Author: admin@primenews

Former Australian political staffer Bruce Lehrmann raped his colleague Brittany Higgins inside Parliament House, a judge has found in a defamation case. Mr Lehrmann has always denied sex took place. He sued Network 10 over a media report in 2021 which sent shockwaves around the nation and sparked public outrage. The outlet defended airing Ms Higgins’ claims on the basis they were true. A judge has now ruled Mr Lehrmann told “deliberate lies” and was “indifferent” to whether Ms Higgins consented. When handing down his decision in the Federal Court on Monday, Justice Michael Lee said Mr Lehrmann was “hellbent”…

The man who went on a stabbing rampage in a Sydney shopping centre appears to have targeted women, police say. Joel Cauchi, 40, sent the crowded Westfield Bondi Junction complex into panic on Saturday when he began stabbing people with a long blade. Five of the six people who died were women. Several others, including a baby, were injured. The New South Wales police commissioner told Australia’s ABC News that it was “obvious” Mr Cauchi focused on women. The only man killed in the attack was security guard Faraz Tahir, 30, who tried to intervene. He was a refugee from…

The White House has warned Israel that the US will not participate in any retaliatory strikes on Iran, senior administration officials have said. Over 300 drones and missiles were fired at Israel overnight, which Iran said was in response to an 1 April strike on its consulate in Syria. Almost all weapons were shot down by Israeli, US and allied forces before they reached their targets. Officials said Joe Biden urged Israel to consider its response “carefully”. Speaking to reporters on Sunday, a senior administration official said that Mr Biden told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to “think very carefully…

The annual music festival in the California desert draws thousands of people to see some of the world’s biggest acts. Tickets are expensive – but the Coachella experience can be priceless. In the US’s vast landscape of music festivals, Coachella is in a league of its own. Held in the Southern California desert, it draws an annual attendance of nearly 650,000 across two weekends in April, making it the largest music festival in the country. This year, the three-day event begins on 12 April and hundreds of thousands of people are expected to attend. Many of them are repeat attendees who…

If you haven’t filed your 2023 tax return with the IRS yet and you still owe income tax for last year, the good news is you still have time to rectify those situations before you’re penalized for failing to do so. Most filers have until 11:59 pm Monday, April 15. Some, however, get an extra day or two if they live in Maine, Massachusetts or Washington, DC, due to observed holidays. And others who live or work in federally declared disaster areas will have even more time both to file and pay thanks to IRS-granted extensions. The IRS has also given an…

The US aviation industry has asked the Biden administration to pause approval of additional flights to and from China, saying Beijing’s “existing harmful anti-competitive policies” hurt American airlines and workers. “The competitive disadvantage is harmful to the approximately 315,000 workers employed by US passenger airlines that serve China,” according to a letter published Thursday addressing Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. The letter was signed by industry lobby group Airlines for America — whose members include American Airlines (AAL), Delta (DAL) and United (UAL) — and other unions representing aviation workers, including the Air Line Pilots Association. “If the growth of…

Embattled airplane maker Boeing disclosed it lavished an additional $546,000 on the cost of personal air travel in recent years for four top executives, including CEO Dave Calhoun, who announced last month that he will leave the company by the end of the year. The increased spending estimate, disclosed in a recent company filing, brought the total cost to the company for the personal air travel for the four to $1.9 million since 2021. Besides Calhoun, the other executives include CFO Brian West; Stan Deal, who recently departed as CEO of its commercial airplane unit; and Theodore Colbert, the CEO of…

Researchers have discovered the cause of the brightest burst of light ever recorded. But in doing so they have run up against two bigger mysteries, including one that casts doubt on where our heavy elements – like gold – come from. The burst of light, spotted in 2022, is now known to have had an exploding star at its heart, researchers say. But that explosion, by itself, would not have been sufficient to have shone so brightly. And our current theory says that such exploding stars, known as supernovas, also produce all the heavy elements in the universe such as…

Burnout is such a problem for workers that some bosses are considering shrinking the length of the workweek. Nearly one-third (30%) of large US companies are exploring new work schedule shifts such as four-day or four-and-a-half-day workweeks, according to a KPMG survey of CEOs released this week. The findings show how some executives are searching for ways to attract and retain talent in a red hot job market where many employees feel over-worked and underpaid. “We are all working to figure out what is optimal, and we will continue to experiment and pivot,” Paul Knopp, chair and CEO of KPMG US, told…

The United States has restricted travel for its employees in Israel amid fears of an attack by Iran. The US embassy said staff had been told not to travel outside the greater Jerusalem, Tel Aviv or Beersheba areas “out of an abundance of caution”. Iran has vowed to retaliate, blaming Israel for a strike on its consulate in Syria 11 days ago, killing 13 people. UK Foreign Secretary Lord Cameron has phoned his Iranian counterpart to urge against further escalation. Israel has not claimed responsibility for the consulate attack but is widely considered to have been behind it. Iran backs Hamas, the…