Tag: DLI

‘Slippery’ actor Kevin Spacey tried to groom me, man tells UK court
[ad_1]

[1/2]Actor Kevin Spacey walks outside the Southwark Crown Court on the day of his trial over charges related to allegations of sex offences, in London, Britain, June 30, 2023. REUTERS/Toby Melville
Actor Kevin Spacey charged with 12 sex offences

Oscar-winner denies all accusations

Alleged victim says he felt ashamed
LONDON, July 3 (Reuters) – An alleged sex assault victim of Kevin Spacey said the “slippery” Hollywood actor had tried to “groom” him, and the repeated groping assaults had left him feeling physically sick, a London court heard on Monday.

Spacey, 63, is on trial at Southwark Crown Court accused of a dozen allegations of historic sex offences committed against four men, then aged in their 20s and 30s, which are said to have taken place between 2001 and 2013.

He has denied all the charges and his lawyer Patrick Gibbs said last week at the start of the trial the jury were going to hear some “damned lies”.

On Monday, the court was shown a recorded police interview with the first of the alleged victims. The man said the actor had assaulted him on up to 12 occasions over a period of about four years in the early 2000s, grabbing his “private areas” when they were alone, such as in a car or an elevator.

After two to three weeks of being with Spacey, the actor made him feel uncomfortable, rubbing the man’s legs and neck while he was driving, before later starting to grope him or force the man’s hand onto his genitalia, he said.

“He was almost, from the get go, grooming me,” the man said in the interview.

The alleged victim, who cannot be identified, said the “touchy feely” actor had on one occasion aggressively grabbed his crotch so hard when he was driving him to a party hosted by singer Elton John in about 2004 that he almost crashed the car.

Describing himself a “man’s man”, the accuser recounted that he had threatened to knock the actor out if he did it again, to which Spacey had replied “that’s such a turn on to me”.

He described the Oscar-winner as a “slippery snaky, difficult person”, a “mixed-up individual” who was very confused about his sexuality. The man said Spacey’s behaviour was an open secret at the London Old Vic theatre where he worked for more than a decade.

“It was well-known that he was obviously up to no good so to speak,” the man said.

‘SICK’

Giving evidence in person in court from the behind a screen, the man said he felt shocked, embarrassment and ashamed about what had happened to him, saying the alleged assaults made him feel physically sick.

He rejected suggestions from Spacey’s lawyer Gibbs that he had been flirtatious himself with the actor, had appeared to enjoy the interaction and that he had questioned his own sexuality.

Gibbs quizzed him about why he had kept a “warm and jolly” letter Spacey had sent him ahead of a charity event the man was involved in, and a “cosy” photo he posted on social media showing him with the actor.

“It’s just a normal photo, two men standing next to each other,” the witness replied.

Gibbs also put it to him the allegation regarding the incident prior to the Elton John party was completely untrue, pointing out that Spacey had only attended one such gathering which was in 2001. The man replied he might have got the dates wrong as it had been so long ago.

Asked why he had only come forward to the police last year, he said it was the “right time”, and then when questioned whether it had occurred to him he might be able to sue Spacey, he agreed it had.

Asked how much he thought he might receive, he replied: “Whatever it would be, it wouldn’t be enough for somebody who had been assaulted and abused.”

The trial is due to last about four weeks.

Reporting by Michael Holden, Editing by William Maclean

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
[ad_2]

Source link
July 3, 2023
Moscow says 700,000 children from Ukraine conflict zones now in Russia

[ad_1]

[1/2]A view shows a residential building destroyed in the course of Ukraine-Russia conflict in the southern port city of Mariupol, Ukraine April 14, 2022. Picture taken with a drone. REUTERS/Pavel Klimov/File Photo

July 3 (Reuters) – Russia has brought some 700,000 children from the conflict zones in Ukraine into Russian territory, Grigory Karasin, head of the international committee in the Federation Council, Russia’s upper house of parliament, said late on Sunday.

“In recent years, 700,000 children have found refuge with us, fleeing the bombing and shelling from the conflict areas in Ukraine,” Karasin wrote on his Telegram messaging channel.

Russia launched a full-scale invasion on its western neighbour Ukraine in February 2022. Moscow says its programme of bringing children from Ukraine into Russian territory is to protect orphans and children abandoned in the conflict zone.

