money Biden sees ‘stiff competition with China’ on being the leading country in the world
Yahoo Finance’s Alexis Christoforous and Jessica Smith discuss Biden’s press conference and address the relationship between the U.S. and China.
Yahoo Finance’s Alexis Christoforous and Jessica Smith discuss Biden’s press conference and address the relationship between the U.S. and China.
Google aims to release commercial quantum computing applications within five years, Google's head of quantum told Reuters on Wednesday, in a challenge to Nvidia's predictions of a 20-year wait. "We’re optimistic that within five years we’ll see real-world applications that are possible only on quantum computers," founder and lead of Google Quantum AI Hartmut Neven said in a statement. Real-world applications Google has discussed are related to materials science - applications such as building superior batteries for electric cars - creating new drugs and potentially new energy alternatives.
The U.N. refugees and migration agencies on Wednesday expressed their concern over Pakistan's decision to deport thousands of Afghan refugees awaiting relocation to the United States and elsewhere. The U.N. refugee agency, UNHCR, and the International Organization for Migration in a statement said they were seeking clarification from Pakistan, which said last week it would deport the refugees back to Afghanistan unless their cases were processed quickly by the countries that had agreed to take them in. About 20,000 Afghans were approved for resettlement in the U.S. under a program that helps people at risk because of their work with the American government, media, aid agencies and rights groups.
Scientists hope a mix of artificial intelligence and human expertise will help decipher ancient scrolls carbonized by a volcanic eruption 2,000 years ago. Hundreds of papyrus scrolls were found in the 1750s amid the remains of a lavish villa at the Roman town of Herculaneum, which along with neighboring Pompeii was destroyed when Mt. Vesuvius erupted in A.D. 79. The library of what’s called the Villa of the Papyri has the potential to add immeasurably to knowledge of ancient thought if the scrolls, which have been rolled up into the size of a candy bar, could be read.
Tesla sales plunged in Germany last month, official data showed Wednesday, after billionaire owner Elon Musk waded into the country's election campaign by vocally backing the far right.Last month total electric car sales in Germany rebounded by over 53 percent from a year earlier, with 34,498 sold, the KBA data showed.
A European Union fund meant to help speed the deployment of troops, tanks and military equipment around the 27-nation bloc in times of conflict is too small and poorly managed to be effective, auditors said in a report Wednesday. With war raging in Ukraine, military mobility has taken on greater importance. If Russian President Vladimir “Putin gets it his way, peace will not last,” he said.
Turkish prosecutors have issued a third indictment against Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu - a potential challenger to President Tayyip Erdogan - for remarks criticising the city's prosecutor, according to the indictment and local media. The indictment, which seeks to jail Imamoglu and ban him from politics, follows his portrayal of earlier cases against him as part of a campaign of judicial harassment of opposition figures, something Erdogan's government denies. This time, prosecutors requested he be sentenced for threatening and insulting a public official, as well as targeting people involved in the fight against terrorism, the indictment, seen by Reuters, said.
Chipotle is trying to keep its prices steady amid tariff uncertainties.
The European Union should abandon a “schizophrenic” approach of imposing very strict defense spending limits on its members if it’s to adequately defend its territory and achieve military self-sufficiency, Greece's defense minister said Wednesday. Nikos Dendias’ remarks came two days after EU leaders met in Brussels for informal talks on boosting and improving military spending and ramping up Europe’s defense industry.
President Javier Milei has ordered Argentina's withdrawal from the World Health Organization due to profound differences with the U.N. agency, a presidential spokesperson said Wednesday. Milei's action echoes that of his ally, U.S. President Donald Trump, who began the process of pulling the United States out of WHO with an executive order on his first day back in office on Jan. 21. Argentina’s decision is based on “profound differences in health management, especially during the (COVID19) pandemic,” spokesperson Manuel Adorni said at a news conference in Buenos Aires.
The media company Semafor is planning a Washington economic conference for global CEOs this April that it hopes will rival the annual World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, for influence. Semafor said Wednesday that more than 200 CEOs have already committed to attend the event, now in its third year, representing an explosion of interest it credits in large part to curiosity about the policies of President Donald Trump. “It is really turning into what will be the closest thing to what Davos has accomplished in Switzerland,” said Justin B. Smith, co-founder and CEO of Semafor.
The US Postal Service (USPS) said Wednesday it would continue accepting packages from China and Hong Kong, hours after an order to suspend shipments over President Donald Trump's new tariffs sparked fears of major trade disruptions.In an apparent climbdown, the USPS on Wednesday morning said it would "continue accepting all international inbound mail and packages from China and Hong Kong Posts."
The Central Intelligence Agency on Tuesday became the first major national security agency to offer so-called buyouts to its entire workforce, a CIA spokesperson and two other sources familiar with the offer said, part of President Donald Trump’s broad effort to shrink the federal government and shape it to his agenda.
Nissan shares plunged on Wednesday as reports said the struggling Japanese carmaker was walking away from merger talks with rival Honda.But the smaller automaker's chief said this week it would make a final decision on whether to join the Honda-Nissan merger talks in mid-February or later.
The US trade gap swelled last year to its second-largest on record, government data showed Wednesday, as deficits come under the spotlight with President Donald Trump's return to the White House.The trade deficit in goods also reached a new record for the year, in official data going back to 1960.
Polestar CEO Michael Lohscheller talks tariffs, building in the US, and the company's new profit plan in an interview with Yahoo Finance.
The two steelmakers filed a lawsuit against McCall, rival bidder Cleveland-Cliffs, its CEO Lourenco Goncalves last month "for their illegal and coordinated actions" aimed at preventing the $14.9 billion deal. Former President Joe Biden had initially blocked the deal on national security grounds in January, but delayed its enforcement until June.
President Donald Trump's decision to freeze foreign assistance has sent aid staff in Africa into "panic mode", with even HIV experimental treatment programmes stopped dead in their tracks.A staff member of a USAID-funded programme in Kenya said Trump's decision had landed "like a bombshell", throwing people "into panic mode".
Black women in the U.S. died at a rate nearly 3.5 times higher white women around the time of childbirth in 2023, as maternal mortality fell below prepandemic levels overall but racial gaps widened, according to federal health data released Wednesday. In 2021 and 2022, the maternal death rate for Black women was about 2.6 times higher than white women. The data suggest that the COVID-19 pandemic, at its peak, impacted all pregnant women.
Economists polled by Reuters had forecast the services PMI edging up to 54.3. A PMI reading above 50 indicates growth in the services sector, which accounts for more than two-thirds of the economy. The ISM associates a PMI reading above 49 over time with expansion in the overall economy.
The M23 and Rwandan forces on Wednesday launched a new offensive in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, seizing a mining town in South Kivu province, as they resumed their advance towards the regional capital Bukavu.But intense clashes broke out at dawn on Wednesday between the M23 with its Rwandan allies and Congolese armed forces, security and humanitarian sources told AFP. The M23 fighters and Rwandan forces seized the mining town of Nyabibwe, about 100 kilometres (60 miles) from Bukavu and