Business News

How AI health care chatbots learn from the questions of an Indian women’s organization

NEW YORK (AP) — A women’s organization in Mumbai, India, is training a chatbot powered by artificial intelligence with the help of women like 32-year-old Komal Vilas Thatkare. The Myna Mahila Foundation has recruited 80 test users to help train the chatbot how to answer questions about sexual reproductive health. The chatbot runs on OpenAI’s ChatGPT model and also draws on a database of medical information. Suhani Jalota is the founder and CEO of the foundation. She says the chatbot could provide women with accurate, nonjudgmental and private advice about their reproductive health, which is currently difficult for them to access.

Japan’s Nikkei stock index breaks its 1989 record and surges to an all-time high

Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 index has surged past the record it set in 1989 before its financial bubble burst, ushering in an era of faltering growth. The index closed Thursday at 39,098.68, up 2.2%. It had been hovering for weeks near 34-year highs. The Nikkei 225’s previous record was 38,915.87, set on Dec. 29, 1989. That’s more than a generation ago, at the height of Japan’s post-war economic boom. Stock prices have been rising in recent months, even as the economy slipped into recession. Foreign investors, who account for a large share of trading volume, plunged in seeking bargains thanks to the yen’s weakness against the U.S. dollar.

Stock market today: Nvidia shares surge and set off a rally on Wall Street

NEW YORK (AP) — Nvidia sparked a rally on Wall Street Thursday after the AI chipmaker reported another blowout quarter. The S&P 500 rose 1.5% in morning trading Thursday and is on track to reach another record high. The tech-heavy Nasdaq added 2.2%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, which has a smaller weighting in tech stocks, rose 248 points, or 0.6%. Nvidia jumped more than 15% after reporting that its revenue and profit soared in the latest quarter thanks to booming demand for its chips, which are used in artificial intelligence applications. Bond yields remained relatively steady. Overnight, Japan’s Nikkei 225 surged to an all-time high.

Applications for US jobless benefits fall again as labor market powers on

The number of Americans applying for jobless benefits fell to its lowest level in five weeks, even as more high-profile companies announce layoffs. Applications for unemployment benefits fell by 12,000 to 201,000 for the week ending Feb. 17, the Labor Department reported Thursday. In total, 1.86 million Americans were collecting jobless benefits during the week that ended Feb. 10, a cecrease of 27,000 from the previous week. Weekly unemployment claims are broadly viewed as representative of the number of U.S. layoffs in a given week. They have remained at historically low levels in recent years, despite efforts by the U.S. Federal Reserve to cool the economy.

Home sales rose in January as easing mortgage rates, more homes for sale enticed homebuyers

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Sales of previously occupied U.S. homes rose in January as homebuyers seized upon easing mortgage rates and a modest pickup in properties on the market. Existing home sales rose 3.1% last month from December to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4 million, the National Association of Realtors said Thursday. That’s the strongest sales pace since August. The modest sales increase is an encouraging start for the housing market, which has been mired in a slump the past two years. Sales fell 1.7% compared with January last year, however. Existing home sales sank to a nearly 30-year low last year, tumbling 18.7% from 2022.

Average long-term US mortgage rose again this week to highest level since mid December

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The average long-term U.S. mortgage rate rose this week for the third time in as many weeks, driving up home loan borrowing costs in just as the spring homebuying season ramps up. The average rate on a 30-year mortgage rose to 6.90% from 6.77% last week, mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said Thursday. A year ago, the rate averaged 6.5%. The latest increase in rates reflects recent moves in the 10-year Treasury yield, which lenders use as a guide to pricing loans. Stronger-than-expected reports on inflation, the job market and the overall economy have stoked worries among bond investors the Federal Reserve will have to wait longer before beginning to cut interest rates.

AT&T’s network is down, here’s what to do when your phone service has an outage

NEW YORK (AP) — Customers of AT&T, the country’s largest wireless provider, are reporting widespread outages. Some iPhone users saw SOS messages displayed in the status bar on their cellphones. The message indicates that the device is having trouble connecting to their cellular provider’s network. That can be a big problem in an emergency. AT&T urged customers to connect to Wi-Fi to use their phones. “Some of our customers are experiencing wireless service interruptions this morning. We are working urgently to restore service to them. We encourage the use of Wi-Fi calling until service is restored,” AT&T said in a statement.

Federal Reserve minutes: Officials worried that progress on inflation could stall in coming months

WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal Reserve officials acknowledged at their most recent meeting in January that there had been “significant progress” in reducing inflation. But some of the policymakers expressed concern that strong growth in spending and hiring could disrupt that progress. In minutes from the January 30-31 meeting, most Fed officials also said they were worried about moving too fast to cut their benchmark interest rate before it was clear that inflation was sustainably returning to their 2% target. Only “a couple” were worried about the opposite risk — that the Fed might keep rates too high for too long and cause the economy to slow more than necessary, or even slip into a recession.

Robots and happy workers: Productivity surge helps explain US economy’s surprising resilience

WASHINGTON (AP) — Across the United States, chronic worker shortages have led many companies to invest in machines to do some of the work they can’t find people to do. They’ve also been training the workers they do have to use advanced technology so they can produce more with less. The result has been an unexpected productivity boom, which helps explain a great economic mystery: How has the world’s largest economy managed to remain so healthy, with brisk growth and low unemployment, despite brutally high interest rates that are intended to tame inflation but that typically cause a recession?

Americans reporting nationwide cellular outages from AT&T, Cricket Wireless and other providers

A number of Americans are dealing with cellular outages on AT&T, Cricket Wireless, Verizon, T-Mobile and other service providers, according to data from Downdetector. AT&T had more than 58,000 outages midday, in locations including Houston, Atlanta and Chicago. Cricket Wireless had more than 9,000, the outage tracking website said Thursday. AT&T, who was hardest hit, is actively working to restore service to all of its customers.