Retailers Fear Toy Shortages at Christmas as Tariffs Freeze Supply Chain

NY Times - mar, 04/29/2025 - 23:26
Toy makers and stores are freezing holiday orders, predicting shortages and higher prices. Some are consulting bankruptcy lawyers, fearing their firms won’t survive.

ICE Agents Arrest Migrant Who Climbed Tree to Evade Them

NY Times - mar, 04/29/2025 - 22:56
The hourslong standoff ended when the man, a 29-year-old Guatemalan, surrendered to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in San Antonio.

No Evidence of Cremations at Mexican Ranch, Attorney General Says

NY Times - mar, 04/29/2025 - 22:27
Mexico’s top prosecutor said the ranch, which some groups searching for missing relatives had called an “extermination camp,” had been used by a cartel for training and recruiting.

Mark Carney Has to Deliver on Trump and the Economy After Canada Election Win

NY Times - mar, 04/29/2025 - 21:59
The Canadian prime minister achieved a stunning political upset, running on an anti-Trump platform and promising to revive the economy. Now, he needs to deliver.

Judge Orders Trump Officials to Disburse Funding for Radio Free Europe

NY Times - mar, 04/29/2025 - 21:28
The news organization relies almost exclusively on congressional funding, which the Trump administration has held up for weeks.

Trump Signs Executive Order Walking Back Some Auto Tariffs

NY Times - mar, 04/29/2025 - 21:15
Most levies on imported cars and car parts will remain in place, but automakers have secured some relaxation of the trade policy.

Pierre Poilievre Raised Canada’s Conservative Party, Only to Be Tossed From His Seat

NY Times - mar, 04/29/2025 - 21:02
Pierre Poilievre lost the vote for a constituency he has held for 21 years to a Liberal political neophyte. His populist approach may have been to blame.

Google Play Sees 47% Decline In Apps Since Start of Last Year

SlashDot - mar, 04/29/2025 - 20:50
Google Play's app marketplace has seen a dramatic 47% drop in available apps -- from 3.4 million to 1.8 million -- since the start of 2024. An analysis by app intelligence provider Appfigures attributes the decline to stricter quality standards, expanded human reviews, and increased enforcement against low-quality and deceptive apps. TechCrunch reports: In July 2024, Google announced it would raise the minimum quality requirements for apps, which may have impacted the number of available Play Store app listings. Instead of only banning broken apps that crashed, wouldn't install, or run properly, the company said it would begin banning apps that demonstrated "limited functionality and content." That included static apps without app-specific features, such as text-only apps or PDF file apps. It also included apps that provided little content, like those that only offered a single wallpaper. Additionally, Google banned apps that were designed to do nothing or have no function, which may have been tests or other abandoned developer efforts. Reached for comment, Google confirmed that its new policies were factors here, which also included an expanded set of verification requirements, required app testing for new personal developer accounts, and expanded human reviews to check for apps that try to deceive or defraud users. In addition, the company pointed to other 2024 investments in AI for threat detection, stronger privacy policies, improved developer tools, and more. As a result, Google prevented 2.36 million policy-violating apps from being published on its Play Store and banned more than 158,000 developer accounts that had attempted to publish harmful apps, it said. TechCrunch also notes that a new trader status rule, which went into effect in the EU this February, could be another contributing factor. It requires developers to display their names and addresses in their app listings, and failure to comply would see their apps removed from EU app stores.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Intel Says It's Rolling Out Laptop GPU Drivers With 10% To 25% Better Performance

SlashDot - mar, 04/29/2025 - 20:10
Ars Technica's Andrew Cunningham reports: Intel's oddball Core Ultra 200V laptop chips -- codenamed Lunar Lake -- will apparently be a one-off experiment, not to be replicated in future Intel laptop chips. They're Intel's only processors with memory integrated onto the CPU package; the only ones with a neural processing unit that meets Microsoft's Copilot+ performance requirements; and the only ones with Intel's best-performing integrated GPUs, the Intel Arc 130V and 140V. Today, Intel announced some updates to its graphics driver that specifically benefit those integrated GPUs, welcome news for anyone who bought one and is trying to get by with it as an entry-level gaming system. Intel says that version 32.0.101.6734 of its graphics driver can speed up average frame rates in some games by around 10 percent, and can speed up "1 percent low FPS" (that is, for any given frames per second measurement, whatever your frame rate is the slowest 1 percent of the time) by as much as 25 percent. This should, in theory, make games run better in general and ease some of the stuttering you notice when your game's performance dips down to that 1 percent level.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Dramatic Video Shows a Speedboat Flipping Through the Air at 200 M.P.H.

