This is a preview of a research report from Business Insider Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service. To learn more about Business Insider Intelligence, click here.

Regtech solutions seemed to offer the solution to financial institutions' (FIs) compliance woes when they first came to prominence around 24 months ago, gaining support from regulators and investors alike. 

However, many of the companies offering these solutions haven't scaled as might have been expected from the initial hype, and have failed to follow the trajectory of firms in other segments of fintech.

This unexpected inertia in the regtech industry is likely to resolve over the next 12-18 months as other factors come into play that shift FIs' approach to regtech solutions, and as the companies offering them evolve. External factors driving this change include regulatory support of regtech solutions, and consultancies offering more help to FIs wanting to sift through solutions. Startups offering regtech solutions will also play a part by partnering with each other, forming industry organizations, and taking advantage of new opportunities.

This report from Business Insider Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service, provides a brief overview of the current global financial regulatory compliance landscape, and the regtech industry's position within it. It then details the major drivers that will shift the dial on FIs' adoption of regtech over the next 12-18 months, as well as those that will propel startups offering regtech solutions to new heights. Finally, it outlines what impact these drivers will have, and gives insight into what the global regtech industry will look like by 2020.

Here are some of the key takeaways:

• Regulatory compliance is still a significant issue faced by global FIs. In 2018 alone, EU regulations MiFID II and PSD2 have come into effect, bringing with them huge handbooks and gigantic reporting requirements. 
• Regtech startups boast solutions that can ease FIs' compliance burden — but they are struggling to scale. 
• Some changes expected to drive greater adoption of these solutions in the next 12 to 18 months are: the ongoing evolution of startups' business models, increasing numbers of partnerships, regulators' promotion of regtech, changing attitudes to the segment among FIs, and consultancies helping to facilitate adoption.
• FIs will actively be using solutions from regtech startups by 2020, and startups will be collaborating in an organized fashion with each other and with FIs. Global regulators will have adopted regtech themselves, while continuing to act as advocates for the industry.

In full, the report:

• Reviews the major changes expected to hit the regtech segment in the next 12 to 18 months.
• Examines the drivers behind these changes, and how the proliferation of regtech will improve compliance for FIs.
• Provides our view on what the future of the regtech industry looks like through 2020.
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• JPMorgan Chase is investing $30 million over the next five years in the Greater Paris region of Seine-Saint-Denis.
• The money will be in the form of grants for job training and mentorship.
• It is the first investment of the $500 million global AdvancingCities initiative.
• This article is part of Business Insider's ongoing series on Better Capitalism.

JPMorgan Chase announced Monday that starting January it will begin a five-year, $30 million dollar investment in Seine-Saint-Denis, a region of France to the northeast of Paris. It's an area marked by high unemployment, crime, and homelessness, and has 28% of its population living below the poverty line.

It also, however, is on the cusp of two developments that JPMorgan wants to take advantage of: the 2024 Olympics  — Seine-Saint-Denis is home to France's national soccer and rugby stadium — and the Grand Paris Express rapid transit line that will connect Greater Paris

As Stephanie Mestrallet, JPMorgan's vice president of global philanthropy in Europe, told Business Insider, "OK, we know that there are these issues, we know that a lot of people are going to invest in these areas — can we add to this effort that is currently happening?"

The money will go toward apprenticeship programs for young people, job retraining programs for older adults, and small business development.

The investment is a continuation of JPMorgan's philanthropic commitment to the region and will be the first made from the $500 million AdvancingCities initiative when it begins in January. AdvancingCities is itself a five-year program that the bank developed as an extension of investments into Detroit in 2013, after CEO Jamie Dimon decided to assist the city after it declared bankruptcy.

The bank found its Detroit project so successful that it made similar investments in Chicago, Washington, DC, and the New York City borough of the Bronx. Advancing Cities is built upon the lessons learned in these American cities over the last five years.

The initiative has two components, involving a competition among cities around the world that want help with kickstarting their economies, as well as investments outside of the contest. Seine-Saint-Denis falls into the latter, and Peter Scher, JPMorgan's head of corporate responsibility, said that the 150-year anniversary of JPMorgan's involvement in France (when JPMorgan's business partner opened a firm there) this November was a great occasion to move forward with a project they deemed ready to go.

JPMorgan had sent 16 employees to the area this past spring to get familiar with the area and see if there were necessary conditions for successful investments. They decided there indeed were. And though the AdvancingCities competition is still fielding proposals from more than 1,000 cities for the rest of the month, Scher said, "When we feel like we're ready and we can make the investments we do."

Using lessons from Detroit and London

When Scher explained AdvancingCities to us in September, he said that one of the key takeaways from their initial work in Detroit was that the level of partnerships on the ground is contingent on the success of the investments. That is, the bank's team has to rely on business and government leaders in each respective region to determine where money will be best spent and loaned.

In Seine-Saint-Denis, the French President Emmanuel Macron's administration is involved in the project, and the minister of employment, Muriel Penicaud, will join Dimon on Tuesday in an announcement press conference at the Les Compagnons du Devoir (LCD) charity in the region. JPMorgan partnered with the charity last fall and made a 460,000-euro investment into apprenticeship programs.

The AdvancingCities initiative as a whole utilizes both low-cost loans and philanthropic spending, but this upcoming $30 million investment will be entirely in the form of grants. They will support more apprenticeship programs like those offered by LCD, as well as small business accelerators like Impact Partenaire and Pact PME.

Scher said the JPMorgan will send around 100 employees from its global offices to assist with these programs over the next five years, as it has done with its previous city investments.

He said that the Great Paris initiative's success will be measured by effects on employment rates and small business growth, particularly in the poorest sections of the region. The AdvancingCities team is using its insights from its American projects, as well as how the bank's investments in East London during the 2012 London Summer Olympics affected the city's economy, for Seine-Saint-Denis' benefit.

"I think it demonstrates that not just the challenges are quite similar wherever you go, but many of the solutions are quite similar," Scher said.

SEE ALSO: JPMorgan's experimental investment in Detroit was so successful that it's decided to invest $500 million in up-and-coming cities

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• Ivanka Trump's brand won a slew of new Chinese trademarks in October despite its doors being closed in July.
• The trademarks were filed for everything from umbrellas to sausages.
• Critics warn that the trademarks raise questions of continued conflicts of interest.

Ivanka Trump, President Donald Trump's daughter and senior adviser, won initial approval for 16 Chinese trademarks despite the company shutting its doors in July, according to records released by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

The trademarks are the largest grouping approved in a single month for the brand since Trump's election, and raise questions surrounding continued conflicts of interest for one of Trump's senior advisers.

The applications for the trademarks, which were pertain to everything from bags to umbrellas to sausages, were filed in May 2016, but were notably not withdrawn when Ivanka's business was shuttered.

In July, Ivanka closed down her business, saying "my focus for the foreseeable future will be the work I am doing here in Washington." 

"I do not know when or if I will ever return to the business,” she said.

But according to an unnamed source from a July report in The Washington Post, the president's daughter planned to continue to seek trademarks, even after her company shut down.

Shut down, but not shut out

Ivanka's brand received intense scrutiny after Trump's election. Her products were almost exclusively made overseas despite her and her fathers championing of local labor, and the brand was dropped from retailers like Marshall's, Nordstrom, and TJ Maxx. Those developments were prompted in part by public animus toward her father. By June 2018, sales had dropped nearly 45%, according to a Wall Street Journal report.

In May, Ivanka's brand received approval for seven trademarks. The same month, Trump announced that he had reached a deal with China to lift the US ban on telecom giant ZTE. The timing of that news raised some eyebrows as well.

