Business

A cryptocurrency businessman has been shot and killed in Brazil's busiest airport in an attack that left three others injured.Antonio Vinicius Lopes Gritzbach was killed by unidentified gunmen in a black car at Sao Paulo's Guarulhos International Airport on Friday. Mr Gritzbach had received death threats from the First Command of the Capital (FCC) - a powerful international criminal group.The businessman had recently entered into a plea bargain with local prosecutors to provide information on his ties to the FCC, police said.Two men who had been wounded in the shooting were taken to a nearby hospital. A woman was also injured. Sao Paulo state's security secretary said in a statement that the murder, and its cause, were still under investigation. Local media have reporte...

Dozens of black Americans have received text messages telling them they had been "selected" to pick cotton "at the nearest plantation".The messages invoking slavery were sent to university students from colleges including Ohio State University, Clemson University in South Carolina, the University of Southern California and Missouri State University, according to Sky's US partner network NBC News. But other black men, women and children were recipients of the messages in several other states including New York, Alabama, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Tennessee.The first messages were sent the morning after the US election, with some referencing president-elect Donald Trump.The FBI said in a statement on Thursday that it is aware of the texts and has been in contact with the US Department of Jus...

Sixty-two people have been arrested in Amsterdam after violence unfolded in the city on Thursday night. Source link

Nearly 70% of deaths in the Gaza war, which have been verified by the United Nations, were women and children, its Human Rights Office has said.The UN has analysed killings in the first 11 months of the Israel-Hamas conflict in the Palestinian territory and managed to verify 8,119 victims, including 2,036 women and 3,588 children. The 8,119 figure is considerably lower than the 43,000 deaths reported over the course of the 13-month-long war by the Hamas-run health ministry, although the UN does see these numbers as reliable.Out of the verified deaths between 7 October 2023 and 2 September 2024, children represented almost half of the victims (44%) while women accounted for 26%.The highest number of deaths was among children aged between five and nine years old, closely followed by those ag...

Chimpanzees carry out tasks better when they are watched by others - just like many people do at work - a new study has suggested.A research team in Japan suggested the great apes are receptive to the audience effect - where a person's behaviour changes when they believe someone else is watching - which was long thought to be unique to humans. Christen Lin, of Kyoto University in Japan, said: "It was very surprising to find that chimpanzees are affected in their task performance by audience members, and by human audience members nonetheless."One might not expect a chimp to particularly care if another species is watching them perform a task, but the fact that they seem to be affected by human audiences even depending on the difficulty of the task suggests that this relationship is more com...

Donald Trump has named Susie Wiles as his White House chief of staff in his first major appointment as president-elect.She will be the first female in history to take up the role - one of the most important non-elected posts in Washington. In his victory speech, Mr Trump described her as an "ice maiden" and has credited her with his "best-run" campaign.Here's what we know about her so far.Daughter of American footballer Susie Wiles grew up in New Jersey. Her father was the late American footballer Pat Summerall.Before his death in 2013, he credited her with helping him get sober and checking in to an alcohol rehab programme. "I hadn't been there much for my kids," he wrote in his memoir. "But Susan's letter made it clear that I'd hurt them even in my absence."Ms Wiles's first job in po...

A people smuggler who helped migrants cross the Channel on small boats and posted videos from successful customers has been jailed for 17 years for immigration offences.Amanj Hasan Zada, 34, from Preston, advertised on social media and shared clips of people thanking him for his services. The National Crime Agency (NCA) linked him to three separate crossings from France to the UK in November and December last year involving Kurdish migrants. Image: One clip showed migrants on a boat thanking and clapping Zada. Pic: NCA Image: A group who made it to Macedonia also paid tribute to him. Pic: NCA The groups had travelled through Eastern Europe into Germany, Be...

Ireland's prime minister has set a date for a general election and will ask the president to dissolve parliament ahead of voting.Simon Harris announced the polling date as 29 November, saying the "time is now right" to ask the Irish people for a new mandate. It means a relatively short campaign of just three weeks will be run ahead of polling day, bringing to an end the four-and-a-half-year lifespan of the historic Fine Gael, Fianna Fail and Green Party coalition government.After the 2020 general election delivered an inconclusive result, Fine Gael and Fianna Fail, two parties forged from opposing sides of Ireland's Civil War of the 1920s, agreed to set aside almost a century of animosity and share power.The Green Party joined the administration as a junior partner. This breaking news stor...

A film festival in Istanbul has been scrapped in protest at a reported ban on their opening film, Queer, starring Daniel Craig.Streaming service Mubi say they decided to pull Mubi Fest Istanbul 2024 after local authorities said the movie could not be shown "for security reasons". Image: Pic: BFF via Getty Mubi say local authorities claimed the "provocative content" in Queer would "endanger public peace".In the historical drama, Bond star Craig plays a drug-addicted American living in 1950s Mexico.Directed by Luca Guadagnino, it's based on the 1985 semi-autobiographical novel by Beat Generation author William Burroughs and explores the colourful nightlife of Mexico City. Mubi said Turkish authorities told them just hours be...

England cricket legend Sir Ian Botham was rescued by a former Australian rival after he fell off a boat into water "infested" with sharks and crocodiles.The retired all-rounder was on a fishing trip with former Australian fast-bowler Merv Hughes when he got his flip-flops caught in some roping and plunged head-first into the Moyle River near Darwin, northern Australia. Sir Ian, nicknamed Beefy, suffered severe bruising to his torso after hitting the boat on his way down – but escaped a worse fate when Hughes and fellow fishermen quickly pulled him out. Image: Merv Hughes was an on-pitch rival of Sir Ian during their cricket careers. Pic: Reuters The 68-year-old wrote on Instagram on Friday: "My catch of the day was the barr...