Thursday · September 3, 2026 Vol. I · No. 245
Independent · Aggregated · Daily
"All the news that's worth your time"
Established 2026
The

Krull Report

A Daily News Brief · Curated by Vladimir Krull
Live
Visa issuance to Russians increased by 20% in 2025, EC says Air transport agency says no requests to suspend flights by foreign airlines to Russia Global central banks purchase 23 tonnes of gold in July — WGC US uses laser to shoot down cartel-linked drones on border with Mexico for first time International Equestrian Federation Lifts Restrictions on Russian Riders Recovery specialists crack $1B crypto wallet... but find just $10 Tests of first domestically produced cruise missile completed in Czech Republic — portal Lawyers work on lawsuit against Norway over Russian ship seizure in Spitsbergen — minister Visa issuance to Russians increased by 20% in 2025, EC says Air transport agency says no requests to suspend flights by foreign airlines to Russia Global central banks purchase 23 tonnes of gold in July — WGC US uses laser to shoot down cartel-linked drones on border with Mexico for first time International Equestrian Federation Lifts Restrictions on Russian Riders Recovery specialists crack $1B crypto wallet... but find just $10 Tests of first domestically produced cruise missile completed in Czech Republic — portal Lawyers work on lawsuit against Norway over Russian ship seizure in Spitsbergen — minister

Startups

TECHNOLOGY
Technology · Startups

TikTok comments are getting more interactive with voice comments, polls, and more

TikTok’s comments section is getting an upgrade. The social network announced on Thursday that it’s rolling out new features for its comment sections, including voice comments, co…

TECHNOLOGY
Technology · Startups

Volunteer at TechCrunch Founder Summit in Boston

Our rebranded Boston event, TechCrunch Founder Summit (formerly All Stage), is back on November 4th! And we are looking for some incredible volunteers to help us make this event h…

TECHNOLOGY
Technology · Startups

Nvidia confirms it will buy Hugging Face for $12.9 billion

Nvidia said Hugging Face hosts over 3 million models and is used by over 18 million developers.

TECHNOLOGY
Technology · Startups

Amazon’s Zoox expands its robotaxi service to Las Vegas airport

Zoox is expanding to this critical ride-hailing destination a few weeks after it started charging for robotaxi rides.

Technology · Startups

Belkin brings semi-solid-state batteries to a $70 power bank

The car industry keeps calling this battery chemistry a decade away. Belkin has just put it in a $69.99 power bank. The company announced three product lines at IFA 2026 in Berlin…

Technology · Startups

Vara wins world’s first CE mark for AI that clears mammograms alone

A Berlin company has won the world’s first regulatory clearance for AI that closes a breast screening case. No radiologist looks at it. Vara, which trades as MX Healthcare GmbH, a…

Technology · Startups

Texas Republicans are running against data centres, and both Senate candidates want the same water rules

Texas spent a decade telling data centre developers they were welcome. Now its Republicans are competing over who can regulate them most aggressively, a shift that Reuters reports…

Technology · Startups

Snowflake beat on almost everything. One number went the other way

Snowflake beat expectations on revenue, on profit and on guidance, and its shares rose more than 20% after hours. One number in the release went the other way, and it is the one t…

Technology · Startups

Apple faces a £2bn UK claim over App Tracking Transparency, brought by a former CMA official

Apple is facing a £2bn claim in London over the privacy prompt that reshaped mobile advertising. The case, filed at the Competition Appeal Tribunal on behalf of UK app developers,…

Technology · Startups

The FAA just let a pilotless cargo plane fly out of a working airport

An aircraft with nobody on board flew itself out of a working Louisiana airport last week. It carried spare parts, medical supplies and cans of water. Its route took it over peopl…

Technology · Startups

The US Army used a laser weapon on American soil, then bought it

In late August the US Army fired a high-energy laser at three drones near the Mexican border. All three came down. A week later the Army signed the contract to buy the production …

Technology · Startups

Uber and Wayve launch London’s first robotaxi service, with a safety driver in every car

London has its first robotaxi service, and there is a person sitting behind the wheel of every car. Uber and Wayve began carrying passengers on Thursday in a fleet of Ford Mustang…

Technology · Startups

The first thing Apple’s new CEO did was rename a Canadian lake

John Ternus became chief executive of Apple on Tuesday. The first public decision of his tenure was to rename a Canadian lake. It was also not his decision to make. Apple Maps now…

Technology · Startups

ByteDance raises $29.6bn, Asia’s second-biggest loan this year, and pays less for it

ByteDance has landed a $29.6bn loan, the second-largest in Asia this year and roughly three times what the TikTok owner borrowed offshore in 2024. Banks put in more than $30bn of …

Technology · Startups

UNICEF study finds 60% of online child sexual abuse happens on social media

Around 20 million children experienced sexual exploitation or abuse online in a single year across 21 countries, according to a UNICEF study published on Thursday. That is roughly…

Technology · Startups

CrowdStrike put OpenAI in the product and Anthropic at the checkout

CrowdStrike said on Wednesday that it will run OpenAI’s GPT-5.6 Cyber inside a purpose-built cyber harness. That word is doing a great deal of work. It is also the word that made …

Technology · Startups

A breach at Thomson Reuters reached appellate courts in twelve US jurisdictions

Thomson Reuters says an unauthorised party got into files belonging to C-Track, the case management platform its court software business sells to judiciaries. The records involved…

Technology · Startups

A cheap piece of software erased Booz Allen’s own AI threat ranking

Booz Allen put 18 of the world’s most advanced AI models against a live corporate network and told them to break in. One of them finished the job. The consulting firm says the ran…

Technology · Startups

JD Power says 35% of passenger screens have never been used

JD Power found that 35% of owners with a passenger screen have never used it and that such systems generate 21.3 problems per 100 vehicles. Euro NCAP has awarded rating points for…

Technology · Startups

OpenAI tells House Democrats it is building automated shutdown capability

OpenAI has told two House Democrats it is building automated shutdown capabilities, without providing the logs from the July incident in which an agent breached another company. T…

Technology · Startups

Microsoft Fabric reaches the US government cloud, with general availability from October

Microsoft has launched its Fabric data platform in Government Community Cloud High on public preview, with general availability from 1 October, pitched at agentic AI workloads. Eu…

Technology · Startups

CrowdStrike unveils coordinated multi-agent investigations across five domains

CrowdStrike has announced coordinated multi-agent investigations on a shared context layer, with customers setting autonomy from human-in-the-loop approval to fully autonomous exe…

Technology · Startups

A US court says Google keeps its ad exchange. The Commission said only a sale would work

A US federal judge has ruled that Google will not have to sell its advertising exchange, leaving the remedies from three American antitrust cases largely behavioural. The European…

Technology · Startups

Meta’s new AI model edges closer to OpenAI and Anthropic, its AI Chief says

Meta has released Muse Spark 1.3 and has not decided whether to publish its weights, though it still plans to release the weights for version 1.2. The AI Act exempts genuinely ope…