However, Ukraine says many children have been illegally deported and the United States says thousands of children have been forcibly removed from their homes.

Most of the movement of people and children occurred in the first few months of the war and before Ukraine started its major counter offensive to regain occupied territories in the east and south in late August.

In July 2022, the United States estimated that Russia “forcibly deported” 260,000 children, while Ukraine’s Ministry of Integration of Occupied Territories, says 19,492 Ukrainian children are currently considered illegally deported.

(This story has been refiled to fix typographical errors in paragraph 3)

Reporting by Lidia Kelly in Melbourne; Editing by Michael Perry

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

[ad_2]

Source link

July 3, 2023
Musk’s Twitter rate limits could undermine new CEO, ad experts say

[ad_1]

July 3 (Reuters) – Elon Musk’s move to temporarily cap how many posts Twitter users can read on the social media site could undermine efforts by new CEO Linda Yaccarino to attract advertisers, marketing industry professionals said.

Musk announced Saturday that Twitter would limit how many tweets per day various accounts can read, to discourage “extreme levels” of data scraping and system manipulation.

Users posted screenshots in reply, showing they were unable to see any tweets, including tweets on the pages of corporate advertisers, after hitting the limit.

Ad industry veterans said the move creates an obstacle for Yaccarino, the former NBCUniversal advertising chief who started last month as Twitter’s CEO.

Yaccarino has sought to repair relationships with advertisers who pulled away from the site after Musk bought it last year, the Financial Times reported last week.

The limits are “remarkably bad” for users and advertisers already shaken by the “chaos” Musk has brought to the platform, Mike Proulx, research director at Forrester, said on Sunday.

“The advertiser trust deficit that Linda Yaccarino needs to reverse just got even bigger. And it cannot be reversed based on her industry credibility alone,” he said.

Lou Paskalis, the founder of advertising consultancy AJL Advisory and former marketing boss at Bank of America, said Yaccarino is Musk’s “last best hope” to salvage ad revenue and the company’s value.

“This move signals to the marketplace that he’s not capable of empowering her to save him from himself,” he said.

Under the new cap, unverified accounts were initially limited to 600 posts a day with new unverified accounts limited to 300. Verified accounts could read 6,000 posts a day, Musk said in a post on the site.

Twitter logo and a photo of Elon Musk are displayed through magnifier in this illustration taken October 27, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration

Hours later, he said the cap was raised to 10,000 posts per day for verified users, 1,000 per day for unverified and 500 posts per day for new unverified users.

A Twitter spokesperson did not reply to requests for comment and inquiries about how long the restrictions will last on Sunday.

Capping how much users can view could be “catastrophic” for the platform’s ad business, said Jasmine Enberg, principal analyst at Insider Intelligence.

“This certainly isn’t going to make it any easier to convince advertisers to return. It’s a hard sell already to bring advertisers back,” she said.

Olivia Wedderburn, an executive at creative agency TMW Unlimited, said she was advising her clients to “stop investing in Twitter immediately,” because the platform was turning away heavily engaged users, which she said is the “sole reason” to advertise on Twitter.

The limit came soon after Twitter began requiring users to log into an account on the social media platform to view tweets, which Musk called a “temporary emergency measure” to combat data scraping.

Musk had earlier expressed displeasure with artificial intelligence firms like OpenAI, the owner of ChatGPT, for using Twitter’s data to train their large language models.

Platforms including Reddit and major news media organizations have complained about AI companies using their information to train AI models as some have sought fees.

Kai-Cheng Yang, researcher at Indiana University in Bloomington, said that the limits appeared to be effective in blocking third parties, including search engines, from scraping Twitter data like before.

“It might still be possible, but the methods would be much more sophisticated and much less efficient,” he said.

Reporting by Jody Godoy in New York, Sheila Dang in Dallas, Akash Sriram in Bengaluru and Martin Coulter in London; editing by Burton Frierson, Nick Zieminski and Marguerita Choy

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Jody Godoy

Thomson Reuters

Jody Godoy reports on banking and securities law. Reach her at jody.godoy@thomsonreuters.com

[ad_2]

Source link

July 3, 2023
Pope Francis condemns burning of Koran – UAE newspaper

[ad_1]

DUBAI, July 3 (Reuters) – Pope Francis said the burning of the Muslim holy book, the Koran, has made him angry and disgusted and that he condemned and rejected permitting the act as a form of freedom of speech.

