(Washington, D.C., June 25, 2025) – U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke L. Rollins published an opinion piece in the Deseret News following her announcement rescinding the 2001 Roadless Rule earlier this week.

(Washington, D.C., June 25, 2025) – U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke L. Rollins published an opinion piece in the Deseret News following her announcement rescinding the 2001 Roadless Rule earlier this week.

(Washington, D.C., June 25, 2025) – U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins today announced the latest slate of presidential appointments for key positions at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).

“American farmers and ranchers work tirelessly to feed, fuel, and clothe America. The incredible team we are building at USDA will make it easier—not harder—for farmers to fulfill their calling. I welcome the latest group of appointees and look forward to continuing our work to put Farmers First at USDA,” said Secretary Rollins.

The only bad fried chicken is soggy fried chicken. (And even then, honestly, a quick air fry’ll fix it right up.) However, there are indisputably great ways to get a crackling crust, and those should always be considered. For example, the karaage method or the copycat fast food method. There is another fried chicken trick that I’ve recently become aware of, and unlike the other two I mentioned, this one has no extra steps. There’s no three-part batter, and it doesn’t require a dip in a bowl of (still pricey) eggs. It’s one step with a simple flour swap, and it changes everything. 

Self-rising flour is key

I’ve always used regular all-purpose flour to fry, or potato flour for its superior crisping qualities, but self-rising flour was a complete surprise. This flour, ever-present on my grocery store’s shelves, never seemed to be much use to me. For those who also don’t use it much, self-rising flour consists of a reliable ratio of all-purpose flour, baking powder, and salt. So if you wanted to make a quick pancake recipe, you could use a scoop of this stuff and skip adding those other two ingredients to your recipe.

I know that folks in the UK use it often, but I’ve always shied away from not being able to control the leavening agent and salt in my baking. But while reading the recipes in Still We Rise, a fantastic cookbook with biscuit recipes and recipes for other things you’d enjoy with a biscuit nearby, I came across the Glori-Fried Chicken Biscuit Sandwich. You guessed it: The recipe uses self-rising flour. 

An easy, light, and crispy coating

Following the recipe, there is a section of notes called The Gospel of Fried Chicken, and Council (the author) briefly describes why self-rising flour works. The included salt boosts the flavor—no surprises there—but the baking powder plays a large role in giving a thin, shattering crust to the fried chicken. There’s no need for multiple dredges through flour or egg washes to make the crust as brilliant as it is. 

As a leavening agent, baking powder has the duty to lift up and aerate our cakes and muffins, but it does this even in that thin layer coating your chicken. When hydrated and heated up, the baking powder reacts and produces carbon dioxide. This looks like tiny little bubbles in cakes, but on chicken it produces a delicate, rippling crust. 

How to use self-rising flour for fried chicken

1. Brine

Whenever I fry chicken, I prefer to do a buttermilk brine if time affords it. Yogurt will work too, and that’s usually what I use. Even one hour can make a difference in how juicy and tender the chicken will be. I brined some skin-on chicken drumsticks in yogurt with a pinch of salt for about an hour. Then I prepared my flour dredge. 

2. Coat the chicken

I mixed about three-quarters of a cup of self-rising flour with a half-teaspoon of salt (a little extra is necessary for fried chicken), a teaspoon of cornstarch (which provides extra starch for crunch), and a sprinkle of garlic and onion powder. 

Then comes the easy part: coating the chicken. I put one drumstick at a time into the flour and coated it completely. Just one time. Then let them dry on a wire rack while I heated the oil.

3. Fry the chicken

I heated up about an inch of cooking oil in a dutch oven until it reached 350°F and fried until they were deeply browned on all sides and the internal temperature reached 160°F (carryover cooking—that is, when food continues to cook off the heat for several minutes—takes care of the remaining five degrees to get it to 165°F).

With truly the least effort I’ve ever put into fried chicken, I made a batch of the best drumsticks I’ve had in a long time. And with picnics and backyard parties coming up, you deserve this ease too.

Although I haven’t tried this self-rising flour coating on other fried morsels, like chicken tenders, eggplant, tofu, or zucchini planks, I trust that it would work just as well. Actually, I think I have a pack of tofu in the fridge right now. I know what I must do.

