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☆ Kevin Spacey arrives at London court for sex offence trial
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-27 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

LONDON, June 28 (Reuters) - Oscar-winning actor Kevin Spacey arrived at a London court on Wednesday for the start of his four-week trial on a dozen sex offence charges. Spacey, 63, denies allegations of historic offences committed against four men which are said to have taken place between 2001 and 2013. The charges against Spacey include indecent and sexual assaults and a more serious offence of causing a person to engage in penetrative sexual activity without consent, which carries a maximum punishment of life imprisonment. Last November the Crown Prosecution Service authorised a further seven charges involving sex assaults on one man between 2001 and 2004. Spacey, once one of Hollywood's biggest stars, has largely disappeared from public view since being accused of sexual misconduct six years ago.

Persons: Kevin Spacey, Spacey, Michael Holden, Mark Heinrich, Christina Fincher Organizations: London's, Prosecution Service, Thomson Locations: London's Southwark, London, Gloucestershire, England, United States, Manhattan

☆ ‘Twilight Zone: The Movie’ and the Deadly Accident That Plagued It
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-25 | by ( Jason Bailey | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

When the anthology film “Twilight Zone: The Movie” opened on June 24, 1983, reviews were mixed; The New York Times’s Vincent Canby deemed it “a flabby, mini-minded behemoth,” and that was a fairly representative view. Chased by a military helicopter, Morrow’s character was to carry two Vietnamese children across a river to safety as a village exploded behind them. But the sequence was poorly planned and barely rehearsed, and the explosions damaged the rotor blades of the chopper, causing the pilot to lose control. As investigators examined the crash, they discovered that the children’s mere presence on the set had been illegal. A production secretary recalled Landis joking of the scheme, “We’re all going to jail!”

Persons: York Times’s Vincent Canby, John Landis, Vic Morrow, —, dismembering Morrow, Myca Dinh Le, Renee Shin, Yi Chen, Renee Shinn Chen, Landis, George Folsey Jr Organizations: Klan Locations: York, Nazi Germany, Vietnam

☆ Sarah Snook: 'Succession' star to play 26 characters in 'The Picture of Dorian Gray' stage show
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-22 | by ( Issy Ronald | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +2 min

CNN —After playing Shiv Roy in “Succession,” the critically acclaimed TV series that satirically portrayed the uber-rich but morally bankrupt Roy family grappling for control of a media empire, Sarah Snook will star in another production that skewers society. She will play all 26 roles in the “The Picture of Dorian Gray,” which will run for 12 weeks at London’s Theatre Royal Haymarket from January 2024. Directed by Kip Williams, the artistic director of the Sydney Theatre Company, the play will combine live performance and video “in an astonishing collision of form,” Theatre Royal Haymarket said. “I am elated to return to the London stage in such an astonishing piece of theatre,” Snook said, according to theater site WhatsOnStage. Snook’s “Succession” on screen parents are also returning to the London stage.

Persons: Shiv Roy, satirically, Roy, Sarah Snook, Dorian Gray, Kip Williams, Oscar Wilde’s, “, ” Snook, Kip Williams ’, Williams, Eryn Jean Norvill, ” Sarah Snook, Matthew Macfadyen, Tom Wambsgans, Claudette Barius, Henrik Ibsen’s “, Ralph Fiennes, Snook’s, Brian Cox, Logan Roy, Eugene O’Neill’s Pulitzer, Harriet Walter, Caroline Collingwood, Alba ” Organizations: CNN, London’s Theatre Royal Haymarket, Sydney Theatre Company, ”, Royal, London, Guardian, Old Vic Theatre Locations: “, Sydney, London

☆ ‘Ted Lasso’ Taught Phil Dunster How to Play Nice
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-31 | by ( Calum Marsh | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

But his take on the character, informed by his deep soccer fandom, came to dictate much of how the character was written, he explained, right down to jokes that hinge on Dunster’s twanging accent. (One of the most memorable lines in Season 3 revolves around his singular pronunciation of a colloquial term for excrement.) “I don’t want to put it down solely to my performance as Oliver in a Year 3 production at school, but that laid the foundation of me being a show-off,” he said. “I flocked, man — I had someone who was looking after me, and I still managed to screw everything up,” he said. On the bus ride home, he was dismayed: “I remember thinking, ‘What am I doing?

