Town Hall News

By Carien du Plessis and Bhargav Acharya JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) -South Africa’s climate policy body on Monday suggested the government could delay retiring its ageing coal-fired power plants to address electricity shortages and said a power crisis had put the country on track to meet its climate goals anyway. The ruling African National Congress has recommended that state power utility Eskom delay the decommissioning of its ageing coal-fired power stations to […]

By Kate Abnett and America Hernandez BRUSSELS (Reuters) – France will host a meeting of ministers from 16 pro-nuclear European states on Tuesday aimed at coordinating expansion of atomic power and urging the EU to recognise its role in meeting climate goals for 2050, documents seen by Reuters showed. The meeting in Paris on Tuesday will include EU Energy Commissioner Kadri Simson and representatives from 14 EU countries including France, […]

By Julie Steenhuysen (Reuters) – The Biden administration on Monday said it intends to nominate cancer surgeon Dr. Monica Bertagnolli to lead the National Institutes of Health (NIH) following a 16-month search for a permanent successor to the agency’s long-serving director Dr. Francis Collins, who stepped down in December 2021. If confirmed by the U.S. Senate, Bertagnolli will become the second woman to lead the NIH, the largest biomedical research […]

(Reuters) – Delta Air Lines Inc is in talks with Airbus SE for a large wide-body aircraft order, Bloomberg News reported on Monday, citing people familiar with the matter. The talks cover both A350 and A330neo twin-aisle jets but an agreement isn’t assured, the report added. There has been a rebound in long-haul flying as easing of pandemic restrictions has led airlines to boost their fleet ahead of a busy […]

By Jonathan Stempel NEW YORK (Reuters) – A New York City woman sued Abbott Laboratories on Monday, accusing the healthcare company of misleading consumers into believing its PediaSure nutrition drinks were “clinically proven” to increase children’s height. In a proposed class action filed in Manhattan federal court, Joanne Noriega said she bought PediaSure Grow & Gain vanilla and strawberry drinks for her eight-year-old grandson, who was “short for his age,” […]

TUNIS (Reuters) – A Tunisian judge on Monday sentenced opposition leader Rached Ghannouchi, a fierce critic of President Kais Saied, to a year in absentia on charges of incitement, his lawyer Monia Bouali said. Ghannouchi, 81, has been in prison since last April, after police arrested him from his home on suspicion of plotting against state security. Ennahda party leader Ghannouchi decided this month to refuse to appear before the […]

By Ted Hesson WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. officials on Monday said there will be “tougher consequences” for migrants illegally crossing the Mexico border as U.S. President Joe Biden transitions away from COVID restrictions known as Title 42 that blocked many migrants from applying for asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border over the past three years. The number of migrants caught crossing the border illegally since Title 42 ended on Friday dropped […]

By Stephen Culp NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. stocks struggled for gains with tech shares putting the Nasdaq out front on Monday, and benchmark Treasury yields rose amid wavering optimism over a debt ceiling deal from Washington. None of the three major U.S. stock indexes showed much conviction due to the wind-down of first-quarter earnings season and a lack of market-moving catalysts, aside from a disappointing Empire State manufacturing report […]

By Joey Roulette WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Elon Musk’s SpaceX has tapped NASA’s former human spaceflight boss Kathy Lueders to help oversee development of the company’s moon and Mars rocket called Starship, a person familiar with the hire said on Monday. Lueders, the second former NASA human spaceflight chief to retire and move to SpaceX in recent years, represents another key hire for the company as it races to develop and […]