HR tech startup Rippling has raised a $450 million Series G round at a $16.8 billion valuation, the company confirmed to TechCrunch. It is also conducting a $200 million tender offer to give current and former employees some liquidity. The equity raise marks a big jump in valuation from a year ago. In April 2024, […]
The mayor of a small Mexican town has been accused of colluding with one of the country’s most violent drug cartels to operate a recruitment and training center that was uncovered in March. The mayor, José Asunción Murguía Santiago was charged with organized crime offenses and forced disappearance, prosecutors said at a hearing on Friday. […]
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 was busy for startups: While there were no IPOs of note, there were other exits and even unusual liquidity events, as well as a significant […]
Leo XIV, the first pope from the United States, presided over his first Mass as leader of 1.4 billion Roman Catholics on Friday, pledging to align himself with “ordinary people” and not with the rich and powerful. He also called for missionary outreach to help heal the “wounds that afflict our society.” The election of […]
DeepSeek has gone viral. Chinese AI lab DeepSeek broke into the mainstream consciousness this week after its chatbot app rose to the top of the Apple App Store charts (and Google Play, as well). DeepSeek’s AI models, which were trained using compute-efficient techniques, have led Wall Street analysts — and technologists — to question whether the U.S. can maintain its […]
The Pakistani military accused India early Saturday of launching air-to-surface missiles that targeted at least three air bases across Pakistan, in what appeared to be a sharp escalation between the nuclear-armed neighbors four days into their armed confrontation. Among the bases that came under attack, Pakistan said, was a key installation near the capital, Islamabad. […]
SoundCloud appears to have quietly changed its terms of use to allow the company to train AI on audio that users upload to its platform. As spotted by tech ethicist Ed Newton-Rex, the latest version of SoundCloud’s terms include a provision giving the platform permission to use uploaded content to “inform, train, [or] develop” AI. […]
Pope Leo XIV has voted fairly regularly in general elections over the last two decades, and has chosen to participate in both Republican and Democratic primary elections over the years, state and local records in Illinois show. The new pontiff, a Chicago native, has voted in at least 10 general elections since 2000, the records […]
For the first time, the FDA has just approved a device that lets people screen for cervical cancer from home. Known as the Teal Wand, from the company Teal Health, the prescription device lets patients self-collect samples and mail them to a lab to receive the same testing as would be done at a doctor’s […]
The Trump administration has started an investigation into the import of commercial aircraft, jet engines and related parts that could lead to new tariffs on top of the many it has already put in place. According to a federal notice posted online on Friday, the commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, started the investigation on May 1 […]