Huge blast at key Iranian port kills eight and injures more than 750

Moment driver sees huge explosion rip through Iran port At least 14 people have been killed and 750 injured in a massive explosion at one of Iran’s key ports, authorities say. The blast took place at Shahid Rajaee, the country’s largest commercial port, near the southern city of Bandar Abbas on Saturday morning. It blew…

Google will stop supporting early Nest thermostats on October 25

Google announced this week that beginning on October 25, it will no longer support or release software updates for the first and second generation Nest Learning Thermostats. And it will completely stop launching new Nest products in Europe. That means owners of the Nest thermostats released in 2011 and 2012 (as well as the version…

Russia claims it has regained full control of Kursk from Ukraine

EPA Russia’s army chief made the claims in a video meeting with President Vladimir Putin During a video conference meeting with Putin on Saturday, Gerasimov said: “Today, the last settlement in the Kursk region, the village of Gornal, has been liberated from Ukrainian forces.” He praised what he described as the “heroism” of North Korean…

Lately’s new gamified app helps people arrive on time

A new app called Lately launched on the App Store a few weeks ago, targeting people with ADHD to help them arrive on time and rewarding them for doing so. The service is designed to help users manage their travel plans by notifying them when it’s time to leave for a trip, sending reminders 30…

Anthropic sent a takedown notice to a dev trying to reverse-engineer its coding tool

In the battle between two “agentic” coding tools — Anthropic’s Claude Code and OpenAI’s Codex CLI — the latter appears to be fostering more developer goodwill than the former. That’s at least partly because Anthropic has issued takedown notices to a developer trying to reverse-engineer Claude Code, which is under a more restrictive usage license…

Zelensky and Trump meet before Pope’s funeral

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky and US President Donald Trump have met in Rome ahead of Pope Francis’ funeral. Officials from both parties confirmed the meeting had taken place, with the White House describing it as “very productive”. No further details on the discussion have been released. Trump and Zelensky are attending the service in Vatican…

Musk’s xAI Holdings is reportedly raising the second-largest private funding round ever

Elon Musk’s xAI Holdings is in talks to raise $20 billion in fresh funding, potentially valuing the AI and social media combo at over $120 billion, according to a new Bloomberg report that says talks are in the “early stages.” If successful, the deal would be the second-largest startup funding round ever, behind only OpenAI’s…

Russia and Ukraine ‘very close to a deal’, says Donald Trump

Reuters Trump told reporters a deal was close as he arrived in Italy for Pope Francis’s funeral US President Donald Trump has said Russia and Ukraine “are very close to a deal”, hours after his envoy Steve Witkoff and Russian President Vladimir Putin held talks in Moscow. Trump said it had been a “good day”…

DoorDash seeks dismissal of Uber lawsuit

DoorDash has asked a California Superior Court judge to dismiss a lawsuit filed by Uber that accuses the food delivery company of stifling competition by intimidating restaurant owners into exclusive deals. DoorDash argues in its motion that Uber’s claim lacks merit on all fronts. On a post on its website on Friday, DoorDash said, “the…

TechCrunch Mobility: Slate’s ‘transformer’ EV truck breaks cover and Tesla’s dueling realities

Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility — your central hub for news and insights on the future of transportation. Sign up here for free — just click TechCrunch Mobility! Busy week, so let’s get to it. Starting with federal regulations! Woohoo. Exciting stuff. I’m talking about the U.S. Department of Transportation’s new Automated Vehicle Framework, which…

Judge arrested after allegedly obstructing immigration agents

Federal agents arrested a Wisconsin judge and charged her with obstruction for allegedly trying to help an undocumented immigrant evade arrest. Announcing her arrest, FBI director Kash Patel accused Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan of “intentionally misdirecting” immigration agents away from a Mexican man they were trying to arrest last week. “Thankfully our agents…

The TechCrunch Cyber Glossary | TechCrunch

The cybersecurity world is full of jargon and lingo. At TechCrunch, we have been writing about cybersecurity for years, and we frequently use technical terms and expressions to describe the nature of what is happening in the world. That’s why we have created this glossary, which includes some of the most common — and not…

Thailand plane crash kills six police officers

Six police officers have been killed in Thailand after their plane crashed into the sea during a test flight for parachute training, police have said.

