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Reuters

  • ESPN launches all-in-one streaming service

    ESPN launches all-in-one streaming service

    Walt Disney’s ESPN will deliver its full range of sports programming outside of pay TV for the first time starting on Thursday, when the network debuts an app designed to be a hub for live games and personalized news, stats and highlights.

    The ESPN app is Disney’s effort to capture some of the tens of millions of customers that the pioneering sports channel has lost since 2010 during the streaming TV revolution.

    ESPN executives said they have tailored the new offering, which is far broader than the limited ESPN+ app launched in 2018, to cater to the tastes of today’s sports fans.

    “We know that fans don’t just want to watch,” ESPN Chairman Jimmy Pitaro told reporters. “They want an experience. They want to interact.”

    The app will offer more than 47,000 live events each year from the NFL, NBA, WNBA, NHL, college football, tennis, golf and other sports.

    It will cost $30 per month. An introductory offer will include ad-supported versions of the Disney+ and Hulu streaming services for free.

    Fans can enter their favorite teams and sports for customization such as a personalized version of the “SportsCenter” news and recap show.

    Artificial intelligence will generate narration based on the voices of ESPN anchors.

    A new feature called “Verts,” or scroll-ready, vertical video highlights, also can be tailored. Stats for a user’s fantasy players will be displayed next to live games. And an ESPN Bet tab will show live, settled and upcoming bets for users who have linked their betting accounts.

    Disney Chief Executive Bob Iger has called the app “a sports fan’s dream.”

    Industry analysts see it as a chance for the company to pick up fans who do not subscribe to cable, and they do not expect it will pull masses from pay TV.

    ESPN was available in 100 million homes through pay TV in 2010. In July of this year, that number stood at about 61 million.

    “It’s another step in Disney’s pivot to (streaming) and the importance to streaming to the overall company,” said MoffettNathanson analyst Robert Fishman.

    ESPN will promote the app extensively. Actor John Cena will star in commercials that stress “All of ESPN. All in One Place.”

    Pay television will “remain a big part” of ESPN’s business, Pitaro said. For the quarter that ended in June, ESPN accounted for $1 billion of Disney’s $4.6 billion in operating income, or nearly 22%. Most of ESPN’s revenue came from fees paid by cable and satellite distributors and from advertising.

    Subscribers to pay TV will have access to the new ESPN app. Pitaro said the company hoped to drive all of its customers to the app “because that’s by far the best, the most holistic experience.”

  • US issues sanctions on networks, vessels for dealing in Iran oil

    US issues sanctions on networks, vessels for dealing in Iran oil

    The Trump administration on Thursday issued more Iran-related sanctions, targeting 13 entities based in Hong Kong, China, the United Arab Emirates and the Marshall Islands, as well as eight vessels, the U.S. Treasury Department said.

    The measures cover Greek national Antonios Margaritis and his network of companies and vessels that Treasury said was involved in transporting Iranian oil exports in violation of sanctions.

    Treasury also designated Ares Shipping Limited in Hong Kong, Comford Management in the Marshall Islands and Hong Kong Hangshun Shipping Limited in Hong Kong.

    Designated crude oil tankers include Panama-flagged vessels Adeline G and Kongm, and Lafit under the flag of Sao Tome and Principe.

    The State Department separately said it imposed sanctions on two China-based operators of oil-related terminals and storage. It said they handled imports of Iranian oil aboard tankers previously targeted by U.S. sanctions.

    The firms were identified as Qingdao Port Haiye Dongjiakou Oil Products Co in Shandong province and Yangshan Shengang International Petroleum Storage and Transportation Co in Zhejiang province.

    Iran suspended talks with Washington aimed at curbing the Islamic Republic’s nuclear ambitions after the U.S. and Israel struck its nuclear sites in June. Iran denies any intent to develop atomic bombs.

    Iran’s top diplomat said on Wednesday that the moment for “effective” nuclear talks with the United States has not yet arrived, adding that Iran would not completely cut off cooperation with the U.N. nuclear watchdog.

  • Putin’s demand to Ukraine: give up Donbas, no NATO and no Western troops, sources say

    Putin’s demand to Ukraine: give up Donbas, no NATO and no Western troops, sources say

    MOSCOW: Vladimir Putin is demanding that Ukraine give up all of the eastern Donbas region, renounce ambitions to join NATO, remain neutral and keep Western troops out of the country, three sources familiar with top-level Kremlin thinking told Reuters.

