Author: IQ TIMES MEDIA
Measles in South Carolina has spread to at least 789 people, surpassing the 2025 West Texas outbreak that sickened 762 people and killed two young girls.The majority of cases remain centered in Spartanburg County, mostly among people who were either unvaccinated or didn’t know their status, the South Carolina Department of Public Health reported Tuesday. There have been 89 new cases confirmed since Friday, indicating that the outbreak isn’t under control.Health officials said that 557 people are in quarantine for 21 days.The South Carolina outbreak began this past fall. By January, cases directly linked to the state had been documented…
Jan 27 (Reuters) – South Carolina reported a surge to 789 measles cases on Tuesday, state health data showed, including 89 additional infections since Friday, as officials warned the widening outbreak could last weeks or months amid lagging vaccine uptake.The outbreak, which began in October, has been centered in the northwest part of the state, which includes Greenville and Spartanburg, according to the South Carolina Department of Public Health.There are currently 557 people in quarantine and 20 in isolation. The latest end of quarantine for these is February 19, the state health department said.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementOf those infected, 695 were unvaccinated, 14…
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is ordering state agencies and public universities in Texas to halt H-1B hiring, the latest setback for foreign workers looking to work in the US.In a letter to Texas state agency heads on Tuesday, Abbott wrote that there had been “recent reports of abuse” in the H-1B visa program, which is designed to bring high-skilled foreign workers to the US.”Texas taxpayers invest billions to train our workforce,” Abbott wrote on X. “Those jobs should go to Texans.”Abbott is also directing agencies and universities to provide information on how many petitions they submitted in 2025, how many…
On a Monday night NBC News segment, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei expressed concern over “some of the things we’ve seen in the last few days,” referring to the violence of Border Patrol agents in Minneapolis. Amodei focused on the importance of preserving democracy at home, both on NBC and in a post on X that specifically called out “the horror we’re seeing in Minnesota.” On NBC, he said he’s a believer in arming democracies to defend against autocratic countries, and that “we need to defend our own democratic values at home.” He added that Anthropic has no contracts with Immigration and…
Google on Tuesday announced its more affordable Google AI Plus plan is now available in all markets where its AI plans are available. This includes the U.S, where it will cost $7.99 per month. The expansion brings the lower-cost plan to 35 new countries and territories, after earlier launches in dozens of global markets, which began with Indonesia last September. The plan includes access to Gemini 3 Pro and Nano Banana Pro in the Gemini app, Flow’s AI filmmaking tools, research and writing assistance in NotebookLM, and more. It also offers 200GB of storage and the ability to share your…
OpenAI launched on Tuesday a new scientific workspace program called Prism that is available for free to anyone with a ChatGPT account. Designed as an AI-enhanced word processor and research tool for scientific papers, Prism is deeply integrated with GPT-5.2, which can be used to assess claims, revise prose, or search for prior research. Prism isn’t designed to conduct research on its own and without human guidance. Executives believe it will accelerate the work being done by human scientists and compared Prism to coding interfaces like Cursor and Windsurf. “I think 2026 will be for AI and science what 2025…
Does your TikTok “For You” page look funky?It may have been messed up by a data center outage, a spokesperson for TikTok’s new US joint venture told Business Insider.”We’ve been working to restore our services following a power outage at a U.S. data center impacting TikTok and other apps we operate,” the company wrote on Monday on X (formerly Twitter).TikTok said the outage had triggered a “cascading systems failure” that was causing “multiple bugs, slower load times, or timed-out requests, including when posting new content.” Creators may temporarily see 0 views or likes on videos, and “earnings may look like…
Social media companies Meta and YouTube are facing a jury for the first time in a landmark case involving claims their platforms are too addictive.The case centers around a lawsuit filed by a 19-year-old under the initials K.G.M., along with other plaintiffs, who claim the platforms were designed to be addictive, ultimately leading to mental health issues including anxiety, depression and body image issues.Jury selection in the case, which is being heard in the California Superior Court of Los Angeles County, begins Tuesday.Richard Drew/AP – PHOTO: A mobile phone displays apps logos for Facebook and Instagram in New York.”Borrowing heavily…
Google is rolling out the ability for users to ask follow-up questions directly from AI Overviews, which are the AI-generated summaries at the top of Google Search results. Now users will be able to jump into a conversational back-and-forth with AI Mode, Google’s conversational Search feature for complex questions. The tech giant also announced that it’s making Gemini 3 the new default model for AI Overviews globally. The company said in a blog post that this update will give users “a best-in-class AI response right on the search results page.” Tuesday’s announcements mark Google’s ongoing efforts to make Search less…
Yale University is eliminating tuition and other costs for all new undergraduates from families earning less than $100,000 a year, joining a growing number of elite campuses that are slashing costs for middle- and lower-income families.The Ivy League school announced the change Tuesday and said it will take effect for students entering this fall.Yale previously waived all expected costs for students from families earning less than $75,000 a year. By raising the limit to $100,000, the university said nearly half of American households with children ages 6 to 17 will qualify. The new policy also promises to waive tuition —…