Best Battery Riding Lawn Mowers of 2025

To get you ratings and reviews of the latest models by early spring, we travel to our mower testing facility in Fort Myers, Fla., to conduct tests in late winter at grounds we prepare each year.  We plant 1,800 pounds of grass seed (predominantly annual rye, prized for its dense growth) and cut 500,000 square…

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Which Brands Make the Most Reliable Washing Machines?

Among CR members surveyed, the most commonly reported washer problems were tangled or balled-up clothes (9 percent), excessive vibration over time (5 percent), odor (5 percent), nonspinning drums (5 percent), water drain failure (5 percent), and becoming noisier over time (4 percent). Mold, mildew, and odor complaints were much more common among owners of many brands…

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21 Gifts for Dads Who Don’t Need Anything (2025)

Fjällräven’s hiking pants—er, sorry, trousers—are legendary, and having now spent most of spring in a pair of these Abisko Trail trousers, I understand why. If Dad is a hiker, or spends any time at all outdoors, these are a great gift. They’re light but surprisingly warm and especially good at blocking the wind. The G-1000…

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DeepSeek Has Gotten OpenAI Fired Up

It’s been just over a week since DeepSeek upended the AI world. The introduction of its open-weight model—apparently trained on a fraction of the specialized computing chips that power industry leaders—set off shock waves inside OpenAI. Not only did employees claim to see hints that DeepSeek had “inappropriately distilled” OpenAI’s models to create its own,…

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Is It Safe to Run Your Oven’s Self-Clean Cycle?

Despite those aforementioned anecdotes, self-clean disasters are the exception, not the rule. Sutton has seen little evidence to suggest that running the self-clean cycle is likely to damage your oven. “I recall hearing of a few malfunctions during self-cleaning over the years, but it’s not a common thing,” he says. In fact, such problems emerge…

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New Cars on the Horizon

GMC is refreshing the Yukon for 2025. Updates for the large, three-row SUV include new headlights, grille, and lower front fascia. The modernized interior has a giant portrait-oriented 16.8-inch infotainment screen, while the reviled and distracting push-button gear selector has been replaced by a steering column stalk. The 355-hp, 5.3-liter V8 and 420-hp, 6.2-liter V8…

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