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US consumers are likely to be the biggest victims with cost increases set to be passed on to customersView the full article

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. If you’ve ever wanted to wear earbuds that don’t actually go in your ears, the Bose Ultra Open Earbuds might be the oddball pick you’ve been looking for. These open-style earbuds clip on and hook around your ear instead of sitting inside it, letting ambient noise in by design. That makes them great for runs, walks, or commuting—basically, situations where you want to hear your music but also that car barreling around the corner. And for the next six days or until it sells out, Woot’s offering refurbished models of these earbuds, in black, moonstone blue, and white smoke for $179—much cheaper than Amazon’s current $261.99 price. Bose Ultra Open Earbuds $179.00 at Woot $299.00 Save $120.00 Get Deal Get Deal $179.00 at Woot $299.00 Save $120.00 Since these are refurbished, they might show a bit of wear, but they’ve been tested and cleared to function properly. You also get a 90-day Woot limited warranty, which is shorter than Bose’s standard, but fair for the price cut, and if you’re an Amazon Prime member, shipping is free (otherwise it’s $6). Just a heads-up: Woot ships only within the 48 contiguous states. Bose doesn’t skimp on audio quality here: Despite the open design, they deliver solid sound with real punch and clarity. The bass won’t rumble like in-ear buds, but you still get that signature Bose balance. They also have Immersive Audio support, which adds spatial depth—though it's a little inconsistent depending on what you’re listening to and can feel gimmicky, according to this PCMag review. They also support Snapdragon Sound with aptX Adaptive and work especially well with podcasts and mellow playlists. That said, the biggest downside is that they don’t have any noise cancellation, which, again, is kind of the point, but still worth noting if you’re used to ANC earbuds. Battery life clocks in around 7.5 hours on a single charge (with Immersive Audio off), and the charging case gives you almost two full charges, which is decent enough. If you’re someone who prioritizes awareness and comfort over total sound isolation—and doesn’t mind a pre-loved gadget—this deal makes a pretty compelling case. If you’re more of a noise-canceling, zone-out-on-the-plane kind of listener, these probably won't cut it for you. View the full article

Yes, we checked the referencesView the full article

Compliance concerns prevent some lenders from moving toward development of an AI plan or policy, but hesitancy may turn out to be a poor business strategy. View the full article

The vernal equinox, marking the first day of spring, occurs in late March every year. Sometime around then, most planting zones encounter what is known as the last frost date, which is the experts' best guess, based on averages, of when your last hard freeze will be. The cherry, plum, and peach blossoms are exploding on trees all around us and tulips are popping up from the ground. There are all kinds of markers that gardening season has arrived, but the most prominent one is the return of people to working on their front yards on sunny days, which should be happening now with some regularity. It is finally full steam ahead for this year, and there are tons of things you can be doing outside. Cherry blossoms Credit: Amanda Blum Document the spring bloomThere's an order to the way plants bloom in early spring: the crocus, the daffodils, then the tulips, the irises, and the peonies. Each year I try to take pictures every few days from the same angles in the yard so I can document where I might need more bulbs. You'll forget by the time fall rolls around and it's time to plant more. This pictorial documentation can help you visualize any bulb losses you have year to year, as well. Tulips in bloom Credit: Amanda Blum Get your trellises clean and readyBased on the plans I made for the garden over the winter, I now know where I'll need plant supports for my tomatoes, peppers, beans, and cucumbers. I begin getting those trellises I have out of storage and sterilizing them, and I make plans to build or order any new trellises I'll need. Weed and dress with compost With the nighttime temperatures starting to remain over 40 degrees, it’s time to clean out your beds and get them ready for planting. This means doing a thorough weeding, as best you can, and then top with compost. Clean away debris in the paths and beds, because that is slug food and an invitation for disease and pests. Check in on your own compost bins; they could probably use a good turn. Check in on your flower perennials Irises that need dividing Credit: Amanda Blum First, take an inventory of the perennials you have, and see if any need dividing. Plants grow into the space around them, but if they’ve run out of space, you can break them up, and either relocate these new plants or trade them for others. Irises and daylilies are an excellent example; hostas are another. This is also how you’ll take inventory of what did not survive this year. With the weather becoming more extreme year to year, even perennials can succumb to weather events. Perennials have started to come out of hibernation in the greenhouses at your local nursery, so you can begin to replace any that will need it. Buying now, when plants are still small, will help save money. Grab some early flowering annualsIt’s still early for most varieties of flowers, but pansies love the cold. At this point, begin checking the nurseries for snapdragons, sweet peas, petunias, and other early flowering plants. It’s a good time to get your hanging baskets and window boxes filled, too, so they’ll be in full bloom come May. In fact, many groceries and nurseries will help you fill your planters if you bring them in; some even plan events around doing so. Don't forget edibles Peas coming up from seed Credit: Amanda Blum If you've not yet planted peas, it's go time. They can be direct sown outside and need to be grown against some support. This time of year, I grow shelling pea and sugar snaps on tall vines that climb arches in my yard. I also take stock of my strawberry plants, thinning them so they're spaced at least six inches apart. Give away extras, or ask your neighbors for their extras if you need them. I look for my perennial edibles to make sure they've survived the winter. The horseradish has been staking it's claim, poking up leaves from its usual plot. I've already replaced a few artichokes that didn't make it through the last ice storm. The first tiny stalks of asparagus made an appearance this week, which means in a few weeks we'll be drowning in spears. Now is the time to plant more asparagus crowns, too. I try to add a few crowns each year—they're usually a dollar or two at the nursery, and in this way, you can establish them in more places. I've been waiting with bated breath to see if all the rhubarb I planted last year will return, since last year I lost my fifteen-year-old specimen, but I saw the first leaves begin to poke out of the ground this week. If you need to replace yours, you'll find rhubarb at your nursery. Fiddleheads and ramps (which, as a reminder, you can grow at home) should be emerging. It's also the time to plant your summer potatoes: Your nursery has potato starts, but if you've got grocery store potatoes that have sprouted at home, those can go right into the ground. carrots, radishes, beets and lettuce planted two weeks ago Credit: Amanda Blum I've already planted a few rounds of radishes, beets, carrots, and lettuce in the garden, and will continue doing so every few weeks through summer. The spring rain is excellent for helping these seeds I direct sow to germinate. You can continue to plant spring edibles like spinach, kale, chard, and mustard greens, but if you don’t get broccoli and cauliflower early in the month, you’ll miss your window. These are short crops, but you want them to finish and harvest before you need the room for summer crops like tomatoes. You also want to get three long crops in now, starting with parsnips, which need 180 days to grow. Plant them from seed now, and you'll have enough of this root vegetable to cook all fall. Brussels sprouts also need that long summer to grow if they're going to be ready for Thanksgiving. Finally, your nursery will have all your onion sets to get into the ground. Keeper onions and leeks need the season to be ready for harvest in late summer or early fall. Inspect your systems Check your water systems Credit: Amanda Blum It’s also time to turn the irrigation and sprinkler systems back on for the year, so schedule any inspections like backflow testing. Once the water is on, test your controller and look for signs of any leaks in the lines. You can safely reconnect hoses, and put out manual timers if you use them. Be sure to give all your tools a good spray down with vinegar or bleach to sterilize them, and remember to keep a spray bottle with the same on hand for your pruning shears as you move about the garden. Spray them between plants so you are not transferring disease. View the full article

