Though the new Switch 2 exclusive game has real Yharnam vibes, the main multiplayer gameplay loop has me raising an eyebrow.

A new expansion for the Dead by Daylight: The Board Game is on the way. Read more

Office closures, staffing and service cuts, and policy changes at the Social Security Administration (SSA) have caused complete, utter chaos and are threatening to send the agency into a death spiral, according to workers at the agency.The SSA operates the largest government program in the US, administering social insurance programs, including retirement, disability and survivor benefits.An average of almost 69 million Americans per month will receive a social security benefit in 2025, totaling about $1.6tn in benefits paid during the year and accounting for 22% of the federal budget. While expensive and challenged by an ageing population, social security remains overwhelmingly popular with Americans. But the agency has been dubbed a Ponzi scheme by Elon Musk, the billionaire whose so-called department of government efficiency (Doge) is currently slashing its staff and budgets.They have these concepts of plans that theyre hoping are sticking but in reality, are really hurting American people, said a longtime SSA employee and military veteran who requested to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation. No one knows whats going on. Theyre just coming up with ideas at the top of their head.The SSA website has crashed several times this month. Wired reported Doge staff want to migrate all social security data and rewrite code in months, which could cause system collapse and further outages.The agency plans to eliminate the jobs of 7,000 workers at the agency through voluntary buyouts, resignations or firings, though the union representing SSA employees anticipate even more firings beyond cutting staff to 50,000 workers.Acting commissioner Leland Dudek has acknowledged to staff that Doge are making the decisions at the agency. Musk, Donald Trump and others have claimed action is being taken to tackle widespread fraud at the agency.Dudek was appointed acting commissioner after he reportedly secretly shared information with Doge staff. He has threatened to shut down the agency in response to a court order barring Doge from accessing the data.Its just been a lot of craziness, a lot of foolishness. Until they get rid of Doge and the person in office right now, and the Republicans actually get a backbone and stand up for something for once in their lives, things are just going to be complete chaos. Thats really the best word to describe SSA right now, just complete, utter chaos, the worker added. They couldnt understand the coding, so everything they said SSA was doing illegally, they werent. Common sense is something they lack. They dont know what theyre doing.Rich Couture, a spokesman for the American Federation of Government Employees Social Security Administration general committee, the union representing roughly 42,000 social security workers, said Doges public targets for cuts make no sense.Why are they cutting 7,000 jobs, asked Couture. It has never been explained with any degree of clarity how they came up with that figure. Whats being served by that by a loss of 7,000 jobs? How does any of that supposedly makes this operation more efficient? How does it improve service? How does it improve productivity? Our position is that losing 7,000 people doesnt do any of those things, he said.I dont think theyre going to stop at 7,000 people lost. If they lose 10,000 or 12,000, theyre running up their high score. Theyre able to brag about it.Departments at the agency have been closed and reorganized, with workers forced to take reassignments or risk firings, and all workers have been ordered to return to the office five days a week.Couture noted the return to office order occurred a day before a buyout offer was set to expire, in violation of union contract agreements, and the offices were not prepared or equipped to handle it, as many workers had no desks or equipment to work.Phone services for the public have also been cut, and field and regional offices are slated for closure around the US.There is no safe office in this country, added Couture. Its a concerted attack on the legitimacy of social security itself. The promise that this country has made to the public with respect to income security is being broken.The cuts come as staffing is already at a 50-year low despite the agency serving a record number of recipients as the US population above the age of 65 is growing.The office of the inspector general at SSA reported in August 2024 that a record backlog of payment actions impacting social security beneficiaries was due to lack of staffing, increased workloads, and decreased funding for the agency, driving improper payments because staff werent available to update records.Couture noted the operating overhead of the agency, as a share of benefits paid out, has shrunk by 20% over the last ten years and is now less than 1%. He disputed any claims of inefficiency or waste at the agency, claiming the agency is already a model of efficiency and as effective as possible under its fiscal and staffing constraints.He said he was concerned the situation was creating a negative feedback loop where, as more employees leave, more work is put on those remaining, depressing morale and inducing more to leave until the agency ends up in a death spiral with staffing, inducing office closures.skip past newsletter promotionSign up to This Week in TrumplandFree newsletterA deep dive into the policies, controversies and oddities surrounding the Trump administrationPrivacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.after newsletter promotionYoure going to see a wholesale collapse in the agencys service structure. Call wait times will skyrocket, wait times for appointments, processing times, all of it going to skyrocket because there wont be enough people to do the jobs, which opens the door to privatization.Musk has called social security the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time and has consistently pushed false claims and conspiracies about the program.On senator Ted Cruzs podcast last month, Musk repeated a white supremacist conspiracy theory that Democrats use entitlements to attract and retain undocumented immigrants as voters.This week, Musk shared a chart of immigrants receiving social security numbers, falsely claiming theyre receiving benefits, though the program of providing social security numbers to legal immigrants began under Trumps first term as part of program to facilitate employment. Hes also falsely claimed dead people are receiving benefits, despite the acting commissioner of the SSA has dispelled the claim.In 2024, social security direct deposit fraud was at a rate of 0.00625% and less than 1% of social security payments had been found to be incorrect.US commerce secretary and billionaire Howard Lutnick claimed in an interview on a podcast earlier this month that only a fraudster would complain about missing a social security benefit check.I worked there for 32 and a half years, and I rarely saw cases of fraud, said John Oertel, a retired SSA employee for over 32 years in Redding, California.Because the agency is so understaffed that people who report their income, thats not getting reported into the system. Musk and his group are saying look at all these people who are being overpaid, they must be committing fraud. Theyre not committing fraud. Theyre doing what theyre supposed to be doing, but because there are so few employees, none of that information is getting into the system.Oertel also dismissed false claims from Trump and Musk that dead people are getting social security benefits.They dont understand or they dont care. Those people arent collecting benefits, but the numbers are still technically active, because you cant just erase social security numbers, he said, noting that the numbers began being issued in the 1930s and are not deleted or reused, so they still remain in the system. President Trump, Elon Musk, and whoever the next commissioner is going to be, I really think their ultimate goal is just to destroy social security.A spokesperson for the SSA deferred to press releases on the cuts and reorganization of the agency.We have listened to our customers, Congress, advocates, and others, and we are updating our policy to provide better customer service to the countrys most vulnerable populations, said Dudek, the SSAs acting commissioner. In addition to extending the policys effective date by two weeks to ensure our employees have the training they need to help customers, Medicare, Disability, and SSI applications will be exempt from in-person identity proofing because multiple opportunities exist during the decision process to verify a persons identity.They said in regard to office closures, that to use our space more efficiently, we provided [the General Services Administration] a list of leases for termination, and claimed that the return-to-office mandate was ordered to ensure maximum staffing is available to support the stronger in-person identity proofing requirement.On claims of waste, fraud and abuse, a spokesperson said in an email: The agency will continue to monitor and, if necessary, make adjustments to ensure it pays the right person the right amount at the right time while safeguarding the benefits and programs it administers.

