Brazilian prosecutors also accuse miner and safety group of environmental crimes

Chief expects weak demand from mills outside China to offset supply disruptions elsewhere

Brazilian group alleges tycoon’s family-controlled mining arm fraudulently funnelled $500m into Manhattan real estate

Rich countries need to fund infectious disease treatments properly

Your guide to the investment and business revolution you can’t afford to ignore

Byju’s, an education learning startup in India that has seen a surge in its popularity in recent weeks amid the coronavirus outbreak, is in talks to raise as much as $400 million in fresh capital at a $10 billion valuation, said three people familiar with the matter. The additional capital would be part of the […]

At a time when more transactions than ever are happening online, payments behemoth Stripe is announcing three new features to continue expanding its reach. The company today announced that it will now offer card issuing services directly to businesses to let them in turn make credit cards for customers tailored to specific purposes. Alongside that, it’s going […]

‘Stock price is too high’, writes outspoken chief executive

We would like to extend it beyond its current period of 70 years

Valve is calling it quits on macOS support for its virtual reality platform. A Valve employee posted an update to the company’s SteamVR forums, noting that “SteamVR has ended macOS support so our team can focus on Windows and Linux.” Apple introduced “Metal for VR” back in June 2017 and highlighted a partnership with Valve. […]

Apple just dumped a bunch of hardware news online via press release. That’s just the world we live in right now. We’ll probably be seeing a whole lot of this in the coming weeks and months, as companies adjust to the new online reality. Along with a new MacBook Air and update to the Mac […]

You can easily read optimism in the stock market. Ask around the private markets, however, and you'll hear a very different narrative.

In an overleveraged world headed for economic slowdown, don’t rely on the heavily indebted for rescue

We have no real sense of how to value stocks in this environment

The internet has, for better or worse, become the default platform for people seeking information, and today one of the companies leveraging that to deliver educational content has raised some funding to fuel its next stage of growth. Udemy, which provides a marketplace offering some 150,000 different online learning courses from business analytics to ukulele […]

Presidential candidate Joe Biden is likely to throw a fundraising lifeline to Silicon Valley after his commanding South Carolina victory and heading into the next wave of primaries. A pro-Biden Super PAC, Unite the Country — whose past backers include senior tech figures — is picking up efforts to tap wealthy donors, Treasurer Larry Rasky […]

The pandemic may feel all-encompassing at the moment, but Confluent announced a $250 million Series E today, showing that major investment continues in spite of the dire economic situation at the moment. The company is now valued at $4.5 billion. Today’s round follows last year’s $125 million Series D. At that point the company was […]

VanMoof is releasing a new generation of its electric bike. In many ways, the VanMoof S3 and its smaller version the VanMoof X3 are refined versions of the VanMoof Electrified S2 and X2. It features an updated motor, hydraulic brakes and a familiar design. If you’re not familiar with VanMoof bikes, the company has been […]

Vaping is a controversial habit: it certainly has its downsides, but anecdotally it’s a fantastic smoking cessation aid. The thing is, until behavioral scientists know a bit more about who does it, when, how much and other details, its use will continue to be something of a mystery. That’s where the PuffPacket comes in. Designed […]

Nvidia Chief Scientist Bill Dally has released an open-source ventilator hardware design he developed in order to address the shortage resulting from the global coronavirus pandemic. The mechanical ventilator design developed by Dally can be assembled quickly, using off-the-shelf parts with a total cost of around $400 — making it an accessible and affordable alternative […]

Apple will patch a newly discovered iPhone vulnerability that security researchers say hackers have already used to steal data from their victims’ devices. News of the vulnerability dropped Wednesday by security firm ZecOps. Zuk Avraham, the company’s chief executive, said the firm found the bug last year during a routine investigation. At least six organizations […]

The coronavirus is proving to have an unexpected upside for the adtech industry. The U.K.’s data protection agency has paused an investigation into the industry’s processing of internet users’ personal data, saying targeted suspension of privacy oversight is merited because of disruption to businesses as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The investigation into adtech […]

Producers overwhelmed as supply chain disruption fuels fears of shortages

Executive decree set to prop up prices in hopes of saving domestic shale industry

Cheaper parts of the market can lag a lot more before the current global downturn ends

Founders hunting down capital in the middle of this pandemic may feel like they’re on a fool’s errand, but some investors are still offering financing, even if the terms might not be as good as they once were. One avenue that appears to remain open: corporate venture capital. The corporate route offers its own set […]

Only about 6 percent of the country’s biggest cities are planning for or thinking about autonomous vehicles or self-driving cars in their long-range transportation plans, according to the National League of Cities. What’s even more surprising is that only 3 percent of these cities’ transit plans are even taking into account the impact of ride-hailing companies like […]

Founders hunting down capital in the middle of this pandemic may feel like they’re on a fool’s errand, but some investors are still offering financing, even if the terms might not be as good as they once were. One avenue that appears to remain open: corporate venture capital. The corporate route offers its own set […]

Industry takes another hit as GE cuts jobs, Mnuchin casts doubt on restart for US air travel

In this episode of Flux I talk with LaTurbo Avedon, an online avatar who has been active as an artist and curator since 2008.

