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US govt, states sue Facebook for ‘predatory’ conduct

WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal regulators on Wednesday sued to force a breakup of Facebook as 48 states and districts accused the company in a separate suit of abusing its market power in social networking to crush smaller competitors. The antitrust lawsuits were announced by the Federal Trade Commission and New York Attorney General Letitia James. Facebook is the world’s biggest social network with 2.7 billion users and a company with a market value of nearly $800 billion whose CEO Mark Zuckerberg is the world’s fifth-richest individual and the most public face of Big Tech swagger. Facebook said the government plan was unfair and would punish a successful business.

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DoorDash delivers 86% gain in stock market debut

DoorDash shares soared 86% as the meal delivery service made its debut Wednesday on the New York Stock Exchange. The shares closed at $189.51 after the San Francisco-based company priced them at $102 each late Tuesday. The closing price valued the company, which is trading under the symbol DASH, at around $72 billion. Virus-induced lockdown orders and the closure of indoor dining have made meal delivery services indispensable for many restaurants and diners this year. That’s led to explosive growth for companies like DoorDash. The company hopes to keep the momentum going even if demand for food delivery eases in a post-pandemic world.

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Like everything else 2020, taxes will be like no other year

It’s the time of year to start thinking about taxes — what’s ahead and what can be done now to manage. But the upcoming tax filing season is going to be trickier for many Americans due to rampant unemployment, working from home and general upheaval due to COVID-19. Experts say taxpayers should take note of tax law if they received unemployment, worked from home, relocated to a different state or are still awaiting a relief payment. They also can take advantage of a temporary tax benefit for donating to charity in the coming weeks.

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Lawmakers act to avert shutdown, buying time for COVID talks

WASHINGTON (AP) — Lawmakers are embracing a one-week extension of government funding to buy time for more COVID-19 relief talks. The House on Wednesday easily passed a temporary funding bill that sets a Dec. 18 deadline for Congress to wrap up both a virus relief measure and a $1.4 trillion government spending bill. The Senate is expected to easily pass the bill before midnight Friday to avert a partial government shutdown. Meanwhile, negotiations continue over another round of virus aid. Leaders are in agreement about helping small businesses and preserving extra unemployment benefits, but disagree over the details of the package.

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UK probes whether COVID-19 vaccine caused allergic reactions

LONDON (AP) — Britain’s medical regulator says people with a history of serious allergic reactions shouldn’t receive the COVID-19 vaccine from Pfizer and BioNTech as investigators look into whether two reactions on the first day of the country’s vaccination program were linked to the shot. The medical director for the National Health Service in England said the advice was issued on a “precautionary basis” and that the people who had reactions had recovered. The medical regulator has said people should not get the vaccine if they have had a significant allergic reaction to a vaccine, medicine or food. Pfizer and BioNTech say they are working with authorities but that late-stage trials found no serious safety concerns.

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Trump tries to revive stalled election-eve drug discounts

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration is trying to revive the president’s stalled election-eve plan to send millions of Medicare recipients a $200 prescription discount card. A person familiar with the effort tells The Associated Press that government agencies still face legal questions about the plan, not to mention the daunting logistics of sending an estimated 39 million seniors a card that will actually work. And trying to do it in the midst of the holiday season, without the benefit of much advance planning. he person was not authorized to publicly discuss internal deliberations and spoke on condition of anonymity.

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Cybersecurity firm FireEye says was hacked by nation state

BOSTON (AP) — Prominent U.S. cybersecurity firm FireEye says that foreign government hackers with “world-class capabilities” broke into its network and stole offensive tools it uses to probe the defenses of its thousands of customers, who include federal, state and local government agencies and major global corporations. The company said Tuesday that it is releasing countermeasures its customers and others can employ. It didn’t identify who it thought was responsible or when its network was penetrated but many cybersecurity experts suspected Russia.

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EU drug regulator hacked, data on COVID-19 vaccine accessed

BERLIN (AP) — German pharmaceutical company BioNTech and its U.S. partner Pfizer say data on their coronavirus vaccine were “unlawfully accessed” during a cyberattack on the servers of the European Medicines Agency. The Amsterdam-based agency is considering requests for conditional marketing authorization for several coronavirus vaccines to be used in the 27-nation European Union. The EMA said Wednesday that it had been the target of a cyberattack but declined to provide more details. BioNTech or Pfizer systems said none of their systems were breached in the incident. The vaccine jointly made by BioNTech and Pfizer became the first to be granted emergency authorization in Britain last week, and in Canada on Wednesday

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Research: Millions of smart devices vulnerable to hacking

BOSTON (AP) — Researchers at a cybersecurity firm say they have identified vulnerabilities in software widely used by millions of connected devices — flaws that could be exploited by hackers to penetrate business and home computer networks and disrupt them. There is no evidence of any intrusions that made use of the vulnerabilities. But their existence in data-communications software central to internet-connected devices prompted the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency to flag the issue in a bulletin. Potentially affected devices from an estimated 150 manufacturers range from networked thermometers to “smart” plugs and printers to office routers and healthcare appliances to components of industrial control systems.

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Oklahoma asks court: Make J&J pay $9.3B to end opioid crisis

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Oklahoma has asked the state Supreme Court to order Johnson & Johnson to pay more than $9.3 billion to cover the anticipated cost of combatting the state’s opioid crisis. Attorney General Mike Hunter made the request Monday. He says a lower court’s order last year that the pharmaceutical giant pay $465 million for its part in the oversupply of highly addictive painkillers would be sufficient to cover only one year of the state’s abatement plan. The Oklahoman reports that Hunter contends Cleveland County District Judge Thad Balkman erred because the crisis will take 20 years to abate, costing $465 million every year.

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The S&P 500 fell 29.43 points, or 0.8%, to 3,672.82. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 105.07 points, or 0.4%, to 30,068.81. The Nasdaq fell 243.82 points, or 1.9%, to 12,338.95. The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies fell 15.63 points, or 0.8%, to 1,902.15.