🇰🇵🇧🇾 North Korea, Belarus leaders meet in Pyongyang, sign friendship treaty

Belarus’ President Alexander Lukashenko and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un held talks in North Korea’s capital on Thursday and signed a friendship and cooperation treaty. Lukashenko, who was in Pyongyang on a two-day official visit, hailed the document as “fundamental,” and said that relations between the two countries are “entering a new stage.” 🤝

“The friendly relations between our states, born during the era of the Soviet Union, have never been interrupted. Today, thanks to comprehensive and steady development, we are entering a fundamentally new phase,” — Lukashenko said.

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🔥 SWIFT has already tested Ripple (XRP) and Stellar (XLM)

Ripple and Stellar have already undergone testing by SWIFT. XRP + XLM SWIFT. Now, it’s time for their live integrations. This development is a progression, indicating that institutional experimentation has already established a foundation for potential deployment.

To support the claim, there is a video excerpt from a SWIFT-hosted webinar. A speaker explained that between 45 and 50 commercial banks participated in early blockchain research efforts around 2015. Those early evaluations included networks such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, Stellar, and Ripple, along with other available blockchain solutions at the time.

These efforts were part of early projects, including one referred to as Project Genesis, and described the period as one of strong institutional interest in distributed ledger technology. Ripple and Stellar were actively assessed within a structured environment involving multiple financial institutions coordinated by SWIFT.

SWIFT testing was a completed validation phase that supports immediate progression toward integration. Now, testing ≠ adoption. The regulatory environment has changed significantly since the initial experimentation phase.

Whether early institutional trials can be used as a reliable basis for modern adoption decisions, particularly in a financial system that now places greater emphasis on regulatory clarity and risk management? 🤔

#Stellar

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🗣 Mistral releases a new open-source model for speech generation

French AI company Mistral released a new open-source text-to-speech model that can be used by voice AI assistants or in enterprise use cases like customer support. It puts Mistral in direct competition with the likes of ElevenLabs, Deepgram, and OpenAI.

The new model, called Voxtral TTS, supports 9 languages, including English, French, German, Spanish, Dutch, Portuguese, Italian, Hindi, and Arabic. It can fit on a smartwatch, a smartphone, a laptop, or other edge devices. Voxtral TTS can adapt a custom voice with a sample of less than 5 seconds, and also capture characteristics like subtle accents, inflections, intonations, and irregularities in the flow of speech.

The model, based on Ministral 3B, can switch between languages easily without losing the characteristics of the voice, which is useful for use cases like dubbing or real-time translation. The company wanted the model to sound human and not robotic.

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🇪🇺🇺🇸 EU lawmakers approve US trade deal after several delays

The European Parliament voted in favor of the deal on Thursday. The pact would erase tariffs on US industrial goods, while setting a 15% tariff ceiling for most EU products. EU lawmakers have held out, repeatedly delaying ratification after the Supreme Court invalidated Washington’s global tariffs.

“The vote is a very important milestone in our efforts to provide stability and predictability to European business, workers and citizens in our trade relationship with the United States,” — said EU Economy Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis.

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💱 Coinbase, Fannie Mae bring crypto-backed mortgages to homebuyers

Coinbase is working with Fannie Mae-approved mortgage firm Better Home & Finance Holding Co., to enable crypto holders to use their digital assets as down payment collateral when buying a home. The Coinbase/Better mortgage is structured as a conforming loan backed by Fannie Mae, meaning it carries the same protections and standards as traditional mortgages.

Borrowers pledge BTC or the USDC stablecoin as collateral to fund their down payment, allowing them to keep their assets intact and avoid creating a taxable event by spending them. In the case of USDC, they can keep earnings rewards.

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💊 FDA approves drug to treat neurologic manifestations of Hunter syndrome

The FDA approved Avlayah (tividenofusp alfa-eknm) to treat certain individuals with Hunter syndrome (Mucopolysaccharidosis type II or MPS II). It is the first product approved to address neurologic complications of Hunter Syndrome, a very rare and often severe X-linked disorder in children, affecting about 500 people in the US, almost exclusively males.

Hunter syndrome is a rare inherited lysosomal disorder in which sugar molecules called glycosaminoglycans build up within the cells’ lysosomes. This substrate accumulation affects physical and mental development by causing abnormalities in the skeleton, heart, respiratory system, brain, and other organs.

The drug’s application holder, Denali Therapeutics, is now conducting a randomized clinical trial that is more than 95% enrolled to evaluate the clinical benefit of this product. In the trial, Avlayah significantly reduced cerebrospinal fluid heparan sulfate (CSF HS), a type of glycosaminoglycan. So, families with young children with Hunter Syndrome will have access to a product that may favorably alter the course of the disease at the crucial time in life when there is the greatest potential for benefit.