“Any book considered holy should be respected to respect those who believe in it,” the pope said in an interview in the United Arab Emirates newspaper Al Ittihad, published on Monday. “I feel angry and disgusted at these actions.

“Freedom of speech should never be used as a means to despise others and allowing that is rejected and condemned.”

A man tore up and burned a Koran in Sweden’s capital Stockholm last week, resulting in strong condemnation from several states, including Turkey whose backing Sweden needs to gain entry to the NATO military alliance.

While Swedish police have rejected several recent applications for anti-Koran demonstrations, courts have over-ruled those decisions, saying they infringed freedom of speech.

On Sunday, an Islamic grouping of 57 states said collective measures are needed to prevent acts of desecration to the Koran and international law should be used to stop religious hatred.

Reporting by Maha Eldahan; Editing by Edmund Klamann and Raju Gopalakrishnan

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

[ad_2]

Source link

July 3, 2023
Israeli troops and drones hit Jenin in major West Bank operation
[ad_1]
Hundreds of Israeli troops in one of biggest operations in years

Drone strikes target building in Jenin refugee camp

Gunfire and explosions heard for hours as drones circle
JENIN, West Bank, July 3 (Reuters) – Israeli forces hit the city of Jenin with drone strikes on Monday in one of the biggest West Bank operations in 20 years, killing at least eight Palestinians and involving hundreds of troops in sporadic gun battles that continued into the evening.

Gunfire and explosions were heard throughout the day as clashes continued between Israeli troops and fighters from the Jenin Brigades, a unit made up of militant groups based in the city’s crowded refugee camp.

“What is going on in the refugee camp is real war,” said Palestinian ambulance driver Khaled Alahmad. “There were strikes from the sky targeting the camp, every time we drive in, around five to seven ambulances and we come back full of injured.”

At times during the morning, at least six drones could be seen circling over the city and the adjoining camp, a densely packed area housing around 14,000 refugees in less than half a square kilometre.

The camp has been at the heart of an escalation of violence across the West Bank that has triggered mounting alarm from Washington to the Arab world, without so far opening the way to a resumption of political negotiations that have been stalled for almost a decade.

For more than a year, army raids in cities such as Jenin have become routine, while there have been a series of deadly attacks by Palestinians against Israelis and rampages by Jewish settler mobs against Palestinian villages.

The Palestinian health ministry confirmed at least eight people had been killed and more than 50 wounded in Jenin, while another man was killed in Ramallah overnight, shot in the head at a checkpoint.

The Israeli military said its forces struck a building that served as a command centre for fighters from the Jenin Brigades with what it called “precise” drone strikes using small payloads. It described the operation as an extensive counter-terrorism effort aimed at destroying infrastructure and disrupting militants from using the refugee camp as a base.

As the operation proceeded, Israeli armoured bulldozers ploughed up roads in the camp to dig up concealed improvised explosive devices, cutting water and electricity supplies, the Jenin municipality said as residents described soldiers breaking through the walls to pass from house to house.

“Nothing is safe in the camp. They dug up the roads with bulldozers. Why? What did the camp do?” said Hussein Zeidan, 67, as he recovered from his wounds in hospital.

In Washington, the State Department said it was closely tracking the situation in Jenin. A State Department spokesperson said it was imperative that all possible precautions be taken to prevent the loss of civilian lives.

An Israeli military spokesman said the operation would last as long as needed and suggested forces could remain for an extended period. “It could take hours, but it could also take days. We are focused on our goals,” he said.

Until June 21, when it carried out a strike near Jenin, the Israeli military had not used drone strikes in the West Bank since 2006. But the growing scale of the violence and the pressure on ground forces meant such tactics may continue, a military spokesman said.

[1/12]Palestinians run for cover during clashes with Israeli forces amid an Israeli military operation in Jenin, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank July 3, 2023. REUTERS/Raneen Sawafta

“We’re really stretched,” a spokesman told journalists. “It’s because of the scale. And again, from our perception, this will minimize friction,” he said, adding that the strikes were based on “precise intelligence”.

‘HORNETS NEST’

Monday’s operation, involving a force described as “brigade-size” – suggesting around 1,000-2,000 troops – was intended to help “break the safe haven mindset of the camp, which has become a hornets nest,” the spokesman said.

