Author: dweetleapp
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The CDC Has a Leadership Crisis
As the agency rotates through a cast of leaders, it’s unclear when—or if—the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will get a permanent director under Donald Trump’s second term as president. Following Jim O’Neill’s departure as acting CDC director last week, National Institutes of Health director Jay Bhattacharya will now lead both agencies temporarily. read more
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Ukrainian man jailed for identity theft that helped North Koreans get jobs at US companies | TechCrunch
A U.S. federal court has sentenced a Ukrainian man to five years in prison for his part in a long-running identity theft operation that helped overseas North Korean workers gain fraudulent employment at dozens of U.S. companies. U.S. prosecutors brought charges in 2024 against Oleksandr Didenko, 29, a resident of Kyiv, for setting up North read more
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John Akomfrah, Isaac Julien, and Mira Nair Among Cultural Figures Who Signed an Open Letter in Support of Former Barbican Director Devyani Saltzman
As of press time, some 250 cultural figures from around the world have signed an open letter in support of Devyani Saltzman, the former director of London’s Barbican Centre. Saltzman left abruptly earlier this week, just a few weeks after Abigail Pogson was appointed chief executive. Notable signatories include artists John Akomfrah and Isaac Julien, read more
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Bard College to Launch ‘Independent Review’ of President’s Ties to Jeffrey Epstein
Bard College has launched an “independent review” of its president’s ties to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein after newly released emails from the Department of Justice revealed close links between the two. The liberal arts college in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, made the announcement in a statement from its board of trustees on Thursday. read more
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Threads posts can now be shared directly to your Instagram Story without leaving the app | TechCrunch
Threads already has over 400 million monthly users, but Meta wants to push that number even higher. With the launch of a new Threads feature this week, the company is making it easier for Threads users to share posts on the app to their Instagram Stories — a move that could capitalize on Instagram’s larger read more
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'Toy Story 5' takes aim at creepy AI toys: 'I'm always listening' | TechCrunch
When the first Toy Story movie came out in 1995, Google didn’t exist yet and Apple was on the verge of bankruptcy. No one could have predicted that over 30 years later, Pixar would still be making Toy Story movies, nor could anyone have known that the latest installation in the franchise would pit Buzz read more
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Isaiah Zagar, The Artist Behind Philadelphia’s Magic Gardens, Has Died at 86
Isaiah Zagar, an artist who created one of Philadelphia’s great public art attractions, died on February 19 due to complications from heart failure and Parkinson’s Disease, which he had been diagnosed with in 2023. His death was confirmed by Philadelphia’s Magic Gardens (PMG), the nonprofit organization that tends to the eponymous artwork. His creations “defined read more
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OpenAI says 18- to 24-year-olds account for nearly 50% of ChatGPT usage in India | TechCrunch
OpenAI seems to have found product-market fit with young Indians. The company said on Friday that users between 18 and 24 years of age accounted for nearly 50% of messages sent to ChatGPT in the country, and users under 30 accounted for 80%. The AI lab said Indians use ChatGPT mostly for work, with 35% read more
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Exclusive: Why investors are going gaga over solid-state transformers | TechCrunch
It’s no secret that the electrical grid is aging, but one part stands out from the rest. Transformers haven’t changed much since Thomas Edison made his first light bulb. Now, a string of startups are working to modernize the transformer, replacing it with modern power electronics that promise to give grid operators more control over read more
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UAE's G42 teams up with Cerebras to deploy 8 exaflops of compute in India | TechCrunch
Abu Dhabi-based tech company G42 has partnered with U.S.-based chipmaker Cerebras to deploy 8 exaflops of computing power via a new supercomputer system in India, the companies said on the sidelines of the India AI Impact Summit in New Delhi. The system will be hosted in India and follow local data residency, security, and compliance read more
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How Punch the Monkey Captured the Hearts of Artists
Memes A baby macaque and his ever-present stuffed orangutan at a Japanese zoo have inspired fan art worldwide, from illustration to embroidery to memes. Children’s book author and illustrator Andie Powers’s ode to baby Punch and his snuggly stuffed orangutan (screenshot via Instagram) In case the current state of the world isn’t enough to make read more
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Squeak Carnwath Paints Her Own Path
Art Review This artist rejects the notion that paint as a medium inevitably becomes exhausted, incapable of making something, however broken it may be. John Yau February 20, 2026 — 4 min read Squeak Carnwath, “Ancestors and Future Ghosts” (2023), oil and alkyd on canvas over panel (all images courtesy the artist and Jane Lombard read more
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A Quilted Ice Hut on a Minnesota Lake Celebrates Community, Agriculture, and Craft
For residents of the Upper Midwest and Canada—the land of lakes—ice shanties are ubiquitous winter fixtures. From the huge temporary villages that emerge on Wisconsin’s Lake Winnebago for sturgeon-spearing season to ramshackle, hand-built huts dotting Ontario’s Lake Simcoe, these vernacular structures are designed around openings or hatches in the floors so that hardy northerners can read more
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Frida Kahlo’s Great-Niece Says Commercialization of the Artist Has Gone ‘Too Far’
Frida Kahlo‘s art is now firmly established in the art historical canon, hanging on the walls of some of the world’s most illustrious museums. But it’s also inspired a sundry of wares the world over—from notebooks and coffee mugs to earrings and dolls—that bear her image, both licensed and not, and this appears to have read more
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Epstein Files Reveal Links Between Leon Black and Possibly Looted Antiquities
A one-page document contained in the Department of Justice’s release of files related to the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein connects billionaire art collector Leon Black with potentially looted Cambodian art and artifacts, Bloomberg Businessweek reports. Formerly CEO of Apollo Global Management, Black is known to have paid Epstein for financial advice after his criminal read more
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The Bowers & Wilkins Px7 S3 Headphones Are Unapologetically Gorgeous
Instrumental entrances are strikingly swift, so that moments like a tremolo guitar or synth bouncing between stereo channels flutter back and forth like a trill from a fine concert pianist. Instrumental timbres rise to the surface with ease, especially noticeable in complex textures like woody percussion or crunchy guitar tones that blaze with extra spark. read more
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Startup Battlefield 200 nominations are open | TechCrunch
Pre-Series Afounders, this is your moment!If your startup is ready to be tested under real pressure, the battlefield is open. We’restill accepting nominations forTechCrunchStartup Battlefield 200. This is your shot to step into the arena atTechCrunch Disrupt 2026and go head-to-head in front of world-class VCs and the full TechCrunch audience. Where breakout companies are forged read more
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The Supreme Court has delivered an overdue rebuke to Donald Trump on tariffs
Unlock the White House Watch newsletter for free Your guide to what Trump’s second term means for Washington, business and the world When the time came for the US Supreme Court to stand up and be counted, six of the justices answered the call. Led by Chief Justice John Roberts, they ruled on Friday that read more
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AI Safety Meets the War Machine
When Anthropic last year became the first major AI company cleared by the US government for classified use—including military applications—the news didn’t make a major splash. But this week a second development hit like a cannonball: The Pentagon is reconsidering its relationship with the company, including a $200 million contract, ostensibly because the safety-conscious AI read more
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Lucid Motors slashes 12% of its workforce as it seeks profitability | TechCrunch
Lucid Motors is laying off 12% of its workforce in a bid to “improve operational effectiveness and optimize our resources as we continue on our path toward profitability,” according to an internal memo that was obtained by TechCrunch. Hourly workers on the manufacturing, logistics, and quality teams are not affected by the cuts, according to read more
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