The ‘mountain kingdom’ of Lesotho joins Pacific island Nauru on list of countries hit with punishing US tariffsView the full article

Unexpected increase in supply comes as concern over world economy hits several commodities View the full article

Like the first few months of the year, April is a relatively quiet month for sky watching, but it does bring one of the oldest meteor showers and a micromoon. April 13: Pink MoonApril's full moon is known as the Pink Moon, so named for the color of ground phlox, a wildflower that blooms during the month—though the moon itself doesn't actually appear pink in the sky. The Pink Moon is also a micromoon, meaning it occurs at that furthest point from Earth. The opposite of a supermoon, it will look about 5% smaller in diameter than usual. April 21: Lyrid meteor shower peakThe main event in April is the Lyrid meteor shower. It starts mid-month (around April 17) and will peak late on the evening of April 21 and into the early morning hours of April 22. The Lyrids are the result of debris from the Comet Thatcher, which was first observed in 1861. Typically, viewers can expect to see around 18 meteors per hour, though the shower can bring up to 100, according to NASA. This year, the moon will be about 40% full, which may interfere with visibility. The Lyrids are best seen in the Northern Hemisphere after the moon sets but before dawn—and as always, areas with minimal light pollution are best for viewing. Planetary events in AprilMars, Jupiter, and Uranus will be visible in the evening sky in April; Saturn, Mercury, Venus, and Neptune will appear in the morning. The timing and placement varies slightly between the Northern and Southern hemispheres. The best Mercury viewing of the year will be possible on April 21, according to Starwalk, especially for those in the Southern hemisphere. And on April 25, the crescent moon will align with Venus and Saturn just before sunrise to create a triangle that looks like a smile. View the full article

The Republicans have allowed a destructive economic nationalist to lead America into chaos View the full article

iPhone maker one of Wall Street’s biggest casualties despite Tim Cook’s efforts to court US presidentView the full article

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Welcome to “Cookbook of the Week.” This is a series where I highlight cookbooks that are unique, easy to use, or just special to me. While finding a particular recipe online serves a quick purpose, flipping through a truly excellent cookbook has a magic all its own. Every time I see a newly budding tree or a daffodil leaping out of a scruffy patch of grass, it brings me a fresh moment of cheer. Spring is coming to New York. That means sun and spring fashion, but mostly I’m excited for the variety of veggies that’ll be available. I’m choosing to celebrate Spring’s approach with an appropriately veggie-forward Cookbook of the Week: Yassou. About the bookYassou is a Mediterranean cookbook, specifically focusing on Greek dishes, written by Shaily Lipa. This cookbook is brand new; just published in March. Lipa gives the reader a teeny history lesson on how Greek cuisine developed and other cultures that influenced it, and then quickly jumps into recipes. Woven with beautiful photography, you’ll get lost flipping through sections like Mezes and Starters, Stuffed Vegetables, and (my favorite section) Patties and Savory Pastries. This cookbook has classic recipes you’ve probably tried at restaurants, like moussaka or stuffed grape leaves, and new ones you’ve never heard of but are incredibly tempting, like kolokithokeftedes (fried zucchini and feta balls). I don’t usually enjoy historical interludes in cookbooks (I’m very recipe focused) but Lipa includes brief informational sections that focus on specific ingredients that are indispensable to Greek cooking, like The Cheeses of Greece, and The Path of the Olive. These sections give welcome insight into the culture, and whets your palate for the recipes to come. A great cookbook for veggie enthusiasts who don't mind branching outYou like vegetables. You’re interested in eating them often. However, you still like to have fun. (You know what I mean—raw kale salad isn’t fun. I’ll eat it, but “fun” is not an emotion I experience when eating it.) Melitzanosalata, aka Eggplant Spread, drizzled with olive oil and served with pita bread is fun! If you want a cookbook with lots of delicious, vegetable-centric options but you don’t want to feel like you live off of salad alone, Yassou is for you. Sure, it’s a Mediterranean diet, but there is no fear of bread, sugar, oil, or pastry. There are fresh salads for sure, but they’re not the only venue for vegetables. There are numerous styles of cooking with produce, putting them in the background, foreground, and slightly off-stage. Zucchinis are shredded and shaped into fritters; crushed tomatoes create a simmering blanket for shrimp; onion and peppers chargrill on a skewer with juicy hunks of lamb. Many of the recipes rely on plants, but you don’t have to commit. Some days you just want bread and cheese and there are recipes for those moments in Yassou too. There are pasta dishes, fish dishes, bread recipes, and oh, the cheese. I have truly enjoyed a free pass this week to eat all the feta I want. The dishes I made this weekOne thing I appreciate about Yassou is that you can jump into these recipes with whatever cooking skill level you exist at. It’s written simply, and the instructions are clear and easy to follow. There is no preamble about specialty cookware or how to replace ingredients you can’t find. Most of the ingredients are things that are common to the Western grocery store. I didn’t have to sift for very long to find recipes I was able to do because I didn’t have to consider making any special trips or ordering unusual ingredients. Credit: Allie Chanthorn Reinmann I decided to make Kassiopita (Greek flatbread) and Horiatiki Salata (Greek Salad). Yes, I essentially made Greek Olive Garden unlimited salad and breadsticks, but I don’t care what you think. It’s always been a great deal. Plus, these recipes made for a fabulous lunch. On the surface, Horiatiki Salata looks like any Greek salad you might have had before—kalamata olives, cucumbers, and feta among other ingredients with a simple dressing. But there are good and bad versions of this salad being made, often in New Jersey diners and pizzerias. This version is perfectly crunchy, briny, and herbaceous with as much creamy, salty feta as you please. I knew I could count on this salad recipe as soon as I saw that the first move was thinly slicing the red onion and pickling it in the oil and vinegar dressing. This should be the treatment of all freshly sliced onions in salad. Credit: Allie Chanthorn Reinmann The Kassiopita, entitled Greek Flatbread in the cookbook, might become something I make quite often. It’s easy to make, loaded with feta, and cooks up quite dramatically in the oven. The batter is made with a blend of yogurt, egg, and flour, so it has the texture of a giant popover, or Dutch Baby. It’s seasoned lightly and then you mix crumbled creamy feta into the batter. The mixture cooks in a casserole dish with a quarter-cup of olive oil in it. I watched the bread bubble and fry as it puffed up in the oven, and broiled it for the last minute and a half to lightly brown the surface. I ate a piece while it was still warm (too hot actually, but I can’t be stopped), and the crumbled feta made decadent melty, tart pockets of cheese dispersed in the eggy bread. Eat it with salad or eat it solo—I can vouch for both. I made the bread in the instructed size dish, but if you wanted the bread to be thinner then you could easily use a larger pan and reduce the cooking time. How to buy itYassou is available as a hardcover, or as an e-book for a reasonable price. I highly suggest taking a jaunt to your nearest big box book shops or local independent bookstores to see if they have it on their new or featured cookbook displays. And if it’s not on their shelves, ask if they can order it to their location (sometimes for no shipping fee). Yassou: The Simple, Seasonal Mediterranean Cooking of Greece $16.99 at Amazon Shop Now Shop Now $16.99 at Amazon View the full article

