By Jonathan Stempel (Reuters) – Squishmallows joined Warren Buffett’s business empire two years after Lady Gaga, Kim Kardashian and others helped make the plush stuffed toys a viral sensation on TikTok. For Judd and Laura Zebersky, whose company Jazwares makes the toys, the success of Squishmallows is hardly what they imagined when they met 33…
By Ali Kucukgocmen ISTANBUL (Reuters) -Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan held his last election rallies in Istanbul on Saturday, accusing the opposition of working with U.S. President Joe Biden to topple him while making a final appeal ahead of the biggest challenge to his 20-year rule. Polls show Erdogan trailing the main opposition candidate Kemal Kilicdaroglu…
By Philip Pullella and Gavin Jones VATICAN CITY (Reuters) -Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy asked Pope Francis on Saturday to back Kyiv’s peace plan, and the pope indicated the Vatican would help in the repatriation of Ukrainian children taken by Russians. “It is a great honour,” Zelenskiy told Francis, putting his hand to his heart and…
(Reuters) -Amazon.com Inc said it has optimized its delivery network coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic, allowing it to increase delivery speeds and lower costs, while also reducing the ecommerce giant’s carbon emissions. The online retailer on Saturday said it has reduced delivery times, reshaped its inventory management system as well as search capabilities to…
By Daniel Trotta TIJUANA, Mexico (Reuters) – Lupita, a 36-year-old Mexican woman from the state of Michoacan, has spent three months in a shelter, waiting to apply for asylum in the United States. She wears some of the evidence for her case: bullet wounds about her arms, shoulder and abdomen. Since March 2020, when broad…
KHARTOUM (Reuters) -Khartoum residents described fierce battles on Saturday with fighters roving the streets and little sign Sudan’s warring sides were respecting an agreement to protect civilians ahead of ceasefire talks due to resume in Saudi Arabia on Sunday. Fighting has rocked Khartoum and adjoining areas as well as Geneina in the Darfur region since…
By Adrian Portugal MANILA (Reuters) -A Philippine court on Friday acquitted of a drugs charge one of the fiercest critics of ex-President Rodrigo Duterte’s “war on drugs”, a move welcomed by activists who called her incarceration a vindictive effort to harass and silence her. The court cleared former senator Leila de Lima, 63, of the…
By Asif Shahzad and Ariba Shahid ISLAMABAD (Reuters) -A Pakistani court ordered former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s release on bail for two weeks, his lawyer said on Friday, after his arrest in a land fraud case ignited deadly protests and a tussle with the military. Khan departed the court premises, headed towards his hometown Lahore,…
By Chayut Setboonsarng BANGKOK (Reuters) – From the back of open-top trucks and cars, candidates of Thailand’s political parties drove through Bangkok on Saturday, as a months-long campaign that could usher in a new government for the first time in nearly a decade drew to a close. Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha faces an uphill battle…
By Andrea Shalal NIIGATA, Japan (Reuters) -Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Saturday called a showdown over raising the U.S. debt ceiling “more difficult” than in the past but said she remained hopeful a solution could be found to avert a first ever U.S. default Yellen told Reuters in an interview on the sidelines of a…
