Several thousand people have been killed in Iran since the U.S.-Israeli war broke out, and the conflict has created an additional humanitarian crisis: delays and shortages of medical supplies. Hospitals and health care clinics throughout the Middle East are reporting critical lapses in supplies, which experts fear could lead to a surge in deaths even as the U.S. agreed to a temporary ceasefire.

What did the commentators say?

With the war in a state of flux, humanitarian centers “across the Middle East, Asia and Africa are facing the risk of running out of basic medication and food” due to the “restriction of shipments in the Strait of Hormuz,” said NPR. Some of this food, especially dry and canned goods, can “be stored for a long time,” Bob Kitchen, the vice president of emergencies and humanitarian action with the International Rescue Committee, said to NPR. But health care supplies are a different story, as most of the “medicines or treatments for malnutrition will expire.”

Many of these countries rely almost entirely on foreign aid for medical supplies. Sudan, for example, has “no manufacturing capacity and is entirely dependent on imported medication,” Omer Sharfy of Save the Children in Sudan said to NPR. This means health care workers “won’t be able to find alternatives in the local market.” The war has also “disrupted the movement of medical supplies from WHO’s global logistics hub in Dubai,” said the World Health Organization. By March 11, just 12 days into the war, over “50 emergency supply requests, intended to benefit over 1.5 million people across 25 countries,” were “affected, resulting in significant backlogs.”

Even countries far away from the conflict are bearing the brunt of these scarcities. Fears of syringe and IV shortages in South Korea are “spreading through Korea’s health care sector, prompting authorities to urge medical providers to refrain from stockpiling,” said The Korea Times. The problem is not that the Persian Gulf countries are “major drug producers. They’re not,” said health care news nonprofit Healthbeat. But these nations do “form ‘a critical pharmaceutical transit hub,’ where drugs and their basic ingredients from India, Europe and China routinely pass before heading to Africa, Asia and the United States.”

What next?

Some are hopeful that the two-week ceasefire, announced by President Donald Trump and initially agreed to by Iran, will allow the flow of medicine to restart. But while the U.S. has backed a ceasefire, Israel has continued its assault on the region, carrying out a series of strikes in Lebanon. Iran reclosed the strait in “response to Israeli attacks against the Hezbollah militant group,” said The Associated Press. Iran later accused the U.S. of also violating the deal and claimed that a long-term ceasefire was “unreasonable.”

Even before the strait was closed again, experts say it is unlikely its opening would have made a huge difference in moving global medical supplies. The ceasefire deal would not lead to a “‘mass exodus’ of ships through the Strait of Hormuz,” said The Guardian. The deal also allows Iran and Oman to “charge a fee of up to $2 million a ship on vessels transiting through the strait,” which could further limit the amount of supplies that are able to pass.

With no end to the larger skirmish in sight, fears persist that the shipment of medical supplies could remain at risk. All of these events are happening in an industry that was “decimated by funding cuts from the United States and Europe last year,” said The Washington Post, and is “now straining to meet demand that grows with each additional day of war.”

A new dating service has sprung up in Japan, aiming to get around the country’s ban on married couples having different surnames.

In a series of match-making events held this spring, every participant shared the same family name. The concept, the organisers said, is simply that “two people who already have the same last name won’t have to agonise over which one to use after marriage”.

Are you a Sato, Suzuki, Tanaka or Ito?

Japan’s current civil code, which dates back to the 19th century, specifies that a husband and wife must use the same family name. While there is no stipulation which name the couple adopts, in the country’s male-dominated society it is the man’s in 95% of cases. While critics claim this affects women’s employment prospects and contributes to Japan’s low birth rate, conservatives maintain that any change would undermine the traditional family unit and cause confusion among children.

Either way, it leaves young couples with an added pressure when trying to find a life partner. Four in-person gatherings in Tokyo, each focusing on one of Japan’s most popular surnames – Suzuki, Tanaka, Sato or Ito – “offer a rare opportunity for people who share a surname to meet someone they could legally marry without either person having to change names”, said news site The Mainichi.

It is not hard to see the appeal. A recent survey conducted by Asuniwa, a Tokyo-based association that advocates for a selective separate surname system and co-organises the events, and dating app Pairs, polled 2,500 people in their 20s and 30s. They found 36% of women and 46% of men “felt resistance” about changing their surname, while a smaller proportion had misgivings about their partner changing their name. Around 7% said they would break up if neither partner wanted to change their surname, while just under 6% said they would “wait until the (separate surname) system is legalised” to tie the knot.

“I hadn’t given much thought to the idea of marrying another Suzuki, but I can see now why it’s a safe option,” Taisho (not his real name) Suzuki, a 33-year-old company employee, told The Guardian. “I don’t want to give up my surname when I marry, and I know a lot of women feel the same about their names.”

For others it is more of a novelty. “To be honest, I’m not too fussed about keeping my maiden name, but I thought it would be fun to meet another Suzuki,” said Hana (not her real name) Suzuki, a 34-year-old nurse.

‘Bump in the app before you bump in bed’

For would-be couples in Iceland, the problem is being related to your partner. With a population of just 330,000, the risk of pairing up with someone genetically similar to you is high.

“Now, as social media and apps expand the dating pool”, many people are turning to a website “to ensure they aren’t swimming in the same gene pool,” said The Wall Street Journal.

Tracing a person’s lineage in Iceland is “especially challenging because last names are no indicator of historic family lineage”. Usually, a person’s last name is the father’s first name, followed by “son” or “dottir”.

“Íslendingabók”, or the Book of Icelanders, is an online database that contains the full genealogy of 720,000 Icelanders, living and deceased. While the historical work dating from the 12th century was not originally designed for dating, it led to a spin-off app that allows users to bump their phones together to instantly trace whether their family trees are intertwined, sparking the tagline “bump in the app before you bump in bed”.

China’s parent trap

In China, meanwhile, some parents are taking matters into their own hands to find partners for their children.

There is a long tradition of in-person outdoor “marriage markets”, where parents display handwritten CVs of their unmarried children in the hope of finding suitable partners.

Many are now “increasingly turning to ‘find a daughter-in-law’ or ‘find a son-in-law’ platforms online, turning partner-seeking into direct negotiations between parents”, said South China Morning Post.

“Instead of trying to persuade single young adults who resist matchmaking”, a few “sharp-eyed businesses” are now “directly targeting a different demographic: anxious parents with strong purchasing power”.

Quarterly membership costs 399 yuan (£43), for an online profile with an individual’s age, education, occupation and income, as well as home ownership status and expected timeline for marriage, prioritised above personality traits, hobbies, and interests.

A new injectable filler is making a splash for being minimally invasive and for the source that fills its vials: donated human fat from cadavers. The eerie origins of the shots have led to a mixed response. Some praise the innovations; others worry about future complications.

The rise of ‘corpse cosmetics’

Tiger Aesthetics’ new product, AlloClae, has become popular with “patients eager to look their best in the boardroom” without “undergoing general anesthesia or taking days off for recovery,” said Business Insider. Rather than using an implant or a patient’s body fat to add volume to hips or augment breasts, AlloClae relies on “donor fat from a cadaver as a first-of-its-kind body filler.”

While the procedure could cost as much as $100,000, people are “paying for the convenience,” cosmetic surgeon Sachin Shridharani said to Business Insider. It is about “not having the downtime, not needing more aggressive procedures, not having an anesthetic.” On social media, influencers sometimes refer to buttocks injections of AlloClae as ‘zombie BBLs,’ ‘zombie filler’ and ‘corpse cosmetics.’

The rise in GLP-1 use has contributed to the trend, along with “filler fatigue,” as traditional fillers can “cause problems such as puffiness and lymphatic issues,” said The Guardian’s Ask Ugly column. People who are on Ozempic or are dieting heavily are “really thin and don’t have enough fat to transfer,” plastic surgeon Melissa Doft said. They want their “legs and their belly to be skinny but want their breasts to be fuller.”

Even though AlloClae comes from cadavers, the product is “less macabre than you may think,” said Business Insider. Tiger Aesthetics purchases abdominal fat cells from organ donations at tissue banks. Then the company “screens it for diseases, purifies it and processes it.” The practice of using cadaver material is not unprecedented. There is already a donor fat product called Renuva, used for facial injections, while AlloClae uses higher volumes for the body. Cadaveric bones have also been recycled in dental grafts. Cadaver tissue, known as “allografts,” is “commonly used in surgically treating ACL tears,” said The Guardian.

Concern brews among surgeons

While a select few plastic surgeons have begun offering AlloClae injections, others have concerns, “especially when it comes to using AlloClae in the breast,” said The Cut. Breast is not “just fat, it’s glandular, hormonally active and requires lifelong imaging for cancer screening,” said plastic surgeon Adam Kolker. Anything injected can “create new densities, nodulifications or cysts,” which can “complicate mammography and ultrasound.” Without imaging and safety studies, physicians can’t responsibly predict how AlloClae will “behave during cancer surveillance.” A new “biologic material with unknown imaging behavior” becomes a “big diagnostic question mark.”

AlloClae is a “good tool,” said surgeon Glenn Lyle to The Guardian, but there is wariness about how eagerly people are adopting it. The industry is “moving too fast with this” without “follow-up studies.” The product is “being put in willy-nilly.” AlloClae is FDA compliant, which is “not quite the same as it being FDA approved,” the outlet said. Because human fat tissue is considered an existing product, it is “not subjected to the same standards as cosmetic interventions such as botox, dermal fillers or breast implants.”

Others are worried that fears about the origins of AlloClae could have a negative impact on organ donation. If people start “restricting their participation” due to fears of the product being used for cosmetic purposes, the “harm may outweigh the good,” Ryan Pferdehirt, the vice president of ethics services at the Center for Practical Bioethics, said to The Guardian. We need “skin grafts, bone marrow transplants and organ donation.” That is “far more important, I think, than the cosmetic aspects.”

A Covid-19 variant has returned with a vengeance. The BA.3.2 version, nicknamed Cicada, has now been found in over 20 states. The virus is highly mutated, making it difficult for vaccines to recognize. Though similar to other viruses, this strain has the potential to become more prevalent.

How dangerous is the variant?

The Cicada variant earned its name because, like the insect, it “first appeared back in 2024, went dormant for a while and resurfaced in the U.S. late last year,” said Northeastern Global News. BA.3.2 descended from the omicron variant of the Covid-19 virus, which made its debut in 2021.

Compared to current circulating strains of Covid-19, “BA.3.2 carries 70 to 75 genetic changes in its spike protein, the part of the virus that helps it get into cells,” Kyle B. Enfield, an associate professor of medicine at the University of Virginia, said at The Conversation. The spike protein is the “part of the virus that vaccines rely on to coax people’s immune systems into recognizing the virus.”

The strain is making its rounds in the U.S. and can cause similar symptoms to other Covid strains as well as other respiratory viruses, including runny or stuffy nose, fever, chills, sore throat, cough and sometimes nausea and vomiting. These similarities make it difficult to determine whether you have Covid-19 or another illness. We cannot predict “what someone has based on what is circulating,” Geeta Sood, an epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center, said to NBC News. “It could be Covid, it could be influenza, and now we have added the prolonged RSV to the mix.”

While the Cicada variant is passing through the population, there hasn’t been any “data which indicates that Cicada is any more severe than other circulating variants,” Robert H. Hopkins Jr., the medical director of the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases, said to USA Today. In addition, Cicada is “currently a minority strain, based on the most recent data.” However, “we don’t know how quickly it will circulate or whether it will outrun the other variants that are out there at the moment, because we don’t know how contagious it is,” William Schaffner, an infectious disease expert at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, said to Politifact.

What precautions can you take?

The current vaccines for Covid-19 are “made to protect against strains from the JN.1 lineage of the virus, which have been the most common strains in the U.S. since January 2024,” said Enfield. BA.3.2 doesn’t fit the bill and is “almost a complete stranger” to those in the U.S.

“There definitely are quite a few mutations with this one, so there’s concern that the current vaccine is not going to be a great match,” said Brandon Dionne, an associate clinical professor of pharmacy and health systems sciences at Northeastern University, to Northeastern Global News. Despite this, experts still recommend getting the vaccine, as doing so can reduce the chance of hospitalization and death from the virus. A “poorly matched vaccine simply won’t recognize the new variant as quickly, which means it takes longer for the immune system to mount its defense,” Enfield said.

Along with getting vaccinated, the best thing to do is “when sick, get tested,” said Rajendram Rajnarayanan, the assistant dean of research and associate professor at the New York Institute of Technology College of Osteopathic Medicine at Arkansas State University, to USA Today. “If positive, stay home until better and confirm with a negative test. If that’s not possible, wear a fit N95 mask.”

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is struggling. The agency tasked with protecting the health of U.S. citizens has lost a quarter of its staffers over the last year, morale is lousy for those who remain and for the moment the organization has no leader: Its last Senate-confirmed director was ousted in August and no replacement has been chosen.

Health and Human Services Secretary (HHS) Robert F. Kennedy Jr. promised to restore trust in the CDC following the Covid-19 pandemic. But can his “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) movement survive the turmoil?

Why MAHA might be stalled

Kennedy’s MAHA agenda “appears to be stalled,” said The Guardian. The CDC lacks a director, and Trump’s nomination of Casey Means to be U.S. surgeon general is “stuck in limbo” in the Senate. But the administration “isn’t ready to nominate a new CDC director” despite a deadline of last week to do so, said CNN. Administration officials are still “evaluating candidates” who can shift the CDC “to its original mission of fighting infectious disease,” said HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon.

The CDC nomination delay comes as MAHA and Kennedy “appear to be on the ropes,” Tom Bartlett said at The Atlantic. MAHA supporters are “angry” that Trump is shielding herbicide makers from legal liability. The Food and Drug Administration’s vaccine chief just left the agency, a federal judge put a hold on Kennedy’s anti-vaccine agenda and the Kennedy-allied vice chair of the CDC’s vaccine advisory panel resigned last week. Those events, taken together, suggest the secretary’s hold on power is “waning.” A December poll “seems to have scared the White House off Kennedy’s vaccine agenda.” The result: Kenedy is “losing his grip on the CDC.”

The agency is meanwhile in “turmoil,” said The New York Times. Insiders say it is being “remade into a vehicle for ideologues” who share Kennedy’s anti-vaccine agenda. The shift prompted a staff exodus that leaves public health advocates concerned that Americans will be “increasingly exposed to a wide range of health threats” amid surges of measles, whooping cough and flu infections.

White House avoids controversy

Federal law says that acting agency directors “may not serve in the role for more than 210 days,” said The Hill. That deadline passed last week. National Institutes of Health Director Jay Bhattacharya, who had been serving as acting director, has been “delegated to provide continuity in day-to-day CDC processes” until a permanent replacement is confirmed, said a White House spokesperson.

Getting Senate confirmation is a “potentially tall order,” said Axios. Kennedy and other Trump health appointees have “antagonized some of the chamber’s Republican centrists.” The White House is especially “eager to avoid further controversial health moves” ahead of November’s midterm elections. So Trump’s eventual CDC pick “may need both MAHA and science chops,” said Roll Call. Key GOP senators “want a moderate public servant” who can last in the job. The administration, said Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), does not have a “very encouraging track record thus far.”

‘How risky can the weight loss drug boom be? I learned the hard way.’

Jimmie Wilson at The Washington Post

GLP-1 popularity “has also fueled a thriving market for unregulated copycat versions,” and “most patients have no idea how risky these knockoff drugs can be,” says Jimmie Wilson. What “many doctors may not know is that compounded drugs and name-brand drugs are not the same.” Compounding pharmacies “exist to make custom formulations for patients who can’t take branded medications.” They “were not intended, nor are they equipped, to safely mass-produce drugs such as” GLP-1s.

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‘Did Gen Z show up to this “No Kings” protest? Sort of.’

Haley Taylor Schlitz at The Minnesota Star Tribune

It is “easy to ask, ‘Where was Gen Z?’ in a way that sounds like an accusation, as some have done after previous ‘No Kings’ protests,” says Haley Taylor Schlitz. For “young people, public outrage has rarely arrived as a singular moral awakening.” It is “not whether Gen Z wants a king,” but many “have been politically formed by an era in which speeches, protests and hashtags too often end the same way: with emotional release and too little change.”

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‘The WNBA is taking off. What took so long?’

Keia Clarke at Time

The WNBA’s “cultural and economic influence can no longer be denied,” says Keia Clarke. WNBA players “are set to become some of the highest-paid women athletes in the world,” and “that kind of growth prompts a harder question: why did it take so long?” From the “beginning, there was optimism and real conviction about what women’s basketball could become. But belief and scale are not the same thing.” Fans “can’t invest in what they don’t see or what they don’t understand.”

