Town Hall News

(Corrects to show inflation report released Wednesday) (Reuters) – Traders of futures tied to the Federal Reserve’s policy rate on Wednesday were less sure the U.S. central bank will raise its benchmark rate any further after the government reported March consumer prices rose less than expected. U.S. short-term interest rate futures rose after the report, and now reflect about a 60% chance of a quarter-of-a-percentage-point rate hike in May, versus […]

By Steve Holland and Amanda Ferguson BELFAST (Reuters) -U.S. President Joe Biden urged Northern Irish political leaders to restore their powersharing government with the promise that scores of major U.S. corporations were ready to invest in the region as he marked the 25th anniversary of peace in Belfast. Biden, who is fiercely proud of his Irish heritage, spent just over half a day in the UK region – where he […]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Republican Party plans to hold its first 2024 U.S. presidential primary debate in August in Milwaukee, Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said on Wednesday. The debate will be broadcast on Fox News, she said in an interview with the cable television channel. The RNC will also “get away from Big Tech” by arranging to livestream the debate on Rumble, an online video platform, McDaniel said. […]

By Stephen Nellis (Reuters) – Intel Corp on Wednesday said its chip contract manufacturing division will work with U.K.-based chip designer Arm Ltd to ensure that mobile phone chips and other products that use Arm’s technology can be made in Intel’s factories. Once the biggest name in chips known as central processing units (CPUs), Intel has seen long seen its technological manufacturing edge blunted by rivals such as Taiwan Semiconductor […]

By Stephen Nellis and Krystal Hu (Reuters) – Databricks, a San Francisco-based startup last valued at $38 billion, released a trove of data on Wednesday that it says businesses and researchers can use to train chatbots similar to ChatGPT. The data, based on questionnaires of employees of Databricks, fills in an important gap in the company’s efforts to create commercially usable tools to train AI systems that could offer alternatives […]

By Jarrett Renshaw and Ahmed Aboulenein (Reuters) – The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) on Wednesday will propose a new rule prohibiting healthcare providers and insurers from sharing private health information if that information will be used to investigate someone for accessing or providing reproductive care, including abortion. The proposal is aimed at protecting woman who live in states where abortion is illegal who travel out of […]

By Huw Jones LONDON (Reuters) – Board members at banks have urgent questions to answer about basic risk management following recent turmoil, the head of a global banking standards committee said on Wednesday, but said regulators should not rush into remedial action. Pablo Hernandez de Cos, chair of the Basel Committee of banking regulators, said work has begun on what lessons could be learned from the collapse last month of […]

By Jarrett Renshaw and Ahmed Aboulenein (Reuters) – The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) on Wednesday will propose a new rule prohibiting healthcare providers and insurers from sharing private health information if that information will be used to investigate someone for accessing or providing reproductive care, including abortion. The proposal is aimed at protecting woman who live in states where abortion is illegal who travel out of […]

By Stephen Nellis (Reuters) – Nvidia Corp said on Wednesday it is packing one of its mid-range chips for gamers with more artificial intelligence features to improve graphics, underscoring the importance of gaming for the company despite the segment’s slowing revenue. The new RTX 4070 chip, which Nvidia will start shipping on Thursday, will cost $599, putting it near the middle of the company’s range of graphics processing units (GPUs), […]