Town Hall News

By Steve Holland and Amanda Ferguson BELFAST (Reuters) -U.S. President Joe Biden will mark the 25th anniversary of Northern Ireland’s 1998 peace deal in Belfast on Wednesday and highlight his “strong desire” to increase U.S. investment there in meetings with political leaders, a senior U.S. official said. Biden, who is fiercely proud of his Irish heritage, will spend just over half a day in the UK region – including a […]

By Andrea Shalal WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Public debt is higher and growing faster than projected before the COVID-19 pandemic, driven mainly by the United States and China, the world’s two largest economies, the International Monetary Fund’s top fiscal expert said on Wednesday. Sixty percent of countries are projected to see their public debt to gross domestic product (GDP) ratios decline through 2028 after COVID-related surges, but a significant number of […]

BENGALURU (Reuters) -Tata Consultancy Services Ltd on Wednesday reported a bigger-than-expected rise in fourth-quarter profit as India’s top IT exporter saw firm demand for digital services despite a challenging macroeconomic backdrop. The company’s net profit rose 14.8% to 113.92 billion rupees ($1.39 billion) in the three months ended March 31, from 99.26 billion rupees a year earlier. Analysts on average had expected a profit of 110.13 billion rupees, according to […]

By Jonathan Stempel (Reuters) – Abortion opponents on Tuesday urged a U.S. appeals court to allow the suspension of Food and Drug Administration’s approval of the abortion pill mifepristone, in a case with potentially far-reaching impact on how the government regulates medicine. In a filing with the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans, lawyers for groups and doctors who oppose abortion and challenged the FDA’s more than […]

(Reuters) – Warren Buffett on Wednesday said people should not be panicked about the banking industry or the safety of U.S. bank deposits, despite the recent failures of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank. Speaking on CNBC television, the billionaire chairman of Berkshire Hathaway Inc said recent banking problems do not resemble the problems that helped trigger the 2008 global financial crisis. Buffett said some banks have “mismanaged” their assets […]

BENGALURU (Reuters) – Tata Consultancy Services Ltd on Wednesday reported a bigger-than-expected rise in fourth-quarter profit as India’s top IT exporter saw firm demand for digital services despite a challenging macroeconomic backdrop. The company’s net profit rose to 113.92 billion Indian rupees ($1.39 billion) in the three months ended March 31, from 99.26 billion rupees a year earlier. Analysts on average had expected a profit of 110.13 billion rupees, according […]

MANILA (Reuters) – The Philippines will pursue its appeal questioning the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) jurisdiction and authority to investigate killings during former President Rodrigo Duterte’s ‘war on drugs’, its top lawyer said on Wednesday. The remarks come after President Ferdinand Marcos Jr said last month he would cut off contact with the ICC after it rejected the government’s request to suspend a probe into thousands of killings during the […]

By Steve Holland BELFAST (Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden is not anti-British and his pride in his Irish roots does not preclude him from playing a supportive role in Northern Ireland’s peace process, a White House official said on Wednesday. Biden, who is fiercely proud of his Irish heritage, arrived in Belfast late on Tuesday and will spend just over half a day in the province of the United […]

By Jonathan Allen (Reuters) – Local officials will meet in Memphis, Tennessee, on Wednesday to decide whether to return the second of two Democratic state lawmakers who were expelled last week for protesting gun violence on the chamber floor. In a rare rebuke, Republicans who control the state House of Representatives voted to kick out Justin Jones and Justin Pearson, two Black men who had recently joined the legislature, over […]