At least eight more Palestinians die of starvation as famine spreads across Gaza
The Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza has said at least 61 people were killed and 308 injured in Israeli attacks over the past 24 hours.
The ministry said a number of victims remained under rubble and on the streets, with ambulance and civil defence crews unable to reach them.
According to its daily update, the cumulative death toll in Gaza has risen to 62,622, with 157,673 injured since 7 October 2023.
From when Israel ended the ceasefire on March 18, the ministry said 10,778 people have been killed and 45,632 injured.
It noted that 298 fatalities had been added to the tally after confirmation by a judicial committee handling missing persons cases.
The ministry reported that at least 16 people were killed and 111 injured while attempting to collect aid in the past 24 hours, bringing the total number of what the ministry describes as “aid victims” to 2,076 killed, and more than 15,308 injured since the war began.
Hospitals also recorded eight new deaths due to starvation and malnutrition, including two children, bringing the total to 281 deaths from hunger, of whom 114 were children.
Key events
The commander-in-chief of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) has warned that Israel would face a “more crushing response” if it carried out further attacks against the country, according to the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA).
Major General Mohammad Pakpour made the comments on Saturday during a meeting with Ahmadreza Pourkhaghan, head of the judiciary organisation of the armed forces.
Referring to the IRGC’s combat readiness, Pakpour said:
If the Zionist regime repeats its aggression against the country, it will receive a more regret-inducing and crushing response than the 12-day war in June.
He added that ensuring the safety and security of IRGC personnel would remain a priority “as in the past”.
Arif Husain, chief economist at the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP), has explained what qualifies as a famine after the UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) formally declared one in parts of Gaza.
In a video posted to X, Husain said:
Famine is a technical term. We say there is a famine when three conditions come together in a specific geographic area. First, at least 20 percent of the population, in that particular place must be facing extreme levels of hunger.
Second, 30 percent of the children in the same place must be wasted, they are too tall for their weight, so they’re very skinny basically.
And the third condition is that the mortality rate must double from the average of, for adults, one person per 10,000 per day, to two people per 10,000 per day. When these three conditions come together, we say it’s a famine.
On Friday, the IPC said an estimated 514,000 people in Gaza – about a quarter of the enclave’s population – are experiencing famine, a figure expected to rise to 641,000 by the end of September.
Israel has denied that a famine is taking place, while the United States appeared to dismiss the findings as part of what it called a “false narrative of deliberate mass starvation” promoted by Hamas.
Earlier today, we reported that eight people had starved to death in Gaza in the past 24 hours, according to the Palestinian health ministry.
Gaza’s civil defence service, made up of local emergency crews, say they carried out 39 missions in the past 24 hours as Israeli strikes hit tents sheltering displaced people in the enclave.
Crews reported operations in the Beach Camp in the north, and in Rafah to the south, where tents for displaced people were struck by Israeli forces.
Patients were taken from attacks near schools, mosques and hospitals, including al-Awda hospital in Nuseirat and tents in the Asdaa area of Rafah, where ten people were rushed to treatment.
Civil defence also reported transporting victims from strikes in Khan Younis and Gaza City, including fires in the Rimal neighbourhood.
One of the dead was transported from al-Awda hospital in Nuseirat, others were injured by gunfire, the civil defence said.
The service said the scale of operations underlined the pressure on emergency crews who continue to recover the wounded, and the dead, from across Gaza.
With ground troops already active in strategic areas, the widescale operation in Gaza City could start within days, reports the Associated Press (AP).
Aid group Doctors without Borders, or Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), said on Saturday its clinics around Gaza City are seeing high numbers of patients as people flee recent bombardments. The group said in a statement that “strikes are forcing people, including MSF staff, to flee their homes once again, and we are seeing displacement across Gaza City″.
According to the AP, the Israeli military has said troops are operating on the outskirts of Gaza City and in the city’s Zeitoun neighbourhood.
A view of the seafront tent camp and destroyed buildings in the Tel al-Hawa neighbourhood of Gaza City on Saturday. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images
Israeli strikes killed at least 14 people in the southern Gaza Strip early on Saturday, according to morgue records and health officials at Nasser hospital, reports the Associated Press (AP).
