Yahoo Finance's Myles Udland highlights the stories that will make headlines next week on The Final Round.
Fewer Americans applied for unemployment benefits last week as the labor market continues to hold up despite higher interest rates imposed by the Federal Reserve in its bid to curb inflation. The Labor Department reported Thursday that unemployment claims for the week ending April 20 fell by 5,000 to 207,000 from 212,000 the previous week. Weekly unemployment claims are considered a proxy for the number of U.S. layoffs in a given week and a sign of where the job market is headed.
The reading of first quarter economic growth comes at a crucial time as investors digest the potential impacts of the Fed holding interest rates higher for longer.
French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday warned that Europe faced an existential threat from Russian aggression, calling on the continent to adopt a "credible" defence strategy less dependent on the United States."We need to build this strategic concept of a credible European defence for ourselves," Macron said, adding Europe could not be "a vassal" of the United States.
A rapper in Iran who came to fame over his lyrics about the 2022 death of Mahsa Amini and criticizing the Islamic Republic has been sentenced to death, his lawyer and rights activists said Thursday. Confusion still surrounds the death sentence issued against 33-year-old metal shop worker Toomaj Salehi, as even Iran's state-run IRNA news agency and its judiciary did not formally confirm it. “Art must be allowed to criticize, to provoke, to push the boundaries in any society,” a panel of the U.N.'s independent experts on Iran said in a statement Thursday.
The announcement by Amazon Web Services on Thursday builds on the online retail giant's already strong presence in the state, where it employs 26,000 full- and part-time staff. The new facilities will be build in St Joseph County in north-central Indiana and house computer equipment used to power cloud computing and generative artificial intelligence. Amazon did not specify how many data centers would be established.
He spoke early Thursday during a stop in New York.
The sails of the windmill above the Moulin Rouge cabaret, one of the most famous landmarks in Paris, collapsed overnight, with its operator saying there was no foul play."I hope they repair it soon," he added. - 600,000 visitors annually - The Moulin Rouge, with its distinctive red windmill sails built of wood and metal, is located in northern Paris and is one of the most visited landmarks in the city.
Turkey's central bank held its key interest rate steady on Thursday but warned it could hike it again as the country's soaring inflation remains a headache for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's government.Erdogan has allowed Turkey's central bank to hike its main policy rate from just 8.5 percent before his re-election last May to 50 percent.
Former President Donald Trump on Wednesday night downplayed the 2017 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, that led to a woman’s death as a “peanut” compared to the demonstrations happening across the US against Israel’s actions in Gaza.
The Supreme Court considers Donald Trump’s assertion of total immunity from criminal charges over his attempt to overturn the 2020 election results.
A grand jury in Arizona has handed up an indictment against former President Donald Trump’s allies over their efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss, including the fake electors from that state and several individuals connected to his campaign.
Madrid's prosecuting authority said on Thursday it had requested the dismissal of a corruption case against Spain's Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez's wife that prompted him to announce he is considering resigning. The authority said it was appealing Wednesday's decision by a Madrid court to look into a private complaint laid by anti-corruption activists against Begona Gomez over alleged influence peddling and business corruption. The Spanish anti-graft group behind the complaint, Manos Limpias (Clean Hands), said earlier it had based its suit on media reports and could not vouch for their veracity.
Green NGOs have accused the Asian Development Bank of indirectly financing coal plants in Indonesia through a $600 million loan despite promises to no longer fund projects tied to the fossil fuel, according to a new report."Publicly funded institutions like the Asian Development Bank must include robust coal exclusions in contracts... in order to end coal finance for good," said Daniel Willis, finance campaigner at NGO Recourse.
A Palestinian civil defence team on Thursday called on the United Nations to investigate what it said were war crimes at a Gaza hospital, saying nearly 400 bodies were recovered from mass graves after Israeli soldiers departed the complex. "There are cases of field execution of some patients while undergoing surgeries and wearing surgical gowns at the Nasser Medical Complex," the civil defence forces said at a press conference, without presenting any evidence. Palestinian authorities have this week reported finding hundreds of bodies in mass graves at Nasser hospital, the main medical facility in central Gaza, after Israeli troops pulled out of the city of Khan Younis.
Weakness in smaller discretionary projects affected the consulting segment, but analysts at J.P.Morgan said the backlog could help reaccelerate the business through 2024. "Although software acceleration is encouraging, this was offset by more significant-than-expected deterioration of Consulting, along with incremental FX headwinds expected for the rest of the year," analysts at J.P.Morgan said. IBM's software business grew 5.5% in the quarter and the company announced a $6.4 billion deal to buy cloud software company HashiCorp, aiming to make the most of an AI-led boom in demand for the data storage capabilities of the cloud.
Hungary's nationalist prime minister, addressing a conservative conference in Budapest on Thursday, said upcoming European and U.S. elections were a chance for right-wing forces to defeat the “progressive world spirit,” and encouraged former U.S. President Donald Trump to defend “his own truth” in his ongoing criminal trial. Viktor Orbán, a right-wing populist and the European Union's longest-serving leader, told supporters at the Conservative Political Action Conference Hungary that conservatives across the West, including himself and Trump, are under attack by a hegemonic liberal order.
NEW DELHI (Reuters) -New Delhi said on Thursday it does not attach any value to a U.S. State Department report critical of human rights in India, and called it deeply biased. The annual human rights assessment released earlier this week found "significant" abuses in India's northeastern Manipur state last year and attacks on minorities, journalists and dissenting voices in the rest of the country. Asked about it, Indian foreign ministry spokesperson Randhir Jasiwal told journalists on Thursday that the report "as per our understanding, is deeply biased and reflects a very poor understanding of India."
Chinese car giants locked in a cut-throat price war descended on the capital for the start of the Auto China show Thursday, vying to draw consumers and headlines in the world's biggest electric vehicle market and abroad.Beijing's Auto China show, which lasts until May 4, sees dozens of firms square off in a bid to draw customers at one of the country's biggest car shows.
Democratic Republic of Congo is pushing Apple Inc for information about its supply chain over concerns it may be tainted with conflict minerals sourced from the country, international lawyers engaged by Congo said on Thursday. Congo, particularly its eastern region, has been plagued by violence since the 1990s, killing millions as struggles over national identity, ethnicity, and resources saw neighbouring countries invade and a myriad of armed groups spring up. Conflict has arisen over the control of illicit trade in tin and gold as well as in coltan and tantalum - widely used in cell phones and computers - all mined in Congo before being smuggled out through neighbouring Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi.
Indonesian president elect Prabowo Subianto received a boost on Thursday after a prominent political party that backed another candidate pledged its support for his administration, moving him a step closer to securing a majority in the new parliament. NasDem, which won 10% of the vote in February's legislative election, was ready to pledge its "full support" for the next administration, its chief Surya Paloh told reporters after a meeting with Prabowo. The party had backed Prabowo's rival, second-placed Anies Baswedan, a former Jakarta governor.
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