Eric Slesinger

As Russia's war in Ukraine rages on and Trump's commitment to European defense wavers, one American VC and former CIA employee, Eric Slesinger, is looking to European defense tech startups as the next big opportunity.

Trump has fired Shira Perlmutter, the head of the U.S. Copyright Office. Rep. Joe Morelle accused the President of firing Perlmutter  "with no legal basis […] a day after she refused to rubber-stamp Elon Musk's efforts to mine troves of copyrighted works to train AI models."

Google has agreed to pay Texas $1.4 billion to settle a couple of lawsuits accusing the company of tracking users' personal locations, incognito searches, and voice and facial data without their permission.

Brian Heater / TechCrunch

Apple is reportedly planning to increase the price of the upcoming iPhones set to launch this autumn. Rather than blaming tariffs, Apple is said to be trying to link the price hikes to other things like new features and designs.

Egyptian startup Nawy aims to bring transparency and efficiency to the African property market. It just raised $52 million in Series A funding to validate its model of combining property listings with brokerage services.

The FTC has voted yet again to delay a rule that requires companies to make it as easy to cancel a subscription as it is to sign up. The rule initially went into effect in January, but the enforcement of some provisions was delayed to May 14, and now, to give companies time to deal with the new "burden," the FTC is pushing the date out to July.

OpenAI is outpacing rivals in capturing enterprises' AI spend, according to transaction data from fintech Ramp. Looks like a third of U.S. businesses were paying for subscriptions to OpenAI platforms as of April, up from 19% in January and 28% in March. Just 8% of businesses had subscriptions to Anthropic's products as of last month.

A materials scientist from the University of Maryland has figured out how to turn ordinary timber into a material stronger than steel. The innovation kicked the academic into founder gear, and his startup, Superwood, is on track to produce a first batch this year.