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🇺🇸 Trump's signature to appear on US currency

U.S. paper currency will bear President ‌Donald Trump's signature to mark ‌the 250th anniversary of U.S. independence, a first for a sitting president. The Treasury ​Department said that the first $100 bills with Trump's signature and ​that of ​U.S. Treasury Secretary ​Scott Bessent will ‌be printed in June, followed by other bills in subsequent months.

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🇺🇸 White House clears review of rule that could open path for crypto in $10 trillion 401(k) market

The White House’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs concluded its review of a Labor Department rule affecting investment options in the $10 trillion 401(k) market. The economically significant rule, if finalized, would amend fiduciary guidance for the market, potentially allowing crypto and private equity in retirement plans covered by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974.

The proposal followed an executive order signed by President Donald Trump last year directing the Labor Department to facilitate the inclusion of alternative assets in participant-directed defined-contribution plans. The order also tasked the SEC, the Treasury Secretary, and other federal agencies with exploring ways to facilitate access to alternative investments, including digital assets, in retirement plans.

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🌐 Google is launching Search Live globally

Google announced that it’s expanding its AI-powered conversational search feature, Search Live, globally to all languages and locations where AI Mode is available. With this expansion, people in more than 200 countries and territories will get access to the feature. It is enabled by Google’s new audio and voice model, Gemini 3.1 Flash Live. The model delivers even more natural and intuitive conversations.

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⚖️ Newsom signs law renaming Cesar Chavez Day to Farmworkers Day

Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a law stripping Cesar Chavez’s name from the state holiday and replacing it with Farmworkers Day, following a national reckoning over sexual abuse allegations against the late civil rights icon. Supporters say the renaming is intended to broaden the farmworker movement beyond a single figure and instead honor farmworkers across California.

“The farmworker movement was never about one man,” — Rivas said. “It was built by thousands — tens of thousands — of workers.”

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🇬🇧 UK to boost offshore wind with new leasing round next year

The UK will award another round of leases for offshore wind farms next year as it seeks to reduce its reliance on fossil fuels.

"By building more clean, homegrown power here in Britain, the country can show that it has learned from the Iran war, cut dependence on fossil fuels and protect itself from future energy shocks," — Energy Security Secretary Ed Miliband said.

Seabed manager The Crown Estate will launch its sixth leasing round in the first half of 2027, hoping to create as much as 6 gigawatts of new capacity, add 10,000 jobs and drive £12 billion ($16 billion) of investment. The UK has the world’s second-largest offshore wind market after China, and the government is looking to expand capacity to meet its ambition of a green grid by 2030.

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🖥 Nvidia to face class action lawsuit over alleged crypto mining revenue gaps

Judge Haywood S. Gilliam Jr. in California has certified a class of investors alleging that Nvidia and its CEO, Jensen Huang, concealed the extent to which the company's gaming GPU revenues depended on sales tied to crypto mining between 2017 and 2018. Nvidia was unable to show that its statements about crypto mining revenue had no effect on its stock price, according to an order.

This allows the plaintiffs to move forward with a case alleging Nvidia hid over $1 billion in cryptomining GPU revenue in its gaming segment, reporting over the period. Anyone who bought Nvidia stock between August 10, 2017, and November 15, 2018, is included in the class action.

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🇹🇼 Chip Hub Taiwan keeps power prices unchanged despite war

Taiwan will keep its electricity rates unchanged for now to mitigate inflationary pressures from the war in the Middle East and support industrial competitiveness. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, the sole chipmaker for Nvidia Corp.’s advanced AI accelerators and Apple Inc.’s iPhone processors, is the biggest industrial consumer on the island.

The decision was made despite a formula indicating a 1.8% rise would be justified based on the recent surge in global energy costs. The average power rate will remain at NT$3.7823 per kilowatt hour.

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🟥 Windows 11 KB5079391 update rolls out Smart App Control improvements

​Microsoft has released the KB5079391 preview cumulative update for Windows 11 24H2 and 25H2, which includes 29 changes. It is gradually rolling out improvements to the Windows 11 Smart App Control security feature, allowing customers to toggle it without reinstalling the operating system. KB5079391 also includes a set of Display reliability improvements, such as support for monitors reporting refresh rates higher than 1000 Hz, native USB4 monitor connections, and improved HDR reliability.

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🇵🇭🇫🇷 Philippines, France sign military pact amid South China Sea tensions

The Philippines and France have signed a visiting forces agreement in Paris that would allow them to conduct joint ​military training in each other's territory, as Manila expands ‌defence ties amid rising tensions with Beijing in the South China Sea.

