Jeremy Piven has denied allegations that he groped reality star Ariane Bellamar on two separate occasions.
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Jeremy Piven 'unequivocally' denies 'appalling' groping allegations
WATCH Jeremy Piven 'unequivocally' denies 'appalling' groping allegations
Jeremy Piven has denied allegations that he groped reality star Ariane Bellamar on two separate occasions.
The actor released a statement through his publicist on Tuesday night, stating that Bellamar's allegations are false.
"I unequivocally deny the appalling allegations being peddled about me. It did not happen," the statement read. "It takes a great deal of courage for victims to come forward with their histories, and my hope is that the allegations about me that didn’t happen, do not detract from stories that should be heard."
On Monday, in a series of tweets, Bellamar, a former Playboy Playmate, accused Piven of "forcefully" groping her on the set of the HBO series "Entourage" and at the Playboy Mansion. She also says Piven sent her "sexual" and "threatening" text messages.
"'Member grabbing my boobies on the [sofa] without asking?? 'Member when I tried to leave; you grabbed me by the a–, looked at yourself in the mirror, & said what a 'beautiful couple' we made?" she tweeted.
She later added: "I was led to @jeremypiven's trailer by a young, blonde woman w/a clipboard (I presumed a PA) to discuss my 'career'. My 'potential'."
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CBS, network home of actor Piven's series "Wisdom of the Crowd," announced in a statement on Tuesday that it will investigate Bellamar's accusations.
"We are aware of the media reports and are looking into the matter," read Tuesday's statement from the network.
HBO also released a statement to The Hollywood Reporter on Tuesday, in which the network stated that employees only learned of Bellamar's allegations through press reports.
"Everyone at HBO and our productions is aware that zero tolerance for sexual harassment is our policy," the statement read. "Anyone experiencing an unsafe working environment has several avenues for making complaints that we take very seriously."
Hey @jeremypiven! ‘Member when you cornered me in your trailer on the #Entourage set? ‘Member grabbing my boobies on the ?? without asking??
— Ariane Bellamar (@ArianeBellamar) October 30, 2017
Jeremy Piven, on two occasions, cornered me & forcefully fondled my breasts & bum. Once at the mansion & once on set. #MeToo @AriMelber @CNN https://t.co/liD7irs0o0
— Ariane Bellamar (@ArianeBellamar) October 30, 2017
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By John-Paul Ford Rojas, Business Reporter
Shares in Next have fallen sharply after the high street fashion chain warned trading remained "extremely volatile" and forecast a sales fall over the crucial Christmas period.
The third quarter update also dragged on rivals Marks and Spencer as well as Primark owner Associated British Foods (ABF), in a retail sector that faces pressure from a squeeze on household incomes.
Next said full-price sales rose by a lower than expected 1.3% in the 13 weeks to 29 October as mild weather hit demand for warm clothes towards the end of the period – though it was an improvement on the second quarter's 0.7% rise.
"Sales performance has remained extremely volatile and is highly dependent on the seasonality of the weather," the group said.
Shares were more than 9% lower by the close, with M&S down almost 4.5% and ABF sliding 2.1%.
The update came as figures from the British Retail Consortium (BRC) showed shop prices continuing to fall, putting particular pressure on sectors such as clothing as the higher cost of imports, thanks to the weak pound, squeezes profit margins.
Next said in its trading update that its retail stores were hit by a sharp 7.7% sales fall but the group was saved by 13.2% growth for Next Directory, its catalogue and online division.
The company said the overall increase in sales was flattered by comparison with a period last year that saw a big fall.
It retained its outlook for full year pre-tax profits for 2017/18 to fall by about 9% and pencilled in a 0.3% fall in sales for the fourth quarter – covering Christmas – following a 0.4% drop last winter.
The performance of retailers over the next couple of months will come into sharp focus.
They will be hoping consumers do not respond too drastically after a sustained period in which wage growth has failed to keep pace with inflation.
Next's shares had climbed 26% higher in recent months on hopes that it was starting to recover after a difficult couple of years.
It has suffered from a shift in spending away from clothing and towards experiences such as holidays and entertainment.
In April, Next reported its first fall in annual pre-tax profits since 2009 and forecast another tough year to come.
George Salmon, equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, said: "While the recent investment in digital marketing seems to have helped the Directory division rediscover its mojo, Next's high street stores saw an almighty slump this quarter.
"A particularly weak October means the group enters the all-important Christmas period with less momentum than it would have liked."
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Hunt challenges social media giants on cyber-bullying
Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt is meeting social media giants, including Facebook and Twitter, to challenge them on cyber-bullying.
In tweets ahead of the discussions, he says some responsibility for rising rates of youth self-harm lies with social platforms.
He says the industry must be "part of the solution" regarding young people's mental health.
Social media companies have said they do prioritise user safety.
Mr Hunt will be meeting representatives from the biggest providers of social media, including Facebook, Twitter, Google and Microsoft.