 Noah Bookbinder, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, told Business Insider in May that "It raises significant questions about corruption, as it invites the possibility that she could be benefiting financially from her position and her father's presidency or that she could be influenced in her policy work by countries' treatment of her business."

When Ivanka announced her brand's closure in July, it was speculated that certain ethics conundrums stemming from the business would be sealed.

But according to Caroline Zhang, social media manager at Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, these new approvals revive previous concerns of conflicts of interest: "Since she has retained her foreign trademarks, the public will continue to have to ask whether Trump has made foreign policy decisions in the interest of his and his family’s businesses."

Previously, officials from Ivanka's company have claimed that her international trademarks were measures to prevent foreign entities from capitalizing on her name. Business Insider has reached out to brand president Abigail Klem and will update this post with any response.

The first daughter's business strategy isn't entirely clear. While it's possible that she is continuing to pursue trademarks in the hopes of one day reopening her business, it's also possible that the approved trademark applications were simply loose ends that were never tied up.

SEE ALSO: These 25 Congressional races to watch are some of the most competitive in the 2018 midterm elections

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• Proposition C is a ballot measure in San Francisco that would tax the city's largest corporations to provide relief in the city's ongoing homelessness crisis. 
• San Francisco's biggest tech employer, Salesforce, and its CEO, Marc Benioff, have been the biggest advocates in favor of Prop C. 
• The city's second largest tech employer, Uber, has been nowhere to be found in the debate.
• A company spokesperson told Business Insider on Monday that "Uber remains neutral on Prop C with no plans to engage." 

San Francisco's biggest tech employer, Salesforce, is not mincing words when it comes to the city's homelessness crisis.

The cloud computing company, and its CEO Marc Benioff, have donated a combined $7.9 million to Proposition C, a ballot measure in San Francisco that would tax the city's largest corporations to help fix San Francisco's ongoing homelessness problem. Benioff has spent the past few weeks openly clashing with other San Francisco tech bigwigs, including Jack Dorsey, the CEO of Twitter and Square, who is opposed to Prop C. 

But one important voice in San Francisco's tech establishment has been silent in the fiery debate over Prop C.  That would be Uber, the ride-hailing company that ranks as San Francisco's second largest tech employer and which is no stranger to controversy itself. 

An Uber spokesperson confirmed with Business Insider on Monday that "Uber remains neutral on Prop C with no plans to engage." 

Uber is staying away from controversy

The decision not to take a side in San Francisco's most argued ballot measure may seem odd for such an important company in San Francisco. In addition to Uber's 5,000 full time San Francisco employees (that's excluding drivers), the company's gig-economy business model plays an important role in the individual welfare and livelihood of many San Francisco residents. And Uber, whose headquarters are in the same building as Square's, is also a beneficiary of the controversial payroll tax break for businesses in the city's Mid-Market neighborhood. 

Of course, after getting battered in a series of scandals in 2016 and 2017, including former CEO Travis Kalanick's presence on a Trump advisory board, Uber is trying to stay away from anything that carries any risk of controversy.

Opposition to the corporate tax would have also put Uber in the same camp with companies like Visa, Stripe, and Square, as well as industry thought-leaders like Y Combinator co-founder Paul Graham, Sequoia's Sir Michael Moritz, and Charles Schwab. 

And Uber's biggest competitor, Lyft, also opposed Prop C with a $100,000 donation. 

Uber, however, is staying neutral on the tax that's opposed by San Francisco Mayor London Breed who argues that the city's homelessness crisis can't be solved by throwing money at it. 

An Uber spokesperson did tell us that the company decided to donate $10,000 in support of Prop A, which would help retrofit and replace parts of the seawall that holds the San Francisco Bay waters back from flooding the city's downtown area. 

SEE ALSO: San Francisco’s tech billionaires are fighting over how to deal with the city's homelessness crisis — Here’s what each tech bigwig says about Tuesday's vote on Prop C

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• Amazon is said to be close to selecting two cities as the site of its second headquarters, dubbed HQ2: the Long Island City section of Queens, New York, and the Crystal City area of Arlington, Virginia, The New York Times reported Monday evening.
• The reported selection follows nearly a year of lobbying by cities and regions across the US and Canada.
• The Washington, DC, metro area was long seen as the front-runner for the contest, with Northern Virginia specifically seeming to pull ahead in recent months.
• The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday that the e-commerce giant was considering a plan to develop its second headquarters in two different cities, with 25,000 employees at each of the campuses.

The long wait is apparently almost over.

Amazon is said to be in talks to develop its second headquarters, HQ2, in the Long Island City section of Queens, New York, and the Crystal City area of Arlington, Virginia, The New York Times reported on Monday evening, citing people familiar with the plans.

The decision follows more than a year of speculation and lobbying by communities around the US and Canada.

Amazon will likely now get to work planning its new headquarters. It has said it hopes to have at least part of the new campus operational sometime in 2019.

The saga of HQ2 began in September 2017, when the company put out its official request for proposals.

In the request Amazon promised 50,000 jobs and $5 billion in investment to the new host city. Nearly every major metro area in the US threw its hat in the ring.

Amazon had whittled down the list to 20 by December but has barely made a peep about the selection process otherwise.

The Wall Street Journal had reported earlier on Monday that the e-commerce giant had decided to develop its second headquarters in two different cities, with 25,000 employees at each of the campuses.

The Times' report later seemingly confirmed that but added that the two selected areas were likely Long Island City and Crystal City. The Times report also confirmed that the deal was close to being finalized.

Read more: Amazon is reportedly planning on crowning 2 HQ2 winners, with 2 new headquarters in separate locations

Selecting two cities is something of a curveball because it was not originally part of the plan that Amazon had proposed for HQ2.

Amazon declined to comment whether it had made a final decision.

The evidence had long been pointing toward the Washington, DC, metro area, which had submitted three separate regions for consideration. Amazon joined DC's chamber of commerce in August. Add to that the fact that Amazon has already had its public-policy and lobbying operations in the district, and the US capital seemed like a shoo-in.

In recent months, the betting odds had quite literally zeroed in on Northern Virginia. The region is in what has been referred to as the "bull's-eye of America's internet," adding to its chances. A local news site, ARLnow.com, said it had seen an unusual spike in traffic from Amazon to an article from December titled "County Wins Top Environmental Award from US Green Building Council," which explained how Virginia's Arlington County was the first in the US to be selected for an environmental award.

There had been less speculation about New York City, but New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo recently made his desire to host Amazon clear.

"I'll change my name to Amazon Cuomo if that's what it takes," Cuomo told reporters on Monday. "Because it would be a great economic boost."

According to NY1, Cuomo reportedly met with Amazon executives in Seattle two weeks ago.

Once Amazon announces its selection, it will begin the more tedious job of working with local business leaders to integrate itself into the community.

More on Amazon's HQ2 project:

• Amazon made an important investment in Seattle, and it highlights a key issue for HQ2
• Amazon HQ2 candidates are going to great lengths to keep their plans secret
• HQ2 is making cities consider projects they've been ignoring for years — and it shows the power of Amazon
• 7 horrible things that could happen to cities if they win Amazon's HQ2 bid
• The cities where homeowners will benefit the most if Amazon's second headquarters lands there

SEE ALSO: Amazon is reportedly nearing a deal to make New York City one of the homes of its second headquarters — here's why it would be disastrous

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• Amazon is reportedly planning to name Long Island City neighborhood in Queens, New York half of its second headquarters, HQ2.
• HQ2 — which The New York Times reports will be split between New York and Crystal City, Virginia — will create roughly 25,000 new jobs in the area. 
• HQ2 sounds like a great opportunity for New York, but it could contribute to a rise in housing prices, as well as population and transportation woes.

