Town Hall News

By Alasdair Pal SYDNEY (Reuters) – New Zealand Prime Minister Chris Hipkins said on Tuesday he would attend the upcoming NATO summit in July, while Australia’s leader said he was still considering whether to travel. Both countries have a decades-long relationship with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization that has taken on greater importance following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Finland this month joined the now 31-member alliance in a historic policy […]

By Helen Coster WILMINGTON, Delaware (Reuters) -The trial in the $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit by Dominion Voting Systems against Fox Corp and Fox News will proceed with jury selection resuming on Tuesday rather than on Monday as previously scheduled, a judge said on Monday. Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric Davis did not provide a reason for the delay in the trial, stemming from Fox’s airing of false claims that the […]

By Dawn Chmielewski and Lisa Richwine (Reuters) – Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said the state legislature will file a bill that aims to undo steps the Walt Disney Co took to undermine the authority of a new state-appointed oversight board, intensifying the battle between a likely presidential contender and one of the state’s largest employers. DeSantis told an Orlando radio station on Monday that the bill would “formally nullify” a […]

By Jonathan Allen (Reuters) -The Minnesota Court of Appeals on Monday upheld the conviction of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin for the murder of George Floyd during a 2020 arrest, rejecting Chauvin’s request for a new trial. The panel of three judges rejected Chauvin’s argument that the judge in his 2021 state trial made multiple errors and abused his discretion, including a decision to deny Chauvin’s request to move […]

KUWAIT (Reuters) – Kuwait’s crown prince said on Monday that the parliament reinstated based on a Constitutional Court ruling last month would be dissolved and that new legislative elections would be called in coming months, state media reported. Crown Prince Sheikh Meshal al-Ahmad al-Sabah made the remarks in an address delivered on behalf of the Gulf Arab state’s ruling emir, who has handed over most of his duties to Sheikh […]

By Stephen Culp NEW YORK (Reuters) – The solid first-quarter stock market performance helped prompt an 8.7% rise in short interest in U.S. and Canadian equities markets, according to a note from S3 Partners Research released on Friday. Short interest in U.S. and Canada markets increased by $77.9 billion, or 8.7%, to $977 billion in the first quarter of 2023, S3 Partners data showed. Short-sellers aim to profit by selling […]

(Reuters) – Regional banks in the United States on Monday reported deposit outflows between 3% and 11% from the prior quarter after customers sought the refuge of bigger banks in the aftermath of one of the worst banking crises. The closure of two regional banks in March shook investor confidence and set off fears over deposit safety after small banks shed $177.5 billion in deposits in March from the previous […]

FRANKFURT (Reuters) -The United States and the euro zone should not take the international status of their currencies for granted as countries such as China and Russia seek to create their own systems. The dollar’s 80-year-old reign as the world’s reserve currency is being called into question by some commentators in light of China’s rise as a global power, burgeoning debt at home and geopolitical challenges to Western influence from […]

By Pavel Polityuk and Pawel Florkiewicz KYIV (Reuters) -Kyiv aims to re-open food and grain transit via Poland as “a first step” to ending import bans at talks that began in Warsaw on Monday as countries halted grain from Ukraine to protect their local agriculture markets. The talks were likely to continue into Tuesday, a source close to the negotiations said in the afternoon. Poland and Hungary announced bans on […]