News

September 28, 2021 BERLIN (Reuters) – Demand for transatlantic flights has jumped since the United States announced plans last week to reopen to fully vaccinated travellers from countries including most of Europe, German airline Lufthansa said on Tuesday. On some days last week, bookings for transatlantic flights were up threefold from the week before, with […]

September 28, 2021 (Reuters) -Mastercard Inc on Tuesday launched a buy now, pay later service, tapping into a market that is threatening to chip away at the dominance of credit cards as a main source of payments. The buy now, pay later sector got a boost during the COVID-19 pandemic as cash-strapped shoppers were attracted […]

September 28, 2021 (Reuters) – Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said on Tuesday the U.S. economy is still far from achieving maximum employment, a key component of the central bank’s requirements for raising interest rates. “What I said last week was that we had all but met the test for tapering,” said Powell, testifying before […]

September 28, 2021 By Nadeen Ebrahim MANSOURA, Egypt (Reuters) -A jailed Egyptian human rights researcher told supporters on Tuesday not to worry, as he was driven away from a courtroom where he is standing trial in a “fake news” case that has resonated in Italy where he was based. Patrick Zaki, 30, a graduate student […]

September 28, 2021 (Reuters) – Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell on Tuesday said he would welcome the appointment of a Black woman to the Federal Reserve Board of Governors for the first time. “I would strongly agree” that a wider range of “voices” on the Fed board would enhance the central bank’s mission, Powell said […]

September 28, 2021 (Reuters) – Facebook Inc said Tuesday it will ask its independent Oversight Board for recommendations on how to improve its cross-check system, an internal program the social media company says is used to double check enforcement actions against certain users. Earlier this month, the Wall Street Journal reported https://ift.tt/3lmJ9XQ millions of Facebook […]

September 28, 2021 WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The top U.S. securities regulator on Tuesday named Dan Berkovitz, a Commissioner at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), to begin the role of general counsel from November 1. The statement by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said John Coates will leave that post in October to return […]

September 28, 2021 WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said he will ask later Tuesday for unanimous consent for the chamber to hold a vote to increase the nation’s debt limit on a majority vote, which would skip the procedural step that normally requires a supermajority for legislation to advance. (Reporting by […]

September 28, 2021 By Joseph Ax and James Oliphant WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Almost a year after President Joe Biden trounced Donald Trump in Virginia, the state’s unexpectedly tight race for governor has alarmed Democrats and left Republicans hopeful they can win back crucial suburban voters who left the party during Trump’s tumultuous presidency. With early […]

Genomic data is considered to be the key to unlocking so-called ‘precision medicine’. Some estimates suggest that by 2025, 500 million human genomes will have been sequenced, but only a fraction of it is being utilized for drug discovery and precision medicine. One of the key startups to emerge in the space is Lifebit, which […]

Somehow the third quarter of 2021 is coming to a close. Instead of a period filled with family and friends and fun, in many parts of the world, the COVID era dragged on, leaving us largely working from home and executing more phone calls than impromptu brunches. Alas. But in the last handful of quarters, […]

A coalition of digital marketing firms and others has taken its lobbying against Google’s plan to phase out tracking cookies — by replacing them with alternative technologies which the tech giant claims will protect user privacy — to the European Union, lodging a formal complaint with the bloc’s antitrust regulators. The self-styled ‘Movement for an […]

Netflix is expanding its mobile gaming push with the launch of three more gaming titles which will become exclusively available to Netflix members in select European markets. The company today is introducing a trio of casual games — “Shooting Hoops,” “Teeter Up,” and “Card Blast” — to Netflix members in Spain and Italy, as well […]

Heartcore Capital, one of the few VCs to focus on consumer technology, has raised a $200 million early-stage fund for those kinds of startups across Europe. Heartcore IV, the firm’s flagship investment vehicle, will be supported by Heartcore Progression Beta, a $50 million ‘opportunity fund’ for follow on rounds in consumer tech. The firm said […]

Fintech startups have thrown a curve ball into the world of financial services, by building more flexible, cheaper and user-friendly tools to businesses and consumers, who in turn are walking away from older incumbents and taking their custom to newer providers. In the latest development, a startup called Highnote is launching with ambitions to make […]

General Motors’ BrightDrop continues its breakneck pace to market as the automaker takes aim at last-mile commercial and cargo delivery market segments. BrightDrop on Tuesday said it would add a second delivery vehicle to its lineup, with telecom giant Verizon as its first slated customer. In addition, GM said it had completed the first production […]

September 28, 2021 LISBON (Reuters) – Around 40,000 people from around the world are expected to attend Europe’s biggest technology conference, the Web Summit, in Lisbon in November, after the event was held online last year due to the coronavirus pandemic, organisers said on Tuesday. “Earlier this year it was unclear if the Web Summit […]

September 28, 2021 By Foo Yun Chee BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Google’s plan to block a popular web tracking tool called “cookies” is anti-competitive, a group of advertisers, publishers and tech companies said in a complaint to EU antitrust regulators. The grievance could boost the European Commission’s investigation opened in June into Alphabet unit Google’s Privacy […]

September 28, 2021 BERLIN (Reuters) – Tesla, well-versed in German bureaucracy as it tries to build a huge factory near Berlin, is seeking a waiver from COVID-19 rules on mass gatherings to host up to 9,000 people at a “Giga-Fest” to showcase its plans. The electric vehicle maker, which began construction in the town of […]

September 28, 2021 ANKARA (Reuters) – Turkey’s defence purchases from Russia have alarmed Ankara’s NATO partners but the two countries remain rivals in wars from the Middle East to the Caucasus, highlighting the faultlines running through their awkward alliance. Turkey has bought Russian missile defence systems and could buy more equipment from Moscow. It imports […]