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LONDON, Feb 17 (Reuters) - The U.S. partner of global cryptocurrency exchange Binance has confirmed that a trading firm managed by Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao operated as a market maker on its platform. It did not elaborate on when in 2021 the activity ceased, or comment on Zhao's role at the trading firm. Binance transferred over $400 million from the account at California-based Silvergate Bank to Merit Peak between January and March of 2021, Reuters reported on Thursday. Before that story's publication, Binance.US had told Reuters that "Merit Peak is neither trading nor providing any kind of services on the Binance.US platform," without giving further details. A spokesperson for the global Binance exchange, which did not respond to Reuters' questions for the story on Thursday, told crypto news outlet CoinDesk that the transfers were "a Binance.US issue."

☆ Binance reportedly had secret access to its US arm's bank account
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-17 | by ( ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

The US partner of global cryptocurrency exchange Binance has confirmed that a trading firm managed by Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao operated as a market maker on its platform. It did not elaborate on when in 2021 the activity ceased, or comment on Zhao’s role at the trading firm. A spokesperson for Binance.US referred CNN to its Thursday tweet, emphasizing the line that reads: “ONLY Binance.US employees have access to Binance.US bank accounts. Before that story’s publication, Binance.US had told Reuters that “Merit Peak is neither trading nor providing any kind of services on the Binance.US platform,” without giving further details. Adobe StockBinance.US’s executives were concerned by the outflows from the Silvergate account to Merit Peak because the transfers were taking place without their knowledge, according to the messages reviewed by Reuters.

☆ Privacy Regulators Step Up Oversight of AI Use in Europe
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-16 | by ( Catherine Stupp | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +6 min

European privacy regulators are intensifying their scrutiny of companies’ use of artificial intelligence, hiring experts and opening new units to crack down on data violations. “AI is appearing in all sectors,” said Kari Laumann, head of a division for research, analysis and policy at Norway’s data protection authority. The regulator’s office has worked with 64 companies to test AI initiatives under its supervision, in a program started in 2020. Regulators have fined companies for privacy failings in their AI applications in recent years, but European data protection officials and privacy analysts say it is still unclear how to apply some aspects of European privacy law to the technology. Mr. Jairaj said he expects the EU’s coming legislation to force companies to look closely at third-party suppliers of AI products.

☆ Crypto Giant Binance Expects to Pay Penalties to Resolve U.S. Investigations
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-16 | by ( Dave Michaels | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, expects to pay monetary penalties to settle existing U.S. regulatory and law-enforcement investigations of its business, the firm’s chief strategy officer said in an interview. Binance grew quickly and began as a business powered by software engineers unfamiliar with laws and rules written to address the risk of bribery and corruption, money laundering, and economic sanctions, Patrick Hillmann said. The company has been working to fill gaps in its early compliance efforts, he said, but still expects regulators will impose fines for past conduct.

☆ PREVIEW-Soccer-Bayern's bogeyman Gladbach ready for another upset
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-16 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

BERLIN, Feb 16 (Reuters) - There is no team in the Bundesliga that can boast of having a better record against the mighty Bayern Munich than Borussia Moenchengladbach. Gladbach, in 10th place, are unbeaten against Bayern in their last four encounters across all competitions and another match without defeat would set a new unbeaten club record against the Bavarians. "We will have to see for both of them how it develops over the next few days," said Farke. While Bayern started the year with three straight draws, Julian Nagelmann's team has since bounced back and won their last two league games. "Bayern are in good form and will be highly motivated to deliver against us," said Farke.

☆ Twitter restricted in Turkey two days after quake, says NetBlocks
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-08 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

ISTANBUL, Feb 8 (Reuters) - Twitter has been restricted in Turkey on Wednesday, the Netblocks internet observatory said, two days after a major earthquake that has killed more than 11,500 people in southern Turkey and northern Syria. Users of the platform including opposition figures, academics and non-governmental organisations protested the move, with communications already difficult in the quake zone due to limited reception. "How come Twitter is restricted on a day communication saves lives? Akdeniz said it was immediately unclear what caused the restriction, adding that access to Tiktok was also limited in Turkey. Reporting by Can Sezer and Ezgi Erkoyun; Editing by Daren Butler and Nick MacfieOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ WeWork cofounder Adam Neumann suggests tenants in his apartments will plunge their own clogged toilets because they'll feel like owners
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-08 | by ( Kate Duffy | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Adam Neumann said renters in Flow apartments will plunge their own toilets. Neumann spoke at a conference about how Flow wants to create a sense of ownership for renters. During the conference, Neumann said the goal of Flow was to make the resident feel valued. "If you're in an apartment building and you're a renter and your toilet gets clogged, you call the super," Neumann said. Neumann said during the conference he wanted Flow apartments to provide an "elevated experience" and a "community" to tenants.

