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Top executives at Japan's Kobayashi Pharmaceutical resigned on Tuesday following revelations that a health supplement the company sells may be linked to 80 deaths.

A damning external report funded by the company found that leadership had acted with an "insufficient sense of urgency" over consumer safety risks.

The tablets in question are made with red yeast rice or "beni koji," which is fermented with mold cultures.

While a a common ingredient in east Asian food and drink for centuries, it can promote organ damage depending on its chemical makeup.

At the time the government called Kobayashi's delay in reporting the number of cases under investigation "extremely regrettable."

The company should have recalled the products immediately and reported the incident, but it only decided to do so after an internal investigation process, the lawyers conducting the audit wrote.

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Harris crossed the threshold amid a wave of endorsements from state delegations Monday evening.

These endorsements are not binding and with President Joe Biden out of the race, delegates are free to vote for the candidate of their choice.

Under a plan outlined by Democratic officials Monday, delegates are expected to vote virtually to confirm Harris as the nominee by August 7.

The Democratic National Committee has long made clear that it is committed to locking in its nominee before the in-person convention begins on August 19 – and specifically before August 7, which, it says, is critical to ensure ballot access in all states and avoid the risk of litigation.

She delivered a speech to staff, previewing her campaign argument against former President Donald Trump and detailing her experience as an attorney general and prosecutor.

The vice president said in her statement Monday that she will continue to travel across the country in the coming months “talking to Americans about everything that is on the line.

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A tortoise miraculously managed to escape its home and climb on to train tracks, sparking delays for commuters.

After a global IT outage caused havoc for many trying to travel on Britain's trains on Friday morning, more delays were reported between Ascot and Bagshot later that evening.

South Western Railway told Sky News a train driver spotted the culprit - a tortoise named Solomon - on the track near Ascot station just after 6pm.

Engineers carried Solomon off the tracks - and staff "moved the tortoise to a position of safety on the platform at Ascot, which included a short ride on the train itself".

While staff had planned to leave the reptile with a vet in Staines, the tortoise's owner identified Solomon and collected him at around 8pm.

Network Rail added on X: "While we are delighted that this story has a happy ending and can reassure passengers that our everyone home safe, every day ambitions extend to pets, we must remind everyone that the railway is dangerous.

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The caustic tone from Sidorov and Solovyov provided a stark contrast with that of Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov that same evening, who had personified cool aloofness, saying that, with four months to go until the election, “much could still change.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin, Peskov has often suggested, has bigger things on his mind than the fracas among his political enemies overseas.

With Moscow in its third year of war against Ukraine, they have jumped on the chaos in the United States as an opportunity to frame Russia as superior to the West and distract from domestic problems.

Despite not having been officially nominated, Harris appears to have already been designated a prime target by Russia’s overwhelmingly white male propagandists.

“The entire deep state will be backing Harris,” Sergei Markov, an analyst with Kremlin ties wrote on his Telegram channel.

Instead, the state news agency ran with a comment from the aide of Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council who loves threatening the West with nuclear annihilation.

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A majority of England's nine water and sewage companies are "failing to get the basics right", according to annual rankings which labelled four operators as responsible for 90% of serious pollution incidents.

It said that fact "polarised performance" across the sector as firms UK-wide face pressure to cut raw sewage discharges through heightened, and long overdue, investment in their infrastructure.

Separate EA data covering 2023, released in March, showed spills into England's rivers hit record levels last year.

Labour's plans include tougher penalties for poor performance and the ability to block rewards for failure when annual bonuses and shareholder payouts are due.

The body's chair Alan Lovell said: "For the nation to have cleaner rivers and seas, water companies must take responsibility to understand the root cause of their problems.

"As part of this we are taking forward our biggest ever transformation in the way we regulate, recruiting up to 500 additional staff, increasing compliance checks and quadrupling the number of water company inspections by March next year."

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RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) — Palestinian factions Hamas and Fatah signed a declaration in Beijing on ending a yearslong rift, Chinese state media said Tuesday, taking a step toward potentially resolving the deep divide between the sides as the war in Gaza rages on.

The two groups signed the Beijing Declaration on “ending division and strengthening Palestinian unity,” according to state broadcaster CCTV.

The agreement also underscores China’s growing role in Middle East diplomacy, with success in the restoration of relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran.

“But to be sure, China is still the process of trying to earn credibility as a global mediator,” said James Char, a research fellow at the Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.

Repeated attempts at mending the rift have failed, wrecked by the factions’ own bitter rivalry over power and the West’s refusal to accept any government that includes Hamas unless it expressly recognizes Israel.

