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A federal jury in Phoenix has ordered Uber to pay $8.5mn after finding it liable in a lawsuit brought by a woman who said she was assaulted by a driver, a verdict that could influence thousands of similar cases against the ride-hailing company.The case, brought by plaintiff Jaylynn Dean, was the first trial – known as a “bellwether” – of more than 3,000 similar lawsuits against Uber that have been consolidated in US federal court.Bellwether trials are used to test legal theories and help gauge the value of claims for possible settlements.The jury found that the driver was an agent of Uber, so the company was responsible for his actions.They awarded Dean $8.5mn in compensatory damages but declined to award punitive damages.Attorneys for Dean had sought more than $140mn in damages.In a statement, an Uber spokesperson noted that the jury rejected Dean’s other claims, that the company was negligent or that its safety systems were defective, adding that the company plans to appeal.”This verdict affirms that Uber acted responsibly and has invested meaningfully in rider safety,” the spokesperson said.Sarah London, an attorney for Dean, said the verdict “validates the thousands of survivors who have come forward at great personal risk to demand accountability against Uber for its focus on profit over passenger safety”.Uber shares fell 0.5% in extended trading following announcement of the verdict.Dean, an Oklahoma resident, sued Uber in 2023, one month after her alleged assault in Arizona.She said Uber was aware of a wave of assaults committed by its drivers, but had failed to take basic actions to improve the safety of its riders.Such assertions have long dogged the company, drawing headlines and congressional scrutiny.Alexandra Walsh, an attorney for Dean, said during the trial’s closing arguments that Uber had marketed itself as a safe option for women traveling at night.”Women know it’s a dangerous world. We know about the risk of sexual assault,” Walsh said. “They made us believe that this was a place that was safe from that.”Uber, which has faced numerous safety controversies, including allegations of lax driver vetting and a culture critics said prioritised growth over passenger protection, has argued that it should not be held liable for criminal conduct by drivers who use its platform, saying that its background checks and disclosures about assaults are sufficient.The company maintains that its drivers are independent contractors rather than employees, and that regardless of their classification it cannot be responsible for actions that fall outside the scope of what could reasonably be considered their duties.”He had no criminal history. None,” Kim Bueno, an attorney for Uber, said of the driver during closing arguments, noting that he had 10,000 trips on the app and a nearly perfect rating from riders. “Was this foreseeable to Uber? And the answer to that has to be no.”US District Judge Charles Breyer, who normally sits on the bench in San Francisco, oversaw Dean’s case in Phoenix.He is managing all of the similar federal cases against Uber, which have been centralised in his court in San Francisco.The company is also facing more than 500 cases in California state court.In the only one of those cases to go to trial so far, a jury in September sided with Uber.The jury found that while the company had been negligent with its safety measures, that negligence was not a substantial factor in causing the woman’s harm.Uber rival Lyft is facing similar lawsuits in both state and federal court, although there is no co-ordinated federal litigation for those claims. Source link
Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese (centre) walks with Indonesian Foreign Minister Sugiono (left) and Danantara Indonesia chief executive officer Rosan Roeslani upon his arrival at the Halim Perdanakusuma International Airport in Jakarta yesterday. Source link
Malaysia has imposed a ban on imports of electronic waste, as it looks to tighten controls on the entry of hazardous materials and safeguard the environment, the head of the country’s anti-graft body said. The country is among the world’s top destinations for plastic waste and other scrap, but has struggled to fend off a deluge of generally illegal unrecyclable garbage. Malaysia anti-corruption commission chief commissioner Azam Baki, who chairs a government taskforce on the issue, said e-waste would be reclassified under the “Absolute Prohibition” category in customs regulations effective immediately. Source link
