ICYMI: It's Time to Buy a Battery Mower, Best Used Cars, Foreign-Made Router Ban

With spring here, it’s time to start thinking about your yard. For a more effortless cut, consider a battery-powered mower, which offers instant starts and requires no gas. Bonus: Battery mowers need only minimal maintenance and run much quieter, too.

• Less Maintenance: Gas mowers require checking the oil, changing spark plugs, cleaning filters, and keeping gas on hand. Battery mowers don’t.
• Noise Reduction: Battery mowers are quieter than gas mowers.
• Time and Cost Savings: By investing in a single battery platform for power tools, you can use that battery across multiple tools. 

“With the historically high price of new autos these days, more and more people are naturally looking to the pre-owned market in search of a better bargain,” says Alex Knizek, associate director of auto test development at CR. “But they shouldn’t have to sacrifice safety, reliability, or fuel economy to stay within their budget.”

By looking at how cars performed in our tests when new, and reviewing detailed reliability data, CR points car shoppers to top models that promise the best overall ownership experience.

• Newest Old Cars: We focus on the newest qualifying version because cars tend to improve over time (think reliability and equipment).
• Safety First: Each car has standard electronic stability control (as well as other key safety features available, like automatic emergency braking and blind spot warning).
• Get an Inspection: Each used car is unique, with its own history. The best protection is to focus on CR Recommended used cars and inspect the car you want before buying it.

Citing national security concerns, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has banned the sale of all new foreign-made router models in the U.S. 

Because almost every consumer WiFi router available in the U.S. today is manufactured overseas, this has understandably raised a lot of questions. We’re here to answer them.

The FCC acted in response to “a White House-convened national security body," which "found that foreign-produced WiFi routers pose ’unacceptable risks’ to national security,” writes Nicholas de Leon, a senior reporter at CR.

We’re not aware of any major consumer router manufacturer that currently makes its products domestically, but the FCC defines the word “produced” broadly.

Yes, but only models that already have FCC authorization.

CR covers these questions and more, including whether this ban affects the router you already own and whether you need to rush out and buy a new one.

Read more about the best WiFi routers—and de Leon’s creative exploration into which routers are most like Juan Soto—inside baseball for routers that provide tried-and-true performance in a sea of high-priced alternatives.

You probably scrub your toilet and wipe your counters, but an internal survey of CR staffers found that the "grossest" spots in your home are the ones you touch the most and don’t think to clean, from your kitchen to your bedroom.

We’ve pulled out some of the most galling spots we’ve ignored below—be sure to bookmark our full article to discover how to clean them the next time you go on a cleaning tear.

• Kitchen: Garbage disposal, toaster oven, refrigerator, and more
• Bathroom: Shower drain, showerhead
• Bedroom: Bedding
• Other areas: Fans, window interiors

If that doesn’t satiate your hunger for cleaning (we get it, we really do), we have more articles on how to clean your coffee maker, lawn mower deck, the charging port/speakers on your smartphone/tablet, and, if you have them, hearing aids. We also cover the nine things you should never clean with vinegar (in case you planned to).

It seems like a simple task, but getting a perfectly golden-brown slice of sourdough is harder than most toasters make it look. 

CR’s testing for the best toaster goes beyond just checking for burnt vs. barely browned: In fact, we evaluate each model for ease of use and cleaning, and we time how long it takes to toast a single slice and a batch of bread from the very lightest tan to dark brown. (We perform these same tests on the best toaster ovens, too.)

• Not All Toasters Are Created Equal: You’ll see more than 45 brands in our ratings, but some dominate the top slots more than others; think Breville and Cuisinart.
• Pay More, Get More: More models now offer settings for specific bread types, slide-out crumb trays, touch controls—even digital displays. But this drives up the price.
• Single-Slice Stubbornness: Only about a quarter of the models we test excel at toasting a single slice to the ideal shade of golden brown.

In addition to the best toasters and toaster ovens, we also have recently-updated guidance around the most and least reliable toaster oven brands and the best air fryer toaster ovens.

As James K. Willcox writes, “For many people, sound quality is an afterthought when shopping for a new TV.” Those people would be surprised to learn that a great soundbar can add the sonic oomph your TV is lacking.

In our article on the best soundbars, we’ve covered several great options from our tests—from less expensive models, generally priced below $300, to premium soundbars, which can cost anywhere from $500 to $1,800.

• Ensure Easy Returns: Soundbars may sound very different in your home than in the store.
• Consider Sound Channels: There are a few options, from 2.1-channel to 5.1-channel soundbars, that will affect dialogue or simply enhance sound quality.
• Dolby Atmos or DTS:X: Newer immersive technologies can give movies a more dramatic, lifelike effect.

We’re constantly testing the latest products and retesting existing stock.

• We tested a ton of new lawn mowers and tractors. Find our latest ratings.
• We added a new batch of printers to our ratings. Read more about our best printers of 2026.
• We assessed new patio umbrellas. For more, check out our ratings.