The small plane was seen crashing into the water at around 08:00 local time (01:00 GMT) on Friday in the Cha-am district, a coastal resort area some 130km (80 miles) southwest of Bangkok.

Royal…

Google’s AI search numbers are growing, and that’s by design

Google started testing AI-summarized results in Google Search, AI Overviews, two years ago, and continues to expand the feature to new regions and languages. By the company’s estimation, it’s been a big success. AI Overviews is now used by more than 1.5 billion users monthly across over 100 countries.

AI…

Bezos-backed Slate Auto debuts analog EV pickup truck that is decidedly anti-Tesla

A new American electric vehicle startup called Slate Auto has made its debut, and it’s about as anti-Tesla as it gets.

It’s affordable, deeply customizable, and very analog. It has manual windows and it doesn’t come with a main infotainment screen. Heck, it isn’t even painted. It can also transform from a two-seater pickup to a…

Company executives warn over impact of tariffs

Top executives at well-known US firms are warning about the impact that tariffs are having on their companies and the wider economy.

Technology giant Intel, footwear maker Skechers and consumer goods firm Procter & Gamble, have either cut their profit forecasts or withdrawn them citing economic uncertainty.

US President Donald Trump has been trying to rebalance relations with key…

StrictlyVC in Athens will feature the Greek Prime Minister

We’re thrilled to announce that Greece Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis will be joining us at our upcoming StrictlyVC event in Athens, co-hosted with Endeavor, on Thursday night, May 8, at the stunning Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center.

For those who might not be familiar with his background, Mitsotakis brings a fascinating blend of experiences to…

California overtakes Japan as fourth largest global economy

California’s economy has overtaken that of the country of Japan, making the US state the fourth largest global economic force.

Governor Gavin Newsom touted new data from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the US Bureau of Economic Analysis showing California’s growth.

The data shows California’s gross domestic product (GDP) hit $4.10 trillion (£3.08 trillion) in 2024, surpassing Japan,…

Faraday Future founder named co-CEO three years after being sidelined by internal probe

Troubled electric vehicle startup Faraday Future’s board of directors has appointed founder Jia Yueting as the company’s co-CEO, three years after he was sidelined following an internal probe into allegations of fraud — a probe that led to a investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission that remains ongoing.

Jia will serve alongside current CEO Matthias Aydt and…

How do you define cheating in the age of AI?

This AI startup raised $5.3 million to help people “cheat on everything.” But in the age of AI, how do you define cheating?

Columbia University recently suspended student Roy Lee for building a tool to help people cheat on engineering interviews. He’s been making waves on X after posting a long thread detailing the saga and…

Thousands march through camp commemorating 80 years since liberation

Thousands of people, including Holocaust survivors, have taken part in the annual “March of the Living” through former Nazi concentration camp, Auschwitz-Birkenau.

The march follows a 3km (1.86 miles) route to the crematorium of Auschwitz-Birkenau, as participants pay tribute to the millions of Jews who died in the Holocaust and call for an end to antisemitism and intolerance.

Many…

Threads officially moves to Threads.com and updates its web app

Instagram Threads, Meta’s newest social network and X competitor, is officially relocating from the website Threads.net to Threads.com. The transition will coincide with a handful of quality-of-life improvements for the Threads web app, including features to more easily access custom feeds, saved posts, and likes, as well as other tools for creating new columns, copying…

Pakistan suspends visas for Indian nationals after Kashmir attack

Pakistan has responded with tit-for-tat measures against India as tensions soared following a militant attack in Indian-administered Kashmir that killed 26 tourists.

Islamabad suspended all visas issued to Indian nationals under an exemption scheme with immediate effect, as well as expelling some of its neighbour’s diplomats and closing its airspace to Indian flights.

Indian police have named three of…

Speak at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025: Applications now open

TechCrunch Disrupt returns October 27–29 to Moscone West in San Francisco — and we’re inviting thought leaders, founders, VCs, and tech experts to apply for a chance to take the stage at one of the most anticipated tech events of the year.

Applications are now open to speak at Disrupt 2025, where over 10,000+ tech leaders,…

This tool estimates how much electricity your chatbot messages consume

Ever wonder how much electricity you’re using when you prompt, or thank, an AI model? Hugging Face engineer Julien Delavande did, so he built a tool to help arrive at the answer.

