Author: IQ TIMES MEDIA

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — In a pivotal moment that underscored how powerful and immersive social platforms can be for children and teens, a jury in California this week found both Meta and YouTube liable for mental health harms to kids using their services. The jury’s decision in the first-of-its-kind lawsuit — centered on social media addiction — was applauded by doctors and advocates, who say they are hopeful it could eventually lead to industrywide changes.“I am excited about the outcome of the litigation, in part because we’ve had basically seen these platforms sort of go unregulated for many years…

Two U.S. senators on Thursday fired the latest salvo in an increasingly active front against data centers and their energy use. Senators Josh Hawley and Elizabeth Warren sent a letter to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) asking it to collect details on energy use from data centers — and how that use is affecting the grid. The senators urged the EIA “to establish a mandatory annual reporting requirement for data centers and other large loads,” they wrote in the letter, which TechCrunch has viewed. “As electricity demand growth continues to accelerate after years of relative stagnation, the lack of reliable,…

Last fall, Sam Altman told us he was about to bring spicy chat — “erotica for adults,” in his words — to ChatGPT. Loading audio narration… That never happened, and now it looks like it never will: Altman’s OpenAI has put those plans on hold “indefinitely,” per the Financial Times.This is Altman’s second big walkback in the last few days. Earlier this week, the company canned Sora, the briefly popular video app it rolled out last fall. I’ve asked the company for comment.Both retreats are supposed to be part of a new push at OpenAI to focus the company’s efforts…

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Education Department will relocate from its headquarters to a smaller Washington office as part of the Trump administration’s dismantling of the agency, officials said Thursday. The agency has seen its ranks thinned by mass layoffs since President Donald Trump took office and its headquarters building has been 70% vacant, the Education Department said. In its place, the Energy Department will assume the lease in the building. Education Secretary Linda McMahon hailed it as a milestone in the administration’s efforts to shutter the agency, which Trump ordered to close a year ago this month. “Thanks to the…

Subscribe to The Post Most newsletter for the most important and interesting stories from The Washington Post. Almost everything you eat passes through your gut microbiome, the community of trillions of bacteria, viruses and other microbes that live in your intestines.These microbes play a critical role in your health. One reason is that they produce short-chain fatty acids. These special compounds protect your colon and boost your gut health. They help lower inflammation, regulate your immune system and stimulate the production of GLP-1, the powerful satiety hormone that’s mimicked by weight-loss drugs such as Wegovy.But that’s only if your gut…

I still remember the November when ChatGPT came out, and the exam period that followed.As a professor at Harvard, I had B+ writers submitting essays with em dashes and Oxford commas, as if they had just signed with Penguin. Just as their writing magically improved, their voices began to blur into what we now call “AI slop.”Yet, as one of the earliest victims of the AI slop tsunami, I refuse to give in to the Luddism that led institutions to shut the door on AI entirely.Instead, I’ve chosen to invite AI into every corner of my classroom because anything less will soon feel…

Tesla and SpaceX are ramping up semiconductor hiring as Elon Musk’s ambitious plans for a Terafab take shape.Tesla is hiring Terafab engineers in Palo Alto and Austin, according to job listings on the company’s website, after Musk said the company would collaborate with SpaceX to build what could be the largest chip manufacturing plant in history.In California, the EV giant is looking for module process engineers with expertise in lithography, the highly technical discipline that uses ultraviolet light to etch chip designs onto silicon wafers at a molecular scale. It is offering a base salary of $88,000 to $240,000, depending…

By Stine Jacobsen and Maggie FickCOPENHAGEN, March 26 (Reuters) – Novo Nordisk has appointed Poul Weihrauch, CEO of U.S. candy giant Mars, as board observer as the drugmaker seeks ‌to strengthen its position in the highly competitive U.S. obesity market.The maker of weight-loss drug ‌Wegovy announced the appointment at Thursday’s annual general meeting, where shareholders also elected pharmaceutical veterans Jan van de Winkel and ​Ramona Sequeira to the board, along with Helena Saxon, a board member at fashion retailer H&M.Novo Nordisk and its majority shareholder, the Novo Nordisk Foundation, carried out a leadership shake-up last year, replacing the CEO and…

Cigarette smoking among U.S. adults continues to fall to record low levels as e-cigarette use rises, according to a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published early Thursday.Nearly 10% of adults in the U.S. smoked cigarettes in 2024, the report found. This is down from about 11% in 2023, CDC data shows.Rates of cigarette use have dramatically fallen since a landmark 1964 Surgeon General report warned about the dangers of cigarette smoking and linked it to lung cancer, chronic bronchitis and other serious diseases.As few as 2 cigarettes per day linked to 50% increased risk of…

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration has opened investigations into how race is considered in admissions at three medical schools, ratcheting up its pressure campaign against colleges and universities. The Justice Department opened the investigations Wednesday into possible discrimination at the medical schools of Stanford University, Ohio State and the University of California, San Diego. Harmeet Dhillon, the Justice Department’s assistant attorney general for civil rights, announced the investigations on X. President Donald Trump has been ramping up scrutiny of universities he decries as overrun by liberal influence, using control of federal research funding as leverage. His administration has demanded…