While trying to get its Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 graphics card more solidly on the market, the component manufacturer and its retail partners have bumped into some functionality issues with the GPU that affect its performance.Several users have obtained the RTX 5090 GPU from multiple different retailers, and have reported a unique problem, where the GPU does not have as many ROPs (Raster Operations Pipeline unit) as it should to sufficiently render images in 3D post-processing.A member of the TechPowerUp forums reported that their graphics card, GeForce RTX 5090 GPU supplied by the retailer Zotac was registering as having fewer ROPs than it should. The member attempted to remedy the issue with software re-installs and switching the video BIOS, which was no help. Ultimately, thisRecommended VideosUpon further analysis, on a Zotac brand RTX 5090 GPU of their own, TechPowerUp observed that the component has 168 ROPs instead of the customary 176 ROPs. The 8 ROP difference can equate to a 4.5% difference in GPU performance; however, the publication observed performance losses of over 5% when performing benchmarks with the compromised graphics cards.Get your weekly teardown of the tech behind PC gaming With the problem affecting not only, Zotac brand, but also ASUS, Gigabyte, MSI, Palit, and NVIDIA GPUs, enthusiasts have determined that this is a hardware issue more than a software challenge.Nvidia has acknowledged the reports of performance issues with the RTX 5090 GPU, indicating that only a small number of graphics cards have been affected. The component company has also made it known that the GeForce RTX 5090D, a chip localized to the Chinese market, and GeForce RTX 5070 Ti have also been affected.We have identified a rare issue affecting less than 0.5% (half a percent) of GeForce RTX 5090 / 5090D and 5070 Ti GPUs which have one fewer ROP than specified. The average graphical performance impact is 4%, with no impact on AI and Compute workloads. Affected consumers can contact the board manufacturer for a replacement. The production anomaly has been corrected. NvidiaYouTuber JayzTwoCents noted anyone concerned about the performance efficacy of their RTX 5090 can download TechPowerups GPU Information Utility here, or by searching for TechPowerup GPU-Z. Download the utility from the servers. Once it pops up, it will tell you everything you need to know about your GPU. For this instance, the ROPs section should read 176 for a healthy card. Anything less, such as 168 ROPs may indicate a problem.For preliminary assistance, the YouTuber recommends not returning the defective GPU, as it may just end up in circulation with another consumer and you may end up having to wait for an extended time for a new GPU.He suggests reaching out to the customer service account of the vendor from which you purchased the card, using a headline such as Missing ROPs, response required, and remembering to be kind, as there are likely many people reaching out with similar concerns at this time.Editors Recommendations

San Franciscos Asian Art Museum offers a visually rich if under-contextualized survey of the work of the 20th-century painter and calligrapher.

ponder me this Claude 3.7 Sonnet debuts with extended thinking to tackle complex problems Anthropic's first simulated reasoning model is a beast at coding tasks. Benj Edwards Feb 24, 2025 5:23 pm | 4 Credit: Anthropic Credit: Anthropic Story textSizeSmallStandardLargeWidth *StandardWideLinksStandardOrange* Subscribers only Learn moreOn Monday, Anthropic announced Claude 3.7 Sonnet, a new AI language model with a simulated reasoning (SR) capability called "extended thinking," allowing the system to work through problems step by step. The company also revealed Claude Code, a command line AI agent for developers currently available as a limited research preview.Anthropic calls Claude 3.7 the first "hybrid reasoning model" on the market, giving users the option to choose between quick responses or extended, visible chain-of-thought processing similar to OpenAI's o1 and o3 series models, Google's Gemini 2.0 Flash Thinking, and DeepSeek's R1. When using Claude 3.7's API, developers can specify exactly how many tokens the model should use for thinking, up to its 128,000 token output limit.The new model is available across all Claude subscription plans, and the extended thinking mode feature is available on all plans except the free tier. API pricing remains unchanged at $3 per million input tokens and $15 per million output tokens, with thinking tokens included in the output pricing since they are part of the context considered by the model.In another interesting developmentsince Claude 3.5 Sonnet was known as something of a Goody Two-shoes in the AI worldAnthropic said that it had reduced unnecessary refusals in 3.7 Sonnet by 45 percent. In other words, 3.7 Sonnet is more likely to do what you ask without complaining about ethical boundaries, which can otherwise pop up in innocent situations when interpreted incorrectly by the neural network running under Claude's hood.In benchmarks, Anthropic's latest model seems to hold its own, and even excels in at least one category in particular: coding. 