(Reuters) - U.S. states are seeking a combined $26.4 billion from three major drug distributors and Johnson & Johnson to settle opioid litigation against the companies, the Wall

PARIS (Reuters) - France’s champagne makers reached a last-minute agreement on Tuesday to cut the volume of grapes they will harvest this year by more than a fifth as they try to cope with a collapse in sales caused by the coronavirus crisis.

With harvesting off to an early start after warm,

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin told German Chancellor Angela Merkel that any attempts to interfere in the domestic affairs of Belarus would be unacceptable, the Kremlin said on Tuesday.

Any such attempts would lead to an escalation of the political crisis in Belarus, Putin told Merkel in a phone call, the Kremlin said in a statement.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republicans choose a standard-bearer in their effort to snatch back a south Florida congressional district on Tuesday, as three states hold primaries that will help set the stage for elections in November to determine the balance of power in Washington.

TAIPEI/SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Taiwan-based Catcher Technology ( 2474.TW ), a supplier to Apple Inc ( AAPL.O ), has agreed to sell two units from its Lyra International division in China to Hunan-based Lens Technology Co ( 300433.SZ ) for $1.43 billion, a company filing showed.

Headquartered in Tainan, Taiwan, Catcher makes metal casings for a range of consumer electronics, including the iPhone.

Smaller iPhone assembler Wistron

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Zoom Video Communications has opened a new data center in Singapore, its first in Southeast Asia, it said on Tuesday.

Use of Zoom’s video conferencing services has surged as huge numbers of people across the world work from home because of coronavirus curbs, but the company has

WILTON, Conn. (Reuters) - For-profit nursing homes in Connecticut had significantly more COVID-19 cases and deaths than non-profit facilities, according to an independent inquiry released on Tuesday that shed new light on shortfalls in the state’s pandemic response.

GAZA (Reuters) - Gaza’s lone power plant shut down on Tuesday, less than a week after Israel suspended fuel shipments to the Palestinian enclave over the launching of incendiary balloons that have caused brush fires in southern Israel.

Gaza, run by Hamas Islamists, relies on Israel for most of its energy needs. Its population of two

MINSK (Reuters) - The nascent political opposition in Belarus set up a council inside the country on Tuesday, a move President Alexander Lukashenko denounced as an attempt to seize power 10 days after an election that has triggered mass demonstrations.

Many of Belarus’s major opposition figures are either in jail or in exile, including presidential candidate Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who fled the country after the vote her supporters say she won.

Thousands of protesters have taken to the streets, braving a crackdown by the authorities, to demand Lukashenko resign