Washington: Legendary Broadway songwriter Stephen Sondheim, widely recognized as having revolutionized American musical theater, died Friday at age 91, his lawyer told The New York Times.

F. Richard Pappas said Sondheim -- known for musicals including "West Side Story" -- died suddenly at his home in Roxbury, Connecticut, the day after celebrating Thanksgiving with friends.

Born on March 22, 1930 in New York City, Sondheim was involved in musical theater from an early age. He started playing piano at age seven and was family friends with Oscar Hammerstein II, half of the famed musical theater writing duo Rodgers and Hammerstein who wrote shows including "Oklahoma!" and "The Sound of Music."

Over the course of his decades-long career, Sondheim won eight Grammy awards, eight Tony awards -- including the special Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre -- and one Academy Award. He was nominated for many more Grammys and Tonys, as well as two Golden Globes.

In 2015, then-US president Barack Obama presented Sondheim with the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his work.

SOURCE: AFP

Lahore: Punjab government under the leadership of Chief Minister Sardar Usman Bazdar has achieved significant success, the province has become polio-free after all environmental samples collected from the sewerage water for poliovirus from different cities including the provincial capital Lahore tested negative.

According to details, a high-level meeting was held under the chairmanship of Punjab Chief Minister Usman Bazdar in which the officials of the Health Department gave a briefing over the significant outcomes of measures taken to eradicate the poliovirus.

Punjab Chief Minister Usman Buzdar said that it is a big achievement of the provincial government following the blessing of Allah Almighty and a positive outcome of teamwork. He said the efforts of the provincial health department and anti-polio teams are commendable.

The chief minister vowed that the anti-polio vaccination campaign will be continued to immunize the children to prevent the new generation from the life-threatening disease.

The Punjab Chief Minister said that despite the province being polio-free, the polio vaccination campaign would be continued continuously and children below the age of 5 years would be given the anti-polio vaccine as per schedule.

CM Usman Buzdar said that anti-polio vaccination is necessary to prevent our children from disabilities. He added that the children in Punjab are being administered anti-polio drops alongside the vaccination of measles and rubella.

Spotify, reportedly, is engaged on a brand new approach of listening to music within the fashion of TikTok.

Spotify users, now, can work together with songs on there, corresponding to liking them to hearken to later, or visiting the album they got here from. 

The new addition was first spotted by Chris Messina, who tweeted out a video of the Discover feature in action. 

He described it as a “pared-down version” of a TikTok-style feed of music videos. 

Not only that, @Spotify Discover is basically a pared down version of a TikTok-style feed of vertical music videos (likely using their canvas format) that you can like or skip.#NewSpotify pic.twitter.com/hpOEZ8v9bl

— Messina.eth (@chrismessina) November 24, 2021

Spotify’s new test comes almost a year to the day after the service was experimenting with using a Snapchat-style stories feature alongside several of its playlists.   

Spotify has lengthy provided a “Canvas” function that permits artists to add quick clips — corresponding to these from music movies — which will be proven alongside songs, and the brand new feed seems to be utilizing those self-same movies.

Spotify confirmed it was testing the function however it’s not clear if it is going to be rolling out extra broadly.

The success of TikTok has led many different platforms to borrow its central options. 

Instagram has launched ‘Reels’, which mimic a lot of the performance of TikTok; YouTube has a brand new Shorts function that focuses round quick movies; and Netflix has examined an analogous feed-based interface to assist individuals discover new issues to look at.