Vaguely defined subversion charges are often leveled at human rights activists

All stocks trading on the New York Stock Exchange were halted on Wednesday for reasons that were not immediately clear.

The New York Stock Exchange said it has temporarily suspended trading in all stocks, without providing further information. The update was issued at 11:32 a.m. New York time.

Trading on Chinese stock markets was halted for the day on Thursday just 30 minutes after the start of trading.

Just as the House Republican bill to slash much of the Affordable Care Act moved forward, some lawmakers started trading health care stocks.

Stock markets around the world closed down on the last trading day of 2015, with the Dow suffering its first annual drop since 2008. But for the two largest stock market-listed gun manufacturers 2015 has been another great year – their value has doubled. In a year marred with gun violence and peppered with calls for tougher gun control measures, Smith & Wesson and Sturm, Ruger and Company have been two of the best performing stocks in the US.

Ireland has voted to be the world’s first country to fully divest public money from fossil fuels. The Irish Parliament passed the historic legislation in a 90 to 53 vote in favour of dropping coal, oil and gas investments from the €8bn (£6.8bn) Ireland Strategic Investment Fund, part of the Republic’s National Treasury Management Agency. The bill, introduced by Deputy Thomas Pringle, is likely to pass into law in the next few months after it is reviewed by the financial committee. 

Saudi Arabia plans to invest $1 billion in Richard Branson’s private space venture Virgin Galactic, as well as its spinoff companies The Spaceship Company and Virgin Orbit. The country has the option of investing an additional $480 million in the future, too. The money will go toward Virgin’s space tourism program and help accelerate the development of the company’s new launch vehicle to send small satellites into orbit.

At a press conference this morning, automaker Toyota announced that it will be investing $50 million into establishing joint research facilities at Stanford and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to bring artificial intelligence technology to the road and into the home. The five-year collaboration will be coordinated by former Program Director for DARPA's (Defense Research Project Agency) Defense Sciences Office, Professor Gill Pratt.

LEGO’s toy dominance over the last half century has been built on petroleum-based plastics. The toy company is investing hundreds of millions of dollars dedicated to research, development and implementation of new, sustainable, raw materials to manufacture LEGO elements as well as packaging materials. By 2030, the Danish-based toy company says that their plastic bricks will no longer be made from the oil-based plastic in the 60 billion blocks LEGO produces each year.

Europe’s largest management consultancy has warned against investing in Britain. In an interview with The Times, Charles-Edouard Bouée, the chief executive of Roland Berger, which is Europe’s largest management consultancy and competes with the likes of McKinsey and Bain & Co, said that businesses are still underestimating the complexity of Brexit negotiations. “We’re advising our clients to try to adjust and to be flexible. Uncertain and complex as it is, the best thing is to be agile,” he told the paper.

U.S. stocks rose more than 1 percent to near session highs on Wednesday afternoon as technology stocks led a rebound from Tuesday's steep losses and as China's move to again support its financial markets eased investor concerns.

It has been quite a day for tech problems. Trading on the New York Stock Exchange was halted due to a "technical issue" at around 11:30 AM ET this morning. On its status page, the NYSE posted that all trading had been suspended and any open orders would be cancelled -- with a more detailed explanation to follow. A NYSE spokesperson told Forbes that the stoppage came after the exchange "experienced a technical issue" that it's "working to resolve as quickly as possible." An hour before trading...

The damage inflicted on world stocks this week by the escalating war of words over North Korea topped $1 trillion on Friday, as investors again took cover in the yen, the Swiss franc, gold and government bonds.

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The damage inflicted on world stocks this week by the escalating war of words over North Korea topped $1 trillion on Friday, as investors again took cover in the yen, the Swiss franc, gold and government bonds. With the tense mood pushing European shares down for a third day and Wall Street set to fall again, global stocks were on course for their worst week since Donald Trump won November's U.S. presidential election.

Policymakers argue over the consensus on global warming and climate change, but science is not to blame, experts say. In a new paper, scientists suggest looking at business interests, partisan predispositions and political ideology for the hurdles to policy action.

Stock prices for the country’s two largest private prison contractors skyrocketed Wednesday after GOP nominee Donald Trump claimed victory in the U.S. presidential election. The largest private prison contractor, CoreCivic ― which recently changed its name from Corrections Corporation of America ― saw its stock shoot up by more than 58 percent shortly after morning trading began. Stocks for the second largest contractor, GEO Group, rose by more than 28 percent. Over the next few hours of trading, both stocks came down somewhat from those peaks, but remained strong.

Russian stocks have far underperformed U.S. equities so far this year after a big bull run in 2016.

Stock-market crashes, terrorist attacks, and the dark side of “newsworthy” stories. By Derek Thompson.