September 28, 2021 By David Kirton GUANGZHOU, China (Reuters) – Guo Hui, whose cleaning business is owed 20 million yuan ($3.1 million) by embattled real estate giant China Evergrande, is counting on the government to fix a crisis that has left his own company on the brink of bankruptcy. In the meantime, the 50-year-old known […]
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‘No Time to Die’ breathes fresh life into UK cinema chains
September 28, 2021 By Muvija M (Reuters) – Advance ticket sales for the latest James Bond movie at UK-based cinema chains Odeon and Cineworld were at levels last seen in 2019, setting it up to be the biggest opening since the pandemic gripped the industry. Odeon said on Monday it has sold more than 175,000 […]
RPA industry consolidation continues with sale of Blue Prism to Vista for £1.095B
The RPA market has been red hot over the last year, and today one of the market’s pioneers, Blue Prism was sold to Vista Equity Partners for £1.095 billion ($1.3701 billion USD), according to an official filing in Great Britain this morning. While we have seen a lot of RPA startups being acquired by larger […]
American Airlines signs code-sharing pact with India’s largest airline
September 28, 2021 (Reuters) – American Airlines announced a code-sharing agreement with India’s largest airline IndiGo on Tuesday, with the U.S. airline gearing up to launch new flights between the two countries. The agreement, which is expected to begin in October, will see American’s “code” on 29 of IndiGo’s domestic routes in India. Code-sharing allows […]
Factbox-Hiring for holiday season in tightening U.S. labor market
September 28, 2021 (Reuters) – Retailers, restaurants and providers of delivery services are scrambling to hire and retain workers ahead of the all-important holiday season as they wrestle with a tight U.S. labor market. While some are offering more work hours to existing employees to ensure their stores are sufficiently staffed during the festive season, […]
TAV Airports-led consortium raises $450 million in loans for Almaty airport
September 28, 2021 ALMATY (Reuters) -A consortium led by Turkey’s TAV Airports has raised $450 million in loans to finance upgrades at the airport of Almaty, Kazakhstan’s biggest city, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) said. The EBRD and the International Finance Corporation, an arm of the World Bank, have each contributed $150 […]
China’s Xi calls for nurturing of patriotic scientists
September 28, 2021 By Yew Lun Tian BEIJING (Reuters) – President Xi Jinping wants to increase the talent pool of scientists and intellectuals in China who have the “correct political inclination” and are imbued with patriotic feelings to serve their nation, state news agency Xinhua said on Tuesday. China, the world’s second biggest economy, aims […]
Analysis-End of furlough brings uncertainty for UK jobs and economy
September 28, 2021 By David Milliken LONDON (Reuters) – More than a million British workers face an uncertain future this week as the UK becomes the world’s first big economy to wind up its COVID-19 jobs support scheme. The programme, which at its peak paid a third of employees to stay at home, cost more […]
Cocaine, ecstasy found in river at Glastonbury Festival
September 28, 2021 LONDON (Reuters) -A river that runs through the Glastonbury Festival, the largest greenfield music festival in the world, is contaminated with illicit drugs such as cocaine and ecstasy because stoned revellers often urinate on the ground, scientists said. Researchers from Bangor University found that concentrations of MDMA, known as ecstasy, quadrupled downstream […]
Battery Ventures leads Arize AI’s $19M round for ML observability
Arize AI is applying machine learning to some of technology’s toughest problems. To continue with its mission, the company announced $19 million in Series A funding. Battery Ventures led the round with participation from existing investors Foundation Capital, Trinity Ventures, The House Fund and Swift Ventures. The new round comes over a year after the […]
Nomad Homes raises $20M to create a personalized house hunting platform for Europe, Middle East
Not every country has a Multiple Listing Service to aid in buying and selling a home. This often makes the process complicated as buyers weed through fake and duplicate listings and little pricing data, unlike in the United States. Property technology startup Nomad Homes is working to change that by creating a personalized real estate […]
Cloudflare to enter infrastructure services market with new R2 storage product
Cloudflare, which has a network of data centers in 250 locations around the world, announced its first dalliance with infrastructure services today, an upcoming cloud storage offering called R2. Company co-founder and CEO Matthew Prince, says that the idea for moving into storage as a service came from the same place as other ideas the […]
Recruiting platform Gem gains unicorn status with $100M raise to change the way companies hire
Steve Bartel saw for himself how important hiring is. He was among the first hires at Dropbox and acted as hiring manager to grow the company to over 1,000 in less than five years. He met co-founder Nick Bushak at MIT. Bushak was later at Facebook leading product engineering teams and also had a similar […]
Russia launches new case against jailed Kremlin critic Navalny
September 28, 2021 MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia’s Investigative Committee has launched a new criminal case against jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny and his allies, the committee said in a statement on Tuesday. The committee said it was investigating Navalny on suspicion of setting up an “extremist group” together with his associates. A Russian court has […]
ECB shouldn’t overreact to temporary inflation spike, Lagarde says
September 28, 2021 FRANKFURT (Reuters) – European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde continued play down inflation worries on Tuesday and warned against overreacting to a temporary spike in prices. “The key challenge is to ensure that we do not overreact to transitory supply shocks that have no bearing on the medium term, while also nurturing […]
Sanofi ditches mRNA COVID-19 vaccine after rivals’ success
September 28, 2021 PARIS (Reuters) -Sanofi is dropping plans for its own mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccine because of the dominance achieved by BioNTech-Pfizer and Moderna in using the technology to fight the pandemic, the company said on Tuesday. The move highlights the challenges of competing in particular with pioneer BioNTech, which rose from obscurity through its […]
EU executive urges VW to compensate all EU consumers over Dieselgate
September 28, 2021 BRUSSELS (Reuters) – The European Commission and EU consumer authorities urged Volkswagen on Tuesday to compensate all consumers, not just those in Germany, for having misled them over the emissions of vehicles they bought. The German carmaker admitted wrongdoing in the Dieselgate scandal in 2015, triggering a series of legal cases, some […]
Germany’s SPD wants to open coalition talks this week
September 28, 2021 BERLIN (Reuters) – Germany’s Social Democrats, who narrowly won Sunday’s national election ahead of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives, said on Tuesday they hoped to talk to the Greens and Free Democrats later this week about forming a three-way government. The Greens and the liberal FDP, who are far apart on many issues, […]
Barty returns to Australia to see family, no decision on rest of season
September 28, 2021 By Sudipto Ganguly (Reuters) – World number one Ash Barty has made no decision on the rest of her season despite pulling out of next month’s WTA 1000 tournament at Indian Wells to return to Australia to see her family, her team told Reuters on Tuesday. The Wimbledon champion last played at […]
Dollar boosted by U.S. Treasury yields surge; British pound drops
September 28, 2021 By Elizabeth Howcroft LONDON (Reuters) – The U.S. dollar climbed to its highest in more than five weeks, while other major G10 currencies dropped, as higher U.S. Treasury yields made the dollar more attractive to investors. U.S. Treasury yields have surged since the end of last week, after the Federal Reserve said […]