Author: BBC

China-born actress Cheng Pei-pei, who starred in Oscar-winning film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, has died in San Francisco at the age of 78.A pioneer of martial arts roles for female actors, Cheng became a major performer in action films after she starred in Come Drink with Me by King Hu in 1966. The film achieved critical acclaim and won Cheng international attention.After moving to the US she inspired a new generation of directors from East Asia to Hollywood to make female-driven swordplay films.Cheng’s family said she had been privately battling a neurodegenerative brain disease with symptoms similar to Parkinson’s since…

Jo Swinson has claimed that former Post Office chief executive Paula Vennells said “something to the effect” that some sub-postmasters had “their fingers in the till.”The Former Liberal Democrat leader said that Vennells told her “although these might seem to be lovely people, clearly some of them are actually just at it”.Ms Swinson, who was Postal Affairs Minister between 2012 and 2015 also accused Ms Vennells of failing to tell her about the unreliability of a key witness in the prosecution of sub postmasters.She was referring to the former Fuijistu engineer, Gareth Jenkins, who defended the Horizon system in court…

51 minutes agoBy Pete Allison, BBC NewsbeatBBC/World of Wonder/Guy LevyTia Kofi spent thousands on her winning Drag Race looks after doing her first season on a budgetTo make it as a drag queen, you’ll need charisma, uniqueness, nerve and – increasingly – thousands of pounds. As queens return to battle it out in a new season of Canada vs The World, one former queen of the Mother Tucking World, Tia Kofi, says drag is getting “very expensive” for performers. Tia was recently crowned after winning Ru Paul’s Drag Race UK vs The World but has long been a fan favourite after coming…

Just nowBy Raffi Berg, BBC News, LondonGetty ImagesThe result could have consequences for Israel over its occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and GazaThe UN’s top court has said Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories is against international law, in a landmark opinion.The International Court of Justice (ICJ) said Israel should stop settlement activity in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem and end its “illegal” occupation of those areas and the Gaza Strip as soon as possible.The court’s advisory opinion is not legally binding but still carries significant political weight. It marks the first time the ICJ has delivered a position…

21 hours agoBy David Sillito, Arts and media correspondent, BBC NewsArtAngelMiranda’s Little Ponies – some of them. Miranda Worby, from Suffolk, was given a My Little Pony toy at the age of four – 37 years later, she owns more than 4,000. Miranda and her partner even had to move to a bigger house with a dedicated room to display them. Her collection is now among the main attractions at Come As You Really Are, an exhibition in Croydon, south London, celebrating hobbies across the UK.More than 14,000 objects are on display, as part of a series of exhibitions running until 2025…

US journalist Evan Gershkovich has been found guilty of espionage by a Russian court and sentenced to 16 years in a high-security penal colony, after a secretive trial decried as a “sham” by his employer, his family and the White House.The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reporter was first arrested last March while on a reporting trip in the city of Yekaterinburg, about 1,600km (1,000 miles) east of Moscow, by security services.Prosecutors accused him of working for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), accusations that Gershkovich, the WSJ and the US vociferously deny.It marks the first conviction of a US journalist for…

Cyber security experts are warning about the knock-on effects of a global cyber security outage that caused widespread disruption on Friday.Although there is now a software fix for the issue, the manual process required will take a huge amount of work to get computers back up and running, they said.And it could take days for big organisations to get back to normal.The outage affected firms including GP surgeries, pharmacies and airports in the UK.The outage led to long queues at airports and knocked some TV channels in the UK off air.The issue was caused when an update from cyber security…

A single update pushed out from an anti-virus company in the US has managed to cause global havoc today.It’s being described as the biggest outage ever, and while there have been a few lately, it’s certainly hard to recall something that has taken out as many services and companies across the world as this one has. I stopped updating my list of brands reporting issues within an hour of starting it because there were simply so many names to keep track of.You may never have heard of the anti-virus firm Crowdstrike before but something it did to its virus scanner…

A simple guide on how to get a good night’s sleep in the heat.

1 hour agoBy Riyah Collins, BBC NewsbeatSony MusicJade dropped Angel of My Dreams on Friday, her first solo track since Little Mix announced a hiatus If there’s one word Jade Thirlwall’s fans are sick of, it’s “soon”.”They hate me for that,” the singer says. “I’m so sorry.”After Little Mix announced they would go on a break after their 2022 tour, Jade is the last member of the girl group to release her solo music and has long been appeasing fans with the promise it was on its way.Now her debut single, Angel of My Dreams, has arrived, Jade tells BBC Newsbeat: “I’m…