Early Global News For Thursday: Groupon-IBM, Samsung SSD, Yahoo Deal Talk - Bank of America (NYSE:BAC), Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ:AMD)

Companies

AYA Canada's Amaya taps Moelis to provide independent valuation of company Reuters

FUJHY CAJ TOSYY Fujifilm, Canon Are Front-Runners in Bidding for Toshiba Medical Business ($6 billion deal and Fuji is frontrunner) WSJ

Miramax Is Bought by the Qatari beIN Media Group (BeIN Media Group said it has purchased Miramax Films for an untold amount from investors that include the Qatar Investment Authority and private-equity firm Colony Capital Inc.) WSJ

HLF Herbalife Overstated 2015 Growth in Active New Members Bloomberg

GOOG RUBi (not mentioned) RNTS buys Inneractive for up to $72M as ad tech consolidation continues Techcrunch

BCS Leaked document from the New York Fed says Barclays was 'weak' at preventing rogue traders Bi

PRGO MYL In Deal Boom, More Firms Ask: Is My Banker Conflicted? (Extra aware of conflicts, corporate boards require more loyalty from their advisers.) WSJ

CXW GEO (not mentioned) Number of Injury Claims at NYC Jails Jumps (Over 2,800 claims submitted by inmates and correction workers last year, report states.) WSJ

CXW GEO (not mentioned) D.C. crime lab restarts DNA testing on limited basis after shutdown cast doubts over analysis (The D.C. crime lab is continuing limited DNA testing this week however will still send more difficult cases for outside testing.) Washington Post

CXW GEO (not mentioned) Fed up with wait, Santa Clara County Sheriff buys jail security cameras herself San Jose Mercury News

PRU ODMTY FCA targets six life insurers in fee transparency probe Reuters

GRPN IBM sues Groupon over alleged patent infringement (patent infringement) Reuters

WB SINA EJ Sina's Revenue Rose on Weibo's Performance (Sina’s revenue was assisted by Weibo Corp. but the Chinese Internet company had 2016 revenue less than predictions.). WSJ

SSNLF Samsung launches new SSD storage for servers Korea Times

PSTG Pure Storage Posts Upside Surprise (lower net loss and quarterly revenue more than doubled) WSJ

SMTC Semtech sees quarterly results above Street view (Semiconductor creator Semtech Corp. documented final quarter results at the high end of its guidance and predicted first-quarter earnings and revenue over analyst estimates.) WSJ

LNKD LinkedIn's CEO gives his $14 million stock bonus back to employees to make up for plunge Business Insider

YHOO Yahoo is ready to talk about a deal and is asking potential buyers to sign confidentiality documents Business Insider

UBS UBS France is being investigated for alleged witness tampering Business Insider

RKET.DE Rocket Internet’s Africa Internet Group raises $326M from Goldman Sachs and others Techcrunch

AMZN More Code Speakers, Including Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos re/code

AiBYY Allied Irish almost doubles 2015 profits, election impacts IPO Reuters

MS Morgan Stanley Investment Management Raises $3.6 Billion for its Second Global Infrastructure Fund and Assembles a $2.2 Billion Co-investment Club Consisting of a Group of the Fund’s Investors Press Release

AMD Intel Kaby Lake to compete against AMD Zen at end of 2016 Digitimes

MSFT INTC China vendors pushing into 2-in-1 market Digitimes

Panel equipment vendors see booming orders from China Digitimes

Insurers Probed on Hepatitis C Drug Coverage (New York's attorney general is looking into state health-insurance companies for supposedly limiting coverage of drugs that can heal hepatitis.) WSJ

OCLS Oculus Innovative Sciences Receives European Approval to Market Lasercyn Indicated for Use Following Laser Skin Resurfacing Press Release

CSii MDT NXTM (not mentioned) Study: End Stage Renal Disease Patients Face Policy Barriers to Home Dialysis Press Release

EA's Ultimate Team Worth $650 Million; Half of All Digital Extras NDTV

NFLX HBO’s plan to compete with Netflix internationally is in full swing Business Insider

