Town Hall News

WASHINGTON (AP) — Approval of President Joe Biden has dipped slightly since a month ago, nearing the lowest point of his presidency as his administration tries to project a sense of stability while confronting a pair of bank failures and inflation that remains stubbornly high. That’s according to a new poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, which shows there have been modest fluctuations in support for […]

PODGORICA (Reuters) – Police in Montenegro have detained a person thought to be Do Kwon, an international fugitive accused of defrauding investors in a multibillion-dollar cryptocurrency scheme, the country’s interior minister said on Thursday. “The person is suspected of being one of the most wanted fugitives, South Korean national Do Kwon, a co-founder and CEO of the Singapore-based Terraform Labs,” Filip Adzic, the Montenegrin interior minister wrote on Twitter. In […]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Sales of new U.S. single-family homes increased to a six-month high in February, the latest indication that the housing market could be close to finding a floor after being hammered by higher mortgage rates. New home sales rose 1.1% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 640,000 units last month, the highest level since August, the Commerce Department said on Thursday. January’s sales pace was revised lower […]

By Laila Bassam and Aziz El Yaakoubi BEIRUT/RIYADH (Reuters) – Syria and Saudi Arabia have agreed to reopen their embassies after cutting diplomatic ties more than a decade ago, three sources with knowledge of the matter said, a step that would mark a leap forward in Damascus’s return to the Arab fold. Contacts between Riyadh and Damascus had gathered momentum following a landmark agreement to re-establish ties between Saudi Arabia […]

BEIRUT (Reuters) – The International Monetary Fund warned on Thursday that Lebanon was in a very dangerous situation a year after it committed to reforms it has failed to implement, and the IMF urged the government to halt borrowing from the central bank. IMF mission chief Ernesto Rigo told a news conference in Beirut that the authorities should accelerate the implementation of conditions set for a $3 billion bailout. “One […]

KYIV (Reuters) – Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Thursday visited the southern region of Kherson, where he made a pledge to local officials and villagers to repair damage caused by Russia’s invasion. The visit, to a region where Ukraine pushed back occupying Russian forces in a successful counteroffensive late last year, appeared intended to underline the country’s resilience 13 months after Russia’s large-scale invasion. It was Zelenskiy’s second trip outside […]

By Foo Yun Chee BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Meta Platforms on Thursday voiced its strongest criticism to date of a push by EU telecoms operators to get Big Tech to foot some network cost, saying the plan is not the solution to their financial problems and it also ignores tech companies’ hefty investments. Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Telefonica, Telecom Italia and other operators have lobbied for two decades for U.S. tech giants […]

By Laila Bassam and Aziz El Yaakoubi BEIRUT/RIYADH (Reuters) – Syria and Saudi Arabia have agreed to reopen their embassies after cutting diplomatic ties more than a decade ago, three sources with knowledge of the matter said, a step that would mark a leap forward in Damascus’s return to the Arab fold. Contacts between Riyadh and Damascus had gathered momentum following a landmark agreement to re-establish ties between Saudi Arabia […]

By Ankika Biswas and Amruta Khandekar (Reuters) – Wall Street’s main indexes climbed on Thursday as major rate-sensitive technology and growth stocks advanced after the Federal Reserve hinted it was close to pausing interest rate hikes amid turbulence in the banking sector. The U.S. central bank on Wednesday raised rates by an expected 25 basis points, but its policy statement no longer said “ongoing increases” would likely be appropriate, indicating […]