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The New Yorker magazine, created in 1925, is famous in the US and around the world for both the diversity of its writing and the cartoons that grace its front cover.

In Francoise Mouly's new book, Blown Covers, the New Yorker art director takes readers on a visual tour of some of the more striking images that never made it to print.

Ms Mouly says: "I work with cartoonists who try to come up with funny images that are capturing everything that's happening around us.

"But in order to do that, I have to do a very, very difficult job, which is choose one out of the many."

Over her 19 years at the magazine, Ms Mouly estimates she has rejected as many as 10,000 cover images.

Source: BBC
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Sacha Baron Cohen has given a rare interview as himself, rather than in the guise of one of the famous characters he has created such as Ali G or Borat.

He told the BBC he had previously protected his work by not giving interviews for fear of being recognised.

Speaking to the BBC's Will Gompertz in Cannes, he said the idea of his new film The Dictator - about a fictional Middle Eastern despot - was developed on the basis that he always found Gaddafi "hilarious".

Source: BBC
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In June 1967, The Beatles released Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, seen by many as their creative peak. On 24 August, they met Maharishi Mahesh Yogi at a lecture in London, and the following day travelled by train to north Wales for a 10-day conference on transcendental meditation.

The Bangor footage also contains shots of Beatle girlfriends and wives Pattie Harrison, Cynthia Lennon and Jane Asher - who was Paul McCartney's fiancee at the time. Also present were Mick Jagger and his girlfriend Marianne Faithfull.

Source: BBC
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Brain injuries and post-traumatic stress disorder affect tens of thousands of US veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

It is known that art therapies can help with the psychological effects of these invisible wounds, but can they promote physical healing?

A top military hospital near Washington is conducting the first comprehensive clinical tests to find out how art works.

The National Intrepid Center of Excellence is carrying out the study as part of a broader effort to measure the value of creative endeavours in all stages of human development.

The BBC's Jane O'Brien went to the new military medical facility at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, to find out more.

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A 700 year-old skeleton on display at the National History Museum in Bulgaria is thought to be that of a person suspected of turning into a vampire after death.

According to pagan customs at the time, people considered to be bad were stabbed through the heart with an iron rod after death so they could not return as vampires.

Two such skeletons were found at a monastery in the Black Sea city of Sozopol.

Source: BBC
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Author David Wolman says cash is dirty, expensive and should just be pushed off the cliff.

He describes his new book, "The End of Money: Counterfeiters, Preachers, Techies, Dreamers- And The Coming Cashless Society," as a eulogy to these rectangular slips of paper and little metal disks.

But while writing the book, and going without cash for a year, Wolman found that the future of money is about much more than just dollars and cents.

Source: BBC
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A century after the Elwha River dam was built, the vast structure that once provided power for large parts of the US state of Washington is being demolished piece by piece.

The dam's removal will help revive a threatened salmon run on the river and enable the restoration of sacred tribal sites flooded decades ago.

The Elwha dam was built in 1913 in what is now the Olympic National Park. A second hydro-electric dam a few miles away - the Glines Canyon dam, built in 1927 - has already been demolished as part of the biggest project of its kind in US history.

Source: BBC
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The Times-Picayune - the only daily newspaper in New Orleans - has announced sweeping job cuts as part of a plan to abandon its print edition four days a week.

More than 200 members of staff were handed their notices on Tuesday, with 84 newsroom employees cut - virtually half the 169-strong journalism and production staff.

After the changes the 175-year-old award-winning newspaper will only survive in its traditional form on Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays, with the remaining staff producing an enhanced online edition seven days a week.

The changes come after the Times-Picayune was hit by the economic downturn and subsequent fall in advertising revenue, as well as the long-term decline of newspaper sales.

The Times-Picayune is following the lead of other big US city papers, which have either reduced their print run or shut down completely.

The decision to cut the print run sparked a "Save the Times-Picayune" rally, and there are questions about whether the online paper can maintain its in-depth coverage of one of America's most colourful and corrupt cities.

Source: BBC
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The world's oldest female bodybuilder wakes up every day at 02:30 to fit in a 10 mile (16km) run before hitting the gym.

But 75-year-old Ernestine Shepherd insists that "age is nothing but a number".

"Miss Ernie", as she is known in the world of competitive bodybuilding, began training at the tender age of 71.

She says her true calling in life, however, is helping others to follow a more healthy lifestyle.

Source: BBC
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BBC entertainment reporter Emma Jones went along to the Kerrang Awards in London on Thursday and asked some of the World's biggest heavy metal stars for their most un-rock and roll secrets.

She got some surprising responses.

Source: BBC
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