Automattic lays off 16% of staff, CEO Matt Mullenweg says to become “more agile and responsive”; Automattic website listed 1,744 employees ahead of the layoffs (Sarah Perez/TechCrunch)

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Automattic lays off 16% of staff, CEO Matt Mullenweg says to become “more agile and responsive”; Automattic website listed 1,744 employees ahead of the layoffs  —  Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com, Tumblr, WooCommerce, and a range of other online services, is reducing its workforce.

Anthropic debuts a Claude for Education tier for colleges, with Learning Mode, where it asks questions to test understanding, shares templates for papers, more (Maxwell Zeff/TechCrunch)

Maxwell Zeff / TechCrunch:
Anthropic debuts a Claude for Education tier for colleges, with Learning Mode, where it asks questions to test understanding, shares templates for papers, more  —  Anthropic announced on Wednesday that it’s launching a new Claude for Education tier, an answer to OpenAI’s ChatGPT Edu plan.

FDUSD stablecoin depegged 9% after Justin Sun raised concerns over Hong Kong-based First Digital Trust’s solvency; Binance alone holds ~$2.2B worth of FDUSD (Daniel Kuhn/The Block)

Daniel Kuhn / The Block:
FDUSD stablecoin depegged 9% after Justin Sun raised concerns over Hong Kong-based First Digital Trust’s solvency; Binance alone holds ~$2.2B worth of FDUSD  —  – Justin Sun is warning users to pull funds from First Digital Trust, a Hong Kong-based firm once employed by TrueUSD’s owner Techteryx as a fiduciary.

Sources: Justin Sun bailed out Techteryx’s TrueUSD after $456M in reserves, managed by First Digital, became illiquid; Techteryx says it was a victim of fraud (Sam Reynolds/CoinDesk)

Sam Reynolds / CoinDesk:
Sources: Justin Sun bailed out Techteryx’s TrueUSD after $456M in reserves, managed by First Digital, became illiquid; Techteryx says it was a victim of fraud  —  Justin Sun bailed out Techteryx’s TrueUSD stablecoin after nearly half a billion dollars of its reserves were rendered illiquid …

Google replaces Sissie Hsiao, leader of its consumer AI apps, including Gemini, with Josh Woodward, who leads Google Labs and oversaw NotebookLM’s launch (Reed Albergotti/Semafor)

Reed Albergotti / Semafor:
Google replaces Sissie Hsiao, leader of its consumer AI apps, including Gemini, with Josh Woodward, who leads Google Labs and oversaw NotebookLM’s launch  —  The Scoop  —  Google is replacing the leader of its consumer AI apps as the focus of the AI race shifts from the underlying models …

Trump pardoned BitMEX owner HDR Global Trading, which had pleaded guilty and was fined $100M for money laundering, possibly the first US pardon of a corporation (Matt Sledge/The Intercept)

Matt Sledge / The Intercept:
Trump pardoned BitMEX owner HDR Global Trading, which had pleaded guilty and was fined $100M for money laundering, possibly the first US pardon of a corporation  —  In what may be an American first, President Donald Trump pardoned a company sentenced to $100 million in fines for breaking money laundering laws.