Trending News Chronicle

US President Joe Biden has chosen Ajay Banga, an Indian-American businessman, to lead the World Bank. The US is putting more pressure on the bank to do more to fight climate change. Mr. Banga ran the credit card company Mastercard for more than a decade. He now works in private equity. US officials said he had enough experience to work with the private sector to help the bank reach its goals. The board will choose the bank’s next official head. The bank said on Wednesday that it would interview up to three finalists and choose a new leader by the start of May. It said that women should run for office as much as possible. It must be made clear if different ideas come from other countries. Since the US has the most shares in the World Bank, it has always had the power to choose who runs the organization, which lends billions of dollars to countries annually. When she was in the Treasury, Janet Yellen wanted the World Bank to be a “force multiplier for good” by making the right plans. She...

At Frankfurt Airport, more than 200 flights had to be canceled because construction work broke broadband cables and made it hard for Lufthansa to check in passengers and get them on planes. But the airline said that things were back to normal. Earlier on Wednesday, flights worldwide were canceled or delayed, stranding thousands of people. The airline thinks that Frankfurt will get back to normal on Thursday. The company said that a group of cables was accidentally cut while engineers were working on a train line in Frankfurt on Tuesday. It told people who were taking domestic flights to book train tickets instead and said that people could use its website to ask for a refund. Lufthansa said on Twitter, “We are quickly working on a solution.” FlightAware, a website that keeps track of flights, says that more than 100 flights have also been late. Some travelers said on social media that the German airline switched to organizing boarding by hand and couldn’t handle bags digitally. One cus...

The UK is making good progress toward its goal of having net zero carbon emissions by 2050, but it may need to raise taxes to reach that goal. Lord Nicholas Stern, a well-known economist, says that the government and private sector must as a a matter of urgency invest in new technologies. A former boss of oil giant BP also says that the UK should follow the US in promoting green technology. But the government said that the UK is “leading the way as far as climate change and net zero carbon emissions is concerned.” Lord Stern told the BBC, “We need growth, and we need to cut down on emissions, and we’ll get there by investing in new technologies.” He also said, “I’m not saying that investments in health and education should be put off. On the contrary, we must work on both of them at the same time. His words come when the country is struggling with a high cost of living and taxes are higher than they have been since the Second World War. Tax cuts are also something that some people want...

Microsoft has announced a new version of Bing that uses the latest advances in artificial intelligence. The change uses Open AI’s Chat GPT technology, which has been making waves worldwide since it came out last year. The move is by far the most significant threat to Google’s position as the leader in web search, and it’s the start of a race between the two companies to get better at AI. “The race starts today,” said Satya Nadella, the CEO of Microsoft. OpenAI, a company based in San Francisco, made Chat GPT. It uses deep learning techniques to respond to search queries in a way that sounds like a person. Bing can give more detailed answers to search questions in its latest version, not just links to websites. Users can also talk to the bot to get better answers to their questions. More answers that make sense will be added on the right side of a search page. The new Bing search engine will go live right away, but each person will only be able to do a certain number of searches. The ne...

In order to keep up with the US, the European Commission has devised a plan to try to speed up the production of electric cars and projects that use renewable energy. The plan calls for green businesses to have easier access to funding and less complicated rules. It would also relax rules about state aid. The move comes after the US said it would spend a lot of money on technologies that are good for the environment, such as giving incentives for electric cars made in the US. The International Energy Agency forecasts that by 2030, the global market for mass-produced clean energy will triple to about $650 billion (£528 billion), and the number of manufacturing jobs related to this will double. European leaders are worried that the $369 billion in investments the US approved last year will hurt Europe’s economy as the industry grows and encourage businesses to move to the US. In the UK, Grant Shapps, in charge of business, said last month that the green subsidies could be the start of a ...

Rio Tinto, a big mining company, has apologized for losing a small radioactive capsule while moving it across Western Australia. An emergency search is happening along the 1,400km (870 miles) route for the device, which is about the size of a pea. The capsule has a small amount of Caesium-137, which is radioactive and could make people very sick if they touch it. This could mean skin damage, burns, or radiation sickness. Radiation detectors and other specialized tools are being used by emergency services to look for the device, and they say it’s “pretty likely” that they will find it. But Australia’s Department of Fire and Emergency Services said the silver capsule, which is only 6mm (0.24 inches) in diameter and 8mm long, was so small that it might have gotten stuck in the tire of a car driving down the road. There is also concern that someone might keep it as a souvenir if they find it. The government says very clearly that holding the capsule could cause burns from the radiation and...