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Jon Batiste: Opening portals to new musical worlds
Emman Montalvan By Mark Savage BBC Music Correspondent In April 2022, Lenny Kravitz was reading out the nominees for album of the year at the Grammy Awards. When he came to Jon Batiste’s We Are, Billie Eilish and her brother Finneas turned to the musician and whispered: “We hope it’s you.” Their wish came true.…
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How a suicide bomb attack changed the lives of UN aid workers
Laura Dolci By Imogen Foulkes BBC News, Geneva On 19 August 2003, the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad was targeted in a suicide bomb attack. The head of the UN mission, Sergio Viera de Mello, was killed, along with 21 others, most of them staff. The attack changed the way the UN carries out humanitarian…
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WeWork: What went wrong for the much-hyped firm?
Getty Images By Natalie Sherman Business reporter, New York WeWork was once hailed as the future of the office. But now there is “substantial doubt” about its future. What went wrong? David Born, the head of Born Licensing, a small UK-based character and movie licensing business, became a WeWork tenant in London starting in 2018.…
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Bradley Cooper: Why Bernstein nose row is complicated
Getty Images By Annabel Rackham Entertainment reporter Actors transforming themselves for roles is incredibly common – whether it inolves changing their body, hair colour or even using prosthetics. But Bradley Cooper’s depiction of the late West Side Story composer Leonard Bernstein attracted criticism in recent days over the size of his nose. The first trailer…
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Cat and dog influencers help Ukrainians cope with war
DSNS By Vitaly Shevchenko BBC Monitoring From fundraising to detecting explosives, cats and dogs have been helping Ukrainians deal with the devastating impact of Russia’s invasion. Patron, the mine-sniffing dog, is one of them. He works for Ukraine’s state emergency service – but his mine-clearance skills and apparently disarming charisma have also earned him hundreds…
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Ukraine war: US allows transfer of Danish and Dutch F-16 war planes to Kyiv
Reuters By Jaroslav Lukiv BBC News The US has approved the transfer to Ukraine of American-made F-16 fighter jets from Denmark and the Netherlands when Ukrainian pilots are fully trained to operate them. “This way, Ukraine can take full advantage of its new capabilities,” a US state department spokesman said. Ukraine praised the decision it…
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Albania: Italy pays bill for tourists’ dine and dash
Getty Images By Kathryn Armstrong BBC News In a unique act of diplomacy, Italy’s government has settled the restaurant bill of four Italian tourists in Albania who left without paying. The dine and dash in the city of Berat made headlines in both countries. The chatter prompted Albania’s Prime Minister Edi Rama to raise it…
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Canada wildfires: Residents scramble to flee fires in Kelowna and Yellowknife
This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. By Sam Cabral BBC News An official deadline to evacuate Yellowknife as a wildfire looms on its outskirts has lapsed, as residents scramble to leave by air and road. About 22,000 people – or roughly half the…
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Twitter, now X, to remove blocking feature
ETIENNE LAURENT/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock By Faarea Masud Business reporter The blocking feature will be removed for users of X, formerly Twitter, Elon Musk has announced, claiming the feature “makes no sense”. The X boss said users will still be able to block people from directly messaging them, however. But many people on social media said it will…
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Russia sanctions UK politicians and journalists
BBC Sport By Kathryn Armstrong BBC News Russia has banned 54 British nationals and people working for UK organisations from entering the country in retaliation for UK sanctions on its citizens, its foreign ministry says. They include Culture Secretary Lucy Frazer and International Criminal Court chief prosecutor Karim Khan. A number of journalists from the…