Colorado funeral home director Jon Hallford was sentenced to 40 years in prison for abusing corpses, while a South Korean cryptocurrency exchange accidentally paid out $40 billion in Bitcoin, and Uber was ordered to pay $8.5 million over a claim of rape by a driver. These are among the top news stories emerging from the past few days.
Hallford, the co-owner of the Return to Nature funeral home in Penrose, Colorado, was found to have improperly stored 189 bodies over four years, according to BBC World. He apologized in court, where family members described their nightmares about their loved ones decomposing in his care. His ex-wife and co-owner, Carie Hallford, has pleaded guilty to similar charges and is awaiting sentencing. The funeral home had also given fake ashes to grieving relatives instead of their loved ones' remains.
In South Korea, the cryptocurrency exchange Bithumb mistakenly gave away more than 40 billion (32 billion) worth of Bitcoin to customers, as reported by BBC World. The platform had intended to give customers a small cash reward of 2,000 won (1.37), but instead gave them 2,000 bitcoins. The company quickly realized its mistake and recovered almost all of the missing tokens, restricting trading and withdrawals for the 695 affected customers within 35 minutes. Bithumb stated that it had recovered 99.7% of the 620,000 bitcoins mistakenly sent.
In a separate case, Uber was ordered by a US court to pay $8.5 million (6.2 million) to a woman who said she was raped by a driver for the ride-share company, according to BBC Business. The federal lawsuit was heard in Arizona, where a jury found Uber responsible for the driver's behavior. Uber said it intended to appeal the verdict. The jury rejected additional claims made in the lawsuit, including that Uber had been negligent and that its safety systems were defective.
Emails from the Epstein files have shed new light on Prince Andrew's relationship with businessman David Rowland, revealing that Andrew referred to Rowland as his "trusted money man" to Jeffrey Epstein, as reported by BBC Business. The emails seem to show Andrew trying to promote Rowland's financial ventures while he was the UK's trade envoy. However, Epstein appeared reluctant to engage with Rowland after being warned that the UK press considered him a "shady financier."
In Nigeria, the traditional chief of a village in Kwara state recounted a night of terror during which jihadists massacred residents, according to The Guardian. Umar Bio Salihu, the local head of Woro, said gunmen killed two of his sons and kidnapped his wife and three daughters.
Discussion
AI Experts & Community
Be the first to comment