Wesam Nafaa - ShortNews in English

 President Joe Biden meets with CEOs of Lockheed Martin, Medtronic, Cummins. Meeting is part of administration's push for legislation to boost U.S. semiconductor industry. Senate Democratic Majority Leader Chuck Schumer says he is delaying procedural vote until 11 a.m. ET on Tuesday. The bill includes roughly $52 billion in subsidies for U.S. semiconductor production. The Senate passed procedural measures on a watered-down bill by a vote of 64 to 34. Lockheed Martin CEO James Tecklet told Biden that an adequate supply of chips is 'essential to national security' The law aims to alleviate shortages that have disrupted production in industries such as automobiles, consumer electronics, medical equipment and high-tech weapons. It is part of a broader government-wide effort to counteract a rising China and address supply chain problems by reducing U.S. companies' reliance on foreign-made semiconductors. Senator Bernie Sanders slammed the legislation, calling it a 'blank

 The company now expects to spend $6 billion to $8 billion this year and the next two years. Musk said last month that factories were losing billions of dollars as it struggled to ramp up production due to battery shortages and port problems in China. The company also includes a joint venture with Chief Executive Elon Musk. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), issued on June 13, asks for information on compliance with Musk’s 2018 settlement with regulators. Musk settled a SEC lawsuit over his private tweets by agreeing to have company lawyers pre-approve tweets containing material information about the company. The latest subpoena comes as Musk prepares for an October legal showdown with Twitter to walk away from a $44 billion bid to buy the social media company. In June, regulators questioned Musk over a tweet expressing concerns about his acquisition of Twitter over concerns about the number of fake users and spam accounts.

 Amazon employee Gerald Bryson has been taking a manual count for three days. Bryson made 22 mistakes, including counting 19 products in a bin that actually had 20. If Bryson makes six such mistakes in a year, he would be fired by Amazon, the release said. Internal Amazon documents show how the company regularly measures employee performance in detail and warns those who are even slightly underperforming. In the year ended April 2020, the company instituted more than 13,000 so-called \'disciplines\' in Bryson's camp alone, a lawyer for Amazon said in court filings. Amazon disclosed the records in response to a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) complaint about Bryson's April 2020 firing. Many of those filings are also included in another ongoing lawsuit in federal court in which the NLRB seeks to block what it calls Amazon's \'blatantly unfair labor practices\' An administrative justice judge ordered Bryson's reinstatement in April after finding he ha

 Alibaba’s supermarket chain Hema is trying to raise funds worth about $6 billion. That is well below the as much as $100 it hoped to raise earlier this year. They said the company had to lower its valuation expectations after China's COVID-19 restrictions. Investors are skeptical that loss-making Hema can continue to grow and turn a profit soon. The supermarket chain is aiming to raise between $40 billion and $500 million from outside investors. The fundraiser is far from complete and financial terms could change, two people familiar with the matter warned. The fourth source said Hema would welcome good investors to help it grow, but added that it had healthy cash flow and was not under immediate pressure to raise new capital. Hema has tempered its ambitions for its first-ever independent private funding round at a time when global investor interest in unprofitable tech companies has waned. Hema was founded in 2015 and is 100% owned by e-commerce giant Alibaba. According to its we

 Crypto players in Southeast Asia’s financial hub are bracing for more bankruptcies and lawsuits. Regulators expected to become less lenient at the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), whose welcoming attitude has helped attract companies from China, India and elsewhere. The collapse of crypto fund Three Arrows Capital, a global digital currency slump, was a high profile victim. Investment in Singapore-based crypto and blockchain companies will grow to $1.48 billion in 2021, a 10-fold increase from the previous year. It will account for almost half of the total investment in the Asia-Pacific region in 2021. MAS regulators say they want to promote crypto-related services. Three Arrows Capital (3AC) began liquidation proceedings in the British Virgin Islands on June 27. 3AC did not respond to a request for comment, and its liquidators told a U.S. bankruptcy court they were unable to locate the fund’s founders, Kyle Davis and Zhu Su. The fallout from 3AC's collapse -- and the market

