In the first days after Pam Bondi was appointed attorney general last year, the Department of Justice began shutting down pending criminal cases at a record pace.
The cases included an investigation into a Virginia nursing home with a recent record of patient abuse; probes of fraud involving several New Jersey labor unions, including one opened after a top official of a national union was accused of embezzlement; and an investigation into a cryptocurrency company suspected of cheating investors.
Advertisement
In total, the DOJ quietly closed more than 23,000 criminal cases in the first six months of President Donald Trump’s administration, abandoning hundreds of investigations into terrorism, white-collar crime, drugs and other offenses as it shifted resources to pursue immigration cases, according to an analysis by ProPublica.
The bulk of these cases, which were closed without prosecution and known as declinations, had been referred to the DOJ by law enforcement agencies under prior administrations that believed a federal crime may have been committed. The DOJ routinely declines to prosecute cases for any number of reasons, including insufficient evidence or because a case is not a priority for enforcement.
But the number of declinations under Bondi marks a striking departure not only from the Biden administration but also the first Trump term, according to the ProPublica analysis, which examined two decades of DOJ data, including the first six months of Trump’s second term. ProPublica determined the increase is not the result of inheriting a larger caseload or more referrals from law enforcement.
In February 2025 alone, which included the first weeks of Bondi’s tenure, nearly 11,000 cases were declined, the most in a month since at least 2004. The previous high was just over 6,500 cases in September 2019, during Trump’s first administration.
Advertisement
Some of the cases shut down were the result of yearslong investigations by federal agencies such as the FBI and the Drug Enforcement Administration. For complex cases, the DOJ can take years before deciding whether to bring charges.
The shift comes as the DOJ has undergone an extraordinary overhaul under the Trump administration, with entire units shuttered, directives to abandon pursuit of certain crimes and thousands of lawyers quitting or, in some cases, being forced out of the agency.
In doing so, the DOJ is retreating from its mission to impartially uphold the rule of law, keep the country safe and protect civil rights, according to interviews with a dozen prosecutors and an open letter from nearly 300 DOJ employees who have left the department under Trump. The Trump DOJ, the employees wrote, is “taking a sledgehammer” to long-standing work to “protect communities and the rule of law.”
The change in priorities was outlined in a series of memos sent to attorneys early last year. Trump’s DOJ has said it is “turning a new page on white-collar and corporate enforcement” and emphasizing the pursuit of drug cartels, illegal immigrants and institutions that promote “divisive DEI policies.” Trump, in an address last March at the department, said the changes were necessary after a “surrender to violent criminals” during the past administration and would result in a restoration of “fair, equal and impartial justice under the constitutional rule of law.”
Advertisement
The department prosecuted 32,000 new immigration cases in the first six months of the administration, which was nearly triple the number under the Biden administration and a 15% increase from the first Trump term. It has pursued fewer prosecutions of nearly every other type of crime — from drug offenses to corruption — than new administrations in their first six months dating back to 2009.
The DOJ has also closed hundreds of cases involving alleged crimes that the administration has publicly emphasized as enforcement priorities. Even as the Trump administration unleashed Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency operatives to root out waste, fraud and abuse in the federal government, the DOJ declined over 900 cases of federal program or procurement fraud. About three times as many cases of major fraud against the U.S. were declined under Trump compared with the average of similar time periods under prior administrations. And while the Trump administration has promised to “make America safe again,” its DOJ has declined more than 1,000 terrorism cases, also more than prior administrations.
Federal prosecutor Joseph Gerbasi had spent years in the department’s Narcotic and Dangerous Drug Section helping build cases against major suppliers of fentanyl ingredients in India and China. After Bondi came in, he was left bewildered when his team was ordered to abandon its work.
“All of the building blocks of what would become successful prosecutions were pulled out,” said Gerbasi, who retired as the section’s acting deputy chief for policy in March 2025 after 28 years with the department.
Advertisement
The move had an “overwhelming deflating effect on morale,” he said.
