Bloomberg Volkswagen, Europe’s biggest automaker, plans to launch its first pure-electric car in China next year as Beijing steps up pressure on the industry to promote alternatives to gasoline. The announcement on Tuesday comes on the eve of the Shanghai auto show, which showcases industry efforts to create electric models with consumer appeal. General Motors Co.’s Buick unit and ...

  Bloomberg Ten years after Steve Jobs held up the original iPhone to a gushing San Francisco crowd, Apple Inc. is planning its most extensive iPhone lineup to date. Apple is preparing three iPhones for launch as soon as this fall, including upgraded versions of the current two iPhone models and a new top-of-the-line handset with an overhauled look, according ...

  Bloomberg Despite a lack of big consumer deals, and Berlin losing out to London as the European hub of venture capital, German investors have notched an up-tick in deals over the first quarter and are on the hunt for software startups. Venture capital firms invested $467 million across 87 equity deals in German-based startups in the first quarter, according ...

  Bloomberg President Donald Trump was expected to take aim at information-technology outsourcing comp- anies on Tuesday when he orders a review of H-1B visa programs to favor more skilled and highly paid applicants. An administration official who briefed reporters in advance named Tata Consultancy Services, Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp. and Mphasis Corp. as examples of outsourcing companies that would ...

  Bloomberg US cereal company Post Holdings Inc. agreed to buy Weetabix Ltd. from Bright Food Group Co. of China for 1.4 billion pounds ($1.8 billion), adding the British breakfast staple to a portfolio that includes Grape Nuts and Honey Bunches of Oats. The deal for the maker of oval-shaped cereal bricks gives Post a stronger presence in the UK, ...

  Saudi Arabia blazed the global debt capital markets with its first-dollar denominated Islamic bond offering. The $9 billion bond attracted more than three times as many bids as were offered. The money will provide additional breathing room to the government’s finances, just as the $17.5 billion international bond debut last year, which was the largest of its kind in ...

  A business cycle upswing is giving the impression that China’s financial vulnerabilities are also on the mend. Yet the evidence in support of this cheery view is patchy at best. Since financial booms and busts play out over a far longer horizon and have a bigger amplitude than more frequent waves in corporate sentiment, a dose of skepticism about ...

  On one issue, at least, President Donald Trump has united the country: More than 70 percent of the public — across political parties — oppose a bill he signed that rolls back rules protecting online privacy. Unfortunately, it’s an issue on which Trump and the Republican Congress happen to be mostly right. The rules in question, which hadn’t yet ...

  Hundreds of Palestinians in Israeli prisons launched a hunger strike demanding better conditions, more contacts with relatives, and to end Israel’s practice of detentions without trial. Thousands staged solidarity march in West Bank and Gaza. The hunger strike was led by Marwan Barghouti, who was arrested during Palestinian uprising in 2002 and convicted on multiple counts of murder for ...

  Economists who lean toward the free-market side of the ideological spectrum often say that tax cuts help the US economy by encouraging people to work more. Greg Mankiw, a Harvard economist who earns a very high income from his famous textbooks, has repeatedly claimed that higher taxes will discourage him from working more. The supposed mechanism is simple — ...