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LOS ANGELES (AP) — Cierra Ortega, a contestant of this summer’s “Love Island USA” left the villa just a week before the finale of the hit reality series is set to air on Peacock.Her departure, announced Sunday, followed weeks of uproar from viewers after old posts from Ortega resurfaced that contained a racial slur against Asian people. The show’s narrator, Iain Stirling, announced Ortega had departed “due to a personal situation” early in Sunday’s episode.Ortega becomes the second contestant this season to depart the show amid controversy due to past social media posts. Yulissa Escobar abruptly exited last month in…
Block CEO and Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey wrote in an X post on Sunday night that he spent his weekend creating an app called Bitchat (presumably a combination of the words “bit” and “chat,” and not the other combination of words that it looks like). Bitchat is a messaging app that operates through Bluetooth mesh networks, allowing users to send messages without Wi-Fi or cell reception. Because of Bluetooth’s technical limitations, this kind of app generally only works at a range of around 100 meters, making it useful for situations like finding friends at a busy music festival where cell…
For travelers seeking something new—beyond the familiar beach resorts and over-touristed capitals—Taipei, Taiwan where just recently named the Happiest Country in Asia (World Happiness Report 2025), Taipei is gaining global attention as a must-visit destination. As a creative center and a high-tech powerhouse, Taipei is emerging as a destination that seamlessly blends modern urban life with natural landscapes and deep cultural heritage. To help more travelers experience this distinctive charm, Taipei City Government’s Department of Information and Tourism in collaboration with EVA Air, has launched a dedicated promotional campaign this June tailored specifically for U.S. travelers.The campaign offers exclusive EVA…
The iPhone’s new glassy look has been toned down with Monday’s release of the third developer beta of iOS 26. This follows user complaints that the update made parts of the user interface more difficult to read. At WWDC 2025 in June, the tech giant introduced its new design language, known as Liquid Glass, which is inspired by the optical qualities of glass in the real world, including how it refracts light and its translucent nature. But the early version in the first developer beta of iOS 26 and the accompanying updates for Apple’s other devices still left room for…
With summer travel heating up, travelers booking vacation rental accommodations abroad are being urged to proceed with caution. According to an advisory from travel insurance comparison platform Squaremouth, a wave of new regulations targeting short-term rentals is sweeping across Europe and Asia, potentially affecting thousands of listings and the travelers who rely on them. In June, Spanish authorities ordered Airbnb to remove more than 65,000 listings that didn’t comply with local laws. Meanwhile, Thailand has issued warnings to foreigners using condo units as illegal short-term rentals, and countries like Italy and Greece have followed suit with their own restrictions aimed at…
On Monday, Bluesky announced three updates to enhance notifications, allowing users to personalize their experience while decluttering their notification center and reducing unnecessary alerts. The updates include the ability to receive activity notifications for specific accounts, as well as options to adjust notification preferences to control which alerts you receive. For instance, users can choose to be notified only when certain accounts reply to them. Bluesky users can now navigate to Settings and then Notifications to customize alerts for various interactions, including new followers, likes, replies, mentions, quotes, and reposts. There is also an “Everything Else” option, which covers general…
PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — Attorneys for the state of Maine and a conservative lawmaker who identified a transgender teen student athlete online now agree that the lawmaker’s appeal over her loss of voting rights for her post is now moot.Republican state Rep. Laurel Libby identified the athlete in a February social media post that went viral and called into question the student’s gender identity, bringing attention to the issue of transgender teens participating in sports. Maine’s Democratic-controlled House of Representatives censured Libby for violating the House code of ethics and blocked her from speaking and voting on the floor.Libby sued,…
AP Entertainment Writer (AP) — Pearl Jam drummer Matt Cameron said Monday that he’s leaving the band after nearly 30 years. The 62-year-old Cameron announced his departure in a social media post. “After 27 fantastic years, I have taken my final steps down the drum riser for the mighty Pearl Jam,” Cameron said. “Much love and respect to Jeff, Ed, Mike and Stone for inviting me into the band in 1998 and for giving me the opportunity of a lifetime, filled with friendships, artistry, challenges and laughter.”Cameron didn’t give a reason for his departure. “Matt Cameron has been a singular…
by Lacey Pfalz Last updated: 9:10 AM ET, Mon July 7, 2025 The heavy summer travel season is once again heating up issues among residents in tourist-dense destinations, prompting protests across Europe and raising questions about how destinations can manage the increasingly pressing issue of overcrowding, from the Louvre Museum in Paris to Venice and beyond. The World Travel & Tourism Council aims to initiate a new conversation by outlining steps that any destination can take to address its challenges creatively: the report is titled “Managing Destination Overcrowding: A Call to Action from the Travel & Tourism Private Sector.” The travel…
Some ChatGPT subscribers are reporting a new feature appearing in their drop-down list of available tools called “Study Together.” The mode is apparently the chatbot’s way of becoming a better educational tool. Rather than providing answers to prompts, some say it asks more questions and requires the human to answer, like OpenAI’s answer to Google’s LearnLM. Some also wonder whether it will have a mode where more than one human can join the chat in a study group mode. OpenAI did not respond to our request for comment but, for what it’s worth, ChatGPT told us, “OpenAI hasn’t officially announced…