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Dominion Voting sues Fox for $1.6B over 2020 election claims
WASHINGTON (AP) — Dominion Voting Systems has filed a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News, arguing the cable news giant falsely claimed that the voting company rigged the 2020 election in an effort to boost faltering ratings. Friday’s defamation lawsuit is part of a growing body of legal action filed by the Denver-based voting company and other targets of false claims spread by President Donald Trump and his allies after Trump’s election loss to Joe Biden. Those claims have been blamed for spurring on rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol in January. New York-based Fox News says it stands by its journalism and will defend itself against the claims.
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EXPLAINER: What’s a SPAC, the latest craze on Wall Street?
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — Special-purpose acquisition companies, better known as SPACs, have been embraced by big institutions and small-pocketed investors alike. Celebrities and famous athletes have endorsed them. A SPAC is essentially just a pile of investors’ cash. The goal is to use those millions of dollars to take a private company public without using the traditional initial public offering process that’s been around for decades. Companies such as Draftkings and Virgin Galactic used a SPAC to go public last year. The frenzy surrounding SPACs has also attracted the attention of government regulators, who are concerned they may draw in unsophisticated investors.
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WeWork stock offer comes amid doubtful need for office space
NEW YORK (AP) — Uncertainty about office space demand in a global pandemic is a big risk that investors will have to weigh as WeWork makes a second run at a public stock offering. A year after the novel coronavirus turned office towers into ghost towns worldwide, the embattled communal work space company says it will sell stock after merging with a special purposes acquisition company. But the offering comes as many companies are switching to hybrid work schedules, allowing employees to stay at home part of the time. That means firms could have too much space and won’t need short-term rentals. WeWork says it has cut costs and reduced its workforce by 67% from its peak in September 2019. It sees strong growth as the economy recovers.
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China sanctions Britons over West’s Xinjiang criticism
LONDON (AP) — China has announced sanctions on British individuals and organizations after the U.K. joined the EU and others in sanctioning Chinese officials accused of human rights abuses in the Xinjiang region. It’s the opening salvo in Beijing’s latest full-bore response to criticism and sanctions from the West. The Chinese Foreign Ministry says the move by the Western bloc is based on lies and disinformation, flagrantly breaches international law and grossly interferes in China’s internal affairs. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson condemned Beijing’s move, saying the sanctioned individuals “are performing a vital role shining a light on the gross human rights violations being perpetrated against Uyghur Muslims.”
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ThredUp’s shares pop in stock market debut
NEW YORK (AP) — Shares of ThredUp rose more than 40% in their stock market debut Friday, reflecting investor enthusiasm for the online seller of second-hand women’s and children’s clothing. Late Thursday, ThredUp’s initial public offering of 12 million shares was priced at $14 a share, the high end of its expected range of $12 to $14. That raised about $168 million before underwriting fees. The shares opened at $18.25 and closed at $20. ThredUp’s debut comes as the resale market has remained resilient during the pandemic, benefiting from shoppers’ accelerated shift online and customers’ steadfast focus on second-hand goods as they become more conscious about the environment.
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China erasing H&M from internet amid Xinjiang backlash
HONG KONG (AP) — H&M is disappearing from the internet in China as the government raises pressure on shoe and clothing brands. Beijing also announced Friday sanctions against British officials following Western penalties imposed on Chinese authorities accused of abuses in the Xinjiang region. As of Friday, searches for H&M products on Chinese e-commerce platforms turned up no results. There were also no search results for any of H&M’s about 500 stores in mainland China on the ride hailing app Didi Chuxing, and on Chinese map apps from Tencent, Alibaba and Baidu. The near total online erasure of H&M on the Chinese internet shows how quickly foreign brands can suffer a political backlash in one of the biggest consumer markets.
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How two friends made art history buying a $70M digital work
At first, Vignesh Sundaresan and Anand Venkateswaran weren’t sure they had just spent $69.3 million on a digital artwork by an artist called Beeple, securing their place in art history. The March 11 auction at Christie’s in London immediately catapulted Beeple’s artwork into the realm of the most expensive pieces ever sold by living artists, alongside a well-known swimming pool painting by David Hockney and an iconic stainless steel rabbit sculpture by Jeff Koons. And it has also kicked off a new explosion of interest in non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, a sort of cryptocurrency-adjacent technology that provides the digital equivalent of a certificate of authenticity.
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Former top broker gets over 17 years for scamming clients
SCRANTON, Pa. (AP) — A former Pennsylvania financial adviser who earned millions by pushing high-risk, high-fee investments on unsuspecting retirees has been sentenced to more than 17 years in federal prison. A judge said Friday that Anthony Diaz took advantage of dozens of clients. Some of them lost their life savings or were unable to send their children to college as a result of the fraud. Diaz was handcuffed in the courtroom and led away to immediately begin serving his sentence. He has been living in Florida.
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EXPLAINER: Sanctioned Myanmar army businesses span spectrum
BANGKOK (AP) — The two huge Myanmar military-controlled conglomerates targeted by U.S. and UK sanctions following the army coup last month span a wide spectrum of businesses. Human rights advocates applauded the decisions to target those companies and cut them off from dealings with banks and businesses in the United States and United Kingdom. They are still pushing for action against another powerful empire, the Myanmar Oil & Gas Enterprise, which does business with major foreign oil companies. It’s unclear just how big the impact of the sanctions will be on the military’s cash flow since Myanmar’s Asian neighbors have shied away from imposing their own restrictions on doing business with the junta.
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Philanthropists call for more grants to aid Asian Americans
Nearly 500 philanthropy leaders, mostly from foundations, signed a letter Friday calling on grant makers to increase their support of nonprofits that benefit Asian people and put efforts to combat anti-Asian racism squarely in the broader fight for racial justice. The letter was circulated by Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders in Philanthropy, which also released a study outlining the paucity of philanthropic support for Asian American communities. The letter and the study follow a year of increasing violence directed against Asian Americans and the killing of eight people, including six Asian American women, in Atlanta this month.
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The S&P 500 rose 65.02 points, or 1.7%, to 3,974.54. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 453.40 points, or 1.4%, to 33,072.88. The Nasdaq rose 161.05 points, or 1.2%, to 13,138.72. The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies rose 38.36 points, or 1.8% to 2,221.48.
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