    The Russian president met Donald Trump in Alaska on Friday for the first Russia-U.S. summit in more than four years and spent almost all of their three-hour closed meeting discussing what a compromise on Ukraine might look like, according to the sources who requested anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.

    Speaking afterwards beside Trump, Putin said the meeting would hopefully open up the road to peace in Ukraine – but neither leader gave specifics about what they discussed.

    In the most detailed Russian-based reporting to date on Putin’s offer at the summit, Reuters was able to outline the contours of what the Kremlin would like to see in a possible peace deal to end a war that has killed and injured hundreds of thousands of people.

    In essence, the Russian sources said, Putin has compromised on territorial demands he laid out in June 2024, which required Kyiv to cede the entirety of the four provinces Moscow claims as part of Russia: Dontesk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine – which make up the Donbas – plus Kherson and Zaporizhzhia in the south.

    Kyiv rejected those terms as tantamount to surrender.

    In his new proposal, the Russian president has stuck to his demand that Ukraine completely withdraw from the parts of the Donbas it still controls, according to the three sources. In return, though, Moscow would halt the current front lines in Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, they added.

    Russia controls about 88% of the Donbas and 73% of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, according to U.S. estimates and open-source data.

    Moscow is also willing to hand over the small parts of the Kharkiv, Sumy, and Dnipropetrovsk regions of Ukraine it controls as part of a possible deal, the sources said.

    Putin is sticking, too, to his previous demands that Ukraine give up its NATO ambitions and for a legally binding pledge from the U.S.-led military alliance that it will not expand further eastwards, as well as for limits on the Ukrainian army and an agreement that no Western troops will be deployed on the ground in Ukraine as part of a peacekeeping force, the sources said.

    Yet the two sides remain far apart, more than three years after Putin ordered thousands of Russian troops into Ukraine in a full-scale invasion that followed the annexation of the Crimean Peninsula in 2014 and prolonged fighting in the country’s east between Russian-backed separatists and Ukrainian troops.

    Ukraine’s foreign ministry had no immediate comment on the proposals.

    President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has repeatedly dismissed the idea of withdrawing from internationally recognised Ukrainian land as part of a deal, and has said the industrial Donbas region serves as a fortress holding back Russian advances deeper into Ukraine.

    “If we’re talking about simply withdrawing from the east, we cannot do that,” he told reporters in comments released by Kyiv on Thursday. “It is a matter of our country’s survival, involving the strongest defensive lines.”

    Joining NATO, meanwhile, is a strategic objective enshrined in the country’s constitution and one which Kyiv sees as its most reliable security guarantee. Zelenskiy said it was not up to Russia to decide on the alliance’s membership.

    The White House and NATO didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment on the Russian proposals.

    Political scientist Samuel Charap, chair in Russia and Eurasia Policy at RAND, a U.S.-based global policy think-tank, said any requirement for Ukraine to withdraw from the Donbas remained a non-starter for Kyiv, both politically and strategically.

    “Openness to ‘peace’ on terms categorically unacceptable to the other side could be more of a performance for Trump than a sign of a true willingness to compromise,” he added. “The only way to test that proposition is to begin a serious process at the working level to hash out those details.”

    TRUMP: PUTIN WANTS TO SEE IT ENDED

    Russian forces currently control a fifth of Ukraine, an area about the size of the American state of Ohio, according to U.S. estimates and open-source maps.

    The three sources close to the Kremlin said the summit in the Alaskan city of Anchorage had ushered in the best chance for peace since the war began because there had been specific discussions about Russia’s terms and Putin had shown a willingness to give ground.

    “Putin is ready for peace – for compromise. That is the message that was conveyed to Trump,” one of the people said.

    The sources cautioned that it was unclear to Moscow whether Ukraine would be prepared to cede the remains of the Donbas, and that if it did not then the war would continue. Also unclear was whether or not the United States would give any recognition to Russian-held Ukrainian territory, they added.

    A fourth source said that though economic issues were secondary for Putin, he understood the economic vulnerability of Russia and the scale of the effort needed to go far further into Ukraine.

