SAN FRANCISCO Billionaire investor Peter Thiel is helping wrestler Hulk Hogan bankroll his lawsuit against Gawker Media, according to a report in Forbes. Hogan, whose real name is Terry Bollea, in March won a $140 million jury verdict against Gawker in a priva... More »
Terry Bollea, aka Hulk Hogan, sits in court during his trial against Gawker Media, in St Petersburg, Florida March 17, 2016. REUTERS/Dirk Shadd/Tampa Bay Times/Pool via Reuters Billionaire investor Peter Thiel is helping wrestler Hulk Hogan bankroll his lawsui... More »
Media mogul Sumner Redstone has removed Viacom (VIAB.O) CEO Philippe Dauman and Viacom board member George Abrams from the seven-person trust that will determine the fate of both Viacom and CBS (CBS.N) in the event of his incapacitation or death, two people fa... More »
Sumner Redstone has the power to remove Viacom Inc (VIAB.O) Chief Executive Philippe Dauman, but not his daughter Shari, from the trust that will control his $40 billion media empire after his incapacitation or death, according to two sources familiar with the... More »
Gannett Co Inc (GCI.N), the publisher of USA Today, raised its unsolicited offer for Tribune Publishing Co (TPUB.N) to $15 per share from $12.25, valuing the publisher of the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times at about $475 million. Including debt, the ... More »
Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc (BRKa.N) on Monday revealed a new stake in Apple Inc (AAPL.O), in a bet that the stock price could rebound after iPhone sales fell for the first time. Berkshire held 9.81 million Apple shares worth about $1.07 billion as... More »
CANNES, France Academy Award winning actress Marion Cotillard says the inspiration for her portrayal of the heroine, Gabrielle, in “Mal de Pierres” was the wildness and “fire” of director, Nicole Garcia. The film – also billed as “From the Land of the Moon” – ... More »
Gannett Co Inc (GCI.N), the publisher of USA Today, raised its all-cash offer to buy Tribune Publishing Co (TPUB.N) to $15 per share from $12.25, valuing the publisher of the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times at about $864 million. Tribune’s shares wer... More »
SAN FRANCISCO Warren Buffett struck media gold with a 2012 investment in debt-laden Media General Inc. Now the famed investor may try to reprise that success by supporting a bid for Yahoo Inc’s Internet assets. The Berkshire Hathaway Inc chairman is backing a ... More »
Ride-hailing service Didi Chuxing, Uber Technologies Inc’s main rival in China, is working toward an initial public offering in the United States that would likely take place in 2018, a person with knowledge of the plan said on Monday. The Apple Inc-backed fir... More »
BEIJING Apple Inc Chief Executive Tim Cook visited Beijing on Monday, days after announcing a $1 billion deal with ride-hailing app Didi Chuxing, and as the U.S. firm tries to reinvigorate sales in China, its second-largest market after the United States. From... More »
WASHINGTON, 2016 – A top aide to Donald Trump said on Sunday he did not believe the Republican presidential front-runner posed as his own spokesman to brag about his personal life, a controversy that came as Democrats sharpen their attacks on the billionaire’s... More »
Amazon.com Inc will launch new lines of its private-label brands in the coming weeks, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter. The new brands with names like Happy Belly, Wickedly Prime and Mama Bear will include nuts, spices, ... More »
LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – Disney-Marvel’s “Captain America: Civil War” remains dominant at U.S. theaters with $72.6 million at 4,426 U.S. locations — the eighth-largest second weekend of all time. George Clooney-Julia Roberts thriller “Money Monster” opened ... More »
Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg will meet this week with prominent conservatives in the media, a spokesman said on Sunday, to address allegations of political bias at the popular social networking site. Some 12 “conservative thought leaders” will join... More »
KIEV/MOSCOW Ukrainian politicians hailed their country’s surprise weekend victory in the European Song Contest as a continent-wide endorsement in their smoldering conflict with Russia, while Moscow said the competition had been hijacked by politics. Ukrainian ... More »
CANNES, France Fifty years after TV play “Cathy Come Home” shocked viewers with its grim depiction of the slide into homelessness, director Ken Loach is still angry about the precarious reality of life on the breadline in Britain, and tries not to be too pessi... More »