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‘The problem isn’t Washington. It’s us.’

Eugene Scott at The Boston Globe

Viewing “fellow citizens’ ethics and morals negatively is a logical conclusion after the electorate has continued to elect leaders who most people view negatively,” says Eugene Scott. It is “not unreasonable to conclude that people who support unethical leaders must have poor ethics themselves.” But lawmakers are “not primarily products of Washington. They are a reflection of the people and communities who sent them there.” If “you want to change Washington, you have to change your neighborhood.”

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The UK was once a “world leader” in organ transplants, said the BBC’s “File on 4 Investigates”. But it has “fallen behind”.

In 2024, the number of heart transplants carried out per million people in the UK was lower than in most European countries, thanks to a lack of investment, resources and “outdated” technology. Waiting lists for organs are at a record high, while family consent rates for donation have fallen dramatically since the “opt-out” presumed consent system was implemented.

What’s going wrong?

“Organ donation is in crisis,” said Martha Gill in The Observer. Last year, the waiting list for an organ reached its highest on record, according to NHS Blood and Transplant: an 8% year-on-year increase. “As a consequence, many will die waiting for a phone call.”

There are only five heart and lung transplant centres in England, and one heart transplant centre in Glasgow. Anyone living in Wales or Northern Ireland must travel for a transplant, and there is significant regional variation in waiting times.

Half of the six main centres have also “lost their top surgeon in the past two years”, said the BBC. Others are leaving for jobs abroad: a “brain drain” of experts. Without experienced mentors, junior surgeons are increasingly “risk averse” and only using the healthiest donated organs, said Jorge Mascaro, Birmingham’s former director of cardiothoracic transplants (now based in the US). “It’s getting worse.”

The number of organs donated in the UK per head is equal to, or greater than, most of Europe. But the NHS transplants far fewer hearts and lungs than most countries, said the BBC. “Some countries make use of twice as many.” Surgeons say this is down to a lack of equipment and new technologies used abroad, such as machines that can scan organs to check if they are diseased. Ice boxes are often still used to transport organs between hospitals, which can harden them.

Operations are also regularly cancelled thanks to a lack of theatre space, hospital beds or staff. Post-transplant patient care is crucial to prevent complications, but the NHS “continues to struggle” to provide long-term support: the UK’s five-year survival rates “lag behind”.

Has the opt-out system failed?

When the “opt-out” system of presumed consent was implemented in England in 2020, “expectations were high”, said Gill. But the number of donors has been “crashing”. In the year to March 2025, there was a 7% decrease in the number of deceased organ donors, according to the Organ and Tissue Donation and Transplantation Activity Report. Life-saving transplants also decreased by 2%.

Most people support organ donation in theory, and nearly half the population have signed the Organ Donor Register, according to Organ Donation. But relatives have the final say; family consent rates have dropped from 69% to 61% over the past five years. Surveys suggest a “common reason: they didn’t know what their relative wanted”, said The Observer. The types of deaths that make donation possible – usually traumatic, sudden deaths of young healthy people – make it even harder for families to decide.

The presumed consent of the opt-out system acts as a “weaker signal of underlying preference” than the active consent of an opt-in system, said researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in a 2024 paper. This “uncertainty” means families are “more likely to refuse consent”. Evidence suggests an opt-out model alone doesn’t boost donations: it must be accompanied by a framework of logistics, psychological support and education.

What can be done?

The NHS and campaigners are calling for “better education in schools”, said The Mirror: for organ donation to be included in curriculums, and campaigns particularly targeted at ethnic minorities (among whom the family consent rate is significantly lower).

Evidence suggests an opt-out model alone doesn’t boost donations. Countries must invest in healthcare infrastructure, psychological support for families, and public awareness campaigns to encourage people to discuss their wishes. Family consent rates increase to almost 90% if the deceased has done so.

A government-commissioned review of heart and lung transplant services, published in 2024, made various recommendations, including better holistic care, a single-service model across the multiple centres, and “rapid-short term actions to improve organ acceptance decision-making”, said NHS England.

NHS England has since been abolished; responsibility for transplant services now lies with the Department of Health and Social Care. In a statement to the BBC, the department said the government had inherited a broken NHS, and that it recognised the “systemic issues” facing transplantation. The government said it would write to the NHS demanding that it “urgently implement” the recommendations, to make transplant services “fit for the future”.

Male-pattern hair loss affects 80% of men at some point in their lifetime (and female-pattern hair loss affects half of all women over the age of 70). But “until recently, we knew remarkably little about how to slow, halt and reverse its seemingly inevitable onset”, said Tom Howarth on BBC Science Focus.

For all the recent messaging about “body positivity”, the search for a balding “fix” has become “increasingly desperate – and financially lucrative”, said Esquire. The hair-loss industry is well on track to be worth £9 billion by 2030.

Balding happens when hair follicles on parts of the scalp produce gradually thinner and lighter hairs, until eventually they shrink and stop producing hairs at all. Until now, conventional treatments have focused on drugs that might help stimulate hair follicles or stop them shrinking. But they don’t work for everyone, can have unpleasant side effects and aren’t always available on the NHS. Other “solutions”, from micropigmentation to hair transplants and scalp-reduction surgery, have mixed results and can be very expensive. But now scientists think they have found new ways to make things look much better up there.

Hair loss cures in the pipeline

“Declarations of hair loss cures” have always been “a dime a dozen,” said Popular Mechanics, but recently there have been signs of genuine progress with new techniques – either to replace shrinking hair follicles with healthy ones or to use stem cell therapy to regenerate hair growth.

An “early frontrunner” is hair cloning, said Howarth on BBC Science Focus. Also known as hair multiplication, it’s a form of “hair banking”: before baldness hits, healthy hair follicles are extracted from your scalp and cryogenically frozen; once hair-thinning starts, these follicles are taken to a lab and the skin cells around them are isolated and multiplied; these “cloned” cells are then injected into balding patches on your head to produce lovely new hairs. A few private clinics already offer hair cloning in the UK; it’s pricey but costs may come down as the market increases.

For those whose days of hair-banking possibility are long behind them, autologous fat grafting holds some promise. Stem cells, harvested from fat cells taken from the belly, are injected into the scalp to stimulate hair growth. A study review of this technique, published in the Journal of Cosmetic Dermatology, found it to be “effective” in supporting hair regrowth and increasing hair density and diameter.

Meanwhile, in Japan, researchers are having success with their quest to grow hair follicles from scratch in a lab. Their “bioengineered hair follicle germ” has achieved follicle growth in mice, according to a study published in Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications. It’s a milestone in hair-treatment technologies, said Popular Mechanics.

Which is the most promising?

The “big one” is a drug called PP405, developed by US pharmaceutical company Pelage, said Lane Brown in New York Magazine. “The internet’s gathering places for the bald and balding” went wild when news broke that, in Pelage’s early clinical trials, it seemed not only to slow hair loss but to reactivate “parts of the scalp that have already surrendered”.

“We were blown away,” said Qing Yu Christina Weng, Pelage’s chief medical officer, told the magazine. After four weeks of applying the drug as a topical gel, not only were the treatment group “growing new hair where there wasn’t any before, it wasn’t peach fuzz or baby hair – it was proper, thick, terminal hair”. By week eight, 31% of those treated with PP405 had a 20% increase in hair density, compared to 0% in the placebo group, according to a Pelage press release.

The drug, which is designed to stimulate the activity of a metabolic enzyme called LDH in hair-follicle stem cells, still has further, bigger trials and safety tests to get through before it can be approved by regulators. But, if it is, its potential is obvious. “After decades of snake oil and broken promises,” it feels as though “the end of baldness” is within sight, said Brown. Call it “the faint stubble of hope”.

‘Afroman: American patriot’

Greg Lukianoff and Adam Goldstein at The Washington Post

Rapper Afroman “demonstrated in often hilarious fashion why America’s commitment to freedom of speech is the dread of tyrants big and small,” say Greg Lukianoff and Adam Goldstein. Police officers “raided his rural Ohio home in 2022,” and Afroman “responded the way artists have responded to being wronged since time immemorial: turning it into art.” A “country is free when the citizen mocks the state actors who harmed him and the system defends his right to do it.”

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‘Trump’s video game war: AI, memes and a simplistic narrative have flattened the conflict in Iran’

Nesrine Malik at The Guardian

The “war on Iran, even as it spreads and destabilizes the Middle East and the global economy, is not real. This is how it is being portrayed by the Trump administration,” says Nesrine Malik. The “war is a video game, a spectator sport, a social media festival of dunking,” and the “architects of this war have made a virtue out of stupidity.” The conflict “feels like the first of its kind in the modern age: distinctly remote and profoundly ignorant.”

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‘Doctors should be paid to keep patients healthy’

Ashish K. Jha and Thomas C. Tsai at The Boston Globe

Experience “points to a promising idea that has been at the center of health care reform for more than a decade: Instead of paying doctors and hospitals for every test and procedure they perform, pay them for keeping patients healthy,” say Ashish K. Jha and Thomas C. Tsai. In this “model, called value-based care, doctors and hospitals are paid based on the health outcomes they achieve and the overall cost of caring for their patients.”

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‘Energy crises must accelerate the fight against climate change’

Le Monde editorial board

As the “U.S.-Israeli war against Iran enters its third week, hopes for a short, contained crisis without major consequences for the global energy market have faded,” says the Le Monde editorial board. But the “absence of supply disruptions should not obscure the main point.” The “structural vulnerability of our economies to imported crises remains, now manifesting through price volatility, strategic uncertainty and the weakening of industrial supply chains.” This is “what makes this crisis different and politically decisive.”

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This super mineral is crucial for everyday health. But while many are taking it in supplement form in accordance with the latest social media trend, experts say there’s a healthier way of consuming the recommended amount in your diet.

Why is magnesium so popular?

The mineral is needed to “regulate our nerves, bones, immune system and blood sugar levels,” said The Independent. It is one of the most abundant minerals in the human body and is responsible for “more than 300 biochemical reactions,” including keeping the heartbeat steady and assisting in the production of energy and protein. Despite its abundance, the body does not naturally produce magnesium, so we need to acquire the mineral from food or supplements.

In the past few years, magnesium supplements have gone viral in social media wellness circles. It is the “key ingredient in #sleepygirlmocktails”, in which a powder is “stirred into tart cherry juice and prebiotic soda,” creating a “wellness cocktail for anxious millennials,” said Wired. People are “popping magnesium glycinate before bed instead of melatonin” because it “allegedly cures insomnia, constipation and existential dread.” Last year, Google searches for “which magnesium is best for sleep” and “which magnesium makes you poop” more than doubled.

Nutrients come “in and out of vogue in our society,” Whitney Linsenmeyer, a spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, said to Parents. Magnesium is “having a moment right now,” perhaps because it is an “important nutrient in supporting common health concerns” like sleep, anxiety and PMS.

Magnesium glycinate capsules are commonly used for sleep issues and anxiety. Magnesium citrate usage is trending for constipation relief. Many social media users have posted about their “lack of bowel movements” and how drinking magnesium citrate “went above and beyond (sometimes too far) to get them back on track,” said Parents.

Should we be taking the supplements?

Unless you have a magnesium deficiency, “magnesium supplements aren’t essential,” said Wired. If you are struggling with “migraines, insomnia or other conditions where research suggests health benefits,” they may be worth trying, but “first talk to a health care professional.” Instead of supplements, you can focus on consuming “magnesium-rich foods” such as legumes, leafy greens, whole grains, nuts, fruits and soy products. Dark chocolate is also a good source of magnesium.

Deficiencies can be difficult to detect, Louise Dye, a professor of nutrition and behavior at the University of Sheffield, said to the BBC. Still, it is believed that we’re not getting enough magnesium from our food. Over the past 60 years, “intensive farming practices have caused a significant depletion of the mineral content of the soil,” including a “decrease in magnesium of up to 30%.” Additionally, “western diets typically have a greater proportion of processed food, where numerous products are mostly refined,” leading to magnesium being “depleted by up to 80-90% in the process.”

Supplements can be risky, however, and “overdosing may even be deadly,” said The Independent. Too much magnesium from food “does not pose a health risk in healthy individuals because the kidneys eliminate excess amounts in the urine,” the National Institutes of Health said. But high doses of magnesium from dietary supplements or medications “often result in diarrhea that can be accompanied by nausea and abdominal cramping.” Other symptoms may include low blood pressure, thirst, drowsiness, muscle weakness and slow or shallow breathing. Extremely high doses can lead to irregular heartbeats or even cause the heart to stop altogether, according to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.

Warming temperatures from climate change will likely lead to high levels of physical inactivity in the future, which could have significant public health implications. Heat leads to dehydration, exhaustion and overall inhospitable conditions. Regions with less air conditioning and cooling facilities will see the highest reduction in activity, but without intervention, more places will be affected.

Running hot

Rising temperatures are “projected to increase the prevalence of physical inactivity, translating into additional premature deaths and productivity losses,” said a study published in The Lancet Global Health. The study analyzed data from 156 countries between 2000 and 2022 to create a model for future physical activity globally. The results showed that by 2050 “each additional month with an average temperature above 27.8°C (82°F) would increase physical inactivity by 1.5 percentage points globally and by 1.85 percentage points in low- and middle-income countries,” said a release about the study.

With this reduction in physical activity, there would be a “predicted 0.47-0.70 million additional premature deaths annually and $2.40-3.68 billion in productivity losses,” said the release. The effects were mostly concentrated in low- and middle-income countries, and “some hot spot countries closer to the equator show estimated increases in physical inactivity of more than 4 percentage points by 2050,” said The Washington Post. On the other hand, high-income countries had no discernible difference in physical activity levels because they tend to have better infrastructure to combat heat.

The inactivity levels would increase gradually. The “real-world picture is usually not that people suddenly stop moving altogether,” the study’s lead author Christian Garcia-Witulski, a research fellow at the Lancet Countdown Latin America and a professor at the Pontifical Catholic University of Argentina, said to the Post. Instead, “heat gradually erodes the safe, comfortable and practical opportunities people have to stay active in everyday life.” Warmer temperatures would hinder activities such as “jogging outdoors or walking to work, particularly in areas which don’t have strong adaptive measures like proper shading or cool pavements,” said Time.

Internal conflict

Even without the climate pressure, “nearly one third (31%) of the world’s adult population, 1.8 billion adults, are physically inactive,” said the World Health Organization (WHO). Between 2010 and 2022, the number of people who “do not meet the global recommendations of at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity per week” increased by 5%. Climate change is only expected to increase the number further. While lower-income countries face the brunt of the decrease in physical activity, “the pattern was not uniform,” and “some colder areas, such as North America, Argentina and South Africa, also report high rates of physical inactivity,” said the study.

“Outdoor laborers, street vendors and subsistence farmers cannot easily shift physical exertion to cooler hours,” said the study. Also, “women and adolescents often lack access to climate-controlled recreational spaces.” Physical activity “contributes to prevention and management of noncommunicable diseases such as cardiovascular diseases, cancer and diabetes and reduces symptoms of depression and anxiety,” said WHO.

“The link between physical inactivity and chronic diseases is so strong that any compromise to achieving regular exercise” will “pose broad public health risks,” Jonathan Patz, the chair of health and the environment at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said to the Post. Prioritizing reducing greenhouse gas emissions as well as building cooling infrastructure will be necessary for human health.

People agree that smoking is bad for you, but nicotine has far from gone up in smoke. Levels of American adults smoking cigarettes hit a record low in 2024, but nicotine products like vapes, patches and gum are alive and well.

Of the wide array of nicotine products, none have been picking up speed the way pouches like Zyn and On! have. These products are usually the size of a piece of gum and are held in the mouth between the gums and teeth, which slowly releases nicotine into the body. While mainly touted as a method to quit smoking, the pouches have made their way into the wellness spaces and are also being used as a tool to improve concentration.

How are nicotine pouches gaining popularity?

For those looking to quit smoking, nicotine pouches are considered to be the “least harmful nicotine option” because they are not known to “cause cancer, lung disease or other ailments,” by themselves, said The Wall Street Journal. But nicotine pouch usage is not exclusive to those trying to quit smoking.

The addictive chemical has a new lease on life, with many touting its benefits. Some studies have found that nicotine can improve cognitive performance, including attention, memory and learning. Nicotine has also been “linked to weight loss and reduced appetite,” as it “appears to influence the parts of the brain that control hunger and makes the body burn more energy,” Dipa Kamdar, a senior lecturer in Pharmacy Practice at Kingston University, said in an article for The Conversation. The pouches have similar effects to GLP-1s, which have been used for weight loss.