AI models consume energy each time they’re run. They’re run on GPUs and specialized chips that need a lot of power to carry out the associated…

Bain of group Just B comes out at concert

K-pop group Just B’s member Bain has revealed to fans he is “proud to be part of the LGBT community” – a rare move in an industry known for its tight control over artists’ behaviour, where stars typically keep details of their their personal lives private, particularly relationships.

The star, 23, is now among only a handful of K-pop…

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Windsurf slashes prices as competition with Cursor heats up

AI coding assistant startup Windsurf cut its prices “across the board” it announced on Monday, touting “massive savings” for its users as competition with its rival Cursor intensifies.

Windsurf said it’s getting rid of its complex system of “flow action credits,” which charged developers for actions its AI did in the background. It’s also cutting prices for…

India closes main border crossing with Pakistan after Kashmir attack

Watch: First responders on the scene after gunman opens fire on tourists at Pahalgam

India has announced measures targeting Pakistan, a day after 26 people were killed by gunmen at a Himalayan tourist attraction in Indian-administered Kashmir.

They include the closure of the main border crossing linking the two countries, the suspension of a landmark water-sharing…

Mystery will may reveal Zappos founder’s final wishes

According to the WSJ, a recently discovered will suggests late Zappos co-founder Tony Hsieh had concrete plans for his fortune despite previous beliefs that he died without leaving instructions for an estate that’s estimated to be worth $1.2 billion.

Among other things, the document, signed in 2015 and included in a recent court filing, contains a striking no-contest…

IBM affected by DOGE cuts, downplays impact during Q1 earnings call

Tech and consulting giant IBM was not immune to the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE) cuts.

IBM had 15 of its federal contracts cancelled due to DOGE-related cuts during the first quarter of 2025, according to reporting from Reuters and Bloomberg. These cuts amount to $100 million in future payments, per Bloomberg. Federal contracts represent…

Opening statements begin in New York

Attorneys delivered opening statements on Wednesday in the New York retrial of Harvey Weinstein, with prosecutors accusing the disgraced film producer of using his immense power in Hollywood to sexually harass and abuse three women.

“The defendant wanted their bodies, and the more they resisted, the more forceful he got,” Assistant District Attorney Shannon Lucey told jurors on Wednesday.…

Netflix aims to be a trillion-dollar company, says co-CEO

At Semafor’s 2025 Word Economy Summit on Wednesday, Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos said he believes Netflix’s long-term goal to achieve a $1 trillion market capitalization is possible if the streaming giant continues to perform well.

Sarandos said, “In the previous five years, we’ve doubled our revenue, we grew profits 10 times, and we grew our market cap…

Mourners visit Pope Francis lying in state at St Peter’s Basilica

Sarah Rainsford and Laura Gozzi

Reuters

The pontiff’s body, laid out in an open coffin, was moved to the church in a formal procession

Mourners are paying their respects to Pope Francis, whose body was moved from his Vatican residence to St Peter’s Basilica before his funeral on Saturday.

The Pope’s open coffin was carried on Wednesday morning in…

Meta’s Threads opens up ads to global advertisers

Months after first testing ads in select markets, including the U.S., Meta on Wednesday announced that its Instagram Threads app would now expand ads to all advertisers worldwide. The expansion will allow eligible advertisers to reach Threads’s over 320 million monthly active users, and it will include access to an inventory filter…

Xprize Carbon awarded to a dirt simple carbon removal technology

Sometimes the simpler idea is the winner.

That’s certainly the case with the winner of the Xprize Carbon Removal competition, which was announced on Wednesday. Mati Carbon walked away with the $50 million grand prize for its enhanced rock weathering program that locks carbon in soils for thousands of years.

The Musk Foundation underwrote the prize.…

Top US officials pull out of Russia-Ukraine ceasefire talks in London

London talks aimed at securing a ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia have been downgraded and will no longer include US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and special envoy Steve Witkoff.

The meeting on Wednesday will instead take place among senior officials from the UK, France, Germany, Ukraine, and the US, while UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy will host a…

StrictlyVC London agenda for May 13

StrictlyVC is heading to London on May 13, uniting top investors and entrepreneurs to spark meaningful connections and drive forward innovation. We’re thrilled to welcome industry leaders like Nazo Moosa, general partner at Paladin Capital Group; Sonali De Rycker, partner at Accel; and TS Anil, CEO of Monzo Bank, to the stage.