Berkshire Hathaway Inc Chairman Warren Buffett is backing a consortium vying for Yahoo Inc’s internet assets that includes Quicken Loans Inc founder Dan Gilbert, people familiar with the matter said on Friday. While there is no certainty that the consortium wi... More »
STOCKHOLM Politics could take center stage at the usually kitsch Eurovision Song Contest on Saturday, with bookmakers making Russia favorite to win and the Ukrainian entry featuring lyrics about deportations by the Soviet Union. In “1944”, Ukraine’s 32-year-ol... More »
New York Ray Dalio’s Bridgewater Associates hedge fund firm sold off its stakes in Amazon.com Inc, Coca-Cola Inc, and Gap Inc during the first quarter and added new stakes in Alphabet Inc and McDonald’s Corp, according to the latest regulatory filings. Bridgew... More »
TORONTO Business got even tougher for Canada’s newspaper industry last year, data showed on Friday, with nationally distributed advertising cut by almost a quarter and online ad sales barely taking up any of the slack. Total daily-newspaper revenue in 2015 fel... More »
LONDON A London temporary worker, sent home for wearing flat shoes, has collected more than 120,000 signatures so far in a petition calling for Britain to make it illegal for a firm to require women to wear high heels at work. Reaching that total on Friday eas... More »
The Olympics are such a television ratings juggernaut for NBCUniversal that rival U.S. networks have always watched from the sidelines, airing reruns and other cheap programs that are not going to attract many eyeballs. But not this year. With a growing number... More »
LONDON The British government said the publicly-funded BBC would not regulate itself in future, with a new unitary board taking over the responsibilities of the BBC Trust and external regulator Ofcom being brought in to oversee the corporation. “It is no longe... More »
For Walt Disney’s Peter Pan, flying was “all a matter of faith and trust.” Investors in Walt Disney Co showed a lack of both in the company’s stock on Wednesday. Disney’s shares fell 4.5 percent to $101.76 in morning trading and were the biggest drag on the Do... More »
MUNICH A German national stabbed four passengers at a train station near Munich early on Tuesday, killing one man and injuring three, in an attack police said appeared to have an Islamist motive. Witnesses said the assailant, a 27-year-old man, shouted “Allahu... More »
BERLIN Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan is seeking a preliminary injunction against German publisher Axel Springer’s chief executive Mathias Doepfner, Erodogan’s lawyer said on Tuesday. Ralf Hoecker, the lawyer, told Reuters the Turkish leader wanted the injun... More »
TOKYO Apple Inc (AAPL.O) supplier Japan Display Inc (6740.T) warned on Tuesday of a bigger loss in the just-ended business year compared to the previous year as sluggish demand for iPhones dragged down sales of its display panels. Japan Display estimated a net... More »
HONG KONG Alibaba Group Holding Ltd’s online shopping platform Taobao is tightening controls on the sales of luxury goods, requiring sellers to show proof of authenticity, as it fights sales of fake items on one of China’s top online platforms. From May 20, se... More »
MOSCOW Russia’s sports ministry said on Monday it was “certain” about the transparency of its doping controls during the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, and that independent observers had managed the testing operation daily. The ministry was responding to alleg... More »
Whistleblower Vitaly Stepanov told Reuters on Monday he nearly aborted his plan to expose widespread doping in Russian athletics when the World Anti-Doping Agency was slow to act on information he provided them. Stepanov, who previously worked for Russia’s ant... More »
BEIJING Baidu Inc’s CEO has called on employees to put values before profit in response to a scandal around the death of a student who underwent an experimental cancer treatment he found on the company’s search website. Before his death, student Wei Zexi, 21, ... More »
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission and Federal Trade Commission have asked mobile phone carriers and manufacturers to explain how they release security updates amid mounting concerns over security vulnerabilities, the U.S. agencies said on Monday... More »
