Town Hall News

By Nupur Anand, Tatiana Bautzer and Saeed Azhar NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. banking heavyweights reaped windfalls from higher interest payments in the first quarter, brushing off a sector shake-down and taking the opportunity to set aside billions of dollars in case loans turn sour as the economic outlook dims. First-quarter 2023 earnings from JPMorgan Chase & Co, Citigroup Inc and Wells Fargo & Co beat Wall Street expectations on […]

By Humeyra Pamuk, Francesco Guarascio and David Brunnstrom HANOI (Reuters) – U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Vietnam on Friday hoping for progress towards upgrading relations with a key trade partner that shares U.S. worries about China’s growing might. For Hanoi, it will be a delicate test: how to show openness to the United States without angering China, a giant neighbor that supplies key inputs for Vietnam’s vital […]

NAIROBI (Reuters) – Fifteen “radicalised” Kenyan Christians were rescued on Friday from a fast which began after they were told they were going to meet their maker, but four died during the rescue mission, police said. All 15 were members of the Good News International Church in the coastal county of Kilifi, police said. “In the process of rescuing the victims, four of them died,” police said in an incident […]

By Riham Alkousaa BERLIN (Reuters) -Germany will pull the plug on its last three nuclear power stations by Saturday, ending a six-decade programme that spawned one of Europe’s strongest protest movements but saw a brief reprieve due to the Ukraine war. The smoking towers of Isar II, Emsland and Neckarwestheim II reactors were to shut forever by midnight on Saturday as Berlin enacts its plan for fully-renewable electricity generation by […]

(Fixes typo in first paragraph) By Joice Alves LONDON (Reuters) – European banks surged on Friday, rising to a one-month high, gaining support from U.S. lenders, which reported better-than-expected results in the first quarter. The STOXX 600 index of European banks gained as much as 3% to reach its highest since mid-March after JPMorgan, Citigroup and Wells Fargo beat estimates. Banks largely outperformed the broader market, with the STOXX 600 […]

BEIJING (Reuters) – China and Brazil agreed on Friday to set up a working group to pursue cooperation on semiconductors as the South American nation strengthens ties with Beijing in areas of sensitive technology. Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva met with Chinese leader Xi Jinping and their governments signed 15 agreements or MoUs that include the building of a sixth satellite used to monitor the Amazon, and the […]

MANILA (Reuters) – The Philippines is “stoking the fire” of regional tension by offering expanded military base access to the United States, whose goal is to interfere in China’s affairs with Taiwan, Beijing’s ambassador to Manila said on Friday. The Philippines early this month identified four more bases that Washington can use under a an expanded Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA), the locations of which are significant, with three facing […]

By Kai Pfaffenbach and Manuel Ausloos NEAR BAKHMUT, Ukraine (Reuters) – Ukrainian troops have been forced to withdraw from some parts of Bakhmut in the face of a renewed Russian assault on the ruined battlefield city, Britain said on Friday, with Moscow pressing to achieve a victory before Ukraine’s expected counteroffensive. Ukrainian officials say Russia has been drawing down troops from other areas on the front for a major push […]

By Andrew Chung WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Danco Laboratories, the manufacturer of the abortion pill mifepristone, on Friday asked the U.S. Supreme Court to block limits set by lower courts on access to the drug in a challenge by anti-abortion groups. Danco filed an emergency request asking the justices to put on hold a ruling by U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk in Texas to significantly restrict the pill’s distribution while litigation […]