☆ Bayer picks outsider Anderson as CEO after investor pressure
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-08 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

News of the CEO change sent the German drugs-to-pesticides giant's shares to their highest level in nearly eight months. Shares in Bayer closed up 6% on the news of the new CEO, reaching the top of Frankfurt's blue-chip index and hitting their highest level since June last year. "Bill Anderson's mission is clear: enable Bayer to realize its full potential and create sustainable value for our shareholders, farmers, patients, consumers, employees, and all stakeholders of the company," Winkeljohann added. Sources told Reuters earlier this week that activist investor Jeff Ubben had contacted fellow investors to drum up support for big changes at Bayer, including the swift replacement of Baumann. Reporting by Patricia Weiss, Kirsti Knolle and Christoph Steitz; Editing by Tom Sims and Alexander SmithOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Southwest CEO Jordan finds himself in eye of storm after airline's holiday debacle
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-08 | by ( Rajesh Kumar Singh | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +6 min

CHICAGO, Feb 8 (Reuters) - Bob Jordan, Southwest Airlines Co's (LUV.N) CEO, faces the biggest challenge yet in his 35-year career at the airline that has built a customer-friendly reputation. Southwest's struggles reached a notable low on Jan. 28 when comedy sketch TV show "Saturday Night Live" lampooned the Dallas-based airline's technology and service. The carrier will now answer to U.S. Congress on Thursday when Chief Operating Officer Andrew Watterson testifies before the Senate Commerce Committee. In October, Jordan, who started his career at Southwest in 1988 as a computer programmer, put Watterson in charge of the airline's operations. Last week, Jordan also named a chief information officer who will help manage the airline's technology investments, upgrades and system maintenance.

☆ DeSantis echoes Trump in latest offense against the media after taunting the former president during live TV roundtable
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-07 | by ( Kimberly Leonard | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +9 min

Ron DeSantis won't be the Republican to give the party's response to President Joe Biden's forthcoming State of the Union Address. The broadcast echoed the media ire former President Donald Trump frequently has on display. "To assassinate someone's character with anonymous sources would have been a total no-no," DeSantis said of past media practice. Like Trump, DeSantis often bemoans his media coverage and excoriates what he calls the "corporate press." Despite raising his tussles with the press, DeSantis insisted non-politicians would be the focus of new libel laws.

SummarySummary Companies Number of cases totals 57, court records showFeb 6 (Reuters) - Nearly 60 lawsuits claiming hair relaxer products sold by L'Oreal USA Inc and other companies cause cancer and other health problems will be consolidated in Chicago federal court, according to a Monday order from the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation. At least 57 lawsuits have been filed in federal courts across the country over the products, which use chemicals to permanently straighten textured hair, court records show. The lawsuits allege the companies knew their products contained dangerous chemicals but marketed and sold them anyway. In a statement posted online after the first lawsuits were filed, L'Oreal said it is "confident in the safety of our products and believe the recent lawsuits filed against us have no legal merit." She estimates that thousands of women could end up suing over the products, which are typically marketed to women of color.

☆ Bank of England's Mann doubles down on backing for rate hikes
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-06 | by ( Gergely Szakacs | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

After hiking interest rates to 4% last week, the BoE's Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) signalled it was close to pausing a run of increases which began in December 2021. Mann, consistently the most hawkish member of the MPC, said the risk of under-tightening policy far outweighed the alternative. "In my view, a tighten-stop-tighten-loosen policy boogie looks too much like fine-tuning to be good monetary policy. "From a risk-management point of view, monetary policy has to lean against these upside biases since wage and price inflation are still so high," she said. At the other end of the MPC spectrum, Dhingra and Tenreyro say over-tightening risked sending Britain's economy into an unnecessarily severe downturn, with the full force of the BoE's rate hikes yet to feed through.

☆ Jeff Erdmann has been the best wealth advisor in the US for 7 years running. The Merrill Lynch pro told us how he's keeping clients' money safe with a recession on the way.
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-31 | by ( Marley Jay | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Forbes has named Jeff Erdmann the best wealth manager in the US every year since 2016. Erdmann's group at Merrill Private Wealth Management oversees $14 billion in assets. Erdmann, who is coming up on his 40th year at Merrill Private Wealth Management, has been named the best wealth manager in the country by Forbes every year since 2016. In stocks, Erdmann says he remains committed to dividends and dividend growth. Erdmann says allocating to the right sectors is vital, and right now, it's not clear what parts of the market offer the best long-term opportunities.