The officials said the strikes targeted tents sheltering displaced people in Khan Younis, which became home to hundreds of thousands who had fled from elsewhere in Gaza. More than half of the dead were women and children, reported the AP.
Awad Abu Agala, uncle of two children who died, told the AP no place in Gaza is now safe. “The entire Gaza Strip is being bombed … In the south. In the north. Everywhere,” Abu Agala said, explaining that the children were targeted overnight while in their tents.
In northern Gaza, Israeli gunfire killed at least five aid-seekers on Saturday near the Zikim crossing with Israel, where UN and other agencies’ convoys enter the territory, health officials at the Sheikh Radwan field hospital told the AP.
Six people were killed in other attacks on Gaza elsewhere Saturday, according to hospitals and the Palestinian Red Crescent.
The Israeli military did not immediately respond to questions from the AP about the deaths.
Summary of the day so far
It is 2.49pm in Gaza City and Tel Aviv. Here is a summary of today’s blog so far:
The Palestinian ministry of health in Gaza has said at least 61 people were killed and 308 injured in Israeli attacks over the past 24 hours. The ministry said a number of victims remained under rubble and on the streets, with ambulance and civil defence crews unable to reach them. The Wafa news agency reported that at least nine Palestinian civilians had been killed in a series of Israeli attacks across Gaza on Saturday.
The ministry reported that at least 16 people were killed and 111 injured while attempting to collect aid in the past 24 hours, bringing the total number of what the ministry describes as “aid victims” to 2,076 killed, and more than 15,308 injured since the war began.
Hospitals in Gaza also recorded eight new deaths due to starvation and malnutrition, including two children, bringing the total to 281 deaths from hunger, of whom 114 were children.
Israel has dismantled the proven and internationally backed civilian model of aid distribution in Gaza, according to a joint report from Forensic Architecture (FA) and the World Peace Foundation (WPF), which said the move has furthered both Israel’s military objectives and starvation in the territory.
The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) has called for an urgent scale-up of evacuations from Gaza, warning that more than 15,600 patients remain in need of specialised care, including 3,800 children. In a post on X, WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus thanked the UAE for supporting the latest evacuation of critically injured and sick patients but stressed that far more action is needed.
The head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa), Philippe Lazzarini, has called on Israel to allow aid into Gaza at scale, saying famine in the territory is worsening by the hour. He also shared comments from undersecretary general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator, Tom Fletcher, who said the famine confirmed by the IPC report should be read “in sorrow and in anger”.
Unrwa says it has warehouses full of food, medicines and hygiene supplies in Jordan and Egypt but is being blocked from bringing them into Gaza. “While famine is confirmed in Gaza City, we have warehouses full of food waiting to be allowed in,” the agency said in a post on X.
Israeli forces have continued their large-scale assault on the village of al-Mughayyir, northeast of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, carrying out raids and widespread destruction of property, according to a local official cited by the Wafa news agency. Marzouq Abu Naim, the deputy head of the village council, told Wafa that since dawn troops had stormed more than 30 homes, issuing threats, destroying property, and smashing or seizing dozens of vehicles.
Protesters backing a deal for the release of hostages in Gaza confronted Israel’s far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, and his son in central Israel, the Times of Israel reports. Crowds chanted “shame” and held up posters of hostages still held in Gaza. Ben-Gvir – who was barred from serving in the army as a teenager due to extremist activities – was heard telling his son, Shoval: “These are draft dodgers.” One protester shouted back, calling Ben-Gvir himself a “draft dodger”.
Action Against Hunger has warned of “extreme vulnerability under the mothers and their children that are undernourished” as famine spreads across Gaza. The group’s nutrition teams recorded more than 400 cases of malnourished children in July and August alone, 20% of them severe. According to UN and INGO data, thousands of new cases are being registered each month.
Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, has said spoken by phone with his French, German and British counterparts in a bid to prevent a vote on UN sanctions over Tehran’s nuclear programme, just days ahead of a European deadline. The call came as the three European powers threatened to trigger the “snapback” provision of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, which allows any party to reimpose sanctions if they believe Iran is not complying with commitments such as international monitoring of its nuclear activities.
Dutch Foreign Minister Caspar Veldkamp has stepped down after failing to secure cabinet approval for additional sanctions on Israel over its war in Gaza. Veldkamp, a member of the centre-right New Social Contract party, said he was unable to achieve any agreement, while citing “geopolitical tensions”.
