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Baltimore has awarded a $1.6 million election contract to Sam McAfee, a former city employee who runs the city’s election warehouse. This is not typical of other Maryland counties, which usually have their own employees manage their election warehouses and vote-counting operations. The Baltimore Board of Estimates approved the deal on Wednesday, despite some officials … Read more
Instagram will no longer encrypt private messages between users starting May 8, 2026. Meta made the announcement on its help page and news post, citing low adoption rates as the reason for ending the feature. Users can still opt for encryption on WhatsApp, where it remains available. Critics argue that abandoning encryption may weaken online … Read more
The Federal Reserve announced it will keep interest rates steady for now. In a statement, Chairman Jerome Powell said the decision was made despite increased uncertainty caused by the war in the Middle East and ongoing investigations by the Department of Justice. However, Powell vowed to lower rates again if inflation – particularly goods inflation … Read more
Currently, working with large language models like Claude on consumer-grade PCs is challenging due to hardware constraints. However, recent advancements in model size and efficiency have led to smaller and more efficient LLMs suitable for local development. The Qwen3.5 model series is a prime example of this trend. To test these compact models, I set … Read more
Meta is ending its support for end-to-end encrypted (E2EE) messaging on Instagram starting May 8, 2026. The company claims low adoption rates led to the decision, but experts question this reasoning. In reality, users must manually toggle on E2EE in chat settings before sending messages. A prominent cryptographer criticized Meta’s change, citing a previous public … Read more
A top fund manager says investors, including those buying Alibaba Group Holdings Ltd. stock, are overlooking the company’s artificial intelligence potential and focusing only on its e-commerce business. This is partly due to concerns over global AI spending levels and intense competition in China, which have caused tech stocks to decline recently. As a result, … Read more
Two major social media platforms, Instagram and TikTok, have reversed their stance on end-to-end encryption for direct messages, allowing them to scan content and act on it. Meta will regain the technical ability to access message content starting May 8, while TikTok never offered the protection in the first place. This move comes after regulatory … Read more
The US Pentagon is asking the White House to approve a funding request of over $200 billion to support its war efforts in Iran, amid concerns about public support and congressional opposition. The proposal comes as tensions between the US and Iran have escalated since the joint U.S.-Israeli campaign began last month. While the exact … Read more
The US is headed for a debt spiral, with its debt expected to reach $40 trillion by the end of the year. This amount translates to $112,000 per person. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) warns that the event horizon of a debt-induced fiscal crisis is getting closer. Things have worsened since the start of the … Read more