On Monday evening, The New York Times reported that Amazon was finally nearing a decision on where to place its second headquarters. After more than a year of deliberation, the e-commerce giant is reportedly nearing a deal to split HQ2 between New York City, in the Queen's neighborhood of Long Island City, and Crystal City, Virginia. 

In January, soon after Amazon realized its short list of 20 finalists for HQ2, Business Insider's Leanna Garfield published a story on why New York City would be a horrible choice for Amazon's second headquarters. Here is why:

In mid-January, Amazon named New York City as one of the top 20 contenders for its second headquarters, dubbed HQ2. The campus is expected to bring 50,000 high-paying jobs to the chosen North American city, and Amazon said it will invest $5 billion in HQ2's construction.

At first glance, it sounds like a sweet deal. But if HQ2 came to New York, with its influx of tech workers, the campus could exacerbate several problems that already plague the city, including high housing prices, overpopulation, and gridlock — all things Seattle, Amazon's home, has seen since the company arrived in the late 1990s.

A shortage of housing stock and commercial space

New York City has proposed 26 million square feet across three boroughs as possible sites for HQ2. In response, seven local community organizations signed an open letter to CEO Jeff Bezos listing several concerns, including out-of-state hiring, unaffordable housing, and gentrification.

Their worries about higher rent prices are not unfounded, according to a recent report from real estate website Apartment List. The site made a few predictions about HQ2's potential impact on housing prices in 15 major cities based on historical home-building statistics and data from the US Census and Bureau of Labor Statistics. 

According to the report, the city could see an additional annual rent increase of 0.1% to 0.2% if HQ2 comes to town. Already, the median rent surpasses $3,000 per month. Considering that the average rent in New York City increases around 3.7% annually, HQ2 could cost renter households $1,391 to $2,182 over the next decade.

In New York, it has been difficult for housing supply to keep up with a quick pace of growth over the past two decades. It's a similar story in Seattle, where Amazon is the largest property taxpayer and private employer. Since 2000, the area has added 99,000 new jobs, with 30% of them in tech, contributing to a construction boom. Seattle is now the second-highest-paying city in tech, with an average salary of $99,400, according to the tech recruiting company Dice Holdings.

Somewhat unsurprisingly, the growth has made Seattle's housing less affordable for some longtime residents, who have accused Amazon of perpetuating income inequality in the city. From 2005 to 2015, Seattle's median rent went from $1,008 to $1,286, an increase nearly three times the national median. 

Amazon's presence could also potentially impact small businesses in New York. In the 2017 book "Vanishing New York," author Griffin Hansbury wrote that the city is in a state of "hyper-gentrification," which has culminated in the death of small businesses like mom-and-pop groceries, used book shops, and dive bars. Seattle has seen this as well, and some local businesses say Amazon's presence makes it more expensive for them to find space.

"Some landlords aren’t even talking to us about (leasing) full floors," Eric Blohm, a senior managing director for Savills Studley (which represents companies looking for office space in Seattle), told The Seattle Times. "They’re holding out for the full building user. Or they’ll say, 'Get in line, you’re third in line, we’re talking with other people.'"

The subway system and roads would not be able to handle thousands more Amazon workers

Though New York City is the densest city in the US, the promise of 50,000 jobs is likely to attract even more residents. That could be bad news for the city's struggling public transit. The city's subways handle 5.7 million riders every weekday, and 50,000 more people could make a dent, however small.

In 2016, a New York Times investigation also found the city's s explosive population growth over the last century has been a big contributor to the subway system's inefficiency. The aging subway faces funding challenges, as well as an impending temporary shutdown of the L Train — a main (and majorly congested) line that travels from Manhattan to Brooklyn — to make repairs for damages incurred by Hurricane Sandy in 2012.

It's uncertain whether the city's subway system and roads could cope with thousands of new Amazon commuters or drivers.

In Seattle, drivers spent an average of 55 hours in traffic in 2016, placing it among the top 10 worst US cities for congestion, according to the most recent analysis by Inrix. In June 2017, Seattle's metro system even added more buses to accommodate Amazon's summer interns. In New York City, high-frequency, cross-town bus service is still lacking. In November, the New York City's comptroller's office said the bus system is "in crisis," a reality the city would need to reckon with if HQ2 came.

Worries about the "Amazon effect" on public infrastructure

In a letter to Mayor Bill de Blasio, a coalition of community organizations asked the City of New York to hold Amazon accountable if the company expanded its footprint there. The groups argued that Amazon should invest in public infrastructure, like schools and transit, as well as small businesses if it chooses to come to New York.

"You should focus on pushing Amazon to be a better corporate citizen and improving how it treats communities and workers," the letter said. "You should also actively work to ensure that this multibillion-dollar company, who already has a significant presence in New York, does not receive financial incentives simply for doing business here. New York communities are facing massive cuts to public goods and services, and working families are struggling to make ends meet."

Leanna Garfield originally contributed reporting. 

SEE ALSO: Amazon just revealed the top cities for HQ2 — here are the ones throwing hundreds of millions to land it

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• "I’ll change my name to Amazon Cuomo if that’s what it takes," New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said to reporters on Monday in reference to his determination to land Amazon's second headquarters, HQ2.
• On Monday evening, The New York Times reported that Amazon is finalizing plans to open HQ2 in Long Island City neighborhood in Queens, New York, as well as Crystal City, Virginia. 
• Cities and states have proposed billions of dollars in economic incentives in an effort to woo Amazon into naming them the host of HQ2.
• New York is reportedly still in active talks with Amazon, and the company now plans to split HQ2 between two locations, The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday.  

As the competition for Amazon's second headquarters heats up, cities and states are getting increasingly desperate to win over the e-commerce giant. 

"I'll change my name to Amazon Cuomo if that's what it takes," New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo toldreporters at an event on Monday, referring to his determination to land Amazon's second headquarters. 

Hours later, on Monday evening, The New York Times reported that Amazon is nearing a deal to move HQ2 to the Long Island City neighborhood, in Queens, New York. The Times reported that Amazon is also nearing a deal to have Crystal City, in Arlington, Virginia also host HQ2. New York City and Crystal City will reportedly split the second headquarters. 

On Monday, The Wall Street Journal reported that Amazon is planning to split its second headquarters, crowning two HQ2 winners in two separate locations. Each of the HQ2 offices will create roughly 25,000 jobs, according to The Journal.  

Amazon is in the final days of its journey to decide which city or cities will host its second headquarters, with the company saying that its pick will be made before the end of 2018.

The company has said it plans to invest over $5 billion and accommodate as many as 50,000 high-paying jobs. If the company splits its second headquarters, each location will host 25,000 jobs, The Journal reports. 

As a result, cities and states have been eager to offer Amazon massive incentives to win over the company. 

Companies are offering billions of dollars in economic incentives. Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, for example, approved $6.5 billion in tax incentives for Amazon, as well as an additional $2 billion in infrastructure and transportation improvements for Montgomery County, according to The Baltimore Sun.

Read more:7 horrible things that could happen to cities if they win Amazon's HQ2 bid

Not everyone is pleased by the lengths city and state governments are willing to go to win over Amazon. A petition started by a group of elite economists earlier this year argues that cities — including the top contenders for HQ2 — should band together against such incentives because they "divert funds that could be put to better use underwriting public services such as schools, housing programs, job training, and transportation."