Paladin is proud to partner…

Gaza health ministry denies manipulating death toll figures

Yolande Knell
BBC Middle East correspondent, Jerusalem

Reuters

Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry says more than 51,200 Palestinians have been killed

At al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, Alam Hirzallah resigns himself to a grim task: registering the deaths of the wife and two children of his grieving cousin.

His family brought the bodies here on an electric rickshaw or tuk-tuk.…

StrictlyVC heads to Athens, covering European tech and investment

StrictlyVC is turning up the heat in 2025 — and we’re going international! First stop: Athens, May 8.

Get ready for sharp, unfiltered conversations onstage — and your chance to jump into the dialogue. This isn’t just an event; it’s a forum where every attendee has a voice with some of Europe’s most influential tech and VC…

Why OpenAI wanted to buy Cursor but opted for the fast-growing Windsurf

Anysphere, maker of AI coding assistant Cursor, is growing so quickly that it’s not in the market to be sold, even to OpenAI, a source close to the company tells TechCrunch.

It’s been a hot target. Cursor is one of the most popular AI-powered coding tools, and its revenue has been growing astronomically – doubling on average every two…

Early turnout shatters record in Canada polls with 7.3m ballots cast

Nadine Yousif
BBC News, Toronto

Watch: ‘We are not Americans’ – but what does it mean to be Canadian?

More than 7 million Canadians have cast their ballots in advance, setting a new record for early voter turnout, Elections Canada says.

Advance polling stations were open across the country for four days, from Friday to Monday, over the Easter…

Vibe coding helps Supabase nab $200M at $2B valuation just seven months after its last raise

In 2020, when open source database Supabase was founded, its New Zealand-based CEO, Paul Copplestone, couldn’t have imagined it would be sitting in the sweet spot for 2025’s biggest trend: vibe coding.

But on Tuesday, the fruits of that became evident when it announced a $200 million series D at a $2 billion post-money valuation led…

At least five killed after gunmen open fire on tourists in Kashmir

At least two dozen people have been killed after gunmen opened fire on a group of domestic tourists visiting a popular beauty spot in Indian-administered Kashmir, authorities have told the BBC.

The attack took place in Pahalgam, a picturesque town in the Himalayas often described as the “Switzerland of India”.

The region’s chief minister, Omar Abdullah, said the attack…

Marks & Spencer confirms cybersecurity incident amid ongoing disruption

Retail giant Marks & Spencer has confirmed a cybersecurity incident, as customers report ongoing disruption and outages.

The British-headquartered retailer on Tuesday told customers in a notice, which TechCrunch has seen, that the company has been “managing a cyber incident” over the last few days. The notice, signed by chief executive Stuart Machin, said it was necessary to make…

Manychat taps $140M to boost its business messaging platform with AI

Chatbots and other kinds of AI agents — and the companies that build them — may feel like a dime a dozen these days. But the truth is that, for both businesses and consumers, some may be infinitely more useful (and perhaps less dystopian) than others. Today, a startup that’s built a successful business around that concept…

Harvard University sues Trump administration over funding freeze

Watch: ‘It’s not right’ – Students react to Trump freezing Harvard’s federal funding

Harvard University has filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration claiming that its freezing of federal grants worth billions of dollars is unlawful.

Its president, Alan M Garber, announced the action on Monday in a letter to the university community which said the $2bn funding freeze…

Columbia student suspended over interview cheating tool raises $5.3M to ‘cheat on everything’

On Sunday, 21-year-old Chungin “Roy” Lee announced he’s raised $5.3 million in seed funding from Abstract Ventures and Susa Ventures for his startup, Cluely, that offers an AI tool to “cheat on everything.”

The startup was born after Lee posted in a viral X thread that he was suspended by Columbia University after he and his…

US Federal Trade Commission sues Uber over subscription practices

The US Federal Trade Commission has filed a lawsuit against Uber, alleging the ride hailing and delivery company engaged in deceptive billing and cancellation practices.

The consumer protection watchdog accused Uber of charging customers for its Uber One subscription service without getting their consent and making it hard for users to cancel.

