Apple removes WhatsApp, Threads, Signal, and Telegram from its App Store in China, after orders from the country's regulators citing national security concerns  —  China ordered Apple AAPL -1.17%decrease; red down pointing triangle to remove some of the world's most popular chat messaging apps …

Post.News, the news-focused social platform launched in 2022 that offered micropayments to publishers, is shutting down after failing to grow “fast enough”  —  Post News, a Twitter alternative that emerged in the wake of Elon Musk's takeover, is shutting down.

Microsoft researchers introduce VASA-1, an AI model that can create a realistic talking face video from a portrait photo and an audio file, in research preview  —  Impressive lip-syncing  —  A new AI research paper from Microsoft promises a future where you can upload a photo …

Sources: EU may accept Apple's proposal to open its NFC payments tech to rivals, and may close its antitrust probe in May, letting Apple avoid hefty fines  —  Apple's (AAPL.O) offer to open its tap-and-go mobile payments system to rivals is set to be approved by EU antitrust regulators as soon …

A look at Salad, which pays gamers in Fortnite skins and Roblox gift cards to rent their GPUs remotely to AI companies, including those making AI-generated porn  —  Salad, a company that pays gamers in Fortnite skins and Roblox gift cards to rent their idle GPUs remotely to generative AI companies …

Telegram partners with Tether to let the messaging app's ~900M users send USDT to each other through The Open Network blockchain  —  Stablecoin Tether and Circle's USDC dominate the market.  —  Telegram users can now start making stablecoin USDT payments to each other through the encrypted messaging service's linked blockchain.

Hacking group GhostR claims it stole 5.3M records from World-Check's screening database, used for KYC checks for sanctions and financial crime links, in March  —  The stolen database contains 5.3 million records  —  A financially motivated criminal hacking group says it has stolen …

Sophos researchers find “crude” ransomware starter kits sold on the dark web from $20 to ~$13K, enabling inexperienced freelancers to easily launch attacks  —  Cheap ransomware is being sold for one-time use on dark web forums, allowing inexperienced freelancers to get into cybercrime without …

Google says it will consolidate teams that focus on building AI models across Research and DeepMind, and move its Responsible AI teams from Research to DeepMind  —  Alphabet-owned Google (GOOGL.O) said on Thursday it would consolidate teams that focus on building artificial intelligence models across …

Sources describe Nigeria's detention of two Binance officials, including US compliance officer Tigran Gambaryan, on charges of tax evasion and money laundering  —  Tigran Gambaryan, an American compliance official for the giant cryptocurrency exchange Binance, flew to Nigeria in February for a planned two-day business trip.

Sources: Mistral is in talks to raise as much as €500M at a €5B+ valuation from VCs and wealth funds, after raising ~€400M at a €2B valuation in December 2023  —  One-year-old French start-up approached by multiple investors who view it as Europe's answer to OpenAI