Town Hall News

By David Lawder WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States and Japan on Tuesday announced a trade deal on electric vehicle battery minerals that is key to strengthening their battery supply chains and granting Japanese automakers wider access to the new $7,500 U.S. EV tax credit. The swiftly negotiated agreement prohibits the two countries from enacting bilateral export restrictions on the minerals most critical for EV batteries, according to senior Biden […]

By Melanie Burton and Harish Sridharan MELBOURNE (Reuters) -Australia’s Liontown Resources said it had knocked back an approach from the world’s biggest lithium producer Albemarle Corp on Tuesday that valued the lithium developer at A$5.50 billion ($3.7 billion) and sent its shares rocketing 59%. Liontown controls two major lithium deposits in Western Australia, including its flagship Kathleen Valley project slated for first production in mid-2024, which is among the world’s […]

(Reuters) -The Republican chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee said on Monday he signed a subpoena to be delivered to Secretary of State Antony Blinken for documents related to the August 2021 U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. Michael McCaul has launched an investigation into the messy withdrawal from Afghanistan under Democratic President Joe Biden and events in the country since. Republicans – and some Democrats – say […]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. President Joe Biden called on Congress to pass an assault weapons ban after six people, including three children, were killed in a school shooting in Nashville, Tennessee on Monday, the White House said. “We have to do more to stop gun violence. It’s ripping our communities apart,” Biden said at the White House. “I call on Congress again to pass my assault weapons ban.” The Nashville shooter, […]

By James Mackenzie JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu paused his signature plan to overhaul Israel’s judiciary after a day of nationwide turmoil when workers joined a general strike against the proposal and hundreds of thousands of protesters took to the streets. The plans by his nationalist religious coalition to hand control over judicial appointments to the executive while giving parliament the power to overturn Supreme Court rulings has […]

By Kevin Wurm NASHVILLE, Tennessee (Reuters) -A heavily armed 28-year-old fatally shot three children and three adult staffers on Monday at a private Christian school the suspect once attended in Tennessee’s capital city before police killed the assailant, authorities said. The motive was not immediately known, but the suspect had drawn detailed maps of the school, including entry points for the building, and left behind a “manifesto” and other writings […]

By Diane Bartz WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Google parent Alphabet asked a U.S. federal judge on Monday to dismiss a Justice Department lawsuit alleging that the search giant illegally abused its dominance of online advertising. The government, which filed the ad tech lawsuit in January along with eight states, had argued that Google should be forced to sell its ad manager suite. Google has denied any wrongdoing. “In the more than three […]

ALAUSI/QUITO, Ecuador (Reuters) – A landslide triggered by heavy rains in Ecuador’s Andean region killed at least seven people, with 23 people hurt and almost 50 missing, the country’s risk agency said on Monday in a revised report on Twitter. Earlier, the agency reported that 16 people had died as a result of the landslide in the city of Alausi, in Ecuador’s Chimborazo province. It did not explain the reasons […]

By Diane Bartz WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Google parent Alphabet asked a U.S. federal judge on Monday to dismiss a Justice Department lawsuit alleging that the search giant illegally abused its dominance of online advertising. The government, which filed the ad tech lawsuit in January along with eight states, had argued that Google should be forced to sell its ad manager suite. Google has denied any wrongdoing. “In the more than three […]