To celebrate the release of "Age of Ultron," a type of star that will "live fast and die hard" is creating a nebula fitting for a Norse god. (Well, not really for that reason.)
BEIJING (AP) — Chinese and foreign film producers, companies and investment firms signed movie cooperation deals worth 13.8 billion RMB ($2.3 billion) on Monday, demonstrating how foreign movie makers increasingly want a piece of the growing Chinese market.
"In Montmartre: Picasso, Matisse and the Birth of Modernist Art" (Penguin Press), by Sue Roe
NEW YORK (AP) — Kelli Barrett wanted to be an actress at a young age. How young? "From birth," she says. "It was always what I wanted."
(Reuters) - U.S. stocks opened higher on Monday, rebounding after a sharp decline in the previous session, as Chinese steps to stimulate its slowing economy and earnings from Morgan Stanley lured money back into equities.
Economic performance will determine when the Federal Reserve finally raises U.S. interest rates from near zero, an influential Fed official said on Monday, adding he hopes to tighten policy later this year. "We have to see what unfolds," New York Fed President William Dudley said in a speech that repeated cautious optimism that the U.S. economy will continue to expand and that inflation will begin to firm later this year.
The bank's trading business, like those of its main rivals, got a boost in the quarter after the Swiss central bank scrapped a cap on the franc, the European Central Bank announced its quantitative easing program and the U.S. Federal Reserve took steps toward tightening monetary policy. "This was our strongest quarter in many years with improved performance across most areas of the firm," Chief Executive James Gorman said in a statement on Monday. Net income applicable to Morgan Stanley's common shareholders rose to $2.31 billion, or $1.18 per share, in the quarter, from $1.45 billion, or 74 cents per share, a year earlier. Adjusted revenue from equities sales and trading rose by a third to $2.27 billion - a strong performance, but not enough to beat Goldman Sachs Group Inc, which reported revenue of $2.32 billion.
By Lawrence Hurley WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday left intact the 2012 insider trading conviction of former Goldman Sachs Group Inc director Rajat Gupta. Gupta is the highest-ranking corporate official to be convicted in the U.S. government's multi-year probe of insider trading in the hedge fund industry. The high court rejected Gupta's appeal of a March 2014 ruling by the New York-based 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that had upheld his conviction. The government used wiretap evidence to show that Gupta leaked news about Goldman's finances, including a crucial investment by prominent investor Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc, by phone to Galleon Group hedge fund founder Raj Rajaratnam.
BP has been lifting more crude oil cargoes in the past couple of months as payment for its work in southern Iraq, and is comfortable with that level of shipments, a senior executive of the oil company said on Monday. Low oil prices and the fight against Islamic State have forced Baghdad to delay billions of dollars of cash payments which it owes to international oil companies (IOCs), so they have been allowed to take oil shipments instead. Michael Townshend, BP's president in the Middle East, said current total production from Iraq's giant Rumaila field was about 1.4 million barrels per day and was expected to remain steady in 2015.
The company posted a better-than-expected quarterly profit on Monday, helped by higher revenue and operating income from Latin America, the Middle East and Asia. The average U.S. rig count has fallen about 40 percent since June and was at 1,110 in March, according to Baker Hughes Inc's closely watched survey. Halliburton agreed to buy Baker Hughes for $35 billion last November, a deal aimed at helping both companies weather the slump in oil and resist pressure from oil producers to slash prices.
Were Greece to leave the euro, it would not have the same impact on the euro zone as it would have had two years ago, an ECB policymaker said on Monday, urging the Greek government to provide "numbers" to qualify for further aid. "One should not overestimate the whole story," Ewald Nowotny, a member of the European Central Bank's policy-setting Governing Council, told broadcaster CNBC. Asked if a euro [EUR=] weakening to parity with the dollar would not be unwelcome, Nowotny reiterated that the ECB does not target exchange rates as part of its monetary policy.