NY Times - mar, 04/29/2025 - 19:51
A widely shared video of the Desert Storm Race on Lake Havasu in Arizona over the weekend showed the high performance boat flying through the air, doing flips.

Floridians Are Getting Glimpses of What Aggressive Immigration Enforcement Looks Like

NY Times - mar, 04/29/2025 - 19:40
Two new laws that were demanded by Gov. Ron DeSantis have entangled every level of government, unnerving residents who had long considered the state an immigrant haven.

Paramount Board Clears Possible Path for Settling Trump’s ‘60 Minutes’ Lawsuit

NY Times - mar, 04/29/2025 - 19:32
Paramount’s interest in settling has dismayed CBS’s news division. The executive producer of “60 Minutes” abruptly resigned last week.

New York Lawmakers Reach Deal On 'Bell-To-Bell' School Cellphone Ban

SlashDot - mar, 04/29/2025 - 19:30
An anonymous reader quotes a report from CBS News: New York Gov. Kathy Hochul says a $254 billion state budget deal has been reached, including a "bell-to-bell" school cellphone ban. [...] The distraction-free policy would take effect next school year, making New York the largest state in the country with a "bell-to-bell" cellphone ban. Hochul says the plan will help protect children from addictive technology and improve their mental health. The New York State United Teachers union also came out in support of the ban, saying "we are at a crisis point." The governor previously outlined the proposal back in January, saying it would ban the use of smartphones and other internet-enabled devices on school grounds during the school day. That includes classroom time, lunch and study hall periods. "A bell-to-bell ban, morning until the day is over, is not going to hurt your kids. It's going to help them emerge with stronger mental health and resiliency," she told CBS News New York at the time. Hochul said the ban would include smartphones and other personal "smart" devices, like smartwatches. Exemptions could be made if a student requires a device to manage a medical condition or for translation purposes. Cellphones that don't have internet capability and devices that are provided by the school for lesson plans would still be allowed. The proposal would let individual schools come up with their own ways to implement the ban and store the devices, and schools would be able to decide whether to have students leave them in things like pouches, lockers or cubbies. It would also require schools to make sure parents have a way to contact their children during the day, if needed. "Protecting our communities requires more than streets where people feel safe. We need classrooms where young minds can flourish, and that means eliminating once and for all the digital distractions that steal our kids' attention," the governor said, adding, "We protected our kids before from cigarettes, alcohol and drunk driving, and now, we're protecting them from addictive technology designed to hijack their attention."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Kennedy Advises New Parents to ‘Do Your Own Research’ on Vaccines

NY Times - mar, 04/29/2025 - 19:25
In an interview with Dr. Phil, the health secretary offered false information about vaccine oversight and revealed a lack of basic understanding of new drug approvals.

A Mother and Father Were Deported Under Trump. But What Happened to Their Daughter?

NY Times - mar, 04/29/2025 - 19:14
The Trump administration sent the mother of a 2-year-old to Venezuela and the father to a Salvadoran prison. Their daughter remains somewhere in the United States.

Humans’ Wounds Heal Much More Slowly Than Other Mammals’

NY Times - mar, 04/29/2025 - 19:01
We naked apes need Band-Aids, but shedding the fur that speeds healing in other mammals may have helped us evolve other abilities.

Harvard Promises Changes After Reports on Antisemitism and Islamophobia

NY Times - mar, 04/29/2025 - 18:57
The two reports, which run hundreds of pages, come at a difficult time for the university, which is suing the Trump administration over federal funding cuts.

LG Will Shut Down Update Servers For Its Android Smartphones In June

SlashDot - mar, 04/29/2025 - 18:50
LG will permanently shut down its Android smartphone update servers on June 30, 2025, ending all software, app, and security updates for its devices. If you're still using an smartphone, you'll want to install any remaining updates before that date, as no future updates will be available afterward. 9to5Google reports: When LG called it quits for Android smartphones, the company also committed to a few more updates. That included an Android 12 update for select devices, the last major update the company would put out, as well as security updates for at least three years after each device had been released. That three-year cutoff has long since passed for all LG devices, but any devices still floating around out there will soon no longer be able to pull updates. LG's notice can be read here.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Canada Election Results: Mark Carney and the Liberal Party Fall Short of Majority

NY Times - mar, 04/29/2025 - 18:46
Final results from Monday’s crucial election showed Mark Carney’s party had secured 169 of 343 seats and would need help from other parties to pass laws.

What We Know About Phthalates in Plastic and Heart Disease

NY Times - mar, 04/29/2025 - 18:31
The paper linked phthalates, commonly found in plastics, to 350,000 deaths globally. But the data come with caveats.

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