‘Hard decoupling’ between world’s two largest economies could derail negotiations covering TikTokView the full article

Yesterday, Nintendo finally announced its successor to the Nintendo Switch, fittingly named the Switch 2. I already wrote about my general experiences with the console, where I talked about how it’s mostly boring, but probably the right move on Nintendo’s part. Still, I wanted to take a moment to call out one part of the console that definitely isn’t boring: the mouse controls. When you take one of the Switch 2’s controllers, the Joy-Con 2, off the console and put it on its side, it becomes a mouse—simple as that. If you’re playing a compatible game, you’ll instantly see a cursor pop up on screen, and right away, you’ll be playing as if you were on PC. Rotate the controller to be upright again, and you’ll be back to a more traditional setup. This is akin to a magic trick. Despite consoles generally being easier to set up than PCs, and more often played from more comfortable positions like the living room, certain genres have eluded them for a while. These include shooters, strategy games, and other titles that benefit from quick and precise pointer movement. There have been attempts to fix that before, like with motion controls, but having gone hands-on with the Switch 2’s mouse mode, it’s easily my favorite so far. Suddenly, the comfort of consoles and precision control of PCs don’t need to be at odds anymore. There are a few drawbacks, which I’ll get into in a moment, but I was surprised how well it worked overall. Take Metroid Prime 4. This series started off on the GameCube, with shooting almost entirely relegated to an archaic lock-on system. Then, it re-released on the Wii and later the original Switch with improved motion controls, but those could get tiring after a bit. Now, with Metroid Prime 4, it plays just like any other shooter (OK, the lock-on is still there if you want it, but you get my point). That’s huge. Granted, an exploration-based series like Metroid doesn’t necessarily need to cross that threshold, but it worked nearly perfectly in my time with it, and represents so many possibilities for the Switch 2. Now, the Nintendo port of Call of Duty or similar titles might not be some compromised alternative when you don’t have any other systems; it could be the best way to play, barring the PC. And this goes double for genres like strategy games, which often skip consoles altogether. Civilization VIII on the Switch 2 felt exactly like controlling it at my desk. But even if those more traditional use cases elude you, the mouse controls are the one place in the Switch 2’s design where you can see Nintendo’s classic playfulness at work. About a month after the console’s launch, the company is set to re-release its latest Mario Party game with an enhanced port for the Switch 2, and as I saw first-hand, it took the opportunity to go all-in on the mouse. In a pre-release hands-on with the Switch 2 version of the game, I got to use mouse controls to play a convincing substitute for air hockey, a classic mouse avoider game, plus two mini-games that actually do things you can’t do on a normal mouse. The first had me spray painting objects with the Joy-Con, then quickly shaking it to refill my paint canister. It wasn’t the most robust experience, but it did show off one benefit to just tossing mouse functionality on an existing controller—you can use the controller’s other functions, like motion controls, in tandem with it. This was more noticeable in a stacking mini-game I played, where I had to use the mouse pointer in combination with the Joy-Con’s gyro to make a taller block tower than my competitors without knocking it over. Throw in some oddball shapes, like a Yoshi stuffed animal, and it was great fun. Credit: Michelle Ehrhardt But perhaps the most noticeable example of Nintendo doing something new with the mouse was in Drag X Drive, a basketball game that sees you controlling a player in a wheelchair. With its crude graphics and mocap-feeling animation, it definitely had tech-demo vibes, and I’ll leave it to others more versed in the topic than me to talk to the representation of disabled athletes. But I will say that it might be the only game I’ve seen played with two mice at once. In the game, you place both Joy-Con 2 controllers in mouse mode, then use your left hand to control your left wheel, and your right hand to control your right wheel. Honestly, it got tiring pretty fast, but it did feel shockingly accurate to the few experiences where I’ve been in a wheelchair (although, again, I’ll leave the real judgment there to experts). It’s also another good example of the mouse controls combining with another Joy-Con feature, in this case vibration. The controllers did a great job of simulating my wheels’ drag on the ground as I turned them, which helped me know what needed moving where, and made controlling my character fluid enough that, yes, I was able to dunk. All this said, this playfulness has me equal parts excited and worried. As much as I’m excited to see that new play experiences aren’t entirely dead on the Switch 2, mouse controls will only thrive as long as developers use them. Given Nintendo’s past history with accessories like the Wii MotionPlus, I worry that they’ll quickly fall by the wayside following a few of its own first party releases. There’s also some physical discomfort to acknowledge here. The Joy-Con 2 technically have capabilities normal mice don’t, yes, but they also lose out on ergonomics. They’re much thinner, so I have to grip them with a very tight claw style that’s not natural to me, and pressing the face buttons on them while using them as mice can be a bit of a challenge at first. I’d love to see the ability to map the right stick to face buttons instead, but we shall see. Still, this is one feature I can’t be mad about—if only because I’m still holding out hope that it may eventually lead to Nintendo DS and Wii U emulation in Switch Online. Playing games made for these consoles on other devices has always been a bit difficult because of their unique touch controls, even on mobile. But with a big screen TV and a mouse pointer taking the place of a stylus, we may finally have the perfect answer to this longstanding problem. I’m beaming, as I’m sure the dozen other The World Ends With You fans are. View the full article

