CNN fact-checker Daniel Dale argued there was “zero evidence” for President Donald Trump’s suggestion that Biden administration diversity initiatives at the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) “could have” caused Wednesday’s deadly aircraft crash in Washington, D.C.

Trump pushed the idea during a press conference late Thursday while giving a briefing on the deadly in-flight collision between an American Airlines flight and a military helicopter which happened near Reagan National Airport, killing 67 people.

The president then claimed former President Joe Biden had ended “very powerful tests” for air traffic controllers and that standards were higher under his presidency. When pressed on linking DEI to the crash, he simply said, “It just could have been.”

On Friday CNN host Pamela Brown asked Dale whether Trump’s claim was “backed by any facts.” The resident fact-checker pushed back on the president’s claims:

It is not. I think we have to say first and foremost that there is zero evidence whatsoever that anything to do with the FAA’s efforts to hire people of diverse backgrounds, people with disabilities had anything to do with this tragedy. So I think this is one of these fact checks where it’s like, wait, why are we even talking about this? But we’re talking about it because the president started a national conversation about FAA hiring practices so I think it’s important for people to know a couple of things.

First of all, at that press conference, President Trump read out a sentence from the Biden-era FAA website about the FAA’s desire to hire people with so-called targeted disabilities – those are significant disabilities like psychiatric and intellectual issues, paralysis, missing extremities, and so on. What he did not mention, Pamela, was that that exact language was on the FAA website under President Trump the entirety of his own administration. We grabbed a screenshot from December 2020 late in his first term. So this was not something Biden invented. In fact, it’s been on that website at least since 2013.

Number two, this was not just language on a Trump-era website. In fact, in 2019, under President Trump, the FAA launched a pilot program specifically to hire people with these so-called targeted disabilities: intellectual, psychiatric, etcetera, in air traffic control roles. So they emphasized at the time, these people would have to meet all criteria in terms of medical criteria, qualifications, security criteria. But regardless, this was not something the Biden administration invented, as he suggested.

The host then asked about the evidence produced by Trump, dated to the week before he took office on January 14th. She asked whether it was the “truth” that Biden made a last minute push for diversity initiatives. Dale responded:

That’s what he said. He’s like ‘January 14th. So right before I came back, they were trying to get all these people in.’ I looked at where these articles he was reading out were actually from. It’s January 14th, 2024 – a year ago. So there is no evidence of some frantic last minute Biden push to hire people with disabilities, hire people of diverse backgrounds at the FAA.

Watch above via CNN.

If you were looking for a respite from X, but Threads didn't work out for you, you might have ended up at Bluesky. Sure, Mastodon is great in theory, but it doesn't have nearly as many users talking in one place. And as a single app, Bluesky is simply easier to use.

Bluesky also feels like an app that has learned (or is still learning) from the mistakes of its peers. It has superior built-in moderation and troll-fighting features, and is relatively easy to get started with. But if you're going to pick up a new social network, you're going to want to carry over your mute words with you—that is, the collection of terms you've made over the years that you just don't want to see displayed on your feed. Maybe it's political stuff, or news about a certain celebrity, or even AI.

Bluesky makes it easy to mute words, and there's even a feature called Moderation Lists, where you can use crowdsourced lists and bulk-mute accounts at once. Here's how to use both.

How to mute words and phrases on Bluesky

Open the Bluesky website or smartphone app. From the sidebar, go to Settings > Moderation > Muted words & Tags.

Credit: Khamosh Pathak

Here, you'll see many options for muting a word. First, write the phrase or word you want to mute in the text box. Then, go through your options—though I think the default options are the best choice. Still, in the Duration section, you can choose to only mute the word for 24 hours, or 7 days, or 30 days, which can be great for, say, temporarily blocking out spoilers for a TV show you haven't watched yet.

Next, you can choose if you want to mute just Bluesky posts, to also mute tags. Here, too, the default of Text and Tags works quite well, instead of blocking just tags.

Lastly, you can choose to exclude users you follow from your mutes, in case you still want to hear about a topic like AI, but only from people you follow. When you're all set, click the Add button. Repeat the process to add more mute words and phrases.

Credit: Khamosh Pathak

Your muted words will show up in the section below. To unmute a word, all you have to do is to click the little X icon next to the word and confirm from the pop-up box.

Credit: Khamosh Pathak

How to mute accounts in bulk

Like other social media services, Bluesky lets you mute or block individual accounts right from that person's profile view. Click the three-dotted menu, choose Mute account, and you're done.

But the service goes beyond that: It also lets users create Moderation Lists that can be shared freely with a link, and it's possible to mute or block all the accounts included on such a list with just a click. It's a handy way to block a bunch of known NFT scammers, or notorious trolls, for example.

To create your own Moderation List, go to Settings > Moderation > Moderation Lists > New. Then give the list a name and description, and click on Save.

Credit: Khamosh Pathak

Use the search bar up top to search for and add any number of profiles to the list. Then, click the Subscribe button up top (confusing, I know), and from the popup, choose Mute account.

Credit: Khamosh Pathak

Then, click on Mute list from the popup to confirm.

Credit: Khamosh Pathak

This process becomes a lot more interesting when you start to search for crowdsourced lists about different profiles. For example, Skywatch Blue has curated many lists for blocking specific scammers or trolls. There's even a list dedicated to people who have Elon Musk's name or reference in their profile or description, which some people might find particularly handy in 2025.

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) confronted Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at a Thursday confirmation hearing with an X post in which he said he would “not take sides on 9/11.”

Kennedy went through his first hearing with the Senate Finance Committee on Wednesday before submitting to another round of questioning on Thursday. Kaine opened his questions by making note of the Washington, D.C. plane crash on Wednesday night that led to dozens of deaths. From there ,he brought up 9/11 and its effect on his state of Virginia. The senator then pulled out a blown up image of an X post from Kennedy about 9/11 from last year.

“My take on 9/11: It’s hard to tell what is a conspiracy theory and what isn’t. But conspiracy theories flourish when the government routinely lies to the public. As President I won’t take sides on 9/11 or any of the other debates. But I can promise is that I will open the files and usher in a new era of transparency,” Kennedy wrote.

Kennedy, President Donald Trump’s nominee to head the Department of Health and Human Services, wrote on X that he was referring to a CBS report on possible Saudi involvement in the 9/11 terror attacks.

“Speculation about what our government may be covering up is rife outside the mainstream of our political culture. Trust it government is at an all-time low. The way to restore that trust is through honesty and transparency. That is my promise, and that is what will resolve any questions about 9/11, UAPs, and other contentious topics. I am personally agnostic on those issues. My issue is TRANSPARENCY,” he wrote.

Kaine repeated Kennedy’s “won’t take sides on 9/11” line multiple times while asking him why he felt the need to put out that tweet at all in the middle of a presidential election.

“My father told me when I was 13 years old, he said, people in authority lie and that the job of a citizen in every democracy is to maintain a fear and skepticism of government authority,” Kennedy said.