Hard Rock to open casino in Vietnam, paper says Macau Business

SNE NFLX Sony’s PlayStation Vue adds ESPN and is $10 cheaper The Verge

P AAPL (not mentioned) Musician sues Jay-Z's Tidal and Google Play, says he was cheated of royalties Ars Technica

Macau China says five-year plan will benefit Macau, HK Macau Daily Times

DiS Zootopia expected to usurp Deadpool's box office throne this weekend Digital Trends

MSFT Uncharted 4 delayed once again Geek

MTCH New study finds Tinder users twice as likely to have a STI Digital Trends

MTCH Europe Face of Match.com serial rapist who targeted 'vulnerable, naive, lonely women' on dating site Irish Independent

Japan probes military potential of robots Financial Times

Dubai hosts the first World Drone Prix on March 11th (While there are many efforts to make drone racing an actual sport, Dubai is on its way to outperform them all.) Engadget

FB Facebook announces 3 million active advertisers globally First Post

FB Brazil releases Facebook executive detained amid probe of WhatsApp Washington Post

Collapsed tech unicorn Powa got an emergency loan days after administrators came in Bi

Canadian tech unicorn Hootsuite gets written down by Fidelity Globe and Mail

LFL EWZ Brazil will allow foreign companies to hold a 49% stake in the country's airlines MercoPress

JBLU CUBA JetBlue pushes daily service between Boston's Logan Airport and Cuba Boston Business Journal

BA AiR.PA China to become the largest passenger aircraft buyer within 20 years People’s Daily

AiR.PA New Airbus Facility under Construction in Tianjin People’s Daily

GE (not mentioned) China forming plane engine conglomerate People’s Daily

UAL United seeks Cuba service from IAH Houston Chronicle

Canadians who visit Zika spots told to hold off pregnancy (Canada is suggesting women who would like to get pregnant to hold off at least two months after going to areas where the Zika virus is moving.) Washington Post

AAL DAL (not mentioned) U.S. Airlines Bid for New Scheduled Routes to Cuba (U.S. airlines moved applications to the U.S. Transportation Department for flights to Cuba on Wednesday.) WSJ

Iconic Trump Taj Mahal faces new troubles (Icahn had planned to invest $100 million) USA Today

TSLA (MBLY not mentioned) Pressure builds against short sellers targeting Tesla Reuters

POAHY Elliott Management D.E.Shaw Porsche Trial Takes Long and Winding Road (rehearing evidence) WSJ

VLKAY Volkswagen Top Executives Were Briefed on Emission (Volkswagen AG submitted a statement denying claims that it did not tell financial markets in a timely manner about possible liabilities from its emissions-cheating debacle.) WSJ

Uber Spends Big on International Expansion (Uber Technologies has spent a lot to broaden its ride-hailing service around the world as its global business was out $237 million in 2014.) WSJ

Uber launches low-cost service in Pakistan amid broader Asia push Reuters

BAC Bank of America revs up auto loans business despite warning signs Reuters

TSLA Watch out, Tesla! New batteries from hi-tech energy agency coming fast (Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy has taken large steps over the last few years on next-generation batteries that could cause electric cars and renewable energy to be less expensive and more available.) Venture Beat

FCAU GM APPL Fiat Chrysler CEO couldn't merge with GM so now he wants to build the Apple Car Business Insider

Uber, Ola launch rival motorbike-hailing services in Bengaluru, India Reuters

VLKAY Audi's emissions scandal costs hurt 2015 profit Reuters

CTTAY Continental says start to 2016 confirms expectations Reuters

ADDYY Adidas Reports Upbeat Forecast Ahead of Big Sporting Events NY Times

HD LOW LL (not mentioned) Home 'flipping' exceeds peaks in some hot U.S. housing markets Reuters

TGT Target Corp. Culling Products in Its Stores to Help Resolve Out-of-Stock Issues WSJ

GRUB Uber's GrubHub killer (UberEats) is finally in the US: The inside story on Uber's big bet on food Business Insider