TORONTO Former Canadian radio personality Jian Ghomeshi will not face a second trial for sexual assault but will instead agree to a peace bond, CBC News reported on Monday, citing an unnamed source close to the case. The law firm representing Ghomeshi did not ... More »
LOS ANGELES Even as a Los Angeles judge dismissed one case brought by a former girlfriend of media mogul Sumner Redstone, she filed a new lawsuit that threatens to keep salacious allegations about the 92-year-old’s lifestyle alive. The new complaint, filed by ... More »
LOS ANGELES Media mogul Sumner Redstone never set foot in the Los Angeles courtroom where his mental competency was on trial in recent days. But the 92-year-old billionaire had the final word on Monday when Judge David Cowan, citing blunt videotaped testimony ... More »
Facebook (FB.O) workers have often omitted conservative political stories from the website’s “trending” list, the technology news site Gizmodo said on Monday in a report that sparked widespread comment on social media. An unnamed former Facebook employee told ... More »
PYONGYANG North Korea expelled a BBC journalist on Monday over his reporting, the broadcaster and a North Korean official said, as a large group of foreign media members visited the isolated country to cover a rare ruling party congress. Rupert Wingfield-Hayes... More »
VILNIUS Pussy Riot punk performer Nadya Tolokonnikova is looking for a new audience — readers and, ideally, financial backers who can turn her two-year-old news website into a full-blown contender on Russia’s media scene. She first rose to prominence by donnin... More »
Newspaper publisher Tribune Publishing Co (TPUB.N) said its board had adopted a shareholder rights plan – popularly known as a “poison pill” – in a bid to thwart Gannett Co Inc’s (GCI.N) unsolicited takeover offer. Tribune shares fell nearly 6 percent in morni... More »
(Note language in third paragraph. Rewrites with further quotes from court, background on Viacom) By Lisa Richwine LOS ANGELES A judge called Sumner Redstone’s deposition “strong evidence” that the media mogul knew what he was doing when he ejected an ex-girlf... More »
LONDON A new 200 million pound ($290 million) polar research ship is to be named after veteran BBC naturalist David Attenborough but the government promised on Friday that “Boaty McBoatface”, the name which topped a public poll, would not be ignored. The namin... More »
News Corp (NWSA.O), owner of the Wall Street Journal and book publisher HarperCollins, reported its fifth drop in quarterly revenue in a row as print ad sales declined and a strong dollar hit income from outside the United States. The 7.3 percent fall in reven... More »
(Reuters Health) – While many forms of e-cigarette advertising increase the odds that teens will try the devices, a new U.S. study suggests that this generation of digital natives is most enticed by promotions they see online. Big U.S. tobacco companies are al... More »
BEIJING/DETROIT Tomorrow’s cars will be all-electric, self-driving, connected to high-speed communications networks … and free. And probably Chinese. That, at least, is the vision of Jia Yueting, a billionaire entrepreneur and one of a new breed of Chinese who... More »
LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – Disney’s “The Jungle Book” showed serious traction at the North American box office, dominating moviegoing for a second straight weekend with $60.8 million at 4,028 locations. The family-friendly tentpole declined only 41% from its ... More »
MOSCOW Russia’s Onexim group, which manages the assets of tycoon Mikhail Prokhorov, said on Sunday that it was not in talks to sell its RBC media group and power generating company Quadra. Russian online news site gazeta.ru reported earlier on Sunday, citing s... More »
ABIDJAN Congolese rumba music legend Papa Wemba died after collapsing on stage in the Ivory Coast in the early hours of Sunday morning, according to the private morgue where his body was taken. Wemba, born in 1949, was performing at the FEMUA 2016 festival whe... More »
CHANHASSEN, Minn. Prince’s remains have been cremated and his family and friends attended a private ceremony on Saturday to pay their respects to the late pop superstar at the studio complex where he died in a suburb of Minneapolis, a Prince spokeswoman said. ... More »
Beyonce cemented her status as the queen of surprise releases on Saturday, releasing a completely new album and videos called “Lemonade” via a widely anticipated one-hour special on cable network HBO. During the show, which ignited social media as fans breathl... More »