If you want more egg-free alternatives while prices are still high, I’ve tested other ideas, including:

• The Five Best Egg Replacements I’ve Used for Baking (so Far)

• I Tested Boxed Cake Mix Without the Eggs, and It Was Fantastic

• Sour Cream Makes for a Better Egg Wash Than an Actual Egg

• Eggless Breakfasts to Fuel Your Day (and Spare Your Wallet)

• All the Ways Chickpea Liquid Can Replace Eggs in Dessert Recipes

No one likes ads, but they do have their time and a place. If you click on an article, you probably won’t be surprised to see them displayed alongside it (unless you have an ad blocker in place, of course). But when your apps start pinging you not with relevant notifications, but with unasked for advertisements, that’s a different story.

That’s what some Apple Wallet users experienced today, when the app that’s supposed to handle mobile payments pinged them with an ad for Apple’s upcoming racing film F1: The Movie. According to a screenshot from this Reddit user, the ad reads: “$10 off at Fandango: Save on 2+ tickets to F1 The Movie with APPLEPAYTEN. Ends 6/29. While supplies last. Terms apply.”

A good deal, maybe, but users are not pleased. Put aside the fact that critics seem to be enjoying F1—no one enjoys unsolicited ads, especially from apps that abuse the notification system. Wallet is far from the only app to take this road (here’s looking at you, Snapchat) which is why I tend to disable notifications for all but the most essential apps.

But what makes this even worse is this is one of Apple’s own system apps advertising one of Apple’s original films. It feels wrong that Apple can take control of the notifications for one of its apps to tell you to see a movie it produced, just because you happened to buy a smartphone made by Apple. As one user put it, “I did not pay over [$1,000] for an iPhone to get advertised at.”

Unfortunately, that might just be part of the package: Apple has been adding ads to its own apps and services since 2022, something you might have noticed when browsing the App Store or the Apple News app. Ping notifications are definitely a rarity for Apple, and I hope it stays that way, but Apple might see it in its own best interest to advertise as it wishes across its platforms and services—even if it’s not in the best interest of its customers.

Luckily, there’s something you can do about it—eventually, anyway.

How to disable Apple Wallet’s ads

Yes, there is a way to disable these new obtrusive ads without turning off Wallet notifications entirely—you just need to be running the right version of iOS.

As it turns out, Apple has added a new notification setting to Wallet in iOS 26, which is currently in beta testing. While I do not recommend installing the beta at this time, especially not solely for disabling Wallet ads, here’s how the setting works: Open the Wallet app, tap the three dots in the top right, then choose Notifications. Here, disable the toggle for Offers & Promotions. That should block these ads from showing up in the future—at least in Wallet.

Perhaps at the end of the day, Apple is still the winner in all of this. Not only does this story bring extra attention to Apple’s new movie, it also highlights a new quality-of-life feature in iOS 26. Sure, people are pissed, but they got us talking about two different Apple products today. Touché, Apple.

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If you’re looking to protect your property with an outdoor security camera, the Reolink 4K Wired Outdoor Security Camera is a strong contender, and right now, you can get it for $50 off (with coupon) on Amazon. With features that rival those of more expensive competitors, this wired camera is designed for people who want comprehensive surveillance without too much fuss. 

Users appreciate the sharp 4K dual‑lens image quality, which includes an 8MP wide-angle lens and built-in spotlights for crisp, colorful footage—even on dark nights. One standout feature is its ability to pan and tilt (355°/90°) with a 6x hybrid zoom that can track subjects up to 50 feet away. Whether you’re monitoring vehicles, people, or pets, it offers an ultra-wide field of view—ranging from 104° to 38° horizontally and 60° to 21° vertically—for full-coverage surveillance.

The camera’s dual-band wifi supports both 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz networks, and it offers flexible storage options: up to 256GB via microSD (not included), FTP, or a Reolink NVR. Two-way audio allows you to hear what’s going on outside your home and speak to anyone who approaches. A time-lapse function is a nice bonus, letting you compress hours of footage into just a few minutes for a quick overview.

That said, the dual-band wifi has received mixed feedback, with some customers noting occasional connectivity issues. While images are crisp overall, some say clarity degrades and gets blurry when zoomed beyond 2.7x. Some false detections may also be triggered by sensitive motion or noise detection, especially in windy conditions. And since this is a wired camera, it does require a constant power source via an adapter.

