A man has been declared HIV-free in a case that “upends our understanding of what’s required” for a cure, said The New Scientist.

He was the seventh patient found to be clear of the virus after receiving a stem cell transplant – and, significantly, the second of the seven to receive stem cells that were not actually HIV-resistant. If HIV-resistant cells aren’t necessary to destroy the virus, scientists have greater options in their search for an effective but less risky cure.

Yet even as medics make such leaps forward in HIV/Aids treatment, access to both preventive care and medicine for infected patients “remains far from universal”, said The Guardian.

How close is a cure?
The signs are increasingly positive. In addition to the stem-cell study, a separate study published in Nature “shows a glimmer of hope” for controlling HIV without the current daily regimen of pills, said The Washington Post. A small group of patients were given “experimental immunotherapies” and then taken off their pills; the majority were able to keep the virus “at a low level for months” afterwards.

The standard daily antiretroviral therapy has had a “transformative” effect on managing HIV since its nadir of the 1980s. It works by preventing the virus from multiplying in the body. For many people with HIV, their “viral load” becomes so low as to be undetectable, hugely lowering the risk of them transmitting the virus to somebody else. But although antiretrovirals can keep the disease in check, it is not a cure.

How have aid cuts impacted HIV/Aids treatment?
Multiple nations are cutting foreign aid funding, on which many lower-income countries depend to deliver health services. This has had a “devastating” impact in the fight against the disease, and on the accessibility of medication, said a UNAids report published to mark World Aids Day, on 1 December. 

The cuts made by the US, in particular, have “disrupted HIV/Aids care in many parts of the world”, said NPR. Since Donald Trump began his second presidential term and took an “America First approach”, his administration has slashed international aid programmes. This year was also the first that the US did not formally commemorate World Aids Day.

Having a boyfriend or husband is no longer a goal for a growing number of young women. Over the past 30 years, the share of US high-school girls who say they are likely to “choose to get married” has dropped by more than 20%, while the proportion of young men who hope to wed has remained steady, according to Pew Research Center data.

For “single and partnered women alike”, choosing to couple up with a man increasingly feels like “an almost guilty thing to do”, said Chanté Joseph in Vogue. “It’s become more of a flex to pronounce yourself single.”

No ‘obvious rewards’
The “script is shifting”, said Joseph. On social media – once a space to flaunt significant others – women are opting for "subtler signs” of their relationship status. At the more extreme end, “you have faces blurred out of wedding pictures or entire professionally edited videos with the fiancé conveniently cropped out of all shots”. Having a partner “doesn’t affirm your womanhood anymore”, marking another “nail in the coffin” of a “heterosexual fairy-tale that never really benefited women to begin with”.

For young women brought up to “live their best lives”, said Lara Brown in The Spectator, marriage is a “hindrance because it requires compromise”. Having to “build a life around someone else” is a challenge for an “increasingly transactional generation”, when marriage “doesn’t bring obvious rewards”.

Old-fashioned love
Some feminist thinkers believe that “women still value marriage”, said the Institute for Family Studies, but that “they just can’t find enough marriageable men”. Many men are “floundering on many fronts”, ranging “from education to employment”, in a way that is “unappealing to the opposite sex”.

But, more broadly, “something has happened along the way to make care seem undesirable,” said Gabriella Bennett in The Times. “Loving and wanting to be loved feels like a hangover from old-fashioned times.” But I want “to see my friends happy”. That doesn’t necessarily mean having a “romantic partner” – I just “want to know there’s someone making them sausage pasta after a rough day”.

A sweet seller shows off his sugary selection in the streets of Cairo, during celebrations commemorating the birth of Islamic scholar Sayyida Nafisa. Born in Mecca in the eighth century, Nafisa spent her final years in Egypt’s modern-day capital.

Ahmed Mosaad / NurPhoto / Getty Images

The Christmas lights are up and London’s outdoor ice rinks have reopened. Here are some of the top spots for getting your skates on this festive season:

Skate at Somerset House
The ice rink at Somerset House (pictured above), with its “enormous Christmas tree”, has been a festive fixture for more than two decades, said Rebecca McCulloch on MyLondon. The “beautifully lit 18th-century courtyard” is an “unrivalled backdrop” for the skating and the food and drink stalls.

Glide At Battersea Power Station
Overlooked by the power station’s iconic chimneys, Glide is one of the city’s “most atmospheric open-air rinks”, said David Ellis in London’s The Standard. It also has a new skate trail that “offers the best views of the Thames”, as well as live music, private igloos for hire, a helter-skelter slide and a covered bar.

ICE at Bussey Rooftop Bar
This Peckham rooftop bar transforms into a “festive haven” from mid-November, said Olivia Emily in Country & Town House. Next to the ice rink, there’s a heated bar with “plenty of on-theme tipples” including boozy hot chocolate and “zesty winter spritzes”. But best of all are the “360-degree views of London’s showstopping skyline”.

The Queen’s House Ice Rink
“South London’s only outdoor ice rink” is a spectacular option, said Amy Houghton in Time Out. It’s right in front of Greenwich’s “grand” Queen’s House, “one of London’s prettiest Unesco World Heritage Sites”. After your session, you can warm up with seasonal food and drink at the Zero Degrees restaurant.

Gen Z and Millennial House Buyers Aren’t Having a Fantastic Time
Lara Williams on Bloomberg
Prospective first-time home buyers are “about to be squeezed” by the Budget, writes Lara Williams. They’ll need “more cash to rent rather than squirrelling it away for a deposit”, and graduates will be “whacked with a freeze on the salary threshold” for paying back a student loan. Meanwhile, the “benefits” of Labour’s housebuilding programme won’t be felt for years. “Many young people wanting to put down roots still don’t have a way to do it.”

We have nothing to fear from Putin’s nukes
Con Coughlin in The Telegraph
Whenever Vladimir Putin “finds himself in a fix”, he threatens the West with “doomsday scenarios”, writes Con Coughlin. He’s even authorised Russia’s strategic nuclear forces to conduct drills “solely for the purpose of intimidating Western leaders”. But Nato “unquestionably” has “the upper hand”, possessing “overall firepower” that is far superior to that of the Russians. Donald Trump and his European allies mustn’t “fall into the same trap” as Joe Biden “and take Putin’s outlandish threats at face value”.

I’m sick of parent smugness towards people who don’t have kids
Kate Lister in The i Paper
The phrase “as a parent…” is “like nails down a blackboard to me”, writes Kate Lister. “It leverages a faux moral superiority over us childless monsters” and is “part of a much wider narrative: that people don’t have children because they don’t like them” and “must be selfish and narcissistic”. “Of all the stigmas” about childlessness, “this is the one that upsets me the most”. It’s a “cheap shot” and “unbelievably condescending”.