However, others — including Amazon and Gov. Cuomo — argue that the infusion of jobs that would accompany the new headquarters far outweighs the negatives. 

SEE ALSO: Amazon is reportedly planning on crowning 2 HQ2 winners, with 2 new headquarters in separate locations

Join the conversation about this story »

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• President Donald Trump's closing message to voters before the midterm elections has offended so many that the three major cable news networks and the world's largest social media site have all refused to carry it.
• As part of his scorched-Earth strategy in the final days before Tuesday's momentous midterm elections, Trump's 2020 reelection campaign released two ads widely viewed as racist attacks on immigrants.
• The media's unified decision to reject the president's ad is virtually unprecedented. 

President Donald Trump's closing message to voters before the midterm elections has offended so many that the three major cable news networks — including the president's favored outlet — and the world's largest social media site have all refused to carry it.

As part of his scorched-earth strategy in the final days before Tuesday's momentous midterm elections, Trump's 2020 reelection campaign released two ads widely viewed as racist attacks on immigrants.

The ads assert that Democrats allowed Luis Bracamontes, an undocumented Mexican immigrant and convicted murderer, into the country and warns that a migrant caravan traveling through Mexico to the US border includes similar criminals.

The fearmongering ads are both factually misleading — Bracamontes entered the country under both Democratic and Republican administrations — and offensive, as they paint a group of thousands of migrants as dangerous criminals without proof.

CNN refused to run the TV spot, calling it "racist."

But NBC aired the 30-second ad during Sunday evening's primetime NFL game between the New England Patriots and the Green Bay Packers — the single most-watched game in the 13-year history of "Sunday Night Football" with an average of 21 million viewers. 

Trump promoted a longer version of the ad on his Twitter feed last week, prompting immediate and widespread denunciation and comparisons to the infamous "Willie Horton"ads that ran in support of former President George H.W. Bush's 1988 presidential bid. 

NBC faced immediate backlash with some of its top talent, including film director Judd Apatow and "Will and Grace" star Debra Messing, bashing the decision on social media.

Racist Trump champions celebrated the message.

"Go Trump Go! Your Midterm Ad is a masterpiece personifying the insanity of our immigration Policy. Bravo Trump!" white supremacist and former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke tweeted about the ad. 

Democrats immediately slammed the ads as the lastest example of Trump leveraging bigotry to motivate his base. 

"No one [should] be surprised that the guy who fueled his rise to power on the birther movement is now deploying the next phase of white nationalism to fuel the election of his most loyal Republicans," Jesse Ferguson, a Democratic strategist and former spokesman for Hillary Clinton, told Business Insider. 

NBC soon pulled the ad — and Fox News followed. 

"After further review we recognize the insensitive nature of the ad and have decided to cease airing it across our properties as soon as possible," an NBC spokesman told Business Insider.

By midday on Monday, the three major cable networks and Facebook had all pulled the president's ad — a virtually unprecedented move. (Facebook continued to allow users to post the contents of the ad). 

Fox's decision to pull the spot — which it aired six times on Fox News and eight times on Fox Business — took many by surprise, and reinforced the feeling that the Trump campaign had gone too far.  

"The President produced an ad that was so offensive that the cable network he openly promotes won't even air it. Where we are as a country,"tweeted Brendan Nyhan, a professor of public policy at the University of Michigan. 

Even Republicans who argued that the the ad wouldn't much impact Tuesday's elections found its contents distasteful. 

"I don't think it matters that much since it came so late," Matt Mackowiak, a Texas-based GOP strategist, told Business Insider of the ad's potential impact on midterm voters. "I wish the Trump campaign had been far more careful. They do not have to go overboard. The contrast on sanctuary cities, border security and interior enforcement is stark enough."

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• Amazon is closing in on deals to develop its second headquarters in the Long Island City neighborhood of Queens, New York, and the Crystal City area of Arlington, Virginia, The New York Times reported on Monday evening.
• While state and cities have been fighting to win Amazon's HQ2, many people are less than pleased with the reported decision. 
• Critics say Amazon's decision to split the headquarters make the drawn-out process seem like a PR stunt. 
• Meanwhile, many New Yorkers are unhappy with the idea of Amazon opening HQ2 in the city, despite Gov. Andrew Cuomo's efforts to win over the company. 

Amazon is reportedly finalizing its HQ2 plans. And, people aren't happy. 

After months of deliberations and dramatics — without many official communications from Amazon — the company is finalizing plans to split its second headquarters between two locations: Long Island City, in Queens, New York, and Crystal City, in Arlington, Virginia, The New York Times reported on Monday evening. 

So far, reactions haven't been positive on social media.

Amazon's reported decision to split its headquarters after months of deliberation — essentially opening two offices that would reportedly house 25,000 people each instead of a second headquarters that could rival its more than 45,000 employees in Seattle — rubbed many people the wrong way. 

Insiders have been buzzing about Crystal City being a top pick for HQ2 for some time. However, New York City has been less explored as an option than the Virginia spot. 

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has been pushing for Amazon to move its second headquarters to the state, telling reporters on Monday he would change his name to "Amazon Cuomo" to secure the deal. 

Read more:New York's governor jokes he'll change his name to 'Amazon Cuomo' to win the HQ2 bid hours before a report that New York City will be home to one of the company's new headquarters

However, others are less pleased. 

"If HQ2 came to New York, with its influx of tech workers, the campus could exacerbate several problems that already plague the city, including high housing prices, overpopulation, and gridlock — all things Seattle, Amazon's home, has seen since the company arrived in the late 1990s,"Business Insider's Leanna Garfield reported in January 2018.

Read more: Amazon is reportedly nearing a deal to make New York City one of the homes of its second headquarters — here's why it would be disastrous

In January, Amazon narrowed its selection to 20 finalist cities, including Atlanta, Georgia; Raleigh, North Carolina; and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The pick of two locations in the general New York City and Washington, DC, areas out of these options disappointed some people. 

Amazon did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment on whether it has made a final selection, and it declined to comment on The Times' reporting. 

Read more about Amazon's HQ2: 

• Amazon made an important investment in Seattle, and it highlights a key issue for HQ2
• Amazon HQ2 candidates are going to great lengths to keep their plans secret
• HQ2 is making cities consider projects they've been ignoring for years — and it shows the power of Amazon
• 7 horrible things that could happen to cities if they win Amazon's HQ2 bid
• Amazon is reportedly nearing a deal to make New York City one of the homes of its second headquarters — here's why it would be disastrous

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• Singles' Day, China's once-timid Valentine's Day repackaged as a 24-hour online retail blitz, is about to get bigger for Alibaba.
• In just a few days' time, the world will meet the 10th edition of Alibaba's "Singles' Day" shopping extravaganza and the company says it expects to receive more than one billion orders.

It's capitalism's shiny new slim-lined version of Christmas, but with none of the gods and more of the goods. The event turns 10 years old in a matter of days.

Next Monday, as one generation meditates on the final shots of a distant war, another generation in another part of the world will be embracing the 10th edition of Alibaba's "Singles' Day."

It's a new kind of commercial extravaganza and the company that runs it says it expects to receive over one billion orders by the time it is done.

The occasion, China's once-timid Valentine's Day gone rogue, viral, off the reservation, and totally, madly, delightfully bananas.

So what's all the fuss about?

The English name Singles' Day derives from guanggun jie (光棍节), but the date is now widely nicknamed shuang shiyi (双十一), or "Two 11," after the date, November 11. (or 11.11)

It's a special day, when China's ecommerce juggernauts atomize prices on anything and everything for a delightfully unhinged 24 hours.

