Time zones: GMT (UTC +0)ABOUT THE TEAMOur Customer Support team is based in several different countries, providing support to customers around the globe. We have a rich mixture of cultures and backgrounds and have a strong team spirit of helping each other. Our work helps unlock customers using our platform and drives improved customer satisfaction and engagement.YOUR MISSIONAs a Customer Support Representative you will respond to customer requests, provide general support and engage with customers to help them achieve their goals. As a successful candidate you will be able to convey how exciting and innovative our software is. You will turn our current customer base into Mural fanatics by showing how easy and fun it is to collaborate in design thinking with Mural.WHAT YOU'LL DOManage and respond to customer requestsUnderstand our customers and become their advocateEducate and instruct customers through email, chat, phone call and videoAssist the Customer Experience team with managing their accounts as neededCollaborate with the Product team on how to improve the productCollaborate with Customer Success on education programsWHAT YOU'LL BRING2+ years experience in software customer support (ideally B2B)Fluency in spoken and written English (additional languages are a plus)Willingness and passion for understanding, helping and teaching customersThe curiosity to find new, better ways to solve problemsA strong passion to help teams succeed, and empathy with usersExperience troubleshooting and reporting software bugsExperience tracking bugs with a QA and development teamGreat visual communication skillsThe ability to provide clear and concise guidance through emails, over the phone, video or in personAvailability to work some weekend shiftsThe hours will be 14:00 to 22:00 ARTEqual OpportunityWe will ensure that individuals with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodation to participate in the job application or interview process, to perform essential job functions, and to receive other benefits and privileges of employment. Please contact us to request accommodation.

Looking for the most recent Strands answer?Click here for our daily Strands hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.Todays NYTStrandspuzzle is actually a really fun one. Once you see the pattern in the answers, you should be able to solve it without too much trouble. But if you need hints and answers, read on.Also, I go into depth about therules for Strands in this story.If you're looking for today's Wordle, Connections and Mini Crossword answers, you can visitCNET's NYT puzzle hints page.Read more:NYT Connections Turns 1: These Are the 5 Toughest Puzzles So FarHint for today's Strands puzzleToday's Strands theme is:Seeing double.If that doesn't help you, here's a clue: Like bookkeeper.Clue words to unlock in-game hintsYour goal is to find hidden words that fit the puzzle's theme. If you're stuck, find any words you can. Every time you find three words of four letters or more, Strands will reveal one of the theme words. These are the words I used to get those hints, but any words of four or more letters that you find will work:LOOT,WOOT, BATE, TABS, SEEN, LOON, SOON, SLED, WHIP, CUFF, SLAB, POOR, MEET, BALLAnswers for today's Strands puzzleThese are the answers that tie into the theme. The goal of the puzzle is to find them all, including the spangram, a theme word that reaches from one side of the puzzle to the other. When you've got all of them (I originally thought there were always eight but learned that the number can vary), every letter on the board will be used. Here are the nonspangram answers:COFFEE, BALLOON, SUCCEED, COMMITTEE, WHIPPOORWILLToday's Strands spangramToday's Strands spangram isLETTERS.To find it, start with the L that's five letters down in the far left row, and wind across. The completed NYT Strands puzzle for Saturday, Jan. 25, 2025. NYT/Screenshot by CNET

Looking for the most recent Connections answers? Click here for today's Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands puzzles.Today's Connections puzzle isn't easy. But if you like knowing about the history of words we absorbed into English, you'll get a kick out of the blue group. Read on for clues and today's Connections answers.The Times now has a Connections Bot, like the one for Wordle. Go there after you play to receive a numeric score and to have the program analyze your answers. And players who are registered with the Times Games section can now nerd out by following their progress, including number of puzzles completed, win rate, number of times they nabbed a perfect score and their win streak.Read more:Hints, Tips and Strategies to Help You Win at NYT Connections Every TimeHints for today's Connections groupsHere are four hints for the groupings in today's Connections puzzle, ranked from the easiest, yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.Yellow group hint: The bell is ringing.Green group hint: Downhill time.Blue group hint: Thanks, Tokyo.Purple group hint: It means three.Answers for today's Connections groupsYellow group: School periods.Green group: Features of a ski resort.Blue group: Words derived from Japanese.Purple group: Words after the prefix "tri-".Read more: Wordle Cheat Sheet: Here Are the Most Popular Letters Used in English WordsWhat are today's Connections answers? The completed NYT Connections puzzle for Jan. 25, 2025, #594. NYT/Screenshot by CNETThe yellow words in today's ConnectionsThe theme is school periods. The four answers are class, homeroom, lunch and recess.The green words in today's ConnectionsThe theme is features of a ski resort. The four answers are lift, lodge, mogul and slope.The blue words in today's ConnectionsThe theme is words derived from Japanese. The four answers are emoji, ginkgo, karaoke and tycoon.The purple words in today's ConnectionsThe theme is words after the prefix "tri-". The four answers are angle, cycle, dent and pod.

