BRAVE MAG

By Aaron Ross

NAIROBI, May 14 (Reuters) - A district in southern Somalia is at risk of famine, a U.N.-sponsored report said on Thursday, the first time ‌that part of the country has reached such a critical level of hunger ‌since 2022.

One of the world's most food-insecure nations due to frequent drought, conflict and poverty, Somalia last experienced ​famine in 2011, when around 250,000 people died, and came close in 2017 and 2022.

This time, global cuts to foreign aid and the impacts of the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran are complicating efforts to respond to food shortages caused by multiple failed rain seasons and ongoing ‌insecurity.

More than one in three ⁠young children in the Burhakaba District of southern Somalia's Bay Region, which is estimated to have a population of around 200,000, suffer from ⁠acute malnutrition, according to the report by Integrated Food Security Phase Classification.

"The IPC analysis found Burhakaba District to be at risk of Famine under a plausible worst-case scenario offailing Gu (season) rains, ​soaring ​food prices and below expected delivery of humanitarian ​food security assistance," the report said.

Advertisement

Famine ‌occurs when at least 20% of households in an area face an extreme lack of food, at least 30% of children suffer from acute malnutrition, and two out of every 10,000 people are dying each day because of hunger.

The number of Somalis facing crisis levels of food insecurity or worse was about 6 million. That is lower than the ‌6.5 million reported in February but worse than ​the projected 5.5 million for this period due to ​worse-than-expected rains.

Global cuts to foreign ​aid, led by the United States, have substantially reduced support to Somalia.

The ‌IPC report said humanitarian assistance for the ​April-June period had ​increased significantly, but still covered only 12% of those facing crisis levels of food insecurity or worse.

"Somalia risks becoming one of the first major crises of the 'post-aid ​era': a place where needs ‌are growing, survival is becoming more expensive, and the response is shrinking," ​said Daud Jiran, the Somalia country director at Mercy Corps, an aid group.

(Reporting ​by Aaron Ross, editing by Gareth Jones )

Taraji P. Henson said in a recent interview that her grandmother Patsie Ballard recently turned 102

NEED TO KNOW

• “She was born in 1924. It just blows my mind,” said the Oscar nominee

• Ballard, she added, will be coming to see Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, Henson’s Broadway debut

Taraji P. Hensonis opening up about a special family member: grandmother Patsie Ballard, who is 102 years old.

The actress had nothing but praise for Ballard, her motherBernice Gordon’s mother, in a new interview withVultureabout Henson’sBroadway debutin August Wilson’sJoe Turner’s Come and Gone.

“She just turned 102, and she’s coming to see the play,” Henson, 55, revealed. “She was born in 1924. It just blows my mind.”

She added, “Think about where they come from.” People in her grandmother’s position, born that long ago, “weren’t allowed to dream.”

When Henson would stay with her grandparents in North Carolina during summers as a kid, she continued, Ballard “allowed me to dream and create and come up with all these different characters and trust my instrument and sing that song in the mirror.”

It was that freedom that led theOscarandEmmynominee to explore the creativity that would lead to a thriving acting career. “I had nobody to play with,” Henson said of her summers staying with her mom’s parents. “That’s why I could play all these characters. Because all I had was time.”

Advertisement

So, themother of oneadded, when she earned her Academy Awardnominationin 2009 for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, “I had to bring her to the Oscars.” Ballard and Gordon joined Henson at that year’s ceremony, making it a special family affair.

Never miss a story — sign up forPEOPLE's free daily newsletterto stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer​​, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.

InJoe Turner’s Come and Gone, now playing at New York’s Barrymore Theatre, Henson plays Bertha Holly oppositeCedric the Entertaineras Seth Holly. Directed byDebbie Allen, the play’s story follows Herald Loomis (played by Joshua Boone), a man determined to reunite with his lost wife after years of forced labor. The five-timeTony Award-nominated production opened April 25 for a limited run through July 26.

Speaking in April toThe New York Post'sAlexamagazine, Henson said she comes “from a line of incredible mothers,” adding that Ballard, upon turning 102, was “mad because we had to have her stop driving.”

After leading Tyler Perry's movieStrawlast year, Henson includes the drama'Tis So Sweetamong her upcoming screen projects.

Tickets forJoe Turner's Come and Goneare now on sale.

Read the original article onPeople

This article was produced byNational Geographic Traveller(UK).

It’s the end of another steamy night in Bangkok, and at Gaggan restaurant in Sukhumvit, everyone is on their feet singing. All 14 guests, along with the restaurant team and chef-owner Gaggan Anand, are joined in the guilty pleasures act of belting out the Backstreet Boys classicI Want It That Way.