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Mr Hunt said: "Social media has become a fundamental part of our children's lives and while the internet provides amazing opportunities we cannot ignore the negative effect disturbing images and bullying are having on their mental health.
"Now is the time to turn the tide on this abuse. I will be working closely with the top social media companies to ensure they can become the solution and not the problem."
Skip Twitter post by @Jeremy_Hunt
We should not'accept' cyber bullying as inevitable but STOP it – my message to social media giants when I meet them for roundtable tomorrow.
— Jeremy Hunt (@Jeremy_Hunt) October 31, 2017
Report
End of Twitter post by @Jeremy_Hunt
Mr Hunt will ask the social media companies:
- If they can share statistics on how often cyber-bullying happens on their platforms, and what form it takes.
- If they have information on the number of underage users, and what can be done to prevent them accessing services.
- Whether it is possible to identify unhealthy online behaviour among teenagers.
- And take action to try to provide advice and support.
A Facebook spokesperson said: "We want to make sure that everyone, including anyone affected by a mental health issue, has a good experience on Facebook and Instagram.
"We look forward to working with ministers and others to make sure we do everything we can to protect people's wellbeing.
"We have already introduced online tools such as Instagram's automated offensive comment filter and last month launched a new partnership between Facebook, Childnet International and The Diana Award, which is offering every UK secondary school the chance to have a young digital safety ambassador who can support their peers' safety and well-being."
Instagram, which is owned by Facebook, has previously been rated as the worst social media platform when it comes to impact on young people's mental health, in a poll of people aged 14-24.
Instagram responded by saying it provided tools and information on how to cope with bullying and warned users before they viewed certain content.
'Take responsibility'
Dr Marc Bush, chief policy adviser at charity YoungMinds, said social media companies had an important role to play in tackling online bullying, but education was also crucial.
"This means ensuring that young people learn about the positives and negatives of social media from a young age and that they know what to do if they're being harassed or come across upsetting content.
"It also means encouraging young people to take responsibility for their own behaviour and to understand what the impact might be on other people of what they post."
By John-Paul Ford Rojas, Business Reporter
Thousands of free-to-use cash machines could be axed from Britain's high streets under plans to cut the fees they receive, the ATM industry body has warned.
LINK, the UK cash machine network behind the plan, said its proposals came because of an expected sharp fall in consumers' demand for cash as people increasingly use contactless and online payments.
It has published plans to reduce so-called interchange fees charged to card issuers from 25p to 20p per withdrawal, over the next four years.
But Ron Delnevo, executive director of the ATM Industry Association (ATMIA), said thousands of free-to-use cash machines could go – with some starting to charge customers and others disappearing completely.
LINK said there would still be an extensive network of free cash machines and that any reduction would likely be in areas where there are currently a number of them close together.
It said the number of cashpoints was at near-record levels, with more than 70,000 across the country, of which 80% are free to use.
LINK chief executive John Howells said: "Free access to cash is vital for UK consumers and LINK intends to maintain this for many years to come."
But the network pointed to figures from UK Finance predicting that over the next 10 years, the number of cash payments would fall by 43% to 8.7 billion payments.
Mr Delnevo said there were 22,000 independently operated free-to-use machines, many of them already operating very efficiently.
"These kind of cuts will make a lot of these services uneconomical," he told Sky News. "In theory, all of these are at risk."
He rejected the idea that machines would only be lost in areas that were already well served – citing as an example high streets that have a number of bank branches, which he said were unlikely to close their machines.
Mr Delnevo was also sceptical about the idea that Britain is heading for a cashless society – pointing to data showing that three quarters of transactions in convenience stores are still made using cash.
The ATMIA said cash remained a vital part of the economy and many people, especially the most vulnerable, depended on free access to it.
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Japan suspect ‘killed nine over two months’
A man who was arrested after police found dismembered bodies in his flat has confessed to killing nine people over two months, Japanese media say.
Police had found two severed heads, and the body parts of seven others, at Takahiro Shiraishi's home on Tuesday.
The 27-year-old reportedly said he cut the flesh off the bodies to dispose of them and put cat litter over the remaining body parts to hide them.
Japanese police say they plan to file multiple murder charges.
Police had found two severed heads in a cold-storage container outside Mr Shiraishi's flat. They also found the body parts of seven other people, also stored in cool boxes, in his apartment.
On Wednesday, more information emerged about the suspect. Police sources told local media that he found his victims on Twitter and say they suspect he killed them on the day that they met.
Investigators are cited as saying there had been three cooler boxes and five storage boxes containing nine heads along with a large number of arm and leg bones.
Police are still trying to identify all the victims but the discovery at his flat was made as police were looking into the disappearance of a young woman.
They said she had gone on Twitter looking for somebody to take her life with.
According media citing police sources, Mr Shiraishi had found most of his victims that way – using Twitter to look for people wanting to commit suicide.
He then invited them to his place offering to help with their suicides.
