Starbucks to Pause Paid Ads Across Social Media

FILE PHOTO: A waitress prepares a beverage at a branch of Starbucks coffee in Tokyo, Japan, August 13, 2018. REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: A waitress prepares a beverage at a branch of Starbucks coffee in Tokyo, Japan, August 13, 2018. REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon/File Photo
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Starbucks to Pause Paid Ads Across Social Media

FILE PHOTO: A waitress prepares a beverage at a branch of Starbucks coffee in Tokyo, Japan, August 13, 2018. REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: A waitress prepares a beverage at a branch of Starbucks coffee in Tokyo, Japan, August 13, 2018. REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon/File Photo

Starbucks Corp will pause advertising on all social media platforms as it explores the best ways to help stop the spread of hate speech, the company said in a statement on Sunday.

The company will "have discussions internally and with media partners and civil rights organizations to stop the spread of hate speech," the statement said.

A CNBC report on Sunday added that this social media pause by Starbucks will not include YouTube, which is owned by Alphabet Inc's Google. It will continue to post on social media without paid promotion.

It also said that though Starbucks is pausing advertising, it is not joining the "Stop Hate For Profit" boycott campaign, which kicked off earlier this month.

More than 160 companies, including Verizon Communications and Unilever Plc, signed on to stop buying ads on Facebook Inc, the world's largest social media platform.



Hundreds of Firefighters Battling Wildfire in Southern France

An Airbus H125 helicopter drops water over a wildfire in Saint-Julien Les Martigues, northwest of Marseille in southern France on July 18, 2025. (Photo by Christophe SIMON / AFP)
An Airbus H125 helicopter drops water over a wildfire in Saint-Julien Les Martigues, northwest of Marseille in southern France on July 18, 2025. (Photo by Christophe SIMON / AFP)
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Hundreds of Firefighters Battling Wildfire in Southern France

An Airbus H125 helicopter drops water over a wildfire in Saint-Julien Les Martigues, northwest of Marseille in southern France on July 18, 2025. (Photo by Christophe SIMON / AFP)
An Airbus H125 helicopter drops water over a wildfire in Saint-Julien Les Martigues, northwest of Marseille in southern France on July 18, 2025. (Photo by Christophe SIMON / AFP)

Nearly 1,000 firefighters and helicopters battled a wildfire about 40 kilometers (25 miles) northwest of France's second-largest city Marseille on Friday, but officials said lower temperatures and increased humidity had improved the situation.

The 240-hectare (593 acres) wildfire flared up a week after a separate conflagration reached the northwestern outskirts of Marseille, forcing people to evacuate or into lockdown and temporarily shuttering the area's airport.

Pierre Bepoix, the colonel of rescue operations and deputy director for the area's firefighters, said 150 people had been evacuated, but firefighters had managed to save 150 homes and portions of the area's forests.

"It was a fire that swept through relatively dense vegetation ... which made our work particularly complicated," Bepoix told Reuters. "Obviously, priority was given to the preservation and protection of these homes and the lives that could be in these buildings."

Local officials said in a statement that 120 homes had been threatened by the fire, adding that it was not possible yet to identify any possible damage to them, and that two firefighters had been injured.

Meanwhile in Spain, a wildfire that broke out on Thursday evening in the central Toledo province and could be seen from downtown Madrid, ravaged 3,200 hectares of woodland.

Regional emergency services said early on Friday firefighters had secured the perimeter, though there were concerns over strong winds and high temperatures forecast throughout the day.