Its apparent scale underlined the importance of the Jenin camp in violence that has further exposed the impotence of the Palestinian Authority to impose its writ over towns in the West Bank, where it holds nominal governance powers.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said he was suspending contacts with Israel and called for “international protection for our people”. UN Middle East envoy Tor Wennesland said he was talking with all parties to de-escalate and ensure humanitarian access.

Hundreds of fighters from militant groups including Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Fatah are based in the camp, which was set up 70 years ago to house refugees in the aftermath of the 1948 war that accompanied the creation of Israel. The fighters have an array of weapons and a growing arsenal of explosive devices.

The Israeli military, which regularly accuses militant groups of basing fighters in civilian areas, said troops seized an improvised rocket launcher and hit a weapons production and explosives storage facility with hundreds of devices ready to be used as well as radios and other equipment.

It said it had also found weapons in a mosque where fighters had barricaded themselves inside in an underground section.

It was unclear whether the incursion would trigger a wider response from Palestinian factions, drawing in militant groups in the Gaza Strip, the coastal enclave controlled by militant Islamist group Hamas.

Saleh Al-Arouri, accused by Israel of leading the Hamas military wing in the West Bank, told Aqsa TV that fighters in Jenin should try to capture Israeli soldiers.

“Our fighters will rise from everywhere, and you will never know where the new fighter will come from,” he said.

Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said his forces were “closely monitoring the conduct of our enemies,” with the defence establishment “ready for all scenarios.”

Following the last major raid in Jenin in June, Palestinian gunmen killed four Israelis near a Jewish settlement in the West Bank. That led to a rampage by mobs of settlers in Palestinian villages and towns.

Israel captured the West Bank, which the Palestinians see as the core of a future independent state, in the 1967 Middle East war. Following decades of conflict, peace talks that had been brokered by the United States have been frozen since 2014.

Additional reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza, James Mackenzie, Dan Williams, Maayan Lubell in Jerusalem, Rami Ayyoub in Washington and Arshad Mohammed in Saint Paul, Minnesota; Writing by James Mackenzie; Editing by Lincoln Feast, Frank Jack Daniel, William Maclean

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
[ad_2]

Source link
July 3, 2023
Harvard ‘legacy’ policy challenged on heels of affirmative action ruling

[ad_1]

July 3 (Reuters) – Three civil rights groups filed a complaint against Harvard on Monday, claiming its preferential policy for undergraduate applicants with family ties to the elite school overwhelmingly benefits white students, days after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down its race-conscious admissions policies.

The groups filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education claiming that Harvard’s preferences for “legacy” applicants violates a federal law banning race discrimination for programs that receive federal funds, as virtually all U.S. colleges and universities do.

Last week, the Supreme Court said race-conscious policies adopted by Harvard University and the University of North Carolina to ensure that more non-white students are admitted are unconstitutional. The decision was a major blow to efforts to attract diverse student bodies and is expected to prompt new challenges to admission policies.

Harvard College is the undergraduate school of Harvard University.

The groups in Monday’s complaint said the Supreme Court ruling had made it even more imperative to eliminate policies that disadvantage non-white applicants.

Harvard did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The groups are represented by Lawyers for Civil Rights, a Boston-based nonprofit that describes itself on its website as working with “communities of color and immigrants to fight discrimination.”

Ivan Espinoza-Madrigal, the group’s executive director, said the Supreme Court last week made clear that any policies that disadvantage racial groups are unlawful by noting that “eliminating racial discrimination means eliminating all of it.”

“Your family’s last name and the size of your bank account are not a measure of merit, and should have no bearing on the college admissions process,” he said in a statement.

Students and pedestrians walk through the Yard at Harvard University, after the school asked its students not to return to campus after Spring Break and said it would move to virtual instruction for graduate and undergraduate classes, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S., March 10, 2020. REUTERS/Brian Snyder/File Photo

Legacy policies, which are common at U.S. colleges and universities, have become increasingly controversial

President Joe Biden, a Democrat, in remarks following las week’s Supreme Court ruling, said schools should consider eliminating legacy policies because they “expand privilege instead of opportunity.”

Several prominent lawmakers from both parties made similar comments. Representative Barbara Lee, a Democrat from California, called legacy policies “affirmative action for white people” in a tweet.