US President Donald Trump has called for negotiations on a “new, improved, and modernized” nuclear arms control agreement with Russia following the expiration of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) — the last legally binding nuclear arms control pact between the United States and Russia. New START, signed in April 2010 and entered into force in February 2011, capped deployed strategic nuclear warheads and delivery systems for both countries. It was the final remaining bilateral agreement limiting the world’s two largest nuclear arsenals. The treaty officially expired on 5 February 2026 after it could not be extended further under its terms. In a post on his Truth Social platform, Trump said that instead of extending New START, the United States should task its nuclear experts with drafting a modernized successor treaty that can endure future security challenges. The president criticized the original agreement as poorly negotiated and suggested that any future deal should be broad in scope and inclusive of contemporary realities. Trump has also previously stated that any new arms control framework should potentially include other nuclear powers, such as China, to reflect the current global nuclear landscape — although Beijing has rejected participation in such talks given its smaller arsenal. The treaty’s expiration has reignited international concern over nuclear proliferation and strategic stability. The United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described the lapse as a “grave moment” for global peace and security, urging both Washington and Moscow to urgently negotiate a successor agreement to reduce nuclear risks. Meanwhile, the Kremlin reiterated that Russia will continue to act responsibly as a nuclear power, even as the treaty has lapsed, expressing regret over the end of New START and signaling continued openness to dialogue with the United States under constructive conditions.Analysts warn that without a replacement for New START, the US and Russia will be operating without binding limits on their strategic nuclear forces for the first time in decades, heightening risks of miscalculation and a renewed arms buildup. Source link
At least 30 people have been killed and more than 130 wounded after an explosion ripped through a mosque in Pakistan’s capital Islamabad, the police said.A security source said that a suicide attacker was responsible for the blast and was stopped at the mosque’s gate and detonated himself. Source link
Bangladesh army personnel gather at the National Stadium in Dhaka yesterday, as they prepare for the upcoming country's general election on February 12. Source link
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov confirmed that Russia is ready to contribute to resolving the current complexities in the Middle East region.Russia is not seeking to impose itself as a mediator between Israel, Iran, or the United States, Lavrov said in a press statement, adding that they are merely discussing the latest developments in the situation through their contacts with the relevant parties. Russia’s top diplomat stressed that his country is concerned about developments surrounding Iran, which he described as a neighbor and a close partner. He pointed out that the current escalation between the United States and Iran portends an explosion across the entire Middle East region. Source link
Britain’s aviation authority has asked Air India to explain how a Boeing Dreamliner passenger jet which was grounded on arrival in India for safety checks took off from London on Sunday with a possibly faulty fuel switch, a letter shows. The UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), in a letter to the airline dated Tuesday, warned of the possibility of regulatory action against Air India and its Boeing 787 fleet if the airline does not submit a complete response within a week. Air India said in a statement it had completed a precautionary re-inspection of the switches and found no issues, and would “respond to the UK regulator accordingly”. The CAA said in a statement that it was a standard process for a regulator to request details following “an aircraft incident and is in line with safety assurance procedures”. Fuel switches were at the centre of last year’s crash involving an Air India Dreamliner, which killed 260 people in Gujarat state and triggered tighter scrutiny of the airline. The switches regulate the flow of jet fuel into a plane’s engines. Air India said on Monday it had grounded a Boeing Dreamliner after a pilot reported a possible “defect” with the fuel control switch on the plane on landing. Boeing, which earlier said it was cooperating with Air India on the incident, did not respond to a request for comment. The Indian civil aviation watchdog later said that during the engine start in London, the crew observed the fuel control switch did not remain latched on the ‘run’ position on two occasions, but was stable on a third attempt. The crew decided to continue on to India and the regulator’s checks this week found the switches were functioning fine. The CAA, however, told Air India that it must provide “a detailed account of all maintenance actions performed to ensure the continued airworthiness of the aircraft and to support its release to service for” Bengaluru. Source link
