Author: i2wtc
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said he plans to meet US President Donald Trump “as early as this Friday” to sign a bilateral commercial agreement to jointly develop and manage Ukraine’s mineral wealth. Trump insisted on the deal three weeks after assuming office in return for the assistance the US has provided in the three years since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, telling an interviewer, “I told [Ukraine] that I want the equivalent of, like, $500bn worth of rare earth, and they’ve essentially agreed to do that.” Zelenskyy publicly rejected that figure, and he twice rejected any deal that did not…
Right-wing influencer brothers Andrew and Tristan Tate, who are under investigation in Romania on allegtions including human trafficking, have arrived in the United States after authorities lifted travel restrictions imposed on the pair as part of the case. The brothers, who have dual United Kingdom and US citizenship, left Romania’s capital Bucharest on Thursday morning on board a private jet bound for Florida, as Romanian anti-organised crime agency DIICOT said it had approved “a request to modify” their travel ban. Romanian prosecutors detained former kickboxer Andrew Tate, 38, and his brother Tristan, 36, in 2022, accusing them of setting up…
Jakub Porzycki | Nurphoto | Getty ImagesSnowflake shares popped more than 8% Thursday after the data analytics software company posted stronger-than-expected fourth-quarter results.The company reported adjusted earnings of 30 cents per share on $987 million in revenue, surpassing the 17 cents per share and $956 million in sales expected by analysts polled by LSEG. That reflected 27% year-over-year revenue growth.CEO Sridhar Ramaswamy called Snowflake the “essential enterprise data and AI company on the planet right now” during an interview with CNBC’s Jon Fortt on Wednesday.Like its peers, Snowflake has pushed to offer new artificial intelligence tools to its customers as…
“For Sale” and “Sale Pending” signs in the West Seattle neighborhood of Seattle, Washington, US, on Tuesday, June 18, 2024. The National Association of Realtors is scheduled to release existing homes sales figures on June 21. David Ryder | Bloomberg | Getty ImagesHigh mortgage rates and elevated home prices combined to crush home sales in January.Pending sales, which are based on signed contracts for existing homes, dropped 4.6% from December to the lowest level since the National Association of Realtors began tracking this metric in 2001. Sales were down 5.2% from January 2024. These sales are an indicator of future closings.”It…
Listen to article ISLAMABAD: At the invitation of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Khaled bin Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, on Thursday will arrive here on his first official visit to Pakistan. He will be accompanied by a high-level delegation, including Ministers and senior officials, as well as prominent business leaders. This visit underscores the deep-rooted fraternal ties between Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and reflects the shared commitment to further strengthen bilateral economic partnership,” Foreign Office spokesperson said in a statement on Wednesday. During the visit, the crown prince will engage in wide-ranging interactions…
Jakub Porzycki | Nurphoto | Getty ImagesStandard Chartered’s bullish crypto analyst still sees bitcoin’s price hitting $500,000 during Donald Trump’s presidency — even after a selloff that sank the world’s largest digital currency to a three-month low.Geoffrey Kendrick, who heads up digital assets research at Standard Chartered, told CNBC he believes bitcoin will hit the $200,000 mark this year before climbing even further in the coming years.”Within the crypto ecosystem, what we need are traditional financial players, like Standard Chartered, like BlackRock and others that have the ETFs now to really step in,” Kendrick said in an interview with CNBC’s…
Russell Vought, director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) nominee for US President Donald Trump, during a Senate Budget Committee confirmation hearing in Washington, DC, US, on Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2025. Al Drago | Bloomberg | Getty ImagesThe Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s new leadership on Thursday dismissed a trio of enforcement lawsuits undertaken by the previous administration’s director.In legal filings, the CFPB issued a notice of voluntary dismissal for cases involving Capital One, Rocket Homes Real Estate, a subsidiary of Rocket Cos. and a loan servicer named Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency.”The Plaintiff, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, dismisses…
Listen to article The Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) government has announced the Ramadan and Eid relief packages for deserving families this year. Barrister Saif, Special Assistant to the Information Minister of K-P, confirmed that, similar to the previous year, the provincial government will extend the package to support over one million families across the province. Each eligible family will receive Rs10,000 as part of the relief effort. The funds will be transferred through banks and EasyPaisa in a transparent manner before the 15th of Ramadan. The provincial government will cover the bank and disbursement charges to ensure that the full amount reaches the recipients. Chief Minister…
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has announced the country will increase defence spending by cutting its foreign aid budget, a move he says is necessary as the United Kingdom faces a “dangerous new era”. Starmer said on Tuesday that as the UK faces a “period of profound change” amid overseas conflicts, including a war in Ukraine, he has committed to increasing defence spending to 2.5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) by April 2027, up from the current 2.3 percent rate. He also set out a target to spend “3 percent of GDP on defence” after the next general election…
Few voters likely expected President Donald Trump in the first weeks of his administration to slash billions of dollars from the nation’s premier federal cancer research agency. But funding cuts to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) were presaged in Project 2025’s “Mandate for Leadership”, a conservative plan for governance that Trump said he knew nothing about during his campaign. Now, his administration has embraced it. The 922-page playbook compiled by The Heritage Foundation, a conservative research group in Washington, says “the NIH monopoly on directing research should be broken” and calls for capping payments to universities and their hospitals…