News Archive - 19 October 2015

>Hard disk drive maker Western Digital Corp is in advanced talks to acquire memory chipmaker SanDisk Corp, people familiar with the matter said on Monday, as a frenzy of dealmaking in the semiconductor sector continued.Western Digital has so far prevailed over other suitors for SanDisk, which has a market...

>Chipmaker Microsemi Corp offered to buy PMC-Sierra Inc for about $2.2 billion, trumping a $2 billion offer from Skyworks Solutions Inc, to expand its offerings for telecom, data center and cloud customers.PMC-Sierra shares rose as much as 15 percent to $11.73 on Monday, above Microsemi's offer price...

>JOHANNESBURG Belgian brewer Anheuser-Busch InBev (ABI.BR) may have won over peer SABMiller (SAB.L), but the $100 billion-plus deal could face delays in South Africa, where the now British company began selling its ubiquitous Castle Lager 120 years ago.AB InBev's reputation as a cost slasher has alarmed local...

>WASHINGTON Lowering prison sentences for non-violent drug offenders appeared to have few opponents in a U.S. Senate judiciary committee hearing on Monday, a sign of the waning influence of police groups and unions in the debate over prison reform.The lone dissenter at the hearing, Republican Senator Jeff Sessions,...

>WASHINGTON Support for former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton among Democrats has jumped since earlier this month, helped by a strong performance in last week's first Democratic presidential candidates debate, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll on Monday.Fifty-one percent of 1,003 Democrats polled in the online survey said...

>WASHINGTON Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton on Monday urged U.S. regulators to determine how to bring lower-cost generic drugs to market more swiftly and combat anticompetitive practices in the pharmaceutical industry. Clinton's requests to the Food and Drug Administration and the Federal Trade Commission were prompted by what she...

>The New York Post reported on Monday that a high school student claimed to have hacked into Brennan's private AOL account and the Comcast account of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson. The hacker told the Post Brennan's private account contained sensitive files including his 47-page application for top-secret security clearance.

>The complaint, expected to be filed by early November, alleges that Google uses its Android mobile operating system to unfairly promote its own products like Google Maps and online search over those of rivals, the newspaper reported, citing the people. Deutsche Telekom, Google and European Competition authorities could not immediately...

>Medecins Sans Frontieres, or Doctors Without Borders, said in a statement on Friday that a U.S. tank had entered the grounds of its hospital in Kunduz without permission, damaging the compound, destroying potential evidence, and distressing its staff.Department of Defense spokesman Captain Jeff Davis said on Monday that...

>Hackers associated with the Chinese government have tried to penetrate at least seven U.S. companies in the three weeks since Washington and Beijing agreed not to spy on each other for commercial reasons, according to a prominent U.S. security firm.CrowdStrike Inc said software it placed at five...

>BEIRUT/AMMAN Rebels battling the Syrian army and its allies near Aleppo said on Monday they had received new supplies of U.S.-made anti-tank missiles from states opposed to President Bashar al-Assad since the start of a major government offensive last week.The rebels from three groups contacted by Reuters...

>BERKASOVO, Serbia/LJUBLJANA The Balkans struggled with a growing backlog of migrants on Monday after Hungary sealed its southern border and Slovenia tried to impose a limit, leaving thousands stranded on cold, rain-drenched borders where tempers frayed.Having declared it would accept only 2,500 per day, Slovenia said 5,000 had arrived...

>FRANKFURT Ireland's citizens lost more of their personal wealth than any other euro zone country in the aftermath of the financial crash while Germany and the Netherlands gained the most, fresh data from the European Central Bank shows.In an analysis of the years between 2009 and 2013, ECB experts...

>"I do see the time to start raising rates in the near future, from my perspective," San Francisco Fed President John Williams said in an interview on Bloomberg TV. The U.S. economy will probably grow about 2 percent or 2.25 percent next year, he forecast, fast enough to...

>NEW YORK The U.S. dollar rose against the euro on Monday, ahead of a European Central Bank meeting later this week, while stocks on major world markets ended little changed despite further news of slowing Chinese economic growth.U.S. stocks ended little changed but investors concern about the...

>Advances in top tech and biotech names helped U.S. stocks to end with slight gains on Monday, while caution at the start of a heavy week of earnings kept a lid on the market.The Dow and S&P 500 pared losses late in the session while the Nasdaq added...

>Morgan Stanley (MS.N) on Monday warned that there was little hope for a quick turnaround in its key trading business given the persistence of global growth concerns that helped pummel the bank's third quarter earnings. Chief Executive James Gorman was put on the defensive after a 42 percent slide...

>International Business Machines Corp (IBM.N) posted a bigger-than-expected drop in revenue for the fifth straight quarter, hurt by a strong U.S. dollar, and cut its full-year profit forecast, sending its shares lower. It was the 14th quarter in a row that IBM has posted a reduction in revenue,...