Experts are of the view that weakness in the rupee is likely to support the prices of both the precious metals in the domestic market. Investors can look at buying Gold on dips for a target of Rs 46,000 per 10 gm.

Industry body Assocham on Tuesday demanded to bring petrol and diesel under the Goods and Services Tax (GST) to ensure uniformity in automobile fuel in the country.

"At this time, instead of reducing prices, the decision of the government to raise prices of petrol and diesel by Rs 10-13 per litre is unfair and should be withdrawn" he said

Brent crude was up by 12 cents, or 0.4%, to $29.84 a barrel 0044 GMT, after falling earlier in the Asian session and dropping 4% on Wednesday.

Brent crude was up 47 cents, or 1.5%, at $29.33 a barrel by 0121 GMT, having fallen nearly 1% on Thursday.

આંધ્ર પ્રદેશમાં વિશાખાપટ્ટનમના એલજી પૉલિમર પ્લાન્ટમાં થયેલ ગેસ લીક દૂર્ઘટનાથી કોહરામ મચેલો છે. આ દૂર્ઘટનામાં 12 લોકોએ પોતાના જીવ ગુમાવવા પડ્યા જ્યારે 5 હજારથી વધુ લોકો આ ગેસની ચપેટમાં આવી ગયા છે. સરકાર અને એનજીટીએ કેસની તપાસ માટે સમિતિની રચના કરી

FASTagను ఇంకా కొనుగోలు చేయలేదా? అయితే మీకో గుడ్‌న్యూస్! జాతీయ రహదారులపై ఎలక్ట్రానిక్ టోల్ వసూళ్ల కోసం కేంద్ర ప్రభుత్వం FASTagను తీసుకు వచ్చిన విషయం తెలిసిందే. అయితే ఇప్పుడు ఉచితంగా పొందవచ్చు. ఈ అవకాశాన్ని కేంద్ర ప్రభుత్వం ఓ పదిహేను రోజుల పాటు కల్పిస్తోంది. ఎలక్ట్రానిక్ టోల్ విధానాన్ని మెరుగుపరచడం కోసం FASTagలను ఉచితంగా అందించాలని

Excluding COVID-19 related provisions, the profit after tax would have been Rs 3,260 crore, ICICI Bank said in its BSE filing said.

The head of the International Monetary Fund on Friday signaled a possible downward revision of global economic forecasts, and warned the United States and China against rekindling a trade war that could weaken a recovery from the coronavirus pandemic.

Argentina will keep pushing for talks with creditors even as a deadline for its $65 billion debt restructuring proposal passed on Friday with little sign it had the support needed from international bondholders to unlock a comprehensive deal.

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Friday he was "very torn" about whether to end the so-called Phase 1 U.S.-China trade deal, just hours after top trade officials from both countries pledged to press ahead with implementing it despite coronavirus economic wreckage.

As many parts of the world's biggest economy begin to reopen after weeks of stay-at-home orders that slowed the spread of the coronavirus but gutted jobs, Americans should not expect a quick return to growth, U.S. Federal Reserve officials said on Friday.

The U.S. government reported more catastrophic economic fallout from the coronavirus crisis on Friday as the pandemic pierced the very walls of the White House and California gave the green light for its factories to restart after a seven-week lockdown.

Bitcoin is about to undergo a scheduled technical adjustment as the number of new coins awarded to the computer wizards who "mine" the cryptocurrency will be cut in half, but forecasting which way its price will move afterward is more complicated now.

Why do B2B marketers need SEO?

For B2B marketers coping with the global health crisis, search engine optimization (SEO) is showing its strength, stability, and resiliency in many forms.

SEO has seen better performance and consistency than other marketing tactics during the pandemic, as we’ll explore with data from recent surveys and reports, and with more consumers than ever conducting business online and searching for best-answer solutions, many B2B marketers may find that the time is right to increase focus on SEO.

Here are five reasons why SEO is more important than ever for B2B marketers.

1 — SEO is Performing Better During the Health Crisis

63 percent of marketers believe SEO is more important during the pandemic, according to newly-released survey data.

