Latest news with #funding
Yahoo
4 hours ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Healey slams Trump for canceling $45M to protect farms, forests and wetlands in WMass and beyond
The Trump White House's decision to pull the plug on more than $45 million in already awarded federal funds to protect farms, wetlands, and forests across the Bay State threatens jobs and leaves the state vulnerable to natural disasters, the Healey administration said Friday. President Donald Trump 'is yet again taking action that will hurt Massachusetts' rural communities, farmers, and economy,' Gov. Maura Healey said in a statement. 'This is funding that would have been used to ensure clean water, provide access to fresh local food, and support our agricultural economy,' Healey said, accusing the Republican president of 'making us less healthy and weakening our economy. He should reverse these cuts immediately.' The state announced the money, awarded through the U.S. Department of Agriculture, in October 2024. It includes $20.8 million earmarked for protecting farms and wetlands that would have especially benefited the state's smaller and more rural communities, Healey's office said. The White House also canceled $25 million that would have gone to Mass Audubon to protect more than 10,000 acres of 'vital' forest and wetlands along the Connecticut River in Western Massachusetts. Read More: 'Legal battles of our lives': AG Campbell testifies in DC on all-hands effort to counter Trump That money 'epitomized government efficiency and effectiveness. Not only would the grant have protected 10,000 acres of land that safeguards the public's drinking water and benefits wildlife,' David O'Neill, Mass Audubon's president and CEO, said in the administration's statement. The now-canceled cash also 'would have leveraged tens of millions of private funds, and, importantly, kept working lands in the hands of private farmers,' O'Neill continued. 'When we terminate grants that conserve our forests, keep working lands working, act as a flood protection buffer for communities, and leverage millions from other funding sources, we all lose.' The money that would have headed to farmers 'strips [them] of critical tools to keep their land in agriculture through voluntary conservation easements,' state Agricultural Resources Commissioner Ashley Randle said. Read More: Supreme Court limits nationwide injunctions, but fate of Trump birthright citizenship order unclear 'Without this support, farmers lose options – and some may be pushed to sell, putting local farming at risk," Randle said. The USDA announced last month that it was cancelling the Climate Smart Commodities Program — a $3 billion effort to fund projects across the country to improve soil health, sequester carbon, reduce methane emissions and encourage other climate-friendly farming practices, The Wisconsin Examiner reported. The USDA dismissed the program as a 'Biden era slush fund,' and argued that it was 'built to advance the green new scam at the benefit of NGOs, not American farmers.' Earlier this week, state Attorney General Andrea J. Campbell, joined by colleagues nationwide, asked a federal judge in Boston to bar the White House from using an obscure clause in federal law to cut off funding to the states. The Republican White House has wrongly used the 'agencies priorities clause' to block funding to the states for programs ranging from fighting violent crime and education to protecting clean drinking water and addressing food insecurity, Campbell's office said in a statement. Chicopee's next budget is 6% hike from this year. Here's where spending has increased Trump says he's terminating trade talks with Canada over tax on technology firms Mass. lawmakers get a deal; gun for first on-time (ish) state budget in years 'You have been the worst': Secretary Hegseth blasts former Fox colleague Mass. AG Campbell vows to fight on after Supreme Court hands Trump birthright citizenship win Read the original article on MassLive.
