Author: BBC

Quincy Jones, musician and producer who worked with Michael Jackson, Frank Sinatra and many others, has died at the age of 91.Over his career that spanned more than 75 years, he won 28 Grammy awards and was named as one of the most influential jazz musicians of the 20th century by Time magazine.In an interview with BBC Newsnight in 2016, the legendary music producer spoke about growing up in Chicago and his friendship with stars like musician David Bowie and artist Pablo Picasso.

Julie BolthouseJulie Bolthouse is opposing new data centre planning applications in Northern VirginiaEnvironmental campaigner Julie Bolthouse points out that Northern Virginia has the world’s largest concentration of data centres. This is not something she is thrilled about.“We’re the Wall Street of the data centre industry,” says Ms Bolthouse, who is a director of local Virginian charity and campaign group Piedmont Environmental Council.Data centres are vast warehouses that house stacks of computers that store and process data used by websites, companies and governments.Northern Virginia, the northern region of the state of Virginia, has been a key location for data centres since…

Getty ImagesA new campaign by the NHS in England is encouraging people who experience the first sign of a stroke not to delay calling 999, after analysis of calls made in the last year showed the average time to do so was nearly an hour and a half. England’s most senior doctor says stroke symptoms might not appear obvious or dramatic, but they are always a reason to act quickly.About 100,000 people have a stroke each year in the UK and more than a third die from related issues, making it the fourth biggest cause of death in the UK.The…

Getty ImagesThe testing will determine Primark’s quality and durability guidelines Cheap clothes have outperformed more expensive garments in durability testing conducted for the discount fashion industry.The University of Leeds has worked with retailer Primark to test items such as jeans and T-shirts to set “standards” on how long clothing should last.The university’s school of design assessed 65 products, and found a £15 pair of women’s jeans to be more durable than their £150 equivalent.Primark will incorporate the findings of the study into its guidelines and the chain said it hoped the results would help give customers better value for their…

ReutersAs she voted Maia Sandu warned Moldovans that “thieves” were trying to buy their vote and their countryMoldovans are going to the polls in the second round run-off of a presidential election seen as a choice between a European future or a return to Russian influence.Pro-European President Maia Sandu faces Alexandr Stoianoglo, a man she fired as chief prosecutor, who has promised to balance foreign policy between the West and Russia and has the backing of the pro-Russian Party of Socialists. Sandu and Moldova’s authorities have warned that a fugitive oligarch now based in Russia is trying to buy the…

Strictly’s Tasha Ghouri opens up about online trollingTasha Ghouri was in tears on Strictly Come Dancing on Saturday night as she opened up about the negative reaction she has experienced online due to her disability.The former Love Island star, 26, and dancer partner Aljaz Skorjanec impressed the judges and got a joint series high score of 39 as they performed to What About Us by Pink.But before the dance, Ghouri, who was born deaf and uses a cochlear implant, became visibly emotional as she told viewers about online trolls who made videos about the way she speaks. She revealed that…

Getty ImagesThree years ago, the DNA-testing firm 23andMe was a massive success, with a share price higher than Apple’s.But, from those heady days of millions of people rushing to send it saliva samples in return for detailed reports about their ancestry, family connections and genetic make-up, it now finds itself fighting for its survival.Its share price has plummeted and this week it narrowly avoided being delisted from the stock market.And of course this is a company that holds the most sensitive data imaginable about its customers, raising troubling questions about what might happen to its huge – and extremely valuable…

HANDOUTEllie Lambert has frozen her eggs in the hope of meeting someone or “being in a financial situation where I can go it alone”The number of babies born in England and Wales is now the lowest since the 1970s, official statistics show.The fertility rate – which measures how many children are born per woman during her child-bearing years – is the lowest on record at 1.44. Scotland’s is even lower at 1.3.Britain is not unique – most countries are experiencing declining fertility and some are even going to great lengths to create a baby boom.So what’s causing the fall-off in…

BBCStephen Mollah is latest person to claim to be the mysterious inventor of BitcoinBitcoin underpins a two trillion-dollar cryptocurrency industry, is now traded by the world’s biggest investment houses and is even an official currency in one country.But despite its meteoric rise, a deep mystery remains at its heart: what is the true identity of its founder, the elusive Satoshi Nakamoto?Many have tried to answer that question, but so far all have failed. In October, a high-profile HBO documentary suggested that a Canadian bitcoin expert called Peter Todd was he. The only problem: he said he was not, and the…

The US and Israel “will definitely receive a crushing response”, Iran’s supreme leader has said, following an Israeli attack on Iran a week ago.Ayatollah Ali Khamenei made the comments while speaking to students on Saturday ahead of the 45th anniversary of the 1979 seizure of the US embassy in Tehran.The threat comes as Iran assesses whether and how to respond to Israel’s attack last month, that Iran said killed four soldiers, which was in retaliation for an Iranian missile attack against Israel earlier in October.The Iranian attack came in response to the killings of the leaders of Hezbollah and Hamas…