Professor Jane Williamson from the School of Natural Sciences at Macquarie University, senior author on the study, said the findings underscored the urgent need for action on climate change.
The research team used high-resolution drone imagery to map coral bleaching in March 2024, returning in June to assess survival and mortality rates across the same reef areas.
“Using drone-derived imagery, we followed the amount of bleached and living coral during and after the bleaching event,” said Professor Williamson. “Use of this technology lets us upscale the effects of the bleaching event over larger areas but still in high precision.”
The team recorded the highest coral bleaching mortality on the Great Barrier Reef, with over 92% of corals experiencing mortality.
“Our results are concerning for coral resilience, considering the increasing frequency and intensity of extreme heat events predicted for the near future, with potentially irreversible consequences for reef ecosystems such as those studied in our Great Barrier Reef,” Williamson added.
More alarming still is that coral mortality actually exceeded 99% in some areas measured.
Coral reefs at Lizard Island have experienced repeated disturbances over the past decade, including severe bleaching in 2016 and 2017, cyclones, and Crown-of-Thorns outbreaks. These events have only compounded the ecosystem’s vulnerability, despite some signs of recovery in recent years.
The team behind the assessment are now running additional surveys at Lizard Island to track the recovery, if any, of corals into 2026 as part of an Australian Museum Lizard Island Critical Grant.
Click here for more from the Oceanographic Newsroom.
Appearing alongside Caden Brauch are company members Charlotte Coggin, Grace Swaby-Moore, Lauren Dawes, Gracie Caine, Ellis Kirk, Bryan Mottram, Zachkiel Smith and Kofi Aidoo-Appiah.
The music video’s intro also features Cory English, C.J. Borger, Ellis Kirk, Talia Palamathanan, Patricia Wilkins, Liam McHugh, Charlotte Coggin, Aidoo-Appiah, Zachkiel Smith, Connor Lewis, Louis Quinn, Lauren Dawes, Billie Bowman, Grace Swaby-Moore, Gracie Caine, Adam Margilewski, Alexander Day, Ella Beaumont, Helen Gulston, Anna Murray and Bryan Mottram.
BACK TO THE FUTURE The Musical currently stars Caden Brauch as Marty McFly, Cory English as Doctor Emmett Brown, Sarah Goggin as Lorraine Baines, Orlando Gibbs as George McFly, C.J. Borger as Goldie Wilson and Marvin Berry, Alex Runicles as Biff Tannen, Talia Palamathanan as Jennifer Parker, Lee Ormsby as Strickland and alternate Doctor Emmett Brown, Liam McHugh as Dave McFly, Patricia Wilkins as Linda McFly, and Ellis Kirk as alternate Marty McFly. The cast is completed by Kofi Aidoo-Appiah, Billie Bowman,Ella Beaumont, Gracie Caine, Charlotte Coggin, Lauren Dawes, Alexander Day, Helen Gulston, Matthew Ives, Connor Lewis, Adam Margilewski, Bryan Mottram, Anna Murray, Samuel Nicholas,Louis Quinn, Zachkiel Smith and Grace Swaby-Moore.
From Wednesday 13 August stage and screen star Brian Conley and Tik Tok sensation Maddie Grace Jepson will join the production as Doctor Emmett Brown and Lorraine Baines respectively.
BACK TO THE FUTURE The Musical won the Olivier Award for Best New Musical, four WhatsOnStage Awards, including Best New Musical, and the Broadway World Award for Best New Musical. The musical has broken box office records at the Adelphi Theatre in London and has been seen by 3.8 million people worldwide. The production enters its 5th year in London from 13 September 2025.
Performances also began on Broadway on 30 June 2023, with its final performance on 5 January 2025. The North American tour opened in Cleveland, OH, in June 2024 and is currently running in cities across the US and Canada. In addition to the newly announced German and Royal Caribbean productions, the production is also now open in Japan and will open in Australia later this year.
