Online shoppers embrace Black Friday
British retailers brace for a rush of shoppers on the hunt for pre-Christmas bargains on Black Friday. Hayley Platt looks at how the U.S. tradition is being embraced by British consumers.
British retailers brace for a rush of shoppers on the hunt for pre-Christmas bargains on Black Friday. Hayley Platt looks at how the U.S. tradition is being embraced by British consumers.
Ukrainian authorities suspect jailed tycoon Ihor Kolomoisky of being behind the attempted murder of a lawyer in a corporate dispute more than 20 years ago, the national police said on Wednesday. Kolomoisky, who backed President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in the 2019 election and faces charges of fraud and money laundering, has previously denied any wrongdoing in those cases. "Police investigators have served a notice of suspicion to a well-known Ukrainian oligarch for ordering a premeditated murder," the police said in a statement.
Kenya’s President William Ruto has declared Friday a public holiday to mourn the 238 people who have died due to ongoing flooding. The president on Wednesday said the day will be observed by national tree planting activities to help mitigate the effects of climate change. Kenya, along with other parts of East Africa, have been overwhelmed by floods.
The weakness in a key metric that denotes the total value of revenue earned on the Uber platform signals demand weakness for the company's ride-share and food delivery services. The company's profitability push, however, is yielding result as core profit for the first quarter and its forecast exceeded Wall Street expectations. Uber's smaller rival said it was seeing industry-wide growth in ride-share demand and was able to draw in users with features like shorter wait-times.
Apple's iPhone shipments in China increased by 12% in March after the company and its retailers reduced prices, according to data from a research firm affiliated the Chinese government. Shipments of foreign-branded phones in China increased by 12% in March to 3.75 million units from 3.35 million a year earlier,data from the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT) published on Wednesday showed. Although the data did not explicitly mention Apple, the company is the dominant foreign phone maker in China's smartphone-dominated market.
The United Nations voiced concern on Wednesday after dozens of cases of cholera were reported in flood-stricken Kenya."I believe that between government and national and international partners, we'll be able to contain it," the UN's resident coordinator in Kenya, Stephen Jackson, said in an interview with Citizen TV. "We've contained cholera before, but it's a significant concern," he added.
The war in Gaza has cooled Israeli business activity with the United Arab Emirates, with the once-celebrated relationship now conducted away from public scrutiny amid anger in the Arab world over the conflict. The UAE became the most prominent Arab state in 30 years to establish formal ties with Israel under a U.S.-brokered agreement in 2020, dubbed the Abraham Accords. It has maintained the relationship throughout Israel's more than six-month war in Gaza.
Australia will quadruple its financial assistance to Tuvalu, a Pacific Island nation at risk from rising seas, to cement a landmark climate migration and security deal as China also courts small island states. On a visit to Tuvalu, foreign minister Penny Wong said on Wednesday evening Australia has committed A$110 million ($72.27 million) in its national budget to Tuvalu. The sum includes A$50 million ($32.85 million) to build the first undersea cable connecting the island's residents to global telecommunications services, and A$19 million for a land reclamation project to fortify Tuvalu's coastline from rising seas.
Indonesia experienced its hottest April in more than four decades, two senior weather agency officials said Wednesday, as the region endures a suffocating heatwave and global temperatures break records.But Guswanto, deputy BMKG chief who goes by one name, told local media last month Indonesia was not experiencing the same heatwave and that temperatures were at normal levels.
Numerous women have shared stories of “Ozempic babies” on social media. But the joy some experience in discovering pregnancies may come with anxiety about the unknowns, as these medicines haven’t been studied in people who are pregnant.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa described as "treasonous" a campaign ad by an opposition party that depicts a burning national flag, as antagonism between political parties rose three weeks before an election. The campaign ad released on Monday by the Democratic Alliance uses the burning flag as a metaphor for what it says is the grave risk of the ruling African National Congress retaining power in a coalition with left-wing parties. "I think it is treasonous," Ramaphosa told reporters during a visit to Limpopo province.
Here’s why North American travelers are kind of dissatisfied, according to consumer research company J.D. Power’s 2024 North American Airline Satisfaction Study.
