Snap – owner of popular messaging app Snapchat – is going public on Thursday. And it expects anyone buying up to a quarter of its shares to agree not to sell them for a year. Applying lock-ups helps companies moderate stock volatility. A year-long lock-up period is atypically long, potentially …
Greece and its lenders resumed a long-stalled review of its bailout Tuesday, with the government in Athens braced to commit to yet more austerity in exchange for the funds the country needs to remain solvent. The review has dragged on for months, partly because of a rift between the European …
Pakistan’s decision to close the border with Afghanistan was a largely symbolic act aimed at forcing its neighbor to take action against extremist groups blamed for fomenting cross-border terror attacks. It’s a hard reality for the travelers and traders trapped for nearly two weeks on both sides of the dusty …
Netflix employees were personally affected by U.S. President Donald Trump’s attempt to ban people entering from seven Muslim countries, its CEO said Tuesday. Reed Hastings has been an outspoken critic of the temporary travel ban, which Trump hopes to revive in a revised form this week, and told The Associated …
Billionaire investor Wilbur Ross was sworn in as U.S. commerce secretary on Tuesday after helping shape Republican President Donald Trump’s opposition to multilateral trade deals. Vice President Mike Pence administered the oath of office to Ross, 79, a day after the U.S. Senate voted to confirm the corporate turnaround expert’s …
South Korean special prosecutors said they would indict Samsung’s de facto chief Tuesday on bribery, embezzlement and other charges linked to a political scandal that has toppled President Park Geun-hye. The planned indictment of Samsung Electronics vice chairman Jay Y. Lee is a huge hit for the largest and most …
The last time the entire Sistine Chapel was photographed for posterity, digital photography was in its infancy and words like pixels were bandied about mostly by computer nerds and NASA scientists. Now, after decades of technological advances in art photography, digital darkrooms and printing techniques, a five-year project that will …
Sales of Cuba’s legendary cigars rose 5 percent last year to $445 million, defying stagnation in the global luxury goods market, manufacturer Habanos S.A. said on Monday at the opening of the Caribbean island’s annual cigar festival. Habanos, which makes brands including Cohiba, Monte Cristo and Romeo y Julieta, said …
Billionaire investor Wilbur Ross easily won confirmation as U.S. commerce secretary on Monday, clearing President Donald Trump’s top trade official to start work on renegotiating trade relationships with China and Mexico. The U.S. Senate voted 72-27 to confirm the 79-year-old corporate turnaround expert’s nomination, with strong support from Democrats. Ross …
In an effort to save on labor costs and increase efficiency, fast-food chain Wendy’s will install self-ordering kiosks in about 1,000 of its locations in the United States. According to David Trimm, a spokesman for the Ohio-based company, franchises that want the kiosks will, on average, install three of them, …
The American mining company Freeport-McMoRan has brought the world’s biggest gold mine, in the Indonesian province of West Papua, to a standstill. The corporation is butting heads with the Indonesian government over protectionist mining regulations. And now that Freeport has started to dismiss tens of thousands of workers, the local …
Many dog and cat owners think they know what how their animals are feeling. While that may be true, an animal collar or jacket, equipped with sensors, could give them even more information about the emotional state of their pet. The sensors provide data on things like body temperature and …
President Donald Trump’s administration will begin rolling back Obama-era environmental regulations in an “aggressive way” as soon as next week, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency said Saturday — adding that he understood why some Americans wanted to see his agency eliminated. “I think there are some regulations that …
Launching a startup is no easy feat. Launching one outside your native country is even harder. But for certain French startups, the French government is there to help. A government-sponsored competition that began last year offers startups marketing and promotional assistance. The Creative Next Challenge is a series of …
Facing pushback from industry and Republicans in Congress, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency delayed Friday a proposal that would require mining companies to show they have the financial wherewithal to clean up their pollution so taxpayers aren’t stuck footing the bill. Contaminated water from mine sites can flow into rivers …
When toymaker Estrela decided to move manufacturing capacity back to Latin America from China, it sank $2 million into a new factory not in its native Brazil – the region’s largest economy – but in its tiny southern neighbor Paraguay. The plant, which opened this month in the border town …
China for the first time became Germany’s most important trading partner in 2016, overtaking the United States, which fell back to third place behind France, data showed on Friday. German imports from and exports to China rose to 170 billion euros ($180 billion) last year, Federal Statistics Office figures reviewed …
Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras defended a deal reached between Athens and its foreign creditors for further reforms in return for bailout aid, saying it was an “honorable compromise.” Tsipras said he believed relations between Greece, the European Union and International Monetary Fund had turned a page after seven years …
Egyptians are bearing down under their worst inflation in a decade, cutting spending as much as possible as prices surge on basic food items, transportation, housing, and even some essential medicines. Inflation reached almost 30 percent in January, up 5 percent over the previous month, driven by the floatation of …
Unmanned aerial vehicles, better known as drones, have become a staple of everyday life. As more take to the air, the issue of how to avoid collisions between drones and aircraft, and other drones, is becoming a serious problem. As VOA’s George Putic reports, scientists are working on solutions. …
The original Oscar statue was hand carved by Los Angeles sculptor George Stanley. For decades the statuettes have been made by a Chicago trophy company and gold-plated. But last year, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences decided they wanted to return to the original bronze figure made using …
President Donald Trump told the heads of more than 20 of the largest U.S. manufacturers Thursday that he planned to bring millions of factory jobs back to the United States. Trump said the United States had lost one-third of its manufacturing jobs since the North American Free Trade Agreement was …
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Thursday the administration is committed to getting major tax reform legislation through Congress by August. He predicted that President Donald Trump’s economic proposals will be able to boost growth significantly to annual rates above 3 percent. Mnuchin said that tax reform is the administration’s top …
In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Gillis, Ellis & Baker, a New Orleans-based insurance company, relocated from the battered, flooded city to nearby Baton Rouge so it could carry on serving its 4,000 clients, who all had at least one claim following the storm. Had it not been …
Nearly 90 percent of Americans say they “constantly or often” check their email, texts and social media accounts leading to increased stress, according to a report from the American Psychological Association (APA). Those who said they checked constantly showed, on average, higher stress levels than those who checked less often. …
Alphabet Inc’s Google and subsidiary Jigsaw launched on Thursday a new technology to help news organizations and online platforms identify abusive comments on their websites. The technology, called Perspective, will review comments and score them based on how similar they are to comments people said were “toxic” or likely to …