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said that nuclear negotiations with the United States were scheduled for Friday morning in Oman.Tehran has repeatedly stressed that talks should remain focused solely on the nuclear issue, rejecting negotiations over its missile programme or defence capabilities. “Nuclear talks with the United States are scheduled to be held in Muscat on about 10 am Friday,” said Araghchi in an X post on Wednesday, thanking Oman “for making all the necessary arrangements”.US news website Axios had reported that talks planned for Friday were “collapsing” over disagreements on the location and format. It later reported, however, that they were “back on” and would be held in Oman following appeals by several Middle Eastern leaders.Iranian media had reported earlier on Wednesday that Araghchi would head the Iranian delegation, which will also include senior diplomats Majid Takht-Ravanchi and Kazem Gharibabadi.US envoy Steve Witkoff was expected to represent Washington in the talks. The United States has in recent days deployed an aircraft carrier group to the Middle East following a crackdown on anti-government protests in Iran.Tehran has acknowledged more than 3,000 deaths during the unrest, which Iranian authorities said began as peaceful protests before turning into “riots” involving killings and vandalism inflamed by its arch-foes the United States and Israel.The Human Rights Activists News Agency, a US-based NGO, said it has confirmed 6,872 deaths, mostly protesters killed by security forces, with other rights groups warning the figure is likely far higher. Source link
Ukrainian and Russian officials wrapped up a “productive” first day of new US-brokered talks in Abu Dhabi, Kyiv’s lead negotiator said Wednesday, as fighting in Europe’s biggest conflict since World War Two raged on. The two-day trilateral meetings come after Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia had exploited a US-backed energy truce last week to stockpile munitions, attacking Ukraine with a record number of ballistic missiles on Tuesday. “The work was substantive and productive, focused on concrete steps and practical solutions,” Rustem Umerov, the head of Ukraine’s National Security and Defence Council, wrote on X.Shortly after the talks began, Russian forces struck a crowded market in eastern Ukraine with cluster munitions, killing at least seven people and wounding 15, the Donetsk region’s Governor Vadym Filashkin said. Umerov said he would prepare a report for Zelensky, and talks were expected to continue on Thursday, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters. Photographs released earlier in the day by the United Arab Emirates’ foreign ministry showed the three delegations sitting around a U-shaped table, with US officials seated at the centre, including special envoy Steve Witkoff and US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. Trump’s administration has pushed both Kyiv and Moscow to find a compromise to end the four-year-old war, but the two sides remain far apart on key points despite several rounds of talks with US officials. The most sensitive issues are Moscow’s demands that Kyiv give up land it still controls and the fate of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, Europe’s largest, which sits in a Russian-occupied area. Moscow wants Kyiv to pull its troops out of all of the Donetsk region, including a belt of heavily fortified cities regarded as one of Ukraine’s strongest defences, as a precondition for any deal. Ukraine said the conflict should be frozen along the current front line and has rejected any unilateral pullback of its forces. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said on Wednesday that Russian troops would keep fighting until Kyiv made “decisions” that could bring the war to an end. Russia currently occupies about 20% of Ukraine’s national territory, including Crimea and parts of the eastern Donbas region seized before the 2022 invasion. Analysts say Russia has gained about 1.5% of Ukrainian territory since early 2024. “Russia is not winning its war against Ukraine,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha told online media outlet Liga on Tuesday. He argued that Moscow was paying a heavy price in termsof battlefield casualties and economic harm for small territorial advances. Polls show that the majority of Ukrainians oppose a deal that hands Moscow more land. Kyiv residents told Reuters on Wednesday they were sceptical that the new round of talks would bring any major breakthroughs. “Let’s hope that it will change (something), of course. But I don’t believe it will change anything now,” Serhii, 38, a taxi driver, told Reuters. “We will not give in, and they will not give in either.” The first round of talks was held in the UAE last month, marking the first direct public negotiations between Moscow and Kyiv. Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin hailed their ties during a video call on Wednesday held in the run-up to the fourth anniversary of Moscow’s war in Ukraine. Source link