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  • ‘Slippery’ actor Kevin Spacey tried to groom me, man tells UK court

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

    [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.

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  • Musk’s Twitter rate limits could undermine new CEO, ad experts say

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

    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

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  • Vietnam bans ‘Barbie’ movie over South China Sea map

    Vietnam bans ‘Barbie’ movie over South China Sea map

    HANOI, July 3 (Reuters) – Vietnam has banned Warner Bros’ highly-anticipated film “Barbie” from domestic distribution over a scene featuring a map that shows China’s unilaterally claimed territory in the South China Sea, state media reported on Monday.

    The U-shaped “nine-dash line” is used on Chinese maps to illustrate its claims over vast areas of the South China Sea, including swathes of what Vietnam considers its continental shelf, where it has awarded oil concessions.

    “Barbie” is the latest movie to be banned in Vietnam for depicting China’s controversial nine-dash line, which was repudiated in an international arbitration ruling by a court in The Hague in 2016. China refuses to recognise the ruling.

    In 2019 the Vietnamese government pulled DreamWorks’ animated film “Abominable” and last year it banned Sony’s action movie “Unchartered” for the same reason. Netflix also removed an Australian spy drama “Pine Gap” in 2021.

    [1/2]Actor Margot Robbie is photographed during a photocall for the upcoming Warner Bros. film “Barbie” in Los Angeles, California, U.S., June 25, 2023. REUTERS/Mike Blake

    “Barbie”, starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling, was originally slated to open in Vietnam on July 21, the same date as in the United States, according to state-run Tuoi Tre newspaper.

    “We do not grant license for the American movie ‘Barbie’ to release in Vietnam because it contains the offending image of the nine-dash line,” the paper reported, citing Vi Kien Thanh, head of the Department of Cinema, a government body in charge of licensing and censoring foreign films.

    Warner Bros did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

    Vietnam and China have long had overlapping territorial claims to a potentially energy-rich stretch in the South China Sea. The Southeast Asian country has repeatedly accused Chinese vessels of violating its sovereignty.

    Reporting by Phuong Nguyen; Editing by Kanupriya Kapoor

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  • Construction halted on mansion of Brazilian soccer star Neymar

    Construction halted on mansion of Brazilian soccer star Neymar

    RIO DE JANEIRO, June 22 (Reuters) – Construction on a mansion belonging to Brazilian soccer player Neymar Jr was halted on Thursday due to environmental violations, officials said on Thursday, adding that the high-profile athlete could face a fine of at least $1 million.

    The residence is located in the coastal town of Mangaratiba on the south coast of Rio de Janeiro state.

    The luxury project violated rules regarding use and movement of fresh water sources, rock and sand, the local government said in a statement.

    If the violations are proved, Neymar Jr could be forced to pay at least 5 million reais ($1.05 million) in fines, according to the statement.

    Officials said that during their visit to the property to stop construction, the athlete’s father, Neymar da Silva Santos, insulted them. He was subsequently threatened with arrest but was ultimately not detained.

    A Neymar family spokesperson declined to comment on the matter.

    ($1 = 4.7729 reais)

    Reporting by Rodrigo Viga Gaier; Writing by Peter Frontini and Carolina Pulice
    Editing by Shri Navaratnam

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  • Influencer Andrew Tate to stay under house arrest, court rules

    Influencer Andrew Tate to stay under house arrest, court rules

    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

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  • James Cameron says he wishes he’d sounded alarm over lost submersible

    James Cameron says he wishes he’d sounded alarm over lost submersible

    June 22 (Reuters) – Movie director and submersible maker James Cameron said on Thursday he wishes he had sounded the alarm earlier about the submersible Titan that imploded on an expedition to the Titanic wreckage, saying he had found the hull design risky.

    All five aboard the vessel were killed.

    Cameron became a deep-sea explorer in the 1990s while researching and making his Oscar-winning blockbuster “Titanic,” and is part owner of Triton Submarines, which makes submersibles for research and tourism.