3.7's predecessor, Claude 3.5 Sonnet, was excellent at programming tasks compared to other AI models in our experience, and according to Anthropic, early testing indicates strong performance in that area. The company claims Claude 3.7 Sonnet achieved top scores on SWE-bench Verified, which evaluates how AI models handle real-world software issues, and also in TAU-bench, which tests AI agents on complex tasks with user and tool interactions. A chart showing self-reported Claude 3.7 Sonnet benchmark results. Credit: Anthropic Aiming at software developers, Anthropic has also expanded its GitHub integration to all Claude plans, allowing devs to connect code repositories directly to Claude for bug fixes, feature development, and documentation work.In our personal experience creating hobby programs with Claude 3.5 Sonnet over the past six months, the tool proved valuable for quickly prototyping projects, but we often ran up against usage limits. So far, Anthropic has not announced a subscription plan beyond the existing "Claude Pro" ($20/month) that might extend them, though we suspect developers who come to rely on 3.7 are soon going to need a plan more along the lines of OpenAI's ChatGPT Pro that features vastly expanded usage options for $200 a month. As an aside, our subjective experience with o1 and o3 in coding aligns with the benchmarks in the chart above; they have not been as good as Sonnet at coding.And speaking of upgrades, we might as well talk about the name. Claude 3.5 Sonnetlaunched in June 2024, but it received an update in October with a nearly identical name (sometimes referred to as "Claude 3.5 Sonnet (new) or "Claude 3.5 Sonnet (October 2024)") that some users criticized as confusing. As a result, some users began unofficially calling that version "Claude 3.6 Sonnet" instead. Apparently, Anthropic got the message on the desire for clearer naming practices, writing "Lesson learned on naming" in a footnote on the Claude 3.7 release page.Taking extended reasoning for a spinLike other SR models, Claude 3.7, with extended thinking, tries to work through more complex problems by throwing more tokens at them through an ingrained simulated reasoning process. Just like o1, o3, and DeepSeek R1, you can see the "thinking" process going through Claude 3.7's simulated mind while it works out an ideal answer.To test it out briefly, we gave it a couple of simple tasks, including our time-honored (and now likely compromised as part of training datasets scraped from the web) test of asking it about the origin of the "magenta" color name. An example of Claude 3.7 Sonnet with extended thinking is asked, "Would the color be called 'magenta' if the town of Magenta didn't exist?" Credit: Benj Edwards Interestingly, xAI's Grok 3 with "thinking" (its SR mode) enabled was the first model that definitively gave us a "no" and not an "it's not likely" to the magenta question. Claude 3.7 Sonnet with extended thinking also impressed us with our second-ever firm "no," then an explanation.In another informal test, we asked 3.7 Sonnet with extended thinking to compose five original dad jokes. We've found in the past that our old prompt, "write 5 original dad jokes," was not specific enough and always resulted in canned dad jokes pulled directly from training data, so we asked, "Compose 5 original dad jokes that are not found anywhere in the world." An example of Claude 3.7 Sonnet with extended thinking is asked, "Compose 5 original dad jokes that are not found anywhere in the world." Credit: Benj Edwards Claude made some attempts at crafting original jokes, although we'll let you judge whether they are funny or not. We will likely put 3.7 Sonnet's SR capabilities to the test more exhaustively in a future article.Anthropics first agent: Claude CodeSo far, 2025 has been the year of both SR models (like R1 and o3) and agentic AI tools (like OpenAI's Operator and Deep Research). Not to be left out, Anthropic has announced its first agentic tool, Claude Code.Claude Code operates directly from a console terminal and is an autonomous coding assistant. It allows Claude to search through codebases, read and edit files, write and run tests, commit and push code to GitHub repositories, and execute command line tools while keeping developers informed throughout the process. Introducing Claude Code. Anthropic also aims for Claude Code to be used as an assistant for debugging and refactoring tasks. The company claims that during internal testing, Claude Code completed tasks in a single session that would typically require 45-plus minutes of manual work.Claude Code is currently available only as a "limited research preview," with Anthropic stating it plans to improve the tool based on user feedback over time. Meanwhile, Claude 3.7 Sonnet is now available through the Claude website, the Claude app, Anthropic API, Amazon Bedrock, and Google Cloud's Vertex AI.Benj EdwardsSenior AI ReporterBenj EdwardsSenior AI Reporter Benj Edwards is Ars Technica's Senior AI Reporter and founder of the site's dedicated AI beat in 2022. He's also a tech historian with almost two decades of experience. In his free time, he writes and records music, collects vintage computers, and enjoys nature. He lives in Raleigh, NC. 4 Comments