Nicotine pouches have since been touted as a powerful wellness compound, especially in the right-wing and biohacking spaces. It is a “life-enhancing, God-given chemical,” right-wing media personality Tucker Carlson said on Instagram. He claims that nicotine can treat erectile dysfunction and released his own brand of pouches called ALP, in collaboration with the tobacco giant Turning Point Brands. Over time, many media personalities have “advocated for nicotine use, not just as a way to get a buzz but as a cure for ailments ranging from whooping cough to atrial fibrillation,” said Salon.

The nicotine pouch hype has also skipped into the workplace. Rather than strictly drinks and snacks, the tech company Palantir began stocking nicotine pouches as a job perk, hoping to increase workers’ focus and productivity. Nicotine startups Lucy and Sesh have “installed branded vending machines in Palantir’s Washington, D.C., office,” said Fortune. This is “just one of the ways biohacking has taken the Silicon Valley tech space by storm.”

Is there merit to the benefits?

Any health benefits associated with nicotine are “frequently overblown or misinterpreted” and “outweighed by the problem of addiction,” said Stat. These effects are particularly dangerous as young people and those who have never smoked are picking up the habit. The chemical’s addictive nature can “become a gateway for someone to start using more harmful forms of nicotine, including cigarettes,” said the Journal. Most nicotine pouches on the market are also not FDA-authorized. Only certain Zyn and On! products have received authorization. Still, authorization differs from approval, as “all tobacco products are harmful and potentially addictive,” said the FDA.

Regarding cognitive enhancements, “people who already have cognitive difficulties have more room to improve, while those with healthy brain function are already performing close to their best,” said Kamdar. Nicotine is ”unlikely to offer any real benefit to people who don’t have cognitive impairments.”

What most experts agree on is that nicotine pouches are one of the better ways to quit smoking because most of the danger from cigarettes comes from the combustion of tobacco and not the nicotine itself. Evn though nicotine can cause other issues like nausea, vomiting, harm to blood vessels and an increased risk for heart attack and stroke. “Wellness trends come and go,” said Kamdar, “but addiction is far harder to shake.”

‘Banky’s anonymity is what gives — gave? — his art its power’

Allison Schrager at Bloomberg

The “revelation that the artist Banksy is a 50-something man from Bristol, England, named Robin Gunningham” might “be the ultimate test of what actually determines value in contemporary art,” says Allison Schrager. Art insiders “are speculating that the news will increase the value of Banksy’s work. That line of thinking tracks with the fact that markets hate uncertainty, and now there is more clarity.” But Banksy’s “art is not like a stock option or any other commodity.”

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‘The farm bill, in its current state, is a public health failure’

Lyndon Haviland at The Hill

Congress is “trying to pass a long-overdue farm bill as lawmakers debate where, and how, billions in taxpayer resources should be allocated,” says Lyndon Haviland. But “those involved in shaping the current legislation seem to be more interested in protecting special interests than advancing the bill’s primary objectives: establishing a healthy food system, supporting a wide group of farmers who supply it and ensuring all Americans have access to a safe and nutritious food supply.”

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‘Great powers can learn from small island states’

José Ulisses de Pina Correia e Silva at Newsweek

Small island countries are “uniquely placed to navigate today’s changing world,” says Cape Verde Prime Minister José Ulisses de Pina Correia e Silva. Their “size and focused economies, rather than making them vulnerable, have made many capable of addressing global economic shocks and thrive as the shift occurs from the ‘globalization generation’ to a new arena of great power play.” Small size “also means economic expansion is focused on the practical,” with “no room for overpromising.”

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‘Medical students and doctors aren’t supposed to do invasive exams on surgery patients without permission. My research found it’s still happening. Here’s what should be done.’

Phoebe Friesen at the Toronto Star

The “practice of medical students performing pelvic exams on anesthetized patients without their consent has had a lot of press in recent years — at least in the United States,” says Phoebe Friesen. But in Canada “nonconsensual educational sensitive exams” are “alive and well.” It is “time for Canada to get clear on consent for educational sensitive exams under anesthesia,” and “time for medical schools across the country to implement policies ensuring explicit consent takes place before each educational exam.”

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Step aside, girl dinner! Boy kibble is, according to social media, the new way to eat. Focused on protein loading and very little else, the trend is popular among Gen Z men and glorifies eating a bowl of tasteless mush. But it also reflects a push toward disordered eating and hypermasculinity.

Dog food for humans

Referring to the food as kibble is no accident, as most of the time these recipes involve a carb (like rice) and a form of protein (like ground beef) mixed together in a slop-like concoction that has glaring similarities to dog food. “Pleasure-seeking details like flavor and aesthetics are tossed to the side,” said The New York Times. However, this form of dinner may be “less nutritionally complete even compared to what you may be feeding the four-legged members of your family,” said Parents.

While some will opt to add vegetables to their kibble, for the most part, the goal is to maximize the amount of protein consumption, often at the expense of overall nutritional value. Many of these meals forgo fruits, whole grains and healthy fats. “When your meals lack these essential nutrients, deficiencies in fat-soluble vitamins and essential fatty acids, and micronutrients like calcium, vitamin D and iron, can result,” said Parents. Also, the “lack of fiber in boy kibble puts kids at risk for constipation and does not support a healthy gut microbiome,” Madison Szar, a pediatrician with Bluebird Kids Health, said to the outlet.

“Proteinmaxxing” is a trend increasing in ubiquity among young men, especially as Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. rolled out new diet guidelines emphasizing protein consumption. At the same time, “grocery prices and fitness trends continue to shape online food culture,” said Newsweek. With these combined factors, boy kibble “reflects a broader shift toward streamlined, protein-forward meals that prioritize convenience over presentation.”

Healthy facade

The goal of eating boy kibble is to consume an easy, nutritional meal, even if the nutritional value is debatable. But the boys are largely ignoring seasoning, making the meals themselves not very tasty or enjoyable, a mere means to an end. “This kind of moralizing of food or turning suffering through meals into a badge of honor” can “map on to some kind of disordered eating patterns and risks, no different than, say, orthorexia,” Abbey Sharp, a registered dietitian and the author of the book “The Hunger Crushing Combo Method,” said to Fortune.

The entire movement is a male response to the 2023 girl dinner trend, “where women devised elaborate hodgepodges of charcuterie-like plates, consisting of assorted meats, breads, cheeses, fruits and leftovers,” said Fortune. While girl dinner showcased the tendency to cobble together meals from things readily available in the kitchen, tying the slop-consumption to the word “boy” helps “soften what could be perceived as toxically masculine consumptive behaviors,” Emily Contois, an associate professor of media studies at the University of Tulsa and the author of “Diners, Dudes and Diets: How Gender and Power Collide in Food Media and Culture,” said to the Times.

The entire branding of boy kibble is “served with a heavy dose of internet irony,” said Newsweek. Using the term is “allowing men to sidestep the more feminine aspects of dieting,” Adrienne Bitar, a professor at Cornell University who studies the culture of American food and health, said to the Times. Dieting has been “seen as vain, frivolous, attention-seeking, superficial,” but by taking part in a trend, men can say “this isn’t about vanity” or “appearance, necessarily” but instead about “optimization and quantifying how to become my best self.” The trend reflects a recent “backlash moment of men wanting to reclaim a more traditional, conventional masculine authority.”

What happened

A federal judge in Boston on Monday paused most of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s consequential actions on vaccines, as well as the decisions made by the influential vaccine advisory committee he gutted and remade with handpicked members. U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy, siding with the American Academy of Pediatrics and five other medical groups, said Kennedy had likely violated legal administrative procedures in appointing his new Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices, then illegally sidestepped his handpicked panel in January to shrink the federal schedule for childhood vaccines from 17 routine immunizations to 11.

Who said what

Since 1964, “all U.S. vaccine policy has first run through ACIP, an independent panel of vaccine experts” that guides the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s recommendations, CNN said. The committee has historically decided which vaccines are safe and effective through “a method scientific in nature and codified into law through procedural requirements,” Murphy ruled. But under Kennedy, the “government has disregarded those methods and thereby undermined the integrity of its actions.”

The ruling from Murphy, an appointee of former President Joe Biden, is a “severe blow to the Trump administration’s health agenda,” The New York Times said. But the “blow to Kennedy’s efforts to overhaul federal vaccine policy” landed “at a time when the White House is seeking to limit vaccine critics’ influence within the administration,” Axios said. Kennedy wants federal vaccine policy “to more closely reflect” his skepticism of vaccines, Politico said. But the White House is looking to “shift the focus ahead of the midterms away from vaccines, which the public overwhelmingly supports, toward priorities with widespread voter buy-in, like lowering prescription drug costs.”

What next?

Murphy’s order effectively blocks ACIP from meeting Wednesday and Thursday, as planned. But it’s “not the final word,” The Associated Press said. His ruling bars 13 of ACIP’s 15 members from serving on the panel, freezes all the committee’s decisions since June and halts Kennedy’s reduced immunization schedule “pending either a trial or a decision for summary judgment.” The Trump administration is expected to appeal the ruling.

The United States has generally had a more forgiving set of regulations governing the use of additives, preservatives and other chemicals in food and drinks than the European Union (EU). The difference has begun to narrow, however, both because some U.S. states are banning ingredients that the federal government allows, and because the Health and Human Services Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., pledged to more aggressively prohibit some of these substances as part of his Make American Healthy Again (MAHA) movement.

Some substances that were once legal to use in foods in the U.S. but not in Europe, like partially hydrogenated oils as well as brominated vegetable oil (BVO), were banned in the U.S. prior to the second Trump administration. They included a food dye called Red No. 3, which was banned by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on January 15, 2025. In April 2025, Secretary Kennedy announced plans to work with the food industry to voluntarily phase out six other petroleum-based food dyes, all of which are already banned for use in foods in the EU.

Azodicarbonamide (ADA)

ADA is used in the U.S. to “whiten cereal flour and improve baking bread dough,” said CBS News, but is banned for use in food by the EU, where it is considered a carcinogen. ADA has become increasingly controversial, however, and some companies have rolled back its inclusion in certain products.

In 2014, for example, Subway announced that it would no longer use ADA in its bread products, which turned out to be the leading edge of a trend. The American Bakers Association announced in 2026 that most of its members had already phased out the use of ADA, with the remainder doing so by the end of the year. The FDA is currently reviewing information about ADA.

Butylated hydroxyanisole (BHA)

BHA “is a preservative used in cured meats and other foods,” said the Environmental Working Group, a U.S.-based nonprofit. It is “subject to severe restrictions in Europe” but continues to be added to American food products under the FDA’s GRAS (Generally Regarded as Safe) principle, said The New York Times. The National Toxicology Program deemed it a likely human carcinogen decades ago. In February 2026, the FDA ordered a new safety review of BHA, “pointing to long-standing concerns that the food additive might cause cancer in humans,” said NBC News.

Butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT)

BHT is an “antioxidant that helps stabilize vegetable oils so they stay fresh longer and is often used in crackers and cereals to extend their shelf life,” said Tasting Table. The antioxidant’s presence in the popular cracker Wheat Thins, for example, is the reason you won’t be able to find them in Europe. Due to “concerns related to potential endocrine-disrupting properties,” BHT is banned for use in foods in the EU, said the European Commission. In August 2025, the FDA launched a “postmarket assessment of the safety of BHT as used in food and food contact materials,” said the FDA.

Potassium bromate

Potassium bromate is a substance that is found “usually in the form of fine crystals or powder, to strengthen dough” in more than 100 products sold in the U.S., said CBS News. It has been used for more than a century in breadmaking, but the European Union, the United Kingdom, Canada and most other countries in the world consider it a human carcinogen.

While Secretary Kennedy’s HHS has not taken any direct action against potassium bromate, he has stated that he wants to eliminate the program under which it is used in the U.S., under the FDA’s GRAS designation. Critics say that GRAS allows companies to include ingredients that were “greenlit for use not by the FDA but by the food and chemical industry,” said CNN.

Propylparaben

The chemical is deployed in more than “50 products in U.S. grocery stores,” said Consumer Reports, “including many packaged corn tortillas, baked desserts and cake icing.” Propylparaben helps “stop the growth of microorganisms in most packaged foods,” said The Cleveland Clinic, but may “interfere with your endocrine system, which includes glands and the hormones they send out to tell organs and tissues what to do.” The EU banned the inclusion of propylparabens in food in 2006. A 2024 FDA review did not lead to any new regulatory action.

Titanium dioxide

The “naturally occurring oxide of titanium,” titanium dioxide “has been used for decades to impart white color to many foods, from baked goods and sandwich spreads to soups, broths, sauces, salad dressing and food supplements,” said the European Commission. The EU banned its use in food products in 2022, citing the “possibility that the use of titanium dioxide as a food additive might cause DNA or chromosomal damage.” In the U.S., the “chemical seems to be largely surviving the food-dye purge” spearheaded by Kennedy, said The Atlantic, although some companies, including the maker of Skittles, are phasing it out voluntarily in expectation of future regulatory action.

Since 1959, Cuba’s so-called “white coat army” has been one of the Caribbean island nation’s most distinctive exports. “From Latin America to Africa and beyond”, thousands of highly trained medical professionals have worked to fill gaps in overstretched health systems around the world, generating valuable income for Havana in the process, said Al Jazeera.

But the long-standing scheme is now under strain, as the United States seeks to “starve Cuba of much-needed revenue” by putting pressure on its allies to stop importing Cuban medics to prop up their strained health services.

‘Coercive labour’

“For decades” the Cuban government has sent healthcare professionals to work overseas in diplomatic arrangements in which host nations pay Havana directly for the services of its medics, said The New York Times. Doctors are dispatched to “work in remote villages and cities in dozens of countries” where local healthcare systems have difficulty filling posts, but the medics themselves only receive a “small fraction” of what is paid for their services. It is “unclear” exactly how much Cuba has received from such arrangements, but research estimates a revenue of around $4 billion (£2.9 billion) a year from the export of skilled workers, including healthcare workers and teachers.

US officials argue that the programmes amount to a “coercive labour export scheme”, said the Financial Times. The US has expanded visa restrictions on those involved in medical missions, including officials in host countries, whom it accuses of participating in “forced-labour practices”. Last year, it imposed travel restrictions on several officials from Brazil, “once a top destination” for Cuban doctors but where numbers have now rapidly fallen amid increasing pressure from the US.

‘Close to collapse’

“After nearly 50 years”, arrangements will draw to a close in Guyana, said the Associated Press, while “several other Caribbean countries” including St Lucia, Antigua and Dominica are also reviewing their programmes. Medical missions have also ended in staunch Cuban ally Venezuela, as well as Guatemala.

Cuba framed the end of the medical mission in Jamaica as the nation “yielding to US pressure”, said Cuba’s 14ymedio. But Jamaica’s “version is different”, alleging that Cuba “did not even respond” to a proposal to pay doctors directly for their work.

The impact is being felt well beyond the Americas. In Calabria, one of the poorest regions in Italy, the arrival in recent years of 400 Cuban doctors has been “essential to keeping local hospitals running”, said Reuters. But, under duress from Washington, Calabria has now “scrapped plans” to hire 600 further doctors, and is now scrambling in a “global search for medical staff” expected to cost the region €8 million (£6.9 million), said Euractiv.

Giuseppe Ranuccio, vice-president of the Calabrian regional council, told the outlet that the health system was already “close to collapse”. The Cuban doctors “were supposed to buy time for structural reforms”, he said. “But those reforms never arrived.”

Transgender people have been the focus of an aggressive legislative push to mitigate their access to health care in recent years, and now trans prisoners are facing a new offensive. President Donald Trump has instated a policy for the federal incarceration system, one that mirrors an outdated, controversial practice.

‘Culture war targeting transgender civil rights’

The Trump administration released its new policy outlining how transgender people in Bureau of Prisons (BOP) custody will be treated. Approximately 2,200 trans people held in federal prisons will be denied access to gender-affirming health care, be “subjected to constant misgendering by staff” and have items like binders, bras and makeup confiscated, said the Transitics Substack.

The policy will impose treatment targeting “psychological distress/dysphoria” through talk therapy and “psychotropic medication” like antidepressants until the gender dysphoria diagnosis is considered “resolved,” said the Transitics Substack. The new policy designates gender dysphoria as a mental illness that requires “routine mental health care.” Under the new rules, federal prisons “won’t just medically and socially detransition trans people en masse,” they will “actively try to ‘cure’ them of their gender dysphoria.” The policy has been compared to conversion therapy, a dangerous practice recognized by the United Nations as a form of torture.