Turning our attention to the occupied West Bank, Israeli forces have continued their large-scale assault on the village of al-Mughayyir, northeast of Ramallah, carrying out raids and widespread destruction of property, according to a local official cited by the Wafa news agency.
Marzouq Abu Naim, the deputy head of the village council, told Wafa that since dawn troops had stormed more than 30 homes, issuing threats, destroying property, and smashing or seizing dozens of vehicles.
He added that bulldozers were continuing work on a new road through the village, destroying thousands of dunums of olive groves.
Israeli Finance Minister Smotrich speaks at a press conference regarding settlements expansion, near the Israeli settlement of Maale Adumim, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, August 14, 2025. Photograph: Ronen Zvulun/Reuters
The escalation comes after Israel on Wednesday announced its approval of a major new settlement block in the West Bank, which far-right finance minister Bezalel Smotrich suggsted was designed to prevent the creation of a Palestinian state.
On Thursday, UK foreign secretary David Lammy joined 20 other foreign ministers in condemning the settlement plan. The Foreign Office said it had also summoned the Israeli ambassador in London to make Britain’s position clear.
The ICJ regards both Israeli occupation and settlement building in the West Bank as illegal under international law.
At least eight more Palestinians die of starvation as famine spreads across Gaza
The Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza has said at least 61 people were killed and 308 injured in Israeli attacks over the past 24 hours.
The ministry said a number of victims remained under rubble and on the streets, with ambulance and civil defence crews unable to reach them.
According to its daily update, the cumulative death toll in Gaza has risen to 62,622, with 157,673 injured since 7 October 2023.
From when Israel ended the ceasefire on March 18, the ministry said 10,778 people have been killed and 45,632 injured.
It noted that 298 fatalities had been added to the tally after confirmation by a judicial committee handling missing persons cases.
The ministry reported that at least 16 people were killed and 111 injured while attempting to collect aid in the past 24 hours, bringing the total number of what the ministry describes as “aid victims” to 2,076 killed, and more than 15,308 injured since the war began.
Hospitals also recorded eight new deaths due to starvation and malnutrition, including two children, bringing the total to 281 deaths from hunger, of whom 114 were children.
Karim is a trained nurse in his early 20s from Gaza City. He has been displaced by the war 12 times and survived an Israeli strike in Rafah. He now lives in the ruins of his former home with his parents and four brothers. He kept a diary for the Guardian over the course of a week.
3 August 2025 Today, I have to do something a bit “exciting”. I’m going to a food distribution point for the first time, what I call the death lottery. I’m leaving in about 30 minutes. I’ve said goodbye to my family and hugged them all. You never know.
4 August 2025 Do you know the series Squid Game? I swear, they’re playing with us just like that. I lay on the ground at the aid point in Zikim for almost three hours without moving. If anyone moved – like one old man apparently did, they shot him. He got a bullet straight in the neck.
6 August 2025 I usually avoid the news. I can’t stand watching it – too much pain, too much politics. I scroll through Instagram a little, and sometimes I search for scholarships, hoping to find a way out of here. I’m desperate to escape with my family.
Read the rest of Karim’s account here: My life in Gaza: ‘Do you know the series Squid Game?’
UNRWA chief urges Israel to ‘stop denying the famine it has created’ in Gaza
The head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) has called on Israel to allow aid into Gaza at scale, saying famine in the territory is worsening by the hour.
In a post on X, Philippe Lazzarini, UNRWA commissioner-general, said:
It’s time for the Government of Israel to stop denying the famine it has created in Gaza. All of those who have influence must use it with determination and a sense of moral duty. Every hour counts.
He also shared comments from Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, Tom Fletcher, who said the famine confirmed by the IPC report should be read “in sorrow and in anger”.
Fletcher wrote that the crisis was “a famine we could have prevented” but food was being blocked by “systematic obstruction by Israel”.
In his closing appeal, Fletcher said: “My plea, my demand to Prime Minister Netanyahu: Enough. Ceasefire. Open the crossings, north and south … It is too late for far too many. But not for everyone in Gaza. Enough. For humanity’s sake, let us in.”
