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US president accuses outgoing Canadian prime minister of seeking to use issue of tariffs to extend his time in office.United States President Donald Trump has reiterated baseless claims that outgoing Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is seeking to use US tariffs against Canada to extend his time in office, as a rift widens between the two countries. In a social media post on Thursday, Trump said he believed Trudeau “is using the Tariff problem, which he has largely caused, in order to run again for Prime Minister”. “So much fun to watch!” the US president wrote. The remark follows a similar…

Mistral AI, the French company behind AI assistant Le Chat and several foundational models, is officially regarded as one of France’s most promising tech startups and is arguably the only European company that could compete with OpenAI. But compared to its $6 billion valuation, its global market share is still relatively low.  However, the recent launch of its chat assistant on mobile app stores was met with some hype, particularly in its home country. “Go and download Le Chat, which is made by Mistral, rather than ChatGPT by OpenAI — or something else,” French president Emmanuel Macron said in a…

On June 5, TechCrunch Sessions: AI will kick off — and you can be part of the industry-changing conversations that will be taking place. We have an open invitation for members of the AI community to lead breakout sessions and discussions with over 1,200 startup founders, VC leaders, and AI aficionados attending our newest event, which will be held in Zellerbach Hall at UC Berkeley. There’s just one catch: You have to apply by the end of day tomorrow, March 7, to be considered as a speaker, so head right here to do so. You only have four days left to…

More than a month into US President Donald Trump’s second term, his brutal crackdown on immigration and asylum seekers has already harmed countless people. Law enforcement has carried out mass raids across the United States, rounding up people. Tens of thousands have been deported, and the pathway to asylum has been blocked for tens of thousands more. In the face of this onslaught, people have mobilised en masse to protect vulnerable groups at the local and national levels. One piece of legislation could make a difference in this struggle: the National Origin-Based Antidiscrimination for Nonimmigrants (NO BAN) Act, introduced to…

A high-profile ex-OpenAI policy researcher, Miles Brundage, took to social media on Wednesday to criticize OpenAI for “rewriting the history” of its deployment approach to potentially risky AI systems. Earlier this week, OpenAI published a document outlining its current philosophy on AI safety and alignment, the process of designing AI systems that behave in desirable and explainable ways. In the document, OpenAI said that it sees the development of AGI, broadly defined as AI systems that can perform any task a human can, as a “continuous path” that requires “iteratively deploying and learning” from AI technologies. “In a discontinuous world…

On Thursday French large language model (LLM) developer Mistral launched a new API for developers who handle complex PDF documents. Mistral OCR is an optical character recognition (OCR) API that can turn any PDF into a text file to make it easier for AI models to ingest. LLMs, which underpin popular GenAI tools like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, work particularly well with raw text. So companies that want to create their own AI workflow know that it has become extremely important to store and index data in a clean format so that this data can be reused for AI processing. Unlike most…

Intangible, now backed by $4 million in seed funding, offers an AI-powered creative tool that allows users to create 3D world concepts with text prompts to aid creative professionals across a variety of industries. The company’s mission is to make the creative process accessible to everyone, including professionals such as filmmakers, game designers, event planners, and marketing agencies, as well as everyday users looking to visualize concepts. For instance, everyday users could generate home design and small art projects using the tool. With its new fundraise, Intangible plans a June launch for its no-code web-based 3D studio, it says. Leading…

European Union leaders have convened for an emergency summit in Brussels to address escalating security concerns after the suspension of United States military aid to Ukraine. During the summit, European leaders have primarily focused on strengthening their defence commitments and ensuring continued support for Ukraine. The gathering is the first summit of the 27 nations since an explosive meeting at the White House in Washington, DC, last week between US President Donald Trump and Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The Trump administration has since announced a freeze on military aid and suspended intelligence-sharing with Ukraine – decisions that could have dire consequences…

Private search engine DuckDuckGo is leaning further into the generative AI opportunity. The non-tracking search engine has been dabbling with expanding the role of AI assistance in its product for the past year, including launching a chatbot-style interface last fall — available at Duck.ai. In a blog post Thursday, the company said the service is now exiting beta. It’s also now simply called Duck.ai, replacing the longer, mouthful name DuckDuckGo AI Chat. Users of Duck.ai can dip into AI models developed by the likes of Anthropic, OpenAI, and Meta via a chatbot-style interface that sees their search queries handled in…

One of the largest not-for-profit health plans in the nation, serving nearly 2 million Medicaid and Medicare members, has embarked on a transformative journey to enhance member support using Ushur’s AI Agent for Member Service.According to Ushur, this digital-first solution has not only met but exceeded expectations, significantly boosting member engagement and operational efficiency through interactive, chat-based service requests on the health plan’s website. The AI-powered tool ensures HIPAA-compliant self-service, catering effectively to underserved communities.Previously, the health plan struggled with staffing issues, especially during peak periods such as Medicaid renewals and open enrollment. The reliance on telephone-based support meant that…