Gen Z employees often stream TV shows or movies during the workday, with 84 % saying it helps them focus, according to a recent Tubi–Harris Poll survey.
The survey found that more than half, 53%, slowed assignments to finish an episode, and 48% admitted to lying to supervisors about their on-screen habits.
Remote work, born of pandemic necessity, turned homes into hybrid offices and mini screening rooms. As virtual meetings increased, background TV morphed from guilty pleasure to workflow tactic.
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Tubi’s parent, Fox Corp. (NASDAQ:FOX, FOXA)), said the platform reaches 97 million monthly viewers in 2024, underscoring how entertainment infiltrates the workday. The same Harris dataset indicated that 81% say that watching ads is a fair trade-off for access to free content on streaming.
Demand carries a price tag. According to Tubi and The Harris Poll, U.S. viewers shell out a combined $129 monthly on streaming and pay-TV bundles. In fact, 44% of young adults even cling to an ex-partner’s login even after they broke up.
Workhuman, a human capital management software provider, defines a growing trend called “fauxductivity.” In an August 2024 research brief, Meisha-ann Martin, Ph.D., senior director of people analytics and research at Workhuman, said employees feel “expected to immediately respond to all messages,” pushing some to stage activity—mouse jigglers, fake status lights—rather than confront burnout.
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The Global Human Workplace Index, conducted by Workhuman, surveyed 3,000 full-time staff in the U.S., U.K., and Ireland and found 48% of executives admitted faking output is common on their team.
Gallup’s “State of the Global Workplace,” published last month, reported that fully remote employees show higher engagement yet greater stress and loneliness than on-site peers. The firm said 45% of remote staff felt “a lot of stress yesterday,” implying many turn to background shows for relief during solitary stretches.
“You can’t learn working from your basement,” JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM) CEO Jamie Dimon told Bloomberg in May, defending the bank’s five-day office mandate for most employees.
Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al-Saud said on Friday that the kingdom’s current priority is reaching a permanent ceasefire in Gaza, when asked about the possibility of normalising ties with Israel.
He was speaking during a visit to Moscow.
The local health ministry in Gaza says more than 57,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s assault on the region since an October 7 attack on Israel by the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas.
According to Israel, 1,200 people were killed in that attack and more than 250 taken hostage into Gaza.
Gaza final proposal
US President Donald Trump said on Friday it would probably be known in 24 hours whether the Palestinian militant group Hamas has agreed to accept what he has called a “final proposal” for an Israel-Hamas ceasefire in Gaza.
The president also said he had spoken to Saudi Arabia about expanding the Abraham Accords, the deal on normalization of ties that his administration negotiated between Israel and some Gulf countries during his first term.
Trump said on Tuesday Israel had accepted the conditions needed to finalise a 60-day ceasefire with Hamas, during which the parties will work to end the war.
He was asked on Friday if Hamas had agreed to the latest ceasefire deal framework, and said: “We’ll see what happens, we are going to know over the next 24 hours.”
A source close to Hamas said on Thursday the Islamist group sought guarantees that the new US-backed ceasefire proposal would lead to the end of Israel’s war in Gaza.
Two Israeli officials said those details were still being worked out. Dozens of Palestinians were killed on Thursday in Israeli strikes, according to Gaza authorities.
The latest bloodshed in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict was triggered in October 2023 when Hamas attacked Israel, killing 1,200 and taking about 250 hostages, Israeli tallies show.
Gaza’s health ministry says Israel’s subsequent military assault has killed over 56,000 Palestinians. It has also caused a hunger crisis, internally displaced Gaza’s entire population and prompted accusations of genocide at the International Court of Justice and of war crimes at the International Criminal Court. Israel denies the accusations.
A previous two month ceasefire ended when Israeli strikes killed more than 400 Palestinians on March 18. Trump earlier this year proposed a UN takeover of Gaza, which was condemned globally by rights experts, the UN and Palestinians as a proposal of “ethnic cleansing.”
