Author: admin@primenews

L’Oréal heiress Françoise Bettencourt Meyers has become the first woman to amass a $100bn (£78.5bn; €90.1bn) fortune, according to a ranking of the richest people in the world. The French beauty empire founded by her grandfather is on track for its best stock market performance in decades. L’Oréal shares rose to a record high in Paris on Thursday. The firm has seen its sales rebound after the pandemic, when people under lockdown used less makeup. The net worth of Ms Bettencourt Meyers, aged 70, crossed $100bn on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, making her the 12th richest person in the world.…

Boeing is urging airlines to inspect its 737 Max airplanes for a possible loose bolt in rudder control systems. The airplane maker called for the inspections after an international operator discovered a bolt with a missing nut, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said. An airplane’s rudder is used to control the aircraft while in flight.closely “The issue identified on the particular airplane has been remedied,” Boeing said. “Out of an abundance of caution, we are recommending operators inspect their 737 Max airplanes and inform us of any findings. We informed the FAA and our customers and will continue to keep…

Google has agreed to settle a US lawsuit claiming it invaded the privacy of users by tracking them even when they were browsing in “private mode”. The class action sought at least $5bn (£3.9bn) from the world’s go-to search engine and parent company Alphabet. Large technology firms have faced increased scrutiny of their practices in the US and beyond. Lawyers representing Google and its users did not immediately respond to the BBC’s requests for comment. US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers put a scheduled trial for the case on hold in California on Thursday, after lawyers said they had reached…

Maine’s top election official has ruled that Donald Trump cannot run for president next year in the state, citing a constitutional insurrection clause. Secretary of State Shenna Bellows said Mr Trump was not eligible because of his actions leading up to the US Capitol riot in 2021. Maine now joins Colorado as the two states to ban Mr Trump from the ballot. The decisions increase pressure on the Supreme Court to weigh in. Colorado votes reliably Democratic, however, Maine is more politically competitive and would be more significant for Mr Trump – the Republican frontrunner – to lose. The 34-page…

In India, 2023 will be remembered as the year we went to the Moon. On 23 August, massive celebrations broke out across the country when Chandrayaan-3 touched down in the lunar south pole region – an area on the Moon’s surface that no-one had reached before. With this, India also joined an elite club of countries to achieve a soft landing on the Moon, after the US, the former Soviet Union and China. In the following months, India continued its stride into space – by sending an observation mission to the Sun and then by carrying out a key test flight ahead of its planned mission…

An estimated 150,000 Palestinians are being forced to flee areas of central Gaza, the UN has said, as Israeli forces advance on refugee camps there. Witnesses and Hamas’s armed wing reported that tanks had reached the eastern outskirts of Bureij camp. Israel’s military recently expanded its ground offensive to target Bureij and nearby Nuseirat and Maghazi camps. Israeli bombardment also killed dozens of people across Gaza on Thursday, the Hamas-run health ministry said. Egypt has confirmed that it has put forward a three-stage proposal to stop the fighting which ends with a ceasefire. A Hamas delegation is said to have…

The conflict in Ukraine is about to enter its third calendar year. The front lines have hardly moved in the last few months but could the course of the war change in 2024? President Volodomyr Zelensky has admitted his country’s spring offensive has not been the success he hoped. Russia still controls about 18% of Ukraine. We asked three military analysts how they think events may unfold in the coming 12 months. War will drag on but not indefinitely Barbara Zanchetta, Department of War Studies, King’s College London The prospects for an end of the war in Ukraine remain bleak.…

A prominent pro-democracy activist has fled Hong Kong to seek asylum in the UK, breaching a supervision order. Tony Chung, 22, told the BBC he had been under constant scrutiny in Hong Kong, where police had put him under an “enormous amount of stress”. He also claimed he had felt compelled by police to become a paid informant, giving information on fellow activists. Chung was convicted of calling for Hong Kong’s secession under a tough security law. He finished his sentence in June. But upon his release, he says he was thrown into a situation that was “an even bigger…

In his 23 years with the Golden, Colorado, police department, a shorter workday — or work week — was never something Commander Marcus Williams thought about. “This was always considered something of a grind as part of the profession, one of those things you just kind of took with the job,” he said. Williams said he was shocked when he learned everyone in the department would be on the clock for just 32 hours a week beginning this past July. “You just really couldn’t envision it because you haven’t seen it before,” he said. Calls to shorten the working week…

It’s been a rollercoaster lately for Apple Watch shoppers. The newest models were yanked from Apple’s shelves in the throes of the holiday shopping season amid an ongoing patent dispute, though a last-minute court order means they’ve started going back on sale ­– for now, at least. Here’s what you might have missed about the whirlwind saga: Apple announced a surprise halt in watch sales last week On December 18, Apple said it would stop selling the latest versions of its smartwatch, Apple Watch Series 9 and Apple Watch Ultra 2, to get ahead of a patent dispute with medical device maker Masimo.…