It comes after the Israeli prime minister claimed yesterday the IPC report was “an absolute lie” and “a modern blood libel”.
Palestinians endure daily struggle to access humanitarian aid
Palestinians push a wheelchair carrying sacks of flour unloaded from a humanitarian aid convoy on the outskirts of Beit Lahiya, northern Gaza. Photograph: Abdel Kareem Hana/APA Palestinian boy extends an empty pot in front of a charity kitchen to receive cooked rice in Gaza City. Photograph: Omar Al-Qattaa/AFP/Getty ImagesPalestinians carry sacks of flour unloaded from a humanitarian aid convoy on the outskirts of Beit Lahiya. Photograph: Abdel Kareem Hana/AP
A stark warning about the upcoming Epochalypse, also known as the “Year 2038 problem,” has come from the past, as National Museum Of Computing system restorers have discovered an unsetting issue while working on ancient systems.
Epoch-alypse now: BBC iPlayer flaunts 2038 cutoff date, gives infrastructure game away
READ MORE
Robin Downs, a volunteer who was recently involved in an exhibition of Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) gear at the museum, was on hand to demonstrate the problem to The Register in the museum’s Large Systems Gallery, which now houses a running PDP-11/73.
The machine’s software had already been patched for the Y2K problem, where using two digits to store the year caused headaches when the century rolled around. “Y2K”, Downs explained, “was mainly an application programming issue … mostly it was application programmers not taking into account two digits.”
The Year 2038 problem is a different beast. Indicating the PDP-11/73, Downs said, “This machine isn’t running Unix, but we have a C compiler on it, and the C compiler is from 1982, so it has … various issues.”
According to Downs, the operating system was patched for Y2K in the late 1990s, but doesn’t use the same time structure for its internal date and time.
“So, the C compiler on this, already now, when you ask it what the time and date are, it gets it wrong. It returns the correct time, but the wrong date.”
Annoying, but solvable. The team worked around the issue. However, when Downs was testing it by moving the system clock forward, something unexpected happened. He moved the clock forward to 2036, and everything seemed fine.
Then, in 2037 – a year before the Epochalypse is due – the program crashed. “It turns out,” said Downs, “the time function has another bug. Undocumented, unknown, where at the start of 2037, any program that calls the time function just crashes.”
“So we found bugs that exist, pre-2038, in writing this that we didn’t know about.”
The Year 2038 problem occurs in systems that store Unix time – the number of seconds since the Unix epoch (00:00:00 UTC on January 1, 1970) in a signed 32-bit integer (64-bit is one modern approach, but legacy systems have a habit of lingering).
At 03:14:07 UTC on January 19, 2038, the second counter will overflow. In theory, this will result in a time and date being returned before the epoch – 20:45:52 UTC on December 13, 1901, but that didn’t happen for Downs.
He said, “What we expected was that the local time function should return 1901. That’s what we thought would happen.”
Instead, it went back to 1970.
“Ok,” said Downs, “So the local time function has got a bug in it where it goes back 68 years instead of to -68 years…”
So, there could be problems in the compiler. Problems with how code handles the issue. Problems with what machines might actually do. And so it goes on.
Former Microsoft engineer Dave Plummer is optimistic that the problem will be solved in time. He told The Register, “Since the counter starts from current time, anything that is running when it rolls over in 2038 will be suspect. ie: it doesn’t have to have been running for long.
“While it’s conceivable there are important things that still rely on GetTickCount() or similar, I’d wager the intervening 13 years will be enough to find them!”
Downs is, however, concerned, and noted that children on school trips to the museum today could well be starting a career as engineers in 12 or 13 years and be given some legacy code to learn from. He’s met professional C programmers who are unaware of the breadth of potential problems. “And then you’ve got the other issue,” he said, “of things that we’re building now that we expect to last more than 12 years.”
The prognosis is not great.
“There’s no answer,” Downs concludes, “because unless you test each individual device and potentially software version … they can behave differently.
“There’s a hugely greater scope for things going wrong to a lesser or greater extent than they did for Y2K.” ®
A single protein was found to fuel brain aging, and shutting it down reversed memory loss. Credit: Shutterstock
Researchers at UC San Francisco have uncovered a surprising culprit in brain aging: a protein called FTL1.