Barbara McQuade, who worked as a federal prosecutor in Michigan for two decades until 2017 during Republican and Democratic administrations, said it was not unusual for new administrations to come to office with a few “pet priorities” — such as a focus on violent crime or drug trafficking. But she said those changes usually involved modest adjustments in policy and that most of the decisions on what crimes to focus on were typically made at the local level by the district U.S. attorney in coordination with the FBI or other agencies.
“We would revise those about every five years, not having anything to do with any administration, just because it made sense,” she said.
A DOJ spokesperson, in an emailed response to questions about the spike in declinations, said that in “an effort to clean, remediate, and validate data in U.S. Attorneys’ case management system,” the department reviewed all pending criminal matters opened prior to the 2023 fiscal year, which included updating the status of closed cases. “This Department of Justice remains committed to investigating and prosecuting all types of crime to keep the American people safe, and the number of declinations is a direct result of our efforts to run the agency in a more efficient manner.”
The agency did not respond to questions about the types of cases declined.
Advertisement
The spike of declined cases began in February 2025 when the department ordered prosecutors to review every open case launched prior to October 2022 and determine whether to close it. Such a review would typically take months, according to one attorney tasked with reviewing cases. A memo, which was described to ProPublica reporters, ordered the review to be completed within 10 days.
Former DOJ prosecutors told ProPublica that they typically reviewed caseloads every six months with supervisors and that closing out languishing cases wouldn’t ordinarily be cause for concern. They said the February directive, however, was unusual. None could recall a similar order.
The directive came as higher-ups in the department had begun making frequent demands for data about specific types of cases and charging decisions, such as the outcome of fentanyl cases, according to former prosecutor Michael Gordon. Gordon, who helped prosecute Jan. 6 cases before moving to white-collar crime prosecutions, said the “fire drills” from officials in Washington became so regular that he grew used to the forlorn look on his supervisor’s face when he showed up at Gordon’s door, apologetically delivering yet another frantic request.
“It was either ‘give us stats we can use to make ourselves look good’ or ‘give us the stats to show how bad things are in this area,’” Gordon said. “It was never productive fact-finding.”
Advertisement
Though Gordon didn’t see the memo, he remembered getting the request to review all cases that had been open for more than two years and report back on their status, entering into a master spreadsheet basic information about any that he wanted to keep pursuing.
“The office was pushing us to close everything by a certain date so that when they had to report up to D.C. they had a low number of open cases,” he said. “You really had to go to bat to keep open a case that was more than two years old.”
Gordon said he was fired by the DOJ last June. He has filed a lawsuit alleging his termination was politically motivated. The department did not respond to questions about Gordon’s comments or his lawsuit. The government filed a motion to dismiss the case late last year, arguing that the federal court did not have jurisdiction over the matter. The court has not yet ruled on that motion, and the case is still pending.
Investigations into individuals or corporations declined for prosecution are generally not reported to courts and usually only disclosed in summary form by the DOJ in annual reports. To conduct its analysis, ProPublica obtained declination data from the DOJ and the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a center that obtains data through Freedom of Information Act requests.
Advertisement
Here are some of the areas most impacted by the spike in declinations.
Drugs
As president, Trump has spoken frequently about the “scourge” of drugs coming into the country. At the same time, the Justice Department has declined to prosecute nearly 5,000 cases of federal drug law violations, including trafficking and money laundering. The number of declinations were 45% higher than the average of the prior three new administrations.
Gerbasi, the counternarcotics prosecutor, declined to comment on specific cases that might have been declined in his office. But, he said, once Bondi was appointed, the priority in the office became building cases against Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan group that the Trump administration has labeled a foreign terrorist organization.
“Tren de Aragua was not anywhere close to the scale or impact of the cartels we were focused on,” Gerbasi said. “But we were told to generate those cases.”
He said his office had to scramble to fly people to investigate local gangs in small towns that were reportedly affiliated with Tren de Aragua. “They never would have merited a full-scale federal investigation,” he said.
Advertisement
“It told me that decisions were going to be based on political appearances and not based on the merits of where investigative resources should be placed.”
The DOJ declined to comment on Gerbasi’s remarks.
National Security
Under Bondi, the DOJ declined more than 1,300 cases involving terrorism and national security, nearly twice what was typical at the start of the most recent new administrations. While domestic terrorism was the hardest-hit program, just over 300 cases involving charges of providing material support to foreign terrorist organizations were also dropped.
