Meta launched AI chatbots voiced by Hollywood celebrities like John Cena and Judi Dench on Wednesday, betting that its billions of users are eager to embrace artificial intelligence.
“I think that voice has the potential to be one of, if not the most frequent ways, that we all interact with AI,” said Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg at the company’s annual product presentation event. “It is just a lot better,” he said.
The deployment comes months after OpenAI previewed its own ChatGPT voice feature, which drew controversy for its similarity to actress Scarlett Johansson’s voice.
Meta has obtained permission from the stars featured in its new voice tool, which will be available on Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp. However, Meta AI won’t be accessible in Europe due to concerns about compliance with EU data protection laws and potential fines.
Meta’s AI relies on content and data from its platforms’ legions of users, a practice that involves numerous obligations and safeguards in Europe.
400 million users
Like ChatGPT or Google’s Gemini, Meta AI is an AI assistant that answers questions, creates images, writes messages and even provides companionship.
This new version builds on the initial release unveiled a year ago. Meta reports that over 400 million people already consult Meta AI at least once a month, and the company aims to make it “the most widely used AI assistant by the end of the year.” Critics, however, point out that many users stumble into MetaAI inadvertently, as it has replaced the search function on apps such as WhatsApp.
Since ChatGPT’s breakthrough, major tech companies have been rapidly developing AI applications capable of producing high-quality content from simple queries.
Competition is fierce, with Google and Microsoft having a head start in productivity features, and Apple entering the market with AI-capable iPhones. However, these models require substantial technical infrastructure, energy, and skilled engineers, significantly impacting company resources.
Meta believes its enhanced assistant sounds more natural, can interact verbally, and analyze images. Like other chatbots, it can suggest recipes from food photos or edit images based on simple user requests.
Despite concerns about heavy spending on AI and virtual reality, Meta’s profits have soared, with its share price up 60 per cent since the beginning of the year. The company’s success rides on strong advertising results.
But the social media giant’s heavy spending on AI and virtual reality technology has always been a concern for investors and observers. “When I think about AI, Meta is not necessarily the first brand that comes to mind,” Creative Strategies analyst Carolina Milanesi said.
“And their biggest hurdle is going to be privacy and trust: a lot of consumers will have issues with trusting that the data is not being used for other reasons.”
A pet-loving part-time musician is fast becoming a global star by gently poking fun at Donald Trump for suggesting that Haitian immigrants are making a meal of America’s cats and dogs.
“Eating the cats”, a parody song by The Kiffness which sets to music Trump’s extraordinary claims during the US presidential debate that migrants in Ohio “are eating the dogs, eating the cats”, has been viewed more than 8.7 million times on YouTube alone in 12 days.
“People of Springfield please don’t eat my cat,” pleads the South African singer, whose real name is David Scott. “Why would you do that?/ Eat something else.”
He then helpfully holds up a card suggesting a range of other mostly veggie options, including broccoli, avocados and poached eggs.
The singer, who has been slowly building a following for his feel-good songs about pets and children — because “they tend to unite people” — has seen his popularity soar since he got his singing claws into Trump.
Although he insists he is not attacking anybody, just giving some cat- and dog-friendly dietary advice.
“I think music has a powerful way of taking away negative energy and polarising feelings, especially with someone like Donald Trump, who is such a polarising figure,” he told AFP before his band gave a concert in Paris.
“I want my music to unite people. And I think that’s why I moved towards music that included animals. Because animals unite people,” said the 36-year-old from Cape Town.
The video, which has been watched by millions more on social media, shows Trump’s rival Kamala Harris reacting to his widely-derided claims during their debate earlier this month. A couple of cats and dogs also chip in with vocals, and equally incredulous looks.
Scott said all the earnings from the song are going to help pets and stray cats and dogs in Springfield, with more than $20,000 already raised.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” he told AFP. “The interest has been overwhelming from both sides, from Democrats, from Republicans.”
He said the song was not “laughing at the situation, it’s saying that you can rise above it… and just see the humour in things,” said the musician, who describes himself on X as a “Christian, husband, father (and) part-time musician”.
Springfield’s mayor, police and Ohio’s Republican governor have all said there is no evidence to back up Trump’s claims that Haitian migrants were eating the city’s pets.
But that has not stopped his running mate JD Vance — an Ohio senator — from doubling down on the claims, despite being widely mocked.
“My constituents are telling me firsthand that they’re seeing these things,” an unapologetic Vance told CNN.
