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Teaching Showed Me Education Isn’t the Great Equalizer

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Reading my articles from the fellowship feels like reading diary entries. They’re raw, honest and they reflect how much I was struggling with teaching at the time. Overwhelm is apparent. So is frustration. As a teacher who was impacted by COVID-19 and the year of fully remote learning for students, the Voices of Change fellowship gave me the space to reflect and name the questions that had brought me to teaching in the first place. Since leaving the classroom almost two years ago, I’ve returned to writing frequently to work through the questions teaching left me with.

Having attended Title I public schools myself, I entered the classroom seeking a lens through which to understand my school experiences. As I became more interested in education as an engine of social mobility, I wanted to understand why some kids learned to read and some did not. I wanted to understand why some schools had more resources than others. I wanted to understand why some kids went to college, and some did not. Teaching felt like a way to move closer to those answers.

The process of learning these answers was swift and painful. The stark reality was playing out in front of me every day as I taught at a public charter school during the day and then drove to the suburbs in the evenings to tutor for extra cash. I quickly saw how rarely student success is the product of a single school or teacher, but rather an aligned system of supports that begins at birth.

So here’s what I learned: some kids can read because their schools taught phonics and screened for reading disabilities in kindergarten. Some schools have more resources because housing policy and decades of segregation shaped property values and neighborhood composition. Some kids go to college because they benefited from networks of financial and familial stability, giving them resilience through challenges like the SAT, the Common App and FAFSA. The questions I began with spun out into winding tangles of policy choices, zip codes, race and class.

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I’ve come to understand that the grief I felt at leaving the classroom was more than being overwhelmed and overworked — it was the undoing of my belief that education was society’s great equalizer. It was also the realization that I had been lucky; my graduation from high school and matriculation to a four-year college was as much a function of my family’s assumption from birth that I would go to college as it was my academic performance or the opportunities my schools offered.

Achieving academically was easy because I had stable housing, good health care and a network of loving and supportive adults. Had I experienced any learning challenges, they would have been swiftly addressed by my white-collar parents, who are comfortable speaking with educated professionals. Students spend the vast majority of their lives before the age of 18 outside of school. Teaching revealed how profoundly the promise of education depends on systems beyond the classroom.

That isn’t to say that schools and teachers cannot move the needle for students. Teachers grow their students every day in ways that feel nothing short of miraculous. You’d be hard-pressed to find an adult who cannot name a teacher who made a difference in their life. But the biggest gains for students occur when the systems around schools align to support the work teachers are doing — when children arrive at school healthier, safer and more secure in their lives outside the classroom.

On this front, there are two movements I’ve been paying attention to, one that brings me hope and one that makes me nervous. In graduate school, I learned about place-based partnerships, initiatives that bring stakeholders in health care, housing, education, youth services, local government and philanthropy into alignment around shared goals for supporting children and families. The most famous example is the Harlem Children’s Zone, but the model has spread widely. Organizations like StriveTogether now support networks of communities working toward cradle-to-career outcomes. Partners for Rural Impact is helping rural communities coordinate services for children across schools and social supports. Here in Boston, the Boston Children’s Council is bringing together city agencies, nonprofits and schools to think more holistically about the conditions shaping children’s lives.

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What gives me hope about these efforts is that they acknowledge something teachers already know: students do not arrive at school as blank slates each morning. They arrive carrying the cumulative effects of housing stability, health-care access, nutrition, family income and community safety. Place-based partnerships represent a policy approach that supports teachers by strengthening the ecosystems around them rather than asking schools to solve poverty alone.

What makes me more uneasy is the direction some of the frustration with public education has taken. If we spent decades telling ourselves that schools were the great equalizer, then the persistence of large racial and economic achievement gaps, especially in the wake of COVID frustrations, can feel like a failure of the institution itself.

In my home state of West Virginia, that frustration has helped fuel support for the Hope Scholarship, the nation’s only universal education savings account program, which has deleterious impacts on the public education system most students rely on. Policies like this are often framed as empowering families with choice, but I worry they also reflect a disillusionment with the project of public schools as engines of democracy. It is my belief that many of the inequities in public education were never fully within schools’ control to address.

My experience as a teacher, and now as a policy practitioner, has convinced me that the path forward is not to abandon public schools, but to surround them with stronger systems of support for children and families. The question I find myself paying closest attention to now is how policy can help build those systems: partnerships that allow teachers to do what they already do best, while ensuring the conditions outside the classroom make their work possible.

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Valve's Proton 11 beta boosts Linux gaming with better performance and classic game support

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Valve has released a new beta version of Proton, the company’s official compatibility layer for improving Linux gaming. Proton 11.0-beta1 is a notable update for several reasons, including improved support for running classic games from the 90s. The release also lays the groundwork for further improvements expected in the near…
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5 Muscle Cars From The ’70s That Look Even Cooler Today

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Despite the term muscle car being used so often by car enthusiasts, journalists, automotive historians, and industry marketing teams, the exact definition of what is or isn’t a muscle car has always been a bit ambiguous. Is every two-door American coupe with a V8 engine a muscle car? Do V8 pony cars like the Camaro and Mustang also count as muscle cars? Can a true muscle car be from any era or only from a certain time period? Is there such a thing as a non-American muscle car?

You’ll probably get differing answers to these questions depending on who you ask, but most agree that the original American muscle car era officially started in 1964 with the debut of the Pontiac GTO, and lasted for approximately one decade before tightening emission rules and the oil crisis brought an end to the party. 