The DOJ program handling matters relating to national internal security — which considers cases of alleged spy activity and the security of classified information — saw over 200 declinations, which is four times as many as typical in the first six months of a new administration. Some of the cases related to serving as an unregistered foreign agent, a charge Bondi ordered prosecutors to stop pursuing unless they involved “conduct similar to more traditional espionage by foreign government actors.”
Jimmy Gurulé, a former federal prosecutor and George W. Bush appointee to the U.S. Treasury Department who investigated the financing of terrorism, said the decline in terrorism cases was troubling.
Advertisement
“The Trump DOJ has been used as a political weapon,” he said. “It’s a question of prioritizing resources. Are they going to be used for national security threats or to prosecute his political enemies and critics?” The DOJ did not respond to a request for comment on Gurulé’s remarks.
Labor
The DOJ shut down over 60 union corruption and labor racketeering cases, 2.5 times the number in Trump’s first term. Nearly half of the cases turned down for those offenses were out of the New Jersey U.S. attorney’s office, which in the past has aggressively pursued alleged union corruption. All were noted as declined for insufficient evidence.
Most of those cases had been opened by Grady O’Malley, an assistant U.S. attorney who oversaw several prosecutions of union corruption while working in the New Jersey office over four decades. He retired in 2023 and was disturbed to learn from former colleagues that the office was shutting down the open union probes.
A Trump supporter, O’Malley said that while he doesn’t blame the president, he worries the decision to drop so many cases could embolden unions that he and his colleagues spent years working to hold accountable. “No one is assigned to do labor union cases, and the unions have every reason to believe no one is looking.”
Advertisement
The New Jersey U.S. attorney’s office said it had no comment on the declination of labor cases.
White-Collar Crime
The Trump administration has pledged to root out “rampant” fraud in federal benefit programs like food stamps and welfare. The controversial surging of federal agents to Minnesota in January began as a stated crackdown on noncitizens allegedly ripping off nutrition and child care programs.
The DOJ, however, shut down more than 900 cases of federal program or procurement fraud in the first six months of the administration, including one targeting a mortgage lender accused by several state regulators of defrauding the Federal Housing Administration. The case was dropped due to “prioritization of federal resources and interests.” The U.S. attorney’s office for the Northern District of Alabama, which declined the case, did not reply to a request for comment. The number of fraud cases closed was about double that in the same time period of the Biden and first Trump administrations.
The agency also closed over 100 health care fraud cases as a result of “prioritization of resources and interests” even though the Trump administration has said it is making this area of enforcement a priority.
Advertisement
Among other cases the DOJ determined weren’t a priority: the probe into the Virginia nursing home accused of abuse, as well as investigations in Tennessee into fraud at a national hospital chain and one of the largest Medicaid managed care companies.
The Western District of Virginia U.S. attorney’s office, through a spokesperson, declined to comment on the nursing home case. A spokesperson for the U.S. attorney in the Middle District of Tennessee said the office does not comment on investigations that do not result in public charges.
The DOJ’s Antitrust Division, which focuses on preventing big businesses from creating harmful monopolies, also declined an unusually high number of cases in Trump’s second term. More than 40 cases were dropped within the first six months of Bondi’s tenure. That’s more than double the number declined in the same time period by the prior three new administrations.
Despite the declinations, the department said it charged slightly more people with fraud in 2025 compared with the final year of the Biden administration, and those cases alleged larger financial losses.
Advertisement
Promises Kept
The DOJ under Bondi has also rapidly pursued many of the priorities laid out in Trump’s early executive orders and her own “first day” directives to staff.
Trump in February 2025 issued an executive order pausing new investigations under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which prohibits citizens and companies from bribing foreign entities to advance their business interests. The order asked the attorney general to review and “take appropriate action” on any existing probes to “preserve Presidential foreign policy prerogatives.”
In the first six months, Bondi’s DOJ shut down 25 such cases, which is more than the combined number dropped by the prior three new administrations over the same time period. One of the cases declined for prosecution involved a major car manufacturer, which had reported possible anti-bribery violations to federal investigators involving a foreign subsidiary. The DOJ declined the case for prosecution last June, citing the “prioritization of federal resources and interests.”