South Korea on Wednesday welcomed a U.S. decision to extend automakers' eligibility for electric vehicle tax credits for cars containing Chinese graphite through 2026. The U.S. is trying to wean the electric vehicle battery chain away from China through its Inflation Reduction Act which is being closely monitored by automakers as they make investment decisions. South Korea's industry ministry said it will continue to seek to secure key battery materials so domestic battery manufacturers and carmakers can maintain their competitiveness in the U.S. market by meeting the requirements of the Inflation Reduction Act.
Thailand will re-list cannabis as a narcotic by year-end, its prime minister said on Tuesday, in a stunning U-turn just two years after becoming one of the first countries in Asia to decriminalise its recreational use. The moves comes despite rapid growth of a domestic retail sector for marijuana, with tens of thousands of shops and businesses springing up in Thailand in the past two years in an industry projected to be worth up to $1.2 billion by 2025. "I want the health ministry to amend the rules and re-list cannabis as a narcotic," Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin said on social media platform X.
During his visit to Europe, China’s top communist made clear his preference for dealing with the individual—whether Hungary or France—over the collective, such as NATO and the E.U.
Hwang and Halligan pleaded not guilty. Authorities allege Hwang and Halligan lied to banks in order to maximize Archegos' borrowing so the firm could manipulate prices of its stockholdings, which included ViacomCBS, which is now Paramount Global, and Discovery, now part of Warner Bros Discovery. Prosecutors accused Archegos of using the borrowed money to buy swaps, which further increased the firm's economic exposure to the stocks.
Nearly 40 construction workers were still missing Wednesday in the rubble of a building that collapsed in South Africa on Monday as rescue teams continued to search for survivors for a third day in the wreckage of the unfinished five-story apartment complex. Seven workers have been confirmed dead, while authorities in the city of George on South Africa's south coast released new information on the injuries, saying 16 of the 29 people rescued from the debris were in a critical condition in hospitals and another six had life-threatening injuries. The collapse of the building that was still under construction sparked a desperate rescue effort that has seen specialist disaster response teams brought in from other towns and cities to help.
Sung Kook "Bill" Hwang's criminal racketeering trial over the collapse of Archegos Capital Management begins on Wednesday with the selection of jurors who will decide if he and a deputy broke the law in a massive stock scheme that unraveled in just days in 2021. The trial in Manhattan federal court is expected to last up to eight weeks and will delve into the implosion of Hwang's lightly regulated family investment office, which prosecutors allege caused more than $100 billion in shareholder losses at companies in its portfolio. Federal prosecutors accuse Hwang of using derivatives to secretly amass positions in multiple stocks that were so large they eclipsed that of the companies' largest investors, driving up stock prices.
Stormy Daniels took the witness stand on Tuesday at Donald Trump’s criminal trial and described in lurid detail her alleged 2006 sexual encounter with the former U.S. president. Trump has pleaded not guilty to Manhattan prosecutors’ charges he falsified business records to cover up his former lawyer’s $130,000 payment to Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, for her silence before the 2016 election. Daniels appeared at ease in recounting for the jury her story of a sexual encounter with Trump in a Lake Tahoe hotel room in 2006.
The late U.S. civil rights leader and journalist Daisy Bates, who was instrumental in desegregating Arkansas public schools in the 1950s, will be honored on Wednesday when a statue of her is unveiled at the U.S. Capitol. The bronze statue depicts Bates, who died in 1999 at the age of 84, with a newspaper in one hand and a notebook and pen in the other. It will be joined later this year by another Arkansas entry, honoring the late singer Johnny Cash, according to the office of House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson.
TC Energy's planned oil pipeline spin-off is a bet that it can supply more Canadian crude to U.S. Gulf of Mexico refiners, but the venture faces stiff competition and will carry high debt when it starts up. The South Bow spin-off, which TC investors will vote on June 4, will help Calgary, Alberta-based TC lower its own high debt load and focus on moving natural gas. South Bow's entry comes as Canada, the fourth-largest global oil producer, gains expanded options for moving crude.