Town Hall News

By Paul Lorgerie KINSHASA (Reuters) – Three weeks after giving birth to twins, 16-year-old Annaelle felt like a hostage: the hospital would not let her leave until she’d paid her medical bills, but she had no money. Her mother was doing shifts there as a cleaner to stump up the cash. Then a woman Annaelle had never met called Grace Mbongi Umek entered the maternity ward at Bethesda clinic in […]

BUDAPEST (Reuters) – Europa League thoroughbreds Sevilla worked their magic yet again to beat AS Roma 4-1 on penalties on Wednesday and lift the trophy for a record-extending seventh time, handing Roma boss Jose Mourinho his first defeat in six European finals. After an unspectacular match ended 1-1 after extra time, Sevilla ruthlessly punished the Italians in the shootout, with Gonzalo Montiel firing home the winning spot kick, just as […]

By David Morgan WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Kevin McCarthy earned his stripes as Republican speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday, navigating fierce hardline opposition to pass a debt ceiling bill containing federal spending limits that President Joe Biden for months vowed to resist. Six months after he endured 15 humiliating floor votes just to be elected speaker, McCarthy proved capable of dragging Biden into negotiations over spending and […]

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 […]