On her first day, Bondi ordered a review of criminal prosecutions under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances, or FACE Act, which prohibits people from illegally blocking access to abortion clinics and places of worship. The department dropped as many cases under the act in its first six months as the past three new administrations combined, over the same time frame. Bondi’s order focused on “non-violent protest activity,” although at least one of the closed cases was being investigated as a violent crime. The DOJ has since charged protesters against Immigration and Customs Enforcement and journalists in Minneapolis under the FACE Act. The defendants in the case have pleaded not guilty.
Advertisement
The agency closed three times the number of cases alleging environmental crimes as the Biden administration did and one-and-a-half times as many as compared with Trump’s first term. The declinations came as the DOJ reassigned and cut prosecutors working on environmental cases. One-fifth of all of the dropped environmental protection cases were shut down for “prioritization of federal resources and interests.”
“Once, men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.” — so said [Frank Herbert] in his magnum opus, Dune, or rather in the OC Bible that made up part of the book’s rich worldbuilding. A recent study demonstrating “cognitive surrender” in large language model (LLM) users, as reported in Ars Technica, is going to add more fuel to that Butlerian fire.
Cognitive surrender is, in short, exactly what [Herbert] was warning of: giving over your thinking to machines. In the study, people were asked a series of questions, and — except for the necessary “brain-only” control group — given access to a rigged LLM to help them answer. It was rigged in that it would give wrong answers 50% of the time, which while higher than most LLMs, only a difference in degree, not in kind. Hallucination is unavoidable; here it was just made controllably frequent for the sake of the study.
The hallucinations in the study were errors that the participants should have been able to see through, if they’d thought about the answers. Eighty percent of the time, they did not. That is to say: presented with an obviously wrong answer from the machine, only in 20% of cases did the participants bother to question it. The remainder were experiencing what the researchers dubbed “cognitive surrender”: they turned their thinking over to the machines. There’s a lot more meat to this than we can summarize here, of course, but the whole paper is available free for your perusal.
Giving over thinking to machines is nothing new, of course; it’s probably been a couple decades since the first person drove into a lake on faulty GPS directions, for example. One might even argue that since LLMs are correct much more than 50% of the time, it is statistically wise to listen to them. In that case, however, one might be encouraged to read Dune.
Google Photos has finally caught up with a feature that iOS has had for years. A new Copy button is now rolling out in the Google Photos share sheet. It lets you copy an image straight to the clipboard, without having to download it to your device first (via Android Authority).
Nadeem Sarwar / DigitalTrends
What exactly does the new Google Photos feature do?
Until now, sharing a photo from Google Photos wasn’t as straightforward. First, you had to store the picture locally on your phone, which meant waiting for it to download before you could actually send it anywhere.
Now, you can argue that a second of waiting doesn’t sound like much. However, Google Photos users had to go through the same process every single time. That’s a second multiplied by the number of times you try to share a photo each day.
The new Copy button, spotted across multiple devices running the latest Google Photos version (7.71.0.895417930), eliminates that friction. You can simply tap Share on any image, hit the new Copy button, and the photo lands on your phone’s clipboard, good for pasting into a messaging app, a notes app, or wherever you want it to be.
Nadeem Sarwar / DigitalTrends
Does the new Google Photos feature have a catch?
Unfortunately, yes, and I’d prefer you know it upfront rather than realizing it later. The copied image isn’t a pixel-perfect copy of the original one. To keep things quick and efficient, Google Photos copies a compressed version of the picture, with a slightly reduced resolution.
So, for casual sharing, the new Copy button does perfectly fine. However, I wouldn’t suggest relying on the feature for professional use or printing something. You’re better off spending those few extra seconds and downloading the entire file.
Advertisement
On the brighter side, the new Google Photos Copy button works for videos too. Furthermore, if you’re using Gboard, copied media appears in the keyboard’s clipboard, remaining there even after you’ve copied something else.
