Twitter sentiment on pope sours over meeting with gay marriage opponent

By Angela Moon NEW YORK (Reuters) – Sentiment toward Pope Francis turned sour on social media over his meeting with a Kentucky county clerk who refuses to issue same-sex marriage licenses, data compiled by Thomson Reuters showed. The ratio of positive versus negative tweets on the pope had been about 2.6 to 1 on average during and shortly after his Sept

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Getting the U.N.’s new set of global goals noticed is no small task

By Ellen Wulfhorst UNITED NATIONS (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Inside the United Nations, hallways and office hum with preparations for this week's meeting of nearly 200 nations to adopt a set of global goals aimed at tackling a range of ills from poverty to climate change over the next 15 years.

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Amazon announces TV pilot lineup for fall season

(Reuters) – Amazon.com Inc will launch six TV show pilots for its video streaming service in the United States, the UK, Germany and Austria for the 2015 fall pilot season. The company said on Wednesday it would ask viewers for feedback and turn the most popular pilots into full series. The pilots include “Z”, about Zelda Fitzgerald and her relationship with husband F

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Modi trip gives Facebook, Google chance to press on Indian expansion

By Yasmeen Abutaleb SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's trip this weekend to Silicon Valley gives Facebook and Google the chance to press him on issues that have bedeviled them in that country, a market they see as vital to their aggressive global expansion. For Facebook and Google, India is a crucial market. With 1.3 billion people, it is the world's second most-populous country – and they are blocked from China, the most populous, making success in India even more critical for their global growth.

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Pandora says has paid $500 million in artist royalties in past year

(Reuters) – Internet radio service Pandora Media Inc said it paid nearly $500 million in artist royalties over the past 12 months, bringing the total to more than $1.5 billion in about 10 years. “It took us nearly nine years to generate the first billion dollars in royalties, and just over a year to increase that total by 50 percent,” Chief Executive Brian McAndrews said in a statement on Wednesday. Pandora gets revenue from advertising and paid subscriptions

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Cloud storage company Box raises full-year forecast for second time

(Reuters) – Cloud storage provider Box Inc reported a better-than-expected rise in quarterly revenue and raised its full-year revenue forecast for the second time as more customers subscribed to its content-sharing platform. Box expects full year revenue of $295 million to $297 million, up from $286 million to $290 million, it said in a statement on Wednesday

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Expedia beats Wall Street view, shares rise

(Reuters) – Expedia Inc on Thursday posted a second-quarter profit above analysts' expectations and announced a larger dividend as travel bookings grow, sending its shares up more than 7 percent in after-market trade. Expedia, which became the world's largest online travel services company by bookings in the first quarter, earned $449.6 million in the second quarter. On an adjusted basis, it earned $118.6 million, or 89 cents per share, compared to analysts' average estimate of 84 cents per share, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S

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Canadian venture capital, private equity deals surge in 2015

By Euan Rocha TORONTO (Reuters) – Deal-making activity in Canada’s venture capital and private equity arena surged in the first half of 2015, driven by a spate of financings in the tech start-up space and large investments in energy assets, data from Thomson Reuters showed on Monday. The data indicates there was C$636 million ($488.48 million) in venture capital invested in 143 deals in the second quarter, a sum that was 15 percent higher than that invested by VC firms in the first quarter. This propelled VC investments in the first half of this year to C$1.19 billion, a 33 percent increase from the first half of last year and the strongest first half for VC funding in Canada since 2002.

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