Combined with the fact that during 2019 paid and organic search were the top performing online channels, as shown below, the increasing focus on SEO this year during the pandemic is understandable, as marketers turn towards the strongest and most stable tactics.

SEO can also represent a lower-cost channel, which has led some 34 percent of marketers to say that they plan to invest more in less costly marketing channels such as SEO, according to the same survey.

Data from another recent survey found that 65 percent of advertisers believe the health crisis will result in more spending on media that is able to show direct sales outcomes, making SEO a natural choice for many marketers in both B2B and B2C industries.

Among U.S. marketers paid search garnered both the greatest rate of budget retention and the smallest expected spending decrease in a recent eMarketer survey, faring significantly better than display advertisements, paid social media, and digital video. While what will play out in the long term remains to be seen, initial survey results such as these point to continued opportunities in SEO-centric marketing efforts.

This may be why Google has rolled out new SEO-related features to its Ads Editor that include a real-time optimization score, as the search giant seeks to improve one of the most-used ad tools, and why it has released a series of guides touting the benefits of SEO during the health crisis.

2 — SEO Helps as Pandemic Consumers Are Shopping Primarily Online

Both B2B and brick-and-mortar brands with shuttered physical locations during stay-at-home orders can benefit immensely from the benefits of SEO, as more business is moved online and more people are searching not only for goods and services, but for answers to new sets of questions brought about by the health crisis — questions your brand should be ready to answer in properly optimized content.

Marketer looking to create this type of optimized content can learn from our CEO Lee Odden, who asked 16 B2B experts for their top tips to optimize marketing performance in an article examining B2B marketing fitness.

As early reports have come in, both B2B and B2C brands have seen increased website traffic figures during the pandemic, up 13 percent in March 2020 compared to February, according to HubSpot benchmark data.

With more people visiting B2B websites, it’s never been more important to have online content that’s properly indexed, easily findable, and that swiftly answers customer questions. Providing best-answer content is a key part of SEO best-practices, as we’ve written about in the following articles:

• How B2B Marketers Can Win at Search with Best Answer Content
• The Science and Art of Best Answer B2B Marketing Content
• Trust Factors: How Best Answer Content Fuels Brand Credibility
• How A Best Answer Content Strategy Drives B2B Marketing Results
• Power Pages and Best Answer Content: Should You Go Long or Short Form?

[bctt tweet="“With more people visiting B2B websites, it’s never been more important to have online content that’s properly indexed, easily findable, and that swiftly answers customer questions.” — Lane R. Ellis @lanerellis" username="toprank"]

3 — SEO Platforms Help Maximize Remote Worker Efficiencies

There are perhaps more SEO platforms available now than ever, built to help businesses achieve successful ongoing search campaigns. During the best of times, using some of the top platform tools adds efficiency to teams tasked with SEO implementation. During the remote work boom caused by the health crisis, using such tools can provide even more efficiency to B2B firms that are increasingly turning to SEO.

Finding the right SEO platforms has been an ongoing challenge for B2B firms, which is why we recently researched nine of the top platforms, including how leaders at each is handling the pandemic both in their professional and personal lives, in “Best SEO Tips for Marketing During the Pandemic Plus 9 Top SEO Platforms.”

Even before the coronavirus hit, longtime SEO industry consultant Aleyda Solis predicted that SEO would play a major role in 2020 for B2B marketers, as she outlined in our annual “10 Top B2B SEO Trends & Predictions for 2020” roundup.

[bctt tweet="In 2020, I expect a growth in importance and usage of structured data, an increase in predictive search features, and a shift to a more technical SEO ecosystem. @aleyda" username="toprank"]

Recently Aleyda took to her video channel to discuss how SEO’s role will change during the health crisis, in “Coronavirus & SEO: Its Impact in traffic and business, and the actions to Take as an SEO Specialist.”