Here's where you can find Rainbow Road.New key art for Donkey Kong Bananza isn't the only thing that's apparently popped up on Nintendo's Korean website. It seems there's also been a track confirmation for Mario Kart World.Read the full article on nintendolife.com

In BriefPosted:11:10 AM PDT April 6, 2025Image Credits:Artur Widak/NurPhoto / Getty ImagesWhite House reportedly blames auto-suggested iPhone contact for Signal scandalHow did Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg get added to a Signal group chat with Trump administration officials discussing their plans for an airstrike in Yemen?The simplest explanation: National Security Adviser Mike Waltz had Goldberg saved as a contact in his phone and accidentally added him. Indeed, when Waltz first claimed that Goldbergs phone number was sucked in from another contact, Goldberg scoffed, This isnt The Matrix.But according to the Guardian, an internal investigation conducted by the White Houses information technology office concluded that something more complicated taken place, with an iPhone auto-suggestion playing a key role: After Goldberg emailed the White House for comment on a story, a Trump spokesperson, Brian Hughes, texted the contents of Goldbergs email to Waltz.As a result, Waltzs iPhone offered a contact suggestion update that ultimately saved Goldbergs phone number under Hughes name. Then, when Waltz tried to add Hughes now a spokesperson for the National Security Council to the chat, he supposedly ended up adding Goldberg instead.For his part, Goldberg said, Im not going to comment on my relationship with Mike Waltz beyond saying I do know him and have spoken to him.Topics

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Why it matters: Quantum computers promise to tackle problems that stump even the most advanced supercomputers. Getting there is a different story, though. One of the biggest hurdles is efficiently connecting multiple quantum processors so they can share information without errors. A new interconnect device by MIT researchers could solve this problem. Current quantum-computing systems rely on clunky "point-to-point" connections, where data is transferred in a chain and has to jump between nodes. Unfortunately, each hop also increases the likelihood of errors.To address this issue, MIT researchers developed a quantum interconnect component that lets superconducting processors talk directly to each other without a "middleman." The device uses microwave photons to shuttle data, and it could finally pave the way for a scalable, error-resistant quantum supercomputer.At the heart of this breakthrough is a superconducting wire (a waveguide), which acts as a quantum highway that lets the photons zip between processors. The team connected two quantum modules to this waveguide, allowing them to send and receive photons on demand. Each module contains four qubits that act as an interface and convert photons into usable quantum data.Developing accurate, scalable quantum computers involves the creation of remote entanglement. This bizarre phenomenon links two quantum particles that instantly match each other's state regardless of distance. Entangled qubits act as a single system, enabling mind-bending algorithms that traditional computers could never perform.Unfortunately, simply firing full photons back and forth doesn't enable entanglement. Therefore, the researchers devised an odd process that stops the emission process halfway. Doing this leaves the system in a weird quantum limbo where the photon is paradoxically emitted and retained simultaneously. When the receiving module absorbs this "half-photon," the two processors become entangled even though they're not physically linked.The researchers also have to deal with photon distortion as they travel, which makes them more challenging to capture. To address this problem, the team trained an algorithm to tweak the photon's shape for maximum absorption. The result was a 60-percent success rate high enough to confirm genuine entanglement. These results are similar to Oxford's method, which uses an ion trap to create successful entanglement 70 percent of the time. // Related StoriesThe implications are enormous. Unlike today's patchwork quantum setups, this architecture supports "all-to-all" connectivity, meaning any number of processors can communicate directly. Future improvements like 3D integration or faster protocols could also increase absorption rates."In principle, our remote entanglement generation protocol can also be expanded to other kinds of quantum computers and bigger quantum internet systems," Aziza Almanakly, an electrical engineering and computer science graduate student, concluded.The team recently published its research in Nature Physics. It's also worth noting that the US Army Research Office, AWS Center for Quantum Computing, and the US Air Force Office of Scientific Research funded MIT's efforts.Image credit: Ella Maru Studio