PZZA Peyton Manning fakes out crowd with retirement tease, pivots to plug for Papa John's Washington Post

JD Tom Tailor Launches Its First Online-Shop in China on JD.com Reuters

QiHU (not mentioned) Cyberattacks expected to rise as China-based state-linked hackers target Hong Kong organisations SCMP

Apple's new San Francisco office could be a tool in tech talent wars Reuters

APPL ACLU, United Nations watchdog, & others file court briefs siding with Apple in encryption case 9 to 5 Mac

VZ APPL T Carriers and retailers show depleted iPhone 5s stock ahead of SE release later this month 9 to 5 Mac

GOOG Google Testing Hands Free Payments App re/code

GOOG APPL Google Wins Design Patents for their Ambitious Modular Smartphone that Could Debut Later this Year Patently Apple

APPL Apple Scores Victory against the UK's Investigatory Powers Bill Patently Apple

APPL OLED displays could arrive with next year's iPhone 7s Cult of Mac

SSNLF APPL New torture tests pit Galaxy S7 edge against iPhone 6s Plus Cult of Android

APPL Review: Postly for iOS turns your photos into personalized postcards 9 to 5 Mac

Apple iOS 9.3 will let you know if your employer is tracking your iPhone Tech2

WU PYPL (not mentioned) CFPB Fines Fintech Firm Dwolla Over Data-Security Practices The CFPB put companies in the quickly expanding online-payment area on notice with an enforcement action against a financial-technology startup for supposedly lying about how it guarded customers’ data.) WSJ

SSNLF Samsung unveils 3 notebook models in China Digitimes

CHU China Unicom procures 469,000 4G base stations, say reports Digitimes

BBRY VZ BlackBerry Priv now available from Verizon Android Central

FiT AAPL Consumers' Use of Health Apps and Wearables Doubled in Past Two Years, Accenture Survey Finds Press Release

IoT healthcare market to reach £97.31bn by 2021 iT Portal

GOOG Google Cardboard sales reach 5 million units since launch, says executive Digitimes

FB APPL MSFT Intel Works on Augmented-Reality Headset (Intel intends to exploit its 3-D camera technology called RealSense, a possible distinguishing feature in a crowded market that includes Apple Inc., Microsoft Corp., Alphabet Inc.’s.) WSJ

Therapists have created a virtual 'heroin cave' in an attempt to help addicts Tech Insider

IoT is about to go mainstream this year iT Portal

USO Oil prices dip as record US crude stocks damp bullish sentiment Reuters

VALE.P BHP Mining Firms Settle With Brazil Over Dam Disaster (Mining company Samarco Mineração SA and its parent companies Vale SA and BHP Billiton came to an agreement with Brazilian authorities that would allow them to pay much less than the $5.2 billion government lawyers officially wanted for dam burst.) WSJ

COP First oil flows from Alaska reserve set aside in '23 AP

South Africa allows sales of U.S. poultry, pork, beef: USTR Reuters

China Will Make Sure Iron Ore's Rebound Won't Last (Iron ore prices have risen 31% since mid-January, but Chinese demand and huge supply will ensure iron ore’s renaissance will not be long.) WSJ

STPFQ Bloomberg New Energy Finance Names Suntech again a Leading PV Module Supplier in 2016 Press Release

SRWRY 6244.TWO SolarWorld has Motech subject to US review of anti-dumping tariffs Digitimes

SCTY RUN (not mentioned) Oregon passes legislation doubling 25% renewables mandate Recharge News

MON (not mentioned) Congressional train rolling to pre-empt states on GMO labels Food Safety News

Ministry of Health investigating possible sexual transmission of Zika virus Stuff Australia

Pregnant Napa County woman tests positive for Zika virus Napa Valley Register

GOOG Google adds Zika info to search and partners with UNICEF to map outbreak Techcrunch

XON The war on mosquitoes as the Zika virus spreads (In the United States, there have been 107 instances of Zika so far only people who just went to South America.) Local Fox News

EWZ Zika-Linked Cases of Microcephaly Rise in Brazil Time

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