Author: admin@primenews

Elon Musk is facing a lawsuit from Twitter’s former top brass, who say he owes them more than $128m (£100m) in unpaid severance. The four executives, including former chief Parag Agrawal, said Mr Musk fired them as he took over Twitter, now X, “without reason, then made up fake cause” to avoid handing over the money. They said the move was part of a “larger pattern” of refusing to pay former staff what they were due. Mr Musk did not immediately comment. Mr Agrawal filed the lawsuit with former chief financial officer Ned Segal, former chief legal officer Vijaya Gadde…

Apple has been fined €1.8bn (£1.5bn) by the EU for breaking competition laws over music streaming. The firm had prevented streaming services from informing users of payment options outside the Apple app store, the European Commission said. Competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager said Apple abused its dominant position in the market for a decade. She ordered the US tech giant to remove all the restrictions. Apple has said it will appeal against the decision. The European Commission’s decision was triggered by a complaint by Swedish music streaming service Spotify, which was unhappy about the restriction and Apple’s 30% fee.. Ms Vestager…

Chelsea striker and Matildas captain Sam Kerr is set to face trial after being charged with racially aggravated harassment of a London police officer. The 30-year-old Australia international pleaded not guilty to the offence at a court hearing on Monday, the Crown Prosecution Service said. Kerr is scheduled to appear at Wimbledon Magistrates Court on 1 February 2025. It follows an alleged incident in January 2023. “The charge relates to an incident involving a police officer who was responding to a complaint involving a taxi fare on 30 January 2023 in Twickenham,” a Metropolitan Police spokesperson said. She was charged…

The US Supreme Court has temporarily blocked a severe Texas law that would allow police to arrest people suspected of crossing the border from Mexico. The law, if implemented, would be one of the toughest immigration laws passed by any US state in modern history and could upend the relationship between the state and federal governments. Rights groups and the Biden administration have sued to stop it. At the federal government’s request, the top US court put the law on hold. The law – known as SB4 – was originally due to come into force on Tuesday, and would make…

The US has imposed sanctions on Zimbabwe’s President Emmerson Mnangagwa for corruption and human rights abuses. The order also affects other senior leaders in the country – blocking their assets in the US and barring them from unofficial travel there. The new sanctions replace a broader programme that was introduced two decades ago. “We continue to witness gross abuses of political, economic, and human rights,” the White House said in a statement. “The targeting of civil society and severe restrictions on political activity have stifled fundamental freedoms, while key actors, including government leaders, have siphoned off public resources for personal…

A retired US Army colonel in Nebraska has been charged with sending classified information to a person through a foreign dating website. David Franklin Slater, 63, was employed until 2022 by US Strategic Command (Stratcom), which oversees the US nuclear missile arsenal. He was arrested on Saturday and will appear in court on Tuesday. Officials say he illegally transmitted documents that “could be used to the injury of the United States”. Charging documents published on Monday say that Mr Slater passed along information he learned from classified Stratcom briefings relating to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to a person he believed…

A UN team has concluded there are “reasonable grounds to believe” sexual violence, including rape and gang rape, was committed during the Hamas attacks in Israel on 7 October. They also said there was “convincing information” that hostages had been subjected to sexual violence. The trip was led by Pramila Patten, the UN Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict. Hamas has denied its gunmen sexually assaulted women during the attacks. “The mission team found that there are reasonable grounds to believe that conflict-related sexual violence occurred in multiple locations during the 7 October attacks,” the UN report said. These happened…

China has set an ambitious growth target of around 5% for this year, as it outlined a series of measures aimed at boosting its flagging economy. Premier Li Qiang made the announcement at the opening of the annual National People’s Congress (NPC) on Tuesday. Mr Li acknowledged that China’s economic performance had faced “difficulties”, adding that many of these had “yet to be resolved”. It comes as China struggles to reinvigorate its once-booming economy. “Risks and potential dangers in real estate, local government debt, and small and medium financial institutions were acute in some areas,” he said. “Under these circumstances,…

North Korean hackers have broken into South Korean chip equipment makers, according to South Korea’s spy agency. Pyongyang is trying to make semiconductors for its weapons programmes, the National Intelligence Service (NIS) says. It comes a month after President Yoon Suk Yeol warned North Korea may stage provocations such as cyber attacks to interfere with upcoming elections. Last year, North Korea hacked into the emails of an aide to President Yoon. “We believe that North Korea might possibly be preparing to produce its own semiconductors in the face of difficulties in procuring them due to sanctions,” the NIS said in a statement.…

Children are dying of starvation in northern Gaza, the World Health Organization (WHO) chief says. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the agency’s visits over the weekend to the Al-Awda and Kamal Adwan hospitals were the first since early October. In a post on social media, he spoke of “grim findings”. A lack of food resulted in the deaths of 10 children and “severe levels of malnutrition”, while hospital buildings have been destroyed, he wrote. The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza reported on Sunday that at least 15 children had died from malnutrition and dehydration at the Kamal Adwan hospital. A sixteenth…