Town Hall News

By Ahmed Aboulenein WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A federal judge’s decision last week to suspend the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) approval of abortion pill mifepristone could severely weaken the agency if allowed to stand, health policy and legal experts said. U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk’s ruling on Friday, which followed a March 15 hearing, was a preliminary injunction that would essentially ban sales of mifepristone while the case by […]

By Leika Kihara and Tetsushi Kajimoto TOKYO (Reuters) -Japan’s new central bank governor Kazuo Ueda said on Monday he will communicate closely with the government and guide monetary policy flexibly, warning of high uncertainty over the economic outlook. Ueda faces a bumpy road as slowing global growth clouds prospects for a sustained pickup in inflation and wages, a prerequisite for phasing out his predecessor’s controversial monetary stimulus. “Given high economic […]

By Nandita Bose WASHINGTON (Reuters) – “Biden nominee Julie Su wants to turn the lights off” reads a billboard in West Virginia; another in Montana warns that Su, U.S. President Joe Biden’s nominee for labor secretary, will turn the state into California; in Arizona, the message is, “Su’s gig could be destroying your gig.” In addition to these, newspaper and digital advertisements will start appearing with more frequency in these […]

TOKYO (Reuters) -Senior Japanese and Chinese officials met on Monday to discuss maritime concerns in disputed waters in the East China Sea as Beijing conducted wargames around Taiwan. Part of a regular round of talks that began in 2012, the meeting comes as Chinese warplanes and warships simulated strikes against Taiwan after President Tsai Ing-wen visited the United States and met U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. Ahead of the talks, […]

By Fergal Smith TORONTO (Reuters) -The Bank of Canada is expected to take in stride surprising recent economic strength and leave interest rates unchanged at its meeting on Wednesday, pinning its hopes on activity cooling as higher borrowing costs sink in, analysts said. Last month, the Bank of Canada became the first major global central bank to pause its rate-hiking campaign, after lifting its benchmark rate to a 15-year high […]

NEW DELHI (Reuters) – Trade talks between India and Britain have not been suspended and will continue this year, three officials said on Monday, responding to a British newspaper report that said India had “disengaged” from the talks after London failed to condemn Sikh separatists. An official in India’s foreign ministry said progress in the trade talks and New Delhi’s concerns around Sikh separatist activities in Britain should not be […]

By Ben Blanchard and Yimou Lee TAIPEI (Reuters) -China’s military carried out aerial and naval blockade drills around Taiwan on Monday, its last scheduled day of exercises, with a Chinese aircraft carrier joining in combat patrols as Taipei reported another surge of warplanes near the island. China announced the three days of drills on Saturday, after Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen returned to Taipei following a meeting in Los Angeles with […]

(Reuters) – A U.S. court ordered a two-week pause on the extradition of Peru’s former President Alejandro Toledo, wanted in his home country on charges of taking millions of dollars in bribes as part of a continent-spanning corruption case. The U.S. court of appeals based in San Francisco gave Toledo the 14-day reprieve in an order issued late Thursday, a day after a lower court and a panel of appellate […]

By Saeed Azhar and Mehnaz Yasmin NEW YORK (Reuters) – Most Wall Street banks are likely to report lower quarterly earnings and face a dour outlook for the rest of the year, with last month’s regional banking crisis and a slowing economy expected to hurt profitability. Earnings per share for the six biggest U.S. banks are expected to be down about 10% from a year earlier, analyst estimates from Refinitiv […]