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California will provide temporary tax relief and $500 million in aid to small businesses struggling because of coronavirus outbreak restrictions, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced this week. The tax measures include a three-month automatic extension of the income tax payment deadline for those paying less than $1 million in sales tax and expansion of a program allowing businesses with up to $5 million in sales to reach agreements on interest-free tax payments. Interest-free payment options also will be expanded for larger businesses, Newsom said. The additional $500 million in relief funds will be available to small businesses and nonprofits in the form of grants up to $25,000. “California’s small businesses embody the best of the California Dream and we can’t let this pandemic take that away,” Newsom said in a statement.…

Business software pioneer Salesforce.com is buying work-chatting service Slack for $27.7 billion in a deal aimed at giving the two companies a better shot at competing against longtime industry powerhouse Microsoft. The acquisition announced Tuesday is by far the largest in the 21-year history of Salesforce. The San Francisco company was one of the first to begin selling software as a subscription service that could be used on any internet-connected device instead of the more cumbersome process of installing the programs on individual computers. Salesforce’s flamboyant founder and CEO Marc Benioff hailed the “cloud computing” concept as the wave of the future to much derision initially. But software as a service has become an industry standard that has turned into a gold mine for longtime software makers. Microsoft for one…

The value that Wall Street places on access to billions of bytes of data, rather than old-school stock picking, became abundantly clear as two of the biggest providers of such information become one in the biggest takeover of the year. S&P Global announced that it would acquire IHS Markit, based in London, for about $44 billion in an all-stock deal. Data collection has become pivotal on Wall Street as algorithms and high-speed trading drive global markets. And growth has been explosive for the companies that can provide that information instantly and in bulk. IHS and Markit merged just four years ago to create a $13 billion company. The company has almost tripled in value since then, and is now worth close to $37 billion. The size of the deal announced…

The New Mutants Five teenage mutants – Mirage (Blu Hunt), Wolfsbane (Maisie Williams), Cannonball (Charlie Heaton), Sunspot (Henry Zaga) and Magik (Anya Taylor-Joy) – are treated at a secret institution they are told will cure them of the dangers of their powers. But things soon go wrong…. FIVE FACTS: 1. Although it is the 13th and final installment of the X-Men film series that began in 2000, The New Mutants is a spin-off rather than part of the series’ main narrative. 2. Josh Boone was confirmed as the film’s director and co-writer in May 2015 . 3. Filming took place in Massachusetts, including the capital of Boston, from July to September 2017. 4. The filming mainly occurred at Medfield State Hospital, which was Massachusetts’ first mental asylum and unsettling to…

Britain’s culture minister thinks the Netflix TV series “The Crown” should come with a disclaimer: It’s a work of fiction. Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden weighed in amid criticism of the historical liberties taken by the drama about the British royal family. “It’s a beautifully produced work of fiction. So as with other TV productions, Netflix should be very clear at the beginning it is just that,” Dowden told the Mail on Sunday newspaper. “Without this, I fear a generation of viewers who did not live through these events may mistake fiction for fact.” Dowden is expected to write to Netflix this week to express his view. Netflix did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Questions of historical fidelity were not a major issue during earlier seasons of the…

China’s landing of its third probe on the moon is part of an increasingly ambitious space program that has a robot rover en route to Mars, is developing a reusable space plane and is planning to put humans back on the lunar surface. The Chang’e 5, the first effort to bring lunar rocks to Earth since the 1970s, collected samples on Wednesday, the Chinese space agency announced. The probe landed Tuesday on the Sea of Storms on the moon’s near side. Space exploration is a political trophy for the ruling Communist Party, which wants global influence to match China’s economic success. China is a generation behind the United States and Russia, but its secretive, military-linked program is developing rapidly. It is creating distinctive missions that, if successful, could put Beijing…

A huge, already damaged radio telescope in Puerto Rico that has played a key role in astronomical discoveries for more than half a century completely collapsed on Tuesday. The telescope’s 900-ton receiver platform and the Gregorian dome — a structure as tall as a four-story building that houses secondary reflectors — fell onto the northern portion of the vast reflector dish more than 400 feet below. The U.S. National Science Foundation had earlier announced that it would close the radio telescope. An auxiliary cable snapped in August, causing a 100-foot gash on the 1,000-foot-wide (305-meter-wide) dish and damaged the receiver platform that hung above it. Then a main cable broke in early November. The collapse stunned many scientists who had relied on what was until recently the largest radio telescope…

France is resuming collection of a special tax on Big Tech companies like Amazon and Facebook despite the threat of U.S. retaliatory tariffs on French Champagne, cheese, handbags and other goods. The tax brought about 400 million euros to the French budget last year, but the government agreed to suspend it in 2020, in exchange for an American promise to drop the tariff threat pending talks on an international deal on taxing online companies. France was hoping that such an accord could be reached by the end of this year, rendering the French tax moot. But the Trump administration pulled out of the negotiations, led by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, and no such deal is ready yet. So French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said that France…