This prompted Haitian groups in Springfield to file charges against Trump and Vance Wednesday over the threats to their community since the pair amplified the false online rumours.
A woman who alleges Sean “Diddy” Combs drugged and violently raped her, filming the assault so he could sell it for the titillation of others, said Tuesday she was suing the rapper.
Thalia Graves held a tearful press conference in Los Angeles, in which she said the emotional and mental pain from the 2001 attack remains with her.
The 54-year-old Combs was indicted last week on three criminal counts that allege he sexually abused women and coerced them into drug-fueled sex parties using threats and violence.
A spate of separate lawsuits, now including Graves’s, in the last year have painted the picture of a serial predator, sparking a massive fall from grace for the hip hop star.
“It goes beyond just physical harm caused by and during the assault. It’s a pain that reaches into your very core of who you are, and leaves emotional scars that will never be fully healed,” she told reporters.
“I’ve had PTSD, depression and anxiety. I’m emotionally scarred. It has been hard for me to trust others, to form healthy relationships, or even feel safe in my own skin.
“Flashbacks, nightmares and intrusive thoughts make me feel like it’s a constant struggle.”
In the criminal case, Combs is charged with racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking and transporting victims across state lines to engage in prostitution.
Prosecutors say Combs was the don of a criminal enterprise that ensnared women and forced them to commit sex acts under the threat of violence, financial insecurity and reputational ruin.
– Mounting lawsuits –
Allegations have been building against Combs since last year, when singer Cassie, whose real name is Casandra Ventura, alleged Combs subjected her to more than a decade of coercion by physical force and drugs as well as a 2018 rape.
A spate of similarly lurid lawsuits since describe Combs as a violent man who used his celebrity to prey on women.
Combs has pleaded not guilty to the criminal charges. He has been jailed awaiting trial.
Graves’ lawyer, Gloria Allred, said her client’s claims were not part of the criminal indictment.
Graves’ suit, filed in the Southern District of New York, says she met the rapper through her then-boyfriend, who worked at Combs’s Bad Boy Records.
It details how Combs took her to his studio, giving her a glass of wine along the way that she believes was spiked. She says she lost consciousness shortly after arriving.
When she woke up, she was naked and bound. But when she called for help, Combs’ associate Joseph Sherman smashed her head into a pool table.
Combs and Sherman then raped her and she passed out again.
The suit says the two men repeatedly warned her over the following years not to talk about the alleged assault.
After Combs’s ex-girlfriend Cassie Venture went public with allegations about his criminal behavior last year, Graves discovered her assault had been taped and sold as pornography.
The legal action demands compensatory and punitive damages, as well as other costs and fees.
Israeli air strikes on Lebanon killed at least 492 people on Monday, including 35 children, the health ministry said, marking the deadliest day of cross-border violence since the Gaza genocide began.
Arab states strongly condemned Israel for the escalating hostilities with Hezbollah, which have intensified to levels unseen in nearly a year.
Israel said it killed a “large number” of Hezbollah fighters when it hit about 1,600 sites in southern and eastern Lebanon, including a “targeted strike” in Beirut in what the Israeli military called “Operation Northern Arrows”.
Hezbollah said Ali Karake, its third-in-command, was alive and had moved to safety after a source said the strike on the capital targeted him.
The group said early Tuesday it had launched “volleys” of missiles at Israeli military sites after state media reported new raids in eastern Lebanon.
People in Israel’s coastal city of Haifa were seen running for cover on Monday when air raid sirens sounded.
Lebanon’s health ministry said the strikes killed 492 people, including 35 children and 58 women, and wounded 1,645 others. Health Minister Firass Abiad said “thousands of families” had been displaced.
Explosions near the ancient city of Baalbek in eastern Lebanon sent smoke billowing into the sky.
“We sleep and wake up to bombardment… that’s what our life has become,” said Wafaa Ismail, 60, a housewife from the southern village of Zawtar.
Global powers urged Israel and Hezbollah to step back from the brink of all-out war as the violence shifted from Israel’s southern border with Gaza to its northern frontier with Lebanon.
France and Egypt called on the United Nations Security Council to intervene, while Iraq requested an urgent meeting of Arab states on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York.
Israeli army chief Herzi Halevi said the strikes hit combat infrastructure Hezbollah had been building for two decades.
Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant called Monday “a significant peak” in the operation.
“This is the most difficult week for Hezbollah since its establishment –- the results speak for themselves,” he said.