While V8 performance was a huge draw of those original muscle cars, cool looks and cool names were an equally important part of the formula that helped these cars win over the youth market. The 1960s were filled with cool-looking muscle cars that have gotten even better as they’ve aged. What about the 1970s? Even though this decade represents the tail end of the muscle car era, the cars from that period are just as cool. While looks will always be subjective, here are five 1970s muscle cars that we feel look even cooler today.

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1971-1973 Ford Mustang Mach 1

When most people picture a classic Ford Mustang, it’s most likely a 1960s variant — maybe an early Mustang convertible, a ’65 Shelby GT350, or a 1969 Boss 302. When they think of a 1970s Mustang, they might picture the controversial, and often-loathed Ford Mustang II. However, in between those aforementioned classics and the downsized Mustang II, sits one of the coolest and most muscular-looking Mustangs that Ford has ever built — the 1971-1973 Mach 1.

Beneath the bodywork, the ’71-’73 Mustangs are still on the original first-generation Mustang platform, but Ford restyled the Mustang so significantly for 1971 that it basically looks like a new generation. Larger than the earlier cars, the 1971 Mustang has a dramatically long hood that, when combined with the fastback roofline, gives this generation less of a pony car feel and more of a macho, muscle car look. 

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Add in the Mach 1’s scooped hood and spoilers, and you get a vibe that’s quite far removed from the more svelte Mustangs of the 1960s. Ford would continue to sell this final iteration of the first-gen Mustang until 1974, when it was replaced by the completely redesigned and downsized Mustang II. This body style of Mustang would also earn silver screen fame as the star of the original, cult classic car chase film “Gone in 60 Seconds”.

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1971-1972 Plymouth Road Runner/GTX

The Plymouth Road Runner is one of the most popular Mopar muscle cars of all time, not just because of its cartoon-derived model name, but for its budget-friendly price tag that won over tens of thousands of muscle car buyers upon its debut in 1968. For 1971, the Plymouth Satellite, which the Road Runner, and the more expensive Plymouth GTX were based on, got a dramatic redesign.

The new car had what was called fuselage styling, and the two-door Satellite, Road Runner, and GTX had a wider and more pronounced coupe look compared to the boxier models that came before. Other styling features that differentiated this distinctly 1970s design from the earlier cars was its dual-pronged bumper, which was integrated into the bodywork.

This same basic body style would continue through 1974, but the later cars would adopt a less distinct front-end design. When they came out, the styling of these early ’70s Plymouth muscle cars was polarizing, but the early ’70s Road Runner and GTX have proven to be desirable even for generations born long after the original muscle car era. A Plymouth GTX of this body style was even driven by one Dominic Toretto in 2017’s “The Fate of the Furious”.

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1970-1973 Camaro

When it comes to classic Chevrolet Camaros, you can always expect the first generation 1967-1969 cars to rank among the best of the Camaro breed. However, the second-generation models, particularly the early ’70s variants, are not to be overlooked. The second-generation Camaro arrived later in the 1970 model year and represented a significant change, especially in terms of styling.

The new Camaro was slightly larger than before, and had a fastback roofline compared to the more upright look of the first-generation car. It also had distinct new rounded taillights, and a stylish and unique split front bumper option that’s long been a favorite of Camaro fans. As with most muscle cars, second-gen Camaro horsepower numbers had begun to decline from their peak, but early ’70s Camaros still enjoyed potent engine options like the LT-1 small block in the Camaro Z/28, and through 1972, the iconic big block Chevy V8.

Chevy would give the second-gen Camaro several styling updates over its lifespan, and this body style of Camaro would continue all the way until the introduction of the third-generation Camaro in 1982. However, many enthusiasts prefer the classic look of the early ’70s models along with their performance options that were truer to the original muscle car era.

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1970-1973 Pontiac Trans Am

The Pontiac Trans Am first debuted during the 1969 model year as a special, limited production version of the Firebird, but it wasn’t until the early ’70s that the Trans Am became an American icon. Like the Chevy Camaro it shared its platform with, the second-generation 1970 Firebird arrived with a distinct new look — and the high-performance Trans Am variant took things even further. 

Among the styling elements that arrived on the second-generation Trans Am was the iconic Pontiac shaker hood scoop and, later, the memorable hood decal. These options looked cool, but the early ’70s Trans Ams also had the horsepower to back up their aggressive looks, first with Pontiac’s Ram Air 400 cubic-inch V8s and then with the even larger 455 HO Pontiac V8 and its massive torque numbers. 

The second-generation Trans Am would continue to evolve through the rest of the 1970s and into the 80s, reaching even higher levels of cultural stardom thanks to movies like “Smokey and the Bandit”. Under the hood, however, later cars lacked some of the performance options that defined the earlier cars. When it comes to the combination of muscle and that iconic ’70s attitude, it’s the early second-generation Trans Ams that are king.

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1971-1974 Dodge Charger

The Dodge Charger is a model that needs absolutely zero introduction for muscle car fans. The Charger first debuted for the 1966 model year and would go through many evolutions during its long history – but most would agree the second-generation 1968-1970 models are the most recognizable. Not to be overlooked, though, is the third-generation Charger sold between 1971 and 1974 — which has a unique muscle car vibe all its own.

When the new, long-hooded Charger arrived for 1971, it came with styling that was a big departure from the earlier cars, although its general Coke Bottle shape carried over, and options like concealed headlights were still available. Across the auto industry, muscle car performance had mostly passed its peak by 1971, but the third-generation Charger continued to offer engines like 440 big block and, in certain ultra-rare 1971 models — the 426 HEMI V8. 

