Town Hall News

By Philip Pullella ROME (Reuters) -Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy began a visit to Rome on Saturday for talks with government officials and Pope Francis, who in late April said that the Vatican is involved in a peace mission to end the war with Russia. Zelenskiy, on his first trip to Italy since Russia invaded in February last year, held talks with President Sergio Mattarella at the Quirinale Palace and was […]

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Videos posted on Russian social media on Saturday showed a helicopter apparently being shot down over Russia’s Bryansk region, bordering Ukraine. The state news agency TASS cited an emergency services official as saying preliminary information indicated the helicopter’s engine had caught fire before the crash near Klintsy, which is around 40 km (25 miles) from the border. However, a video posted on the Russian pro-war Telegram channel […]

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) – The European Union must speed up the supply of ammunition to Ukraine as the country’s forces need 1,000 artillery shells every day in the Bakhmut area alone, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on Saturday. Borrell said Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba had told his EU counterparts at a meeting in Stockholm that Kyiv needed more support to defend itself against Russia’s invasion. Around the eastern […]

By Ruma Paul DHAKA (Reuters) -A powerful storm packing winds of up to 175 kph (109 mph) barrelled towards the coasts of eastern Bangladesh and Myanmar on Saturday, threatening around a million Rohingya refugees and others living in low-lying areas. Thousands of people in both countries have already fled to safer areas ahead of the storm. Cyclone Mocha is likely to intensify further and make landfall on Sunday between Cox’s […]

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Six months and a day after the Los Angeles Lakers fell to 2-10 to start the regular season, they emphatically eliminated the defending NBA champions to reach the Western Conference finals. Although the Lakers’ transformation has become increasingly incredible over the past several weeks, the primary forces behind it are LeBron James and Anthony Davis. The superstars won a ring together only three years ago, and […]

By Philip Blenkinsop BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Washington and the EU will pledge joint action to tackle concerns focused on China about non-market practices and coordinate their export controls on semiconductors and other goods at a meeting this month, a draft statement showed. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, European Commission Vice-President Margrethe Vestager and other senior officials are due to meet for the fourth edition of the EU-U.S. Trade and […]

By Jonathan Stempel (Reuters) – Squishmallows joined Warren Buffett’s business empire two years after Lady Gaga, Kim Kardashian and others helped make the plush stuffed toys a viral sensation on TikTok. For Judd and Laura Zebersky, whose company Jazwares makes the toys, the success of Squishmallows is hardly what they imagined when they met 33 years ago at the University of Miami law school. They married in 1993 and embarked […]

By Julia Harte (Reuters) – North Carolina Democratic Governor Roy Cooper said he would hold a rally on Saturday to highlight his planned veto of a bill that would ban most abortions after 12 weeks, a move the state’s Republican-controlled legislature is expected to quickly vote to override. The measure would cut the window for most abortions in the state back from 20 weeks and curtail access to the procedure […]

By Chayut Setboonsarng BANGKOK (Reuters) – From the back of open-top trucks and cars, candidates of Thailand’s political parties drove through Bangkok on Saturday, as a months-long campaign that could usher in a new government for the first time in nearly a decade drew to a close. Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha faces an uphill battle to retain power in Sunday’s general election, with opposition parties including Pheu Thai and Move […]