WikiLeaks editor Julian Assange is in grave danger, isolated inside the Ecuadorian embassy in London, according to his friend Pamela Anderson. The actress blamed a pro-Clinton media of making Assange ‘hated’ in Hollywood. Anderson is a close friend of Assange, but was turned away from the embassy when she tried to visit him last month. Ecuador cited Assange’s tweet about Catalan separatists as a pretext to jam his phone and internet access and stop him from receiving any visitors. The last time Anderson talked to Assange was March 27, the day his access to the outside world was shut off. “He's cut off from everybody,” the Baywatch star told the Hollywood Reporter (THR) in an interview published Wednesday. “The air and light quality [at the embassy] is terrible because he can't keep his windows open and he can't get any sunlight. Even prisoners can go outside, but he can't.” The US intelligence community accused WikiLeaks of being a “Russian cutout” after the outlet published internal Democratic National Committee emails, as well as emails from the private account of Hillary Clinton’s campaign chair John Podesta, during the 2016 US presidential election. Assange actually sought sanctuary inside the Ecuadorian embassy back in 2012, fearing he would be extradited to the US on espionage charges because WikiLeaks had published thousands of US government documents related to the Iraq and Afghanistan wars in 2010. “He's been wrongly accused of so many things,” Anderson told THR. “He's so misunderstood… especially in Hollywood, and really hated, because of the Clinton monopoly on the media.” “I always try to humanize him because people think he's a robot or he's a computer screen or he's not this human being,” Anderson said. This is not the first time the actress has raised an alarm over Assange’s isolation. Appearing on ITV’s ‘Good Morning Britain’ last month, Anderson expressed fear he could die inside the embassy. The actress believes WikiLeaks provides a valuable public service, and that accusations against Assange are bogus, according to THR. “There are people in the world that don't question authority," she said. “They just think, 'Oh, somebody smarter than me has figured it out, and I'm gonna go on with my day and I don't have any feeling about it because I'm too busy.' I think that's dangerous.” Canadian-born Anderson became a US citizen during her star turn in the 1990s. She has since swapped the beaches of Malibu for the French Riviera, living in Marseilles with her soccer star boyfriend Adil Rami.

IN A startling revelation, President Donald Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani said on Wednesday that Trump repaid his personal lawyer US$130,000 (A$172,939) in a deal made just before the 2016 election to keep porn star Stormy Daniels quiet about her tryst with the president, directly contradicting Trump’s statements about the hush money. During an appearance on Fox News Channel’s Hannity, the former New York City mayor and U.S. lawyer said the money to repay Michael Cohen had been “funnelled ... through the law firm and the president repaid it”. According to Fox News, Giuliani said that Trump repaid Cohen “over several months”. Asked if Trump knew about the arrangement, Giuliani said: “He didn’t know about the specifics of it, as far as I know. But he did know about the general arrangement, that Michael would take care of things like this, like I take care of things like this for my clients. I don’t burden them with every single thing that comes along. These are busy people.” The comments contradict statements made by Trump several weeks ago, when he said he didn’t know about the payment to Daniels as part of a nondisclosure agreement she signed days before the presidential election. Asked aboard air force One whether he knew about the payment, Trump said flatly: “No.” Trump also said he didn’t know why Cohen had made the payment or where he got the money. In a phone interview with Fox and Friends last week, however, Trump appeared to muddy the waters, saying that Cohen represented him in the “crazy Stormy Daniels deal”. The White House referred questions to the president’s personal legal team. Giuliani, who joined Trump’s legal team last month, said the president had repaid Cohen over several months, indicating the payments continued through at least the presidential transition, if not into his presidency. He also said the payment “is going to turn out to be perfectly legal” because “that money was not campaign money.” No debt to Cohen is listed on Trump’s personal financial disclosure form, which was certified on June 16, 2017. Giuliani also described the payment to Daniels as “a very regular thing for lawyers to do”. Daniels’ lawyer, Michael Avenatti, called the comment “a stunning revelation”. “Mr. Trump evidently has participated in a felony and there must be serious consequences for his conduct and his lies and deception to the American people,” he said. Giuliani made the statements to Fox host Sean Hannity, who has his own connection to the case. It was recently revealed in court that Hannity is one of Cohen’s clients. Hannity has described his personal dealings with Cohen as centred on real estate advice and said that it “never rose to any level that I needed to tell anyone that I was asking him questions.” Daniels, whose legal name is Stephanie Clifford, says she had a sexual encounter with Trump in 2006, months after his third wife gave birth to his youngest child, and was paid to keep quiet as part of a nondisclosure agreement she is now seeking to invalidate. She has also filed a defamation suit against Trump after he questioned a composite sketch she released of a man she says threatened her to stay quiet. The White House has said Trump denies having a relationship with Daniels. Cohen had said previously: “Neither the Trump Organization nor the Trump campaign was a party to the transaction with Ms. Clifford, and neither reimbursed me for the payment, either directly or indirectly.” He notably did not include the president personally. Asked about Cohen’s denial, Giuliani said that he didn’t know if Cohen made the payment without asking Trump but that he had “no reason to dispute that.” The revelation from Giuliani came as Cohen was under escalating legal pressure. He is facing a criminal investigation in New York, and FBI agents raided his home and office several weeks ago seeking records about the nondisclosure agreement. Daniels’ lawsuit over the hush deal has been delayed, with the judge citing the criminal investigation. The payment to Daniels has raised numerous legal questions, including whether it was an illegal campaign contribution and, now, loan. Law firms advance expenses for clients as a matter of course, and so there’s nothing inherently improper about a lawyer covering a particular payment and then being reimbursed for it. In this case, though, the client who apparently reimbursed the expense was running for president and the money was paid just days before the election, raising questions about whether Cohen’s law practice was functioning as a vendor for the campaign and whether the expense was therefore an unreported campaign expenditure. If so, that could be legally problematic. A key question is timing. If Cohen or Trump could establish that discussions with Daniels over the payment long predated his run for office, that could help them with the argument that the money was a personal rather than political expense. “It obviously increases the president’s exposure to potential campaign finance violations, but it also makes him look terrible,” said Sol Wisenberg, a defence lawyer who was a deputy independent counsel during the Starr special counsel investigation into President Bill Clinton. “I don’t understand the Giuliani strategy,” he added. “Maybe it’s been too long since he’s been in the criminal justice field.” Meanwhile, CNN has revealed that Daniel’s former manager, who was involved in the negotiation of the confidentiality agreement, is co-operating with the FBI in their investigation into the deal. Gina Rodriguez has reportedly given the FBI records, some in relation to the hush money, after she received a subpoena. There is said to be evidence that Daniels was initially working on a deal with Cohen on October 10, 2016, but the deal fell through when Cohen failed to make the payment. A second deal took place 18 days later.