We've also explored how B2B marketers are successfully adapting to remote work, including the following recent articles:

• 6 Tips to Keep B2B Marketing Teams in Rhythm While Working Remotely
• Remote Communication Opportunities For B2B Marketers
• How Authentic Content Builds Brand Trust in Uncertain Times

4 — Doing SEO Now Will Strengthen Future Brand Efforts

As Patrick Reinhart, vice president of digital strategies at Conductor recently told Marketing Land’s Greg Sterling, “What a lot of businesses are doing right now is only talking about the virus and not talking about other ways to help their customers," Patrick said. "Right now is a great time to plant trees for SEO if you haven’t already. The trees you plant now will provide shade on sunny days in the future and there is nothing wrong with creating it along with content that addresses the current state of things,” he added.

While the pandemic has affected how SEO specialists both in-house and at agencies implement search strategies — as the following chart shows — businesses are continuing forward with SEO fundamentals that will help lay the foundation for expanded search success when the health crisis has passed.

[bctt tweet="“B2B marketers who continue forward now with SEO fundamentals will help lay the foundation for expanded search success when the health crisis has passed.” — Lane R. Ellis @lanerellis" username="toprank"]

5 — SEO’s Stability Is Important For B2B Brands

With 47 percent of B2B customers using search to find information, suppliers, and solutions, SEO has always been important for B2B brands, and now its stability in times of flux adds to its marketing strength.

The pandemic has brought fluctuations to all areas of marketing, just as it’s affected many parts of our lives, and while search results haven’t been entirely immune — as shown in the following Google desktop result chart from an interesting look at “16-straight days of rankings volatility: SEOs dig into the COVID-19 effects on search” — the strength and endurance of SEO has brought it into more focus than ever.

Best-Answer B2B Marketing Solutions Increasingly Feature SEO

As we've examined, the time may be right for many B2B marketers to increase focus on SEO, because it has seen better performance and stability during the health crisis as more consumers than ever are conducting business online.

Paired with it's ability to increase remote work efficiency when the right SEO platforms are used, and considering SEO's overall effectiveness as a long-term strategy, B2B brands can benefit from turning to SEO for providing best-answer solutions, even during the pandemic.

The post SEO Strategy: 5 Reasons Why It’s More Important Than Ever For B2B Marketers appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

Why should B2B marketers give a DAM?

When that DAM is digital asset management, you’re looking at a system that will improve all forms of online marketing, whether it's B2B influencers, social, search, content, video or always-on marketing.

It's also one of the top investments an organization can make for successfully leveraging a digital environment that will only expand with more data in the coming years.

It’s no wonder the global DAM market was valued at $3.4 billion in 2019, and is expected to reach $8.5 billion by 2025, according to report data from IMARC.

Just What Are Digital Assets?

As we explored in our introduction to DAM technology, “Why Digital Asset Management Matters in B2B Marketing,” digital assets are simply any computer files, stored anywhere — whether on your phone, tablet, desktop, network, or in the cloud.

DAM software runs either on a local computer network or in the cloud, and is built to pull in and make it easy to organize an unlimited number of files — all those digital assets that organizations create and use daily.

The more complex your marketing strategies and organization are, the greater the benefits of DAM will be, especially when accumulated over time.

The pandemic has also brought to light weaknesses for some organizations, as remote workers place additional strains on systems not necessarily designed for unified online access to digital asset libraries.

Let’s look at how adding a DAM system to your mix can help improve six major forms of digital marketing.

[bctt tweet="“The more complex your marketing strategies and organization are, the greater the benefits of digital asset management (DAM) will be, especially over time.” — Lane R. Ellis @lanerellis" username="toprank"]

1 — Use DAM to Augment Your Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing campaigns, especially in the B2B realm, can involve many people and projects, often with a variety of images, document files, videos, and other digital assets.

Tracking multiple versions of files — with varieties specifically created for each social media platform involved in a campaign — can get complicated, and many firms either use a cobbled together make-shift approach that may be known only to one or a few people in the organization, or end up bouncing around from one software solution to another.

A good DAM database, however, can be used company-wide and is expandable enough to accommodate any change in file types, for as long as the DAM is supported by its developers.

The best DAM solutions also offer transparent and robust import and especially export routines, so that organizations aren’t locked-in to one DAM environment with their digital assets held hostage, unable to easily migrate to other solutions if needed.