A shameless, full-volume singalong is not an unusual finale to a big night out but it’s one rarely associated with leading restaurants such as Gaggan — a one-Michelin-star establishment named Best Restaurant in Asia 2025 by the World’s 50 Best Restaurants. But across the globe, a not-so-quiet revolution is taking place in white tablecloth establishments, where music is being used to fundamentally alter the fine dining experience. It’s out with stiff linens and lounge jazz, and in with Eighties rock, hard punk and boy bands. Let’s call it ‘fun dining’.

“Music is the first step to breaking the barrier between me and my guest,” says Anand, who serves a thinly sliced asparagus shaped to look like a sunflower, paired withSunflower, the 2018 hit song by Post Malone and Swae Lee. The rest of the soundtrack for the multi-course meal, which pumps out of a pricey sound system, is more ambiguous. George Michael and Radiohead are woven in harmoniously, but Anand also hits guests with heavy blasts of American rock band Tool before they’ve taken their first bite, to awaken their senses, and what Anand dubs an “incredible punk band” called Otoboke Beaver.

“It’s extremely uncomfortable to eat if you don’t like punk. So, I’m always pulling and pushing. It’s like bungee jumping, like a rollercoaster,” says Anand, who softens the playlist as the meal unfolds.

The use of sound to affect sensory perception at high-end restaurants has been gaining momentum in recent years. The signature Sound of the Sea dish at The Fat Duck in Bray, England, involves listening to beach sounds on headphones whilst eating seafood and edible sand to invoke freshness and nostalgia for seaside holidays. Then there are fully immersive multi-sensory experiences like the now-shuttered Ultraviolet in Shanghai where all the senses are stimulated at once to alter flavour perception.Studieshave suggested that sound alone can affect our perception of sweetness, bitterness, saltiness and umami.

However, this is not the intention at Gaggan and other restaurants of its ilk. Nor are they the kind of DJ-led, beach club-style spots with mediocre food that litter holiday resorts. Chefs at the world’s best restaurants have realised that an easy way to make fine dining more up-to-date and enjoyable is to start with a banging playlist. And all they’re asking patrons to do is to undo their top button and embrace it.

Advertisement

“You arrive at this fine-dining restaurant as a lawyer, say, from a white-collar job from a big city”, says Anand. “And you can leave all that behind. Suddenly you’re at Coachella. Restaurants are supposed to be social.”

Five restaurants putting the fun into fine dining

1.Punk Royale, Sweden

Having begun life in Stockholm, one of the world’s wildest dining experiences has branched out into the Nordics and reached as far as London, too, bringing caviar bumps, topless waiters, smoke machines and a no-phones policy to the fine dining arena. The music, played at ear-splitting volume, veers from hip-hop and techno to singalong pop, but the food is no gimmick: there’s serious fine-dining credibility in dishes such aschawanmushi(Japanese egg custard) with caviar and chicken wing jus.

2.Da Terra, UK

At East London’s two-Michelin-star Da Terra, chef Rafael Cagali and team have built a collaborative playlist of mainly Eighties classics from the likes of The Cure, New Order and The Pretenders that sits in pleasing juxtaposition to the elegant Brazilian-Italian cuisine, with dishes like red mullet withajo blanco, tomato and basil, and polished service. The idea, says Cagali, is to make the experience “more human and less ceremonial”.

3.El Chato, Colombia

El Chato, named Latin America’s Best Restaurant in 2025, offers a tasting menu experience with a soundtrack that’s as energetic as the kitchen team and chef Álvaro Clavijo himself. The ever-changing playlist at this Bogotá pioneer veers from the likes of Tupac to INXS to African and Brazilian music, played at a volume that matches the punchy flavours in dishes like sea snail with golden berries,chicharrónand seaweed.

4.Gaggan, Thailand

Chef Gaggan Anand has been experimenting with music as part of the fine-dining experience for close to a decade. At the original iteration of his Bangkok restaurant, he would create dishes directly inspired by songs, such as ‘Lick It Up’ led by a Kiss song, where diners would be encouraged to lick the course directly from the plate. At time of writing, he is planning to briefly close and reopen his restaurant with a whole new experience — a ‘journey’ of 28 courses incorporating music and chakras.

5.Ynyshir, Wales

A meal at two-Michelin-star Ynyshir in Machynlleth, in Mid Wales, unfolds over five or so hours, with diners treated to 30-plus courses of largely Asian-inspired, mostly small bites. All the while, DJ Jacob Kelly brings some serious VIP club energy to the small dining room, spinning everything from hip-hop to house (he never plays the same set twice), from his booth just inside the open kitchen. He and chef Gareth Ward have even released a vinyl of one of the sets, with another release planned soon.

To subscribe toNational Geographic Traveller(UK) magazine clickhere(available in select countries only).