(Reuters) – Cigarette maker Philip Morris International Inc has suspended a global social media marketing campaign in response to Reuters inquiries into the company’s use of young online personalities to sell its new “heated tobacco” device, including a 21-yea... More »
(Reuters) – A U.S. judge on Friday said Elon Musk must face a defamation lawsuit by a British diver who said he was falsely branded a pedophile and child rapist by the chief executive of electric car company Tesla Inc. U.S. District Judge Stephen Wilson in Los... More »
JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel has launched a PR campaign to counter calls for a boycott of the upcoming Eurovision Song Contest final in Tel Aviv, using Google ads which refer to the boycott but lead to a glossy website extolling Israel. The international Boyco... More »
SYDNEY (Reuters) – Millions of A$50 ($35) banknotes in Australia have an embarrassing typographical error that was overlooked by the country’s central bank before they were printed and circulated. The goof first became known on Thursday when a listener on radi... More »
HYDERABAD, India/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Over the past year, a team of as many as 260 contract workers in Hyderabad, India has ploughed through millions of Facebook Inc photos, status updates and other content posted since 2014. The workers categorize items ... More »
HYDERABAD, India/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Facebook Inc has thousands of content labelers around the world who categorize content with the aim of creating large datasets that can be more readily analyzed by humans and software. One project at outsourcing vendo... More »
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – British-born actor Peter Mayhew, who played Chewbacca the Wookiee, the loyal, furry companion of space buccaneer Han Solo in five of the “Star Wars” movies, has died at age 74, his family said on Thursday. Mayhew, whose face was never s... More »
TEL AVIV (Reuters) – As ‘Eurovision Song Contest 2019’ banners go up across Tel Aviv, behind the glitz of the songfest is the latest manifestation of a bitter row between Israel and an international pro-Palestinian boycott movement. When Israel was selected la... More »
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – “Twilight” is coming back from the dead with a live concert that will tour the world. Movie studio Lionsgate on Thursday announced that the vampire book and movie romance that had millions of hearts swooning is being adapted for an inte... More »
(Reuters) – “It’s a challenge to describe that noise,” says Reuters senior photographer Mike Blake, after witnessing his first rocket launch. “It’s a sound of rippling energy. Reverberating, cracking. It’s something that stays with you.” Blake worked with Joe ... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – Zac Efron, who won legions of female fans in the “High School Musical” films, takes on a more sinister role in crime drama “Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil, and Vile”, playing American serial killer Ted Bundy. The film, released on Netflix... More »
SHANGHAI (Reuters) – China’s press and publication regulator has issued new rules on applications for publishing online games in China, signaling a possible acceleration in the handing out of formal approvals. China stopped granting licenses to monetize online... More »
NEW YORK/LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – “The Wire” creator David Simon, seven other writers, and the Writers Guild of America sued the four major Hollywood talent agencies on Wednesday for getting paid in such a way that the agencies’ financial interests prevail over... More »
MUNICH (Reuters) – If you are a “Game of Thrones” fan and appreciate the element of surprise, stop reading now. Students at the Technical University of Munich have developed an application to predict which character has the best chance to claim the coveted Iro... More »
NEW YORK(Reuters) – Stressed out by the tax deadline on April 15? Yes, of course, there is an app for that. Some 52 percent of Americans find the filing process stressful, according to a survey by tax-prep firm TaxSlayer. That is why wellness app Headspace is ... More »
TOKYO (Reuters) – Japanese printers rushed to turn out calendars emblazoned with the new imperial era name on Tuesday as the public tried to make sense of the meaning of “Reiwa” a day after its unveiling gripped the nation. The new era begins on May 1 when Cro... More »
JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – Naspers will float its e-commerce ventures on the Euronext stock exchange in Amsterdam, it said on Monday, the latest move by South Africa’s biggest company to address a hefty discount in its shares. Founded more than 100 years ago in ... More »
DEARBORN, Mich./MIAMI (Reuters) – Retired Ford assembly plant worker and Donald Trump supporter Henry Thompson was giddy as he listened to a summary of U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia report on TV at a Dearborn, Michigan, diner on Sunday. Mueller ... More »
(Reuters) – Apple Inc is expected to unveil a new video streaming service and a news subscription platform at an event on Monday at its California headquarters. The iPhone maker is banking on growing its services business to offset a dip in smartphone sales. W... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – British comedy “Only Fools and Horses” ran for decades, drew the biggest home audience yet for a TV episode – and has smashed box office records with a West End musical version that resonates in a nation riven by Brexit and yearning for simp... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – If you are looking for steady work, it is probably best not to go into show business. Unless you are Peter Krause, that is. The 53-year-old Minnesota native has been a staple of U.S. TV screens for years, with roles in shows like “Sports N... More »
