World Bank may tackle tough issues

It’s a full agenda for Ajay Banga as he nears the end of his first year as World Bank president. The bank and the International Monetary Fund are holding their spring meetings in Washington this week, and Banga is highlighting new initiatives to expand access to health care and electricity across the globe.

He says in an Associated Press interview that the challenges of poverty, conflict and climate change are creating a perfect storm and that “we need to put all of our efforts into this.” 

Netflix has nearly 270M subscribers

Netflix gained another 9.3 million subscribers to start the year while its still-emerging expansion into advertising helped produce financial results that exceeded analysts’ estimates. The performance demonstrated that Netflix is still building on its momentum of last year. That was when it began a crackdown on free-loading viewers relying on shared passwords and the rollout of a low-priced option including commercials revived its growth following a post-pandemic lull.

But Netflix management surprised investors by disclosing plans to phase out quarterly updates on its total subscribers, a move that will make it more difficult to track future growth.

Starbucks redesigns cups to cut waste

Booming sales of cold drinks at Starbucks stores have created a problem: growing amounts of plastic waste from the single-use cups that Frappuccinos, Refreshers, cold brews and other iced drinks are served in. Starbucks said on Thursday that it plans to alleviate some of that waste with new disposable cups that contain up to 20% less plastic. The cups are due to be rolled out to stores in the U.S. and Canada starting this month. Although Seattle-based Starbucks got its start selling coffee, the company says cold drinks now account for 75% of its U.S. sales. 

Sluggish start for spring homebuying season

The spring homebuying season is off to a sluggish start as home shoppers contend with elevated mortgage rates and rising prices. Sales of previously occupied U.S. homes fell 4.3% in March from the previous month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.19 million, the National Association of Realtors said Thursday. That’s the first monthly decline in sales since December and follows a nearly 10% monthly sales jump in February.

Existing home sales also fell 3.7% compared with March last year. The latest sales still came in slightly higher than the 4.16 million pace economists were expecting, according to FactSet. Home prices climbed compared with a year earlier for the ninth month in a row.

— Bulletin wire reports