    He is part of the small and close-knit submersible community, or Manned Underwater Vehicle (MUV) industry. When he heard, as many in the industry had shared, that OceanGate Inc was making a deep-sea submersible with a composite carbon fiber and titanium hull, Cameron said he was skeptical.

    “I thought it was a horrible idea. I wish I’d spoken up, but I assumed somebody was smarter than me, you know, because I never experimented with that technology, but it just sounded bad on its face,” Cameron told Reuters in a Zoom interview.

    The cause of the Titan’s implosion has not been determined, but Cameron presumes the critics were correct in warning that a carbon fiber and titanium hull would enable delamination and microscopic water ingress, leading to progressive failure over time.

    Other experts in the industry and a whistle-blowing employee raised alarms in 2018, criticizing OceanGate for opting against seeking certification and operating as an experimental vessel. OceanGate has not addressed queries about its decision to forgo certification from industry third parties such as the American Bureau of Shipping or the European company DNV.

    The U.S. Coast Guard said on Thursday the submersible appears to have imploded on its expedition to the wreckage of the Titanic on the bottom of the North Atlantic, but a conclusive investigation will take time.

    [1/2]James Cameron attends the AFI (American Film Institute) Awards in Los Angeles, California, U.S. January 13, 2023. REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni

    A secret U.S. Navy acoustic detection system recorded “an anomaly consistent with an implosion or explosion in the general vicinity of where the Titan submersible was operating when communications were lost,” the Navy told the Wall Street Journal.

    Cameron said his sources reported similar information and he knew the submersible was lost from the start of the four-day ordeal, suspecting it imploded at the time the Titan’s mother ship lost communications with and tracking of the submersible one hour and 45 minutes into the mission.

    “We got confirmation within an hour that there had been a loud bang at the same time that the sub comms were lost. A loud bang on the hydrophone. Loss of transponder. Loss of comms. I knew what happened. The sub imploded,” Cameron said. He added that he told colleagues in an email on Monday, “We’ve lost some friends,” and, “It’s on the bottom in pieces right now.”

    The five who died mark the first deep-sea fatalities for the industry, Cameron said.

    The industry standard is to make pressure hulls out of contiguous materials such as steel, titanium, ceramic or acrylic, which are better for conducting tests, Cameron said.

    “We celebrate innovation, right? But you shouldn’t be using an experimental vehicle for paying passengers that aren’t themselves deep ocean engineers,” Cameron said.

    Cameron said both the Titanic and the Titan tragedies were preceded by unheeded warnings. In the Titanic’s case, the captain sped across the Atlantic on a moonless night despite being told about icebergs.

    “Here were are again,” Cameron said. “And at the same place. Now there’s one wreck lying next to the other wreck for the same damn reason.”

    Reporting by Rollo Ross and Daniel Trotta; Editing by Leslie Adler

    Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

    Daniel Trotta

    Thomson Reuters

    Daniel Trotta is a U.S. National Affairs correspondent, covering water/fire/drought, race, guns, LGBTQ+ issues and breaking news in America. Previously based in New York, and now in California, Trotta has covered major U.S. news stories such as the killing of Trayvon Martin, the mass shooting of 20 first-graders at Sandy Hook Elementary School, and natural disasters including Superstorm Sandy. In 2017 he was awarded the NLGJA award for excellence in transgender coverage. He was previously posted in Cuba, Spain, Mexico and Nicaragua, covering top world stories such as the normalization of Cuban-U.S. relations and the Madrid train bombing by Islamist radicals.

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  • Meta releases ‘human-like’ AI image creation model

    Meta releases ‘human-like’ AI image creation model

    NEW YORK, June 13 (Reuters) – Meta Platforms (META.O) said on Tuesday that it would provide researchers with access to components of a new “human-like” artificial intelligence model that it said can analyze and complete unfinished images more accurately than existing models.

    The model, I-JEPA, uses background knowledge about the world to fill in missing pieces of images, rather than looking only at nearby pixels like other generative AI models, the company said.

    That approach incorporates the kind of human-like reasoning advocated by Meta’s top AI scientist Yann LeCun and helps the technology to avoid errors that are common to AI-generated images, like hands with extra fingers, it said.

    Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, is a prolific publisher of open-sourced AI research via its in-house research lab. Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg has said that sharing models developed by Meta’s researchers can help the company by spurring innovation, spotting safety gaps and lowering costs.

    “For us, it’s way better if the industry standardizes on the basic tools that we’re using and therefore we can benefit from the improvements that others make,” he told investors in April.

    The company’s executives have dismissed warnings from others in the industry about the potential dangers of the technology, declining to sign a statement last month backed by top executives from OpenAI, DeepMind, Microsoft (MSFT.O) and Google (GOOGL.O) that equated its risks with pandemics and wars.

    Lecun, considered one of the “godfathers of AI,” has railed against “AI doomerism” and argued in favor of building safety checks into AI systems.

    Meta is also starting to incorporate generative AI features into its consumer products, like ad tools that can create image backgrounds and an Instagram product that can modify user photos, both based on text prompts.

    Reporting by Katie Paul; Editing by David Gregorio

    Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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  • Apple CEO praises China’s innovation, long history of cooperation on Beijing visit

    Apple CEO praises China’s innovation, long history of cooperation on Beijing visit

    SHANGHAI, March 25 (Reuters) – Apple (AAPL.O) CEO Tim Cook on Saturday used his first public remarks on his visit to China to praise the country for its rapid innovation and its long ties with the U.S. iPhone maker, according to local media reports.

    Apple (AAPL.O) CEO Tim Cook on Saturday used his first public remarks in China in recent years to praise the country for its rapid innovation and its long ties with the U.S. iPhone maker, according to local media reports.

    Cook is in Beijing to attend the China Development Forum, a government-organised event being held again in full force after the country ended its COVID controls late last year.

    Besides Cook, the event is being attended by senior government officials as well as CEOs of firms such as Pfizer and BHP.

    “Innovation is developing rapidly in China and I believe it will further accelerate,” Cook was quoted by The Paper news outlet as saying.

    His visit comes at a time of rising tensions between Beijing and Washington and as Apple has been looking to reduce its supply chain reliance on China and moving production to new up and coming centres such as India.

    Last year, production at the world’s largest iPhone factory run by Apple supplier Foxconn was heavily disrupted after China’s zero-COVID policies fuelled worker unrest.

    Cook also visited an Apple Store in Beijing on Friday, pictures of which went viral on Chinese social media.

    During his speech, Cook also discussed education and the need for young people to learn programming critical thinking skills, announcing that Apple plans to increase spending on its rural education programme to 100 million yuan, the local media reports said.

    Reporting by Brenda Goh

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  • Nipsey Hussle’s killer sentenced to at least 60 years in prison

    Nipsey Hussle’s killer sentenced to at least 60 years in prison

    LOS ANGELES, Feb 22 (Reuters) – A California man was sentenced on Wednesday to at least 60 years in prison for the 2019 killing of Grammy-winning rapper Nipsey Hussle after a chance encounter in the south Los Angeles neighborhood where the men grew up.

    A jury had found Eric Holder Jr, 32, guilty of first-degree murder in July 2022 for fatally shooting Hussle outside a clothing store the rapper owned.

    On Wednesday, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge H. Clay Jacke sentenced Holder to 25 years to life in state prison for murdering Hussle, plus an additional 25 years to life because he used a gun in the slaying.

    Holder was ordered to serve an additional 10 years in prison for shooting two bystanders.

    [1/3] Eric Ronald Holder sits in the courtroom at Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center ahead of his sentencing for first-degree murder in the 2019 shooting of Grammy-winning rapper Nipsey Hussle in Los Angeles, California, U.S., on September 15, 2022. Apu Gomes/Pool via REUTERS

    Prosecutors said Holder shot Hussle at least 10 times after they ran into each other on a Sunday afternoon outside the clothing store. Following a brief conversation, Holder left and returned about 10 minutes later and opened fire.

    Public defender Aaron Jansen acknowledged that Holder killed Hussle but argued that he should not be convicted of first-degree murder because he said the attack was not pre-meditated.