A new company needs to make a strong first impression. For Fender Audio, a new outfit owned by the legendary Fender Musical Instruments Corporation but operated by Riffsound, that introduction comes in the form of two speakers and a set of headphones. The Elie 6 ($300) and Elie 12 ($400) are portable Bluetooth speakers with sophisticated designs and unique features, offering similar functionality in two different sizes. These devices are essentially speaker/amplifier hybrids, since they both have ¼-inch/XLR combo inputs among their connections. Despite the unique mix of connectivity, the speakers still need to sound good and work well to compete with the many excellent portable options available today.
Fender Audio/Engadget
The Elie 12 is a large, powerful portable speaker with plenty of inputs, but weight and battery life could be deal breakers for some.
Pros
Advertisement
Excellent audio clarity
Four inputs
Refined design
Cons
IP rated but there’s exposed wood
Big and heavy
No app for customization
Battery life lags behind top competition
Fender Audio
The Elie 6 punches above its size in audio clarity and connectivity, but it’s heavy for such a small speaker and some competitors offer better battery life.
Pros
Excellent audio clarity
Four inputs
Refined design
Cons
IP rated but there’s exposed wood
Limited playback controls
No app for customization
Battery life lags behind top competition
The good: Design, inputs and overall clarity
The first time I saw the Elie 6 and Elie 12 in person, my eyes were immediately drawn to the design. These certainly don’t look like your typical Bluetooth speakers. That’s due in large part to the refined, almost retro look that’s consistent across both models. The Elie duo are products you won’t mind showing off, while many portable speakers are too flashy or brightly colored to be kept in a prominent place.
All of the onboard controls are clearly labeled physical buttons or dials, so you’re not left wondering how anything works. Around back, both the Elie 6 and Elie 12 have combo ¼-inch/XLR inputs (with 48V phantom power) as well as buttons for two wireless inputs and a 3.5mm line out. That combo jack means both speakers can double as amps, and the dual wireless connections allow you to sync microphones for karaoke sessions or hosting trivia night. This expanded functionality speaks to Fender’s history as a guitar icon, but it also gives the Elie speakers an upper hand over much of the competition at these sizes. Typically if you want these types of inputs, you’ll need to consider a much larger party box-style speaker to get them.
Advertisement
Before I move on from the controls and inputs, I need to mention the dedicated three-way mode switch for single, stereo and multi-speaker uses. This is so much easier than what’s on most portable speakers, which usually entails some weird dance with Bluetooth pairing or an app to sync multiple units together. Enlisting a physical switch so you know exactly where things stand is a much better and faster experience.
Some of the Elie 12’s controls (Billy Steele for Engadget)
In terms of sound, the best thing the Elie 6 and Elie 12 speakers have going for them is their overall clarity. The crisp, clear quality gives these Fender Audio units an advantage over the competition at these sizes. Throughout a range of genres — including bluegrass, alt-rock and heavy metal — both the Elie 6 and Elie 12 handled the varied styles with ease. The Elie 12 has twice the speakers as the Elie 6 (two full range, two tweeters and two subwoofers) and double the power output at 120 watts. So, of course, there’s more volume and bassy oomph on the larger speaker.
Both the Elie 6 and Elie 12 have a wider soundstage than many speakers of similar sizes. You can really hear this on American Football’s debut album, where the guitars ring clear, interlaced with drums while the vocals float on top. All of the elements stand on their own, but are seamlessly blended throughout every track. The Elie 12 features more bass and volume, but the overall sound quality, and importantly, clarity, is pretty similar for both speakers. I did notice more instrumental separation on the larger model though, so the album is a bit more immersive there.
The not so great: Controls, no app and battery life
While I appreciate the physical controls on the Elie 6 and Elie 12, the playback options are limited, which means you’ll be reaching for your phone often. There’s only a play/pause button on both speakers, and no controls for skipping tracks. And no, you can’t skip forwards or backwards with a double or triple press on the play/pause button. Plus, only the Elie 12 has bass and treble dials, so there’s currently no option for adjusting the sound on the Elie 6.
Advertisement
That’s because Fender Audio is still working on an app for its speakers and headphones. The lack of customization was an issue for me on the Mix headphones, and it continues to be one here. Customers need access to features and settings on devices like this, even if a company decides to offer audio presets instead of a full EQ. Some type of visual interface would also help when you’re using a few of those inputs at once. A basic mult-channel mixer maybe? Hey, a boy can dream.