According to Monday’s complaint, nearly 70% of Harvard applicants with family ties to donors or alumni are white and are about six times more likely to be admitted than other applicants.

About 28% of Harvard’s class of 2019 were legacies, the groups said in the complaint. That means fewer admissions slots were available for non-white applicants who are far less likely to have family ties to the school, they said.

The groups are asking the Department of Education to investigate Harvard’s admission practices and order the school to abandon legacy preferences if it wants to continue receiving federal funding. Michael Kippins, one of the lawyers who filed the complaint, said in an email that Lawyers for Civil Rights has not ruled out filing a lawsuit against Harvard in the future.

When the Supreme Court heard the Harvard and UNC cases last October, a lawyer for the group that had sued the schools argued that eliminating legacy preferences “would make Harvard far less white, wealthy, and privileged.”

Conservative Justices Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas appeared to agree, pressing Harvard’s lawyer on why the school could not get rid of the legacy policy instead of granting separate preferences to non-white students.

The lawyer, Seth Waxman, told the court that there was no evidence that ending legacy preferences would lead to a more diverse student body.

Reporting by Daniel Wiessner in Albany, New York; Editing by Alexia Garamfalvi and Leslie Adler

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Daniel Wiessner

Thomson Reuters

Dan Wiessner (@danwiessner) reports on labor and employment and immigration law, including litigation and policy making. He can be reached at daniel.wiessner@thomsonreuters.com.

[ad_2]

Source link

July 3, 2023
Influencer Andrew Tate to stay under house arrest, court rules

[ad_1]

BUCHAREST, June 23 (Reuters) – Internet personality Andrew Tate will remain under house arrest in Romania for another 30 days from the end of June pending trial on charges of human trafficking, a Bucharest court ruled on Friday.

Tate was indicted on Tuesday along with his brother Tristan and two Romanian female suspects for human trafficking, rape and forming a criminal gang to sexually exploit women.

They are under house arrest pending an investigation into abuses against seven women whom prosecutors say were lured through false claims of relationships, accusations the suspects have denied.

The four suspects were held in police custody from Dec. 29 until March 31 before a Bucharest court put them under house arrest, which prosecutors on Tuesday sought to extend.

The Tate brothers are citizens of the United States and Britain. Andrew Tate, a self-described misogynist, built up a following of millions on social media, promoting his own lavish lifestyle in posts which critics say denigrate women.

The court needs to approve preventative restrictive measures such as house arrest every 30 days. It held a hearing on Wednesday and said it would rule on Friday.

“We’re not the first affluent wealthy men who have been unfairly attacked,” Tate told reporters on Wednesday after the hearing. “I love this country, I’m going to stay here regardless no matter what and I look forward to being found innocent at the end of everything.”

The trial will not start immediately. Under Romanian law, the case gets sent to the Bucharest court’s preliminary chamber, where a judge has 60 days to inspect the case files to ensure legality.

Trafficking of adults carries a prison sentence of up to 10 years, as does rape.

Prosecutors also said they were investigating the four suspects in a separate ongoing case on allegations of money laundering, witness tampering, and child and adult trafficking.

Reporting by Luiza Ilie and Octav Ganea; Editing by Alan Charlish and Peter Graff

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

[ad_2]

Source link

June 23, 2023
Twitter lays off staff, Musk blames activists for ad revenue drop
[ad_1]
Musk axes around half of Twitter’s workforce

Employees file class action against Twitter

Staff lose access to systems

Major advertisers pull ads
Nov 4 (Reuters) – Twitter Inc laid off half its workforce on Friday but said cuts were smaller in the team responsible for preventing the spread of misinformation, as advertisers pulled spending amid concerns about content moderation.

Tweets by staff of the social media company said teams responsible for communications, content curation, human rights and machine learning ethics were among those gutted, as were some product and engineering teams.

The move caps a week of chaos and uncertainty about the company’s future under new owner Elon Musk, the world’s richest person, who tweeted on Friday that the service was experiencing a “massive drop in revenue” from the advertiser retreat.

Musk blamed the losses on a coalition of civil rights groups that has been pressing Twitter’s top advertisers to take action if he did not protect content moderation – concerns heightened ahead of potential pivotal congressional elections on Tuesday.

