Author: admin@primenews

Popular Taiwanese rock band Mayday is being investigated by Chinese authorities over allegations of lip-synching during recent concerts, an accusation the band’s label has denied in a controversy that has dominated Chinese social media since the weekend. The accusations centered on Mayday’s recent shows in Shanghai, where it performed eight times over 10 days in mid-November, to a combined audience of more than 360,000 fans. The band, which has been going for more than two decades and is sometimes dubbed the “Asian Beatles,” boasts a huge fan base in China, where its shows often sell out quickly. The Shanghai Culture and Tourism…

George Santos, the Republican congressman expelled last week by the US House of Representatives, is now selling videos on the Cameo website. Mr Santos, who labels himself a “former congressional ‘Icon'” on the platform, is selling personalised messages recorded by him for $200 (£159) each. On Friday, he became the sixth lawmaker in history to be kicked out of the House. It came after a damning House ethics report accused him of fraud and lies. Among its many allegations, the panel accused him of spending campaign money on Botox treatments, credit card debt and OnlyFans – a platform where users pay for…

Swedish music-streaming giant Spotify has announced it is cutting 17% of its workforce, about 1,500 jobs, as the company seeks to clamp down on costs. Chief executive Daniel Ek said he had made the “difficult” decision with economic growth slowing “dramatically”. Spotify employs about 9,000 people, and Mr Ek said “substantial action to rightsize our costs” was needed for the company to meet its objectives. He added he understood the cuts would be “incredibly painful for our team”. “I recognize this will impact a number of individuals who have made valuable contributions”, Mr Ek said. “To be blunt, many smart, talented and…

The number of delegates at this year’s UN climate talks who are also linked to fossil fuel producers has quadrupled since last year, campaigners say. Around 2,400 people connected to the coal, oil and gas industries have been registered for the COP28 climate talks. This record number is more than the total attendees from the 10 countries most vulnerable to climate change. The jump is partly due to registration changes with attendees now required to be open about their employment. The analysis was carried out by a coalition of green groups opposed to the presence of delegates linked to coal, oil and…

Fourteen people have died in Thailand after a double-decker bus veered off the road and smashed into a tree. Photos online show the bus leaning on its side and its front split in half, with parts of the tree wedged in it. Thirty-two others were injured following the crash in Prachuap Khiri Khan, a coastal province in the country’s south. Thailand has one of the world’s highest road accident rates, leading to thousands of deaths every year. Many attribute this to poor safety standards on the country’s busy roads. In 2022 alone, 15,000 people lost their lives on Thailand’s roads,…

Daily-wage labourer Asif Maseeh wakes up each day wondering how he will feed his family of seven. “We just pray to God that we’ll find a way to eat tomorrow,” Mr Maseeh told the BBC. The 45-year-old is among an estimated 700,000 workers who have lost their jobs in recent years, following the closure of about 1,600 clothing factories in crisis-hit Pakistan. This amounts to a third of the country’s textile factories, which contribute to 60% of the country’s total export earnings. Mr Maseeh started doing manual work and driving an autorickshaw after he was laid off earlier this year…

Israel’s military has ordered the evacuation of a fifth of the main city in southern Gaza, as it expands its ground offensive against Hamas. A map showed six northern and central areas of Khan Younis where an estimated 167,000 people needed to leave. Witnesses also reported seeing tanks to the east, and a doctor said a local hospital was overwhelmed by casualties. In Gaza City, an unconfirmed report says 50 people were killed when Israeli air strikes hit two schools. According to the Palestinian news agency Wafa, they died in schools sheltering displaced people in the city’s Daraj neighbourhood. Reuters…

A three-month old infant was killed by its family’s pet hybrid wolf-dog in the US state of Alabama, police have said. The child died on Thursday in Chelsea, about 20 miles (32km) south-west of Birmingham, Alabama, from injuries that are suspected to have been caused by the animal. The wolf hybrid was euthanised at the scene by a veterinarian, the Shelby County Sheriff’s office said. The city’s mayor called the death “unfortunate and tragic”. “It’s been confirmed that one of our children here in Chelsea was killed by an exotic family pet and succumbed to their injuries yesterday afternoon after…

A decade-long wait for the sixth main game in the Grand Theft Auto series has ended as Rockstar released a trailer. Set in Miami-inspired Vice City, it features a story of love and crime between its first female protagonist, Lucia, and an unnamed male lead. The developer released the trailer 15 hours earlier than expected, after it first leaked online. The trailer teases a 2025 release window which means fans will still have to wait to play it. It will be the sequel to 2013’s smash hit GTA V, which became the second best-selling video game of all time, following Minecraft. There…

“I managed to escape this place,” Nazmi Hanafiah laughs, slightly nervously. A year ago, the 30-year-old IT engineer moved to Forest City, a sprawling Chinese-built housing complex in Johor, on the tip of southern Malaysia. He rented a one-bedroom flat in a tower block overlooking the sea. After six months, he’d had enough. He didn’t want to continue living in what he calls “a ghost town”. “I didn’t care about my deposit, I didn’t care about the money. I just had to get out,” he said. We had arranged to meet in the same tower block he used to live…