In the heart of Lawrence Gardens, a colonial-era botanical park in the center of the bustling Pakistani city Lahore, stands something new: the country’s first public skatepark. Founded in the spring of 2023 by the nonprofit Skate Pakistan, the skatepark was built with the help of professional skateboarders Kenny Reed and Nestor Judkins, the volunteer group Salad Days of Skateboarding, and the nonprofit Wonders Around the World. In just two years, a small grassroots initiative has grown into a vibrant, lasting community.
The need for safe play spaces could hardly be greater. Pakistan is among the countries most vulnerable to climate change; in Lahore, smog and extreme heat have made childhood staples like swimming and street cricket nearly impossible. The Ravi River has dried up, the Nehr Canal is too polluted to enter, and the city’s traffic-choked streets leave little room for games.
Against this backdrop, Skate Pakistan has become a rare refuge. Skaters of all ages, backgrounds, and skill levels roll side by side. First-timers share ramps with seasoned riders; friendships cut across class lines. In a country where identity is often bound up in caste and status, the skateboard is a rare equalizer—an object that, quite literally, levels the playing field.
Warner Bros. Discovery on Thursday filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against AI image and video company Midjourney, making it the third major entertainment company to do so following Disney and Universal’s similar lawsuit filed earlier this year.
The lawsuit alleges the AI company violated the entertainment company’s copyright protections by allowing AI users to create images with characters like Batman, Scooby Doo and Bugs Bunny.
“Midjourney thinks it is above the law,” Warner Bros. Discovery said in the complaint. “Midjourney has made a calculated and profit-driven decision to offer zero protection for copyright owners even though Midjourney knows about the breathtaking scope of its piracy and copyright infringement.”
Midjourney is one of the most popular AI image generators, allowing anyone to create AI images and video clips with simple text prompts. The lawsuit covers Warner Bros. Entertainment and its subsidiaries, including DC Comics, The Cartoon Network and Hanna-Barbera Productions.
An image included in the lawsuit filing highlighting Midjourney’s image generation abilities.
Warner Bros. Discovery
In the lawsuit, Warner Bros. Discovery notes that Midjourney recently dropped a video generation model as evidence that the AI firm knew it was infringing on copyrights. In the first few days of releasing the video model, the lawsuit alleges, Midjourney stopped users from animating scenes with characters. The restrictions were eventually lifted, but the entertainment giant calls this out as Midjourney’s knowledge of wrongdoing. Warner Bros. Discovery also alleges the AI company updated its terms of service to prohibit redteaming, a safety process tech companies use.
Copyright infringement claims aren’t new for Midjourney. In June, Disney and Universal sued the AI program, calling it “a bottomless pit of plagiarism” and “textbook copyright infringement” in its filing. Warner Bros. Discovery is represented by the same law firm that filed the suit on behalf of Disney and Universal.
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A Warner Bros. Discovery spokesperson told CNET, “The heart of what we do is develop stories and characters to entertain our audiences, bringing to life the vision and passion of our creative partners. Midjourney is blatantly and purposefully infringing copyrighted works, and we filed this suit to protect our content, our partners, and our investments.” Statements from Disney and NBCUniversal spokespeople expressed similar sentiments. Midjourney did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
This lawsuit is further evidence that copyright is one of the most contentious legal issues in the age of AI. Concerns exist at every stage of AI content creation, including whether copyrighted materials are used to train AI models and whether those models can create content that meets the legal definition of infringement.
There are also ongoing cases between publishers, creators and AI companies. AI-makers Anthropic and Meta recently scored two victories, with courts claiming that training their models on authors’ books constituted fair use. But there are still a lot of questions and legal uncertainties.
(Disclosure: Ziff Davis, CNET’s parent company, in April filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.)
This is just step one for the lawsuit. Midjourney users shouldn’t expect any interruptions to service as a result of the legal battle.
Steam now has a new chaotic party game called Ragdoll Rumble. While most of the newly released free games like these go unnoticed, this one is different, as it has garnered quite a lot of attention shortly after release. To be specific, this freebie became available on September 6, 2025, and it’s currently in the second spot of the platform’s “New & Trending” chart.
As the developers note, this party game features toy wizards who can unleash wild and explosive spells. Players get to use a variety of “crazy” abilities to outsmart their opponents while being in fast-paced and physics-driven combat. Speaking of which, the title is praised for its comical chaos, which is mainly for ragdoll physics.
While it’s mainly a multiplayer party title, there’s support for local splitscreen, allowing up to 4 players to battle against each other locally, and it has proper support for controllers (EasySMX X10 curr. $39.99 on Amazon). There is a large selection of maps and modes, which can help keep players engaged in this free game for a good while.
Within each map, there are elements of surprise, which can shift the flow of the matches. For example, there are maps with boulder traps and teleporters, capable of shifting the dynamic from one team to another.
