Town Hall News

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – The families of Israeli hostages and thousands of supporters marched towards Jerusalem on Friday, ramping up pressure on the government to secure their release nearly six weeks after Hamas militants abducted them and took them into Gaza. The procession left Tel Aviv three days ago and at this point stretched a few kilometres. Police blocked off parts of the main highway as the marchers began to ascend […]

By Joyce Lee SEOUL (Reuters) -Samsung Electronics chairman Jay Y. Lee denied wrongdoing on Friday after South Korean prosecutors called for him to be jailed for five years on charges of accounting fraud and stock price manipulation involving an $8 billion merger of Samsung affiliates in 2015. The hearing is the final lower court session before a ruling, scheduled for January 26, ending a trial that has lasted three years. […]

By Vitalii Hnidyii KHARKIV, Ukraine (Reuters) – Faced with the constant threat of Russian air strikes, officials in eastern Ukraine’s Kharkiv region have begun building heavily fortified underground schools that will allow children to safely return to in-person studies as Moscow’s invasion grinds on. Schools in the region of around 2.5 million people, just 20 miles (32 km) from the Russian border, were forced into online learning after Russia’s February […]

By Adam Jourdan and Horacio Soria BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) – Argentine voters are angry and afraid. Which is stronger will tip the balance of the South American country’s presidential election on Sunday and may reshape its diplomatic ties, economic future, and the wider region’s political fault lines. The country of some 45 million people will vote in the Nov. 19 run-off election between Sergio Massa, currently economy minister for the […]

By Adam Jourdan and Horacio Soria BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) – Argentine voters are angry and afraid. Which is stronger will tip the balance of the South American country’s presidential election on Sunday and may reshape its diplomatic ties, economic future, and the wider region’s political fault lines. The country of some 45 million people will vote in the Nov. 19 run-off election between Sergio Massa, currently economy minister for the […]

(Corrects number of fraud charges to six, not 20 in paragraph 2) By Camillus Eboh ABUJA (Reuters) -A Nigerian court on Friday remanded former central bank governor Godwin Emefiele in custody on charges of procurement fraud, pending a bail hearing scheduled for Wednesday. Emefiele applied for bail after pleading not guilty to six new graft charges that accused him of “conferring corrupt advantage”. Prosecutors cut the charges from a previous […]

By Jeff Mason SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden concludes a four-day diplomatic push with China as well as other Pacific nations on Friday in a final meeting with world leaders and a visit with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. Biden, who met with President Xi Jinping on Wednesday and used Thursday to highlight strong economic ties between the U.S. and the other Pacific nations, will have […]

LAS VEGAS (Reuters) – Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz will have a 10 place grid penalty at the Las Vegas Grand Prix after a loose drain cover wrecked his car and forced the cancellation of Thursday’s opening practice. Race stewards turned down the Italian team’s request for penalty-free repairs because they said they were obliged to apply the regulations as written. “The stewards note that if they had the authority to grant […]

By Maria Martinez and Andreas Rinke BERLIN (Reuters) -A German court ruling that wiped billions from the federal budget could drag down growth by as much as half a percentage point next year in Europe’s biggest economy, an economy ministry source told Reuters on Friday. The coalition is scrambling to fix a large hole in its finances after a court ruling blocked the government from transferring 60 billion euros ($65 […]