In aging mice, too much of this protein weakened memory and disrupted neural connections. But when scientists blocked FTL1, the mice’s brains regained youthful function, and their memory tests dramatically improved.
Aging Hits the Hippocampus Hard
Aging takes a heavy toll on the hippocampus, the part of the brain that drives learning and memory.
Scientists at UC San Francisco have now pinpointed a single protein, FTL1, that appears to play a central role in this age-related decline.
By studying how genes and proteins in the hippocampus change over time in mice, the team found that only one stood out as consistently different between young and old animals: FTL1.
Mimicking Old Age in Young Brains
Older mice showed higher levels of FTL1, fewer connections between hippocampal neurons, and weaker memory performance. When researchers artificially boosted FTL1 in young mice, their brains and behavior quickly started to resemble those of much older animals.
In cell culture experiments, neurons engineered to produce large amounts of FTL1 developed abnormally. Instead of growing complex, branching neurites, they formed only simple, single-armed extensions.
Reversing Memory Decline by Lowering FTL1
When scientists reduced FTL1 in the hippocampus of aged mice, the results flipped. Their neurons made more connections, and the animals significantly improved on memory tests.
“It is truly a reversal of impairments,” said Saul Villeda, PhD, associate director of the UCSF Bakar Aging Research Institute and senior author of the paper, which appears in Nature Aging on August 19. “It’s much more than merely delaying or preventing symptoms.”
Metabolism, FTL1, and Hope for Therapies
In old mice, FTL1 also slowed down metabolism in the cells of the hippocampus. But treating the cells with a compound that stimulates metabolism prevented these effects.
Villeda is optimistic that the work could lead to therapies that block the effects of FTL1 in the brain.
“We’re seeing more opportunities to alleviate the worst consequences of old age,” he said. “It’s a hopeful time to be working on the biology of aging.”
Reference: “Targeting iron-associated protein Ftl1 in the brain of old mice improves age-related cognitive impairment” by Laura Remesal, Juliana Sucharov-Costa, Yuting Wu, Karishma J. B. Pratt, Gregor Bieri, Amber Philp, Mason Phan, Turan Aghayev, Charles W. White III, Elizabeth G. Wheatley, Bende Zou, Brandon R. Desousa, Julien Couthouis, Isha H. Jian, Xinmin S. Xie, Yi Lu, Jason C. Maynard, Alma L. Burlingame and Saul A. Villeda, 19 August 2025, Nature Aging. DOI: 10.1038/s43587-025-00940-z
Authors: Other UCSF authors are Laura Remesal, PhD, Juliana Sucharov-Costa, Karishma J.B. Pratt, PhD, Gregor Bieri, PhD, Amber Philp, PhD, Mason Phan, Turan Aghayev, MD, PhD, Charles W. White III, PhD, Elizabeth G. Wheatley, PhD, Brandon R. Desousa, Isha H. Jian, Jason C. Maynard, PhD, and Alma L. Burlingame, PhD.
Funding: This work was funded in part by the Simons Foundation, Bakar Family Foundation, National Science Foundation, Hillblom Foundation, Bakar Aging Research Institute, Marc and Lynne Benioff, and the National Institutes of Health (AG081038, AG067740, AG062357, P30 DK063720).
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Fey spoke about the new UK version of Saturday Night Live which is in production
Saturday Night Live star Tina Fey said she is not worried about artificial intelligence (AI) taking over from comedy writers.
“AI can do all sorts of other terrifying things, like writing music but so far, it’s unable to be funny,” she told the audience on the last day of the Edinburgh TV Festival.
The American actress and comedian broke into comedy as part of the Chicago-based improvisational comedy group The Second City, before going on to star in the NBC sketch comedy show.
One of her most famous roles was as US vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin in the run up to the 2008 election.
NBCU Photobank
Fey regularly portrayed politician Sarah Palin on Saturday Night Live and in fact was mistaken for her
At the time she had left the show but was asked to return.
Fey said: “I wasn’t sure. I know I looked a little like her but I also knew someone like Kristen Wigg could have done with ease.”
But for six weeks, it made her famous.
She added: “So many people watched it and recognised me. They’d come up to me in the street.
“A French newspaper even ran a picture of me and Amy Poehler as Hillary Clinton, thinking we were the real people.