Healthcare professionals tend to have many pairs of scrubs, and those scrubs can get worn out, especially with frequent washing. Or maybe some scrubs just aren’t the right fit, style, or comfort level anymore. Instead of tossing those in the trash, scrubs company Figs is launching a new recycling program to give old scrubs a second life. It’s the latest take-back program in partnership with SuperCircle, a recycling management company that has worked with J. Crew, Reformation, Parachute, and other brands to help keep textiles out of landfills. Called “Scrubs That Don’t Suck,” the circularity initiative will collect old, used, worn out, or simply uncomfortable scrubs from any brand (just launder them first, please). Figs says the idea came from their community members, who said they often have “old, boxy, itchy” scrubs in the back of their closet, “and they’re just not sure what to do with them,” says Figs’ Chief Marketing Officer Bené Eaton. Some workplaces give out scrubs, and nursing schools can require students to wear scrubs from specific brands, so healthcare workers can amass a collection. People who want to send in their old scrubs can get a prepaid shipping label from Figs, or they can drop them off in person at Figs’ community hub locations in Los Angeles and Philadelphia. Through April, for the launch of the program, customers who recycle their scrubs will get a $50 credit toward a Figs purchase; after that, they’ll get a $25 credit. (Figs scrub tops start at $38, and bottoms at $44; the apparel company did more than $555 million in net revenue over 2024.) Those sent-in scrubs will either be fiber-to-fiber recycled, meaning the fibers will be turned into new fabrics, or open-loop recycled, meaning they’ll be shredded and processed for housing insulation, carpet matting, and other uses. While all textiles are still somewhat difficult to recycle, certain fibers, like 100% cotton, have “more robust” recycling outcomes, says SuperCircle cofounder and CEO Chloe Songer. Assuming scrubs follow broad apparel recycling trends, she estimates 40% will go to fiber-to-fiber recycling, and 60% to open loop. “We only work with projects that extend the life of the fiber at least five years,” she adds. That way, those textiles aren’t being turned into items like rags that may just end up in landfills within a year or two. Textile waste is a massive environmental issue. In the U.S. alone, people throw out an estimated 11.3 million tons of textiles annually. The majority of clothing ends up in landfills after only one owner. It’s difficult to nail down specific statistics on scrubs; people do donate them to secondhand stores or set up groups to trade scrubs. But scrubs are a “high frequency wear” item, Songer notes, meaning they get washed frequently and generally get dirty and worn. Scrubs that may be especially shabby, poor quality, or stained may not be a good fit for donation. “The biggest point of feedback we’ve had is that our community has collected, for years, these really poor, ill-fitting pieces of apparel, and so they end up sort of being stuck with them,” Eaton says. In April 2024, Figs did a one-month pilot of a scrubs take-back program to test out a solution. That pilot collected 45,000 pounds of scrubs. “It’s a great indicator in terms of what the long-term impact can be,” she adds. With this launch, Figs’ take-back program is now permanent. The focus on circularity also fits into Figs’s broader sustainability goals; the brand aims to have at least 75% of its scrub fabric be made of recycled and upcycled materials by 2030. Currently, its “Indestructible” scrubwear line, launched in 2024, uses 54% recycled polyester. Scrubs can be made up of different materials; some may be cotton, others polyester, and many are a blend. SuperCircle uses near-infrared spectroscopy, or NIR, technology, which uses infrared light to identify a textile’s makeup. Then it can catalogue and sort those different textiles, and send them off to the right recycling facilities. Scrubs are good candidates for apparel recycling because many don’t have zippers or buttons that can complicate the recycling process. For textile recycling to work, Songer says, it needs scale; SuperCircle ships its material to recyclers 40,000 pounds at a time. Collecting scrubs will help SuperCircle scale and ramp up its overall textile recycling volume. “This will be the first time that we’re getting post-consumer scrubs into textile recycling outcomes,” she says. This partnership, though, is just “scratching the surface” of medical apparel waste, she adds; SuperCircle hopes to continue working with the medical industry more widely to help divert items like hospital gowns and linens from landfills. View the full article