Persons: Sudeikis, Dunster, ” Dunster, Oliver, ”, —, dryly, “, you’ve, ’ ” Organizations: Bristol Old Vic Theater School Locations: Reading, England, Brixton

☆ Vietnam EV maker Vinfast expects to break even by end-2024 - founder
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-17 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

HANOI, May 17 (Reuters) - Vietnam's electric automaker VinFast expects to break even by the end of 2024, its founder said on Wednesday. Vinfast will also launch an EV-pickup truck and a city or "mini car" as future models, Pham Nhat Vuong, chairman of conglomerate Vingroup (VIC.HM) and founder of its auto unit VinFast, told investors at the company's annual general meeting. VinFast said earlier this month that it would list in the United States via a merger with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) Black Spade Acquisition Co (BSAQ.N). VinFast, which is looking to break into the U.S. and European markets for electric cars, had earlier received funding pleges of $2.5 billion from Vingroup, Vietnam's largest conglomerate, and its founder, Vuong, Vietnam's first billionaire. Reporting by Phuong Nguyen in Hanoi and Kevin Krolicki in Singapore; Editing by Martin PettyOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Vietnam EV maker VinFast sees sales boom, path to breakeven
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-17 | by ( Phuong Nguyen | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

Vuong projected sales of between 40,000 and 50,000 cars this year, up from EV sales of about 7,400 in 2022 when the company's only market was Vietnam. In addition, Vuong said VinFast planned to add two other models to its lineup: an electric pickup truck and a battery-powered city or "mini car." VinFast, which began operations in 2019, has a plant in Vietnam and plans for a second plant to open in North Carolina in 2025. An electric pickup truck would face competition from Rivian Automotive Inc (RIVN.O), Ford Motor Co's (F.N) F-150 Lightning and other models. The entry-level, small EV would face competition from Chinese-made electric vehicles, including from BYD.

☆ Vietnam’s Tesla debuts with wrong kind of power
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-15 | by ( Anshuman Daga | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

Vietnam’s richest man is taking his electric-vehicle company, VinFast, public at a punchy valuation through a merger with casino mogul Lawrence Ho’s special-purpose acquisition company. The tie-up with Black Spade Acquisition Co (BSAQ.N) means VinFast doesn’t have to wait for the market for initial public offerings to improve to make its debut. The SPAC deal values VinFast at 42 times its sales in 2022, a stunning seven times Tesla’s (TSLA.O) multiple and more than twice the multiple of Lucid (LCID.O). But despite the big eye-catching U.S. debut, existing investors will own 99% of the company after the deal. The merger values the Tesla challenger’s equity at $23 billion, not including the $169 million of Black Spade’s cash, and its enterprise including debt at about $27 billion.

Some Chinatown residents benefited from the development boom, selling properties to developers or drawing more customers from increased foot traffic. Some residents have shown tentative support for the luxury buildings, saying they might make the neighborhood safer or bring in wealthier Asian residents who could boost Chinatown's economy. Manhattan Chinatown's housing stock is "really aged," which has led to costly fires, according to Thomas Yu, executive director of Asian Americans for Equality. Chinatowns and the pandemicMany debates surrounding luxury development and affordable housing were accelerated by the pandemic, which shuttered hundreds of businesses across Chinatowns. However, business owners who spoke with CNBC said Chinatown's businesses, though still recovering, are keeping the city's culture alive.

☆ Fruit growers arrested for using illegal wells in drought-hit Spain
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-09 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

During a four-year investigation, authorities uncovered more than 250 illegal wells, bore holes and ponds in the Axarquia area in Andalusia, which has been hit by drought since 2021. Spain is Europe's biggest producer of tropical fruit, which requires large volumes of water. Producers estimate that avocado production will drop by 25% this year due to high temperatures and a lack of water. Spain registered the driest and warmest April since records began, according to the national weather agency AEMET. The average water level in reservoirs in Catalonia and Andalusia - the worst hit areas - stands at around 25%.

☆ CNBC Pro Talks: Buffett disciple says capital discipline is an 'adage' at Berkshire Hathaway
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-05 | by ( Alex Harring | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: 1 min

Share Share Article via Facebook Share Article via Twitter Share Article via LinkedIn Share Article via EmailCNBC Pro Talks: Buffett disciple says capital discipline is an 'adage' at Berkshire HathawayThomas Russo became a value investor more than 40 years ago after meeting Warren Buffett at Stanford Business School in the early 1980s. Incorporating Buffett's style of value investing, Russo managed to grow assets in his Semper Vic Partners funds at Gardner Russo & Quinn to more than $9 billion. Watch what he expects from the annual Berkshire Hathaway shareholder meeting and where he's finding opportunities in today's tricky market.

☆ Vietnam EV maker VinFast gets fresh funding pledges of $2.5 bln
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-26 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

HANOI, April 26 (Reuters) - Vietnamese electric vehicle maker Vinfast said on Wednesday it has received a fresh round of funding pledges worth $2.5 billion for its future development. Of the pledges, $1 billion will be provided as a grant from its founder Pham Nhat Vuong within the next year, the company said in a statement. Its parent Vingroup (VIC.HM), Vietnam's biggest conglomerate, will provide a grant of $500 million plus a $1 billion loan with maturity of up to five years. The grants and loan will "give a push for Vinfast to accelerate its development," the company said. VinFast first flagged its U.S. IPO in April 2021, aiming to raise $2 billion with valuation of about $60 billion.