At the current stage, Ragdoll Rumble has a “Positive” rating that’s based on 11 reviews, and given how recently this free game was released, it could pick up more momentum soon. You can learn more from the video attached below.
Abid Ahsan Shanto – Senior Tech Writer – 1973 articles published on Notebookcheck since 2023
Abid’s journey as a technophile began when he first assembled his PC. Since then, his insatiable curiosity has driven him to delve into every aspect of this rapidly evolving technological landscape. And as a tech reporter, he prioritizes transparency, accuracy, and unbiasedness.
Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak put in an assured performance to win the Monza Feature Race ahead of his teammate Nikola Tsolov, giving Campos Racing their first ever FIA Formula 3 Teams’ title.
The Thai driver made his way up from fourth on the grid to take the win, while Tsolov followed him home in second as Noel León took the final spot on the podium for PREMA Racing.
AS IT HAPPENED
It was an even start at the front for pole-sitter Brad Benavides and front row starter Ugo Ugochukwu, as they maintained their positions, while León and Inthraphuvasak went side-by-side into Turn 4 for P3.
The Campos driver took P3, but while they were battling for position, TRIDENT’s title hopes took a massive hit, as Charlie Wurz stopped on track with damage.
This brought out the Safety Car, but racing resumed on Lap 3 of 22, with Tsolov the next Campos to get past León, this time for P4 and into Turn 1.
Up ahead, Ugochukwu was right on the back of Benavides and the pair went wheel-to-wheel into Turn 4. The AIX driver ran wide at the corner though, and while he maintained the position, he was told to give his American counterpart the place.
Benavides did so heading into the final corner, which allowed him to get the run on Ugochukwu down the main straight. He used this to retake the lead into Turn 1, as Inthraphuvasak followed him through.
However, onto Lap 4 and Ugochukwu went around the outside of his Campos rival for P2 at Turn 4, putting him back up to second.
The Safety Car was back out to recover Fernando Barrichello’s car from the Ascari chicane, but the green flags were waved to kick off racing on Lap 7. Inthraphuvasak was struggling and dropped to third behind Tsolov and León.
Benavides was resisting each one of Ugochukwu’s attempts to overtake, both into Turn 1 and Turn 4. However, the PREMA driver’s race soon ended at the Ascari chicane, as a slight touch with the gravel sent him into a spin and knocked him out of the running, bringing out the Safety Car.
Benavides did well to hold off his rivals in the early stages
Back to racing on Lap 11 and Benavides once again had a good restart, as Tsolov came under pressure from León.
The Bulgarian quickly turned defence to attack though and was right on the back of Benavides heading into the final corner and took the lead into Turn 1.
However, the AIX driver was refusing to give up on a maiden win and went around the outside of Tsolov at Turn 4 to take back P1.
Inthraphuvasak was on the charge and got ahead of León for third at the start of Lap 14. However, TRIDENT was now back in play for the title, as Noah Stromsted climbed up to sixth while Rafael Câmara was 10th, having started last.
That was aided by Matías Zagazeta stopping on track with front wing damage. The DAMS Lucas Oil driver collided with Martinius Stenshorne and then Tuukka Taponen, which sent him off at Ascari and forced him to stop at the final corner.
Inthraphuvasak though clearly had eyes on a third win of the season as he dived to the inside of his teammate for P2 at the Ascari chicane, although the Bulgarian took it back at Turn 1 on Lap 16.
Behind them, Câmara had charged up to sixth, despite going on the grass briefly on the run down to the final corner, as he got past Taponen, Alessandro Giusti and Stromsted.
At the start of Lap 17, Tsolov was having a look at Benavides but then came Inthraphuvasak, who rounded them both into Turn 1 to take the lead.
Benavides was keen to get the place back but ran too deep into Turn 1 on the following lap, and while he came out in front, he gave the positions back.
Behind them, Câmara was well within DRS range of the top five, and as Lap 19 of 22 got underway, the Champion dived to the inside of Roman Bilinski at Turn 4, and after running wide at the corner, the Rodin Motorsport driver let Câmara through a few corners later.
The result gave Campos their first Teams’ Championship in FIA F3
Onto the penultimate lap and after biding his time, Tsolov looked to make a move on Inthraphuvasak. The race leader shut the door, but this gave Benavides the run on the P2 driver, although he ran slightly off-line into Turn 4, allowing León through for third.
Their squabbling for P3 allowed the Campos duo to go clear as Inthraphuvasak led Tsolov home in a one-two for the team, giving the Spanish outfit the 2025 FIA Formula 3 Teams’ Championship.
León held on for third, with Benavides in fourth, Câmara and Stromsted fifth and sixth. Bilinski was seventh, Giusti eighth, Boya ninth as Tramnitz took the final point in P10.
KEY QUOTE – Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak, Campos Racing
“Really happy to end this season off with a win, super happy for the team as well, we got the Teams’ title, so just overall really happy. I want to say thanks to the team for their hard work this season and for continuing to push all the time and for the one-two today.”
