HEALTH CARE

Judge blocks Anthem/Cigna deal

Anthem Inc.’s $48 billion deal to buy Cigna Corp. has been blocked by a federal judge, putting an end to the second of two massive mergers that would have reshaped the US health care landscape. The transaction violates antitrust laws by reducing competition among insurers, US District Judge Amy Berman Jackson in Washington ruled Wednesday. With the deal defeated, Anthem owes Cigna a $1.85 billion breakup fee under the terms of the agreement they reached in July 2015. The deal, along with Aetna Inc.’s proposed tie-up with Humana Inc., which was blocked earlier, would have reduced the ranks of big US health insurers to three from five and made Anthem the largest by membership. — BLOOMBERG NEWS

RETAIL

Retailers add phone-charging stations

Retailers are starting to capitalize on what’s become a nuisance for most people — finding a mobile phone with little to no battery life and no place to plug it in. Neiman Marcus Group, Nordstrom Inc., and Under Armour Inc. are among 140 retailers that have already signed on with ChargeItSpot, which sets up stations inside stores, stadiums, casinos, and hospitals and rejuices more than 2 million phones annually. Now, the Philadelphia-based company is adding a survey feature for stores called QuickPoll that asks consumers about their shopping experience as they unplug phones from the charging stations. — BLOOMBERG NEWS

SHORT-TERM RENTALS

Airbnb listings in Toronto soar

Airbnb Inc.’s presence in Canadian cities is set to keep growing, even as regulators across the country take a closer look at bringing in tighter rules for short-term home rentals. Airbnb listings in Toronto, Canada’s biggest city, grew to more than 15,000 in 2016, according to a report Airbnb released Wednesday. That’s up almost 60 percent from the 9,460 the city of Toronto estimated were available in 2015. Compared to other markets around the world, Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal have a lot more room to grow, Chris Lehane, Airbnb’s head of public policy said in an interview. — BLOOMBERG NEWS

GENDER

AOL chief wants half of the company’s leaders to be women by 2020

AOL Inc. chief executive Tim Armstrong set a goal to have women ­represent 50 percent of the organization’s leadership by 2020, joining a push by corporate America to make the top ranks of executives more fully reflect the population. The company, which was acquired by Verizon Communications Inc. in 2015, is also targeting equal pay by 2020, Armstrong said Tuesday in an interview on Bloomberg TV from the Makers Conference in Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif. More than 30 executives from companies like LinkedIn Corp., Nordstrom Inc, and Bank of America Corp. have committed to complete gender equality by 2030. Armstrong’s goal is 10 years sooner than that. — BLOOMBERG NEWS

MEDIA

New York Times offers one year of Spotify to new digital subscribers

The New York Times Co., looking for ways to persuade readers to pay for news, is working with Spotify to give new digital subscribers to the newspaper free access to the world’s largest music-streaming service. Readers who buy one-year online subscriptions to the Times will also get unlimited access to Spotify’s premium service, which costs $120 annually, the companies said Wednesday. The odd-couple partnership — a 165-year-old publisher and a hot Internet company that disrupted the music industry — is a natural fit, said Meredith Kopit Levien, the Times’ chief revenue officer. The two companies will promote the joint-subscription offer on their platforms and team up on digital advertising, Levien said. — BLOOMBERG NEWS

MEDIA

Time Warner sales and profits rise on higher fees

Time Warner Inc. has an antidote to cord-cutting: squeezing cable and satellite distributors for more and more money. The media giant, which owns CNN, HBO, and Warner Bros., reported fourth-quarter sales and profit that beat analysts’ estimates, largely on the strength of higher fees from pay-TV providers like Comcast Corp. and AT&T Inc., which is seeking to buy Time Warner for $85.4 billion. At Turner, the New York-based company’s cable division, subscription revenue increased 14 percent last quarter, according to a statement Wednesday. — BLOOMBERG NEWS

RIDE HAILING

Uber seeks rapprochement with French tax drivers

Uber Technologies Inc. is curbing its one-size-fits-all strategy by drafting a driver support scheme catered to France, specifically designed to sway local unions threatening to protest in Paris. After weeks of negotiating under the state’s watch, the car-hailing app has proposed to bring its employees together with French drivers’ union and government representatives in a committee that will award financial help to chauffeurs. Uber would also hand-hold those drivers into managing their business better, as part of a package it’s drafting that has yet to win approval from unions. Paris, one of the car-hailing app’s biggest markets, has been prime ground for Uber to show it can adapt to local constraints while expanding globally. When drivers blocked roads to ask for better pay at the end of last year, it created a $2.1 million fund to support drivers facing financial difficulties. When chauffeurs took to the streets a few months before to protest against government decisions, Uber went on strike alongside them. — BLOOMBERG NEWS

SOCIAL MEDIA

Facebook updates feature to use in disasters

Facebook’s users often connect on the social network to seek relief and provide support during times of crisis. Now, the company is updating its Safety Check feature to make it easier for people to find or give help such as food, shelter or transportation during local disasters. Safety Check lets users in a certain geographic area mark themselves as safe after disasters, such as the earthquake in Nepal or terrorist attacks in Paris, giving friends and family members relief from worry about whether someone was affected. The new Community Help tool will let users post requests for assistance or offers of help from within safety check, and can be filtered by category and location, according to Preethi Chethan, a product designer at Facebook. Facebook first started Safety Check in response to the 2011 tsunami in Japan. The company faced criticism after the 2015 Paris attacks for not activating its safety checks more often. — BLOOMBERG NEWS

TECHNOLOGY

Microsoft to help cloud customers fend off lawsuits

Microsoft will help cloud customers fend off patent lawsuits and expand coverage of related litigation costs, seeking to distinguish its services from rivals in the fast-growing market for internet-based computing. As more companies host their applications and services on ­Microsoft’s Azure and other cloud providers, they are increasingly becoming the target of lawsuits from companies seeking to make money by claiming patent infringement. Microsoft, the second-biggest cloud infrastructure services vendor behind Amazon.com, will help customers fight back by offering them one of its own patents to deter or defeat such suits. The software giant will also expand a program in which Microsoft provides funds or legal resources to fend off claims, known as indemnification. — BLOOMBERG NEWS

MEDIA

Netflix to venture into toy business

Netflix Inc. is plotting a move into the toy business. The world’s largest paid video service is looking to hire an executive to oversee the licensing of shows for books, comics, and toys, and forge partnerships with retailers, according to a job posting on the company’s website. Netflix has also asked partners for a share of consumer products made off of shows released by Netflix but owned by other TV studios, according to people familiar with the talks who asked not to be identified discussing private matters. Netflix has already conducted one test with Hot Topic Inc., which sold T-shirts, mugs, caps, and jewelry tied to sci-fi smash ‘‘Stranger Things.’’ — BLOOMBERG NEWS