☆ ‘Black Panther’ and the New Blueprint for Female Warriors Onscreen
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-20 | by ( Nancy Coleman | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

There’s something courageous in her; she’s not going to walk into a space unprepared. There was a tender day on set [for “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” filmed after Chadwick Boseman, the franchise’s original star, died in 2020] when we connected deeply. ], I was distraught about how terribly African women were portrayed in the West, if they ever were. The joy for me is to see Black women from around the world getting our stories told: Letitia [Wright, another “Black Panther” actor] is Guyanese British, and she had to learn a ton of Shona when she was the lead in my play at the Young Vic [“The Convert,” 2018-19, in London]. To have her doing our accents and intonations beautifully was like seeing the diaspora embracing itself.

☆ VinFast ships 2nd batch of longer-range electric SUVs to North America
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-17 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

[1/2] The logo of Vinfast is pictured at the 2022 Paris Auto Show in Paris, France October 18, 2022. REUTERS/Stephane MaheHANOI, April 17 (Reuters) - Vietnam's electric vehicle maker VinFast said on Monday it had shipped a second batch of 1,879 longer-range VF 8 sport utility vehicles (SUVs), as it seeks to expand its foothold in overseas markets. Currently, VinFast is offering a monthly lease price of $399 for the VF 8 City Edition model for a 24-month lease. The automaker delivered 865 VF 8 units domestically in the first quarter and has an annual production capacity of 250,000. VinFast has said it secured 55,000 orders globally as of December last year, of which 12,000 are from the U.S. market.

☆ Google incorrectly flagged some retailers' products as counterfeit, and it cost one company $150,000 in lost revenue
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-13 | by ( Lauren Johnson | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Google incorrectly flagged two retailers for selling counterfeit goods, and shut off their ads. In recent weeks, two agencies that manage Google ads for retailers say that their clients' accounts were incorrectly flagged as selling counterfeit goods, which then shuts off the ability for retailers to run ads. Both agencies said that the issue started when their retail clients' Google Merchant Center accounts were suspended because they were erroneously flagged as selling counterfeit goods. Google Merchant Center is a key sales driver because it helps consumers discover products. However, the issue underscores the risk online merchants face when they tie their product listings to their Google ads.

SINGAPORE/HANOI, March 29 (Reuters) - Vietnam's largest conglomerate, Vingroup (VIC.HM), is in discussions to sell a stake in its shopping mall arm as it seeks to bring in strategic investors, five sources told Reuters on Wednesday. Vincom Retail (VRE.HM), Vietnam's biggest shopping mall operator, which is nearly 60% controlled by Vingroup, commands a market value of $2.8 billion. The sources said Thailand's biggest retailer Central Group and other companies are in negotiations to buy a stake in Vincom Retail. Vincom Retail owns 83 shopping malls in Vietnam - a country that grew at 8% last year and emerged as Asia's fastest growing economy. Vincom Retail, which was spun off from Vingroup, listed on the local stock exchange in 2017.

☆ I'm a manager at Google who also goes to culinary school at night. Here's my daily routine and how I manage both.
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-29 | by ( Robin Madell | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: 1 min

After class, I swap my clogs and chef whites back for my work clothes. I was surprised to learn that chefs don't wear their whites to commute, as doing so would pose a sanitation risk. Class runs for four hours and ends at 11 p.m. Courtesy of Vic Walcott

☆ VinFast rolls out long-awaited electric SUVs, eyes overseas deliveries
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-23 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

HANOI, March 23 (Reuters) - Vietnamese carmaker VinFast said on Thursday it will begin delivering its new electric sport utility vehicles (SUVs) to local customers this week and targets overseas deliveries in the coming months. VinFast, which began operations in 2019, is gearing up to expand in the United States, where it hopes to compete with legacy automakers with its two electric SUV models. The VF9 model was initially scheduled to debut at the beginning of this year. The company has said it would ship the second batch to the U.S. in the second quarter of 2023. As of December last year, VinFast said it secured 55,000 orders globally, of which 12,000 were from the U.S. market.

