US toymaker Hasbro announced Thursday that it is acquiring studio Entertainment One, which owns popular cartoon series "Peppa Pig" among other children's content, for approximately USD 4 billion.
Under the all-cash transaction, Entertainment One shareholders will receive 5.6 pounds (USD 6.86) per share, according to a statement from Hasbro.
In addition to Peppa Pig, the popular swine with a British accent who loves jumping in muddy puddles, the purchase includes the successful children's cartoon "PJ Masks," about a trio of young friends who become superheroes at night.
"The acquisition of highly profitable and merchandisable preschool brands is a strategic growth opportunity for Hasbro," the company said.  "Peppa Pig" has extended itself to new profit streams that continue its success, it added.
Meanwhile "PJ Masks" growth outlook "is supported by new formats, its current rollout in China, the launch of new seasons in multiple regions, a live touring event and new toy lines." Hasbro ..

Hasbro to buy 'Peppa Pig' owner for USD 4 billion

PTI Automatic

The family of a staffer at the UK consulate in Hong Kong have rejected a "made-up" report by Chinese state media that he was detained in the mainland for visiting prostitutes.
Simon Cheng disappeared after visiting the city of Shenzhen from the semi-autonomous city on August 8, and the Foreign Office in London said both British officials and relatives have been unable to speak to him since.
The Global Times, a tabloid state-run newspaper, said he had been detained for "soliciting prostitutes", citing police in Shenzhen, which lies on the China-Hong Kong border.
But a Facebook page run by Cheng's family dismissed the report.  "This is a made-up crime of soliciting prostitution, everyone should see it's a joke," the comment said.
Beijing confirmed Wednesday an employee of the British consulate had been "placed in administrative detention for 15 days as punishment" by police in Shenzhen for breaking a public security law.
"Let me clarify, this employee is a Hong Kong citizen, he's not a .

Family of missing UK consulate worker rejects 'made-up' report

Russia will launch the world's first floating nuclear reactor and send it on an epic journey across the Arctic on Friday, despite environmentalists warning of serious risks to the region.
Loaded with nuclear fuel, the Akademik Lomonosov will leave the Arctic port of Murmansk to begin its 5,000 kilometre voyage to northeastern Siberia.
Nuclear agency Rosatom says the reactor is a simpler alternative to building a conventional plant on ground that is frozen all year round, and it intends to sell such reactors abroad.
But environmental groups have long warned of the dangers of the project, dubbing it a potential "Chernobyl on ice" and a "nuclear Titanic."
A deadly explosion this month at a military testing site in Russia's far north, causing a radioactive surge, has prompted further concerns.
The reactor's trip is expected to last between four and six weeks, depending on the weather conditions and the amount of ice on the way.Work began on the 144-metre Akademik Lomonosov in Saint ...

Russia launches floating nuclear reactor in Arctic despite warnings

Russia and the US traded accusations at the United Nations Thursday of risking a new arms race as China said it would play no part in any new missile deal.
The United States and Moscow ditched the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty after blaming each other for violating the accord.
Deputy Russian Ambassador to the United Nations Dmitry Polyanskiy told the Security Council that Washington's testing of a ground-launched missile earlier this week showed "America is ready for an arms race."
Russia had requested the meeting after the US tested a type of missile that was banned under the 1987 INF agreement, which restricted such medium-range weapons.
Polyanskiy added that Russia, on the other hand, was ready for "serious dialogue" over arms control, accusing European countries of tolerating the US's actions.
"The Russian Federation and China would still like a world where the United States exercises self-restraint while they continue their arms buildups unabated and unabashed," .

US and Russia trade barbs at UN over 'new arms race'

YouTube on Thursday said it disabled 210 channels that appeared to be part of a coordinated influence campaign against pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong.
The action by the Google-owned service came this week as Twitter and Facebook accused the Chinese government of backing a social media campaign to discredit Hong Kong's pro-democracy movement and sow political discord in the city.
"We disabled 210 channels on YouTube when we discovered channels in this network behaved in a coordinated manner while uploading videos related to the ongoing protests in Hong Kong," Shane Huntley of Google's security threat analysis group said in an online post.
"This discovery was consistent with recent observations and actions related to China announced by Facebook and Twitter."
Twitter and Facebook announced Monday they had suspended nearly 1,000 active accounts linked to a coordinated influence campaign, while Twitter said it had shut down about 200,000 more before they could inflict any ...