CHAMPIONSHIP STANDINGS
Câmara winds up with 166 points at the top of the Drivers’ Standings followed by Tsolov in second with 124. He overtakes teammate Mari Boya who falls to third on 116 ahead of Tim Tramnitz in fourth on 94. Martinius Stenshorne rounds out the top five with 89 points.
Campos Racing are Teams’ Champions on 314 points ahead of TRIDENT who slip to second on 303. MP Motorsport finish third on 177, ahead of ART Grand Prix on 152, and Van Amersfoort Racing in fifth on 138.
UP NEXT
That is the final racing action of the year but Formula 3 is not done yet in 2025, as we have three post-season tests, the first one is set to get underway in Jerez, Spain from October 7-8.
War 2 Box Office: Set To Register The Lowest 4th Weekend Collection Of Spy Universe ( Photo Credit – Instagram )
War 2, starring Hrithik Roshan and Jr NTR in the lead roles, is probably in its last week of run, as even during the weekend, it’s crawling at the Indian box office. Released amid extremely high expectations, it has turned out to be a huge flop, and now, during the fourth weekend, it will achieve an undesirable feat by scoring the lowest collection in the Spy Universe. Keep reading for a detailed report of day 24!
After a good 50 crore+ scores on the first two days, the magnum opus started witnessing a downfall. Since reviews and word-of-mouth were mixed, it didn’t really pick up, and eventually, it went to a place from where there was never a comeback. It has already been declared a big flop in India, and during the fourth weekend, it will earn less than 25 lakh.
War 2 to register the lowest 4th weekend among Spy Universe films
War 2 witnessed an unreal downfall. It earned a dismal 7 lakh on the fourth Friday, followed by the same collection on the fourth Saturday. On Sunday, the film is expected to earn 6-7 lakh, thus pushing the expected collection during the fourth weekend to 20-21 lakh.
With an expected 20-21 lakh, War 2 is heading towards the lowest fourth weekend collection of the Spy Universe. It will stand below Tiger 3‘s 1.3 crores. Its predecessor, War, did a business of 1.8 crores during the fourth weekend.
Take a look at the fourth weekend collection of Spy Universe movies (highest to lowest):
Pathaan – 9.82 crores
Tiger Zinda Hai – 6.85 crores
Ek Tha Tiger – 1.89 crores
War – 1.8 crores
Tiger 3 – 1.3 crorres
War 2 – 20-21 lakh (expected)
How much did War 2 earn at the Indian box office in 24 days?
Overall, the Hrithik Roshan and Jr NTR starrer has earned an underwhelming 243.91 crore net (all languages) at the Indian box office in 24 days. Adjusting for GST, it stands at 287.81 crore gross. Out of 243.91 crores, the Hindi version has contributed 184.67 crore net.
Note: Box office numbers are based on estimates and various sources. Numbers have not been independently verified by Koimoi.
Stay tuned to Koimoi for more box office updates!
Must Read: Lokah: Chapter 1 – Chandra Worldwide Box Office Day 10: Becomes 3rd Malayalam Film To Earn 150 Crores In 2025, Thudarum In Danger?
Chinese power took on an old-fashioned hue in the past week with a huge military parade, a gathering of former allies Russia and North Korea, and President Xi Jinping’s defiant vow not to be intimidated by bullies.
Soldiers march during a military parade marking the 80th anniversary of victory over Japan and the end of World War II, in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China. Photograph: Lintao Zhang/Getty Images
That display reminded many of the cold war, but it captured only a fraction of China’s far greater modern influence, primarily built on a formidable economy, dramatic advancements in renewable energy, and a willingness to engage globally with the greatest crisis facing humanity: climate breakdown.
In that sense, the tanks, cannon and missiles that filed past Tiananmen Square may well prove less important in reshaping the world order than the wind turbines, solar panels and electric cars that are churning out of Chinese factories on to fields and roads all over the planet. They are the reason China has already won the battle for the energy of the 21st century.
If history is any guide, the country that dominates energy usually dominates economics and politics, which is why it is not just old war allies that are cosying up to Beijing. Narendra Modi, the president of longtime rival India, also visited China last week for the biggest ever meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation along with dozens of other regional leaders. The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, led a delegation to Beijing this summer to coordinate climate policy. The Brazilian executive secretary of Cop30 will visit next week with a similar mission, knowing the success or failure of the annual climate summit now depends on China more than any other nation.
Expectations for Chinese climate leadership are rising in tandem with dismay at the US, which will attend Cop30 as an observer and disrupter that, under Donald Trump, appears to be trying to lurch backwards towards a 20th century comfort zone of oil, gas and coal.
China’s fossil fuel emissions
The contrast could become even more striking once China confirms it has reached a positive tipping point after which it will irreversibly shift away from fossil fuels. Last year, the world’s biggest carbon emitter registered a very slight decline in greenhouse gas output. Many analysts believe this means the country’s carbon use will peak this year or very soon. If that is confirmed, it would be a moment of considerably greater significance than Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from UN climate negotiations.
