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Provident Financial Holdings announced that the board authorized the repurchase of up to 5% of the company's common stock, approximately 373,000 shares. The company will purchase the shares from time to time in the open market or through privately negotiated transactions over a one-year period depending on market conditions, the capital requirements of the company, and available cash that can be allocated to the stock repurchase program, among other considerations. The April 2018 stock repurchase plan will become effective once the company has completed the June 2017 stock repurchase plan; subsequent to purchasing the remaining 40,993 shares or June 19, 2018, whichever occurs first.

Western Alliance Bancorporation announced Barbara J. Kennedy has joined the company as Executive Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer. In this role, Kennedy will oversee human resources, training, talent development and recruitment for Western Alliance, which has over 1,700 employees across the country. Kennedy brings extensive knowledge of national and multinational companies in the human resources arena. Prior to joining Western Alliance, Kennedy was Senior Vice President of Human Resources for San Diego-based Encore Capital Group.

Xerox rises 1.9% following report of renewed Fujifilm merger talks

The Board decided to discontinue the stock dividend at this time. For over 20 years Southside has paid an annual stock dividend in addition to quarterly cash dividends, however, the increase in the number of shares outstanding combined with the appreciation in the stock price during that time has outpaced our ability to maintain sufficient retained earnings to pay the annual stock dividend.

Nintendo and Cygames reached a business agreement to partner on a new gaming application for smart devices. In summer of 2018, Nintendo will release "Dragalia Lost," an all-new original action RPG application designed by Cygames for smart devices. Nintendo has been co-developing and will jointly operate the game with Cygames, bringing to life the shared vision of a new gaming experience with worldwide appeal. The gaming application will be released globally, starting with Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau. With the support of Nintendo's group companies, it will launch in North America and Europe as well. For the purpose of facilitating the partnership, Nintendo will obtain approximately 5% of Cygames's issued stocks mainly through a third party allocation of its treasury stock. The impact of this partnership to Nintendo's business is factored into this fiscal year's financial forecast.

MediciNova announced that principal investigator Dr. Benjamin Rix Brooks, Director, Carolinas HealthCare System's Neuromuscular/ALS-MDA Center at Carolinas HealthCare System Neurosciences Institute, will present additional clinical data from MediciNova's completed clinical trial of MN-166 in ALS tomorrow at the American Academy of Neurology 70th Annual Meeting in Los Angeles, California. Dr. Benjamin Rix Brooks, principal investigator, commented, "This composite endpoint provides information that ibudilast may delay ALS progression in some patients and this may benefit survival. The proportion of responders was higher, approximately one in three, in ALS subjects who started ibudilast rather than placebo during the Double-Blind epoch. This degree of response is more than seen in natural history studies involving thousands of ALS patients in the PRO-ACT database and is greater than those provided by current ALS treatments. Future clinical trials of ibudilast and other treatments in ALS may benefit from use of this novel clinical endpoint in Phase 2 and Phase 3 clinical trials."

The cash dividend is payable to common stock shareholders of record May 24, 2018. The cash dividend is scheduled for payment on June 7.

In a regulatory filing, Simmons First president of the North Texas region Wilson Bryant, Jr. disclosed the sale of 50,000 shares of the company at a price of $30.36 per share.

Baidu up 6.4% to $254.00 after Q1 results beat estimates

Oasis Petroleum (OAS) will replace Washington Prime Group (WPG) in the S&P MidCap 400, and Washington Prime Group will replace Biglari Holdings (BH) in the S&P SmallCap 600 effective prior to the open of trading on Tuesday, May 1. Biglari is scheduled to reorganize from a single share class structure into a multiple share class structure on or about that date. The U.S. Index Committee has determined that the company is no longer appropriate for continued inclusion in the S&P SmallCap 600.

Starbucks not seeing SSS impact from Philadelphia arrests

In a regulatory filing, Facebook said that it anticipates that its ongoing investments in safety, security, and content review will identify additional instances of misuse of user data or other undesirable activity by third parties on its platform. "In addition to our efforts to mitigate cybersecurity risks, we are making significant investments in safety, security, and content review efforts to combat misuse of our services and user data by third parties, including investigations and audits of platform applications that previously accessed information of a large number of users of our services," the company said in the filing. "As a result of these efforts we anticipate that we will discover and announce additional incidents of misuse of user data or other undesirable activity by third parties. We may also be notified of such incidents or activity via the media or other third parties. Such incidents and activities may include the use of user data in a manner inconsistent with our terms or policies, the existence of false or undesirable user accounts, election interference, improper ad purchases, activities that threaten people's safety on- or offline, or instances of spamming, scraping, or spreading misinformation. The discovery of the foregoing may negatively affect user trust and engagement, harm our reputation and brands, and adversely affect our business and financial results. Any such discoveries may also subject us to additional litigation and regulatory inquiries, which could subject us to monetary penalties and damages, divert management's time and attention, and lead to enhanced regulatory oversight."

Foundation Medicine (FMI), F. Hoffmann-La Roche (RHHBY) and DIAN Diagnostics Group announced a three-party collaboration to integrate Foundation Medicine's comprehensive genomic profiling assays into clinical patient care in mainland China. Under the collaboration: DIAN, a developer and supplier of Chinese medical diagnostic products and services, becomes the exclusive clinical sequencing partner in China for FoundationOne, FoundationACT and FoundationOne Heme, enabling the delivery of personalized cancer care for patients. Roche maintains commercial exclusivity for Foundation Medicine's molecular information products in China, and in cooperation with DIAN continues its current in-county activities to support the broad integration of CGP into clinical care. DIAN is one of the first commercial laboratories approved by the National Health Commission of China to receive a next generation sequencing pilot license for cancer diagnostics.