During a call with investors on Wednesday night, Cisco executives discussed the layoffs further, with CFO Mark Patterson saying, “This was really not a savings-driven restructure,” according to a transcript of the call.

“Things are moving incredibly fast right now,” he said. “And this is more realigning from an already strong base, as you’re seeing in our financials, but really realigning resources around silicon, optics, security, and AI. And so being able to move fast, we don’t always have the exact resources that we need going forward in the right places. And so that’s really what this is about versus savings.”

Due to the layoffs, Cisco expects to “recognize up to $1 billion of pre-tax charges with $450 million to be recognized in the Q4 FY ’26 and the remainder during FY ’27,” Patterson added.

“These [layoffs] are building from a position of strength and focusing on the technologies that will accelerate our growth, deliver unmatched innovation to customers and partners, and define our future,” Robbins said on the call.

Bonuses and training for laid-off workers

Robbins’ blog post said that affected workers will receive “pro-rated payment” of fiscal 2026 bonuses. The company also says it will offer services to help laid-off employees find new jobs.

“We will provide support in finding new opportunities, whether internal or external, through Cisco’s placement services—a program that has seen 75 percent of participants discover their next role,” Robbins said. “We are also committed to continued personalized learning and will provide one year of access to all Cisco U courses and certifications, covering AI, security, networking, and more.”

This round of layoffs follows the dismissal of 4,245 employees, or 5 percent of the workforce at the time, in February 2024, and about 6,000 people, or about 7 percent of the workforce, in August 2024. Cisco also attributed the latter layoffs to the need to restructure around AI and security, The Register reported at the time.

LA Chargers fans who stayed up late on schedule night were in for a treat this year. The team effectively transformed the entire 2026 lineup into a Halo-inspired trip that would fit right in with the games themselves. Microsoft collaborated with the Chargers to make all of the details inside the Halo game engine look right at home, and let me tell you, the end result feels like stepping into a custom Halo campaign, where each opponent becomes its own battlefield map, full of sneaky references that will only be picked up by true NFL and Halo fans from the start.

The Halo series’ voice talent is all over this thing, including Jeff Steitzer, who has been shouting legendary game lines for years. while maps start loading and rolling in one after the other, he still has the stamina to call out dates and places in the same over-the-top approach he used to use while shouting about flag captures and double kills. Screens range from recognizable Halo sky and ring buildings to weapon crates, but each has some extra-clever features related to the next match. If you scan the scenes quickly, you’ll see logos, player allusions, and inside jokes that make the schedule reveal feel like a real event rather than just a list on a screen.

The preseason schedule begins on August 13, with a travel to Houston to face the Texans under the lights. Two weeks later, the 49ers visit SoFi Stadium on a Thursday night, and the final tune-up is the Chargers’ home game versus the LA Rams on the 27th. That sets the tone before things get serious in September.

The Cards visit town on September 13, which marks the start of week one. The map for that game features a beautiful desert landscape blended with Covenant technology, a great tribute to the Cardinals’ desert background. Week two is a local matchup versus the Raiders on September 20th. The Raiders’ silver and black blend in with the Halo color palette, and it’s only after you see them that they feel intentional. Next week, on the journey to Buffalo on the 27th, the map has a cooler tone and includes big open fields that reflect the Bills’ outdoor approach.

October begins with a road trip to Seattle on October 4th. The Seahawks map shows Pacific Northwest mist flowing over some Forerunner ruins. Back home on the 11th, the Broncos will arrive, and the map here jumps out the most. There’s a slow-motion shot of a grenade arcing at an ankle joint, a direct reference to one of the significant injuries from the previous postseason. The first game against the Chiefs is scheduled on October 18 in Kansas City. Then there’s a QR code on the screen that the curious can scan to reveal an extra little jab at the presenters.

Adobe has confirmed that its Premiere video editing app will arrive on Android, with Google announcing the news as part of a broader set of creator-focused features tied to the Android 17 platform reveal at The Android Show.

The confirmation moves the app beyond the vague “in development” status that Adobe attached to it last year, though Google’s announcement stops short of a firm release date and describes the arrival window as only “soon,” offering little clarity for creators who have been waiting since the original disclosure.

According to Google’s blog post accompanying the Android 17 announcement, the Android version of Adobe Premiere will include exclusive templates and effects specifically oriented toward YouTube Shorts, a focus that signals Adobe and Google are positioning the app as a tool for short-form content creation rather than a full-featured editing suite from the outset.