This year, Alibaba, the power behind the festival's throne, is leaning in and stretching 24 hours into 48, and sending China's incredible shopping spree around the world.

The Hangzhou-based company's business-to-consumer platform Tmall promises to present some 180,000 Chinese and global brands for consumers' purchasing pleasure.

Already half a million items are available and rolling off e-shelves on Tmall's pre-sale sale.

In 2018, Alibaba says its Tmall Global platform has, one would suggest, a fairly comprehensive 3,700 categories of imported goods from 75 countries around the world.

Last year, the 9th version of the guang gun jie or Singles' Day shopping festival raked in $25.3 billion in a 24-hour online smorgasbord of unhinged expenditure.

Read more: Xi Jinping caught everyone off guard while celebrating China's $20 billion, 35-mile sea bridge

Where did this all start?

The date.

The presentation or the suggestion of 11.11 has long been connected in China to four lonely or perhaps a group of solitary single figures, as well as four leafless or branchless trees.

The Chinese term guanggun literally means "bare branches" and refers specifically to single men — a quiet, and in many ways, potentially desperate issue in a country that has regulated birth for almost a generation, resulting in a demographic glut of boys — commonly known as the bare branches.

(That said, its also pretty tough for single ladies who push past the ripened age of 28 on their lonesome who are called 剩女 sheng nu or "leftover women.")

Black Friday on steroids

Singles' Day was widely rumoured to have been conceived by a socially awkward group of college dudes in an all-male dorm room at Nanjing University in the 1990s. The concept from there morphed into a nationwide bonding exercise for the socially isolated young singles. It took off thanks to China's over-abundance of young men.

In 2009, Alibaba founder Jack Ma seized on Singles' Day to deal with a lull in sales between October and Chinese New Year in late January.

Ma convinced around 30 merchants to lay on some discounts through the selling platform, Tmall. The event was an instant success.

Five years later, 27,000 merchants were on board and merrily slashing prices.

Ma, using targeted marketing and China's economic shift to domestic consumption to appeal to the country to take a moment to buy stuff online, helped make Singles' Day what it is today.

China was encouraged to stay in and buy. And they did.

For the first time last year, Alibaba surpassed $25 billion in revenue. By comparison, the Thanksgiving Thursday through Cyber Monday sales for 2017 added up to $14.5 billion.

Black Friday on steroids is merely a baby bunny in the terrifying headlights of what will be Singles' Day 2018.

The festival has seen phenomenal year-on-year growth.

Sales back in 2013 pretty much doubled 2012’s $3 billion haul. The next year, Singles' Day sales of over $9 billion first surged past the combined sales for Black Friday and Cyber Monday. In the first 90 minutes of November 11, 2015, Alibaba reported sales of $5 million.

And in 2016, Alibaba smashed records again, bringing in $5 billion in just the first 60 minutes of the festival, as Ma had hoped for.

Alibaba's final figure for last year — 168.3 billion yuan or $25.3 billion — was 40% higher than the previous figure and on-par with the nominal GDP of Estonia or Uganda, according to the World Trade Organization.

An internet of many, many things

The logistical impact is difficult to reckon with, as almost a billion parcels were packed and posted.

This year, Alibaba is preparing for the rush by opening what is said to be the country’s biggest robotic warehouse.

Alibaba’s logistics affiliate Cainiao Network announced the new facility located in Wuxi, last month, to help cope with the ballooning demand, adding that it handled more than 810 million orders last year.

The new warehouse is positioned as an internet of things-powered, "robotic smart warehouse" with close to 700 automated vehicles.

"It was only five years ago that parcel orders surpassed 100 million for the first time," Cainiao Vice President Ben Wang said, rather wistfully.

Alibaba, which started out sensibly enough (and incredibly practically) as a one-stop online mall connecting buyers and suppliers, has since expanded to become an e-commerce blueprint, a monument to consumption, driven by its twin engines Taobao and Tmall.

As Alibaba has invested in China's growing digital innovation, the company has begun experimenting and delivering financial technologies, digital entertainment, cloud computing and on-demand local internet of things services.

With China successfully increasing online access and disposable incomes out of rural China, and as the state closes in on hosting a billion smartphone users (in no small part thanks to the notoriously cheap Huawei and Xiaomi devices on Shuang Shiyi), the parallel boom in ecommerce revenue has been thrilling.

In 2018, the global shopping phenomenon will be embraced across 400 cities, some 200,000 smart stores, and 100 of the mainland China's special economic zones.

Tmall will engage 180,000 Chinese and global brands. About 500,000 items will be available for preorder on Tmall from October 20. The Tmall Global platform will provide 3,700 categories of imported goods from 75 countries and regions.

In the months leading up to Singles Day, supermarket shelves from Ballarat to Brisbane get totally cleaned out of milk powders and baby formula, seen here in Alibaba's showroom, as local "daigou," or personal shoppers ramp up their sales.

China still boasts the highest activity during Singles' Day, but the idea is gaining traction in Hong Kong, Indonesia, Thailand, and the Philippines.

Alibaba's partners range from Google to southeast Asian platforms like Lazada out of the Philippines as the company's New Retail Strategy, is aimed squarely at moving Singles' Day beyond China to international buyers.

Alibaba is aware that Southeast Asia alone will be an $88 billion-plus ecommerce market by 2025— and the interest that Lazada and other regional e-commerce platforms are showing in the Singles’ Day sale is the shape of how ecommerce will mature in this region in the short-term.

In turn, the online retail giant hopes to smash last year’s record-breaking revenue of $25.3 billion especially given how the day falls on a Sunday this year, potentially making it more popular than ever with China's dedicated stay-at-home hoppers.

“This year marks the 10th anniversary of 11.11. On the back of China’s explosive digital transformation, the Festival’s astounding growth over the past decade has powered the steady growth of quality consumption sought by Chinese shoppers. The evolution also showcases the development of the Alibaba ecosystem over time expanding well beyond ecommerce,” Daniel Zhang, Alibaba Group CEO told a news conference in Beiijing to launch the 2018 event.

Buying begins at midnight on November 10 in Sydney, and from there, like some beautiful commercial butterfly, shuang shiyi will spread its wings and take off across the waiting retail world.

SEE ALSO: Trump and China's Xi Jinping have led their nations into a dark new era of strategic competition — and no one on either side knows where the lights are

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• Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and comedian Jim Carrey traded barbs at each other on Twitter, one night before Election Day on Tuesday.
• Carrey, who supports Cruz's Democratic opponent, Rep. Beto O'Rourke, likened Cruz to a vampire in an art piece.
• "Hollywood liberals all in for Beto," Cruz replied to Carrey in a tweet. "But (self-described socialist) Jim Carrey made a mistake here: Vampires are dead, and everyone knows the dead vote Democrat...."

Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and comedian-actor Jim Carrey traded barbs on Twitter, one night before Election Day on Tuesday.

Carrey, who supports Cruz's Democratic opponent, Rep. Beto O'Rourke, took a jab at the Republican incumbent by likening him to a quintessential undead creature.

"Go Beto! Go Democrats! Vote like there's no tomorrow," Carrey said in a tweet on Sunday. "Let's make this Tuesday like the end of every great vampire movie. Pull back the curtains and let the sunshine turn all those bloodsuckers to dust."

Carrey also included artwork depicting O'Rourke pulling back a curtain to let sunlight into a room, while Cruz begins to burn from the sun's rays:

Cruz bit back with a caricature of Hollywood celebrities and echoed a conservative dog-whistle that baselessly suggests Democratic candidates receive fraudulent votes from deceased constituents.

