Yellen ends speech on inflation abruptly

Amherst, Massachusetts

FEDERAL Reserve chair Janet Yellen received medical attention on Thursday after coughing, pausing and struggling to finish a speech in which she said the US central bank was on track to raise interest rates this year for the first time in nearly a decade.

The 69-year-old Fed chief, who had been speaking for nearly an hour before a packed university auditorium here, appeared to lose her place in reading the last few lines of her speech on inflation. She abruptly said: "Let me stop there."