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This version of the Charger also had a lot of success on the race track, including in NASCAR, where it was driven by the legendary Richard Petty. Sure, the third-generation Dodge Charger may not have the same widespread “Dukes of Hazzard” and “Fast and the Furious” fame that earlier Charger models enjoy, but that doesn’t stop it from being one of the coolest muscle cars of the 1970s.



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12 Cheap Wal-Mart Finds To Help You Spring Clean The Garage

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Spring can be one of the best times of the year. The flowers are blooming, birds are chirping, and the first butterflies emerge to flit about the fields, as the cold weather gives way to summer sunshine. But the fading of winter also often comes with some obligations.

Maybe you’ve been putting off cleaning your garage for too long, maybe you’re helping an aging parent, relative, or neighbor who can’t do it anymore, or maybe you’ve moved into a new home, and the previous tenant left the place a mess. There are countless reasons you might need to clean the garage, but it’s probably not a job you’re looking forward to.

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If you’re planning to clean your garage this spring, these affordable Walmart gadgets could make the chore a bit easier. Of course, SlashGear isn’t recommending you go out and buy all of these products, but one or two might take some of the sting out of your chores.

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Casabella power spin scrubber

The Casabella Power Spin Scrubber is an all-purpose scrubber for cleaning dirt and grime on various surfaces. It’s a telescoping scrubber that compresses down to 27 inches and extends up to 47.5 inches.

The scrubbing brushes spin at 420 RPM and feature medium-strength bristles to balance scraping away dirt and grime while minimizing damage to whatever you’re cleaning. It’s safe to use on tile, linoleum, windows, and more, and is designed to help you clean up messes inside and outside your house. So when you’re done cleaning out the garage, you can take it inside to streamline your weekend chores.

The extended form not only helps you scrub high, hard-to-reach places, but it also allows you to save your back by eliminating the need to crouch to scrub. The scrubber comes with two flat brush attachments, an angled brush, and a dome brush. Spinning at roughly seven revolutions per second, these implements can clean up messes without putting in so much elbow grease. It takes about 3 hours to charge using the included charging cable, and you’ll get about 100 minutes of powered scrubbing.

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Swiffer dusters with extension pole

While dust has a way of gathering in our homes, it has an even easier time getting into your garage. Swiffer dusters have become a popular alternative to a feather duster, a spray cleaner, or towels for cleaning all kinds of surfaces.

Gone are the days when you had to balance on a kitchen stool to dust hard-to-reach surfaces. These Swiffer dusters have a handle that extends up to 6 feet. At one end of the handle, you’ll find a brush coated in 360 degrees of grabbing fibers. When those fibers encounter dust, they snatch it up and hold it tight.

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The head swivels and locks into one of four positions to meet different cleaning needs, and it comes packaged with three heavy-duty duster refills. If you’re using a Swiffer duster to clean out your garage, there’s a good chance you’ll need all those refills and then some. When they’re gone, you can save your handle and buy more replacement dusters.

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Platinum series deep cleaning pressurized handheld steamer

The steam engine used to power the world before being replaced by more efficient systems. Today, steam is used for fewer tasks, but it can be a great solution for cleaning floors, fabrics, vents, tools, and more without needing to use cleaning compounds or caustic chemicals.

The Platinum series deep cleaning pressurized handheld steamer holds up to 11.5 ounces of water and reaches a maximum temperature of 375 degrees Fahrenheit. The steamer heats to a working temperature in about 4 minutes, producing hot, pressurized steam for cleaning and sanitizing.

A steam cleaner can be used to clean floors, fabrics, vents, and tools. You can use it to loosen sticky adhesives, strip away dirt, grease, and grime, and deep clean carpets and upholstery. It comes with nine attachments for completing different tasks, including two different spray nozzles, an extended connecting nozzle, an upholstery brush, a door and window wand, a microfiber cover, and more. Clean like it’s the 18th century with the power of steam.

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Rubbermaid cordless power scrubber

Unlike other powered scrubbers, the Rubbermaid cordless power scrubber is small and ideal for finer details, such as cleaning grout between tiles. It’s basically an electric toothbrush for your house and belongings.

While its primary job might be cleaning grout and grime in your bathroom and kitchen, you can also use it to scrub the tiny crevices of your tools or around the faucets of your workshop sink, if you have one. If you’ve still got some detail work to do after getting most of your garage clean, it’s likely that this can help you get the job done.

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The scrubber is designed to cut your cleaning time in half when compared to manual scrubbing. It’s water-resistant and features an ergonomic design with rubberized molding for increased comfort and grip. You can choose between pulsed cleaning or continuous scrubbing with the flip of a switch. The kit includes a powered handle, a grout-cleaning head, and a multi-purpose head. Even batteries are included.

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20 rubber flex blade floor squeegee

One of the nice things about cleaning the garage is that you can be a little more cavalier than you might be inside your home. Instead of pushing around a push broom and kicking up a bunch of dust, you can spray the whole area down with a garden hose. Of course, a wet garage floor can be a hazard, so you’ll probably need a way to drain the water again.

The Libman No 1241 high-power 20-inch squeegee is designed for this exact task. It can move a lot of water quickly and relatively easily. And it can be pretty fun, at least for a little while.

The actual squeegee portion is a 20-inch rubber blade attached to a steel frame. That frame then attaches to a red steel handle with a built-in hanging hole for storage. The handle extends an additional 6 inches, bringing it to a full 5 feet, and it has a powder coating to protect it from rust.

