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The Life of a Song: Midnight Train to Georgia

Sue Norris on how Cissy Houston and Gladys Knight respectively transformed the sound, and meaning, of Jim Weatherly's country number. Credits: X5 Music Group, Jim Weatherly, Carinco AG, Capitol Records LLC.  


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The Life of a Song: A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall

David Cheal looks at how Bob Dylan took inspiration from an old Scottish border ballad while writing this era-defining apocalyptic vision of what he saw as the violent, ignorant and hypocritical socio-political landscape of 1960s America. Credits: Sony Music Entertainment Inc, A Wing & A Prayer Ltd, Vanguard Records, Virgin Records. Patti Smith Nobel ceremony recording courtesy of: Nobelprize.org.  


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Low Covid-19 death toll raises hopes Africa may be spared worst

Continent has limited confirmed virus fatalities but experts warn it is too early to draw conclusions




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Train your successor before you need one

To move on to a dream job, have someone ready to replace you at the old one




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Biden struggles to raise money in era of Zoom soirées

Democratic candidate wrestles with new realities as he tries to close cash gap with Trump




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The foreign states that own Britain’s railways

Train travel in the UK now combines the worst features of capitalism and socialism




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How Britain fell back in love with the railways

A pledge to roll back the Beeching cuts has rekindled a strange national obsession




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Brazil-China ties strained by social media war over coronavirus

Officials’ barbs come at a precarious time for Latin American country




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Election: Labour manifesto shows party would raise taxes by £80bn a year — as it happened

Jeremy Corbyn unveils party's ‘most radical’ plans in decades, Tories backtrack on national insurance pledge while pressure on public finances increases

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Mikheil Saakashvili appointed to spearhead reform drive in Ukraine

Georgian once mooted as next deputy prime minister, takes on top co-ordinating role




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German murder case raises fears of neo-Nazi resurgence

The murder of a local politician by right wing extremists has shocked Germany and set alarm bells ringing about the rise of neo-Nazi violence in the country. Ben Hall discusses the groups behind the upsurge in political violence and how dangerous they are with Guy Chazan in Berlin


Contrbutors: Katie Martin, capital markets editor, Ben Hall, Europe editor, and Guy Chazan, Berlin bureau chief. Producer: Fiona Symon

 

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Ukraine's role in the US impeachment inquiry

Ukraine has found itself at the centre of the US impeachment inquiry, just as new president Volodymyr Zelensky set out to fulfill his election promise to end corruption. Pilita Clark asks Ben Hall, the FT's Europe editor, what it is about Ukraine creates so much trouble in far flung places and whether it could end up harming Donald Trump's chances of re-election.


Contributors: Pilita Clark, business columnist, and Ben Hall, Europe editor. Producer: Fiona Symon

 

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Fauci praises remdesivir after data show it speeds recovery

US-run trial of Gilead coronavirus therapy demonstrates ‘significant positive effect’




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Telefónica/Liberty: rainy day dealmaking

Potential cost cuts should not be used as justification for a UK telecoms tie-up




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China’s US stock market flops raise governance concerns  

Companies suffer steep share-price falls while Luckin implosion highlights risks




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Oil traders turn to salt caves and train cars in storage crisis

Crash into negative prices jolts producers into cutting back




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Whether they raise or hold, central bankers are due a fall

In future it may have to be budget stimulus that rides to the rescue




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Non-bank lenders raise concerns over access to ‘bounce back’ loans

Alternative providers fear it will harm competition in market for loans to small business




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Norwegian Cruise Line raises $2.2bn in fight to stay afloat

Company pledges two ships and two islands as collateral in upsized refinancing plan




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Mexico’s Pemex: from cash cow to resource drain

President’s pet project holds line on output growth despite oil crisis and mammoth losses




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Trainline’s investment case is at risk of hitting the buffers

Tickets website has to navigate an overhaul of UK rail’s supporting infrastructure




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Church of England raises pressure on miners over dams

Investor group led by the CofE launches database to track tailings dams after Brazil disaster




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Don’t let coronavirus derail your financial plans

Take steps to improve your relationship with money and the role it plays in your life




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Coronavirus: US death toll rises by more than 2,000 for third straight day — as it happened

Eurozone GDP in historic fall, millions more Americans file for unemployment, Shell cuts dividend for first time since second world war and UK's AstraZeneca combines with Oxford on a potential vaccine

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Zeitgold raises $29.2M to automate bookkeeping