“Entire units were taken out of battle as a result of the activities conducted at the beginning of the week in which numerous terrorists were injured.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel was acting to change the “security balance” in the north.
Hezbollah wave of rockets
Hezbollah, which has been trading near-daily fire with Israel in support of Hamas, said it was in a “new phase” of confrontation.
The group said it launched rockets at Israeli military sites near Haifa and two bases in retaliation for Israeli strikes on the south and the Bekaa.
The attack came after an Israeli strike on southern Beirut on Friday killed its elite Radwan Force commander, Ibrahim Aqil, and coordinated communications device blasts that Hezbollah blamed on Israel killed 39 people and wounded almost 3,000 on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Since the cross-border exchanges between Israel and Hezbollah began in October, tens of thousands of people on both sides have fled their homes.
An Israeli military official, who cannot be further identified under military rules, said the operation seeks to “degrade threats” from Hezbollah, push them back from the border, and then to destroy infrastructure.
Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati urged the United Nations and world powers to deter what he called Israel’s “plan that aims to destroy Lebanese villages and towns”.
US President Joe Biden, whose country is Israel’s main ally and weapons supplier, said Washington was “working to de-escalate in a way that allows people to return home safely”.
The Pentagon said it was sending a small number of additional US military personnel to the Middle East after thousands were deployed earlier alongside warships, fighter jets and air defence systems.
A US official, speaking on condition of anonymity at the UN General Assembly, said that Washington opposed an Israeli ground invasion targeting Hezbollah and had “concrete ideas” on how to de-escalate the crisis.
G7 foreign ministers said in a joint statement that “no country stands to gain” from escalating conflict, warning of “unimaginable consequences” if a regional war broke out.
EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell warned that Israel and Hezbollah were “almost in full-fledged war”, ahead of a gathering of world leaders at the United Nations.
UN chief Antonio Guterres was “gravely alarmed” by civilian casualties in Lebanon, his spokesman said.
The United Nations peacekeeping force in south Lebanon warned “any further escalation of this dangerous situation could have far-reaching and devastating consequences”.
Qatar, a mediator in Gaza ceasefire talks, said Israel’s bombardment of Lebanon “puts the region on the brink of the abyss”, while Turkey said the strikes threatened “chaos” and Jordan urged an immediate end to the escalation “before it is too late”.
The Palestinian foreign ministry condemned the strikes and ordered Palestinian medical staff in Lebanon to provide support for the wounded.
Iran’s newly elected president, Masoud Pezeshkian, accused Israel of seeking “to create this wider conflict”.
Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures that include hostages killed in captivity.
Of the 251 hostages also seized by militants, 97 are still held in Gaza, including 33 the Israeli military says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory military offensive has massacred at least 41,455 people in Gaza, most of them civilians, according to figures provided by Gaza’s health ministry. The UN has described the figures as reliable.
A 65-year-old man has been arrested in Rome over the “horrific, frenzied” 1977 murder of two women in their home in Melbourne, Australian police said Saturday.
The bodies of Suzanne Armstrong, 27, and Susan Bartlett, 28, were discovered at their house in Easey Street, Melbourne, on January 13, 1977, with multiple stab wounds.
Armstrong had been raped. Her then 16-month-old son was found unharmed in his cot.
The women had last been seen alive three days earlier.
“It was an absolutely gruesome, horrific, frenzied homicide — multiple stabbings,” Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Shane Patton told a news conference.
He described the 47-year-old crime, known as the Easey Street murders, as the state’s longest and most serious cold case.
The suspect, a dual Greek-Australian citizen, had been living in Greece where he was protected by the country’s statute of limitations, Patton said.
Police waited for him to leave the country, the chief commissioner added, and he was finally arrested Thursday in the Italian capital’s Fiumicino airport under an Interpol red notice.
Australia will launch extradition procedures, he said.
Police had been helped by “technological advances” over the years, Patton said.
In 2017, they offered an Aus$1 million (US$680,000) reward for information leading to an arrest and conviction, he said, after new information had come to light.
He declined to give more details of the investigation.
A report in Melbourne’s The Age newspaper, which police did not confirm, said police had decided to check the DNA of all 131 people named in the original police file.
The suspect was on that list and had agreed to undergo a DNA test but instead fled to Greece in 2017, the paper reported.
He was linked to the crime by the DNA of a close relative, it said.
According to The Age, the suspect had been stopped and searched on the night of the murders by local police who found a large knife on him — three days before the bodies were discovered.