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    Jansen said Holder acted in “the heat of passion” after Hussle told him there were rumors of him “snitching” to police, which he considered a serious offense. Holder did not testify during the trial.

    Hussle, who was 33 when he died, had publicly acknowledged that he joined a gang as a teenager. He later became an activist and entrepreneur as he found success with rap music and collaborated with artists including Snoop Dogg and Drake.

    In 2020, Hussle won two posthumous Grammy awards including one for “Racks in the Middle,” released a few weeks before his death and featuring Roddy Ricch and Hit-Boy.

    Reporting by Lisa Richwine and Jorge Garcia in Los Angeles
    Editing by Leslie Adler, Matthew Lewis and David Gregorio

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  • Police seek motive to Los Angeles-area mass shooting as 11th victim dies

    Police seek motive to Los Angeles-area mass shooting as 11th victim dies

    MONTEREY PARK, Calif., Jan 23 (Reuters) – Investigators collected 42 bullet casings from the scene of one of California’s bloodiest mass shootings as they sought clues on Monday to what drove an elderly gunman to open fire in a dance hall he had frequented, killing 11 people, before taking his own life.

    Police identified Huu Can Tran, 72, as the lone suspect in a massacre that unfolded Saturday night in the midst of a Chinese Lunar New Year celebration in the town of Monterey Park, a hub of the Asian-American community just east of downtown Los Angeles.

    Authorities said he drove to another dance hall where a second, would-be attack was thwarted and later shot himself to death in his parked getaway vehicle as police closed in to make an arrest on Sunday, ending an intense manhunt some 12 hours after the rampage.

    Ten people were killed and 10 others wounded when Tran opened fire at the Star Ballroom Dance Studio, a venue popular with older patrons of Asian descent, then drove off. One of the victims hospitalized in critical condition died of his wounds on Monday, Monterey Park Police Chief Scott Wiese told reporters.

    All of the dead, six women and five men, were in their 50s, 60s and 70s, the coroner’s office said.

    Even as Los Angeles-area police worked through a second full day of their investigation, seven people were reported slain in a separate, mass shooting in the northern California coastal town of Half Moon May on Monday. read more

    In another incident, one person died and seven were injured in Oakland, near San Francisco, in a shooting between several individuals, Oakland Police Department reported.

    At a news briefing on Monday, Hilda Solis, a member of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, called Saturday’s Monterey Park gun violence the deadliest mass shooting on record in Los Angeles County, the most populous in the United States and home to some 10 million residents.

    About 20 minutes after the attack, Tran barged into a second dance club, the Lai Lai Ballroom & Studio in the neighboring community of Alhambra, where an employee wrestled away the intruder’s semi-automatic assault-style pistol before any shots could be fired, officials said.

    Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna credited Brandon Tsay, the operator of the family-owned club, as a “hero” for single-handedly disarming the gunman and preventing further bloodshed.

    “That moment, it was primal instinct,” Tsay recounted in a New York Times interview, saying that the gunman fled the scene after a 90-second struggle. “Something happened there. I don’t know what came over me.”

    Tran was not seen again until Sunday morning, when he had shot himself behind the wheel of his van, found parked in the city of Torrance, south of Los Angeles, as police surrounded his vehicle.

    Luna said investigators, assisted by the FBI and the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), had recovered 42 spent shell casings and a large-capacity ammunition magazine from the Star studio.

    [1/17] People mourn outside the entrance of the Star Ballroom Dance Studio after a mass shooting during Chinese Lunar New Year celebrations in Monterey Park, California, U.S. January 23, 2023. REUTERS/David Swanson

    GUNS AND AMMO SEIZED

    He said the search of the suspect’s mobile home in a gated senior-living community in the town of Hemet, about 80 miles east of Los Angeles, turned up a rifle, various electronic devices and items “that lead us to believe the suspect was manufacturing homemade” weapons silencers.

    Police also seized hundreds of rounds of ammunition from the dwelling, and a handgun was recovered from the white cargo van where the suspect took his own life, Luna said.

    Authorities on Monday said a motive for the shooting remained a mystery.

