Author: IQ TIMES MEDIA

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The Trump administration is using civil rights laws to wage a campaign against the University of California in an attempt to curtail academic freedom and undermine free speech, according to a lawsuit filed Tuesday by faculty, staff, student organizations and every labor union representing UC workers.The lawsuit comes weeks after the Trump administration fined the University of California, Los Angeles $1.2 billion and froze research funding after accusing the school of allowing antisemitism on campus and other civil rights violations. It was the first public university to be targeted with a widespread funding freeze. The administration…

Gemini’s mobile adoption has been soaring since the August launch of its Nano Banana image editor model, which has received positive reviews, particularly from users who say they can now more easily perform complex edits and create realistic images. The app has climbed to the top of global app stores’ charts and has seen a 45% month-over-month increase in downloads in the month of September so far, according to new data provided by app intelligence firm Appfigures. Though the month is only half over, Gemini’s app has already gained 12.6 million downloads in September, up from 8.7 million in August.…

HOUSTON (AP) — Houston slugger Yordan Alvarez has a “pretty significant” ankle sprain that is going to keep him out indefinitely, manager Joe Espada said Tuesday.Alvarez was injured when he turned his left ankle at home plate after scoring in the first inning of Houston’s 6-3 win over the Texas Rangers on Monday night. He had imaging done Tuesday and Espada gave an update on his condition before the series continued Tuesday.“This is going to keep him out for a while,” Espada said. “Let’s not get into days, weeks, any of that. We are going to take one day at…

Autonomous vehicles have long been touted as “just around the corner,” but the reality of bringing self-driving cars to the streets is far from simple. At TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 — October 27–29 at Moscone West in San Francisco — Waymo co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana joins the Disrupt Stage for a wide-ranging conversation on the true state of AVs and where the industry goes from here. Inside the self-driving reality check While headlines often highlight crashes, controversies, or overblown promises, Mawakana has spent years navigating the real-world path to autonomous mobility. At Disrupt, she’ll dig into what it actually takes to scale…

HUNTINGTON, W.Va. (AP) — Marshall University President Brad Smith and his wife, Alys Smith, have made a $50 million gift to the university to promote a program aimed at eliminating student debt, the school said Tuesday.The gift is the largest ever given to the public research university and the largest given by any sitting university president to their own institution, the school said.The money will go toward Marshall For All, a program that allows students to combine scholarships, grants, family contributions and work opportunities to obtain a bachelor’s degree without having to apply for student loans. Nico Karagosian, president and…

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman announced on Tuesday a raft of new user policies, including a pledge to significantly change how ChatGPT interacts with users under the age of 18. “We prioritize safety ahead of privacy and freedom for teens,” the post reads. “This is a new and powerful technology, and we believe minors need significant protection.” The changes for underage users deal specifically with conversations involving sexual topics or self-harm. Under the new policy, ChatGPT will be trained to no longer engage in “flirtatious talk” with underage users, and additional guardrails will be placed around discussions of suicide. If an…

NEW YORK (AP) — Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, questioning whether Americans understand the difference between a king and a president, told a New York Law School crowd Tuesday that improved civic education across the country would help people make better decisions.Sotomayor, speaking at a panel discussion during a “Constitution and Citizenship Day Summit,” did not make comments that were overtly political and did not directly address any controversies of the moment. President Donald Trump was not mentioned.At one point, though, she raised doubts about how much Americans are being taught about civics in schools.“Do we understand what the difference…

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman says minors “need significant protection” when using AI, which is why the company is building an age-detection system.”We prioritize safety ahead of privacy and freedom for teens; this is a new and powerful technology, and we believe minors need significant protection,” Altman said in a statement accompanying the announcement, adding that the company is “building an age-prediction system to estimate age based on how people use ChatGPT.”OpenAI said that when ChatGPT detects a user is under 18, it will automatically direct them to a version of the chatbot with “age-appropriate policies, including blocking graphic sexual content…

Tesla’s Model Y is known for its swooshing handles that sit flush with its doors. Now, US auto-safety regulators are investigating whether some of those handles are putting children at risk of getting trapped inside the vehicles.The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened an investigation on Monday into potential issues with the door handles of an estimated 174,290 Tesla Model Y vehicles from 2021. The investigation listed nine reported incidents, none of which resulted in injuries or fatalities.In a document published Tuesday from the NHTSA’s Office of Defects and Investigations, the safety regulator said in the “problem description” field that…

The PGA Tour said Tuesday it is leaving Kapalua Resort in Hawaii for its season opener after determining the drought and a water dispute that has left the golf course baked and brown from lack of irrigation cannot be ready to host The Sentry in January.The PGA Tour had started every year on the Plantation course at Kapalua since 1999 except for 2001, when the season began in Australia and then went to Kapalua on west Maui.Still to be determined is where — or when — to move The Sentry, a $20 million signature event for all the PGA Tour…