Ultimately, while the Reolink 4K Wired Outdoor Security Camera is on the expensive side compared to budget outdoor surveillance cameras, it offers solid bang for your buck, especially if you don’t want to commit to subscription fees.

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Target is the last of the major retailers to officially announce its anti-Prime Day sale for 2025. Predictably, the company has scheduled its next Circle Week event to overlap with this year’s super-sized Prime Day. Here is everything you need to know about this sale, and the deals you can expect.

What is Target’s Circle Week?

Circle Week is Target’s name for its biggest sale. As the name suggests, it lasts a whole week. It used to happen once a year but, much to the dismay of Target workers, it now occurs multiple times a year. The last sale was in the spring, around the time of Amazon’s Big Spring Sale.

When is Circle Week?

The next Circle Week will take place from July 6 to July 12. That means it begins two days before Prime Day and ends one day after Prime Day.

Do you need to be a member to shop the sales during Target Circle Week?

Like Amazon’s Prime Day sale, you will need to be a Circle member to take part in the sale, but unlike a Prime membership, Target Circle is free. You can sign up for an account on the Target app or Target.com.

You can also pay for a Target Circle 360 membership, which grants you early access to the sale as well as other perks, like same-day delivery. If you’re a teacher or student, you can save 50% on the one-year Circle 360 subscription through Sept. 13; otherwise, it starts at $10.99 per month. But again, a paid membership isn’t necessary to get all the best Circle Week deals.

What deals can I find during Target Circle Week?

Circle week will focus on back-to-school items and college essentials like classroom products, dorm décor, and on-trend apparel, but you’ll also find tech products on sale. You can shop in person or online, and there will be a “Deal of the Day” for every day of the event.

While Target hasn’t released a list of deals you can expect, you can get a pretty good idea from past Circle Week sales. Here are some of the deals they had at the tail end of the Circle Week last fall.

What competitors are also offering sales?

Amazon’s Prime Day will take place between July 8 and July 11, so all the other sales tend to revolve around these dates. Walmart has its Walmart Deals sale from July 8 through July 13, while Best Buy’s ‘Black Friday in July’ sale is running from July 7 through July 13.

It’s reasonable to assume that if you reach out to tech support from a legitimate help website, you’ll be speaking with a real customer service representative. However, scammers are hijacking pages belonging to companies like Netflix, PayPal, and Apple with the goal of stealing your information or gaining remote access to your device.

Malwarebytes Labs has identified a tech support scam that uses malicious URLs to embed fake phone numbers within legitimate site searches. Here’s how to identify and avoid falling victim to this attack.

How scammers are hijacking customer support pages

This scam begins, as many do, with a sponsored ad on Google. If you search for a company’s tech support phone number, you may see several (fake) results near the top of the page. Often, clicking these links will take you to a fake phishing website that you can identify by checking the URL, but in some cases, you’ll actually land on the legitimate support page with little cause for suspicion.

However, the number displayed may be fraudulent, and if you call, you’ll reach scammers rather than tech support. This type of attack allows cybercriminals to embed phone numbers within an authentic site, where they are prominently displayed. Once on the phone, scammers will request login credentials, financial account information, or even remote access to your device.

Because the URL is legitimate and the page layout authentic, you may not think twice about calling the number. Malwarebytes has found this attack on sites that include Netflix, PayPal, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, Bank of America, and HP.

Red flags for hijacked tech support sites

Now that you know that this scam is possible, there are a few signs to watch for. First, check your browser’s address bar. There is likely a phone number with lots of encoded characters (%20 or %2B) and/or text like “call now” or “emergency support” in the URL. If the website shows search results and you didn’t enter a search term in the on-page search bar, it may be a scam. As always, any language that sounds urgent should also raise suspicion.

Unfortunately, this isn’t the only way that scammers can impersonate legitimate companies. With call spoofing, fake calls can appear to come from real, known numbers, so if you receive a call back from “tech support” and google the number, it’ll show up as the actual company support line. If anything feels off—there’s a sense of urgency or the caller asks for personal information or requests access to your device—hang up.

To avoid this, look for company phone numbers by navigating directly to the home page or checking official social media channels. You can also look for contact information in past communication from the company or by logging into your account. Do not rely on search results.