The iOS version of Adobe Premiere, which launched in September 2025, offers a broader set of capabilities that provide a reasonable indication of what Android users may eventually receive once the app reaches feature parity on the platform.

That iOS release supports background removal, automatic captioning, multi-platform video resizing, and the kind of transition effects that have become standard across TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts content, functions that represent the core editing toolkit most mobile creators currently rely on third-party apps to access.

The app operates on a free-to-use model on iOS, with the only paid element covering Firefly generative AI credits for users who want access to Adobe’s AI-powered generation tools beyond the standard feature set.

While the Android release date remains unconfirmed, Google has introduced several other creator tools in the Android 17 update, including a simplified workflow for reaction video production and Android-exclusive features within Instagram’s Edits app, giving creators alternatives to bridge the gap ahead of Premiere’s arrival.

Adobe has not published a roadmap or feature breakdown for the Android release beyond what Google included in its announcement, leaving the full scope of the app’s initial capabilities on the platform unconfirmed.

A zero-day exploit circulating online allows people with physical access to a Windows 11 system to bypass default BitLocker protections and gain complete access to an encrypted drive within seconds.

The exploit, named YellowKey, was published earlier this week by a researcher who goes by the alias Nightmare-Eclipse. It reliably bypasses default Windows 11 deployments of BitLocker, the full-volume encryption protection Microsoft provides to make disk contents off-limits to anyone without the decryption key, which is stored in a secured piece of hardware known as a trusted platform module (TPM). BitLocker is a mandatory protection for many organizations, including those that contract with governments.

When one disk volume manipulates another

The core of the YellowKey exploit is a custom-made FsTx folder. Online documentation of this folder is hard to find. As explained later, the directory associated with the file fstx.dll appears to involve what Microsoft calls the transactional NTFS, which allows developers to have “transactional atomicity” for file operations in transactions with a single file, multiple files, or ones that span multiple sources.

The steps for carrying out the bypass are simple:

1. Copy the custom FsTx folder from the Nightmare-Eclipse exploit page to an NTFS- or FAT-formatted USB drive
2. Connect the USB drive to the BitLocker-protected device
3. Boot up the device and immediately press and hold down the [Ctrl] key
4. Enter Windows recovery

There are at least two ways to accomplish the third step. One way is to boot into Windows, hold down the [Shift] key, click on the power icon, and click restart. Another is to power on the device and restart it as soon as Windows starts booting.

In either case, a command (CMD.EXE) prompt appears. The prompt has full access to the entire drive contents, allowing an attacker to copy, modify, or delete them. In a normal Windows Recovery flow, the attacker would need to enter a BitLocker recovery key. Somehow, the YellowKey exploit bypasses this safeguard. Multiple researchers, including Kevin Beaumont and Will Dormann, have confirmed the exploit works as described here.

It’s unclear what in the custom FsTx folder causes the bypass. Dormann said that it appears to be related to Transactional NTFS, which itself uses command-log file system under the hood. Dormann further noted that by looking at the Windows fstx.dll, one will see code that explicitly looks for \System Volume Information\FsTx in the FsTxFindSessions() function.”

Looking for the most recent Mini Crossword answer? Click here for today’s Mini Crossword hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Wordle, Strands, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

Need some help with today’s Mini Crossword? It’s not too tough, but 7-Across and 8-Across go together, and I always find paired clues difficult to solve. Read on for all the answers. And if you could use some hints and guidance for daily solving, check out our Mini Crossword tips.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: Tips and Tricks for Solving The New York Times Mini Crossword

Let’s get to those Mini Crossword clues and answers.

Mini across clues and answers

1A clue: Baseball stat hidden in “super big hit”
Answer: RBI

4A clue: Hi, in Hawaii
Answer: ALOHA

7A clue: With 8-Across, start running or going to the gym
Answer: GETIN

8A clue: See 7-Across
Answer: SHAPE

9A clue: Opposite of NNE
Answer: SSW

Mini down clues and answers

1D clue: Opposite of riches, in a saying
Answer: RAGS

2D clue: “Ew, gross”
Answer: BLEH

3D clue: Tiny bits
Answer: IOTAS

5D clue: Where the hands are placed when “Hey, Macarena!” is sung
Answer: HIPS

6D clue: All over again
Answer: ANEW

from the rudderless-ship dept

We’ve complained a great deal about RFK Jr.’s stint running HHS and its effects on the health of Americans in the short and long term because, well, there’s a lot to complain about. His anti-vaxxer stances have begun infecting national vaccine policy, of course, and his stance of essentially ignoring an ongoing 17 month measles outbreak have generated national headlines. Regarding measles cases, by the way, the official case count in America is at roughly 80% of the total of last year already, which was itself the highest case count in several decades. I’ll take this moment to remind you that it’s May, not even half way through the year.

