By Foo Yun Chee BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Alphabet and the European Commission aim to develop an artificial intelligence (AI) pact involving European and non-European companies before rules are established to govern the technology, EU industry chief Thierry Breton said on Wednesday. Breton earlier met Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google and its parent company Alphabet, in…
By Michelle Nichols UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) -An international aid agency in Afghanistan hopes to have an interim arrangement within days to allow its Afghan female staff to return to work in the southern province of Kandahar – the birthplace of the Taliban and home to the supreme spiritual leader. Norwegian Refugee Council Secretary General Jan…
By Howard Schneider WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Federal Reserve officials “generally agreed” last month that the need for further interest rate increases “had become less certain,” with several saying that the quarter-percentage-point hike they approved might be the last, according to minutes of the May 2-3 meeting released on Wednesday. Others cautioned the U.S. central bank…
By Svea Herbst-Bayliss NEW YORK (Reuters) – Jana Partners, the biggest investor in pet food company Freshpet , wants to replace four board members to better supervise capital expenditures and position the company more favorably for a possible sale in the future. The activist investor now owns a 9.3% stake and on Wednesday criticized the…
(Reuters) -Shares of U.S. regional lender PacWest Bancorp fell nearly 2% on Wednesday, as investor optimism over its property lending unit sale and the divestment of real estate loans became overshadowed by the debt ceiling impasse. A deal to raise the U.S. debt limit remained elusive, weighing on investor sentiment, as negotiations between Democrats…
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said on Wednesday that seeing a greater concentration among the largest banks would not be desirable and she believes it is important to maintain a diverse banking sector. A mix of large banks, regional banks and mid-sized community banks would be the healthiest option, Yellen said. “Banks of…
By Rich McKay (Reuters) – Disbarred South Carolina lawyer Richard “Alex” Murdaugh, already convicted of murdering his wife and son, on Wednesday was indicted by a federal grand jury on 22 counts of financial fraud, including charges involving his housekeeper’s death. Murdaugh, 54, the scion of an influential legal family in an area west of…
By Blake Brittain (Reuters) -The Biden administration’s U.S. solicitor general said Tuesday that the U.S. Supreme Court should not review a ruling won by Alphabet’s Google LLC against song-lyric website Genius over Google’s alleged copying of Genius’ lyric transcriptions. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar said in a court brief that the justices should let stand the…
By Tatiana Bautzer, Saeed Azhar and Isabel Woodford NEW YORK/LONDON (Reuters) – Citigroup Inc scrapped a $7-billion sale of its Mexican consumer unit and will list it instead, in a surprise move that delays the bank’s overhaul and will likely feed into investor anxiety about the country’s leftist president. Citi said it plans to list the…
By Mariano Valldolid and Marco Trujillo SILVES, Portugal (Reuters) -Police deployed heavy equipment and sniffer dogs on Wednesday, the second day of a search at a remote reservoir in Portugal for evidence linking a German suspect to the disappearance of British toddler Madeleine McCann 16 years ago. Emergency services brought in a remote-controlled tractor-mounted tree…