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Hyper Tough 5 gallon wet/dry vacuum

A wet/dry vacuum, otherwise known as a shop vacuum, can be incredibly helpful when cleaning up your garage and other big jobs, and it can also be used to clean up wet messes. It can be a go-to tool for your garage and home, not just in the spring but all year long.

As the name suggests, the Hyper Tough 5-gallon wet/dry vacuum can hold up to 5 gallons of solid debris and liquid messes, and a 12-foot power cord gives you plenty of reach. It can deliver up to 4 horsepower to tackle big messes. It’s lightweight and compact, standing just 14 inches tall and weighing 11.9 pounds.

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In addition to the vacuum itself, you’ll also get a 1.25-inch hose, three extension wands, a floor nozzle for cleaning a larger area on the ground, a crevice nozzle for getting into nooks and crannies, a gulper nozzle for picking up hardware and other small objects, a foam filter, a reusable dry filter with clamp ring, and a dust bag.

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Dirt Devil robot vacuum cleaner

The robots are taking over … our chores. Often, a big part of cleaning up the garage is clearing away dust, dirt, and debris on the floor. Fortunately, a robot vacuum cleaner can take some of the effort out of cleaning almost any space, including your garage.

The Dirt Devil robot vacuum cleaner runs for up to 110 minutes before the battery runs low, and then returns to the charging dock until next time. Using a built-in gyroscope, the robot charts a zigzagging route through your garage, clearing a 6.25-inch-wide path.

An app and Wi-Fi connection let you check on your vacuum, schedule cleaning, and even control it manually. It has a built-in HEPA filter, and its slim design might allow it to get under low shelves in your garage, as long as there’s a little floor clearance. A robot vacuum can’t clean your whole garage for you, but it could take some of the prep work out of the job. Just make sure to close the garage door so it doesn’t escape into the neighborhood.

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Electric corded 3-in-1 leaf blower

As the name suggests, leaf blowers are often used to clean fallen leaves from your yard, instead of using a rake. Likewise, a leaf blower can be used to move other small pieces of debris out of your garage. It probably won’t take all of the work out of your spring cleaning, but this electric corded leaf blower could knock off a few steps.

The blower moves a lot of air, and fast, up to 400 cubic feet of air per minute, and delivers air speeds up to 250 miles per hour. You can also kick it down to a lower speed if the task at hand doesn’t need so much power. It weighs just 7.5 pounds, so you can haul it around longer without too much strain or fatigue.

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In addition to blowing away dust and debris, the blower tube can be replaced with a vacuum tube, which you can use to suck up debris. After your garage is clean, you can take the blower into the backyard to suck up and mulch debris. The mulching function boasts a 16-to-one mulching ratio, meaning that what would normally take up 16 bags is reduced to a single bag after being mulched. It even comes with a bushel bag for collecting the mulch. When winter comes around, you can use a blower to clear your driveway of snow, so it could come in handy all year.

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Libman 18 high power push broom

Sweeping up is probably one of the first and last steps in any garage spring cleaning, helping to clear the way at the beginning and providing a clean finish at the end. You could always use the same broom you use inside your house, but that’s not very efficient. That’s what push brooms are for.

The steel handle of the Libman 18″ high-power push broom is powder-coated to help prevent rusting, and it has a hanger hole at one end for storage. At the other end, you’ll find an 18-inch length of 3-inch bristles. The broom mixes firm and flexible fibers (made from recycled water bottles) so it can push a range of debris at once. It can catch everything from sawdust to nuts and bolts, and everything in between. A good push broom can turn a tedious chore into something much more manageable.

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Netgear – AC750 WiFi range extender and signal booster

It wasn’t very long ago that you had to tie up your home phone line and listen to an array of bizarre sounds to get on the internet. A direct Ethernet connection to your router is usually stronger and more reliable, but that would mean moving your router to the garage or running a cable through your house. Besides, wireless internet connectivity is one of the great conveniences of modern life. If you want to enjoy some tunes, podcasts, or streaming while cleaning, you may need to extend your Wi-Fi range. 

A Wi-Fi range extender can help by acting as a relay. You plug the extender into an electrical outlet inside your router’s coverage range. The extender then repeats the signal, like a digital game of telephone, allowing it to reach farther than it otherwise would.

The NETGEAR – AC750 WiFi range extender and signal booster can deliver speeds up to 750 Mbps, provided your internet speeds are already that fast. A repeater can’t make your internet connection faster than it already is. For that, you’ll need a Wi-Fi booster. A Wi-Fi range extender probably won’t directly help you clean your garage in the same way a good broom can, but it can give you access to music, communication, reference materials, and more, which could make the job a little easier and a lot more pleasant.

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Lasko 20 classic box fan

One of the best things about springtime is that it’s finally getting warmer, but that can also be one of the worst things, especially if you’re planning on getting your heart rate up with a good cleaning project.

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A box fan doesn’t have the same cooling effects as an air conditioner or a swamp cooler, but it does help to circulate air, which helps your body cool off on its own while you’re busy sweeping, scrubbing, and organizing inside a stuffy garage. The Lasko 20″ classic box fan has three fan speeds and top-mounted controls. The 20 inches in the name refers to the length of the fan blades, not the dimensions of the fan box.

The durable steel box can be placed on the floor, onto a higher surface, or in a window within reach of the 6-foot power cord. And the motor is water-resistant, so you probably don’t need to worry about a little contact with moisture during your cleaning frenzy. 

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3-piece magnetic pick-up retrieval tool set

A lot of picking up is about just picking things up off the ground. In a garage, where so much of the debris is metal (screws, nails, washers, nuts and bolts, and the like), a magnetic pick-up tool set can help you retrieve fallen or unreachable metal objects without the bending, straining, and craning.