"Hollywood liberals all in for Beto," Cruz replied in a tweet. "But (self-described socialist) Jim Carrey made a mistake here: Vampires are dead, and everyone knows the dead vote Democrat...."

Carrey, who has created political art depicting Trump in an unflattering light, fired back with another tweet — this time, making light of Cruz's complicated relationship with President Donald Trump. The two Republicans appeared to cast aside their differences in recent weeks, a stark departure from their rivalry during the 2016 presidential Election.

"Wow...sorry I rattled your chain, @TedCruz," Carrey said in a tweet on Monday. "I thought you would have more important things to do two days before an election — like sucking up to the guy who called your wife ugly and accused your dad of murder. But I get it! It's hard to say no when Trump grabs ya by the p---y!"

Hollywood stars and music artists have been increasingly vocal about their political views since Trump's election, and have urged people to vote in the November 6 midterm elections. Carrey has not been shy about his embrace of Democratic socialism and has become a popular target of conservative strategists.

The race for Texas' Senate seat hit fever pitch after early voting began in late October. Despite lagging in several polls, O'Rourke's campaign received $38 million last quarter — more than the $18 million Trump took in, and more than triple the $12 million Cruz raised.

SEE ALSO: Beto O'Rourke says he may have gone 'a step too far' for calling Ted Cruz 'Lyin' Ted'

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NOW WATCH: This top economist has a radical plan to change the way Americans vote

Hello! Here's what's happening on Tuesday.

1. The word is out that Long Island City neighborhood in Queens, New York, will be the new home of Amazon and here's why that could be a real bad idea. Amazon is reportedly nearing a deal to make New York City its second headquarters, HQ2.
2. Control of the Senate could go either way, so keep an eye on the "thin red nine." Will the Democrats flip the House? Experts say the chances of a "blue wave" reaching the Senate could depend on these nine races.
3. Meet China’s mysterious H-20 nuclear bomber which has reportedly made "great progress" and may even fly publicly next year. While little is known about the much-hyped H-20 bomber, experts say it’s less about nuclear deterrence patrols and more about fighting actual wars.
4. President Donald Trump’s final message to voters, two ads widely viewed as racist attacks on immigrants, was even too much for Fox News. Major cable news networks – including Trump’s favored outlet – plus the world’s largest social media site stopped carrying it.
5. Shares in Apple's Asian suppliers are in steep decline Tuesday following a report the tech giant has canceled a production boost. Big name suppliers like Foxconn are taking a dive after reports the iPhone-maker scuppered additional production lines dedicated to its new iPhone XR
6. NASA's Parker Solar Probe just smashed the record for the fastest human-made object. And it's only just getting started on a series of feats that defy comprehension.
7. Drum roll ... despite median home prices here falling for 13 straight months, the undisputed global champion of house price growth over the last 40 years is ... Hint: Deutsche Bank says home prices in this country are still overvalued by around 40%.
8. The electric-scooter company Bird can't fully launch in Britain yet, (thanks to a few arcane public road rules) but the buzzy US startup has still found a clever route into Albion. From Tuesday, Bird says it will make its scooters available along a route in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in East London, thanks to "multiple private landowners."
9. Ivanka Trump’s brand took out a bunch of new Chinese trademarks in October, despite closing up shop in July. The president's daughter filed trademarks for everything from umbrellas to sausages raising eyebrows and questions of continued conflicts of interest.
10. Sworn competitors in an ultra-low-cost-carrier-world just became one with Wow Air, acquired by Icelandair, subject to approval. Wow Air shareholders are set to receive 5.4% of Icelandair's value at $18 million to $25 million.

And finally ...

One ticket, two days, 50+ insightful speakers, and 600+ executives. Business Insider's flagship IGNITION conference headliners include Mark Cuban, Janice Min, Sir Martin Sorrell and Barbara Corcoran. Join us for IGNITION, December 3-4, New York City.

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• Facebook announced on Monday that it blocked several accounts after US law-enforcement officials warned they may be connected to foreign entities.
• The social media network said it found and blocked 30 Facebook accounts and 85 Instagram profiles that is said were exhibiting "coordinated inauthentic behavior."
• Facebook said it is still trying to figure out what exactly these accounts were up to, but that given the sensitive nature of the US government's warning, and the close proximity to the November 6 midterm election, it chose to take preemptive measures. 

Facebook announced on the eve of Election Day in the US that it had blocked several Facebook and Instagram accounts after US law-enforcement officials warned that they may be connected to foreign entities.

The social media network said it found and blocked 30 Facebook accounts and 85 Instagram profiles that is said were exhibiting "coordinated inauthentic behavior."

"As part of our efforts to prevent interference on Facebook during elections, we are in regular contact with law enforcement, outside experts and other companies around the world," Facebook's head of security Nathaniel Gleicher, said in a press release on Monday night. He said those partnerships had already helped the company remove several "bad actors" from the website. 

Facebook said that "almost all" of the Facebook accounts that it had blocked featured French and Russian-language content. The company noted that the 85 Instagram accounts that it deactivated were mostly filled with celebrity and political news in English. 

Facebook said it is still trying to figure out what exactly these accounts were up to, but that given the sensitive nature of the US government's warning, and the close proximity to the November 6 midterm election, it chose to take preemptive measures. 

Facebook received tremendous criticism over its failure to address Russian influence campaigns that helped taint political discourse online during the 2016 presidential election. US intelligence agencies have found that those efforts by Russia were intended to swing the election in Donald Trump's favor.

Facebook has said publicly that it is committed to making sure every user on its site is authentic, citing how it blocked 82 Iranian-linked Facebook accounts on October 26 after US authorities notified them about "inauthentic" pages spreading divisive political posts to about one million followers.

SEE ALSO: Facebook has discovered an Iranian influence campaign that was followed by more than 1 million people

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NOW WATCH: This top economist has a radical plan to change the way Americans vote

• President Donald Trump's last campaign speech ahead of the midterm election on Monday night was interrupted for nearly 10 minutes after a woman collapsed and was later wheeled out of the Show Me Center in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, on a stretcher.
• "Is there a doctor in the house, please," Trump said while pointing to the crowd. "Doctor, please. Take your time. We have plenty of time, right?"
• Some people in the audience broke the silence by intermittently shouting their approval of Trump, insulting CNN, singing "Amazing Grace," and saying the Lord's Prayer.

President Donald Trump's last campaign speech ahead of the midterm election on Monday night was interrupted for nearly 10 minutes after a woman collapsed and was later wheeled out of the Show Me Center in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, on a stretcher.

During his final campaign rally before Election Day, Trump offered glowing remarks to his supporters when he suddenly stopped and looked at the crowd in front of him.

"Is there a doctor in the house, please," Trump said while pointing to the crowd. "Doctor, please. Take your time. We have plenty of time, right?"

Some people in the audience broke the silence by intermittently shouting their approval of Trump, insulting CNN, singing "Amazing Grace," and saying the Lord's Prayer.

"I love you DJT," one person shouted.

"Expose 9-1-1," another person exclaimed, apparently in reference to a 9/11 conspiracy theory.

"Thank you for fixing us," a person cried out.

The crowd later erupted in laughter and cheers after a person blurted "CNN sucks."

"That was really something," Trump said, after the woman was taken out of the building. "I want to just thank everybody for the way you behaved. That was beautiful. At the end that was beautiful."

"Hopefully she'll be ok."

The incident marks the second time in a row Trump paused his speech after a medical emergency. In a previous rally at Fort Wayne, Indiana, on Monday, Trump paused after a person required medical attention.

