Author: BBC

Billionaire philanthropist Melinda French Gates has said she will resign as a co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.”This is not a decision I came to lightly,” Ms Gates wrote in a statement posted to X on Monday. Her last day of work will be 7 June. Ms Gates started the foundation – the largest private body of its kind – in 2000 with her then-husband Bill Gates, the Microsoft co-founder.In 2021, after 27 years of marriage, the pair announced their separation, but pledged to carry on with their joint philanthropic work. At the time of their split, the…

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In the early 1980s, the UK could not keep up with demand for Factor VIII, which was made by pooling – or mixing – the blood plasma of thousands of individual donors.Instead the treatment was shipped from the US.In the UK, blood donations have always been voluntary, but in the US, drug companies were allowed to pay cash for plasma.High risk groups, from prisoners to drug users, had a clear financial incentive to give blood and potentially lie about their medical history.Evidence uncovered by campaigners and seen by the ongoing public inquiry into the wider contaminated blood scandal shows that,…

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Award-winning Iranian filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof says he has fled the country after receiving a jail sentence for making his latest film in secret.In an Instagram post, he said he was in a “safe place” after people “risked their lives” to help him cross borders.His film The Seed of the Sacred Fig is to be premiered at the Cannes festival, which opens on Tuesday.Rasoulof won the top prize at the 2020 Berlin Festival with There Is No Evil, a film about the death penalty in Iran.”I am grateful to my friends, acquaintances, and people who kindly, selflessly, and sometimes by risking…

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Amy, 31, from Suffolk, who gave birth to her son in July 2021, said the worst part was “not being listened to”.Amy says she has been left with diagnosed postnatal depression, anxiety and PTSD, and is currently taking antidepressants, having “never ever struggled with mental health before”.She describes herself as “physically disfigured” after her C-section: “The scar is like a flap – it’s completely numb, it’s not a nice neat line.”At her six-week check-up, she was told she would need plastic surgery, but that had to be done privately.In September, Amy started a midwifery course at the University of East…

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Actor Steve Buscemi was injured in a random attack by a passer-by in New York City, his publicist said.The Boardwalk Empire and Reservoir Dogs actor needed hospital treatment to his face after a “random act of violence” in Manhattan, his publicist said. He suffered bruises and a bloody eye.Police said they responded to an emergency call on Wednesday about a 66-year-old man being punched in the face.A description of the suspect and his photograph were released by police. He was wearing a dark-coloured baseball cap, blue T-shirt, black trousers and white trainers and was carrying a bag.Buscemi was attacked in…

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