The Hyper Tough 3-Piece Magnetic Pick-Up and Retrieval Tool Set gives you two ways to retrieve objects. Either use the telescoping wand with a magnet at the end or a steel claw with four retractable wires for grabbing small objects that the magnet can’t pick up. The magnetic pick-up has a maximum lifting capacity of 2 pounds.The third piece in the set is a 3-inch magnetic tray to help keep metal items secure while you poke around the garage.

For the times when you’ve dropped something behind a shelf or down a narrow hole, this three-piece retrieval set could come to the rescue.

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Methodology, how we made our choices

When writing this article, we thought about the times we’ve had to clean out the garage, both as kids and adults, and the sorts of gadgets and gizmos we wish we’d had. Additionally, we considered instances in which a particular one of these products came in handy for solving a problem that would otherwise have been more difficult.

We also gave preference and special consideration to products that could be used again outside the garage. While things like a push room or oversized floor squeegee probably won’t come in handy for your regular in-home cleaning, there are scrubbers, dusters, steamers, vacuums, and more that you can use for more than this specific job.

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In many cases, these products have been used successfully either by the author or other SlashGear authors. In every case, we also considered the wisdom of the crowd, looking at the products people are buying and liking enough to leave a positive review. The value of these products is supported by at least 100 reviews (often significantly more) and a rating of at least 4.0 stars.



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Trump Is Literally Negotiating With Himself Over How Much Taxpayer Money He Gets Because His Taxes Were Leaked

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from the robbing-us-blind dept

Back in January, we covered Trump’s audacious lawsuit demanding $10 billion from his own IRS over the 2019-2020 leak of his tax returns by IRS contractor Charles Littlejohn (who is currently serving a five-year prison sentence for the leak, meaning the system that Trump claims failed him actually worked just fine). It’s also worth remembering that every major party presidential nominee since Nixon had voluntarily released their tax returns — Trump was the exception, not the rule, and the “harm” he suffered was exposure to the same transparency his predecessors embraced without incident.

The original piece laid out why the whole thing was a scam: Trump is the plaintiff, the IRS and Treasury are the defendants, and the DOJ defending those defendants is stocked with Trump’s former personal attorneys who have made clear they still consider themselves his personal attorneys — a problem that has only gotten worse with Todd Blanche now serving as acting AG. The fix was obviously in. The only real question was how brazenly the parties would go about it.

We now have an answer, and it turns out the answer is: extremely brazenly, and in writing, on the public docket.

Earlier today, the parties filed a consent motion for a 90-day extension explaining why they needed the Court to hit pause on the litigation:

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Good cause exists to grant an extension in this matter while the Parties engage in discussions designed to resolve this matter and to avoid protracted litigation. This limited pause will neither prejudice the Parties nor delay ultimate resolution. Rather, the extension will promote judicial economy and allow the Parties to explore avenues that could narrow or resolve the issues efficiently.

[…]

The Parties are engaging in discussions and need time to work through how to ensure those discussions can take place productively to avoid protracted litigation. This brief period will allow the Parties to initiate and structure those discussions in a manner that best serves the interests of all Parties and the Court.

Read that the normal way you’d read any consent motion, and it’s mundane. Two adversarial parties are exploring settlement. Courts love this. Judicial economy! Everyone wins.

Now read it again with the actual parties in mind.

The plaintiff is the sitting President of the United States. The defendants are two agencies of the executive branch that the plaintiff (again, the President of the United States) runs. The lawyers representing those defendants report, through a chain of command, to Trump’s former personal lawyers. “The Parties are engaging in discussions” means Trump’s lawyers are negotiating with Trump’s other lawyers over how much of your money Trump gets to take home. The “interests of all Parties” reduces, functionally, to the interests of one guy. The phrase “avoid protracted litigation” means “skip the part where a judge or a jury or any actual adversarial process might interfere with the predetermined outcome.”

Real negotiations require two sides with opposing interests. This is just a man haggling with his own wallet over how much of your money to take.

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The filing notes that there hasn’t even been an attempt at a defense from the government yet:

None of the Parties will suffer prejudice: the case is newly filed, no scheduling order has issued, and the Government has not yet answered or otherwise responded on the merits. An extension will conserve judicial and party resources and avoid piecemeal litigation that could arise if the Parties are forced to proceed without first exploring these discussions.

The consent motion even includes, with a straight face, the boilerplate certification that plaintiff’s counsel ‘conferred in good faith’ with the very people he effectively works for:

Pursuant to Southern District of Florida Local Rule 7.1(a)(3), Daniel Epstein, co-counsel for Plaintiffs, certifies that he conferred in good faith with counsel for Defendants on April 15, 2026 by telephone regarding the relief sought in this motion. Defendants consent to the requested extension.

The only party with an actual adverse interest here — the American public — has no seat at the table and no lawyer in the room.

The structure of the scam is clear. Step one, filed back in January: sue your own government that you control for $10 billion over something that wasn’t its fault, using a complaint so flimsy it quotes the leaker himself saying Trump suffered “little harm” — and demanding damages for being exposed to information that every other modern presidential candidate simply released voluntarily. Step two, filed this week: get the defendant you control to agree with you that litigation should pause so you can work out a deal. Step three, coming soon to a docket near you: announce a “settlement” in which the taxpayers cut a check to the president for some eye-watering sum, with the DOJ loudly proclaiming that this was the responsible outcome that avoided wasteful litigation.

