Spotify to stop selling US political advertising

Bloomberg Spotify Technology SA will stop selling US political advertising in early 2020, following Twitter Inc’s lead in steering clear of a contentious election cycle. The move will apply to Spotify’s ad-supported service, as well as its original and exclusive podcasts, the company said. The music-streaming service never sold political ads in other countries, so the change only affects the ...

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Regeneron cuts employee numbers as it reworks partnership with Sanofi

Bloomberg Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc said it plans to cut some staff as it restructures its partnership with French drugmaker Sanofi, with whom it had shared drug sales responsibilities. Regeneron employees to be affected work on the rheumatoid arthritis drug Kevzara, which Sanofi is expected to gain global rights to under the restructuring. There will be no Kevzara roles at Regeneron ...

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Drugmaker Melinta files for bankruptcy in US

Bloomberg Melinta Therapeutics Inc, a bio-pharmaceutical company specialising in infectious disease treatment, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in Delaware with plans to continue operating. Melinta listed as much as $500 million in assets and up to $500 million in liabilities in its bankruptcy petition. Founded in 2000 by scientists including Nobel Prize winner Thomas Steitz, the company sells drugs that ...

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Wheat could be surprise winner of US-China deal

Bloomberg In the agriculture world, news of the partial US-China trade deal has sparked a lot of buzz about soybeans. It turns out, wheat could actually end up being a bigger surprise winner. Speculations is mounting that China will work to fill its wheat-buying quota as part of the detente, a pledge it failed to stick to in the past. ...

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Apple sued by NY doctor over watch’s heart technology

Bloomberg A New York University cardiologist claims Apple Inc’s Watch uses his patented heartbeat-monitoring invention and he wants compensation. Dr Joseph Wiesel, who teaches at NYU School of Medicine, filed a suit recently against the tech giant, in federal court in Brooklyn. Wiesel claims the Apple Watch infringes his patent for a method to detect an irregular heartbeat. Apple promotes ...

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Amazon’s Deliveroo deal probed as UK targets tech giants

Bloomberg Amazon.com Inc’s purchase of a minority stake in UK food startup Deliveroo faces a British probe in another sign of mounting antitrust scrutiny of American tech giants. The Competition and Markets Authority said it’s opening an in-depth investigation of Amazon’s investment of about $500 million, saying it risked a “substantial lessening” of competition “in the supply of online food ...

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US denies seeking 20% troop funding boost from S Korea

Bloomberg The US denied a report that it’s demanding South Korea pay as much as 20% more to host American troops, as funding talks between the two nations continue. The 10%-20% figure referred to in Korean media is “ungrounded speculation,” a Trump administration official said by email. US negotiators will seek a “fair and equitable” outcome at the next round ...

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Truck bomb kills 73 in Somalia’s capital

Bloomberg More than 73 people died when a truck bomb exploded during rush hour at a busy intersection in Somalia’s capital, police said. An explosives-laden vehicle hit the taxation office near a junction in Mogadishu, Ahmed Abdi Hussein, a Somali police officer, told Bloomberg News by phone. Another police official said the target was Turkish engineers who were in a ...

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US contractor killed as rocket hits Iraqi base

Bloomberg A rocket attack on an Iraqi military base killed an American contractor and wounded several US and Iraqi military personnel, the Defense Department said. Iraqi security forces were “leading the response and investigation” following the assault on the base in Kirkuk, where coalition forces are based, the Pentagon said in a statement. The names of the contractor and the ...

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Police use face-recognition software as India protests continue unabated

Bloomberg Indian police have started using facial-recognition software to screen large crowds as protests over a new religion-based citizenship law intensify, the Indian Express newspaper reported, citing people it didn’t identify. The software, originally acquired in 2018 to find lost children, was used at a political rally for the first time on December 22, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi staunchly ...

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