Author: admin

NEW YORK (AP) — Less than three weeks after his release from an immigration jail, the Palestinian activist Mohsen Mahdawi strode across the graduation stage at Columbia University on Monday morning, savoring a moment the Trump administration had fought to make impossible.Draped in a keffiyeh, Mahdawi, 34, paused to listen to the swell of cheers from his fellow graduates. Then he joined a vigil just outside Columbia’s gates, raising a photograph of his classmate Mahmoud Khalil, who remains in federal custody.“It’s very mixed emotions,” Mahdawi told The Associated Press. “The Trump administration wanted to rob me of this opportunity. They…

BreachRx, a San Francisco-based cybersecurity firm, has raised $15m in Series A funding to scale its intelligent incident response platform for enterprise organisations.The oversubscribed round was led by Ballistic Ventures, with participation from SYN Ventures, Overline, and Silver Buckshot Ventures. The funding also sees Ballistic Ventures general partner and former Mandiant CEO Kevin Mandia join the board, while journalist and author Nicole Perlroth becomes a board observer.BreachRx offers a secure platform that automates cyber incident response across teams. Its technology delivers real-time coordination, dynamic playbooks, and clear tasking to ensure every stakeholder is aligned during a crisis. The tool supports…

You don’t have to start a company or grow up wealthy to become a billionaire. Most billionaires got rich by building businesses or inheriting big bucks from someone who did. Yet a small but growing group of current and former American executives have managed to amass three-comma fortunes as very well-paid employees. Altogether, Forbes found a record 48 of these hired-hand billionaires in 2025, up from 29 a year ago. And that count is sure to keep climbing thanks to soaring share prices and sky-high executive pay packages. The average annual compensation of the ten highest-paid CEOs in America shot…

Lendflow, a technology firm based in Austin, Texas, that specialises in embedded credit infrastructure for FinTech firms, vertical SaaS platforms, and lenders, has secured $15m in growth capital.The investment comes from Trinity Capital, a Nasdaq-listed alternative asset manager known for supporting high-growth companies across tech, life sciences and financial services verticals.Lendflow provides scalable, low-code solutions that enable platforms to integrate lending capabilities seamlessly into their workflows. Its technology stack includes a proprietary operating system and a decisioning engine powered by aggregated data and contextual lending tools. These features allow customers to handle underwriting, decisioning, and capital deployment efficiently, while maintaining…

Thndr, a digital investment platform based in Cairo, has reportedly raised $15.7m in new funding to support its regional expansion efforts.The round was led by Prosus Ventures and joined by Y Combinator, BECO Capital, Endeavor Catalyst, JIMCO, Raba, and Onsi Sawiris, along with participation from a prominent U.S. university endowment, according to a report from Wamda. This brings Thndr’s total capital raised to $37.76m since its inception.Founded in 2020 by Ahmad Hammouda and Seif Amr, Thndr enables users in the Middle East to invest in local and international stocks, mutual funds, bonds, and other financial instruments through a low-cost, mobile-first…

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — A jury has found a former Rhode Island high school basketball coach not guilty of second-degree child molestation and second-degree sexual assault after he spent decades asking hundreds of male student-athletes if they were “shy or not shy” before asking them to get naked so he could their check their body fat.Instead, the 12 jurors found Aaron Thomas guilty of a lesser charge, misdemeanor battery, in their verdict handed down Monday. In the final days of the trial, attorneys agreed that the jury could consider convicting Thomas of misdemeanor battery rather than the harsher charges originally…

CrediLinq, a Singapore-based embedded finance platform for B2B transactions powered by AI, has secured $8.5m in a Series A funding round.The round was led by OM/VC and MS&AD Ventures, with participation from new backers including Citi North America and Rustem Family Office. Returning investors included 500 Global, Epic Angels, 1982 VC and Big Sky Capital.Founded to help digital-first small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) gain access to capital, CrediLinq provides an API-centric Credit-as-a-Service infrastructure. Its platform enables banks and digital platforms to offer embedded lending products tailored for the procurement, e-commerce, freelancing, supply chain, and payments sectors. The firm is already…

Riverse, a carbon crediting platform focused on engineered climate solutions, has secured €5m in a seed funding round to expand its operations and address the challenges facing the voluntary carbon market.The round was co-led by Alven and Racine², the impact investment vehicle of Serena and Makesense. SpeedInvest, which led Riverse’s pre-seed round, also participated alongside new investor Kfund. The funding was described as oversubscribed.Founded in 2021, Riverse operates as both a carbon crediting standard and a platform supporting a wide range of carbon avoidance and removal projects. These include technologies such as IT refurbishment, biobased construction materials, enhanced rock weathering,…

WASHINGTON (AP) — By the middle of last week, it became clear that something odd was happening. It was about the time that the fake video started circulating about the woman purporting to recount the “situationship” she’d had with Robert Prevost, the new American pope, decades ago when he was just another guy from Chicago. We’d already seen Topps, the baseball-card company, issue a new card of Pope Leo XIV that was all over eBay. We’d heard about his affinity for the White Sox and seen a glimpse of him in the crowd at the 2005 World Series. And in…

Tick-tock! Time’s almost up to save up to $900 on individual passes to TechCrunch Disrupt 2025! Or go big and grab an Early Bird ticket now and get a second for your +1 at 90% off — but only for a limited time. These unbeatable deals disappear May 25 at 11:59 p.m. PT — don’t miss out. Lock in your ticket savings here. Be part of the hands-on innovation from October 27 – 29 at Moscone West in San Francisco, where 10,000 tech and VC leaders gather to shape the future. Experience 250+ dynamic sessions led by industry icons, 200+…