    Trump has said he wants to end the “bloodbath” of the war and be remembered as a “peacemaker president”. He said on Monday he had begun arranging, opens new tab a meeting between the Russian and Ukrainian leaders, to be followed by a trilateral summit with the U.S. president.

    “I believe Vladimir Putin wants to see it ended,” Trump said beside Zelenskiy in the Oval office. “I feel confident we are going to get it solved.”

    Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Thursday that Putin was prepared to meet Zelenskiy but that all issues had to be worked through first and there was a question about Zelenskiy’s authority to sign a peace deal.

    Putin has repeatedly raised doubts about Zelenskiy’s legitimacy as his term in office was due to expire in May 2024 but the war means no new presidential election has yet been held. Kyiv says Zelenskiy remains the legitimate president.

    The leaders of Britain, France and Germany have said they are sceptical that Putin wants to end the war.

    SECURITY GUARANTEES FOR UKRAINE

    Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff was instrumental in paving the way for the summit and the latest drive for peace, according to two of the Russian sources.

    Witkoff met Putin in the Kremlin on August 6 with Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov. At the meeting, Putin conveyed clearly to Witkoff that he was ready to compromise and set out the contours of what he could accept for peace, according to two Russian sources.

    If Russia and Ukraine could reach an agreement, then there are various options for a formal deal – including a possible three-way Russia-Ukraine-U.S. deal that is recognised by the U.N. Security Council, one of the sources said.

    Another option is to go back to the failed 2022 Istanbul agreements, where Russia and Ukraine discussed Ukraine’s permanent neutrality in return for security guarantees from the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council: Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States, the sources added.

    “There are two choices: war or peace, and if there is no peace, then there is more war,” one of the people said.

  • UK PM Keir Starmer faces criticism as asylum claims hit record

    UK PM Keir Starmer faces criticism as asylum claims hit record

    LONDON: UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer faced renewed criticism over his immigration policies on Thursday after new official figures showed asylum-seeker claims hitting a record high, with more migrants being housed in hotels compared with a year ago.

    According to a regular tracker of voters’ concerns, immigration has overtaken the economy as the biggest issue amid anger over the record numbers of asylum seekers arriving in small boats across the Channel, including more than 27,000 this year.

    The populist Reform Party, which advocates the deportation of “illegal immigrants”, is now comfortably leading in the polls, putting Starmer, who has promised to cut net immigration, under increasing pressure to tackle the issue.

    However, earlier this week the government was dealt a blow when a council to the northeast of London won a temporary injunction to stop asylum seekers from being housed in a hotel where protests had erupted after one resident was charged with sexual assault.

    Other councils have indicated they would also seek similar court orders, while Reform leader Nigel Farage has called for more protests.

    “Labour has lost control of our borders and they’re engulfed in a migration crisis,” said Chris Philp, the home affairs spokesman for the main opposition Conservative Party.

    The new migration data showed more than 32,000 asylum seekers were housed in hotels in Britain at the end of June this year, an increase of 8% from the year before.

    However, the total figure of just over 32,000 was 43% lower than the peak of 56,042 recorded in September 2023, and slightly down compared with the previous quarterly figures in March.

    The figures also showed 111,000 people had claimed asylum in the year to June, up 14% from the previous year and surpassing the previous peak of 103,000 recorded in 2002.

    Home Secretary (interior minister) Yvette Cooper said overall the figures showed their policies have been working since Labour took office last year, pointing to a 30% increase in the returns of failed asylum seekers.

    “We inherited a broken immigration and asylum system that the previous government left in chaos,” she said in a statement.

    “Since coming to office we have strengthened Britain’s visa and immigration controls, cut asylum costs and sharply increased enforcement and returns, as today’s figures show.”

    The numbers arriving on small boats – up 38% in the year to June – have become the focal point for the migration issue. Critics say the public are at risk from thousands of young men coming to Britain, while pro-migrant groups say the issue is being used by far right groups to exploit tensions.

    The latest figures showed of the almost 160,000 people who had arrived on small boats and claimed asylum since 2018, 61,706 had been granted some form of protection status.

    Nationals from Afghanistan, Eritrea and Iran made up the largest number of such arrivals in the year to June.

