Author: admin@primenews

Microsoft’s restructuring of its proposed $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard “opens the door” to the biggest ever gaming deal being cleared, Britain’s antitrust regulator said Friday. Microsoft (MSFT) announced the deal in early 2022, but it was blocked in April by the UK competition regulator, which was concerned the US tech giant would gain too much control of the nascent cloud gaming market. Activision Blizzard (ATVI), which makes “Call of Duty,” agreed in August to sell its streaming rights to Ubisoft Entertainment in a new attempt to win over the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA). The Ubisoft divestment “substantially addresses previous concerns,” the Competition…

The Rock and John Cena have reacted to the WWE reportedly releasing at least 20 wrestlers from their contracts. Dolph Ziggler and Shelton Benjamin were among those let go by the company, which recently merged with UFC. The Rock, real name Dwayne Johnson, and Cena both paid tribute to Ziggler – who has reportedly performed in 1,554 matches for WWE. “Respect”, said Cena, while The Rock added: “Can’t wait to see what he (and everyone) does next.” Ziggler, a two-time WWE World Champion, hasn’t issued a public statement on his release. But Shelton Benjamin, a former intercontinental champion, thanked fans, fellow…

France captain Antoine Dupont suffered a fractured cheekbone in Thursday’s 96-0 win against Namibia, the French Rugby Federation has confirmed. The 2021 world player of the year was forced off in the 46th minute after Johan Deysel made a head-on-head tackle and was sent off. The FFR says Dupont will remain with the squad and will see a specialist to work out how long he will be out for. France’s final pool match is against Italy on 6 October. The quarter-finals are scheduled for the weekend of 14-15 October, the semi-finals the weekend after and the final on Saturday, 28 October. “Antoine Dupont…

Euphoria actor Angus Cloud died from an accidental overdose of fentanyl, cocaine, methamphetamine and more, a coroner has confirmed. The star, who played Fez in the hit HBO series, died in July aged 25. The Alameda County Coroner’s Office confirmed his cause of death to US media outlets on Thursday. They said he died from an “acute intoxication due to combined effects of methamphetamine, cocaine, fentanyl and benzodiazepines”. Cloud’s father had recently died, and the actor’s family said he had “intensely struggled with this loss”. He had attended the funeral in Ireland the week before he died from the accidental…

India’s parliament passed a landmark bill Thursday that will reserve a third of its seats in the lower house and state assemblies for women, in a major win for rights groups that have for decades campaigned for better gender representation in politics. The bill received cross-party support and was celebrated by politicians across India’s often fractious political spectrum but some expressed reservations that it could still take years for the quota to be implemented. A total of 214 lawmakers from the upper house voted in favor of the Women’s Reservation Bill, which was introduced by prime minister Narendra Modi’s government…

China is allowing foreigners in Shanghai and Beijing to move their money freely into and out of the country, in a significant move toward relaxing its strict capital controls as it tries to woo overseas investors. The news was announced just weeks after official data showed foreign direct investment (FDI) in the country had hit a record quarterly low amid a slump in business confidence. Foreign investors — either individuals or companies — at the Shanghai pilot free trade zone, where tens of thousands of firms are located, can remit their funds without any restriction or delay, according to a statement from the city…

Canadian PM Justin Trudeau has reiterated that there are “credible reasons” to believe that Indian agents may have been behind the murder of a Sikh separatist on Canadian soil. He first made the allegation on Monday, which India has strongly rejected, calling them “absurd”. Hardeep Singh Nijjar – who India designated a terrorist in 2020 – was shot dead outside a temple in June. Tensions between the two countries have flared after the allegation. The Indian government has often reacted sharply to demands by Sikh separatists in Western countries for Khalistan, or a separate Sikh homeland. Though India designated Nijjar…

The UK’s competition watchdog has said Microsoft’s revised offer to buy the Call of Duty maker Activision Blizzard “opens the door” to the deal being cleared. The Competition Markets Authority (CMA) said the updated deal appeared to address concerns it had raised. Under the new proposals, Microsoft will not buy the cloud gaming rights owned by Activision Blizzard. Its original $69bn (£59bn) deal was blocked by UK regulators. Earlier this year, the CMA blocked Microsoft from taking on the whole of Activision over concerns that the deal would harm competition in cloud gaming in the UK. Microsoft then submitted a…

British actress Sophie Turner has sued her singer ex-partner Joe Jonas – requesting he return their two children to their “habitual residence” England. The celebrity couple announced earlier this month that they were divorcing after more than four years of marriage. They described the split at the time as “amicable”. However on Thursday, lawyers for Turner, 27, filed a legal petition citing the “wrongful detention” of their children in New York. The 34-year-old Jonas Brothers singer, who is American, is seeking joint custody of their two daughters – Willa, who was born in 2020 and their second child, who was born…

US authors George RR Martin and John Grisham are suing ChatGPT-owner OpenAI over claims their copyright was infringed to train the system. Martin is known for his fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire, which was adapted into HBO show Game of Thrones. ChatGPT and other large language models (LLMs) “learn” by analysing a massive amount of data often sourced online. The lawsuit claims the authors’ books were used without their permission to make ChatGPT smarter. OpenAI said it respected the rights of authors, and believed “they should benefit from AI technology”. Other prominent authors named in the complaint…