HealthType-1 diabetes, IBD, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, coeliac disease and lupus are all caused by the body attacking itself. But new therapies that reset the immune system could offer lasting help 24 February 2025 Andrew HudsonPere Santamariawas 15 when he developed myasthenia gravis. This autoimmune condition causes extreme muscle weakness and can sometimes lead to breathing difficulties. In Santamarias case, it affected the ocular muscles controlling his vision, making him see double.It had a tremendous effect on me personally, he says. I was becoming an adolescent, and all of a sudden I couldnt play sports and I couldnt live a normal life. I had to take very high doses of corticosteroids, which made me swell up like a balloon.Worse, these drugs only dampen down the bodys general immune response, rather than addressing the causes of autoimmunity, meaning Santamaria had no expectation that taking them would ever cure his condition.As the years passed, Santamaria developed additional autoimmune conditions and a determination to learn more about them. I just wanted to understand the diseases and mechanisms, with the hope I could eventually help others, he says.He has now made progress towards that goal. Working as an immunologist at the University of Calgary in Canada, Santamaria is at the forefront of a push to develop new therapies to reprogram the immune system and encourage the human body to end its destructive war against its own tissues.As those therapies move into clinical trials, there are promising signs. Indeed, some are so effective that a single dose has, in a few cases, left people symptom-free for years. So is the end of autoimmune conditions now in sight?Innate and adaptive immune systemsOur bodies have several lines of defence against pathogens.

The Office of Personnel Management asked federal workers to email a list of their accomplishments over the past week.A number of federal agencies told their employees that they were not required to respond.Some agencies said a response is voluntary, while others said they would respond on employees' behalf.Some federal agencies' response to Elon Musk's worker productivity email: thanks, but no thanks.A growing number of agencies are telling their workers that they are not required to respond to the email sent from the Office of Personnel Management over the weekend asking for a list of accomplishments from the past week.According to emails reviewed by Business Insider, some of the agencies told employees that they would respond to OPM on their behalf. Others said a response is voluntary, and failure to respond will not result in any penalties.In a post on X on Saturday, Musk said that "failure to respond will be taken as a resignation," but the initial email didn't make the same claim. This comes after a tumultuous past few weeks for federal workers; a number of agencies terminated thousands of employees last week following directions from President Donald Trump and Musk's DOGE to slash government waste.These are the federal agencies BI has verified that have so far told their workers that they do not need to respond to OPM's email ahead of the 11:59 p.m. Eastern time deadline on Monday night.Department of DefenseThe Department of Defense posted on X on Sunday that its employees should "pause any response" to the OPM's email."The Department of Defense is responsible for reviewing the performance of its personnel and it will conduct any review in accordance with its own procedures," the statement said.Social Security AdministrationOn Sunday, the Social Security Administration sent an email to its employees telling them that the OPM email is "a legitimate assignment" and those who received it were required to respond.However, the agency followed up on Monday afternoon telling employees that any response is "voluntary.""Non-responses are not considered a resignation," the email said.NASANASA emailed its employees on Monday afternoon saying, "You are not required to respond, and there is no impact on your employment with the agency if you choose not to respond."The agency said it would respond on employees' behalf and that "employees should continue to feel empowered to report their activities and accomplishments" to their supervisors.Department of JusticeJolene Ann Lauria, acting assistant attorney general for administration at the DOJ, emailed employees on Monday: "Due to the confidential and sensitive nature of the Department's work, DOJ employees do not need to respond to the email from OPM."Bloomberg Law reported that this was a reversal of Lauria's earlier guidance that instructed employees to respond to the email.Department of AgricultureThe USDA told employees on Monday afternoon that responding to the email is "voluntary," and that "there is no penalty for not responding to the request."The USDA guidance said that those who do choose to respond should refrain from submitting any sensitive or confidential information.State DepartmentThe State Department told employees that it would respond on behalf of the agency."No employee is obligated to report their activities outside of their Department chain of command," the department said.Department of EnergyThe Department of Energy emailed its employees on Sunday night, instructing them to "pause" any responses to the OPM email."The Department of Energy is responsible for reviewing the performance of its personnel and will conduct any review in accordance with its own procedures," the department said. "When and if required, the Department will provide a coordinated response to the OPM email."Department of Health and Human ServicesThe Department of Health and Human Services told employees that based on discussions with OPM officials, they did not need to respond to the initial email."OPM has now rescinded that mandatory requirement," HHS said in an email. "There is no HHS expectation that HHS employees respond to OPM and there is no impact to your employment with the agency if you choose not to respond."The email said that those who do respond should do so "at a high level of generality" and protect sensitive information. They should "assume that what you write will be read by malign foreign actors and tailor your response accordingly."Are you a federal worker? Got a tip? Contact these reporters securely on Signal at the usernames asheffey.97 or alicetecotzky.05, or email them at asheffey@businessinsider.com or atecotzky@insider.com.