    While the data showed overall enforced returns were 25% higher in the year to June than the previous year, it also said since 2018 only 6,313 people who arrived by small boat had been returned, 4% of the total number of such arrivals.

  • Dakota Johnson digs deep to deliver energy for movie ‘Splitsville’

    Dakota Johnson digs deep to deliver energy for movie ‘Splitsville’

    For Dakota Johnson, it was important to showcase both her acting and producing talents for the romantic comedy film “Splitsville.”

    “I’m more valuable, I think, on set and in post (production), because I know the beat, like the heartbeat of the film while we’re making it,” Johnson told Reuters.

    Dakota Johnson- All News and Updates

    “I’m good at helping on set. And then in post, I’m good at remembering the energy of what it felt like while we were filming so I can implement that in the edit,” the “Fifty Shades of Grey” actor added.

    “Splitsville,” distributed by Neon, will arrive in theaters on Friday.

    The film focuses on two couples. Johnson plays a woman named Julie who is married to Paul, portrayed by the movie’s director Michael Angelo Covino.

    Another couple, Ashley and Carey, is played by Adria Arjona and Kyle Marvin.

    The film follows Ashley, who tells her husband Carey she wants a divorce to be free.

    Carey runs to his best friend Paul, who reveals he and his wife Julie are in an open relationship, and things get complicated between the four of them when Carey and Julie sleep together.

    “I would say it’s not so much about adulting. I would say it’s more about, like, emotional development, like arrested development,” Johnson said, referring to the way each character acts.

    “Especially in men, I think it’s emotional intelligence versus arrested development,” she said.

    Covino said he felt Dakota was perfect for the role from the get-go.

    “We wrote the role for her,” he said.

    “She’s wildly funny and doesn’t get to flex it as much as I would like to see on camera,” Covino added.

  • Americans worry democracy in danger amid gerrymandering fights, Reuters/Ipsos poll finds

    Americans worry democracy in danger amid gerrymandering fights, Reuters/Ipsos poll finds

    Most Americans believe that efforts to redraw U.S. House of Representatives districts to maximize partisan gains, like those under way in Texas and California, are bad for democracy, a new Reuters/Ipsos poll found.

    More than half of respondents — 57% — said they feared that American democracy itself was in danger, a view held by eight in 10 Democrats and four in 10 in President Donald Trump’s Republican Party

    The six-day survey of 4,446 U.S. adults, which closed on Monday, showed deep unease with the growing political divisions in Washington — where Republicans control both chambers of Congress — and state capitals.

    The poll found that 55% of respondents, including 71% of Democrats and 46% of Republicans, agreed that ongoing redistricting plans – such as those hatched by governors in Texas and California in a process known as gerrymandering – were “bad for democracy.”

    At Trump’s urging, Republican Texas Governor Greg Abbott has called a special session of the state legislature to redraw the state’s congressional maps ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, aiming to help Republicans defend their 219-212 U.S. House majority.

    Incumbent presidents’ parties typically lose House seats in midterms, which can block their legislative agendas and in Trump’s first term led to two impeachment probes.

    California Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom, a White House hopeful in 2028, has threatened to try to redraw his state’s district map in response, adding five Democratic seats to offset Republicans’ expected Texas gains.

    The practice is not new but has gained attention because it is happening mid-decade rather than following a census. It has meant that the vast majority of House races are not competitive in general elections; in recent decades about two-thirds of them were won by more than 20 percentage points.

    As president, Trump has flouted democratic norms with steps including directing the U.S. Justice Department to pursue his political adversaries, pressuring the independent Federal Reserve to lower rates and seizing control of Washington, D.C.’s police force.

    In interviews, Texas Republicans who participated in the poll largely supported the state’s potential redistricting, while Democrats described it as “cheating” but supported the idea of Democratic states trying to respond in kind.

    The poll had a margin of error of about 2 percentage points when describing the views of all Americans and about 3 points for the views of Republicans and Democrats.

    ‘SHADY BUSINESS’

    Amanda Kelley, 51, an insurance fraud investigator in Dallas, was the rare Republican to criticize the Texas effort.

    “I don’t like it when either side tries to do that. I think that’s shady business,” Kelley said. “The optics of it happening in the middle of the term when you would draw district lines, that leaves kind of a bad taste in my mouth.”

