Town Hall News

(Reuters) – Shares of Intercept Pharmaceuticals Inc fell 16% on Monday over concerns about the prospects of the company’s drug to treat a type of fatty liver disease after the regulator’s advisory panel voted to defer an accelerated approval. A panel of advisers to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said on Friday study data suggested that the benefits of Intercept’s drug, obeticholic acid (OCA), did not outweigh the risks […]

By Shreyashi Sanyal and Shristi Achar A (Reuters) – U.S. stock indexes were set to open flat on Monday as markets awaited updates on lawmakers’ talks about raising the U.S. debt ceiling, while shares of Micron fell following China’s ban on its memory chips. Hopes that a deal would be struck sometime over the weekend to raise the $31.4 trillion U.S. debt limit helped Wall Street’s main indexes end the […]

(Reuters) -Chevron Corp said on Monday it would acquire PDC Energy Inc in an all-stock transaction for $7.6 billion, including debt, adding new drilling inventory to its U.S. oil and gas reserves. The company has been under pressure on Wall Street to show it can keep expanding production after 2027 as its main shale holdings in the Permian Basin of West Texas and New Mexico near their peak output. The […]

By Elvira Pollina and Supantha Mukherjee MILAN/STOCKHOLM (Reuters) – Italy’s data protection authority Garante plans to review other artificial intelligence platforms and hire AI experts, a top official said, as it ramps up scrutiny of the powerful technology after temporarily banning ChatGPT in March. Garante is among the most proactive of the 31 national data protection authorities which oversee Europe’s data privacy regime known as the General Data Protection Regulation […]

By Panu Wongcha-um and Panarat Thepgumpanat BANGKOK (Reuters) – An alliance led by Thailand’s progressive Move Forward party on Monday signed an ambitious agreement to draft a new constitution, end monopolies and allow same-sex marriage, among other aims, but made no mention of a divisive royal insult law. The opposition Move Forward and Pheu Thai parties dominated last week’s election in a resounding defeat of conservative parties backed by a […]

By Navya Mittal and Yantoultra Ngui (Reuters) – Singapore’s biggest bank DBS Group on Monday said it expects to lift annual earnings to more than S$10 billion ($7.55 billion) within the next three to five years, after it posted a record first-quarter profit earlier this month. DBS, which is also Southeast Asia’s largest lender by assets, premised the projection on its digital transformation and its strong balance sheet and capital, […]

By Nupur Anand and Lananh Nguyen NEW YORK (Reuters) -JPMorgan Chase & Co’s net interest income would rise by $3 billion this year due to its purchase of failed First Republic Bank, according to a presentation published ahead of its investor day on Monday. The largest U.S. lender agreed to take into its books $173 billion of the failed bank’s loans, $30 billion of securities and $92 billion of deposits […]

MADRID (Reuters) – Spanish soccer has a racism problem, football federation chief Luis Rubiales said on Monday, after Real Madrid lodged a complaint following alleged insults hurled at their Brazilian star Vinicius Jr. The top-flight LaLiga is under pressure to do more to combat racism after the Brazilian president, FIFA and fellow stars such as Kylian Mbappe voiced support for Vinicius, even as LaLiga President Javier Tebas wrote on Twitter […]

By Simon Lewis WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The Biden administration rebuked Israel on Sunday over an order that allows Jewish settlers to establish a permanent presence in a West Bank outpost that Washington has warned Jerusalem it should avoid legitimizing. The chief of the Israeli military’s Central Command signed an order on Thursday that allows Israelis to enter the Homesh outpost area, paving the way for a formal settlement to be built […]