Check out the exchange below:

TIM KAINE: We take that kind of stuff pretty personally. Virginians know what happened on 9/11. We don’t need folks giving oxygen to conspiracy theories about 9/11. Now one thing I noticed about this post is it was in July of 2024. It was 23 years after 9/11. You had a lot going on in your life. You were running for president then. What made you decide in the midst of everything going on in this country, in this world, in July of 2024 and your own candidacy for president, that now was the time to say it’s hard to tell what is conspiracy and what isn’t about 911. What was so important about making this point in July of 2024.

ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.: Senator, the dramatic drop in trust in our government and this is particularly at one of the templates of what happened at the CDC—

KAINE: No, no, no. I want to move aside from that because you say, you go on to say, I won’t take sides, as president, I won’t take sides on 9/11. Wow. I won’t take sides on 9/11. Let me ask you this. As a general matter, do you find it hard to tell what is a conspiracy theory and what isn’t? Is that kind of a general deficit that you find in your own analytical abilities.

KENNEDY: My father told me when I was 13 years old, he said, people in authority lie and that the job of a citizen in every democracy is to maintain a fear and skepticism of government authority.

KAINE: And you’re an authority, but you won’t take sides on 9/11 and you’re admitting, you know, I have a hard time telling what is a conspiracy theory and what isn’t.

KENNEDY: Senator, I have investigated. In the things I investigate, I take sides on. People are allowed to hold that opinion. I’m not going to tell them they’re crazy for holding that opinion. I’m going to say, what is your evidence? And if I hear the evidence, I’m going to say, that doesn’t make any sense.

KAINE: So, you won’t take sides on 9/11? Wow.

Watch above via CSPAN.

DeepSeek is having a moment: With the release of its impressive R1 model, the AI company overtook ChatGPT (and every other app) to become the number one free app on both the iOS App Store and Google Play Store. If you gave the app a try this week, however, be warned: Your chats may have been exposed.

As reported by The Hacker News, DeepSeek left one of its online databases exposed. While the company has issued a fix, this database is a treasure trove of user information. It contains over one million lines of log streams, which includes chat history, secret keys (used to encrypt and decrypt data), backend information, and other important data.

As of this article, DeepSeek says they are continuing to investigate the issue, despite implementing a fix on Jan. 29.

It isn't clear if any parties gained access to DeepSeek's database while it was vulnerable, but the vulnerability allowed for "complete database control," as well as privilege escalation within DeepSeek's network without any authentication needed.

DeepSeek's privacy and security policies have been a point of concern as so many users flock to its service. The platform collects a lot of user data, like email addresses, IP addresses, and chat histories, but also more concerning data points, like keystroke patterns and rhythms. Why does an AI app need to not only know what I typed, but how I typed it, too? As DeepSeek is a Chinese company, it stores all user data on servers in China. As such, the company is beholden by law to share any data the Chinese government requests. These practices are among the reasons the United States government banned TikTok.

There's no evidence this has happened, but the whole situation paints a precarious picture for the popular AI startup. If you do want to try DeepSeek, or if you're already using it, it's important to keep these points in mind. Your user data may not be quite so secure with this particular company.

Senator Maggie Hassan (D-NH) confronted Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for seemingly switching up from his pro-choice views since aligning with President Donald Trump.

Kennedy on Wednesday testified before multiple members of the United States Senate for his confirmation hearing. Shortly after Trump won the election, he nominated Kennedy to be the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services.

During Hassan’s line of questioning, she referenced some of Kennedy’s anti-vaccine claims while also bringing up his prior support of a woman’s right to choose. Those views, she continued, conflicted with one another.

“It is remarkable that you have such a long record of fighting for women’s reproductive freedom,” Hassan said, “and really great that my Republican colleagues are so open to voting for a pro-choice HHS secretary. So, Mr. Kennedy, I’m confused. You have clearly stated in the past that bodily autonomy is one of your core values. The question is, do you stand for that value or not? When was it that you decided to sell out the values you’ve had your whole life in order to be given power by President Trump?”

In response, Kennedy stated that he agreed with Trump that “every abortion is a tragedy” and that “we can’t be a moral authority of this country.”

Hassan then pressed him further.

“But that isn’t what you said back in New Hampshire in 2023,” she said. “My question is, exactly when did you decide to sell out your life’s work and values to get this position?”

Again, Kennedy said he agreed with Trump that “every abortion is a tragedy.”

Watch above via Fox News

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt vowed to credential new media during her first press briefing on Tuesday while taking swipes at traditional media outlets “losing trust.” She also boosted other “news-related content” creators like podcasters, who were widely seen as contributing to Donald Trump’s 2024 win.

“Before I take questions, I would like to point out to all of you once again have access to the most transparent and accessible president in American history. There has never been a president who communicates with the American people and the American press corps as openly and authentically as the 45th and now 47th president of the United States,” Leavitt said, adding:

This past week, President Trump has held multiple news conferences. Gaggle on Air Force One multiple times and sat down for a two part interview on Fox News, which aired last week. As Politico summed it up best, Trump is everywhere again. And that’s because President Trump has a great story to tell about the legendary American revival that is well underway.

And in keeping with this revolutionary media approach that President Trump deployed during the campaign. The Trump White House will speak to all media outlets and personalities, not just the legacy media who are seated in this room, because according according to recent polling from Gallup, Americans trust in mass media has fallen to a record low.

Millions of Americans, especially young people, have turned from traditional television outlets and newspapers to consume their news from podcasts, blogs, social media and other independent outlets. It’s essential to our team that we share President Trump’s message everywhere and adapt this White House to the new media landscape in 2025.

To do this, I am excited to announce the following changes will be made to this historic James s Brady Briefing Room, where Mr. Brady’s legacy will endure. This White House believes strongly in the First Amendment. So it’s why our team will work diligently to restore the press passes. Of the 440 journalists whose passes were wrongly revoked by the previous administration. We’re also opening up this briefing room to new media voices who produce news related content and whose outlet is not already represented by one of the seats in this room. We welcome independent journalists, podcasters, social media influencers and content creators to apply for credentials to cover this White House.

Watch the clip above via Fox News.

Quick Look is one of my favorite Mac features, so much so that I always use a third party app enable it on my Windows PCs as well. It allows you to preview files on your Mac without opening them. You can select any file in Finder and press the Spacebar key to preview it. This means I can press one button to quickly look at videos, listen to audio files, view images, or read documents. While this feature is great, I've always been annoyed that it doesn't work well with folders— until now.

By default, Quick Look will tell you how many files are in a folder, but doesn't actually tell you which files are in it. Thankfully, a new free utlity named Folder Preview closes that gap. Folder Preview lets you expand Quick Look's full functionality to folders. You select a folder, press the Spacebar, and Folder Preview will let you see all the files and folders inside of it, without actually opening it. It takes less than a minute to configure and silently does its job from that point on. It also doesn't ask for any permissions other than being added as a Finder extension, which is always nice to see.

