News Headlines - 05 January 2018

▽Spotify touts 70m subscribers as it prepares for public listing

The streaming-music service said in a tweet on Thursday that it now has 70m subscribers, passing the 60m milestone it reached in July.
The announcement comes after the revelation that it has filed paperwork to list its shares on the New York Stock Exchange. That could make the Swedish group the first large, well-known market debut of 2018.

▽Trump Breaks With Bannon, Saying He Has ‘Lost His Mind’ - The New York Times

While Mr. Trump had remained in touch with Mr. Bannon after pushing him out of the White House over the summer, the two now appear to have reached a breaking point. “Steve Bannon has nothing to do with me or my presidency,” Mr. Trump said. “When he was fired, he not only lost his job, he lost his mind.”

▽Russia suspected of Syria bombing that killed 30 civilians - Jerusalem Post

At least 30 civilians were killed early on Thursday when jets dropped bombs on a residential area in a besieged rebel enclave east of Syria's capital, a war monitor said, identifying the planes as Russian.
At least four bombs flattened two buildings in the Eastern Ghouta town of Misraba, in an attack that killed around 20 and wounded more than 40 people, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and civil defense sources said.

▽Samsung pushes aside Intel, snaps up top spot in memory market: Gartner | ZDNet

On Thursday, research firm Gartner released the results of preliminary research into the memory industry and how it performed over the course of 2017.
According to the agency, worldwide semiconductor revenue reached $419.7 billion, an increase of 22.2 percent from 2016... However, the booming business has been good news for players in the semiconductor field, despite supply problems. Gartner says that for the first time since 1992 Intel has toppled from its perch as the top supplier worldwide, to be overtaken by Samsung.

▽Chinese netizens furious at racist French nursery rhyme | South China Morning Post

The song, titled Zhang, my little Chinese, was taught at an unnamed school in Aubervilliers, a northeastern suburb of Paris, for more than a decade, China News Service reported on Monday... It was not clear who had produced the video. Nonetheless, the furore that followed prompted France’s education authorities to ban the song, the Chinese report said, without elaborating.