SAVE $80: As of Aug. 9, the Apple AirPods Pro 2 are on sale for $169 at Amazon. That's 32% off their list price of $249.

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Credit: Apple

Apple AirPods Pro 2

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at Amazon

$249
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The battle of the best earbuds is a pretty tough race, but the AirPods Pro are still a huge standout — especially now that they feature USB-C charging. And we love them even more when they're on sale.

As of Aug. 9, the AirPods Pro 2 are down to just $169 at Amazon instead of the usual $249. That's a savings of 32% and just $20 shy of their best-ever price from Prime Day. The Apple earbuds do fall to $169 pretty regularly, but that doesn't mean this isn't a solid deal. That's only $40 more than the AirPods 4 at full price, which don't even offer noise cancellation.

We particularly love the rich and well-balanced sound of the AirPods Pro, although we wish they offered customizable EQ. They also offer best-in-class noise cancellation, decent battery life (up to six hours per charge, 30 hours with case), and seamless Apple ecosystem integration. The Pros regularly top our lists of the best headphones, and our readers seem to love them just as much. "For portability, active noise cancellation, and balanced sound, your search ends with the AirPods Pro," our reviewer writes.

Vicky

Microsoft is quietly winding down its Lens scanning app for iOS and Android, the company confirmed in a support document.

Formerly known as Office Lens, the app lets users convert images into PDFs, PowerPoint slides, and Excel files, handling both handwritten and printed documents with ease. It was simple, reliable, and widely used — but it’s now on the chopping block. Microsoft plans to officially retire the app on Sept. 15, 2025.

Support will end on Nov. 15, 2025, when Lens will be pulled from both the App Store and Google Play. Users will still be able to create scans until Dec. 15, 2025, but after that, the feature will be disabled. Existing scans will remain accessible as long as the app stays installed on the device.

The move marks the end of an app that’s seen more than 50 million downloads on Google Play and nearly 136,000 ratings on Apple’s App Store.

Microsoft is pointing users toward Microsoft 365 Copilot, which carries over most of Lens’s scanning capabilities. However, Copilot lacks some of Lens’s biggest perks, including direct saving to Microsoft Suite apps and accessibility features like read-aloud support and Immersive Reader integration.

Vicky

Despite seemingly being in every movie out right now, Pedro Pascal isn't in Zach Cregger's horror film Weapons. However, he almost was! Pascal would have played grieving father Archer (Josh Brolin), but scheduling conflicts forced him to bow out. However, Weapons still features a surprising similarity to a major Pascal project: The Last of Us.

The film centers on the disappearance of 17 children, all from the same third grade class at Maybrook Elementary. One night, at 2:17 a.m., they all left their homes and ran off into the darkness, leaving the Maybrook community shaken.

In one scene, Maybrook Elementary principal Marcus (Benedict Wong) takes a much-needed break from his job and sits down for a TV meal with his husband Terry (Clayton Farris). They're watching a nature documentary about the Cordyceps fungus. More specifically, Ophiocordyceps unilateralis or zombie-ant fungus, a parasitic fungus which takes over the brains of ants and forces them to move to locations where the fungus can grow. (It then sprouts from the dead ant — spooky!)

Real-life Cordyceps inspired The Last of Us' terrifying fungal infection. However, in Weapons, it also clues us into how the film's main antagonist operates, serving as a chilling reminder of what's to come. Spoilers ahead, so if you haven't seen the movie, you should make like Weapons' children and run far, far away.

Why is Weapons so obsessed with Cordyceps and parasites?

Cary Christopher in "Weapons."
Credit: Warner Bros. Pictures

The Cordyceps documentary scene isn't the only time Weapons mentions a frightening parasite. In one of the film's many nightmare sequences, teacher Justine (Julia Garner) walks into her classroom and sees all of the lost children back at their desks. On the whiteboard behind her, there's a list of parasites.

Later, when Weapons turns its focus on Alex (Cary Christopher), the one child from the class who didn't disappear, we hear Justine teaching the class about parasites, asking for examples like tapeworms. Between those classroom scenes and the Cordyceps documentary, it's clear Weapons has a parasite fixation. Why?

These parasite mentions subtly clue us into the methods of Weapons' main villain: witch Gladys (Amy Madigan). She performs rituals to bring people under her spell, using a magical tree, her own blood, and her victims' personal belongings to get the job done.

Her first victims in the movie are Alex's parents (Whitmer Thomas and Callie Schuttera), whom she ensnares in the hopes that siphoning their life force will cure her of her terminal illness. But when Alex's parents aren't enough, she pivots to the 17 children.

Gladys' treatment of Alex's parents and the children is textbook parasitism. She drains from them in order to cure herself, but in doing so, she keeps them trapped and unresponsive.

Like the real-life Cordyceps fungus, Gladys also hijacks her victims' bodies and minds and makes them do her bidding. She forces Alex's mother to cut a lock of Justine's hair for a ritual, and she turns Marcus, Paul (Alden Ehrenreich), and James (Austin Abrams) into murder machines to take out her opponents. Their herky-jerky movements are reminiscent of those of ants overtaken by Cordyceps: They're not in control, Gladys is.

All these background mentions of parasites throughout Weapons peel back the truth of Gladys. She's not just a witch, she's a leech — and she'd drain the entire town of Maybrook, even children, in order to survive.

Weapons is now in theaters.

Vicky