TWO shipwrecks discovered off the West Australian coast during the search for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 have been identified as 19th century merchant sailing vessels that were carrying cargoes of coal. The wrecks were found 2300km off the coast at depths between 3700 and 3900 metres, roughly 36km apart, in May and December 2015. The Western Australian Museum analysed sonar and video data taken by the searchers, and say the ships were on the Roaring 40s trade route. One of the ships appears to have sunk as a result of a catastrophic event such as an explosion, which was common in the transport of coal cargoes, maritime archaeology curator Ross Anderson said. The second wreck was more intact, lying upright on the seabed. "Historical research into all 19th century merchant ships that disappeared in international waters is incomplete so we cannot conclusively determine identity of the individual ships," Dr Anderson said. "However, we can narrow the possibilities to some prime candidates based on available information from predominantly British shipping sources." Both ships likely carried crews of between 15 and 30 men. Sometimes captains brought their wives and children, and both vessels may have carried additional passengers, the museum said.

POLICE who reached the Las Vegas hotel room where a gunman unleashed the deadliest mass shooting in modern US history busted in with shields and found his body and weapons scattered around, police body-camera videos show. Hours of footage from two officers' body-worn cameras show police walking into a casino that was still packed after gunfire started raining down on an outdoor concert from 32 floors up in a Las Vegas Strip casino-hotel. Officers ordered people to flee and told a worker: "Get everyone out of here." Police say Stephen Paddock killed 58 people and injured hundreds more from the windows of his hotel suite on October 1 before killing himself as authorities closed in. The footage shows officers checking rooms in the Mandalay Bay before getting to Paddock's room. An officer says, "Breach! Breach! Breach!" before a loud bang and a fire alarm begins to sound. Inside, Paddock's body is seen on his back, clad in dark pants and a long-sleeve shirt with a glove on his left hand. An apparent pool of blood stains the carpet near his head as a police SWAT officer walks past. An officer grabs an assault-style rifle from the ledge of a broken window and other weapons are found around the room. The videos record officers talking about whether there is evidence of a second shooter and finding Paddock's driver's licence. Police and the FBI later said they believe the 64-year-old former accountant and high-stakes video poker player acted alone. A preliminary police report released in January said Paddock meticulously planned the attack, researched police SWAT tactics, rented hotel rooms overlooking outdoor concerts and investigated potential targets in at least four US cities. The videos do not show what the first officer through the door saw because he didn't activate his body-worn camera. The disclosure by police lawyers late on Tuesday raised questions about whether officers followed department policy. Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department spokeswoman Carla Alston said on Wednesday that no one in the agency would comment about whether the first officer through the door followed proper procedure by not turning on his camera or whether he had been disciplined for violating policies. The department requires officers with body cameras to activate them during calls that lead to interaction with residents and searches. The Associated Press and other media outlets sued to obtain videos, 911 recordings, evidence logs and interview reports to shed light on the response by public agencies, emergency workers and hotel officials while Paddock fired for more than 10 minutes from upper-floor windows of the Mandalay Bay resort. Seven months after the shooting, the Nevada Supreme Court last week upheld a state judge's ruling that the records must be made public. The police department will release more recordings in batches in coming weeks.

At least 76 people have died and scores more were injured in fierce dust storms that hit the northern Indian states of Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh. The storms on Wednesday disrupted electricity, uprooted trees, destroyed houses and killed livestock. Many of the dead were sleeping when their houses collapsed after being struck by intense bursts of lightning. Dust storms are common in this part of India during summer but loss of life on this scale is unusual. The storms largely affected three districts in Rajasthan - Alwar, Bharatpur and Dholpur - where at least 31 people were killed. Officials say Alwar is worst affected. Schools in the district are closed. "I've been in office for 20 years and this is the worst I've seen," Hemant Gera, secretary for disaster management and relief in Rajasthan, told the BBC. "We had a high intensity dust storm on 11 April - 19 people died then - but this time it struck during the night so many people sleeping and couldn't get out of their houses when mud walls collapsed." He said teams were trying to restore electricity to homes after 200 to 300 electricity poles were felled in the storm. The Chief Minister of Rajasthan, Vasundhara Raje, said officials were heading to affected areas to start relief work. The state government has also announced that families of the dead will receive 400,000 rupees (about $6,000; £4,400) as compensation. Forty-five people died in neighbouring Uttar Pradesh, 36 of them in Agra district which is home to the Taj Mahal monument. Officials believe the death toll could increase. Falling trees and walls killed many people in the state. The storm also hit the capital Delhi, more than 100km (62 miles) away, along with heavy rains late on Wednesday evening.