It is “understood” that the man — then a teenager — was not interviewed about the killings at the time as police focused on other suspects, the paper said.
A detective senior sergeant running the investigation since 2015 broke the news of the suspect’s arrest to the victims’ families on Saturday morning, Patton said.
The families were “emotional, speechless, overwhelmed, but appreciative that they hadn’t been forgotten”, he said.
“There is simply no expiry date on crimes that are as brutal as this. I think that is borne out here today.”
A Bangladeshi student leader was beaten to death at his university campus in an apparent reprisal for attacks on protesters during the uprising that ousted ex-premier Sheikh Hasina last month.
Shamim Ahmed was enrolled at Jahangirnagar University in the capital, Dhaka, and was a top member of the student wing of Hasina’s Awami League party, police officer Abu Bakkar said.
Bakkar said Ahmed was beaten by unknown assailants on Wednesday night for leading an attack on student demonstrators at the campus in mid-July, when protests demanding Hasina’s removal from office were gaining momentum.
“We took him to the Gonoshasthaya Hospital, where he later died,” the officer added.
Staff at the hospital confirmed that Ahmed had died after being brought in with multiple injuries. Ahmed is at least the second leader of the Awami League’s student wing to be killed this month.
Fellow leader Abdullah Al Masud died hours after being beaten by a mob in the northern city of Rajshahi on Sept 8, according to local media reports.
He had also been accused of marshalling counter-demonstrations against the student-led uprising against Hasina, who fled the country in early August moments before protesters stormed her Dhaka palace.
Hasina’s government was accused of widespread abuses, including the mass detention and extrajudicial killing of political rivals. More than 450 people were killed in the weeks of violence leading up to the autocratic leader’s toppling.
Since her departure for exile in neighbouring India, cabinet ministers and other senior members of Hasina’s party have been arrested, and her government’s appointees have been purged from courts and the central bank.
At least 25 journalists seen as close to Hasina’s regime have also been taken into custody since her ouster and replacement with an interim government led by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mohammed Yunus.
South Korean pistol shooter Kim Ye-ji, whose skill and nonchalance won the internet at the Paris Olympics, has landed her first acting role — as an assassin.
The 32-year-old took silver in the women’s 10m air pistol in July and her ultra-calm demeanour, combined with her wire-rimmed shooting glasses and baseball cap, turned her into a worldwide online sensation.
As videos of her shooting went viral, she drew praise from celebrities such as Elon Musk.
“She should be cast in an action movie. No acting required!” Musk wrote on his social media platform X at the time.
Now she will play an assassin in “Crush”, a spinoff short-form series of the global film project “Asia”, a spokesperson for Seoul-based entertainment firm Asia Lab told AFP on Friday.
Kim will star alongside Indian actress and influencer Anushka Sen, the company said in a separate statement, saying it was excited to witness “the potential synergy that will arise from Kim Ye-ji and Anushka Sen’s new transformation into a killer duo”.
Since winning silver, a short clip showing Kim at the Baku World Cup in May has gone viral, spawning fan art, endless memes and multiple edits setting the clip to K-pop.
Kim signed with a South Korean talent agency in August to assist her in managing her extracurricular activities and she has since been featured in a magazine photoshoot for Louis Vuitton.
A second deadly wave of unprecedented explosions in the strongholds of Lebanon’s Hezbollah left it in disarray on Thursday, hours before a major speech by its beleaguered leader, Hassan Nasrallah.
The latest batch of device explosions killed 20 people and wounded more than 450 others on Wednesday, officials said, stoking fears of a full-blown war with Israel.
The blasts came a day after the simultaneous detonation of pagers used by Hezbollah killed 12 people, including two children, and wounded up to 2,800 others across Lebanon in an unprecedented attack blamed on Israel.
Walkie-talkies used by its members exploded in the latest blasts at Hezbollah’s Beirut stronghold, a source close to the group said, with state media reporting similar detonations in south and east Lebanon.
AFPTV footage showed people running for cover when an explosion went off during a funeral for Hezbollah fighters in south Beirut in the afternoon.
“The wave of enemy explosions that targeted walkie talkies… killed 20 people and wounded more than 450,” Lebanon’s health ministry said in a statement.
There was no comment from Israel, which only hours before Tuesday’s explosions had announced it was broadening the aims of its offensive in Gaza to include its fight against Hamas’s ally Hezbollah.
“The centre of gravity is moving northward,” Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said during a visit to an air base on Wednesday, adding, “We are at the start of a new phase in the war.”
