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Even before a building accepts its first occupant, it has racked up a steep carbon debt. Worldwide, the materials and construction required to erect buildings contributes 11% of global carbon emissions, according to the World Green Building Council. Some places have begun experimenting with multistory timber buildings, and while they’ve recently reached new heights, timber buildings won’t be replacing skyscrapers anytime soon. But one Chilean startup thinks that there’s still room for wood to find a place. “We’re more into hybrid buildings,” Andrés Mitnik, co-founder and CEO of Strong by Form, told TechCrunch. His company has developed a new engineered…

Holland America Line has announced the launch of a menu update that features Caribbean-themed meals, island-inspired cocktails, and room service items from the cruise line’s culinary ambassadors. This limited-time menu will be active from October 2025 until April 2026. Alongside the menu changes, the cruise line will also offer cooking demonstrations to show guests how to make regional dishes at home, as well as provide new shore excursions that showcase the local culinary scene. “This Caribbean season, we’re inviting guests to truly immerse themselves in the flavors and spirit of the islands through exciting new dishes, delicious drinks, and meaningful experiences,”…

Pytho AI is coming out of stealth with an ambitious pitch to the Department of Defense: turn mission planning that takes warfighters days into a process measured in minutes. The startup was founded by Michael Mearn, a former Marine human-intelligence officer whose teams located insurgents, IEDs, weapons, and other intel. The idea for the company came from watching planners spend days building mission plans for a single operation, he told TechCrunch. Pytho AI is a Top 20 Startup Battlefield finalist at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025. As he explains it, war plans aren’t just for large-scale conflicts, what one might think of…

For the first time ever, Club Wyndham and the Pillsbury baking brand have unveiled the Doughboy’s holiday baking getaway.The Pillsbury Let It Dough Suite at Club Wyndham Midtown 45 in New York City features a whimsical, cottage-core inspired retreat with frosted windows, a three-dimensional Christmas tree and twinkling garland to celebrate the holidays. Reservations are available for booking beginning November 17 for two-and-three-night stays through January 6, 2026, in a suite that accommodates up to four guests. “At Club Wyndham, we’re all about creating unforgettable vacations where families can unwind and reconnect, and what better way to do that than…

During an interview at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 on Monday, Sequoia Capital managing partner Roelof Botha answered questions about his colleague, Sequoia partner Shaun Maguire, and controversial comments Maguire made earlier this year, calling Sequoia a believer in its partners’ right to “free speech.” In a July 4 post on X, Maguire attacked New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, calling the politician an “Islamist” who “comes from a culture that lies about everything.” His remarks led to a sizable online backlash and debate about the reputational risk to the VC firm that has backed companies like Airbnb, Google, Nvidia, and…

Star Explorer, Windstar Cruises’ second yacht offering immersive, small-ship adventures to hard-to-reach ports is set to debut in December 2026.The 224-guest all-suite yacht with 112 spacious suites is scheduled for christening on May 31, 2027 on London’s River Thames, and will sail Europe year-round with a mix of classic and new itineraries. “Windstar has a long history of exploring in the Mediterranean and Europe, and the small size of this ship opens even more interesting places– including rivers,” says Christopher Prelog, president of Windstar Cruises. “We specialize in creating itineraries that meld the bucket list with the unknown and unexpected…

Zoom founder and CEO Eric Yuan believes that AI assistants will finally allow us to shorten our workweek. Speaking on stage at the TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 conference on Monday, Yuan discussed his videoconferencing product’s embrace of AI, which includes a “digital twin” feature where an AI avatar can speak for you. Yuan began using his AI avatar in an earnings call with investors this year, demonstrating the technology’s potential and ability to push the “boundaries of communication,” he said. At Disrupt, the exec emphasized spending a lot of time talking about AI and the right products to bring to market.…

Astro Teller, CEO of X, Alphabet’s “moonshot factory,” where the company incubates the nearly impossible, shared a look into what makes a moonshot and detailed the company’s “fail fast” mantra at the TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 conference on Monday. Notable companies that started out as moonshots from X’s moonshot factory include Waymo and Wing. Teller noted that X has a “2% hit rate,” which means that most of the things the company tries don’t work out, and that’s okay. He said X defines a moonshot as having three specific components. The first is that it needs to attempt to solve a…

by Sarah Kuta Last updated: 9:30 AM ET, Mon October 27, 2025 American Cruise Lines will launch 10 new ships between now and 2028.Up first is American Pioneer, slated to debut in Florida on October 31. After that, the company plans to debut five new riverboats and four new Patriot Class ships, which are part of the line’s Project Blue series. All of the line’s new ships will sail in the United States, including the Mississippi River, Alaska and the East Coast. “American’s order book reflects our confidence in the domestic cruise market and the product we have pioneered in the…

At TechCrunch Disrupt 2025, Sequoia managing partner Roelof Botha argued that the venture industry isn’t an asset class, and that throwing more money into Silicon Valley doesn’t lead to better companies. “Investing in venture is a return-free risk,” Botha said during an interview on TechCrunch’s Disrupt’s main stage on Monday. “Anybody who’s studied the capital asset pricing model understands the joke of that. The reason I came up with this is, if you look at the history of venture capital, it’s an asset that’s uncorrelated with other asset classes.” “And so the thinking for many allocators was you should allocate…