Wal-Mart announced last week that it was closing five stores in Texas, Oklahoma, Florida and California temporarily to fix plumbing issues. The United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW) said it believes the retailer sought to close the Pico Rivera store - one of the five locations - in the Los Angeles area in retaliation for active protesting by workers there in recent years seeking higher pay and benefits. "City officials in Pico Rivera say that nothing has been brought to their attention and no permits at all have been sought for any work," the UFCW said in the claim to be filed to the NLRB. The injunction seeks to have all employees reinstated to their own store or transferred to another store without loss of pay.
(Reuters) - Nomad Holdings Ltd said it would buy Iglo Foods Holdings Ltd, Europe's biggest frozen foods business and the company behind the Birds Eye brand, for about 2.6 billion euros ($2.8 billion) from a company backed by private equity group Permira. The deal is expected to be funded through a combination of Nomad's cash on hand, equity, and the proceeds from a private placement to raise about $750 million, Nomad Holding, an acquisition company formed in April 2014, said on Monday. UK-based Iglo sells its frozen food such as fish, vegetables and meat across 12 European countries, with a focus on the United Kingdom, Germany and Italy where it has manufacturing plants. Nomad Holdings was founded by Noam Gottesman and Martin Franklin.
Have you ever thought about how the act of networking is actually quite unnatural? Think about it. A person needs to attend an event, with or without knowing other attendees, and act like it is normal to walk up to complete strangers, shake hands with them, and then begin conversing. During this period both parties are "scoping" each other...
One in three firms now scramble data to protect it from prying eyes - but encryption remains a complicated technology to manage for most.
In a shocking revelation from Ashlee Vance's upcoming book, Tesla's Elon Musk and Google's Larry Page came to a verbal agreement two years ago. For better or worse, the deal fell through.
Microsoft's Service Fabric will target first ISVs and startups building public cloud applications, and later come to Windows Server and Linux.
Focusing on ROI exclusively works against you, not for you. Are you giving customers the experience they want, or the experience you think they want? In the short term, your approach can cost you customer engagement. In the long term, it can erode your customer base.
Sony's line of 2015 audio gear includes four new soundbars and two receivers with an emphasis on Bluetooth streaming and HDMI connectivity.
Perfect for Father's Day, this drool-worthy portable speaker features a leather carrying strap and brushed aluminum housing.
After selling its smartphone business to Microsoft, Nokia is planning a return to the market. Google's Android software makes the most sense for the new phones.
The dark and foreboding atmosphere of the new "Batman v Superman" trailer gets lightened up a little with some classic superhero footage.
A new report alleges that the missing cache of bitcoins was long gone before Mt. Gox's demise in 2014.
Be prepared for a fall in traffic if your site isn't 'mobile-friendly' and you get a lot of traffic through Google's mobile users.
AMD has let slip that the Microsoft's new operating system will launch at the end of July.
Mobile technology makes it possible for some folks to regularly exit the cubicle and work outside the office. It's not the same as desk work, so be smart and make it more productive.
There is a shift away from current social networks as users turn to sites that have more value to them. Is the next wave of social networking around connecting with people that can really help us reach our goals - whatever they may be?
Matthew doesn't convince listeners to buy an particular mobile device this week, but the Apple Watch may find its way to his wrist in the future.
The latest flagship in Sony's line of sleek, waterproof Android smartphones has been announced by the company on its Japanese website.
Recently discovered vulnerabilities are being used by the Russian APT28 group to spy on government targets and steal politically sensitive data.
A cadre of New Zealand media companies is progressing legal action over alleged copyright infringement against two NZ ISPs that have said they will continue to offer global mode.
After residents living near George Lucas' Grady Ranch protested his planned studio into nonexistence, the film magnate made different plans for the land.
Australia and the UK have reached a deal aimed at helping tackle profit-shifting practices by multinational companies, such as Apple, Google, and Microsoft.
Amid growing interest in hybrid clouds, enterprises need to pay attention to service accountability, which can be tricky to define in an environment intertwined with assets belonging to the customer and cloud provider.
Samsung and Apple remained the top sellers of smartphones for the first quarter of the year, while LG stepped up to take fourth place behind Huawei.
NBN users in regional areas are set to get faster speeds on the fixed-wireless network, with a trial of up to 50Mbps download speeds to take place in May.