This is what a folder preview looks like. Credit: Pranay Parab

Once you install Folder Preview, the app will prompt you to add it as a system extension. Go to System Settings on your Mac and navigate to General > Login Items & Extensions. Scroll to the bottom and click the i button next to Quick Look. Enable Folder Preview on this page to finish setting up the app. Now, selecting any folder in Finder and pressing Spacebar (or the app's own default keybinding—Command-Y) will display its contents.

You can also configure Folder Preview to show hidden files by going to its settings. Just open the app and go to Settings in the left pane. I've left this option disabled because I rarely want to see hidden system files on my Mac, but you can choose otherwise if needed. You can also ask the app to automatically expand folders while previewing. If you have a folder within a folder, this setting will show you the contents of up to five levels of nested folders. Lastly, you can also choose a larger size for icons in your folder previews.

MSNBC host Alex Witt corrected her own colleague who referred to migrants as “illegal aliens” during a report on Sunday afternoon.

On Alex Witt Reports, Witt brought on correspondent Priya Sridhar to provide an update on the mass deportations enacted by President Donald Trump. At the time of the report, Sridhar was at the U.S.-Mexico border in El Paso, Texas.

While giving a breakdown of a clip shown on the broadcast, Sridhar said:

“I want you guys to take a look at this video that we saw just this morning from the DEA, ATF and Homeland Security investigators out of the Rocky Mountain Division in Colorado. There, you can see a raid that was conducted this morning. They say that they were targeting a Venezuelan gang and they were able to seize cash, weapons and actually made an arrest of ’50 illegal aliens’ right there, Alex.”

Sridhar’s note about “50 illegal aliens” was a direct quote from a statement about the raid. Witt was quick t0 amend the terminology.

“We call them undocumented immigrants,” Witt said at the end of the segment. “But that, again, was in the release from the DEA. OK, thank you very much, Priya, for that from El Paso.”

Watch above via MSNBC

WhatsApp appears to finally be getting its iPhone app up to speed with its Android companion in a major way: allowing you to use multiple accounts on one device. The "new" feature, which has been available on Android since 2023, was spotted by WABetaInfo in the iPhone app’s most recent TestFlight beta program.

If (but more likely once) multi-account switching eventually carries through to a public release, users will be able to manage and sign into multiple WhatsApp accounts within a single instance of the WhatsApp app, eliminating the need to keep multiple devices on hand to manage each of their WhatsApp accounts. This will be especially handy for small businesses.

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The catch is that each account must still have its own phone number, so you’ll either need a phone with multiple SIM cards or some other way of acquiring an additional phone number—but newer iPhones can generally store up to eight eSIMs and use two phone numbers, so that shouldn't be a problem. Additionally, it’s worth noting that WhatsApp does currently offer a WhatsApp Business app in addition to its standard app, so iPhone users can technically already maintain two accounts on one device—one for each app—but the change will still offer users greater flexibility.

According to WABetaInfo, there are two ways to get multiple WhatsApp accounts on one device. You can simply set up your new account as a standalone primary account, or you can use a QR code to link it to your existing account as a “companion.” The site clarifies that elements like “notifications, chats, and backups will remain distinct for each account,” so it appears that the method you sign up with has more to do with ease of getting situated than how you’ll actually use the app.

While WhatsApp’s TestFlight beta program is open to the public, it is not currently accepting new members, so excited iPhone users will have to wait for a final release to get their hands on multi-account switching. Unfortunately, WABetaInfo doesn’t have any updates as to when the feature might go live, but if you’ve been planning on getting a secondary device just for Whatsapp, it might be smart to hold off for now.

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Your Mac collects a lot of usage data to improve macOS and Apple's own apps. Quite a bit of that data is collected by default, and it's good to be aware of it. Apple is quite good at declaring how and why it collects data, and almost always, this information is easy to find and understand. The company also encrypts a lot of the data that it collects, which means that Apple cannot read it. Having said that, I think all kinds of data collection should be opt-in, and not enabled by default. Here's how to review data collection settings on your Mac and use third-party tools to ensure that your computer isn't phoning home any more than is necessary.

And since we're on the subject of privacy, also consider opting out tracking by data brokers and stopping Apple from collecting data on your iPhone. 

Use a third-party firewall

Credit: Little Snitch

Although Apple offers its own firewall, it's not helpful if you want to monitor Apple's own data collection. Third-party firewalls work quite well on macOS, which is far less restrictive than iOS is here. You can use apps such as Little Snitch ($63), Radio Silence ($9), or even the free LuLu to keep an eye on apps and services that phone home. With a good firewall app, you'll be able to block outgoing connections (even Apple's own) and reduce tracking. 

Sometimes, it is important for your Mac to phone home, because that's how you get automatic software updates, but there are plenty of times when it's not needed at all. You can use your firewall app to monitor all these connections and block unnecessary ones.

Turn off Apple Intelligence

Apple Intelligence has a few redeeming features, but I find that it slows down my M1 MacBook Air a bit, and since it also requires you to send your data to Apple's servers, I prefer to turn it off. Yes, Apple Intelligence does encrypt data, but it still doesn't perform all actions on-device. If you're uncomfortable with your Mac using Apple's cloud services for AI features, you can turn off Apple Intelligence by clicking the Apple logo in the top-left corner of the screen and going to System Settings > Apple Intelligence & Siri.

Reduce Siri's data collection

As the Siri spying settlement confirms, you should be wary of Apple's data collection using its voice assistant. Apple is now quite transparent about how your data is processed for Siri, and you can go to System Settings > Apple Intelligence & Siri to check what the company has to say for yourself. Click the About Siri, Dictation & Privacy button and you'll see that Apple does store and process your Siri transcripts. This is another form of data collection, which you can avoid by disabling Siri and dictation. On the Siri settings page on your Mac, click Delete Siri & Dictation History and then click Delete to remove stored data. Then, turn off Siri. Finally, go to System Settings > Keyboard and turn off Dictation to complete the process.

Disable Apple analytics

When you use your Mac, Apple collects a fair bit of data to track app crashes, macOS bugs, and usage to decide which new features to work on next. This data is usually anonymized before being shared with Apple or third-party developers, but you can still review it and decide if you want to share it at all. Just go to System Settings > Privacy & Security > Analytics & Improvements on your Mac and go through all the options. I've disabled everything on this page.

Check Apple's location access

Credit: Pranay Parab

As a rule of thumb, I deny location access to practically every app on my Mac. Even so, I was surprised to see location access enabled for the computer's system apps. You can verify which of your apps have location access by going to System Settings > Privacy & Security > Location Services and clicking the Details button next to System Services. Go through the entire list and disable location access for services that don't need it. You should leave it enabled for essential services such as Find My, but it's okay to disable location access for Mac Analytics and a few others. 

You can also click the Details button next to Significant Locations to see the location information Apple has collected on your frequent hangouts, and optionally delete it and revoke access to future data collection. Note that this information is encrypted and cannot be read by Apple. The company says it uses the info to show useful details in Photos, Maps, Calendar, and other system apps.

