Town Hall News

By Jeffrey Dastin (Reuters) – Amazon.com Inc’s palm-scanning or cashier-less checkout technology is in more than 200 establishments in and outside the company, a vice president told Reuters. The e-commerce and cloud-computing giant is widening deployment of its contactless technology with existing customers, Vice President Dilip Kumar said in an interview. Amazon declined to provide growth figures, but in June 2022 the company said more than 69 locations in the […]

By John Revill and Julie Zhu ZURICH/HONG KONG (Reuters) -Swiss agrichemicals and seeds group Syngenta’s $9.5 billion flotation has moved a step closer after the Shanghai Stock Exchange said it would review the plan next week. Syngenta, which competes with U.S. company Corteva and Germany’s BASF and Bayer, was bought in 2017 for $43 billion by ChemChina, which was folded into Sinochem Holdings Corp in 2021. The parent company plans […]

By Alexandra Alper and David Shepardson WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Biden administration is under pressure to ban popular Chinese-owned social media app TikTok, but any such move likely hinges on passage of a new law that bolsters the government’s authority to regulate speech, experts said. Pressure is mounting from lawmakers and national security hawks to ban TikTok, which is owned by China’s ByteDance, over fears the app could censure content, […]

(Reuters) – Last week’s banking sector turmoil had at least one silver lining for U.S. home buyers: lower mortgage interest rates. Interest rates on the most popular U.S. home loan tumbled by the most in four months last week after the failure of Silicon Valley Bank and emergency measures taken to shore up the wider banking system drove a mad dash by investors to the safety of government bonds, the […]

By Yoruk Bahceli and Akriti Sharma (Reuters) -UBS Group said on Wednesday it would buy back 2.75 billion euros ($2.96 billion) worth of debt it sold just days ago, seeking to boost confidence among investors rattled by its $3 billion rescue of rival Credit Suisse at the weekend. The bonds in question are senior unsecured bail-in notes that were sold on March 9: a 1.5 billion-euro 4.625% fixed-rate note due […]

By Rowena Edwards LONDON (Reuters) -Oil prices edged lower on Wednesday following fresh indications of weak demand, and as the market awaited a crucial interest rate decision by the U.S. Federal Reserve. Brent crude futures , which have risen by almost 3% this week, were down 30 cents, or 0.40%, at $75.02 a barrel at 1026 GMT. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures were down 29 cents, or 0.42%, […]

By Karen Freifeld NEW YORK (Reuters) – – A New York grand jury is expected on Wednesday to resume its closed-door investigation of whether Donald Trump made illegal hush-money payments to a porn star, which could yield first-ever criminal charges against any U.S. president. The panel has been meeting regularly on Mondays and Wednesdays to consider evidence in one of the many legal probes swirling around the former president as […]

By Jarrett Renshaw SCRANTON, Pennsylvania (Reuters) – In Joe Biden’s childhood hometown of Scranton, signs of affection for the U.S. president are hard to miss. Two streets and an expressway into the city bear his name, and personal letters from Biden that invoke the “Scranton values” of hard work and common decency that he frequently flags are proudly displayed in living rooms and offices of some supporters. Two residents told […]

By John Kruzel and Andrew Chung WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday is set to hear a trademark clash between Jack Daniel’s and a dog accessory company behind a parody chew toy resembling the distiller’s widely recognized black-label whiskey bottle.  The dispute pits the whiskey brand’s trademark rights against legal protections for creative expression – in this case a send-up by Phoenix-based VIP Products LLC of Jack […]