Town Hall News

(Reuters) – Japan’s services sector activity grew at the fastest pace in over nine years in March, a private sector survey showed on Wednesday, suggesting that the post-COVID bounce was gathering steam and providing some offset to a still-weak factory sector. The final au Jibun Bank Japan Services purchasing managers’ index (PMI) rose to a seasonally adjusted 55.0 last month, from February’s 54.0, marking the quickest rate of expansion since […]

(Reuters) – Wisconsin voters on Tuesday elected liberal Janet Protasiewicz to the state Supreme Court, flipping control to a liberal majority ahead of rulings on an abortion ban and other matters that could play a role in the 2024 presidential election. Protasiewicz defeated conservative candidate Daniel Kelly in what New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice called the most expensive judicial election in U.S. history. More than $42.3 million had […]

By Joseph Ax and Daniel Trotta (Reuters) -Wisconsin voters on Tuesday elected liberal Janet Protasiewicz to the state Supreme Court, flipping control to a liberal majority ahead of rulings on an abortion ban and other matters that could play a role in the 2024 presidential election. Protasiewicz defeated conservative candidate Daniel Kelly in what New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice called the most expensive judicial election in U.S. history. […]

By Jamie McGeever (Reuters) – A look at the day ahead in Asian markets from Jamie McGeever. A smattering of inflation data, PMIs and an interest rate decision will grab investors’ attention in the Asian session on Wednesday, against an increasingly gloomy backdrop following the latest warning that the U.S. economy is losing steam. Annual consumer price inflation in the Philippines and Thailand is expected to slow; purchasing managers index […]

By Ankur Banerjee SINGAPORE (Reuters) – The U.S. dollar was stuck near two-month lows on Wednesday as weak economic data bolstered views that the Federal Reserve is near the end of its monetary tightening cycle. Data overnight showed U.S. job openings dropped to their lowest level in nearly two years in February, suggesting that labour market conditions were finally easing. Job openings, a measure of labour demand, were down 632,000 […]

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israeli police attacked dozens of worshipers in Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque compound before dawn on Wednesday, witnesses said, in what Israeli police said was a response to rioting. The incident sparked protests across the occupied West Bank and the Israeli military said nine rockets were fired from Gaza toward Israel after sirens blared in southern towns. Violence in the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem has surged over the […]

By Stephen Nellis (Reuters) -Alphabet Inc’s Google released on Tuesday new details about the supercomputers it uses to train its artificial intelligence models, saying the systems are both faster and more power-efficient than comparable systems from Nvidia Corp. Google has designed its own custom chip called the Tensor Processing Unit, or TPU. It uses those chips for more than 90% of the company’s work on artificial intelligence training, the process […]

By Ankur Banerjee SINGAPORE (Reuters) – The U.S. dollar was stuck near two-month lows on Wednesday as weak economic data bolstered views that the Federal Reserve is near the end of its monetary tightening cycle. Data overnight showed U.S. job openings dropped to their lowest level in nearly two years in February, suggesting that labour market conditions were finally easing. Job openings, a measure of labour demand, were down 632,000 […]

MANILA (Reuters) – Philippine annual inflation eased for a second straight month in March but still remained above target, the statistics agency said on Wednesday, reflecting slower increases in food and transport costs. The consumer price index rose 7.6% in March, below the 8.0% forecast in a Reuters poll, and marked the slowest pace of price increase in six months. But core inflation, which strips out volatile food and fuel […]