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Disney to acquire remaining stake in Hulu for expected $8.6 billion

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 09:13:46 GMT

(CNN) — Disney will acquire Comcast’s one-third stake in Hulu for an expected $8.61 billion, the company said Wednesday, in a deal that will put the streaming service entirely inside the Magic Kingdom when the transaction closes later this year.“The acquisition of Comcast’s stake in Hulu at fair market value will further Disney’s streaming objectives,” the company said in a short statement.Wednesday’s deal brings to an end long-running speculation about the fate of Hulu, but still requires an appraisal process that is expected to be completed in 2024 to further assess the streaming service’s fair value before a final sale price tag is agreed upon.“We look forward to the appraisal process and the determination of Hulu’s fair market value which we expect will reflect the extraordinary value of the business,” Comcast said in a statement.Disney’s bid to acquire the remaining shares in the platform began in 2019 under an agreement between the two companies that gave Hulu a value of at le...

Florida family at their wits’ end as bears persistently invade home

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 09:13:46 GMT

LEESBURG, Fla. (WSVN) — A Lee County family’s peaceful nights have turned into a nightmare as relentless bear break-ins continue, leaving a mother feeling unsafe in her own home. For four long years, Teana Sayers and her family have been tormented by these brazen predators, despite their best efforts to thwart them. “These bears have come every other night, basically,” she said. Sayers, a mother of four, resides on a serene street near Orlando, but lately, tranquility has been elusive due to the constant presence of three bold bears who have repeatedly invaded her home. “There’s times when my husband leaves for work early in the morning and it’s dark out and there’s a bear on the other side of my side door over here and he can’t leave because he’s trapped by this bear,” explained Sayers. The marauding bears have been spotted rummaging through trash cans and attempting to access the family’s residence. Their auda...

Medway family trapped in Gaza for weeks after war broke out crosses safely into Egypt

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 09:13:46 GMT

A family from Medway that had been trapped in Gaza for weeks when war broke out between Israel and Hamas has safely cross into Egypt, according to a source.A friend of the Okal family told 7NEWS that Abood Okal, Wafaa Abuzayda, and their one-year-old son Yousef, made it through the Rafah Crossing around 5:30 a.m. EST Thursday morning.The family had been visiting relatives when Hamas attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7, leaving them stranded in the area with limited power, food and water.At one point, they had been staying in a single-family house with 40 other people including 10 Americans.“The Okal Family expresses its deepest gratitude to their family and friends around the world, the Medway community, the media for sharing their plight and the plight of the hundreds of other Americans trapped in Gaza, their elected officials who fought hard for their return, and the State Department for providing them with safe departure,” a statement from an attorney representing the ...

Listen to the last new Beatles’ song with John, Paul, George, Ringo and AI tech: ‘Now and Then’

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 09:13:46 GMT

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The final Beatles recording is here.Titled “Now and Then,” the almost impossible-to-believe track is four minutes and eight seconds of the first and only original Beatles recording of the 21st century. There’s a countdown, then acoustic guitar strumming and piano bleed into the unmistakable vocal tone of John Lennon in the song’s introduction: “I know it’s true / It’s all because of you / And if I make it through / It’s all because of you.”More than four decades since Lennon’s murder and two since George Harrison’s death, the very last Beatles song has been released as a double A-side single with “Love Me Do,” the band’s 1962 debut single.“Now and Then” comes from the same batch of unreleased demos written by Lennon in the 1970s, which were given to his former bandmates by Yoko Ono. They used the tape to construct the songs “Free As a Bird” and “Real Love,” released in the mid-1990s. But there were technical limita...

Driver killed in New Bedford after vehicle hits guardrail, goes airborne off Route 140

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 09:13:46 GMT

Authorities say the driver of a pickup truck was killed after their vehicle struck a guardrail and went airborne in New Bedford early Thursday morning.Massachusetts State Police said troopers came across the crash around 4:15 a.m. after they were called to Route 140 North at Braley Road.According to a preliminary investigation, authorities believe the driver of a 2006 Ford F150 pickup truck had been traveling near Exit 7 when the vehicle struck a guardrail at a high rate of speed.State police said the vehicle then went airborne and that the driver, who was believed to not have their seatbelt on, was ejected.An MSP spokesperson said the victim was declared dead at the scene, and that the exit off-ramp remained closed until 7 a.m. as emergency crews responded and investigated the crash.No additional details were provided.

