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In the immediate aftermath of the attack on the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on Saturday night, influencers, pundits, and random posters lit up social media platforms like X, Bluesky, and Instagram with conspiracy theories about the attack and the alleged shooter.Both left and right-wing accounts claimed, without evidence, that the attack was staged.President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and dozens of other high-profile administration officials and journalists were attending the dinner at the Hilton hotel in Washington, DC, when a suspect, later identified by media reports as Cole Tomas Allen from California, allegedly ran past security towards the event.…

Ductless mini-split air-conditioners have risen in popularity dramatically in recent years. One study now pegs their domestic market share at more than 40 percent compared to larger-scale HVAC units—and the smaller systems are even more popular in Asia and Europe than in the US.Mini-splits make a compelling climate control solution for a number of reasons. They are much smaller and easier to install than HVAC systems, they’re far less expensive, and they’re quiet. Many are sold at big-box stores and online, and enterprising DIYers can certainly install one without professional help, provided they have the required electrical connections. (Some mini-splits…

Weatherproofing. Every model needs an IP (weatherproofing) rating to survive outside, so if you don’t see one, don’t buy those lights. There’s usually a lower rating for the control box compared to the rest of the lights, so be sure you can put that somewhere that’s a little less exposed to the elements. (As mentioned above, make sure you have an outdoor outlet, and check if there’s only one on a certain side of your home in case it limits your installation options.)A range of installation options. You’ll want a set that comes with plenty of options for your own…

A blow-up chair? Ikea has been here before. It attempted to make inflatable furniture in the mid-1990s, when designer Jan Dranger came to the Swedish company with a revolutionary idea to solve one of its biggest challenges: how to squish sofas into its preferred flat-pack format, simplifying transport and cutting costs.It sounded like the perfect solution. Made from durable and recyclable polyolefin plastic, the chair and sofa designs could be inflated at home using only a hair dryer. Transport volumes would be cut by as much as 90 percent. Sadly, only after the “a.i.r” collection launched in the 2000 catalogue…

A 31-year-old engineer and computer scientist was identified by media reports and President Donald Trump as the suspected shooter at the White House Correspondents Dinner on Saturday night.Cole Tomas Allen, of Torrance, California, was apprehended following the firing of shots at the Washington Hilton, where Trump was scheduled to deliver remarks to a ballroom full of journalists, cabinet officials, and Hilton staff. Allen’s name surfaced in media reports shortly before Trump posted two photos of a suspect following his apprehension. The person in the photos Trump posted matches photos of Allen.In dramatic scenes, several shots were heard outside the ballroom,…

Snabbit, an Indian instant house-help startup, is close to raising fresh funding at a valuation of around $400 million in a round led by Susquehanna Venture Capital, TechCrunch has learned. The Bengaluru-based startup is in talks to raise around $50 million in the round, according to three people with knowledge of the deal. One of the people added that the round could be around $55 million or higher, as strong investor demand may prompt the company to raise more than initially planned. The round is expected to include participation from Mirae Asset, FJ Labs, and existing investors including Lightspeed Venture…

As Apple races to stay competitive in AI while navigating tariffs and supply chain uncertainty, the company’s future is about to shift under new leadership. On Monday, Apple announced that John Ternus will take over as CEO later this year, succeeding Tim Cook. Cook transformed Apple into a $4 trillion global powerhouse, expanded its services business, and oversaw some of the most profitable years in tech history. Ternus brings a different kind of skillset. A longtime hardware executive, he has spent his career building Apple’s devices rather than managing the broader business. Ternus joined Apple in 2001 and rose through…

In a recent experiment, Anthropic created a classified marketplace where AI agents represented both buyers and sellers, striking real deals for real goods and real money. The company admitted this test — which it called Project Deal — was only “a pilot experiment with a self-selected participant pool” of 69 Anthropic employees who were given a budget of $100 (paid out via gift cards) to buy stuff from their coworkers. Nonetheless, Anthropic said it was “struck by how well Project Deal worked,” with 186 deals made, totaling more than $4,000 in value. The company said it actually ran four separate…