The timing will be clearer when China unveils its revised nationally determined contribution (NDC), the climate actions plans countries promised to provide under the Paris agreement. This announcement, expected before next month’s UN general assembly, will be one of this year’s most eagerly watched declarations because no other country has been able to match China’s power to make or break the Paris targets to hold global heating between 1.5C and 2C.
Miners stand in a locker room at a coal mine and processing facility in Liulin, Shanxi province, China. Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images
But how real are the hopes China will step up and show greater leadership on finance and emission cuts, as well as renewable manufacturing?
There have been false dawns in the past. Coal – the most polluting of fossil fuels – drove China’s supercharged economic growth for most of the past three decades, though production declined for a few years in the wake of the global financial crisis and plateaued briefly during the Covid lockdown. Whether predictions of peak carbon prove more substantial this time will depend on the Beijing leadership’s next five-year plan, a domestic policy document for 2026-2030 being drawn up by the leadership in Beijing.
Speculation about the priorities continues to swirl. On one side is caution and a sense of justice that China should not try to step into the void left by the US because that would allow the latter to escape its responsibility as the world’s biggest historic emitter. On the other is geopolitical ambition and the momentum of an economy increasingly reliant on renewable energy investment for growth.
While China’s overall GDP expansion is slowing, the speed of cleantech investment remains breathtakingly fast. Last year, the amount of wind and solar under construction was double the rest of the world combined, helping China to reach an installed capacity of 1,200GW six years ahead of the government’s schedule.
The country is similarly ascendant in supplying overseas markets with renewable technology. Last year for the first time, the top four wind turbine makers in the world were all Chinese. It is a similar story of majority market share for the manufacture and export of photovoltaic cells and electric vehicles.
When it comes to clean energy, it no longer makes sense to talk about competition, says Li Shuo, the director of China Climate Hub at the Asia Society.“There is only one player. The US is not even in the room. I have full confidence that dynamic will continue.”
In the run-up to Belém, the contrast with the US looks ever more stark and is likely to shape geopolitics for decades to come. Under Trump, the US has shut down climate research centres, promised to drill for more gas and declared this to be “the moment” for coal. Meanwhile, $22bn in clean energy projects have been cancelled and wind power investment has shrunk to its lowest level in a decade.
Wind turbines above photovoltaic panels operate at the tidal flat industry demonstration base in Yancheng City, Jiangsu Province. Photograph: NurPhoto/Getty Images
China may not be in favour of multiparty democracy at home, but on the global stage its officials have made clear it will be a champion of multilateral decision making.
Xi has not tried to fill the void left by Trump, but he has presented himself – and China – as a reliable and constructive partner, particularly on the climate issue: “However the world may change, China will not slow down its climate actions, will not reduce its support for international cooperation, and will not cease its efforts to build a community with a shared future for mankind,” he said this year.
Before previous Cops, senior US and Chinese negotiations often held a bilateral meeting to ensure the world’s two biggest emitters were on the same page. This year, China held separate climate talks with the EU and affirmed they would work together to achieve a successful Cop30 with “ambitious and equitable” outcomes. Von der Leyen called the joint declaration a big step forward. “Together, the European Union and China must uphold the Paris agreement. Now more than ever,” she said.
China’s renewable energy capacity
The text did not mention the main areas of friction between the signatories: China’s fast-growing share of sales of electric cars, batteries and solar panels, its stranglehold on critical minerals needed for wind turbine magnets, and its continued heavy investment in coal.
Scientists and campaigners say the climate will not be stabilised solely by selling more photovoltaic cells or windmill blades; it is also necessary to phase out fossil fuels. On this half of the balance sheet, China’s record remains “highly insufficient” and its current policies would, if continued, push the planet towards 4C of heating, according to Climate Action Tracker, an independent initiative assessing countries’ compliance with the Paris agreement. It points out that China is off course from the commitments it previously made to “strictly limit” coal use and to reduce energy and carbon intensity by 2025.
Lauri Myllyvirta of the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), said Xi had compromised. “He does favour cleaning up the energy system and moving to a cleaner economy more broadly – this is a consistent and longstanding feature in his speeches – but clearly it’s not an overriding priority for him when there is pushback.”
The pushback has been most evident in the coal sector, where there has been a surge of investment in the past two years to the highest level in a decade. Major domestic coal companies, such as CHN Energy, Jinneng and Shaanxi Coal and Chemical, have considerable political influence. Although they don’t actively campaign against climate science like Exxon in the US, China analyst Qi Qin said they often pushed the energy security narrative by positioning coal as essential for reliability and independence, adding: “A lot of it comes down to concerns about energy security. During 2021–2022, droughts hit hydropower hard, and the system didn’t have the flexibility to handle that well. That led to some power shortages, and since then, there’s been more focus, especially from local governments, on securing local power supply, which partly explains the new wave of coal project approvals and construction.”
