Even for Chinese authorities, who have long tried to limit the influence of foreign media and ideas, last week marked an escalation. In the span of a few days, authorities blocked access to Twitch, the video-game live-streaming platform owned by Amazon.com Inc.; ordered a purge of foreign content from school textbooks; and proposed restricting foreign programming — especially current-events shows ...

A boon for Hong Kong’s banks could turn into an opportunity for the city’s hard-pressed savers. HSBC Holdings Plc, the biggest of Hong Kong’s banks, and its subsidiary Hang Seng Bank Ltd., raised their prime rate – the best lending rate on which most loans, including mortgages are based – by 12 basis points. Standard Chartered Plc quickly followed suit, ...

It’s been a bad year for Facebook Inc. OK, a truly terrible year. It just got even worse. The founders of Instagram, the photo-and-video app that Facebook agreed to buy shortly before its 2012 IPO, are leaving the company. Bloomberg News reported that the founders, Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, grew frustrated as Facebook impinged on their autonomy. It’s not ...