By Sruthi Shankar and Medha Singh A "special rebalance" of the Nasdaq 100 index will take place later

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug 16, 2023--

The truth is out there, but you may have to search every corner of the image before solving the puzzle.

Workers at Apple stores in France are set to strike and disrupt the launch of the iPhone 15 in a battle over pay, trade...

China’s leading internet search provider Baidu Inc. may get a fresh tailwind from the sooner-than-expected launch of its

A startup in China is set to begin production of ultra-efficient solar panels that are made from the so-called “miracle material” perovskite. The next-generation solar cells will be manufactured at half the cost of traditional silicon cells, with 50 per cent greater efficiency, according to researchers from Nanjing University who made the design breakthrough that made mass production possible. “The raw materials for making perovskite cells are cheap and abundant, making the production costs of these cells just one 20th of traditional solar cells,” Professor Tan Hairen from Nanjing University, told state media. “Moreover, they are easier to produce and can be made in a single factory. Even with other items added, the overall cost of production is only half of that of traditional silicon cells.” Professor Tan has created a startup called Renshine Solar to move forward with commercialisation of the technology, and has already signed a government deal to build a production line in Jiangsu province this summer. The factory is expected to achieve a capacity of 150 megawatts by September, according to the South China Morning Post, with the perovskite solar panels built for use on roofs, walls, or placed on electric cars to improve their range. The perovskite solar cells (PSCs) are capable of retaining over 90 per cent of their initial performance after 600 hours of continuous operation, the team noted, making them suitable for commercial use. The researchers said the next-generation solar cells could also be used in applications ranging from building-integrated panels to space-based electricity generation. “With their lower fabrication cost, low-temperature solution processability, roll-to-roll manufacturing, and wide-bandgap tunability, PSCs have the potential to become the candidate of choice for high-efficiency tandem solar cells,” they wrote in a study detailing the new design that will enter production. “Considering the rapid progress in photovoltaic performance, PSCs have been considered to be ideal candidates for integrating with other systems to realise new innovative technologies.” The study, titled ‘Next-generation applications for integrated perovskite solar cells’, was published in the scientific journal Nature. Its publication comes just one month after a South Korean firm announced that it was aiming to commercialise tandem perovskite solar cells following a $100 million investment to fund a pilot production line next year. Read More Scientists break world record for solar power window material Electric cars could save more than 100,000 lives, study claims Solar trees offer unique solution to charging electric cars College students who cut social media use have less anxiety

If you weren’t scared of the ocean already, you probably will be after seeing this... A ‘death pool’ has been discovered at the bottom of the Red Sea that instantly kills everything that swims inside it. The pool was found by University of Miami researchers and measures a whopping 107,00 square feet. It’s a long way down, having been discovered 1.1 miles beneath the surface of the inlet of the Indian Ocean found between Africa and Asia. It has been there for an awfully long time, too. The pools are thought to have been formed from pockets of minerals which were deposited up to 23 million years ago. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter The reason it’s so deadly? It contains no oxygen. Instead, it’s filled with brine and the salt solution is deadly to most things that enter it. Researcher Sam Purkis told Live Science: “Any animal that strays into the brine is immediately stunned or killed.” He also said that the pool is “among the most extreme environments on Earth.” It’s used by some creatures for food, with Purkis saying that: “Fish, shrimp and eels appear to use the brine to hunt.” Predators position themselves on the peripheries of the pool in order to “feed on the unlucky” creatures that die after swimming into it. While it’s not the first brine-filled pool under the sea discovered by scientists in the Red Sea, it is the closest to land. It can be found just 1.25miles off the coast of Egypt, while the previous closest pool was more than 15 miles away from land.Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

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Climate change, the energy transition and the financial plumbing needed to channel trillions of dollars toward green investment

