Town Hall News

By Crispian Balmer VATICAN CITY (Reuters) -Pope Francis baptised a baby and greeted children in Rome’s Gemelli hospital on Friday as he appeared to make a rapid recovery from a bout of bronchitis that caused him to be hospitalised earlier this week. Francis is expected to return home on Saturday, pending the results of his latest medical tests, and is scheduled to take part in a Palm Sunday service the […]

PARIS/DAKAR (Reuters) -Senegal has reported an outbreak of the highly pathogenic H5N1 bird flu on a poultry farm in the northwestern part of the country, the government of the West African state and the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH) said on Friday. The outbreak occurred on March 18 on a farm in the village of Potou near the town of Louga, not far from the Langue de Barbarie National […]

By Ross Kerber (Reuters) -Republican attorneys general from 21 U.S. states raised fresh concerns with asset managers over their consideration for environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors in the votes cast at U.S. corporate annual meetings getting under way this spring. The top state legal officers issued their challenge via a letter, provided by the office of Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen on Friday, that was sent to 53 of […]

By Vincent West SETIENES, Spain (Reuters) – The lush region of Asturias in northern Spain was ravaged by more than 90 wildfires on Friday, most of them believed to have been started by arsonists whom the region’s leader called “fire terrorists”. Over 600 firefighters were deployed to tackle the blazes and several towns have been evacuated as police closed off roads and highways. The Spanish government has said it is […]

ROME (Reuters) – Germany has taken in 32 of the survivors from last month’s migrant shipwreck off southern Italy, Italian and United Nations authorities said on Friday. More than 90 people died on Feb. 26 near Cutro, in the Calabria region, in one of the deadliest sea accidents in Italian territorial waters. In total, 80 people survived, Italy’s Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi told parliament on March 7. The International Organization […]

(Reuters) – President Alexander Lukashenko said on Friday that Russia, which has already decided to station tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, could if necessary put intercontinental nuclear missiles there too. In an annual address to lawmakers and government officials, Lukashenko said Moscow’s plans to station nuclear arms on the territory of its close ally would help protect Belarus, which he said was under threat from the West. “I am not […]

By Vincent West SETIENES, Spain (Reuters) – The lush region of Asturias in northern Spain was ravaged by more than 90 wildfires on Friday, most of them believed to have been started by arsonists whom the region’s leader called “fire terrorists”. Over 600 firefighters were deployed to tackle the blazes and several towns have been evacuated as police closed off roads and highways. The Spanish government has said it is […]

By Amruta Khandekar and Ankika Biswas (Reuters) – The S&P 500 was set to end its second straight quarter on a high note on Friday, as evidence of cooling inflation further supported hopes of a softer monetary policy approach from the Federal Reserve in light of recent banking sector problems. Friday caps a turbulent first quarter and month for stocks marked by shockwaves from the collapse of two regional U.S. […]

By Lisa Pauline Mattackal (Reuters) – March recorded the worst U.S. bank failures since the 2008 crisis, but that did not stop some investors from snapping up battered financial stocks to bolster their bets on the sector’s long-term health, fund-flow data showed. Exchange-traded funds tracking U.S. regional banks saw their strongest net inflows in months, with the SPDR S&P Regional Banking ETF receiving $1.25 billion in the month to March […]