“The Trump-Vance FTC is fighting back on…

Rivian elects Cohere’s CEO to its board in latest signal the EV maker is bullish on AI

Aidan Gomez, the co-founder and CEO of generative AI startup Cohere, has joined the board of EV maker Rivian, according to a regulatory filing. The appointment is the latest sign that Rivian sees promises in applying AI to its own venture while positioning itself as a software leader — and even provider — within the automotive industry.…

Tomorrow: Join Ali Ghodsi and Dario Amodei for a fireside chat

Join this free virtual event, featuring Ali Ghodsi, the trailblazing co-founder and CEO of Databricks, alongside Dario Amodei, the pioneering co-founder and CEO of Anthropic. Uncover how their revolutionary collaboration is poised to fast-track the advancement of domain-specific AI agents.

Not only will you experience an engaging exchange between the visionary leaders of two AI industry giants, but…

US stocks and dollar slide after Trump attacks Fed chair Powell

Getty Images

US stocks and the dollar plunged again as President Donald Trump intensified his attacks on US central bank boss calling him “a major loser” for not lowering interest rates.

In a social media post, Trump called on Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell to cut interest rates “pre-emptively” to help boost the economy, saying Powell had been consistently…

Feds accuse Uber of charging customers for subscriptions without consent

The Federal Trade Commission filed a lawsuit Monday against Uber, alleging the ride-hail and delivery giant charged customers for its Uber One subscription service without their consent. The lawsuit also claims Uber failed to deliver the savings promised in its subscription service and made it unreasonably difficult for users to cancel despite its “cancel anytime” promises.

Uber has denied…

Vatican announces death of Pope Francis aged 88

PA Media

Pope Francis became the Roman Catholic Church’s spiritual leader in 2013

Pope Francis, the first Latin American leader of the Roman Catholic Church, has died on Easter Monday at the age of 88.

The Vatican announced his death a day after he appeared in a wheelchair at St Peter’s Square to lead an Easter address in front…

Final weeks to secure your exhibit table at Sessions: AI

The countdown is real! Exhibit tables for TechCrunch Sessions: AI are almost gone, and the May 9 deadline is closing in fast.

If you’ve been meaning to showcase your AI innovation, this is your last window to make it happen. No more “maybe next year.” No more waiting for the perfect moment. This is it!…

Bluesky may soon add blue check verification

Bluesky may soon get a new blue checkmark verification system, according to changes to the app’s public GitHub repository spotted Friday by reverse engineer alice.mosphere.at.

The blue checks may have a similar look to the system pioneered by Twitter, now X, but Bluesky’s version seems like it will work quite differently.

Bluesky’s blue check system…

Attempts to reach ceasefire in Ukraine littered with years of failure

Vitaliy Shevchenko
BBC Monitoring Russia editor

Reuters

Russia’s ceasefire in Ukraine lasted only 30 hours, and even then it appears to have been very limited in scope, with accusations of violations on both sides.

Kyiv said there had been no “air raids alerts” on Sunday during Vladimir Putin’s “Easter truce” and President Volodymyr Zelensky suggested this could be the…

Kids sure love video game movies

“A Minecraft Movie” isn’t just a hit — after three weekends in theaters, the film is estimated to have grossed $344 million domestically and $720 million worldwide. That makes it the biggest movie of an admittedly underwhelming year at the box office (so far), and the second biggest video game movie of all time.

Coming two…

China warns nations against ‘appeasing’ US in trade deals

China has warned countries against appeasing the US in trade talks over President Donald Trump’s tariffs.

A Chinese commerce ministry spokesperson made the comments in response to a report that Washington plans to put pressure on governments to restrict trade with Beijing in exchange for exemptions to US import taxes.

The Trump administration has started talks with trading partners…

OpenAI’s o3 AI model scores lower on a benchmark than the company initially implied

A discrepancy between first- and third-party benchmark results for OpenAI’s o3 AI model is raising questions about the company’s transparency and model testing practices.

When OpenAI unveiled o3 in December, the company claimed the model could answer just over a fourth of questions on FrontierMath, a challenging set of math problems. That score blew the…

Palantir exec defends company’s immigration surveillance work

One of the founders of startup accelerator Y Combinator offered unsparing criticism this weekend of the controversial data analytics company Palantir, leading a company executive to offer an extensive defense of Palantir’s work.

The back-and-forth came after federal filings showed that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) — tasked with carrying out the Trump administration’s aggressive deportation strategy…

Ukraine and Russia trade blame for breaking ‘Easter truce’

Ukraine and Russia have accused each other of breaching a 30-hour “Easter truce” announced by Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky claimed Russian troops had violated the ceasefire “more than 2,000 times” since the start of Sunday.