CAMARILLO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug 30, 2023--

WALTHAM, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jun 5, 2023--

A legal expert at Europe’s top court has said a lower court committed “errors in law” when it threw out a decision by the European Commission which would force Apple to pay more than 13 billion euro in back taxes to Ireland. The non-binding opinion is seen as a significant setback to Ireland’s defence of its past tax treatment of the US technology giant. In 2016, following an EU investigation which launched in 2014, the commission concluded that Ireland gave undue tax benefits to Apple, which would be illegal under EU state aid rules. Ireland and Apple fought the commission on the matter and in July 2020, the General Court of the European Union annulled the decision. However, the European Commission subsequently appealed against the decision to the European Court of Justice (CJEU) saying the lower court’s ruling was legally incorrect. On Thursday, Giovanni Pitruzzella, an advocate general at the CJEU, agreed that the earlier ruling had contained “a series of errors in law”. He said the judgment should be set aside and referred the case back to the General Court for a new decision. While the opinion of the advocate general is non-binding, it is usually followed by the court and therefore could have significant implications for corporation tax bills. There was no sweetheart deal Finance Minister Michael McGrath The commission’s original position was that that tax rulings issued by Ireland to Apple in 1991 and 2007 substantially and artificially lowered the tax paid by the iPhone manufacturer in the country since the early 90s, in a way which did not correspond to economic reality. As a result, competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager said Ireland had granted illegal tax benefits which enabled it to pay substantially less tax than other business over many years. The investigation found that Apple had paid an effective corporate tax rate of 1% on its European profits in 2003, down to 0.005% in 2014, 50 euro for every one million euro of profit. The process involved recording almost all sales profits of two Irish incorporated companies, which the commission said only existed on paper. The companies, fully owned by Apple, held the rights to use the firm’s intellectual property to manufacture and sell its products outside North and South America. The commission said this situation allowed Apple to avoid taxation on almost all profits generated by sales of its products in the entire EU single market. It said this was due to Apple’s decision to record all sales in Ireland rather than in the countries where the products were sold. The findings were disputed by the Irish State, which said all tax owed had been collected, and Apple, which had come under scrutiny in the US for its tax practices years earlier. At the time, Apple’s chief executive, Tim Cook, branded the EU findings as “political crap”, maddening and untrue. The Irish Government, which was also used to defending a comparatively low 12.5% corporation tax rate, said Europe had overstepped the mark in attempting to dictate tax laws and enforce retrospective taxes decades later. Ireland and Apple fought the commission on the matter and in July 2020, the General Court of the European Union annulled the decision. The General Court found that the commission had not shown that there was an advantage deriving from the adoption of the tax rulings. However, the commission subsequently appealed the decision to the European Court of Justice with Ms Vestager saying the lower court’s ruling contained errors of law. On Thursday, the advocate general agreed the General Court had erred when it ruled that the Commission had not shown to the requisite legal standard that the intellectual property licences held by the two incorporated companies and related profits, generated by the sales of Apple products outside the US, had to be attributed for tax purposes to the Irish branches. The advocate general was of the view that the General Court also failed to assess correctly the substance and consequences of certain methodological errors that, according to the Commission decision, “vitiated the tax rulings”. It is the non-binding opinion of Mr Pitruzzella that it is necessary for the General Court to carry out a new assessment. The decision of the CJEU on the matter is expected next year and will have significant implications for how member states grant tax breaks to major firms. Apple has argued it has been paying tax on the profits in question in the US, while Ireland has seen it necessary to defend its reputation on taxation issues to protect foreign direct investment. Last weekend, Finance Minister Michael McGrath had said the advocate general’s opinion would be “significant” but added it is not the final step in the process. Mr McGrath said: “We are confident in our position in respect of the Apple case. “We take encouragement from the findings they have made so far, but it is a significant day.” He added: “There was no sweetheart deal. “This was the application of Ireland’s statutory corporation tax code.” In the interim, the 13.1 billion euro has been held in an escrow fund pending the outcome of the case. The money, with interest, is due to be entered into the Irish exchequer if the commission wins the case. However, other member states may make claims that they are owed some of the money. If the commission loses the appeal, the large sum will be returned to Apple. Read More Smartphones ‘may be able to detect how drunk a person is with 98% accuracy’ Ireland and Apple await major development in long-running EU tax dispute Guidance urges parents not to buy smartphones for primary school children William ‘blown away’ by futuristic technology from Singapore start-ups Return of original Fortnite map causes record traffic on Virgin Media O2 network NatWest creates new AI-powered chatbot capable of ‘human-like’ conversations