    Paul Wehrmann, 57, an attorney in Dallas who described himself as an independent voter, also opposed it.

    “It’s unfair, and it sets a bad precedent,” said Wehrmann, who worries it could spiral into states redrawing maps every election cycle instead of every decade. Partisan gerrymandering “is bad all around, but I think that it is fair for Democrats to try to counterbalance what Republicans are doing.

    “They need to stop bringing a knife to a gunfight.”

    Americans of both parties have long disliked elected leaders of the rival party, but the Reuters/Ipsos poll found that they also distrust regular people who align with the opposing party.

    Some 55% of Democrats agreed with a statement that “people who are Republican are NOT to be trusted,” while 32% disagreed. Republicans were split, with 43% agreeing that Democrats were untrustworthy and 44% saying they disagreed.

    The poll also showed politics weighing more on people’s everyday lives than in past years, particularly among Democrats. Some 27% of Democrats said last year’s presidential election has negatively affected their friendships.

    A Reuters/Ipsos poll in April 2017, early in Trump’s first term, showed a smaller share of Democrats – 18% – reported fraying friendships because of the election. Only 10% of Republicans said this month that politics weighed on their friendships, largely unchanged from 2017.

    Jeffrey Larson, a 64-year-old toxicologist and Republican voter in Seabrook, Texas, said he and his wife, a Democrat, agreed not to discuss politics.

    “I might not agree with what the Democrats are doing, but I don’t think that they’re trying to specifically destroy my life or destroy America,” Larson said.

    Close to half of Democrats – or 46% – said their party had lost its way, compared to 19% of Republicans who said the same of their party.

    Sandy Ogden, 71, a tech executive from Sunnyvale, California and self-described Democrat, said she faulted her party’s leaders.

    “I think the Democratic Party members are united in what we believe, but the leaders are ineffective in mounting an opposition that works,” Ogden said.

    Analysts said that ordinary Democrats’ greater mistrust of Republicans and friction with friends suggests a reluctance among Democrats to engage with Republicans that could harm the party’s chances at regaining political standing.

    “Democracy involves a willingness to allow people with differing views to express those views,” said Whit Ayres, a veteran Republican pollster.

    Michael Ceraso, a longtime Democratic operative, found the poll results frustrating.

    “The majority of Democrats believe our democracy is failing and nearly half of them don’t want to talk to the opposition party,” Ceraso said. “We have to be better.”

  • Gold holds steady as investors strap in for Jackson Hole gathering

    Gold holds steady as investors strap in for Jackson Hole gathering

    Washington: Gold prices were steady on Thursday as investors awaited U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s speech at the Jackson Hole symposium on Friday for signals on the central bank’s policy direction.

    Spot gold fell 0.1% to $3,342.25 per ounce, as of 11:33 a.m. ET (1533 GMT). U.S. gold futures for December delivery were largely steady at $3,386.50.

    The U.S. dollar index (.DXY), opens new tab was up 0.4%, making U.S. dollar-priced gold expensive for overseas buyers.

    Powell is expected to speak at the Jackson Hole conference about the economic outlook and the Fed’s policy stance.

    “If (Powell) signals a rate decrease in September, I don’t think much will happen because the market is already expecting that,” said Marex analyst Edward Meir.

    “If he says we may decrease rates again in October, November or December, I think the dollar could weaken and gold could push higher,” Meir added.

    Non-yielding gold typically performs well in a low-interest-rate environment.

    The Fed has kept rates unchanged since December, but traders see a 71% chance of a quarter-point cut by September, according to CME’s FedWatch tool.

    Minutes from the Fed’s July meeting showed that Vice Chair for Supervision Michelle Bowman and Governor Christopher Waller were the only officials pushing for a rate cut, dissenting from the decision to hold rates steady.

    Meanwhile, Fitch Solutions’ research company BMI on Wednesday revised its 2025 gold price forecast upward by $150 to $3,250 per ounce.

    “Prices will remain elevated in the coming weeks as the market braces for a U.S. Fed rate cut in September. Even then, we believe the upside for gold following the rate cut will be limited with most of it already priced in,” BMI said in a note.