A German nurse working for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) was kidnapped in Somalia's capital Mogadishu, the aid group said. She was seized by unknown armed men from inside the ICRC compound at 20:00 local time (17:00 GMT) on Wednesday. Police told Reuters they are searching for her. No-one has claimed responsibility for the abduction. It comes a day after gunmen shot dead a Somali woman who worked for the World Health Organization, also in Mogadishu. The unidentified attackers escaped and their motive remains unknown. Decades of conflict have made Somalia one of the world's most dangerous countries for aid workers. The targeting of foreign workers, however, has become far less frequent as security has improved in the Horn of Africa country in recent years. "We are deeply concerned about the safety of our colleague," said Daniel O'Malley, the ICRC's deputy head of delegation for Somalia, in a statement. "She is a nurse who was working every day to save lives and improve the health of some of Somalia's most vulnerable people." Staff believe the kidnappers took their colleague out through a back door, avoiding security guards stationed at the main entrance of the ICRC compound, Reuters reported. The Swiss-based agency, which has provided humanitarian aid in Somalia for years, would not provide further details except to say it was working with various authorities to secure their employee's release. Somalia collapsed into anarchy in 1991 when war lords overthrew a military regime. Major armed conflict has since subsided, which allowed for parliamentary and presidential elections to take place in 2012. However, al Qaeda-linked al-Shabab militants still regularly launch attacks in the capital and elsewhere in the country.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has urged Donald Trump not to walk away from an international deal designed to prevent Iran acquiring nuclear weapons. Speaking to the BBC, Mr Guterres said there was a real risk of war if the 2015 agreement was not preserved. Mr Trump has been a strong critic of the accord, in which Iran agreed to limit its nuclear programme in return for the lifting of sanctions. The US president has until 12 May to decide whether to stick with the deal. Mr Guterres told the BBC that the Iran agreement was an "important diplomatic victory" and should be maintained. "We should not scrap it unless we have a good alternative," he said, adding: "We face dangerous times." Could the Iran nuclear deal collapse? It comes just days after Israel revealed "secret nuclear files" accusing Iran of having covertly pursued nuclear weapons. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the files provided proof that the Obama-era nuclear deal was "built on lies". European allies France, the UK and Germany meanwhile have agreed that pursuing the current nuclear deal with Iran is the best way to stop it developing nuclear weapons. What is the Iran deal? In 2015 Tehran signed a deal with the US, China, Russia, Germany, France and Britain agreeing to limit its nuclear activities in return for the lifting of crippling economic sanctions. Under the deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Iran is committed to slashing the number of its centrifuges, which are machines used to enrich uranium. It is also meant to cut its stockpile of enriched uranium drastically and not enrich remaining uranium to the level needed to produce nuclear weapons. The number of centrifuges installed at Iran's Natanz and Fordo sites was cut drastically soon after the deal while tonnes of low-enriched uranium were shipped to Russia. Furthermore, monitors from the IAEA have been able to carry out snap inspections at Iranian nuclear sites. On Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu revealed what he said were pages of material that proved Iran had covertly pursued nuclear weapons. Speaking in English from Israel's defence ministry in Tel Aviv, Mr Netanyahu showed off what he said were "exact copies" of documents obtained by Israeli intelligence from a secret storage facility in Tehran. There were, he said, 55,000 pages of evidence and a further 55,000 files on 183 CDs relating to a secret nuclear weapons programme, dubbed Project Amad. The project, he said, had had the explicit goal of producing five warheads, each with the yield of 10 kilotonnes of TNT. He said Tehran had continued to pursue what he described as nuclear weapons knowledge after the project was shuttered in 2003. He said this was evidence that Iran had lied about its nuclear ambitions before the deal was signed in 2015. Tension between the long-standing enemies has grown steadily since Iran built up its military presence in Syria, which lies to the north-east of Israel. What does Trump object to in the deal? Mr Trump has frequently voiced his opposition to the "insane" deal, which he has described as the "worst ever". He has warned that the US would withdraw completely on 12 May - the next deadline for waiving sanctions - unless European signatories to the deal and Congress addressed his concerns. He is unhappy that the deal only limited Iran's nuclear activities for a fixed period and had failed to stop the development of ballistic missiles. He also said it had handed Iran a $100bn (£72bn) windfall that it used "as a slush fund for weapons, terror, and oppression" across the Middle East. What does Iran say? Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has questioned the legitimacy of efforts by the US and France to change the nuclear deal with his country. Mr Rouhani has said that Mr Trump has no "right" to renegotiate the seven-party agreement. He has said Iran "will not accept any restrictions beyond its commitments" to comply with international rules in the years ahead. Mr Rouhani has also accused Mr Trump of "maliciously violating" the nuclear agreement. Iran maintains that the missiles it has tested are not designed to carry nuclear warheads and insists its nuclear programme is a peaceful one for energy purposes.