Malay Mail
4 hours ago
- Business
- Malay Mail
Poverty rising, aid falling: UN summit confronts crisis of global solidarity
PARIS, June 28 — The United Nations summit on financing for development gets underway Monday in Seville under a grim cloud: multiple conflicts, humanitarian crises and the shock disengagement of the United States. Here is an overview of the challenges development aid faces, and changes in funding fortunes: Aid in general is down Official development assistance is down for the first time in six years. The amount granted by 32 wealthy countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the European Union decreased by 7.1 per cent in real terms last year to US$212.1 billion (RM896.9 billion), according to an OECD estimate. The US remained the top contributor in 2024 with US$63.3 billion, placing them ahead of Germany with US$32.4 billion, followed by Britain (US$18 billion), Japan (US$16.8 billion) and France (US$15.4 billion). The rankings are likely to change this year after US President Donald Trump's sudden gutting of USAID, the country's main foreign development arm. That has resulted in the elimination of 83 per cent of USAID programmes, including emergency aid or healthcare access. Ukraine getting less Since Russia's invasion in 2022, Ukraine has received significant funding, partly accounted for as humanitarian or development aid. In 2023, Kyiv was the top recipient country with US$38.9 billion received from OECD members, non-OECD countries, and multilateral organisations. But in 2024, the trend was down, with aid from OECD countries alone falling 17 per cent. Africa too Africa is the region of the world that concentrates the largest portion of international aid: US$68 billion, or a quarter of the global amount for 2023. However, preliminary figures for 2024 show a decrease in OECD countries' aid to Africa (down 1 per cent) and a more pronounced decline (3 per cent) to the least developed countries — a group of about fifty nations, overwhelmingly African, considered by the UN to be the most vulnerable. Debt is rising The total external debt of the group of least developed countries has more than tripled in 15 years, according to UNCTAD, the United Nations body for integrating developing countries into the global economy. These countries now generally spend more on repaying their external debt than for their education systems. Extreme poverty spreading Extreme poverty now affects more than 800 million people, living on less than US$3 per day, according to the World Bank. After decades of progress, extreme poverty, which is primarily concentrated in sub-Saharan Africa, is on the rise again. The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, slower growth, indebtedness, conflicts and the effects of extreme weather are the main factors behind the increase. Worsening climate risks The poorest nations also have a growing need for funding to address climate change, as 17 of the 20 countries most vulnerable to global warming are also among the least developed. These include Chad, Eritrea, Afghanistan and Haiti. However, a significant portion of the aid intended for adaptation or combating global warming is granted to the poorest in the form of loans rather than donations, exposing them to the risk of falling into a trap of 'climate debt', according to UNCTAD. — AFP
Daily Mail
6 hours ago
- Health
- Daily Mail
Funding for hospitals will be linked to patient feedback ratings in Starmer's 10-year NHS overhau
Patients' ratings of hospitals will be directly to the funding they receive from the government, under Prime Minister Keir Starmer 's plans to overhaul the NHS. The Labour leader is set to unveil a 10-year plan for the NHS next week, in which he is expected to make the bold move. Starmer is also set to link doctors' and nurses' pay to their success in bringing down waiting lists, as part of the massive revamp of the UK's health service. Under the proposed plans, NHS patients would be contacted several weeks after receiving treatment and asked if it was good enough for the hospital to get paid in full. If the patient says no, roughly 10% of 'standard payment rates' are set to be diverted to a local 'improvement fund.' Pilot programmes of the scheme are set to be implemented within the next year at hospitals with a record of poor performance, the Times reports. But senior health bosses are extremely concerned by the plans. Matthew Taylor, the chief of the NHS confederation, told the newspaper: 'None of our members have raised this idea with us as a way of improving care and, to our knowledge, no other healthcare system internationally adopts this model currently. He added: 'Patient experience is determined by far more than their individual interaction with the clinician and so, unless this is very carefully designed and evaluated, there is a risk that providers could be penalised for more systemic issues.' Health secretary Wes Streeting said that the public's frustration with the NHS was rooted in its failure to listen to patients, along with a series of scandals that have rocked the service to its core. He said: 'We will reward great patient care, so patient experience and clinical excellence are met with extra cash.' 'These reforms are key to keeping people healthy and out of hospital, and to making the NHS sustainable', he added. It comes as the new head of the NHS, Sir Jim Mackey, claimed that the health service sees patients as an 'inconvenience' and has 'build mechanisms to keep them away.' In his first interview since taking the role, Mackey chastised the NHS for being too often 'deaf' to criticism and having put in place far too many 'fossilised' ways of working that need to be updated for the 21st century. Maternity wards are expected to be among the first parts of UK hospitals to be placed under the microscope, after Streeting launched a full review into services across the country, saying that women had been 'ignored, gaslit [and] lied to' by the NHS. The latest proposals come following Streeting's plans to give health bosses bonuses of 10% of their salary if they cut waiting times, while those who fail to solve the problem are set to be refused pay rises.
