Mexican tycoon Slim seeks funding details of U.S. protest group

People protest holding masks of Mexican telecommunications tycoon Slim as he attends Meeting of Latin American Businessmen in LimaBy Elinor Comlay MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – A U.S. cellphone company owned by Carlos Slim has asked Californian authorities to investigate the funding behind protests against the Mexican tycoon by lobby group Two Countries, One Voice. The group has been leading U.S. protests against Slim, accusing his phone company of charging Mexican immigrants inflated prices to call home, just as the billionaire tries to build up business in the United States. Slim's small but growing U.S. …

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UK opposition party leader says Google tax behavior 'wrong'

A neon Google logo is seen as employees work at the new Google office in TorontoBy Andrew Osborn LONDON (Reuters) – Google Inc's tax affairs will come under renewed scrutiny in Britain on Wednesday when the leader of the opposition Labor party accuses the Internet company of wrongly going to “extraordinary lengths” to avoid paying tax. In comments designed to politically outflank Prime Minister David Cameron ahead of next month's G8 summit on what has become a high-profile issue, Ed Miliband, the Labor leader, will say he is disappointed that Google pays so little tax. “I can't be the only person here who feels disappointed that such a great company as Google … …

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One bad sign for Yahoo’s Tumblr buy: Its history of $1 billion duds

Yahoo turned some heads this week when it announced that it was paying $1.1 billion to buy blogging platform Tumblr, but this isn’t the first time it has spent at least $1 billion to acquire another company. As NPR points out, Yahoo has bought several companies over the past 15 years that it has valued at $1 billion or higher, including most famously its $3.7 billion acquisition of GeoCities in 1999. Other failed Yahoo acquisitions include the $5.7 billion it paid for multimedia website Broadcast.com and the $1.63 billion it paid for search advertising pioneer Overture. In fact, all of these acquisitions make the $30 million that Yahoo paid for Flickr back in 2005 seem like a relative success story, since

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Scandal or not, one SAC investor can't get enough of Steve Cohen

File photo of Hedge fund manager Cohen, founder and chairman of SAC Capital Advisors, responding to a question during an interview at the SALT Conference in Las VegasBy Svea Herbst-Bayliss and Sam Forgione BOSTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) – As federal prosecutors circle Steven A. Cohen's $15 billion hedge fund in a long-running insider trading probe, one financial adviser in Texas is so devoted to the billionaire investor that he may give him more money. “I'm thinking about putting more money with him,” said Ed Butowsky, managing director at Chapwood Capital Investment Management, who manages $1 billion in client money. …

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Appeals court strikes down Arizona ban on abortions at 20 weeks

By Dan Whitcomb (Reuters) – A federal appeals court struck down an Arizona law on Tuesday that bans abortions from 20 weeks gestation, saying it violated “unalterably clear” U.S. Supreme Court rulings that women have a right to terminate pregnancies until a fetus is viable. The decision by a three-member panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of appeals in San Francisco, which overturned the ruling of a federal district court judge, was hailed by abortion rights groups as a “huge victory” in a state they say has taken one of the nation’s toughest stances on the issue. …

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PayPal fires up new data center to support growth

By Alistair Barr SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – PayPal has opened a new data center to help the online payment division of eBay Inc handle its rapid growth, President David Marcus said on Tuesday. The addition means PayPal now has four primary data centers, which it runs from network operation centers at its headquarters in San Jose, California, and Scottsdale, Arizona. “We’re growing still very, very fast, so we need more machines, more capacity and bandwidth,” Marcus told Reuters in an interview. Marcus declined to say where the new data center was located for security reasons. …

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