Morgan Stanley is in discussions to pay $500 million to settle an investigation by New York's attorney general into whether the Wall Street bank misled investors in taking mortgage bonds that lost value during the financial crisis, the Wall Street Journal reported Sunday in its online edition, citing people familiar with the matter. A deal with New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman would likely include some cash from Morgan Stanley as well as consumer relief, the report said. An agreement between the New York-based financial institution and Schneiderman's office isn't imminent, however, and the terms under discussion have changed, the report said. Also not clear, the report said is whether Morgan Stanley will need to boost its legal reserves to account for a likely settlement with Schneiderman's office.
Asian shares dipped in early trading on Monday after a weak performance on Wall Street, though China's latest stimulus to shore up the world's second-largest economy was likely to underpin sentiment. China's central bank on Sunday cut the amount of cash that banks must hold as reserves, the second industry-wide cut in two months, adding more liquidity to bolster slowing growth. "It seems that the 'excess liquidity' created by the U.S. Fed is now being augmented by money from China as the capital account is liberalized," said Sean Darby, global equity strategist at Jefferies, in a note to clients. MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was down about 0.1 percent, after ascending to a fresh seven-year peak.
A security researcher joked about hacking a plane and was picked up by the FBI. They didn't think it was one bit funny.
ATLANTA (AP) — Bobby Brown told concert goers Saturday night that his daughter Bobbi Kristina Brown is awake nearly three months after she was found face down and unresponsive in a tub at her Georgia home.
(Reuters) - After the Swiss National Bank abandoned its price cap on the franc in January, some dealers such as Bank of America Corp , Barclays Plc and Goldman Sachs Group Inc approached customers about changing some trades, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the discussions. The banks sought to reduce their losses by trying to renege on transactions by contacting customers after the SNB decision, asking to discuss the rates they'd traded on, Bloomberg said. Some currency trading firms and major banks lost out when the SNB scrapped its three-year-old cap on the franc against the euro without warning on Jan. 15. Barclays lost "tens of millions" of dollars and retail broker Alpari UK filed for insolvency.
At the 10-year anniversary event of This Week in Tech, Leo Laporte and the TWiT team announced that on May 2 they are bringing back the variety show that made tech shows a thing.
NEW YORK (AP) — The best commercial for a Broadway show this season isn't on TV. It's on Broadway itself, in the stunning, deeply moving "Fun Home."
Smartwatches aren't just shrunken smartphones tied to your wrist - they've something different and far more interesting.
Remembering the Oklahoma City bombing 20 years later
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is heading to Havana, the first American governor to visit Cuba since the recent thaw in relations with the communist nation. Whether his trade mission generates anything more ...
Greece's Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis said in an interview broadcast on Sunday that if Greece were to leave the euro zone, there would be an inevitable contagion effect. "Some claim that the rest of Europe has been ring-fenced from Greece and that the ECB has tools at its disposal to amputate Greece, if need be, cauterize the wound and allow the rest of euro zone to carry on." "I very much doubt that that is the case. Sooner or later it's going to start raising interest rates, political tensions, capital flight." His comments were recorded before those of Mario Draghi, the European Central Bank's president, who this weekend said the euro zone was better equipped than it had been in the past to deal with a new Greek crisis but warned of uncharted waters if the situation deteriorates. Euro zone deputy finance ministers gave Athens last Thursday a deadline of six working days to present a revised economic reform plan.
A Florida man who piloted a small gyro copter past major Washington, D.C. landmarks last week said on Sunday he had fully expected to be intercepted before he landed on the west lawn of the U.S. Capitol, creating a national security scare. Douglas Mark Hughes, 61, a U.S. Postal Service mail carrier, described his flight upon arriving home in Ruskin, Florida, early on Sunday. He recalled it being colder than he had expected flying from Gettysburg, Pennsylvania to Washington, where the sight of the Washington Monument helped guide him to the Capitol grounds. He was allowed to return to Florida, but ordered to remain at home in detention until he is due back in Washington for a preliminary hearing on May 8.
