The head of the Environmental Protection Agency used public money to have his office swept for hidden listening devices and bought sophisticated biometric locks for additional security. The spending items, totaling nearly $9,000, are among a string of increased counter-surveillance precautions taken by EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, who also requires around-the-clock protection by an armed […]
Read moreThe stock market may be catching a bit of crypto fever. “Bitcoin has woken up a lot of people,” said Laszlo Birinyi, the stock guru and founder of Birinyi Associates. The crypto currency phenomena has more investors watching screens, where they track bitcoin but also the stock market’s daily rise to new highs. “Bitcoin is […]
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THE calls began shortly after Yulia’s grandmother died. The undertaker offered help arranging the funeral, for 47,000 roubles ($800) in cash. She then travelled to Moscow’s Khovanskoe Cemetery, where she was offered a discount on a gravesite—150,000 roubles off—if she could bring cash within three hours and sign a receipt saying she had paid half […]
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A DAY before the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted to rescind “net neutrality” regulations designed to ensure that internet-service providers do nothing to favour some types of online content over others, Ajit Pai, its chairman, tweeted a short video reassuring Americans. “You can still post photos of cute animals,” he says in it, posing with […]
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AFTER staying at home one afternoon for a delivery of discounted toilet disinfectant that never came, Valentin Romanov, a Stockholm IT manager, installed a special lock on his flat’s entrance. When no one is in, deliverymen unlock the door and slip packages inside. Four months on, Mr Romanov has doubled his spending online and says […]
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BESIDE a serene lake in Switzerland sits a modern glass building called the Cube. Wide-leafed tobacco plants grow in the lobby. In one room machines that can “smoke” more than a dozen cigarettes at a time dutifully puff away, measuring the chemicals that consumers would inhale. The research centre is run by Philip Morris International […]
Read moreThe gaping digital divide in the United States is wide and not closing any time soon. Only one-in-five low-income Americans say they do a do a lot or a fair amount of their shopping online. That’s less than one-third as many as those making six-figure incomes or more, according to results of the latest CNBC […]
Read moreFacebook shares are surging this year, but one Wall Street firm says recent underperformance is making him revisit his bullish thesis for the internet company. “If current market trends hold, Facebook’s stock price could find itself underperforming the S&P 500 this quarter for the only the third quarter since the start of 2015,” MoffettNathanson analyst […]
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More traditional money managers are worried about bitcoin than ever before. The soaring digital currency topped the list of “most crowded trades” — a measure of sentiment on which popular investment could quickly reverse its gains— in Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s December global fund manager survey released Tuesday. The survey found that 32 percent […]
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