Author: admin@primenews

Young people used Halloween parades on the streets of China’s richest city this week to dress up in costumes protesting the country’s economic problems that were underscored by a record spike in borrowing costs for some banks. Thousands of revellers in Shanghai dressed in their Halloween finest to celebrate the Western holiday. There were traditional getups like Batman and princesses, but the crowd — and the Chinese internet — went wild for costumes offering scathing social commentary, particularly about the state of the world’s second largest economy. Videos circulating on social media showed a man dressed as the Shanghai Composite Index, one of the…

Israel will return Gazans working in the country back to the besieged Palestinian enclave, Israel’s Security Cabinet announced on Thursday, adding that it would also sever contact with Gaza. Prior to Hamas’ October 7 terror attacks and kidnapping rampage, about 18,000 Gazans had permits to cross into Israel and work, where they could earn significantly more than in Gaza. “Israel is severing all contact with Gaza. There will be no more Palestinian workers from Gaza. Those workers from Gaza who were in Israel on the day of the outbreak of the war will be returned to Gaza,” the government press office said Thursday. The statement did not detail how or when the workers would return to what is…

Blackpink star Lisa’s Weibo page appears to have been taken down, weeks after she performed a burlesque routine in Paris that sparked a huge debate on China’s tightly regulated internet. On Wednesday afternoon, the Thai star’s verified account @lalalalisa_m was no longer searchable on the site, one of China’s most popular social media networks. “The account can longer be viewed because it has received complaints of breaches of law and regulations, as well as relevant rules from the Weibo Community Management Regulations,” her replacement page stated. It is not clear what types of complaint she has received but China’s web…

Sam Bankman-Fried, once known as a cryptocurrency whiz kid, was found guilty on Thursday for his role in the collapse of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX. If given the maximum sentence, the 31-year-old former billionaire will go to prison for the rest of his life. Bankman-Fried’s spectacular fall from grace began nearly a year ago when FTX filed for bankruptcy, fueling a panic in the cryptocurrency industry. Here’s what you need to know about the former crypto king. He knew nothing about crypto Bankman-Fried, known as SBF, began his career as a trader at Jane Street Capital after studying math and…

Call of Duty (CoD) is a gaming mega-brand that even people who’ve never picked up a controller will know. It’s grown to become a global phenomenon since it launched 20 years ago and made its owner, Activision Blizzard, one of the most valuable gaming companies in the world. So when Microsoft’s long battle to buy the company for $67.8bn (£56.4bn) finally succeeded last month, it got people talking. Mostly, the speculation was about whether the entire CoD catalogue could find its way on to Game Pass, the Netflix-style subscription service. Xbox boss Phil Spencer has confirmed there won’t be a…

Elon Musk declared artificial intelligence “one of the most disruptive forces in history” in a sit down conversation with British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak that dove into the dangers and opportunities of AI on Thursday, capping off the UK’s inaugural AI Safety Summit. “AI will be a force for good most likely,” Musk said. “But the probability of it going bad is not zero percent.” The two men spoke in an interview-style chat from a stage at Lancaster House, a government venue in central London often used for diplomatic purposes, before the conversation was opened up to questions from journalists.…

The number of jellyfish spotted in UK waters and on beaches increased by 32% in the past year, according to a survey by the Marine Conservation Society. The most commonly spotted were the huge barrel jellyfish – but rarer warm-water crystal jellyfish were also seen. Jellyfish populations vary naturally over time – but climate change warming the UK seas is creating favourable conditions. A marine heatwave in June increased UK water temperatures by about 3-4C. The world has warmed 1.1C compared to the pre-industrial period before humans began burning fossil fuels and a series of broken records this year is alarming…

Artificial Intelligence has the ability to perform illegal financial trades and cover it up, new research suggests. In a demonstration at the UK’s AI safety summit, a bot used made-up insider information to make an “illegal” purchase of stocks without telling the firm. When asked if it had used insider trading, it denied the fact. Insider trading refers to when confidential company information is used to make trading decisions. Firms and individuals are only allowed to use publicly-available information when buying or selling stocks. The demonstration was given by members of the government’s Frontier AI Taskforce, which researches the potential…

Ride-sharing firms Uber and Lyft will pay $328m (£269m) to settle claims they “systematically cheated” New York drivers out of pay and benefits. It resolves a long investigation by the New York attorney general, who called it the largest wage theft settlement in her office’s history. The agreement also means that drivers in the state will receive guaranteed paid sick leave. Uber called it a “landmark”, while Lyft said it was “a win for drivers”. The settlement means that neither company has to admit fault, with Uber paying $290m as part of it, while Lyft will pay $38m. Both have…

At least 32 people have been killed in a fire that tore through a drug rehabilitation centre in northern Iran, authorities have said. The blaze erupted early on Friday in Langarud, a city in the Caspian Sea province of Gilan north of Tehran. Esmail Sadeghi, a provincial chief justice, told local media that 16 others were taken to hospital. Iran imposes a death penalty on repeat drug smugglers and dealers but runs a series of rehab programmes for addicts. The cause of the fire was not immediately clear but Mr Sadeghi said an investigation “was under way”, according to local…