Skift
7 hours ago
- Business
- Skift
Regional Air Travel Startups Raise Over $85 Million: Funding Roundup
The biggest airlines are behind on updating their tech systems and operations; regional airlines are even further behind. Travel Startup Funding This Week Each week we round up jd@ if you have funding news. Each week we round up travel startups that have recently received or announced funding . Please email Travel Tech Reporter Justin Dawes atif you have funding news. One big theme for travel startups this week is regional air travel. Three companies raised money toward their efforts to modernize various aspects of the industry, from software to aircraft themselves. The biggest airlines are behind on updating their tech systems and operations; Regional airlines are even further behind. Like the rest of the flying taxi startups, one such company on the list seeks to create a new type of commercial travel. Over the last week, six travel startups announced fundraises totaling more than $100 million. Expliseat: $42.1 Million Expliseat, which develops and manufactures lightweight seats for commercial aircraft, has raised $42.1 million (€36 million). Crédit Mutuel Innovation led the round, with support from the SPI fund (managed by public sector investment bank Bpifrance for the French government), Supernova Invest, Swen Capital, BNP Paribas Développement, GO Capital, and NCI. France-based Expliseat says it has invested heavily in research and development for lightweight seats, securing more than 100 patents. The company says that its flagship product, the TiSeat 2, weighs 30% less than traditional seats. The company says it has orders totaling $58.5 million (€50 million). Clients include Air France, Air Canada, and Jazeera Airways. Expliseat has a new facility in France that it says can produce 32,000 units annually. And it recently opened an office in Montreal as it seeks to expand business in the North American aviation market. The funding will go toward business expansion, along with continued R&D for the next generation of its products. The company also plans to move into rail and electric buses. Surf Air Mobility: $27 Million Surf Air Mobility, an airline owner that is also developing tech for regional airlines, has raised $27 million in a registered direct offering of common stock. The company sold roughly 10.8 million shares of common stock for $2.50 each. Surf Air Mobility's regional airline software includes products for operations efficiency, sales and sourcing customers, and aircraft utilization. The company owns two regional airlines — Southern Airways Express and Hawaii's Mokulele Airlines — as well as Surf Air, a website for booking private charter flights. Surf Air is also working to commercialize electric and hybrid-electric powertrains for regional aircrafts, including for the Cessna Caravan. Founded in 2020, Surf Air Mobility acquired the airlines as part of its debut on the stock market through a direct listing on the New York Stock Exchange in 2023. The funding will go toward operations and paying down debt. XTI Aerospace: $16 Million XTI Aerospace, which is developing a flying taxi for long distances, has raised $16 million. The funds come from an underwritten public offering of stock and warrants, priced at $1.75 each. Colorado-based XTI Aerospace is developing a vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) aircraft called TriFan 600. It is designed to travel up to 1,000 miles at speeds of up to 300 miles per hour, and can carry a pilot and six passengers. The two turboshaft engines are designed to be fully compatible with renewable jet fuels, with future plans for electric engines. The company plans to primarily target the business and commercial travel industries, along with the ambulance industry. XTI Aerospace says it has 700 pre-orders for $10 million per aircraft. XTI Aerospace went public in March 2024 following a merger with Inpixon, which provides location tracking devices that factories can use to monitor equipment and inventory. Inpixon had gone public through a merger with a special purpose acquisition company in 2023. Chatlyn: $9.4 Million Chatlyn, which provides AI-powered guest management tech for hoteliers, has raised $9.4 million (€8 million) in a series A round. Smedvig Ventures led the round, with support from bus company Blaguss, individual investors Andreas Burike (AnyDesk founder) and Mathias Hiebeler (former owner of Grob aircraft, acquired by Helsing), and a group of angel investors. Vienna-based Chatlyn says its tech helps automate hotel operations, including front desk, reservations, marketing, guest services, and guest communication. Features include a public-facing AI assistant for booking, an AI chatbot for hotel guests, translation for more than 35 languages, and more. The startup says its tech is live in more than 1,000 properties, including St. Regis Mauritius, Singer Palace Rome, and InterContinental properties. The funding will go toward product development, geographic expansion, and hiring. StayVista: $4.7 Million StayVista, a property manager and booking site for luxury vacation rentals in India, has raised $4.7 million (400 million Indian rupees) in series B funding. JSW Ventures led the round, with support from DSG Consumer Partners and Capri Global Family Office. Mumbai-based StayVista says it manages 1,000 properties and has hosted more than 1 million guests. The funding will go toward expansion into new cities, hiring, and improving customer experience. Winalist: $1.2 Million Winalist, an online marketplace for booking ticketed experiences related to wine and spirits, has raised $1.2 million (€1 million) in seed funding. Investors included Plug and Play Ventures, Portugal Ventures, and Vessoa Private Equity. France-based Winalist says it partners with more than 1,700 operators in 10 countries. Users can book winery visits, tastings, private wine-pairing dinners, vineyard day-tours, and more. The funding will go toward opening a new branch in Porto, Portugal, as well as hiring, marketing, and increasing operational support for partners.
