Author: Editor-in-Chief
Editor-in-Chief
Maplestime is Canada's digital newsroom — covering the stories, people, and issues that shape Canadian life every day. From breaking national news and immigration updates to entertainment, wellness, business, and local events, Maplestime delivers accurate, timely, and community-first journalism to Canadians across the country. Based in Canada and committed to Canadian voices, Maplestime is built for the reader who wants to stay informed without the noise.
It seems to be unsolvable. One of the most pressing issues for most Canadians is the cost of housing. Rents and house prices have skyrocketed in recent years. Few young families can afford to buy a home, while renovictions and rental costs have put many others in jeopardy. Despite what Pierre Poilievre says, this crisis is not unique to Canada. It exists across the G20 countries as speculation and commodification of housing reaches historic new levels. There are answers to this crisis, but they require a serious commitment to two things that have been out of favour for decades –…
Elon Musk’s AI startup xAI laid off 500 team members on Friday night, according to internal messages viewed by Business Insider. These emails reportedly announce an immediate “strategic pivot,” with the company deciding to “accelerate the expansion and prioritization of our specialist AI tutors, while scaling back our focus on general AI tutor roles.” “As part of this shift in focus, we no longer need most generalist AI tutor positions and your employment with xAI will conclude,” xAI reportedly wrote. According to Business Insider, these cuts represent about one-third of xAI’s 1,500-person data annotation team — the team that works…
President Donald Trump made countering immigration one of his flagship issues during last year’s presidential campaign, promising an unprecedented number of deportations. In his first eight months in office, that promise turned into around 350,000 deportations, a figure that includes deportations by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (around 200,000), Customs and Border Protection (more than 132,000), and almost 18,000 self-deportations, according to CNN. ICE has taken center stage in Trump’s mass deportation campaign, raiding homes, workplaces, and public parks in search of undocumented immigrants. To aid its efforts, the ICE has at its disposal several technologies capable of identifying…
Move over, iPhone Plus, here comes your super-slim replacement: the iPhone Air. During Apple’s hardware event on Tuesday, the company unveiled the iPhone Air, its thinnest and lightest model to date. This replaces the Plus model in the company’s 2025 lineup, following the underperformance of the iPhone 16 Plus last year, based on data from research firm DSCC. The star of today’s event draws inspiration from Apple’s MacBook Airstrategy, which debuted in 2008 as the thinnest laptop available, positioned between the more affordable MacBook and the higher-quality MacBook Pro. Now Apple is applying the “Air” concept to the iPhone, emphasizing…
OpenAI says it’s developing an AI-powered hiring platform to connect businesses and employees, a service that would put the outfit in close competition with LinkedIn. The product is called the OpenAI Jobs Platform, and the company expects to launch the service by mid-2026, an OpenAI spokesperson told TechCrunch. OpenAI CEO of Applications Fidji Simo announced the new endeavor in a blog post Thursday, saying the company will “use AI to help find the perfect matches between what companies need and what workers can offer.” Simo said the service would offer a dedicated track for small businesses and local governments…
Rainmaker Technology’s bid to deploy cloud-seeding flares on small dronesis being met by resistance from the airline pilots union, which has urged the Federal Aviation Administration to consider denying the startup’s request unless it meets stricter safety guidelines. The FAA’s decision will signal how the regulator views weather modification by unmanned aerial systems going forward. Rainmaker’s bet on small drones hangs in the balance. The Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) told the FAA that Rainmaker’s petition “fails to demonstrate an equivalent level of safety” and poses “an extreme safety risk.” Rainmaker is seeking an exemption from rules that bar small…
The all-electric Ram 1500 REV pickup truck is dead. Long live the extended-range Ram 1500 REV (once called the Ramcharger). Stellantis, the parent company of Ram, said Friday that it will no longer develop a battery-electric full-size pickup. The company cited low demand for full-size battery-electric trucks as the primary reason, according to a statement sent to TechCrunch and posted on its website. “As demand for full-size battery-electric trucks slows in North America, Stellantis is reassessing its product strategy and will discontinue development of a full-size BEV pickup,” the company’s statement reads. “As part of this, Ram is renaming…
The countdown is on: The application to host a Side Event at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 closes tonight at 11:59 p.m. PT. If you’ve been considering a way to amplify your brand during the week’s tech epicenter, now is the time to lock it in. Your Side Event could be the dinner everyone’s still talking about, the panel that sparks a deal, or the happy hour that launches a new collaboration. With 10,000+ Disrupt attendees in San Francisco — plus the global spotlight of TechCrunch promotion — your event won’t just happen. It will resonate. IMAGE CREDITS:SLAVA BLAZER PHOTOGRAPHY Today’s deadline is…
As people worldwide join forces to avert the worst consequences of the climate crisis, the industry largely responsible for turning up the heat is doubling down on efforts to keep record profits rolling. Paying for media and “influencer” campaigns, selling “natural” gas as a climate solution, attacking electric vehicles, holding conferences, garnering support from political and media entities — the fossil fuel industry employs many strategies to maintain its lucrative hold on global economies and lives. In a system where billionaires, corporations and the politicians they’ve bought hold the economic reins, and the “invisible hand of the market” and constant…
Software might be eating the world, but it’s taking some industries longer than others to realize its full potential. From iPhones to Teslas, people have grown accustomed to software updates improving the stuff they already own. But outside consumer electronics and automobiles, over-the-air updates aren’t commonplace yet. Yet that’s beginning to change, starting with an unlikely product: heat pumps. Last week, heat pump startup Quilt said that it pushed an update last week to heat pumps already installed in customers’ homes. It wasn’t just a bug fix either: The new software and firmware boosted the units’ heating and cooling…