Even so, renewables has moved faster. The share of fossil fuels in China’s installed generation capacity has now fallen below half, down from two-thirds a decade ago. Whether this trend continues will depend on a recent change in energy pricing and the level of ambition in the NDC and five-year plan.
China’s President Xi Jinping (C) and other Chinese leaders attend the closing meeting of the first session of the 14th National People’s Congress in 2023. Photograph: XINHUA/Huang Jingwen/EPA
If the government wanted to send a strong signal, it could commit to no new coal power, sectorial targets for electric vehicles, electric steelmaking and building efficiency, and – most importantly – a sizeable cut in overall emissions over a clearly defined period.
Li dampened expectations the headline figure would fully align with the Paris targets. “If China were to set a course for a 1.5C world, it would need to cut emissions by 30% by 2035. A 2C world would mean reductions of 20% by the same year. Neither is likely. He said: “We understand the Chinese side is most likely to provide 8-15%. There will be a gap. If that landing zone is where they end up, then there could be the usual story of ‘under promise, over deliver.’”
Heexpects specific sectoral targets on how much renewable capacity China will install over the coming decade. “They will be very very big numbers,” Li predicts.
The economy may drive ambition more than politics. Belinda Schäpe, a policy analyst at CREA, said existing trends suggested it was still possible for China to reduce emissions by 30% over the coming decade, which would bring huge economic benefits, especially if combined with a continued global energy transition. “This would also strengthen China’s clean energy industries, which could double in value by 2035, adding CNY 15tn ($2.1tn) to the economy.”
At Belém, China will also seek to boost sales of renewables and possibly announce deals to build and finance a solar panel manufacturing plant in Brazil, in addition to the BYD electric car factory that is already there. This may have the feel of a trade fair, but the conference organisers said this was in line with the primary goal of Cop30, which is to accelerate action on global heating.
Brazilian diplomats also expect their Brics partner to invest in the Tropical Forests Forever Fund, which is the flagship initiative of the summit host. Chinese government sources told the Guardian this proposal was viewed positively in Beijing. Support for this effort to protect standing forests would be a sign of how China is steadily increasing climate finance outside the UN framework as it grows in wealth and responsibility. European diplomats express hope that China will lean in much further during Cop30.
Conservation NGOs hope Beijing will do more to crack down on imports of wood products from areas of illegal deforestation. China’s revised forest law theoretically prohibits these items, but it does not demand transparency or due diligence from traders so little has changed. China remains the biggest importer of illegally felled timber.
At previous Cop meetings, China has often cut an understated figure relative to its size. But its role is often decisive. At Cop26, it aligned with India to water down the language to fossil fuel “phase down” rather than “phase out” and at the 2009 Cop in Copenhagen, it was criticised for sabotaging the conference. More positively, it was widely credited for helping to get the Paris agreement over the line and last year played a crucial role together with the EU to set a climate finance target, the new quantified collective goal, that most countries could sign up to.
China sees itself as a leader of the developing world, but as it has grown richer from renewable technology and is increasingly to blame for the climate crisis (it is now the second biggest emitter), it is under more pressure to cut emissions and pay more to help others do the same. Brazilian diplomats expect their Brics partner to be a quiet but strong supporter of their agenda.
How far it goes is still to be seen, but the direction of travel is at least clear – and it is the opposite of the US.
Pop mogul Sir Robin Millar is not a man who you would expect to struggle with access in the music industry.
In a glittering career that spans decades, he has worked alongside some of the most celebrated names in British music, from Sade to Boy George, and counts legends such as the Rolling Stones among his list of A-list friends.
But a recent struggle to get a ticket for a concert was nothing his profile could solve. Instead, it was his status as a disabled person that caused him difficulty.
Millar tells the anecdote with a sarcastic world-weariness. A music venue refused to sell him a ticket for an accessible seat unless he could provide “proof of disability.”
Millar, who was registered blind as a teenager before losing his sight entirely in his 30s, said: “I told them: ‘Oh, OK, I’ll get my neighbour to photograph me walking down the corridor and smashing straight into the wall at the end. Will that do?’”
At 73, Millar has spent a lifetime confronting societal ignorance about disability and confounding assumptions about the limits of his usefulness, all the while carving out a stellar career in the music business, as a producer and label owner.
The starry career, the model girlfriends, parties with the Rolling Stones, the country houses and Ferraris are a compelling part of his story, but Millar, who is chair of the charity Scope, also wants to talk about disability rights, welfare cuts and culture war debates around diversity, equity and inclusion.
His disability rights evangelism – whether it’s opportunity in the workplace or an accessible concert hall seat – in part reflects his own extraordinary life experience. “I never had the option of a conventional career. All doors were shut to me,” he says. He’s a slightly reluctant disability activist who fights for what he calls “the right for disabled people to live the same life as everyone else”.
“I can’t think of a disability so complex and profound that that person cannot make a positive contribution to the work, their environment, their friends and the world of work, given the right possibilities and options,” he says.