    Wiese said authorities were aware of unconfirmed reports that the violence may have been precipitated by jealousy or relationship issues, adding, “it’s part of what our investigators are diligently looking into.”

    The sheriff said there was no immediate evidence that the gunman was related to any of his victims. Luna told reporters Tran had a “limited” past criminal history, including a 1990 arrest for unlawful possession of a firearm.

    Hemet police said in a statement on Monday that Tran had come to the department twice in early January alleging “past fraud, theft and poisoning allegations involving his family” dating back 10 to 20 years, and had promised to return with documentation of his claims but never did.

    Tran had an active trucking license and had owned a company called Tran’s Trucking Inc with a post office box address in Monterey Park, according to online records.

    He had lived in the Los Angeles area since at least the 1990s and moved to the mobile home in Hemet in 2020, address records showed. A neighbor in his gated community described him as “meek” in an interview Monday.

    But Adam Hood, who rented a home from Tran in the Los Angeles area, told Reuters he knew his landlord to be an aggressive, suspicious person with few friends.

    But Hood said Tran, with whom he often conversed in Mandarin, enjoyed ballroom dancing, and was a longtime patron of the Star Ballroom, though he complained that others there were talking behind his back.

    “He was a good dancer in my opinion,” Hood said. “But he was distrustful of the people at the studio, angry and distrustful. I think he just had enough.”

    The coroner’s office on Monday confirmed the names of four victims, Valentino Alvero, 68 and three women – My Nhan, 65, Lilan Li, 63, and Xiujuan Yu, 57.

    Reporting by Tim Reid in Monterey Park; Writing by Gabriella Borter; Additional reporting by Rich McKay, Brendan O’Brien, Brad Brooks, Jonathan Allen, Joseph Ax, Dan Whitcomb, Gabriella Borter and Timothy Gardner; Editing by Stephen Coates, Nick Zieminski and David Gregorio

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  • Lisa Marie Presley to be laid to rest at Graceland

    Lisa Marie Presley to be laid to rest at Graceland

    LOS ANGELES, Jan 13 (Reuters) – Singer Lisa Marie Presley will be laid to rest at Graceland, the Memphis mansion she inherited from her father Elvis Presley, the “King of Rock ‘n’ Roll,” a representative for her daughter said on Friday.

    Presley died on Thursday at the age of 54 after being rushed to a Los Angeles area hospital after reportedly suffering cardiac arrest at her home.

    “Lisa Marie’s final resting place will be at Graceland, next to her beloved son Ben,” said a representative for her 33-year-old daughter Riley Keough, an actress. She is also survived by twin 14-year-old daughters Finley and Harper.

    Two days earlier, Lisa Marie Presley had appeared with her mother Priscilla Presley at the Golden Globe Awards, where actor Austin Butler won the best actor award for portraying her father in the film “Elvis” and paid tribute to both women in his acceptance speech.

    “My heart is completely shattered for Riley, Finley, Harper and Priscilla at the tragic and unexpected loss of Lisa Marie,” Butler said in a statement on Friday.

    “I am eternally grateful for the time I was lucky enough to be near her bright light and will forever cherish the quiet moments we shared. Her warmth, her love and her authenticity will always be remembered.”

    Benjamin Keough died in 2020 at age 27, a death ruled a suicide by the Los Angeles County coroner.

    Lisa Marie Presley remembered her son in an essay this year for People magazine that she posted on Instagram, describing herself as “destroyed” by his death.

    As the only daughter of Elvis Presley, Lisa Marie became the owner of her father’s Graceland mansion, a popular tourist attraction in the city. She was nine when Elvis died there of heart failure in August 1977, aged 42.

    Elvis Presley and other members of his family are buried at Graceland’s Meditation Garden.

    Tributes to Lisa Marie Presley continued to pour in on Friday.

    “Over the last year, the entire Elvis movie family and I have felt the privilege of Lisa Marie’s kind embrace,” Baz Luhrmann, the director of “Elvis”, said on Instagram.

    “Her sudden, shocking loss has devastated people all around the world.”