Google says YouTube campaign targeted Hong Kong protests

The global fight against malaria has stalled and requires massive investment as well as political leadership, the UN health agency warned in a report published Friday.
"The world is at a crossroads. Historical progress that has been achieved over the last decade is clearly slowing down," Pedro Alonso, director of the World Health Organization's malaria programme, told a news conference in Geneva.
Alonso expressed deep concern as he highlighted that "we still have in excess of 400,000 deaths every year and 200 million cases." "Despite huge progress in reducing malaria cases and deaths between 2000 and 2015, the last two years have witnessed the stalling of global progress," the WHO report warned.
It said 2020 targets to cut incidence and mortality by 90 per cent by 2030 will likely be missed.
The WHO report predicts that even given its "most optimistic scenarios and projections ... we will still have 11 million cases in Africa in 2050."
It said a "massive concerted and coordinated ...

WHO urges investment drive as malaria fight stalls

A cheap, once-a-day pill combining aspirin with drugs that lower blood pressure and cholesterol cuts the risk of major heart failure and stroke by a third, researchers said Friday.
In clinical trials, the so-called "polypill" was especially effective among people with no history of cardiovascular disease, reducing the number of severe events by 40 per cent, they reported in The Lancet, a medical journal.
In patients with a history of heart problems and strokes, the drug combo was only half as effective compared to the control group, who received advice on healthy living but no drugs.
The polypill concept was first proposed more than 20 years ago as a simpler, cost-effective approach to treating cardiovascular disease, which often requires taking several medications.
Up to now, patients are typically prescribed one or more drugs to lower blood pressure along with a statin, which holds lipids such as fatty acids in check. Aspirin, an analgesic, has blood thinning properties.
"The more ..

Daily 'polypill' reduces heart disease, stroke: study

At least five people, including two children, were killed and more than 100 others were injured Thursday during a sudden thunderstorm in Poland and Slovakia's Tatra mountains, according to rescuers and officials.
Most of the victims were on the Polish side, where lightning struck a large metal cross on top of Mount Giewont and a metal chain near the summit, rescuers said. One person died in Slovakia.
"There were a lot of incidents involving lightning strikes today in the Tatras," Polish mountain rescue service chief Jan Krzysztof told Poland's PAP news agency.
"More than 100 people are injured," Poland's Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said after arriving in the nearby mountain resort town of Zakopane.
Rescuers believe many hikers were nearby when lightning struck the cross on Giewont's summit.
They had set out to climb Poland's highest mountains when the skies were clear earlier in the day.
"We heard that after (the) lightning struck, people fell... the current then continued along 

Lightning strike kills five in Polish, Slovak mountains

A popular Zimbabwean online comedian and satirist said Thursday she was abducted from her Harare home and beaten by unknown assailants, becoming the latest perceived government critic to be attacked in recent weeks.
Samantha Kureya, popularly known as 'Gonyeti', was forcibly taken from her home by masked and armed men Wednesday evening, beaten up and dumped, she told a local newspaper from her hospital bed.
Kureya told a journalist from the Daily News in a video clip available online that three masked men broke open her bedroom door and pulled her out of bed.
"I was only wearing a top and pants, and when I said 'let me dress' I was slapped, and ordered to look down," she said, adding that she was dragged into a car with her face down.
She said she was taken to a bush where she was told "you are mocking (the) government" as she was kicked, whipped and ordered to roll onto the wet ground.
Kureya said she was also told to strip naked and forced to drink and gargle sewer water.
She was ...

Zimbabwean satirist says she was abducted, beaten for 'mocking govt'

Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro denied Thursday that his policies were to blame for raging wildfires in the Amazon and accused the media of harming the interests of the country by branding him a "Captain Nero."
"I do not defend the burnings, because there always was and always will be burnings. Unfortunately, this has always happened in the Amazon," Bolsonaro said, referring to dry season, land-clearing fires.
"But accusing me of being a Captain Nero setting fire to things is irresponsible. It is campaigning against Brazil," the president told reporters outside his Brasilia residence.
The reference to Captain Nero appeared to be to the Roman emperor who fiddled while Rome burned. Bolsonaro is a former army captain.
Forest fires tend to intensify during the dry season, which usually ends in late October or early November, as land is cleared to make way for crops or grazing.
"Just think, if the world begins imposing trade barriers, our agribusiness will fall, we will start to go ...

Bolsonaro rejects 'Captain Nero' tag over Amazon fires

French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday said wildfires in the Amazon were an "international crisis" and called on this weekend's G7 to address the issue.
"Our house is burning. Literally. The Amazon rainforest -- the lungs which produces 20 per cent of our planet's oxygen -- is on fire. It is an international crisis. Members of the G7 Summit, let's discuss this emergency first order in two days!" Macron said on Twitter.
The French president, who tweeted in French and English, is the latest international figure to raise the alarm over the raging wildfires in the Amazon.
Earlier, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said he was "deeply concerned" by the wildfires that have blanketed several Brazilian cities in thick smoke.
"In the midst of the global climate crisis, we cannot afford more damage to a major source of oxygen and biodiversity," he said on Twitter.
"The Amazon must be protected."
Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro is facing growing criticism over his anti-environment ...