January 24, 20253 min readRain Is Coming to Burning Los Angeles and Will Bring Its Own RisksThe Los Angeles area is expecting rain this weekendpotentially offering a respite from fires that have blazed throughout the month but increasing the risk of debris slidesBy Meghan Bartels edited by Dean VisserTrees burned by the Palisades Fire are seen from Will Rogers State Park, with the City of Los Angeles in the background on January 15, 2025. Apu Gomes/Getty ImagesThe Los Angeles area has been at the mercy of fire and wind this month, and this weekend a third element will join the mix: water.Rain is forecast to begin as soon as Saturday afternoon and to continue as late as Monday evening, says meteorologist Kristan Lund of the National Weather Services Los Angeles office. The area desperately needs the precipitation, but experts are warily monitoring the situation because rain poses its own risks in recently burned areasmost notably the potential occurrence of mudslides and similar hazards.Rain is good because weve been so dry, Lund says. However, if we get heavier rain rates or we get the thunderstorms, its actually a lot more dangerous because you can get debris flows.On supporting science journalismIf you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.A burned hillside in the aftermath of the Palisades Fire in the Mandeville Canyon area of Los Angeles, California, on January 12, 2025.Kyle Grillot/Bloomberg via Getty ImagesFires do a couple of different things to the landscape that can increase the risk of burned material, soil and detritus hurtling out of control.When fires burn hot or long enough, they leave an invisible layer of waxy material just under the surface of the ground. This develops from decomposing leaves and other organic material, which contain naturally hydrophobic or water-repellent compounds. Fire can vaporize this litter, and the resulting gas seeps into the upper soilwhere it quickly cools and condenses, forming the slippery layer.When rain falls on ground that has been affected by this phenomenon, it cant sink beyond the hydrophobic layerso the water flows away, often hauling debris with it. All of the trees, branches, everything thats been burnedunfortunately, if it rains, that stuff just floats, Lund says. Its really concerning.Even a fire that isnt severe enough to create a hydrophobic layer can still cause to debris flows, says Danielle Touma, a climate scientist at the University of Texas at Austin. Under normal conditions, trees and other plants usually trap some rain above the surface, slowing the waters downward journey. But on freshly burned land theres much less greenery to interfere; all the rain immediately hits the ground.And whereas healthy vegetation holds soil together with its roots, fires can easily burn off the fine roots that do most of that work. So then you have all this loose soil that can be transported by water as well, Touma says.This month the three largest Los Angelesarea fires have created nearly 50,000 acres of fresh burn scar, Lund notes, and some of that scar is in mountainous terrain that facilitates mudslides. Current forecasts suggest the rain will mostly fall below the rate of a quarter-inch per hourbelow the intensity that tends to increase the risk of debris flows, Lund says. But this weekend the region does face a 10 to 20 percent chance of thunderstorms, which can cause short bursts of rain that may be heavy enough to trigger flows.Fortunately, the rain should also help firefighters tame the blazes that remain active. The largest, the Palisades Fire, is currently 77 percent contained. The second largest, the Eaton Fire, is 95 percent contained. The Hughes Fire is third largest and only 56 percent contained. A fire can be fully contained but still burning. The containment percentage refers to the amount of the perimeter that has barriers that firefighters expect will prevent further spread.This weekends rain may offer a respite, but it wont end the regions risk of blazes. Unfortunately, we pretty much need a widespread two to three inches to really end what we call high fire season, Lund says. It will help, but it wont pull us out of high fire season.Even once the fires stop burning, the risk of debris flows will remainand will linger far beyond the coming weeks. Debris flows are most worrying within the first two years of a fire, Lund says, but depending on conditions, they can occur even longer after a burn scar forms. Recovering from a fire includes surveying the land to see where the debris flow risk is highest and what can be done to protect people in such areas, Touma says. There is work to be done even if the storm passes and nothing happens. Were still not in the clear.In general, Toumas work indicates that this scenariorecent fire conditions followed by heavy rainswill continue to become increasingly common as climate change unfolds and the warmer atmosphere is able to hold and deliver larger amounts of water. We should be expecting more of these postfire debris flows in the future, just based on meteorological conditions, Touma says.

