Author: GT

GANZHOU, China (AP) — China’s dominance over critical minerals in global supply chains was a powerful bargaining chip in trade talks between Beijing and Washington that concluded with both sides saying they have a framework to pursue a deal.China has spent decades building the world’s main industrial chain for mining and processing such materials, which are used in many industries such as electronics, advanced manufacturing, defense and health care. Mines and factories in and around Ganzhou, a key production hub for rare earths, underpin China’s control over the minerals. Many residents grew up collecting rocks containing the valuable minerals from…

Standard Nuclear emerged from stealth Wednesday with $42 million in funding to make advanced nuclear fuel. Except Standard Nuclear isn’t an entirely new company. Rather, it’s built on assets purchased at auction following the bankruptcy of the Ultra Safe Nuclear Corporation (USNC) for $28 million. The new company’s CEO, Kurt Terrani, served as vice president at USNC. The funding round was led by Decisive Point with participation from Andreessen Horowitz, Crucible Capital, Fundomo, and Washington Harbour Partners. Standard Nuclear says it has $100 million in non-binding fuel sales for 2027, and that it is working with customers including Nano Nuclear…

Uptime Industries is taking a bet on on-premise AI infrastructure with an “AI-in-a-box” handheld device called Lemony AI. The size of a sandwich, Lemony AI can supposedly run a large language model (LLM), AI agents, and AI workflows all on one node. Each Lemony requires only 65 watts of power to run, the equivalent of charging a laptop, and can be stacked and connected to form bigger AI clusters. Sascha Buehrle, co-founder and CEO of Uptime, told TechCrunch that each node can sustain an LLM up to 75 billion parameters in size, and can host open source models or retrofitted…

Shaquille O’Neal sits on the bench before the game between the Indiana Pacers and the New York Knicks during Game 2 of the 2025 Eastern Conference Finals at Madison Square Garden in New York City, New York, on May 23, 2025.Jesse D. Garrabrant | National Basketball Association | Getty ImagesShaquille O’Neal has agreed to pay $1.8 million to settle claims that he misled investors by promoting the now-bankrupt crypto exchange FTX.The retired NBA superstar, who once urged fans to trust the platform, will resolve the allegations without admitting wrongdoing. But the deal marks one of the first high-profile settlements in…

Traditional web tools are facing an existential crisis as AI products and tools increasingly eat up attention — and therefore market share and money — from a wide swathe of products that people have used for years to interact with the internet. At least, that’s what The Browser Company seems to think is happening. The company last year decided to stop developing its popular web browser Arc, acknowledging that while Arc was popular among enthusiasts, it never hit scale, as it presented too steep a learning curve to reach mass adoption. The startup has since been heads-down on developing a…

Chime Visa Credit CardSource: ChimeChime priced its IPO at $27 per share on Wednesday, above the expected range, in an offering that values the provider of online banking services at $11.6 billionThe company raised roughly $700 million in the IPO, with another $165 million worth of shares being sold by existing investors. The stock is expected to begin trading Thursday under ticker symbol CHYM.The offering comes after a years-long freeze in the fintech IPO pipeline, as rising interest rates and valuation resets kept many late-stage companies on the sidelines. The market has started to loosen. Trading platform eToro jumped 29%…

Pinterest is experimenting with “auto-collages,” an AI feature that allows advertisers to quickly turn their product catalogs into shoppable collages, the company announced this week. The new feature is designed to make it easier for advertisers to reach customers while saving time and creative resources, Pinterest says. The company notes that collages are one of the most popular and engaging content types among Gen Z users, with over tens of millions of collages created on the platform. In early tests, Pinterest found that users saved auto-collages at twice the rate of standard product Pins. Auto-collages work by grouping together product…

A UPS seasonal worker delivers packages on Cyber Monday in New York on Nov. 27, 2023.Stephanie Keith | Bloomberg | Getty ImagesWhen Matt Kubancik, a small business owner in Louisville, Kentucky, cast his ballot for Donald Trump in November, he was hoping that the Republican nominee’s return to the White House would provide a spark to the economy and lead to reduced prices for gas and groceries.Instead, the first half-year of Trump’s second term in the White House has been more like a “vacation from hell,” Kubancik said. Guardian Baseball, the baseball goods company he co-founded in 2018, mostly relies…

23andMe’s interim chief executive Joseph Selsavage told lawmakers on Tuesday that 1.9 million people, or about 15% of its customer base, have requested their genetic data be deleted from the company’s servers since it filed for bankruptcy protection in March. Selsavage was speaking at a House Oversight Committee hearing, during which lawmakers scrutinized the company’s sale following an earlier bankruptcy auction. The bankruptcy sparked concerns that the data of millions of Americans who used 23andMe could end up in the hands of an unscrupulous buyer, prompting customers to ask the company to delete their data. Pharmaceutical giant Regeneron won the…

Crude oil storage tanks at the Juaymah Tank Farm in Saudi Aramco’s Ras Tanura oil refinery and oil terminal in Saudi Arabia, in 2018.Simon Dawson | Bloomberg | Getty ImagesU.S. crude oil futures rose more than 4% Wednesday as tensions escalated between the U.S. and Iran, with President Donald Trump expressing doubt that the two countries will reach a nuclear deal. Brent crude futures rose $2.90, or 4.3%, to close at $69.77 a barrel. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude gained $3.17, or 4.9%, to settle at $68.15.The U.S. is preparing a partial evacuation of its embassy in Iraq due to heightened security risks…