Town Hall News

By Howard Schneider WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Federal Reserve is expected to raise interest rates by a quarter of a percentage point on Wednesday, a decision that will land amid a brewing political storm over the U.S. central bank’s oversight of collapsed Silicon Valley Bank and with the financial world hanging on the words of one man: Jerome Powell. In the second institutional crisis faced by Powell during his five-year […]

By Howard Schneider WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Federal Reserve is expected to raise interest rates by a quarter of a percentage point on Wednesday, a decision that will land amid a brewing political storm over the U.S. central bank’s oversight of collapsed Silicon Valley Bank and with the financial world hanging on the words of one man: Jerome Powell. In the second institutional crisis faced by Powell during his five-year […]

(Reuters) -Shohei Ohtani struck out Mike Trout in a showdown between two of the game’s best players to seal Japan’s 3-2 victory over the United States in a riveting World Baseball Classic (WBC) final at Miami’s LoanDepot Park on Tuesday. Baseball is the United States’ national pastime but Japan’s win over the defending WBC champions means they have won three of five editions of the global showcase. They were a […]

By Kirsty Needham SYDNEY (Reuters) -The Solomon Islands has awarded a multi-million-dollar contract to a Chinese state company to upgrade an international port in Honiara in a project funded by the Asian Development Bank, an official of the island nation said on Wednesday. The China Civil Engineering Construction Company (CCECC) was the only company to submit a bid in the competitive tender, Mike Qaqara of the infrastructure development ministry told […]

By Hyonhee Shin SEOUL (Reuters) – South Korean and U.S. forces will hold their largest-ever live-fire exercises in June in a show of force to North Korea, which has ratcheted up tension with numerous missile launches, South Korea’s defence ministry said on Wednesday. The exercises are part of a series of events marking the 70th anniversary of the alliance between the two countries this year. “We’ve planned various anniversary programmes […]

By Uditha Jayasinghe COLOMBO (Reuters) – Sri Lanka has received the first tranche of an IMF bailout programme, President Ranil Wickremesinghe told parliament on Wednesday. The crisis-ridden island nation was scheduled to receive a $330 million tranche, the first part of a nearly $3 billion bailout approved by the International Monetary Fund on Monday. “This sets the stage for Sri Lanka to have better fiscal discipline and improved governance,” Wickremesinghe […]

PESHAWAR/KABUL (Reuters) -At least 13 people were killed and more than 90 injured in Pakistan and Afghanistan after a magnitude 6.5 earthquake struck late on Tuesday, government officials said. At least nine people were killed and 44 injured in northwest Pakistan, a Pakistani government official said, and hospitals in northern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province were put into a state of emergency overnight. At least four people were killed and 50 injured […]

NEW YORK (AP) — Facing the possibility of criminal charges, Donald Trump waited it out in Florida on Tuesday as New York braced for disruptions that could follow an indictment. Republican contenders in the 2024 race sized up the impact a prosecution could have on a campaign in which the former president is a leading contender. Trump over the weekend claimed without evidence that he would be arrested on Tuesday, […]

(Reuters) – Novak Djokovic said he had no regrets about missing tournaments at Indian Wells and Miami due to his COVID-19 vaccination status but hoped that he would be allowed into the United States later this year for the U.S. Open Grand Slam. The U.S. currently bars unvaccinated foreigners from entering the country, though the policy is expected to be lifted when the government ends its COVID emergency declarations in […]