United States President Joe Biden’s administration envisions a revamped Palestinian Authority to rule postwar Gaza and has sought a series of reforms that might make it a viable presence in the war-ravaged territory.

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As Joe Biden withdraws from the 2024 US presidential race and Kamala Harris gains support from prominent Democrats, data from Betfair Exchange indicates that her odds are improving.

The vice president still faces a significant challenge to surpass Donald Trump, however, who has maintained strong performance over nearly the past year.

At the start of the 2024 Republican National Convention, just days after Mr Trump's assassination attempt, his chances stood at 69%.

However, this did not significantly dent his lead, likely due to growing concerns about Mr Biden's fitness to remain in office, which ultimately led to his withdrawal from the race.

The Data and Forensics team is a multi-skilled unit dedicated to providing transparent journalism from Sky News.

We combine traditional reporting skills with advanced analysis of satellite images, social media and other open-source information.

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The European Union says it has notified Meta that its “pay or consent” model for Facebook and Instagram might violate consumer protection laws.

The EU’s Consumer Protection Cooperation (CPC) Network says the company has until September 1st, 2024, to propose changes to its model, which it calls “misleading” and “confusing” for users, or face potential fines.

CPC regulators, who began their investigation after complaints from consumer watchdog groups, claim the company uses confusing language to explain how both the paid and “free” versions of Facebook and Instagram work and that its rollout pressured people to make a choice without enough time to consider how it would affect them.

They also say that calling the ad-free versions of Facebook and Instagram “free” is misleading since it still requires users to consent to the use of their data for targeted ads.

Didier Reynders, EU Commissioner for Justice, says customers shouldn’t be “lured into” thinking they won’t see ads if they pay the subscription, or that it’s free despite the company profiting from their personal data.

“Subscriptions as an alternative to advertising are a well-established business model across many industries,” Meta spokesperson Matt Pollard told The Verge in an email, “Subscription for no ads follows the direction of the highest court in Europe and we are confident it complies with European regulation.”

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A 2009 agreement insisted on by the European Commission meant that Microsoft could not make security changes that would have blocked the update from cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike that caused an estimated 8.5 million computers to fail, the Big Tech giant said in comments to the Wall Street Journal newspaper.

Thousands of flights were delayed or cancelled, leaving passengers stranded at airports worldwide, the UK's NHS service was affected and contactless payments failed to work.

Microsoft has Windows Defender, its in-house alternative to CrowdStrike, but because of the 2009 agreement made to avoid a European competition investigation, had allowed multiple security providers to install software at the kernel level.

Microsoft's main competitor, Apple, in 2020 blocked access to the kernel on its Mac computers, arguing it would improve security and reliability.

Speaking to the Wall Street Journal, a Microsoft spokesman said the company could not make a similar change because of the EU agreement.

Under its new Digital Markets Act, Europe is currently trying to force Apple to give access to its iPhone to allow alternative app stores and web browsers to be used.

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A woman charged over the alleged hit-and-run murder of a young mother south of Brisbane has been remanded in custody after a brief court hearing.

Police allege 23-year-old Kiesha Thompson was deliberately struck by an SUV just before 9am on Friday in the Logan suburb of Daisy Hill, south of Brisbane.

The alleged driver — 24-year-old Larissa Rita Mae-Leigh Sant — has been charged with one count of murder.

Ms Sant did not appear when the case was heard in the Ipswich Magistrates Court this morning and her lawyer made no application for bail.

In a video released by Queensland police, Ms Thompson's aunt Amanda Matthias praised the first responders who tried to save her niece.

Her brother, Koby Torto, said Ms Thompson had had a "difficult life".

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While that's a slight dip from post-COVID CEO wages, it's a clear indication that the wealth gap continues to widen as the cost-of-living crisis worsens.

"Gross inequality is not good for anybody, including the rich people, and it's unsustainable," says Morris Pearl, former managing director of Black Rock, one of the world's largest investment firms, and now chair of Patriotic Millionaires.

"We're very concerned that inequality is getting worse and it is making our whole society unstable, and we're trying to change policies in our country to do something about that and to stop it before, frankly, everyone gives up on liberal democracy," Mr Pearl tells ABC RN's Future Tense.

Additionally the group meets annually to run strategy sessions with academics, activists and lawmakers to discuss how to push for a fairer economy.

For example, in the lead up to this year's Rio de Janeiro G20 meeting in November, Mr Pearl says a number of countries have signalled their interest in a minimum tax on very wealthy people as proposed by French economist Gabriel Zucman.

Ingrid Robeyns, a professor of philosophy and economics at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, has spent the past decade working on an approach to wealth which she calls limitarianism.

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