Abraham accords
Trump made the comments on the Abraham Accords when asked about US media reporting late on Thursday that he had met Saudi Defense Minister Prince Khalid bin Salman at the White House.
“It’s one of the things we talked about,” Trump said. “I think a lot of people are going to be joining the Abraham accords,” he added, citing the predicted expansion to the damage faced by Iran from recent US and Israeli strikes.
Axios reported that after the meeting with Trump, the Saudi official spoke on the phone with Abdolrahim Mousavi, chief of Iran’s General Staff of the Armed Forces.
Trump’s meeting with the Saudi official came ahead of a visit to Washington next week by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The Hague/Munich. On Thursday 3 July, the Louwman
Museum opened the “Fine Art on Wheels” exhibition, featuring a
remarkable collection of eight iconic BMW Art Cars. This unique
exhibition, which is only on display for two months, offers a rare
opportunity to discover these masterpieces, designed by
internationally renowned artists such as Andy Warhol, Roy
Lichtenstein, David Hockney, and Esther Mahlangu. The exhibition will
run from July 4 to August 31, 2025.
The selected cars illustrate the unique fusion of art, motorsport,
and design that has characterized the BMW Art Car Collection since
1975. For this anniversary edition, the Louwman Museum has chosen
eight examples that together form a journey through modern art history
on four wheels:
Alexander Calder: BMW 3.0 CSL (1975)
Frank Stella: BMW 3.0 CSL (1976)
Roy Lichtenstein: BMW 320 Group 5 (1977)
Andy Warhol: BMW M1 Group 4 (1979)
César Manrique: BMW 730i (1990)
Esther Mahlangu: BMW 525i (1991)
David Hockney: BMW 850 CSi (1995)
Jeff Koons: BMW M3 GT2 (2010)
Ronald Kooyman, Managing Director of the Louwman
Museum: “We are incredibly proud to have eight iconic rolling
sculptures temporarily on display at the Louwman Museum, contributing
to the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the BMW Art Cars. This
special exhibition brings together art and automotive culture in a
truly unique and inspiring way.”
The exhibition at the Louwman Museum is part of the ongoing BMW Art
Car World Tour, which showcases the legendary BMW Art Cars across
various art and automotive platforms worldwide. Celebrating the 50th
anniversary of the collection, this tour not only highlights the
artistic brilliance of the collection but also emphasizes the
innovative spirit of BMW as it continues to merge art with automotive excellence.
The Art Car World Tour schedule is still evolving and will continue
through most of 2026. Further stops and venues are planned, including
Belgium France, Le Mans, Classic, Brussels, Zoute Gran Prix, Turkey,
Contemporary Instanbul – and many others.
Practical Information The exhibition will be on
display from July 4 to August 31, 2025, at the Louwman Museum in The
Hague. Due to expected high attendance, the museum will be open seven
days a week during this period.
For more information, please visit: www.louwmanmuseum.nl/pers-fine-art-on-wheels
The BMW Group’s Cultural Engagement, with exclusive updates and
deeper insights into its global initiatives can be followed on
Instagram at @BMWGroupCulture.
Transport for London’s Emergency Response Vehicles used blue lights between 2012 and 2024
A key recommendation made to improve passenger safety after the 7/7 London bombings has been dropped, BBC London has learned.
Until 2024, Transport for London’s Emergency Response Unit (ERU) vehicles were driven by a British Transport Police (BTP) officer and could use blue light response capability to get specialist engineers to incidents.
The blue light status had been introduced in 2012 following the London Assembly Transport Committee’s report into the 7/7 bombings.
But it was withdrawn in 2024. In a Transport for London (TfL) document, seen by BBC London, it says it was to minimise “collision risk”. BTP said the status had been reconsidered after a review.
On 7 July 2005, a series of bombs was detonated on London’s public transport system during the morning rush hour, killing 52 people and injuring more than 770.
The committee carried out its own review to identify “lessons to be learnt”.
In its report, it recognised that the ERU played a “crucial role in the emergency response” to the 7/7 bombings and were “experts in dealing with emergencies on and around trains”.