“At the end of it all, it started to get a little scary, and then it piqued when Sarah Palin appeared on the show.”
In April it was announced that the UK would launch its own version of the long running sketch show, produced by the US show’s creator Lorne Michaels.
Graham Norton, who shared the festival stage with Fey, said he didn’t believe that British writers would stay up all night on a Tuesday, as they do in the US, to finish scripts in time for the Wednesday read through.
But Fey said: “Here’s a dirty secret. You don’t have to do it that way. You could start in the morning.”
NBC Photo
Tina Fey played Liz Lemon in 30 Rock, which was inspired by her time as a Saturday Night Live writer
Fey, who created 30 Rock, also revealed former Prime Minister David Cameron had wanted to speak to her about British shows while he was in power.
She recalled: “After 30 Rock ended, like a year or two later, I was way out in Brooklyn working on this show called Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.
“I was very happy to take a break from being on camera, jeans and dirty hair every day.
“And I got this call from someone at NBC that said if you could come into Rockefeller Centre, David Cameron is here and has requested to meet you.
“He was the current prime minister. Turned out all it was, was he wanted to meet me and say Hi.”
Fay said Cameron invited her to the UK but she didn’t take up the offer.
She continued: “He was like ‘Would you ever be willing to come and meet with some of our incredibly talented British show writers? I think that our television that we make is one of our greatest exports, it’s something we do beautifully, and could you convince them to make hundreds of episodes?’
“And I was like I cannot, because we all want to do it the way they do it, be Ricky Gervais and be like ‘Remember that time I made 12 half-hours’. That’s the lifestyle.”
PA Media
Fey was in conversation with Graham Norton at the Edinburgh TV Festival
Meanwhile, Fey described her latest show, The Four Seasons – which is based on a 1981 film – as “an exercise in restraint”.
She added: “I had to keep saying to the other writers, when a character meets another person, they have to be normal, not outrageous.”
The second season of the show is now in production and she said her own experience of mid-life offered her plenty of ideas.
Fey said: “I’m 55, and stuff can happen at that age, and some of it is terrible.”
She also told the festival how she grew up with British television classics like Monty Python and Benny Hill.
And when asked to name her favourite shows of the last 50 years, Fey nominated Absolutely Fabulous and I May Destroy You.
The comedian was asked for her favourite Scottish film by a member of the audience and – despite this being her first visit to the country – confidently answered Local Hero.
Fey also revealed she was keen to return to the UK to tour The Restless Leg, the show she created with Amy Poehler about their 30-year friendship.
Pakistani bodybuilders celebrate after winning medals at the Asian Bodybuilding Championship in Thailand. — Reporter
KARACHI: Pakistan clinched two gold medals on the fifth day of the Asian Bodybuilding Championship in Thailand, with bodybuilders from Multan and Peshawar making the nation proud.
In the 75kg category, Multan’s Firasat Ali secured the first gold medal for Pakistan. According to Pakistan Bodybuilding Federation Secretary, Sohail Anwar, Firasat works at a puncture shop in Multan to earn his livelihood. He said Firasat’s journey was particularly remarkable as he managed to compete internationally for the first time despite financial hardships.
Pakistan’s second gold came through Ijaz Khan, a 51-year-old from Peshawar, who triumphed in the Masters category by winning in the 80kg class. His achievement marked a historic moment for Pakistan’s representation at the event.
Speaking to Geo News after his victory, Firasat Ali expressed joy, saying this was his first-ever international competition. He added that despite the presence of strong participants from several countries, including India, he managed to clinch the gold medal.
Firasat revealed that he runs a small roadside stall outside his house in Multan and often struggled to afford travel expenses even to other cities. He said he was only able to participate after competing in Islamabad trials, where he was selected for the national team. The bodybuilding federation then covered his expenses to take him to Bangkok.
He said bodybuilding is his lifelong passion, alongside his interest in music, and that winning this gold medal was a dream come true.
The EXSCEL study protocol was approved by the ethics committee at each participating site, and the statistical analyses were performed by the Duke Clinical Research Institute, independent of the sponsor, Amylin Pharmaceuticals (a wholly owned subsidiary of AstraZeneca). All patients provided written informed consent.
Consent for publication
Not applicable.