Amos Harel of the left-leaning Haaretz newspaper said the pager and walkie-talkie blasts had put “Israel and Hezbollah on the brink of all-out war”.
Out of this world
With tensions in the Middle East spiralling, senior diplomats from the United States, Britain, Germany, France and Italy will meet on Thursday in Paris, sources said, ahead of a UN Security Council meeting planned for Friday.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will join his counterparts in the French capital after discussing the possibility of a Gaza truce in Cairo.
The White House warned all sides against “an escalation of any kind”.
“We don’t believe that the way to solve where we’re at in this crisis is by additional military operations at all,” US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters.
Hezbollah has traded near-daily cross-border fire with Israel since Hamas’s October 7 attacks sparked the conflict in Gaza.
Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib warned that the “blatant assault on Lebanon’s sovereignty and security” was a dangerous development that could “signal a wider war”.
Hezbollah said Israel was “fully responsible for this criminal aggression” and vowed revenge.
Iran’s envoy to the UN said the country “reserves the right to take retaliatory measures” after its ambassador in Beirut was wounded.
The influx of so many casualties all at once overwhelmed medics.
At a Beirut hospital, doctor Joelle Khadra said the “injuries were mainly to the eyes and hands, with finger amputations, shrapnel in the eyes — some people lost their sight”.
A doctor at another hospital in the Lebanese capital said he had worked through the night and that the injuries were “out of this world — never seen anything like it”.
Among the dead was the 10-year-old daughter of a Hezbollah member, killed in east Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley when her father’s pager exploded, the family and a source close to the group said.
Hezbollah fighters carry the coffins of people killed after hundreds of paging devices exploded in a deadly wave across Lebanon the previous day, during their funeral procession in Beirut’s southern suburbs on September 18, 2024. — AFP
Heavy blow
Analysts said operatives had likely planted explosives on the pagers before they were delivered to Hezbollah.
“A small plastic explosive was almost certainly concealed alongside the battery, for remote detonation via a call or page,” said Charles Lister of the Middle East Institute.
The preliminary findings of a Lebanese investigation into the blasts found the pagers had been booby-trapped, a security official said.
“Data indicates the devices were pre-programmed to detonate and contained explosive materials planted next to the battery,” the official said, requesting anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.
A source close to Hezbollah, asking not to be identified, said the pagers were “recently imported” and appeared to have been “sabotaged at source”.
After The New York Times reported that the pagers had been ordered from Taiwanese manufacturer Gold Apollo, the company said they had been produced by its Hungarian partner BAC Consulting KFT.
A government spokesman in Budapest said the company was “a trading intermediary, with no manufacturing or operational site in Hungary”.
The attack dealt a heavy blow to Hezbollah, which already had concerns about the security of its communications after losing several commanders to targeted strikes in recent months.
As fears surged of a regional conflagration nearly a year into the Gaza conflict, Lufthansa and Air France announced the suspension of flights to Tel Aviv, Tehran and Beirut until Thursday.
‘Extremely volatile’
Since October, the exchanges of fire between Israeli troops and Hezbollah have killed hundreds of people, mostly fighters, in Lebanon, and dozens including soldiers on the Israeli side.
They have also forced tens of thousands of people on both sides to flee their homes.
United Nations rights chief Volker Turk said Tuesday’s attack had come at an “extremely volatile time”, calling the blasts “shocking” and their impact on civilians “unacceptable”.
UN chief Antonio Guterres urged governments “not to weaponise civilian objects”.
The October 7 attacks that sparked the genocide in Gaza resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people, mostly civilians, on the Israeli side, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures that include hostages killed in captivity.
Out of 251 hostages seized by fighters, 97 are still held in Gaza, including 33 the Israeli military says are dead.
Israel’s military offensive and strikes has killed at least 41,272 people in Gaza, most of them civilians, according to data provided by the territory’s health ministry. The UN has acknowledged these figures as reliable.
In Gaza on Wednesday, the civil defence agency said an Israeli strike on a school-turned-shelter killed five people, while the Israeli military said it targeted Hamas.
Superstar rap mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs pleaded not guilty Tuesday to racketeering and sex trafficking charges, and was ordered to remain in custody pending a trial.
Combs, 54, was arrested by federal agents in New York on Monday evening and accused in a just-unsealed three-count criminal indictment alleging he sexually abused women and coerced them into drug-fueled sex parties using threats and violence.
