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COLLEGE PARK, Md. (AP) — Kermit the Frog knows it’s not easy being green — or graduating from college and entering the real world, especially during a time of economic uncertainty and political turmoil. Members of the University of Maryland’s class of 2025 will receive their diplomas Thursday evening with sage advice from the amphibious Muppet ringing in their ears. The university announced in March that Kermit, who was created in 1955 and became the centerpiece of the Muppets franchise, would be this year’s commencement speaker. He’s also no stranger to the school.Muppets creator Jim Henson graduated from Maryland in…

The administration of President Donald Trump has begun the process of ending the federal government’s involvement in reforming local police departments, a civil rights effort that gained steam after the deaths of unarmed Black people like George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. On Wednesday, the United States Department of Justice announced it would cancel two proposed settlements that would have seen the cities of Louisville, Kentucky, and Minneapolis, Minnesota, agree to federal oversight of their police departments. Generally, those settlements — called consent decrees — involve a series of steps and goals that the two parties negotiate and that a federal…

Sebastian Siemiatkowski is leaning all the way into the idea that his buy-now-pay-later, IPO-bound startup Klarna is an AI company. When Klarna delivered updated quarterly earnings on Monday, it was his AI avatar (pictured above) that presented the highlights, according to the company’s YouTube video. Other than AI Siemiatkowski’s admission, it wasn’t obvious that this was AI. There were only a few subtle signs: AI Siemiatkowski didn’t blink as much as most humans do. The voice sync was good, but not perfect. The AI was also wearing a brown jacket that looked a lot like the one from a widely…

Johannesburg, South Africa – When the millionaire mining magnate-turned-president of South Africa landed in Washington to meet the billionaire real estate tycoon-turned-president of the United States, it was with a deal in mind. Tensions have been escalating between the US and its African trade ally since Donald Trump took office this year, cut off aid to South Africa, repeated false accusations that a “white genocide” is taking place there and began welcoming Afrikaners as refugees. At the meeting between Trump and Cyril Ramaphosa in the White House on Wednesday, the South African president began by focusing heavily on trade and…

A federal judge in the United States has told the administration of President Donald Trump that an alleged effort to deport migrants to South Sudan was “unquestionably violative” of his court injunction. The announcement from US District Judge Brian Murphy on Wednesday tees up yet another judicial battle for the Trump administration, which has faced repeated criticism that it is ignoring court orders. Judge Murphy, who is based in Boston, Massachusetts, has yet to announce what he plans to do about the apparent violation. He left that question to another day. But he indicated that the people on board Tuesday’s…

The head of Columbia University alluded to the detention of Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil during a commencement speech Wednesday that drew loud boos and chants of “free Palestine” from graduating students. The acting president, Claire Shipman, also alluded to the crackdown on foreign students by the Trump administration that has roiled the Ivy League school in recent months. Graduates cheer during the Columbia University commencement ceremony on Columbia’s main campus, in Manhattan, on Wednesday, May 21, 2025 in New York. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig, Pool) Graduates cheer during the Columbia University commencement ceremony on Columbia’s main campus, in Manhattan, on Wednesday,…

OpenAI is acquiring io, the device startup that CEO Sam Altman and famed Apple designer Jony Ive have quietly been working on for two years, in an all-equity deal that values that startup at $6.5 billion, according to The Wall Street Journal. As part of the unusual deal announced Wednesday, Ive and his design firm, LoveFrom, will now lead creative and design work at OpenAI. “thrilled to be partnering with jony, [in my opinion] the greatest designer in the world,” said Altman in a post on X Wednesday. “excited to try to create a new generation of AI-powered computers.” thrilled…

A fifth round of nuclear negotiations between Washington and Tehran will take place in Rome on Friday, Oman says.Washington, DC – Officials from Iran and the United States will hold another round of talks in Rome on Friday, Oman’s Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi has said, despite the growing gap between the two countries over uranium enrichment. Wednesday’s confirmation that the nuclear negotiations would continue comes after days of Washington and Tehran expressing irreconcilable positions on Iranian uranium enrichment. US officials have said they want Iran not just to scale back its nuclear programme, but also to stop enriching uranium altogether —…

A ‘comprehensive review’ of the US’s chaotic military withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021 has also been ordered.Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said that the United States is reviewing whether to designate Afghanistan’s rulers, the Taliban, as a “foreign terrorist organization”. Rubio told the House Foreign Affairs Committee during a hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington on Wednesday, “I believe that classification is now, once again, under review.” The response came a day after US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered a “comprehensive review” of the United States’s chaotic military withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021, an evacuation operation in…

Disruption from the ‘highly sophisticated and targeted cyber attack’, first reported around Easter weekend, continues.British retailer Marks & Spencer estimates that a cyberattack that stopped it from processing online orders and left store shelves empty will cost it about 300 million pounds ($403m). The company said in a business update (PDF) on Wednesday that disruption from the “highly sophisticated and targeted cyber attack,” which was first reported around the Easter weekend, is expected to continue until July. Online sales of food, home and beauty products have been “heavily impacted” because the company, popularly known as M&S, had to pause online shopping. The…