US President Barack Obama hit back at Russia for meddling in presidential election. He took a series of tough actions against intelligence agencies, expulsions of agents and shutting down of Russian compounds on US soil. The actions followed repeated private and public warnings that Washington had issued to the Russian government. Sanctions have been issued against Russia’s FSB and ...

  Kevin Drum of Mother Jones thinks that making Obamacare work could have been a simple task for Democrats. All they needed was two things: • About twice as much funding, and • A higher tax penalty for not buying insurance. More funding would have allowed them to offer higher subsidies to people with incomes above 200 percent of the ...

  Phew. Somehow, I survived the uncertainty and anxiety of what economists like me often regard as an inefficient tradition: spending hours looking for the right holiday gifts. Fortunately, this year’s trials and tribulations provided me with a few more anxiety-reducing steps for the next set of birthdays, anniversaries and holidays. This time, it was even more clear that most ...

  Elaine Ou 2016 hasn’t been a brilliant year for Silicon Valley. Lawsuits and regulatory investigations have shed light on the antics of high-profile companies such as Theranos, Zenefits, Hampton Creek and Hyperloop One. Even outside of public scandal, dubious tactics abound. A recent Fortune column asks whether Silicon Valley pushes ethical boundaries too far. Has cutthroat competition led the ...

  Bloomberg Italy’s rescue of troubled lender Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena SpA will cost the government about 6.6 billion euros ($7 billion), the country’s central bank says, providing the first official estimate of public funding. About 4.6 billion euros are needed to meet capital requirements and 2 billion euros would be required to compensate the lender’s retail bondholders, ...

  Bloomberg The code name chosen for Nomura Holdings Inc.’s latest cost-cutting drive indicates how strongly its chief executive sees the need for savings at Japan’s largest brokerage. After slashing hundreds of overseas jobs since April, CEO Koji Nagai has unveiled his so-called “Waterline Project,” which will attempt to combat waste and improve the cost-effectiveness of the bank’s daily operations ...

  Reuters India’s benchmark sovereign bonds are set to cap their best performance since the global financial crisis amid record debt purchases by banks, the biggest holders of government securities. Lenders gorged on debt this year as the central bank boosted cash availability in the financial system and deposits surged following the government’s recall of high-value currency notes. That, along ...

  DUBAI / Reuters Commercial Bank of Qatar (CBQ) will open subscriptions for a 1.5 billion riyals ($412 million) rights issue on January 8, the Gulf state’s third-largest lender by assets said. The subscription period for shareholders and holders of subscription rights will run until 1 p.m. Doha time (1000 GMT) on Jan. 22, the bank said in a statement. ...

  Bloomberg While merrily chirping, dancing and posing for selfies, a robot named Pepper looks like another expensive toy at a San Francisco mall. But don’t dismiss it as mere child’s play. Pepper embodies the ambitions of SoftBank Robotics, an Asian joint venture formed by a trio of major technology companies that’s aiming to put its personable robots in businesses ...

  Bloomberg Jack Dorsey wants Twitter Inc.’s users to know he’s listening to them. His tweet soliciting product feedback from users drew hundreds of responses, highlighting concerns with everything from abuse on the site to users’ inability to fix errors after they publish tweets. “We’ll consider everything we heard from you,” Dorsey said Friday on Twitter. “Not going to ship ...