Appearing in a Manhattan courtroom where many family members came to support him, the one-time music dignitary pleaded not guilty. His lawyer asked Magistrate Judge Robyn Tarnofsky to allow his release on bail.
After a lengthy bail hearing in which the prosecution voiced concerns including the potential for witness tampering and flight risk, Judge Tarnofsky denied bail, saying she was concerned about a “power imbalance” in the case that includes people she said are “subject to coercion.”
She also cited concerns over his alleged propensity for anger, violence and substance abuse.
Combs, who was wearing black t-shirt, grey sweatpants and sneakers, did not noticeably react to the pre-trial detention ruling, which his attorney, Marc Agnifilo, said would be appealed.
Along with racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking, Combs is charged with one count of transporting victims across state lines to engage in prostitution.
Damian Williams, the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, said that although Combs is the only person indicted for now the investigation is ongoing.
The indictment alleges that for decades Combs “abused, threatened, and coerced women and others around him to fulfill his sexual desires, protect his reputation, and conceal his conduct.”
It accused him of running a criminal enterprise that carried out “sex trafficking, forced labor, kidnapping, arson, bribery, and obstruction of justice.”
Combs allegedly engaged in a “persistent and pervasive pattern” of verbal, emotional, physical, and sexual abuse of women, the indictment said.
“On numerous occasions from at least in or about 2009 and continuing for years, Combs assaulted women by, among other things, striking, punching, dragging, throwing objects at, and kicking them,” it said.
Williams said female victims were forced to engage in extended sexual performances with male commercial sex workers in sessions called “Freak Offs,” which were planned and controlled by Combs and often videotaped.
“The Freak Offs sometimes lasted days at a time… and often involved a variety of narcotics such as ketamine, ecstasy and GHB,” he said. “The indictment alleges that Combs threatened and coerced victims to get them to participate in the Freak Offs.”
– Bombshell suit –
The powerful music industry figure, who has gone by various monikers including Puff Daddy and P Diddy, was credited as key to hip hop’s journey from the streets to luxury clubs.
Despite his efforts to cultivate the image of a smooth party kingpin and business magnate, a spate of lawsuits describe Combs as a violent man who used his celebrity to prey on women.
The floodgates opened last year after singer Cassie, whose real name is Casandra Ventura, alleged Combs subjected her to more than a decade of coercion by physical force and drugs as well as a 2018 rape.
The pair met when Ventura was 19 and Combs was 37, after which he signed her to his label and they began a relationship.
The bombshell suit was settled out of court, but a string of similarly lurid sexual assault claims followed — including one in December by a woman who alleged Combs and others gang-raped her when she was 17.
The rapper’s luxury homes in Miami and Los Angeles were raided by agents in March.
Disturbing surveillance video emerged in May showing Combs physically assaulting his then-girlfriend Ventura, corroborating allegations she made in the now-settled case.
The prosecution referenced the footage’s content during the bail hearing, suggesting it is a key element of their case.
– Global fame with dark shadow –
Born Sean John Combs on November 4, 1969, in Harlem, the artist entered the industry as an intern in 1990 at Uptown Records, where he eventually became a talent director.
In 1991, he promoted a celebrity basketball game and concert at the City College of New York that left nine people dead after a stampede and resulted in a string of lawsuits.
He was fired from Uptown and founded his own label, Bad Boy Records.
That began a quick ascent to the top of East Coast hip hop, along with his late disciple, The Notorious B.I.G.
Combs boasted a number of major signed acts and production collaborations with the likes of Mary J Blige, Usher, Lil’ Kim, TLC, Mariah Carey and Boyz II Men.
He was also a Grammy-winning rapper in his own right, debuting with the chart-topping single “Can’t Nobody Hold Me Down” and his album “No Way Out.”
At least 10 people were killed and dozens injured when a bus crashed in central Iran, official media reported on Tuesday.
The bus overturned in Yazd province while travelling between the cities of Bushehr in southwestern Iran and Mashhad in the northeast, state television said.
“The accident left 10 people dead and 41 injured, according to initial figures,” it said, without specifying the total number of passengers on board.
Iran has a poor road safety record, with more than 20,000 deaths in accidents recorded in the year to March, according to the judiciary’s Legal Medicine Organisation cited by local media.
Last month, a bus carrying Pakistani pilgrims crashed in central Iran, killing 28 people en route to Iraq for Chehlum, one of the most significant events in the Shia Muslim calendar.
Days later, another bus crash killed three people and injured 48 others.
