Town Hall News

(Reuters) -Nordstrom Inc posted a surprise quarterly profit and estimate-beating revenue on Wednesday as better inventory control and demand from wealthy shoppers helped the company defy an inflation-driven slump in retail spending. Shares of the upmarket department store chain jumped 9.4% in extended trading, as the company also maintained its forecasts for 2023 sales and adjusted profit, and signaled improving sales at its off-price Rack banner. Affluent Americans are still […]

BUDAPEST (Reuters) – Hungarian police arrested at least nine people on Wednesday as fighting broke out among soccer fans in Budapest before Sevilla faced AS Roma in the Europa League final, the police said on their website. Before the game started, police said several people got into a fight and three were injured, with one Spanish and one Swedish citizen taken to hospital. Police opened a criminal investigation into the […]

By Carien du Plessis JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – South Africa is mulling its options over an International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin should he accept an invitation to a BRICS summit in August, a government official said on Wednesday. A member of the ICC, South Africa would theoretically be required to arrest Putin under the warrant issued in March by the court, which accused him of […]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Amazon.com and a subsidiary reached separate multi-million dollar settlements with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission on Wednesday related to privacy violations of children using its voice assistant Alexa and homeowners using its Ring doorbell camera. Amazon agreed to pay $25 million to settle allegations it violated children’s privacy rights when it failed to delete Alexa recordings at the request of parents and kept them longer than necessary, […]

By Shivansh Tiwary and Paul Lienert (Reuters) – The cost to make electric vehicles may not drop to the level for gas-powered cars until after 2030 when the process becomes simpler and less labor-intensive, Ford Motor Co Chief Executive Jim Farley said on Wednesday. At an investor conference, Farley said that, for many automakers, EVs will remain more costly than their internal combustion engine counterparts until the second and third […]

By Munsif Vengattil, Aditya Kalra and Jane Lanhee Lee NEW DELHI/OAKLAND, California (Reuters) – A planned $3 billion semiconductor facility in India by chip consortium ISMC that counted Israeli chipmaker Tower as a tech partner has been stalled due to the company’s ongoing takeover by Intel, three sources said, dashing India’s chip making plans. A second mega $19.5 billion plan to build chips locally by a joint venture between India’s […]

By Anthony Esposito MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Mexico is evaluating whether buying Citigroup Inc’s Mexican consumer unit would help boost financial inclusion, potentially in combination with a state-run bank such as the Banco del Bienestar, a top finance ministry official said. U.S. lender Citigroup scrapped its sale of the Banamex unit last week and said it will instead list it, a surprise move coming amid talks to sell the business […]

(Updates prices throughout story, adds analyst comment in paragraphs 7 and 8, recasts lede and paragraphs 2, 3 and 4 to reflect comments from Fed governor) By Hannah Lang WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. dollar retreated from a more than two-month high on Wednesday after a Federal Reserve official warned any decision by the central bank to hold its benchmark overnight interest rate firm at an upcoming meeting would not […]

(Reuters) – Texas Governor Greg Abbott on Wednesday appointed an interim attorney general to fill in for Ken Paxton, who was impeached last week on allegations of corruption and other irregularities. Abbott said in a written statement that he had appointed John Scott, an attorney and former Texas secretary of state under Abbott, as interim attorney general. Scott also served as the Texas deputy attorney general for civil litigation from […]