The changes align with an executive order Trump signed almost immediately after taking office, called “​​Defending women from gender ideology extremism and restoring biological truth to the federal government.” The order said that the federal prison system would ensure that no federal funds would be used for any “medical procedure, treatment or drug” for the purpose of “conforming an inmate’s appearance to that of the opposite sex.” In a lawsuit challenging the order, a federal judge ordered that the prison would continue providing hormones and accommodations. However, in court papers and interviews, transgender people have “described their access to hormone treatments and social transition supports as inconsistent,” said The Marshall Project.

The new policy is the “latest move amid a culture war targeting transgender civil rights nationwide,” with hundreds of anti-trans bills passed at the state-level over the last several years, said the Marshall Project. Last year, the Supreme Court upheld gender-affirming care bans for young people, which have been passed in 20 states. The decision “made it pretty clear” that a ban with “any conceivable rational basis” must be allowed, Jared Littman, a government attorney, said at the hearing announcing the prison bans. In addition to the federal policy, prison systems in Georgia, Kentucky, Utah and Florida have banned access to gender-affirming care.

‘Not just cruel but reckless’

Even before the latest policy, gender-affirming care was inconsistent for trans inmates. Denying hormones to “people in distress” and withdrawing them from “people who are stable undermines safe facility operations,” Alix McLearen, who authored earlier versions of the Bureau of Prisons’ transgender policy manuals, said to the Marshall Project. “From a corrections management perspective, this is not just cruel but reckless.”

Prisoners in Georgia are suing state officials over the state’s policy, which is similar to the federal one. If the new federal prison policy is implemented, and “it’s not enjoined, people will die,” Chinyere Ezie, an attorney representing the plaintiffs in the Georgia suit, said to the Marshall Project. People will die from suicide or will “die or be severely hurt from castration attempts.” Those who don’t lose their lives will “experience the very extreme physiological symptoms of hormone therapy withdrawal,” in addition to “psychological symptoms, including depression, anxiety and suicidal ideation.”

Rebecca-James Meskill, a transwoman incarcerated in Alabama, told Uncloseted Media she was taken off hormones following the original executive order. She did not receive them again until six months after the judge issued the injunction. During that time, she frequently broke out in hives, and the dysphoria about her body hair caused her to scratch her arms until they became scarred. Being off hormone therapy has “left me feeling diminished in every aspect of life,” Meskill said. Her body “started re-masculinizing,” and her body hair is “growing thicker and faster.” The lack of gender-affirming care makes her feel “hopeless and like I need to avoid people.”

‘The cost of chaos at the CDC’

Leana S. Wen at The Washington Post

Nearly “half of the CDC’s routinely updated databases were paused without explanation between May and October 2025,” and “without up-to-date data, health officials cannot identify gaps or direct education and outreach where they are most needed,” says Leana S. Wen. When funding is “withdrawn at this scale, local and state governments have little realistic prospect to replace it.” Even if “some of the money is eventually restored through litigation, the damage may be difficult to undo.”

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‘CNN’s coverage of Iran is a reminder of its power — and what could be lost in the wrong hands’

Tom Jones at the Poynter Institute

News organizations have done an “admirable job, calling out their top reporters and anchors and having special programming to pass along vital information” about Iran, says Tom Jones. But it is “moments like these when CNN especially shines.” Despite “many criticisms, CNN continues to be a leader in national and international news and, with all due respect to the other networks, no network is better and more equipped to cover huge stories like Iran.”

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‘Don’t just freeze federal assistance to fight fraud — fix the program’

Parth Patel at The Hill

Headlines have been “dominated by scandal: phantom day cares, faked receipts, and misuse of taxpayer dollars,” says Parth Patel, but these are “not an aberration. They are the predictable result of a system that measures compliance instead of outcomes.” The real “scandal of the American welfare system isn’t just that money is being stolen — it is that the money we do spend isn’t helping people escape poverty. Rather, it is trapping them in poverty.”

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‘Retirement is a strategic mistake — unless we redesign life for the intelligent age’

Klaus Schwab at Time

Longevity is “not merely a medical achievement. It is a structural shift in the human condition,” says Klaus Schwab. But humans “continue to organize life according to a model designed for a 70-year or shorter lifespan. Education, career, retirement — that’s how we think about life.“ We “must apply systemic thinking to the architecture of life itself.“ A 100-year life “cannot be compressed into a front-loaded education, a 40-year career sprint, and three decades of passive withdrawal.”

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A new single-pill HIV treatment has proved as effective as regimens of up to 11 tablets a day in suppressing the virus in hard-to-treat patients. It’s “a potential breakthrough for a growing cohort of long-term HIV survivors” who are resistant to standard treatments and struggle to keep to complex medication schedules, said the Financial Times.

Along with the rollout of a twice-yearly jab to prevent HIV infection, this represents “the latest advance in a scientific ‘golden age’ for treating the virus” – even as wealthy countries cut their funding.

How well does the new single-dose pill work?

Researchers recruited, from 15 countries, more than 550 people living with HIV for whom conventional therapies were no longer effective. They had a median age of 60, and many had other health conditions. Their HIV treatment involved taking between three and 11 pills a day. They were randomly assigned to continue their treatment or switch to the new single pill.

Almost 96% of those who switched continued to suppress the virus, without new signs of drug resistance, according to the study results published in The Lancet. That is a similar rate to the control group who stayed on their more complicated multi-pill treatment. But the “switchers” found the new regimen easier to follow, and experienced a decrease in some side effects, such as elevated cholesterol levels.

The findings are “game-changing” for people who have lived with the virus for decades and have conditions “associated with ageing”, said study lead Chloe Orkin, a professor of infection and inequities at Queen Mary University of London. “The participants found the regimen far more convenient.”

The pill, a combined dose of established HIV drugs bictegravir and lenacapavir, could be “transformative” for those who struggle to access clinics because of age or poverty, said Anne Aslett of the Elton John Aids Foundation. “The challenge now” is to ensure this treatment breakthrough is “complemented by political will, funding and community engagement”, she told the Financial Times.

How do the HIV-preventive injections work?

A twice-yearly jab of lenacapavir was shown in 2024 clinical trials to be 100% effective at preventing new HIV infections.

An injection like this has a clear advantage over daily prevention pills in poorer countries, where patients – particularly young women – might struggle to access clinics or feel stigmatised for seeking treatment. Last year, the World Health Organization recommended it; the director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus described it as “the next best thing” to an HIV vaccine.

There was initial concern that the drug would not be affordable in poorer countries. In the US, it was launched with a price tag of more than $28,000 (£21,000). But last year, manufacturer Gilead granted licences to six manufacturers to produce generic versions of the drug in 120 low and middle-income countries at a cost of $40 (£29) per patient per year. This is a “historic breakthrough”, said Philippe Duneton of the Unitaid global-health initiative.

Meanwhile, in October, another long-acting HIV-preventive injection, cabotegravir (given six times a year), became available on the NHS in England and Wales. (It has already been made available in Scotland). This is a “cutting-edge treatment”, said Health Secretary Wes Streeting. “For vulnerable people who are unable to take other methods of HIV prevention, this represents hope.”

What other progress has been made?

Promising results have been seen with stem cell transplantation. Seven people have been declared HIV-free after receiving a stem cell transplant – and, significantly, two of them had received stem cells that were not actually HIV-resistant.

This “upends our understanding of what’s required” for a cure, said New Scientist. If HIV-resistant cells aren’t necessary to destroy the virus, then scientists have a wider potential pool of stem cell donors, and greater options in their search for an effective HIV cure.

Other trials are exploring ways to cure HIV by genetically editing immune cells.

People “hum into their phones, gargle with theatrical enthusiasm, dunk their faces into bowls of ice water, and poke at their ears”, said Katie Edwards and Dan Baumgardt on The Conversation. They are all trying to “activate” their vagus nerve, the new “favourite body part” of the internet.

Social media is abuzz with the transformational potential of vagus-nerve “training”. Stimulate it and reset it, wellness influencers claim, and you can improve your mental and physical wellbeing.

What is the vagus nerve? 

It’s the longest cranial nerve in your body. Its name derives from the Latin for “wandering” because its two branches rove through your entire body – travelling from the brainstem down into your neck, chest and abdomen, connecting to the heart, lungs, gut and the liver. It constantly relays information from your brain to your organs and back again, and is often described as an internal communication superhighway or our body’s intranet.

How important is it? 

As “signal updater” between brain and body, the vagus nerve is a part of the autonomic nervous system that regulates processes you don’t consciously control, such as heart rate, breathing and digestion. Within that system, it has a key role in the parasympathetic response – sometimes known as “rest and digest” – slowing heart rate and decreasing blood pressure. Put simply, when you feel calm, safe and relaxed, your vagus nerve is helping to make that happen.

The theory is that your body can sometimes get “stuck” or spend too long in the opposite sympathetic response – known as “fight or flight” – and stimulating the vagus nerve can prompt a return to calm.

Can stimulating it make you healthier?

Implanted devices that directly stimulate the vagus nerve have long been used to treat neurological conditions like epilepsy and treatment-resistant depression. More recently, trials of transcutaneous devices, often placed around the neck or in the outer ear, have shown promising results in treating conditions including diabetes, Crohn’s disease, fibromyalgia and irritable bowel syndrome.

This kind of non-invasive vagus-nerve stimulation (VNS) first entered the “mainstream consciousness” as a “biohacking tool” in the 2025 Netflix documentary “Don’t Die”, said Vogue. The film followed US tech entrepreneur Bryan Johnson’s “longevity journey” and the “anti-ageing” crusader is shown wearing a VNS gadget that, he said, helps him manage stress and get to sleep.

From then on, the vagus nerve got “the trendy treatment”, said The Independent. Wearable devices swiftly appeared on the market that were said to enable VNS by sending a “specific level” of electrical current through the nerve that will “wake up” or “reset the system”, much like “rebooting a computer”.

I am cautious about claims that the vagus nerve can be “switched on like a light”, Arshad Majid, a professor of cerebrovascular neurology at the University of Sheffield, told Edwards and Baumgardt on The Conversation. There’s “not an on-off button” that these devices, or other DIY methods, like humming or gargling, can trigger. And, in some cases, trying to stimulate the nerve can “trigger headaches and even depression”.

That said, we are running various clinical trials on non-invasive VNS devices, and the “next few years of research” could “reshape” how we treat a range of conditions. But you should “maybe hold off on aggressively poking your ear” for now.

Bone broth “has undergone the PR glow-up of a lifetime”, said Saskia Kemsley in The Standard. Celebrities including Gwyneth Paltrow, Halle Berry and Kylie Jenner have all jumped on board, extolling its rejuvenating benefits.

So what is bone broth? Put simply, it's a nutrient-dense liquid made by simmering animal bones with vegetables or other natural ingredients for up to 24 hours, similar to making stock for use in soups or stews. Drinking the broth for its health benefits is a “phenomenon” that has “skyrocketed” in recent years, even if the evidence is somewhat unclear.

“Of all the wellness trends, this one’s probably up there with the strangest,” said Daisy Jones in British Vogue. “A broth? Made from bones, you say? Sounds a bit fee-fi-fo-fum to me.”

But bone broth promises an “array of supposed health benefits”. Some studies have shown that it is an anti-inflammatory “gut-healing powerhouse”, rich in electrolytes, and full of amino acids that help “regulate the immune system and promote gut health”. People are also indulging in a bid to improve their skin with the high collagen content. “Hmmm, maybe not so unappealing after all?”

Some of the most popular brands are “hugely expensive”, and often not much better than you can make at home, so you don’t need to “spend a fortune” buying the stuff, said Clare Finney in The Times. All you have to do is pop into a butcher’s for some “broken-down bones” at a “fraction of the price”, Michelin-star chef Emily Roux told the newspaper, “or if you’re making a roast chicken, never throw away the carcass”. After a four- to six-hour “long, slow simmer”, you can add combinations of “star anise, black peppercorns, any veggies or herbs that are suffering in the fridge” to “zhuzh it up”.

If you do want to splash out on a shop-bought broth, one of the best on the market is Borough Broth, whose organic beef bone broth is “filled to the brim with umami excellence” and has a “whopping 40% bone content”, said Kemsley in The Standard. Freja is another brand “taking supermarkets by storm for good reason”. Its broths have a two-year shelf-life, making them a “pantry essential”, and there’s also a fish-based version for pescatarians.

Despite the frenzied uptake by influencers who think it is a “wonder stew for your face”, some experts have a “bone to pick” with the trend, said GQ. Though it can be a great source of amino acids, the results can be inconsistent depending on what is cooked, and how.

“My personal advice would be that it doesn’t add anything that a healthy diet containing a good source of proteins wouldn’t do”, Dr Christine Hall, NHS GP and aesthetics doctor, told the magazine. “In fact, a healthy, balanced diet will actually contribute more.”

‘The protein bar delusion’

Nicholas Florko at The Atlantic

Protein bars have “come a long way from the chalky monstrosities that lined shelves not long ago,” says Nicholas Florko. For “anyone with a sweet tooth, it can feel like food companies have developed guilt-free candy. But that’s where things get disorienting.” Some protein products are “seemingly nutritionally benign, whereas others are nothing more than junk food trying to cash in on protein’s good reputation.” The “line between protein bar and candy bar has never been blurrier.”

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‘How tech turned against women’

Laura Bates at the Financial Times

The “Big Tech lobby, well oiled by money and unprecedented proximity to those in positions of power, has done an overwhelmingly successful job of convincing us that regulation in their sector is a near-impossible task,” says Laura Bates. We are “sleepwalking into a new age of gender inequality, propelled at breathtaking speed by the implementation of untested AI.” Existing “forms of inequality and discrimination are being repeated and intensified by tools that have been trained on biased or misleading data.”

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‘Tarique Rahman must revive Bangladesh’s economy’

Farid Erkizia Bakht at Time

New Bangladesh Prime Minister Tarique Rahman will have to “work hard to maintain political stability but his political success will depend on his primary task: reviving the economy,” says Farid Erkizia Bakht. Many “identify structural bottlenecks in distribution channels, rather than monetary policy alone, as the chief cause of elevated food prices. This is the Rahman government’s Achilles heel.” The “challenges are significant but Rahman does have a chance to revive the economy and bring stability to Bangladesh.”

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‘How George Harrison transformed the music business’

Josh Harlan at The Wall Street Journal

Spotify “recently announced that it paid more than $11 billion in streaming royalties and other payments to the music industry in 2025,” and it is a “fitting occasion to recall how George Harrison, railing against Britain’s confiscatory tax regime, unwittingly helped create the template for this market,” says Josh Harlan. The Beatles’ “attempt to protect their income stream would backfire twice, costing them control of their own songs, but it also helped shape one of today’s most coveted asset classes.”

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Sepsis is one of the leading causes of death and disability worldwide. It can affect anyone, and is notoriously difficult to diagnose in the early stages, and to treat once it becomes life-threatening. Now scientists in Australia are getting close to unlocking the first specific sepsis treatment.

The current first-choice treatment for sepsis focuses on using broad-spectrum antibiotics to attack the pathogen causing the condition. But there are an increasing number of antibiotic-resistant pathogens that can cause sepsis. “This is the nightmare that keeps my colleagues working in public health awake at night,” one doctor told The Telegraph.

The new drug has been developed by researchers at Australia’s Griffith University to target and reverse the sepsis, rather than destroy the pathogen that’s causing it. Its recent Phase II human clinical trial in China showed “promising results in reducing sepsis”, said Science Daily. This is “a major step forward”.

What is sepsis?

Essentially, the body’s extreme response to an often minor bacterial, viral, fungal or parasitical infection. Our immune system goes into overdrive trying to fight the infection off, triggering inflammation that can impair blood flow and damage tissues and organs. Without treatment, sepsis can quickly lead to septic shock and multiple organ failure. Anyone can develop sepsis, but it’s more prevalent among the very young, the elderly, the diabetic, the immunocompromised and women who have recently given birth.

If you are treated swiftly, you can make a full recovery. But the longer you wait for a diagnosis, the higher the risk. Sepsis causes more than 10 million deaths a year worldwide: about one person every three seconds.

How is it diagnosed?

Sepsis is often called “the silent killer” because the wide variety of pathogens that can cause it may initially trigger very different symptoms, making it hard for medics to spot soon enough. Warning signs in a child – fever, chills, lethargy, fast heartbeat or breathing, blotchy skin and/or a rash that doesn’t fade (as with meningitis) – can mirror many less serious conditions. For adults, symptoms include slurred speech or confusion, extreme shivering, lack of urination, mottled skin, severe breathlessness and a feeling of doom.

There is currently no one diagnostic test; just different tests, that typically take hours, to confirm the presence, and possibly the type, of infection. The NHS is currently trialling a rapid blood test to identify if a patient has a viral or bacterial infection, which could speed up some diagnoses of sepsis considerably. Doctors who participated in the trial, which concludes in March, have already “witnessed the benefits”, according to The Guardian.

