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After all, Visa is not going to get “high,” the company announced last week. After objections raised by the Justice Department (not to mention a lawsuit), the credit card company canceled its $ 5.3 billion merger proposal with fintech startup Plaid. The company says it probably could have won the suit had it proceeded, but that would have led to years of litigation that Visa was not willing to spend.
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It’s no secret that the COVID pandemic has kept millions of people in their homes and in front of their screens since last March, but the amount of time we’ve spent playing during that time will make you jaw-drop. According to Valve, the hours spent playing on its Steam service jumped from 20.8 billion in 2019 to 31.3 billion last year – an increase of 50% year on year!
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You would think that the Earth not setting a high temperature mark last year – just breaking the record set in 2016 – would be at least a sliver of silver in what would otherwise be humanity’s increasingly gloomy environmental news. But that is only until you know that the low temperatures were due to the huge 46 million acre forest fires in Australia and a deadly global pandemic that has already killed millions of people.
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Now that the long-awaited COVID vaccine is finally becoming available to people under the age of 75, placing it in the arms of essential workers and workers is of paramount importance. To that end, Instacart announced that it will issue $ 25 vaccination stipends to its customers, so they don’t have to choose between placing an order and receiving the life-saving jab.