Millar grew up in north London in the 1950s and 60s, “a frightened little skinny boy with Mr Magoo glasses”, he told the BBC’s Desert Islands Discs. He had an inherited genetic condition that meant his eyesight was chronically poor and deteriorating. “I couldn’t see in the dark and I had tunnel vision and little spots in the middle of my eyes,” he says.
The young Robin Millar played in bands, and had dreams of becoming as songwriter before trying to get into record production. Photograph: Robert Millar/Home & Studio Recording
Boyhood was an endless round of tests and treatments, his Irish GP father deploying medical science – daily vitamin A injections, stinging eye drops – and his Guyanese nurse mother trying faith healers and psychics, “people putting their fingers on me and poking me and putting stuff on me and saying: ‘You’ll be cured.’”
None of the cures worked. He was having to sit ever further forward in the classroom to see the blackboard at his north London grammar school. He was clever, but “blundering through life”. “Nobody taught me any useful skills like braille or, like learning to touch type. I had to do all that as an adult. Because they were all obsessed with curing me. Rather than equipping me.”
As a teenager he was taken to the Royal National Institute for the Blind (now known as the Royal National Institute of Blind People) for career advice. “They said: ‘Do you want to be a physiotherapist or a piano tuner?’ I said: ‘Neither.’ And they said: ‘Well, we can’t help you.’”
At 16 he was told bluntly by doctors he would be totally blind in a few years. Raging, miserable, determined, he got himself to Cambridge University to study law.
He subsequently played in bands, and had dreams of becoming as songwriter before trying to get into record production. His big break came when he wangled an apprentice job in a Paris recording studio in the mid-1970s, making coffee and doing microphone checks for the likes of Elton John and David Bowie.
Getting the studio job was an “incredibly random” thing, he admits. The owner wasn’t ticking an inclusion box (“they weren’t woke in 1976”) but he was prepared to take a risk. “I think I just charmed him … I’d been a male model and I was a very striking young man. I think he liked the idea of having someone who hung out with the Rolling Stones and was a bit kind of cool in that way.”
“The owner said: ‘Do you want the job?’ I just mumbled something like: ‘I’m a bit worried about knocking over microphones.’ And he said: ‘Don’t worry, we can work around that.’” Millar pauses. “We should have that phrase hung across Trafalgar Square. At every school: ‘We can work around that.’”
That kind of lucky break won’t happen to 99% of young disabled people, he admits. But he believes his experience is a lesson for institutions, companies and entrepreneurs to make themselves open to spotting, nurturing and investing in talented employees who also happen to have a disability.
Diamond Life by Sade. Photograph: Publicity image
The studio owner’s’ instinct was right. The many gold discs on the walls of his south London home attest to Millar’s massive success, not least a golden streak in the mid-1980s when produced a string of bestselling albums, notably Sade’s acclaimed Diamond Life. He was involved in 44 No 1 hits and has sold millions of records.
Life was not happy ever after. He became totally blind while producing Sade’s second album in the south of France, prompting a breakdown and a patient rebuilding of his life and career. Outdated attitudes about disability from the past that had been in some ways masked by his success, resurfaced, often in unexpected ways.
He recalls how his 40th birthday he hosted his parents for the weekend. “Country house, everything I’d aspired to. Gravel drive. Bentley parked outside. Swimming pool, tennis court, two lovely children. My mother says to me: ‘If we had known about your eyesight, your father and I would have had you aborted.’” He is clearly still hurt, adding: “She was so blighted by the negative side.”
The world has moved along way since then, he says. There have been incredible improvements in accessibility. There are disability discrimination laws. On a visit to the BBC he was thrilled to be met by a visually impaired trainee. “I went: ‘Blimey, that wouldn’t have happened in my day. They’ve taken you [on] not just knowing you are blind but hopefully actually realising that disabled people are pretty amazing.’”
That said, he’s not complacent. He and Scope have spent years campaigning to persuade employers to do more to recruit and retain disabled people, and yet the disability employment gap remains stubbornly wide. He’s scathing about the “arc of progress” argument that says “of course it was terrible in the 70s, but now, let’s face it, things are all right for disabled people”.
Companies who employ disabled people are more profitable and understand their markets better, Millar says. Photograph: Graeme Robertson/The Guardian
Of the post-Trump pushback against “woke”,equal access and affirmative action – “all the stuff that worries Telegraph readers” – he says: “I’m sorry guys and girls, but sexual harassment at work, sexism, gender pay gap, worse prospects for people with disabilities, worse prospects for black and Asian communities – I’m afraid it is all true. It may not be as true everywhere, but it is true.”
This is nothing to do with being woke, he says. Companies who employ disabled people are more profitable. They understand their markets better. He reckons employer negativity stems less from prejudice and more from misplaced fears about the costs of making “reasonable adjustments” that allow disabled people to do the job.