What is the new drug?

Known as STC3141, it is a carbohydrate-based drug administered as an infusion through a cannula. It works by “calming” and counteracting the “major biological molecule release” that occurs during the body’s immune overreaction, and helps to treat sepsis by “reversing the damage to organs rather than only managing symptoms”, said Science Daily.

The research team now plans to move onto Phase III effectiveness trials. “It’s hoped we could see the treatment reach the market in a handful of years, potentially saving millions of lives,” said team leader Mark von Itzstein.

What else might help?

Artificial intelligence may help medics detect sepsis earlier. US researchers at Northeastern University have been training an AI model on patient data collected at urgent care centres, in ambulances and in hospital. The model was able to predict septic shock with over 99% accuracy, according to a study published in Life last October.

“If sepsis is diagnosed in the emergency room, probably the best-case scenario is to pray because the survival rate is extremely low,” lead researcher Sergey Aityan told the university’s Northeastern Global News. “Our system is like an immediate second opinion, which is practically impossible to do in emergency settings with physical doctors.”

There has been a growing demand in recent years to separate “profound autism” into its own diagnosis, outside current parameters.

Since 2013, autism diagnoses have been split into three levels, ranging from “some support required” to “requires very substantial support”, said The Autism Service.

Support for the addition of the “profound autism” category, first proposed in 2022 by a board of international experts in The Lancet, is gaining traction. Some experts think it will bring welcome care to those who require it most, while others say it could mean other members of the autistic community are neglected.

What is profound autism?

The proposed term would describe individuals with autism who “have little or no language (spoken, written, signed or via a communication device), who have an IQ of less than 50, and who require 24-hour supervision and support”, said Kelsie Boulton, Marie Antoinette Hodge and Rebecca Sutherland on The Conversation. This category would only be diagnosable for ages eight and over, when individuals’ “cognitive and communication abilities are considered more stable”.

In their study of 513 autistic children assessed between 2019 and 2024, the researchers found that around 24% of participants met, or were at risk of meeting, the criteria for profound autism.

How has understanding evolved?

US Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr claimed last autumn that there was an “epidemic” of autism across his country, falsely linking it with vaccines or Tylenol, which is known as paracetamol in the UK. The “unproven and debunked” claims about the causes of autism “threatens public health, even as officials funnel more money into research”, said The Associated Press.

Autism rates have been on the rise “for decades”, but there are solid reasons for this, said The Independent. The diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder, adopted in 2013, is now “very broad”, including many people with low support needs, and there is “better awareness of the condition”, leading to more diagnoses.

The concept of an autistic “spectrum” has been widely accepted since it was coined in the 1980s by psychiatrist Dr Lorna Wing. “Groundbreaking” at the time, her work “transformed how autism was understood in the UK”, said Aimee Grant on The Conversation. Previously, autism had been seen as a “rare, narrowly defined condition”, whereas since a “wide range of traits and experiences” have been recognised.

The introduction of new terms to categorise the spectrum is not without precedent. Wing also introduced the term “Asperger’s syndrome” to the UK. It was intended to divide or categorise patients depending on their care needs. Individuals with Asperger’s tended to have lower support needs.

However, the term was “retired” in the 2013 edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders following revelations about Hans Asperger’s links to the Nazi regime, said the National Autistic Society. He was responsible for “abhorrent descriptions of some autistic children as being less ‘worthwhile’ than others”, and “more recent research” has shown that Asperger “was aware that he was sending children to their death”.

Why is the new definition needed?

Having a more specific category in future clinical guidelines could allow governments, disability services and clinicians to plan and deliver support more effectively, said Boulton, Hodge and Sutherland on The Conversation. Due to the broadening of the current spectrum, it is possible that people with the highest needs are “overlooked”, so the new category would “re-balance their under-representation in mainstream autism research”.

Current understanding of an autistic spectrum ranging from “mild” to “severe” can be “misleading”, said Grant. “The term has outlived its usefulness.” The condition has “lots of unique combinations”, including reliance on routine, “stimming” or “monotropism”. “Because autism is made up of all these different elements, there can be no single line on which every autistic person is placed.”

What are the arguments against it?

However, some experts would say the new category is “unhelpful”, said Grant. “It tells us nothing about a person’s particular challenges or the type of support they require.”

Some autistic self-advocates see “unity as the best protection for everyone on the spectrum” and being “part of one shared story”, said Forbes. Similarly, some people in the autistic community fear that creating a separate diagnosis would “reduce attention on the broader spectrum and the individual needs of everyone on it”, said The Independent.

Trying to become pregnant, whether you are struggling with fertility or not, can be an incredibly stressful process. When it comes to conception and nine months of pregnancy, there is plenty of advice for how to be at your healthy best. However, an emerging social media trend has influencers convincing people that the key to a healthy pregnancy lies in how you prepare during the time leading up to it.

What does ‘zero trimester’ mean?

On TikTok and Instagram, the “cultural obsession with wellness and optimization” has come for the “murky preconception period,” coined the “zero trimester” by sociologist Miranda Waggoner in her 2017 book by the same name, Wired said. A growing number of influencers, holistic health experts and even doctors are “posting content that speaks to the ‘Trying to Conceive’ (TTC) demographic,” including “women who are struggling to conceive and those who haven’t started yet.”

Their message is simple: If you “follow this wellness formula,” you will “set yourself up for the quickest conception, the easiest pregnancy and the healthiest child,” said Wired. Essentially, they believe that having a healthy pregnancy boils down to the choices you make before you even become pregnant.

Pregnant women have “long been subject to endless rules on how to treat their bodies,” said The Cut. But increasingly, it feels like the “goal post has been moved back.” The recommendations from zero trimester influencers range from drinking raw milk to filtering air.

The “pregnancy prep” creators encourage lifestyle changes, courses, books and tips to follow during the six to 12 months before becoming pregnant. On her podcast, MAHA influencer Alex Clark recommends that women trying to get pregnant “stop wearing nail polish,” while holistic nutritionists claim it’s important to avoid iced beverages. Other influencers are posting meditation journeys to “lower cortisol six months before trying to conceive,” while some are ordering micronutrient labs and “embarking on 60-day pregnancy-prep detoxes.”

Is the advice worth listening to?

Many people struggle to get pregnant, and some doctors agree that the standard medical advice just to wait and see is failing them. Yet claims “about the importance of trimester-zero strain credulity,” said The Cut. Listening to some of these influencers, it is “easy to come away thinking that if you struggle to get pregnant or have a difficult pregnancy, it’s your fault.”

Some experts argue that the new attention surrounding the zero trimester is a “very positive, exciting development,” as healthy moms “usually spell better outcomes for mom and baby,” said Wired. There are so many things that can be done to “optimize underlying health in that preconception year that will make outcomes in pregnancy better,” Natalie Clark Stentz, an ob-gyn and infertility specialist at Michigan Medicine, said to Wired.

Still, prep should be “expert-vetted and backed by science,” and it “usually doesn’t involve the TikTok Shop,” Wired said. Any “buzzy individual thing is likely sensational,” whether that’s “Brazil nuts, organ meats or whatnot,” Stentz said. Evidence-based recommendations are “not sexy” — suggestions like maintaining a “normal BMI, stop smoking, pick a boring prenatal vitamin.”

Pregnancy prep regimens being touted by influencers can also “get pricey fast,” Wired said. They are taking a “very vulnerable, very highly motivated population of patients” and targeting them with “information that is kind of driven by financial incentives,” Kara Goldman, an ob-gyn and associate professor of reproductive endocrinology and infertility at Northwestern University, said to Wired. The marketing can “disguise the fact that even going into pregnancy in peak health is not a guarantee,” said the outlet.

The zero trimester trend can “make women feel guilty or blame-worthy if their outcome isn’t ‘perfect,’ however they’re defining perfect,” said Waggoner. It promotes the idea that there is a “causal and deterministic link between preconception care behaviors and birth outcomes,” and that is what “can be problematic for both individuals and at a policy level.”

Most Americans may not expect a robot to perform their surgery, but AI-powered surgical tools are becoming more ubiquitous in operating rooms. While these tools are only used to assist human surgeons during operations and don’t perform surgery themselves, recent investigations, along with several lawsuits, are causing some medical experts to reconsider the use of AI in hospitals.

What kind of surgical tools are powered by AI?

At least 1,357 AI-integrated medical devices are “now authorized by the FDA — double the number it had allowed through 2022,” said Reuters as part of an investigation into AI-assisted surgery. One of the most notable is the TruDi Navigation System, a device manufactured by Johnson & Johnson that uses a “machine-learning algorithm to assist ear, nose and throat specialists in surgeries.” Other AI-assisted devices are designed for surgeries on other parts of the body.

Many of these tools address the “area of vision enhancement,” said Forbes. Traditional laparoscopic surgery “presents surgeons with significant challenges: smoke obscures the surgical field, two-dimensional images make depth perception difficult and critical anatomical structures can be hard to distinguish.” AI surgical tools can eliminate these obstacles and provide surgeons with “crystal-clear views of the operative field.”

What has the result been?

There has been an influx of allegations and lawsuits against various AI tools, many of which claim these tools actively harmed patients. Several of these involve the TruDi tool, as the FDA has “received unconfirmed reports of at least 100 malfunctions and adverse events” related to the device’s AI, said Reuters. Many of the alleged errors occurred when the AI “misinformed surgeons about the location of their instruments while they were using them inside patients’ heads.”

In one case, this reportedly led to cerebrospinal fluid leaking from a patient’s nose, while in another case, a surgeon “mistakenly punctured the base of a patient’s skull,” said Reuters. Two other cases allegedly led to patients suffering strokes after major arteries were accidentally injured; in at least one of these cases, the plaintiff said the TruDi’s AI “misled” the surgeon, causing him to “injure a carotid artery, leading to a blood clot and eventually a stroke,” said Futurism.

FDA reports on malfunctioning devices “aren’t intended to determine causes of medical mishaps, so it’s not clear what role AI may have played in these events,” said Reuters. But TruDi is not the only AI-assisted medical device that allegedly has performance issues. One machine that analyzes prenatal images using AI, the Sonio Detect, has been “accused of using a faulty algorithm” that “misidentifies fetal structures and body parts,” said Tom’s Hardware. And Medtronic, a company that manufactures AI-assisted heart monitors, has faced allegations that its monitors “failed to recognize abnormal rhythms or pauses in patients.”

Overall, at least 60 AI-assisted medical devices have been linked to 182 product recalls by the FDA, according to research published in JAMA Health Forum. At least 43% of these recalls “occurred within the first 12 months” of the device’s FDA approval, said JAMA. This suggests that the FDA’s approval process “may overlook early performance failures of AI technologies.” But there is hope that the issue can be fixed, as shoring up “premarket clinical testing requirements and postmarket surveillance measures may improve identification and reduction of device errors.”

‘Tomb raiders pose a challenge in preserving Mexico’s history’

Jude Webber at the Financial Times

Two “major pre-Hispanic discoveries came to light in Mexico last month that have both stunned and stung local archaeologists,” says Jude Webber. The “problem with the first discovery” was that the “tomb was full of artifacts — but they had been removed by locals.” The “problem with the second” tomb was “that it was empty.” Mexico is “replete with still undiscovered treasures from its ancient civilizations,” but “keeping them intact can be a challenge.”

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‘Make lifesaving care affordable for new moms’

Gwen Moore at Newsweek

Nearly “every family in America has experienced the ravages of addiction or mental health struggles,” and “during pregnancy and in the postpartum period, too many mothers face these battles alone,” says Rep. Gwen Moore (D-Wisc.). While society “broadly accepts the premise that children are our future, America is failing to keep mothers healthy.” Congress “should play a direct role in helping to build a society where every mother receives the care she needs, where no one suffers in silence.”

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‘Most insurance claim denials are due to clerical error. The system needs to be simplified.’

The Boston Globe editorial board

Adjudicating “what health care services are necessary and paying for them is a core function of an insurance company,” but insurance claims are “mostly rejected for what amount to clerical errors,” says The Boston Globe editorial board. Resubmitting them is a “waste of time and money. Even worse, the delays caused by the need to fill out more forms can harm patients, who may need to wait for the treatments they need.” Insurers and providers “need to work together.”

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‘Cuba is in crisis and it’s time for Canada to help’

John Kirk at the Toronto Star

There are “many reports on the dire situation in Cuba,” says John Kirk. But “why should Canada get involved? There are several reasons.” Canadians “travel there annually and have close friends on the island. Canadians are the single largest group of tourists to the island.” Many Canadians “also know what it is like to be the object of U.S. bullying and threats.” Canada “should now turn to humanitarian assistance along the lines of Mexico.”

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The quest for immortality may seem the preserve of Greek myth or science fiction – or the Silicon Valley super-rich – but it seems to be affecting ordinary people, too.

Longevity Fixation Syndrome is being flagged by some health professionals as a new mental-health disorder, characterised by an obsession with extending your biological clock and staving off not only the signs of age, but even death itself.

‘Obsessive self-surveillance’

Someone with LFS may “obsessively monitor their body, stick to unattainable routines, and engage in behaviours fuelled by fear”, said The Mirror. These “extreme” practices may include constant monitoring of sleep patterns, bowel movements and blood-sugar levels, embracing “controversial therapies”, and following intense exercise routines, strict diets and “supplement protocols”.

One of the most popular anti-ageing therapies is plasma exchange, a process that involves being hooked up to a machine which removes your blood, separates out and removes the plasma and then replaces it with donor plasma. This is a “well-established treatment for certain blood disorders, autoimmune diseases and neurological conditions”, but its anti-ageing benefits have never been proven in large clinical trials, said The New York Times.

“What starts as self‑care becomes obsessive self‑surveillance,” Jan Gerber, CEO of Zurich-based mental-health clinic Paracelsus Recovery, told The Mirror. We’re starting to see “a growing number” of very stressed and anxious people “whose lives are dominated by the fear of ageing and decline”.

While LFS has yet to appear in official diagnostic manuals, Gerber compares it to orthorexia, an eating disorder characterised by an obsession with healthy food. And, like many other addictions, it can affect your career and personal relationships, and lead to loneliness and isolation. Ironically, “the stress generated by this mindset can be so intense that it actively shortens lifespan, rather than extending it”.

Struggle to ‘accept mortality’

Anxiety about longevity does have some basis in fact: the past century’s steady increase in life expectancy is slowing, according to a mortality forecasting study published in PNAS last year. The average person is living longer than they were many decades ago, thanks mainly to huge improvements in child health but, for the moment at least, we seem not to be able to push longevity much further: it would be “optimistic” to expect 15% of women and 5% of men in most countries to live beyond 100 this century, according to a 2024 study published in Nature Aging.

Global Google searches for “longevity” tripled over the course of 2025, and entrepreneurs have been quick to spot the potential new market. At the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last month, longevity tech was “the hype vertical du jour”, said the Financial Times. Standout items included a $899 (£660) “longevity mirror” that tells how well you are ageing, and a $600 (£440) “longevity station” that measures your body composition and assesses your health across more than 60 biomarkers.

The most public face of the new crusade against ageing is Bryan Johnson, a 48-year-old American venture capitalist who has claimed he will “achieve immortality” within the next 15 years. Johnson has said he wants his “Don’t Die” movement to be “the most influential ideology in the world by 2027”.

This obsession with longevity “reveals a self-centred society” in which people struggle to “accept mortality”, said the FT. It also, “let’s face it”, a new “buzzword” for shifting products. We’d probably do well to face the fact “that when we die is not something we can control”, and “realise that life is too important to waste it trying to live forever”.

Free-living amoebas, which are single-celled organisms that do not require a host to live, pose a dangerous threat to humans. They are prevalent in both natural water sources and drinking water systems. They are also notoriously difficult to kill and can harbor other pathogens. More research needs to be done to effectively control amoebic disease spread.

A Trojan horse

Amoebas’ “widespread presence in both natural and engineered environments poses significant exposure risks through contaminated water sources, recreational water activities and drinking water systems,” said a paper published in the journal Biocontaminant. While most species are harmless, there is a subset that can have serious public health consequences, like Naegleria fowleri, the brain-eating amoeba.

The brain-eating amoeba is not the only one to be worried about. Others can “cause painful eye infections, particularly in contact lens users, skin lesions in people with weakened immune systems and rare but serious systemic infections affecting organs such as the lungs, liver and kidneys,” Manal Mohammed, a senior lecturer of medical microbiology at the University of Westminster, said at The Conversation. The level of human exposure to amoebas is “likely substantially underestimated,” said the study, as “amoebic infections are prone to clinical misdiagnosis as other diseases.”