After the layoffs, the groups said they were escalating their pressure and demanding brands pull their Twitter ads globally.

“Unfortunately there is no choice when the company is losing over $4M/day,” Musk tweeted of the layoffs, adding that everyone affected was offered three months of severance pay.

The company was silent about the depth of the cuts until late in the day, when head of safety and integrity Yoel Roth tweeted confirmation of internal plans, seen by Reuters earlier in the week, projecting the layoffs would affect about 3,700 people, or 50% of the staff.

Among those let go were 784 employees from the company’s San Francisco headquarters and 199 in San Jose and Los Angeles, according to filings to California’s employment authority.

Roth said the reductions hit about 15% of his team, which is responsible for preventing the spread of misinformation and other harmful content, and that the company’s “core moderation capabilities” remained in place.

Musk endorsed the safety executive last week, citing his “high integrity” after Roth was called out over tweets critical of former President Donald Trump years earlier.

Musk has promised to restore free speech while preventing Twitter from descending into a “hellscape.”

President Joe Biden said on Friday that Musk had purchased a social media platform in Twitter that spews lies across the world.

“And now what are we all worried about: Elon Musk goes out and buys an outfit that sends – that spews lies all across the world… There’s no editors anymore in America. There’s no editors. How do we expect kids to be able to understand what is at stake?”

Major advertisers have expressed apprehension about Musk’s takeover for months.

Brands including General Motors Co (GM.N) and General Mills Inc (GIS.N) have said they stopped advertising on Twitter while awaiting information about the new direction of the platform.

Musk tweeted that his team had made no changes to content moderation and done “everything we could” to appease the groups. Speaking at an investors conference in New York on Friday, Musk called the activist pressure “an attack on the First Amendment.”

[1/9] Owner and CEO of Twitter, Inc. Elon Musk arrives at the 29th Annual Baron Investment Conference in Manhattan in New York City, New York, U.S., November 4, 2022. REUTERS/Andrew Kelly

Twitter did not respond to a request for comment.

ACCESS TO SYSTEMS CUT

The email notifying staff about layoffs was the first communication Twitter workers received from the company’s leadership after Musk took over last week. It was signed only by “Twitter,” without naming Musk or any other executives.

Dozens of staffers tweeted they had lost access to work email and Slack channels overnight before receiving an official layoff notice on Friday morning, prompting an outpouring of laments by current and former employees on the platform they had built.

They shared blue hearts and salute emojis expressing support for one another, using the hashtags #OneTeam and #LoveWhereYouWorked, a past-tense version of a slogan employees had used for years to celebrate the company’s work culture.

Twitter’s curation team, which was responsible for “highlighting and contextualizing the best events and stories that unfold on Twitter,” had been axed, employees wrote.

Shannon Raj Singh, an attorney who was Twitter’s acting head of human rights, tweeted that the entire human rights team at the company had been sacked.

Another team that focused on research into how Twitter employed machine learning and algorithms, an issue that was a priority for Musk, was also eliminated, according to a tweet from a former senior manager at Twitter.

Senior executives including vice president of engineering Arnaud Weber said their goodbyes on Twitter on Friday: “Twitter still has a lot of unlocked potential but I’m proud of what we accomplished.”

Employees of Twitter Blue, the premium subscription service that Musk is bolstering, were also let go. An employee with the handle “SillyRobin” who had indicated they were laid off, quote-tweeted a previous Musk tweet saying Twitter Blue would include “paywall bypass” for certain publishers.

“Just to be clear, he fired the team working on this,” the employee said.

DOORS LOCKED

Twitter said in its email to staffers that offices would be temporarily closed and badge access suspended “to help ensure the safety of each employee as well as Twitter systems and customer data.”

Offices in London and Dublin appeared deserted on Friday, with no employees in sight. At the London office, any evidence Twitter had once occupied the building was erased.

A receptionist at Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters said a few people had trickled in and were working in the floors above despite the notice to stay away.

A class action was filed on Thursday against Twitter by several employees, who argued the company was conducting mass layoffs without providing the required 60-day advance notice, in violation of federal and California law.

The lawsuit asked the San Francisco federal court to issue an order to restrict Twitter from soliciting employees being laid off to sign documents without informing them of the pendency of the case.

