Financial News

Financial News:

Wall Street, Dow and S&P 500 futures are each up 0.1%.

UNDATED (AP) – Amazon reported a power outage of its cloud computing network yesterday, although it was much shorter and less disruptive than one on Dec. 7. That one earlier this month lasted for about 45 minutes, although the company said some customers continued to experience problems almost 12 hours following the outage. Hardware failures in the affected data center forced some Amazon customers to restart their cloud-based systems entirely. Amazon has still said nothing about what, exactly, went wrong on Dec. 7.

BEIJING (AP) – Intel Corp. is apologizing for asking suppliers to avoid sourcing goods from Xinjiang, China after the chipmaker became the latest foreign brand attacked by state media over the region where authorities are accused of widespread abuses. The company, in a statement on its social media account, says the reference to Xinjiang in a letter sent to suppliers was aimed at complying with U.S. regulations. Washington has barred imports of goods from Xinjiang over complaints about mass detentions there of mostly Muslim minorities, forced abortions and other abuses. The Global Times, a newspaper published by the ruling party, calls Intel “arrogant and vicious.”

BEIJING (AP) – Under orders not to leave home unless necessary, the 13 million residents of the northern Chinese city of Xi’an are adjusting to a lockdown imposed after a spike in coronavirus cases. The measure comes just weeks before the country hosts the Winter Olympics in Beijing. There’s no word on whether the virus is the newly surging omicron variant or the far more common delta. China has reported just seven omicron cases. The Xi’an restrictions are some of the harshest since China in 2020 imposed a strict lockdown on more than 11 million people in and around the central city of Wuhan, where the coronavirus was first detected in late 2019.

SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) – The jurors assessing 11 charges of fraud and conspiracy against former Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes are scheduled to begin their third day of deliberations today in San Jose, Calif. The jury is charged with deciding whether Holmes turned her blood-testing startup into a massive scam. If convicted on all counts, the 37-year-old Holmes could face up to 20 years in prison.