Town Hall News

By Jan Lopatka and Jason Hovet BRATISLAVA (Reuters) – Slovakia’s leftist former Prime Minister Robert Fico beat his progressive rival in a parliamentary election after campaigning to end military aid to Ukraine, but he will need to win over allies to form the next government, nearly complete results showed on Sunday. With 98% of voting districts reporting in the Saturday election, Fico’s SMER-SSD party led with 23.37% of the vote. […]

By Jan Lopatka BRATISLAVA (Reuters) – Robert Fico, who won Slovakia’s parliamentary election on Saturday by appealing to anti-western and pro-Russian sentiment, may lead the European Union nation for the fourth time after once again shifting political gears to appeal to a changing electorate. During a three-decade career, Fico, 59, has skilfully weaved between pro-European mainstream and nationalistic anti-Brussels and anti-American positions while showing a willingness to change course depending […]

(Reuters) – California Governor Gavin Newsom on Saturday vetoed a bill that would have paid unemployment benefits to striking workers, and had drawn strong support from labor unions and from his fellow Democrats in the state legislature. In rejecting the bill, Newsom noted that the state’s unemployment trust fund is already nearing $20 billion in debt. “Now is not the time to increase costs or incur this sizable debt,” he […]

SYDNEY (Reuters) -New Zealand Prime Minister Chris Hipkins has tested positive for COVID-19 and will work remotely while isolating, his office said on Sunday, just two weeks before a general election in which his Labour party is struggling. The positive test will temporarily sideline Hipkins in the campaign for the Oct. 14 election. Labour has been sliding in the opinion polls, with the centre-right National party leading by 31.9% to […]

SYDNEY (Reuters) -New Zealand Prime Minister Chris Hipkins has tested positive for COVID-19 and will work remotely while isolating, his office said on Sunday, just two weeks before a general election in which his Labour party is struggling. The positive test will temporarily sideline Hipkins in the campaign for the Oct. 14 election. Labour has been sliding in the opinion polls, with the centre-right National party leading by 31.9% to […]

BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s lottery ticket sales in August soared to their highest for any month so far this year, amid public concern about the economy following months of mostly gloomy data including youth unemployment. Nationwide lottery ticket sales jumped 53.6% in August from a year earlier to 52.96 billion yuan ($7.25 billion), the official Xinhua news agency reported on Saturday, citing data from the finance ministry. From January to […]

(Corrects to remove extraneous “a” from paragraph 7) BEIJING (Reuters) -China’s lottery ticket sales in August soared to their highest for any month so far this year, amid public concern about the economy following months of mostly gloomy data including youth unemployment. Nationwide lottery ticket sales jumped 53.6% in August from a year earlier to 52.96 billion yuan ($7.25 billion), the official Xinhua news agency reported on Saturday, citing data […]

By David Morgan, Moira Warburton and Makini Brice WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. Congress passed a stopgap funding bill late on Saturday with overwhelming Democratic support after Republican Speaker Kevin McCarthy backed down from an earlier demand by his party’s hardliners for a partisan bill. The Democratic-majority Senate voted 88-9 to pass the measure to avoid the federal government’s fourth partial shutdown in a decade, sending it to President Joe Biden […]

By Jan Lopatka BRATISLAVA (Reuters) – Slovakia’s leftist former Prime Minister Robert Fico was on course to beat his progressive rival in a parliamentary election after a campaign in which he pledged to end military aid to Ukraine, partial results showed on Sunday. With 90% of voting districts reporting in the Saturday election, Fico’s SMER-SSD party led with 23.69% of the vote. The liberal Progressive Slovakia (PS) followed with 15.68% […]