Things To Do In SW Florida

By BERNARD CONDON

NEW YORK (AP) — Federal safety regulators have asked Elon Musk’s car company to explain how its driverless taxis will avoid causing accidents when they hit the road in Texas next month before a national “robotaxi” launch that is key to keeping its stock price aloft.

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Tesla has been told to provide information on how its taxis will operate safely in Austin, Texas, when there is fog, sun glare, rain and other low-visibility conditions that have been tied to accidents involving the company’s driver-assistance software. Those accidents, including one that killed a pedestrian, triggered the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to launch an investigation in October of 2.4 million of Musk’s vehicles. read more

By STEVE KARNOWSKI and KRISTIN M. HALL, Associated Press

WAVERLY, Minn. (AP) — Minnesota farmer Dan Glessing isn’t ready to get too upset over President Donald Trump’s trade wars.

Farm country voted heavily for Trump last November. Now Glessing and many other farmers are taking a wait-and-see attitude toward the Republican president’s disputes with China and other international markets.

China normally would buy about one row out of every four of the Minnesota soybean crop and took in nearly $13 billion worth of soybeans from the U.S. as a whole last year. More than half of U.S. soybeans are exported internationally, with roughly half of those going to China, so it’s a critical market.

Trump last month raised U.S. tariffs on products from China to 145%, and China retaliated with 125%. But Monday’s announcement of a 90-day truce between the two countries backed up the reluctance of many farmers to hit the panic button.

More good news came in an updated forecast from the U.S. Department of Agriculture on Monday that projected higher corn exports and only slightly lower corn prices. The report also predicted somewhat lower soybean exports but higher domestic consumption, resulting in higher prices. Soybean futures surged. read more

By BARBARA ORTUTAY, Associated Press Technology Writer

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Major social media platforms such as TikTok, Instagram and X have failed to protect LGBTQ+ users from hate and harassment, in part, because they intentionally rolled back previous safety practices, the advocacy group GLAAD said Tuesday in its annual Social Media Safety Index.

The report said that recent “unprecedented hate speech policy rollbacks” from Instagram and Facebook parent Meta Platforms and Google’s YouTube are “actively undermining the safety of LGBTQ people” both online and offline. Meta’s rollback now allows users to call LGBTQ people “mentally ill,” among other policy changes.

The scorecard assigns numeric ratings to each platform with regard to LGBTQ safety, privacy, and expression. Elon Musk’s X received the lowest score at 30 out of 100, while TikTok came in highest at 56. Meta’s Facebook, Instagram, Threads and Google’s YouTube were in the 40s. The group’s methodology has changed since last year, so the scores are not directly comparable to previous reports. read more

By MATT O’BRIEN

Microsoft began laying off about 6,000 workers Tuesday, nearly 3% of its entire workforce and its largest job cuts in more than two years as the company spends heavily on artificial intelligence.

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Hard hit was the tech giant’s home state of Washington, where Microsoft informed state officials it was cutting 1,985 workers tied to its Redmond headquarters, many of them in software engineering and product management roles.

Microsoft said the layoffs will be across all levels, teams and geographies but the cuts will focus on reducing the number of managers. Notices to employees began going out on Tuesday. read more