Author: SKYNEWS

The chancellor has called in the bosses of Britain’s biggest banks for talks next week amid concerns in Whitehall that their share price weakness is inhibiting lending to the wider economy.Sky News has learnt that senior executives from Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds Banking Group, NatWest Group and Santander UK have been asked to attend a meeting with Jeremy Hunt next Tuesday. The London Stock Exchange is also expected to be represented at the meeting, according to one insider.City sources said that Franck Petitgas, the former Morgan Stanley executive who is now Rishi Sunak’s chief business adviser, had orchestrated the meeting.The talks…

Artificial intelligence will affect up to 40% of jobs worldwide, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has warned.This could rise to 60% of roles in advanced economies like the UK – but it is believed that, in half of these cases, AI will benefit the workforce. In a new report, the IMF warned that AI’s consequences for society remain difficult to foresee, but the technology is likely to exacerbate income and wealth inequality. Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player 2:31 Will AI mean ‘no job is needed’? Developing economies are much less likely to “seize” AI’s advantages,…

Pierce Brosnan has pleaded not guilty to allegedly straying into an off-limits part of Yellowstone National Park in the US.The James Bond star was charged last month with stepping out of bounds and into a thermal area at Mammoth Terraces, in the northern part of the park near the Wyoming-Montana border. He could be jailed, fined or banned if he is found guilty, with a hearing now scheduled for 20 February after he formally denied the charge, according to a court document. Image: Visitors enjoying the Daisy Geyser in the park. File pic: AP Brosnan was visiting the park for…

On today’s episode, Ian speaks to Currys chief executive Alex Baldock, as figures revealed the retailer’s shares have surged after saying its profits this year would be better than expected. Also, a new report has been published at the World Economic Forum in Davos that says improving women’s health could boost the global economy. Ian speaks to the president of Ferring Pharmaceuticals, Per Falk.:: Listen and subscribe to The Ian King Business Podcast here. Source link

A new and mysterious object has been discovered in the Milky Way and could be a combination of a black hole and a special type of pulsating star.Found 40,000 light years away in our galaxy, the potentially new species of space entity is lighter than the lightest known black hole but heavier than the densest star known to man, a neutron star. It was found orbiting a millisecond pulsar – a neutron star that pulses radiation and spins hundreds of times per second – and could be the first pulsar-black hole pairing ever seen.Such a merger could allow new tests…

Want to know which films and stars are up for BAFTAs at this year’s awards?The full, star-studded shortlist has now been announced ahead of the ceremony in London in February. Nominees for the rising star award, the only prize to be voted for by the public, were announced earlier this month.You can read our full story on the stars and movies leading the BAFTAs pack – and scroll down for the full list of which stars and what films are up for each prize.Best filmAnatomy Of A FallThe HoldoversKillers Of The Flower MoonOppenheimerPoor Things Image: Oppenheimer leads with 13 nominations.…

Google has started construction on a new $1bn (£789m) data centre in the UK, it has been revealed.The announcement was made at the World Economic Forum in Davos, where Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has been meeting company bosses as part of a bid to “champion British excellence in tech”. The new facility is to be located on a 33-acre site at Waltham Cross in Hertfordshire, purchased by Google in October 2020.The Alphabet-owned company said the centre would boost the growth of artificial intelligence (AI) and “help ensure reliable digital services to Google Cloud customers and Google users in the UK”.It also…

Samsung will integrate Google’s generative artificial intelligence (AI) technology into its next generation of Galaxy smartphones.The South Korean firm unveiled the S24 series and boasted of an array of new features powered by AI on Wednesday. “We will reshape the technology landscape, we will open a new chapter without barriers to unleash your potential,” TM Roh, the president of Samsung’s mobile experience division, told a crowd in San Jose, California.The phones will use built-in Gemini Nano, Google’s most-efficient large-language model, and get access to Gemini Pro and Imagen 2 text-to-image tech through the cloud.One AI feature will provide live translation…

Arnold Schwarzenegger was temporarily detained at Munich Airport for failing to declare a valuable luxury watch, according to German media.The actor and former politician was on his way to Austria for a charity auction when he was stopped by customs officers on Wednesday, the German press agency DPA said. The customs authorities claimed Schwarzenegger, who brought the watch over from the US, had not declared a valuable luxury watch upon arrival in Munich.The 76-year-old’s non-profit, the Schwarzenegger Climate Initiative, told DPA the actor planned to sell the watch at the auction to benefit climate initiatives.The black ceramic watch, which has…

The chancellor says he wants to cut taxes at the spring budget this year, declaring that doing so will be the quickest route to getting the economy growing again.Talking to Sky News on the fringes of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Jeremy Hunt said that while he has yet to see the fiscal numbers ahead of the March event, he is hopeful of reducing taxes. “I look around the world and I see that the parts of the world like the United States, like Asia, that are growing the fastest, have the most dynamic economies, tend to be places…