Russia’s defence ministry said it had “repelled” assaults by Ukraine and accused Kyiv of launching hundreds of drones…

Your politeness could be costly for OpenAI

“I wonder how much money OpenAI has lost in electricity costs from people saying ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ to their models.”

It was a seemingly random question posed by a user on X (formerly Twitter), but OpenAI CEO Sam Altman jumped in to reply that typing those words has added up to “tens of millions of…

Girl, 14, killed by lion in Kenya

A 14-year-old girl has been killed by a lion on the outskirts of Nairobi, the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) said.

The child was snatched from a residential compound on a ranch next to Nairobi National Park, according to the conservation agency.

The alarm was raised by another teenager and KWS rangers followed tracks to the nearby Mbagathi River, where…

Uncovered emails showed how Meta struggled to keep Facebook culturally relevant

With the first week of Meta’s antitrust trial behind us, documents shared by the U.S Federal Trade Commission (FTC) offered more insight into Meta’s internal struggles to keep Facebook relevant. In emails from 2022, Meta executives mulled different visions for Facebook’s future to boost its success, acknowledging that its cultural relevance was decreasing.

Fast-forward to 2025, and Meta…

Everything you need to know about the AI chatbot

ChatGPT, OpenAI’s text-generating AI chatbot, has taken the world by storm since its launch in November 2022. What started as a tool to supercharge productivity through writing essays and code with short text prompts has evolved into a behemoth with 300 million weekly active users.

2024 was a big year for OpenAI, from its…

Watch: Celebrations usher in the dawn of Easter Sunday

The most important date in the Christian calendar is being marked around the world.

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Famed AI researcher launches controversial startup to replace all human workers everywhere

Every now and then, a Silicon Valley startup launches with such an “absurdly” described mission that it’s difficult to discern if the startup is for real or just satire.

Such is the case with Mechanize, a startup whose founder – and the non-profit AI research organization he founded called Epoch – is being skewered on X after…

Arrests after 12 shot dead at Ecuador cockfight

AFP via Getty Images

A cockfight in Ecuador. File photo

Police in Ecuador say they have arrested four people in connection with an attack by gunmen at a cockfighting ring in which 12 people died.

Weapons and replica police and army uniforms were seized during police raids in the north-western Manabí province on Friday – a day after the…

Robots run a half marathon, slowly

It looks like humanoid robots have a long way to go before catching up with human runners.

Beijing’s E-Town tech hub hosted what it described as the first world’s first humanoid half-marathon on Saturday, with 21 humanoid robots competing alongside thousands of humans.

Bloomberg reports that the winning robot, Tiangong Ultra, was built by the government-backed research institute…

Congress has questions about 23andMe bankruptcy

3The leaders of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce said they are investigating how 23andMe’s bankruptcy might affect customers’ data.

Representatives Brett Guthrie, Gus Bilirakis, and Gary Palmer (all Republicans) sent a letterThursday to the genetic testing company’s interim CEO Joe Selsavage asking a number of questions about how 23andMe will handle customer data if the…

Putin declares ‘Easter truce’, as Ukraine says he ‘cannot be trusted’

Russian President Vladimir Putin says he has ordered his forces to “stop all military activity” in Ukraine, as he declared an “Easter truce” until the end of Sunday.

He said the 30-hour truce would last until 22:00 BST on Sunday (00:00 Moscow time), adding that Russian forces should be prepared to respond to “any possible violations”.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr…

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Week in Review: Google loses a major antitrust case

Welcome back to Week in Review! We’ve got tons of stuff for you this week: antitrust lawsuits against Google and Meta; Grok can now remember; Bolt CEO Ryan Breslow wants to make his mark; and much, much more. Have a great weekend!

It’s over: Google violated antitrust laws in the ad tech market, a judge ruled,…

Hopes for Iran nuclear talks tempered by threats and mixed messages

Parham Ghobadi
BBC Persian

EPA

Iran and the US have held a second round of high-stakes nuclear talks in Rome – and agreed to meet again next week – even as hopes for de-escalation are tempered by mounting military threats and mixed messages.

US President Donald Trump reminds Tehran nearly every day of its options: a deal or war.…

Read what Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook execs said about Instagram before buying it

The first week of the Meta antitrust trial brought new revelations about how the company formerly known as Facebook approached the competitive threat posed by Instagram in the early 2010s.