Australia's Commonwealth Bank has admitted losing the bank records of almost 20 million people. Names, addresses, account numbers and statements were stored on two magnetic tapes which were meant to be destroyed by a subcontractor in 2016. But despite not receiving evidence the tapes had actually been destroyed, the bank did not tell customers there was a potential problem. The breach is the latest scandal involving Australia's largest lender. In a filing to the Australian Stock Exchange, the bank said it could not confirm that the tapes containing 15 years of data had been destroyed securely. But it said "an independent forensic investigation" by accounting firm KPMG had "determined the most likely scenario was the tapes had been disposed of." It added "the tapes did not contain passwords, PINs or other data which could be used to enable account fraud". And it stressed there had been no evidence that customer information had been compromised, with monitoring mechanisms remaining in place. Buzzfeed first reported news of the lost tapes, claiming they were supposed to be destroyed by Fuji Xerox after the decommissioning of a data centre. 'Unacceptable' The Commonwealth Bank's acting head of retail banking, Angus Sullivan, described the incident as "unacceptable" and has apologised for any "inconvenience and worry" the incident may have caused customers. The privacy breach comes at a time when Australian banks are under intense scrutiny from a landmark banking inquiry. Last month, the inquiry heard that the Commonwealth bank collected fees from customers it knew had died. In one case, an adviser collected fees from a former client for more than a decade. Australia's Treasurer Scott Morrison has warned that financial executives could face strong penalties, including jail sentences, from evidence brought up at the inquiry.

The US state of Iowa has approved an abortion law banning most abortions once a foetal heartbeat is detected. Republican lawmakers passed the bill in back-to-back votes, sending it to the governor's desk to sign into law. If it comes into effect the bill will ban most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, and rights groups say it will be the country's most restrictive. Critics argue it will make having an abortion illegal before most women even realise they are pregnant. Iowa's Republican Governor Kim Reynolds has not said if she will sign the bill. Last year, Iowa Republicans successfully banned abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy. The so-called "heartbeat" bill would require any woman seeking an abortion to have an ultrasound to screen for a foetal heartbeat. If one is detected, she will be barred from obtaining a termination. Some exceptions have been introduced - in cases of rape and incest, where it has been reported to authorities, and to save the woman's life. "We're in the majority for a reason and that includes advancing the pro-life cause," Republican Representative Shannon Lundgren told the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier. "We are alive when our hearts start beating and our life is over when it stops," Dawn Pettengil, another Republican Representative from Iowa, told CBS News. What do opponents say? Democratic Representative Beth Wessel-Kroeschell spoke against the legislation on the floor of the Iowa House of Representatives on Tuesday. "All women, regardless of age, income or race, should be able to obtain reproductive health services, including abortion, free from political and economic barriers," Ms Wessel-Kroeschell said. Iowa's Planned Parenthood and the American Civil Liberties Union groups have also spoken out against the bill. "These extreme attempts to ban abortion fly in the face of both medical and legal standards, as well as common sense and public opinion among Iowans," said Erin Davison-Rippey, Planned Parenthood of the Heartland's director of public affairs in an online statement released in February, when the bill was first introduced. "So-called 'heartbeat protection' bills are actually bans on safe, legal abortion, and they threaten to set reproductive rights back by decades." Elizabeth Nash, of the sexual and reproductive health policy group the Guttmacher Institute, told the BBC this was "the most restrictive abortion ban in the country". She and Iowa Democrats have suggested the bill is intentionally unconstitutional. If Ms Reynolds signs the bill into law, it will likely be challenged in court for possibly violating Roe v Wade, the US Supreme Court ruling that legalised abortion in 1973. The ruling states some women have a right to terminate pregnancies until a foetus is viable. Isn't that a problem for the bill's supporters? No, in fact some Republican lawmakers welcomed the challenge. "I would love for the United States Supreme Court to look at this bill and have this as a vehicle to overturn Roe v. Wade," Republican Senator Jake Chapman said. A string of US states have enacted abortion bans or stringent restrictions over recent decades only to have them overturned by the courts, prompting some conservatives to take aim at the landmark ruling. "We created an opportunity to take a run at Roe v Wade," Republican state Senator Rick Bertrand acknowledged. Iowa is among a number of states, including Mississippi and Kentucky, that have triggered court challenges by imposing tight restrictions on abortion. President Donald Trump supports an abortion ban and has indicated that this is a priority, and Republicans are seizing the opportunity that creates, say commentators.

The widow of China's Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo has said she is ready to die in protest at being held under house arrest by Chinese authorities. Liu Xia, 57, has been under house arrest since 2010, after her husband was awarded the Nobel prize. She has never been charged with any crime. Liu Xiaobo was one of China's foremost pro-democracy campaigners and a fierce critic of the state. He died last year while serving an 11-year jail sentence for "subversion". There has been growing concern for Ms Liu since her husband's death. The poet is said to be suffering from depression after spending years under heavy surveillance, and her friends and lawyer say they believe she is being held "incommunicado". Journalists have been blocked from visiting her. Advocacy groups have for years called on Beijing to free Liu Xia but the Chinese authorities insists that she is a free citizen, and that the grief induced by her husband's death has prevented her from getting in touch. Ms Liu's friend Liao Yiwu said he spoke by phone to Ms Liu earlier this week, where she said it was "easier to die than live. Using death to defy could not be any simpler for me." Writing on the website ChinaChange, Mr Liao, a writer who now lives in Germany, said Ms Liu also told him: "I've got nothing to be afraid of. If I can't leave, I'll die in my home. Xiaobo is gone, and there's nothing in the world for me now." Mr Liao also uploaded a recording of a phone conversation he had earlier in April with Ms Liu, where she can be heard crying for several minutes, and saying: "I'm ready to die here... if I'm dead, it'll all be done with." Western diplomats have called on Beijing to allow Ms Liu to travel abroad, and the German ambassador to China has told the South China Morning Post that she is welcome to go to Germany. On Thursday, foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said she did not have information on Ms Liu's situation. "Liu Xia is a Chinese citizen. The relevant Chinese authorities will handle relevant issues in accordance with the law," she said. Mr Liu, 61, was the first Nobel Peace Prize laureate to die in custody since German pacifist Carl von Ossietzky, who died in Nazi Germany in 1938. He had been undergoing treatment for terminal liver cancer.

Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir has ordered the closure of 13 overseas missions and job cuts at the foreign ministry due to an economic crisis, reports state media. "The decisions have been taken in order to cut costs, given the economic situation in the country," Suna news agency reports his decree as saying. It added that diplomats in the foreign ministry will have to do their own administrative work as the whole administration team is being sacked. The announcement comes after ex-Foreign Minister Ibrahim Ghandour said Sudanese diplomats abroad had not been paid for months and wanted to return to Khartoum. But Mr Ghandour was not thanked for the warning - he was sacked by the president. Sudan's economy has been performing badly since separating with the south as that took 75% of its oil earnings and currently the country has an acute shortage of foreign currency.

Police in Nigeria have brought flamboyant senator Dino Melaye to court in the capital, Abuja, on a stretcher. He has been under police guard in hospital since last week after he sustained injuries while allegedly trying to escape by jumping out of a police vehicle. His allies say he was pushed. The magistrate court set bail at 90m naira ($250,000; £184,000), according to Sahara Reporters. Mr Melaye - the senator for Kogi West in central Nigeria - was detained over allegations that he supplied illegal weapons to his political supporters. He denies the allegation, saying he is a victim of a plot to end his political career. He is known to be at loggerheads with Kogi state governor Yahaya Bello, even though they both belong to the ruling party. At the weekend, the election commission threw out a petition to force him to step down as a senator, saying only about 5% of signatures - 18,742 out of 189,870 - could be verified. The senator is well known for his love of luxury cars, champagne and designer clothes, once appearing in a music video depicting his lavish lifestyle. The song Dino, named after Dino Melaye, features lyrics like "100 cars in the parking lot like I'm Dino". The video shows rapper Kach pretending to eat dollar bills, displaying expensive cars, a mansion, jewellery and shoes. Mr Melaye has gained the nickname of the "singing senator" for posting videos on social media taunting a rival in song.

Leading Kenyan author Binyavanga Wainaina has tweeted that he will get married to his boyfriend in South Africa. The 47-year-old author, who won the 2002 Caine Prize for African writing for his short story Discovering Home, has not named his boyfriend. In 2014, he came out publicly as gay, making him one of the most high-profile Africans to do so. He made the disclosure on his 43rd birthday in an article entitled: I am a homosexual, mum. Homosexual acts are illegal in Kenya and he would not be allowed to marry there. South Africa has one of the most liberal constitutions in the world, and recognises same-sex marriages.

Spotify shares dropped 9% after its first earnings report as a public company disappointed investors. The Swedish firm said losses narrowed to 41m euros (£36.1m; $49m) in the three months to the end of March from 139m euros a year earlier. But while the results were largely in line with estimates, investors remain concerned Spotify is losing money. "Investors were hoping for a little more", Atlantic Equities analyst James Cordwell told Reuters. He pointed to slow growth in North America - which is seen as a gauge on how it is competing against Apple and Amazon. But Spotify chief executive and co-founder Daniel Ek said that he did not see any "meaningful impact" from competition. "When we look at this, we don't really think that this is a winner-take-all market. In fact, we think multiple services will exist in the market and we are all in a growing market," he said. Discount issue Spotify's sales hit 1.14bn euros (£1bn; $1.37bn) in the three months to the end of March. And while the music streaming pioneer's total user base reached 170 million, less than half were paid subscribers. Morningstar analyst Ali Mogharabi suggested that part of the problem may be that it was offering "too many discounts" on music subscriptions and extending the length of free-trials as it tries to convince users to start paying, rather than the free, advertising-funded service. Spotify was valued at about $26bn in its market debut in New York last month. Since its listing, it has been reported that Sony - a key investor - had cashed in nearly half of its shares.

en people suffered minor injuries when a bonfire exploded at a Jewish festival in London, police say. Hatzola, a volunteer emergency medical service, said it provided a "mega response team" at the event in Stamford Hill. Jewish news website The Yeshiva World said a bonfire exploded when it was lit. The Metropolitan Police said there had been no reports of serious injuries or any criminal allegations. It is unclear what caused the blast, although there are reports fuel was poured on the fire while others say at least one mobile phone was put into the fire. The Yeshiva World website reported "shrieks and panic" after the explosion, said to have happened as a bonfire was lit to celebrate the Lag B'Omer Jewish holiday. Some of the people treated for injuries reportedly suffered burns to their faces London Fire Brigade said it had responded to several bonfires throughout the night.

Dozens of Brazilian gymnasts have alleged that the former coach of Brazil's national team, Fernando de Carvalho Lopes, sexually abused them. They told TV Globo's Fantástico programme that they had experienced sexual abuse, ranging from touching to being told to shower in front of him. He was removed from the national team just before the 2016 Olympics after the parents of a gymnast raised concerns. Mr Lopes says that he has "a clear conscience". Interviewed by TV Globo, he said that he had never molested anyone. But on Monday, the club near São Paulo at which he had been training youngsters for two decades sacked Mr Lopes. The club, MESC of São Bernardo do Campo, said Mr Lopes had already been moved to an "administrative position" two years ago when the first allegations against him emerged. Only one gymnast agreed to speak to TV Globo on camera without having his face obscured. Petrix Barbosa, 26, said that: "I was woken up more than once by his hand down my pants." Mr Barbosa, a Pan-American champion who now lives in the US, said that the coach asked gymnasts to show him their genitals. "He always asked us how we were developing, he said that he needed to be across our growth so he could adapt our training accordingly," the gymnast said. The programme spoke to 42 gymnasts who said that they had experienced some form of abuse at the hands of Mr Lopes. They said that the alleged abuse happened before and after training sessions and during training camps. Mr Lopes told the programme that those accusing him had yet to "present proof in court". The BBC approached his lawyer for comment but has not received a response. The allegations against him are being investigated by the prosecutor's office. The scandal comes just months after the former doctor of the US gymnastics team, Larry Nassar, was jailed after more than 265 women accused him of abuse.

