Author: GT

WASHINGTON (AP) — The H-1B visa has long been a highly coveted employment visa for foreign citizens with specialized skills to live and work in the U.S., and recent requests from the Trump administration have put greater attention on the program.The requests for more information from people applying for or renewing H-1B visas come amid heightened tensions over immigration as President Donald Trump seeks to make good on his vow of mass deportations of people in the country illegally. Much of Trump’s agenda has been focused on arresting people in the country illegally or reversing Biden-era temporary deportation protections. There…

The price of Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) recovered on Tuesday as investors swung back to a risk-on trade. Markets have feared growing trade tensions between the U.S. and China, and that pushed stocks lower on Monday. Investors looking for a “safe” alternative have pushed gold and Bitcoin higher, with the biggest cryptocurrency jumping 5.2% in the last 24 hours as of 2:10 p.m. ET today. Crypto miners followed the move with TeraWulf (NASDAQ: WULF) jumping as much as 20.9%, Riot Platforms (NASDAQ: RIOT) rising 14.3%, and MARA Holdings (NASDAQ: MARA) climbing 12.2%. The stocks are currently up 17.6%, 12.1%, and 11.1%…

A pair of undergrads, neither with extensive AI expertise, say that they’ve created an openly available AI model that can generate podcast-style clips similar to Google’s NotebookLM. The market for synthetic speech tools is vast and growing. ElevenLabs is one of the largest players, but there’s no shortage of challengers (see PlayAI, Sesame, and so on). Investors believe that these tools have immense potential. According to PitchBook, startups developing voice AI tech raised over $398 million in VC funding last year. Toby Kim, one of the Korea-based co-founders of Nari Labs, the group behind the newly released model, said that…

Trump Media and Technology Group (DJT) has signed a binding agreement with Crypto.com and Yorkville America Digital to launch a series of TMTG ETFs through its Truth.Fi brand, according to a Tuesday press release. The agreement advances TMTG’s financial services strategy, with the company planning to allocate up to $250 million of its cash reserves toward these exchange-traded funds. This move expands TMTG beyond its social media and streaming platforms into the fintech sector. The ETFs will focus on digital assets and securities with a “Made in America” emphasis across various industries, including energy, according to the company’s announcement. Subject…

Ather Energy, the Indian startup manufacturing electric two-wheelers, has cut the size of its initial public offer by 18% to 26.26 billion Indian rupees ($308.3 million), according to a new draft prospectus filed Tuesday. The Bengaluru-based startup confirmed to TechCrunch that it’s targeting a post-money valuation of $1.4 billion. Last September, the startup sought a valuation of between $1.5 billion and $2 billion, TechCrunch reported at the time. Ather cited market conditions for trimming its IPO size and target valuation. Existing Ather shareholders will sell 11.1 million shares, down from the 22 million shares mentioned in last year’s draft prospectus.…

Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, at Station F, is seen through glass, during an event on the sidelines of the Artificial Intelligence Action Summit in Paris, France, Feb. 11, 2025. Aurelien Morissard | Via ReutersOpenAI’s Sam Altman is stepping down as chairman of the board of nuclear startup Oklo, after bringing the company public through a merger with his SPAC, AltC Acquisition Corp, in May 2024.The move gives Oklo, which is developing advanced nuclear reactors, more flexibility to potentially explore partnerships with OpenAI or other hyperscalers, amid data center companies’ push to secure power. “We are excited to continue working with him…

As an AI engineer at Meta, Boris Valkov helped build PyTorch, one of the world’s largest machine learning libraries. During his time there, Valkov realized that artificial intelligence “was about to unlock capabilities…in the application layer in the software stack.” He left Meta in late 2021 to start Lace AI, a startup that has developed AI-driven customer service software for home service companies. The path to entrepreneurship started when Valkov was a boy, working in the family grocery store business. It taught him the power of telephone customer service. As an adult, he began to look for ways to combine…

Cryptocurrency is among the most volatile asset classes that investors can pursue. For some, the thrilling highs and terrifying lows can be too stomach-churning a ride for their hard-earned dollars. However, that extreme volatility has worked in the favor of many investors who jumped on the crypto bandwagon early and never got off. Check Out: 13 Cheap Cryptocurrencies With the Highest Potential Upside for You Try This: 12 SUVs With the Most Reliable Engines Here’s a look at how a relatively modest investment of $1,000 in some of the most popular digital tokens could have lost you a few hundred…

Meta announced on Tuesday that it’s officially launching Edits, its CapCut-like video-creation app. Releasing globally, Edits will allow creators to do things like keep track of video ideas, get inspiration for new content, and create videos with effects and AI tools. The app is available on iOS and Android. All of the app’s features will be accessible for free at launch. However, Instagram head Adam Mosseri said earlier this month that later versions of Edits may include paid features. The company first shared that it was working on Edits back in January after ByteDance-owned CapCut was removed from U.S. app…

Bitcoin is known by crypto insiders for being more decentralized and secure than other blockchains. Because of this, it is also known as the most difficult blockchain for developers to build applications on. While other chains like Ethereum and Solana can facilitate crypto loans, NFTs, and memecoins using smart contracts, Bitcoin is mostly used to process simple transactions. Matt Mudano, CEO of Arch Labs, is trying to change that by launching Arch Virtual Machine, or ArchVM. On Tuesday, the company announced a $13 million Series A funding round led by Pantera Capital with additional participation from Multicoin Capital. The round…