Officials have developed a second package of support measures for IT companies. It contains tax benefits for business and freelancers and promises to close criminal cases The VTIMES publication found out the details of the new package of support for the technological industry, which has been preparing the government from last summer.

Google has announced a 15% reduction in fees on the Google Play app store for developers. Starting July, Android app purchase fees for developers with annual revenues below $1 million will drop from 30% to 15%, Google announced. If the developer's annual revenue exceeds $1 million, he will pay a commission of 30% on the amount over that million. According to a Google spokesperson, this innovation will benefit 99% of developers worldwide.

Volkswagen shares rose almost 30% after the company detailed a plan that should see it become the leader in the electric vehicle market by 2025, dethroning Tesla. Shares of VW soared 29% after the group revealed how it plans to overtake Tesla in the car market.

Coronavirus vaccinations with AstraZeneca's "Oxford" vaccine have been phased out almost throughout Europe due to cases of thrombosis. How real and how big is the danger? What's happening Last week and this week, vaccination against coronavirus with AstraZeneca, starting with Austria, was stopped by many European countries, including the three largest ones - Germany, Italy and France.

Norilsk Nickel shares lost 7% after the company announced a reduction in the volume of the production program for 2021 due to accidents at mines. It is planned to launch the flooded mines within 3-4 months. After Norilsk Nickel's statement, at the peak of the decline, its shares fell by 7.1% to 22,276 rubles. By 18:00, the fall to the opening was 5%, according to trading data.

A year ago, Imanbek Zeikenov lived with his parents in the Kazakh town of AKSU and worked as a signalist on the railway, and today he is the owner of the most prestigious Grammy music award in the world and a fortune of dollars, which he received due to billions of listening to Spotify and Apple Music. The Bell studied the history of the phenomenal success of the young DJ and his main hit - remix to the Roses track of the American rapper Saint JHN.

The Bell found out how Alfa-Bank will calculate the reward of rapper Morgenstern. According to experts, he can earn up to 30 million rubles on the contract. The contract with Morgenstern, who was appointed director of youth work at Alfa-Bank the day before, assumes a small fixed part, and the rest of the contractor’s remuneration depends on the fulfillment of KPI, Aleksey Giyazov, director of marketing and communications of the bank, told The Bell.

Roskomnadzor has announced that it will completely block Twitter in Russia in a month if the social network does not comply with all the requirements of the Russian authorities. IT experts are sure that the social network will not go for it because of reputational losses. Vadim Subbotin, deputy head of the department, announced the imminent blocking of Twitter, TASS reports .

Germany has bet that the construction of Nord Stream 2 will be completed: Berlin believes that if the gas pipeline starts up, the new US administration will come to terms with the project, writes Reuters. Germany expects a pragmatic approach from the Joe Biden administration to the Nord Stream 2 project, German officials and diplomats told Reuters. Therefore, now the German authorities are trying to gain time and allow the construction to be completed.

Almost a third of Russians do not care about politics at all, according to the results of a poll by the Levada Center. This is the highest level in the entire history of such polls, which have been conducted since Soviet times - since October 1990. Among the 1,600 respondents, 3% of respondents said they were interested in politics to a "very large degree", 9% - to a "large", 35% - to a "medium", 26% - to a "small".

On March 14, the STRIPE electronic payment service attracted $ 600 million investments in assessing the total business of $ 95 billion. This made a company founded in 2010 by brothers Patrick and John Collisons, the most expensive startup in the United States is even more than SpaceX, Ilona Mask. The Bell recalled the path of the creators of the service-from life in a modest Irish village to the status of the main young Selfmade-billionaires in the world.

The Chinese taxi aggregator Didi, which is called the Chinese Uber, will now operate in a hundred Russian cities in 2021. The service has already launched in 20 cities, including cities with a population of over one million, the company said. In 2021, the number of Russian cities where a taxi can be ordered through the DiDi service should increase from the current 16 to more than a hundred, told Daniil Petin, COO of DiDi in Russia, RBC.

The world's three largest coal-consuming countries - China, India and the United States - are preparing to increase production, and this will nullify the entire global reduction in emissions during the pandemic, according to Bloomberg. According to the Statistical Review of World Energy for 2019, China (51.7% of global demand), India (11.8%), and the United States (7.2%) remain the largest consumers of coal, the dirtiest fossil energy carrier.

Due to rising housing prices, there are fewer mortgage borrowers who meet the requirements of banks: the share of approved mortgages in Russia has fallen to a minimum since 2017, RBC writes with reference to the NBKI. In February 2021, the share of satisfied applications for such loans fell to a four-year low - 63.8% from 69.1% in December, the NBKI calculated. The last time such a low figure was in February 2017 (63.9%).

The authorities are considering creating an analogue of the Cinema Fund for Russian online content, such as TV series. According to RBC , the money received from paying VAT by online cinemas can become a source of state funding. RBC sources say that the authorities plan to launch the Russian Online Content Fund, similar to the Cinema Fund, in 2021. The essence of the work of the fund will be that part of the producers of content (for example, series) will be able to apply for state subsidies.