Millar would overhaul the 35-year-old legal principle of reasonable adjustment, because it implies there is an “unreasonable” adjustment, allowing companies to feel they have done enough if they stick strictly to the interpretation of the law. At Scope he asked for the word “reasonable’” to be removed from job ads and replaced with “we will make any adjustments to allow you to apply”.
It’s a government ambition to get more long-term ill and disabled people into work. The independent report by the former John Lewis boss Sir Charlie Mayfie on how to do this is due to be published next month. Millar wants to see it recommend financial and other incentives to persuade employers to take “the big step on inclusion”.
Millar opposed the government’s now abandoned plans to cut £5bn from disability benefits. But he believes attitudes and intentions around disability rights are generally “pretty good”. He starts to say there are pockets of discrimination, and then pauses. “It’s not pockets of disability discrimination, actually, it’s just pockets of wankers.”
At IFA 2025, I had a chance to speak to Dolby about the launch of Dolby Vision 2 and Dolby Vision 2 Max.
One of the burning question I naturally had was naturally around support outside of TVs, because this wasn’t mentioned in Dolby’s original information. And right now, Dolby’s being cagey, but isn’t ruling anything out.
When asked directly about devices beyond TVs – including the best 4K Blu-ray players and the best projectors, but also devices like iPhones, which have original Dolby Vision support – we got a response from Dolby’s Aaron Dew, Senior Product Manager, Home Entertainment. He said: “There’s a lot of other kinds of displays, and there’s more to talk about in the future. This week we’re talking about TV,” but also hinted, “You won’t get bored!”
I’m not too worried about projectors – as they become more like TVs, they increasingly use the same kind of processing chips as TVs, which means they could unlock access to Dolby Vision 2 by using a new MediaTek chip with support.
We might see a slower level of adoption than in TVs, but I expect it to arrive – especially given how great the results can be when watching Dolby Vision 2 on displays with limited brightness, at a similar level to what you’d get from a projector.
The question of 4K Blu-ray players is a lot more complicated, though. The problem is that new ones just aren’t coming out very often. Ironically, this year we’ve had three – a new Sony model that’s basically just an older model with streaming features removed, and then very recently a couple of high-end models from Magnetar made with audiophiles in mind – but otherwise they’re few and far between.
The model we rate the most highly, the Panasonic DP-UB820, just turned seven years old, for example. Even if Dolby Vision 2 starts being included on discs, will the players be able to do anything with it? Will Dolby be able to persuade the manufacturers to update these machines?
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I can’t say I’m optimistic, but who knows – Dolby Vision 2 Max has some features of interest to videophiles, including Authentic Motion to eliminate judder, and bi-directional tone-mapping to help ensure picture accuracy on the brightest TVs, including the latest high-end options among the best OLED TVs. And videophiles love 4K Blu-ray, so maybe there’ll be enough interest.
I doubt we’ll hear anything about it this year, though – my guess is that CES 2026 is next best chance to hear about any future steps for Dolby Vision 2, including more information about which TVs will support it, and whether LG will change its stance of rejecting it.
Perhaps it was the extravagant display of deadly weaponry that prompted Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin to mull on mortality at this week’s military parade in Beijing.
It was more banter than serious discussion, but with both aged 72, the Chinese president and his Russian counterpart may feel the cold hand on the shoulder more than Kim Jong-un, the 41-year-old North Korean leader who strolled beside them.
Speaking through a interpreter, Xi told Putin that 70 is considered young today, prompting Putin to claim that human organs can now be repeatedly transplanted, potentially allowing people to “stave off old age indefinitely”. “This century,” Xi responded, “it might be possible to live to 150.”
It was breezy talk, but have advances in organ transplantation reached the stage where the procedures can extend the lives of healthy humans as well as save those with terminal illness?
For particular patients, the case for transplantation is clear. “When you’ve got end-stage kidney, liver or heart disease, transplantation adds years of life on the whole,” says Reza Motallebzadeh, a professor of renal transplantation at UCL. “It is absolutely life-saving.”
A long list of organs and tissues can now be transplanted, including heart, lungs, kidneys, pancreas, liver, small bowel, skin, bone, heart valves and corneas. And more organs are being added. Earlier this year, a woman became the first in the UK to give birth after receiving a womb donated by her sister.
Around the world, demand for organ transplants outstrips supply. In Britain, the waiting list for life-saving organ transplants has never been higher. With a limited supply, what organs exist go to those who stand to benefit the most – typically young and terminally ill people.
But what if we had a plentiful supply of organs? Would it make sense to offer them to older people to keep them well? Motallebzadeh is sceptical. “Having an organ transplant is a massive operation and you’ve got to be robust enough physiologically to get through that,” he says.
And that is not the only consideration, says Motallebzadeh. “The three main causes of death in transplant recipients are cancer, infection and cardiovascular disease. And many of the anti-rejection therapies have side-effects that lead to this.”