It’s summer again. A decade may have passed in real time since stepbrothers Phineas Flynn and Ferb Fletcher had their last summertime adventure on TV, but it’s just one unremarkable school year later for the characters in the beloved animated TV series Phineas and Ferb. The longest-running show in Disney Channel history, Phineas and Ferb aired from February 2008 to June 2015, winning five Emmys and becoming the most successful animated series for kids (ages 6 to 11) and tweens (ages 9 to 14) in Disney Television Animation history. It became the No. 1 animated TV series among tweens in 2009, supplanting Nickelodeon’s SpongeBob SquarePants. Tina Fey, Ben Stiller, Seth MacFarlane, and Chaka Khan guest-starred, among many others, attracting a wide audience—roughly 25% of whom were older than 18. A live show featuring costumed actors doing musical numbers toured North America from 2011 to 2013. Then, after a seven-year run of 126 two-part episodes, co-creators Dan Povenmire and Jeff “Swampy” Marsh ended the show. They were exhausted. But viewers were not—Phineas and Ferb has since racked up more than 13 billion viewing hours across linear and streaming platforms. It remains Disney’s top-ranked title among boys 6 to 11, and has achieved cult status among many of its original fans. Dan PovenmireJeff “Swampy” MarshPhineas and Ferb During the COVID-19 lockdown in 2020, Povenmire got on TikTok “because I was bored,” he says. “Almost immediately I got millions and millions of followers.” (He has 6.8 million today.) “I realized that all the twentysomethings who grew up with the show had all moved to TikTok.” Posts in which he’d evoke the voice of Phineas and Ferb archvillain Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz would get millions of views overnight. In January 2023, Disney announced it was bringing the show back. Forty new episodes are set to run, starting with two episodes on Thursday, June 5, at 8 p.m. ET and PT on Disney Channel and Disney XD. (The first episode will be available that same day on Disney Channel YouTube). The first 10 episodes of the season will then premiere the next day on Disney+ and also be available to stream on Disney Channel On Demand. The action picks up the summer after the show’s original run, with the kids a year older but not visibly changed—except for an extra orange stripe on Phineas’s trademark T-shirt. (You can see the new trailer here.) “If you were bingeing the whole series and got to the end of the fourth season and went right into the fifth season, it shouldn’t feel like a different show,” says Povenmire, who returns to the helm with longtime collaborator Marsh (they also voice the characters of Dr. Doofenshmirtz and Major Monogram, respectively). Most of the original voice cast is also returning, and the new series will have the same format: two stories contained in a 30-minute time slot. But since the show’s original run, the world has changed, the way audiences consume media has evolved, and the Disney universe has expanded. So with the reboot of Phineas and Ferb, Disney is using every trick in its marketing playbook, hoping to optimize new platform synergies and maximize engagement with fans well beyond the typical Disney Channel demographic of 6- to 14-year-olds. “With Phineas and Ferb, we have a rare opportunity to tap into both nostalgia and discovery,” says Shannon Ryan, president of marketing at Disney Entertainment Television. “Many original fans are now young adults or parents, and our campaign is designed to celebrate that cross-generational appeal.” “Hey, Ferb! I know what we’re going to do today!” Phineas and Ferb is known for its rapid-fire puns, visual gags, and zany pop-culture references, all of which came easily to creators Povenmire and Marsh, veterans of The Simpsons, King of the Hill, and Family Guy. The show’s plot is essentially always the same: Phineas and Ferb dream up an over-the-top, large-scale invention—an other-dimensionator, a giant robot shark, a tower to the moon, an animal translator, a time machine, a backyard beach with an ocean—and get their pals to help them build it. Their teenage sister, Candace, tries to “bust” them. Meanwhile, the boys’ pet platypus, Perry, in his alter ego as super-spy Agent P., battles the gleefully evil supervillain Dr. Doofenshmirtz and his latest “-inator” device (De-Love-Inator, Hot-Dog-Vendor-Revenge-Inator, Double-Negative-Inator, to name a few). Almost always, the story ends with the evidence of the boys’ invention being wiped away, leaving Candace fuming. “Early on, we decided to make the show a nicer show,” Povenmire says. “We decided to get rid of a lot of the attitudinal humor that is the easiest to write and say, ‘Let’s see if we can make a good, edgy show without making the characters into jerks and idiots.’ And I think that’s what you get—a show that’s wholesome but not cringey.” Integral to the show’s appeal are its catchy songs, written by Povenmire, Marsh, and collaborator Martin Olson. Every episode of Phineas and Ferb features at least one musical number, and these songs have continued to inspire viral content on TikTok and Instagram many years later. “I’d see Jason Derulo [dancing to] ‘Platypus Controlling Me,’” Povennmire says, “Lizzo doing ‘Squirrels in my Pants’ in front of a sold-out crowd at a concert, Jimmy Fallon and Reese Witherspoon doing ‘Squirrels’ on TV. It was really bizarre, but it gave us this feeling like there’s still a very rabid fan base out there.” It’s an unusually broad one. The first generation of Phineas and Ferb fans are college age. Their parents, who were often won over as well, are now (gulp) in their fifties. And an entire new generation of youngsters has discovered the show through streaming on Disney+. Each of these audiences has different viewing habits—and presents unique marketing challenges—and Disney has made a calculated plan to appeal to them all. “Seize the day!” Even during the show’s original run, “it was clear that fan appetite extended beyond traditional TV,” Ryan says. “That’s why we launched early original short-form series like Take Two With Phineas and Ferb and Doof’s Daily Dirt to keep the world alive between seasons.” This summer, Disney will debut two new original shorts, Cartoonified With Phineas and Ferb, a Take Two update featuring interviews with real-life celebrities drawn in the style of the series, and Agent P, Under C, featuring Perry as Agent P. battling rivals from A.N.A.T.H.E.M.A. (the Alliance of Nefarious Animals That Has an Exceptionally Memorable Acronym). The shorts will play on Disney Channel, Disney+, and Disney YouTube channels. The new episodes themselves will initially run at 8 p.m. ET and PT on Disney Channel—a prime family viewing hour. They will then stream on Disney+ the next day, with more episodes released over subsequent weeks. The linear and streaming platforms “don’t seem to be cannibalizing each other,” says Ayo Davis, president of Disney Branded TV. “Kids are title loyal, platform agnostic, and they watch anything, any and everywhere.” Meanwhile, thanks to Disney+’s extended constellation of properties including Marvel and Star Wars, there are new brand synergies to capitalize on. There were a couple of crossover episodes in the original run of the series, including “Mission Marvel” and “Star Wars.” This time around, Marvel will publish new comics featuring Phineas and Ferb and other show characters reimagined as superheroes. New show-related merch will include the first Phineas and Ferb FunkoPop! collectible figures and, on May 9, an album from Disney Music Group called Lofi: Phineas and Ferb, featuring chilled-out renditions of 10 songs from the original series. The “summer celebratory takeover,” in Disney’s marketing speak, will also include trailer placement with in-theater screenings of the Warner Bros. Minecraft movie; promotion at this year’s Vans Warped Tour music festival; branded ice-cream trucks at beaches; and a sponsorship at the San Diego Zoo, home to the only two platypuses in the U.S. Near the start of the new series pilot, Phineas, Ferb, and their gang frantically throw out dozens of ideas for their next invention. Rather than deciding on one, they build them all. Disney seems to be doing much the same thing. “Our campaign is about more than launching a new season of a hit show,” Ryan says. “It’s about making Phineas and Ferb the must-experience event of the summer.” It’s going to be hard to miss. View the full article

