Author: ricardofrancois

Illuminated skyscrapers stand in the central business district at sunset on November 13, 2023 in Beijing, China.VCG | China Optical Group | Getty ImagesBEIJING – China's commercial real estate sector is seeing pockets of demand amid a sweeping real estate slump.Beijing is seeing rents for prime retail locations rise at their fastest pace since 2019, real estate consultancy JLL said in a report on Tuesday. Rents rose 1.3% during the first three months of this year compared to the fourth quarter of 2023, the report said.Demand from new food and beverage brands, foreign specialty fashion shows and electric vehicle companies…

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It was the era of the Wild West, when white men from the East were flocking to Arizona to reap the golden bounty of the land, seizing land and making laws.William Howell, a New Yorker charged with writing the law that would establish Arizona as a territory, opened the law books in a neighboring state as a model: California. He copied large portions of the state's legal text — including a clause that criminalizes abortions except when the mother's life is in danger. On Tuesday, 160 years later, the significance of Howell's words rose again, when the Arizona Supreme Court…

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New York – A decline on Wall Street sent stocks lower on Wednesday, with fears growing that what looked like a weak spot in the battle to lower inflation is turning into a worrying trend.The S&P 500 fell 0.9%, with the vast majority of stocks within the index falling. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 422 points, or 1.1%, and the Nasdaq Composite Index fell 0.8%.Treasury yields also jumped in the bond market, adding pressure to the stock market, after a report showed inflation was hotter last month than economists expected. This is the third report in a row indicating…

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The European Union's pioneering digital market regulation appears to be shaking up competition in the mobile browser market. It's been just over a month since the Digital Markets Act (DMA) came into force, and there are early signs that it is having an impact by forcing phone makers to show browser selection screens to users. On Wednesday, Reuters reported on growth data shared by Cyprus-based web browser Aloha and others, which it said suggested the new law was spurring competitiveness and helping smaller browser makers gain share or at least attract more attention than they had been. But it's still…

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Washington – Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro N. Mayorkas testified about his agency's 2025 budget on Wednesday, as House Republicans submitted articles of impeachment to the Senate. Instead, Republicans abstained from voting, choosing to wait until next week while trying to make the case for a full Senate trial of the first US Cabinet official to be impeached in nearly 150 years.It has been two months since Mayorkas, a California native and the highest-ranking Latino in the federal government, was removed by a narrow margin of votes.House Republicans, who are eyeing the chaos on the southern border as a way to…

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Astranis has unveiled a new generation of communications satellites that will serve broadband to customers on Earth from geostationary orbit, but are faster and smaller than any satellite out there. They believe that the future of orbital communications lies not only in higher orbits, but also in the possibility of customers – government and commercial – having their own satellite network. The new class of satellites, dubbed Omega, will provide about 50 gigabits per second of bandwidth in both civilian and military Ka bands – making it clear from the start that this technology is intended to be a dual-use…

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Check out the companies making headlines in midday trading. Deckers Outdoor – Shares lost nearly 6.7% after Truist downgraded the footwear company on concerns of lower demand for core products, noting Hoka's direct-to-consumer trends declined in February. Cava – Shares jumped 5.7% after Argus upgraded the Mediterranean food chain to buy from hold, saying investors should buy on the dip. Cava has a “long runway for growth,” the company said. Shares are up 44% year to date, but are down 11% this month. Nvidia – Shares rose nearly 2% as the leader of the “Magnificent Seven” tried to pull the…

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A view of Sierra Space's Velocity satellite busCredit: Sierra SpaceAmid preparations for the maiden flight of its spaceplane and an initial public offering next year, Sierra Space is expanding its satellite offerings. a Ahead of the long-awaited solar eclipse, the commercial space unicorn unveiled its Eclipse line of satellite buses — the main structures for satellites — to serve a wide range of missions in orbits ranging from low-Earth to lunar CIS. “We've actually been waiting for six months, so it looks like this [name]“We really thought about it,” Sierra Space CEO Tom Weiss said in an interview with CNBC's…

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A hot inflation report has rattled Wall Street and dampened hopes for a number of potential interest rate cuts this year, but there are still areas of the market where investors can take cover if price pressures continue to accelerate. Stocks were sold off on Wednesday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average falling as much as 500 points at one point after March inflation data came in higher than economists had expected. The 10-year Treasury yield, a benchmark for mortgage loans and credit card debt, rose again to above 4.5%. To protect against stubborn inflation and higher interest rates for…

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Fed officials at their March meeting expressed concern that inflation is not moving fast enough, although they still expect to cut interest rates at some point this year.At a meeting in which the Federal Open Market Committee again voted to keep short-term borrowing rates steady, policymakers also expressed suspicions that inflation, although falling, was not doing so in a convincing enough way. The Fed currently targets its benchmark interest rate between 5.25%-5.5%As such, FOMC members voted to maintain language in a post-meeting statement that they would not cut interest rates until they “gained greater confidence” that inflation was on a…

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