Town Hall News

By Leah Douglas WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Rural electric cooperatives, utilities, and other energy providers will soon be able to apply for nearly $11 billion in grants and loans for clean energy projects, funded by the $430 billion Inflation Reduction Act signed into law last August, the Biden administration said on Tuesday. Expanding clean energy to rural communities is critical to meeting the administration’s goal of net-zero emissions by 2050, officials […]

By Alan Charlish and Pawel Florkiewicz WARSAW (Reuters) – Poland’s ruling nationalists are hoping a pledge to increase child benefit payments can help them deliver a third straight election victory this year, but economists warn the move could make fighting inflation harder. The ‘500+’ child benefit programme played a crucial role in the Law and Justice (PiS) party’s election victory in 2015, and despite initial criticism from the party’s political […]

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Twitter said it had filed objections to Turkish court orders requesting a ban on access to some accounts and tweets on the platform, after keeping its service available during an election weekend despite warnings from authorities in Ankara. On Saturday, a day before presidential and parliamentary votes, Twitter said it had restricted access to some content in Turkey in order to keep the platform available to users […]

By Elvira Pollina and Giuseppe Fonte MILAN (Reuters) -Australian fund Macquarie is raising legal hurdles over a plan backed by Italy’s Treasury for state lender CDP to join forces with U.S. fund KKR to buy Telecom Italia’s (TIM) landline grid, three sources said. TIM directors have set a final deadline of June 9 for potential improved offers by the U.S. private equity firm and a rival consortium comprising CDP and […]

By Tom Bateman and Akiko Okamoto HIROSHIMA, Japan (Reuters) – Standing at the front of a dimly lit room in the basement of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, Teruko Yahata’s voice broke as she recalled the morning her world changed, on August 6, 1945. “All of a sudden, the entire sky flashed and was illuminated in bluish-white, as if the heavens had become one huge, fluorescent light,” the 85-year-old, speaking […]

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) -Dutch medical devices maker Philips said on Tuesday that independent tests have shown that the use of its respiratory devices involved in a major global recall did not cause health risks for patients. Philips said “rigorous testing” by external parties on the range of DreamStation machines used to treat sleep apnoea showed positive results, confirming preliminary results released last year. “We are very pleased with these results, it […]

By Ruma Paul and Sudarshan Varadhan DHAKA (Reuters) -Bangladesh faced its worst power cuts in over seven months as a deadly storm forced the closure of both its floating liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals, less than a month after a scorching heatwave caused widespread outages in the south Asian country. Cyclone Mocha, one of the strongest storms to hit the region in years, made landfall in Myanmar, south of Bangladesh, […]

By Gleb Garanich and Sergiy Karazy KYIV (Reuters) -Ukraine said on Tuesday it had shot down six Russian hypersonic Kinzhal missiles in a single night, thwarting a superweapon Moscow had previously touted as all but unstoppable. It was the first time Ukraine had claimed to have struck an entire volley of multiple hypersonic missiles, and if confirmed would be a dramatic demonstration of the effectiveness of newly deployed Western air […]

By Gleb Garanich and Sergiy Karazy KYIV (Reuters) -Ukraine said on Tuesday it had shot down six Russian hypersonic Kinzhal missiles in a single night, thwarting a superweapon Moscow had previously touted as all but unstoppable. It was the first time Ukraine had claimed to have struck an entire volley of multiple hypersonic missiles, and if confirmed would be a dramatic demonstration of the effectiveness of newly deployed Western air […]