The average retail price for propane is $2.43 per gallon, up 6-tenths of a cent from last week's price, and up 2.6 cents from a year ago, based on the residential heating fuel survey by the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Propane prices in the Midwest region averaged $1.93 per gallon, up 4-tenths of a cent from last week, and up 1-tenth of a cent from a year ago.

The average retail price for home heating oil rose 6-tenths of a cent from last week to $3.49 per gallon. That's down 76.2 cents from a year ago, based on the residential heating fuel survey by the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Heating oil prices in the New England region are at $3.44 per gallon, unchanged from last week, but down 73 cents from a year ago.

The average retail price for propane is $2.43 per gallon, up 2.7 cents from last week's price, and up 4.8 cents from a year ago, based on the residential heating fuel survey by the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Propane prices in the Midwest region averaged $1.96 per gallon, up 2 cents from last week, and up 1.8 cents from a year ago.

The average retail price for home heating oil rose 4-tenths of a cent from last week to $3.49 per gallon. That's down 74 cents from a year ago, based on the residential heating fuel survey by the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Heating oil prices in the New England region are at $3.44 per gallon, up 1.3 cents from last week, but down 70.6 cents from a year ago.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimates that U.S. natural gas consumption reached a record high in January at 118 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d). A burst of cold weather increased demand for heating and reduced natural gas production, which led to high inventory withdrawals.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) expects the benchmark Henry Hub spot price to average about $2.25 per million British thermal units (MMBtu) in 2024, a 10% decrease from 2023 and a 65% decrease from 2022. In its March Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO), EIA forecasts that U.S. natural gas inventories will be more than 30% higher than average at the end of the winter season following relatively low winter demand.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) decreased its forecast for U.S. coal exports following the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge and the resulting closure of the Port of Baltimore. In its April Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO), EIA reduced its forecasts for U.S. coal exports for April by 33% and for May by 20% from previous forecasts.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) expects that the United States will generate more electricity from renewables and coal in the second half of this year, as electricity demand and natural gas prices increase.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) has several sets of data on the domestic production of crude oil and natural gas. Depending on your interests, the resources below can help you find the crude oil and natural gas data you need.

Natural gas produced from the three largest tight oil-producing plays in the United States has increased in the last decade. Natural gas comprised 40% of total production from the Bakken, the Eagle Ford, and the Permian compared with 29% in 2014.

U.S. exports of ethane and ethane-based petrochemicals reached an all-time high of 21.6 million metric tons (MMmt) in 2023, up 135% since the United States began exporting ethane in 2014 and 17% more than in 2022, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau. The rapid expansion of U.S. ethane and ethane-based petrochemical exports has been fueled by the growth in domestic ethane production, which has increased with the country's natural gas production and the buildout of export and production infrastructure.

U.S. fuel ethanol exporters are on track to export a record amount of the fuel in 2024. The increase in exports this year has largely been driven by demand in countries with biofuel blending mandates and cheaper-than-usual U.S. fuel ethanol prices.

TikTok is experimenting with games, initially in partnership with mobile gaming giant Zynga. On Monday, Zynga announced its plans to launch a new HTML5-based game, “Disco Loco 3D,” exclusively on the TikTok platform. The casual game is a single-player endless runner where players collect their own dance moves while challenging friends, avoiding obstacles and collecting […]

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Istanbul has become a city to watch when it comes to casual gaming startups, boosted by the likes of Peak (acquired by Zynga for $1.8 billion) and Dream (valued at $1 billion in a funding round last year). Now, a new startup is announcing a major round of funding to make its own mark on […]

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Hello friends and welcome to Daily Crunch, bringing you the most important startup, tech and venture capital news in a single package.

