Author: admin@primenews

Nine bodies have been found and two more people are feared dead after a fire at a holiday home hosting people with learning disabilities in France. Nearly 80 firefighters were sent to the blaze in La Forge after emergency services were alerted at 06:30 local time (04:30 GMT) on Wednesday. The missing people are considered “potentially deceased”, according to a local official. The fire has now been extinguished, but its cause is not yet clear. Seventeen people were evacuated from the building, while at least one person has been taken to hospital. A search for the bodies of the two…

China’s economy has slipped into deflation as consumer prices declined in July for the first time in more than two years. The official consumer price index, a measure of inflation, fell by 0.3% last month from a year earlier. Analysts said this increases pressure on the government to revive demand in the world’s second largest economy. This follows weak import and export data, which raised questions about the pace of China’s post-pandemic recovery. The country is also tackling ballooning local government debt and challenges in the housing market. Youth unemployment, which is at a record high, is also being closely…

Forty-one migrants have died in a shipwreck off the Italian island of Lampedusa, survivors told local media. A group of four people who survived the disaster told rescuers that they were on a boat that had set off from Sfax in Tunisia and sank on its way to Italy. The four survivors, originally from the Ivory Coast and Guinea, reached Lampedusa on Wednesday. More than 1,800 people have lost their lives so far this year in the crossing from North Africa to Europe. The survivors – three men and a woman – told rescuers that they were on a boat…

China’s imports and exports fell more sharply than expected last month as weaker global demand threatened the recovery prospects of the world’s second-largest economy. Official figures show that exports fell by 14.5% in July compared with a year earlier, while imports dropped 12.4%. The grim trade figures reinforce concerns that the country’s economic growth could slow further this year. It will increase pressure on Beijing to help boost the post-pandemic recovery. China’s economy grew just 3% last year – apart from the slowdown when Covid struck, the weakest rate since 1976 – reflecting the toll from coronavirus restrictions that remained…

Zoom has updated its terms of service after a backlash over fears that it trained its artificial intelligence (AI) models on customer calls. In a blog post the firm stressed that audio, video and chats were not used for AI without consent. The video-calling app acted after users noticed changes to the firm’s terms of service in March which they worried enabled AI training. The firm said it made the changes to be more transparent. Zoom launched new AI-powered features in June, one of which lets clients summarise meetings without having to record an entire session. The features were offered as a…

Tu Anh Le loves going to the Starbucks at the buzzing heart of Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh City. The 26-year-old and her friends dress up for the occasion and take selfies at the cafe. “Pictures at Starbucks make my Instagram look nicer,” says Tu Anh Le, who thinks the cafe is “luxurious”, like a five-star hotel. “I get a lot of likes and nice comments saying I look trendy.” That appears to be the biggest draw for her because although she is a fan of Starbucks, she doesn’t like coffee: “It makes my teeth yellow. I prefer smoothies or bubble…

Italy has passed a one-off 40% tax on the profits banks earn from higher interest rates, in a shock move that has seen shares plummet. A hike in official interest rates has resulted in record profits for Italian banks, prompting the government’s move. Proceeds will be used to help mortgage holders and to cut taxes, the government says. But Italian banks have said the tax on their profits will be “substantially negative” for the sector. The surprise move was agreed by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s ministers at a cabinet meeting late on Monday. They vowed to invest the funds raised…

Scientists have identified a new species of amphibian that occupied Australia some 247 million years ago. The finding ends a mystery that has captivated researchers since the 90s, when the creature’s fossilised remains were found by a retired chicken farmer in New South Wales. Less than 10 fossils of the lizard-like species have been identified globally. Experts say the discovery may “rewrite the evolution of amphibians in Australia”. It was a broken garden wall at his home in Umina – a roughly 90-minute drive north of Sydney – that led to Mihail Mihaildis’s discovery of the extraordinary fossil, almost three…

A meal of suspected death cap mushrooms served at a family lunch in late July is at the center of a homicide investigation in Australia following the deaths of three guests less than a week later. Erin Patterson served the meal to her former parents-in-law and her mother-in-law’s sister and husband, who were guests at her home in the town of Leongatha in southern Victoria, on July 29, according to Victoria Police. Within days, Gail Patterson, 70, and her sister Heather Wilkinson, 66, died in hospital, followed by Gail’s 70-year-old husband, Don, a day later. A fourth guest, Wilkinson’s husband, Ian, a 68-year-old…

Elon Musk’s biotechnology startup Neuralink raised $280 million in a fundraising round, the company announced Monday via X, the Musk-owned social media platform formerly known as Twitter. The Series D round was led by Founders Fund, a San Francisco-based VC firm established by Peter Thiel, the controversial billionaire who was also a cofounder at PayPal. “We’re extremely excited about this next chapter at Neuralink,” the company wrote. The brain chip startup wants to use implants to connect your brain to a computer, a goal Musk has been working on for five years. The company so far has only tested on animals and faced scrutiny after a…