Free-living amoebas have the “ability to change shape and move using temporary arm-like extensions called pseudopodia,” or “false feet,” Mohammed said. This allows them to thrive in even the most inhospitable of environments, including extremely high temperatures and in the presence of strong cleaning chemicals like chlorine. Along with their resilience, amoebas “act as hidden carriers for other harmful microbes,” said a release about the paper. “By sheltering bacteria and viruses inside their cells, amoebae can protect these pathogens from disinfection and help them persist and spread in drinking water systems.” This is known as the Trojan horse effect, and it can contribute to the prevalence of antibiotic resistance.

Deep water

Unfortunately, “most water systems are not routinely checked for free-living amoebas,” said Mohammed. Since they can be rare, and may “hide in biofilms or sediments,” they “require specialized tests to detect, making routine monitoring expensive and technically challenging.” Generally, water testing “relies on proper chlorination, maintaining disinfectant levels and flushing systems regularly,” which can help but does not guarantee the removal of amoeba. There is a lack of knowledge on how to deal with amoebas, making it “challenging to establish science-based regulatory standards for water treatment that are guaranteed to be effective against all threatening species,” said the study.

The problem is also likely to worsen because of climate change. The rising temperatures are “expanding the geographic range of heat-loving amoebae into regions where they were previously rare,” said the release. Mitigating the spread “requires comprehensive strategies combining enhanced surveillance, rapid diagnostics and targeted environmental interventions,” said the study. There should also be more public awareness about the risk of amoebic infections, especially in natural bodies of water.

“Amoebae are not just a medical issue or an environmental issue,” Longfei Shu, the author of the study, said in the release. “They sit at the intersection of both, and addressing them requires integrated solutions that protect public health at its source.”

Researchers have created one of the most realistic “mini-brains” yet, reports New Scientist, growing a tiny version of a developing human cerebral cortex, complete with a network of blood vessels that closely mimics those found in real brains.

Such brain organoids, lab-grown clusters of human brain cells, are used to study conditions such as autism, schizophrenia, and dementia. Most organoids resemble the brains of fetuses but usually stop developing after a few months because they lack blood vessels to deliver oxygen and nutrients to their core.

To overcome that issue, a team at University of California, San Francisco grew cortical organoids from human stem cells alongside separate organoids made of blood-vessel cells. They then fused the two, placing vascular organoids at either end of each mini-brain. Within weeks, blood vessels had spread evenly throughout the tissue.

Crucially, imaging revealed that the vessels formed hollow tubes, or lumens—a defining feature of real blood vessels that previous attempts had failed to reproduce. The vessels also showed genetic activity and physical properties similar to those seen in the developing human brain, including features of the blood-brain barrier, which regulates what enters and exits brain tissue.

Madeline Lancaster from the University of Cambridge, who first developed brain organoids, says that while we are still a long way from creating “truly functional” blood vessels, this breakthrough is a “major step.”

‘Want to make a difference? Donate your kidney.’

German Lopez at The New York Times

“You should consider donating your kidney,” says German Lopez. In a “time that feels increasingly chaotic and out of control, helping people, directly and materially, remains one of the few actions we can take to immediately make the world better.” The “problem is that living donors are fairly rare and donors to strangers are even rarer.” Most “people don’t want to donate an organ or don’t know they can. Each of us can, and should, work to change that.”

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‘Punishing WHO, blinding ourselves: The high cost of a cheap exit’

Y. Tony Yang at The Hill

The “formal withdrawal of the U.S. from the World Health Organization last month marks the end of a 77-year partnership that fundamentally built the modern global health architecture,” says Y. Tony Yang. As the “dust settles in Geneva, Washington is waking up to a stark reality: We have not just left a treaty; we have voluntarily blinded our own national security apparatus.” The U.S. has “created a dangerous accountability paradox that undermines our soft power far beyond the realm of health.”

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‘Iranian progress cannot be stopped’

Shahrnush Parsipur at Time

Iran “resembles a half-lifeless body collapsed on the ground, yet still possessing powerful arms,” says Shahrnush Parsipur. The government has “attacked the people of Iran and, through widespread killings, has delivered a brutal blow to the popular uprising.” This is “only a temporary success,” as the “republic is already dead morally, economically, and socially.” But the “protesters have not capitulated. This uprising is momentous and will have profound consequences.” It “began in a way that ensures its continuation.”

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‘Albertan separatists don’t understand how Canada really feels about their province’

Janice Kennedy at the Toronto Star

Everyone “still wants to go out to Alberta,” and “that’s why this separatist chatter feels so confounding,” says Janice Kennedy. Most Canadians “cannot conceive of this country without that province.” Pause “for a moment to imagine a Canada without the contributions of the athletes, artists, politicians and visionaries born or raised in Alberta.” Canada’s “heart beats with the spirit of Alberta. Alberta’s heart beats with the spirit of Canada,” and many “suspect the vast majority of Albertans feel the same.”

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California’s governor has been an outspoken critic of the Trump administration, and he has found his latest target: Gavin Newsom (D) has filed a civil rights complaint against Dr. Mehmet Oz, the head of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, over the latter’s allegations of health care fraud in the Golden State. While Newsom has claimed the allegations are racially motivated, Oz is pushing back.

Video origins

The feud began after Oz posted a video on X claiming to document health care fraud being perpetrated by Armenian immigrants throughout Los Angeles County. The county has become an “epicenter for health care fraud in America,” Oz said in the video, alleging $3.5 billion of fraud in Los Angeles and that the schemes are “run, quite a bit of it, by the Russian Armenian mafia.”

Oz’s allegations are largely against hospice centers and home health care businesses. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which Oz runs, “certifies hospice providers to accept patients on government-subsidized health insurance,” said The Associated Press.

The fraud “isn’t isolated to California, though as far as our team can tell, it’s the worst,” said Oz. But while he claims to be focusing on medical fraud, the video showed him standing not in front of a health care center but an Armenian-owned bakery.

In response to the video, Newsom filed a civil rights complaint against Oz. The video includes “racially charged and false public statements,” and Oz’s words “reveal a discriminatory motive that could infect how allegations of alleged fraud are conducted,” Newsom said in the filing.

The filing represents the peak of a “dayslong public quarrel” between Newsom and Oz, said The Guardian. The Armenian National Committee of America also filed a similar civil rights complaint.

‘No Armenian mafia going on here’

Newsom is not the only one disputing Oz’s allegations. California, and specifically the greater Los Angeles area, has the largest Armenian American population in the U.S., according to the World Population Review, and many are speaking out. The video has “generated intense local backlash” among this Armenian diaspora, said The New York Times. Fraud allegations in Los Angeles have also been investigated before, and “hospice fraud investigations and prosecutions have been ongoing for at least five years in California.”

“I am really disappointed,” said Movses Bislamyan, the owner of the bakery seen in Oz’s video, to KABC-TV Los Angeles. Oz was “recording my signs and location and talking about some kind of fraud going on here. We have nothing to do with it. It has nothing to do whatsoever with the grocery store.” There’s “no Armenian mafia going on here. We are just hard-working businessmen. I don't understand why he’s mentioning" just Armenians, "especially Russian Armenians.” Newsom’s civil rights complaint claimed the bakery experienced a 30% drop in business after the video’s release.

But Oz maintains that he’s identifying fraud and says he will continue to do so. “If there were a real defense for California’s fraud crisis, we would hear it," Oz said on X in response to Newsom’s civil rights complaint. "CMS and law enforcement will keep doing the actual work: going after fraudsters, period."

Scientists are putting the pedal to the metal to develop new antibiotics. Metal-based drugs can open a new world of medicine, especially as antimicrobial resistance is growing. Researchers have also found a way to create and test these metal compounds much faster than before through the use of robots.

Metallic medicine

Robotic chemistry can be used to produce and test metal-based antibiotics, according to a study published in the journal Nature Communications. Most modern antibiotics are organic or carbon-based and tend to interact with bacteria in predictable ways. However, metal-containing compounds have a unique geometry that “allows them to interact with bacteria in completely different ways, potentially overcoming the resistance mechanisms that defeat current drugs,” said a release about the study.

Researchers used robots and “click chemistry,” a “method where two molecular components are ‘bolted’ together efficiently,” to produce over 600 compounds, said the release. “We opted to use liquid-handling robots to do the chemistry because it’s just combining different reagents in the right ratios," said Angelo Frei, the lead author of the study, to Live Science. This method allowed for the rapid testing of the compounds, turning months of work into just days, though careful checks were still required.

An iridium metal complex was specifically identified as a promising antibiotic drug. It “demonstrated high effectiveness against bacteria, including strains similar to the deadly MRSA (Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus), while displaying low toxicity to human cells,” said the release. The compound was “about 50 to 100 times more active against bacteria than it was toxic to human cells,” a difference that is “vital to ensure that the complex is simultaneously effective in treating an infection but safe to use on human tissues,” said Live Science.

Revved-up research

The findings come at a time when antibiotic resistance is becoming more of a danger. “The pipeline for new antibiotics has been running dry for decades,” Frei said in the release. “Traditional screening methods are slow and the pharmaceutical industry has largely withdrawn from this space due to low returns on investment. We have to think differently.” Different metal compositions “can hit bacteria in several ways, which matters when single-target drugs stop working,” said Earth.com. A metal center “can change its charge and grip key bacterial proteins, which can stall processes needed for growth.”

There has been a “misconception that metal-based drugs are inherently toxic,” said the release. However, “metal complexes actually have a higher ‘hit rate’ for being antibacterial without being toxic compared to standard organic molecules.” Still, because bacteria evolve quickly, there is a risk of resistance developing to these compounds over time. The good news is that robotic chemistry can significantly speed up research. “The iridium compound we discovered is exciting, but the real breakthrough is the speed at which we found it,” Frei said. “This approach could be the key to avoiding a future where routine infections become fatal again.” The method could also be used beyond antibiotics and help further several areas of biomedical research.

Poisoned apples may sound like the stuff of fairytales, but one of Europe’s favourite fruit might warrant a real-life health warning as environmental groups raise the alarm over toxic pesticide residues.

Pesticide Action Network (Pan) Europe, a coalition of NGOs, analysed apples bought in 13 European countries. It found residue from multiple pesticides – so-called “pesticide cocktails” – in 85% of apples.

In 71% of cases, the apples contained at least one residue of pesticides classed “among the most hazardous in the EU”, Pan Europe said.

The cocktail effect

Apples are the most widely grown fruit in Europe and “are also among the most heavily treated”, said Agence France-Presse.

Most of the pesticides employed by farmers target apple scab, “the main fungal threat to orchards”. The EU permits pesticide residue up to a certain level – but the Pan Europe research focused on the “cocktail effect”: exposure to several pesticides in one product.

The study, conducted last September, revealed that 64% of apple samples contained at least one residue of PFAS pesticides, also known as “forever chemicals”. Fludioxonil – a chemical toxic to human livers and kidneys – was found in nearly 40% of samples. “It should have been banned, but EU member states have been blocking this for a year now,” Pan Europe said in a statement.

Most residues also exceeded the stricter limits of pesticide levels for children under three. If the apples were sold as processed baby food, 93% of them would be banned.

A growing risk

The “damning report” criticised the EU’s risk assessment procedure, which assesses pesticides individually, or “in silos”, and disregards the “cocktail” effect, said Euronews.

“The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) was tasked 20 years ago to develop a methodology to regulate the cocktail effects of pesticides, but they still do not fulfil this legal obligation,” said Gergely Simon, a campaigner at Pan Europe. “Young parents are not aware that feeding their children with fresh conventional fruits or vegetables strongly increases their exposure to pesticides, sometimes more than 600 times.”

Residue levels are also rising. Between 2012 and 2022, the average pesticide residue levels in the top 10 fruits consumed by children rose by 17%, a Foodwatch Netherlands study found.

The European Commission and EFSA have been working since 2021 to “expand cumulative risk assessments to more pesticide groups”, said Euronews. But in 2025, the EU proposed changes that would “weaken pesticide regulation”. Now, with rules to address pesticide cocktails “in limbo”, campaign groups are urging the bloc to “speed up”.

President Donald Trump has long bragged that he is the healthiest and strongest president in U.S. history, and while this claim has been almost universally met with skepticism, he isn’t the only one to make this assertion. White House officials during both of Trump’s terms have made grandiose statements about the president’s health. But at 79, some people are questioning how healthy the oldest person ever elected president truly is.

Harold Bornstein: ‘healthiest individual ever elected’

In 2015, prior to Trump being elected for the first time, his then-physician, Dr. Harold Bornstein, released a letter with a glowing endorsement of his health. Trump “has had no significant medical problems,” and if “elected, Mr. Trump, I can state unequivocally, will be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency,” Bornstein said in his letter. He also claimed that Trump’s blood pressure and lab results were “astonishingly excellent” and said Trump had lost 15 pounds during the prior year.

But several years later, Bornstein revealed that the letter was actually written by Trump. “He dictated that whole letter. I didn’t write that letter. I just made it up as I went along,“ Bornstein said to CNN. Bornstein also revealed that he wrote the letter “in just five minutes while a limo sent by the candidate waited outside his Manhattan office,” the doctor said to NBC News. However, Bornstein, who died in 2021, also claimed that he stood by the overall assessment of Trump’s health.

Ronny Jackson: Trump is in ‘excellent health’

During Trump’s first term in 2018, the then-White House doctor, Dr. Ronny Jackson, gave similarly glowing reviews to Trump’s health that prompted skepticism. There is “no evidence that the president has any issues whatsoever with his thought process,” and Trump has a “lot of energy and stamina,” Jackson said to reporters at a White House press briefing. Jackson also said that he administered a cognitive exam to Trump, which he passed.

The internet also met with further doubt the idea that Trump was 6’3” and 239 pounds, which put his body mass index “just below the 30.0 threshold for him to be officially described as obese, rather than merely overweight,” said The Washington Post. Jackson’s press conference occurred the same month a tabloid-style book, “Fire and Fury,” was released, which “led to speculation about Trump’s mental fitness for office,” said NPR. The release of the book led to the infamous moment when Trump called himself a “very stable genius” on social media.

Stephen Miller: Trump is ‘superhuman’

Many people in Trump’s circle have championed his supposed vitality in his second term, none more so than White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller. Miller, who is no stranger to controversial remarks, has claimed that Trump has near-godlike abilities. The president “can work harder and he has a better memory and he has more stamina and has more energy than a normal mortal,” Miller said in an interview with New York magazine. “The headline of your story should be ‘The Superhuman President.’”

But these “strenuous assertions came alongside signs that made Trump seem more mortal than ever, from his dismal approval rating to the growing likelihood that Republicans will lose control of at least one chamber of Congress,” said New York. The president seemed undeterred. If “you’re going to write a bad story about my health, I’m going to sue the ass off of New York magazine,” Trump told the outlet.

James Jones: Trump in better health than Obama

Former President Barack Obama is known for his vigorous fitness routine and healthy habits, but according to at least one doctor, Trump is the healthier person. Dr. James Jones, the White House physician’s assistant, chose Trump when asked in the same New York magazine interview who was in better health. When the question was asked, Trump, who was in the room, “stared across the desk, making eye contact with Jones. Jones didn’t hesitate. ‘President Trump,’ he said.”

Some may find this hard to believe, as Obama is a “fitness fanatic rumored to allow himself precisely seven almonds a night,” said New York magazine. But Trump’s EKG shows that he is “14 years younger. So age 65,” James said to the outlet. “His stamina demonstrates that. We get a view that nobody else does. Nobody can stay up with him. The rest of the staff is tired; we are too. And he’s not.”

Trump: ‘physical specimen’

Trump himself has compared his physique not only to Obama but also former President George W. Bush. Dr. Ronny Jackson claimed that Trump was the “best physical specimen” of the three presidents, Trump said during a 2025 speech in Norfolk, Virginia. Jackson believed that Trump was in the “best shape, the healthiest,” and the “best physical specimen,” Trump added.

This is not the first time Trump has championed his physicality in public, with another notable moment coming during his 2024 debate with former President Joe Biden. “I think I’m in very good shape. I feel that I’m in as good a shape as I was 25, 30 years ago,” Trump said during the debate, while also bragging about a series of cognitive tests he took during his first term.

Trump: meetings are ‘boring as hell’

Given Trump’s age, concerns arose during his second term when video appeared to show him falling asleep during a Cabinet meeting, his eyes closing as he apparently struggled to stay awake. But the White House — and Trump himself — said this was not the case and that he was only closing his eyes because he was bored.

