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The German group buying ticket dodgers out of prison
By Tim Mansel BBC News One day in late 2021, Arne Semsrott set out with €20,000 ($21,200; £17,000) stuffed into his pockets. Some of it was his, some he had borrowed from friends. He admits to having been a little nervous. “I had no idea if this was going to work,” he says. His destination…
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Rina Sawayama: Therapy made me realise I was groomed at 17
By Megha Mohan and Yousef Eldin BBC World Service “I’ve never talked about this in any other interview,” Rina Sawayama says, her voice steady. She keeps eye contact, ready to share the painful inspiration behind her second album, Hold the Girl, which she wrote after several sessions of sex and relationship therapy. A few hours…
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Judge overseeing Trump’s federal election case declines to step aside
By Max Matza BBC News The judge in Donald Trump’s federal election meddling case has said she will not recuse herself, despite the ex-president’s requests she step aside. His legal team argued some of her past comments create a perception of bias against the former president. She has now ruled his lawyers failed to present…
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The world’s most gender-equal countries
BBC Travel talks to residents in four of the best-rated nations to find out what it’s really like to live there. How is the world doing on gender equality? According to the World Economic Forum (WEF), the picture is mixed. The needle is moving in the right direction, according to its latest Global Gender Gap…
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The self-driving trucks that are deliberately crashed
By Richard Baimbridge Business reporter The developers of self-driving trucks don’t usually like to see them crash in testing – there would be a lot of mangled metal and the risk of causing serious injury or worse. Instead the hope is very much that they don’t have an accident. Yet one company at the forefront…
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A QAnon ‘queen’ and the Canada town that wants her gone
By Mike Wendling BBC News She claims to be the Queen of Canada, and now she’s holding court in an abandoned school. Romana Didulo, a QAnon-inspired conspiracy theorist, leads a group of supporters who have spent the last few years traveling around Canada in motorhomes and other vehicles. Recently, the group moved into Richmound, a…
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Justin Trudeau apologises for honouring Nazi veteran in parliament
By Chloe Kim BBC News Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has apologised on behalf of Canada after a Nazi veteran was invited to parliament during a visit by Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky and applauded. “This is a mistake that deeply embarrassed parliament and Canada,” Mr Trudeau said on Wednesday. Speaker Anthony Rota, who has assumed responsibility…
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ChatGPT can now access up to date information
By Antoinette Radford BBC News OpenAI, the Microsoft-backed creator of ChatGPT, has confirmed the chatbot can now browse the internet to provide users with current information. The artificial intelligence-powered system was previously trained using data up to September 2021. The move means some premium users will be able to ask the chatbot questions about current…
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Trump and Biden woo striking workers in preview of 2024
By Natalie Sherman in Wayne & Sarah Smith in Detroit, Michigan BBC News Donald Trump is heading to Michigan to woo striking car-workers, a day after President Joe Biden turned up on the picket line in the Midwestern state – an early skirmish in the battle for the blue-collar vote ahead of next year’s White…
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Meta announces AI chatbots with “personality”
By James Clayton North America technology reporter Meta has announced a series of new chatbots to be used in its Messenger service. The chatbots will have “personality” and specialise in certain subjects, like holidays or cooking advice. It is the latest salvo in a chatbot arms race between tech companies desperate to produce more accurate…