Business FRANCE 24 English

The US Federal Reserve has decided to keep its benchmark interest rate at 5.25 to 5.50 percent. Chairman Jerome Powell said while inflation has eased significantly over the past year, it's still too high, and that while wage growth has slowed down, the labour market remains tight.The central bank will slow down the pace of quantitative tightening from next month,  reducing the cap on Treasury bonds it allows to run off to $25 billion from the current $60 billion per month.  

To mark International Workers' Day, anti-poverty NGO Oxfam has released analysis showing that between 2020 and 2023, shareholders saw their dividend payments increase by 45 percent while workers saw their wages increase by just 3 percent. The figures highlight the growing global divide between rich and poor. Also in this edition, the company behind ChatGPT is the target of a complaint in Austria over incorrect information shared by the AI chatbot.

A court in Seattle has sentenced Changpeng Zhao, the founder and former CEO of the cryptocurrency exchange Binance, to four months in jail for violating US money laundering laws. The billionaire told the court that he had failed and was sorry. The sentencing comes after the defendant pleaded guilty last November and paid $50 million in fines. Plus, Zimbabweans line up at banks to withdraw cash as the new currency ZiG, the sixth since the 2009 collapse of the Zimbabwe dollar, goes into circulation. 

US Entertainment giant Paramount Global announced on Monday that CEO Bob Bakish was stepping down. In this edition, we take a closer look at how the company's controlling shareholder, Shari Redstone, may have been behind this move and why the firm's value has plummeted 80 percent in the past eight years. Meanwhile in Argentina, President Javier Milei's second attempt at getting his economic overhaul package through parliament is facing fierce opposition.

Tesla's shares surged after the EV maker won tentative approval to deploy its Full Self-Driving system in China, this as CEO Elon Musk met high-ranking officials on a surprise visit to Beijing. Plus, the French state has offered to buy key assets from troubled IT giant Atos in order to protect national interests. 

A growing protest movement on US college campuses wants universities to sell off assets related to Israel's war in Gaza and its occupation of the West Bank. We take a closer look. Also, the French government offers to buy the data security operations of struggling IT firm Atos, and Elon Musk makes progress in his bid for the rollout of Tesla's Full Self-Driving service in China.