WELLINGTON (Reuters) – New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said on Monday that her cabinet had made in principle decisions around the reform of gun laws following the mass shooting in Christchurch “I intend to give further details of these decisions to t... More »
(Reuters) – Reuters reporter Joseph Menn exclusively revealed on Friday that Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke belonged to one of the best-known groups of computer hackers as a teenager. Within minutes, his special report was the most popular sto... More »
CAIRO (Reuters) – Californian group Red Hot Chili Peppers played in front of Egypt’s great pyramids of Giza on Friday, entertaining more than 10,000 people at the site and many more over a livestream link. With the three ancient monuments silhouetted behind th... More »
PARIS (Reuters) – French fashion house Louis Vuitton has pulled Michael Jackson-themed items from its 2019 summer menswear collection following a documentary about alleged child abuse by the late pop star. The collection was shown in January at the Paris Fashi... More »
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Actress Rosario Dawson, whose film credits include “Rent” and “Men in Black II,” has confirmed reports she is dating U.S. Senator and presidential candidate Cory Booker, calling him “a wonderful human being” who she loves and admires. D... More »
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Hollywood actress Lori Loughlin was dropped by a TV network and her daughter lost a sponsorship deal on Thursday, while students sued prestigious universities in growing fallout from a massive college bribery scandal. Crown Media Family... More »
TOKYO (Reuters) – A Tokyo court on Monday denied ousted Nissan boss Carlos Ghosn’s request to attend a board meeting this week, broadcaster NHK reported, blocking what would have been a dramatic face off with the colleagues he has accused of fomenting a coup. ... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Former New York Yankees slugger Alex Rodriguez is engaged to the pop star, actress and producer Jennifer Lopez, they announced on social media on Saturday, sharing a photo of her ring. “She said yes,” Rodriguez, known as A-Rod, said on Twi... More »
CHICAGO (Reuters) – Television actor Jussie Smollett, arrested last month on a single charge of perpetrating a hate-crime hoax, has been newly indicted on 16 felony counts of falsely reporting to police that he was assaulted by two strangers shouting racist an... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – More than 170 art works from George Michael’s private collection go on sale in an online auction from Friday to raise money for philanthropic causes the late British singer and songwriter had supported. The collection includes works by leadi... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – White House communications director Bill Shine has resigned as Donald Trump’s top White House communications aide and will move to work on the U.S. president’s 2020 re-election campaign, the White House said on Friday. Shine, a former Fo... More »
GENEVA (Reuters) – She was nominated for an Oscar playing a maid in “Roma” and now Yalitza Aparicio is using her fame to campaign for the rights of domestic workers and indigenous women around the world. The Mexican actress got a standing ovation as she joined... More »
(Reuters) – The Chicago Police Department has started an internal investigation into how information about an alleged hate crime attack against actor Jussie Smollett was anonymously leaked to journalists, police officials said. Smollett, 36, a black, openly ga... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – The National Basketball Association will offer fans in China original programming and an easier way to buy league gear through e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, the league announced on Wednesday. For the first time, NBA China wil... More »
(Reuters) – U.K. Attorney General Geoffrey Cox has abandoned attempts to secure a hard time-limit or unilateral exit mechanism for the Irish backstop, the Telegraph reported on Sunday. Ministers said Cox’s aims that represent central demands of Eurosceptics ar... More »
SINGAPORE (Reuters) – China’s Xinhua state news agency on Sunday used a lifelike robotic news anchor that mimics human facial expressions and mannerisms to present a story about delegates attending an annual parliament meeting arriving in Beijing. The artifici... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump said on Saturday he would soon sign an executive order requiring American universities and colleges to maintain “free speech” on campuses and threatened that schools not complying could lose federal research f... More »
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Former “Beverly Hills, 90210” star Luke Perry is in the hospital under observation, his publicist said on Thursday, following a report he suffered a stroke at his Los Angeles home. Celebrity website TMZ said Perry, 52, was rushed to hos... More »
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Almost 10 years after his sudden death, Michael Jackson’s legacy is under fresh scrutiny in a documentary about alleged child sex abuse that has been met with outrage by the singer’s family. “Leaving Neverland” features two men now in t... More »
