Stock markets around the world tumbled Friday while U.S. Treasury prices rose along with demand for safer bets as better-than-expected U.S. economic data did little to ease anxiety over disappointing corporate profits and trade wars. Wall Street closed above its session lows, but earnings reports from Amazon.com and Alphabet, issued …
Far-right extremists have ramped up an intimidating wave of anti-Semitic harassment against Jewish journalists, political candidates and others ahead of next month’s U.S. midterm elections, according to a report released Friday by a Jewish civil rights group. The Anti-Defamation League’s report says its researchers analyzed more than 7.5 million Twitter …
Facebook announced Friday that it has removed 82 accounts, pages or groups from its site and Instagram that originated in Iran, with some of the account owners posing as residents of the United States or Britain and tweeting about liberal politics. At least one of the Facebook pages had more …
U.S. stock market indexes fell sharply in Friday’s early trading, but saw losses ease later in the day. At one point the S&P 500 and the Dow were down by two percent or more, while the NASDAQ was off by 3.5 percent at one point. Investors worried about faltering growth, …
The U.S. economy grew at a robust annual rate of 3.5 percent in the July-September quarter as the strongest burst of consumer spending in nearly four years helped offset a sharp drag from trade. The Commerce Department said Friday that the third quarter’s gross domestic product, the country’s total output …
Top trade officials from 12 countries and the European Union on Thursday vowed to reform World Trade Organization rules in the face of U.S. actions that threaten to paralyze the body and address some of Washington’s complaints about Chinese subsidies. The officials, meeting in the Canadian capital Ottawa, said they …
Major U.S. stock indexes made strong gains in Thursday’s trading after some upbeat profit reports by major companies. The Nasdaq composite posted its biggest daily gain since March, as Microsoft’s upbeat earnings spurred a rebound in technology names and investors snapped up oversold shares. The Nasdaq added 209.94 points, or 2.95 percent, to 7,318.34, a day after it confirmed a correction …
British regulators slapped Facebook on Thursday with a fine of 500,000 pounds ($644,000) — the maximum possible — for failing to protect the privacy of its users in the Cambridge Analytica scandal. At the same time, European Union lawmakers demanded an audit of Facebook to better understand how it handles …
Google is abandoning plans to establish a campus for tech startups in Berlin after protests from residents worried about gentrification. The internet giant confirmed reports Thursday it will sublet the former electrical substation in the capital’s Kreuzberg district to two charitable organizations, Betterplace.org and Karuna. Google has more than a …
Another torrent of selling gripped Wall Street on Wednesday, sending the Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeting more than 600 points and extending a losing streak for the benchmark S&P 500 index to a sixth day. The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite bore the brunt of the sell-off, leaving it more than 10 …
Campaigners in a bohemian district of Berlin celebrated Wednesday after Internet giant Google abandoned strongly-opposed plans to open a large campus there. The US firm had planned to set up an incubator for start-up companies in Kreuzberg, one of the older districts in the west of the capital. But the …
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said on Wednesday the kingdom will continue with reforms and spending on infrastructure, predicting the economy will grow by 2.5 percent this year. Speaking at an investment conference in Riyadh, the crown prince also said he expected economic growth next year to be higher. …
Facebook Inc said on Wednesday that company moderators during the last quarter removed 8.7 million user images of child nudity with the help of previously undisclosed software that automatically flags such photos. The machine learning tool rolled out over the last year identifies images that contain both nudity and a …
The head of Apple on Wednesday endorsed tough privacy laws for both Europe and the U.S. and renewed the technology giant’s commitment to protecting personal data, which he warned was being “weaponized” against users. Speaking at an international conference on data privacy, Apple CEO Tim Cook applauded European Union …
Julius Wakam worked in auto manufacturing for 11 years before being laid off in 2008. Today, the married father of three has a job at a hardware store to make ends meet until he can secure another well-paying position in his field. Like many workers in America’s so-called Rust Belt, …
Smugglers and other organized criminals are likely to exploit gaps in border enforcement if Britain leaves the European Union without an agreement, a watchdog warned Wednesday, amid a growing chorus of warnings about the disruptive impact of a “no-deal” Brexit. Britain is due to leave the EU on March 29, …
The technology used in space missions can be expensive but it has some practical benefits here on Earth. Case in point: the thousands of high resolution images taken from the surface of Mars, collected by the two Mars rovers – Spirit and Opportunity. Now researchers at Carnegie Mellon University, in …
The controversy over the death of Saudi Arabian journalist Jamal Khashoggi has shined a harsh light on the growing financial ties between Silicon Valley and the world’s largest oil exporter. As Saudi Arabia’s annual investment forum in Riyadh — dubbed “Davos in the Desert” — continues, representatives from many of …
Technological solutions to prevent land corruption require resources, but they do not have to be expensive, land rights experts said Tuesday. Satellite imagery, cloud computing and blockchain are among technologies with the potential to help many of the world’s more than 1 billion people estimated to lack secure property rights. But they can be expensive and …
Coffee drinkers in the nation’s capital can now order that tall pumpkin spice iced skim latte in sign language. Starbucks has opened its first U.S. “signing store” to better serve hard of hearing customers. The store in Washington is just blocks from Gallaudet University, one of the nation’s oldest universities …
Global stocks tumbled Tuesday amid investors’ concerns over world economic growth and gloomy forecasts from U.S. bellwether companies. Major Asian indexes fell sharply after China increased financing for privately-held companies. Compounding investor worries were gloomy forecasts from U.S. industrial giants Caterpillar and 3M. The developments dampened investor optimism about the …
Apple’s new iPhone XR has most of the features found in the top-of-the-line iPhone XS Max, but not its $1,100 price tag. The XR offers the right trade-offs for just $750. For something cheaper, you’ll need to look in the iPhone history bin. Older models are still quite good. If …
Twitter has removed some accounts thought to be used to circumvent a ban on conspiracy-monger Alex Jones and Infowars, the company said Tuesday. A Twitter spokesman confirmed that the accounts had been removed but provided no additional comment. The company says it usually does not discuss specific accounts. Twitter permanently …
A new artificial intelligence program could make land borders across Europe more secure. When a pilot program begins next month, an avatar – called i-Border-Control – will help police guard several border crossings within the 26-nation, European Schengen Area. The technology was introduced this weekend (October 20) at a science …
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration on Monday said it had ordered Transdev North America to immediately stop transporting schoolchildren in Florida in a driverless shuttle as the testing could be putting them at “inappropriate” risk. The auto safety agency known as NHTSA said in an order issued late Friday …
The World Health Organization is closely watching the Ebola outbreak in Congo where the number of cases has risen to 185 since the outbreak started in August. One of the challenges for health workers fighting highly infectious diseases like Ebola is spending time in HazMat suits. They can be unwieldy …