But there has also been an insane amount of chaos at HHS and its child agencies under Kennedy. And that chaos isn’t slowing down, it seems, with the announcement that FDA chief Marty Makary will be resigning his post. And, because this is the dumbest of timelines in which we live, the reason behind it appears to be Trump’s push to allow for flavored e-cigarettes to entice the nation’s youth.

Makary’s insiders said the former Johns Hopkins University cancer surgeon resigned after Trump forced his hand on authorizing fruit-flavored e-cigarettes. Makary had reportedly been resisting the sign-offs out of concern that the kid-friendly flavors could again entice youth use and addiction—something public health officials and experts have for years worked to combat. But Makary’s stance was in conflict with Trump’s “save vaping” campaign promise—and with the tobacco industry’s interests.

Earlier this month, The Wall Street Journal reported that Trump had called Makary over a weekend to scold him for not moving fast enough to authorize flavored vapes, particularly menthol, mango, and blueberry flavors from the Los Angeles manufacturer Glas. The FDA authorized those flavored products days later and issued a new policy that would make it easier to market flavored vapes.

The ArsTechnica post goes on to note that Makary had pissed off a bunch of lobbyists for tobacco, pharma, and biotech firms, all while health professionals have been complaining about his participation in Kennedy’s anti-vaxxer nonsense at the FDA as well. He essentially managed to piss off everyone, courting zero allies, which is a remarkable achievement itself.

But the larger story here is that HHS is suffering from a rather damning lack of leadership. Not by performance, but through vacancies of Senate-confirmed people to actually run things.

The firing or resignation of Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Makary is more intra-MAHA chaos at a beleaguered and battered Department of Health and Human Services. 

When you don’t have a CDC Director, an FDA Commissioner, or a Surgeon General, the obvious question is: Why do you have this HHS Secretary? Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., is the cause of much of the chaos that has resulted in these job vacancies. HHS is rotting from the head. 

It really is incredible to realize that those three positions, important as they are, are currently being helmed by acting leadership members at best. There’s a reason those positions exist. They’re not unimportant. But currently, we have essentially temp employees filling them.

Does anyone really believe that American health is a ship that can be successfully steered without a rudder? That’s what’s happening right now, because Trump and Kennedy can’t seem to get anyone across the finish line in the Senate for these roles. And if the ship crashes, we’re all going to pay for it.

Filed Under: e-cigarettes, fda, flavored vapes, health & human services, hhs, maha, marty makary, rfk jr.

Samsung looks set to take Digital Wellbeing a step further in One UI 9, with a new feature designed to actively reduce app distractions by cutting off internet access for selected apps.

The feature has been spotted in early beta code for the Android 17-based update currently rolling out to the Galaxy S26 series. This suggests it’s still in development, but already quite far along.

The feature, reportedly called “Network management for concentration,” goes beyond the usual app timers found in Samsung’s existing wellbeing tools. Instead of just limiting screen time, it appears to block or restrict internet access for specific apps entirely. This makes them far less useful for time-wasting activities like social media scrolling, video streaming, or gaming.

Leaked screenshots shared by Android Authority show a dedicated “Network restriction” settings page. On this page, users can manually select which apps should lose connectivity, a key difference compared to current Digital Wellbeing tools that typically shut apps down after a set usage limit but still provide access to online content.

Samsung also appears to be adding more control and security around the feature. Code strings suggest users will be able to set a six-digit PIN, preventing others from disabling restrictions without permission. That could make it especially useful for parents managing children’s device usage, where bypassing limits is often too easy today.

Another notable addition is a “Downtime” scheduler, which would allow users to automatically activate restrictions during set hours. That means instead of manually turning the feature on and off, users could have it kick in during work hours, study sessions, or bedtime routines. It would then switch off again automatically afterwards.

In practice, this puts One UI 9 closer to a system-level focus mode rather than a simple timer-based restriction tool. For example, even if a user has downloaded videos offline, blocking internet access would still limit the core functionality of apps like YouTube once restrictions are in place.

That said, the feature is still in its early stages, and there’s no guarantee it will make it into the final release of One UI 9. Samsung will refine several parts of the update before launch. This could include changes or even the removal of this tool.

If it does arrive as described, though, it could become one of Samsung’s most aggressive and useful digital wellbeing features yet.