TechCrunch
10 hours ago
- Business
- TechCrunch
Startups Weekly: Tech and the law
Welcome to Startups Weekly — your weekly recap of everything you can't miss from the world of startups. Want it in your inbox every Friday? Sign up here. Before this newsletter takes a break for the Fourth of July next week, here are the startup stories and funding rounds that caught our eye over the last few days, which have been quite busy. Most interesting startup stories from the week Image Credits:SOPA Images / Contributor / Getty Images This week brought us lawsuit updates, M&As, and a combination of both. AI agents: Data cybersecurity company Rubrik acquired Predibase to accelerate the adoption of AI agents by its users. The startup, which helps companies fine-tune AI models, had raised some $28 million in venture capital. Deal amount wasn't disclosed but was reportedly sizable. Sailing: German startup Kadmos, which had raised $38 million in external capital for its salary payment platform for seafaring workers, got acquired by NYK Line as part of the Japanese shipping firm's efforts to expand its fintech services. Red herring? Embattled AI music startup Suno announced the acquisition of WavTool, a browser-based AI digital audio workstation, in a deal that actually happened a few months ago but that it chose to disclose on the heels of yet another copyright lawsuit. Unstable ground: Getty Images dropped its primary lawsuit against Stability AI, the startup behind AI image generator Stable Diffusion, but other lawsuits continue, both in the U.S. and in the U.K. Techcrunch event Save $200+ on your TechCrunch All Stage pass Build smarter. Scale faster. Connect deeper. Join visionaries from Precursor Ventures, NEA, Index Ventures, Underscore VC, and beyond for a day packed with strategies, workshops, and meaningful connections. Save $200+ on your TechCrunch All Stage pass Build smarter. Scale faster. Connect deeper. Join visionaries from Precursor Ventures, NEA, Index Ventures, Underscore VC, and beyond for a day packed with strategies, workshops, and meaningful connections. Boston, MA | REGISTER NOW Weathering the storm: Despite headwinds, Bill Gates-backed startup Airloom Energy is pressing on and started building its first wind power plant in Wyoming. Most interesting VC and funding news this week Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour at StrictlyVC 2025. Image Credits:TechCrunch Another week, another $300 million round — sometimes at wildly different valuations, even for the same company. Meanwhile, the small deals keep things interesting, too. Same amount, new valuation: Harvey AI raised a $300 million Series E co-led by Kleiner Perkins and Coatue. This comes only four months after Sequoia led a $300 million Series D at a $3 billion valuation into the AI-enabled legal tech startup, which is now valued at $5 billion. AI scribe: Abridge, an AI startup automating medical notes, secured a $300 million Series E led by a16z at a $5.3 billion valuation. Crypto predictions: Blockchain-based prediction market platform Kalshi raised a $185 million round at a $2 billion post-money valuation, while rival Polymarket is reportedly working on closing a $200 million round at a pre-money valuation around $1 billion. Money in the bank: Finom, a challenger bank that targets SMBs across Europe, raised some $133 million in a Series C round of funding that comes in addition to the $105 million in growth funding it secured from General Catalyst's Customer Value Fund a few weeks ago. Flying high: Indian drone startup Raphe mPhibr raised $100 million in an all-equity Series B round led by General Catalyst. Its customers include the Indian Army, Navy, and Air Force, as well as armed police forces. Easy dictation: AI-powered dictation app Wispr Flow locked in $30 million in a Series A that brought its total funding to $56 million. The company also released an iOS app earlier this month. Upcycled: Novoloop, a startup that upcycles waste plastic, raised a $21 million Series B to finalize the design and begin the construction of its first commercial-scale plant. Data processing for AI: Eventual, a startup inspired by a data-processing problem its founders encountered at Lyft, raised two rounds of funding totaling $27.5 million within eight months. AI voices: Synthflow AI, a Berlin-based no-code platform that lets enterprises build and deploy customized white-label voice AI customer service agents, raised a $20 million Series A led by Accel. As the name suggests: Better Auth, the third Ethiopian startup to graduate from YC, raised $5 million in seed funding. Its open source framework promises to simplify how developers manage user authentication and has quickly become popular. Eternal light: Space startup Lux Aeterna came out of stealth with $4 million in pre-seed funding and the ambition to launch a reusable satellite in 2027. Last but not least Image Credits:Dani Padgett / StrictlyVC After a two-year break from public life, seasoned early-stage investor, entrepreneur, and author Brad Feld is back with his ninth book, 'Give First.' TechCrunch interviewed him about it and more.
