Town Hall News

By David Morgan, Richard Cowan and Moira Warburton WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A divided U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill to suspend the $31.4 trillion debt ceiling on Wednesday, with majority support from both Democrats and Republicans to overcome opposition led by hardline conservatives and avoid a catastrophic default. The Republican-controlled House voted 314-117 to send the legislation to the Senate, which must enact the measure and get it to […]

By Karin Strohecker and Vincent Flasseur LONDON (Reuters) – The pace of interest rate hikes across major central banks showed little sign of slowing in May but the scale of the tightening tapered off, with growth woes and “sticky” inflation data prompting policymakers to tread more cautiously. All six of the central banks overseeing one of the 10 most heavily traded currencies and that met in May hiked rates. Central […]

By Joey Roulette and Steve Gorman WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Members of an independent NASA panel studying UFOs, or what the U.S. government now terms UAP for “unidentified anomalous phenomena,” said in their first public meeting on Wednesday that scant high-quality data and a lingering stigma pose the greatest barriers to unraveling such mysteries. The 16-member body, formed last year among leading experts from scientific fields ranging from physics to astrobiology, held […]

(Reuters) – British drugmaker AstraZeneca said on Thursday it would stop developing its drug brazikumab to treat inflammatory bowel diseases, including Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. The company said the discontinuation was due to a delay in the drug’s development timeline, affected by global events and “the context of a competitive landscape”. AstraZeneca regained the rights to brazikumab from Allergan in 2020 following U.S. drugmaker AbbVie’s $63 billion tie-up with […]

By Arathy Somasekhar and Andrew Hayley BEIJING (Reuters) -Oil prices rose on Thursday, reversing earlier losses, as a potential pause in U.S. interest rate hikes and the debt ceiling bill passing a crucial vote renewed optimism about further fuel demand growth in the world’s biggest oil consumer. Brent crude futures for August rose 55 cents, or 0.76% to $73.15 a barrel by 0640 GMT, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude […]

By Arathy Somasekhar and Andrew Hayley BEIJING (Reuters) -Oil prices rose on Thursday, reversing earlier losses, as a potential pause in U.S. interest rate hikes and the debt ceiling bill passing a crucial vote renewed optimism about further fuel demand growth in the world’s biggest oil consumer. Brent crude futures for August rose 55 cents, or 0.76% to $73.15 a barrel by 0640 GMT, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude […]

By Josh Smith SEOUL (Reuters) – North Korea’s latest space launcher appears to be a new design and most likely uses engines developed for the nuclear-armed country’s intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM), analysts said on Thursday. The rocket, dubbed the Chollima-1, failed during its first launch attempt on Wednesday. It lifted off successfully but its second stage failed to start as expected, state media reported, and it crashed into the Yellow […]

By Josh Smith SEOUL (Reuters) – North Korea’s latest space launcher appears to be a new design and most likely uses engines developed for the nuclear-armed country’s intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM), analysts said on Thursday. The rocket, dubbed the Chollima-1, failed during its first launch attempt on Wednesday. It lifted off successfully but its second stage failed to start as expected, state media reported, and it crashed into the Yellow […]

By Hyunsu Yim and Soo-hyang Choi SEOUL (Reuters) – North Korea’s Kim Yo Jong, leader Kim Jong Un’s sister, said her country would soon put a military spy satellite into orbit and promised Pyongyang would increase its military surveillance capabilities, state media KCNA reported on Thursday. The remarks by Kim, a powerful ruling party official, came a day after a failed attempt at launching the country’s first spy satellite, which […]