A baby has been born using three people’s DNA for the first time in the UK, the fertility regulator has confirmed. Most of their DNA comes from their two parents and around 0.1% from a third, donor woman. The pioneering technique is an attempt to prevent children being born with devastating mitochondrial diseases. Fewer than five such babies have been born, but no further details have been released.
The unsolved murders of 22 women are the subject of an appeal for information launched on by global police agency Interpol, together with police from three European nations. Their bodies, some dismembered, were found in Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands over a span of 43 years, the most recent in 2019.
In the first three months of 2023, Disney’s flagship streaming service lost millions of users as a result of losing the streaming rights to Indian cricket matches the previous year, and its Hotstar service in Asia was the primary cause of subscriber losses.
A female cheetah has died in Kuno National Park in India’s Madhya Pradesh state, taking the number of the big cats found dead to three since March. The female was found injured on Tuesday morning and treated by vets but died at noon, the park said in a statement. Preliminary reports showed she died from injuries sustained during mating with two male cheetahs, it added.
A jury in a civil case has found former President Donald Trump sexually abused a magazine columnist in a New York department store in the 1990s. But Mr Trump was found not liable for raping E Jean Carroll in the dressing room of Bergdorf Goodman.
It was a sunny June morning when I arrived in the historic city of Safranbolu in northern Turkey. The former Ottoman town was abuzz with life – an old caravanserai was welcoming new guests and alluring boutiques were selling everything from handmade soaps to saffron-flavoured lokum (a Turkish dessert). Yet, what caught my eye were the hundreds of timber-laced mansions that dotted the town’s quaint alleyways.
Twitter has become the latest social media platform to launch an encrypted messaging service. Direct messages sent on Twitter will be end-to-end encrypted – this means private messages can only be read by the sender and the recipient. Chief executive Elon Musk said it meant he could not see users’ messages “even if there was a gun to my head”.
WhatsApp has asked users to block and report suspicious accounts after several Indians complained about receiving calls from unknown international numbers. Indian WhatsApp users have been sharing screenshots of such audio and video calls on social media.
The Australian government will ban e-cigarettes through a heavy set of controls on imports and packaging to discourage vaping, especially among teens, under its biggest smoking reforms in more than a decade. Australian Health Minister Mark Butler on Tuesday said vaping has become a top behavioral issue in high schools and a growing problem in elementary schools but recognized the products have a therapeutic use under the right circumstances.
A South Korean art student ate a banana that was part of an installation by artist Maurizio Cattelan, saying he was “hungry” after skipping breakfast. The artwork called “Comedian”, part of Cattelan’s exhibition “WE”, consisted of a ripe banana duct-taped to a wall at Seoul’s Leeum Museum of Art. After eating the banana, the student, Noh Huyn-soo, taped the peel to the wall. The museum later placed a new banana at the same spot, reported local media.
A Dutch court on Friday ordered a man who judges said had fathered between 500 and 600 children around the world to stop donating sperm. The 41-year-old Dutchman was forbidden to donate more semen to clinics, the court ruling said. He could be fined 100,000 euros ($110,000) per infraction.
Barbie has launched its first doll with Down’s syndrome, in a bid to make the world-famous toy more inclusive. Part of its Fashionistas range, which includes dolls who use wheelchairs, prosthetic limbs, and hearing aids, this doll is the first to represent someone with a learning disability
A small uninhabited island off the south of Scotland coast is up for sale for offers over £150,000. Barlocco sits in Fleet Bay about nine miles by road from Kirkcudbright in Dumfries and Galloway. There are no dwellings or buildings on the island but there is a flood pond providing water for livestock and wildlife during the winter months.
Britain’s King Charles III has been crowned in a once-in-a-generation royal event witnessed by hundreds of high-profile guests inside Westminster Abbey, as well as tens of thousands of well-wishers who gathered in central London despite the rain. While Charles became King on the death of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II last September, the coronation on Saturday was the formal crowning of the monarch.
Ukraine has accused Russia of attacking the besieged city of Bakhmut with phosphorus munitions. In drone footage released by Ukraine’s military, Bakhmut can be seen ablaze as what appears to be white phosphorus rains down on the city. White phosphorus weapons are not banned, but their use in civilian areas is considered a war crime.
After spending 10 years as a Buddhist nun in Myanmar, Coral Sunone realised that she needed some fashion help when she returned to the outside world. But with money tight, getting assistance from a professional stylist was simply out of the question. Or was it? Coral, who is based in Malaysia, heard of a website called TimeRepublik, which describes itself as “a timebank for the internet era”.
