Town Hall News

By Wendell Roelf CAPE TOWN (Reuters) – Senior officials from over a dozen countries including Saudi Arabia and Iran were in talks on closer links with the BRICS bloc of major emerging economies on Friday as it met to deepen ties and position itself as a counterweight to the West. BRICS, which now consists of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, is considering expanding its membership, and a growing […]

By Aditya Kalra and Munsif Vengattil NEW DELHI (Reuters) – Streaming giants Netflix, Amazon and Disney on Friday privately discussed a possible legal challenge and other ways to stall India’s new tobacco warning rules, amid fears they will need to edit millions of hours of existing web content, sources said. The pushback is the latest headache for streaming giants in India, a top growth market. Companies often face legal cases […]

(Reuters) – A group of pro-Ukrainian forces said on Friday they were fighting Russian troops on the outskirts of a village just inside Russia’s western border, a day after Moscow said it had repelled three cross-border attacks. The attacks follow a major incursion into Russia’s western Belgorod region on May 22-23 and an increase in cross-border shelling in recent weeks as Ukraine prepares to launch a big push to recapture […]

(Reuters) – General Motors Co and South Korea’s POSCO Future M said on Friday they will invest more to boost production at their chemical battery materials facility in Canada, taking their estimated total investment in the plant to over $1 billion. The companies said the new investment includes an additional CAM and a precursor facility for local on-site processing of critical minerals. The development comes a few days after the […]

By Katie Paul NEW YORK (Reuters) – Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Thursday revealed the company’s next generation mixed reality headset, the Quest 3, as the company braces for Apple to potentially reshape a nascent market that Meta has dominated so far. Priced starting at $499, the device will be 40% thinner than the company’s previous headset and feature color mixed reality, which combines augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR) […]

MADRID (Reuters) – An investigation by the Spanish Catholic Church into child sexual abuse by members of the clergy and non-clerical staff has so far identified 728 alleged abusers and 927 victims since the 1940s, according to its first report. “We acknowledge the harm caused,” said Jose Gabriel Vera, the spokesman for the Spanish Bishops’ Conference. “We want to help all victims…to accompany them in their healing.” The issue came […]

BEIJING (Reuters) – China will extend and optimise a purchase tax exception on new-energy vehicles (NEVs) and study policies to promote NEV development, state media reported on Friday, citing discussions at a cabinet meeting. Separately, the meeting pointed out that the foundation of China’s economic recovery is not yet solid, CCTV reported. (Reporting by Beijing newsroom; editing by Jason Neely) Brought to you by www.srnnews.com

By Daniel Wiessner (Reuters) – The Gap Inc on Thursday beat a shareholder lawsuit claiming the company’s directors breached their duties by making misleading statements in securities filings about the retailer’s commitment to racial diversity in its leadership ranks. An en banc panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in a 6-5 ruling said The Gap can enforce a corporate bylaw requiring shareholder derivative litigation to be filed […]

(Reuters) – A group of pro-Ukrainian forces said on Friday they were fighting Russian troops on the outskirts of a village just inside Russia’s western border, a day after Moscow said it had repelled three cross-border attacks. The attacks follow a major incursion into Russia’s western Belgorod region on May 22-23 and an increase in cross-border shelling in recent weeks as Ukraine prepares to launch a big push to recapture […]