Via shrugs off tepid open to end first day of trading slightly above IPO price

Transit tech software startup Via had its IPO debut on Friday, starting at below offering price before rising to close at nearly $50.

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Why the Oracle-OpenAI deal caught Wall Street by surprise

The $300B deal is a reminder that despite Oracle’s legacy status, it shouldn’t be overlooked when it comes to AI infrastructure. But key questions around power and how OpenAI will pay for this remain.

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Google is a ‘bad actor’ says People CEO, accusing the company of stealing content

People CEO Neil Vogel says Google's AI crawler can't be blocked because it would block the web crawler too. This lets the search giant steal its content for AI.

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Apple’s latest iPhone security feature just made life more difficult for spyware makers

Apple launched a new security feature for iPhone 17 and iPhone Air designed to reduce the effect of memory corruption bugs, and in turn make spyware and zero-days more difficult to hack into iPhones.

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The music industry is broken. OpenWav’s new app aims to change that

OpenWav is building a direct-to-fan platform for music artists which lets them keep more of the profits.

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Tesla’s robotaxi plans for Nevada move forward with testing permit

Tesla can now test its autonomous vehicle technology on public streets in Nevada, but it still has steps to take if it wants to offer paid rides like in Austin, Texas.

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Elon Musk’s Boring Company suspends work on Vegas airport tunnel after ‘crushing injury’

A worker had to be rescued by the local fire department, but is reportedly stable. Dozens of Boring Company workers have been injured over the years in Vegas.

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How to turn off autoplay on your social media feeds

Here's how you can turn off autoplaying videos and GIFs on Facebook, Instagram, X, Twitter, and Threads.

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OpenAI and Oracle reportedly ink historic cloud computing deal

OpenAI and Oracle reportedly signed a deal that includes OpenAI buying $300 billion of compute over a five-year span.

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Microsoft to lessen reliance on OpenAI by buying AI from rival Anthropic

The move to diversify its AI partnerships by tapping the shoulder of OpenAI’s top rival comes as the AI company also pursues independence from Microsoft with its own AI infrastructure and a potential LinkedIn competitor.

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Apple’s new iPhone 17 devices don’t have an AI-powered Siri yet. It doesn’t matter.

Until now, Apple has only released what could be considered baseline AI features for its devices, like AI writing tools, summarization, generative AI images (which some complain are not very good), live translation, visual search, and Genmoji, among others.

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VC giant Insight Partners notifies staff and limited partners after data breach

The venture capital giant, behind cyber giants Wiz and Databricks, said it has notified current and former employees and the firm's limited partners of its January breach.

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Koah raises $5M to bring ads into AI apps

One investor says Koah is "building the essential monetization layer for consumer AI."

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'Answer The Question!' In Chicago

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) and former Republican National Committee Chair yelled at each other over Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s qualifications to be Secretary of Health and Human Services.

"You looked at that appearance before Congress, and it just confirms what all of us around this table have known for decades," Christie said during a Sunday morning roundtable on ABC. "Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is a foolish man full of foolish and vapid ideas."

"RFK Jr. doesn't belong in that job," he continued. "But after [Donald Trump] won, he wanted to show everybody, I can do whatever I want to do because this Senate will be compliant no matter what I do. And I'll put the greatest vaccine and public health denier of the last 20 years in charge of public health in America. It's a human middle finger to everybody who opposed him."

Priebus disputed Christie by calling Kennedy "a decent, humble, caring guy."

"Humble?" Christie gasped.

"Yeah!" Priebus said.

"For 20 years, for 20 years, he has been a vaccine denier," Christie noted. "And now what you're seeing around the country is people like Ron DeSantis in Florida saying, let's get rid of all vaccine mandates. This would not be happening if Donald Trump had not put the greatest public health denier of the last 20 years in charge of it."

"And so we should dismiss any person on the face of the earth that has a question about vaccine mandates?" Priebus complained.

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Hyundai’s eVTOL startup Supernal pauses work following CEO and CTO departures

The shakeup comes as the startup was still struggling to get its test vehicle off the ground -- literally. The first flight was only in March.

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RFK Jr. Given Green Light To Lie With Impunity At Hearing

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., the world’s most despicable “Health and Human Services” secretary faced some tough questions even from Republicans about his quack-y assaults on vaccinations when he appeared before the Senate Finance Committee on Thursday. That was after Kennedy’s own employees wrote to Congress, saying he “continues to endanger the nation’s health” and demanding his resignation.

Ranking member Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) cited Kennedy’s lies to the committee about vaccines as a reason he should be put under oath. Ditto for his firing of the CDC director for refusing to lie.

WYDEN: It's unfortunate that I have to say this, but this is a witness who has lied to members of the Senate Finance Committee. In response to over 35 written questions, including from me, he said, and I quote, that he would do nothing as HHS Secretary that makes it difficult or discourages people from taking vaccines. That was clearly not true. His unprecedented unilateral actions to restrict access to covid vaccines, that alone proves it.

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Screw the money — Anthropic’s $1.5B copyright settlement sucks for writers

Writers aren't getting this settlement because their work was fed to an AI -- this is just a costly slap on the wrist for Anthropic because it illegally downloaded books instead of buying them.