Influencer marketing benefits from DAM through increased efficiency and time savings, which ultimately make influencers happy and better able to share co-created content.

2 — Expand Your Content Marketing With DAM

The type of savvy content management offered by DAM systems could save marketing teams 13 days annually per staff member, according to report data from Canto.

The same research found that 41 percent of marketers said that digital filing inefficiencies had caused delayed project releases, and 54 percent noted that they experienced frustration with inefficient filing systems.

By its very nature content marketing involves vast quantities of content in all its various digital forms, and a powerful DAM system enhances content marketing by making it easy to find all the digital assets a business has ever created, both for current campaigns and when gathering past performance and return on investment (ROI) data.

Brands such as Under Armour use DAM systems to manage over 12 terabytes of content including more than half a millions digital assets for some 7,000 products that change seasonally, a task that while possible without using a DAM, really shows off the benefits of a solid organizational and archival solution.

3 — Make a Move to DAM to Improve Your Video Marketing

As with static digital assets, a good DAM system easily ingests and organizes video content, putting it at the fingertips of each person in an organization who needs it, from video editor to social media manager to corporate executives.

Digital video has remained a leading performer for marketers, with 92 percent saying it's an important part of their marketing strategy (HubSpot), and with the arrival of the global health crisis initial reports have shown that more video than ever is being viewed, including 5.5 percent higher video view rates on Twitter.

One of the many benefits a top-notch DAM solution offers is the ability to find otherwise hidden static content in your organization's archives that can work well in creating video marketing, oftentimes also avoiding time-consuming efforts to re-do work that has already been completed but can't easily be found.

4 — DAM Shines in Always-On Marketing Environments

Always-on marketing replaces on-again off-again campaigns with a fluid ongoing effort, continually cultivating and carefully building efforts that allow businesses to seamlessly adapt their marketing efforts, rather than playing catch-up, stopping a campaign, and waiting to build a new one.

For B2B marketers, the shift to always-on is swiftly advancing, and in always-on marketing DAM shines brightly, as it removes many of the bottlenecks slowing down traditional marketing by offering easy and swift access to a firm’s digital asset archive.

We recently launched a new ongoing series for B2B brands looking to explore the many benefits of always-on influence, as our CEO Lee Odden took a close at in "Always On Influence: Definition and Why B2B Brands Need it to Succeed."

Marketing technology also thrives when DAM is involved, and MarTech Advisor recently took a look at 10 of the major players in the DAM market.

[bctt tweet="“Always On Influencer Marketing is a strategic approach to creating communities of trusted experts that is relationship and content focused.” @LeeOdden" username="toprank"]

5 — Search Marketers Find Success with DAM

Search marketers also benefit from a powerful DAM system, being able to systematically find search campaign assets, analytics data contained in spreadsheets or other formats, in ways that help make more data-informed search marketing efforts a snap.

In a way the so-called findability of search marketing goes hand-in-hand with a smart DAM solution, as both are centered around finding things — whether in the form of search engine query answers or finding a file you know you have but haven't been able to successfully locate until the arrival of a DAM system.

6 — B2B Marketers Get Social with DAM

Social media marketers too can gain advantages by using a DAM workflow, easily accessing digital assets destined for a variety of social platforms, whether they involve static or video content, advertising copy in text documents, or social analytics data in any number of file formats.

Social media marketing is also enhanced by DAM through time savings, but also by the extra insight it can bring helping to open up an organization's digital asset library. Re-purposing content on social platforms can take on an entirely new and all-encompassing level when every digital asset can easily come in to play and be combined in relevant new ways, thanks to a powerful DAM system.

Invest in Your Firm’s Long-Term Success Using DAM

Whether you specialize in B2B influencer marketing, social, search, content, video or always-on efforts — or a combination of these primary digital marketing practices — finding and implementing the right digital asset management system is an investment in the long-term success of your organization.

Finally, to help you learn more about DAM solutions for marketers, including a list of many of the top providers, have a look at our article exploring the subject.