Police found no signs of suicide or obvious trauma in the death of U.S. music superstar Prince, but it could take weeks before autopsy results reveal how the groundbreaking performer died, authorities said on Friday. The intensely private musician, whose hits ... More »
The blocking of Apple mobile entertainment services in China poses fresh challenges for the tech company as it prepares to report its first-ever drop in iPhone sales. The news on Thursday that Apple Inc’s (AAPL.O) online book and film services had gone dark in... More »
LOS ANGELES The late pop star Prince was known in life as an artist fiercely protective of his intellectual property, but how much others may profit from his legacy, including a large body of unreleased songs, hinges on how astute he was in arranging for contr... More »
BERLIN Germany’s federal states appealed to media outlets on Friday to let prosecutors examine the full detail of the Panama Papers that revealed how offshore firms are used to stash the wealth of the world’s rich and powerful. The scandal broke in early April... More »
NEW YORK A New York lawyer was sentenced on Thursday to six months in prison for participating in a fraudulent scheme in which a con man impersonated his successful father in order to raise money to buy Maxim magazine. Harvey Newkirk, 40, was sentenced by U.S.... More »
LONDON Britain’s Supreme Court was urged on Thursday to maintain a ban on the English press naming a celebrity who was involved in an extra-marital threesome, even though the details are easy to find online. The case has stirred debate in Britain about whether... More »
The parent of Britain’s Daily Mail said on Wednesday it had not submitted its own bid to buy Yahoo Inc’s core Internet business, but was still in talks to partner with other suitors of the U.S. company. Yahoo, which has been struggling with falling ad revenue ... More »
SHANGHAI The new boss of Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post, Jack Ma, has promised not to interfere in editorial decisions, in an apparent bid to assuage concerns about the paper’s independence under his e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. Critics ha... More »
NEW YORK The Pulitzer Prizes, established in 1917 with a bequest from trail-blazing publisher Joseph Pulitzer, are marking their 100th year on Monday with the announcement of the winners of what are regarded as the most prestigious awards in American journalis... More »
LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – “The Jungle Book” dominated the weekend box office, grossing a massive $103.6 million, and extending the Walt Disney Company’s success in making live action versions of its classic animated features. That ranks as the second biggest... More »
WASHINGTON Actor and director George Clooney, a supporter of Hillary Clinton’s presidential bid, broke ranks over campaign financing on Saturday to condemn the “obscene” sums of money in U.S. politics and praised Clinton’s chief political rival in the process.... More »
BAMAKO Mali bid a final farewell on Saturday to Malick Sidibe, an award-winning photographer considered a national treasure for his unique studio portraits and candid black-and-white depictions of popular culture in his West African homeland. From humble begin... More »
WASHINGTON The Obama administration on Friday weighed in on the debate over allowing consumers to switch from pricey cable television boxes to less expensive devices, urging regulators to set an example for the rest of government on how to boost competition. C... More »
TOKYO Electronics giant Sony Corp said a factory producing image sensors for smartphone makers will remain closed while it assesses the damage from two deadly earthquakes which hit southern Japan. One of its major customers is Apple, which uses the sensors in ... More »
The movie “Barbershop: The Next Cut” may open on Friday, a Manhattan judge ruled on Thursday as he denied an injunction sought by a New York playwright to block the fourth of a series of comedies that he claims ripped off his stage play “Scissors.” Ronald Dick... More »
NEW YORK/WASHINGTON Apple Inc said the U.S. government had failed to show a continued need for its help accessing a locked iPhone in a New York drug case after a third party came forward with a solution to crack a different phone belonging to one of the shoote... More »
NEW YORK Talks aimed at settling a lawsuit questioning the competency of media mogul Sumner Redstone have hit an impasse and attorneys are rescheduling the depositions of key players, an attorney for Redstone’s former girlfriend, who brought the lawsuit, said ... More »