January 24, 20254 min readTrump Abruptly Cancels Crucial Science Reviews at NIH, Worlds Largest Public Funder of Biomedical ResearchPresident Trump has placed an indefinite suspension on research grant reviews and travel at the National Institutes of Health and appears to have erased diversity programming pages at the agencys websiteBy Max Kozlov & Nature magazine A vaccine research centre on the campus of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. Grandbrothers/Alamy Stock PhotoConfusion and anxiety is rippling through the US health-research community this week following Donald Trump taking office as the 47th US president. His administration has abruptly cancelled research-grant reviews, travel and trainings for scientists inside and outside the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the worlds largest public biomedical funder. Adding to the worry: the Trump team appears to have deleted entire webpages about diversity programmes and diversity-related grants from the agencys site.The cancelling of meetings and travel is part of a pause in external communications issued on 21 January by the NIHs parent organization, the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Researchers who spoke to Nature say that although a short, daylong pause in communications at US agencies has occurred in the past when new administrations have started, to reorient strategy, the reach and length of the Trump teams it is set to last until at least 1 February is unprecedented. Without advisory-committee meetings, the NIH cannot issue research grants, temporarily freezing 80% of the agencys US$47-billion budget that funds research across the country and beyond.Ive never seen anything like this before, says Carole LaBonne, a developmental biologist at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, who has received funding from the agency for more than 20 years. The uncertainty caused by the pause will be devastating for the scientific community, particularly for early-career researchers, LaBonne adds.On supporting science journalismIf you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.The pause includes mass communications and public appearances that are not directly related to emergencies or critical to preserving health, according to an NIH spokesperson. This is a short pause to allow the new team to set up a process for review and prioritization.NIH and HHS spokespeople did not respond to queries about whether grant-review panels were considered public appearances and why they were cancelled, or about concerns from researchers that the pause will hinder the agencys mission.A mission under threat?Typically, the NIH awards research grants after two separate panels of independent specialists in a particular scientific field have reviewed project proposals. On Wednesday, reports emerged on the social-media platforms X and Bluesky that grant-review panels scheduled prior to 2 February had been cancelled without any indication of when they would be rescheduled.These panels, called study sections and advisory councils, are sometimes scheduled a year in advance and can include more than 30 participating researchers, so it will take time to reschedule and might result in a domino effect of cancellations. Researchers awaiting a grant-review decision may be laid off or forced to seek employment elsewhere if funding is uncertain or delayed, LaBonne says. Early-career researchers are particularly at risk, as it can mean missing research milestones and jeopardize hiring, promotion and tenure decisions, she adds.Harold Varmus, a former NIH director who is now a cancer researcher at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York City, says that putting a hold on communications of new policies when theres a new presidential administration can make sense. But the extensive remit of the current pause is counter to the agencys mission, he says. The US Congress allocates budget money to the NIH for funding research, he adds, so the will of Congress will be challenged if we dont change what is going on.Esther Choo, an emergency-medicine physician at the Oregon Health & Science University in Portland, wrote on Bluesky on 22 January that a study section she was supposed to participate in was cancelled this week. As a reviewer on grant proposals, she said, you constantly read ideas for research projects that could be a game changer in health. She added: I hope we get back on track soon. There are real people, real lives waiting on the science.The communications pause also includes the NIHs sibling agencies, including the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which helps to protect the health of people in the United States. Today, the CDC did not publish its weekly digest on disease statistics and research, called the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, that scientists and health practitioners around the world rely on the first time in the digests 60-year history. Three reports about the emerging H5N1 avian-flu outbreak were supposed to be published in this weeks edition, according to The Washington Post.Diversity goalsAdding to the uncertainty among researchers, the Trump administration also seems to have erased all materials relating to structural racism and diversity from the NIH website. The NIH has been criticized by the research community over the years for a lack of racial and ethnic diversity in those who win grants from the agency critiques that are warranted and urgent as the United States and its scientists become more diverse, Varmus says.These deletions are likely the result of Trumps Day 1 executive order to end what he calls radical and wasteful government diversity programmes and to suspend the employment of anyone working in those roles.Now missing from the NIH website is application information regarding grants called diversity supplements, which provide early-career researchers with up to $125,000 and a maximum of five years of training and mentorship opportunities. Also gone are materials from the agencys Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and an agency-wide initiative called UNITE that aimed to tackle structural racism in the biomedical workforce.The community has struggled to diversify the scientific workforce theres only been modest progress, LaBonne says. And now its been erased with the stroke of a pen.This article is reproduced with permission and was first published on January 23, 2025.