Software engineer Antonio Perez, 47, spent the past year and $32,000 building his dream at-home gym.After his wife became wheelchair-bound, he felt guilty leaving daily for the gym.The most expensive piece of equipment was a $3,600 AssaultRunner Pro treadmill he bought for his daughter.This is an as-told-to essay based on a conversation with software engineer Antonio Perez, 47, who lives in Bath Township, Ohio, about 30 minutes south of Cleveland. Over the past year, he turned his house's woodworking shop into a basement gym. The following conversation has been edited for length and clarity.I bought the five-bedroom house for $485,000 in 2019. The previous owner used the basement as a woodworking shop, but I knew we would transform it into something different.Originally, I thought the basement might be a home movie theater and I would just use one of the bedrooms for my exercise equipment. While researching home theaters, though, I realized we probably wouldn't use it enough to justify the cost. The original woodworking shop in Perez's basement. Courtesy of Antonio Perez My wife developed Multiple System Atrophy, or MSA, in 2020, a neurological disease similar to ALS. By 2023, she was wheelchair-bound and it was difficult for her to leave the house. I started to feel guilty every time I left for the gym. What if she needed help going to the bathroom and no one was there?The gym was also for the whole family. I'm trying to get back into shape personally. I weightlift around three to five days a week when I'm focused on a program. I also have two daughters, 19 and 17, who have played lacrosse, tennis, soccer, and basketball over the years.My two-month project turned into a yearlong odysseyLike all home improvement projects, you think it's going to be faster than it is. I originally thought it'd be a two- to three-month project. I started in February 2024 and only felt like everything was completed last week over a year later.I didn't set a specific budget. I knew I wanted it to be nice, and I kind of did it on the fly. If I saw a piece of equipment that I wanted and I could afford it, I bought it. In total, the project cost me around $32,000.The flooring took a lot of research. I had to strip out all the old linoleum glue, which required renting a sander. I knew I wanted a material that mimicked professional gyms, so I went to Home Depot and got samples. I wanted it to feel dense when you stepped on it. Perez researched flooring at professional gyms to find the right style. Courtesy of Antonio Perez While researching home theaters, I saw a really cool speaker system. It was dark black, but you could see the wood grain coming through. I tried to replicate that for the walls, and I think I nailed it.The hardest part was spray-painting the ceiling. I used 10 gallons of paint, which means I held up that extension wand for hours and hours.I taught myself how to do some of the DIY work and learned to be patientThe lighting was surprisingly easy, especially since it was my first electrical job ever. I used YouTube videos to learn how, but it turned out to be a simple project to run together a couple of lines and put together junction boxes. I settled on the hexagonal shape after seeing pictures of some other home gyms. The lights were relatively cheap, only around $500, and I didn't even use all the ones I picked up.I wanted it to be extra bright since the floors and walls were so dark. My daughter thinks its too bright, but I think it's perfect.If you're attempting to build a home gym on your own, just know it takes time. Life gets in the way. You'll put down one coat of paint and realize you need another, but then your family needs you, so you don't go back for another month or two.I bought some equipment secondhand and splurged on other piecesI knew I wanted a really solid power rack system, so I started with that. There were options for 80" or 92" of height. Initially, I was worried I would hit my head on the ceiling doing pull-ups with the 92", so I got the 80". But when I set it up, it was too small for me to do overhead lifts. So now I have two racks.I used Facebook Marketplace for some of the equipment, like two rep bars, a trap bar, and a powerlifting bench for the glutes and hamstrings. For really big equipment though, I didn't want to skimp. I wanted to make sure it was reliable. Perez used decorations from his daughter's graduation party for the gym. Courtesy of Antonio Perez The hardest piece of equipment to pull the trigger on was the AssaultRunner Pro treadmill. It was aboutFor my daughter's high school graduation party last year, I bought a whole bunch of cutouts of her in action. Now, they decorate the gym. I told the younger one that we'll add her photos to the collection next year.