    In the celebrity spotlight since her birth, Lisa Marie began her own music career with a 2003 debut album “To Whom It May Concern.”

    That was followed by 2005’s “Now What,” and both hit the top 10 of the Billboard 200 album chart. A third album, “Storm and Grace,” was released in 2012.Singer Billy Idol posted a picture of them together on Twitter and said she had been “very loving 2 me”, adding, “In Memphis in the 90’s she gave me a viewing of the private sections of Graceland which was very special.”

    Lisa Marie Presley is survived by her mother, daughter Riley Keough, and 14-year-old twin daughters Harper and Finley Lockwood.

    Additional reporting by Lisa Richwine and Dan Whitcomb; Editing by David Gregorio and Clarence Fernandez

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  • Santa Claus undaunted by arctic blast, U.S. military says

    Santa Claus undaunted by arctic blast, U.S. military says

    DENVER, Dec 24 (Reuters) – U.S. military officials have assured anxious children the arctic blast and snowstorm that wreaked havoc on U.S. airline traffic this week will not prevent Santa Claus from making his annual Christmas Eve flight.

    “We have to deal with a polar vortex once in a while, but Santa lives year-round in one at the North Pole, so he’s used to this weather,” deadpanned U.S. Air Force Master Sergeant Ben Wiseman, a spokesman for the North American Aerospace Defense Command, or NORAD, which tracks the yuletide flight.

    For 67 years, NORAD, a joint U.S.-Canadian military command based at Peterson Air Force base in Colorado Springs, Colorado, has provided images and updates on the legendary figure’s worldwide journey along with its main task of monitoring air defenses and issuing aerospace and maritime warnings.

    The Santa tracker tradition originated from a 1955 misprint in a Colorado Springs newspaper of the telephone number of a department store for children to call and speak with Santa. The listed number went to what was then known as the Continental Air Defense Command.

    An understanding officer took the youngsters’ calls and assured them that Santa, also known as Father Christmas or Saint Nick, was airborne and on schedule to deliver presents to good girls and boys, flying aboard his reindeer-powered sleigh.

    Santa does not file a formal flight plan, so the military is never quite sure exactly when he will take off, nor his exact route, NORAD’s Wiseman said, although the Santa tracker goes live at 4 a.m. EST (0900 GMT) on Friday on the NORAD website.

    Once the jolly old elf’s lead reindeer, Rudolph, switches on his shiny red nose, military personnel can zero in on his location using infrared sensors, Wiseman said.

    U.S. and Canadian fighter jet pilots provide a courtesy escort for him over North America, and Santa slows down to wave to them, he added.

    Reporting by Keith Coffman in Denver; Editing by Steve Gorman and Philippa Fletcher

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  • Harry and Meghan dismiss Sun apology for offending column as ‘PR stunt’

    Harry and Meghan dismiss Sun apology for offending column as ‘PR stunt’

    LONDON, Dec 24 (Reuters) – Britain’s Prince Harry and his wife Meghan on Saturday dismissed an apology by the tabloid Sun newspaper for publishing a column highly critical of Meghan as a “PR stunt” and said the newspaper had not contacted her to say sorry.

    In the column, television presenter Jeremy Clarkson wrote of Meghan: “At night, I’m unable to sleep as I lie there, grinding my teeth and dreaming of the day when she is made to parade naked through the streets of every town in Britain while the crowds chant, ‘Shame!’ and throw lumps of excrement at her.”

    Britain’s Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO) regulator said on Tuesday that it had received more than 17,500 complaints, the most about any article since it was established in 2014.

    “While the public absolutely deserves the publication’s regrets for their dangerous comments, we wouldn’t be in this situation if The Sun did not continue to profit off of and exploit hate, violence and misogyny,” a spokesperson for Harry and Meghan said.

    “A true apology would be a shift in their coverage and ethical standards for all. Unfortunately, we’re not holding our breath.”

    The Sun, in its apology, said: “We at The Sun regret the publication of this article and we are sincerely sorry”, adding that the article had been removed from its website and archives.

    More than 60 lawmakers signed a letter written by Caroline Nokes, chair of parliament’s Women and Equalities Select Committee, to the editor of The Sun warning such articles contribute to a climate of hatred and violence against women.

