Town Hall News

By Arshad Mohammed and Jeff Mason WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez will discuss Ukraine, defense cooperation, and migration on Friday during a meeting at the White House in which the war between Moscow and Kyiv is likely to loom large. While Madrid agrees with Washington on the illegality of Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Sanchez will convey the divergent views of […]

By Asif Shahzad and Ariba Shahid ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – A Pakistani court ordered former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s release on bail for two weeks, his lawyer said on Friday, after his arrest in a land fraud case ignited deadly protests and a tussle with the military. The arrest, which the Supreme Court ruled “invalid and unlawful” a day earlier, has fuelled instability in the nation of 220 million at a […]

By Olena Harmash and Ivan Lyubysh-Kirdey KYIV/KOSTIANTYNIVKA, Ukraine (Reuters) -Moscow acknowledged on Friday that its forces had fallen back north of Ukraine’s battlefield city of Bakhmut after a new Ukrainian offensive, in a retreat that the head of Russia’s Wagner private army called a rout.  The setback for Russia, which follows similar reports of Ukrainian advances south of the city, suggests a coordinated push by Kyiv to encircle Russian forces […]

By Moira Warburton WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Lawmakers in the U.S. Congress should have their pay frozen until the fight over whether to increase the country’s debt ceiling is resolved, Democratic Representative Abigail Spanberger said in a letter on Friday.     “If the American people and the American economy are suffering as a result of congressional inaction, then members of Congress should not be rewarded with their pay,” Spanberger, 43, wrote […]

By Chris Prentice NEW YORK (Reuters) -Units of HSBC Holdings Plc have agreed to pay $75 million to settle U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) charges related to manipulative and deceptive trading and record-keeping failures, the regulator said on Friday. HSBC Bank USA agreed to pay a $45 million civil penalty for manipulative and deceptive trading in connection with swaps, spoofing and record-keeping failures, CFTC said in a statement. HSBCA […]

By Daina Beth Solomon CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico (Reuters) – Oriana Silva, a 30-year-old Venezuelan mother of two, was so determined to make it to the United States that she entered illegally and was expelled back to Mexico five times in seven months. Now, she is trying another way she hopes will be easier: the U.S. asylum app.     As U.S. COVID-era border restrictions give way to strict new asylum rules […]

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – EU antitrust regulators extended on Friday their deadline for a decision on U.S. chipmaker Broadcom’s proposed $61 billion bid for cloud computing firm VMware by three days to June 26. The deadline was extended in agreement with the companies, a European Commission spokesperson said. Broadcom Chief Executive Hock Tan last week sought to convince the European Commission of the merits of the deal at a closed hearing. […]

By David Lawder WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The United States faces a “significant risk” of defaulting on payment obligations within the first two weeks of June without a debt ceiling increase, the Congressional Budget Office said on Friday, adding that payment operations will remain uncertain throughout May. The non-partisan budget referee agency’s new estimate largely tracks Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s June 1 deadline for a potential default, underscoring the urgency of resolving […]

(Reuters) -Moscow acknowledged on Friday that its forces had fallen back north of Ukraine’s battlefield city of Bakhmut after a new offensive, in a retreat that the head of Russia’s Wagner private army called a rout. CONFLICT * As anticipation grows of a Ukrainian counteroffensive aiming to drive Moscow’s forces out of the land they have seized in the last 15 months, Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Maliar said on Friday […]