Some spirits apparently gave Adele a hello from the other side at the English mansion that she rented in 2012rendering it unsellable, if you ask the current owner. According to the BBC, the owner of the landmarked Lock House in Partridge Green, West Sussex, has struggled to sell the place ever since the singer allegedly said it haunted. The owner, who reportedly bought the 32-acre property in 2003, has been trying to offload it for 14 years, per the BBC. In the hopes of rectifying the situation, the owner has submitted plans for approval that involve dividing the Grade II-listed 10-bedroom manse into three separate units and converting a garage into a cottage.The first tenant, Adele, stayed for six months and blighted the property by saying it is haunted, the request claims. This comment negatively impacted future marketing efforts and continues to affect the propertys reputation to this day.Early on in her tenancy at the mansion, which was originally built in 1909, the Rolling in the Deep singer invited Anderson Cooper inside during an interview for CBSs 60 Minutes. While she did not explicitly say that the house was haunted, she did say, This bits all quite scary, really. It was a convent for a little while, while showing the news host around. Subsequent tabloid reporting added fuel to the fire, citing an anonymous source who claimed that Adele was convinced [the home] is haunted and hired a bodyguard so that she wouldnt have to sleep alone on the expansive property. Im not rattling around here on my own. It gives me the creeps, she allegedly said to a friend.Join NowBecome an AD PRO member for only $25 $20 per month + receive an exclusive toteArrowThe request to renovate states that the closest it ever got to selling was in 2020, but the prospective buyer allegedly withdrew their offer after finding out it could be haunted. Priced at about $7.5 million, the nearly 20,000-square-foot pad boasts both indoor and outdoor swimming pools, a tennis court, a helipad, a sauna, and a wine cellar.

Home altars have always held a central place in my domestic life, not as religious relics but as deeply personal spaces that anchor me amidst changes and challenges. Moving out of state to college, relocating internationally, and then navigating the demands of a fast-paced careereach transition was made a little easier by the presence of an altar. These sacred spaces provide grounding, a sense of home when far from the familiar, and a connection to the people, memories, and objects that matter most.Through my experiences, Ive come to see home altars as more than static displays; they are ever-evolving spaces that reflect my emotions, intentions, and personal growth. In seeking to understand how others approach altar-making, I spoke with three designers: Laura Kirar, Josu Ramos Espinoza, and Mike Diaz. Each offered a distinct perspective on creating and curating altars, shaped by their cultural heritage, creative practices, and personal philosophies.What struck me in these conversations was the harmonious blending of design, meaning, and healing in altar-making. Whether inspired by the seasons or crafted with intention to hold energy, these altars create spaces for reflection, connection, and restoration, deepening our bond with ourselves and the world around us.Their insights reveal how altars serve as vessels for healing, artistic expression, and storytelling, effortlessly woven into the rhythms of daily life. Like my own, their altars are not just collections of objects but profound reflections of their journeysof who they are, where theyve been, and where they are headed.The author's altar in her Brooklyn apartment.Photo: Yohance BartonA seasonal approach to designWhen Laura Kirar first moved into her 300-year-old hacienda in Mexico, the artist and designer considered converting an old chapel into a bedroom. However, during renovations, workers uncovered remains beneath the chapel floor. The discovery of those remains shifted my perspective entirely, she recalls. Instead of covering up the space, I knew I had to honor it in a way that respected its history.

Blue Boogie BurialBlue Protocol gets the funeral every dying live service thing deserves, a massive hours-long rave with anime avatars busting a perfectly synced-up moveDance til' the game's dead.Image credit: Bandai Namco News by Mark Warren Senior Staff Writer Published on Jan. 24, 2025 More live service games are being killed than ever before at the moment, or at least it feels that way. Lots of publishers are continuing to try and take as many swings as possible at landing a big home run online cash cow, but it's a tough market, so the ones that don't catch on in a huge way often end up being viewed as just losses to cut.The result is shutdowns like MMORPG Blue Protocol saw earlier this week, when it reached the end date publisher Bandai Namco set out last summer - before the game could even make it to the west - earlier this week. Luckily, the game's hardcore Japanese playerbase was ready to see it off in fashion. With a huge dance party in a town square.To see this content please enable targeting cookies. As reported by Japanese site Nlab (via Automaton), the countdown to Blue Protocol's demise on January 18 saw an improptu mass rave kick off and run for what looks to be at least four and a half hours.Twitter user michsuzu shared a couple of videos of them and their BP brethren in action, standing in nice lines and triggering dancing animations on their avatars in perfectly synced-up fashion. The backing music was the game's whimsical flute tunes, but to be honest, I think you could edit any classic banger over it and it'd still work, be it a bit of The Prodigy, The Chemical Brothers, or even Faithless' Insomnia. To see this content please enable targeting cookies.The game's starting town, Asterliese, was the site of this tearful busting of moves in honour of a soon-to-be-departed brother, and it looks to have run from at least 5:30 PM Japan time until 10PM, which is when the game shut down, as you can see in the second clip.How did it end? Well, with a farewell message thanking players for being there til' the end, and then a final spasm as the servers disconnected. RIP, Blue Protocol. You lived a weird ass life, that's to be sure, and you'll not soon be forgotten by those who strutted and twirled mounfully as you were lowered into the ground and your server soul floated away to the great live service beyond.In a suitably weird twist given this game's lifespan, Automaton reports that this isn't techincally even the proper end for Blue Protocol - it's set to be "re-incarnated" as a new MMORPG called Star Resonance, developed by Tencent-backed Chinese studio Bokura.So, er, RIP Blue Protocol? You 'died' as you lived - in kinda bizarre fashion.