    In a statement posted on Twitter on Monday, Clarkson said he was “horrified to have caused so much hurt” and would be “more careful in future”.

    The Duke and Duchess of Sussex, as Harry and Meghan are officially known, stepped down from royal duties in March 2020, saying they wanted to make new lives in the United States away from media harassment.

    In a Netflix documentary series, Meghan spoke about how her treatment by the media had left her feeling suicidal as well as concern over whether she and her children were safe.

    Reporting by Sachin Ravikumar: Editing by Nick Macfie

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  • Animal bones, ancient Romans’ snack food found in Colosseum

    Animal bones, ancient Romans’ snack food found in Colosseum

    ROME, Nov 24 (Reuters) – A year-long study of the drainage system under the Colosseum has unearthed fragments of the bones of bears and big cats that were probably used to fight or as prey in hunting games in the ancient Roman arena, archaeologists said on Thursday.

    Other discoveries include more than 50 bronze coins from the late Roman period as well as a silver coin from around 170-171 AD to commemorate 10 years of rule of the emperor Marcus Aurelius, they added in a statement.

    Seeds from fruits such as figs, grapes and melons as well as traces of olives and nuts — thought to indicate what spectators snacked on during shows — were also recovered from the 2,000-year-old stone amphitheatre.

    The study, which began in January, involved the clearance of around 70 metres of drains and sewers under the Colosseum and is seen as shedding light on its later years before it fell into disuse around 523 AD.

    Alfonsina Russo, Director of the Colosseum Archaeological Park, said the discoveries “deepen our understanding of the experience and habits of those who came to this place during the long days dedicated to the performances”.

    Writing by Keith Weir
    Editing by Alvise Armellini and Gareth Jones

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  • UK’s King Charles celebrates 74th birthday with new role

    UK’s King Charles celebrates 74th birthday with new role

    LONDON, Nov 14 (Reuters) – Britain’s King Charles celebrated his 74th birthday on Monday, with the occasion marked by him replacing his late father as The Ranger of Great Windsor Park, a position which dates back more than four centuries.

    Charles, who became the oldest monarch in British history when he succeeded his mother on the throne in September, will enjoy his first birthday as king in private with no public engagements planned.

    However, Buckingham Palace announced that he had officially taken up his new role as Ranger, a job which dates back to 1559 when Queen Elizabeth I appointed Henry Neville, and released a new photograph of Charles next to an old oak tree in the park.

    His father Prince Philip held the title from 1952 when his wife became Queen Elizabeth II, succeeding her father George VI in the job.

    Queen Victoria is among other royals to have held the role which involves providing oversight and guidance to the Deputy Ranger and his team in the daily running of one of the country’s oldest landed estates, the Palace said.

    Reporting by Michael Holden, Editing by Kylie MacLellan

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  • King Charles asks UK parliament to allow brother and sister to act in his place

    King Charles asks UK parliament to allow brother and sister to act in his place

    LONDON, Nov 14 (Reuters) – King Charles asked the British parliament on Monday to amend the law to allow two more of his siblings to act on his behalf in his absence, adding them to a group which currently includes his disgraced brother Prince Andrew.

    In a statement read out on his behalf in the House of Lords, the upper chamber of parliament, Charles, who on Monday turned 74, asked for the number of Counsellors of State to be increased to include his sister Princess Anne and youngest brother Prince Edward.

    The Counsellors, who can act on behalf of the monarch in his absence to carry out all but his most key roles such as appointing a new prime minister, are selected from his spouse and the four adults next in line to the throne.

    That currently means that in addition to Charles’s wife Camilla and his eldest son and heir Prince William, the grouping comprises the king’s younger son Prince Harry, younger brother Prince Andrew, and Andrew’s eldest daughter Princess Beatrice.

    That has led to criticism from some commentators because neither Andrew nor Harry carry out official royal roles any more.

    Andrew was stripped of most of his titles and removed from royal duties due to a scandal over his friendship with the late U.S. financier Jeffrey Epstein, a convicted sex offender, and he later settled a U.S. lawsuit in which he was accused of sexual abuse.