Reduce personalized advertising

Over the past few years, Apple has been pushing its own ads quite a bit. The situation is far less dire on the Mac than it is on your iPhone, but it still is annoying to see ads in the Mac App Store. You can't block these entirely, but you can go to System Settings > Privacy & Security > Apple Advertising and disable Personalized Ads.

iCloud alternatives on the Mac

To complete your review of Apple's data collection on the Mac, you're going to have to scrutinize iCloud, too. iOS is restrictive enough that no service is as good as iCloud for syncing and backing up your data. However, macOS is far more accommodating, and you don't really need to use iCloud as much as you do on iOS. Some system apps such as Apple Notes, Messages, Calendar, and Reminders rely on iCloud for syncing, but otherwise you can look for alternative services to back up your Mac.

Note that using cloud storage services exposes you to data collection by default. You just have to decide if you want Apple to collect your data or opt for another company. Some people prefer to keep their data spread out across different services while others don't mind having it all in one place. The good news is that you can use dedicated online backup services such as Backblaze ($99/year) on the Mac, which isn't possible on the iPhone. You can also easily create offline backups using Time Machine or third-party apps such as Carbon Copy Cloner ($40). This means that you can easily reduce your reliance on iCloud on a Mac.

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President Donald Trump denounced Colombia’s President, Gustavo Petro, for turning away US deportation flights — and announced a series of “retaliatory measures.”

In a post to Truth Social Sunday afternoon, the president argued the rejection of the military flights carrying Colombian deportees represents a national security threat.

“I was just informed that two repatriation flights from the United States, with a large number of Illegal Criminals, were not allowed to land in Colombia,” Trump wrote. “This order was given by Colombia’s Socialist President Gustavo Petro, who is already very unpopular amongst his people. Petro’s denial of these flights has jeopardized the National Security and Public Safety of the United States.”

Trump added that he’s directed his administration to “immediately take the following urgent and decisive retaliatory measures”:

-Emergency 25% tariffs on all goods coming into the United States. In one week, the 25% tariffs will be raised to 50%.

-A Travel Ban and immediate Visa Revocations on the Colombian Government Officials, and all Allies and Supporters.

-Visa Sanctions on all Party Members, Family Members, and Supporters of the Colombian Government.

-Enhanced Customs and Border Protection Inspections of all Colombian Nationals and Cargo on national security grounds.

-IEEPA Treasury, Banking and Financial Sanctions to be fully imposed.

The president threatened further action if Colombia continues to reject the flights.

“These measures are just the beginning,” Trump wrote. “We will not allow the Colombian Government to violate its legal obligations with regard to the acceptance and return of the Criminals they forced into the United States!”

Colombian President Petro, in numerous posts Sunday on X, “I cannot make migrants stay in a country that does not want them, but if that country sends them back, it should be with dignity and respect for them and for our country.”

He added, “A migrant is not a criminal.”

Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said President Donald Trump “technically” violated the law by terminating more than a dozen inspectors general in a Friday night firing spree without notifying Congress as required by law.

Graham at first said the president acted lawfully before quickly correcting himself during a Sunday interview with NBC’s Kristen Welker on Meet the Press.

The South Carolina Republican ultimately concluded that Trump’s violation of the law was justified because he has the “authority” to make personnel decisions.

Welker said, “Let me ask you finally, on Friday night President Trump removed, as you know, 18 independent inspectors general. Just for folks, so they know what that means, these are watchdogs in key departments from Defense, to the State Department, Veterans Affairs.”

She then asked the senator, “What do you say to those who believe that President Trump is going to replace these watchdogs with loyalists?”

Graham waffled on the issue in the following exchange:

GRAHAM: You know, I’m not overly worried about that. It’s not the first time people have come in and put their team in – when you win an election, you need people in your administration that reflect your views. So I’m not really worried about that. This other stuff, you know, the security detail, that bothers me because it sends a signal to future service. Tulsi Gabbard, I’m inclined to vote for everybody, but I want to hear her thinking about Assad and Snowden. And we’ll see.

WELKER: But very quickly, the law says he’s supposed to give 30 days’ notice. He didn’t do that. Do you think he violated the law?

GRAHAM: No, he didn’t. No, well, technically, yeah. But he has the authority to do it. So I’m not, you know, losing a whole lot of sleep that he wants to change the personnel out. I just want to make sure that he gets off to a good start. I think he has. I’m very supportive of what he wants to do with America. I want to give his team more money for the border. And let me just end on this. To my Republican colleagues in the House and the Senate, if we don’t give Tom Homan more resources, all the things we’ve promised we would do during the campaign are going to fall flat. Without money, he can’t do what he promised to do.

Watch above via NBC News.

“I think it’s very simple,” Vice President JD Vance told Fox’s Shannon Bream on Jan. 12. “If you protested peacefully on January the 6th and you’ve had [Attorney General] Merrick Garland’s Department of Justice treat you like a gang member, you should be pardoned. If you committed violence on that day, obviously you shouldn’t be pardoned.”

Just 14 days later, Vance went to bat for President Donald Trump issuing a blanket pardon for those brought up on Jan. 6-related charges.

In an interview on CBS’s Face the Nation Sunday, Margaret Brennan confronted Vance about his pre-pardon comments.

“Did you counsel the president against these blanket pardons for 1,500 people, including those who committed violence?” Brennan asked.

“Margaret, I noticed that you cut off the thing that I said immediately after that,” “Vance replied. “The full quote is that, ‘of course, there are gray areas.’ And here’s the nature of the gray area. Merrick Garland’s Department of Justice denied constitutional protections in the prosecutions. There were double standards in how sentences were applied to the J6 protesters versus other groups. What the president said consistently on the campaign is that he was going to look at it on a case-by-case basis.”

“This is blanket,” Brennan said, interjected.

“We looked at 1,600 cases,” Vance said. “And the thing that came out of it, Margaret, is that there was a massive denial of due process of liberty, and a lot of people were denied their constitutional rights. The president believes that. I believe that, and I think he made the right decision.”

Brennan went on to grill Vance about the violence against law enforcement officers who were the victims of violence on Jan. 6, 2021.

“Daniel Rodriguez used an electro-shock weapon against a policeman who was dragged out of the defensive line by plunging it into the officer’s neck,” Brennan said. “He was in prison, sentenced to 12 years, 7 months. He got a pardon. Ronald McAbee hit a cop while wearing reinforced brass knuckle gloves, and he held one down on the ground as other rioters assailed the officer for over 20 seconds, causing a concussion. If you stand with law enforcement, how can you call these people unjustly imprisoned?”

“Margaret, you’re separating … there’s an important issue here,” Vance said. “There’s what the people actually did on January the 6th, and we’re not saying that everybody did everything perfectly. And then what did Merrick Garland’s Department of Justice do in unjustly prosecuting well over a thousand Americans in a way that was politically motivated.”

“Is violence like that against a police officer ever justified?” Brennan asked.