Amazon wildfires represent an 'international crisis': Macron

Scoreboard at stumps on the first day of the third Ashes Test between England and Australia at Headingley on Thursday
Australia 1st Innings
D Warner c Bairstow b Archer
61
M Harris c Bairstow b Archer
8
U Khawaja c Bairstow b Broad
8
M Labuschagne lbw b Stokes
74
T Head b Broad
0
M Wade b Archer
0
T Paine lbw b Woakes
11
J Pattinson c Root b Archer
2
P Cummins c Bairstow b Archer
0
N Lyon lbw b Archer
1
J Hazlewood not out
1
Extras (b-4, lb-2, nb-2, w-5)
13
Total (all out, 52.1 overs, 257 mins) 179
Fall of wickets: 1-12, 2-25, 3-136, 4-138, 5-139, 6-162, 7-173, 8-174, 9-177
Bowling: Broad 14-4-32-2, Archer 17.1-3-45-6, Woakes 12-4-51-1,
Stokes 9-0-45-1.

ASHES SCOREBOARD

Jofra Archer took six wickets as England dismissed an Australia side without star batsman Steve Smith for just 179 on the first day of the third Ashes Test at Headingley on Thursday.
Fast bowler Archer, in only his second Test, took 6-45 in 17.1 overs -- the first time he had taken five or more wickets in an innings at this level.
England, looking to level this series at 1-1, reduced Australia to 25-2 after home captain Joe Root won the toss.
But David Warner (61) and Marnus Labuschagne (74) frustrated England in a third-wicket stand of 111.
Archer, however, turned the tide by having Warner caught behind off a 90 mph delivery. It was the start of a collapse that saw Australia lose three wickets for three runs to be 139-5.
Travis Head was bowled for a duck by Stuart Broad and Matthew Wade, a century-maker in the first Test, also fell for nought when a rising Archer delivery deflected off the thigh pad via his glove and into the base of the stump, dislodging a bail.
Warner's innings was 

Archer takes six as Australia all out for 179 in third Ashes Test

The US and the Taliban met in Doha on Thursday, an American source close to the talks said, for potentially decisive dialogue to allow Washington to drawdown militarily in Afghanistan.
The source said the talks started around 1300 GMT -- the ninth time the two foes have met face-to-face.
The disclosure came in a context of ongoing bloodshed in Afghanistan after NATO said two US military personnel were killed Wednesday, blasts rocked Jalalabad Monday, and the death toll from a weekend wedding bombing reached 80.
Washington's top commander in Afghanistan General Scott Miller was at the talks venue, according to an AFP correspondent.
The US, which invaded Afghanistan and toppled the Taliban in 2001, wants to withdraw thousands of troops but only in return for the insurgent group renouncing Al-Qaeda and curbing attacks.
Washington is hoping to strike an agreement with the Taliban by September 1 -- ahead of Afghan polls due the same month, and US presidential polls due in 2020.
Taliban ...

Taliban talks resume amid hopes of deal: US source

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said Thursday he was "deeply concerned" by wildfires that have devoured large sections of the Amazon rainforest, blanketing several Brazilian cities in thick smoke.
"I'm deeply concerned by the fires in the Amazon rainforest. In the midst of the global climate crisis, we cannot afford more damage to a major source of oxygen and biodiversity," he said on Twitter.
"The Amazon must be protected."
The extent of the area damaged by fires has yet to be determined but smoke has choked Sao Paulo and several other Brazilian cities.
Forest fires tend to intensify during the dry season, which usually ends in late October or early November, as land is cleared to make way for crops or grazing.
But the WWF has blamed this year's sharp increase on accelerating deforestation in the Amazon, which is seen as crucial to keeping climate change in check.
"Even out here in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean I hear about the record amount of devastating fires in the ...

UN chief Guterres says 'deeply concerned' by Amazon fires

Hungarian police said Thursday that three South Koreans were killed when their car was struck by a train at a rail-crossing in northern Hungary late-Wednesday.
The accident took place in a tourist area near the river Danube close to Kismaros, around 55 kilometres (34 miles) north of the capital Budapest, according to a police statement.
"All three victims were South Korean," a police spokesperson Bianka Berki Szabone told AFP without confirming if they were tourists.
According to Hungarian media the car went through a stop signal at a rail-crossing where it was hit by an express train travelling from Warsaw to Budapest.
No-one on the train was injured, said police.
The deaths come almost three months after 25 South Korean tourists died in a boat accident on the Danube in Budapest.
Police are still searching for another South Korean tourist missing since the tragedy.
The victims drowned after their small sightseeing boat collided with a larger vessel and capsized.

