Author: IQ TIMES MEDIA

A California resident has tested positive for plague after likely being bitten by an infected flea, health officials said on Tuesday, Aug. 19.The person was camping in the South Lake Tahoe area, located in the Sierra Nevada mountains in eastern California, the El Dorado County Public Health Division (EDCPHD) said in a statement. This is the first such infection reported in the county since 2020, when a case of human plague was also traced back to the South Lake Tahoe area, the public health division added.The resident is recovering at home under the supervision of a medical professional.What to know:…

TikTok is done nudging its e-commerce advertisers toward AI — it’s now pulling them headfirst into a future in which algorithms, not marketers, call the shots.The platform’s guidelines say that starting September 1, brands that want to pay to advertise products for sale in their TikTok Shops will have to use a tool called GMV Max, ad buyers tell Business Insider. Introduced in 2024, the TikTok tool uses an AI algorithm to decide how to get advertisers the most bang for their buck.Merchants pick products in their TikTok Shop they want to advertise, set a budget and target return on…

Jimmy Fallon. Alexandra Cooper. Steph Curry. The Jonas Brothers. Google isn’t just paying big to score major AI talent — it’s also ponying up for celeb talent.If you tuned into Google’s Pixel event on Wednesday, you might have lost track of the number of celebrities flashing across your screen in the first five minutes.The annual “Made by Google” keynote opened with a star-studded video montage, with celebrities “passing the phone” to each other. It kicked off with “Call Her Daddy” podcaster Alex Cooper and then cut to a number of household names and notable figures, including NBA star Steph Curry,…

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A man charged with fatally shooting an “American Idol” music supervisor and her husband in their Los Angeles home will undergo mental evaluation to determine whether he’s fit to stand trial, a judge ruled Wednesday.Raymond Boodarian, 22, was set to be arraigned in a courthouse in Los Angeles but did not enter a plea. A judge suspended the criminal proceedings against him while a psychiatrist examines him to determine his competency.He’s charged with two counts of murder in the killing of longtime “American Idol” producer Robin Kaye and her husband Thomas Deluca, both 70, who were…

It’s the time of year when Microsoft employees start finding out about pay raises and bonuses, and hundreds of them are sharing information about their compensation in a spreadsheet viewed by Business Insider.The document has more than 850 self-submitted entries and counting, and includes how much these Microsoft employees report making in salary, bonus, and stock awards.The competitiveness of Microsoft’s pay is particularly important now as it tries to lure top AI engineers and researchers to keep up the momentum that’s fueling its record earnings.Microsoft is going after Meta’s AI talent with multimillion-dollar offers and released new pay guidelines this…

Prices are expected to go up this year as many companies signal plans to raise them in response to President Donald Trump’s slew of tariffs.While firms raise prices for many reasons, some were blaming price hikes on tariffs long before Trump’s so-called “Liberation Day” on April 2. That’s when he announced a 10% baseline tariff on imports from most countries, except Canada and Mexico, and a host of “reciprocal” tariffs on top of that.The situation is fluid, as various countries continue to negotiate potential trade deals with the US.Some economists have said that Trump’s tariffs — and the uncertainty with…

A pair of construction companies overlooked safety concerns, causing a “completely preventable” outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease in New York City that’s killed at least five people and sickened dozens more, according to lawsuits filed Wednesday.The Harlem outbreak has been traced back to July 26 with clusters in upper Manhattan ZIP codes 10027, 10030, 10035, 10037 and 10039, officials said.”This medical tragedy that led to the deaths of five citizens from Harlem, that we know about, was a completely preventable outbreak,” the plaintiffs’ attorney, Ben Crump, told reporters.”It was completely preventable. And so when corporations cut corners, tragedies like this happen,…

Anthropic on Wednesday announced a new subscription offering that will incorporate Claude Code into Claude for Enterprise. Previously available only through individual accounts, Anthropic’s command-line coding tool can now be purchased as part of a broader enterprise suite, allowing for more sophisticated integrations and more powerful admin tools. “This is the most requested feature from our business team and enterprise customers,” Anthropic product lead Scott White told TechCrunch. The integration positions Anthropic to better compete with command-line tools from Google and GitHub, both of which included enterprise integrations on launch. Launched in June, Claude Code has quickly become one of…

For 30 years, vaccine recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have aligned closely with those from the American Academy of Pediatrics, or AAP. But on Aug. 19, 2025, the AAP published new vaccine recommendations that diverge from those of the CDC.The pediatrician association’s move comes on the heels of unprecedented changes made earlier this year by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., as head of the Department of Health and Human Services, in how the government approves and issues guidance on vaccines.The biggest difference is in the AAP’s guidance around COVID-19 vaccines for children. This new guidance comes as…

ISTANBUL, Turkey (AP) — José Mourinho and Fenerbahce were left Wednesday with a difficult final test in their quest to return to the Champions League, which looks sure to be heading inside the Arctic Circle next month.Fenerbahce drew 0-0 at home against Benfica in the first leg of their qualifying playoff, despite the Portuguese team having a player sent off in the 71st minute.In the north of Norway, Bodo/Glimt’s fairytale rise in European soccer continued with a 5-0 rout of Sturm Graz in their playoff first leg.Celtic failed to take home advantage in a 0-0 draw with Kairat Almaty, which…