Author: IQ TIMES MEDIA

A new star has emerged on Twitch: a video game-playing peanut with eyes and lips.Men across America spent their holiday time off tuning into the hourslong livestreams of TheBurntPeanut. The foul-mouthed legume plays the video game “Arc Raiders” while cracking jokes and loving “goop,” his term for the virtual loot found in the popular game.TheBurntPeanut is a VTuber, a type of streamer who conceals their identity using a virtual avatar. There’s a long history of these animated gamers, including Twitch giants like Ironmouse.But the small animated peanut has grown large in viewership, touting 1.4 million followers on Twitch, 1.1 million…

DENVER (AP) — A former school bus aide pleaded guilty Monday to assaulting three nonverbal students with autism who were unable to report the abuse.Kiarra Jones, 30, entered guilty pleas to 12 charges under a plea agreement as she was about to go on trial in suburban Denver for abuse that was revealed in 2024 by bus surveillance video, according to prosecutors and court documents.Jones is represented by lawyers from the public defender’s office, which does not comment to the media on its cases.The abuse was discovered after Jessica Vestal, the mother of one of the nonverbal students, asked school…

A pill form of weight-loss drug Wegovy, manufactured by Danish drugmaker Novo Nordisk, is now available in the U.S., giving Americans access to an oral medication to treat obesity.The starting dose of the daily Wegovy pill, at 1.5 milligrams, is now available for $149 per month for self-paying patients, Novo Nordisk announced on Monday. A 4 mg dose of the medication is available for the same price through April 15, after which the cost will rise to $199.Ed Cinca, senior vice president of marketing and patient solutions at Novo Nordisk, said in a statement that the new drug represents a…

NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. flu infections surged over the holidays, and health officials are calling it a severe season that is likely to get worse.New government data posted Monday — for flu activity through the week of Christmas — showed that by some measures this season is already surpassing the flu epidemic of last winter, one of the harshest in recent history.The data was released the same day that the Trump administration said it will no longer recommend flu shots and some other types of vaccines for all children.Forty-five states were reporting high or very high flu activity during…

Flu activity is continuing to climb across the U.S. as hospitalizations rise, according to newly released data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.The percent of outpatient visits for respiratory illnesses are now at the highest rate on record.About 8% of visits to a health care provider were labeled as flu-like illness, surpassing any levels seen since 1997, the earliest for which data is available. Flu-like illness accounts for patients that have a fever as well as a cough and/or sore throat.These visits are largely among children and young adults. About 35% of outpatient visits for a respiratory illness were…

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration is telling Head Start providers to avoid dozens of terms in federal grant applications, including “race,” “belonging” and “pregnant people” — a directive that could reshape the early education program.A coalition of organizations representing Head Start providers and parents said in court filings last month that the Department of Health and Human Services told a Head Start director in Wisconsin to cut those and over a dozen other terms from her application. She later received a list with nearly 200 words the department discouraged her from using in her application, including “Black,” “Native American,”…

Ask any history teacher in Michigan how their lessons could be better and they will tell you that they need to incorporate more current events into the curriculum, East Kentwood High School history teacher Matt Vreisman insists. State standards require social studies teachers to cover pre-Columbian history to the present, and incorporating modern historical events — such as the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection — is a challenge, adds Whitehall High School history teacher Brian Milliron.Though Tuesday is the five-year anniversary of the event, Vriesman, Milliron and other teachers found a way to weave the insurrection into their advanced placement history…

Using Grok to create AI-generated sexualized images of minors will result in the same consequences as uploading those images, X has said.In an X post late Saturday, the social media company said it would remove illegal content, including child sexual abuse material, and permanently suspend accounts that participated in the activity.”Anyone using Grok to make illegal content will suffer the same consequences as if they upload illegal content,” Elon Musk said in a reply to an X post on Saturday, which was later reposted by the official X account.The official X page pointed users to its policy page, which states…

Amazon’s AI-powered overhaul of its digital assistant, now known as Alexa+, is coming to the web. On Monday, at the start of the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, the company announced the official launch of a new website, Alexa.com, which is now rolling out to all Alexa+ Early Access customers. The site will allow customers to use Alexa+ online, much as you can do today with other AI chatbots such as ChatGPT or Google’s Gemini. While Alexa-powered devices, including Amazon’s own Echo smart speakers and screens, have a well-established footprint with over 600 million devices sold worldwide, Amazon believes…

Weight-loss drug Wegovy is now available in the form of a pill in the United States, the Scandinavian drug-maker Novo Nordisk announced on Monday, Jan. 5.The first-of-its kind pill offers 1.5 and 4 milligram doses at $149 per month (or $5 per day) for self-paying patients, the Denmark-based company said in a news release.The drug was first offered as an injectable. GLP-1 drugs were initially used to treat diabetes but have since been approved to treat obesity.The oral GLP-1 was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in December and is available through more than 70,000 pharmacies including CVS…