Copyright 2015 Bloomberg. NIT9HR6VDKHS (Bloomberg) — Satya Nadella, a year into his turnaround of Microsoft Corp., is being tripped up in overseas markets as a slump in China and Japan and a stronger U.S. dollar curbed sales of business-software licenses. Commercial-licensing revenue fell to $10.7 billion in the period that

Copyright 2015 Bloomberg. NIOVX36JIJUQ (Updates with Japanese government official in third paragraph.) (Bloomberg) — A Japanese hostage was shown killed in a purported Islamic State video after a deadline passed for Japan to pay a $200 million ransom, according to the Japanese government and a terrorist-monitoring group. Haruna Yukawa, a

Copyright 2015 Bloomberg. NISVEH6KLVR7 (Bloomberg) — Smartphones and tablet devices are the new weak spot in the battle against cyber-criminals, according to the head of computer security at Europe’s biggest phone company. Businesses and governments have already been struggling with a record number of so-called distributed denial of service attacks,

Copyright 2015 Bloomberg. NIRF066JIJUR (Bloomberg) — President Barack Obama’s call to restrict oil exploration on 12 million acres of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge probably won’t have much practical impact for an area already off-limits to drillers, though it’s created a new fault line with the Republican-led Congress. The White

Copyright 2015 Bloomberg. NIAO4Y6JTSEJ (Bloomberg) — U.S. drillers have taken a record number of oil rigs out of service in the past six weeks as OPEC sustains its production, sending prices below $50 a barrel. The oil rig count has fallen by 209 since Dec. 5, the steepest six-week decline

(Bloomberg) — Japan is using “every channel available” to secure the release of Kenji Goto, a war journalist captured and threatened with death by Islamic State militants. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told reporters in Tokyo on Monday that Japan would do its utmost to free Goto with the co-operation

Copyright 2015 Bloomberg. NILXXK6S972H (For more on oil’s decline, click EXT5 <GO>) (Bloomberg) — Oil jumped after the death of King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, the biggest producer in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. Futures advanced as much as 3.1 percent in New York and 2.6 percent in London

Copyright 2015 Bloomberg. NILVBK6JTSEW (Bloomberg) — Islamic State will release a statement “soon” on two Japanese hostages it has threatened to kill sometime on Friday if Japan doesn’t pay a $200 million ransom, Japan’s public broadcaster NHK reported. The Japanese people are infidels at war with Islamic State, a spokesman

Copyright 2015 Bloomberg. NILWFM6JTSEI (Bloomberg Politics) — President Obama is not going to stand in the way of U.S. states that want to get high. In an interview Thursday with YouTube blogger Hank Green, Obama was asked about the growing conflict between state and federal marijuana laws. “What you’re seeing now is

Copyright 2015 Bloomberg. Jordan Robertson (For more stories on the Bloomberg Global Poll, click TOP POLL.) (Bloomberg) — At a time when most people aren’t confident their workplace is safe from a hacking attack, respondents to the Bloomberg Global Poll are more certain about one thing: Vengeance is not mine.