Zeitgold has raised a Series B round of $29.2 million (€27 million). Overall, the company has raised more than $54 million (€50 million). The company is building a software platform for small companies to automate bookkeeping as much as possible. Vintage Investment Partners is leading today’s round with existing investors Battery Ventures, HV Holtzbrinck Ventures, […]




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Deep Render raises £1.6M for image compression tech that mimics ‘neural processes of the human eye’

Deep Render, a London startup and spin-out of Imperial College that is applying machine learning to image compression, has raised £1.6 million in seed funding. Leading the round is Pentech, with participation from Speedinvest. Founded in mid-2017 by Arsalan Zafar and Chri Besenbruch, who met while studying Computer Science at Imperial College London, Deep Render […]




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Indian education startup Byju’s is fundraising at a $10B valuation

Byju’s, an education learning startup in India that has seen a surge in its popularity in recent weeks amid the coronavirus outbreak, is in talks to raise as much as $400 million in fresh capital at a $10 billion valuation, said three people familiar with the matter. The additional capital would be part of the […]




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Decrypted: Zoom’s security fallout, CrowdStrike’s new CTO, Bugcrowd raises $30M

Another week in quarantine. As the world adjusts to working from home under mandatory stay-at-home orders, hackers are keeping busy. Microsoft said this week that coronavirus-related attacks are on the rise but still make up just a fraction of the overall malicious activity. Cybersecurity companies seem to be faring mostly well — in part thanks […]




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Factorial raises $16M to take on the HR world with a platform for SMBs

A startup that’s hoping to be a contender in the very large and fragmented market of human resources software has captured the eye of a big investor out of the US and become its first investment in Spain. Barcelona-based Factorial, which is building an all-in-one HR automation platform aimed at small and medium businesses that manages […]




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SkyCell raises $62M for smart containers and analytics to transport pharmaceuticals

While human travel has become severely restricted in recent months, the movement of goods has remained a constant priority — and in some cases, has become even more urgent. Today, a startup out of Switzerland that builds hardware and operates a logistics network designed to transport one item in particular — pharmaceuticals — is announcing […]




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Amid stock market turbulence, investing app Stash raises $112M led by LendingTree

As coronavirus-hit financial markets continue to flip-flop in the wake of bad news followed by pockets of hope, a startup that aims to introduce ordinary consumers to investing has raised a big round of funding. New York-based Stash, which provides a mobile-first route to managing money through investment — as well as retirement, custodial and […]




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Symend raises $52M to help mediate when customers are at risk of defaulting on payments

With unemployment growing at a worrying rate, we’re seeing a lot more people finding themselves in hot water when it comes to their finances. Today a startup that’s built a platform to help identify and help those users when they find themselves unable to make payments is announcing a very large growth round of funding […]




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NEAR Protocol raises $21.6M from A16Z and launches its MainNet, beating Ethereum 2.0

It was only the other week that Andreesen Horowitz announced their second blockchain-focused fund of $515 million. In the announcement, they said: “We are still early in this Web 3 build-out. High-performance programmable blockchains will make decentralized network development much more accessible. After years of R&D, we are excited that a number of next-gen programmable […]




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Dtex, a specialist in insider threat cybersecurity, raises $17.5M

A lot of enterprise cybersecurity efforts focus on malicious hackers that work on behalf of larger organizations, be they criminal groups or state actors — and for good reason, since the majority of incidents these days come from phishing and other malicious techniques that originate outside the enterprise itself. But there has also been a […]




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The next round of Covid-19 fundraisings will not be as smooth

Contrary to some fears, equity calls on the London market have been relatively orderly




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Sensor Tower raises $45M as demand for app data grows

Mobile app market intelligence firm Sensor Tower, which provides data-driven insights about the app economy, has raised $45 million in new funding from Riverwood Capital. This is the first significant investment the now-profitable company has seen since its $1 million seed round in 2013. The investment speaks to the growing demand for data about the […]




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Autotech Ventures raises more than $150 million with an eye on ground transportation startups

Autotech Ventures popped on the scene three years ago with a $120 million debut fund and a plan to invest in early-stage ground transportation startups. Now, with investments in 26 startups and a handful of exits, including Xnor.ai, DeepScale and Frontier Car Group, the venture firm is back with a new, bigger fund and the […]




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Deep Render raises £1.6M for image compression tech that mimics ‘neural processes of the human eye’

Deep Render, a London startup and spin-out of Imperial College that is applying machine learning to image compression, has raised £1.6 million in seed funding. Leading the round is Pentech, with participation from Speedinvest. Founded in mid-2017 by Arsalan Zafar and Chri Besenbruch, who met while studying Computer Science at Imperial College London, Deep Render […]