Competing interests
R.J.M. reports research support and honoraria from Abbott, American Regent, Amgen, AstraZeneca, Bayer, Boehringer Ingelheim/Eli Lilly, Boston Scientific, Cytokinetics, Fast BioMedical, Gilead, Innolife, Medtronic, Merck, Novartis, Relypsa, Respicardia, Roche, Sanofi, Vifor, Windtree Therapeutics, and Zoll. M.F. reports support by the NIH, Alleviant, Gradient, Novo Nordisk, Reprieve, Sardocor, Tenax, and Doris Duke. M.F. is a consultant and/or has ownership interest in Abbott, Acorai, Ajax, Alio Health, Alleviant, Artha, Astellas, Audicor, AxonTherapies, Berlin Heals, Bioventrix, BMS, Bodyguide, Bodyport, Boston Scientific, Broadview, Cadence, Cardiosense, Cardioflow, Corstasis, Clinical Accelerator, CVRx, Daxor, Edwards LifeSciences, Echosens, Feldschuh Foundation, Fire1, FlowMod, FutureCardia, Gradient, Hatteras, HemodynamiQ, Impulse Dynamics, ISHI, Lumia Health, Medtronic, Novo Nordisk, NucleusRx, Omega, Orchestra, Paragate, Parasym, Pharmacosmos, Procyreon, Proton Intelligence, Puzzle, ReCor, Scirent, SCPharma, Shifamed, Splendo, Summacor, SutroSam, SyMap, Terumo, Tricav, Vifor Pharma, Vironix, Viscardia, VizAI, and Zoll. N.S. has received personal fees from Amgen, Astra Zeneca, Boehringer Ingelheim, Eli Lilly, Janssen, Sanofi, and Novo Nordisk. R.R.H. reports personal fees from AstraZeneca, Lilly, Merck KGaA and Novartis. R.L.C and A.I.A have no disclosures.
About 400 jobs have been lost directly at the Grangemouth petrochemical plant
Union officials at Grangemouth have accused the prime minister of “failing to deliver” on a £200m promise to invest in the future of the industrial site.
The refinery, owned by Petroineos, ceased processing crude oil in April, leading to the direct loss of about 400 jobs and many others in the supply chain.
While a fuel distribution hub and a vast petrochemical plant remain, the Unite union says a funding package announced in February to support a transition to green energy projects has yet to materialise.
The UK government said it was working to develop “sustainable, long term proposals” for the site.
PA Media
Workers at Grangemouth have campaigned hard to try to save their jobs
Sir Keir Starmer pledged the funding for Grangemouth from the National Wealth Fund at the Scottish Labour conference, telling delegates it was an “investment in Scotland’s industrial future”.
But the union claimed “not a penny” of the promised cash had been spent so far.
Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said: “It is little wonder workers are turning away from Labour in their droves when they fail to protect British jobs and critical infrastructure.
“Promises made to the workers of Grangemouth have been broken. Unite produced a clear plan for the site to be transformed, to back workers and create the promised green jobs.
“The government failure to act shows there is absolutely no plan for a jobs transition.”
The UK and Scottish governments jointly funded a £1.5m feasibility study called Project Willow which looked at alternative uses for the Grangemouth site.
Unite said it had produced a detailed and fully costed plan for how the refinery could be transitioned to supply sustainable aviation fuel (SAF).
Grangemouth worker and senior union representative Chris Hamilton said his colleagues and members of the community felt abandoned by the lack of progress.
“Each month more and more people leave the site through redundancy with empty promises ringing in their ears,” he said.
“This government may have forgotten what it promised – but we haven’t. It must follow through with its promises at pace and do all it can to secure a sustainable future for Grangemouth.”
In June, the UK government’s energy minister, Michael Shanks, said there would be announcements “soon” on the future of Grangemouth.
Shanks, who is also the MP for Rutherglen and Hamilton West, said the government was exploring a range of “exciting and viable” projects to secure a long-term transition for the site.
At the time he said more than 80 potential investors in the site had come forward, with Scottish Enterprise handling due diligence on proposed projects.
UK government energy minister Michael Shanks said that announcements were imminent
A UK government spokesperson said: “We know this has been an incredibly difficult time for workers and their families.
