Town Hall News

By Nandita Bose WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The White House will host CEOs of top artificial intelligence companies, including Alphabet Inc’s Google and Microsoft, on Thursday to discuss risks and safeguards as the technology catches the attention of governments and lawmakers globally. Generative artificial intelligence has become a buzzword this year, with apps such as ChatGPT capturing the public’s fancy, sparking a rush among companies to launch similar products they believe […]

(Reuters) -Struggling British software company WANdisco said on Thursday that it is reorganising its business, which will lead to a roughly 30% reduction in its overall workforce. A detailed review has indicated the need for necessary changes to the company’s size to position it for long-term growth, the company said in a statement. Trading in WANdisco’s shares has been suspended since March when it launched an investigation into “potential fraudulent […]

HELSINKI (Reuters) -Russia has complained to Finland about vandalism at a Russian consulate on the Aland islands in the Baltic Sea between Finland and Sweden, the Finnish foreign ministry said on Thursday. The Russian foreign ministry said on Wednesday a group of people had thrown “an explosive noise device” and other items into the consulate’s territory, causing material damage to the building between April 20 and May 1. “The perpetrators’ […]

By Paul Sandle LONDON (Reuters) -Britain’s competition regulator said on Thursday it would start examining the impact of artificial intelligence on consumers, businesses and the economy and whether new controls were needed on technologies such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT. While research on AI has been going on for years, the sudden popularity of generative AI applications such as ChatGPT and Midjourney has highlighted a technology that could upend the way businesses […]

COPENHAGEN (Reuters) -Volvo Cars will lay off around 1,300 office-based employees in Sweden as it steps up cost cutting, the Sweden-based auto maker said on Thursday. While an earlier efficiency drive had begun to show results, more was needed, CEO Jim Rowan said in a statement. “Economic headwinds, increased raw material prices and increased competition are likely to remain a challenge to our industry for some time,” he said. The […]

BEIJING (Reuters) – China has approved the safety of a gene-edited soybean, its first approval of the technology in a crop, as the country increasingly looks to science to boost food production. The soybean, developed by privately owned Shandong Shunfeng Biotechnology Co., Ltd, has two modified genes, significantly raising the level of healthy fat oleic acid in the plant. The safety certificate has been approved for five years from April […]

By Toby Sterling THE HAGUE (Reuters) -Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Thursday will visit the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, which in March issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin for alleged deportation of children from Ukraine. Zelenskiy arrived at the Dutch Senate building around 0700 GMT for a meeting with parliamentarians, Dutch news agency ANP said. The ICC said he would visit on Thursday. He […]

By Ron Bousso, Shadia Nasralla and Nerijus Adomaitis LONDON/OSLO (Reuters) – Energy giants Shell and Equinor reported higher-than-expected first-quarter profits on Thursday, using the heft of their trading desks to offset lower oil and gas prices. The stronger-than-expected profits from the two companies follow forecast beating results from rivals Exxon Mobil, Chevron and BP over the past week. Both companies are keeping dividends and share buybacks steady in contrast with […]

By Elizabeth Piper and Carlos Barria KHERSON, Ukraine (Reuters) – Russian shelling killed 23 people in and near the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson on Wednesday, hitting a hypermarket, a railway station and residential buildings, the regional governor said. “The enemy’s targets are the places where we live. Their targets are our lives, and the lives of our children,” governor Oleksandr Prokudin said, announcing the latest death toll in an […]