Airbnb agrees to buy HotelTonight in its biggest acquisition yet

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Bloomberg Airbnb Inc. agreed to buy HotelTonight, its biggest acquisition yet, in a move to increase hotel listings on the site ahead of an eventual initial public offering for the home-sharing startup. Airbnb declined to disclose financial terms of the deal, but a person familiar with the matter said the price is close to HotelTonight’s last private valuation. A venture ...

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Purdue Pharma says trial timing won’t sway bankruptcy call

Nc: corporations in north carolina

Bloomberg Purdue Pharma LLP says its decision on whether to file for bankruptcy to avoid being swamped by opioid lawsuits doesn’t depend on the timing of the first trial over its role in the public-health crisis. A judge in Oklahoma refused Purdue’s, Johnson & Johnson’s and Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd.’s requests to push back a May trial of Oklahoma officials’ ...

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Aluminum costs down 12% since tariffs imposed: Trump

Trump touts aluminum cost drop, but americans pay more copy

Bloomberg President Donald Trump took a victory lap on Twitter, saying aluminum prices are down about 12 percent since his tariffs were implemented. While Trump’s figure is mostly accurate, as far as the price of the metal traded on the London Metal Exchange is concerned, the president failed to point out that the impact of tariffs was reflected mostly in ...

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US hiring plunges to weakest in a year

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Bloomberg US hiring was the weakest in more than a year while wage gains were the fastest of the expansion and the unemployment rate fell, a possible sign that America’s jobs engine is starting to slow down. Treasuries rose while the dollar and stock futures fell. Nonfarm payrolls increased by 20,000 after an upwardly revised 311,000 gain the prior month, ...

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Can the Mueller report provide any resolution?

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Robert Mueller’s final report should present Congress with a clean choice: Either the facts warrant impeachment of President Trump, or they don’t. That was the promise of Mueller’s appointment as special counsel: He would gather the evidence, and then Congress and the public could make a judgment. In a country with a healthy political system, Mueller’s report would lead to ...

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China’s tax cuts just won’t cut it

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Beijing’s tax cuts will do little to lift China Inc. from its malaise. Premier Li Keqiang’s annual work report to the National People’s Congress set out a widely expected cut of 3 percentage points to the top value-added tax bracket of 16 percent and a 1 percentage point cut to the 10 percent bracket. In theory, both are aimed at ...

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Even Germans can’t deny reality in Europe

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So, they have been paying attention to the fragile state of Europe’s economy after all. According to a Bloomberg News report, the European Central Bank (ECB) will acknowledge that its own downgrades to the euro area’s growth and inflation forecasts are big enough to justify a change in monetary policy. This is the green light for a new round of ...

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OECD spares the world’s most popular scapegoat

Forecast cutting resembles a business model these days. Another day, another venerable firm or institution reduces projections for economic growth. The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) is the latest to jump on the bandwagon, citing trade tussles, China’s downdraft and Brexit. On the face of it, the overall picture isn’t dire. The OECD clipped its world-growth forecast to ...

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US trade snub should be wake-up call for India

India's prime minister modi hugs u.s. president trump as they give joint statements in the rose garden of the white house in washington

It’s hard to find anyone willing to say — on the record — that anything could be wrong with the relationship between India and the US. Over the past 20 years, the world’s two largest democracies have grown steadily closer. But the truth is that this has happened in spite of the economic linkages between the two countries, not because ...

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Russia’s dirty money tars Europe’s ‘elite’

Danish economy as government bonds worst performing

Even for those who haven’t been following the vicissitudes of European banks blow by blow, the latest wave of money-laundering allegations to hit some of the region’s lenders is reason to look away in despair. Firms from Swedbank AB to Raiffeisen Bank International are alleged to have handled a broad range of suspicious transactions involving Russian money. It will take ...

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