Two-thirds of companies with lowly ratings from Moody’s were bought by PE groups

Row escalates between Elizabeth Warren, Blackstone and KKR after coronavirus crisis prompts cuts

Big carmakers say small companies must be protected from collapse or factories may remain shut

Soueast Motor and GAC take advantage of rules favouring locally made vehicles

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. Every week we write this post with some opening line akin to wow, what a week, huh? This is yet another one of those weeks. Perhaps this is just life now, and every week will stretch before us, similar to […]

Apple and Google have provided a number of updates about the technical details of their joint contact tracing system, which they’re now exclusively referring to as an “exposure notification” technology, since the companies say this is a better way to describe what they’re offering. The system is just one part of a contact tracing system, […]

A number of UK computer security and privacy experts have signed an open letter raising transparency and mission creep concerns about the national approach to develop a coronavirus contacts tracing app. The letter, signed by 177 academics, follows a similar letter earlier this month signed by around 300 academics from across the world, who urged […]

It’s a brutal time for marijuana startups. I’m hearing some are raising at 1/5th of their 2019 valuation amidst rampant competition, tall taxes, and slow legalization. The struggles for marijuana’s best-known startup, delivery service Eaze, continue as today it’s losing one of its top partners. $75 million-funded weed brand empire Caliva has dropped Eaze in […]

Could avatars that show what co-workers are up to save work-from-home teams from constant distraction and loneliness? That’s the idea behind Pragli, the Bitmoji for the enterprise. It’s a virtual office app that makes you actually feel like you’re in the same building. Pragli uses avatars to signal whether co-workers are at their desk, away, […]

Would you pay with a “Google Card?” TechCrunch has obtained imagery that shows Google is developing its own physical and virtual debit cards. The Google card and associated checking account will allow users to buy things with a card, mobile phone or online. It connects to a Google app with new features that let users […]

Facebook is co-opting some of the top video chat innovations like Zoom’s gallery view for large groups and Houseparty’s spontaneous hangouts for a new feature called Rooms. It could usher in a new era of unplanned togetherness via video. Launching today on mobile and desktop in English speaking countries, you can start a video chat […]

The tech industry (and the world at large) is not experiencing temporary anxiety — the uncertainty we’re all coping with is the new normal. Sudden shifts in behavior have made some startups targeting slow-moving, old-school industries more relevant than they could have imagined, such as those in telehealth, distance learning and remote work. Most, however […]

This evening’s Square E3 press was…something. After more than an hour of Final Fantasy remasters, the publisher closed things out with far and away its most eagerly awaited game. Licensing some white hot IP, the RPG masters at Square are offering up their own take on Earth’s mightiest heroes. Bay Area-based Crystal Dynamics addressed what […]

Henry Hub natural gas spot prices averaged $2.02 per million British thermal units in January according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Typically, January natural gas prices are among the highest of the year; however, warmer-than-normal January temperatures across much of the northern hemisphere contributed to the lowest average January spot price in many years. After beginning 2018 and 2019 with low U.S. working natural gas inventories, EIA forecasted that normal winter temperatures in the first quarter of 2020, along with production growth, would bring total inventories back over the five-year average this winter. So far this winter, temperatures have actually been warmer than normal, and EIA estimates that in January there were 18% fewer heating degree days in the United States than the prior ten-year average. As a result of reduced space heating demand, U.S. natural gas working inventories ended January 9% above the five-year average, higher than previously forecasted. In its February Short-Term Energy Outlook, EIA forecasts that at the close of the April-October injection season, working inventories will reach almost 4.1 trillion cubic feet on October 31, which would be the highest end-of-October inventory record on level. Expecting inventories to remain elevated as winter heating season winds down, EIA forecasts that Henry Hub natural gas prices will average $2.21 per million British thermal units in 2020, down from $2.57 per million British thermal units in 2019. In 2021, EIA expects natural gas prices to increase, reaching an average annual price of $2.53 per million British thermal units.

The sale of New South Wales' and Queensland's utility assets will be among the most eagerly anticipated power deals globally in 2015, according to a PwC report released today.

Two young Australian innovators are ready to take their ventures to the next level after sharing in $20,000 in seed funding from PwC during a live pitching event held by the Foundation for Young Australians.

With record low margins and stubborn expense to income ratios, the major banks must quickly seize the opportunity of the technology revolution or fail to keep pace with expectations.

Australia is facing a growth problem, and the best way to spark growth is to create a bedrock for innovation and support businesses to disrupt themselves and take risks.

PwC today announced it was collaborating with a range of Australasian startups and emerging technology companies to deliver a purpose-built cloud platform that brings together some of the leading cloud solutions in the market today, all in one place.

The emerging global market for business services using drone technology is valued at over US$127 billion with the drone revolution disrupting industries ranging from agriculture to filmmaking.