Town Hall News

By Fergal Smith (Reuters) -Canada’s main stock index rose on Wednesday to its highest closing level in nearly three weeks, helped by gains for energy and technology shares, but investors were cautious about chasing further gains until the U.S. Federal Reserve halts its rate hikes. The Toronto Stock Exchange’s S&P/TSX composite index ended up 180.12 points, or 0.9%, at 19,837.65, its fourth straight day of gains and its highest closing […]

DAR ES SALAAM (Reuters) -U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris met with Ghanaian women entrepreneurs on Wednesday to discuss economic empowerment and leadership before heading to Tanzania to continue her week-long African tour. Harris is the latest U.S. government figure to visit African countries, after Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, as Washington strives to counter-balance growing Chinese and Russian influence on the continent. Since landing in […]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The White House is preparing to release more of its promised plans to strengthen U.S. bank oversight as soon as this week after Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse of earlier this month, according to a person familiar with the preparations. President Joe Biden, a Democrat, is expected to push for rules to be reinstated for banks with between $100 billion and $250 billion that were deregulated by Congress and […]

By Maytaal Angel JERUSALEM (Reuters) -Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu voiced confidence on Wednesday that he would find compromise with the political opposition over his judicial overhaul after the contested reforms drew a strong reproach from U.S. President Joe Biden. Israel “can’t continue down this road,” Biden told reporters on Tuesday in reference to unprecedented protests that have swept the country and penetrated its military, spurring Netanyahu’s defence chief to […]

Netanyahu Says Israel-US Alliance Is ‘Unbreakable’ Despite Tension Over Judicial Overhaul President Biden made his first public remarks expressing concern over judicial reform legislation By Debbie Mohnblatt/The Media Line After a series of confrontational statements between Israeli and American politicians over the American stance on Israel’s judicial overhaul, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday that Israel needed to “ensure that the judiciary remains independent and that we balance the […]

By Jody Godoy (Reuters) – U.S. criminal charges should be dropped against two former Societe Generale SA bankers for allegedly trying to rig the London interbank offered rate, prosecutors told a New York court on Wednesday. Muriel Bescond, a former head of Societe Generale SA’s Treasury desk in Paris, and her boss Danielle Sindzingre, who was SocGen’s global head of treasury, were charged in 2017 with preparing inaccurate Libor submissions […]

Details from the rich, full lives of the three adults killed Monday at a Nashville elementary school have emerged quickly in the aftermath, but information on the three 9-year-old children — whose lives ended tragically young — has been slower to publicly surface from a community buried in grief. The children slain at The Covenant School were Hallie Scruggs, described by an aunt as “always on the go”; Evelyn Dieckhaus, […]

By Crispian Balmer VATICAN CITY (Reuters) -Pope Francis has a respiratory infection and will need to spend “a few days” in hospital for treatment, the Vatican said in a statement on Wednesday. The statement said the 86-year-old pontiff had complained of breathing difficulties in recent days. It added that tests showed he did not have COVID-19. “Pope Francis is touched by the many messages received and expresses his gratitude for […]

By Pavel Polityuk KYIV (Reuters) -The head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog visited Ukraine’s embattled Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant on Wednesday and said he was putting aside plans for a security zone around the facility so he could propose specific protection measures acceptable to both Moscow and Kyiv. Rafael Grossi, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, had been pushing for a demilitarised zone at the Russian-held power station, Europe’s largest […]