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Spotify to cut 17% of its staff

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:55:34 GMT

London (CNN) — Spotify will lay off around 1,500 employees to reduce costs in a third round of job cuts in less than a year, CEO Daniel Ek said Monday as he announced a “significant step change” for the music-streaming business.“Economic growth has slowed dramatically and capital has become more expensive. Spotify is not an exception to these realities,” Ek wrote in a letter to staff posted to the company’s website.He said the company had debated making smaller cuts next year and in 2025. “Yet, considering the gap between our financial goal state and our current operational costs, I decided that a substantial action to right-size our costs was the best option to accomplish our objectives,” he added.“To be blunt, many smart, talented and hard-working people will be departing us.”Ek said one-on-one meetings with impacted staff would take place before the end of the day Tuesday. Employees will receive around five months of severance pay on average.Spotify (SPOT...

US Supreme Court to scrutinize controversial opioid crisis settlement that would give Sackler family immunity

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:55:34 GMT

Los Angeles (CNN) — On Monday, the Supreme Court will take on one of its highest-profile bankruptcy cases in recent memory: Whether or not to approve OxyContin-maker Purdue Pharma’s controversial agreement that would give billions of dollars to victims of the opioid epidemic while protecting members of the Sackler family, who owned the company, from current and future opioid-related civil lawsuits.While the up-to-$6 billion deal was initially approved by a New York court in May, it was blocked from moving forward after the US Trustee Program, a division of the US Justice Department, requested that the highest court review the settlement. The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear oral arguments on Monday.Purdue Pharma, which was owned and operated by the families of the late brothers Mortimer and Raymond Sackler, has said there will be no $6 billion settlement without releasing family members from liability, but the US Trustee has argued that such an arrangement is unprec...

1 of the 3 Palestinian students shot in Vermont is paralyzed from the shooting, his mother says

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:55:34 GMT

(CNN) — Hisham Awartani, one of the three Palestinian college students who were shot while walking in Vermont over Thanksgiving weekend, is paralyzed from the chest down after a bullet became lodged in his spine, his mother said.Awartani’s family has launched a GoFundMe fundraiser to help the 20-year-old junior at Brown University, who is scheduled to be released from the hospital next week and then go on to receive rehabilitation care, said his mother, Elizabeth Price, in a statement to CNN.“We believe that Hisham will meet this challenge with the same determination I’ve witnessed this week,” she said. “The fund will help cover costs associated with his rehabilitation, air travel of his family and expenses related to the adaptive needs of his new reality.”Awartani and his two longtime friends from the Israeli-occupied West Bank – Kinnan Abdalhamid of Haverford College and Tahseen Ali Ahmad of Trinity College – were out for a walk on Saturday in Bu...

A toaster placed under a car to heat up the battery likely sparked a fire in Denmark, police say

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:55:34 GMT

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — A toaster placed under an electric vehicle by its owner to warm up its battery likely caused a fire that destroyed the car and damaged a nearby house in southern Denmark, police said Monday.Police said that they “strongly discourage” people to use that method to heat power cells. “The cause of the fire is most likely to be found in the toaster that the owner of the car had placed under the front of his car to keep the battery warm,” police said in a daily report.The fire happened on Saturday in Stenlille, about 60 kilometers (nearly 40 miles) southwest of Copenhagen. No one was injured. The car was parked in a carport — a shelter for vehicles that is attached to a house and consists of a flat roof supported on pillars. The make of the car wasn’t known, and it also wasn’t immediately clear if it was the vehicle owner’s house that was damaged or a neighbor’s home.The car’s owner faces a fine.The Associated Press

French investigation into fatal attack near Eiffel Tower looks into mental illness of suspect

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:55:34 GMT

PARIS (AP) — French police investigations into a fatal weekend attack near the Eiffel Tower are looking into the mental health of the suspected assailant who swore allegiance to the Islamic State group before stabbing a German-Filipino tourist to death and injuring two other people with a hammer.The French national taken into police custody, Armand Rajabpour-Miyandoab, has a history of mental illness and of Islamic radicalization, officials said. He faces a possible preliminary charge of terrorist-related murder for the attack Saturday night that raised fresh questions about security in the French capital before it hosts the Olympic Games next year.“This is a case that links radical Islam, undeniably, and mental illness. I must tell the French people the truth that there are numerous cases like this,” the interior minister, Gérald Darmanin, said Monday, adding that around one-third of suspected radicals under surveillance have psychiatric issues. Speaking to broadcaster BFMTV,...