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Google Gemini dubbed ‘high risk’ for kids and teens in new safety assessment

Google's Gemini comes up short on kids' safety, says Common Sense Media.

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Waymo cleared to offer robotaxi rides at San Jose airport

It's the first airport in California that Waymo will offer rides to and from. The company's been active at the Phoenix airport for nearly two years.

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Trump Sh*ts On MAGA And Epstein Files: Democrat Hoax!

During a press event with the president of Poland, Trump viciously attacked the Jeffrey Epstein press conference hosted by Tom Massey and called the entire Epstein Files affair a hoax

A reporter asked Trump about the press conference and if Trump was refusing to release all the information so he could hide friends and donors that would be exposed if all of the Epstein files became public.

Trump whined it was a "Democrat hoax that never ends."

That was a direct slap in the face to his MAGA base that was promised a full exposé on who was in the Epstein files during his campaign 2024.

The MAGA cult will be furious their avenging angel against pedophiles is calling them Democrats.

Trump then transitioned into his usual bogus talking points about ending seven wars bringing law and order back to Washington DC and help awesome his eight-month office.

TRUMP: So what they're trying to do with the Epstein hoax is get people to talk about that instead of speaking about the tremendous success, like ending seven wars.

I ended seven wars. Nobody is going to talk about it because they're going to talk about the Epstein whatever.

I understand that we were subpoenaed to give files, and I understand we've given thousands of pages of files. And I know that no matter what you do, it's going to keep going.

And I think it's, I think, really, I think it's enough because I think we should talk about the greatness of our country and the success that we're having.

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Hunter Biden Gets A Big Win; Trump Appeals His Win In NY

Hell yeah, Hunter Biden keeps winning

Remember the Hunter Biden laptop guy? John Paul Mac Isaac is the computer repairman who handed a copy of Biden’s hard drive over to Rudy Giuliani, kicking off years of GOP accusations and investigations. Nearly three years ago, in a Trumpy little move, Mac Isaac sued Biden, Sen. Adam Schiff, CNN, and Politico for defaming him, whining that he was falsely smeared as a Russian agent. 

But Mac Isaac’s feelings festival came to an end earlier this week when the Delaware Supreme Court upheld a lower court’s dismissal of Mac Isaac’s claims. 

Mac Isaac was irate over the following comment Biden made as the laptop story exploded in 2020:

There could be a laptop out there that was stolen from me. It could be that I was hacked. It could be that it was the – that it was Russian intelligence. It could be that it was stolen from me. Or that there was a laptop stolen from me.

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CoreWeave acquires agent-training startup OpenPipe

CoreWeave hopes the YC-backed startup will help it expand down the stack, and cash in on enterprises developing AI agents.

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Judges side with Trump EPA over canceled Inflation Reduction Act grants to nonprofits

An appellate court found that the Trump administration was within its rights to cancel billions of dollars in grants. The nonprofits that had their grants cancelled are expected to appeal.

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Over New CDC Guidelines, CVS Stops Covid Shots In 16 States

Even though federal officials claim that COVID vaccines remain available to everyone, experts suggest that this assertion is misleading, as the more narrow approval may raise significant barriers to access for many Americans. Seniors will be able to get vaccinated, and younger people with health conditions, but this administration isn't worried about anyone else. And it's not just CVS. It's Walgreens, too.

Via CBS News:

CVS and Walgreens are now requiring a prescription or are not offering COVID-19 vaccines in some states as the companies attempt to follow state guidelines that require approvals from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The Food and Drug Administration has approved vaccines from Pfizer, Moderna and Novavax for all seniors, but only for younger adults and children with health conditions.

In a statement, CVS said the pharmacy chain cannot vaccinate those even with a prescription in Massachusetts, Nevada and New Mexico due to state laws and regulations.

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OpenAI acquires product testing startup Statsig and shakes up its leadership team

OpenAI is bringing on the founder of Statsig as its CTO of Applications, and making changes to other leadership roles at the company.

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Behind the scenes and front-row access: Volunteer at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 while you still can

With just over a month until TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 hits San Francisco, we’re calling on students, aspiring founders, marketers, and event pros to help the TechCrunch events team pull off one of the largest and most anticipated startup events of the year.

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Oklahoma GOP Senator Lies Through His Teeth On Trump's Tariffs

These Republicans are all just shameless liars, and Meet the Press host Kristen Welker was about as useful as a potted plant while interviewing GOP Sen. James Lankford.

As we already discussed here, Trump threw a tantrum after an appeals court ruled that his tariffs are illegal because the emergencies he's tried to declare are bogus.

Lankford was asked about the ruling this Sunday, and proceeded to lie and ignore the fact that Trump is abusing the statutes that are available to a president on trade:

WELKER: Let's start with that decision over tariffs on Friday. The court saying, quote, "Tariffs are a tax, and only Congress has the power to impose taxes." Do you agree with the court's ruling, that ultimately the ability to impose tariffs lies with Congress?

LANKFORD: Well, this is actually going to go to the Supreme Court next, because the way the law is actually written is the law gives the authority to the president to be able to make decisions regulating imports and exports. And what the president is saying is tariffs is a way to be able to regulate imports and exports. To be very clear, what he is trying to do is to try to get more manufacturing into the United States, to get other countries to be able to open up their markets to American products, and to be able to cut our deficit.

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