  • South Africa spinner Subrayen cited for suspect bowling action

    South Africa spinner Subrayen cited for suspect bowling action

    MELBOURNE: South Africa spinner Prenelan Subrayen has been reported for a suspect bowling action in the first ODI against Australia, the International Cricket Council (ICC) said.

    The ICC said match officials reported concerns about the legality of the off-spinner’s action during his ODI debut in Cairns on Tuesday where he took 1-46 in the Proteas’ 98-run win.

    Subrayen must undergo an independent assessment of his action at an ICC-accredited testing facility within 14 days.

    He can continue bowling until the results of his test are known.

    Bowlers are permitted 15 degrees of elbow extension while delivering the ball.

    Reuters contacted Cricket South Africa for comment.

    The 31-year-old Prenelan Subrayen has a record of bowling illegally in domestic and T20 cricket.

    Read more: ICC clears Aimee Maguire’s bowling action after reassessment

    He was suspended from bowling in domestic cricket in late-2015 after failing an assessment but was cleared to resume after another test a few months later.

    He was also suspended in late-2012 over his action but cleared to bowl again in early-2013 after remedial work.

    Prenelan Subrayen made his test cricket debut last month against Zimbabwe in Bulawayo, picking up four first-innings wickets.

  • What is known about the Nord Stream gas pipeline explosions?

    What is known about the Nord Stream gas pipeline explosions?

    Sweden announced on Wednesday that it had dropped its investigation into the explosions in 2022 on Nord Stream pipelines carrying Russian gas to Germany and had handed evidence it had uncovered over to German investigators.

    Here is what we know so far about the blasts, which destroyed three out of four pipelines, hastening Europe’s switch to other energy suppliers following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. No one has taken responsibility:

    WHAT IS NORD STREAM?

    Nord Stream 1 (NS1) and Nord Stream 2 (NS2), each consisting of two pipes, were built by Russia’s state-controlled Gazprom to pump 110 billion cubic metres (bcm) of natural gas a year across the Baltic Sea to Germany.

    The four concrete-coated steel pipelines of about 1,200 km (750 miles) in length and more than 1 m in diameter lay at a depth of around 80-110 m. One string of NS2 pipeline remains intact.

    NS1 came on stream in 2012. NS2 was completed in September 2021 and filled with gas, but has never been commissioned.

    Germany cancelled its approval process days before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, which put Europe’s reliance on Russian natural gas in the political spotlight.

    WHO OWNS THE PIPELINES?

    Russia’s Gazprom owns 51% of NS1 and 100% of NS2.

    Germany’s E.ON and Wintershall Dea have 15.5% of NS1, while French Engie and Dutch Gasunie have 9% each.

    The Western owners have written off all their investments since the explosions.

    While NS2 is fully owned by Gazprom, Western companies – British Shell, Germany’s Wintershall Dea and Uniper, French Engie and Austria’s OMV – covered 50% of the pipelines’ total construction costs of about $11 billion.

    All five Western companies have written off their full financing of NS2, amounting to about 1 billion euros each.

    There have been no plans announced to repair the damage.

    HOW WERE THE PIPELINES DAMAGED?

    On Sept. 26, 2022, Swedish seismologists registered several blasts, some 17 hours apart, off the Danish island of Bornholm that ruptured three out of four lines of the Nord Stream system, sending plumes of methane into the atmosphere.

    Gazprom said about 800 million cubic metres of gas, equivalent to about three months of Danish gas supplies, had escaped. It took several days for the gas to stop leaking.

    Sweden has found traces of explosives on several objects recovered from the explosion site, confirming it was a deliberate act.

    In July, Germany told the U.N. Security Council that it also found traces of subsea explosives on a sailing yacht that “may have been used to transport the explosives”.

    Germany has confirmed its investigators raided a ship, identified by German media as the 50-foot (15-metre) sailing yacht, in January last year that may have been used to transport the explosives used to blow up the pipelines.

    The boat, leased in Germany via a Poland-registered company, contained traces of octagon, the same explosive that was found at the underwater blast sites, according to investigations by Germany, Denmark and Sweden.

    Germany told the U.N. that it was possible for trained divers to attach explosives to the pipelines laying at about 70 to 80 meters deep where explosions occurred.

    WHO IS BEHIND THE EXPLOSIONS?