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Casual mobile games have reached a fever pitch of interest with consumers, and so too with investors, who are rushing to back the biggest and most promising startups building these quick hits of engagement and diversion. In the latest development, a startup out of London called Tripledot — the company behind a popular Solitaire app, […]

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There’s no shortage of digital banks in Nigeria and, in general, in Africa. As the region continues to experience rapid growth in mobile usage and the corresponding growing young population, these fintechs think this is the right time to provide financial services to every market category, from the banked to the unbanked. We’ve covered a […]

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As founders plan for an increasingly AI-centric future, Gusto co-founder and head of technology Edward Kim said that cutting existing teams and hiring a bunch of specially trained AI engineers is “the wrong way to go.” Instead, he argued that nontechnical team members can “actually have a much deeper understanding than an average engineer on […]

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Uber and Lyft need to do more to support disabled passengers, especially those who are blind or visually impaired, according to protesters who gathered outside the companies’ headquarters on October 15. Wired spoke to protesters who shared stories about drivers passing them by or refusing to let them bring their guide dogs on a ride. […]

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AI search engine Perplexity is in fundraising talks and hopes to raise around $500 million at an $8 billion valuation, according to The Wall Street Journal. If a deal happens with those terms, it would more than double Perplexity’s valuation from its $3 billion valuation when it raised from SoftBank over the summer. The WSJ […]

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A federal jury ruled Friday that Masimo smartwatches infringed Apple patents, but Apple isn’t getting a big payday. Bloomberg Law reports that the company was only seeking the statutory minimum of $250, and that’s all it was awarded. Apple’s attorney John Desmarais reportedly told jurors, “We’re not here for the money.” Instead, he said the […]

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Software engineers, developers, and academic researchers have serious concerns about transcriptions from OpenAI’s Whisper, according to a report in the Associated Press. While there’s been no shortage of discussion around generative AI’s tendency to hallucinate — basically, to make stuff up — it’s a bit surprising that this is an issue in transcription, where you’d […]

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The Mac mini will be getting an upgrade this week, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman. The mini is Apple’s desktop computer (really just a small gray box) positioned between the consumer iMac and the company’s professional-grade desktops. The new mini is reportedly getting smaller — nearly the size of an Apple TV set-top box. It […]

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The popularity of an Instagram video can affect its actual video quality: According to Adam Mosseri (the Meta executive who leads Instagram and Threads), videos that are more popular get shown in higher quality, while less popular videos get shown in lower quality. In a video (via The Verge), Mosseri said Instagram tries to show […]

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The time has finally come to announce the five finalists of the Startup Battlefield. It all started earlier this year when the TechCrunch editorial team selected 200 companies from thousands that applied. From there, the team then chose the 20 finalists who pitched this week onstage at TechCrunch Disrupt 2024 to investor judges and packed […]

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Over the last three days, 20 startups participated in the incredibly competitive Startup Battlefield at TechCrunch Disrupt. These 20 companies were selected as the best of the Startup Battlefield 200 and competed for a chance to take home the Startup Battlefield Cup and $100,000. After three days of intense pitching, we have a winner. The […]

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OpenAI’s next flagship model might not represent as big a leap forward as its predecessors, according to a new report in The Information. Employees who tested the new model, code-named Orion, reportedly found that even though its performance exceeds OpenAI’s existing models, there was less improvement than they’d seen in the jump from GPT-3 to […]

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After a chip manufactured by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) was found inside a Huawei processor, the U.S. Department of Commerce has ordered the company to halt shipments of advanced chips to Chinese customers, according to a report in Reuters. Huawei faces significant trade restrictions from the U.S., so the pause on shipments is supposed […]

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Lawsuits against X (formerly Twitter) will soon be heard in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas. The shift was first announced last month as part of a broader set of changes to X’s terms of service and privacy policy. Now, with the changes set to take effect on November 15, The […]

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The company captures real-time customer behavior so companies can see who is genuine, and who is fraudulent, and identify the root cause of customer friction.

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Hello friends, and welcome back to Week in Review! Last week, we took a break from contextualization for some guides to consumption. This week, we’re looking at what’s happening in the mind of one Jack Dorsey. You can get this in your inbox from the newsletter page, and follow my tweets @lucasmtny. the big thing While […]

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The NFT auction marketplace OpenSea had a blockbuster 2021 and as a result is seeing its private valuation grow more quickly than almost any other startup. The crypto firm announced late Tuesday that it closed a $300 million Series C round led by Paradigm and Coatue. The raise valued the startup at a massive $13.3 […]

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Mandolin, the digital fan engagement platform, launched two new products today with the aim of assisting artists with turning fans into superfans and maximizing revenue. Fan Navigator helps artists collect fan data and teaches them how to engage fans with digital experiences. Mandolin’s Fan Pages also drive fan engagement with a page for the artist […]

