Author: IQ TIMES MEDIA

WASHINGTON (AP) — Before President Donald Trump’s administration started dismantling the Education Department, the agency served as a powerful enforcer in cases of sexual violence at schools and universities. It brought the weight of the government against schools that mishandled sexual assault complaints involving students.That work is quickly fading away.The department’s Office for Civil Rights was gutted in Trump’s mass layoffs last year, leaving half as many lawyers to investigate complaints of discrimination based on race, sex or disability in schools. Those who remain face a backlog of more than 25,000 cases.Investigations have dwindled. Before the layoffs last March, the…

Of all the robotaxis I’ve tried, Amazon’s Zoox feels different.Zoox — founded in 2014 and acquired by Amazon four years later — is a robotaxi company that has limited operations in Las Vegas and San Francisco with about 50 vehicles between the two major cities. The company has said Austin and Miami are next on the map.The service is considerably smaller than its competitor, Waymo, and that limitation was acutely felt in my experience hailing a Zoox on a Thursday night in Las Vegas during the Consumer Electronics Show.However, the rider experience itself felt more akin to an amusement-park-ride-slash-party-bus than…

Hospitals, law firms, and tech companies are getting a preview of how AI is likely to reshape work: by automating tasks without eliminating the underlying jobs.That’s the core message Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang emphasized in a recent appearance on the No Priors podcast.In a wide-ranging interview, he argued that fears of mass job destruction often confuse the “tasks” involved in a job with the broader “purpose” of the role. AI, in his view, changes how tasks get done, but the purpose remains the same. And that means, the technology probably won’t destroy jobs and could even increase demand for the…

Anthropic has appointed Irina Ghose, a former Microsoft India managing director, to lead its India business as the U.S. AI startup prepares to open an office in Bengaluru. The move underscores how India is becoming a key battleground for AI companies looking to expand beyond the U.S. for major growth markets. Ghose brings deep big-tech operating experience to the role. She spent 24 years at Microsoft before stepping down in December 2025. Her appointment gives Anthropic a seasoned executive with local enterprise and government relationships as it gears up to establish an on-the-ground presence in one of the world’s fastest-growing…

Ashley St. Clair, who gave birth to one of Elon Musk’s sons in 2024, sued Musk’s xAI in a New York court on Thursday, alleging that its chatbot Grok generated sexually explicit deepfake images of her at users’ request.In the complaint, St. Clair, a writer, influencer, and political strategist, claims X users prompted Grok to manipulate images of her, including photos from when she was 14, into graphic sexual content. She alleges some images remained online for more than a week and that her premium X account was later terminated after she complained.She is also requesting a temporary restraining order…

Cincinnati — A decade ago, the streets around Cincinnati, Ohio, became a front line for America’s deadliest drug crisis.Tom Synan, police chief of nearby Newton, and head of Hamilton County’s Addiction Response Coalition, can still point out the places where opioid overdoses were once common, and where first responders were pushed to the brink.”August 19th through the 27th of 2016 — carfentanil hit the streets of Cincinnati,” Synan told CBS News. “We’ve never been the same, and the country has never been the same.”Carfentanil is an ultrapotent synthetic opioid used to tranquilize elephants and other large mammals, according to the…

Newsrooms have been experimenting with AI for several years now but, for the most part, those efforts have been just that: experiments. A relatively unknown startup, Symbolic.ai, wants to change that, and it just signed a major deal with News Corp, the media conglomerate owned by Rupert Murdoch. News Corp, the major assets of which include MarketWatch, the New York Post, and The Wall Street Journal, is set to begin using Symbolic’s AI platform with its financial news hub Dow Jones Newswires. Symbolic.ai, which was founded by former eBay CEO Devin Wenig and Ars Technica co-founder Jon Stokes, says its…

Wastewater testing can alert public health officials to measles infections days to months before cases are confirmed by doctors, researchers said in two studies published Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Colorado health officials were able to get ahead of the highly contagious virus by tracking its presence in sewer systems, researchers wrote. And Oregon researchers found wastewater could have warned them of an outbreak more than two months before the first person tested positive.The findings add to evidence that wastewater testing is a valuable weapon in tracking disease, including COVID-19, polio, mpox and bird flu.But the national…

Feeling like everyone around you is sick? California public health officials said that cases of flu and hospitalizations are rising in the state as they confirmed a second pediatric death associated with it this season.Nationwide, that figure is 17 pediatric deaths for the season, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.The CDC recently said that flu activity is expected to remain elevated in the United States for several weeks.A strain of one influenza virus, H3N2 subclade K, has been detected within the state, the California Department of Public Health said on Jan. 13. This strain has been referred…

Each January, millions of people decide it’s time to get serious about their fitness and health. But, too often, that ambition turns into an all-or-nothing plan that flames out by February.The truth is, starting a fitness routine that sticks isn’t about hype or self-control — it’s about creating something doable. “The most sustainable approach is starting smaller than you think you need to and prioritizing consistency over intensity,” says Lisa Kelly, doctor of physical therapy at WAVE Physical Therapy & Pilates in Cincinnati.That means ditching the idea of the “perfect” workout plan and focusing on movement that actually fits your…