Author: IQ TIMES MEDIA

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) — Principals this week in El Salvador began greeting students individually at school gates, not only to wish them “buenos días,” but also to inspect their haircuts and school uniforms.President Nayib Bukele has expanded his efforts to remake his country to students’ appearance as part of bringing discipline back to schools, once a recruiting ground for the country’s powerful gangs.His newly appointed education minister, Karla Trigueros, is an Army captain and physician who visits the country’s schools wearing fatigues. She sent a memo Monday to all school principals saying not only would they be held…

Menopause can usher in a host of disruptive symptoms like hot flashes, night sweats and sleep problems. Hormone therapy promises relief.But many women wonder about taking it. That’s because the treatment, subject of a recent expert panel convened by the Food and Drug Administration, has long been shrouded in uncertainty.It was once used routinely. But in 2002, research testing one type was stopped early because of concerns about increased risks of breast cancer and blood clots. Concerns lingered even though later studies showed the benefits of today’s hormone therapies outweigh the risks for many women.“There is still a lot of…

OnlyFans has more fans than ever.The subscription content platform, known for its pornographic content, had 377.5 million users at the end of 2024, according to newly published financial filings for its parent company Fenix International. That number is up 24% from the same time in 2023.And those users are spending money: Payments through the platform grew 9% last year, hitting $7.2 billion in the 12 months ending November 30, 2024. As potential earnings on the platform flowed, the number of creators on OnlyFans surged 13% during the period to 4.6 million.That influx of creators and fans drove up the company’s…

A tour bus in New York State crashed on Interstate 90 between Rochester and Buffalo, closing a portion of the highway. Injuries and multiple fatalities have been reported.In a post on Facebook, the New York State Police said that all lanes on Interstate 90 near Pembroke, New York, were closed and told travelers to expect heavy delays. According to reporting from Spectrum News 1, police said 52 people were inside the bus at the time of the crash.State police on scene updated the media Friday afternoon, confirming there are multiple fatalities as a result of the rollover, including children, as…

Apple is falling behind in the race to transform Siri into an AI assistant that’s as powerful as its competitors. As consumers grow more impatient, Apple is considering using another company’s tech instead of developing its own. Apple is now exploring a partnership with Google, its most direct competitor in the smartphone business, according to Bloomberg editor and Apple insider Mark Gurman. The company previously approached OpenAI and Anthropic for similar discussions about using their technology to power Siri, and reportedly, Google has begun training a model that could run on Apple’s servers. Apple is not expected to make a…

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration said Friday it will not defend a decades-old grant program for colleges with large numbers of Hispanic students that is being challenged in court, declaring the government believes the funding is unconstitutional.In a memo sent to Congress, the Justice Department said it agrees with a lawsuit attempting to strike down grants that are reserved for colleges and universities where at least a quarter of undergraduates are Hispanic. Congress created the program in 1998 after finding Latino students were going to college and graduating at far lower rates than white students.Justice Department officials argued the…

Longevity enthusiast Bryan Johnson said he often contemplates a question that has perplexed philosophers for centuries — how big is human consciousness?So he decided to turn to psychedelics.”I know what it feels like to fall in love, and to feel sad, and to feel envy, and to feel joy, and to feel accomplishment, and to feel shame,” Johnson said on the Core Memory podcast on Thursday. “But what else?”Johnson said he wanted to create a “map” of human consciousness to explore the convergence of mind and machine. “If you can, in fact, pair the brain with AI, what could AI…

Mississippi state health officials have announced a public health emergency due to the state’s rising infant mortality rate.Over the last decade, over 3,500 babies have died before their first birthday in Mississippi, according to data released Thursday by the Mississippi State Department of Health.”Too many Mississippi families are losing their babies before their first birthday,” state health officer Dr. Dan Edney said in a statement announcing the public health emergency. “We cannot and will not accept these numbers as our reality.”According to 2024 MSDH data, the infant mortality rate in Mississippi is 9.7 deaths per 1,000 live births, the highest…

Beijing may have thrown a wrench into Nvidia’s plans on making a comeback in China’s AI market. Nvidia has instructed its component suppliers to stop production related to its H20 AI chip, according to The Information. The production halt comes after Beijing reportedly warned Chinese companies against using these chips because of potential security issues and fears of backdoors that would give the U.S. access to sensitive data. China’s government is urging companies to use domestic chips instead, The Information reported. This comes a month after companies including Nvidia were given the green light to start selling its AI chips…

Relics of the “old internet” are respawning in new social media startups.Myspace’s profiles, Tumblr’s vibes, StumbleUpon’s spontaneity, Twitter’s status updates — they’re being reinvented by a new guard of startup founders.What’s fueling it? Nostalgia for the internet they grew up with.Zehra Naqvi said she misses “how seemingly small” the earlier days of the internet felt. She’s the founder of Lore, a platform that aims to help fandoms discover content and connect over their obsessions.As an avid Tumblr user in her teens, the platform’s waning relevance was a “huge part of the reason I even wanted to found the company,” she…