Trump has been on a campaign blitz since last week and headlined multiple campaign rallies in different states on the same day.

SEE ALSO: Obama zings hecklers at a campaign rally for Florida Democrats

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NOW WATCH: Trump once won a lawsuit against the NFL — but the result was an embarrassment

• Japan appears to have lost an island
• It's only a small one, but probably not a good look when taking into account that country's various maritime disputes.
• The Coast Guard is looking, but no one has seen Esanbe Hanakita Kojima since at least September.
• Unless it can be located, Japan just got half a kilometer smaller.

With its ongoing maritime disputes with China hopelessly unresolved, the last thing Japan needed to do was go and lose an island.

And yet.

It appears no one can find the Japanese island formerly known as Esanbe Hanakita Kojima.

Not even the Japanese Coast Guard, which has been out searching for the strategically significant sliver of land last sighted somewhere off the coast of Hokkaido.

Even worse, the island first named in 2014 may have shuffled below this mortal coil a fair while ago.

This was back in September when author Hiroshi Shimizu visited nearby Sarufutsu village to write a sequel to his picture book on Japan’s “hidden” islands.

Shimizu told the local fishing cooperative, which sent out a flotilla to its former location only to find it had disappeared.

Japanese officials now believe that the island that once rose about five feet above sea level, has been inexorably broken apart by the pack ice that covers the area throughout the bitter winter. The Guardian seems to confirm this.

The uncertain conclusion is that it has gradually, uncomplainingly, slipped beneath the surface.

While Esanbe Hanakita Kojima, might have been too small to be of much practical use, it did have an importance well beyond its fragility.

Before its unexpected absence, the island marked the very western indent of another disputed island chain Japan calls the Northern Territories, while Russia claims the archipelago as the Kuril islands.

China's South China Morning Post said that the island was formally named by Tokyo in 2014 as part of Japan's multipronged attempts to reinforce its legal control over hundreds of outlying islands and extend its exclusive economic zone, (EEZ) appears to have sunk without a trace.

The Japanese coastguard has been tasked with carrying out a survey of the area to see if the remnants of the island remain.

It was last formally surveyed in 1987, when records showed it was about 500 metres off Sarufutsu.

The Japanese government used the island to buffer its EEZ a similar distance out to sea where Japanese waters mingle into Russian territory.

But even if they can find the waterlogged remains of Esanbe Hanakita Kojima, it can no longer meet the very basic international legal definition of an island — land — and Japan's territorial claims appear to be about half a kilometer smaller.

SEE ALSO: For the love of goods, an ambitious Alibaba plans to double down on Singles' Day this year

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Good morning! This is the tech news you need to know this Tuesday.

1. Facebook suspended 115 accounts the day before the US midterm elections. The accounts were brought to Facebook's attention by law enforcement, who suspected links to "foreign entities."
2. Amazon plans to set up 2 different locations for its HQ2, in New York and Virginia. Amazon is said to have selected two cities as the site of its second headquarters: The Long Island City section of Queens, New York, and the Crystal City area of Arlington, Virginia, The New York Times reported on Monday evening.
3. Facebook pulled Donald Trump's controversial immigrant ad for violating its advertising policy on "sensational content." After Fox News and NBC pulled the ad which was widely condemned as racist, Facebook decided to block it from paid distribution.
4. Apple's new MacBook Air and 2018 MacBook Pros physically disconnect the microphone when you close the lid to stop hackers from eavesdropping on your conversations. The cameras on the latest MacBook Air and MacBook Pros aren't disconnected, however, as the "field of view is completely obstructed when the lid is closed."
5. Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff got into a Twitter beef with another exec over a controversial measure tackling San Francisco's homelessness crisis. Proposition C is a ballot measure in San Francisco, California, that would tax the city's largest corporations to provide more funding to homeless services.
6. A new app can show you the voting history of your friends and coworkers, and even which political party they're registered with. The app, called Vote With Me, provides information about the elections taking place in your district, lets you know whether a race is tight, and shows you how to prepare for Election Day.
7. Electric scooter hire is coming to the UK under a deal struck by $2 billion startup Bird. Bird is the first electric scooter company to launch in the UK, beating competitors like Lime and Uber to the punch.
8. Twitter is struggling to curb fake Elon Musk accounts promoting cryptocurrency scams. The scammers are hacking a verified account, changing the display name to "Elon Musk," copying his profile photo, and tweeting about a fake cryptocurrency giveaway.
9. Amazon is launching a new delivery program and hiring thousands of drivers, with a warning against "peeing in bottles," a source told Business Insider. Amazon is hiring its own fleet of full-time drivers to deliver packages to Prime customers, having previously relied on delivery services provided by UPS, FedEx, the US Postal Service, and contractors.
10. A Chinese tech billionaire has been accused of plying a student with drink and then forcing himself on her during a trip to the US. The Minneapolis Star Tribune published a long account describing a student's rape allegation against Liu Qiangdong, the billionaire founder of Chinese tech firm JD.com.

Have an Amazon Alexa device? Now you can hear 10 Things in Tech each morning. Just search for "Business Insider" in your Alexa's flash briefing settings.

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• Bird, the $2 billion electric scooter company, is launching in the UK on a single route inside the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, London.
• Bird is the first electric scooter company to launch in the UK, beating competitors like Lime and Uber to the punch.
• UK laws prevent scooters from being used on roads or pavements, and Bird is in the process of lobbying for legislative change.

Electric scooter company Bird has taken a step towards entering the UK market by launching within the confines of London's Olympic Park.

While the buzzy US startup can't fully launch in Britiain because of laws that prevent scooters from being used on roads or pavements, Bird has found a way to get off the ground.

From Tuesday, Bird will make its scooters available along a route in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in east London. It follows talks with "multiple private landowners," according to Bird UK Head Richard Corbett.

The Olympic Park was selected because its owners, the London Legacy Development Corporation, have toyed with new tech ventures in the past (such as a driverless bus), and because Bird was keen to solve what it views as a "mobility issue."

At one end of the Olympic Park sits a business campus which houses multiple companies, plus two university campuses, to which Bird aims to provide faster access. Here's the route:

"This particular location suffers from a 30-minute walk from here all the way to the nearest tube station," Corbett told Business Insider. "Using electric scooters we're able to turn a 30-minute walk into a four-minute Bird ride."

The plan is to start out with just 50 scooters and scale up depending on demand. "Gone are the days where you've seen dockless schemes in the past flood a market and annoy the city," said Corbett. "We do responsible scaling."

Capped at a maximum speed of 15 mph, the scooters are geofenced, which means if anyone rides outside of the designated route the scooter will start to slow down and stop working.

Meanwhile, a handful of designated "Birdwatchers" will be stationed in the park throughout the day to make sure people are parking properly and dismounting to crossroads.

To mark the launch, Bird invited Olympic skier Eddie "The Eagle" Edwards to be its first UK rider.

Bird lobbying against old laws

Electric scooter companies have been unable to launch in the UK because of a 1988 law forbidding them from being used on the roads, and an 1835 law preventing them from riding on the pavement. Business Insider saw emails from Bird to London transport regulator TfL complaining about the 1835 law.

Corbett told Business Insider that Bird is focussed on lobbying to get scooters onto the road, not the pavement. "It's just a matter of time, we need to take everyone on a journey and we're patient," he said.

He said Bird doesn't know how long it might take to effect any legislative change, as the scooters will have to go through rigorous safety testing.

"We're not going to launch without the city's approval. So anything the DfT [Department for Transport] wants us to do we will do to demonstrate viability," Corbett added.

