Author: Awais

We’re deep in soup season now—when “just one more bowl” becomes a perfectly acceptable dinner mantra and our freezer starts filling up with brothy leftovers. November has us wanting big steaming pots of comfort, such as lentil soups bright with lemon and slow-simmered classics that make the whole house smell amazing. So, as we head into the home stretch of the month (and gear up for the marathon of Thanksgiving cooking ahead), we’re sharing the 10 soup recipes our readers have been saving the most in MyRecipes, our free tool for saving and organizing recipes. Below, you’ll find a cozy…

Looking for the most recent regular Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle and Strands puzzles.Today’s Connections: Sports Edition is a diverse one today. As a Seattle resident, I got a kick out of the purple category. If you’re struggling with today’s puzzle but still want to solve it, read on for hints and the answers.Connections: Sports Edition is published by The Athletic, the subscription-based sports journalism site owned by The Times. It doesn’t appear in the NYT Games app, but it does in The Athletic’s…

What is cooking without onions? Think about it. From butter chicken curry to French onion soup to pasta Bolognese, so many recipes from all over the world rely on some kind of allium as a foundation. It’s no wonder onions are among the first things we learn to cut. And yet, you’d be surprised to know that many of us are probably cutting onions the wrong way. Well, maybe wrong is too strong a word (you do you). But we’d be remiss if we didn’t share that there’s a chef-approved method that’s not only safer but also helps you cut…

Also check out these weekly updated reports for even more social media news: November 2025 Instagram updates Instagram is testing the ability to sort reels by “Latest” or “Most viewed.” (source) Instagram is replacing the “Following” count with “Mutual friends.” (source) Instagram brought back the screenshot sharing sheet feature in Instagram DMs. (source) Instagram now allows users to share their customized algorithm settings for reels as a story. (source) Instagram could introduce a “Schedule Post” feature for trial reels. (source) Instagram added two new font effects, “Comic” and “Retro Chrome.” (source) Instagram has added a new “Competitive Insights” element in…

Android smartwatches are on sale for the holiday shopping season. Browse favorites from Samsung, Google, Garmin, Fitbit, and more. Find budget-friendly deals under $100 to premium wearables under $400 with Black Friday discounts. *Prices accurate at time of publication and subject to change. Best Android Smartwatches Under $100 Want an Android smartwatch on a budget? These models deliver the essentials under the $100 price point. Best Android Smartwatches Under $200 Gift or upgrade your current wearable to one with more features without breaking the $200 mark. Fitbit Sense 2, $179 (orig. $249) Galaxy Watch 7 40mm, $129 (orig. $249) Google…

The more than 20,000 pages of Jeffrey Epstein emails released earlier this month by the House Oversight Committee have been enough to prompt more investigations into the convicted child sex offender and the people around him, like former Harvard president and OpenAI board member Larry Summers. Now, Luke Igel and Riley Walz have reformatted the source documents into a more familiar format for anyone looking into them by copying the Gmail inbox on a website called “Jmail.”In the weeks since these files were released, the president has signed the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which says the Attorney General must “make…

Welcome to Derry is my latest HBO Max obsession. I’ve always been a huge Stephen King fan, and his huge book IT is packed full of lore, so I was delighted when a TV adaptation of it arrived on one of the best streaming services.Horror fans love Pennywise, the main antagonist, but the beauty of Stephen King’s world is that there’s horror in human nature too. Welcome to Derry is now four episodes in, and I’m already gripped by the normal everyday characters living there.Recently, I got the chance to talk to star Taylour Paige during a roundtable with other…

I have two golden rules to live by in my kitchen: “Clean as you go” and “salt as you go.” A messy kitchen stresses me out and slows me down, but skipping salting along the way is an even bigger mistake. Salting throughout the cooking process isn’t just about making food taste salty—it’s about unlocking potential. Salt suppresses bitterness and enhances sweet and umami flavors, revealing the best of every ingredient. In mashed potatoes, it’s not the star of the show, but it’s an indispensable supporting actor, the one who makes everyone else look good. Because potatoes absorb salt differently…

YouTube and Facebook continue to lead U.S. social media usage, but TikTok, Instagram, WhatsApp and Reddit are showing consistent growth, according to new data from Pew Research Center. The report surveyed 5,022 U.S and found 84% use YouTube and 71% use Facebook. Instagram reached 50% adoption, making it the only other platform used by at least half of American adults. What The Data Says TikTok Growth Continues TikTok usage among U.S. adults has increased to 37%, a slight rise from last year and nearly twice the 21% recorded in 2021. Approximately 24% of TikTok users visit the platform daily. Instagram…

[Submitted on 10 Jun 2025 (v1), last revised 20 Nov 2025 (this version, v2)] View a PDF of the paper titled Beyond Bias Scores: Unmasking Vacuous Neutrality in Small Language Models, by Sumanth Manduru and 1 other authors View PDF HTML (experimental) Abstract:The rapid adoption of Small Language Models (SLMs) for resource constrained applications has outpaced our understanding of their ethical and fairness implications. To address this gap, we introduce the Vacuous Neutrality Framework (VaNeu), a multi-dimensional evaluation paradigm designed to assess SLM fairness prior to deployment. The framework examines model robustness across four stages – biases, utility, ambiguity handling,…