“Violence against a police officer is not justified,” Vance responded. “But that doesn’t mean that you should have Merrick Garland’s weaponized Department of Justice expose you to incredibly unfair process, to denial of constitutional rights, and frankly, to a double standard that was not applied to many people, including, of course, the Black Lives Matter rioters who killed over two dozen people and never had the weight of a weaponized Department of Justice come against them. The pardon power is not just for people who are angels or people who are perfect. And of course, we love our law enforcement and want people to be peaceful, with everybody, but especially with our good cops. That’s a separate issue from what Merrick Garland’s Department of Justice did. We rectified a wrong, and I stand by it.”

Watch above, via CBS.

Charlamagne Tha God told former Presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama to take some notes from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) when it comes to dealing with President Donald Trump.

On Friday’s The Daily Show, guest host Charlamagne argued Ocasio-Cortez has held true to her anti-Trump stance while Biden and Obama have not.

“What about the Democratic politicians who spent four years calling Trump the new Adolf Hitler and then started doing stuff like this?” Charlamagne said before showing clips of Biden welcoming Trump to the White House and Obama laughing with him at late President Jimmy Carter’s funeral.

Charlamagne previously knocked Obama for viral video of him and Trump yucking it up while seated next to each other at the funeral.

“I’m sorry. If you tell us someone is Hitler, you at least have to act like he’s Hitler. I know when Barack got home, Michelle was like — so Hitler got jokes, right? In fact, here’s the energy I wanted to see more of on Monday,” he said.

He then played a clip of Ocasio-Cortez saying she was not attending Trump’s inauguration because she doesn’t support “rapists.”

“All these journalists were like, Congresswoman, are you going to the inauguration, Congresswoman? Are you going to the inauguration or are you going to the inauguration? Let me make myself clear. I don’t celebrate rapists. So, no, I’m not going to the inauguration tomorrow,” she said.

“That right there? That’s backbone,” Charlamagne declared in reaction. “That’s principles, man. And we’ll miss AOC when she’s deported to Nicaragua.”

Watch above via Comedy Central.

When asked if he would cut funding to Los Angeles following the wildfire disaster, President Donald Trump set clear conditions he needed to have met, appearing to threaten to withhold federal disaster relief unless the state did the things he insisted upon.

Trump spoke to assembled press on an airport tarmac in Asheville, North Carolina, after surveying the hurricane-stricken area before taking off to California to survey the wildfire disaster area in the Los Angeles metropolitan area.

An unidentified reporter asked Trump if he plans to “cut off funding to Los Angeles because of its sanctuary city policy.”

Trump replied that he wanted “to see two things in Los Angeles: voter I.D. so that the people can vote. And I want to see the water be released and come down into Los Angeles and throughout this state.”

“After that, I will be the greatest president that California has ever seen,” Trump added, suggesting that aid would be forthcoming.

Trump has continually blamed California Gov. Gavin Newsom for withholding water from Northern California, even going so far to call on Newsom to turn on the “water main,” despite the governor’s insistence that there is no massive spigot like Trump is suggesting exists.

“I want the water to come down and come down to Los Angeles and also go out to all the farmland that’s barren and dry. You know, they have land that they say is the equivalent of the land in Iowa, which is about as good as there is anywhere on earth,” Trump continued. “The problem is it’s artificial because they artificially stop the water from going onto the land.”

“So I want two things,” he reiterated. “I want voter ID for the people of California. They all want it. Right now, you have no you don’t have Voter ID People want to have Voter ID. You want to have proof of citizenship. Ideally, you have one day voting. But I just want Voter ID. as a start and I want the water to be released. And they’re going to get a lot of help from the U.S.”

Watch above via Fox News.

Complicated cleaning hacks can be fun projects, but I love a simple one even more—and this one is really simple: You can use the lid of a pot or pan to clean your carpets and fabrics. It works like a charm, which is why it’s been all over TikTok for the past few years.

To freshen up your upholstery or carpet, you’ll need:

• The lid from a pot or pan, with a handle in the center

• A large microfiber rag

• A bowl of water

• Dish soap

Depending on what you’re cleaning and how you like to do it, you may want to add a few drops of vinegar or vodka, but otherwise, stick to the cleaning recipes you’d normally use for whatever upholstery or carpet you’re working on.

Cleaning the upholstery

Fill a bowl with your cleaning solution, whether it’s a mixture of liquid dish detergent and baking soda, water and vinegar, or a store-bought upholstery cleaner. (I used what I had on hand, which was laundry detergent.) Drop your cloth in the bowl, saturate it with the mixture, then squeeze out the excess, and lay the fabric down flat.

Set your lid in the center of your damp cloth and pull the edges up around it, securing them over the handle with a rubber band. If they don’t quite reach that far, just secure them tightly over the handle with your hand as you work.

Credit: Lindsey Ellefson

Now you have a fabric-covered disk that you can push around on your couches, chairs, carpets, rugs, or pillows. It will pick up lint and freshen the fabrics without making anything too damp. I recommend pushing the soapy rag around on the upholstery until it's decently damp and clean, then going back in with a plain wet rag on the lid instead of the soapy one and then either drying the area with a hair dryer or fan (or opening a window and letting the outside air take care of it).

Why I like this cleaning method

The goal here isn’t to make your carpets and cushions wet, but to give them a damp refresh—the lid provides stability and works the solution in gently and evenly. It's easy to push the lid along the surface of a couch or chair cushion, and the heft of the lid gives you some extra power. When you're just using a rag, it's hard to push down enough to really clean the area, since both the rag and the upholstery are so soft. Inevitably, you end up pushing down too much and making the spot too wet, which is no good—if the cushion doesn't dry out fully, that can lead to mold or bad smells.

I recently spilled coffee all over my couch; despite dabbing it up that day, I was left with hideous stains. This couch is old and cost me like $200 on Amazon years ago, so it's not really worth pulling out a bunch of stops or getting a professional machine to deal with. I decided to give the pan lid a try.

Credit: Lindsey Ellefson

To my horror, just one round of pot-lid scrubbing pulled up a lot of residual coffee. To my pleasure, it required very little elbow grease on my part and did not soak my poor, cheap couch in too much cleaning solution. The entire couch looks much better and was fine to sit on again in under an hour, after just a little bit of air drying. Not every TikTok hack works, but this one sure does.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt and Fox News anchor Martha MacCallum slammed Washington Episcopal Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde for a sermon imploring President Donald Trump to show “mercy” to migrants and the LGBTQ+ community.

Trump and pro-Trump media figures have been lashing out at Bishop Budde since she wrapped up her national prayer service sermon by directly addressing Trump.

Budde made a lengthy plea for mercy for “gay, lesbian and transgender children in Democratic, Republican, and Independent families, some who fear for their lives” and for “those in our communities whose children fear that their parents will be taken away.”

After she was attacked, Budde made several television appearances to explain her sermon.

On Wednesday’s edition of Fox News Channel’s The Story with Martha MacCallum, MacCallum asked Leavitt about the sermon, then added her own condemnation after Leavitt’s response:

MACCALLUM: Let me ask you. We just heard the contents again of President Biden’s letter to President Trump, a very cordial letter asking God to bless the country and his work as he moves forward as the commander in chief.