☆ Vietnam's VinFast says three sales executives have left EV company
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-17 | by ( Phuong Nguyen | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

REUTERS/Lisa Baertlein/File PhotoHANOI, March 17 (Reuters) - Vietnamese electric-vehicle (EV) start-up VinFast said on Friday three senior sales and customer-service have left the company this week. In a statement to Reuters, VinFast said Gareth Dunsmore, deputy chief executive for global sales and marketing, had left "due to personal reasons and we respect his decision". VinFast has been selling the first batch of VF8s, rebranded as the City Edition to account for the lower range, on lease in California. In June, VinFast said it had ended its contract with Franck Euvrard, the predecessor as deputy CEO for global sales to just-departed Dunsmore. VinFast lost $2.1 billion in 2022 on revenue of $634 million, it said in a registration statement for an IPO.

SINGAPORE/HANOI, March 17 (Reuters) - Asian real estate giant CapitaLand Group is in talks to acquire assets worth roughly $1.5 billion from Vietnam's biggest listed property firm Vinhomes JSC (VHM.HM), two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters. A deal of that size would mark one of the largest real estate transactions in Southeast Asia in the last few years. The talks come as Vietnam's property sector is struggling with a cash crunch following an anti-graft campaign launched by the government last year. Vinhomes, Vietnam's biggest real estate developer by market capitalization, is part of Vingroup (VIC.HM), the country's largest conglomerate. Shares of Vinhomes have lost 10% so far this year, after tumbling 40% in 2022 as the property crisis deepened.

☆ Church tower reemerges from parched reservoir in drought-hit Spain
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-17 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

The weather will be drier and hotter than usual this spring along the northeastern Mediterranean coast that includes Catalonia. The dry weather will heighten the risk of wildfires even as it brings average rainfall nationwide, Spain's meteorological agency AEMET said. "Heat waves in this geographical area of the planet are more frequent, are increasing more frequently than in other regions," he said. Spain's drought nationwide measured over 12 months is no worse than it was in 2017, 2012 and 2005. But the average water level in Catalonia's reservoirs stands at just 27%, slightly above the level in parts of the southern region of Andalucia.

☆ I'm a manager at Google by day and culinary student by night. Here's my daily routine, which starts at 7 a.m. and ends at 11 p.m.
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-15 | by ( Robin Madell | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: 1 min

☆ VinFast delays US electric vehicle plant operation to 2025
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-10 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

"We need more time to complete administrative procedures," VinFast said in a statement on the delay, which did not specify when in 2025 the plant was expected to start operations. Last year VinFast filed for an initial public offering in the United States to list on the Nasdaq to fund its the plant construction. VinFast started its first sales outside Vietnam last week, delivering its first 45 cars in California on the first day. Its revenue in 2022 was 14.9 trillion dong ($631 million), down about 6.9% against 2021. Net losses rose 55% to 49.8 trillion dong from 32.2 trillion dong, its latest prospectus showed.

☆ VinFast delivers first 45 cars in US market
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-02 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

[1/3] VinFast electric vehicles are parked before delivery to their first customers at a store in Los Angeles, California, U.S., March 1, 2023. REUTERS/Lisa BaertleinMarch 2 (Reuters) - Vietnamese electric vehicle maker VinFast delivered its first 45 cars to customers in California on Wednesday, its first sales outside Vietnam. Last week, the company slashed the lease price on the VF8 electric crossover by 50%. It also dropped an option for consumers to rent the electric car's battery, a plan it had advertised as a way to bring down the cost of ownership. Andrew and Nikki Le, who ordered 11 VinFast cars, took delivery of the first of those at the store.

☆ VinFast slashes lease prices for first U.S. buyers
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-27 | by ( Phuong Nguyen | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

[1/2] The logo of Vietnam's VinFast, a fledgling electric vehicle (EV) maker, is pictured in a sales location at a shopping mall in Santa Monica, California, U.S., May 23, 2022. Its website showed as of Monday a monthly lease price of $399 for the vehicle for a 24-month lease. That amounts to a discount of between 33% and 54% from the initially advertised monthly lease price. VinFast said earlier this month that US Bancorp (USB.N) would provide lease financing for the company's sales in the United States. Vehicle subscription service Autonomy has a deal with VinFast to purchase 2,500 EVs, the companies said in November.

☆ Burt Bacharach, legendary composer of pop songs, dies at 94
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-09 | by ( ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +10 min

Bacharach was both an innovator and throwback, and his career seemed to run parallel to the rock era. He was an eight-time Grammy winner, a prize-winning Broadway composer for "Promises, Promises" and a three-time Oscar winner. Fellow songwriter Sammy Cahn liked to joke that the smiling, wavy-haired Bacharach was the first composer he ever knew who didn't look like a dentist. Bacharach was essentially a pop composer, but his songs became hits for country artists (Marty Robbins), rhythm and blues performers (Chuck Jackson), soul (Franklin, Luther Vandross) and synth-pop (Naked Eyes). He's everybody's composer ... Burt Bacharach!"

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