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At each step, the paperwork will look perfectly normal, indistinguishable from thousands of other consent motions on other dockets. The corruption lives entirely in the gap between what the documents say and who is actually on each side of them.

This is worth naming plainly: what’s happening here is exactly the kind of self-dealing abuse of public office that the impeachment clause was written to address. Hamilton, in Federalist 65, defined impeachable offenses as those:

A well-constituted court for the trial of impeachments is an object not more to be desired than difficult to be obtained in a government wholly elective. The subjects of its jurisdiction are those offenses which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or, in other words, from the abuse or violation of some public trust.

If a sitting president negotiating a multi-billion dollar taxpayer-funded payout to himself — through agencies he controls and lawyers loyal to him personally, over damages he demonstrably did not suffer (he is richer than he has ever been and won re-election after the leak) — does not qualify as an abuse of public trust, then the phrase has no meaning.

But none of that matters, because the political machinery that would be required to act on any of this has been thoroughly captured or cowed. Congress has largely abdicated. The Supreme Court, as noted in January, has made it clear there’s not much the courts can do about presidential self-dealing. The DOJ is, for these purposes, Trump’s law firm. And so the scheme proceeds on schedule, in plain sight, with everyone involved politely pretending that “the Parties are engaging in discussions” describes something other than what it is.

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We’ll almost certainly be back for part three when the inevitable settlement drops. You already know roughly what it will look like. The only real variables are the size of the number and how straight a face whoever is serving as Attorney General at that point manages to keep while announcing it.

Filed Under: corruption, doj, donald trump, irs, tax returns, todd blanche

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4 Of The Best iPhone Apps You May Have Missed In 2025

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The iPhone has been a mainstay in my daily tech life for over eight years now. During that time, I’ve come to realize that it’s not the latest chip or camera sensors that define its utility for me — it’s the apps created by thousands of developers that give the iPhone its signature identity. Whether it’s the refined design language, the UI interactions, or the cross-device perks linked to your Apple account, it’s the apps that do the heavy lifting.

Now, the easiest way to discover awesome apps is the annual list of App Store award winners. Digging a bit deeper, you can sift through the “Popular Apps” section on the App Store. Then there are lists curated by experts, like our compilation of the best free iPhone apps you should install ASAP. Reddit is another great spot for discovering iPhone apps, but it can quickly get messy with sneakily promoted software and the sheer barrage of recommendations that can pull you into a confusing rabbit hole.

I am a member of numerous such communities, often talk to developers, and test these apps for a living. If you use an iPhone as your daily driver, the following is a selection of apps that will make a meaningful difference in how you use Apple’s smartphone or help you get more out of it.

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1. Wispr Flow

This entire article was written by AI. Or to put it more specifically, voice AI. Now, speech-to-text apps aren’t a fresh breakthrough. But if you’ve ever tried dictating a message to Siri, the spelling and grammar errors will make you want to pull your hair out. The situation with Google’s Gboard isn’t too different, though it’s a tad better. Wispr Flow feels like an evolution, for multiple reasons. The concept is pretty simple. If you find it tiring to write long emails, or just need something quick to note down an idea in the heat of the moment — but typing it all feels like a drag — this app is a Godsend for you.

I can recommend this app for multiple reasons. First, it’s eerily accurate. And I’m not just talking about spellings, but also the appropriate placement of punctuation in the written text, which corresponds to the breaks and flows in your narration. Second, it’s pretty good at deciphering accents. I have a decidedly strong Asian accent, and I often pronounce words in a significantly different way than an average American or British person. Wispr Flow handled it pretty well, and the built-in auto-formatting function is a great bonus.

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Another reason I love Wispr Flow is that it saves you from the chore of sending voice notes as a text response, which can be a bit uncomfortable for both parties. It almost feels magical, and is one of the truly useful AI products I’ve used in a while. But what about privacy? While the transcription itself is processed in the cloud to ensure speed and accuracy, enabling privacy mode ensures a strict zero-retention policy. As soon as transcription is done, all the dictation and voice data is instantly removed from the servers. It’s a no-retention policy, and none of your data is ever used for AI model training.

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2. Adobe Indigo

Adobe introduced Indigo as a test project midway through 2025, and since then, I have used it more than the default camera app on the iPhone for multiple reasons. The biggest draw of this app is that it aims to offer a more natural, SLR-like look to the pictures you take with your iPhone, with the flexibility to get those images in the usual JPEG and RAW formats simultaneously, so you can edit them later. The key focus, as I mentioned earlier, is to give you a natural picture that mimics what you actually see with your eyes.

For example, if you sit in a dark room and there is a strong light outside, what the iPhone does is it takes multiple frames, underexposed and overexposed, and then it merges those frames to give you a final image that is pretty well-lit for the objects outside, as well as those that are dimly lit in the room. In reality, you wouldn’t see those shadowed objects as clearly, and Indigo preserves this natural contrast instead of artificially brightening the room.

Project Indigo relies on on-device AI rendering that focuses heavily on achieving a natural look in the frame. In many cases, these images look visibly different from what the default iPhone camera captures. The app also offers a fairly fleshed-out pro mode that lets you use a whole bunch of tools to get more creative control over the final image. But my favorite feature in Project Indigo is the super-resolution system, which combines multiple frames to give you a final picture that is sharper, less grainy, and looks much better than the iPhone’s native digital upscaling, especially for zoomed-in shots. It performs dramatically better in low-light scenarios than the iPhone’s built-in night camera mode.