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – When the “Star Wars” galaxy is brought to life at Walt Disney Co’s U.S. theme parks later this year, fans will not step onto the iconic landscapes of Hoth or Tatooine. The 14-acre (6-hectare) Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge sections of the two... More »
STOCKHOLM (Reuters) – Swedbank said on Tuesday it had hired external forensic auditors to investigate information in a media report linking the bank to a Baltic money laundering scandal, replacing recently appointed audit firm EY. Sweden’s public broadcaster a... More »
SHANGHAI (Reuters) – Chinese state media on Saturday expressed cautious optimism over trade talks between the United States and China, a day after President Xi Jinping said a week of discussions had produced “step-by-step” progress. Xi made the comments at a m... More »
YANGON (Reuters) – Myanmar’s government under Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi has used repressive laws to prosecute peaceful critics, dashing hopes that its first democratic leader in decades would safeguard free speech, Human Rights Watch said on Friday. Free... More »
FRANKFURT/SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Singapore police raided the premises of German payments company Wirecard in the city state on Friday following a series of investigative reports in the Financial Times alleging fraud and creative accounting. The raid intensified... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – For a man who spent nearly three decades in prison, the passage of time was no doubt important to Nelson Mandela. So it is perhaps fitting that an exhibition opening in London on Friday about his life and legacy features his watch, which was... More »
PARIS/LONDON (Reuters) – Iranian Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi said she first had doubts about the 1979 Islamic Revolution when members of the Shah’s regime were executed on the rooftop of a school housing its leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. She ha... More »
BERLIN (Reuters) – The ability of the weak to hold their own against the powerful loomed over the first day of the Berlinale, in which “The Kindness of Strangers”, an ostensibly apolitical film, explored themes of injustice and inequality amid great wealth. Da... More »
BERLIN (Reuters) – A mother fleeing her violent husband, a serial killer who preys on women and famine in 1930s Ukraine are among the weighty social and political themes explored in films showcased at this year’s Berlin Film Festival. Short on star power but s... More »
ORLANDO, Fla. (Reuters) – Jeff Bezos’ rocket company, Blue Origin, has signed a deal with Canada’s Telesat to launch part of a satellite constellation aimed at providing speedy internet access to governments and businesses globally, the companies said on Thurs... More »
JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Roseanne Barr, the American comedian whose television show was canceled last year after she made a racist remark on Twitter, visited Jerusalem’s Old City on Sunday as part of a tour of Israel. Barr arrived in Israel last week with celebri... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – A New York state judge on Friday approved Harvey Weinstein’s overhaul of his legal team to defend him against criminal sexual assault charges, though two of his new lawyers represented one of the disgraced Hollywood mogul’s most vocal accu... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – Her role as a victim of sex trafficking was so harrowing that Mrunal Thakur almost backed out. To research the experiences of women and girls sold into the sex trade, like the title character she plays in the film “Love Sonia”, Thakur met su... More »
STOCKHOLM (Reuters) – The scandal-plagued Swedish body that awards the Nobel Prize for literature said on Friday that one of its members would leave after an investigation determined she had leaked the names of winners. The poet Katarina Frostenson and her pho... More »
(Reuters) – Netflix Inc (NFLX.O) forecast first-quarter revenue slightly below Wall Street estimates on Thursday, even after a record quarter for new customers, sending shares of the world’s largest streaming service down 4 percent in after-hours trading. Inve... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – A British-Iranian aid worker who has been jailed in Tehran is going on hunger strike in protest at her treatment, her employer and her husband said. Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, 40, a project manager with the Thomson Reuters Foundation, was ar... More »
(Reuters) – Renowned Bollywood director Rajkumar Hirani has denied allegations that he sexually assaulted a subordinate over a period of six months in 2018. Hirani, known for feel-good, comedy films that have grossed record numbers at the Indian box-office, wa... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – Final Season is coming – and it’s all about Jon Snow, and (just for a change) it portends death. Or at least that’s the impression U.S. satellite network HBO chooses to give in the teaser for Game of Thrones that it unveiled on primetime TV ... More »
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – An attorney for R. Kelly on Friday called a new documentary series about the R&B singer a “for-profit hit piece,” and said the latest accusations of abuse by the Grammy-winning musician were a “complete fabrication.” The six-hour docume... More »
