The Messenger, a digital news startup that launched with $50 million in funding last May, plans to shut down operations, a source familiar with the situation told Axios Wednesday.
Why it matters: It’s one of the biggest media failures of the internet era. Worse, the demise was foreseeable — and foreseen.
The Tether group, issuer of the world's largest stablecoin, published its latest quarterly attestation Wednesday, showing its assets exceeded liabilities.
Why it matters: The tether stablecoin, known as USDT, is probably the most market-critical piece of crypto infrastructure outside of the Bitcoin blockchain.
The Federal Reserve said on Wednesday it would hold interest rates steady and that the central bank would not pivot to slashing borrowing costs until it is more confident that inflation has been defeated.
Why it matters: The Fed is considering when to begin reversing its aggressive hiking campaign in recent years, but even after a dramatic slowdown in inflation, officials appear to want more evidence of cooling price pressures.
The PGA Tour signed a $3 billion investment agreement with a consortium led by Fenway Sports Group, as talks with Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund remain ongoing.
Why it matters: This will allow the pro golf group to beef up its commercial business and provide a financial stake to players.
Carlyle Group co-founder David Rubenstein has signed an agreement to buy the Baltimore Orioles baseball club from the Angelos family for just over $1.7 billion, as first reported by Puck and confirmed by Axios.
Why it matters: Ask any long-suffering Orioles fan.
Meteomatics, a weather intelligence and technology firm that makes a fleet of autonomous drones, has closed a strategic funding round from Lockheed Ventures, the companies tell Axios exclusively.
Driving the news: The new funding, totaling in the single-digit millions, is aimed at helping the Swiss-based company expand, and bring new weather and climate insights to business and government customers.
Why it matters: TikTok's viral video algorithm relies heavily on sound, and more specifically, songs it has licensed from labels like Universal for its users to record with.
Readers are most curious to know what CEOs think about return-to-office policies, AI and societal issues, finds a new report from media monitoring platform Memo.
Why it matters: All of these topics are polarizing and CEOs are unlikely to want to discuss them in detail.
Crypto's election war chest keeps getting bigger, with more than $85 million raised to date for 2024 from crypto firms, executives and investors.
Why it matters: The industry is making a play for legitimacy, with billions of dollars flowing into newly approved bitcoin ETFs and now — millions into political action committees.
"Sesame Street" favorite Elmo's wellness check-in post on X asking "How is everybody doing?" has been met with thousands of responses this week.
The big picture: Many made clear in the comments section that they're not doing so well — with some citing being laid off, feeling tired or noting they're "depressed and broke."