The Cabinet meetings are “boring as hell; I’m going around a room, and I’ve got 28 guys — the last one was three and a half hours. I have to sit back and listen, and I move my hand so that people will know I’m listening,” Trump said to New York magazine in the same interview. “I’m hearing every word, and I can’t wait to get out,” he added. But this did little to assuage the mounting “speculation about the president’s ability to deal with chronic venous insufficiency and lead the country by past staffers, political strategists and the public,” said The Hill.

Trump: ‘I don’t want thick blood’

Further eyebrows were raised when Trump made more comments on his health during an interview with The Wall Street Journal. The most notable revelation was that Trump takes 325 milligrams of aspirin daily; the most common daily dosage is only 81 milligrams, according to the Mayo Clinic. But Trump takes a higher dosage because “aspirin is good for thinning out the blood, and I don’t want thick blood pouring through my heart,” the president said to the Journal, claiming this was what caused excessive bruising on his hands.

Beyond the aspirin, people around Trump “say they often have to speak loudly in meetings with the president because he strains to hear,” the Journal reported. Trump also “doesn’t get regular exercise, and he is known to consume a diet heavy on salty and fatty foods, such as hamburgers and french fries.” Despite this, Trump is in“exceptional health and perfectly suited to execute his duties,” Navy Capt. Sean Barbabella, Trump’s doctor, told the Journal.

There have been two confirmed cases of Nipah virus in a hospital in West Bengal, India. Close to 200 people were also exposed to the infection. This has sparked concern across Asia, as the virus is extremely contagious. Several Asian countries have now instituted Covid-era airport screenings to monitor the spread of infection for which there’s currently no vaccine or cure.

From bat to human

This zoonotic infection originates from direct contact with infected animals — mainly flying fox bats and pigs — or their contaminated tissues and secretions. The disease can spread easily from person-to-person through contact with bodily fluids and cause minor to severe infections with a fatality rate of between 40% and 70%.

Those infected are “typically sick for 3 to 14 days with fever, headache, cough, sore throat and difficulty breathing,” said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In more severe cases, people may experience “brain swelling (or encephalitis), where severe symptoms can include confusion, drowsiness and seizures,” which can lead to coma in 24 to 48 hours. Symptoms may appear anywhere from four to 14 days after infection.

While this virus is making headlines now, Nipah was first discovered in Malaysia in 1999. Since then, outbreaks have “occurred almost annually in Asia, particularly in Bangladesh and India,” between December and April, said The Washington Post.

But the current outbreak is West Bengal’s first since 2007. This represents a “return of Nipah to this area after a long gap, which is concerning from a surveillance standpoint,” Lauren Sauer, the director of the Special Pathogen Research Network at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, said to the Post. A total of 196 contacts of the infected were quarantined and tested negative for the virus.

The blueprint

While no official cases have been identified outside of India, Asian countries, including China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Nepal and Thailand, have taken preventative measures. Officials have “increased cleaning and disease-control preparedness at Phuket International Airport,” said The Independent. Other airports are also performing “health declarations, temperature checks and visual monitoring for arriving passengers,” said The Associated Press.

Many of these measures were established during the Covid-19 pandemic. When scientists were “racing to find the origins of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, the first Nipah outbreak was viewed as a case study in zoonotic disease spillover from animals to humans,” said the Post.

India has also “ensured timely containment of the cases” through “enhanced surveillance, laboratory testing and field investigations,” said the Indian Ministry of Health in a statement. Because there’s no preventive or curative medicine, avoiding infection is the best course of action.

If you have traveled or live in an area with an outbreak, wash your hands regularly with soap and water and avoid contact with items that could be contaminated by flying fox bats or pigs. Also avoid the bodily fluids of anyone who has come in contact with the virus.

“Work is ongoing to establish a global platform for countries to report genome sequencing of detected cases,” Singapore’s Communicable Diseases Agency said in a statement. Most of the more recent Nipah outbreaks were found in Kerala, India. In 2018, at least 17 people were killed by the virus.

One of the big victories of American science in the last few decades was conquering measles. But that achievement is being reversed, as the U.S. now stands on the brink of losing its measles elimination status.

Measles cases are “skyrocketing” across the country, with cases reported in nine states, and “hundreds” of patients were quarantined in South Carolina in late December, said Axios. Some of the surges in disease are happening in places where the measles vaccination rate is under the 95% level that public health officials say is “necessary to contain the virus’ spread.” A “record share” of kindergartners were exempted from the vaccine last school year, said CNN, “marking the fifth year in a row” that coverage fell short of the 95% target.

The Pan American Health Organization will review America’s measles elimination status in April, said USA Today. The designation is “more symbolic than anything” but still carries some meaning. The designation is a “significant public health signal,” said the group.

Some experts believe the verdict has already been handed down. America’s public health system is “blue in the ICU,” said Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, the former director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases. “I don’t need to check its pulse to know” that it’s hurting.

What did the commentators say?

The South Carolina quarantines are “just a taste of what’s coming” under the anti-vaccine stewardship of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., said The Washington Post editorial board. It might be easy to dismiss the loss of measles elimination status, but outbreaks “almost certainly will become more frequent and more intense in the coming years” thanks to the loss of vaccination coverage. Other vaccine-preventable diseases like whooping cough and chicken pox will also surge. Without a reversal, “expect more horror stories like those from South Carolina.”

Measles is a “nasty virus,” said Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia in a blog post. Most people survive an infection, but it can cause “many different complications,” including blood clotting and suppression of the victim’s immune system, and can lead to miscarriages during pregnancy. The current surge of the disease means exposure to the virus is “more likely than it was even a year ago.” The larger problem is that measles is “usually the first, but not the only, pathogen to show itself” when vaccination rates drop. If vaccines are “cast aside, it will not be the only disease to return.”

What next?

Public health authorities consider a virus endemic “after one year of continuous transmission,” said NBC News. That’s a status that will be achieved in the U.S. if the current measles outbreaks can be traced back to the first West Texas measles case a year ago. That possibility is astonishing to some health experts. In most cases, it’s “unheard of to lose your elimination status,” said Amira Albert Roess, a professor of global health and epidemiology at George Mason University, to NBC News, “unless it was a war-torn, collapsing country.”

Cases of scabies are rising across the UK, with health experts struggling to account for the sudden increase.

In the second week of January, GPs reported just under 900 cases of scabies across England, which was nearly 20% higher than the same period the year before. And as doctors are only required to report cases of scabies in communal settings, like nursing homes, the total number of cases in England right now is likely to be much, much higher.

What is scabies?

When you hear scabies mentioned, you may think of a “Victorian-era” disease, symptomatic of “dirty conditions” and “bad housing”, said Clare Wilson in The i Paper. “If so, you’d be wrong”: firstly, it is thought to have been identified in Roman times, and secondly, scabies can affect anyone, irrespective of hygiene levels.

The itchy rash is caused by microscopic mites that burrow, live, and reproduce in the skin. Invisible to the human eye, they are around 0.4mm in diameter, and can burrow around 2.5cm – roughly the length of a fingertip – into your skin. The mites can also survive up to 36 hours outside the body. Only 10 females are needed to cause a significant outbreak, which can linger for months, and even years, if not treated correctly.

The itchy bumps, rash and discoloured “burrow” lines are an allergic reaction to the faeces of the mites, and “while not a serious condition, scabies can be very itchy and irritating”, said the BBC. This can exacerbate existing skin conditions like eczema, or cause secondary bacterial and skin infections.

Why is it spreading so quickly now?

The short answer is that there is no one, simple, cause for the spread. While there is “no definitive reason” behind the scabies rise, the back-to-school rush in September can kick-start transmission, as can the Christmas season, where “close contact in shared spaces is common”, Donald Grant, GP and senior clinical advisor at The Independent Pharmacy, told Women’s Health.

Scabies is often mistaken for an STI, as the groin area is “one of the most commonly affected” places, said The Guardian. Between 2023 and 2024, sexual health services registered a 44% increase in diagnoses of scabies – 4,872 up from 3,393. The mites are often transferred through “prolonged skin-to-skin contact”, so sexual partners are much more likely to be infected.

Numbers have kept creeping up since the Covid pandemic, which has left doctors “scratching their heads”. More and more contact, and fewer constraints on socialising, could have led to a “potential ‘ping-pong’ effect”, where “individuals are continuously reinfested within households or close groups of friends”. As symptoms can take “four to six weeks to develop”, and are most contagious before symptoms show, bugs can “lurk undetected while those affected are most contagious”.

Other factors in the spread include the “strain on NHS GP waiting lists”, and “lack of guidance and redirection to pharmacies”, Michael Marks, Professor of Medicine at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, told the newspaper.

How to prevent and treat it?

The most common treatment is permethrin cream – also known as Lyclear – which “paralyses and kills the mites”, Hanna Yusuf, prescribing pharmacist at Chemist4U, told Cosmopolitan. The online pharmacy saw “year-on-year sales almost double” in January, “reflecting how many people are seeking treatment right now”. Available on prescription, the cream is applied all over the body from the neck down, and left for eight to 14 hours before being washed off. It often needs to be reapplied a week later, to kill off any eggs that have hatched into mites during that period.

Contaminated items that can’t be washed “should be sealed in a plastic bag for at least 72 hours”, and it is recommended to “vacuum mattresses, sofas and carpets” if there has been any contact.

To mitigate and prevent outbreaks, the NHS advises washing bedding and clothing at 60C or higher, followed by hot tumble drying if available, said The Guardian. If an outbreak has occurred, you should avoid close contact, and stop sharing bedding, towels or other material until the mites have been eradicated.

They say travel broadens your mind but, if you’re travelling into space, it could displace your brain.

Results of new study add to a growing body of evidence that astronauts’ brains change position and shape in space. The brain shifts “upward and backward within the skull”, with sensory and motor regions showing the largest shifts, according to a US study published in PNAS this month. These brain shape changes are “considerable”, can lead to disorientation and loss of balance, and can persist after return to Earth for more than six months.

This evidence of brain deformation “could complicate future efforts to explore the cosmos”, said Futurism.

Brain-shifting ‘sensory conflicts’

The researchers examined MRI scans from 26 astronauts who had been in space for varying amounts of time and compared them to scans of 24 Earth-bound volunteers who had been placed on bed rest for up to 60 days with their heads tilted back to simulate a microgravity environment. Both groups experienced changes in brain shape and position but the astronauts’ brains underwent a greater upwards shift.

Most of the astronauts’ brain deformation “recovered over six months post-flight” but “some persisted”, the study concluded. The “health and human performance implications” of these findings require “further study to pave the way for safer human space exploration”.

Those astronauts who went to space for a year “showed the largest changes”, said study co-author Rachael D. Seidler, an expert in spaceflight-induced neuroplasticity at the University of Florida. And those who had stayed in space for six months or longer still had upward movement that was “pretty extensive”.

“It’s in the order of a couple of millimeters,” Siedler told NBC News. That “doesn’t sound like a big number but, when you’re talking about brain movement, it really is”. And “we need to understand” the “sensory conflicts” these changes cause, “and their impacts”, so we can “keep astronauts safe and healthy and protect their longevity”.

Microgravity and Mars

The study findings have “implications for Nasa’s goals to conduct long-duration missions to the Moon and Mars”, said NBC News.

Scientists already knew that spaceflight could affect the brain, but this study is among the first to document how those shifts influence how astronauts function in space and back on Earth. Previous studies have also found that space travel can cause changes in the brain’s white matter, leading to sensorimotor issuesand a condition commonly known as Space Adaptation Syndrome.

Space travel has also been found to accelerate bone density loss and the destruction of blood cells, put pressure on the eyes that can cause vision problems, and lead to deterioration of muscle strength. Cosmic radiation poses a series of risks, such as cognitive impairment and blood-brain barrier damage.

But further research on the long-term effects of space on humans is hamstrung by the small available sample size. Although the number of long-duration human spaceflights has increased significantly over the past 15 years, they are still very rare.

“In short,” said Futurism, “we’re only beginning to understand how microgravity affects our brains”. More research “could prove invaluable” if we’re thinking of venturing “even deeper into space”.

‘What we know and don’t know about alcohol’s health impacts’

Leana S. Wen at The Washington Post

The White House “reignited a debate about alcohol this month by removing daily recommended limits in the national Dietary Guidelines for Americans,” and this “leaves many people wondering how much is too much and what alcohol means for their health,” says Leana S. Wen. Alcohol is an “addictive substance that can profoundly disrupt lives,” but what is “far less settled is whether low levels of alcohol consumption pose health risks for people who can moderate their intake.”

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‘DEI initiatives at colleges and universities help protect religious freedom’

Mary J. Lomax-Ghirarduzzi at the San Francisco Chronicle

DEI critics “often claim that eliminating such programs would serve as a defense of religious belief,” but “here’s the problem with that philosophy: It is because of DEI that students of varied faiths — or of no faith at all — can freely pursue their spiritual lives without being coerced, excluded or silenced,” says Mary J. Lomax-Ghirarduzzi. DEI offices “help provide religious student groups with access to space and resources while ensuring that their existence is welcomed, not grudgingly tolerated.”

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‘Peace boards and technocrats won’t stem out Palestinian resistance’

Refaat Ibrahim at Al Jazeera

The “problem with the present setup and Israel’s insistence on ‘no Hamas, no Fatah’ is that they reflect a profound ignorance of the fabric of Palestinian society, its politics and history,” says Refaat Ibrahim. The “idea that a Palestinian political entity can be created by outside forces and fully integrated into the occupation to manage Palestinian affairs is unrealistic.” Israel has “decided to ignore this deeply rooted reality, attempting to bypass it by imposing artificial facts.”

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‘The world is adjusting to an unreliable United States’

Fareed Zakaria at Foreign Policy

Europe has been “caricatured as too divided to act, too lethargic to decide, too comfortable to think strategically,” but “over the past year, Europe has behaved with a quiet shrewdness that contradicts that stereotype,” says Fareed Zakaria. Faced “with an unpredictable United States, it has neither lashed out nor capitulated. Instead, it has adapted.” What’s at “stake here is not America’s image but its future power,” as China is “building one of the most resilient economic ecosystems in modern history.”

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A Chinese app that requires you to regularly check in to prove you’re alright has soared in popularity, thanks to the number of people living on their own.

Are You Dead? (Sileme in Mandarin) this week became the most downloaded paid app in the China’s history, and has put the spotlight on the ballooning numbers of single-person households in the country.

Droves of downloads

“The concept is simple”: you must check in every two days by “clicking a large button to confirm that you are alive”, said the BBC. If you don’t, “it will get in touch with your appointed emergency contact”. Launched last year to “not much fanfare”, the app’s notoriety has since “exploded” as young people who live alone in Chinese cities have begun “downloading it in droves”.

In an interview with Chinese media, Guo Mengchu, one of the app’s founders, said he planned to sell a tenth of his shares for one million yuan (£106,000). Based on this, the app’s value has been estimated at more than 10 million yuan (£1 million).

Its popularity rests largely on how many people live alone in China. In 2024, those who lived alone accounted for about 20% of all Chinese households, compared with 15% a decade earlier. It’s forecast that, by 2030, there may be up to 200 million one-person households in China.

What’s in a name?

Sileme is a pun on the popular food delivery app Ele.me (“Are you hungry?” in English). But some people were “quick to bash the app’s less than cheery name”, said the BBC, suggesting it should be changed to “Are you OK?” or something else “with a more positive spin”.

Two days ago, the company said that “after extensive consideration”, the app will adopt its current overseas name, Demumu, in the app’s next Chinese iteration.

Guo explained that “de” was an abbreviation for death, while “mumu” was a cute-sounding, nonsense word. But some Chinese users think the change is a mistake, arguing that the app’s striking name was part of its viral appeal.

“If someone had warned me, my daughter would still be here,” florist Laure Marivain told Le Monde. Her 11-year-old child, Emmy, died in 2022 after seven years battling leukaemia. In a landmark case two years later, French officials acknowledged a link between Emmy’s death and her exposure to pesticides during her mother’s pregnancy, when Laure was working as a florist.

Now, said The Guardian, voices from within the industry are “raising the alarm”.

‘Bleak picture’

Unlike food, there is “no upper limit” on the residue levels from pesticides sprayed onto cut flowers in the UK, EU or US, said The Guardian. And our bouquets are bursting with them. According to the British Florist Association, the UK imports around 85% of its flowers, often from countries like Ethiopia and Ecuador where pesticide regulations are limited.

A cocktail of chemicals protects flowers from disease and pests, helping to give customers “perfect blooms, year-round”. But for the people working with flowers for hours each day, pesticides can be “absorbed through skin contact or inhalation”. Buying a bouquet at your local shop “won’t necessarily put you at risk” – that is borne by the growers and florists.