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MobileCoin, the startup known for building Signal’s crypto payments feature, has appointed a new CEO as it works on expanding its encrypted money transfer service to global users in need of a more modern remittance solution. Sara Drakeley is taking the helm as MobileCoin’s new chief executive officer. Replacing her previous role as the firm’s […]

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Jack Dorsey’s Block (the company formerly known as Square) announced today that it is releasing its hardware Bitcoin wallet, Bitkey, in 95 countries. However, users can only preorder the device at the moment, with shipping starting in early 2024. The device will cost $150 USD. Block’s pitch to Bitcoin holders is that using a self-custodial […]

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Block, the company behind Square, Cash App and other services, announced a new program today allowing merchants using Square’s solutions to convert a percentage of their daily sales to bitcoin. The feature, rolling out in the U.S. starting today, will transfer 1-10% of Square sellers’ daily sales to their personal Cash App account. This amount […]

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It takes a veritable army to make TechCrunch Disrupt — which takes place October 18–20 in San Francisco — the well-oiled experience that savvy startuppers have come to know and love. And we couldn’t do it nearly as well without our incredible volunteers. If you’re looking for a no-budget way to experience Disrupt up close […]

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It’s not the crime, it’s the cover up… The scandal-hit company formerly known as Facebook has fought for over four years to keep a lid on the gory details of a third party app audit that its founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg personally pledged would be carried out, back in 2018, as he sought to […]

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Yahoo is taking a nearly 25% stake in advertising network Taboola. In exchange for this move, Taboola is becoming Yahoo’s native advertising partner through a 30-year commercial agreement. If you’re not familiar with Taboola, you may have seen its content recommendation widgets on popular news websites, such as USA Today, Insider and The Weather Channel. […]

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Taboola expects to get bigger, more profitable and more self-sustaining than before thanks to Yahoo.

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Yahoo today announced that it has acquired Wagr, a three-year-old social sports betting startup based out of Nashville. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. TechCrunch, whose parent company happens to be the now Apollo-owned Yahoo, covered Wagr way back at its inception in 2020 at one of its early investor’s demo days. We noted […]

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Weezy — an on-demand supermarket that delivers groceries in as fast as 15 minutes — has raised $20 million in a Series A funding led by New York-based venture capital fund Left Lane Capital. Also participating were U.K.-based fund DN Capital, earlier investors Heartcore Capital and angel investors, notably Chris Muhr, the Groupon founder. Although […]

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During every economic boom, there are startup investors who appear on the scene from new corners. Some churn out; others earn the respect of the old guard over time. Jake Paul would be happy to be in the latter camp. Then again, the 24-year-old didn’t become a social media star by being conventional. Little wonder […]

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Coupang early investor Ben Sun shares an inside look into the growth of the Korean e-commerce giant and explains how founder Bom Kim led a pivot when the company was already an established business.

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Like other financial sectors in Latin America, the retail investing space is getting a facelift by local tech startups that are cashing in on the untapped potential for democratizing asset management in the region. One of those startups is Chilean-based Fintual, which today announced a $15 million round led by Kaszek Ventures, the largest fund […]

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Gamification and social hooks have become cornerstones across every category of consumer apps these days, and today one that’s using these to build out a new e-commerce platform in Europe is announcing a seed round to give its growth a boost. Blidz — a social shopping app that offers big discounts (many items in categories […]

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UK-based Ravio reckons real-time data is the best way to arm businesses to win the global talent war. Its new-to-market compensation benchmarking tool lets users see how the compensation (wages and benefits) they offer their own staff compares to the market by pooling data across its employer customers (data is anonymized at the platform level) […]

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Chicago-based Groupon today laid off more than 500 of its employees — 15% of its 3,416-person headcount — according to posts from former employees on social media. The reduction impacted workers in teams including merchant development, sales, recruiting, engineering, product and marketing. Groupon confirmed the layoffs to TechCrunch after the publication of the story. “Our […]

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A dozen years ago, Groupon shot to fame popularizing the online group buying format, confidently rejecting a $6 billion acquisition offer from Google and instead going public with a $17.8 billion market cap. The company today says it has 14 million active users, but almost consistently for the last decade, its financial position has been […]

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