Three South Koreans killed in Hungary train-car crash

Photographs snapped by a shoebox-sized probe that explored the near-Earth asteroid Ryugu have offered new clues about its composition, insights that will help scientists understand the formation of our solar system.
The German-French Mobile Asteroid Surface Scout (MASCOT) hitched a ride on Japan's Hayabusa2 spaceship, touching down on the 900-meter (3,000 feet) wide asteroid, whose orbit lies mostly between Earth and Mars, on October 3, 2018.
Ryugu's gravity is 66,500 times weaker than Earth's, and the forward motion of wheels would have launched MASCOT back into space.
So it instead hopped around the surface using the tiny amount of momentum generated by a metal swing arm attached to its boxy body, which weighed 10 kilograms (22 pounds).
In addition to taking temperature readings and other measurements, MASCOT reeled off a series of pictures showing the asteroid is covered with rocks and boulders that fall into one of two categories: dark and rough with crumbly surfaces that resemble 

New images from asteroid probe offer clues on planet formation

United States sprint star Christian Coleman could face suspension after failing to make himself available for three drugs tests, multiple reports said Thursday.
Coleman, 23, the fastest man in the world over 100 meters this year and the favourite for next month's World Championships in Qatar, has missed three separate tests in the past 12 months.
Britain's Daily Mail and The Times newspaper reported that Coleman, a late withdrawal from last Sunday's Diamond League meeting in Birmingham, is challenging one of the alleged "whereabouts" failures.
Under internationally recognised anti-doping rules, athletes are required to make their exact whereabouts known to drug-testers up to 90 days in advance in order to facilitate out-of-competition testing.
Athletes who fail to make themselves available for three drug tests are treated the same as athletes who fail a drug test and face an automatic suspension.
Any suspension of Coleman would represent another bodyblow against athletics just as the .

US sprint star Coleman risks ban over missed drug tests: reports

Serena Williams will begin her quest for a seventh US Open title and record-tying 24th Grand Slam victory against long-time rival Maria Sharapova in the US Open women's singles draw unveiled Thursday.
Williams has dominated the Russian star in their head-to-head rivalry, winning 19 times with only two defeats, including their past 18 meetings, most recently at the 2016 Australian Open quarter-finals, although Sharapova advanced by walkover against Williams in the fourth round at Roland Garros last year.
Eighth-ranked Williams is looking to match the all-time record of 24 Grand Slam singles titles won by Margaret Court when the year's final major championship gets under way Monday.
The 37-year-old American has dropped her past three Grand Slam finals appearances, including last month to Simona Halep at Wimbledon and last year to Japan's Naomi Osaka at the US Open after a controversial game penalty for her tirade at umpire Carlos Ramos.
Tournament officials have said Ramos will not work 

Serena, Sharapova to clash in US Open first round blockbuster

Former world number one Andy Murray is set to compete in his first Challenger Tour event in 14 years at the Rafa Nadal Open in Manacor, Spain, next week.
The 32-year-old Murray has confirmed he will skip playing doubles at the US Open to focus on his singles game at the second-tier hard court event in Spain and to build up his confidence.
After undergoing hip surgery in January following his first round exit from the Australian Open, Murray began easing his way back by playing doubles, starting at Queen's in June.
However, he opted to drop doubles and focus on a return to singles earlier this month and was beaten in straight sets by Richard Gasquet in Cincinnati.
He then lost to American Tennys Sandgren in the first round of the Winston-Salem Open.
The three-time Grand Slam champion has now decided to step down to the second tier for the first time since 2005, when he played in the Challenger event in Mons as an 18-year-old.
Other players taking part in Spain include Mischa Zverev who 

Murray heads back to Challenger Tour for first time in 14 years

Top-ranked defending champion Novak Djokovic could face Roger Federer in the semi-finals and Rafael Nadal in the final under the US Open draw unveiled Thursday at Flushing Meadows.
Djokovic, who defeated Federer last month in an epic Wimbledon final for his 16th Grand Slam crown, had the 20-time Grand Slam champion and third seed dropped into his half of the draw.
Second seed Nadal, who won his 18th Grand Slam title at this year's French Open, has Austrian fourth seed Dominic Thiem on his side of the bracket.
Djokovic will play his first round match against Spain's 76th-ranked Roberto Carballes Baena.
Federer will open against a qualifier as will Japan's seventh-seeded Kei Nishikori, also in his quarter of the draw.
Nadal's first US Open match will be against Australia's 61st-ranked John Millman, who shocked Federer at the tournament in 2018, while fourth-seeded Thiem's opener will be against Italy's Thomas Fabbiano.

AFP

AFP

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