The top US data privacy regulator has accused Meta, the firm that owns Facebook and Instagram, of not putting proper parental controls in place. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) also said Meta should be banned from making money from children’s data. “The company’s recklessness has put young users at risk, and Facebook needs to answer for its failures,” it said.
“Oh God, don’t let us get to the point of having to eat chicken feet,” says a man begging alongside the poultry sellers in Giza market. Egypt is facing a deepening economic crisis, a situation so acute its people are struggling to feed their families. The latest nutritional advice from the state suggested cooking up some chicken feet – a protein-rich part of the bird usually reserved as scraps for dogs and cats.
Shakespeare and the Spice Girls were used by environmental protestors to repeatedly disrupt the Barclays annual general meeting (AGM) in central London on Wednesday morning. Activists from Extinction Rebellion, Fossil Free London and Climate Choir were protesting the UK high street bank’s investment in new fossil fuel projects despite heavy security at the AGM venue.
The wizarding world of Harry Potter is to be brought to life in a new TV series starring a brand new cast. The series will be based on author JK Rowling’s books and will be produced over the course of a decade, with each series based on one of the seven books. The Harry Potter books are among the best-selling of all time, having sold more than 600 million copies worldwide.
Ever wanted a friend to join you for nothing in particular but had difficulties finding one? The solution could be Shoji Morimoto, a 38-year-old Japanese man known as “Rental-Do-Nothing-Man.” As his moniker suggests, Morimoto offers a rather unconventional rental service to his customers in Tokyo by contracting himself out to, in his own words, “do nothing.”
The European Space Agency’s Juice probe has blasted off on a landmark mission to Jupiter’s moons, rising on a plume of white from its launchpad in Kourou, French Guiana, on the north-eastern shoulder of South America.
A Spanish extreme athlete has emerged from a cave after spending 500 days with no human contact, in what could be a world record. When Beatriz Flamini entered the cave in Granada, Russia had not invaded Ukraine and the world was still in the grip of the Covid pandemic. It was part of an experiment closely monitored by scientists.
Sri Lankan Agriculture Ministry is considering a request from Chinese representatives to send 100,000 toque macaque monkeys under the first phase to the zoological gardens in China according to recent media reports. It was further reported that Toque monkeys are the foremost among the animals that cause crop damage in Sri Lanka and the current toque monkey population of Sri Lanka is close to three million
After several days of conflict between a notorious paramilitary group and the army, gunfire and explosions have been heard in Khartoum, the capital of Sudan. A proposed shift to civilian government is the topic of contention. Gunfire has been heard close to the army headquarters in the city’s center, according to foreign media.
Italy has temporarily banned artificial intelligence software ChatGPT over concerns for citizens’ privacy in what’s been billed a first for any Western country. The country’s data protection watchdog banned the site’s creator OpenAI, which is backed by Microsoft, “with immediate effect”.
The UK is set to be one of the worst performing major economies in the world this year, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). It says the UK economy’s performance in 2023 will be the worst among the 20 biggest economies, known as the G20, which includes sanctions-hit Russia. The IMF predicts the UK economy will shrink this year, although this is a small upgrade from its last forecast. It also warned of a “rocky road” for the global financial system.
Britain’s royal family revealed new details about King Charles III‘s coronation next month, including a new Twitter emoji based on the crown the monarch will wear at the landmark ceremony. King Charles, 74, became king when Queen Elizabeth II died last September after her record-breaking 70-year reign, but will be formally crowned at a May 6 service inside London’s Westminster Abbey.
The animated Super Mario Bros Movie has shot to the top of the global box office, taking $377m (£304m) worldwide on its opening weekend. The new film is an origin story about how Brooklyn plumbers Mario, voiced by Chris Pratt, and Luigi (Charlie Day), fall into a rogue pipe and wind up in a world populated by Nintendo’s most famous characters.
Eight-year-old Charlie, from Wakefield, West Yorkshire, has climbed the equivalent to eight Mount Everests. Spending his weekends climbing with his dad Paul, the two have been all over the country. The duo from Altofts have tackled some of Great Britain’s highest peaks including Ben Nevis and Scafell Pike. Dad Paul said: “For his fifth birthday, we’d booked a holiday to Anglesey and we asked him if there’s anything he’d like to do while he was there. He said he’d like to climb a mountain and it all stemmed from there.
The US space agency Nasa has named the four astronauts who will take humanity back to the Moon, after a 50-year gap. Christina Koch will become the first woman astronaut ever assigned to a lunar mission, while Victor Glover will be the first black astronaut on one. They will join Reid Wiseman and Jeremy Hansen to fly a capsule around the Moon late next year or early in 2025.