Your brand-spanking new Samsung Galaxy S9 or S9+ comes with quite a few preinstalled third party applications, but in the near future it will have to handle even more of what we call bloatware. Today Verizon's subsidiary Oath has signed a deal with Samsung to place four of its apps onto each Galaxy S9 and S9+ sold in the US. The apps in question are Oath Newsroom, Yahoo Sports, Yahoo Finance, and Go90. If you're wondering what Yahoo's got to do with any of this, well, the brand is now owned by Oath. Oath's aforementioned apps will have native ads inside - that blend in with the content where they appear. Oath CEO Tim Armstrong says "this gets ads one step closer to being direct to consumer. You can't be more direct than being on the mobile phone home screen and app environment". Samsung and Oath will share ad revenue. The preinstallation of Oath's apps is limited to the US market for now, but the same thing will "eventually" happen globally. It's probably a good thing that the S9 and S9+ come with at least 64GB of internal storage, then.

Last December, when Apple was embroiled in a controversy over the throttling of some iPhone models, the company finally came clean. Apple admitted that in iOS 10.2.1, the company installed technology allowing it to slow down the CPU on units with older batteries. Owners of those devices were finding that when they had their iPhone perform a complex task, the phone often rebooted because of the weak battery. Throttling the CPU was one way to fix this issue. The models involved include the Apple iPhone 6 and later, including the iPhone SE. Apple said that replacing the battery in these models with a new cell would be the best solution. And to make up for its lack of candor about the whole affair, the company announced that for all of 2018, it would reduce the price of a battery replacement for an out of warranty iPhone from $79 to $29. The 63% price break has drawn so many iPhone owners, that getting an appointment at the Genus Bar in many Apple Stores is harder than scoring ducats to Hamilton. In Great Britain, the discount on the battery replacement for out of warranty iPhone models brings the price down from £79 to £25 ($34 USD). According to the BBC Watchdog program, in the country some Apple iPhone owners are being told that because of damage to their phone, Apple will need to make an expensive repair before it changes the battery at the discounted price. The result is an invoice that is many times the £25 charge to replace the cell inside the phone. One U.K. consumer by the name of Josh Landsburgh sent his phone to Apple to have the battery replaced, and was sent an email a couple of days later. In the email, Apple said that a dent on the casing of the device (which was a minor ding) would have to be fixed first at a price of £200 ($271 USD) before it would allow him to participate in the discounted battery deal. The angry iPhone owner had his handset sent back to him without changing the battery, or fixing the dent. He went to a local repair shop where he had a fresh cell installed on his device without a problem. Another gentleman in the U.K., David Bowler, sent his phone to Apple for a new battery. Despite the lack of external damage, Apple said that there were issues internally with the microphone and speaker, and that these had to be fixed first before it could change the battery. The price to repair these? £250 ($339 USD). And that would be before paying to replace the battery. So David had his phone returned without allowing Apple to work on it. He took it to a specialist who said that there was nothing wrong with the microphone and speaker, and the battery was replaced without any issues. Apple's website does say that "If your iPhone has any damage that impairs the replacement of the battery, such as a cracked screen, that issue will need to be resolved prior to the battery replacement. In some cases, there may be a cost associated with the repair." But some Apple customer service reps contacted by BBC Watchdog are incorrectly telling the BBC that Apple's warranty says that "any and all damage" must be repaired before a battery replacement. Apple's response to the BBC basically repeats the words from its web site. "When it comes to iPhone battery replacement, if your iPhone has any damage that impairs the replacement of the battery, such as a cracked screen, that issue will need to be resolved prior to the battery replacement. In some cases, there may be a cost associated with the repair."

Facebook announced at its F8 developer conference that WhatsApp will be getting two news features, group calling and stickers. Both the features are fairly self-explanatory. Group calling takes the existing video calling feature to the next level by letting up to four people talk on the same call. It's similar to the feature Instagram is slated to get soon. As for stickers, this one has been long coming and something almost every other messaging platform has had for years now. Users will have access to built-in as well as third-party sticker sets. This should make it a bit more relevant in 2018. Facebook didn't reveal much else and the new features will be coming some time in the next few months.

The newly-unveiled LG G7 ThinQ is now starting to make its way to store shelves around the globe. The latest to detail its availability dates are US carriers Verizon and Sprint. Verizon has confirmed it will start accepting pre-orders May 24, while Sprint will open its campaign a day later, on May 25. Sadly, T-Mobile and AT&T are yet to reveal availability info for the device, although the magenta carrier did say "later this spring". Sprint revealed the launch date as well - June 1. Note that this is the same date when the handset will be on sale at US Cellular. None of the carriers touched on pricing though.

The vivo X21 UD went on sale in China back in February and is only now starting its international rollout. The first market to receive the phone with an under the display fingerprint scanner is Singapore. The vivo X21 UD will go on sale through M1, StarHub and other authorized retailers on May 5 for SGD 799 (roughly €500). There's no official word on what other markets the X21 UD will visit and when. Besides of its novel fingerprint tech, the vivo X21 UD packs a 6.28-inch Super AMOLED of 1080x2280px resolution, Snapdragon 660 chipset with up to 6GB of RAM, a dual 12MP+5MP camera and a nice looking body.