The post Why B2B Marketers Should Give a DAM: Top Tips on Digital Asset Management appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

How COVID-19 Is Impacting Business Event Planning
70 percent of business event planners have changed previously-planned in-person events to virtual platforms due to the pandemic, and 47 percent expect that once it ends people will still be hesitant to travel, with 27 percent expecting a swift uptick in real-world events due to pent-up demand, according to newly-released survey data from the Professional Convention Management Association (PCMA). MarketingProfs

Google ad sales steady after coronavirus drop; Alphabet leads tech share rally
2020 first-quarter advertising sales at Google tallied $33.8 billion, with 73 percent coming from search and 12 percent from its YouTube property, and Google's ad business accounting for some 83 percent of revenue for parent firm Alphabet, according to newly-released financial results. Reuters

Spotify-owned Anchor can now turn your video chats into podcasts
Spotify will utilize its Anchor property to make it possible to convert video meeting content into podcasts, offering marketers new options for making use of a virtual hangout video content podcast conversion feature, Spotify recently announced. TechCrunch

Google’s new Podcasts Manager tool offers deeper data on listener behavior
Google has rolled out a new podcast analytics data feature — Podcasts Manager — that provides marketers an assortment of new podcast listening data, the search giant recently announced. Marketing Land

LinkedIn's up to 690 Million Members, Reports 26% Growth in User Sessions
LinkedIn (client) saw its user base increase to 690 million members — up from 675 in January — with an accompanying 26 percent increase in user sessions, and LinkedIn Live streams that increased by some 158 percent since February, according to parent firm Microsoft’s latest earnings release. Social Media Today

Advertisers Continued to Gravitate to Instagram in Q1
Advertisers moved to spend more on Instagram during the first quarter of 2020, with ad spending up 39 percent year-over-year on the platform, holding steady at 27 percent of parent company Facebook’s total ad spend, according to recently-released Merkle data. MarketingCharts

Brands Are Using More Data And Spending More On It: Study
B2B marketers are making greater use of data and spending increasingly to gather it, according to recent report data from Ascend2, showing that 47 percent use engagement data to make marketing decisions, one of several report statistics of interest to digital marketers. MediaPost

Most consumers are trying new brands during social distancing, study finds
Brands are seeing newfound levels of audience interest, with an uptick in consumer interest for trying new brands that has been observed during the pandemic, with members of the Gen Z and Millennial demographic seeing the biggest increases, according to recently-released survey data. Campaign US

Marketers Ante Up for In-Game Advertising
A $3 billion in-game advertising market in the U.S. alone has attracted additional advertisers, and a new Association of National Advertisers (ANA) examination of data from eMarketer found some surprises in that most mobile gamers were over 35, with 20 percent being over 50, while the majority were female, several of the in-game advertising statistics of interest to digital marketers. ANA

Data Hub: Coronavirus and Marketing [Updated]
Digital marketing has fared better than traditional campaigns in the face of the global health crisis, according to newly-released survey data from the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) exploring the differences between the pandemic and the 2008 recession. MarketingCharts

ON THE LIGHTER SIDE:

A lighthearted look at generic advertising “in these uncertain times” by Marketoonist Tom Fishburne — Marketoonist

WHO Releases New Guidelines to Avoid Being Nominated for Viral Challenges — The Hard Times

Major Relief: Microsoft Has Confirmed That The Xbox Series X Will Play Video Games — The Onion

TOPRANK MARKETING & CLIENTS IN THE NEWS:

• Lee Odden — What’s Trending: Embracing Data — LinkedIn (client)
• Lee Odden — 10 Expert Tips for Marketing During a Crisis — Oracle (client)
• Lee Odden — Klear Interviews Lee Odden, CEO, TopRank Marketing [Video] — Klear
• Lee Odden and TopRank Marketing — Pandemic Cross-Country Skiing in Duluth, Minnesota: A Personal Timeline — Lane R. Ellis

Have you got your own top B2B content marketing or digital advertising stories from the past week of news? Please let us know in the comments below.

Thanks for taking time to join us, and we hope you will join us again next Friday for more of the most relevant B2B and digital marketing industry news. In the meantime, you can follow us at @toprank on Twitter for even more timely daily news. Also, don't miss the full video summary on our TopRank Marketing TV YouTube Channel.