SEE ALSO: Elon Musk says he doesn't want to make electric scooters because they lack 'dignity'

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• The UK would vote to stay in the European Union by 54% to 46%, according to a major poll of 20,000 people.
• The poll, the biggest of its type since the 2016 referendum, suggests a significant shift in public opinion towards reversing the result of two years ago and staying in the EU.
• 105 local authorities that voted Leave in 2016 would back Remain in another vote, the research says.
• These areas include Birmingham, Nottingham and Luton in England, plus Swansea in Wales.
• Pro-EU MPs call on Theresa May to listen to the findings and hold another referendum.

LONDON — The United Kingdom would vote to stay in the European Union in a new Brexit referendum, with over 100 local authorities that backed Leave in 2016 switching to Remain, according to a new poll of 20,000 people.

Survation has carried out the biggest public survey on Brexit of its sort since the referendum, using the methods that helped the few pollsters who correctly predicted a hung parliament at last year's general election.

The poll, revealed by Channel 4 on Monday night, found that in another referendum on Brexit, 54% of people would vote for the UK to stay in the EU, while 46% of people would vote to stick with the 2016 decision to depart.

The research says 105 local authorities that voted for Leave in 2016 would vote for Remain in a new referendum.

These include Nottingham, where just 40.1% of people would vote for Brexit after 50.8% of people there voted for it in 2016, and Luton, where the 56.5% Leave vote in 2016 would drop to 43.8% in another referendum.

Overall, the poll found that support for leaving the EU has decreased the most in areas which delivered the largest Brexit votes in 2016, suggesting a significant shift in public opinion as Britain heads for the EU exit door.

The pollsters are "very confident" that the following local authorities have switched from Leave to Remain:

• Nottingham (40.1% Leave now but was 50.8% Leave then)
• Luton (43.8% Leave now but was 56.5% Leave then)
• Slough (41.6% Leave now but was 54.3% Leave then)
• Southampton (41.8% Leave now but was 53.8% Leave then)
• High Peak (44.3% Leave now but was 50.5% Leave then)
• Watford (43.6% Leave now but was 50.3% Leave then)
• Canterbury (44.6% Leave now but was 51% Leave then)
• Cherwell (44.5% Leave now but was 50.3% Leave then)
• Reigate and Banstead (44.9% Leave now but was 50.5% Leave then)
• Knowsley (39.7% Leave now but was 51.6% Leave then)
• North Tyneside (45.5% Leave now but was 53.4% Leave then)
• Birmingham (41.8% Leave now but was 50.4% Leave then)
• Sutton (44.9% Leave now but was 53.7% Leave then)
• Isle of Anglesey (44.2% Leave now but was 50.9% Leave then)
• Swansea (43.2% Leave now but was 51.5% Leave then)
• Rhondda Cynon Taf (43.5% Leave now but was 53.7% Leave then)

This major piece of research comes as Theresa May faces increasing pressure from MPs and business leaders to put the outcome of Brexit negotiations to another referendum, or what campaigners call a "People's Vote."

Over 70 business leaders including the head of Waterstones and former Sainsbury's boss Justin King have signed a letter calling for another referendum, while the number of MPs who support the campaign has increased in recent weeks.

A senior People's Vote source told Business Insider last week that up to three Conservative MPs were set to join the campaign for another referendum later this month.

Tom Brake MP — Brexit spokesperson for the Liberal Democrats and a supporter of the Best For Britain campaign against Brexit — told BI: "The will of the people is not set in aspic. This poll, the largest of its kind, shows that as Brexit unravels and the benefits of EU membership become clearer, the appetite for Remain grows.

"But there is only one way to test the scale of this change and that is through a People’s Vote."

Brake's Lib Dem colleague, Layla Moran MP, said the findings showed "unequivocally that the momentum behind a People’s Vote is now at breaking point" as negotiators try to make a breakthrough in Brexit talks.

"Theresa May needs to take responsibility for her botched Brexit. We need to give the People, who are clearly changing their minds, the final say," Moran told BI. 

May has consistently ruled out holding another referendum, while the position of Jeremy Corbyn's Labour party is to consider backing another referendum if a general election in early 2019 isn't possible.

Negotiators hope to finalise a deal by December at the latest with the UK's March departure just five months away.

The Survation research suggests that most people would be willing to compromise in Brexit talks the EU.

For example, a majority back a liberal UK-EU immigration policy after Brexit, in which EU and UK citizens would be able to live and work in each other's countries (76%). They'd also support a deal in which the UK would follow EU rules on certain goods (62%), meaning the UK would stay close to aspects of the single market.

However, a large majority of respondents want the UK to have an independent trade policy after Brexit (75%).

DON'T MISS: Theresa May forced to deny agreeing secret Brexit deal as Brexiteers fear UK surrender

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• Shares of Apple's suppliers across Asia were hit as the company missed earnings targets
• Other smartphone manufacturers Samsung and LG also suffered. Apple was down 0.5% in premarket US trading on Tuesday.
• Apple’s stock dropped for the 5th successive week which hasn’t happened since 2012

Apple’s Asian suppliers tanked after a bruising day of trading after a negative report about the iPhone XR sent Apple’s market cap tumbling below $1 trillion. 

The Nikkei Asian Review reported, citing sources, that the company would halt additional production lines for its new iPhone model. That sent the smartphone manufacturer’s suppliers down across Asia, while Apple's stock looks set for further declines — falling 0.5% in premarket trading on Tuesday morning. 

Hon Hai Precision Industry, better known as Foxconn, fell 3.4%, tracking many Asian stock markets dropped. Apple is widely considered to be Foxconn’s biggest customer, but other stocks were hit worse.

Apple supplier Pegatron, a Taiwanese assembler, fell 4.6%. Other Apple suppliers in Taiwan, including camera lens maker Largan Precision and Flexium Interconnect both fell 6.3%. 

Hong Kong-based acoustic components supplier AAC Technologies fell 3.5%. In South Korea, suppliers for Apple rivals Samsung and LG Innotek were down more than 6%.

Apple closed just above $200 amid a wider tech sell-off which has seen other FAANG stocks fall in recent weeks. The company posted its worst trading day last Friday with a 6.6% drop, continuing 5 weeks of the stock's declines. The company missed analysts’ earnings targets in the usually busy holiday season with demand in emerging markets lower than expected.

SEE ALSO: Apple will no longer report iPhone numbers after growth went to 0%, and analysts are now worried iPhone sales may decline

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NOW WATCH: 7 places you can't find on Google Maps

Buying gifts for the holidays doesn't have to be stressful — or leave you broke come January.

In order to avoid a shocking bank account statement as the year draws to a close, make a list of who you need to buy for, then try to spread your purchases across two pay cheques by starting your shopping in November.

Make a realistic budget for each person, too.

To make it easy to stick to what you can afford yet still give gifts they'll actually want this year, INSIDER has compiled a list of 100 gift ideas for $100 or less.

From toys and treats for kids to cult beauty buys and classic wardrobe staples for the older crowd, scroll down for all the gift inspiration you'll need this year, ranked from most affordable to more splurge-worthy.

$25 OR LESS

Burt's Bees Holiday Gift Set — $4.99

This cute set combines two classic Burt's Bees products — a tin of Hand Salve and a lip balm.

Buy it here.

'Beautiful Boy: A Father's Journey Through His Son's Addiction' by David Sheff — $5.18

This New York Times bestseller is being made into a major film starring Steve Carell and Timothée Chalamet — so now is the perfect time to gift the story.

Buy it here.