Companies spent significantly more lobbying AI issues at the U.S. federal level last year compared to 2023 amid regulatory uncertainty.According to data compiled by OpenSecrets, 648 companies spent on AI lobbying in 2024 versus 458 in 2023, representing a 141% year-over-year increase. Companies like Microsoft supported legislation such as the CREATE AI Act, which would support the benchmarking of AI systems developed in the U.S. Others, including OpenAI, put their weight behind the Advancement and Reliability Act, which would set up a dedicated government center for AI research. Most AI labs that is, companies dedicated almost exclusively to commercializing various kinds of AI tech spent more backing legislative agenda items in 2024 than in 2023, the data shows. OpenAI upped its lobbying expenditures to $1.76 million last year from $260,000 in 2023. Anthropic, OpenAIs close rival, more than doubled its spend from $280,000 in 2023 to $720,000 last year, and enterprise-focused startup Cohere boosted its spending to $230,000 in 2024 from just $70,000 two years ago.Both OpenAI and Anthropic made hires over the last year to coordinate their policymaker outreach. Anthropic brought on its first in-house lobbyist, Department of Justice alum Rachel Appleton, and OpenAI hired political veteran Chris Lehane as its new VP of policy.All told, OpenAI, Anthropic, and Cohere set aside $2.71 million combined for their 2024 federal lobbying initiatives. Thats a tiny figure compared to what the larger tech industry put toward lobbying in the same timeframe ($61.5 million), but more than four times the total that the three AI labs spent in 2023 ($610,000).TechCrunch reached out to OpenAI, Anthropic, and Cohere for comment but did not hear back as of press time.Last year was a tumultuous one in domestic AI policymaking. In the first half alone, Congressional lawmakers considered more than 90 AI-related pieces of legislation, according to the Brennan Center. At the state level, over 700 laws were proposed.Congress made little headway, prompting state lawmakers to forge ahead. Tennesseebecamethe first state to protect voice artists from unauthorizedAI cloning. Coloradoadopteda tiered, risk-based approach to AI policy. And California governor Gavin Newsom signeddozensof AI-related safety bills, a few of which require AI companies to disclose details about their training.However, no state officials were successful in enacting AI regulation as comprehensive as international frameworks like the EUs AI Act.After a protracted battle with special interests, Governor NewsomvetoedbillSB 1047, which would have imposed wide-ranging safety and transparency requirements on AI developers. Texas TRAIGA (Texas Responsible AI Governance Act) bill, which is even broader in scope, may suffer the same fate once it makes its way through the statehouse.Its unclear whether the federal government can make more progress on AI legislation this year versus last, or even whether theres a strong appetite for codification. President Donald Trump has signaled his intention to largely deregulate the industry, clearing what he perceives to be roadblocks to U.S. dominance in AI. During his first day in office, Trumprevokedan executive order by former president Joe Biden that sought to reduce risks AI might pose to consumers, workers, and national security. On Thursday, Trump signed an EO instructing federal agencies to suspend certain Biden-era AI policies and programs, potentially including export rules on AI models.In November, Anthropic called for targeted federal AI regulation within the next 18 months, warning that the window for proactive risk prevention is closing fast. For its part, OpenAIin a recent policy doc calledon the U.S. government to take moresubstantive actionon AI and infrastructure to support the technologys development.

The long gestating Tristar Pictures project will be produced by Chris Columbus, Eleanor Columbus, and Lisa Henson, with Brian Henson executive producing; Eggers will pen the script with writing partner Sjn.