Youll need to spend a significant amount of cash if you want a desktop PC that can handle heavy workloads, but fortunately, there are desktop computer deals that will let you pocket some savings along the way. You should consider going for the Dell Precision 3680 Tower Workstation, which is on sale for $1,519 instead of $1,649. The $130 discount may not look like much, but you can consider it as a bonus for this powerful PC. Hurry with your purchase to make sure you dont miss out!The Dell Precision 3660 Tower Workstation is our top choice among the best desktop PCs for 3D rendering, but its successor, the Dell Precision 3680 Tower Workstation, is ready to take that throne with upgraded specifications. The desktop computer is powered by the 14th-generation Intel Core i7 processor, the AMD Radeon Pro W6400 graphics card, and 16GB of RAM, which will allow it to keep up with demanding activities even when youre multitasking between them.With Windows 11 Pro pre-installed, youll have access to the operating systems advanced features on the Dell Precision 3680 Tower Workstation. It also features a 512GB SSD, which will give you ample storage space for the apps that you regularly use and the files that you need within reach. Every purchase of the desktop PC even comes with a wired keyboard and optical mouse, so youve got everything you need for your computer setup if you already have a monitor.RelatedThe Dell Precision 3680 Tower Workstation already offers amazing value at its original price of $1,649, so any discount is a welcome sight, even if its just $130. The desktop PC is down to $1,519 from Dell, but if you want to buy it at this price, we highly recommend hurrying in completing your transaction because the bargain may end at any moment. If you want a good look at the projects that youre working on with the Dell Precision 3680 Tower Workstation, you should also think about upgrading with these monitor deals.Editors Recommendations

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent appeared on NBC's "Meet the Press" with Kristen Welker on Sunday. AP Photo/Evan Vucci 2025-04-06T16:54:56Z SaveSaved Read in app This story is available exclusively to Business Insider subscribers. Become an Insider and start reading now.Have an account? Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent appeared on NBC News' "Meet the Press" on Sunday.Bessent discussed President Donald Trump's tariffs and this week's stock market sell-off.He rejected warnings of a recession and said more than 50 nations were trying to negotiate tariffs.Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent appeared on NBC News' "Meet the Press" on Sunday, facing some pointed questions about the two-day stock market crash that followed President Donald Trump's "Liberation Day" tariff announcement this week.During the interview, Bessent told host Kristen Welker that Trump's sweeping levies were necessary and pushed back at warnings of a recession."I see no reason that we have to price in a recession," he said."What we're looking at is building the long-term economic fundamentals for prosperity," he added.Pressed whether Trump's latest barrage of tariffs would be permanent or whether they were simply a negotiating tactic, Bessent said Trump had "created maximum leverage for himself" and that over 50 countries were trying to negotiate the duties."More than 50 countries have approached the administration about lowering their non-tariff trade barriers, lowering their tariffs, stopping currency manipulation," he said, adding that any talks would take time.Elsewhere in the interview, Bessent attempted to reassure Americans concerned about the potential impact to their retirement plans.The Treasury Secretary said it was a "false narrative" that people looking to retire in the near future may be apprehensive about doing so after their retirement savings may have taken a hit in the stock market this week."Americans who want to retire right now, the Americans who put away for years in their savings accounts, I think they don't look at the day-to-day fluctuations," Bessent said."In fact, most Americans don't have everything in the market," he continued. "The reason the stock market is considered a good investment is because it's a long-term investment. If you look day to day, week to week, it's very risky." US President Donald Trump announced new import tariffs. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images Trump announced his "Liberation Day" tariffs on Wednesday, and a baseline 10% rate on trading partners came into effect on Saturday. Some nations, such as Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam, are set to face far higher rates that are set to begin on April 9.Vietnam said on Sunday that it was prepared to negotiate to remove all tariffs on US goods as it seeks to delay the 46% levy on Vietnamese imports set out by the Trump administration.A special envoy from Vietnam will head to the US to continue talks on the matter, a senior Vietnamese official said, according to a government press release.Recommended video