Town Hall News

By Foo Yun Chee LUXEMBOURG (Reuters) -EU competition regulators appealed to the bloc’s highest court on Tuesday to override a lower tribunal and make Apple pay a record 13 billion euros ($14.3 billion) in Irish back taxes. The case, which has far-reaching implications for corporate tax bills, is the most high-profile of EU antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager’s campaign against sweetheart deals between multinationals and European Union states. “Its outcome will […]

By Mohamed Nureldin and Khalid Abdelaziz KHARTOUM (Reuters) -Artillery fire could be heard in parts of Khartoum and warplanes flew overhead on Tuesday, residents said, raising fears that intense fighting would erupt and shatter Sudanese hopes raised by an internationally-monitored ceasefire. Some other residents reported relative calm early on Tuesday, the first full day of a truce that is being tracked by Saudi Arabia and the United States and is […]

(Reuters) -Lordstown Motors Corp said on Tuesday it will carry out a reverse stock split to meet the Nasdaq listing norms and to appease investor Foxconn, which had threatened to scrap a crucial $170 million funding. The 1:15 split will happen on May 24, the electric vehicle startup said, but added there was no assurance that the Foxconn deal will close. Lordstown Motors shares fell 10% in premarket trading to […]

By Federico Maccioni MILAN (Reuters) – A photograph of a woman, wearing a white chador with an ornate pattern and standing in front of a hanging Persian rug, is perhaps the most striking image of a new exhibition in Milan that aims to shed light on women’s lives in today’s Iran. The woman is photographed from behind and the pattern of her chador, which completely covers her, seems to intertwine […]

TOKYO (Reuters) -S&P Global Ratings cut SoftBank Group Corp’s long-term rating deeper into junk territory on Tuesday, leading the Japanese tech investment conglomerate to push back against the downgrade. S&P lowered SoftBank’s rating to BB from BB-plus, citing SoftBank’s exposure to unlisted companies that are susceptible to changes in the external environment. SoftBank has sold down assets including its stake in Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd to stabilise its […]

By Zhifan Liu PARIS (Reuters) – France will deploy 35,000 security agents and the military to secure the 2024 Olympic Games opening ceremony, a river parade through the heart of Paris, from security threats including drone strikes, the interior minister said. Hundreds of thousands of spectators are expected to line the Seine river along the 6km route to watch the national delegations sail in a flotilla of boats from the […]

By Stephen Nellis (Reuters) – Adobe Inc on Tuesday said it is adding artificial intelligence (AI) technology for generating imagery into Photoshop, its flagship software for editing images. The San Jose, California-based company said it was the start of a major push to add such AI technologies to its suite of programs aimed at creative professionals. While programs such as OpenAI’s Dall-E have captured the public imagination by transforming text […]

SILVES, Portugal (Reuters) – Portuguese authorities assisted by German police on Tuesday began searching a reservoir near the area where British girl Madeleine McCann disappeared in 2007 when she was three years old. The first development for several years in the unsolved case in Portugal followed last year’s move by German prosecutors, who formally identified German man Christian Brueckner as an official suspect in McCann’s disappearance. A Reuters witness said […]

By Stephen Nellis (Reuters) – Adobe Inc on Tuesday said it is adding artificial intelligence (AI) technology for generating imagery into Photoshop, its flagship software for editing images. The San Jose, California-based company said it was the start of a major push to add such AI technologies to its suite of programs aimed at creative professionals. While programs such as OpenAI’s Dall-E have captured the public imagination by transforming text […]