The US space agency Nasa has named the four astronauts who will take humanity back to the Moon, after a 50-year gap. Christina Koch will become the first woman astronaut ever assigned to a lunar mission, while Victor Glover will be the first black astronaut on one. They will join Reid Wiseman and Jeremy Hansen to fly a capsule around the Moon late next year or early in 2025.
While rafting in Colorado, Coral Amayi lost her digital camera. 13 years later while out fishing and picking up rubbish, Spencer Greiner saw the camera poking out of the mud. Miraculously, the pictures survived
Gianni Infantino, a contentious figure in the soccer world, secured a new term on Thursday as the president of FIFA, the sport’s global governing body, after an election in which he was the only candidate.
Cocaine production is at its highest level on record, with demand rebounding post-pandemic and new trafficking hubs emerging, a report from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime found. The U.N.’s Global Report on Cocaine 2023 says new hubs for trafficking in the multibillion dollar industry have emerged in West and Central Africa in the last two years. New improvements and innovations in cultivation of the coca bush and conversion from coca plant to cocaine have also helped production boom — rising by 35% between 2021 and 2022 to record levels.
A sale of the stricken bank was the preferred choice of Jeremy Hunt, UK Chancellor, since it would avoid the government having to make a big intervention to protect depositors. Mr Hunt wrote on Twitter at 7am local time: “This morning, the government and the Bank of England facilitated a private sale of Silicon Valley Bank UK to HSBC. Deposits will be protected, with no taxpayer support.
BTS can officially be crowned the most popular group in the world after smashing the record for most streamed male group on Spotify for a second time. Their music has been streamed a massive 31,960,000,000 times as of 3 March 2023, a number that is nearly double the 16.3 billion streams when they last set the record in April 2021.
“Everything Everywhere All at Once” was named best picture at the 95th Academy Awards on Sunday, capping off an improbable awards season run by winning the movie business’s highest honor. The film, a gonzo adventure about a Chinese-American laundromat owner grappling with an IRS audit and inter-dimensional attackers, earned seven statues, including original screenplay and directing honors for its creators Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert (collectively known as the Daniels).
British government ministers have been banned from using Chinese-owned social media app TikTok on their work phones and devices on security grounds. The government fears sensitive data held on official phones could be accessed by the Chinese government. Cabinet Minister Oliver Dowden said the ban was a “precautionary” move but would come into effect immediately.
The bins are overflowing in large areas of Paris a week into a strike by waste collectors, with thousands of tonnes of rubbish sitting abandoned on the streets of the French capital. “It’s dirty, it attracts rats and cockroaches,” one Parisian complained on French radio. The workers are striking over the Macron government’s proposals to raise the pension age from 62 to 64.
The Indonesian island of Bali is planning to ban foreign tourists from using motorbikes after a spate of cases involving people breaking traffic laws. “You [should] not roam about the island using motorbikes, without wearing shirts or clothes, no helmet, and even without a licence,” Governor I Wayan Koster said.
Lady Gaga decided to go back to the basics with her style for a stripped-back performance of “Hold My Hand” at the 2023 Oscars. During Sunday’s award show, the Grammy-winning songstress hit the stage for a powerfully raw performance of the Top Gun: Maverick track, which was nominated for Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures (Original Song).
Online critics are making calls to boycott Hershey after a trans woman was included on the chocolate bar’s wrappers for its International Women’s Day campaign in Canada. The backlash is the most recent attack by conservative social media users against brands who they say are “too woke,” or in this case, “erasing women.”
The Duke of Sussex is one of a number of high-profile figures bringing damages claims against Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN) over alleged unlawful information gathering. The trial is due to begin on 9 May, the week after the King’s coronation. He is one of a handful of representative claimants selected as test cases at a hearing in London.
Digital mapping by the Geospatial Information Authority of Japan (GSI) recently found there to be 14,125 islands in Japanese territory, more than double the figure of 6,852 that has been in official use since a 1987 report by Japan’s Coast Guard. However, the GSI this week stressed that the new figure reflected advances in surveying technology and the detail of the maps used for the count – it did not change the overall area of land in Japan’s possession.
Natalia Harrell was six weeks pregnant when she fatally shot another woman. Now in prison awaiting trial, she claims her unborn baby is being unlawfully detained. In an emergency petition in a Florida court, Ms Harrell’s lawyer argued that jail staff have endangered the child through “a lack of reasonable and necessary prenatal care”. The argument draws on the concept that a foetus is a person with rights.
