Town Hall News

By Gabriella Borter and Sharon Bernstein (Reuters) – State legislatures are wrestling with how much to restrict or expand abortion access after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year. Here is a snapshot of pending and passed legislation seeking to restrict or protect access in 2023, including details on a law that took effect in North Dakota this week broadly banning abortion and the defeat of abortion […]

By Gabriella Borter and Sharon Bernstein (Reuters) – State legislatures are wrestling with how much to restrict or expand abortion access after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year. Here is a snapshot of pending and passed legislation seeking to restrict or protect access in 2023, including details on a law that took effect in North Dakota this week broadly banning abortion and the defeat of abortion […]

NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. consumer spending was unchanged in March, while underlying inflation pressures remained strong, data from the Commerce Department showed Friday, which could see the Federal Reserve raising interest rates again next month. Though inflation remains elevated, it is gradually slowing. The personal consumption expenditures (PCE) price index gained 0.1% in March after rising 0.3% in February. In the 12 months through March, the PCE price index […]

By Philip Pullella, Krisztina Than and Boldizsar Gyori BUDAPEST (Reuters) -Pope Francis, starting a trip to Hungary, on Friday pointedly warned of the dangers of rising nationalism in Europe and told the Budapest government that accepting migrants along with the rest of the continent would be a true sign of Christianity. In a hard-hitting speech to government leaders including Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who has had a series of run-ins […]

MOSCOW (Reuters) -Russia’s foreign ministry on Friday criticised a nuclear agreement between the United States and South Korea, saying it would destabilise the region and the wider world, and warned of a potential arms race as a result. The United States on Wednesday pledged to give South Korea more insight into its nuclear planning, while Seoul promised not to seek nuclear weapons itself in an agreement both sides said was […]

By Huw Jones LONDON (Reuters) – A Europe on the brink of stagnation and a mixed outlook from Amazon dented global shares on Friday as investors hoped that anticipated interest rate hikes next week on both sides of the Atlantic will herald a peaking of borrowing costs. S&P 500 stock index futures were down 0.3% after Amazon.com Inc signalled its cloud growth would slow further as its business customers braced […]

CAIRO (Reuters) -Britain’s Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) agency said on Friday a vessel was involved in an “incident” south of Yemen’s coastal town of Nishtun, downgrading the event from an “attack”. The agency had previously said the vessel was under attack and that shots were fired, adding that three boats, each with three or four people aboard, were also sighted. UKMTO later said it had confirmed the event by authorities […]

TOKYO (Reuters) – Toyota Motor Corp affiliate Daihatsu rigged part of the door in side-collision safety tests carried out for some 88,000 small cars, most of which were sold under the Toyota brand, the companies said on Friday. They said the door trim on the affected vehicles had been modified with a “notch” to minimise the risk in testing that the door interior could break with a sharp edge and […]

MOSCOW (Reuters) – The Russian Defence Ministry said on Friday that its strategic bombers had carried out what it called high-precision missile strikes on Ukrainian army reserve units overnight to prevent them from getting to the frontline. The attacks, the first large-scale Russian air strikes in nearly two months, were reported to have killed at least 17 people, according to Ukrainian authorities. They said the victims included several children who […]