    Meanwhile, Harry stepped down from royal duties in 2020 and moved to California with his wife Meghan.

    “To ensure continued efficiency of public business when I’m unavailable, such as while I’m undertaking official duties overseas, I confirm that I would be most content should parliament see fit for the number of people who may be called upon to act as Counsellors of State … to be increased to include my sister and brother,” the king’s statement said.

    The change will require parliament to amend the terms of the Regency Act.

    Reporting by Michael Holden
    Editing by Gareth Jones

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  • Twitter lays off staff, Musk blames activists for ad revenue drop

    Twitter lays off staff, Musk blames activists for ad revenue drop

    • 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

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    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.

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  • Adidas ends Ye deal over hate speech, costing rapper his billionaire status

    Adidas ends Ye deal over hate speech, costing rapper his billionaire status

    • 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

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  • UK police charge two women after soup thrown at van Gogh’s ‘Sunflowers’

    UK police charge two women after soup thrown at van Gogh’s ‘Sunflowers’

    LONDON, Oct 15 (Reuters) – Two women have been charged with criminal damage after climate change protesters threw soup over Vincent van Gogh’s painting “Sunflowers” at London’s National Gallery, British police said on Saturday.

    A video posted by the Just Stop Oil campaign group, which has been holding protests for the last two weeks in the British capital, showed two of its activists on Friday throwing tins of Heinz tomato soup over the painting, one of five versions on display in museums and galleries around the world.

    The gallery said the incident had caused minor damage to the frame but the painting was unharmed. It later went back on display.

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    Police said two women, aged 21 and 20, would appear later at Westminster Magistrates’ Court charged with “criminal damage to the frame of van Gogh’s Sunflowers painting”.

    Another activist will also appear in court accused of damaging the sign outside the New Scotland Yard police headquarters in central London.

    Police said in total 28 people had been arrested during protests on Friday.

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    Reporting by Michael Holden; Editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise

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  • Polish venue cancels Roger Waters gigs after Ukraine comments

    Polish venue cancels Roger Waters gigs after Ukraine comments

    WARSAW, Sept 25 (Reuters) – Concerts by Pink Floyd co-founder Roger Waters were cancelled by a venue in the Polish city of Krakow, organisers said on Sunday, after the artist’s comments on the war in Ukraine caused a storm of criticism.

    Waters had been due to appear in Krakow next April, but Polish media reports about an open letter he wrote to Ukraine’s first lady Olena Zelenska urging her to ask her husband to choose “a different route” and criticising the West for supplying Ukraine with arms provoked a fierce backlash.

    “Live Nation Polska and Tauron Arena Krakow have cancelled Roger Waters’ concert,” organisers said in a statement on the venue’s website. They did not elaborate on the reason for the cancellation.

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    On Saturday, state-run news agency PAP reported that a spokesperson for the Tauron Arena had said that Walters’ management had cancelled the concert without giving a reason.

    Poland counts itself among Kyiv’s staunchest allies, and public support for the Ukrainian cause is very high.

    Local councillors in Krakow had been due to vote on a resolution declaring Waters ‘Persona non grata’ on Wednesday.

    In a social media post, Waters said that it was not true that he or his management had cancelled the concerts and criticised local councillor Lukasz Wantuch over the vote to declare him unwelcome in the city.

    “Lukasz Wantuch has threatened to hold a meeting asking the council to declare me ‘Persona non grata’ because of my public efforts to encourage all involved in the disastrous war in Ukraine, especially the governments of the USA and Russia, to work towards a negotiated peace,” Waters wrote in a post on Facebook.

    “If Mr Lukasz Wantuch achieves his aim, and my forthcoming concerts in Krakow are cancelled, it will be a sad loss for me, because I have been looking forward to sharing my message of love with the people of Poland.”

    Wantuch said in a Facebook post on Sunday morning that he was in Ukraine and would comment on Waters’ statement in the evening.

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    Reporting by Alan Charlish; Editing by Susan Fenton

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