I would imagine that’s what all of you were expecting to hear a little bit more of at the National Cathedral yesterday. Were you surprised at the tone from Bishop Budde? And did anyone feel that maybe that — maybe having her speak was going to be a little problematic when everyone walked in there?

LEAVITT: It was supposed to be a unifying and bipartisan church service in the beautiful National Cathedral here in Washington, D.C., and I was there with President Trump.

And everybody there was shocked and mortified by the disturbing comments from this bishop, who chose to weaponize the pulpit. She had an opportunity to pray over the president and the vice president and their families who were sitting in the first pews. And she spoke about truth, which was very ironic, because, words later, she spewed lies.

She said that President Trump has called illegal — or immigrants criminals. That’s not true. He calls illegal immigrants criminals because in fact they are criminals, by definition. If you break our nation’s laws, you are a criminal.

She also talked about how LGBTQ people in this country may be disappointed. That’s also a lie. In fact, I just saw Scott Bessent in the West Wing of the White House on his way to meet with President Trump and he is the highest-ranking LGBTQ official in United States history appointed by the president in the Oval Office right now.

So the comments by that bishop yesterday were egregious, and she should apologize to President Trump for the lies that she told. It’s despicable to say that.

MACCALLUM: I mean, she’s all over other channels sort of taking a victory lap, I guess, on “The View.” So I don’t know if any apology is forthcoming, but it was certainly a very partisan and inappropriate sermon that she gave.

It seemed to become all about her, rather than all about blessing the president on his way in, as it has always traditionally been.

Watch above via Fox News Channel’s The Story with Martha MacCallum.

Major data breaches and cybersecurity threats are now a fact of life, the consequence of which is our personal information being exposed at some point. One of the latest significant leaks involves data from PowerSchool, a software provider for thousands of K–12 school districts in the United States and Canada. The incident affected millions of users.

What happened in the PowerSchool hack

According to reports, PowerSchool discovered that personal information had been stolen from its customer support platform on Dec. 28, 2024. Hackers used compromised credentials to log into and export from its "Students" and "Teacher" database.

BleepingComputer is reporting that the hack may have compromised the personal data of 62.4 million students and 9.5 million teachers across 6,505 school districts. The stolen data includes contact information (such as names and addresses) as well as birthdates, Social Security numbers, medical information, and grades, though the specifics vary across affected districts. PowerSchool believes that fewer than 25% of individuals had their Social Security numbers stolen.

While the incident was not a ransomware attack, PowerSchool has stated that the company paid the hackers to prevent the compromised data from being published. The company began notifying affected customers on Jan. 7, 2025.

What you can do if your data was stolen

As I've written before, you can't take back information that's been leaked—and since your data has almost inevitably been compromised at some point, the best you can do is to be on the lookout for any signs that said data is being used in a malicious way. This includes keeping tabs on your credit report and sensitive accounts for unfamiliar or fraudulent activity and considering credit monitoring and identity protection services that will notify you of anything suspicious.

For those affected by this recent hack, PowerSchool is offering two years of identity protection services to all students and teachers (regardless of whether your Social Security number was compromised) through Experian. The company will also cover two years of credit monitoring for anyone over 18. According to a Jan. 17 update on the incident, PowerSchool and Experian will communicate with customers—including parents and guardians of students under 18—in the coming weeks about setting up these services.

Of course, you should also follow other basic security best practices: Don't click strange links or engage with communication asking for your personal information. When in doubt, hang up the phone, delete the text, or flag the email as spam, and contact the company directly to confirm any requests. (Note that PowerSchool will not contact you directly by phone or email to request or confirm your personal information.)

Now that the Galaxy S25 series is official, you might be considering picking up a new smartphone. If you aren't particularly partial to Android or iOS, you might be weighing your options here: Should you pick up a new Galaxy S25, or perhaps one of Apple's iPhone 16s? To help figure that out, I've gathered all the specs we currently know about the S25 series and compared them against all four iPhone 16 devices.

Of course, this is going to be a comparison of the phones on-paper. While the iPhone 16 has been out since last fall, Samsung just announced the S25 series, so we don't know how they perform in real-life testing. Still, paper specs can shine a light on key differences between devices, so let's take a look at how Samsung's latest phones stack up to Apple's.

Screens and dimensions

Let's start with Samsung. The Galaxy S25 has a 6.2-inch "Dynamic AMOLED" display, with a resolution of 2340 x 1080. It measures 146.9 x 70.5 x 7.2 mm, and weighs 162 grams. The Galaxy S25+ bumps things up a bit: It has a 6.7-inch display Dynamic AMOLED display, with a resolution of 3120 x 1440, which will look sharper than the S25 (with the proper settings). It measures 158.4 x 75.8 x 7.3 mm, and weighs 190 grams. Finally, there's the S25 Ultra, the largest of the bunch. It has a 6.9-inch Dynamic AMOLED display, with a resolution of 3120 x 1440. It measures 162.8 x 77.6 x 8.2 mm, and weighs 218 grams.

Turning to the iPhone 16 series, there's the iPhone 16 itself. This model matches the Galaxy S25 most closely, with a 6.1-inch OLED display, which has a resolution of 2556 x 1179. That's slightly sharper than the S25's 1080p display, but not by much. It measures 147.6 x 71.6 x 7.8 mm and weighs 170 grams. The iPhone 16 Plus increases the OLED display to 6.7 inches, with a slightly sharper resolution of 2796 x 1290. It measures 160.9 x 77.8 x 7.8 mm, and weighs 199 grams.

Then there are the Pros. The iPhone 16 Pro has a 6.3-inch OLED display, with a resolution of 2622 x 1206. That's a small bump from the iPhone 16, and a decent bump from the Galaxy S25. It measures 149.6 x 71.5 x 8.25 mm and weighs 199 grams—the same as the iPhone 16 Plus. Finally, there's the Galaxy S25 Ultra competitor: the iPhone 16 Pro Max. This device has a 6.9-inch OLED display, with a resolution of 2868 x 1320, the sharpest of any iPhone, but a bit lower than the Ultra's 1440p display. It measures 163 x 77.6 x 8.25 mm and weighs 227 grams.

Internal specs

Samsung isn't running with any surprises in the hardware department this year: All three S25 devices are running an octa-core Snapdragon 8 Elite processor, a 3nm SoC that comes with 12GB of RAM. The S25 offers either 128GB of 256GB of storage, while the S25+ and S25 Ultra come in 256 or 512GB configurations. In terms of batteries, the S25 comes with a 4,000 mAh cell, the S25+ has a 4,900 mAh option, and the S25 Ultra has a 5,000 mAh unit.

The iPhone 16 and 16 Plus are running Apple's proprietary A18 chip, with a six-core CPU, five-core GPU, and 16-core Neural Engine. The iPhone 16 Pro and 16 Pro Max get the "Pro" version of the A18, however, which essentially adds one extra GPU core to the mix.