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3. Focus Friend

I often find myself switching to focus mode on my phone or Do Not Disturb just to avoid the constant chatter from app notifications. But it also comes at the cost of missing important notifications, such as text message alerts from friends and family members or notifications from workplace apps like Slack or Microsoft Teams. And let’s not forget the pull, especially from the social media apps. You might pick up your phone to answer a text message, but that one notification from Instagram or another social media app eventually pulls you into a doomscrolling loop, wasting plenty of your productive time.

This is where Focus Friend, an app developed by Hank Green, comes into the picture. Instead of an average productivity app that binds you with a timer or imposes harsh restrictions on app activity, Focus Friend takes a more playful approach, assigning you a virtual buddy that tags along on your work journey. This virtual companion feels almost like an accountability partner where your distractions actually take a toll on your virtual buddy’s activities and missions. It’s almost a gamified version of the well-known Pomodoro system for timer and productivity apps.

On the functional side, you can block apps, especially if you enable deep focus mode. There are also systems available for enabling break timers. On the more playful side of things, you get access to different kinds of bean skins, room decorations, and live activity progress so that you don’t even have to unlock your iPhone. But the best part about Focus Friend is that it turns the entire task of staying focused at work into something playful and emotional, blending it all with a beautiful design you would want to revisit.

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4. Showcase

Showcase is one of the best tools for keeping track of the best streaming apps that I have discovered through Reddit. If you are subscribed to multiple streaming platforms and have a running library of TV shows and movies you are locked into, or just leaving on the watch list, this is the app to get. At its core, Showcase is a tracking app that also features smart alerts, a discovery system, and a sharing feature — all wrapped in a beautifully designed user interface.

But the app actually goes above and beyond just serving as a tracking app for your streaming content. For example, there is a calendar syncing system where you can check the release date of a particular film or TV show and add it directly to your personal calendar on the iPhone. It also solves the dilemma of finding content online by telling you which streaming service is currently hosting a desired film or TV show. And to make sure you don’t miss any upcoming releases you’re planning to watch, the app also lets you set up home screen widgets.

There is also a hide-and-snooze system that lets you remove content from your library that you are not interested in. And while you are discovering new content to watch, the app also has a detailed info segment that offers the same kind of information you would otherwise look up in databases like IMDb. Another aspect that sets this app apart is the discovery function, which is actually curated by human experts instead of just being an algorithmically driven feed that is personalized based on your watch history. And yes, you can go totally ad-free, as well.

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NIST Limits CVE Enrichment After 263% Surge In Vulnerability Submissions

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NIST is narrowing how it handles CVEs in the National Vulnerability Database (NVD), saying it will only automatically enrich higher-priority vulnerabilities. “CVEs that do not meet those criteria will still be listed in the NVD but will not automatically be enriched by NIST,” it said. “This change is driven by a surge in CVE submissions, which increased 263% between 2020 and 2025. We don’t expect this trend to let up anytime soon.” The Hacker News reports: The prioritization criteria outlined by NIST, which went into effect on April 15, 2026, are as follows:

– CVEs appearing in the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s (CISA) Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog.
– CVEs for software used within the federal government.
– CVEs for critical software as defined by Executive Order 14028: this includes software that’s designed to run with elevated privilege or managed privileges, has privileged access to networking or computing resources, controls access to data or operational technology, and operates outside of normal trust boundaries with elevated access.

Any CVE submission that doesn’t meet these thresholds will be marked as “Not Scheduled.” The idea, NIST said, is to focus on CVEs that have the maximum potential for widespread impact. “While CVEs that do not meet these criteria may have a significant impact on affected systems, they generally do not present the same level of systemic risk as those in the prioritized categories,” it added. […]

Changes have also been instituted for various other aspects of the NVD operations. These include:
– NIST will no longer routinely provide a separate severity score for a CVE where the CVE Numbering Authority has already provided a severity score.
– A modified CVE will be reanalyzed only if it “materially impacts” the enrichment data. Users can request specific CVEs to be reanalyzed by sending an email to the same address listed above.
– All unenriched CVEs currently in backlog with an NVD publish date earlier than March 1, 2026, will be moved into the “Not Scheduled” category. This does not apply to CVEs that are already in the KEV catalog.
– NIST has updated the CVE status labels and descriptions, as well as the NVD Dashboard, to accurately reflect the status of all CVEs and other statistics in real time.

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Electric Wind-Up Plane Uses Supercapacitors For Free Flight Fun

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There’s something to be said for a simple wind-up, free flight model airplane. With no controls, it must be built very well to fly well, and with only the limited power of a rubber band, it needs a good, high-lift design without much superfluous drag to maximize flight time. There’s also something to be said for modernity though, and prolific hacker [Tom Stanton] puts them together with this supercapacitor plane.

If that sounds familiar, it’s because [Tom] did this before back in 2023. But for that first attempt he converted a commercial R/C toy rather than a plane optimized for low-power free flight. Just like with the best rubber-band machines, his goal for the new production is more flight time than winding time. Plus lots of views on YouTube, but that goes without saying.

Thus this machine is smaller and lighter than the previous iteration. Rather than balsa and tissue like the free-flight aircraft of our youths, [Tom] is using 3D printed plastic for the structure. But he’s got a neat hack built in: he’s printing the wings and control surfaces directly onto tissue paper, eliminating the bonding step. Of course that means his wings are printed flat, but a bit of heat and some bending and he has a single-surface airfoil. Single-surface airfoils are normal in this application, anyway: closed wings add too much weight for too little gain. If you want to try the technique, he’s got files on Printables.

