Town Hall News

By Patrick Wingrove and Leroy Leo (Reuters) -Moderna Inc’s chief executive on Wednesday defended the company’s plan to quadruple the price of its COVID-19 vaccine, telling a U.S. Senate committee hearing it will no longer have the economies of scale from government procurement when the shots move into the private market. Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel was called to testify after the company flagged plans to raise the vaccine’s price to […]

By Andrew MacAskill, Alistair Smout and Michael Holden LONDON (Reuters) -Boris Johnson said “hand on heart” he did not lie to parliament over rule-breaking COVID-19 lockdown parties as the former British prime minister fought for his political career at a hearing with lawmakers on Wednesday. Parliament’s Committee of Privileges is investigating whether Johnson, who was ousted from Downing Street in September, intentionally or recklessly misled the House of Commons in […]

By Andrew MacAskill, Alistair Smout and Michael Holden LONDON (Reuters) -Boris Johnson said “hand on heart” he did not lie to parliament over rule-breaking COVID-19 lockdown parties as the former British prime minister fought for his political career at a hearing with lawmakers on Wednesday. Parliament’s Committee of Privileges is investigating whether Johnson, who was ousted from Downing Street in September, intentionally or recklessly misled the House of Commons in […]

(Reuters) – Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said on Wednesday that the risk of a nuclear clash was at its highest level in decades, warning that Moscow was in a “de-facto” open conflict with Washington over the war in Ukraine. Relations between Russia and the United States, long strained, have worsened even further since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year. In February, Moscow pulled out of the New START […]

By Nelson Banya, Nyasha Chingono and Frank Phiri HARARE (Reuters) – Helplessly watching her maize turn yellow as she waited for free fertilizer from the government, Zimbabwean farmer Marian Kanenungo had nothing but makeshift compost from an anthill to help save her crop – and she had low hopes of that. Kanenungo, a smallholder farmer in Mudzi, 230 km north-west of the capital Harare, is one of many who struggled […]

By Andrew MacAskill and Alistair Smout LONDON (Reuters) -Boris Johnson said “hand on heart” he did not lie to parliament over rule-breaking COVID-19 lockdown parties as the former British prime minister fought for his political career at a hearing with lawmakers on Wednesday. Parliament’s Committee of Privileges is investigating whether Johnson, who was ousted from Downing Street in September, intentionally or recklessly misled the House of Commons in a series […]

By Isla Binnie UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – The United Nations opened its first conference on water security in almost half a century on Wednesday, with a plea to governments to better manage one of humanity’s shared resources. A quarter of the world’s population relies on unsafe drinking water while half lacks basic sanitation, the U.N. said. Meanwhile, nearly three quarters of recent disasters have been related to water. “We are […]

LONDON (Reuters) – British former prime minister Boris Johnson has accepted he misled parliament over the answers he gave about parties held in government buildings during coronavirus pandemic lockdowns, but denied having done so “intentionally or recklessly”. Here are some of his main defence for why he believes he did not mislead parliament from his oral and written evidence he gave to a committee of lawmakers investigating him. SOCIAL DISTANCING […]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Federal Trade Commission said Wednesday its staff is seeking information on cloud computing companies business practices including details on their market power, competition and potential security issues. Commission staff are seeking information about competitive dynamics of cloud computing. FTC staff are also interested in the impact of cloud computing on industries including “healthcare, finance, transportation, e-commerce, and defense.” The U.S. cloud computing business is dominated by […]