☆ Trump risks 'hush money' charges carrying up to 4 years in prison, say ex-Manhattan prosecutors
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-31 | by ( Laura Italiano | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Trump's Stormy Daniels "hush money" is the subject of a Manhattan grand jury, The NY Times reports. Ex-Manhattan financial crimes prosecutors say Trump risks felony-level state records-fraud charges. The first requirement to proving the highest level of falsifying business records would be showing that records were indeed falsified in the business records of an enterprise. Cohen has admitted being the bag man who delivered $130,000 in "hush money" on the brink of the 2016 election. Each check could be a separate "falsifying business records" charge, Moscow said.

☆ 'The Last of Us' made a major change to a game character. The showrunners explain why it was important to expand on Bill and his love story.
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-30 | by ( Kirsten Acuna | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Sunday's episode expands greatly on a minor survivor from the video game, Bill (Nick Offerman). The showrunners told Insider why it was important to show Bill's love story with Frank. In the game, Joel and Ellie seek out Bill, shown as a paranoid loner who speaks to himself, to help them fix up a vehicle and carry on across the country. Frank, also his partner in the game, is only seen dead, hanging after committing suicide some time ago after the infected bit him. Bill tells Joel to keep his partner, Tess, safe in the same way he protected Frank for years.

☆ Black maternal deaths and disparities increase in Mississippi
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-27 | by ( The Associated Press | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +3 min

The Mississippi Maternal Mortality Report shows that the maternal mortality rate increased by 8.8% between 2013‐2016 and 2017‐2019, with the latter period being the most recent one analyzed by researchers. Of the maternal deaths directly related to pregnancy, 87.5% were determined to be preventable. Velvet Johnson holds a sign calling for support of the Mississippi Black Women's Roundtable legislative agenda at Capitol in Jackson, Miss. It found that 42.5% of the maternal deaths it identified occurred more than 60 days but less than one year after delivery. Advocates from the Mississippi Black Women’s Roundtable, an advocacy group, gathered at the Capitol to urge lawmakers to extend postpartum coverage.

Box office receipts can rise as much as 75% in the weeks following a best picture nomination, according to Comscore data. The distributor, United Artists Releasing, planned the release strategy to coincide with this week's Oscar nominations, with the hope the movie would benefit from a box-office bounce. "Tar," a best picture contender starring Cate Blanchett as a manipulative orchestra conductor, will expand to 535 theaters from 100. 'NOT LOOKING GREAT'Even legendary director Steven Spielberg has had trouble drawing crowds to best picture nominee "The Fabelmans," his autobiographical story about family strife and anti-Semitism he faced as a teenager. Warner Bros is re-releasing the film in movie houses this weekend after it landed eight Oscar nominations including best picture and best actor.

☆ IRS warns tax refunds may be 'somewhat lower.' With high inflation, that's a 'double whammy' for families, says advisor
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-26 | by ( Kate Dore | Cfp | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Bill Oxford | E+ | Getty ImagesIf you're banking on a tax refund, it may be "somewhat lower" than last year's payment, according to the IRS. Meanwhile, many Americans are still struggling financially, with nearly one-third relying on their tax refund to make ends meet, a recent Credit Karma survey found. Joe Buhrmann, a certified financial planner and senior financial planning consultant at eMoney Advisor, said smaller refunds and high inflation may be a "double whammy" for some families. Thanks to the American Rescue Plan of 2021, many families got a boost from the enhanced child tax credit, worth up to $3,600 per child, and child and dependent care tax credit of up to $4,000 per dependent. For 2022, the child tax credit dropped back to a maximum $2,000 per child, and the child and dependent care tax credit reverted to $1,050 per dependent.

☆ College professors are considering creative ways to stop students from using AI to cheat
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-21 | by ( Beatrice Nolan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Some professors say students are using new tech to pass off AI-generated content as their own. Some professors say students are using OpenAI's buzzy chatbot, ChatGPT, to pass off AI-generated content as their own. The issue has led to professors considering creative ways to stamp out the use of AI in colleges. Blue books and oral exams"I'm perplexed about how to handle AI going forward," Aumann told Insider. Bartel agreed that students could get away with using AI very easily.

