Liam Payne, former One Direction member, dies at 31 in Argentina hotel fall
Former One Direction singer Liam Payne, 31, was found dead after falling from a hotel balcony in Buenos Aires on Wednesday, local officials said.
Activision Blizzard's CEO Bobby Kotick admitted that the gaming company's response to a was "tone deaf" amid a growing and accusations of a "frat boy" work culture.
"Every voice matters 鈥 and we will do a better job of listening now, and in the future," Kotick said in a on Tuesday. "I am sorry that we did not provide the right empathy and understanding."
Kotick's response came hours before hundreds of employees staged a walkout on Wednesday to pressure the company to do more to address a host of issues including unequal pay, gender discrimination and harassment.
Those issues burst into the open last week, when California's Department of Fair Employment and Housing, filed a lawsuit accusing Activision Blizzard 鈥 the company behind popular video games such as "Call of Duty," "World of Warcraft" and "Candy Crush" 鈥 of fostering a "frat boy" work culture where female employees have to "continually fend off unwanted sexual comments and advances by their male coworkers."
The complaint also alleges that "the company's executives and human resources personnel knew of the harassment and failed to take reasonable steps to prevent the unlawful conduct, and instead retaliated against women who complained."
The company's director of corporate communications, Kelvin Liu, blasted the state's filing and investigation as "inaccurate" and "distorted" in a statement to CNN Business following the lawsuit.
Several former employees have their at Activision Blizzard on since the lawsuit was filed, and more than 2,000 current and former employees signed a petition on Monday slamming the company's initial pushback against the lawsuit's claims as "abhorrent and insulting."
The petition also cited an internal statement by Frances Townsend, a former George W. Bush administration counterterrorism official and Activision Blizzard's executive vice president of corporate affairs, in which she the lawsuit's allegations as "factually incorrect, old and out of context."
Wednesday's walkout aims to "improve conditions for employees at the company, especially women, and in particular women of color and transgender women, nonbinary people, and other marginalized groups," according to a document shared with CNN Business. Its demands of leadership include an end to mandatory arbitration clauses in all employee contracts, changing hiring and promotion policies to improve representation within the company, and publication of compensation data.
Participants of the walkout are also calling on company leadership to hire a third party to audit Activision Blizzard's reporting structure, human resources department and executive staff. "It is imperative to identify how current systems have failed to prevent employee harassment, and to propose new solutions to address these issues," the document said.
In his note to employees, Kotick announced he had hired the law firm WilmerHale to review the company's policies "to ensure that we have and maintain best practices to promote a respectful and inclusive workplace." He urged employees to reach out to the law firm's team led by Stephanie Avakian, a former director of the US Securities and Exchange Commission's Division of Enforcement.
"Of course, NO retaliation will be tolerated," Kotick said. He also said the company would do more to support its workers, creating "safe spaces, moderated by third parties," for employees to share their issues.
"We are immediately evaluating managers and leaders across the company," he said. "Anyone found to have impeded the integrity of our processes for evaluating claims and imposing appropriate consequences will be terminated."
More than 100 Activision Blizzard employees were expected to attend Wednesday's walkout in person outside the company's offices in Irvine, California, a Blizzard employee told CNN Business, while over 1,000 others were expected to participate virtually.
In a letter shared with CNN Business ahead of the walkout on Wednesday, participants said Activision Blizzard's latest responses did not address several of their demands, including an end to forced arbitration, greater pay transparency and employee involvement in selecting a third party to audit the company's processes.
"While we are pleased to see that our collective voices ... have convinced leadership to change the tone of their communications, this response fails to address critical elements at the heart of employee concerns," the letter said. "Today's walkout will demonstrate that this is not a one-time event that our leaders can ignore."
Former One Direction singer Liam Payne, 31, was found dead after falling from a hotel balcony in Buenos Aires on Wednesday, local officials said.
U.S. Vice-President Kamala Harris engaged in a combative first interview with Fox News on Wednesday, sparring on immigration policy and shifting policy positions while asserting that if elected, she would not represent a continuation of Joe Biden's presidency.
The Ontario Provincial Police has acknowledged that one of its employees did not follow the organization's policy when an alleged victim of sexual assault called a local detachment earlier this year to report an incident involving eight former junior hockey players.
Mounties have released startling new details about their investigation into the disappearance of Amber Manthorne, who was reported missing on Vancouver Island more than two years ago, and is believed to have met with foul play.
U.S. vice-presidential candidate JD Vance said "no," former U.S. president Donald Trump did not lose the 2020 election "by the words" the Ohio Republican would use, when asked Wednesday what message it sends to independent voters that he has not directly answered that question.
A B.C. judge has issued a decision in a years-long dispute between neighbours that began with a noise complaint over barking dogs, crowing roosters and quacking ducks 鈥 awarding $15,000 in damages to the plaintiffs in the case.
A Manitoba professor is warning the public after a book on regional mushrooms that he suspects is AI-generated was delisted from Amazon.
Liberal MPs who have spent the last 10 days organizing to ask Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to step aside from the leadership of the Liberal party plan to plead their case directly to him at next Wednesday's caucus.
The Canada Revenue Agency says it has terminated 330 employees for inappropriately receiving the Canada Emergency Response Benefit during the pandemic, giving its final update on an internal review.
An Ottawa man was arrested after taking a shower in a stranger's house, Ottawa police say.
S岣祑x瘫w煤7mesh 脷xwumixw (Squamish Nation) Chef Paul Natrall, the man behind Indigenous food truck Mr. Bannock, is bringing cooking classes on First Nations fare to schools and offices throughout Metro Vancouver.
The Celtic Colours Festival is taking place at venues around Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia from Oct. 11 to 19.
Sometimes love is written in the stars, but for one couple, it鈥檚 written in the aurora borealis.
Canadian hip hop artist Dillan King says running 100 marathons in 100 days was not only the hardest thing he has ever done, but the 'proudest accomplishment' of his entire life.
James Taylor never expected to be walking home with a bag full of groceries he didn't buy.
This weekend marks the fifth anniversary of a large blizzard that paralyzed Manitoba.
There was an eye-catching mix of rainbows and lightning over Vancouver following a brief downpour this week.
Jeff Warner from Aidie Creek Gardens in the northern Ontario community of Englehart has a passion for growing big pumpkins and his effort is paying off in more ways than one.