BERLIN Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Tuesday Germany wanted to find a solution to the migrant crisis but this was separate to artistic freedom after the Turkish leader filed a complaint against a comedian for insulting him with a satirical poem. “I want to ... More »
Ailing Viacom Inc (VIAB.O) controlling shareholder Sumner Redstone opposes Chief Executive Officer Philippe Dauman’s plan to sell a minority stake sale in Viacom’s Paramount Pictures movie studio, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. The report added to... More »
SINGAPORE A spat between Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and his younger sister has blown into the open, one year after the death of their iron-handed father Lee Kuan Yew, who brooked no discord within the city-state’s political world. Lee’s sister ac... More »
BEIJING China’s online censorship system protects national security and does not discriminate against foreign companies, the country’s internet regulator said, after the United States labeled the blocking of websites by Beijing a trade barrier. The U.S. Trade ... More »
LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – Melissa McCarthy’s star power lifted “The Boss” to an estimated $23.5 million opening weekend despite bad reviews and rough word-of-mouth for the R-rated comedy. If those projections hold, it will be enough to narrowly topple “Batma... More »
LOS ANGELES A passionate kiss, Leonardo DiCaprio’s “Revenant” bear encounter and a foul-mouthed hosting duo dominated Saturday’s profanity-laden MTV Movie Awards, where “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” came away the top winner. “The Force Awakens,” the third-hig... More »
Headlines screaming “Deportations to begin” and “Markets sink as trade war looms” top a parody newspaper front page the Boston Globe posted on Saturday, with a scathing editorial denouncing Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump’s candidacy. The mock... More »
The U.S. Justice Department on Friday said it would keep fighting to force Apple Inc to open an iPhone in a New York drug case, continuing its controversial effort to require Apple and other tech companies to help law enforcement authorities circumvent encrypt... More »
WASHINGTON Security researchers and civil liberties advocates on Friday condemned draft legislation leaked from the U.S. Senate that would let judges order technology companies to assist law enforcement agencies in breaking into encrypted data. The long-awaite... More »
Yahoo Inc (YHOO.O) has extended the deadline to bid for its businesses by a week to April 18, technology news website Re/code reported, citing people familiar with the matter. Yahoo, whose shares were up 1.7 percent in early trading, had set an April 11 deadli... More »
BOSTON For days after the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, Americans were glued to the news, eager to know who had planted the homemade devices that ripped through the crowd at the finish line, killing three people. The world got its first look at the suspects th... More »
BERN/GENEVA Banking watchdogs across Europe have begun checking whether lenders have ties to a massive document leak from Panama that showed how offshore companies are used to stash clients’ wealth. Switzerland’s financial watchdog FINMA said on Thursday that ... More »
LISBON Portuguese Culture Minister Joao Soares resigned on Friday, a day after threatening to slap critics who had called him incompetent and rude. A post on his Facebook page saying he wanted to slap two newspaper columnists, followed by what was seen as a ha... More »
FRANKFURT Rupert Murdoch’s Sky could win all the live broadcast rights to Germany’s Bundesliga soccer again but would have to give up some of the online rights, three sources with knowledge of the matter told Reuters on Friday. Germany’s soccer association is ... More »
LONDON Britain’s Financial Conduct Authority has asked 20 banks and other financial firms to check if they have any ties to Panama law firm Mossack Fonseca, the regulator said on Thursday. A massive leak of documents from the firm released this week detailed h... More »
ZURICH/REYKJAVIK, Swiss police raided the European soccer body UEFA on Wednesday to seize information about a contract disclosed in the Panama Papers that was signed by Gianni Infantino, now head of the global soccer body FIFA. The impact of the leaked documen... More »