The U.S. government is accusing Meta of violating competition laws by acquiring companies like Instagram and WhatsApp that threatened the Facebook monopoly. If lawyers for the U.S. Federal…

OpenAI’s new reasoning AI models hallucinate more

OpenAI’s recently launched o3 and o4-mini AI models are state-of-the-art in many respects. However, the new models still hallucinate, or make things up — in fact, they hallucinate more than several of OpenAI’s older models.

Hallucinations have proven to be one of the biggest and most difficult problems to solve in AI, impacting even…

US Supreme Court halts deportation of Venezuelans under wartime law

The US Supreme Court has ordered the Trump administration to pause the deportation of a group of accused Venezuelan gang members.

A civil liberties group is suing the administration over planned deportations of Venezuelans detained in north Texas under an 18th-century wartime law.

On Saturday, the Supreme Court ordered the government not to remove any of the detainees “until…

Techstars increases startup funding to $220,000, mirroring YC structure

Techstars, a nearly 20-year-old startup accelerator, announced new terms for startups that enter its three-month program. The organization willnow invest $220,000, which is $100,000 more than it offered previously, in companies starting with its fall 2025 batch.

The capital will be divided into two components. The group is offering companies $20,000 in exchange for 5% ownership…

What is alleged and what we know

Shayan Sardarizadeh, Merlyn Thomas, Jake Horton & Mike Wendling
BBC Verify

Reuters

The case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia – a 29-year-old from El Salvador who was deported from the US in March – has prompted a legal showdown over the administration’s immigration policy.

Judges all the way up to the US Supreme Court have ruled that Mr Abrego Garcia…

A comprehensive list of 2025 tech layoffs

The tech layoff wave is still kicking in 2025. Last year saw more than 150,000 job cutsacross 549 companies, according to independent layoffs tracker Layoffs.fyi. So far this year, more than 22,000 workers have been the victim of reductions across the tech industry, with a staggering 16,084 cuts taking place in February alone.

We’re tracking…

A new kids’ show will come with a crypto wallet when it debuts this fall

A new animated kids’ series expected to premiere this year won’t be headed for a TV network. Or a streaming service. Instead, the founders of production studio We Ghosted Media plan to launch on a decentralized web platform that uses blockchain technology.

And yes, a crypto wallet will be involved.

We Ghosted Media — founded by Chris Jammal…

Trial of nearly 200 people opens after Turkey protests

A trial of nearly 200 people arrested in protests against the Turkish government has opened in Istanbul.

Mass demonstrations began on 19 March after Istanbul’s mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu – a key rival of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan – was detained on corruption charges, which he denies.

Most of the 189 defendants in the trial, which opened on Friday at the…

Startups Weekly: Mixed messages from venture capital

Welcome to Startups Weekly — your weekly recap of everything you can’t miss from the world of startups. Want it in your inbox every Friday? Sign up here.

This week brought us mixed messages. A fresh IPO filing, but a bleak outlook for exits overall. New funding rounds, but founders frustrated over lack of capital. And in…

Maryland Sen Van Hollen meets Kilmar Ábrego García in El Salvador

Christal Hayes
BBC News, Los Angeles

Provided by US Sen Chris Van Hollen

Van Hollen (right) posted a photo of his meeting with Kilmar Ábrego García

A US senator has met a man who Trump administration officials have acknowledged was deported in error from Maryland to a mega-prison in El Salvador.

Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen posted photos with…

Last day to apply to speak at All Stage

Today’s the day! The application to speak at TechCrunch All Stage closes tonight at 11:59 p.m. PT — this is your final chance to share real-world insights with 1,200+ startup founders and VCs attending the event.

Whether you’ve built or backed startups, battled bottlenecks, or cracked the code on growth, the stage is yours. TC All Stage lands…

OpenAI launches Flex processing for cheaper, slower AI tasks

In a bid to more aggressively compete with rival AI companies like Google, OpenAI is launching Flex processing, an API option that provides lower AI model usage prices in exchange for slower response times and “occasional resource unavailability.”

Flex processing, available in beta for OpenAI’s recently released o3 and o4-mini reasoning models, is aimed at lower-priority…

Syrians have more freedom after Assad, but could they lose it?