Maine Governor Janet Mills has vetoed a bill that would have temporarily brought permits for new data centers to a halt. If it had become law, L.D. 307 would have imposed the country’s first statewide moratorium on new data centers — lasting, in this case, until November 1, 2027. The bill also called for the creation of a 13-person council to study and make recommendations on data center construction. With public opposition to data centers rising, other states including New York have considered similar moratoriums. In a letter to the state legislature, Mills — a Democrat currently running for the…

You open your phone to check the time or a quick message. The next thing you know, an hour has passed and you’ve scrolled through endless celebrity drama, cat videos, awful news stories, influencer rants, and whatever else the algorithm decided to throw at you. Even though you probably don’t want to keep wasting your time and energy on this mind-numbing content, you do it again the next day. Doomscrolling, the habit of spending excessive amounts of time consuming content on social media, has become incredibly widespread. A survey from last year found that 64% of Americans say they doomscroll. …

Climate tech startups are capital intensive, timelines are long, and the technology is often considered “first of its kind.” What’s more, a key value proposition is addressing pollution — an externality that is, at best, poorly priced by the market. Those aren’t the qualities stock pickers tend to favor. And yet, public markets appear to be warming to climate tech startups — or at least some of them. This week, nuclear startup X-energy went public, raising $1 billion in an upsized share offering that appears to have delivered a windfall for its investors, including Amazon. Retail investors apparently can’t get…

In a letter to the residents of Tumbler Ridge, Canada, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said he is “deeply sorry” that his company failed to alert law enforcement about the suspect in a recent mass shooting. After police identified 18-year-old Jesse Van Rootselaar as a suspected shooter who allegedly killed eight people, the Wall Street Journal reported that OpenAI had flagged and banned Van Rootselaar’s ChatGPT account in June 2025 for describing scenarios involving gun violence. The company’s staff debated alerting police but ultimately decided against it, eventually reaching out to Canadian authorities after the shooting. OpenAI has since said that…

Canadian AI startup Cohere is taking over Germany-based Aleph Alpha with support from Schwarz Group (parent company of grocery chain Lidl). With the blessing of their governments, the companies intend to offer a sovereign alternative to enterprises in an AI landscape dominated by American players. As companies that develop large language models, Aleph Alpha and Cohere have been hometown stars, while still lagging far behind OpenAI and the likes globally. But similarities aside, this isn’t an alliance between equals. Last valued at $6.8 billion, Cohere will lead the new entity that will incorporate Aleph Alpha, subject to approval by authorities…

Every major tech conference has themes. Most are vague enough to mean everything and nothing at the same time. SusHi Tech Tokyo 2026 is doing something different — four tightly defined technology domains, each backed by live demonstrations, dedicated exhibit floors, and sessions featuring the people actually building and funding these technologies globally. TechCrunch is partnering with SusHi Tech Tokyo 2026 as an official media partner, and our Startup Battlefield team will be on the ground selecting one standout semifinalist from the SusHi Tech Challenge to advance to the TechCrunch Disrupt Startup Battlefield 200 — one of the most prestigious…

Is truth determined by the size of the audience it reaches?If so, Michael—a new film about the pop singer Michael Jackson that is on track to have the biggest-ever opening for a music biopic, with projected earnings of $70 million at the US box office, despite critics saying it sanitizes the reality of who Jackson actually was—intends to supplant the King of Pop as the apotheosis of artistic virtue.The film’s release has sparked a familiar but newly intensified civil war online, between those eager to reclaim the music and myth of Jackson, and those who see any celebration of him…

Spoiler for the very first thing you see in the upcoming game Saros: It’s a bunch of words. The letters type out one by one onto the screen, spelling out some world-building that gives context to kick off the game’s story. I don’t remember what any of it said, because I was so focused on the tactile vibrations coming from the controller in my hands. There is a sharp haptic buzz for every letter, and it immediately feels very clicky-clacky. From the very beginning, Saros makes its intentions clear—this is a story you’ve got to feel.Since the launch of the…