PARIS — Visitors to the Eiffel Tower were turned away on Monday because of a strike over poor financial management at one of the world’s most-visited sites. A sign was posted at the entrance in English, saying, “Due to a strike, the Eiffel Tower is closed. We apologize.” The hugely popular 330-meter (1083-foot) landmark in … Read more
Partech has closed its second Africa fund, Partech Africa II, at €280 million ($300 million+), just one year after reaching its first close. At that size, Partech Africa, which originally targeted €230 million before its fundraising efforts started, solidifies its position as the largest fund dedicated to African startups. Amidst a backdrop of global VCs … Read more
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Meta’s latest update to its code generation AI model, Code Llama 70B, is “the largest and best-performing model” yet. Code Llama tools launched in August and are free for both research and commercial use. According to a post on Meta’s AI blog, Code Llama 70B can handle more queries than previous versions, which means developers can … Read more
French small launch developer Latitude has closed $30 million in new capital as it eyes the first flight of its Zephyr rocket in 2025. While other rocket companies are going bigger, developing even more massive rockets, Latitude is taking a different approach: light, small, and hopefully cheap enough to beat out competitors. Its first rocket, … Read more
Memphis-based Dextrous Robotics is calling it a day. The news, noted by the Robot Report, was confirmed by the warehouse robotics firm’s CEO, Evan Drumwright, on LinkedIn. The executive spells out the company’s fate at the top of the post, noting, “Put simply, we adopted an aggressive trajectory 18 months ago that the recent investment … Read more
BEIRUT — U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has closed an international tribunal that was created to investigate the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, the U.N. chief’s spokesperson said Sunday. Over the years, the Special Tribunal for Lebanon held in absentia proceedings and found three members of the militant Hezbollah group guilty in … Read more
President Biden is closing out the year on a one-on-one chat with the man upstairs — and depending on where you land politically … this could be interpreted a couple different ways. Joe’s down in the U.S. Virgin Islands right now with his family, where they touched down Wednesday in St. Croix … and where … Read more
Celtic are no longer the runaway leaders in the Scottish Premiership after their unbeaten run came to an end, while Rangers continue to impress under Philippe Clement. Brendan Rodgers’ side lost 2-1 at Kilmarnock on Sunday while Rangers beat Dundee 3-1 extending their unbeaten run under the Belgian to 12 games across all competitions, picking … Read more
MEXICO CITY — Mexican authorities said Friday they have raided and closed 31 pharmacies in Baja California’s coastal city of Ensenada, after they were detected selling fake or fentanyl-laced pills. Marines and health inspection authorities seized 4,681 boxes of medications that may have been offered for sale without proper safeguards, may have been faked and … Read more
In 2014, investor and entrepreneur Peter Thiel infamously posed the distinction between companies that deal in “atoms” versus those that deal in “bits.” In its crudest terms, the former category includes businesses focused on things like hardware and manufacturing; the latter, software and financial services. Just shy of 10 years on, the distinction now strikes … Read more