MANILA (Reuters) – Hundreds of thousands of Filipinos joined an annual procession in the Philippine capital to kiss or touch a centuries-old black wooden statue of Jesus Christ, believed to have miraculous healing powers, in a grand display of Catholic devotio... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – London remained the top destination in Europe for technology investment in 2018, with nearly double the amount being plowed into companies in the British capital than nearest rival Berlin, data showed on Wednesday. Technology companies in Lo... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May return for a third season of their thrill-seeking motor show “The Grand Tour”, with plenty of fast cars and stunning scenery they hope will take viewers’ minds off the real world. The Amazon pro... More »
(Reuters Health) – Spending on health care advertising in the U.S. has almost doubled over the past two decades as companies compete for their share of the world’s biggest health care market, a U.S. study suggests. Annual health care marketing surged from $17.... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein will go on trial in Manhattan on May 6 on charges of sexually assaulting two women, his lawyer said on Tuesday. Weinstein is accused of forcibly performing oral sex on a woman in July 2006 and raping ... More »
NANTUCKET, Mass. (Reuters) – Former “House of Cards” star Kevin Spacey stood impassively in a Nantucket courtroom on Monday before pleading not guilty to sexually assaulting an 18-year-old man at an island bar over two years ago, a charge his lawyer dismissed ... More »
(Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to consider reviving a lawsuit by 102-year-old Oscar-winning actress Olivia de Havilland accusing a Twenty-First Century Fox Inc unit of falsely portraying her in a miniseries about a famous Hollywood feud.... More »
(Reuters) – The New York Yankees are in talks with Amazon.com Inc and Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc about a joint bid for the team’s regional sports network, Yes, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday, citing people familiar with the matter. The baseball t... More »
DHAKA/NOAKHALI, Bangladesh (Reuters) – Bangladesh has a general election this weekend, but opposition candidate Abdul Moyeen Khan says he has yet to hold a single public meeting in his constituency about 30 miles (50 km) northeast of Dhaka, the capital. Thousa... More »
BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s internet regulator said on Friday the recently published rules governing financial information providers are aimed at firms supplying information to an institutional audience and to specific investors, rather than the general public... More »
(Reuters) – Facebook Inc’s photo-sharing social network Instagram said on Thursday it has fixed a bug that led to a temporary change in the appearance of its feed for a large number of users. The bug led to a small test being distributed widely, the company sa... More »
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Pop singer Miley Cyrus has confirmed her marriage to teen sweetheart, actor Liam Hemsworth, posting photos taken at their quiet family wedding on social media. With the caption “10 years later” and the date “12.23.18,” the “Wrecking Bal... More »
PARIS (Reuters) – French tech company Sigfox has developed a bite-size tracker that can be inserted into the horns of rhinos to help conservationists monitor and protect the endangered species. With the dramatic decline of animal species in the past century mo... More »
(Reuters) – Oscar-winning actor Kevin Spacey has been charged in connection with an allegation that he sexually abused an 18-year-old boy at a Nantucket, Massachusetts, bar more than two years ago, the local district attorney said on Monday. Spacey is schedule... More »
(Reuters Health) – – Millions of Americans have searched Google for information on how to understand, prevent and report sexual harassment and assault since the start of the #MeToo movement more than a year ago, a U.S. study suggests. In October 2017, followin... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – A New York state judge on Thursday denied Harvey Weinstein’s motion to dismiss criminal charges that he sexually assaulted two women, rejecting the movie producer’s argument that the case was tainted by police and prosecutorial misconduct.... More »
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Seven years ago, a nephew of Ruth Bader Ginsburg asked the U.S. Supreme Court justice to help him with a screenplay that would chronicle one of her early cases seeking equal rights for men and women. That story, written with extensive i... More »
AMSTERDAM (Reuters) – As Brexit rapidly approaches, a pro-European Union boy band has made its debut with a ballad to the British people pleading for them to “come back to us” because the love is not over. The five-member “Breunion Boys”, formed by a Dutch ani... More »
PODGORICA, Montenegro (Reuters) – In a nostalgic homage to a now-defunct nation, a bronze statue of former Yugoslav leader Josip Broz Tito was unveiled on Wednesday in Montenegro’s capital Podgorica. Tito, who led former communist Yugoslavia from the end of Wo... More »
BERLIN (Reuters) – Germany agreed new rules on Wednesday to lower the threshold for screening and even blocking purchases of stakes in German firms by non-Europeans, in a move to fend off unwanted takeovers by Chinese investors in strategic areas. The decision... More »
(Reuters Health) – – Paralyzed people might one day be able to operate smartphones and tablets just by thinking about the actions they want to perform, with help from sensors implanted in their brains, a recent experiment suggests. While previous experiments h... More »