Going back to the controls, the volume dials on both speakers could use refining. First, a listenable volume doesn’t happen until halfway. Anything below that and that excellent clarity isn’t present, and you can’t really hear the content well at all. There’s plenty of power at 50 percent and above, so that’s not a concern, but the control needs to be recalibrated for more even increases. What’s more, adjustments are slightly delayed: when you turn the dial, it takes a second or two for the speaker to catch up. To me, it feels like that should be instantaneous.
The input panel on the Elie 6 (Billy Steele for Engadget)
When it’s time to venture outdoors, both the Elie 6 and Elie 12 are IP54 rated for dust and water splashes. However, both speakers have a wood panel on top, which certainly won’t withstand much moisture. As such, I find the IP ratings confusing, since it’s obvious the entirety of the designs aren’t up to that task. If you’re careful about water though, both speakers have enough volume for open-air use.
One other consideration for the Elie 6 and 12 is their weight. The smaller speaker weighs just over five pounds, while the larger model is a whopping 8.8 pounds. For comparison, the Sonos Play is just 2.87 pounds and JBL’s Xtreme 4 tips the scales at 4.63 pounds. This means the Elie 6 and 12 are portable options, but they aren’t the grab-and-go type of speakers some of the competition offers — especially when weight matters.
Advertisement
Battery life is one other area the Elie 6 and Elie 12 fall behind some of their competition. The smaller Elie 6 offers 15 hours of use while the larger Elie 12 should last up to 18 hours. That sounds like more than enough since it’s longer than a full day, right? Well, JBL Bluetooth speakers at comparable prices last 24 and 34 hours. The new Sonos Play is rated at 24 hours, and one of my personal favorites, the Bose SoundLink Max, lasts up to 20 hours.
Wrap-up
The Elie 6 (left) and Elie 12 (right) (Billy Steele for Engadget)
There’s no doubt Fender Audio built two versatile, great-looking speakers here. Both the Elie 6 and Elie 12 are capable devices, and you don’t have to sacrifice much if you opt for the smaller of the two. The unique collection of inputs is typically only available on much larger speakers and the overall sound quality is well-suited for a range of genres.
Speakers like these really need an app though, especially when a company offers four inputs to juggle. I’m sure would-be customers would also like to dial in the EQ to their preferences, too. Sure, you can find longer battery life elsewhere, but the blend of design, sound and connectivity stands out at these prices. I’d call that a solid first impression.
A new report claims that Apple has had to agree to a three-year Samsung Display contract because no other firm can make the screens needed for the iPhone Fold.
Render of a possible iPhone Fold design – image credit: AppleInsider
Apple likes having multiple suppliers, both to avoid over-reliance on any one source, and to play them off against each other in order to lower prices. Now a year ago rumor about Samsung Display producing iPhone Fold screens is reportedly confirmed, and the deal favors the supplier. According to The Elec, Samsung Display proposed a three-year exclusive deal to supply the foldable OLED panels for the iPhone Fold. Reportedly, at present BOE’s foldable panels as used by Huawei are considered inadequate, and Apple’s other main supplier, LG Display, doesn’t yet make folding screens for smartphones. Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums
BrianFagioli writes: Artificial intelligence has now run directly on a satellite in orbit. A spacecraft about 500km above Earth captured an image of an airport and then immediately ran an onboard AI model to detect airplanes in the photo. Instead of acting like a simple camera in space that sends raw data back to Earth for later analysis, the satellite performed the computation itself while still in orbit.
The system used an NVIDIA Jetson Orin module to run the object detection model moments after the image was taken. Traditionally, Earth observation satellites capture images and transmit large datasets to ground stations where computers process them hours later. Running AI directly on the satellite could reduce that delay dramatically, allowing spacecraft to analyze events like disasters, infrastructure changes, or aircraft activity almost immediately. “This success is a glimpse into the future of what we call Planetary Intelligence at scale,” said Kiruthika Devaraj, VP of Avionics & Spacecraft Technology. “By running AI at the edge on the NVIDIA Jetson platform, we can help reduce the time between ‘seeing’ a change on Earth and a customer ‘acting’ on it, while simultaneously minimizing downlink latency and cost. This shift toward integrated AI at the edge is a technological leap that can help differentiate solutions like Planet’s Global Monitoring Service (GMS), providing valuable insights for our customers and enabling rapid response times when it matters most.”
