Author: admin@primenews

Classic US snack maker Hostess Brands is being bought by rival food giant JM Smucker in a $5.6bn (£4.5bn) deal. “With this acquisition, we are adding an iconic sweet snacking platform… to drive continued growth,” Smucker’s chief executive Mark Smucker said in a statement. Shares in the firm known for brands including Twinkies, Donettes and Ho Hos jumped on the news. Smucker is famous for its fruit preserves and Jif peanut butter. Some of America’s biggest food brands – including PepsiCo, Oreo maker Mondelez International and Cheerios maker General Mills – were also reportedly interested in buying Hostess. Smucker said it…

China has praised a joint declaration by G20 leaders in Delhi saying it has sent a “positive signal” to the world. The world’s biggest economies formally adopted the joint declaration at the G20 summit in India, without a single dissenting note, on Sunday. China said the statement reflected its views and showed that the G20 was working together to tackle global challenges and promote development. This is the first time that Beijing has commented on the declaration. Several other countries, including the UK and the US, have praised the joint statement, which avoids condemning Russia, a key strategic ally of…

Female surgeons say they are being sexually harassed, assaulted and in some cases raped by colleagues, a major analysis of NHS staff has found. BBC News has spoken to women who were sexually assaulted in the operating theatre while surgery took place. The study’s authors say there is a pattern of female trainees being abused by senior male surgeons, and this is happening now, in NHS hospitals. The Royal College of Surgeons said the findings were “truly shocking”. Warning – this story contains some graphic detail. There is support for anyone affected here. Sexual harassment, sexual assault and rape have been…

As I write this there are still several hours before Apple unveils the latest version of its best-selling product, the iPhone. In the last few weeks we’ve seen the handset come under pressure separately from both the EU and China. Globally, smartphone sales in general are slowing, and Apple’s highly anticipated virtual reality headset – which the firm seemed to be positioning as a potential future iPhone – won’t go on sale until next year. When it does it will have a whopping $3,500 (£2,780) price tag. And so, in the meantime, we get to meet the 16th generation of a device…

Nobel laureate Maria Ressa has been acquitted in the last of five tax evasion cases filed against her in the Philippines, in what is being hailed as a win for press freedom. “You got to have faith,” the beaming journalist told reporters gathered outside a Manila court. All five cases were during former president Rodrigo Duterte’s term. Ms Ressa’s news website Rappler published reports criticising his bloody war on drugs. Her reporting in the face of growing authoritarianism in the Philippines earned Ms Ressa the Nobel Peace Prize in 2021, an honour she shared with Russian journalist Dmitry Muratov. Mr Duterte, who…

North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un is on his way to Russia’s port city Vladivostok via bulletproof train to meet President Vladimir Putin. In line with a long-standing tradition among North Korean leaders, Mr Kim will likely spend over 20 hours travelling some 1,180km (733 miles) on the slow-moving locomotive – said to include a restaurant serving fine French wines and dishes such as fresh lobster. The train rattles along at about 50km/h (31mph) because of its heavy armoured protection. By comparison, London’s high-speed rail runs at about 200km/h while Japan’s Shinkansen bullet trains can hit 320 km/h. The long journey also…

Beijing claims an American citizen jailed for life in China earlier this year is a decorated spy who had worked for US intelligence for more than three decades, as it ramps up a campaign warning citizens to guard against foreign espionage. John Shing-Wan Leung, a 78-year-old US citizen who also holds permanent residency in Hong Kong, was sentenced to life in prison by a Chinese court in May on espionage charges. At the time, authorities provided no details about his case, except that he was detained by state security officers in April 2021. Months after the sentencing, the Ministry of State Security, China’s main…

Kim Jong Un’s heavily-armored private train has crossed into Russia ahead of an expected and closely-watched summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin, state media reported Tuesday, amid warnings from the United States that the two leaders could strike an arms deal. The train was traveling north through Primorsky Krai in the Far East region of the country, Russian state news agency RIA reported. South Korea’s Defense Ministry said it believed the North Korean leader entered Russia early Tuesday morning local time. A video shared by Russia Today on Monday and geolocated by CNN showed the train purportedly carrying Kim near the…

Daniel Zhang, the outgoing chairman and CEO of Alibaba, has stepped down from his position running the company’s cloud division in a surprise move announced just months after he assumed the pivotal role. Alibaba’s stock tumbled 3% on Monday in Hong Kong following the announcement. Zhang will now fully exit the Chinese tech giant’s core management team as it undertakes its biggest ever restructuring amid a worsening downturn in the world’s second largest economy. Just three months ago, Zhang, 51, said that a key reason he wanted to step down as company chief was because he needed to focus on the spin-off of its…

Instacart’s latest valuation is tens of billions of dollars below what the company was once worth just a year ago, as the company attempts an initial public stock offering in a challenging climate for online delivery. The grocery delivery company revealed in an updated IPO filing that it’s aiming to price its stock between $26 and $28 per share, valuing Instacart at around $7.4 billion at the midpoint. Monday’s valuation is far cry from the $24 billion it said it was worth last year and just a fifth of its $39 billion valuation from 2021. It’s even less than what the Wall Street Journal reported just…