The daily business briefing: October 4, 2017

1. Verizon says Yahoo breach was much bigger than reported

The 2013 Yahoo data breach was much larger than previously disclosed, with all three billion Yahoo accounts affected, Yahoo's parent company, Verizon, announced Tuesday. When Yahoo revealed in late 2016 that hackers stole information from users three years earlier, it said that 1 billion accounts were likely affected. Verizon said it recently learned the full extent of the breach. The hackers stole personal information, including names, birth dates, email addresses, phone numbers, scrambled passwords, and security questions and answers, Yahoo said, but not credit card or bank account information. Yahoo has been unable to track down the hackers.

NPR

2. Uber board approves governance reforms and SoftBank investment

Uber's board on Tuesday moved ahead with a major investment deal from SoftBank Group Corp., which will put $1 billion to $1.25 billion into the ride-hailing service. SoftBank and other investors also will spend billions more to buy up to a 17 percent stake in Uber. Uber's 11-person board also unanimously approved governance reforms limiting the influence of co-founder Travis Kalanick. The plan expands the 11-person board to 17 seats with two spots for SoftBank representatives. The deal with SoftBank, a Japanese technology conglomerate, still isn't final, but the board vote marked a significant step forward. Uber expects to finalize the deal within weeks.

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Bloomberg Business Insider

3. Trump gets short list of recommended Fed chief candidates

President Trump's advisers have given him a short list of recommendations for leader of the Federal Reserve, Bloomberg reported Tuesday night, citing seven people familiar with the matter. Two of the sources said the current Fed chair, Janet Yellen, was still under consideration, although most of Trump's close advisers want someone new. National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn, named by Trump as a candidate, has recused himself from the selection process. Other leading candidates include former Fed governor Kevin Warsh and current governor Jerome Powell.

Bloomberg

4. 3 scientists win Nobel chemistry prize for breakthrough imaging technique

The Nobel committee announced Wednesday that Jacques Dubochet, Joachim Frank, and Richard Henderson have won the Nobel Prize in chemistry for developing cryo-electron microscopy, which Nobel committee member Göran K. Hansson described as "a cool method for imaging the materials of life." Dubochet is Swiss, and a professor at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland. Frank was born in Germany and now is a Columbia University professor in New York. Henderson, from Scotland, works at Cambridge University in Britain. Their technique flash-freezes samples of molecules allowing them to retain their original shape for better study. Scientists used cryo-electron imaging to quickly determine the shape of the Zika virus, a key step toward developing a vaccine.

NPR The Washington Post

5. Global stocks rise as U.S. futures simmer down

Global stock markets rose to record levels on Wednesday, but European shares were left out of the surge as investors worried about fallout from tensions in Spain over the wealthy Catalonia region's push for independence. Spanish stocks were on track for their sharpest one-day drop in more than a year. U.S. stock futures were little changed early Wednesday, with S&P 500, Dow Jones Industrial Average, and Nasdaq-100 futures edging down slightly. U.S. stocks rose to all-time highs for a second straight day on Tuesday.

Reuters MarketWatch