Reportedly, Mr Shiraishi had been arrested earlier this year for introducing a woman to a night club knowing she would be made to work as a prostitute there.
8 arrests at Georgia demo over player's gay rights armband
Eight people were arrested in Georgia during a far-right protest to demand a soccer player be kicked off the national team because he supported gay rights.
The nationalist Georgian March group wanted defender Guram Kashia punished for wearing a rainbow armband while captaining Dutch club Vitesse Arnhem earlier this month, as part of a broader initiative in the Netherlands for the country's "Coming Out Day."
Dozens of protesters gathered outside the Georgian Football Federation headquarters late Tuesday, shouting anti-gay slogans while letting off flares and smoke bombs. They also burned a rainbow flag.
Police said eight people were detained for resisting police and minor hooliganism, and they were due to appear in court Wednesday.
It was not clear how many of those arrested were members of Georgian March, an anti-immigrant and anti-gay rights group which claims to be protecting the "purity" of society in the Caucasus nation. Its members also called for the football federation's entire leadership to resign because the federation had supported Kashia.
Kashia has previously told Dutch TV channel NOS he's proud to support equal rights and he has no intention to stop playing for Georgia.
Many Georgian Internet users changed their profile pictures on social networks in support of Kashia, who has also received backing from Georgia's president.
"Everyone has the right for freedom of expression," Georgian President Giorgi Margvelashvili said in a statement on Facebook on Monday. "We should respect human rights and liberties. I stand with the unanimous support that sporting society has expressed toward Guram Kashia."mn
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Australia Senate President Stephen Parry to resign
Australian Senate President Stephen Parry has said he will resign, after confirming he is a UK dual citizen.
In a statement, Mr Parry said the High Court of Australia had given "absolute clarity" on constitutional rules that prevent the election of dual citizens.
On Friday, the court decided that five politicians – including Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce – were invalidly elected.
Mr Parry first raised questions about his citizenship on Tuesday.
The senior government figure said he had decided to resign with "a heavy heart" after the British Home Office confirmed he was a citizen by descent through his father.
The role of Senate president is to preside over Australia's upper house. Mr Parry's successor is expected to be another government senator.
A replacement for his Senate seat will be chosen through a recount of election votes.
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Mr Parry will become the third government member to lose their job over dual citizenship, following the disqualifications of Mr Joyce and Regional Development Minister Fiona Nash.
The saga has also claimed three senators from minor parties – Larissa Waters, Scott Ludlam and Malcolm Roberts.
Two other senators, Matt Canavan and Nick Xenophon, faced scrutiny over their citizenship, but the court ruled they were validly elected.
Mr Joyce hopes to regain his seat in a by-election on 2 December.
Springer Nature blocks access to articles in China
Academic publisher Springer Nature said Wednesday it has blocked access to articles within China to comply with demands from the Chinese government, amid a push by Beijing to tighten controls on information from outside the country.
The company said in a statement that less than 1 percent of its content available online in global markets has been blocked in China in compliance with "local distribution laws."
"This action is deeply regrettable but has been taken to prevent a much greater impact on our customers and authors and is in compliance with our published policy," the statement said. "This is not editorial censorship and does not affect the content we publish or make accessible elsewhere in the world."
Springer Nature, which has offices around the world, says it has published more than 275,000 books and 3,000 journals, including "Nature" and "Scientific American."
The move is the latest example of how effective China can be at leveraging its economic might to compel foreign companies to make concessions in order to maintain access to its massive market. Chinese President Xi Jinping's government has tightened controls over information and over a wide range of groups that could feed opposition to the ruling Communist Party, including lawyers who take on sensitive cases, non-governmental organizations and churches.
The blocked articles related to topics such as Taiwan, the 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy protests in Beijing's Tiananmen Square, the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution and the status of Tibet, which are considered sensitive by the Communist Party, according to a survey by The Associated Press. They can only be viewed with a virtual private network that allows users to skirt China's strict internet censorship regime, known as the Great Firewall.
The newspaper Financial Times reported that at least 1,000 articles were blocked.
In August, academic publisher Cambridge University Press restored more than 300 politically sensitive articles that had been removed from the publisher's website in China at the behest of authorities.
Its action followed a petition circulated among academics calling on the university press to turn down censorship requests from the Chinese government. The temporarily blocked articles also touched on the Tiananmen crackdown, Tibet and similar topics.
As of Wednesday, CUP's website, The China Quarterly, was fully accessible in China.
Academics say that Chinese universities, which have long endured some degree of political interference, have also come under increased supervision, including regular monitoring in classrooms and ideological audits.
Springer Nature said failure to block some of the articles as required by its distributors, who it said are the "officially appointed guardians of all content," could have led to its entire SpringerLink website being blocked.
"Access to 99 percent of Springer Nature content is therefore safeguarded for all our customers in China and we will continue to work with the regulator and other Chinese authorities to minimize the content affected, reduce and ideally eliminate these restrictions on behalf of the global research community and wider society," the company said.
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