☆ The 'JR-15,' an AR-15 rifle for kids, is being marketed again weeks after a 6-year-old shot a teacher
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-21 | by ( Alia Shoaib | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

An Illinois gunmaker is again advertising its AR-15 rifle for kids, called the "JR-15." A company spokesperson told Vice's Motherboard it will take orders for the rifle later in 2023. The JR-15 is a .22 long rifle roughly 20% smaller than a standard AR-15 that weighs less than 2-and-½ pounds. The state later passed a law banning gun marketing toward children, and this week several pro-gun groups lost an initial bid to block the ban. Wee 1 Tactical confirmed to Motherboard that the JR-15 would be at the show.

☆ Santander lagging behind on inflation payment for German bank staff
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-20 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

FRANKFURT, Jan 20 (Reuters) - Spain's Santander (SAN.MC) is the only major bank operating in Germany that has not announced a special payment to local staff to help them with soaring inflation, union officials told Reuters, although the bank said talks were ongoing. Last year, German union Verdi called on banks to give some of their lowest-earning workers a special payment to help them combat higher energy prices. "Santander is the big exception among public and private banks," said Stefan Wittmann, a Verdi official negotiating on behalf of Santander employees. On Friday, Santander and union officials agreed to take up the issue at a meeting next week, but Santander hasn't made a binding offer, Wittmann said. Santander said it was in talks with Verdi on amending its collective wage agreement, and the inflation demands came up in talks late last year.

☆ ECB's Holzmann expects at least two rate increases in H1 -newspaper
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-20 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

VIENNA, Jan 20 (Reuters) - European Central Bank policymaker Robert Holzmann expects at least two interest-rate increases of 50 basis points each in the first half of this year, he said in an interview with Austrian newspaper Die Presse published on Friday. Holzmann said that while headline inflation has eased, core inflation, which strips out volatile energy and food prices, had not. He said that as long as core inflation had not fallen significantly interest rates would have to keep rising. "Core inflation is currently at more than 5%, which is still two-and-a-half times our target," he said. Reporting by Francois Murphy; Additional reporting by Frank Siebelt in Frankfurt; Editing by Hugh LawsonOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ A Taco Bell customer in Colorado who became ill after eating claims he ate a taco laced with rat poison
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-19 | by ( Aaron Mok | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

A Taco Bell customer fell "violently ill" and claimed he ate a taco laced with rat poison. A day after the incident, deputies closed the Taco Bell location down and ordered the restaurant to discard its entire food inventory, Bartmann said. While investigators saw a "green-ish, grey-ish" substance in the taco the customer ate, they have not confirmed what it was, he said. Investigators obtained surveillance video footage from the Taco Bell where the customer bought his food, and are currently reviewing it. A spokesperson from Taco Bell told Insider that "the safety of customers and team members is a priority."

☆ China's reopening fuels global growth optimism, Davos panel says
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-18 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

REUTERS/Arnd WiegmannFRANKFURT, Jan 17 (Reuters) - China's reopening from pandemic restrictions could drive global growth beyond expectations and help avoid a broader recession even as some of the world's largest economies struggle to overcome a downturn, top finance officials at the World Economic Forum said. 'STRONG LABOUR MARKETS'Peterson said he still expected a "very mild" recession in the United States, Europe and the Britain, but full year net growth was still going to be positive. "Strong labour markets are not consistent with what we see with a recession and the labour markets are strong almost everywhere in the world," he added. Credit Suisse Chairman Axel Lehmann said he even hoped the United States could avoid a recession, but he too put his bets on China. "I also think that the economy has been surprising us quarter after quarter; the fourth quarter in Europe will be most likely still positive," Centeno said.

☆ Netflix set for slowest revenue growth as ad plan struggles to gain traction
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-17 | by ( Eva Mathews | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

REUTERS/Bing GuanJan 17 (Reuters) - Netflix Inc (NFLX.O) is expected to report its slowest quarterly revenue growth on Thursday as its ad-supported plan struggles to attract customers in the saturating U.S. market, which could pressure the company to pull back on content spending this year. "Given current interest rates, Netflix will have to be very selective about green-lighting content and how they would finance it." It returned to subscriber growth in the third quarter, but its stock, an investor favorite during its years of rapid growth, still ended the year with a drop of more than 50%. "As overall streaming growth flattens out, most of the more mature streaming platforms have leveled off as well," MoffettNathanson said, adding that Netflix's reach fell by 200 basis points in the quarter. Reuters GraphicsStill, some analysts believe that the ad-supported plan will pay off in the long run, especially in developing markets, where spending power is weaker.

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