Technologies

Federal Court Blocks Trump’s Tariffs, Finding the President Overstepped His Authority

The US Court of International Trade rules that Congress has sole authority to regulate trade with other countries.

A federal court on Wednesday blocked President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs from going into effect, ruling that the emergency-powers law invoked by the administration doesn’t give the president authority to impose duties on goods from nearly every US trading partner.

The three-judge panel at the New York-based US Court of International Trade concluded that Congress has exclusive authority to regulate commerce with other countries and that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 — the crux of Trump’s argument to impose the tariffs — doesn’t give the president «unbounded» authority to impose the duties.

«An unlimited delegation of tariff authority would constitute an improper abdication of legislative power to another branch of government,» the court wrote in its opinion. «Regardless of whether the court views the president’s actions through the nondelegation doctrine, through the major questions doctrine, or simply with separation of powers in mind, any interpretation of IEEPA that delegates unlimited tariff authority is unconstitutional.»

«The challenged Tariff Orders will be vacated and their operation permanently enjoined,» the panel ruled.

White House spokesperson Kush Desai said that trade deficits amount to a national emergency «that has decimated American communities, left our workers behind, and weakened our defense industrial base — facts that the court did not dispute.» He added that «the administration is committed to using every lever of executive power to address this crisis and restore American Greatness.»

Trump has repeatedly said the tariffs would bring back manufacturing jobs to the US and help reduce the federal budget deficit. But since Trump announced his «Liberation Day» tariffs in April, global financial markets were left upended and many business leaders sounded alarms about the economic damage they would cause.

Since then, the president has repeatedly delayed the enforcement of certain rates, most recently kicking a 50% duty against the European Union to July at the earliest, leaving a lot of uncertainty in the present moment.

Wednesday’s ruling was handed down by a panel comprised of Timothy Reif, a Trump appointee; Jane Restani, who was named to the bench by President Ronald Reagan; and Gary Katzman, an appointee of President Barack Obama.

The ruling came in response to a pair of lawsuits, one filed by the Liberty Justice Center, a nonpartisan organization representing five small US businesses that said they were harmed by the president’s tariffs, and another filed by a group of 12 states, led by Oregon.

«This ruling reaffirms that our laws matter, and that trade decisions can’t be made on the president’s whim,» Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield said in a statement.

Technologies

Meta Will Close Down Its Messenger Apps on Mac and Windows

You’ve got two more months until the apps are gone.

Meta is discontinuing its desktop Messenger apps for Windows and Mac. Starting Dec. 15, you’ll need to head to Facebook to continue chatting through the app on your computer.

Once the sundowning process begins, you’ll receive an in-app notification. You’ll have a 60-day window to continue using Messenger before the app is permanently shut down. (But don’t worry — the mobile app for Messenger will remain.)

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If you want to save your chat history, Meta suggests activating secure storage before the app is gone forever. Otherwise, your chat history will be gone forever, as well.

The Messenger desktop app is no longer available on the Apple App Store. After Dec. 15, Meta users who try to access Messenger on desktop will be redirected to Facebook.com. Users without a Facebook account will be redirected to Messenger.com.

Technologies

Your iPhone Is Quietly Extending Its Battery Life Thanks to This iOS 26 AI Feature

Adaptive Power in iOS 26 can help eke out more battery life before it’s time for a recharge.

The battery in the iPhone 17 Pro Max is physically larger, leading CNET managing editor Patrick Holland to say in his review that it delivers «the best battery life of any phone that CNET has ever tested.» But more power cells aren’t the only contributing factor, and longer battery life isn’t just for the newest iPhone models.

A new software feature in iOS 26 called Adaptive Power also contributes to improved battery life. It’s enabled by default on Apple’s latest phones, but also available on older models that support Apple Intelligence.

Currently, the iPhone uses as much power as it needs to perform its tasks. You can extend battery life by doing a number of things, such as decreasing screen brightness and turning off the always-on display. Or, if your battery is running low, you can turn on Low Power Mode, which limits background activity, like fetching mail and downloading data, and dims the screen to help extend battery life. Low Power Mode also kicks in automatically when the battery level reaches 20%.

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If Low Power Mode is the hammer that knocks down power consumption, Adaptive Power is the scalpel that intelligently trims energy savings here and there as needed. Based on Apple’s description that accompanies the control, the savings will be felt mostly in power-hungry situations such as recording videos, editing photos or even playing games.

Apple says Adaptive Power takes about a week to analyze your usage behavior before it begins actively working. And it works in the background without needing any management on your part.

Here’s how Apple describes it in the iPhone user guide: «It uses on-device intelligence to predict when you’ll need extra battery power based on your recent usage patterns, then makes performance adjustments to help your battery last longer.»

Which iPhone models can use Adaptive Power?

The feature uses AI to monitor and choose when its power-saving measures should be activated, so that means only phones compatible with Apple Intelligence get the feature. These are the models that have the option:

• iPhone 17
• iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max
• iPhone Air
• iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus
• iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max
• iPhone 16e
• iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max

Although some iPad and Mac models support Apple Intelligence, the feature is only available on iPhones.

How to turn Adaptive Power on

Adaptive Power is on by default on the iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Pro, iPhone 17 Pro Max and iPhone Air. For other models, you must opt in to use it. In iOS 26, you’ll find the Adaptive Power toggle in Settings > Battery > Power Mode. To be alerted when the feature is active, turn on the Adaptive Power Notifications option.

Adaptive Power sounds like an outgrowth of Gaming Mode, introduced in iOS 18, which routes all available processing and graphics power to the frontmost app and pauses other processes in order to deliver the best experience possible — at the notable expense of battery life.

What does this mean for your charging habits?

Although we all want as much battery life as possible all the time, judging by the description, it sounds as if Adaptive Power’s optimizations will not always be active, even if you leave the feature on. «When your battery usage is higher than usual» could include a limited number of situations. Still, considering that according to a CNET survey, 61% of people upgrade their phones because of battery life, a feature such as Adaptive Power could extend the longevity of their phones just by updating to iOS 26.

I also wonder whether slightly adjusting display brightness could be disruptive, but in my experience so far, it hasn’t been noticeable. Because the feature also selectively de-prioritizes processing tasks, the outward effects seem minimal. When it’s activated on my iPhone 16 Pro, the only indication was the Adaptive Power alert that appeared.

We’ll get a better idea about how well Adaptive Power works as more people adopt iOS 26 and start buying new iPhone models. Also, remember that shortly after installing a major software update, it’s common to experience worse battery life as the system optimizes data in the background; Apple went so far as to remind customers that it’s a temporary side effect.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Mini Crossword Answers for Saturday, Oct. 25

Here are the answers for The New York Times Mini Crossword for Oct. 25.

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 the longest one of the week, and some of the answers are tricky. Read on for help. 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.