Author: admin@primenews

Charles Martinet, the voice behind Nintendo’s famous character Mario, is to step down from the role, the gaming giant has announced. The actor has voiced the Italian plumber in the video games since 1996, starting with Super Mario 64. However, he did not voice the titular character in this year’s movie. That honour went to Chris Pratt. Nintendo announced the news on X, saying it had been an “honour” working with Martinet, 67. Martinet will continue to work with Nintendo as a “Mario ambassador,” and he seemed pleased with his new role. The latest game starring the heroic Italian, Super Mario…

North Korea’s flagship carrier has flown its first international flight since the pandemic. Air Koryo’s JS151 left Pyongyang Tuesday morning and landed at Beijing Capital Airport at 09:16 local time (01:16 GMT), data from real-time flight tracking service Flightradar24 showed. It is unclear who was on board or how many passengers JS151 was carrying. Travel agency Koryo Tours said the Pyongyang-Beijing route was reopened as a means for North Koreans to get home. According to Flightradar24, flight JS151 was flown on a Tupolev Tu-204 aircraft, which can carry up to 210 passengers. It is unclear how many passengers were on…

An urgent rescue effort is underway in Pakistan for six children and two adults trapped in a chairlift dangling 900 feet (274 meters) over a mountainous region in the country’s northwest. The children were traveling to school in the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa when one of the chairlift’s cables snapped at 9 a.m. local time on Tuesday, according to Pakistan’s National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA). A surveillance helicopter reached the location of the chairlift first, before a larger helicopter arrived to ensure that there is enough space to carry everyone being rescued, said the district’s deputy commissioner Tanveer Ur Rehman.…

Members of the BRICS economic group of major emerging economies are meeting this week in South Africa for a summit that could determine the future of the bloc – and how hard it pushes back against a world order it sees as unfairly dominated by the West. The group of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa has never been more prominent on the world stage. But the BRICS themselves are complicated. Russia’s leader can’t attend the summit because host country South Africa would be obliged to arrest him for alleged war crimes. Two other members, India and China, have…

Dozens of patients have been moved out of a hospital in north-eastern Greece as wildfires burn out of control for a fourth day near the city of Alexandroupolis. The flames approached the grounds of the university hospital and many of those evacuated were taken to a ferry in the nearby port. Among those moved were new-born babies and intensive care patients. Explosions in the hospital area were blamed on oxygen bottles exploding. Alexandroupolis, a major port close to Greece’s north-eastern border with Turkey, is one of a number of Greek regions tackling wildfires, whipped up by high winds and temperatures…

An insect feared extinct in Britain is set to make a comeback, thanks to pioneering conservation work. The tiny river fly, known as scarce yellow sally, was thought to have died out a few decades ago. But when a small number were re-discovered in a short stretch of the River Dee, scientists launched a rescue mission. And now the curious creature has been bred in captivity at Chester Zoo. The scientists plan to release it back into the wild but say this can only happen when rivers are in better health. Joe Chattell of Chester Zoo, who led the breeding…

With this week’s premiere of “Ahsoka” on Disney+ – the latest live-action series to round out the ever-expanding “Star Wars” universe – a long-held hope of franchise obsessives and even some casual fans is being realized. Ahsoka Tano, previously voiced by Ashley Eckstein in 2008’s animated “Star Wars: The Clone Wars” film and ensuing series of the same name, and the subsequent series “Star Wars: Rebels,” was never in any of the tentpole live-action movies, but is nonetheless a pivotal “Star Wars” franchise figure. Starting out as the Jedi padawan (read: apprentice) of Anakin Skywalker (read: the future Darth Vader), she in…

Bosses at Britain’s biggest companies saw their pay rise by almost 16% on average last year as most workers’ wages were squeezed by rising prices. The High Pay Centre said the median pay of a FTSE 100 chief executive was £3.91m in 2022, up from £3.38m in 2021. It added that the average earnings of a FTSE 100 boss was 118 times more than a typical UK worker on £33,000 a year. Critics called the earnings extreme, but some of the firms argued they were in line with competitors. According to the High Pay Centre – an independent group which…

British microchip designing giant Arm has announced it has filed paperwork to sell its shares in the US. The Cambridge-based company, which designs chips for devices from smartphones to game consoles, plans to list on New York’s Nasdaq in September. Arm did not reveal the number of shares for sale or the price, but its proposed initial public offering (IPO) could be the biggest listing this year. In March, in a blow to the UK, the firm opted against listing shares in London. On Monday, Arm announced that it had now publicly filed a registration statement relating to a proposed…

When employers deliver a job offer, it had better come with some teeth: Americans’ wage expectations have hit record highs, according to a Federal Reserve Bank of New York survey released Monday. Job seekers’ average reservation wage — the lowest pay they’d be willing to take for a new job — climbed to $78,645 in July 2023, up nearly 8% from July of last year, according to the New York Fed’s latest survey on consumers’ labor market experiences and expectations. The higher wage expectations are a reflection of this current moment in the economy and the labor market, said Julia…