Author: admin@primenews

The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers said late Wednesday that negotiations with SAG-AFTRA — the union representing about 160,000 actors — have been suspended. “After meaningful conversations, it is clear that the gap between the AMPTP and SAG-AFTRA is too great, and conversations are no longer moving us in a productive direction,” the AMPTP said in a statement. The suspension came after the actors’ union presented its latest proposal to the AMPTP, according to the statement. CNN has reached out to SAG-AFTRA for comment. AMPTP said the union’s latest offer “included what it characterized as a viewership bonus…

The brutal rampage by Islamist militant group Hamas on Israel last weekend involved thousands of rockets and missiles, drones dropping explosives, and untold numbers of small arms and ammunition. But the attack was launched from the Hamas-ruled enclave of Gaza, a 140-square-mile (360-square-kilometer) strip of Mediterranean coastal land bordered on two sides by Israel and one by Egypt. It’s a poor, densely populated area, with few resources. And it has been almost completely cut off from the rest of the world for nearly 17 years, when Hamas seized control, prompting Israel and Egypt to impose a strict siege on the territory, which is ongoing. Israel…

The World Bank, the globe’s top anti-poverty institution, has told the BBC that recent cuts to the UK foreign aid budget “caused real pain”. The Bank added it wanted the UK “back at higher levels” of funding. The UK government was until recently the biggest single donor to the Bank’s fund for the poorest countries in the world. Since 2020 ministers have cut back on aid, temporarily, until Britain’s public finances are back in shape. The UK has halved its funding to the World Bank’s International Development Association fund to £500m a year. The World Bank faces further challenges as…

In the old Lenin shipyard in Gdansk, where striking workers were once the catalyst for major political change, young Poles now debate how to protect democracy in their country. They worry that the rights and freedoms won by the Solidarity movement over three decades ago are at risk, as the ruling right-wing Law and Justice party, or PiS, campaigns to secure a record third term in office. “It’s a very important election. We’re deciding whether we’re going back to being a democratic country,” was student activist Julia Landowska’s stark take on this weekend’s vote. “This is our last call, to…

A former NFL player has been charged with the murder of his mother after being arrested in California on Tuesday. Authorities had been searching for Sergio Brown since his mother Myrtle Brown, 73, was found dead near her home outside of Chicago last month. He will be extradited to Illinois to face charges of first-degree murder, police said. Mr Brown played for four professional teams during a six-year career. Police in Maywood, Illinois – about 12 miles (19km) west of Chicago – discovered Ms Brown in a creek on 16 September after family members reported her missing. A medical examiner…

Madonna’s first ever greatest hits tour will be “a documentary through her vast career” that includes more than 40 songs, her musical director says. In an exclusive interview, Stuart Price told the BBC the show draws on four decades of archive footage and studio recordings to tell the star’s story. “A greatest hit doesn’t have to be a song,” he said. “It can be a wardrobe, it can be a video, or a statement.” He added that Madonna was back to full strength after a summer health scare. The superstar was found unconscious in her New York apartment in June…

A senior Disney creative has warned the actors’ strike could halt animation production later this year. Jennifer Lee, chief creative officer of Walt Disney Animation Studios, has been able to “keep things going” up to now. But the actors union, whose members include her husband, the actor Alfred Molina, has been on strike for nearly three months. Lee told the BBC she has “probably until the end of the year” before her films will be affected. Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s The Media Show, she said: “I can understand where everyone is coming from in terms of wanting fair wages.”…

Republicans have picked Steve Scalise as their choice to be the new Speaker of the House of Representatives after a secret vote. He beat the other candidate, Jim Jordan, 113 votes to 99, in a closed-door meeting at the US Capitol. The Speaker is one of the most important posts in the US government, running the lower chamber of Congress. There will now be a vote of the full House where a simple majority of votes, 217, is required to win the job. The House was adjourned on Wednesday evening as Mr Scalise scrambled to find enough votes in his…

“It’s beautiful, it really is – certainly what we’ve seen of it so far,” said Dr Ashley King. The UK scientist was in a select group to put first eyes and instruments on the rocky samples that have just been brought back from asteroid Bennu. The materials, scooped up by a US space agency (Nasa) mission and returned to Earth 17 days ago, are currently being examined in a special lab in Texas. “We’ve confirmed we went to the right asteroid,” Dr King told BBC News. The three-day analysis by the Natural History Museum (NHM) expert and five others on…

Senior UK special forces officers had suspicions of a “deliberate policy” of murder by the SAS in Afghanistan but hid evidence, an inquiry heard. In some cases they did nothing and in others “sought to prevent adequate investigation”, a lawyer for families of those killed said. Internal emails show “incredulity” at official reports of SAS night raids in which Afghans were killed, he said. Concerns of SAS wrongdoing were widely known at the top of government. A government lawyer previously said UK armed forces hold themselves to the highest standards. On the third day of the independent inquiry, the Ministry…