Reporting by Sheila Dang in Dallas, Katie Paul in Palo Alto, California, and Paresh Dave in Oakland, California; Additional reporting by Fanny Potkin, Rusharti Mukherjee, Aditya Kalra, Martin Coulter, Hyunjoo Jin, Supantha Mukherjee and Arriana McLymore; Writing by Matt Scuffham and Katie Paul; Editing by Kenneth Li, Jason Neely, Matthew Lewis and William Mallard

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Paresh Dave

Thomson Reuters

San Francisco Bay Area-based tech reporter covering Google and the rest of Alphabet Inc. Joined Reuters in 2017 after four years at the Los Angeles Times focused on the local tech industry.
[ad_2]

Source link
November 4, 2022
Adidas ends Ye deal over hate speech, costing rapper his billionaire status
[ad_1]
Adidas ends partnership immediately

To take about $250 mln hit to 2022 net income

Gap, Balenciaga have also cut ties with Ye
Oct 25 (Reuters) – Adidas AG (ADSGn.DE) terminated its partnership with rapper and fashion designer Ye on Tuesday after he made a series of antisemitic remarks, a move that knocked the musician off the Forbes list of the world’s billionaires.

Adidas put the tie-up, which has produced several hot-selling Yeezy branded sneakers, under review this month.

“Adidas does not tolerate antisemitism and any other sort of hate speech,” the German company said on Tuesday.

“Ye’s recent comments and actions have been unacceptable, hateful and dangerous, and they violate the company’s values of diversity and inclusion, mutual respect and fairness,” it said.

Forbes magazine said the end of the deal meant Ye’s net worth shrank to $400 million. The magazine had valued his share of the Adidas partnership at $1.5 billion.

The remainder of Ye’s wealth comes from real estate, cash, his music catalogue and a 5% stake in ex-wife Kim Kardashian’s shapewear firm, Skims, Forbes said.

Representatives for Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

For Adidas, ending the partnership and the production of Yeezy branded products, as well as stopping all payments to Ye and his companies, will have a “short-term negative impact” of up to 250 million euros ($248.90 million) on net income this year, the company said.

Ye has courted controversy in recent months by publicly ending major corporate tie-ups and making outbursts on social media against other celebrities. His Twitter and Instagram accounts were restricted, with the social media platforms removing some of his online posts that users condemned as antisemitic.

In now-deleted Instagram posts earlier this year, the multiple Grammy award-winning artist accused Adidas and U.S. apparel retailer Gap Inc (GPS.N) of failing to build contractually promised permanent stores for products from his Yeezy fashion line.

[1/3] Singer Kanye West walks past models after presenting his Fall/Winter 2015 partnership line with Adidas at New York Fashion Week February 12, 2015. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson/File Photo

He also accused Adidas of stealing his designs for its own products.

On Tuesday, Gap, which had ended its partnership with Ye in September, said it was taking immediate steps to remove Yeezy Gap products from its stores and that it had shut down YeezyGap.com.

“Antisemitism, racism and hate in any form are inexcusable and not tolerated in accordance with our values,” Gap said in a statement.

European fashion house Balenciaga has also cut ties with Ye, according to media reports.

“The saga of Ye … underlines the importance of vetting celebrities thoroughly and avoiding those who are overly controversial or unstable,” said Neil Saunders, managing director of GlobalData.

Adidas poached Ye from rival Nike Inc (NKE.N) in 2013 and agreed to a new long-term partnership in 2016 in what the company then called “the most significant partnership created between a non-athlete and a sports brand.”

The tie-up helped the German brand close the gap with Nike in the U.S. market.

Yeezy sneakers, which cost between $200 and $700, generate about 1.5 billion euros ($1.47 billion) in annual sales for Adidas, making up a little over 7% of its total revenue, according to estimates from Telsey Advisory Group.

Shares in Adidas, which cut its full-year forecast last week, closed down 3.2%. The group said it would provide more information as part of its upcoming Q3 earnings announcement on Nov. 9.

($1 = 1.0044 euros)

Reporting by Mrinmay Dey, Uday Sampath and Aishwarya Venugopal in Bengaluru and Lisa Richwine in Los Angeles; Editing by Tomasz Janowski, Sriraj Kalluvila, Bernadette Baum, Anil D’Silva and Cynthia Osterman

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
[ad_2]

Source link
October 25, 2022