Apple didn’t kill the 3.5 mm headphone jack, it just moved it to an adapter. Now an analyst at Barclays believes that Cupertino will drive the final nail the coffin this year – the new iPhone models will not come bundled with a Lightning-to-3.5 mm adapters. That’s not a new conclusion, in April last year Barclays suggested that this move probably won’t happen in 2017 but “potentially” in 2018. The analysts also lowered the yearly revenue guidance for Cirrus Logic by 5%. While the components are unlabeled, the DAC chips are believed to be the work of Cirrus. It should have been pretty clear that the adapter was a stopgap measure – a couple of years to allow consumers to move to Bluetooth headphones (or wired Lightning headphones, but who would do that?). Apple would likely continue to sell the adapters separately (currently one goes for $9)

LG has continued its collaboration with EmEye, which began with the LG V30S ThinQ, and now extends to the LG G7 ThinQ with some major improvements. On the V30, EmEye provided an AI model that ran locally on the device (a boon for privacy compared to cloud-based solutions), this model adjusted the camera settings. The G7 can do that too, picking from 11 categories (person, pet, food, etc.), but the AI can look at photos after they are taken as well. It sorts them in up to 155 smart albums based on keywords and concepts. If you’ve used the V30S camera in AI Cam mode, you would have seen words floating on the screen—the AI’s description of the image. Those same words are used to sort photos. This is the result of hard work by EmEye and LG who analyzed over 100 million photos to improve both the camera setting recommendation engine as well as the photo organization feature.

On the surface, France’s film industry is living la vie en rose. The country recorded its third-largest box office haul in 50 years in 2017, following an even stronger performance in 2016. More than 60 French productions or co-productions have been selected for the upcoming Cannes Film Festival. French sales agents represent more than two-thirds of the films in the festival’s official competition. But look a little closer, and the cracks start to appear. Although France is continental Europe’s biggest film market, many distributors are in dire straits. Major companies like Wild Bunch and EuropaCorp are seeking white knights. Some banners have consolidated, including Mars Films, which sold a 30% stake in the company to Vivendi. Others — such as MK2, which is focusing more on exhibition and international sales — have shut down their distribution businesses or, like La Belle Co., called it quits entirely. The distribution sector’s woes stem from an ultracompetitive environment, declining investment in films by TV channels, the lack of an effective antipiracy law and an outdated windowing schedule. Unfortunately, none of these problems looks as if it’ll be solved anytime soon, raising questions about the industry’s long-term health. France counts more than 150 distribution outfits. Only 70 are fully active, and of these, only 20 “are really doing the job,” says Didier Duverger of financial institution Natixis Coficine, which backs Wild Bunch, among other banners. The remaining 80 distributors are barely active, releasing about one film a year, according to the National Film Board, or CNC. Still, over the past decade, the number of movies released in French theaters has skyrocketed from 450 titles a year to 700. Similarly, the number of French films produced annually has grown from 240 to 300 during roughly the same period. While the French box office has hovered at record levels since 2015 — between $1.4 billion and $1.5 billion a year, powered by Hollywood tentpoles and French comedies — the preponderance of local distributors and films means that everyone is getting smaller portions of the pie. Ticket sales are also falling, particularly for domestic films. “The production of French films has nearly doubled in the last 20 years, but the number of admissions per French film has dropped by an estimated 20% since the early 2000s,” says Duverger, noting the increasing competition from foreign films as well as high-end TV. France’s distribution system makes things difficult. “The model … requires a big upfront investment in minimum guarantee and P&A,” says Serge Hayat, an entrepreneur and investor in film and TV production. Ideally, a distributor can recoup its investment and earn a commission ranging between 25% and 30%. “In the worst-case scenarios, which are quite frequent these days, the distributor loses 100% of its investment,” Hayat says. “The market is getting tougher and more competitive,” adds David Grumbach, CEO of Bac Films. “There are too many companies bidding for the same films, so acquisition prices often get out of control. And because so many films get released in theaters, one movie always chases another, and we have to spend more to maximize the visibility of our releases andstay on screens longer than a couple weeks.” Since taking over Bac in 2013, Grumbach has reduced the company’s distribution slate to eight or 10 films per year, spending more on fewer titles, including Pablo Larraín’s “Jackie,” with Natalie Portman, and Ruben Östlund’s Palme d’Or-winning “The Square.” The company is co-producing more films, such as Paolo Virzi’s “The Leisure Seeker,” starring Helen Mirren and Donald Sutherland. Unlike in the U.S., French distributors get public subsidies; the CNC injects €40 million (about $49 million) into the sector every year. However, funds are allocated primarily to smaller outfits, which means that the “medium-size companies that take the most risks are not getting much help,” Duverger says. On the upside, with so many distributors, French cinemas offer a richer, more diverse lineup of movies than can be found in other big European markets such as Germany, where the distribution landscape tends to be dominated by U.S. majors. France prides itself on being a nation of moviegoers and cinephiles, and on having one of the world’s highest number of screens per capita, with 5,843 screens for a population of about 67 million as of 2016, the last year for which such figures are available. “Distributors really take risks in France to release movies from many different nationalities, whether they are big or small,” says Xavier Lardoux, head of the film division at the CNC. “Where else can you watch a Guatemalan film in a theater?” (Guatemalan director Jayro Bustamante’s “Ixcanul” was released theatrically in France in 2015.) The success of one French outfit, Memento Films Distribution, which has four titles competing at Cannes this year, illustrates French audiences’ taste for diverse movies. Over the past few years, the company has thrived with art-house pics such as Asghar Farhadi’s “A Separation,” Tarik Saleh’s “The Nile Hilton Incident” and Pawel Pawlikowski’s drama “Ida.” French moviegoers love auteurs from around the world, and countless independent films have earned more money in France than in any other foreign market, says Mars Films founder Stéphane Célérier. He cites Matt Ross’ “Captain Fantastic,” Harmony Korine’s “Spring Breakers” and Barry Jenkins’ Oscar-winning “Moonlight,” which posted its second-biggest overseas box office numbers in France, just behind Britain. But even for Mars, which remains a top player and is backed by powerhouse Vivendi, 2017 was a tough year, with many underperforming titles, including Kathryn Bigelow’s “Detroit” and Cédric Jimenez’s “The Man With the Iron Heart.” Célérier, like many other French distributors, has moved into production or co-production. Mars’ first two films as a producer, “La famille Bélier” and “Two Is a Family,” were huge box office hits in France. The company is also considering moving into TV drama, following in the footsteps of many distribution outfits, including Haut et Court, Gaumont and EuropaCorp. The country boasts several vertically integrated, deep-pocketed groups such as Pathé, Gaumont, Studiocanal and SND, which are market leaders. Pathé, Gaumont and Studiocanal rank as the top French distributors so far this year, thanks in large part to local comedy blockbusters. Pathé’s “Les Tuches 3” and “La ch’tite famille” have grossed $47.4 million and $45.1 million, respectively, beating Hollywood tentpoles “Black Panther” and “Fifty Shades Darker.” Smaller French distributors and producers are now alarmed that some of these vertically integrated companies, particularly Studiocanal’s Canal Plus Group — whose flagship pay-TV channel has historically been the country’s biggest financer of French films — are eager to produce their own content in order to own more rights and IP instead of relying on acquisitions. Canal Plus recently announced the launch of an in-house film and TV drama production unit in France. TV channels are required by law to invest a percentage of their annual net sales in local films. But declining revenues have caused them to scale back their investment in and acquisition of films. Canal Plus, for instance, is bound to inject 9.5% of its net sales into local movies, but as its revenues have been falling, its investment has gone from €173 million in 2011 to €151 million in 2016. “With TV channels playing a lesser role in pre-financing French films, distributors have been pressured to cover the gap with bigger minimum guarantees, while international sales agents have also become a key piece of the puzzle to raise financing for films through pre-sales,” says Cécile Gaget, head of international co-production and distribution at Gaumont. Ancillary markets for film, such as DVDs, are in free fall. Pay-per-view is not taking off because of France’s rampant piracy, as well as the country’s strict post-theatrical windowing schedule, which sets both DVD and pay-per-view windows at four months after theatrical release. “Piracy is destroying France’s secondary markets,” declares Jean Labadie, founder and president of distributor Le Pacte. Previously, for example, if a non-English-language film sold 200,000 tickets in theaters, “you could expect to sell 10,000 DVDs,” Labadie says. “Today you could sell 4,000 DVDs at most.” And streaming services such as Netflix, which are prohibited from showing films in France for a staggering 36 months after they first hit cinemas, aren’t really part of the picture for fresh releases. So if a film bombs in theaters, chances to make up for it in ancillary markets are slim. The film industry’s anger over piracy, and the lack of concrete measures by the government to curb it, has reached the boiling point. Last month, France’s major film guilds, including the independent distributors’ union and the association of authors, directors and producers, showed their discontent by staging an extraordinary boycott of the gala reception hosted by the French minister of culture, Françoise Nyssen, to celebrate the French films selected at Cannes. Nyssen vowed to tackle piracy and create a blacklist of illegal streaming sites. But the guilds themselves have thus far failed to reach a consensus in negotiations to shorten the country’s windowing schedule. The government will soon be entitled to step in and set new rules that would be valid for three years. With such fierce competition among distributors, plus problems with piracy and windowing, the sector might soon be culled, with only the fittest surviving. “Distributing films is like playing roulette,” says Victor Hadida, co-founder of distributor Metropolitan Filmexport. “There is no safe bet. You’re just hoping for the upside.”