Are you ready for another 140 days of summer vacation? Disney announced today that the long-awaited reboot of its animated hit Phineas and Ferb will be back on June 5 for the start of a 40-episode run across Disney’s linear and streaming platforms. The action picks up the summer after the show’s original run left off, with the kids a year older but not visibly changed—except for an extra orange stripe on Phineas’s trademark T-shirt. Co-creators Dan Povenmire and Jeff “Swampy” Marsh are back at the helm. Originally launched on Disney XD in 2008 (after a 2007 “sneak peek”), the animated show—about two inventive stepbrothers on summer vacation, their pet platypus, and a bumbling supervillain named Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz—aired for 126 episodes, the longest-running show in Disney TV history. It beat out rival Nickelodeon’s SpongeBob SquarePants to become the No. 1 animated TV series among tweens (ages 9 to 14) in 2009, and became the most successful animated series for kids and tweens in Disney Television Animation history. The show spawned six one-hour specials, two movies, a soundtrack album, a touring live show, and a really dedicated cult following both IRL and online (Povenmire has 6.8 million followers on TikTok). Its multilevel humor, catchy songs, and lively visuals appealed not only to its tween target audience but also to their parents. Now those kids are in college, their parents are in their forties and fifties, and there’s a whole new generation of younger viewers who have discovered the show on Disney+. (Across linear and streaming platforms, more than 13 billion hours of Phineas and Ferb content has been viewed since the show’s launch.) Disney has extensive plans to reach all of those viewers where they are. The new episodes will air first on Disney Channel, Disney XD, and Disney Channel YouTube—and the next day on Disney+. View the full article

Misplaced nostalgia is not a good enough reason for something that will only hurt votersView the full article

Whether you want to quickly check where a particular city is or grab an address to share with a friend, opening a full-blown maps app sometimes feels like overkill. Mappa Mini is a free Mac app by developer Lucas Raggers that lets you do a quick search without taking up all of your attention. Just click the menu bar icon and search for any business or location. You'll see right where it is in a small pop-up, without having to load any application or website. If there are multiple matches, you'll see them all in a list—click any of them to see the location in context. This is perfect for when you quickly need to check where something is. You can get more details by clicking the three dots to the right of the location. This allows you to add the location to your favorites, open the location or create a route to it, or copy the address. Credit: Justin Pot You can choose to copy the full address or just a part of it, such as the full address, postal code, city, or street. You can also copy the coordinates, or just copy a link or picture of the map. All of this is useful if you're texting a friend about where to meet and want to provide some quick context. By default, opening a location will launch Apple Maps. You can change this, if you like, so that locations open in your choice of Google Maps, OpenStreetMap, Waze, or HERE WeGo. Note that the initial map will always be an Apple Map—the setting only changes what happens when you choose to open the location or get directions to it. There's not much more in the way of settings—you can change the size of the pop-up window, the map radius, and whether the application launches in the menu bar when your Mac boots. It's not an application that's going to replace your map app of choice, nor is it trying to be. It's great at what it does, though, and that's doing quick map searches before getting out of your way. View the full article

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Peppers are one of the best vegetables to grow. They are expensive to buy, even when in season; they don’t take up a lot of garden space; and although there are a limited number of peppers available in stores, there are thousands of varieties are out there that you can grow. Plus, you can choose precisely when to harvest them. The pepper most people choose to grow in their garden—full size bell peppers—are a waste, though, in my opinion. Each plant only yields a few peppers, and because of their size, bell peppers take a while to grow and then to ripen. In that time, the pepper is susceptible to pests and disease. Even in the most perfect circumstances, you’ll likely only get a few big peppers. You can roast or char snacking peppers just like large bells, or just eat them raw. Credit: Amanda Blum Instead, try growing snacking peppers, a miniature version of the bell pepper. Each plant grows heaps of peppers, which ripen in a shorter time span. You can use them in the same way you would large size bell peppers (except for stuffing). Available in red, yellow, chocolate, purple, and orange, these peppers light up the garden with color. I’ve pulled in excess of fifty peppers off each of my plants the last two years. When to start growing snacking peppersPeppers are part of the trio of nightshades that almost everyone grows each summer (tomatoes, eggplants, peppers). Because these three require the sun and heat you usually only find in the summer months, they truly are a once-a-year treat. Usually, seeds for peppers need to start early because they take longer to germinate than other nightshades. In my area (the Pacific Northwest), that means I start pepper seeds at the beginning of March. If you haven’t started your pepper seeds yet, you’ll want to do so immediately, so you’ll have time to grow starts before outdoor temperatures reach fifty degrees overnight and you can place them outside. I don’t know anyone who direct-seeds peppers outside; gardeners generally start from seedlings they’ve bought or grown themselves because you need the jumpstart seedlings offer. How to encourage branching and support the plantAs your pepper plant grows, you want to encourage as much branching as possible, since this will result in more peppers. When the first set of true leaves appear on the plant, pinch them off using your fingers to encourage the plant to produce two branches, each with their own set of leaves. You can continue pinching off twin leaves to encourage the plant to produce more sets of branches. When the first flower appears on your plant, many gardeners will strip the plant of the flower and every branch and leaf below the flower, all the way to the soil line. Removing the first flower encourages the plant to produce more, which will result in fruit. Stripping the leaves below the flower will encourage airflow and make the plant focus energy on the plant above the flower. The most common mistake I see people make is expecting their pepper plant to support itself. Your plant should reach two to three feet in height, but snacking pepper plants will be heavy with fruit, and top heavy at that. At the least, support the plant with a single stake for the main stem. But it would be better to consider a trellis that will offer branches support as well. Peppers don’t achieve the same width as tomatoes, so tomato trellises are often too wide to offer real support. Instead, consider pepper trellises. Protect against disease and pestsPeppers are mostly susceptible to fungal problems. The solution for this is to ensure good airflow around your pepper plant and water only at the base of the plant. Make sure when you are touching your plant that your hands are clean, and cut out leaves with noticeable issues immediately. You can purchase seeds that are resistant to bacterial leaf spot, another common pepper malady, but if the seeds aren’t resistant, you’ll need to watch for signs: green and brown spots on the leaves. While you can try to treat bacterial leaf spot with copper treatments, you may decide to cull the plant, instead, so it does not spread to the rest of your garden. The biggest threat to your pepper plant is snacking pests as the fruit ripens. Peppers are colorful and easy to spot. The best solution is to get them off the plant as soon as possible, which is why snacking peppers are a good idea. Peppers won’t ripen on their own inside, so you want to pick them when some color has developed on them, but you don’t need to wait until they are fully developed, either. How to eat snacking peppersYou can eat snacking peppers raw, just like bell peppers. You can roast or broil them, char and peel them, or use them in any way you might larger varieties. I roast and freeze them each year. The only limitation is their size, so stuffing these small peppers makes for great appetizers, if not a main course. There are a number of seeds to consider, and if you’ve missed the window on starting seeds, you can find snacking peppers at your local nursery, or order them online to be shipped. "Lunchbox" pepper mix SVPS0953 (bacterial leaf spot resistant), in orange, red, and yellow "Sweet Nibblers," available in red seeds or plants or yellow seeds or plants Orange "first taste" sweet pepper "Burpee Garden Sown" sweet hybrid "Sweetie" pepper snack pack (red, yellow, orange) plants Miniature bell peppers in yellow, red, or chocolate Snacking pepper plants in red or yellow View the full article

