Town Hall News

(Refiles to clarify headline) By Gloria Dickie (Reuters) -Lion and leopard populations in Zambia’s Kafue National Park are showing signs of a modest comeback following decades of poaching, helped by expanded protection strategies, including an innovative vulture early-warning system. Big cat densities across Kafue, measured broadly for the first time by global conservation organisation Panthera, remained stable and in some cases increased from 2018 to 2022, according to a new report […]

By Richard Cowan and Gram Slattery WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. Senate on Thursday passed bipartisan legislation backed by President Joe Biden that lifts the government’s $31.4 trillion debt ceiling, averting what would have been a first-ever default. The Senate voted 63-36 to approve the bill that was passed on Wednesday by the House of Representatives, as lawmakers raced against the clock following months of partisan bickering between Democrats and Republicans. […]

TOKYO (Reuters) – Japan’s privacy watchdog on Friday said it has warned OpenAI, the Microsoft-backed startup behind the ChatGPT chatbot, to not collect sensitive data without individuals’ permission. The Personal Information Protection Commission in a statement said OpenAI should minimise the sensitive data it collects for machine learning and added it may take further action if it has more concerns. The warning comes as regulators around the world are scrambling […]

By Ryan Woo BEIJING (Reuters) -Having sweltered through May, southern and eastern China face more weeks of unrelenting heatwaves, putting power grids under strain as demand for air-conditioning soars in mega-cities like Shanghai. In the next three days, most of southern China is expected to be hit by temperatures of more than 35 Celsius (95 Fahrenheit), with temperatures in some areas exceeding 40C, according to national forecasters on Friday. Like […]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Senate on Thursday passed bipartisan legislation backed by President Joe Biden that lifts the government’s $31.4 trillion debt ceiling, averting what would have been a historic, first-ever default. The Senate voted 63-36 to approve the bill that was passed on Wednesday by the House of Representatives, as lawmakers raced against the clock following months of partisan bickering between Democrats and Republicans. The Treasury Department had […]

By Brendan O’Brien and Steve Gorman (Reuters) -Dev Shah, a 14-year-old boy from Largo, Florida, won the 2023 Scripps National Spelling Bee on Thursday, nailing the word “psammophile,” meaning an organism that thrives in sandy soils, in the 15th round of the contest’s finals. He edged out fellow eighth-grader Charlotte Walsh, 14, from Arlington, Virginia, who finished in second-place after she misspelled “daviely,” a Scottish-rooted word for listlessly, in the […]

(Reuters) -Meta Platforms Inc on Thursday said it will begin tests on its social media websites Facebook and Instagram that will limit some users and publishers from viewing or sharing some news content in Canada. The testing period will run for several weeks, the social media giant said, adding that the minor percentage of Canadian users enrolled in testing will be notified if they attempt to share news content. The […]

(Reuters) – Former President Donald Trump and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis traded barbs on Thursday over who could most quickly fix the economy and reform government agencies as the battle between the top two Republican contenders grew increasingly acrimonious. Trump, who currently holds a large lead over DeSantis in a distant second in polls on the 2024 Republican nomination, also took critical shots at other candidates lower down in the […]

By Richard Cowan and Gram Slattery WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. Senate on Thursday passed bipartisan legislation backed by President Joe Biden that lifts the government’s $31.4 trillion debt ceiling, averting what would have been a historic, first-ever default. The Senate voted 63-36 to approve the bill that was passed on Wednesday by the House of Representatives, as lawmakers raced against the clock following months of partisan bickering between Democrats and […]