Uber reaches accord with SoftBank
Uber completed a deal Sundayt o sell a significant stake of itself to SoftBank, a Japanese conglomerate, paving the way for the ride-hailing company to make sweeping governance changes and togo public by 2019.
Under the agreement, a consortium of investors led by SoftBank will buy at least 14 percent of Uber through a combination of new and existing stock, according to three people briefed on the process, who spoke on condition of anonymity because those details are confidential. SoftBank plans to buy about $1 billion of fresh stock at Uber’s current valuation of about $68.5 billion, but the bulk of the deal will be purchasing existing Uber shares from current investors.
SoftBank is to buy the existing Uber shares in a process called a tender offer, which takes at least a month to complete. During that process, a price will be set for the existing Uber shares. If investors are reluctant to sell and SoftBank cannot hit its threshold of 14 percent ownership of Uber, SoftBank can walk away from the deal, the people said.
Flashpoint over taxes
Rep. Kevin Brady, RTexas and the chairman of the House’s tax-writing committee, said Sunday that he’s confident that chamber won’t go along with the Senate’s proposal to eliminate the deduction for property taxes, setting up a major flashpoint as Republicans aim to put a tax cut bill on President Donald Trump’s desk before Christmas.
The GOP is moving urgently to push forward on the first rewrite of the U.S. tax code in three decades, but key differences promise to complicate the effort.
Among the biggest differences in the two bills that have emerged: the House bill allows homeowners to deduct up to $10,000 in property taxes while the Senate proposal unveiled by GOP leaders last week eliminates the entire deduction.
YouTube blocks al-Awlaki
For eight years, the jihadi propaganda of Anwar al-Awlaki has helped shape a generation of U.S. terrorists, including the Fort Hood gunman, the Boston Marathon bombers and the perpetrators of massacres in San Bernardino, Calif., and Orlando, Fla.
And YouTube, the world’s most popular video site, has allowed hundreds of hours of the leading English-language jihadi recruiter’s talks to be within easy reach, even six years after he was killed by a U.S. drone strike.
Now, under growing pressure, YouTube is using video fingerprinting technology to flag his videos automatically, and human reviewers block most of them before anyone sees them.
Also in the nation ...
At least 20 children were injured when a stairwell collapsed Saturday night at a parkour facility’s open gym in San Diego’s Barrio Logan neighborhood. ... On Sunday, several hundred survivors of sexual harassment and assault and their supporters gathered in Hollywood, Calif., to draw attention to their cause.