The post B2B Marketing News: Brands Spending More on Data, Spotify Turns Video Chats into Podcasts, & Consumers Trying More New Brands appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

In Washington State and Boston, two initiatives are helping prevent potatoes from being thrown out and milk from being poured down the drain. Gavino Garay has more.

The sting of the Asian giant hornet can kill and that's not just an expression of speech. Since their discovery in 2019 in the US, traps have been set to see if Asian giant "murder hornets" have settled in the state. Libby Hogan has more.

Syria's government allowed mosques to open on Friday for worshipers willing to perform prayers. The mosque had remained closed as part of the measures taken to contain the spread of coronavirus.

A campaign in Mexico City to get residents to wear face masks is now reinforced with a new secret weapon: clowns. They're telling metro riders, 'Wear a face mask -- don't be a clown!' as they spray riders' hands with disinfectant. Gavino Garay has more.

At a ceremony honoring nurses at the White House on Wednesday, U.S. President Donald Trump contradicted a New Orleans nurse who said the availability of personal protective equipment has been 'sporadic.'

In Washington State and Boston, two initiatives are helping prevent potatoes from being thrown out and milk from being poured down the drain. Gavino Garay has more.

Arizona State University's Thunderbird School of Global Management utilizes robots to give its students a virtual graduation ceremony. Freddie Joyner has more.

A campaign in Mexico City to get residents to wear face masks is now reinforced with a new secret weapon: clowns. They're telling metro riders, 'Wear a face mask -- don't be a clown!' as they spray riders' hands with disinfectant. Gavino Garay has more.

Sunny days and warm weather are proving to be as challenging to manage as restaurants, hair salons and other businesses as about half of U.S. states partially reopen their economies after the coronavirus lockdown. This report produced by Zachary Goelman.

The Anchorage Daily News and ProPublica won the Pulitzer Prize for public service journalism on Monday for revealing one-third of Alaska's villages had no police protection, while the photography staff of Reuters won the breaking news photography award for documenting last year's violent protests in Hong Kong.

An in-depth study of Leonardo da Vinci's earliest-known drawing has proved definitively that the great Renaissance artist was in fact comfortable working with either hand. Dan Fastenberg reports.

ट्विटर पर #AskKapil नंबर एक पर ट्रेंड कर रहा है। ऐसे में लोगों ने भी लॉकडाउन टाइम का परफैक्ट यूज करते हुए कपिल से ही मजेदार सवाल कर डाले। अपनी हाजिर जवाबी और सेंस ऑफ ह्यूमर के लिए मशहूर कपिल ने भी इन सभी को मजेदार अंदाज में जवाब दिया है। हालांकि उन्होंने ज्यादातर केवल उन्हीं सवालों का कोट किया जो उनकी निजी जिंदगी से जुड़े थे।

इस सेशन के दौरान मशहूर शायर राहत इंदौरी ने भी कपिल को टैग करते हुए अपना एक शेर लिखा-नींद से मेरा ताल्लुक़ ही नहीं बरसों से, ख़्वाब आ आ के मेरी छत पे टहलते क्यूंहैं ? इस ट्वीट को कपिल ने कोट करते हुए लिखा-एक बार जा के देख लीजिए छत पे कोई और ना सो रहा हो गुस्ताखी माफ़।

इसके अलावा ज्यादातर फैन्स ने उनसे फैमिली, शो और फिल्मों से जुड़े सवाल पूछे। वहीं कपिल ने लॉकडाउन के दौरान लोगों से घरों में रहने की अपील भी की ताकि उनके बीच संक्रमण न फैल सके। वहीं लॉकडाउन के बाद नेपाल में शो करने, फिल्म बनाने की बात भी कपिल ने की।

कुछ फनी ट्वीट्स भी किए : कपिल ने अपने अपने हंसमुख अंदाज के कारण फैन्स के उल्टे सवालों के भी मजेदार जवाब दिए। एक फैन ने कहा कि ये आस्क कपिल सेशन दिन भर चलाईए। किसी को कहीं जाना थोड़े है, सब वेले हैं। इस पर कपिल ने जवाब दिया कि- ऐसे कैसे, फिर बर्तन कौन धोएगा।

