Author: Fatimah Idera

Google hopes to enter an agreement with Apple by the middle of this year to include its Gemini AI technology on new phones, CEO Sundar Pichai said in testimony at an antitrust trial in Washington. Pichai testified in the Alphabet unit’s defense against proposals by the U.S. Department of Justice which include ending lucrative deals with Apple, Samsung, AT&T and Verizon to be the default search engine on new mobile devices. During questioning by DOJ attorney Veronica Onyema, Pichai said that while Google does not yet have an agreement with Apple to include its Gemini AI on iPhones, Pichai spoke…

The narrowly divided U.S. Senate rejected the latest bipartisan bid to block President Donald Trump’s tariffs on Wednesday, hours after the federal government reported that the nation’s economy contracted for the first time in three years amid the chaos of the president’s tariff policies. Senate Majority Leader John Thune then moved quickly to kill the measure for good before supporters could muster a successful vote on a later date, calling Vice President JD Vance to the U.S. Capitol to break a tie and table the resolution. The measure sought to terminate the national emergency that Trump declared as the basis…

About a month ago , the board members of Tesla reached out to several executive search firms to find a successor for CEO Elon Musk. The current status of the board’s push, which, according to the report, was sparked by Musk’s heavy involvement with the Trump administration, could not be determined. Musk last week said he would cut back significantly the time he devotes to the Trump administration and spend more time running his many companies. That follows widespread investor criticism for his work at the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), where he has led efforts to cut federal jobs,…

Brazil’s economy created a net 71,576 formal jobs in March, Labor Ministry data showed on Wednesday, below the 200,000 jobs forecast in a Reuters poll of economists. The figure accounts for 2,234,662 jobs opened and 2,163,086 closed in the period, according to the ministry. It was the weakest figure for March since 2020, and for any month since last December. It compares with over 245,000 net formal jobs created in the same period of 2024, adjusted data showed. Earlier in the day, before the data was released, Labor Minister Luiz Marinho told state media that formal job creation in March…

Visa and stablecoin infrastructure provider startup Bridge are partnering to offer stablecoin-linked Visa cards to customers across multiple countries in Latin America, which the companies say will allow users to make everyday purchases in cryptocurrency tokens. The move comes as the U.S. Congress appears likely to pass a bill creating stablecoin rules for the first time, which experts say could pave the way for more financial firms to use or issue their own stablecoins. Stablecoins, a type of cryptocurrency designed to maintain a constant value, usually a 1:1 dollar peg, are commonly used by crypto traders to move funds between…

Swedish police detained a 16-year-old on suspicion of murdering three people in a hair salon in the city of Uppsala, prosecutors said. The victims, aged 15-20, were shot dead late on Tuesday afternoon just as Uppsala, a university town 40 minutes north of Stockholm, was gearing up for Walpurgis Night, one of the busiest holidays in the city. “An intensive investigation is underway. We are now gathering information and the police are conducting door-to-door inquiries and interviewing witnesses,” the Swedish Prosecution Authority said in a statement “In addition, mobile phones and other material that has been seized are being analysed.”…

Barclays booked a stronger than expected 19% increase in first-quarter profit on Wednesday, as trading activity surged in the early months of the U.S. President Donald Trump’s tenure and the bank made progress on boosting its share of the lucrative UK lending market. The British bank’s profit before tax for January-March was 2.7 billion pounds ($3.62 billion), up from 2.3 billion a year ago and above analysts’ forecasts for 2.5 billion, according to LSEG data. Income at the investment bank rose 16% from a year ago to 3.9 billion pounds, above analysts’ forecasts for 3.5 billion. The bank’s results beat…

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that there were referrals for fraud made to the Justice Department based on the findings of the Department of Government Efficiency, the cost-cutting agency that Trump ally and billionaire Elon Musk spearheaded. In an interview with ABC News aired on Tuesday, Trump said, “Of course, there have been referrals for fraud from the work of DOGE.” Trump did not give details on who the allegations were against, but repeated that there have been referrals several times during the interview. Since taking office on January 20, the Trump administration has been on a cost-cutting…

Asylum seekers will be denied the right to stay in the UK if they have been convicted of sexual offences, the government has announced. Any offender sentenced to more than a year in prison, as well as terrorists and war criminals, can currently be refused asylum and deported under the Refugee Convention. The government wants to widen the scope to include anyone convicted of a crime that places them on the sex offenders register, regardless of the length of their sentence. Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said this would “ensure these appalling crimes are taken seriously”. Cooper said ministers would…

Cyclists who kill pedestrians by dangerous cycling could face life imprisonment in England and Wales under new amendments to the crime and policing bill. The offence of causing death by dangerous cycling would be brought into line with driving laws under amendments tabled on Thursday, the Department for Transport said. Dangerous or reckless cycling is usually punished with a maximum two-year jail term. The amendments renew a planned change of the law under the Conservatives that was derailed by the general election. The transport secretary, Heidi Alexander, plans to close a loophole whereby reckless cycling was caught under legislation dating…