Lina Sinjab
Middle East Correspondent

BBC

On the morning of 8 December 2024, I waited anxiously at the Lebanese border, hoping to get into Syria as soon as the crossing opened, not knowing what to expect.

Bashar al-Assad, the president of 24 years, was gone. Opposition fighters had advanced towards Damascus, taking major cities including Aleppo. I couldn’t…

OpenAI pursued Cursor maker before entering into talks to buy Windsurf for $3B

When news broke that OpenAI was in talks to acquire AI coding company Windsurf for $3 billion, one of the first questions on the mind of anyone following the space was likely: “Why not buy Cursor creator Anysphere instead?”

After all, OpenAI Startup Fund has been an investor in Anysphere, the maker of Cursor, since the quickly…

US lays out plans to hit Chinese ships with port fees

The Trump administration has unveiled its plan to impose port fees on Chinese ships as it tries to revive shipbuilding in the US and challenge China’s dominance of the industry.

The US Trade Representative’s (USTR) announcement is less severe than a plan floated in February to hit vessels produced by China with fees of up to $1.5m for each…

Defense tech Theseus landed Y Combinator, the US Special Forces, and $4.3M from a tweet

On February 18, 2024, Ian Laffey posted on X that he and two others he’d just met built a cheap drone at a hackathon that calculated its coordinates simply by using its camera and Google Maps. He and his colleagues, Sacha Lévy and Carl Schoeller, were all engineers under the age of 25.

The tech…

Ramp is trying to get the US government as a customer after seeing a tweet from DOGE

Expense management startup Ramp is being considered for a charge card pilot program by the U.S. government’s General Services Administration, the company confirmed to TechCrunch on Thursday.

The government’s internal expense card program, dubbed SmartPay, is a $700 billion program. It is estimated that the charge card pilot program contract for which Ramp is being considered is worth…

Erik and Lyle Menendez resentencing hearing begins in Los Angeles

Kayla Epstein and Regan Morris
BBC News

Reporting fromVan Nuys courthouse in Los Angeles

Christal Hayes
BBC News, Los Angeles

Getty Images

After decades spent in prison by Erik and Lyle Menendez – and months of contentious court fights – a judge is hearing arguments on whether the brothers should be resentenced, in a murder case that still divides…

Florida draft law mandating encryption backdoors for social media accounts billed ‘dangerous and dumb’

A Florida draft bill that would require social media companies to provide encryption backdoors for law enforcement officials to access user accounts has cleared a key legislative hurdle and will now advance to the state’s Senate floor for a vote.

Florida lawmakers unanimously approved pushing the bill through committee, per Florida Politics.

The “Social Media Use…

Somali-US airstrike in battle with al-Shabab

The US and Somalia have carried out an airstrike against Islamist militants during a battle for control of a strategic central town, the government says.

The “well-coordinated” strike on Adan Yabaal, north of the capital Mogadishu, came hours after al-Shabab raided the town which is used as a key launchpad for military operations.

Among the 12 militants killed in…

Shein and Temu to raise prices for US shoppers in response to tariffs

Temu and Shein plan to raise prices for U.S. customers starting next week on April 25th, due to President Donald Trump’s tariffs on goods shipped from China, the Associated Press reports.

The 145% tariff on products made in China, along with Trump’s decision to end a customs exemption that had allowed goods under $800 to enter the U.S.…

Smashing, the reading curation app by Goodreads’ founder, shuts down

Building an app dedicated to helping people aggregate and read news, articles and social media posts in one place is apparently a tough proposition these days. Smashing, an AI-powered app that lets users curate the news and posts they’d like to read, is shutting down, seemingly because of its inability to scale rapidly enough.

“We simply didn’t grow fast…

US to hold talks in Paris with Europeans

Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff and top diplomat Marco Rubio will hold talks with European counterparts in Paris later on Thursday to discuss efforts to end the war in Ukraine.

Ukraine’s foreign minister and defence minister have arrived in the French capital to take part in the discussions.

The talks, which UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy will also…

xAI adds a ‘memory’ feature to Grok

Elon Musk’s AI company, xAI, is slowly bringing its Grok chatbot to parity with top rivals like ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini.

Wednesday night, xAI announced a “memory” feature for Grok that enables the bot to remember details from past conversations. Now, if you ask Grok for recommendations, it’ll give more personalized responses —…