TfL
Blue light status was given to ERU vehicles with the aim of improving passenger safety
At the time, however, the committee was “surprised” to learn the vehicles did not have blue lights, the automatic right to drive in bus lanes and had to pay the congestion charge.
It recommended that TfL lobbied the government to obtain blue light status for ERU vehicles.
Subsequently, a blue light trial started in 2012 and became permanent until 2024.
‘Do not meet national guidelines’
The TfL document says blue lights were withdrawn last year following a review.
It says: “Blue light response capability was withdrawn to minimise collision risk.
“BTP assessment confirmed incidents where our Emergency Response Units are deployed do not meet national guidelines on I grade dispatch.”
BTP’s Assistant Chief Constable Sean O’Callaghan said: “In preparation for the London Olympics in 2012, BTP used converted specialist vehicles for the same purpose of getting TfL engineers to emergency incidents.
“As a result of a review in line with the NPCC (National Police Chiefs’ Council), who consider the requirements for when blue lights can be used on police vehicles, the service was reconsidered by both partners.”
The ERU vehicles can still use bus lanes and do not have to pay the congestion charge, as per the recommendation made by the transport committee.
Claire Mann, TfL’s chief operating officer, added: “I want to reassure Londoners that our Emergency Response Unit vehicles remain able to respond quickly and safely to any incidents on London’s transport network, working in close partnership with other emergency services partners.”
The ERU takes specialist engineers to incidents
In the committee’s report it was highlighted that the teams from the ERU were “experts in dealing with emergencies on and around trains, and have specialist equipment for supporting tunnels, dismantling trains, and helping to rescue people from damaged trains”.
The unit was regularly deployed to respond to people on the tracks, as well as other emergencies.
When the blue lights trial was introduced in 2012, TfL said it aimed to halve the time taken to respond to incidents, and to reduce disruption and delays to passengers.
In 2012, Mike Brown, the then managing director for London Underground and London Rail, said: “Having the capability to travel with blue lights and sirens will mean that the specialist engineers of our Emergency Response Unit can cut through heavy traffic and respond to incidents more quickly and so restore services more swiftly for our customers.”
The ERU carries equipment that can help rescue people from damaged trains
In 2012, Alan Pacey, the then BTP Assistant Chief Constable, said of the scheme: “Passenger safety will be improved by using ‘blue lights’ to get engineers and equipment to the scene of incidents as quickly as possible.
“Stuck trains will be freed from tunnels more quickly, enhancing passenger safety.
“By getting the line moving sooner there will also be fewer crowd safety issues in and around stations.
“Once at the scene the officer driving the ERU vehicle will perform regular policing duties and work alongside colleagues to resolve any crime or safety issues and help get the system moving.”
Most of the other recommendations in the report and a report made by a coroner have been implemented including the introduction of new radio systems and new pre-agreed meeting points at incidents for the emergency services.
A pet lion escaped and chased a woman and two children down a busy street in Lahore, police said on Friday, with dramatic footage showing the big cat leaping over a wall before pouncing on them.
CCTV footage released by the police showed the lion jumping the barrier around its home and pursuing a woman carrying her shopping on Thursday night.
The lion jumped on her back, knocking her to the ground, the footage showed.
A police report quoted the father as saying the lion then turned to his five-year-old and seven-year-old children, and clawed their arms and faces.
All three were taken to the hospital but were not in critical condition.
The owners who ran out of the house were “amused to see their lion attack” the passersby, the father added in the report.
Police said on Friday they had arrested three men.
“The suspects fled from the spot, taking the lion with them. They were arrested within 12 hours of the incident,” the office of the Lahore Deputy Inspector General Operations told AFP.
The lion, an 11-month-old male, was confiscated by police and sent to a wildlife park. Officials at the facility said that the animal appeared to be in good health.
Keeping exotic animals, especially big cats, as pets has long been seen as a sign of privilege and power in Punjab.
