receive further data and information.”

The other set of investigations from the NHTSA and NTSB involve a January 23 incident where a Waymo robotaxi crashed into a child in Santa Monica, California. Waymo has said that its robotaxi braked to around six miles per hour before it struck that child and that she suffered minor injuries.

This story has been updated with more information about how Waymo uses National Weather Service alerts, and to include new service pauses in Houston and Dallas.

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2027: Amaechi meets Tambuwal in Abuja [VIDEO]

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Vice-Presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress, ADC, Rotimi Amaechi, is currently in closed-door meeting with former Sokoto State governor, Aminu Tambuwal.

The meeting reportedly follows the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, upload of Amaechi’s name and that of the party’s presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, on its website ahead of the 2027 general elections.

Recall that the ADC had officially announced Amaechi as the party’s vice-presidential candidate for the 2027 general election.

The visit came shortly after a Federal High Court sitting in Abuja on Thursday affirmed David Mark’s leadership of the African Democratic Congress, ADC.

At the time of filing this report, details of the meeting cannot be ascertained, but it is not unconnected to next year’s election.

Earlier, Amaechi had met with former Imo State Governor, Emeka Ihedioha.

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“This President is doing miracles” – Akpabio hails Tinubu on road construction

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Senate President Godswill Akpabio has commended President Bola Ahmed Tinubu for the massive road construction projects being executed across Nigeria.

Akpabio portrayed the President as “doing miracles,”  while praising the remarkable pace at which the administration is completing and commissioning roads.

He made the remarks on Thursday, July 2, 2026, during the commissioning of the Old Keffi Road in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), stretching from Kado Fish Market to Dei-Dei.

“The performing President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu. I have not seen any President in Nigeria who, within his first, second, and third anniversaries, has commissioned the volume of projects this President has commissioned across the country,” Akpabio said.

He continued: “While we were on the road yesterday, we looked at the Gaduwa road which we commissioned; Nasarawa was a day before that.

“When I saw the miracle of touching Satellite Town, people came out just as you see here today — with joy and shouts. They could not believe what they were seeing,” he noted.

Listing several ongoing projects, Akpabio urged Nigerians to make future electoral support conditional on tangible performance and delivered projects.

“While we were there yesterday, another commissioning was going on in Nasarawa State — a major road — and the commencement of construction from Akwanga all the way to Jos in Plateau State. This President is doing miracles!

“So I think in Nigeria, we must now set a new standard for elections: ‘Show me your works and I will vote for you.’

People who are talking have been in government for a very long time — some for over 25 years — yet they cannot boast of anything.

“But in the case of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, start looking at his works from his days as Governor of Lagos until today,” he added.

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