Congresswoman released ad telling supporters to vote on the wrong day

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:55:34 GMT

(The Hill) - Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas), who is running for Mayor of Houston, released a campaign advertisement urging supporters to vote, except the advertisement had the wrong day.Jackson Lee is running in the Houston mayoral runoff election, which takes place on Saturday, Dec. 9. Her advertisement, which has been confirmed by Mediaite to have aired on Houston’s television markets, tells voters to head to the polls “on or before December 7th.”In the advertisement, Jackson Lee shows off her record serving in Congress and city council.“Houston, I’ve spent my entire career fighting for you from fighting to keep our kids safe from guns when I was on city council, to my days in Congress fighting to protect women’s reproductive freedom and for funding for our police, schools and small businesses,” she said in the video.“Now, I’m running to be your mayor, because if we’re going to bring down crime, fix our streets and bring good paying jobs here, then Houston needs a champion who’...

Ask Amy: A toy kitchen brings up stereotype questions

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:55:34 GMT

Dear Amy: My husband and I have a daughter, “Emma.” She is three.We are thoughtful and responsible parents (at least we think so…).We have a question about gift-giving.Our daughter goes to a nursery school program a couple of mornings a week, and it’s going very well.While at school, she loves to play with a miniature kitchen set. It’s got a little sink and a pretend stove with pots and pans.We told my sister that we are thinking about getting a version of this for our daughter for Christmas (my sister also has children), but she is strongly disapproving because, as she says, this sort of toy “reinforces gender stereotypes.”Now we feel weird about it and decided to seek your take.— Wondering ParentsDear Wondering: Many parents are concerned about reinforcing gender stereotypes … right up until that moment when their toddler son really loves to play with his cousin’s toy bulldozer, or their daughter falls in love with a Tiny Tammy doll.Are you willing to deny your child the joy...

Commissioners Reynders and Johansson to attend the Justice and Home Affairs Council on 4 and 5 December

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:55:34 GMT

Today (4 December) and tomorrow (5 December), Justice Commissioner Didier Reynders (pictured) and Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson will attend the Justice and Home Affairs Council, which will take place in Brussels.Today, Commissioner Reynders will participate in the meeting of Justice Ministers, where the focus will be set on reaching a general approach on a new EU law on the transfer of proceedings in criminal matters, approve the Council position on the application of the GDPR, and adopt the European e-Justice Strategy 2024-2028. Ministers will discuss the proposed revision of the Directive on victims' rights and exchange their views on the ongoing fight against impunity in the context of Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine, EU's accession to the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (ECHR) and the functioning of the European Public Prosecutor's Office.Commissioner Reynders will provide an update on the EU-US negotiations o...

Ukraine must be supported until victory -or we will all pay the price, warns Nobel laureate

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:55:34 GMT

The joint winner of the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize, the Ukrainian human rights lawyer Oleksandra Matviichuk (picture - credit EP/Alain Rolland) , has been in Brussels to address the International Conference on Accountability and Justice for Ukraine. She also took part in a High-Level Conference on Human Rights at the European Parliament, where she was interviewed by our Political Editor Nick Powell.Oleksandra Matviichuk with Nick PoweWhen Russia launched its full invasion of Ukraine nearly two years ago, Oleksandra Matviichuk had already been documenting war crimes for eight years. As she reminded me, Russia started the war in 2013 with its illegal annexation of Crimea and by arming a rebellion in Donbas. It was a response to how protests in Kyiv’s Independence Square, the Maidan, ended the corrupt rule of the pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych.“Ukraine obtained the chance of a free democratic transition, after the collapse of the authoritarian regime during the Revolution of Digni...

France’s Erratic Policy Threatens Stability 

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:55:34 GMT

France sending weapons to the Middle East, the Caucasus and Central Asia creates an unstable landscape in these regions, while losing every bit of political influence in North and West Africa, writes James Wilson. According to Sébastien Lecornu, French Minister of the Armed Forces, there is "a slow, progressive, but unfortunately certain increase in pressure" in Lebanon because of Iran’s terrorist proxy, Hezbollah, firing missiles and mortars into Israel. And this could escalate and open a second front while Israel is fighting another Iranian proxy, Hamas in Gaza. “In the Near and Middle East, we are dancing on a volcano,” Lecornu added in an interview with Europe 1-CNews.Why, then, did Paris decide to provide the Lebanese army with dozens of VAB armoured personnel carriers (APC)? Lecornu claimed that these vehicles will “assist the Lebanese military in their patrol missions within the country”, so that “it could coordinate well with the UNIFIL”. It is common knowledge that Hez...