Town Hall News

VALLETTA (Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin’s attempt to blackmail Europe using energy resources has failed, but next year will still be challenging, the European Commissioner for Energy, Kadri Simson, said on Thursday. Speaking at a meeting of EU Mediterranean energy ministers in Malta, Simson said the Mediterranean region had played a key role in helping the EU 27 respond to an extraordinary year of energy crisis and hardship created […]

(Reuters) – World number three Daniil Medvedev produced a dominant performance against German qualifier Yannick Hanfmann to reach his first Italian Open semi-final, cruising to a 6-2 6-2 victory on Thursday. Medvedev, who has described himself as a “hard court specialist”, had never won a match in Rome before this year’s tournament but has produced some of his best tennis to reach the last four on clay for the first […]

By Katie Paul and Stephen Nellis NEW YORK (Reuters) – Meta Platforms on Thursday shared new details on projects it was pursuing to make its data centers better suited to supporting artificial intelligence work, including a custom chip “family” that it said it was developing in-house. The Facebook and Instagram owner said in a series of blog posts that it designed a first-generation chip in 2020 as part of the […]

By Dietrich Knauth NEW YORK (Reuters) – Bankrupt crypto exchange FTX is seeking to claw back more than $240 million it paid for stock trading platform Embed, saying former FTX insiders did no investigation before buying the essentially worthless bug-ridden software platform. FTX filed three lawsuits late Wednesday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware targeting former FTX insiders including indicted founder Sam Bankman-Fried, Embed executives including founder Michael Giles, and […]

By Andrew Chung (Reuters) -The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday refused to clear a path for victims of attacks by militant organizations to hold social media companies liable under an anti-terrorism law for failing to stop the groups from using their platforms, handing a victory to Twitter Inc. The court in a separate case involving Google LLC sidestepped a bid to weaken legal protections for internet firms. The justices in […]

By Mike Stone WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Pentagon overvalued U.S. equipment it sent to Ukraine by around $3 billion, a Senate aide and a defense official said on Thursday, an error that opens up the possibility of more weapons being sent to Kyiv for its defense against Russian forces. The error was the result assigning a higher than warranted value on weaponry that was taken from U.S. stocks and then […]

BOGOTA (Reuters) -The fate of four children who were missing after a plane crash in southern Colombia was unclear on Thursday after President Gustavo Petro deleted a Tweet saying they had been found alive, adding in a new message that reports of their discovery were unconfirmed and the search still ongoing. The children have been missing since May 1, when the plane they were traveling in crashed in thick jungle. […]

LONDON (Reuters) – Britain and Norway have agreed to increase cooperation on undersea capabilities, including countering threats to undersea infrastructure, the British government said in a statement on Thursday. “The attack on the Nord Stream pipeline has determined even closer collaboration across our collective assets to detect and defend against subsea threats and ensure continued North Atlantic security,” British defence minister Ben Wallace said in a statement. (Reporting by Alistair […]

TOKYO (Reuters) – A lack of resources means battery electric vehicles (BEV) cannot be the auto sector’s only answer to climate change, Toyota Motor Corp’s top scientist said Thursday, warning that focusing on BEVs could lead some drivers to hold onto polluting vehicles. Some investors and environmental groups have long criticised Toyota for being slow to embrace BEVs, saying it has lagged Tesla Inc and others amid growing global demand. […]