क घंटे में 9000 ट्वीट्स :#AskKapil सेशन के ट्विटर पर आते ही एक घंटे में इसके 9हजार ट्वीट्स हो गए। कपिल से जब एक फैन इस बारे में पूछा कि आपसे इतने सारे लोगों ने सवाल किया है लेकिन आपने जवाब केवल 50 लोगों के सवालों का ही दिया तो कपिल ने उन सभी फैन्स को शुक्रिया किया।

Refugees at the Zaatari camp in Jordan have designed a robot prototype made from LEGOs, which automatically dispenses sanitizer to avoid contact with the bottle and help prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

Refugees at the Zaatari camp in Jordan have designed a robot prototype made from LEGOs, which automatically dispenses sanitizer to avoid contact with the bottle and help prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

The U.S. Department of Commerce is close to signing off on a new rule that would allow U.S. companies to work with China’s Huawei Technologies on setting standards for next generation 5G networks, people familiar with the matter said.

Arizona State University's Thunderbird School of Global Management utilizes robots to give its students a virtual graduation ceremony. Freddie Joyner has more.

Pizzerias were finally able to open their doors again this week after almost two months in lockdown - and Italians were savouring every bite.

Reuters Breakingviews examines how Washington’s new paradigm on China is affecting Silicon Valley, from overseas investments to intellectual property protection to trade.

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair argued that the two major UK parties, Conservative and Labour, are 'peddling fantasies' ahead of the upcoming election.

Three Indian soldiers were killed in a gunbattle with militants in the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir on Monday, a day after a similar incident in which five were killed.

Afghanistan's government began distributing free bread to hundreds of thousands of people across the country this week as supplies have been disrupted during the coronavirus shutdown and prices have soared, officials and experts said.

Indian troops killed four militants in gun battles in Kashmir on Wednesday, including the commander of the biggest separatist group fighting New Delhi, a police official said, triggering clashes across the disputed region that left dozens injured.

Pakistan will begin lifting its coronavirus lockdown on Saturday, Prime Minister Imran Khan said, hours after the country announced its highest daily increase in new cases.

More than a third of confirmed coronavirus cases in the Afghan capital have been among doctors and other healthcare staff, two senior health officials said on Thursday, in a sign that the war-torn country is struggling to deal with the pandemic.

Coronavirus cases in Pakistan surged past 25,000 on Friday, just hours before the government was due to lift lockdown measures, with the country reporting some of the biggest daily increases in new infections in the world.

Scientists have solved a lingering mystery about koala behavior. A new study describes the animal's drinking habit in the wild for the first time.

BMW expects the coronavirus pandemic to hit demand and earnings throughout this year, while Volkswagen sees some green shoots with higher Chinese demand. Francis Maguire reports.

Japan's Nintendo said Thursday it sold 21 million Switch units in the year ended March, smashing its forecast of 19.5 million units, with hit title Animal Crossing: New Horizons shifting 13.4 million units in its first six weeks. Ciara Lee reports

A chemical gas leak at an LG Polymers plant in southern India on Thursday killed at least 9 people, and emergency services rushed more than 300 to hospital and evacuated hundreds more from nearby areas, a police official in Andhra Pradesh state said. Libby Hogan reports.

H&M, the world's second-biggest fashion retailer, said local currency sales have tumbled 57% since the start of March compared with a year ago. Ciara Lee reports

Wall Street's indexes climbed Thursday, with the Nasdaq erasing losses for 2020, following a clutch of upbeat earnings reports led by PayPal. Fred Katayama reports.

"Mad Mike" Hughes, a self-styled explorer and daredevil bent on proving that the earth is flat was killed over the weekend when his homemade rocket crashed in the California desert over the weekend.

Air travelers cannot receive cash compensation if their flight is delayed by a passenger biting others and assaulting crew members, an adviser at the Court of Justice of the European Union said on Thursday.