Author: IQ TIMES MEDIA

For students in Illinois, mental health screenings will soon be required alongside annual vision and hearing exams.Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker signed a bill into law Thursday that will require public school students in grades 3 through 12 in the state to undergo a mental health screening each year.The change will go into effect in the 2027-2028 school year with at least one screening per student required annually, according to a press release from Pritzker’s office.Pritzker also said the new legislation makes Illinois the first state to mandate universal mental health assessments for public school students.”At a time when our kids…

Google has backed STAN, an Indian social gaming platform that connects gamers with creators, communities, and publishers. Google’s investment comes as part of an $8.5 million equity funding round, which also saw investment from Japanese gaming giants Bandai Namco Entertainment, Square Enix, and Reazon Holdings. Aptos Labs and King River Capital, as well as existing backers General Catalyst and GFR Fund, also participated. Google joined the round via its AI Futures Fund, which launched in May to support startups building with its AI tools. STAN, headquartered in Singapore, is trying to position itself as a gaming community platform to rival…

Doehler Dry Ingredient Solutions, LLC is recalling boxes of Member’s Mark freeze dried fruit due to potential listeria contamination, which can lead to serious illness.In an alert Friday, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said the company discovered the problem affecting some 15-count boxes of “Member’s Mark Freeze Dried Fruit Variety Pack” after internal product testing. So far, no illnesses have been reported.The recalled boxes are marked with UPC 1 93968 50900 2 and included varied lot codes and use-by dates, which can be found listed on the FDA’s website.A variety pack of Member’s Mark freeze dried fruit. / Credit:…

The Trump administration is freezing $339 million in research grants to the University of California, Los Angeles, accusing the school of civil rights violations related to antisemitism, affirmative action and women’s sports, according to a person familiar with the matter.The federal government has frozen or paused federal funding over similar allegations against private colleges but this is one of the rare cases it has targeted a public university.Several federal agencies notified UCLA this week that they were suspending grants over civil rights concerns, including $240 million from the Department of Health and Human Services and the National Institutes of Health,…

Meta is still going all-in on the AI talent war, with Mark Zuckerberg reportedly reaching out to top recruits himself, throwing around jaw-dropping compensation packages that top $1 billion over multiple years. And Meta’s latest target? Mira Murati’s new startup, Thinking Machines Lab. It’s a bold play in an already overheated market. While Zuck eyes new talent, Anthropic is preparing to raise a massive round of its own at a staggering $170 billion valuation, nearly tripling its worth in just months. On paper, it looks like the AI cash floodgates are wide open. But all this endless money raises some…

Finding and getting rid of a pesky bug in your home can be a challenge. On a large farm, this task can be even more difficult and costly.Many farmers turn to pesticides to eliminate bugs and prevent crop damage. The US Department of Agriculture predicts that farmers will spend $18.1 billion on pesticides this year. Monique Rivera, an assistant professor of tree fruit entomology at Cornell Agritech, said these chemicals are not only expensive for farmers, but repeated exposure can also be harmful for field workers. This makes insect monitoring and early detection especially important. “If you miss the indications…

Weeks after the revelation that Google paid Windsurf $2.4 billion to license its technology, while simultaneously hiring away its CEO and top talent, the deal’s implications are still rattling some founders and startup employees across Silicon Valley. Google’s payment to the startup was effectively split in two equal parts, according to two people familiar with the deal. Investors’ portion was $1.2 billion.  The other half was in the form of compensation packages for approximately 40 Windsurf employees hired by the tech giant with a substantial portion of that $1.2 billion going to the startup’s co-founders, Varun Mohan and Douglas Chen,…

BRISTOL, Tenn. (AP) — Bristol Motor Speedway is ready to make history by hosting the first Major League Baseball game in Tennessee. The stage, or in this case the racetrack, has been set for the biggest crowd for a regular season baseball game at Saturday night’s MLB Speedway Classic between the Atlanta Braves and Cincinnati Reds. “The way the venue looks really is something that you can put on paper, but you really can’t get a true vision of it until you actually put grandstands on the infield of the track, and you put 3,500 seats in the middle of…

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Washington Commanders’ hopes of returning to the site of their former home at RFK Stadium cleared a significant hurdle Friday when the District of Columbia Council approved the legislation.The bill advanced by a 9-3 vote, but it still must be approved a second time by the council before being sent to Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser.Bowser negotiated an initial plan with Commanders owner Josh Harris in April, with the team contributing $2.7 billion and the city investing roughly $1.1 billion for the stadium, housing, green space and a sportsplex on land bordering the Anacostia River.“We are one…

Justin Timberlake’s announcement that he was diagnosed with Lyme disease has put a spotlight on the condition that impacts nearly 500,000 people in the United States each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Timberlake shared in a July 31 post on social media that he was diagnosed with Lyme disease while on his two-year Forget Tomorrow World Tour.”If you’ve experienced this disease or know someone who has — then you’re aware: living with this can be relentlessly debilitating, both mentally and physically,” Timberlake wrote, adding, “When I first got the diagnosis I was shocked for sure. But,…