All references to Bill Cosby have been removed from Television Academy’s website, including from the list of honorees in the organization’s Television Hall of Fame. In addition, the Academy confirmed Wednesday to Variety, a bust of Cosby that had been removed during construction at the organization’s North Hollywood campus will not be returned to display. An Academy spokesperson told Variety that the organization has no plans to rescind Cosby’s four Primetime Emmy awards. Cosby has not been removed from the academy’s Television Hall of Fame, as had been previously reported by another outlet, only from the online list of Hall of Fame honorees. Cosby last month was found guilty in a retrial on sexual assault charges. A jury ruled against Cosby for aggravated indecent assault in all three counts brought against him by Andrea Constand. The 80-year-old comedian and actor now faces the possibility of spending the rest of his life in prison. Each count for which Cosby was found guilty carries a maximum penalty of up to 10 years in prison. Sentencing is expected to take place later this year, setting up the possibility that a hearing could become a forum for some of the more than 50 women who have said that Cosby sexually assaulted them. Cosby was accused of drugging and sexually molesting Andrea Constand, who served as operations manager for the women’s basketball team at Temple University, at his home outside Philadelphia in 2004. Cosby contended the sexual contact was consensual, but a jury determined that it was not. Deadline was first to report Wednesday that Cosby’s name had been removed from the TV Academy website, that his bust would be kept in storage, and that his Emmys would not be rescinded at this time. But an Academy spokesperson told Variety that the website’s claim that Cosby had been removed from the Hall of Fame itself was incorrect. Cosby was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame in 1991, part of a class of inductees that included Andy Griffith, Ted Koppel, Sheldon Leonard, Dinah Shore, and Ted Turner. His family sitcom “The Cosby Show” ended its eight-season run on NBC the following year.