    Some U.S. and European officials initially suggested Moscow had blown up its own pipelines, an interpretation dismissed as “idiotic” by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

    Instead, Putin has blamed “Anglo-Saxons”, using Kremlin’s term for the U.S. and Britain, without providing evidence. It has also blamed Ukraine. All three countries deny any role.

    The White House last year dismissed a blog post by a U.S. investigative journalist alleging Washington was behind explosions as “utterly false and complete fiction.”

    The U.S. and German media have reported that the yacht could have been used by a Ukrainian or pro-Ukrainian group, citing leaked intelligence reports and people familiar with official investigations. Kyiv has repeatedly denied any involvement.

    HOW MIGHT AN ATTACK HAVE BEEN CARRIED OUT?

    In November last year, The Washington Post reported that Roman Chervinsky, a former intelligence official who served in the Ukrainian military’s special forces, managed the six-person team, but did not plan the attack. He denied involvement.

    The Post said Chervinsky took orders from senior Ukrainian officials who ultimately reported to Commander-in-Chief General Valery Zaluzhnyi. Reuters was unable to verify the report independently. Zaluzhnyi has made no public comment.

    Germany’s Der Spiegel and ZDF have said that a group of six people – five men and one woman – boarded Andromeda in Rostock, Germany, on Sept. 6, using forged passports, and returned to Rostock on Sept. 23.

    The yacht was spotted at a small Danish island of Christianso, near the explosion sites, on Sept. 16-18, and made a short stop at a marina in Kolobrzeg, Poland on Sept. 19, before returning to Germany.

    Poland said in January it has been cooperating with allies in a probe into the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines.

    There was no evidence to suggest that Poland was used as a hub for the sabotage, Polish prosecutors said last year.

    WHAT DID WESTERN INTELLIGENCE KNOW ABOUT THE ATTACK?

    A day after the explosions, on Sept. 27, 2022, German magazine Der Siegel wrote that the CIA had warned Germany in summer 2022 about possible attacks on Baltic Sea pipelines.

    The Washington Post, citing leaked information posted online, wrote last June that the United States learned of a Ukrainian plan to attack the Nord Stream natural gas pipelines three months before they were damaged.

    The intelligence report was based on information provided by a source in Ukraine, the Post said, adding the CIA shared it with Germany and other European countries in June 2022.

    Dutch national broadcaster NOS reported the same month that the tip came from the Dutch military intelligence agency MIVD.

    According to the Post, the CIA relayed to Zaluzhnyi through an intermediary that the United States opposed such an operation.

    Reuters was unable to verify the reports independently.

  • Thoma Bravo to buy Dayforce in $12.3 billion deal

    Thoma Bravo to buy Dayforce in $12.3 billion deal

    HR software provider Dayforce said on Thursday buyout firm Thoma Bravo will take it private in a $12.3 billion deal, including debt.

    The offer represents a premium of 32.4% based on the stock’s closing price on August 15, when news of the deal talks was first reported.

    Under the terms of the deal, Dayforce shareholders will receive $70 per share in cash, representing an equity value of $11.18 billion, according to Reuters calculations.

    The software sector has emerged as an investment target due to resilient subscription services and recurring revenue in an economy weighed down by a deteriorating labor market, trade tariffs and erratic spending.

    Dayforce’s stock was up around 2% in early trading after losing about 7% of its value so far this year, underperforming peers.

    The company, which rebranded from Ceridian HCM Holding last year, faces strong competition in the industry, with enterprises preferring more established companies with larger operations.

    A wave of deals in the human capital management industry in recent years signals a shift toward AI-driven, single-platform solutions, with acquisitions aimed at consolidating and enhancing the tools offered to clients.

    Paychex announced its acquisition of rival Paycor for $4.1 billion at the start of the year, while Automatic Data Processing acquired WorkForce Software last year for about $1.2 billion.

    The transaction, which includes a minority investment from a subsidiary of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, is expected to close early next year, Dayforce said.

    Analysts have said a buyout would provide Dayforce some relief from its debt load, while Thoma Bravo’s deep pockets would help the company accelerate AI development and expand internationally.

    Thoma Bravo, which had about $184 billion in assets under management as of March 31, is among the largest software-focused investors globally. The private equity firm has acquired or invested in more than 530 software and technology companies.