At Visa’s ETA Transact event on April 3, the payments giant introduced three new products designed to simplify and secure payment acceptance. These innovations—Authorize.net 2.0, Unified Checkout, and the ARIC Risk Hub—all aim to enhance efficiency and fraud protection for businesses navigating an increasingly complex commercial landscape. By integrating the three new tools, Visa seeks to service businesses end to end—from integrating with existing platforms to accepting more payments, reducing checkout friction, and managing risk efficiently. “Visa is looking to wherever appropriate to invest in next-generation technologies and uplift our products,” says Rob Cameron, global head of Visa Acceptance Solutions. Authorize.net 2.0 A major overhaul of one of the first internet platforms for e-commerce payments, Authorize.net 2.0 enhances the user experience while connecting businesses with banks and merchant acquirers across the United States. New AI-driven tools further enhance the platform by automating tasks and optimizing payment strategies. Businesses can now issue invoices simply by speaking to Authorize.net, which will generate the invoice, locate the customer, and prepare the invoice for sending—eliminating manual entry. Subscription-based businesses, such as tutoring services, will benefit from the platform’s streamlined setup to accept payments and then charge customers on a recurring basis. “This saves time and allows small-business owners to operate more efficiently,” Cameron says. Unified Checkout Unified Checkout is Visa’s next-generation solution for online payments, designed to create a seamless experience for merchants and customers that reduces lost sales at the checkout point. By automatically adapting the checkout page to match a business’s website, the system ensures a consistent look and feel while improving security. “It’ll look at your existing website, and then it’ll configure a checkout page so it looks like you’re still in the same environment, even though we’ve insulated the website from the credit card data and all the things that websites don’t actually want for security,” Cameron says. Businesses can customize the checkout button order based on insights, prioritizing payment methods like Apple Pay to match customer preferences. With “25 out-of-the-box, different payment types,” including Klarna’s buy now, pay later services, the system helps reduce cart abandonment by ensuring customers find their preferred payment method. The platform also enhances customer retention through tokenization, allowing returning customers to shift from “guest checkout to remember me next time” for a smoother purchasing experience. ARIC Risk Hub Visa’s 2024 acquisition of Featurespace led to the development of ARIC (adaptive, real-time, individual, change identification) Risk Hub, a fraud-detection and risk-management tool that enhances acquirers’ ability to monitor risk and protect merchants. ​​Featurespace’s powerful, adaptive AI helps identify risky transactions and builds profiles around genuine customer activity to increase approvals and stop bad actors in real time. This system enables “dynamic settlement,” meaning businesses can receive payments based on risk assessments. “If I decide you’re low risk, maybe I’ll decide to settle you instantly and I’ll give you money right away,” Cameron says, noting that for higher-risk businesses—such as those selling furniture that won’t be delivered for months—reserves can be adjusted dynamically. The platform’s ongoing monitoring allows financial institutions to approve more merchants up front. Without it, strict barriers are needed to block risky merchants. However, by continuously analyzing transactions and merchant behavior, acquirers can make smarter decisions over time. Cameron says this can ultimately boost revenue by increasing approval rates. Additionally, ARIC Risk Hub provides fraud prevention through acquirer-backed monitoring services. If a merchant receives a suspicious order, the system can detect risks and issue a warning, which, Cameron notes, “allows acquirers to actually provide monitoring services to protect their merchants.” View the full article

Beans and chocolate prices set to rise as a result of new levies View the full article