 Micron's solid-state drives for data center customers were unveiled at a product launch event in San Francisco, U.S., October 24, 2019. High inflation, the recent COVID lockdown in China and the war in Ukraine dampened consumer spending, especially on PCs and smartphones. Memory chip company Micron Technology announced it would cut production. Micron’s chief commercial officer, Sumit Sadana, acknowledged that the market reversal took Micron by surprise. TechInsights chip economist Dan Hutcheson warned of more bad news after Micron's bleak outlook. Fears of an industry downturn have taken a toll on chip stocks, with the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (.SOX) plummeting 35% so far in 2022. (See https://tmsnrt.rs/3arSbBA).. Hoarding can make it worse. Just as nervous shoppers searched supermarket aisles for toilet paper before the COVID-19 lockdown, manufacturers have been stockpiling computer chips. Experts say the big-chip reversal hits economic sectors unevenly. Big chip supp

 Batteries are already working on developing smaller, more Durable, cheaper future batteries that also load faster. In the race for electric vehicles, automakers are focusing on range to ease consumer concerns about charging infrastructure. Echion Technologies is developing a commercial-scale prototype battery made from niobium anodes. Startups are experimenting with materials such as silicon carbon, tungsten and niobium, in search of small batteries that can charge extremely quickly. Fast charging combined with widely available chargers will allow automakers to Build cars with smaller batteries at a more affordable price and still increase profits by selling more vehicles to a wider audience. Early adopters in the high-end market want larger battery packs and longer range because they can afford it. China dominates global production of electric vehicle batteries, and companies like CATL (300750.SZ) are developing batteries that can go further on a single charge. Chinese automakers hav

 GameStop Corp (GME.N) announced on Thursday that it had terminated the hiring of Chief Financial Officer Michael Recupero. The news sent shares of the video game retailer down 8 percent in after-hours trading. Axios, which first reported the exit, also cited a memo saying it was laying off an undisclosed number of employees. Shares closed up about 15% in regular trading after the company announced a 4-for-1 stock split late Wednesday. Recupero, who previously served as chief financial officer of Amazon's North American consumer business (AMZN.O), will be succeeded by chief accounting officer Diana Saadeh-Jajeh. The company also launched a digital asset wallet in May for storing, sending, receiving and using cryptocurrencies and non-fungible tokens. GameStop is at the heart of a stock-trading phenomenon in 2021, as retail investors banded together on social media forums to punish hedge funds that shorted stocks. The company also launched a digital asset wallet in May for storing, s

 Meta Platforms Inc (META.O) is changing the way users log into its virtual reality headsets. The company is returning to a previous change of opening an account from the company's flagship Facebook app device while maintaining social connections there the link to the virtual world. The company will roll out new \'meta accounts\' starting in August, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a Facebook post on Thursday. The social media giant announced plans last year to drop the Facebook login requirement after a backlash from users who previously had separate accounts with Oculus. With a new login structure, Meta accounts control device-level access and manage app purchases. People can also connect their profiles in a unified Meta Accounts Center that integrates existing social connections from Facebook, Instagram or Messenger into their virtual reality experience. For accounts not added to Accounts Center, the company will only combine user data across apps to count users and enforce s

 Sam Bankman-Fried, head of FTX, one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges, said he and his company still have \'billions\' on hand to back what could further disrupt the digital asset industry. Bitcoin is down about 70% from its all-time high of nearly $69,000 in November. Bankman-Fried's cryptocurrency trading firm Alameda Research has extended a $200 million cash and stablecoin revolving credit line and a bitcoin line to cryptocurrency lender Voyager Digital (VOYG.TO) Voyager filed for bankruptcy protection on Wednesday. The firm suffers from cryptocurrency hedge fund Three Arrows loss of capital. FTX extended a $250 million revolving line of credit to U.S. cryptocurrency lender BlockFi in June. The goal of the bailout is to protect customers' assets and prevent contagion from bouncing back through the system. In January, FTX launched FTX Ventures, a $2 billion venture capital fund focused on investing in digital assets. Bankman-Fried has made billions arbitraging

