Town Hall News

BEIJING (Reuters) -The death rate in China’s capital Beijing surpassed its birth rate in 2022, official data showed on Tuesday, pushing its natural population growth into negative territory for the first time since 2003. The death rate in the city of 21.84 million, one of the country’s most populous urban centres, rose to 5.72 deaths per 1,000 people, while the birth rate fell to 5.67 births per 1,000 people, official […]

HONG KONG (Reuters) – Asian lenders may find it difficult to replenish their capital by issuing Additional Tier-1 (AT1) bonds, Citigroup said in a research note on Wednesday, after the Swiss authorities’ move to wipe out Credit Suisse bonds as part of its takeover deal. The challenge will be particularly acute for a large number of smaller banks in Asia more reliant on AT1s compared with Western peers due to […]

By David Shepardson WASHINGTON (Reuters) -A group of seven U.S. senators on Tuesday proposed legislation to raise the mandatory commercial pilot retirement age to 67 from 65, in a bid to address airline industry staffing issues. The legislation first proposed last year by Senator Lindsey Graham and other Republicans now includes Democrats Joe Manchin and Mark Kelly, a former Navy pilot and astronaut. The proposal, which would require pilots over […]

(Reuters) – Fintech firm Latitude Group Holdings said on Wednesday it has found further evidence of large-scale information theft affecting former and current customers across Australia and New Zealand, sending its shares sharply lower. The Australian digital payments and lending firm said it was attempting to identify the number of customers affected and the type of personal information stolen by the hacker. “Our focus remains firmly on containing this attack, […]

(A) By Daniel Wiessner (Reuters) – A U.S. appeals court on Tuesday seemed unlikely to revive a proposed class action lawsuit accusing the National Football League of allowing teams to over-prescribe painkillers to players so they could stay on the field while injured. Judges on a 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel in Pasadena, California, repeatedly pressed a lawyer for the eight retired players who filed the lawsuit on […]

By Karen Freifeld and Luc Cohen NEW YORK (Reuters) -Workers erected barricades around a Manhattan courthouse on Monday as New York City braced for a possible indictment of Donald Trump over an alleged hush-money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels during his 2016 campaign. It would be the first-ever criminal case against any U.S. president. On Saturday, Trump urged followers on social media to protest what he said was his […]

LONDON (Reuters) – A public inquiry into allegations that members of British special forces carried out dozens of extra-judicial killings during night raids in Afghanistan gets underway in London on Wednesday. Britain’s defence ministry ordered the inquiry after a BBC TV documentary last year reported that soldiers from the elite Special Air Service (SAS) had killed 54 people in suspicious circumstances. It also came after two families, who accuse the […]

KAMPALA (Reuters) – Uganda’s parliament on Tuesday passed a law that criminalises identifying as LGBTQ, handing authorities broad powers to target Ugandans who already face legal discrimination and mob violence. More than 30 African countries, including Uganda, already ban same-sex relations. The new law appears to be the first to outlaw merely identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ), according to rights group Human Rights Watch. Supporters of […]

(A) By Daniel Wiessner (Reuters) – A U.S. appeals court on Tuesday seemed unlikely to revive a proposed class action lawsuit accusing the National Football League of allowing teams to over-prescribe painkillers to players so they could stay on the field while injured. Judges on a 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel in Pasadena, California, repeatedly pressed a lawyer for the eight retired players who filed the lawsuit on […]