Black Friday online sales hit a new record this year as pandemic-wary Americans filled virtual carts instead of real ones. Consumers spent an estimated $9 billion on U.S. retail websites on Black Friday, according to Adobe Analytics, which tracks online shopping. That was a 22% increase over the previous record of $7.4 billion set in 2019. Meanwhile, traffic to physical stores plummeted as retailers tried to prevent crowds by cutting their hours and limiting doorbuster deals. U.S. store visits dropped by 52% on Black Friday, according to Sensormatic Solutions, a retail tracker. Traffic was slower in the Northeast and West than in the Midwest and South, said Brian Field, Sensormatic’s senior director of global retail consulting. Jewelry and footwear saw some of the biggest in-person sales declines, according to RetailNext,…

Though it was always Apple’s intention to create leaner, faster machines when it transitioned to its own custom chip, even Craig Federighi revealed he was shocked when benchmarks were revealed. M1 takes the Mac in a whole new direction, revolutionizing computing once again. SUPERPOWER COMPUTING It’s not an overstatement to suggest that M1 has changed the computing game. For years, it has been iPhones and Apple Watches that have pushed boundaries in terms of performance and specifications, and though the iPhone 12 and Apple Watch Series 6 are industry-leading in their own rights, the truth is that innovation has slowed greatly. And one area where Apple has rested on its laurels, releasing half-baked year-over-year updates to devices with very few changes along the way, is its Mac family. When Apple…

General Motors will not be taking a stake in the electric vehicle company Nikola, and the company said that it was scuttling one of its marquee vehicles, an electric and hydrogen-powered pickup, after GM pulled technological support from the project. Shares of Nikola plunged 24%. Nikola on Monday released updated terms between the companies for a supply agreement related to GM’s fuel-cell system, replacing an agreement signed in September. That deal would have given GM an 11% stake in Nikola. The early agreement would also have allowed Nikola to use GM’s new battery electric truck underpinnings for its electric and hydrogen-powered pickup called the Badger, and its fuel cell and battery technology as well. That is no longer part of the agreement, essentially gutting Nikola’s plans for the Badger. Nikola…

Plastic Hearts (Apple Music Backyard Sessions Edition) Miley Cyrus Having shaken off the divisive country-music phase she entered with her previous studio album Younger Now in 2017, Cyrus has returned to the shiny pop culture permeating much of her back catalog. The result is Plastic Hearts, one of her most critically acclaimed studio albums yet. FIVE FACTS: 1. The new album’s raw sound was largely influenced by recent difficulties in the artist’s personal life, including her divorce from actor Liam Hemsworth and struggles with alcohol use. 2.“I have the artist torture thing going on, too, where I’m a little conflict-seeking because it’s creative,” Cyrus admitted in an interview with Apple Music. 3. The digital version of Plastic Hearts, including the Apple Music Backyard Sessions Edition, includes Cyrus’ rougher-edged live version…

“No New ‘Movies’Till Influenza Ends” blared a New York Times headline on Oct. 10, 1918, while the deadly second wave of the Spanish Flu was unfolding. A century later, during another pandemic, movies — quotes no longer necessary — are again facing a critical juncture. But it’s not because new films haven’t been coming out. By streaming service, video-on-demand, virtual theater or actual theater, a steady diet of films have been released under COVID-19 every week. The Times has reviewed more than 460 new movies since mid-March. Yet until recently — with only a few exceptions — those haven’t been the big-budget spectacles Hollywood runs on. Eight months into the pandemic, that’s changing. Last month, the Walt Disney Co. experimented with the $200 million “Mulan” as a premium buy on…

A Japanese spacecraft is nearing Earth after a yearlong journey home from a distant asteroid with soil samples and data that could provide clues to the origins of the solar system, a space agency official said. The Hayabusa2 spacecraft left the asteroid Ryugu, about 300 million kilometers (180 million miles) from Earth, a year ago and is expected to reach Earth and drop a capsule containing the precious samples in southern Australia on Dec. 6. Scientists at the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency believe the samples, especially those taken from under the asteroid’s surface, contain valuable data unaffected by space radiation and other environmental factors. Makoto Yoshikawa, a Hayabusa2 project mission manager, said scientists are especially interested in analyzing organic materials in the Ryugu soil samples. “Organic materials are origins of…

British officials authorized a COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use on Wednesday, greenlighting the world’s first shot against the virus that’s backed by rigorous science and taking a major step toward eventually ending the pandemic. The go-ahead for the vaccine developed by American drugmaker Pfizer and Germany’s BioNTech comes as the virus surges again in the United States and Europe, putting pressure on hospitals and morgues in some places and forcing new rounds of restrictions that have devastated economies. The Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency, which licenses drugs in the U.K., recommended the vaccine could be used after it reviewed the results of clinical trials that showed the vaccine was 95% effective overall — and that it also offered significant protection for older people, among those most at risk of…