Walking around the factory floor of Twincraft Skincare, outside Burlington, Vermont, there is the unmistakable scent of soap. The general manager points out the luxury lines and designer labels for whom they manufacture soaps and lotions, as well as the basic, inexpensive bars and bottles left on hotel room sinks. The factory runs two 10-hour shifts per day, four days a week, with an overtime option as needed. At over 400 employees, Twincraft is one of the top employers in the state. In the last few years, there’s been a boom in skincare products and, to meet demand, Michele Asch, Twincraft’s chief people officer, says they’ve had to hire over 180 people over the past 18 months. But, pre-pandemic, Asch had begun to notice a problem in hiring workers: People couldn’t find local childcare. One standout employee, she recalls, spent an hour driving each morning to drop her kids off in two different towns before driving to work—though she lived only 15 minutes away. In 2020, Asch met with Aly Richards, the director of Let’s Grow Kids, the organization responsible for spearheading the decade-long campaign to provide a comprehensive fix for the state’s childcare shortage. Via Zoom, Asch recalls asking, “‘Aly, we make skincare. Can’t I just pay into a system so we can get this childcare fixed?’” But “fixed” isn’t so simple for childcare. Childcare is an industry in crisis, where the demand is high, the supply is low, and market forces alone cannot correct it. The high teacher-to-student ratios required for childcare mean that parents pay high costs—often more than they can reasonably afford—while providers are compensated little. Many providers rely on public benefits or are unable to afford sending their own children to the childcare locations in which they work. Like Asch’s employee who had to drive an hour to find care, half of the country is living in childcare deserts, where no workable care options exist. “Vermont is in a deep demographic crisis now,” says Richards. With a dwindling and aging population, Vermont was losing potential workers and the tax base that accompanies it. “Many women with education and careers would work if they had access to affordable childcare.” And if businesses, like Twincraft, wanted to stay, grow, and manufacture products in the state, they needed to find a way to retain young employees and bring new ones in. Richards appointed Asch to the board of Let’s Grow Kids and to the CEO Task Force, a group assigned to devise a funding plan for childcare that business leaders in the state could get behind, facilitated by a former state tax commissioner. Initially, the task force was adamantly against a payroll tax to finance childcare. But after exploring every funding option—including an income tax and property tax—the payroll tax emerged as the solution “that checked every box,” according to Asch. A payroll tax allowed the payment burden of the childcare program to be placed on workers, not retirees. As more people took advantage of the program and went to work, the revenue stream would grow. Asch began speaking one-on-one with business leaders on the need to invest in childcare. She personally invited other manufacturing leaders in the state to meet with Richards, vet the proposal, and ask any and all pointed questions. The Twincraft conference room was filled with business leaders of Vermont’s most recognizable brands: Bag Balm, Runamok Maple, Birrn Chocolates, Vermont Creamery, Lake Champlain Chocolates, Burton’s Snowboard, and Mamava. Those peer-to-peer conversations were critically important, explains Richards, because “you have a trusted business partner running a successful business. They can literally say, ‘I’ve studied this deeply with my values and my prowess and I’m here to tell you, [this] is the deal with childcare in summary form.’” ‘Childcare is necessary infrastructure for doing business’ Childcare has long been a social policy issue without a designated home. It is part education, part parenting, part economics—as obstacles to childcare remain one of the top reasons that parents cannot access paid work. Even in message testing surrounding childcare, arguments about the economic and workforce benefits are considered the most persuasive. Data from Let’s Grow Kids and the University of Vermont estimated that with the additional childcare funds in the state, 5,000 additional parents could participate in Vermont’s workforce, and by parents paying less for care and receiving more income as wage-earners, and providers receiving more, there would be a $375 million annual boost to the state’s economy due to such influx. Asch’s biggest challenge wasn’t that her business colleagues disagreed with the need for childcare, but that they didn’t fully understand why this state-organized effort funded by the payroll tax was the proposed solution. “Once they understood [the childcare plan] they would enthusiastically or reluctantly support it,” she said. “I don’t pay individually to have our roads done. I pay into a system to have the trucks come in to pick up the soap. [Childcare] is necessary infrastructure for doing business.” In January of 2023, Vermont’s business leaders testified in support of the childcare legislation, now named Act 76, in front of the state’s Senate Economic Development Committee, both for the need for childcare to support their employees and hire more, and to show their willingness to shoulder the payroll tax that accompanied it. Cara Tobin, a chef and mother of two who’d opened the restaurant Honey Road in Burlington and become a James Beard finalist, testified that it was “easier to open a restaurant than find childcare.” Tobin was one of 10 business leaders who testified in support of Act 76, including a cross-section of business interests of the state: a solar company, an entrepreneur, a ski resort, and, of course, manufacturers. In June 2023, the legislation passed with bipartisan support, and after a veto from the governor, passed with a bipartisan veto override. The payroll tax took effect in July 2024: 0.44% split between employees (0.11%) and employers (0.33%). Some employers, Twincraft among them, have opted to cover the entire tax for their workers. In January 2024, childcare providers began seeing a change in compensation, and since the legislation has taken effect, childcare supply has boomed in the state: 90 new childcare programs have opened, with a net gain of 1,000 new childcare spots. For the first time since 2018, more childcare programs have opened in the state than closed. Asch has noticed that more of her employees can find childcare closer to where they work, and have more affordable options “and therefore less stress,” she said. She’s exploring opening a childcare center adjacent to Twincraft. Tobin’s youngest child went to kindergarten when Act 76 took effect; she hasn’t been able to personally take advantage of the program, but her restaurant employees have. “I see it working for other people for sure,” Tobin said. “This completes the circle: You are supporting your workers who can make money, then spend money in the community, and it keeps coming back around. When we support the community, they support us.” View the full article

Ikea’s new collection is all about accessibility. The furniture maker’s new Bäsingen collection, which is available this month, includes six items for the bathroom that the company designed to be easy to use for people with disabilities: a shower chair, two kids of stools with rails, a towel rail, a shower shelf, and a toilet roll holder. The products range from about $12 to about $39. The collection was designed to be sturdy and non-slippery, with tube handles on the stools and that are thick for an easy grip. The dark color for the products in the collections was also chosen so the items would be easily visible, but stylish enough so to be something you’d want to keep out in view, Ikea says. Sarah Fager, Ikea’s senior designer, said she started working on the Bäsingen collection “by wanting to learn more about the needs and wishes of people with physical limitations.” She said it was one of her most challenging design projects “because it was about meeting needs that were new to me,” but it was also one of her most enlightening. “The products were created to bring great functionality together with a beautiful design, as they have a minimalistic expression that is rooted in our Scandinavian design tradition,” she said. “Bäsingen is designed to help customers create a comfortable experience.” At least 61 million U.S. adults have at least one disability, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data shows. Some may have more requirements than the average user for household products, like stools with handles they can hold onto for stability for safety in the bathroom or shower. Global sales of assistive furniture reached an estimated $4.93 billion in 2024, according to data from Fact.MR, a market research firm. And Ikea isn’t the only furniture maker that’s designing for accessibility. Last year, Pottery Barn added optional, accessible features to three of its most popular furniture lines. Ikea released Omtänksam, a collection of ergonomic products for comfort and support in 2020. “There are many people who experience impactful and common circumstantial changes that can make something as simple as taking a shower challenging,” Ikea product design developer Watts Zijlstra said in a statement. “Yet, we see that the home environment is often not equipped for change. The starting point for Bäsingen was a clear need for specific product functions.” View the full article

President reveals plans to impose 10% universal levies and higher duties on major partnersView the full article

President’s move to rip up global trade rule book will hit an economy already losing momentum, say economistsView the full article