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – The nominations for the Grammy Awards, the highest awards in the music industry, were announced on Friday. Following is a list of major nominations, which will be handed out at a ceremony in Los Angeles on Feb. 10. Album of the Year: In... More »
(Reuters) – U.S. singer Beyonce will perform at the wedding of the daughter of India’s richest man, Mukesh Ambani, along with Bollywood stars, and guests will be flown in on 100 chartered flights in lavish marriage celebrations. Isha Ambani, 27, will marry Ana... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – A sketchbook revealing early costume designs for Darth Vader, Luke Skywalker and other “Star Wars” characters is expected to sell for more than 100,000 pounds ($130,000) at auction in London next week. The colored pencil sketches, drawn by O... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – Glasgow-based artist Charlotte Prodger won the 2018 Turner Prize on Tuesday, Britain’s prestigious contemporary art award, with an autobiographical film shot on a mobile phone. For the first time, all four works shortlisted for the annual pr... More »
STOCKHOLM (Reuters) – A Swedish appeals court on Monday found Jean-Claude Arnault, the man at the center of a sex scandal that forced the postponement of this year’s Nobel Prize in Literature, guilty of an additional rape and increased his prison term. A lower... More »
(Reuters) – FuboTV, a sports-focused internet television streaming service, expanded into Spain on Monday in its first move outside North America. The private company, which is based in New York and has raised $150 million in funding to date, will offer 13 Spa... More »
BUCHAREST (Reuters) – Starting out as a unit production manager in Romania’s film industry more than two decades ago, Ada Solomon felt she needed to punch above her weight. But after fighting with crew on set early on in her career, Solomon, now a producer of ... More »
MUMBAI (Reuters) – U.S. singer Nick Jonas and “Quantico” actor Priyanka Chopra will be married in a traditional Hindu ceremony today, the culmination of a three-day long wedding celebration that featured cricket matches and Bollywood songs, all taking place in... More »
MUMBAI (Reuters) – “Quantico” actor and Bollywood star Priyanka Chopra married U.S singer Nick Jonas on Saturday in a Christian ceremony attended by close family and friends at one of India’s most opulent royal palaces, People magazine reported. The couple are... More »
HELSINKI (Reuters) – Clients at some banks in Finland have faced problems with the use of their payment cards on Sunday, payment firm Nets said. “The problems affected card transactions and online banking at some banks in Finland. It was related to a network i... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – In any history of hip-hop, one name keeps popping up over and over again: Andre Harrell. From working alongside Def Jam co-founder Russell Simmons to founding his own label Uptown Records, Bronx-born Harrell seems to be everywhere at once ... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – Tech firms like Facebook (FB.O) should be made liable for “harmful and misleading” material on their websites and pay a levy so they can be regulated, British lawmakers said, warning of a crisis in democracy due to misuse of personal data. F... More »
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (Reuters) – Alphabet Inc’s YouTube is creating scripted series and other original programing for international markets including France, Germany, Japan, Mexico and India to try to draw new customers to its paid subscription service, a sen... More »
(Reuters) – U.S. conspiracy theorist Alex Jones has been suspended from Facebook for bullying and hate speech and is close to having pages tied to him and his Infowars website removed from the platform, the social media network said on Friday. The radio host’s... More »
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Carrie Fisher will be featured in the next “Star Wars” movie, using previously unseen footage she recorded before her death, Walt Disney Co. studio said on Friday. Actor Mark Hamill, whose Luke Skywalker character appeared to die in las... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Bayer AG disputed accusations in a new Netflix documentary that claims medical device makers and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration placed profits before patient safety. The company, in a statement released Thursday night, said the docu... More »
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – “Charlie’s Angels” are returning to the big screen next year for a third outing, this time with a female director and a multi-racial trio of women led by Kristen Stewart. “Twilight” star Stewart, along with rising British actresses Naom... More »
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Comedian Roseanne Barr apologized on Thursday for her controversial Twitter comment that caused the cancellation of her U.S. comedy show “Roseanne,” but insisted she had been misunderstood and said the mistake “cost me everything.” Barr... More »
BERLIN (Reuters) – German soccer player Mesut Ozil’s decision to quit the national team due to “racism and disrespect” he faced over his Turkish roots threw a spotlight on Monday on the country’s relations with its largest immigrant community. The most promine... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – Global sports broadcaster Eleven Sports has won the rights to show the 2018 PGA Championship in Britain and Ireland, showing the golf major for free across multiple platforms as a way to attract new viewers. Eleven Sports said earlier this m... More »
