Author: admin@primenews

McDonald’s has fired 18 workers since a BBC investigation uncovered hundreds of allegations of harassment at the restaurant chain, its UK boss has said. Alistair Macrow told MPs the firm had received 407 employee complaints since July and investigated 157 to date. While people have been sacked, Mr Macrow did not know how many complaints had been referred to the police. A BBC investigation found that workers as young as 17 were being groped and harassed almost routinely. They said they experienced a toxic workplace culture where claims of sexual assault, racism and bullying were not taken seriously. Mr Macrow told…

Singer-songwriter Barry Manilow says he did not discuss his sexuality for years because it could have ended his career. The star, who came out publicly in 2017, told CNN’s Chris Wallace that “the public was not ready for anybody to come out” as gay in the 1970s. “Now being gay is no big deal,” he added. “Back in the 70s it would have killed a career.” The Brooklyn-born singer has been in a relationship with his manager Garry Kief for 39 years. They married privately in 2014. Asked by Wallace if he had felt pressured to hide who he was,…

A British woman has been identified more than 30 years after her murder in Belgium, following the launch of a landmark police campaign. Rita Roberts’ family spotted her distinctive tattoo in a BBC report, according to policing agency Interpol. The last contact the 31-year-old had with her family was via a postcard in May 1992. Her body was found the following month. Her family said the news was “shocking and heartbreaking”. “Our passionate, loving and free-spirited sister was cruelly taken away,” they said in a statement, shared by Interpol. “Whilst the news has been difficult to process, we are incredibly…

One of the men convicted over the 2006 murder of Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya has been pardoned after fighting in Ukraine, his lawyer says. Sergei Khadzhikurbanov, a former Moscow police officer, was jailed for 20 years at a trial in 2014. But his lawyer, Alexei Mikhalchik, said he had now received a presidential pardon after completing a six-month military contract. He was one of five people convicted of the crime. Ms Politkovskaya, an investigative reporter and vocal critic of Russia’s war in Chechnya, was shot in a lift in her block of flats. Her reporting for Novaya Gazeta newspaper won…

NASA astronauts Jasmin Moghbeli and Loral O’Hara marked their first spacewalk this month with a tool bag floating through space. The pair concluded their maintenance work outside the International Space Station (ISS) in six hours and 42 minutes, according to the space agency. The spacewalk on November 1 saw Moghbeli and O’Hara complete works on the station’s solar arrays, which track the sun, but they ran out of time to remove and stow a communications electronics box. Leaving this task for a future spacewalk, the pair instead conducted an assessment of how the job could be done. During the hours-long mission, a tool bag gave…

David Holmes vividly remembers the day he joined the Harry Potter stunt crew. It was August 2000. The first film was in pre-production at a former Rolls-Royce engine factory converted into movie studios. And the filmmakers were still trying to decide how to convincingly bring some of the magic of JK Rowling’s best sellers to the cinema screen. “My first day’s work was being the world’s first Quidditch player,” he recalls with a proud smile. “We put a broomstick on the back of a truck and drove it down the runway at Leavesden Studios, with [director] Chris Columbus looking down…

The final season of “The Crown” will return with several new cast members and some familiar faces. Netflix’s royal family drama series will culminate with its sixth season in a two-part series finale beginning on November 16, with part two coming on December 14. “Harry Potter” franchise star Imelda Staunton will make her encore performance as Queen Elizabeth II after starring as the monarch in Season 5. Plus, “The Affair” and “The Wire” star Dominic West returns as then-Prince Charles (who, in real life, was crowned King Charles III after the death of Queen Elizabeth last year), and “Phantom Thread” actor Lesley Manville is back as…

Iceland is bracing itself for a volcanic eruption in the coming days. Why is this happening, and what might be the impact? If there is an eruption, there could be significant damage to local infrastructure and a release of toxic fumes, but initial concerns about much wider disruption are now receding. Since late October the region surrounding the Icelandic capital, Reykjavik, in the south-west has been experiencing an increase in earthquake activity. This is due to a underground river of magma – hot liquid or semi-liquid rock – about 15km (10 miles) in length moving upwards below the earth’s surface.…

Pay growth has outstripped inflation by the most for two years, in a further sign that the squeeze on living costs may be starting to ease. Regular pay rose at an annual rate of 7.7% between July and September, official figures show. That was higher than average inflation over the same three months, which measures the rate at which prices rise. However, the number of job vacancies fell for the 16th month in row, the Office for National Statistics said. Between August and October, the estimated number of vacancies in the UK fell by 58,000 to 957,000, although the ONS…

Mexico’s first openly non-binary member of the judiciary and prominent LGBTQ+ activist Jesús Ociel Baena has been found dead at their home. The body of the magistrate was discovered on Monday in the central city of Aguascalientes, alongside that of a second person. Local media identified the second person as Baena’s partner. Security Minister Rosa Icela Rodriguez said it was unclear “if it was a homicide or… some kind of accident”. According to a statement from the state attorney-general’s Office, there was no sign that a third person had entered the house. They said that a sharp object had been…