The Logoff is a daily newsletter that helps you stay informed about the Trump administration without letting political news take over your life. Subscribe here.Welcome to The Logoff. Today my colleague Joshua Keating and I are focusing on Donald Trumps firing of high-ranking military officials, a move that cements the militarys new anti-DEI mandate now and could have even bigger consequences later.Whats the latest? Trump on Friday night fired Charles Q. Brown Jr. the chair of the joint chiefs of staff and nominated retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Dan Caine to replace him. Also fired were the chief of naval operations, the vice chief staff of the Air Force, and three of the militarys top legal officials.Can Trump do this? Yes. The president is the commander in chief and has the authority to pick leadership. Caine will require Senate confirmation to the new position. Legally, only four-star generals are eligible for the position, and Caine is a three-star, but the president has the legal right to waive that requirement in certain circumstances.Why did Trump make the personnel changes? Brown had counted diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts as critical to the militarys ability to function, whereas Trump and new Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth have criticized such efforts as a distraction.Hegseth said on Fox News on Sunday that he wanted legal officials who give sound constitutional advice and dont exist to attempt to be roadblocks to anything anything that happens in their spots. He also said the current lawyers were chosen by an insider pool and that their replacements would shake up the status quo.Whats the big picture? Trumps first-term chair of the joint chiefs, Gen. Mark Milley, said he feared Trump would deploy US troops domestically in an illegal manner. Were Trump to try that now, senior military leaders would face the choice of carrying out his orders or being roadblocks.After Friday nights firings, Trump has the ability to install a handpicked group of officers to lead the worlds most powerful fighting force. Those people will be tasked with fulfilling their oaths to the Constitution, even if that means going against Trump.And with that, its time to log off ...Did you know that the reason our fingerprints are unique is the same reason that no two leopards have the same pattern of spots and no two zebras have identical stripes? Its all related to something called a Turing pattern. This was all new to me, and I learned it from this fascinating video from my colleague Coleman Lowndes. Hope you enjoy it. See you back here tomorrow.See More:

This weekend, German voters signaled their desire for change. Germany elected a new government headed by the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), a center-right party, sweeping out the center-left Social Democrats. The results put the CDU in a position to lead the formation of a new governing coalition in the Bundestag, the German parliament. Another headline from the election? The strong performance of Germanys far-right party, the Alternative fr Deutschland, or AfD. AfD had shown surprising support in preelection polls, and grabbed a lot of attention in part thanks to Elon Musks full-throated backing.Its the best showing in AfDs history but the party remains quite controversial in Germany. The new chancellor, the Christian Democrats Friedrich Merz, has already said his party would not form a coalition with AfD. Its growth over the last few years (part of a global resurgence of far-right parties) has raised alarms among Germanys mainstream parties, which see AfD as an extremist movement. There was also another surprise in this weeks results: the unexpectedly good showing of the leftist Die Linke party. Weeks before the election, there were signs the party would fall short of the 5 percent cutoff for earning seats in the Bundestag; this weekend, Die Linke won 9 percent of the vote. To make sense of it all, Today, Explaineds Noel King spoke with Nina Haase, chief political correspondent for Deutsche Welle, Germanys international broadcaster. King and Haase discussed the implications of the CDUs triumph, how to think about the AfDs and Die Linkes performance, and where German politics goes from here.Below is an excerpt of their conversation, edited for length and clarity. Theres much more in the full podcast, including an in-depth history of the right in Germany, so listen to Today, Explained wherever you get your podcasts, including Apple Podcasts, Pandora, and Spotify.There was a big election in Germany this weekend. Whats the headline here?The headline is that the conservatives swept the Social Democrats out, and we will see a new German government that is going to be led by the conservatives that is still going to be pro-European a centrist government facing lots and lots of challenges. The headline underneath is that, for the very first time in a national poll, a far-right party, the AfD, managed to get one in five German voters to vote for them.Who is the new chancellor?The new chancellor is Friedrich Merz. He entered politics in the 1990s and he was then swept out of political power by a certain Angela Merkel from his same party, then reentered politics when Angela Merkel left. He was always a fierce critic of Angela Merkels open-door policies, so hes adopted a much more hardline stance on