In December 2024, an adult lion escaped from its enclosure in another neighbourhood of Lahore, terrorising residents before being shot dead by a security guard.
The incident prompted the provincial government to pass new laws regulating the sale, purchase, breeding and ownership of big cats. The law now requires owners to obtain licenses for the animals which are barred from being kept in residential areas.
Breeders have to pay a hefty fee for registration, while farms have to be a minimum of 10 acres in size.
Pakistan to use $1.4 billion climate loan to expand green investment, fiscal space — IMF
KARACHI: Pakistan will use a $1.4 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund’s climate resilience fund to expand fiscal space, embed climate planning into public investment decisions and unlock private-sector capital for green projects, the IMF said on Friday.
The financing, approved by the IMF’s Executive Board in May under its Resilience and Sustainability Facility (RSF), is part of a broader reform program that aims to help Pakistan adapt to increasingly frequent and devastating climate shocks.
Pakistan is the first country in the Middle East and Central Asia region to access the IMF’s Resilience and Sustainability Facility. The fund was launched in 2022 to help climate-vulnerable low- and middle-income countries make the structural changes needed to protect their economies and populations.
“The RSF will help build climate resilience in Pakistan by creating fiscal space to address climate vulnerabilities, such as the need to improve climate-resilient adaptation infrastructure,” the IMF’s country office in Islamabad told Arab News in a written response.
“It will also boost climate’s prominence in public investment management and budget processes,” the statement said, “helping Pakistan better identify and target projects needed to strengthen resilience to climate shocks.”
A third pillar of the reforms, the IMF said, is improving the overall “enabling environment for green investment” so that banks and private firms could incorporate climate-related risk considerations into their risk management and investment activities.
The RSF financing will be disbursed over a 28-month period and runs alongside Pakistan’s $7 billion Extended Fund Facility (EFF), whose first review was also approved in May, releasing roughly $1 billion in immediate support.
CLIMATE-FINANCE GAP
Pakistan, one of the world’s most climate-vulnerable countries, has long struggled to align its public finances with the scale of climate risk it faces. The 2022 floods alone affected over 33 million people and caused more than $30 billion in damages and economic losses.
By reforming how climate priorities are reflected in budget planning and investment screening, the IMF says Pakistan will be better equipped to attract funding and respond to future disasters.
The RSF does not fund individual infrastructure projects. Instead, it supports “policy and institutional reforms that make climate action more effective,” the statement explained.
These include reforms in disaster coordination, water and irrigation infrastructure, and provincial implementation capacity.
The IMF program supports better coordination between the federal and provincial governments on disaster risk financing, a chronic weakness in past emergency responses, and policy changes that would strengthen water and irrigation management, the lender added in the statement.
“Policy reforms that directly target Pakistan’s water management and irrigation infrastructure would help make farmers more resilient to climate shocks,” it said, adding the focus would be on improving irrigation service standards, reliability, and water supply adequacy.
The reforms also aim to reduce waterlogging, salinity, groundwater depletion, and growing water insecurity, issues that disproportionately impact poor rural communities.
The IMF said its climate program in Pakistan takes a “whole-of-government” approach, with many reforms to be implemented at the provincial level.
“Much of the focus is on improving coordination mechanisms between the federal government and the provinces.”
Songwriters are missing out on millions of pounds a year in royalties because the agency responsible for collecting and distributing payments cannot identify when their songs have been performed at more than 100,000 gigs and performances across the UK.
PRS for Music is responsible for collecting royalties for writers when music is played, including on the radio, streaming services, in shops and at live events from pubs to stadiums and festivals.
In the case of live music, PRS takes a small percentage cut of gross ticket sales from every performance, and after taking a cut for administration redistributes the royalties after successfully matching the set list performed with the relevant songwriters.
However, the collection agency is experiencing a ballooning number of gigs, classical performances and theatre and variety shows where it has taken a cut of ticket sales but not been able to allocate it to songwriters because of a lack of information about songs played.