Packaging has shifted from a back-end afterthought to the center of Intel’s manufacturing strategy as AI workloads push designers to stitch together many specialized dies into a single system. At its Rio Rancho, New Mexico, site – once home to a shuttered Fab 9 that sat idle for years –… Read Entire Article Source link
Private institution graduates faced a tight job market in 2025, with fewer than half landing full-time employment. However, median salaries remained steady, according to the latest Private Education Institution (PEI) Graduate Employment Survey released by SkillsFuture Singapore (SSG) on Wednesday (Apr 8).
Only 46.9% of fresh graduates found full-time work, a figure similar to 2024’s 46.4%. At the same time, the median gross monthly wages of those in full-time jobs in 2025 remained the same as in 2024, at S$3,500.
In comparison, of the 83.4% of graduates from autonomous universities who found employment in 2025, 74.4% secured full-time positions, compared to 79.4% in 2024. The median gross monthly salary for graduates who secured jobs within six months remained steady at S$4,500.
The PEI Graduate Employment survey was conducted between Oct 2025 and Jan 2026, across 3,800 participants of the 6,150 fresh graduates of full-time bachelor’s degree programmes across 26 private institutions. This includes the Singapore Institute of Management and PSB Academy.
Advertisement
Overall, among the 2,600 graduates surveyed who were working or seeking employment, 78.9% of them landed a job within six months of graduation, a slight uptick from 78.6% in 2024.
Almost one-fourth of graduates (24%) found part-time or temporary work in 2025, similar to the year before. Those who were doing freelance work grew slightly at 5.1%, up from 4.2% in 2024.
Meanwhile, 21.1% remained unemployed. 2.4% had accepted offers but not yet started, and a small 0.6% were striking out on their own as entrepreneurs.
Not all private university graduates fared the same
Image Credit: Muhamad Iqbal Akbar via Unsplash
Among the surveyed private university graduates, not all fared equally.
Health science graduates led in both employment and pay: 76.5% are in full-time permanent roles, with median salaries at S$3,935. This is followed by the Sciences at 57.5% employment, while engineering trailed at 49.4%. Information and digital technologies tied engineering for the second-highest pay at S$3,900.
Advertisement
When it came to salaries by institution, James Cook University graduates took home the most at S$3,700 a month, followed by those from the Management Development Institute of Singapore at S$3,580.
SSG’s director-general for private education, Angela Tan, struck an optimistic note.
“The employment outcomes for PEI graduates have remained steady, reflecting their adaptability and readiness for the workforce in today’s fast-changing job market,” she said, adding that SSG will continue working with partners to provide skills and career guidance.
Read other articles we’ve written on Singapore’s current affairs here.
The vacuum failed to clean up two of the three test Cheerios that I strategically placed around my main floor to see which nooks and crannies it could reach. Both had small overhangs (one was an Ikea Billy bookshelf and the other a freestanding cabinet) that the Spot+Scrub couldn’t get under. It doesn’t have an extendable arm to help fix the issue.
I ran into a similar issue upstairs. My bathroom cabinets are the same basic builder-grade set as my downstairs kitchen, but the Spot+Scrub managed to wedge itself underneath my primary bathroom cabinets and then struggled to remove itself. It did the same thing with my low bed frame, forcing itself underneath after many attempts, and then it couldn’t get out. I marked the bed as a no-cleaning zone in the app, but, like the kitchen island, since the Dyson map doesn’t know where my bed is, I had to guesstimate, leaving a good portion of the bedroom without any vacuuming.
Photograph: Nena Farrell
Still, it did a good job of cleaning my upstairs carpet. While this robot vacuum can map multiple floors, the operation wasn’t as completely smooth as I had hoped. When the Spot+Scrub finishes cleaning on a floor without a base station, it’ll return to the starting position. Once you move it to the dock, it’ll just start charging without emptying. That means when it goes to work on my main floor, the mop pad isn’t cleaned, dry debris is still left in the vacuum, and the dirty water chamber isn’t dried. It’s almost like it resets itself, forgetting its last function.