immigration that has been one of the key issues for him in this election campaign.What were the other issues that led the conservatives to do so well this time?Germans showed a lot of desire for change, big change. The current government had started out on a liberal agenda. Then Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, so they had to make a lot of very tough decisions. The conservatives were the biggest opposition power, so they used that to their advantage to essentially say this government is overwhelmed and were going to be the ones dealing with all the desire for change. [Voters] want more clarity when it comes to immigration. They want the German economy to get going again. And these were the core topics that the conservatives focused on and won.So: immigration, the economy, Ukraine. That sounds familiar. This party that came in second, the AfD, tell me about it. Where does it come from?Theyre a fairly young party. They were founded just over 10 years ago. They started off on a platform that was EU-skeptic, that wanted to get out of the euro, the common currency that we have here in Europe. And over the years, they have radicalized. They have gone from being an economy-focused, financial policy-focused party, to being an anti-immigrant, pro-Russia, pro-China party. That is something where lots of people here in Germany are saying this would shake up the fundamental pillars of the liberal democratic system that we have in this country. They have people in their ranks that have very close ties to the Kremlin. They have a leading figure in the east who is a history teacher, but says that Germany needs to move on and stop this whining about this short period of time when this thing called the Holocaust happened, and that is, of course, something that has made a lot of alarm bells ring here in Germany, given our history, where many feel reminded of just how quickly populism can lead to real-life fascism. Having said all that, the AfD say of themselves that they are libertarian conservative. They got a big push in this election campaign from Elon Musk. Musk came out on his own platform, X, a couple of weeks ago and said that only the AFD can save Germany. He held an hour-long chat with their co-leader, Alice Weidel, and gave them a lot of visibility on his own platform. What does their second-place finish mean? How much power do they have coming in where they did?Theyre now the second strongest political group in the parliament, and that means they have certain privileges when it comes to appointing the chairpeople of the committees, for example. Traditionally the biggest opposition group (which is in this case the AfD), they lead the budget committee, so they can influence the agenda of committee meetings. The AFD also gets a lot of time to address parliament, as the second biggest group in parliament. So well hear a lot more of them. We have a system here in this country where you have a blocking minority for certain fundamental changes to our basic law. And the AfD alone cannot do that at the moment. But if, for example, the current government wanted to make fundamental changes to the constitution to allow for more spending in support of Ukraine, the AfD together with the left, Die Linke, can now block that.So you had a far-right and a far-left party do better than people expected, it sounds like?Absolutely. And that is one of the main points of criticism by the conservatives, who say that the current government under Olaf Scholz has allowed the fringes to become really quite strong. Your new chancellor, Mr. Merz, has already spoken this morning. What is he saying about working with these parties, primarily the AfD?The AfD is not going to get into government. I think that is a very important message to send, that its considered way too far right by all the other democratic parties and the conservatives have therefore ruled out collaborating with them. That is known as the firewall here, that the firewall still stands because of our countrys history. Now, the AfD are also very clear that they were aware that they wouldnt enter government, but theyre hoping for an unstable German government under Merz now in the next couple of years. And they have their eyes on 2029, when they say that their positions will become so normalized that they might then actually enter government, if not the chancellery.What do these results mean for Germany over the next year or two?The results mean that Friedrich Merz will have to enter coalition negotiations very quickly with the Social Democrats and very quickly come to a good deal with them so that he can form a stable government. He has a lot of challenges ahead of him. He warned explicitly, right after polls closed last night, that Europe needs to move fast and become independent from the United States. He questioned whether the United States would come to the defense of European NATO allies in future. He said he needs to get the government together and in a stable way so that Germany can answer and give proper solutions to all these geopolitical challenges that were facing. At the moment the feeling is that liberal democracy in Europe is under threat from Russia. Were considered to be in a hybrid war with Russia and also, increasingly, from the United Statess new administration.See More:

When a show has the kind of success that The Penguin has had, a second season is all but assured. But theres something different in the waters of Gotham City and the shows star, Colin Farrell, isnt so sure thats a good idea. Before its release, no one could have guessed HBOs The Penguin would have the amount of success it has. Somehow, a superhero show without superheroes, about the rise of Batmans third or fourth-best villain, was not only adored by critics and fans alike, its gone on to do incredibly well during awards season. Lead actors Farrell and Cristin Milioti have won multiple awards, as has the show itself. Experts think itll be a big player at the upcoming Emmys. All of which would suggest, of course, a second season. But not so fast. I dont notwant it, Farrell told Variety at the Screen Actors Guild Awards this weekend, where he won Best Actor in a limited series for the DC show. We all left it in the ring in those eight hours. I would hate to, just because of a quote-unquote success, have to go again and for it to be a diluted version of what people seem to feel it is, majoritively. So Im in no rush. I have no deep desire to do it Sure, if they think of something that works in conjunction as a parallel to Matt Reeves cinematic universe and its a good idea, Im open it. But its not something concerning me. The story of The Penguin fits in perfectly with the end of Reeves 2022 film, The Batman, and reportedly leads right into the events of his 2027 film, The Batman Part II, which Farrell is confirmed to appear in. So even if a second season of The Penguin did start to marinate, it would almost certainly have to come after the movie. So Farrells sentiment makes sense here. Dont rush it. Make the movie. Let the show stand as the fantastic achievement it was. Then, maybe later, he can put the suit back on. Stream the entire first (and potentially final?) season of The Penguin on Max. Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, whats next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.

By AJ Dellinger Published February 24, 2025 | Comments (1) | John Oliver at a desk with a Facebook logo appearing to his left. Screengrab via Max Following Meta CEO Mark Zuckerbergs transparent sucking up to President Trump and a change in content moderation policies across Meta platforms that allow for what is pretty unquestionably hate speech against marginalized groups, lots of people are looking for ways to part with the social media giant. You can count John Oliver among them. On Sunday night, the host of Last Week Tonight spent more than a half-hour laying out all the ways that Meta is actively harming peopleand armed users with a way to make themselves less valuable to the company. Oliver covered a lot of ground over the course of the segment, ranging from how Facebook contributed to a genocide in Myanmar to election misinformationall while sprinkling in his standard tangential asides and analogies, like saying Zuckerberg looks like Eddie Redmayne was cast to play Ice Cube and white Macklemore. He also gave viewers one call to action: make yourself less valuable to Meta. The theory is pretty simple. Meta generates 98% of its revenue through advertising, driven by its powerful ad platform that allows companies to micro-target people based on massive troves of data collected by tracking you and your online activity. So, to cut into Metas revenue, cut off its ability to track you across the web. They would probably not want me to tell you that you can change your settings so that Facebook and Instagram cannot profit as much from your data anymore, Oliver said, before directing viewers to a guide set up in collaboration with the Electronic Frontier Foundation on how to prevent Meta from tracking you. If youd be interested in a step-by-step guide on how to do that, simply visitjohnoliverwantsyourraterotica.com.Yes, the URL is JohnOliverWantsYourRatErotica.com. Try not to focus on that. Again, its standard Last Week Tonight-style comedy, please do not let it interfere with the worthwhile work the show does. The guides are pretty standard fare if youre privacy-mindedbut its useful for Oliver to point his audience of millions to these tools, which include advising people to adopt a privacy-focused web browser like Firefox and install Privacy Badger, an extension that blocks third-party advertisers from tracking your activity.Is this likely to put much of a dent in the bottom line of Meta, which Oliver described as a company struggling to stop people from accusing random pizzerias of human trafficking? No, it almost certainly wont. Back in 2021, major advertisers pulled their money off the platform, and even that barely stopped the money machine from printing infinite cash. User boycotts come and go and in most cases have very little lasting impact, largely due to the sheer size and monopolistic grasp on its audience that Meta has. But theres no harm done in making people aware of how their activity is tracked and their usage of platforms monetized, nor is there any downside in pushing people toward protecting their privacy. Olivers message is a net positiveeven if it means having to type rat erotica into your URL bar.Daily NewsletterYou May Also Like By AJ Dellinger Published February 16, 2025 By Thomas Maxwell Published February 14, 2025 By AJ Dellinger Published February 14, 2025 By Matthew Gault Published February 12, 2025 By Matthew Gault Published February 6, 2025 By Kyle Barr Published February 6, 2025