“When we came to power, there was no overall plan for the future of the Grangemouth refinery and within weeks we delivered an unprecedented support package.
“The National Wealth Fund is investing £200m and we are working closely with investors to advance sustainable, long-term proposals for the site.”
What is the National Wealth Fund?
The National Wealth Fund is publicly-owned and backed by the Treasury, and invests alongside the private sector in projects across the UK – primarily focusing on initiatives that support clean energy.
The UK government said its aim was to direct “tens of billions of pounds” of private investment to decarbonise the British economy.
An initial £5.8bn injection was earmarked for green projects including “carbon capture, green hydrogen, ports, gigafactories and green steel,” according to UK government documents.
Pixel 10 is the first US phone to get Bluetooth 6.
Bluetooth 6 adds upgrades, including precise channel sounding.
Both devices need Bluetooth 6 to fully take advantage, so adoption will be slow.
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Google’s Pixel 10 smartphones debuted with plenty of noteworthy features, including native magnetic wireless charging, an industry-first IP68 dust- and waterproof foldable phone design, and more intuitive AI features. One of the most significant updates, however, is the phone’s adoption of Bluetooth 6, making them the first in the US with the latest Bluetooth connectivity standard.
Also: Every Pixel device announced at Made by Google yesterday: 10 Pro Fold, Watch, Buds, more
In addition to improving wireless connections’ stability, power consumption, and strength, Bluetooth 6 introduces channel sounding, which makes device location tracking more accurate. Despite its 2024 release, Bluetooth 6 and Channel Sounding are in the painfully slow adoption process. Still, two Pixel devices are compatible with it. Here’s what it means for you now and in the future.
What is channel sounding?
Channel sounding builds on Bluetooth LE’s positioning technology to enable two devices to establish the distance between them. Currently, Bluetooth devices use signal strength to determine distance, but channel sounding measures the time it takes for the signal to travel. This more secure and accurate method provides device location information down to the centimeter.
Current Bluetooth-enabled device tracking can tell you where your device is, in a general sense, but Channel Sounding should be able to alert you that your device is within 10 feet and low-lying to the right, wedged between your couch cushions.
Also: This Pixel 10 Pro camera feature sets a high bar for the iPhone 17 Pro to beat
According to Bluetooth, Channel Sounding, or precision location tracking, requires a hardware update. However, existing devices can be upgraded to support Bluetooth LE, which provides basic location awareness.
Accurate location-tracking devices, like AirTags, have an internal ultra-wideband (UWB) chip, which aids in ultra-precise location tracking. UWB is incredibly precise, but it’s more expensive and complex than Bluetooth to implement universally.
Which Pixel devices have Bluetooth 6?
Kyle Kucharski/ZDNET
The Pixel 10, Pixel 10 Pro, Pixel 10 Pro XL, and Pixel 10 Pro Fold support Bluetooth 6. Thanks to a recent Wear OS update, the Pixel Watch 3 also supports channel sounding. Google has not confirmed how it supplied the Pixel Watch 3 with this update, considering Bluetooth version updates historically require new hardware.
Also: Google just copied the worst feature of modern iPhones (but not all hope is lost)
Bluetooth 6 also brings faster Bluetooth device scanning, better-quality audio codecs, improved audio and video latency streaming for Bluetooth LE devices, and more efficient connections.
What does this mean for the future?
Bluetooth’s goal is to standardize technologies across devices. When introduced in 1999, Bluetooth intended to standardize our communication methods, eliminating wires for connecting to headphones, phones, and computers.
Also: I’m a longtime iPhone user, but the Google Pixel 10 has me reconsidering my loyalty
Today, wireless communication and connections are standard, and Bluetooth’s next challenge is standardizing channel sounding. It would implement secure and accurate location capabilities into all of our Bluetooth devices, one day enabling our smartphones to act as digital car and house keys.
Gone would be the days of living within a device ecosystem to access device tracking features. Picture this: instead of purchasing a dedicated location tracker to find your gym bag, your headphones, earbuds, or tablet inside your bag could act as its Bluetooth tracker.
Apple’s iPhone 17 and Samsung’s Galaxy 26 lineup, which are slated to release this fall and early next year, respectively, are the next smartphones to potentially receive Bluetooth 6 support.
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