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BBC News with Roisin Hastie.
Tributes have been coming in following the death of Dolly Parton at the age of 80. U.S. media is reporting the country music legend died after a brief battle with cancer. Elton John described her as a "giant of an artist." The actress Julia Roberts called her a "magical and joyous human." Her fellow country music singer Lee Greenwood said she was a complete performer. "Dolly was a force for women, she was a force for children and a force for music. Early on, because she was the fourth of 12 children, she had to be gifted with something very special to survive. Music was her ticket. She played and sang, played guitar and sang very early and it got her on stage. And please know that a lot of people who get on stage may have charisma, but they don't have talent. Dolly had everything." The head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri, has testified in a high-profile court case in California. Twenty-nine U.S. states accused the parent company, Meta, of designing its products to be addictive to young users and then hiding the research. Our North America technology correspondent, Lily Jamali, has the details. After Meta's CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Instagram boss Adam Mosseri is the most highly anticipated witness to take the stand. Mosseri acknowledged that after the 2021 release of the so-called Facebook Files, the company reduced the number of employees who were made privy to sensitive internal research. Those files included such internal research, showing Instagram negatively affected the mental health of some teenage girls, but that the company downplayed those impacts in public. Mosseri said Tuesday many of those documents were taken out of context. The U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres has said he's greatly alarmed by an incursion by Israeli forces into a training center run by the U.N. Agency for Palestinian Refugees in East Jerusalem. Mr. Guterres was quoted by his spokesperson as saying that UNRWA premises belonged to the U.N. and were inviolable. ??? is in Jerusalem. The Kalandia Training Center had become the last major UNRWA facility still operating in Jerusalem. It was set up seven decades ago, providing vocational courses for hundreds of Palestinians from refugee camps in the occupied West Bank each year. Israel's far-right National Security Minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, joined the raid and released a video of himself in the chair of the director of the UNRWA Institute. The Israeli prime minister stated that action was taken on his directive, following the law passed by Israel's parliament nearly two years ago. It accused UNRWA of being complicit with Hamas, an allegation the agency denies. The former Liberian Vice President, Jewel Howard-Taylor, has been remanded in custody ahead of her trial over alleged links to drug trafficking and other offences. She was sent to Monrovia Central Prison after her first court appearance. World news from the BBC. New analysis suggests smokers wanting to quit their habit have a better chance if they use nicotine vapes rather than patches or gums. The review by an international group of experts also found that the use of e-cigarettes was more successful in support programs. Health officials advise adult smokers who want to give up to switch to nicotine-based e-cigarettes. SpaceX has announced plans to build a vast new spaceport in the southern U.S. state of Louisiana where it will launch its Starship mega rockets. Work on the $100 billion facility, which will sprawl across more than 500 square kilometers, will start next year. The U.S. has hailed the dissolution of a Kurdish-led Washington-backed force in Syria and its merger with the country's army. The U.S. Special Envoy to Syria and Iraq, Tom Barrack, said that this was what real integration looked like - "One army, one government, one state." Earlier on Tuesday, the head of the Syrian Democratic Forces, Mazloum Abdi, announced the formal dissolution of the force in a televised speech at the presidential palace. "And we want this day to mark the beginning of a genuine transition from battlefields to fields of construction. The right to education in the Kurdish language is one of the most important rights our Kurdish people have sought for decades. The president has announced on several occasions the safeguarding of this right." Backed by the U.S., the SDF played a key role in the defeat of the Islamic State group. Brazil's data protection agency has fined TikTok nearly $30 million for failing to implement child safety measures. The agency accused TikTok of five infractions, including using data from children's accounts to tailor advertising to them. It said the fine sent a powerful message. BBC News. |