 Apple plans to release a new feature this fall called \\'Lockdown Mode\\' aimed at helping human rights defenders, dissidents and others. The move comes after at least two Israeli companies exploited a flaw in Apple's software to remotely hack into iPhones. NSO Group, the maker of \\'Pegasus\\' software that can perform such attacks, has been sued by Apple. Locked Mode will block most attachments sent to the iPhone's Messages app when turned on. Security researchers believe NSO Group exploited a vulnerability in Apple's handling of email attachments. Apple officials said they believe the sophisticated attacks the new feature is designed to combat are still relatively rare, and most users won't need to enable it. Spyware companies argue that they sell powerful technology to help governments thwart national security threats. Human rights groups and journalists have repeatedly documented the use of spyware to target civil society, disrupt political opposit

 U.K. antitrust regulators said on Wednesday they were opening up a bid by Microsoft to buy Call of Duty maker Activision Blizzard. Britain's Competition and Markets Authority said it had until September 1 to make a first-stage decision on whether a deal between the US tech firm and video game maker Activision would reduce competition in the UK. Lisa Tanzi, Microsoft's corporate vice president and general counsel, said in an interview with Reuters: \\'We are committed to answering the questions raised by regulators and ultimately believe that a thorough scrutiny will help close the deal with broad confidence and have an impact on competition' Activision did not immediately respond to a request for comment. UK regulators are investigating Microsoft’s $68.7 billion deal with Activision. In January, Microsoft announced it would acquire Activision Blizzard, the largest deal in the history of the gaming industry. The CMA's Phase 1 investigation will lead to either approv

 U.S. cryptocurrency lender Voyager Digital (VOYG.TO) announced on Wednesday that it has filed for bankruptcy. Cryptocurrency lenders like Voyager have thrived during the COVID-19 pandemic, attracting savers with high interest rates and easy access to credit rarely offered by traditional banks. New Jersey-based Celsius froze withdrawals in June and hired advisers who could file for bankruptcy protection. Voyager froze withdrawals this month, as did Singapore-based Vault, another bank. Last week, Voyager announced that it had issued a formal notice of default to Three Arrows Capital (3AC) for defaulting on crypto loans totaling more than $650 million. 'Continued volatility and contagion in the crypto market over the past few months, as well as Three Arrows Capital’s default on loans,' said Voyager CEO Stephen Ehrlich. New Jersey-based but Toronto-listed Voyager estimated it had more than 100,000 creditors with between $1 billion and $10 billion in assets and the same value in li

 Facebook has asked a U.S. court for eight documents prepared by the FTC. The documents are part of its review of the company's purchases of Instagram and WhatsApp. The FTC is asking the court to quash the two deals. Facebook bought Instagram for $1 billion in 2012 and WhatsApp for $19 billion in 2014. The FTC sued Metas Facebook in 2020 during the Trump administration, accusing the company of unlawful conduct. Facebook is battling the lawsuit and wants the material to be part of that fight. The company argued that the FTC turned over the documents to the House Judiciary Committee as it probes tech giants. The FTC did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the filing. The requested documents include memos written for commissioners by the FTC’s Bureau of Competition and Economics on whether to allow the Instagram deal to pass. Meta also asked Competition Bureau staff to provide clarification about the WhatsApp transaction. The requested documents include memos written f

 Tesla delivered 254,695 vehicles in the second quarter, down about 18% from the first quarter. Supply chain disruptions at the company's new factories in Texas and Germany have also hit production, with analysts warning that the problems could eat into Tesla's profits. The electric car maker reported a drop in deliveries for the first time. Shares in the world's largest electric car maker fell more than 3% but reversed course to close at 2.6% as growth stocks rallied. The stock has lost about a third of its value so far this year. 'Tesla's shine has faded again as the recent drop in deliveries fell short of expectations,\\' said Hargreaves Lansdown analyst. J.P. Morgan says Tesla's manufacturing and financial results could be hurt by company-specific execution issues at the automaker's new plants in Texas and Berlin. Tesla CEO Elon Musk recently described the two factories as 'giant money melting pots' that are losing billions of dollars. Tesla

