Odds and Ends 

Templafy raises $25M Series C led by Insight partners to deal with enterprise documents

Back in 2018 Templafy — which had come up with a way for enterprises to more easily make templates out of standard documents (yes, it’s a thing) — raised an additional $15 million from existing investors as an extension of its earlier Series B round taking it to $40.2 million raised. The company integrates with enterprise infrastructure to provide corporate content assets, document templates, and automatic validation of created documents for all kinds of clients. On this journey it has used its cash to acquire SlideProof in Berlin, then Veodin and iWRITER in 2019, and opened an office…

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Amazon sales of ‘non-essentials’ hit by French court ruling

Online supplier to appeal against staff virus safety plan in France which sought to limit orders to food and medicine Amazon must stop selling non-essential items or face a fine of 1m a day until it can come up with a safety plan to protect the health of its employees, a French court has ruled. The ruling, which has already been suspended pending appeal, required the company to only accept orders for groceries, toiletries and medical products as part of the wider lockdown imposed in France. The company was sued…

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Coronavirus could push half a billion people into poverty, Oxfam warns

Nearly half of all jobs in Africa could be lost without urgent action, says charity More than half a billion more people could be pushed into poverty unless urgent action is taken to bail out poor countries affected by the economic fallout from the Covid-19 pandemic, plans to offer debt relief to the worlds poorest countries and whether to increase the funds available to the IMF through the creation of special drawing rights (SDRs), a form of international currency that can be used to help struggling countries. The UN, which…

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Waffle House closes 420 locations amid coronavirus pandemic

New York City (CNN Business)Waffle House just became the latest restaurant chain to shutter some of its locations amid the nation’s novel coronavirus outbreak. “With so few customers visiting our restaurants, we are rapidly losing the ability to offer enough work hours for our associates to earn money needed to live their lives and pay their bills,” the company said. “Waffle House is striving to keep as many stores open for as long as we can in order to support as many associates as possible.” Most of the chain’s closures…

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While Many Restaurants Struggle, Here’s How One Is Thriving

Driving through eerily quiet Seattle on Friday, I tuned into an widely-echoed sentiment. Making the rush-hour trip in a fraction of the time it normally takes to cross town, I was on my way to see one of the only chefs I know who's offering a bit of hope. When the world is not under siege from a deadly virus, Eric Rivera runs Addo, a busy restaurant with constantly changing offerings, from inexpensive homestyle Puerto Rican to high-end, multi-course meals with wine pairings. Now, though, as despair has seized other…

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Utah cuts healthcare costs by flying employees to Mexico for prescriptions

Utahs plan lets people collect medications at a fraction of the US cost, while other states are looking to import drugs from Canada A health insurer in Utah is seeking to reduce prescription drug costs by flying state employees to Mexico, where they can collect medications at a fraction of the US cost. The year-old programme involves about 10 state employees. The cost savings are so large that the insurance program can pay for each patients flight, give them a $500-per-trip bonus and still save tens of thousands of dollars.…

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Sick of high drug prices, insurers join hospitals to make their own generic medications

New York (CNN Business)Everyone complains about high drug prices. But hospitals and now insurers are trying to lower costs by manufacturing their own generic medications. Now insurers want in. The Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, along with 18 independent Blue Cross and Blue Shield insurers, announced Thursday they are pumping $55 million into Civica to form a subsidiary aimed at lowering the price of costly generic drugs consumers buy at pharmacies and through mail order. The subsidiary will initially focus on manufacturing seven to 10 high-priced medications, with the first…

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Ex-Nissan CEO: Carlos Ghosn’s escape from Japan is a betrayal

Hong Kong (CNN Business)Ex-Nissan chief and Carlos Ghosn protege Hiroto Saikawa is slamming his former mentor’s brazen escape from Japan, calling it a betrayal. “Unfortunately there was no trust, and some of our Japanese friends thought that the only way to get rid of the influence of Renault on Nissan [was] to get rid of me,” Ghosn said. Saikawa succeeded Ghosn as CEO of Nissan in April 2017. But his tenure as chief, especially after Ghosn was arrested in November 2018, was marked by a string of terrible earnings. Saikawa…

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From renewables to Netflix: the 15 super-trends that defined the 2010s

It was the decade of austerity, fracking, populism and internet lies. But not everything about the 2010s was terrible The plastics backlash Garbage, including plastic waste, is seen at the beach in Costa del Este, Panama City. Photograph: Luis Acosta/AFP via Getty Images It was once the height of metropolitan chic: the dash into Starbucks for a skinny decaf caramel latte en route for work, the takeaway cup a mark of upward mobility. Those were the days of Sex and the City, when the culture of doing everything on the…

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American Dream: can this giant New Jersey mega-mall revive US retail?

The owners of a massive new shopping complex are convinced of success. But has Americas once-great retail format simply had its day? On a dreary Tuesday morning shortly before Christmas, two passengers boarded the 9.30am 355 bus from New Yorks Port Authority bus terminal bound for American Dream, the most ambitious new mall to be built in the US in a generation. One was a mall worker who didnt want to talk to the media; the other was me. Depending on who you speak to, American Dream, the optimistically named…

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‘Amazing deal’ or ‘capitulation’? Why the US-China trade truce may not last

Donald Trump hailed the agreement, but others think it masks a process of deglobalisation as the two superpowers struggle for hegemony The trade war between the US and China may never be settled, experts fear, even after the two sides agreed on an outline phase one deal. Economists and investors have been poring over agreement would also require China to make structural reforms and other changes to its economic and trade regime in the areas of intellectual property, technology transfer, agriculture, financial services, and currency and foreign exchange. In exchange,…

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Forget fashion and beauty. These are the grocery store influencers

New York (CNN Business)When you think of influencers, you might think of flat tummy tea and hair vitamins. Aldi is not the only big grocer with pages run by die-hard customers. Kroger Krazy lifts Kroger. An Instagram account called Costco_doesitagain has 511,000 followers. Then there’s Trader Joe’s List, Trader Joe’s Obsessed and a lineup of Trader Joe’s influencers with no connection to the company. I Heart Publix, a Facebook page started by Michelle Atwood more than a decade ago, has grown to 116,000 followers. With more consumers cutting the cord…

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Billionaires only, please! London vault for the ultra-rich opens

Exclusive safety deposit bank near Harrods angles to be worlds most expensive Welcome to the billionaires new piggy bank. A bank vault in a grade-II listed 120-year-old former mansion next to the Dorchester Hotel on Londons Park Lane will open for business next week. This is no ordinary bank. This one will be slightly more discerning of its customers than the average high street bank branch. We wont deal with millionaires, says Sean Hoey, managing director of the facility, run by Ashok Sewnarain, said it was opening the London vault…

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