The few studies that examine the link “paint a bleak picture”, said The Guardian. In 1990, research published in the Scandinavian Journal of Work, Environment & Health found that female Colombian flower workers, who were exposed to 127 different pesticides, had higher rates of premature births and birth defects.

Concerning levels of pesticides remain in shop-bought bouquets. A study from 2019 carried out by the University of Liège, for example, analysed samples from 90 Belgian flower shops and found 107 pesticides were present, 70 of which were detected in the florists’ urine samples. The authors recommended an “urgent need to raise the awareness” of the dangers of this level of exposure.

A public outcry following Emmy Marivain’s death saw the French government launch an initial study to examine the “exposure to pesticides faced by professionals in the flower industry”, said Le Monde. While the conclusions aren’t expected for a few more years, it is hoped the work will lead to “proposals for regulatory changes” such as setting upper maximum limits for pesticides and banning the importation of flowers found to have residue “classified as carcinogenic, mutagenic or toxic to reproduction”.

Sustainability in bloom

Over in the UK, “the sustainable flower movement is blossoming”, said the Financial Times. Daylesford Organic in the Cotswolds, Organic Blooms in Bristol and Over the Hedge in Sheffield are among the “few UK flower growers that are certified organic by the Soil Association”. But small-scale growers are often “excluded” from this arena, as sustainable certifications can be prohibitively expensive.

When you “know what you’re looking for”, it becomes easier to spot which flowers are chemical-free. With roses, for example, unlike the “ramrod-straight stems” you see in the supermarket, sustainable flowers usually have shorter stems, with multiple heads. “They look like they’ve come from the garden”, florist and co-founder of the School of Sustainable Floristry, Cissy Bullock told the newspaper. Try to “buy local and seasonal” as you would with food or, “even better”, buy directly from the growers themselves.

For florists, though, avoiding pesticides is trickier. There are no “occupational hazard guidelines” available and many florists only learn about the risks through “word of mouth”, said The Guardian. Most florists “buy ‘blind’” from wholesalers as the labels often “lack clear information about chemical usage, origin and labour practices”. And with the cost of cut flowers soaring to “sky-high prices” and shrinking margins, it’s understandable that some may not want to address “something as insidious as pesticides. After all, you can’t see them, so it’s easy to pretend they’re not there.”

‘You know what might help us sleep better? Fewer scary studies about lack of sleep.’

Vinay Menon at the Toronto Star

Don’t “read studies about sleeping if you want to get a good night’s sleep,” says Vinay Menon. Science has “tricked us with a false promise: thinking about sleep will help us sleep. It does the opposite.” At a “time when the world has entered a chaos moon phase, the last thing your brain needs is an internal narrator freaking you out.” There “should be a moratorium on all sleep studies until the news isn’t so disturbing.”

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‘America’s a la carte economy is making everyone feel poorer’

Beth Kowitt at Bloomberg

The U.S. has an “a la carte economy, with an add-on, up-sell or ‘optimization’ around every corner,” says Beth Kowitt. Companies have “gotten smart to the practice of unbundling: break down the cost of a product or service into its component parts, advertise the lower sticker price, and then spin the additional costs to consumers as a perk that offers customization and freedom.” But this is “exacerbating the deepening sense among many in this country that they can’t keep up.”

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‘Stephen Miller wants us to fear him’

Arwa Mahdawi at The Guardian

If “you want to understand what’s happening in the U.S. right now, and what is likely to happen next, don’t just focus on Donald Trump. Rather, pay close attention to Trump’s deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller,” says Arwa Mahdawi. Miller is the “driving force behind the Trump administration’s most extreme policies.” What “people like Miller want most of all is for us to fear them; that’s why they’re all so obsessed with talking about strength and force and power.”

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‘Working more doesn’t make you more productive’

Joe O’Connor and Jared Lindzon at Time

Historically, the “worker who logged the most hours at work was an organization’s most valuable employee. But that isn’t necessarily the case anymore,” say Joe O’Connor and Jared Lindzon. As “AI promises to transform how we work, and the four-day workweek movement gains steam, it is time to admit once and for all that working more does not make you more productive.” Amid an “emphasis on hours over outcomes, workers are under constant pressure to forgo their rightfully earned time off.”

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Bad news for all those who have been trying to make “Jabuary” a thing, said Angus Colwell in The Spectator. The launch of the world’s first weight-loss pill – which has gone on sale in the US at a fraction of the cost of injectable versions – has rather stolen their thunder. Patients used to paying more than $1,000 a month for the jabs can now get the “starting dose” of Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy pill for a knockdown $149 per month.

The Danish pharma has stolen a march on its US rival Eli Lilly with the pill, which received approval from the US regulator just before Christmas, said Julia Kollewe in The Guardian. Prepare for an accelerating “price war” as Eli Lilly prepares to launch its own oral treatment.

Novo Nordisk could certainly use the head start. Once the most valuable company in Europe, it is hoping to “claw back market share” after a disastrous 2025 in which it “issued several profit warnings, cut thousands of jobs” and underwent a boardroom coup, after losing out to Lilly’s Mounjaro and Zepbound treatments. Shares rose by more than 4% after the pill launched, but are still down by 44% over the past year.

Novo Nordisk hopes that the pill – which mimics the GLP-1 hormone that reduces appetite – will unleash huge pent-up demand from patients who baulked at the idea of injections. Still, competition is intensifying, said Patrick Temple-West in the Financial Times. A Pfizer drug is in early-stage testing, and “nearly two dozen” Chinese companies are preparing to launch generic weight-loss drugs, according to Goldman Sachs. Anti-fat drugs have delivered “outsized profits”, but pressure on pricing is building. The question for 2026 is whether investors will “lose their appetite for the obesity trade”.

‘The common friendship behavior that has become strangely fraught’

Julie Beck at The Atlantic

A “boogeyman haunts the realm of friendship advice: the friend who vents too much,” says Julie Beck. Venting has “lately gotten very loud.” It is “complex; it can bring people closer, but it can also be emotionally draining,” but if “people avoid sharing problems with one another, their relationships risk becoming less rich — and less rewarding.” Friends “owe one another, at least, compassion, reciprocity, and the generosity to not assume that a friend’s problems are only burdens.”

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‘Global health’s defining test’

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus at Al Jazeera

In 2025, the “world experienced a year of both remarkable achievement and profound challenge in global health,” says Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director-general of the World Health Organization. Science was “tested as never before, underscoring a fundamental truth: International cooperation is not optional.” It is “essential if we are to protect and promote health for everyone, everywhere in 2026 and beyond.” Health measures “demonstrate what multilateralism can deliver when countries choose collaboration over division.” Universal health coverage “remains our shared destination.”

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‘On Greenland, Europe’s breaking point with Trump has arrived’

Dan Perry at Newsweek

For “years, Europe has responded to Donald Trump with a mixture of eye-rolling, damage control, and hope that the nightmare would somehow pass,” says Dan Perry. But the “latest rhetoric this week out of Washington, openly entertaining the use of force to seize Greenland, has snapped what remained of the illusion that this is merely bluster.” It “is an insult to Greenlanders themselves and a direct affront to the alliance system that underpinned Western security for generations.”

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‘Can Pittsburgh rally to save its newspaper?’

Jim Friedlich at The Philadelphia Inquirer

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette announced it “will shutter the newspaper,” says Jim Friedlich. The “loss of a once great newspaper in a major American city is itself a civic tragedy.” The “fact that this loss was entirely preventable is even more unfortunate.” It is “no secret that the traditional print newspaper business is in sharp decline,” but to “save, reinvent, or perhaps replace the Post-Gazette, it is instructive to look at recent local news investment in Philadelphia and Baltimore.”

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It can feel rude when a friend always turns up late to meet you but are they actually being rude or do they have a disorder?

“Being late is one of the quickest ways to strain relationships,” said Indian Express. But “time blindness”, or the inability to determine how long a task will take, or conceptualise how much time has passed, is becoming an increasingly understood condition.

‘Built-in excuse’

The trend was first recognised in the 1990s, when Russell Barkley, a retired clinical neuropsychologist at the University of Massachusetts, linked time impairment with people with ADHD or autism, calling it “temporal myopia.”

“What’s new is how broadly the label now gets applied,” said Vice. A “well-documented characteristic” of many people with ADHD, this inability relates to executive function that occurs in the frontal lobes of the brain, Stephanie Sarkis, a psychotherapist in Florida, told the Associated Press.

Although “anyone can have issues with running late”, but with ADHD there’s “functional impairment”, she said, and this “impacts family life and social life” as well as work and “money management”.

But not everyone who is “chronically late” has ADHD or a “built-in excuse”, said the outlet. Jeffrey Meltzer, a therapist in Florida who works with people who never turn up on time, said some people who hate small talk fear arriving early, and others who feel they don’t have much control over their lives may try to reclaim a few minutes from responsibilities.

‘Practical solutions’

If a person’s chronic tardiness is “one star in the constellation of symptoms,” said Sarkis, then it could be a treatable disorder, because studies suggest that stimulant medication prescribed for other ADHD is also effective at treating time blindness.

Actually, the “solutions tend to be practical rather than philosophical”, said Vice, and these can include “external timers”, “checklists” and “overestimating how long things take”.

But the “uncomfortable truth” is that even if lateness comes from “different places”, it can “feel the same on the receiving end”, so “understanding the cause can build empathy”.

The Department of Health and Human Services’ updated nutritional guidelines, released Wednesday, are a stark departure from prior food pyramids. The guidelines, spearheaded by HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., are drawing eyes thanks to their emphasis on protein, specifically red meat and full-fat dairy products. But while the Trump administration says this new food pyramid will lead to a healthier American public, some medical experts are skeptical.

‘Untethered from scientific research’

The government’s new recommendations are basically the complete opposite of the old food pyramid, and the “now-inverted food pyramid prominently features a steak, an entire chicken, and whole milk up top, relegating carbs to the bottom point — minor real estate compared to the portion they occupied before,” said Mother Jones. But these recommendations are “untethered from scientific research” and “seem more aligned with a burgeoning source of dietary advice: hypermasculine influencers.”

The new pyramid was prepared with nutritionists who have “food industry ties,” said Axios, creating a potential conflict of interest. The push for a diet heavy on red meat “also comes at a time of soaring prices for beef and other foods and may be impractical for Americans on tight budgets.” Kennedy has also claimed to be ending the “war” on saturated fats, which health officials have long urged people to limit. But “some questioned how Kennedy could assert this” when the recommendations “maintain advice to limit intake to 10% or less of total calories.”

Despite these criticisms, a “lot of the advice in the pyramid is sound,” said Slate. Additional protein “certainly does help build muscle and strength, and there’s at least some evidence it can aid in weight loss.” But most doctors are “very disappointed in the new pyramid that features red meat and saturated fat sources at the very top, as if that’s something to prioritize. It does go against decades and decades of evidence and research,” said Christopher Gardner, a nutrition expert at Stanford University, to NPR.

‘Eating real food’

Despite the clear skepticism from some health experts, others say the new recommendations could help Americans be healthier. The “overall focus on eating real food is great,” since the “majority of our diets come from ultra-processed foods that are linked to an array of chronic diseases,” said Lindsey Smith Taillie, a nutrition epidemiologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, to PBS NewsHour. So the advice to eat whole foods could be “enormously helpful, both for policymakers and for your everyday consumer.”

Humans “need fat for basic cellular and biological functions in the body — fats, or lipids, are essential for creating cellular membranes, absorbing hormones and vitamins and regulating body temperature,” said Scientific American. And children could benefit from the change as well, some experts say. The focus on real foods "could have profound effects, as the majority of school lunches are coming from ready-to-eat, ready-to-heat and highly processed sources,” Taillie said to PBS NewsHour. And guidelines for added sugar restrictions, a common cause of obesity, are also “much more strict than previous recommendations.”

What happened

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Monday announced that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will now recommend that children get vaccinated against 11 communicable diseases, not 17. The decision, made by political appointees at the behest of President Donald Trump, was widely condemned by medical groups.

The American Academy of Pediatrics called the abrupt changes “dangerous and unnecessary” and said it will continue recommending all of the vaccinations.

Who said what

The new CDC guidelines, effective immediately, still recommend universal vaccination against the measles, chickenpox, pertussis (whooping cough), polio, tetanus and diphtheria, among other diseases. But they cut protections against flu, rotavirus, hepatitis A, hepatitis B, some forms of meningitis and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), the “leading cause of hospitalization in American infants,” The New York Times said. Federal health officials and insurance groups said all the vaccines in the previous schedule will remain covered at least through this year.

Kennedy, a longtime prominent vaccine critic, said the new recommendations align the U.S. with an “international consensus” of 20 peer nations. But they are mostly “designed to align the U.S. schedule more closely with that of Denmark,” a largely homogeneous country of 6 million with free national health care, said The Wall Street Journal. Denmark recommends vaccinations against 10 diseases, but “many other developed countries, including Australia, Britain and Canada, have vaccine schedules similar to those the CDC is doing away with.”

What next?

Kennedy has “repeatedly used his authority in government to translate his skepticism about the shots into national guidance,” The Associated Press said. But “states, not the federal government, have the authority to require vaccinations for schoolchildren.”

For many, a new year brings a determination to break old habits or start new, positive ones.

At this time of year “holiday treats and year-end sales confront us at every turn”, so we indulge because it would be “Scrooge-like” to refuse, said psychologist Angela Duckworth in The New York Times. The logical conclusion would be to “try harder” to say no, but studying how people achieve their goals, the opposite may be true. “Willpower is overrated.”

‘Cultural hangover’

Though unwavering self-control may be lauded socially, most successful people “rarely rely on inner fortitude to resist temptations”, said Duckworth. Instead, they exercise “situational agency”, which helps them avoid situations where self-control is required and “minimise the need for willpower in the first place”.

If you want to keep off social media, avoid owning a smartphone, like Ed Sheeran and Zadie Smith. If you duck out of an early morning run with feeble excuses, make sure your “shoes are warm, dry and waiting”, like former Olympic triathlon champion Alistair Brownlee. Making situations more favourable doesn’t “erode grit”; in fact, it has “quite the opposite” effect.

Strengthening our “willpower muscle” has been seen as “just as important as working out at the gym”, said The Observer. Kicking bad habits, and staving off cravings, are marketed as the “key to health and happiness”, but is it possible to “supercharge” willpower? For the last 30 or so years, willpower has been perceived as a “finite resource”, or a “battery that can be drained”, so finding a workaround would theoretically be “akin to asking a genie for infinite wishes”.

However, there are many legitimate reasons why willpower can be diminished. “Difficulties concentrating or achieving” at work or school can be branded as a lack of self-control, when in fact there may be “undiagnosed ADHD, Tourette syndrome or another neurodivergent condition”. Likewise, a lack of willpower may be a “sign we’re over-stretched and need rest”, which could snowball into more serious health problems.

Believing in willpower alone as a means to tackle temptation head-on is a “cultural hangover”, said behavioural scientist Michael Hallsworth in The i Paper. We have been conditioned to believe that it is “more virtuous to fail” in succumbing to desires than to “succeed with help”. But “that attitude is a trap”. If we use aids, short-cuts or tools to sidestep raw “white-knuckling” self-determination, we feel judged or inferior, but that itself can act as a barrier to success.

For those seeking weight loss, the concept of willpower has become a “loaded term”, said the BBC. Many will be familiar with phrases like “it's simple, just eat less”, or “personal responsibility” when confronting obesity. This is “only a fraction” of the weight-loss process.

In addition to external pressures, “what also matters is how you think about it” internally. There are two types of willpower: “flexible” and “rigid”. When someone perceives self-control as “rigid”, once broken, there is no way back. “If you succumb to temptation you basically give in”.

Flexible willpower means that once a rule is broken, it is acknowledged and not broken again. “Needless to say, being flexible is much more successful” for those with long-term goals, said psychologist Eleanor Bryant.

‘Commitment devices’

There is no shame in relying on tricks and tips to achieve your goals, said Hallsworth. “Commitment devices” such as public pledges – think posting your intention to run a half marathon on social media – hold you accountable by “weaponising social pressure against yourself”.

If “soft penalties” don’t cut it, “ratchet up the consequences”. A popular method is donating money to a cause you dislike if you break your rule. Though not infallible, setting up built-in restrictions, such as screen time or “delay apps”, can also be a step in the right direction.

Instead of the threat of punishment, use incentives, psychologist Kimberley Wilson told BBC Radio 4’s “What’s Up Docs?” By telling yourself a “positive story”, you give yourself the “best chance to achieve your goal” and the “rest is likely to follow”.

Be conscious of social pressure, be wary of comparing yourself to others’ achievements and don’t be put off by a “momentary stumble”. With “planning, self-belief and the will to change”, goals can still be achieved, “without a drop of willpower in sight”.