In the music industry this growing pot of income at PRS is referred to as the “black box” and the agency is facing legal action about how it ultimately ends out distributing this money.
The case is proceeding at the high court, and there is an alternative dispute resolution meeting scheduled for 25 September.
The scale of the problem is evident in documents on the PRS website where it maintains a list of “concerts available for distribution” – displaying entries of artists, dates and the venue they played – dating back to 2022.
That list now tops 106,000 performances where money has been collected but not distributed, with almost three-quarters relating to pop gigs in mostly grassroots venues.
Artists on the list are mostly not big names but it does include Ronan Keating, The Jesus and Mary Chain, 10cc, Aled Jones, Alien Ant Farm and All Our Yesterdays.
Venues include a number of O2 sponsored Academy sites, the Jazz Cafe and Ronnie Scott’s in London, Durham Cathedral, York Barbican and Leicester Racecourse.
PRS does not reveal how much income is in the so-called black box, which it refers to as the “unclaimed pot”, however the Guardian has seen a document that showed that for the single year of 2019 it amounted to £2.7m.
The agency redistributes unclaimed money to the market after three years using its own formula, which some in the industry believe is not fair for smaller artists and acts.
“One of my members described [it] as a reverse Robin Hood,” said Mark Davyd, the founder and chief executive of the Music Venue Trust, which represents grassroots venues, speaking at a culture select committee session in May. “[PRS] comes in and takes 100% of the songwriter royalty on just about every show, it is unable to distribute it, and it ends up in what is colloquially known as the black box – it is a fund that cannot be distributed.”
On its website, PRS has an article about the importance of submitting setlists after live shows in order to receive royalties.
However, two of the acts interviewed – You Me At Six and Peaness – appear on the spreadsheet of unallocated royalties for gigs played.
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PRS said that it goes to great lengths to try to match the music performed with the writers, including recently piloting a tool that automatically turns photos of handwritten setlists – which are a common submission – into readable text.
“PRS dedicates significant resources to match live performances to works, and ensure songwriters and composers receive the royalties they are due,” said a spokesperson for PRS. “We have a team whose primary job is to manually research setlist details. In addition, we provide and widely promote our online tool, designed to make it easy for members or their representatives to report setlists for any performances of their works We also send staff to festivals and events to collect setlist in person. While it is true there is a contractual obligation on venues and promoters to provide setlists, we also work hard fill in as many gaps as we can.”
Last year, Dave Rowntree of Blur started a legal action against PRS, alleging it is in violation of UK and EU competition rules over how it distributes “black box” income.
The lawsuit claims that PRS handles this income in a way that benefits music publishers more than songwriters.
PRS has said Rowntree’s claims are “factually incorrect and fundamentally misrepresent our policies and operations”.
Last month, the two sides attended a hearing at the Competition Appeal Tribunal, which is in the process of determining whether or not Rowntree’s case will be certified as a class action.
In June, PRS said it paid out a record £1.02bn to rights holders last year, up 8% on 2023, beating its five-year plan to top £1bn by 2026.
PRS represents the rights of more than 180,000 music industry members, covering more than 45m musical works, collecting and paying royalties when tracks are played in public, broadcast, downloaded, streamed or performed live in the UK and around the world.
Honor launched the Magic V Flip back in June of last year, so by now you may be anxiously anticipating the release of its successor. According to a new rumor out of China, this is on the way, with its official unveiling most likely to take place in August.
The device will have a 6.8-inch FHD+ LTPO folding OLED screen, and a 4-inch FHD+ LTPO OLED cover display, just like its predecessor. Camera-wise there will be a dual setup again, with a 50 MP main shooter with a 1/1.5″ sensor. This too could be the same as for the original V Flip.
The new model will be powered by a Snapdragon 8 series chipset that isn’t the Elite, but unfortunately no more specific details are given by the source of this leak. The phone will have a 5,500 mAh battery with support for either 66W or 80W wired charging.
So overall it’s not looking like a huge update, this, with the most important improvements being the new SoC and slightly bigger battery.