Women will soon be allowed to swim topless in Berlin’s public pools, after a ruling by the city’s authorities. It comes after a woman who was thrown out of an open-air pool for sunbathing topless took legal action. A second woman said she was told to cover up while at an indoor pool in December.
Senator Mark Warner (D-VA) introduced new bipartisan legislation Tuesday that could be used to ban TikTok and other technology products that were made in countries that pose a threat to American national security interests.
At the end of last week, UN delegates reached an historic agreement on protecting marine biodiversity in international waters. The agreement benefits biodiversity and is an encouraging development as the international community scrambles to tackle the climate emergency, demonstrating the value of multilateral action under the UN.
Bumblebees learn to solve puzzles by watching their more experienced peers, scientists in Britain have found. Experts from Queen Mary University of London trained a set of bees to open a puzzle box containing a sugar reward. These bees then passed on the knowledge to others in their colonies, the study found.
A Sri Lankan cricketer accused of sexually assaulting a woman he met on Tinder is now allowed to use WhatsApp after he had his bail variations relaxed. Danushka Gunathilaka faced Sydney’s Downing Centre Local Court on Thursday (23) wearing a grey suit as he faces four charges of sexual intercourse without consent, relating to an incident on November 2 last year.
Former Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan said on Wednesday that around 700 of his party’s leaders and activists have been arrested by Pakistani authorities, a day after he called on his supporters to seek detention as part of a nationwide protest.
“The pilot knew the instructor well and thought he was just pretending to take a nap whilst the pilot flew the circuit, so he did not think anything was wrong at this stage,” the report said. The pilot went ahead with flying the aircraft around the circuit, later noticing that the instructor had slumped over, with his head resting on the pilot’s shoulder.
Microsoft says it believes the $68.7bn (£56.8bn) deal will bring more choice to more gamers. But rival Sony, which also attended the hearing, says the merger would give Microsoft too much control over some of the world’s most popular games. Sony owns PlayStation – a major rival to Microsoft’s Xbox console. Microsoft president Brad Smith described the EU hearing on Tuesday as “an important day”.
A US man developed an “uncontrollable Irish accent” after being diagnosed with prostate cancer, despite having never visited Ireland, researchers say. The North Carolina man, who was in his 50s, was presumably afflicted with foreign accent syndrome (FAS), the British Medical Journal reports. The rare syndrome gave the man, who had no immediate family from Ireland, a “brogue” that remained until his death. Several similar cases have been recorded globally in recent years.
“Please don’t touch the artwork”. Now and then, we are reminded as to why these signs are still needed in galleries around the world. Art lovers in Miami looked on in horror on Thursday night, when a collector accidentally knocked a $42,000 (£34,870) sculpture by US pop artist Jeff Koons to the ground. She had tapped it with her finger, witnesses at the event said.
Will Smith’s outburst at last year’s Oscars has led to organisers putting a “crisis” team in place ahead of the ceremony next month.It will be the first time such a step has been taken Academy chief executive Bill Kramer revealed, saying the team is prepared for any unanticipated events.
Guests arriving at Diesel’s Milan Fashion Week on Wednesday might have been surprised by the set: a huge mountain of condoms. The Italian brand unveiled its Fall Winter 2023 collection against a backdrop of over 200,000 Durex boxes, nodding to both sex positivity and an upcoming collaboration with the contraceptive company.
Critics are accusing the British publisher of Roald Dahl’s classic children’s books of censorship after it removed colourful language from works such as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Matilda to make them more acceptable to modern readers. A review of new editions of Dahl’s books now available in bookstores shows that some passages relating to weight, mental health, gender and race were altered. The changes made by Puffin Books, a division of Penguin Random House, first were reported by Britain’s Daily Telegraph newspaper.
GRAZIA was built on its love for a hi-lo look, and none do it better than the Princess of Wales, Kate Middleton, who stole the 2023 British Academy Of Film And Television Arts awards’ red carpet on February 19. Resplendent in a white, floor-length, one-shouldered Alexander McQueen gown with long black Opera gloves, the Royal paired the look with AUD $31.50 earrings from Zara.
Kenya’s parliament has ordered an inquiry into allegations of sexual abuse on tea plantations revealed in a BBC report. Lawmaker Beatrice Kemei said she watched the report with “utter shock”. The BBC found more than 70 women had been abused by their managers at plantations operated, for years, by two British companies, Unilever and James Finlay. The companies say they are shocked by the allegations. Four managers have been suspended.
