Author: IQ TIMES MEDIA

Winning admission to Harvard University fulfilled a longtime goal for Yonas Nuguse, a student in Ethiopia who endured the Tigray conflict, internet and phone shutdowns, and the COVID-19 pandemic — all of which made it impossible to finish high school on time.Now, it’s unclear if he will make it this fall to the Ivy League campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He and other admitted students around the world are anxiously tracking the school’s feud with the Trump administration, which is seeking to keep it from enrolling international students. The war in the country’s Tigray region forced schools to close in many…

CNN  —  Halle Berry has a message for those critical of her steamy Mother’s Day post. Berry shared a video on Instagram in honor of the May holiday and used it as an opportunity to promote her Let’s Spin intimacy gel, along with her boyfriend, musician Van Hunt. “I’m going to tell you how my Mother’s Day is going to end,” Berry said in the video with Hunt last month, adding that they were in Cannes and had some of her new product that they were about to…take for a spin. “Happy Mother’s Day once again, everybody,” she said. “I…

EINDHOVEN, Netherlands (AP) — Olympic champion Imane Khelif is skipping the Eindhoven Box Cup in the Netherlands less than a week after World Boxing announced mandatory sex testing for all athletes.The Algerian boxer, who won gold at the Paris Games last summer amid scrutiny over her eligibility, did not register in time for the event before applications closed on Thursday.“The decision of Imane’s exclusion is not ours. We regret it,” tournament media director Dirk Renders told The Associated Press.The 26-year-old Khelif had intended to return to international competition at the Eindhoven tournament this weekend before World Boxing announced its new…

Billy Joel is sharing a message with fans for the first time since revealing he was diagnosed with a rare brain condition called normal pressure hydrocephalus.Susan Lacy and Jessica Levin, the directors of Joel’s new documentary, “Billy Joel: And So It Goes,” passed along the 76-year-old’s message at the film’s world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City on Wednesday.”Getting old sucks, but it’s still preferable to getting cremated,” Joel’s note to fans stated.Lacy added that Joel is determined to return and “will be back.”PHOTO: Billy Joel performs, Nov. 9, 2024 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Ethan Miller/Getty…

WASHINGTON (AP) — Three decades ago, foreign students at Harvard University accounted for just 11% of the total student body. Today, they account for 26%.Like other prestigious U.S. universities, Harvard for years has been cashing in on its global cache to recruit the world’s best students. Now, the booming international enrollment has left colleges vulnerable to a new line of attack from President Donald Trump. The president has begun to use his control over the nation’s borders as leverage in his fight to reshape American higher education.Trump’s latest salvo against Harvard uses a broad federal law to bar foreign students…

CHICAGO (AP) — The Chicago White Sox have reached an agreement that will give Justin Ishbia, the brother of Phoenix Suns owner Mat Ishbia, the chance to buy a future controlling interest in the club.The team made the announcement Thursday, adding that Ishbia will make capital infusions into the White Sox as a limited partner in 2025 and 2026, which will be used to pay down existing debt and support ongoing team operations. Ishbia was already a limited partner. His brother, Mat, and father, Jeff Ishbia, also will be “significant investors,” the team said. Justin is the second-largest shareholder with…

Anthropic says it has released a new set of AI models tailored for U.S. national security customers. The new models, a custom set of “Claude Gov” models, were “built based on direct feedback from our government customers to address real-world operational needs,” writes Anthropic in the blog post. Compared to Anthropic’s consumer- and enterprise-focused models, the new custom Claude Gov models were designed to be applied to government operations like strategic planning, operational support, and intelligence analysis. “[These] models are already deployed by agencies at the highest level of U.S. national security, and access to these models is limited to…

A woman’s testimony that Sean “Diddy” Combs’ dangled her over a 17-story balcony demonstrated the “mob-like behavior” that prosecutors need to prove racketeering conspiracy, former federal prosecutor Alyse Adamson said today. Bryana Bongolan testified yesterday that Combs held her over a balcony and threw her onto balcony furniture in September 2016. The incident was previously mentioned in a civil suit filed by Bongolan against Combs in November 2024. “I think it’s extremely impactful, if the jury ultimately believes it,” Adamson said on “CNN This Morning with Audie Cornish.” “That’s mob-like behavior,” Adamson said. “And that’s what prosecutors need” to prove…

Angelo Sotira started the online digital art platform DeviantArt when he was just a teenager, growing a formative community for millions of artists in the 2000s. Twenty-five years later, Sotira wants to change digital art again, but with a focus on the way it’s displayed. On Thursday, Sotira revealed his new venture, Layer, a screen specifically designed to showcase digital art in the best quality possible. “The way that the canvas needs to perform and behave in your life is quite different than other types of displays,” Sotira told TechCrunch. “It needs to blend into beautiful environments.” The closest point…

ISLAMABAD (AP) — This year’s Hajj in Saudi Arabia attracted the lowest number of pilgrims for 30 years, excluding the COVID-19 pandemic period, according to figures released Thursday.The annual Islamic pilgrimage attracted just 1,673,230 Muslims, the majority of them from outside Saudi Arabia, according to a post from the country’s Hajj Ministry on the social platform X.Authorities did not immediately offer an explanation for the low turnout.It’s almost 160,000 fewer pilgrims than last year and a far cry from the pre-pandemic boom, when attendance would regularly push past 2 million. There was a record-breaking Hajj in 2012, when more than…