 European Union lawmakers passed landmark rules on Tuesday banning companies including Google, Amazon, Apple and Facebook. But limited resources from regulators could hinder law enforcement. In addition to the rules known as the Digital Markets Act, lawmakers passed the Digital Services Act (DSA), which requires online platforms to monitor more closely for illegal content on the internet. Businesses that violate the DMA face fines of up to 10% of global annual revenue. Earlier this year, lawmakers and EU countries reached a political agreement on the two sets of rules. The European Commission has set up a working group that is expected to be joined by about 80 officials. EU industry chief Thierry Breton said different teams would focus on different issues such as risk assessment, messenger service interoperability and data access. The regulator will also establish a European Algorithmic Transparency Centre to hire data scientists and algorithm scientists to provide law enforcement supp

 A hacker claims to have obtained troves of personal information on 1 billion Chinese citizens from Shanghai police. The anonymous user, known as \\'ChinaDan,\\' posted on the hacker forum Breach Forums last week, offering to sell more than 23 terabytes of data for 10 bitcoins, or about $200,000. 'In 2022, the Shanghai National Police (SHGA) database was leaked. The database contains data and information of billions of Chinese citizens,' the post said. 'The database contains information on 1 billion Chinese residents and billions of case records, including: name, address, place of birth, ID number, mobile phone number, all crime/case details' The hashtag \\'data breach\\' on Weibo was blocked on Sunday afternoon. Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao said Monday that the cryptocurrency exchange has stepped up user verification processes after the exchange's threat intelligence found records of 1 billion people in the Asian country being sold on the dark web. He

 Voyager Digital Ltd. announced on Friday that it has suspended withdrawals, transactions and deposits on its platform. The move comes just days after the company gave a formal notice to troubled hedge fund Three Arrows Capital (3AC) for failing to make loan payments as required. Voyager CEO Stephen Ehrlich said the move gives the company'more time to continue exploring strategic alternatives with various stakeholders' Voyager said in a release that it has retained Moelis & Company (MC.N) and Consello Group as financial advisors. On June 22, Voyager signed a revolving line of credit agreement with Alameda Ventures Ltd to access more funds. Voyager said it borrowed $350 million and 15,250 bitcoins from 3AC. 3AC has entered a liquidation phase, a person familiar with the matter told Reuters. Voyager's move comes less than a month after rival crypto lender Celsius Network suspended withdrawals. Celsius has not yet opened withdrawals for its customers. Voyager's mov

 Coinbase Global Inc (COIN.O) said on Friday that it plans to expand into some European markets. The company is expanding in France, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands. The exchange aims to launch its retail, institutional and developer offerings in all of those markets. Coinbase Global Inc (COIN.O) plans to expand into some European markets. The company is expanding in France, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands. It aims to launch its retail, institutional and developer offerings in all of those markets. In June, Coinbase cut 1,100 jobs, or nearly 18% of its workforce.

 Central African Republic President Faustin-Archange Touadera said on Sunday that cryptocurrencies are a solution to financial exclusion. 'The alternative to cash is cryptocurrencies,' he said at the launch of Sango, a crypto initiative hosted by the country. The country became the first African country to adopt bitcoin as legal tender in April. The Sango project, including a \\'Sango coin,\\' is backed by the Central African Republic's National Assembly. The coin would provide access to the country's natural resources, including gold and diamonds. The move to adopt cryptocurrencies in countries with low internet usage and unreliable electricity supplies has drawn attention from crypto experts and confused lawmakers.

 The British Army regained control of its Twitter and YouTube accounts on Sunday. The accounts were briefly hacked and used to post about cryptocurrencies and non-fungible tokens. \\'Apologize for temporarily interrupting our news. We will conduct a full investigation and learn from this incident,' read a post on Twitter. The army’s YouTube account, which has been renamed Ark Invest and features several cryptocurrency-themed videos, has also been restored to its original state. His Twitter feed currently has 362,000 followers, while his YouTube channel has 177,000 subscribers. The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent via email and on the company's website.