Town Hall News

By Angelo Amante ROME (Reuters) – Italy’s government on Tuesday was set to approve a bill banning the use of laboratory-produced meat in food and animal feed as it aims to safeguard the country’s “agri-food heritage”, a draft seen by Reuters said. The draft law bill, still subject to approval at a cabinet meeting scheduled for 5 p.m. (1500 GMT), forbids Italian industry from producing food or feed “from cell […]

(Reuters) – Bulgarian prosecutors are launching a terrorism investigation after dozens of schools across the country received hoax bomb threats, local news agency BTA reported on Tuesday. Hoax bomb threats contained in near-identical emails have been received at schools in Pleven, Sliven, Varna, Burgas and Sofia. Interior Ministry Chief Secretary Petar Todorov put the total number received since Monday at 102, according to BTA. Todorov said there was no real […]

(Reuters) -A Russian who was investigated by police after his daughter drew an anti-war picture at school was sentenced on Tuesday to two years in a penal colony on charges of discrediting the armed forces, the OVD-Info rights group said. But a court spokesperson said the man, Alexei Moskalyov, had escaped house arrest overnight. His whereabouts were not known. “The accused, Mr Moskalyov, was not present for the sentencing because […]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -President Joe Biden plans to host Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington in the coming months, the New York Times reported on Tuesday, citing U.S. Ambassador to Israel Thomas Nides. Nides, in a separate interview with the Times of Israel, said no date has been set, adding: “They will see each other personally, I’m sure, quite soon. Without question, he’ll be coming to the White House as […]

By Jane Lanhee Lee OAKLAND, California (Reuters) – Artificial intelligence chip startup Cerebras Systems on Tuesday said it released open source ChatGPT-like models for the research and business community to use for free in an effort to foster more collaboration. Silicon Valley-based Cerebras released seven models all trained on its AI supercomputer called Andromeda, including smaller 111 million parameter language models to a larger 13 billion parameter model. “There is […]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -President Joe Biden plans to host Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington in the coming months, the New York Times reported on Tuesday, citing U.S. Ambassador to Israel Thomas Nides. Nides, in a separate interview with the Times of Israel, said no date has been set, adding: “They will see each other personally, I’m sure, quite soon. Without question, he’ll be coming to the White House as […]

By Nicoco Chan NANJING, China (Reuters) – People on both sides of the Taiwan Strait are ethnically Chinese and share the same ancestor, former Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou said on Tuesday at the start of a historic visit to China that Taiwan’s ruling party has criticised. Ma, in office from 2008-2016, is the first former or current Taiwanese president to visit China since the defeated Republic of China government fled […]

(Reuters) -A Russian who was investigated by police after his daughter drew an anti-war picture at school was sentenced on Tuesday to two years in a penal colony on charges of discrediting the armed forces, the OVD-Info rights group said. But a court spokesperson said the man, Alexei Moskalyov, had escaped house arrest overnight. His whereabouts were not known. “The accused, Mr Moskalyov, was not present for the sentencing because […]

BEIJING (Reuters) – Chinese electric vehicle giant BYD Co Ltd reported an 11-fold increase in fourth-quarter profit as it extended its lead in the domestic market with a wide range of products.    Net profit for October-December came in at 7.3 billion yuan ($) versus 602 million yuan a year earlier.    For the whole of 2022, net profit increased 446% to 16.6 billion yuan, said the company, which is 12% owned […]