"The agreement will greatly bolster bilateral cooperation and offer an adequate level of legal ​protection to the joint activities between the Armed Forces of ​the Philippines and the French Armed Forces," — the Philippine defence department said.

The two also called for "the peaceful resolution of disputes" and the ​need to strengthen supply chain resilience in times of crisis. Aside from France, the Philippines also has the visiting forces agreements with the U.S., Australia, Japan, and New Zealand. 🤝

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🔥 Strengthening XRP Ledger security with AI for next phase of growth

XRPL is adopting a more proactive, AI-driven approach to identifying and addressing vulnerabilities before they reach production. New security efforts include AI-assisted testing, a dedicated red team, and higher standards for amendments and code changes. The goal is to continuously strengthen XRPL’s reliability as it scales to support global payments, tokenized assets, and institutional use cases.

Strategy is built on several key pillars:

▪️ Enhancing XRPL Software Development Lifecycle with AI — creating a layered model where issues can be identified earlier, tested more thoroughly, and mitigated faster at a scale that was previously not feasible.
▪️ Establishing a dedicated, AI-assisted red team focused on continuously analyzing the XRPL codebase and how features interact in real-world scenarios, not just in isolation. Fuzzing and automated adversarial testing guided by explicit threat models.
▪️Modernizing and Aligning the XRPL Codebase making the system more predictable, easier to reason about, and more resilient by design.
▪️It Takes A Village: Expanding the Ecosystem Security Effort — deepening collaboration with partners, including XRPL Commons, XRPL Foundation (XRPLF), independent security researchers, validator operators, and external security firms.
▪️ Raising the Bar for Amendment Security — defining and publishing these security criteria in collaboration with XRPLF, clearly establishing the bar for new amendments.
▪️Transparency with the XRPL Community — committing to openly sharing security disclosures, publishing findings, and communicating lessons learned with the broader community.

XRPL has proven its reliability over more than a decade of operation. The responsibility now is to ensure the ledger continues to meet the demands of global payments, tokenized assets, and institutional-grade financial infrastructure (e.g., Institutional DeFi roadmap). By investing in security improvements at every point of the development lifecycle, XRPL remains a trusted financial operating system for decades to come.

#Stellar

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🤖 Startup builds first responder drone connected via Starlink that enables eight mile range

BRINC announced the release of Guardian, the most capable 911 response drone ever. Beyond its cutting-edge camera and advanced autonomy, Guardian is the world's first Starlink-connected drone, representing not just a major advancement in emergency response, but a huge step for the American drone industry as a whole. Guardian can respond to calls up to 8 miles away and offers 62 minutes of flight time.

Aside from serving in medical and other emergencies, BRINC also built the drone for use with law enforcement. It comes with dual HD thermal zoom cameras, making it easier to spot individuals in low-light conditions. The drone also gets a speaker and a siren that’s reportedly three times louder than what you’d find on police cars, basically turning it into a tiny airborne police cruiser.

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👮‍♀️ European police targets violent Scottish crime gang behind drug trafficking

A violent Scottish crime gang, suspected of moving hundreds of kilograms of cocaine into Scotland and laundering millions in criminal profits, has ​been targeted by European police, Europol said, adding that the operation had resulted in 13 arrests. The pan-European police body said the ​operation against the gang, which it ​did not identify by name, involved police ⁠in Spain, the Netherlands, Britain, the UAE and Turkey.

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🌍 Aetherflux reportedly raising Series B at $2 billion valuation

Aetherflux the space solar power startup is in talks to raise $250 million to $350 million for a Series B round that would value the company at $2 billion. Aetherflux has shifted focus in recent months as it pushed its power-generating technology toward space data centers, deemphasizing the transmission of electricity to the Earth with lasers that was its starting vision.

“If you wanted to power AI with the technology that we were thinking about, it would be much more advantageous to actually put the chips in space, rather than project the power from space down to a terrestrial data center. Our goal is to build something that competes with terrestrial economics,” — said Baiju Bhatt, the founder of Aetherflux.

Space companies like SpaceX, Blue Origin, Starcloud, and others are now developing novel architectures for distributed compute in space. While Aetherflux plans to continue its experimentation in laser power transmission on a satellite bus built by Apex Space, the company’s first data center satellite is expected in 2027.

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💬 X launches X money metal Visa Card

X has introduced a new financial product as part of its expanding ecosystem, unveiling the X Money metal Visa debit card, which offers up to 6% annual percentage yield and 3% cashback. The card is currently being rolled out in beta.

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