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Greylock’s Reid Hoffman and Sarah Guo to talk fundraising at Early Stage SF 2020

Early Stage SF is around the corner, on April 28 in San Francisco, and we are more than excited for this brand new event. The intimate gathering of founders, VCs, operators and tech industry experts is all about giving founders the tools they need to find success, no matter the challenge ahead of them. Struggling […]




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Online learning marketplace Udemy raises $50M at a $2B valuation from Japanese publisher Benesse

The internet has, for better or worse, become the default platform for people seeking information, and today one of the companies leveraging that to deliver educational content has raised some funding to fuel its next stage of growth. Udemy, which provides a marketplace offering some 150,000 different online learning courses from business analytics to ukulele […]




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Deep Render raises £1.6M for image compression tech that mimics ‘neural processes of the human eye’

Deep Render, a London startup and spin-out of Imperial College that is applying machine learning to image compression, has raised £1.6 million in seed funding. Leading the round is Pentech, with participation from Speedinvest. Founded in mid-2017 by Arsalan Zafar and Chri Besenbruch, who met while studying Computer Science at Imperial College London, Deep Render […]




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NEAR Protocol raises $21.6M from A16Z and launches its MainNet, beating Ethereum 2.0

It was only the other week that Andreesen Horowitz announced their second blockchain-focused fund of $515 million. In the announcement, they said: “We are still early in this Web 3 build-out. High-performance programmable blockchains will make decentralized network development much more accessible. After years of R&D, we are excited that a number of next-gen programmable […]




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Locatee raises $4M Series A for its workplace analytics platform

Locatee, a Swiss startup that uses existing sensors and IT infrastructures to provide employers and commercial real estate owners with detailed data about how their spaces are utilized, today announced that it has raised a $4 million Series A funding round led by San Francisco-based FYRFLY Venture Partners and Zurich-based Tomahawk VC. “We started the […]




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Orca Security raises $20M Series A for its multi-cloud security platform

Orca Security, an Israeli cloud security firm that focuses on giving enterprises better visibility into their multi-cloud deployments on AWS, Azure and GCP, today announced that it has raised a $20 million Series A round led by GGV Capital. YL Ventures and Silicon Valley CISO Investments also participated in this round. Together with its seed […]




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Sleuth raises $3M Seed to bring order to continuous deployment

Sleuth, an early stage startup from three former Atlassian employees, wants to bring some much-needed order to the continuous delivery process. Today, the company announced it has raised a $3 million seed round. ​CRV led the round with participation from angel investors from New Relic, Atlassian and LaunchDarkly. “Sleuth is a deployment tracker built to […]




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Equinix just recorded its 69th straight positive quarter

There’s something to be said for consistency through good times and bad, and one company that has had a staggeringly consistent track record is international data center vendor, Equinix. It just recorded its 69th straight positive quarter, according to the company. That’s an astonishing record, and covers over 17 years of positive returns. That means […]




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Dtex, a specialist in insider threat cybersecurity, raises $17.5M

A lot of enterprise cybersecurity efforts focus on malicious hackers that work on behalf of larger organizations, be they criminal groups or state actors — and for good reason, since the majority of incidents these days come from phishing and other malicious techniques that originate outside the enterprise itself. But there has also been a […]




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Oakland Startup, The History Project, Raises $2M To Build Digital Time Capsules of Family, Personal Histories

After years of working in mobile advertising, founder Niles Lichtenstein discovered a box of records from his late father. That compelled him to start putting together memories and online histories earlier, by documenting his mother’s life history and how he first met his wife. That developed into an interactive timeline where he collected songs from […]




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To Go After Local Neighborhood News And Marketplaces, Hoodline Raises $1.6M

One of the most sought-after, but never quite dominated, frontiers in online media and marketplaces has been centered on local communities. Hoodline, a San Francisco-based startup, is trying to tackle this with a unique focus on news about neighborhood retail corridors. The startup has built up a network of news on about two-dozen neighborhoods across San Francisco as a sort of Trojan horse into a larger platform of hyperlocal listings and markets.




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Townsquared Raises $5.3M To Expand A Nextdoor-Like Experience For Local Retail, Small Businesses

Even though Rohit Prakash was a dual MD and PhD researching optogenetics at Stanford University, his entrepreneurial itch kept returning him to his family’s small business roots. He and his co-founder Nipul Patel began researching the travails of small business owners, interviewing countless entrepreneurs, trying to figure out what their risks were or what caused […]