Another interesting factoid [Tom] discovered is that the energy density of supercapacitors decreases sharply below 10 F. As you might imagine by the square-cubed law, bigger is better, but the sharp drop-off dictated he use a single 10 F cap for this build, along with a micro motor. Using the wind-up generator from his previous build, he’s able to get 45 seconds of flight out of just 4 seconds of cranking, a good ratio indeed.

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[Tom] seems to like playing with different ways to power his toys; aside from supercapacitors, we’ve also seen him finessing aircraft air motors — including an attempt at a turbine for a model helicopter.

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Today’s NYT Strands Hints, Answer and Help for April 18 #776

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


Today’s NYT Strands puzzle has a fun topic, but get ready to do some serious unscrambling of lengthy answers. If you need hints and answers, read on.

I go into depth about the rules for Strands in this story

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If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections and Mini Crossword answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: NYT Connections Turns 1: These Are the 5 Toughest Puzzles So Far

Hint for today’s Strands puzzle

Today’s Strands theme is: Not too much.

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If that doesn’t help you, here’s a clue: Is it on sale?

Clue words to unlock in-game hints

Your goal is to find hidden words that fit the puzzle’s theme. If you’re stuck, find any words you can. Every time you find three words of four letters or more, Strands will reveal one of the theme words. These are the words I used to get those hints but any words of four or more letters that you find will work:

  • VICE, VICES, SHEER, FOLD, FOLDER, FOLDERS, BALD, CHEAP, HEAP

Answers for today’s Strands puzzle

These are the answers that tie into the theme. The goal of the puzzle is to find them all, including the spangram, a theme word that reaches from one side of the puzzle to the other. When you have all of them (I originally thought there were always eight but learned that the number can vary), every letter on the board will be used. Here are the nonspangram answers:

  • SALE, BUDGET, BARGAIN, INEXPENSIVE, AFFORDABLE

Today’s Strands spangram

completed NYT Strands puzzle for April 18, 2026

The completed NYT Strands puzzle for April 18, 2026.

NYT/Screenshot by CNET

Today’s Strands spangram is ONTHECHEAP. To find it, start with the O that’s three letters to the right on the top row, and wind down.

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Toughest Strands puzzles

Here are some of the Strands topics I’ve found to be the toughest.

#1: Dated slang. Maybe you didn’t even use this lingo when it was cool. Toughest word: PHAT.

#2: Thar she blows! I guess marine biologists might ace this one. Toughest word: BALEEN or RIGHT. 

#3: Off the hook. Again, it helps to know a lot about sea creatures. Sorry, Charlie. Toughest word: BIGEYE or SKIPJACK.

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Apple Watch chief posts loving farewell to Apple Park on his retirement

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Stan Ng, known for presenting about the Apple Watch on Apple’s keynotes, has retired after 31 years at the company, and spent his last day ticking off bucket list items.

Man in an orange jacket standing in a sunny park, smiling, with tall trees and greenery in the background under a clear blue sky
Stan Ng in a video presentation for the Apple Watch Ultra – image credit: Apple

Stan Ng was Apple’s vice president, Apple Watch and Health Product Marketing, where he was involved with the whole design philosophy of the smart watch. But his three decades at the company extend back to the original iPod, and to before the return of Steve Jobs.
Now Ng has retired and in a post on LinkedIn, has described his final day at Apple Park working for the company. It includes watching the sunrise while listening to his original iPod, and then taking that iPod with him for a last workout in the gym.
Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums

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Former NSA director Keith Alexander stepping down from Amazon’s board

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Retired Gen. Keith Alexander. (Amazon Photo)

Keith Alexander, a retired four-star Army general and former director of the National Security Agency, is leaving Amazon’s board of directors after more than five years.

Alexander, 74, informed the company April 7 that he wouldn’t stand for re-election at its annual meeting next month, according to the company’s proxy statement

“We’re grateful to General Alexander for his service on our Board since 2020 and for the many contributions he’s made to our company, and we wish him every success in the future,” a spokesperson said in a statement, responding to GeekWire’s inquiry.

No reason was given for his departure. Amazon’s board, which has fluctuated by one or two directors over time, will consist of 11 people after his departure.

Alexander joined Amazon’s board in September 2020, when Jeff Bezos was still CEO and the company was navigating a massive surge in demand during the early days of the pandemic. He previously chaired the board’s Security Committee, which oversees Amazon’s cybersecurity policies, data protection compliance, and response to significant cyber incidents.

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Alexander served as commander of U.S. Cyber Command and led the NSA from 2005 to 2014, a tenure that included the surveillance disclosures of former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

After retiring from the military, Alexander founded IronNet, a cybersecurity company, serving as CEO and president from 2014 to July 2023 and as board chair until February 2024. 

With his departure, eleven members of the board are up for re-election.

  • Jeff Bezos, founder and executive chair
  • Andy Jassy, president and CEO
  • Edith W. Cooper, co-founder of Medley Living and former EVP of Goldman Sachs
  • Jamie S. Gorelick, lead independent director; senior counsel at WilmerHale
  • Daniel P. Huttenlocher, dean of MIT Schwarzman College of Computing
  • Andrew Y. Ng, managing general partner of AI Fund; founder of DeepLearning.AI
  • Indra K. Nooyi, former chair and CEO of PepsiCo
  • Jonathan J. Rubinstein, former co-CEO of Bridgewater Associates
  • Brad D. Smith, president of Marshall University; former CEO of Intuit
  • Patricia Q. Stonesifer, former president and CEO of Martha’s Table
  • Wendell P. Weeks, chairman, CEO, and president of Corning

Amazon’s annual shareholder meeting will be held virtually May 20.

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