Weekly applications for US jobless benefits fall to the lowest level in 4 months

Weekly applications for US jobless benefits fall to the lowest level in 4 months

The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits fell to their lowest level in four months last week. Jobless claims slid by 12,000, to 219,000, for the week of Sept. 14, the Labor Department reported Thursday. That’s fewer than economists’ expectations for 230,000 new filings. Weekly filings for unemployment benefits, considered largely representative of layoffs, … Read more

A volunteer network of interpreters wants to make refugees’ languages more accessible. Will AI help?

A volunteer network of interpreters wants to make refugees’ languages more accessible. Will AI help?

NEW YORK — They may be Tigrinya speakers fleeing the authoritarian Eritrean government’s indefinite military service policy. Or Rohingya people escaping ethnic violence in Myanmar. But refugees navigating resettlement often face a shared hurdle: poor machine translations and a short supply of interpreters knowledgeable in their less-serviced languages. Tarjimly, a Google-backed nonprofit described as “Uber … Read more

Bank of England keeps its main interest rate on hold at 5% in wake of big US Fed rate cut

Bank of England keeps its main interest rate on hold at 5% in wake of big US Fed rate cut

LONDON — The Bank of England kept its main interest rate unchanged at 5% Thursday despite a big cut from the U.S. Federal Reserve, its first since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic more than four years ago. The decision was widely expected amid ongoing concerns about inflation within the bank’s monetary policy committee, particularly … Read more

Lawyer for American charged in Japan’s trial of ex-Nissan exec Ghosn appeals for ‘justice’

Lawyer for American charged in Japan’s trial of ex-Nissan exec Ghosn appeals for ‘justice’

TOKYO — The six-year-old criminal case of Greg Kelly, an American ensnared in the scandal of Nissan’s former boss Carlos Ghosn, turned a page in a Japanese court Thursday, with his lawyer demanding “justice” with a verdict of total innocence. Kelly, a former Nissan executive vice president, was arrested in 2018, on charges related to … Read more