Town Hall News

SKOPJE (Reuters) – The European Union’s border agency, Frontex, started deploying guards at North Macedonia’s southern border with Greece on Thursday in a joint operation with Skopje to control and prevent illegal migration and cross-border crime. Under an agreement signed last October, Frontex will deploy more than 100 guards at the border, Frontex officials said. The agreement is valid until Jan. 24 2024 but may be extended. North Macedonia is […]

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Much like the Russian government, the Bolshoi Theatre, home to two of the world’s greatest opera and ballet companies, is being shunned by the West over Moscow’s military campaign in Ukraine and looking east to China instead. The Bolshoi’s director, Vladimir Urin, told a news conference in Moscow to announce its 2023/24 programme that he was saddened by the loss of what had been regular creative cooperation […]

By Shadia Nasralla LONDON (Reuters) -Oil prices fell to their lowest level in about three weeks on Thursday, as a firmer dollar and rate hike expectations outweighed lower U.S. crude stocks. Brent crude futures were down $1.65, or 2%, to trade at $81.47 a barrel at 1342 GMT. West Texas Intermediate crude (WTI) futures dropped $1.61, or 2%, to $77.55 a barrel. Both benchmarks, after a 2% fall on Wednesday, […]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. existing home sales fell in March as a reversal in mortgage rates likely pushed buyers back to the sidelines, but there are tentative signs that the housing market slump is close to reaching a bottom. Existing home sales dropped 2.4% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.44 million units last month, the National Association of Realtors said on Thursday. They had increased in February for […]

BRASILIA (Reuters) -Brazil’s Institutional Relations Minister Alexandre Padilha said on Thursday the government will support a congressional inquiry into the Jan. 8 anti-democratic riots, in which supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro stormed government buildings. That represents a change of stance by President Luiz Inacio Lula da Siva’s administration, which so far had been opposing the inquiry to avoid shifting political focus away from its economic measures. Padilha told reporters […]

By Joe Skipper and Steve Gorman BOCA CHICA, Texas (Reuters) -Elon Musk’s SpaceX on Thursday successfully launched its next-generation Starship cruise vessel for the first time atop the company’s powerful new Super Heavy rocket in an uncrewed test flight that ended minutes later with the vehicle exploding in the sky.     The two-stage rocketship, standing taller than the Statue of Liberty at 394 feet (120 m) high, blasted off from […]

By Emilio Parodi and Mimosa Spencer MILAN/PARIS (Reuters) -Europe’s flourishing luxury goods industry was under scrutiny on Thursday after European Union antitrust regulators inspected Gucci’s Milan headquarters this week as part of an investigation spanning several countries and companies. The European Commission said on Tuesday that antitrust regulators had raided companies in the fashion sector in multiple EU countries, but did not name the companies involved or specify the potential […]

By Joe Skipper and Steve Gorman BOCA CHICA, Texas (Reuters) -Elon Musk’s SpaceX on Thursday successfully launched its next-generation Starship cruise vessel for the first time atop the company’s powerful new Super Heavy rocket in an uncrewed test flight that ended minutes later with the vehicle exploding in the sky.     The two-stage rocketship, standing taller than the Statue of Liberty at 394 feet (120 m) high, blasted off from […]

By Aditya Soni and Akash Sriram (Reuters) -A recent pullback in commodity prices will aid Tesla Inc’s bruised margins only in the second half of the year, signalling more near-term pain for the electric-car maker which has been cutting prices to prop up sales. Chief Financial Officer Zachary Kirkhorn said on Wednesday that battery material prices have been a big drag for the past two years and Tesla was “still […]