Airbnb hopes to raise as much as $2.6 billion in its initial public stock offering this month, betting investors will see its home-sharing model as the future of travel. In a filing with securities regulators Tuesday, the San Francisco company said it expects to offer 51.9 million common shares priced between $44 and $50 each. The company is expected to debut on the Nasdaq stock exchange on Dec. 10, trading under the symbol “ABNB.” Including stock options, restricted stock units and other classes of securities, Airbnb will have approximately 696 million shares. That would value the company at nearly $35 billion at the high end of its offering price, or $31 billion at the low end. It’s a remarkable comeback for the company that delayed its IPO when the coronavirus…

DoorDash is looking for a valuation of nearly $30 billion when it takes itself public, reflecting how integral food delivery has become in millions of people’s lives during the pandemic. The company is planning to raise up to approximately $2.8 billion from an initial public offering of 33 million shares. The offering is expected to be priced between $75 and $85 per share, according to a regulatory filing this week. DoorDash has experienced explosive growth this year. Last year, the company generated $885 million in revenue. During the first nine months of 2020 revenue more than doubled that to $1.9 billion. It was already growing before the pandemic. In 2018 it brought in $291 million in revenue. But DoorDash has lost money each year since its founding and the company…

Software engineer Raymond Berger begins his work day at 5 a.m., before the sun comes up over Hawaii. Rising early is necessary because the company he works for is in New York City, five hours ahead of Maui, where he is renting a home with a backyard that’s near the beach. “It’s a little hard with the time zone difference,” he said. “But generally I have a much better quality of life.” The pandemic is giving many workers the freedom to do their jobs from anywhere. Now that Hawaii’s economy is reeling from dramatically fewer tourists, a group of state officials and community leaders wants more people like Berger to help provide an alternative to relying on short-term visitors. Coinciding with the approach of winter in other parts of the…

It’s a demonstrably difficult task to find a comic screen partner worthy of standing opposite Melissa McCarthy, so you have to appreciate “Superintelligence” for throwing in the towel. In it, McCarthy plays Carol Peters, a former Yahoo executive who’s chosen, purely for her extreme averageness, by a newly liberated, megalomaniacal artificial intelligence that presents her with a three-day test to prove humanity isn’t worth destroying. It’s the kind of set-up that would have once presided over by the devil or some demigod, but now that role goes to Alexa. That means that for much of “Superintelligence,” a new comedy streaming Thursday on HBO Max, McCarthy is walking around on her own, her only foil a disembodied voice (James Corden’s) or an occasional talking screen. That’s not as good as McCarthy…

A Chinese spacecraft took samples of the moon’s surface Wednesday as part of a mission to bring lunar rocks back to Earth for the first time since the 1970s, the government said, adding to a string of successes for Beijing’s increasingly ambitious space program. The Chang’e 5 probe touched down Tuesday on the Sea of Storms on the moon’s near side after descending from an orbiter, the China National Space Administration said. It released images of the barren landing site showing the lander’s shadow. “Chang’e has collected moon samples,” the agency said in a statement. The probe, launched Nov. 24 from the tropical island of Hainan, is the latest venture by a space program that sent China’s first astronaut into orbit in 2003. Beijing also has a spacecraft en route…

Fresh off a big acquisition and riding a wave of customer growth, Teladoc Health is ready to do more for patients. CEO Jason Gorevic said the telemedicine provider can play a big role in helping people manage high blood pressure, diabetes or other chronic conditions. Plus he wants customers to think well beyond primary care when they consider telemedicine, which involves care delivered remotely, often with a live video connection through smartphones or tablets. Last month, Teladoc finished a more than $18 billion deal to buy the technology company Livongo. Separately, the telemedicine provider said its total visits have more than doubled to 7.6 million so far this year, as COVID-19 has pushed more people to try remote care. The 49-year-old Gorevic spoke recently with The Associated Press. The conversation…

Wireless carriers in the U.K. won’t be allowed to install Huawei equipment in their high-speed 5G networks after September 2021, the British government said, hardening its line against the Chinese technology company. The deadline is part of a roadmap the British government is laying down to remove “high risk” equipment suppliers with draft legislation that aims to tighten telecommunications security requirements. The government of Prime Minister Boris Johnson in July banned Huawei from having a role in building Britain’s next-generation mobile phone networks over security concerns triggered by U.S. sanctions. Britain and other European countries have started to fall in line after the U.S. lobbied allies to shun Huawei over fears its equipment could be used by China’s communist rulers to facilitate electronic espionage. Telecom operators were ordered to stop…