Blog

By Tom Balmforth and Alexander Tanas, Reuters President Maia Sandu said on Monday (local time) Moldovans had won a "first battle in a difficult fight" for their future, a day after a slim majority of 50.46 percent backed EU accession in a referendum that was clouded by allegations of Russia-backed meddling. The EU flag waves close to the Moldovan Parliament building. Photo: Sergei Gapon / AFP The knife-edge finish was a shock for supporters of Sandu, who had hoped the vote would deliver a firm message of intent to bring the ex-Soviet agricultural economy into the European Union by 2030 and leave Moscow's orbit for good. "The people of Moldova have spoken: Our EU future will now be anchored in the constitution. We fought fairly in an unfair fight - and we won," Sandu wrote on X. The r...

Photo: Serge Tenani / Hans Lucas via AFP Three years after Meta shut down facial recognition software on Facebook amid a groundswell of privacy and regulator pushback, the social media giant said it is testing the service again as part of a crackdown on "celeb bait" scams. Meta said it will enroll about 50,000 public figures in a trial which involves automatically comparing their Facebook profile photos with images used in suspected scam advertisements. If the images match and Meta believes the ad are scams, it will block them. The celebrities will be notified of their enrollment and can opt out if they do not want to participate, the company said. The company plans to roll out the trial globally from December, excluding some large jurisdictions where it does not have regulatory clearanc...

By Tessa Flemming for the ABC As the name suggests, the breed closely resembles the controversial American XL Bully dog in its stocky build. Photo: Facebook / Bullycats Wrinkly with stumpy legs and a little bit ugly - the "XL Bully cat" is the latest cat crossbreed to take the internet by storm for its looks (or lack thereof). But the breed proliferation in the US and now the UK has led to fresh outrage about how designer trends and selective breeding could be harming our pets. What is a XL Bully cat? As the name suggests, the breed closely resembles the controversial American XL Bully dog in its stocky build - which was banned in England earlier this year. The XL Bully cat, also known as a Bambino, is bred by mixing the mutant gene that causes hairlessness in Sphynx cats with the ge...

Photo: AFP Movie and television studio Alcon Entertainment has sued Tesla and Warner Bros Discovery over claims they used images tied to the film 'Blade Runner 2049' to promote Tesla's new autonomous cybercab. Alcon's California federal lawsuit alleged violations of US copyright law and accused Tesla of "false endorsement" for suggesting a relationship between Alcon and the Elon Musk-owned electric vehicle maker. "Any prudent brand considering any Tesla partnership has to take Musk's massively amplified, highly politicised, capricious and arbitrary behavior, which sometimes veers into hate speech, into account," the lawsuit said. Tesla and Warner Bros did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Warner Bros was Alcon's distributor for 'Blade Runner 2049', which won two 2018 Acad...

By Jonathan Stempel, Reuters Sean "Diddy" Combs has been hit with seven new sexual abuse lawsuits, as his lawyers asked the judge overseeing the music mogul's criminal sex trafficking case for a gag order against Combs' accusers and their lawyers. Sean "Diddy" Combs poses during the MTV Video Music Awards, 2023. Photo: Angela Weiss / AFP The civil lawsuits were made public on Sunday and Monday (local time) by four men and three women over alleged misconduct in New York, Los Angeles and Las Vegas dating to 2000 but mainly in 2022, the accusers' lawyer Tony Buzbee said on Facebook. Some lawsuits said unidentified celebrities also assaulted Combs' accusers. Combs, 54, faces least two dozen civil lawsuits accusing him of sexual misconduct, including 13 from Buzbee's firm. Combs has denie...