Cameras

Mobile photography is always a key point of interest for any new smartphone, so we'll have to wait to see how these new Galaxy devices stack up to the 16 series in real-world use. But for the time being, here are the specs. The Galaxy S25 and S25+ have three rear cameras: a 12MP ultra-wide (ƒ/2.2), a 50MP wide (ƒ/1.8), and 10MP 3x telephoto (ƒ/2.4). The S25 Ultra, on the other hand, has four cameras: a 50MP ultra-wide (ƒ/1.9), a 200MP wide (ƒ/1.7), a 10MP 3x telephoto (ƒ/2.4) and a 50MP 5x telephoto (ƒ/3.4). All three phones have a 12MP selfie cam (ƒ/2.2), but the Ultra's comes with auto-focus.

Let's compare these specs to the 16 series. The iPhone 16 and 16 Plus have two rear cameras: a 48MP wide (ƒ/1.6) and a 12MP ultra-wide (ƒ/2.2). Apple advertises that you can shoot 12MP 2x telephoto shots with this sensor. On the Pro side, you get that 48MP wide camera, but with a ƒ/1.78 aperture, and a 48MP ultra-wide (ƒ/2.2). Again, you can shoot 12MP 2x telephoto shots on the wide camera, but the Pros also have a dedicated zoom lens: a 12MP 5x telephoto (ƒ/2.8). All iPhone 16 devices come with a 12MP selfie camera (ƒ/1.9) with auto-focus.

Colors

Samsung splits the same color palette between the S25 and S25+. With either phone, you can opt for Silver Shadow, Navy, Icy Blue, or Mint. On the S25, you have four "titanium" color options: Titanium Black, Titanium Grey, Titanium Whitesilver, or Titanium Silverblue.

Apple does something similar, offering the same color options for the iPhone 16 and 16 Plus, but a different set of colors for the iPhone 16 Pro and 16 Pro Max. The iPhone 16 and 16 Plus come in Black, White, Pink, Teal, or Ultramarine, while the Pros comes in Black Titanium, White Titanium, Natural Titanium, or Desert Titanium.

The Samsung Galaxy S25 series is here: Specifically, the Galaxy S25, the Galaxy S25+, and the Galaxy S25 Ultra. These three handsets replace the equivalent Galaxy S24 models that launched all the way back in January 2024, and you can check out our Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra review to remind yourself of what we thought of them.

Of course, one of the first questions that gets asked when new phones appear is: How do these compare to last year's models? The information collected below will tell you exactly that, with the Galaxy S25 trio compared to the Galaxy S24 trio in all the key categories that matter, from battery capacities to screen sizes.

Screen and dimensions

Starting with the sizes and screens of these phones, the Galaxy S25 sports a 6.2-inch, 2340 x 1080 resolution, Dynamic AMOLED screen, with an overall size of 146.9 x 70.5 x 7.2 mm, and a weight of 162 grams. That screen matches the Galaxy S24 exactly, but last year's model is slightly thicker (7.6 mm) and slightly heavier (167 grams).

With the Galaxy S25+, we've got a 6.7-inch, 3120 x 1440 resolution, Dynamic AMOLED screen, dimensions of 158.4 x 75.8 x 7.3 mm, and a weight of 190 grams. Again, the screen specs are an exact match to last year, and again, the older S24 Plus is a little thicker (7.7 mm) and a little heavier (196 grams).

As for the top-tier Galaxy S25 Ultra, it boasts a 6.9-inch, 3120 x 1440 resolution, Dynamic AMOLED screen, plus an overall size of 162.8 x 77.6 x 8.2 mm and a weight of 218 grams. The Galaxy S24 Ultra, by comparison, has a smaller 6.8-inch screen with the same resolution—it's also a bit taller (79 mm), a bit thicker (8.6 mm), and a bit heavier (232 grams) than the newest model.

Colors and design

You can pick up the Galaxy S25 and Galaxy S25+ in Silver Shadow, Navy, Icy Blue, and Mint—which are a bit less inspiring than the Onyx Black, Marble Gray, Cobalt Violet, Amber Yellow, Jade Green, Sandstone Orange, and Sapphire Blue options of their predecessors (though Samsung may well announce additional colors further down the line).

When it comes to the Galaxy S25 Ultra, your options are Titanium Black, Titanium Gray, Titanium Whitesilver, and Titanium Silverblue. On the Galaxy S24 Ultra we get Titanium Black, Titanium Gray, Titanium Violet, Titanium Yellow, Titanium Blue, Titanium Green, and Titanium Orange, though again stay tuned for more options at a later date.

Design-wise, everything is mostly as it was before, though the phones get a bit of a camera lens border revamp that seems to be inspired by the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6. The S25 Ultra is sporting a slightly new look, as its corners are more rounded than the S24 Ultra, making it less Note-esque and more like the other phones in the series.

The Samsung Galaxy S24 series. Credit: Samsung

Key internal specs

All the new Galaxy S25 phones use the latest Snapdragon 8 Elite processor, which should be a step up from the Galaxy S24 series: The 2024 phones use a mixture of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor and Samsung's own Exynos 2400, depending on which part of the world they're being sold in.

There's a standard 12GB of RAM in every Galaxy S25 model, with 128GB and 256GB storage options on the standard S25, and 256GB and 512GB available on the S25 Plus and S25 Ultra. The only difference in this regard with last year's phones is with the Galaxy S24, which comes with 8GB of RAM rather than 12GB.

Battery capacities for the Galaxy S25 phones match the Galaxy S24 phones—4,000 mAh for the standard, 4,900 mAh for the Plus, and 5,000 mAh for the Ultra—and the charging speeds haven't changed either. You'll still get 25W wired charging speeds on the standard model, and 45W wired charging speeds on the Plus and Ultra phones.

Cameras

With a 50MP primary camera, a 12MP ultra-wide camera, and a 10MP telephoto camera (3x optical zoom) on the back, the Galaxy S25 and Galaxy S25 Plus match up exactly with the 2024 phones they're following on from—at least in hardware terms, before any extra software processing is taken into account.

As for the Galaxy S25 Ultra, it has a rear camera setup consisting of a 200MP primary camera, a 50MP ultra-wide camera, a 10MP telephoto camera (3x optical zoom), and a 50MP telephoto camera (5x optical zoom). The one change here from the Galaxy S24 Ultra is the ultra-wide camera, which is 12MP on the older model.

When it comes to the front-facing selfie camera, all three Galaxy S25 phones go with a single 12MP snapper, which matches up with the Galaxy S24 series across the board. (The S25 Ultra, however, gets auto-focus here.) There's very little to choose between the 2024 and 2025 models in terms of cameras, and it's the same for the rest of the hardware specs—save for the upgraded Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset running everything.

Samsung Unpacked is once again upon us, and, like clockwork, Samsung used the occasion to unveil their latest flagship Android phones. This time around, the company is releasing the aptly named Galaxy S25, Galaxy S25+, and Galaxy S25 Ultra, perhaps some unsurprising upgrades from the Galaxy S24 series. That said, there are a number of new features and changes with these devices that are worth exploring.

