Town Hall News

(Reuters) – Penny Oleksiak’s return to competition from injury proved short-lived as Canada’s most decorated Olympian has now pulled out of the July world aquatics championships in Japan, Swimming Canada said on Thursday. Oleksiak had surgery last August to repair a torn meniscus and competed in last month’s Barcelona leg of the Mare Nostrum tour but along the way Swimming Canada said she developed a left shoulder condition. After Oleksiak’s […]

By Katie Paul NEW YORK (Reuters) -Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Thursday revealed the company’s next generation mixed reality headset, the Quest 3, as it braces for Apple to potentially reshape the nascent market that Meta has dominated so far. Priced starting at $499, the device will be 40% thinner than the company’s previous headset and feature color mixed reality, which combines augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR) elements, Zuckerberg […]

By Andy Sullivan WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The bipartisan debt-ceiling deal that could clear Congress as soon as Thursday would stave off an imminent U.S. default, but might deliver less budget savings than Republicans have hoped for, according to nonpartisan budget analysts. The agreement ensures that President Joe Biden will not have to grapple with another debt-ceiling showdown until after the November 2024 election. Top congressional Republican Kevin McCarthy, for his […]

(Reuters) – Sunday’s Spanish Grand Prix should give Mercedes a better picture of the true potential of its upgraded Formula One car, seven times world champion Lewis Hamilton said on Thursday. Mercedes introduced the upgraded car for last weekend’s race in Monaco, with changes to the sidepod and suspension, but the nature of the slow and twisty street circuit made it hard to draw any conclusions. “You can’t really tell […]

(Reuters) – Stellantis will invest 160 million euros ($176.13 million) at its Rennes plant to launch a 100% electric compact Sports Utility Vehicle (SUV) in 2025, the Franco-Italian-American car manufacturer said on Thursday. Stellantis will use the investment to set up a battery assembly workshop as well as one dedicated to plastic injection moulding, it said in a statement, adding the vehicle’s launch will happen on the future STLA Medium […]

(Corrects title in last paragraph) (Reuters) – Stellantis will invest 160 million euros ($176.13 million) at its Rennes plant to launch a 100% electric compact Sports Utility Vehicle (SUV) in 2025, the Franco-Italian-American car manufacturer said on Thursday. Stellantis will use the investment to set up a battery assembly workshop as well as one dedicated to plastic injection moulding, it said in a statement, adding the vehicle’s launch will happen […]

By Guy Faulconbridge MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) said on Thursday it had uncovered a U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) plot using previously unknown malware to access specially made so-called backdoor vulnerabilities in Apple phones. The FSB, the main successor to the Soviet-era KGB, said several thousand Apple phones had been infected, including those of domestic Russian subscribers. Neither Apple nor the NSA immediately responded to emailed […]

By Mubasher Bukhari LAHORE, Pakistan (Reuters) -The president of former Pakistani prime minister Imran Khan’s party was arrested in the eastern city of Lahore on Thursday on charges of corruption, a government official said. Pakistan is beset by political turmoil as Khan’s party has faced a countrywide crackdown since his own arrest on May 9 for suspected graft sparked widespread protests that saw mobs ransacking state installations, including military assets. […]

KAMPALA (Reuters) -Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni has defended signing one of the world’s harshest anti-LGBTQ laws, with punishments up to and including the death penalty, saying it was needed to prevent LGBTQ community members he said were “disoriented” from “recruiting” others. His comments were the first since he signed the bill into law, triggering widespread Western criticism including threats by U.S. President Joe Biden and others to cut aid to […]