Bannon Booted

Bannon's exit caps a tumultuous four weeks that saw a slew of senior officials leave the White House, among them former chief of staff Reince Priebus, press secretary Sean Spicer, and communications director Anthony Scaramucci, who was hired and fired within the space of 11 days. The White House says Bannon’s departure was agreed on mutually with new White House Chief of Staff John Kelly.

Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump socialized with a billionaire Putin ally. Kushner has ties to Roman Abramovich, one of Russia’s most powerful and influential billionaires. They have met three to four times in social settings, and their wives have been friends for a decade—facts Kushner and Ivanka Trump revealed on their security-clearance forms to join the White House staff, according to a person familiar with the filings.

Apple and leading movie studios might defy cinema chains and offer digital rentals. Studios including Warner Bros. and Universal Pictures may forge ahead with a plan to offer digital rentals of films mere weeks after they appear in theaters, according to people familiar with the matter.

Barclays Plc has installed devices that track how often bankers are at their desks. The OccupEye devices, made by Blackburn, U.K.-based Cad-Capture, are pitched as a way for companies to find out how they can reduce office space, showing managers which workstations are unoccupied. “The sensors aren’t monitoring people or their productivity; they are assessing office space usage,” the bank said in an emailed statement.

China is cracking down on the overseas investments companies are allowed to make. The country made explicit its de-facto campaign against "irrational" acquisitions of assets in industries ranging from real estate to hotels and entertainment. The authorities outlawed investments in the gambling and sex industries, while encouraging companies to support the nation’s ambitious "Belt and Road" initiative, the State Council said in a statement Friday.

James Murdoch will donate $1 million to the Anti-Defamation League to fight Nazis. The Twenty-First Century Fox Inc. CEO said in a letter to friends that he was concerned about President Donald Trump’s reaction to the killing of an anti-racist protester in Charlottesville, Virginia, and that “standing up to Nazis is essential,” the New York Times reported. The CEO, son of media mogul and high-profile Trump ally Rupert Murdoch, also said he and his wife will donate to the ADL, “an extraordinary force for vigilance and strength in the face of bigotry.”

As Champagne sales continue to hit records, offshoots like LVMH’s Moët Ice Imperial are meeting demand. Ice Imperial’s first trial came in 2011 with the promise that it would offer a “unique and thirst quenching taste” and should be served in an unexpected way: a large wine glass, over ice. Champagne snobs scoffed at such heretical drinking, and everyone else guzzled it up. In fact, this new kind of fizz, expressly designed to be drunk on the rocks, has become a new category of Champagne.