New Galaxy AI features

Credit: Sachin Bahal

As you might expect, Samsung is launching the Galaxy S25 series with new Galaxy AI features. First up, there's Now Brief, which gives you AI-powered summaries of your sleep results, the weather, and your events for the day. The feature learns your patterns, and shows you relevant information over time. Your "Now Brief" can be accessed on the lock screen or via the Home screen widget.

Next, there's Cross App Action. This feature lets you create tasks you want to be completed and the AI will combine these tasks and finish them for you. You can access Cross App Action by long-pressing the power button to open Google Gemini.

Auto Suggestions is another AI-powered feature that gives you suggestions based on your previously used routines. For example, Auto Suggestions could suggest you start your robot vacuum when you're not home, or open your favorite navigation app when heading out for a trip. Multimodal Search, on the other hand, lets you search for items through various, sometimes non-traditional means. You could hum a song when you don't remember the name of it, then the AI can try to piece it together and search for the track.

Then, there's Auto Trim, which automatically removes unnecessary elements in your videos, such as "um's" and other pauses. You can also uses keywords to help the AI identify which clips or sounds to trim out. Lastly, there's Audio Eraser, which removes background noise and conversations, and isolates vocals and dialogue in videos shot on your phone.

Galaxy S25 specs

Credit: Sachin Bahal

All phones in the Galaxy S25 lineup are powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite SoC, along with 12GB of RAM. Compared to the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip, the 8 Elite chip brings a 45% performance boost and 44% improved power efficiency, thanks to the new 3 nanometer manufacturing process. The new Adreno GPU in the 8 Elite also improves performance by 40%, which could be helpful for mobile gaming.

Like past phones, all three Galaxy S25 models come with a Dynamic AMOLED 2X display which supports an adaptive refresh rate of 1–120Hz. They all come with an ultrasonic fingerprint sensor as well as facial recognition. Storage options for each include 128GB, 256GB, 512GB and 1TB. The most immediate difference between each device is their display size:

• Galaxy S25: 6.2-inch display (2340 x 1080)

• Galaxy S25+: 6.7-inch display (3120 x 1440)

• Galaxy S25 Ultra: 6.9-inch display (3120 x 1440)

As usual, Samsung is including large batteries in all three devices. The S25 comes with a 4,000 mAh battery, the S25+ has a 4,900 mAh battery, and the S25 Ultra has a 5,000 mAh battery. In terms of charging speeds, the S25 supports up to 25W of both wired and wireless charging. Meanwhile, the S25+ and S25 Ultra are capable of 45W wired and 25W wireless charging. All devices support reverse wireless charging with Wireless PowerShare, like previous Galaxy phones.

It's worth noting the Galaxy S25 series does not have Qi2 support, which would bring MagSafe-like charging to Samsung phones. Samsung has said that some of their official cases for the Galaxy S25 series will have magnets built-in, so they're compatible with magnetic accessories.

Galaxy S25 cameras

Credit: Sachin Bahal

The Galaxy S25 and S25+ sport a 12MP ultra-wide lens, 50MP wide, and 10MP telephoto. Meanwhile, the S25 Ultra gets a 200MP wide lens, 50MP ultra-wide, and two telephoto lenses—one 10MP (3x) and one 50MP (5x). All three Galaxy S25 phones have a 12MP front camera, but the Ultra's front camera comes with auto-focus.

The Snapdragon 8 Elite also impacts the performance of these cameras. The new chip can erase unwanted elements from videos, using on-device AI processing. It also improves low-light video capture, which should help when shooting video at nighttime.

Galaxy S25 colors

Credit: Sachin Bahal

The Galaxy S25 and S25+ come in Silver Shadow, Navy, Icy Blue and Mint. The S25 Ultra, on the other hand, is available in Titanium Black, Titanium Grey, Titanium Whitesilver and Titanium Silverblue.

When is the Galaxy S25 available?

The Galaxy S25 series is launching on Feb. 7, with pre-orders available starting today.

Fox News contributor and legal scholar Jonathan Turley joined anchor Bill Hemmer on Tuesday to discuss President Donald Trump’s sweeping January 6th pardons, which included those convicted of beating police officers.

Hemmer began the segment by showing a clip of Trump signing the pardon. “This is January 6th. These are the hostages. Approximately 1500 for a pardon? Yes, full pardon. They’ve been treated very unfair. The judges have been absolutely brutal. The prosecutors have been brutal. Nobody’s ever treated people in this country like that,” Trump said in the clip from Monday evening.

“President Trump issuing a pardon last evening for nearly 1600 people charged, many of them jailed for the January 6th attack on the Capitol. That sweeping executive order also commuting the sentences of 14 members of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, most convicted of seditious conspiracy for that riot,” Hemmer went on to explain, adding:

Jonathan Turley, constitutional attorney here. Hello to you, sir. One of the more controversial pardons you that we have seen. I’ll get to the Hunter staff and James Biden in a moment here. But with regard to this one, this is part of your book, “The Indispensable Right,” when you talk about the troubling aspects of these cases. Today in the Post, you say the excessive treatment of some of the defendants undermined the credibility of their prosecutions. You study this. Go ahead and explain it as you see it and understand it now, professor?

“Well, the Department of Justice really made the case for these pardons, and it was hard to do because most of us supported the people responsible for the riot being held accountable. It was a terrible day. But the Justice Department unleashed what one of its top lawyers called a shock and awe campaign, and they just scooped up hundreds of people,” Turley replied, adding:

They often demanded really excessive sentences, in my view. Most of these people were charged with just trespass or unlawful entry. Most of them were not violent. The government tended to oppose bail. They kept a number of them for a very long time in segregation, some of them in some cases, they demanded limitations on what people could say or read or associate after they were released.

All of this tended to undermine their case. And so when when the president campaigned on this issue, I think a lot of people wanted to see this chapter closed. And he certainly did that. I mean, this was broader than most people expected or even asked for.

A recent poll conducted by YouGov found that “73% of Americans oppose pardons for those convicted of assaulting Capitol Police officers, including 54% of Republicans.” The poll of 1,200 voters also found the issue be among the least important to Americans:

Pardoning those convicted or accused of crimes on January 6th ranked among the lowest priorities for the incoming Trump Administration of those tested with 7% support alongside investigating former Special Counsel Jack Smith (1%); withdrawing from the Paris Climate agreement (3%); ending Title IX protections for transgender students (5%); and tariffs (6%)

The sweeping pardons came as a surprise to many as Trump said in November that he would likely focus on nonviolent rioters, saying, “If they were nonviolent, I think they’ve been greatly punished.” Last week, Vice President JD Vance said that Trump would “obviously” not pardon anyone convicted of assaulting a police officer.

Turley posted his recent New York Post column to his blog on Tuesday as well and offered a brief introduction to it, writing, “Below is my column in the New York Post on the pardoning of the January 6th defendants by President Donald Trump. The scope of the pardon appears broader than some had hoped. What is clear is that any such relief should not extend to violent actors, particularly those who attacked police officers. However, the Justice Department itself may have made the strongest case for presidential pardons.”

Trump, of course, did indeed pardon the violent offenders just the same as the nonviolent ones.

Watch the clip above via Fox News.