Town Hall News

By Gwladys Fouche and Victoria Klesty OSLO (Reuters) -The world’s largest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford, sailed into Oslo on Wednesday, a first for such a U.S. ship, in a show of NATO force at a time of heightened tension between NATO and Russia over the war in Ukraine. The ship and its crew will be conducting training exercises with the Norwegian armed forces along the country’s coast […]

By Shadia Nasralla and Rowena Edwards LONDON (Reuters) -Oil prices rose on Wednesday after data showed U.S. inventories and fuel supplies tightening and following a warning from the Saudi energy minister to speculators raised the prospect of further OPEC+ output cuts. Brent crude futures rose $1.09, or 1.42%, to $77.93 a barrel by 1048 GMT, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude (WTI) gained $1.14, or 1.56%, to $74.05 a barrel. […]

By Sam Tobin LONDON (Reuters) – Thousands of university students asked London’s High Court on Wednesday to give the go-ahead to a mass lawsuit against University College London (UCL) over disruption to their studies caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and strikes. More than 3,000 current and former students – who paid at least 9,250 pounds ($11,482) a year – are suing UCL for breach of contract, in a case which […]

By Jane Lanhee Lee OAKLAND, California (Reuters) – Silicon Valley chip startup Ayar Labs raised another $25 million after its latest funding round closed, as demand has increased for faster, more energy-efficient computing for artificial intelligence applications, the company said on Wednesday. The funding will be used to accelerate commercialization of Ayar Labs’ silicon photonics technology, which uses light instead of electricity to transfer data between chips or servers, it […]

SHANGHAI (Reuters) – Xiaomi Corp reported a 18.9% drop in quarterly revenue on Wednesday as consumer demand for smartphones remained weak even as the economy recovered from the COVID-19 pandemic. Sales in the first quarter of 2023 reached 59.5 billion yuan, down from 73.35 billion yuan in the same quarter a year earlier, roughly in line with analyst estimates of 59.43 billion yuan. Net income rose to 3.23 billion over […]

By Gabriella Borter WASHINGTON (Reuters) – In 1998, the year a voter-approved measure barring the use of race-conscious admissions policies for public colleges and universities in California took effect, the percentage of Black, Hispanic and Native American students admitted at two of the state’s elite public schools plummeted by more than 50%. Those figures for UCLA and the University of California, Berkeley offer a cautionary tale as administrators at schools […]

LONDON (Reuters) -British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said on Wednesday he had decided not to investigate interior minister Suella Braverman over her handling of a speeding offence last year, ruling that her actions did not breach the ministerial code. Sunak’s decision came after he took four days to consider his response to a Sunday Times report that Braverman had asked officials to help arrange a private driving-awareness course to stop […]

By Natalie Grover LONDON (Reuters) – Capitalising on strong demand for its obesity therapies, Novo Nordisk’s growing appetite for deals has fuelled a bet on a U.S. gene-editing company called Life Edit Therapeutics. The Danish drugmaker’s collaboration with Durham, North Carolina-based Life Edit Therapeutics – owned by ElevateBio, a cell and gene therapy company in Waltham – is focused on up to seven programs for rare genetic disorders as well […]

By Krystal Hu (Reuters) – Figure, a startup that wants to build general-purpose humanoid robots, has raised $70 million from investors led by Parkway Venture Capital in its first external round, the company said on Wednesday. The new funding will be used to accelerate the development and manufacturing of the company’s first autonomous humanoid, which is expected to launch in the next few months. The valuation of the one-year-old company […]