Advertisement
So if you’re using it on multiple floors, save the one with the docking station for last. I ended up having the Spot+Scrub clean my main floor after the upstairs, just to make sure the vacuum would be fully emptied and dried. You also have to activate the cleaning function while the robot is still in its docking station, so it can prep for mopping, then pause the cleaning (you can do this in the Dyson app or on the vacuum itself) once it rolls out of the docking station to then lift and move it to another floor.
AI Wars
Photograph: Nena Farrell
Of course, there’s the feature this vacuum is named for: its built-in AI that spots stains and scrubs them away. The Spot+Scrub uses an HD camera to inspect the floors, then uses AI to analyze what it sees and know when to scrub trouble spots. It’ll go back and forth over those spots, and the AI will calculate how often it needs to do so to remove the stain.
alternative_right quotes a report from the New York Post: The CIA used a futuristic new tool called “Ghost Murmur” to find and rescue the second American airman who was shot down in southern Iran, The Post has learned. The secret technology uses long-range quantum magnetometry to find the electromagnetic fingerprint of a human heartbeat and pairs the data with artificial intelligence software to isolate the signature from background noise, two sources close to the breakthrough said. It was the tool’s first use in the field by the spy agency — and was alluded to Monday afternoon by President Trump and CIA Director John Ratcliffe at a White House briefing. “It’s like hearing a voice in a stadium, except the stadium is a thousand square miles of desert,” a source briefed on the program told The Post. “In the right conditions, if your heart is beating, we will find you.” The relatively barren landscape made for “an ideal first operational use” of Ghost Murmur, the first source noted.
“Normally this signal is so weak that it can only be measured in a hospital setting with sensors pressed nearly against the chest,” the source said. “But advances in a field known as quantum magnetometry — specifically sensors built around microscopic defects in synthetic diamonds — have apparently made it possible to detect these signals at dramatically greater distances.”
“The capability is not omniscient. It works best in remote, low-clutter environments and requires significant processing time,” this person added.
OnePlus has been everywhere in the news lately, and not always for the calmest reasons. Reports recently suggested the brand was pulling back from several major markets, right after the exit of its India CEO, which is a pretty big deal considering how important India is for the company. And yet, here it is, doing the exact opposite of slowing down.
Just this month, OnePlus dropped the Nord 6, and now fresh reports hint that it’s stepping into the handheld gaming space as well. It’s an interesting move, especially in a year that already feels like a turning point for the brand. If anything, this new direction makes it clear that OnePlus isn’t retreating, it’s reshuffling and trying something bold.
OnePlus just teased something that refuses to be boring
A well-known tipster, Digital Chat Station, has shared what appears to be the first look at OnePlus’s upcoming gaming handheld on Weibo. And from that single image, there’s already quite a bit to unpack. The device seems to lean into a clean, almost boxy design, with a square-ish profile that makes it stand out from the usual rounded handhelds. Interestingly, there’s also a rear camera module on the back panel, which adds a bit of curiosity to the mix.
Digital Chat Station on Weibo
Another tipster, Bald Panda, also on Weibo, claims the handheld could feature an 8-inch display and run on a MediaTek Dimensity chipset. While the exact processor hasn’t been confirmed yet, all signs point towards MediaTek being the brains behind it. As for the design, it’s got a sleek black finish paired with a contrasting purple hand rest, which honestly sounds like a bit of a flex. It gives the device a premium, slightly playful look, rather than going all-in on the usual serious gamer aesthetic.
I’m genuinely excited to see OnePlus step into a completely new space. It’s not an easy category to crack, and building credibility here will take time. That said, OnePlus doesn’t exactly have a history of doing things halfway. When it commits to something, it usually brings a certain level of polish and thoughtfulness to the table. So while this handheld might be new territory for the brand, there’s a good chance it won’t feel like a first attempt. If anything, this could be OnePlus testing its limits a little, and that’s where things tend to get interesting.
You must be logged in to post a comment Login