Town Hall News

MILAN (Reuters) – UniCredit is leaning towards repaying a perpetual bond at the earliest opportunity in June, a source close to the matter told Reuters, in a move to show it has ample capital while keeping funding costs in check as markets reel from a crisis of confidence. UniCredit in recent weeks put in a request with European Central Bank supervisors to repay a 1.25 billion euro 6.625% perpetual bond […]

(Reuters) -The U.S. health regulator on Friday proposed cancer drug developers conduct more rigorous trials to seek accelerated approval for their candidates. The Food and Drug Administration’s move follows criticism for the accelerated approval pathway, as well as an independent federal review into it after the controversial nod for Biogen Inc’s Alzheimer’s treatment Aduhelm. Accelerated approvals allow quicker nod for therapies that target serious and life-threatening conditions. The FDA proposed […]

(Reuters) – Russian forces attacked northern and southern stretches of the front in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region on Friday, pressing on with their offensive despite assertions from Kyiv that Moscow’s assault was flagging near the city of Bakhmut. WAR ZONE * Some 10,000 Ukrainian civilians, many elderly and with disabilities, are clinging on to existence in horrific circumstances in and around the besieged city of Bakhmut, the International Committee of […]

By Jan Strupczewski BRUSSELS (Reuters) – European Union leaders and the ECB sought to calm market jitters by presenting a united front on the banking sector on Friday, saying EU lenders are well capitalised and liquid thanks to lessons drawn after the 2008 Lehman Brothers collapse. “Our banking sector is resilient, with strong capital and liquidity positions,” the leaders of the 27 EU countries said in a statement at the […]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy accused President Joe Biden on Friday of not caring about the budget and debt ceiling enough to hold talks with House Republicans about their differences. “Unfortunately the President doesn’t think it’s important,” McCarthy told reporters when asked about how talks on the debt ceiling were going. The two men held one preliminary meeting in February. Biden and leading Democrats in […]

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) -Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Friday denied that parts of his country are controlled by drug cartels, responding to recent comments from U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Blinken said in a congressional hearing on Wednesday that it was “fair to say” that parts of the country were controlled by cartels instead of the government. “That is false,” Lopez Obrador said in a regular news […]

By Idrees Ali and Phil Stewart WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The United States on Friday said it would protect its personnel in Syria after the U.S. military carried out air strikes against Iran-backed forces in retaliation for an attack that killed an American contractor and wounded five U.S. troops. Just a day after the deadly attack on U.S. personnel in Syria, which Washington blamed on a drone of Iranian origin, sources said […]

(Reuters) – It’s an old saw: A credit crunch is when your bank won’t lend to you. A credit crisis is when banks won’t lend to each other. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said Wednesday Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse and the banking system upheaval it triggered “are likely to result in tighter credit conditions for households and businesses, which would in turn affect economic outcomes.” In other words: a credit […]

By Hannah Lang and Joice Alves WASHINGTON/LONDON (Reuters) – The euro and sterling fell sharply against a strengthening dollar on Friday amid nervousness over banks, with better-than expected economic data failing to lift sentiment. Banking stocks plunged in Europe with heavyweights Deutsche Bank and UBS Group pummelled by worries that the worst problems to hit the sector since the 2008 financial crisis have not yet been contained. The dollar index […]