Medway family trapped in Gaza manages to escape through border crossing with Egypt

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 09:13:46 GMT

A Medway family trapped in Gaza for about a month managed to depart the war zone this morning through a border crossing with Egypt, a family attorney said, ending what they have described as a harrowing experience.Attorney Sammy Nabulsi said Abood Okal, Wafaa Abuzayda, and their one-year-old son Yousef Okal, departed Gaza through the Rafah Crossing shortly after 5:30 a.m. local time and are in the process of being transported to Cairo by United States Consular Affairs.“The Okal family is overwhelmed with the love and support they have received from home and abroad, but they are also exhausted, physically and emotionally drained, and have a long journey ahead of them back to the United States,” Nabulsi said in a statement.The family was in Gaza for a two-week trip to visit Abuzayda’s parents when Hamas stormed into Israel and killed civilians in a terrorist attack that has since triggered an overwhelming military response from Israel, including relentless airstrikes and a ground inva...

Trudeau headed to D.C. for Western Hemisphere trade summit Friday at White House

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 09:13:46 GMT

WASHINGTON — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is headed to the U.S. capital for a summit meeting to talk about growing trade connections across the Western Hemisphere. Friday’s White House summit, hosted by President Joe Biden, will bring together the leaders of countries taking part in the Americas Partnership for Economic Prosperity. That’s what the Biden administration is calling its hemispheric trade framework, an effort to head off migratory challenges by fostering economic growth and trade in the Americas. The Prime Minister’s Office says leaders will also discuss attracting what it calls “responsible and sustainable investments” to strengthen supply chains. The partnership, known as APEP, comprises 12 countries, including Mexico, Chile, Barbados, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Panama, Peru, Uruguay and the Dominican Republic. It’s not clear whether Biden and Trudeau will have the opportunity to meet one-on-one on the margins of the half-day su...

Lightspeed makes relocation easier as LGBTQ+ workers seek safety

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 09:13:46 GMT

When a wave of anti-LGBTQ+ laws swept across the U.S. over the summer, Lightspeed Commerce Inc. employees wasted no time asking the company’s executive ranks to help protect staff.President JD Saint-Martin recalls a June meeting held by the Montreal-based company’s pride group that inspired Lightspeed to consider whether its relocation policy should be amended. By then, 18 U.S. states had passed laws that limit or ban gender-affirming medical care for minors and sexual orientation education in schools. Canada has seen rallies and counter-protests this fall over policy changes about sexual orientation and gender identity in schools as provincial politicians zeroed in on pronoun changes for students under 16. “We’ve always had a relocation policy at Lightspeed, but our relocation policy was driven mostly for business reasons,” Saint-Martin said.“In the context of what’s happening in the trans community and beyond really, we started to think, w...

Rights groups report widespread war crimes across Africa’s Sahel region with communities under siege

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 09:13:46 GMT

ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) — Security forces and armed groups are committing war crimes against civilians in Africa’s Sahel region, where extremists and rebels are increasingly fighting to exert dominance and control resources in communities, according to new reports from two rights groups.Civilians are increasingly being killed, abducted or abused, including in Burkina Faso, where jihadi groups have fought for many years, and Mali, where militants and ethnic rebels are expanding their reach, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International said.The Amnesty report was released on Thursday, while the HRW one came out on Tuesday.Spread across the vast arid expanse south of the Sahara Desert, the Sahel region has been a hot spot for violent extremism, with armed groups often taking advantage of little or no government and security presence to target helpless communities.But the conflict has worsened in recent months and analysts blame the trend on the absence of institutional reforms, faile...

Defunding CBC would be ‘devastating’ to news in rural Canada: Catherine Tait

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 09:13:46 GMT

OTTAWA — The president of CBC and Radio-Canada defended the public broadcaster and its independence at a House of Commons committee this morning.Catherine Tait was called to testify at the heritage committee, where she faced questions from Conservative MPs about CBC’s reporting on the Israel-Hamas conflict.Tait told MPs in her opening remarks that the CBC is accountable to all Canadians and not to politicians, and that its journalists work independently of corporate management. Liberal MPs asked what would happen if the public broadcaster’s $1.4-billion budget was reduced, with Tory Leader Pierre Poilievre promising to pare down the budget for CBC’s English services while retaining coverage for linguistic minorities. Tait says that defunding the CBC would be devastating to its ability to fulfil its mandate to serve rural Canadians in particular.She also says losing the public broadcaster would be bad for Canadian democracy.This report by The Canadian Press was firs...