LONDON Dozens of journalists at oil-price reporting agency Argus Media are set to become multi-millionaires when a deal to bring an investor onboard goes through later this year, potentially valuing the firm at as much as $1.3 billion. Argus, which makes the b... More »
Lawyers for Viacom Inc Chairman Emeritus Sumner Redstone are in talks to settle a lawsuit challenging the 92-year-old media mogul’s mental competency, people familiar with the situation said on Tuesday. Depositions of Viacom Chief Executive Officer Philippe Da... More »
LOS ANGELES Tom Staggs, the veteran Walt Disney Co executive who had been widely seen as the media company’s next CEO, will step down on May 6 as the board expands its search for a successor to Bob Iger, Disney said on Monday. The unexpected move came little m... More »
Walt Disney Co Chief Executive Bob Iger could end up extending his term for a third time, analysts said on Tuesday, following the surprise announcement that Chief Operating Officer Tom Staggs, a potential successor, will step down in May. Disney’s shares were ... More »
ATHENS Greece on Monday picked a local theater director to curate its most renowned annual summer arts festival after Belgian artist Jan Fabre quit following protests from artists that his plans excluded Greek works. Fabre resigned on April 2, complaining of a... More »
BRAZZAVILLE Police in Congo’s capital Brazzaville exchanged heavy fire with unidentified gunmen on Monday, witnesses said, in the first significant outbreak of violence since President Denis Sassou Nguesso won re-election last month in a disputed poll. Young o... More »
LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice” appears to be losing steam as it ends its second weekend in theaters. The critically loathed superhero movie topped the box office, picking up $52.4 million. However, that represented a steep 68%... More »
BEIJING China’s box office revenues grew 51 percent in the first quarter of 2016, Chinese state radio said on Sunday, although a ticketing scandal has cast doubt on the real size of the country’s booming movie market. Total sales of tickets in China were 14.5 ... More »
SAN FRANCISCO The FBI’s method for breaking into a locked iPhone 5c is unlikely to stay secret for long, according to senior Apple Inc engineers and outside experts. Once it is exposed, Apple should be able to plug the encryption hole, comforting iPhone users ... More »
The Federal Bureau of Investigation has assured law enforcement across the United States that it will help unlock mobile devices such as iPhones involved in investigations when it is allowed by law and policy. The FBI said in a letter to local authorities that... More »
WASHINGTON Digital privacy advocates and users of Reddit expressed their alarm on Friday over a change in the forum’s transparency report that suggested it may have been asked to give customer data to FBI investigators under a secretive government authority. T... More »
BEIRUT The Saudi-owned television news channel Al Arabiya shut its offices in Lebanon and dismissed 27 employees, two of its journalists said on Friday, in a sudden move that comes amid political tensions between Riyadh and Beirut. Protesters also attacked the... More »
NEW YORK Kittens firing a cannon, a rabbit sniffing for drugs, attempts at humor on the fraught presidential campaign trail and a failed prank by Google competed for attention in the United States on Friday. As ever, the trick for April Fools’ Day hoaxes was t... More »
Google hastily removed an April Fools’ Day feature on Friday that allowed Gmail users to send emails and not see the replies, after the joke fell very flat with some people. The prank, called “Mic Drop,” gave users the option of sending emails through a specia... More »
Media buyers expect record political ad spending driven by the U.S. presidential race will create a tight market for advertisers and drive up rates. Super PACs, which rose to prominence after a landmark U.S. Supreme Court campaign finance decision in 2010, are... More »
BOSTON Billionaire hedge fund investors Daniel Loeb and Barry Rosenstein made money in March when the stock market came back with stronger gains, but both men’s funds are still in the red for the year, sources familiar with their performance said. Loeb’s Third... More »
Almost a week after being shut down for spewing racist and sexist comments on Twitter, Microsoft Corp’s artificial intelligence ‘chatbot’ called Tay briefly rejoined Twitter on Wednesday only to launch a spam attack on its followers. The incident marks another... More »