In short, having multiple rounds of surgery and continual doses of powerful anti-rejection drugs, which raise the risk of cancer, cardiovascular disease and lethal infections, could reduce lifespan rather than extend it.
Major efforts are afoot to solve the organ shortage problem. One route involves using organs from pigs. The procedure, xenotransplantation, remains experimental but doctors in New York have performed pig kidney and pig lung transplants into brain-dead people to see how they fare.
In the past year, two living patients have received genetically modified pig kidneys. The edits removed harmful pig genes, inactivated viruses lurking in the pig genome that could reawaken and cause infections and, crucially, added human genes to make them more compatible.
The organs were supplied by eGenesis, a biotech company co-founded by the Harvard University geneticist George Church. He said both patients were “healthy and happy” and not on kidney dialysis any more.
The company has approval from the US Food and Drug Administration for a clinical trial in 33 patients. “If those 33 do as well as the first two, then it’ll be scaled up for the whole population,” Church said. “The number of pigs we would have to make is a tiny fraction of the number consumed each year for bacon and pork chops.”
For now, the company is focusing on kidneys, liver and heart, but Church anticipates providing every organ and tissue that is normally transplanted from human to human.
Farming pigs for organs is a practice that will have its critics, but far more radical and ethically fraught proposals are on the table. Earlier this year, researchers said advances in stem cell biology and artificial womb technology could enable scientists to create spare human bodies.
The process is convoluted, but involves making an embryo from a patient’s cells, disabling genes needed for it to form a brain, and growing it in an artificial womb. The result is a brainless human body, made to supply organs to its genetic parent.
“There’s an ick factor,” says Carsten Charlesworth, a postdoctoral researcher at Stanford University. “For a lot of people, an arm’s fine, a liver’s fine and a kidney’s fine. But when you have everything except a brain, it feels more human-like and people worry.”
Church has high hopes for another approach. The liver and other organs could be genetically modified, in or out of the body, to be resistant to infection and release anti-ageing compounds such as proteins that help the body maintain good health. “You’re turning the organ into an anti-ageing therapy,” he says. If done in situ, it avoids the need for major surgery, risky anti-rejection medicines and headless humans.
So might people born this century live to 150? “Probably somebody reading your article is going to be the last person to not have the option of living to 150,” Church says. “It would be sad to be the person who just misses the cut, and I have the feeling I’m one of those people.”
Your heart often sends subtle warning signals when something isn’t quite right. Recognising these signs early can help detect underlying heart conditions before they become serious, making timely medical attention crucial.
Watch out for these warning symptoms that could indicate heart disease.(Twitter/PsychiatristCNS)
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Dr Kunal Sood, an anesthesiology and interventional pain medicine physician, has shared four symptoms that could be warning signals from your heart that indicate underlying complications.
In an Instagram video posted on August 6, the doctor stresses that while these signs – ranging from pounding heartbeats to chest pain – do not always confirm serious heart conditions, persisting or clustered symptoms are red flags that deserve to be checked out. He also adds that early detection of these symptoms can help with quick diagnosis and treatment, preventing complications related to delayed intervention which actually ends up saving lives.
Swelling in ankles or legs
That uncomfortable swelling in your ankles or legs by day’s end could be an early warning sign of heart failure. The swelling is caused by fluid build up, also known as edema, and could point towards heart failure or even kidney disease. According to Dr Sood, “In heart failure, weak pumping causes blood to back up in the legs.”
Irregular heartbeat
Fluttering, pounding or irregular heartbeat can point towards arrhythmia, a problem with your heartbeat’s rate or rhythm which can cause your heart to beat too fast or too slow. Dr Sood explains that atrial fibrillation is the most common form of arrhythmia and “raises stroke risk fivefold and can also cause heart failure or cognitive decline if untreated.”
Chest pain radiating to arm and jaw
Dr. Sood warns that if you are experiencing chest pain that radiates towards your arm and jaw, especially affecting the left side, it is a “classic sign of angina or heart attack.” He describes the pain as “heavy, crushing, or pressure-like” which has a tendency of spreading towards your neck, back or arms.
Fainting during palpitations
This condition is known as cardiac syncope – a temporary loss of consciousness caused when the heart fails to pump enough blood to the brain resulting in a lack of oxygen, according to the American Heart Association. Dr. Sood said, “This strongly suggests a rhythm problem like ventricular tachycardia or hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.” He shares this accounts for approximately 15 percent of fainting cases.
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Warning signs that should not be ignored
Dr Sood lists the following warning signs as top priority and recommends seeing a doctor immediately if they occur or don’t go away:
Severe crushing chest pain that spreads to the arm or jaw.
You experience palpitations that lead to dizziness, breathlessness, or fainting spells.
Worsening swelling, particularly when accompanied by shortness of breath.
You can feel your pulse getting fast or irregular for the first time.
Note to readers: This article is for informational purposes only and not a substitute for professional medical advice. It is based on user-generated content from social media. HT.com has not independently verified the claims and does not endorse them.