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NEW YORK (AP) — Sherry Jenkins is a Halloween person by default. She lives in Blairstown, New Jersey, a rural town where much of the original “Friday the 13th” horror movie was filmed. That date is, of course, a huge draw for tourists, but the town and its residents are all in on promoting Halloween as well with a parade and other activities. Jenkins, 69, goes along with the vibe, hosting friends and handing out candy to 1,000 or more trick-or-treaters every year. She’s not alone. About two-thirds of U.S. adults will celebrate Halloween in some way this year, with…

Alex Chriss, CEO of PayPal Inc.Courtesy: PayPalPayPal has signed a deal with OpenAI to have its digital wallet embedded into ChatGPT so users can pay for items found through the leading consumer AI tool, the company told CNBC exclusively.Shares of the company jumped 13% in premarket trading on the news.The agreement, sealed over the weekend, means that starting next year, both sides of PayPal’s ecosystem can plug into ChatGPT: PayPal users can purchase items through the AI platform, and its merchants can sell on it, with their inventory listed there, according to PayPal CEO Alex Chriss.”We’ve got hundreds of millions…

Kevin Damoa came face-to-face with the challenges and dangers of moving freight from road to rail as a 17-year-old U.S. Army enlistee tasked with loading tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles onto the railroad. It was — as the mechanical engineer and founder of Glīd Technologies puts it — the beginning of his love story with logistics. It’s a love story that persisted through a 13-year stint with the U.S. Air Force National Guard as a firefighter to his roles in the private sector at SpaceX, Northrup Grumman, Romeo Power Tech, and Xos Trucks — to name a few. But it…

CHICAGO (AP) — Just before noon on a sunny Friday earlier this month, federal immigration agents threw tear gas canisters onto a busy Chicago street, just outside of an elementary school and a children’s play cafe.Parents, teachers and caretakers rushed to shield children from the chaos, and have been grappling ever since with how to explain to them what they’d seen: how much to tell them so they know enough to stay safe, but not too much to rob them of their innocence.Weeks later, families — even those not likely in danger of being rounded up in immigration raids —…

Robots can be programmed to do a variety of tasks, like packing boxes and even performing surgery. But each individual movement or task requires its own specific training process, which makes it hard for robots to adapt in real-world scenarios. Mbodi wants to make training robots easier and quicker with the help of AI agents. The company will be showcasing this tech as one of the Top 20 Startup Battlefield finalists at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025. New York-based Mbodi built a cloud-to-edge system, a hybrid computing system using both cloud and local compute, that is designed to integrate into existing robotic…

Plastic recycling has fallen short. Only about 9% of all plastic is recycled globally, which sounds pretty bad until you compare it with textiles. Only 0.5% of those are recycled. One of the biggest challenges is that textiles are seldom one material. Buttons and zippers complicate matters, but spandex is even worse. Novel synthetic blends have made for clothing that’s a dream to wear but a nightmare to recycle.  “The challenge to recycling is that you can never predict your waste,” Stwart Peña Feliz, co-founder and CEO of MacroCycle, told TechCrunch. “Your waste has infinite number of contaminants.” MacroCycle has…

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…