Pakistan’s Saad Habib Malik poses with trophies after winning the 64th Pakistan Amateur Golf Championship in Karachi. — Reporter
KARACHI: Saad Habib Malik staged a sensational comeback to win the 64th Pakistan Amateur Golf Championship, held September 4-7 at the Defence Authority Country and Golf Club in Karachi.
The four-day tournament, featuring leading golfers from Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh, carried valuable World Amateur Golf Ranking (WAGR) points and ended in a nail-biting finale.
Habib, who fell to 15th place after a poor second round that included a costly error on the 8th hole, clawed his way back with a steady 73 in the third round.
Entering the final day in sixth place, he produced his best golf of the week — carding six birdies against two bogeys to finish with a 4-under-par 68. That brought his four-round total to 294 (+6), enough to edge Sri Lanka’s Danushan Kanas Kumar by a single stroke.
Habib’s surge was highlighted by back-to-back-to-back birdies on the 15th, 16th, and 17th holes, which sealed his victory. “His resilience and composure under pressure were outstanding,” Pakistan Golf Federation officials said after the win.
Kumar, who signed for a 75 with five bogeys and two birdies on the final day, settled for second. Shahmeer Maajid was third at 297 (+9), while third-round leader Numan Ilyas slipped to fourth after struggling with eight bogeys in his last round. Qasim Ali Khan rounded out the top five at 299 (+11).
In the women’s competition, Anya Faruq claimed the championship ahead of Anna James Gill. Army won the men’s team title, while the FGA captured the senior men’s crown. Pakistan A, represented by Saad Habib and Nauman Ilyas, won the international team event and the Jeyewardene Trophy.
At the closing ceremony, Pakistan Golf Federation President Lt. Gen. (Retd.) Qazi Muhammad Ikram presented the trophy to Habib, lauding his performance as “a proud moment for Pakistan’s golfing community.”
Saad, who also finished runner-up earlier this year at the Dallas Amateur Championship, has now firmly established himself among Pakistan’s brightest young talents.
Gentle physiotherapy exercises can help older adults maintain mobility and prevent falls. Know which all exercises are suitable.
Older adults, as they age, often face difficulty with mobility. This is where gentle physiotherapy exercises assist seniors in staying healthy and agile in their movements. ALSO READ: Poor knee health in older adults: 5 exercises to improve joint strength
Older adults can stay healthy and resilient by embracing gentle exercises.(Shutterstock)
Dr Pothiraj Pitchai, professor and head of the department of physiotherapy at K J Somaiya College of Physiotherapy, shared with HT Lifestyle that regular exercises help in improving mobility, maintaining muscle strength. He said, “Ageing brings changes beyond grey hair; even our muscles, joints, and nerves lose strength, flexibility, and balance, raising fall risk and limiting independence. Regular, gentle physiotherapy exercises support safer, healthier ageing. With guidance from a physiotherapist, simple daily practice of safe exercise, seniors can enjoy the movement as a medicine to prevent falls.”
It is important to note that the exercises need to be fine-tuned to be gentler and suit their energy levels.
Here are 5 easy exercises Dr Pitchai listed:
1. Chair squats
How to do: Place the chair against the wall for stability. Stand up from the chair and then sit back down in a controlled manner. It improves lower-body strength.
Frequency: Do this for 10-15 repetitions, 2-3 sets per day, at least 3 times per week.
Precautions: Avoid using a low-level chair. Avoid it if you have severe lower-body joint pain.
2. Wall push-ups
How to do: Stand facing a wall, about an arm’s length away, place your hands on the wall at shoulder height, and perform push-ups. It improves upper-body strength.
Frequency: Do this for 10-15 repetitions, 2-3 sets per day, at least 3 times per week.
Precautions: Avoid if you have severe shoulder pain or any recent upper limb surgeries. Avoid breath-holding while doing push-ups.
3. Brisk walking
Try brisk walking.(Shutterstock)
How to do: Walk at a speed that is faster than your usual walk but still comfortable enough to maintain a conversation. It improves cardiovascular health and joint mobility.
Frequency: 20-30 minutes per day, at least 5 times per week.
Precautions: Avoid uneven or slippery surfaces, wear comfortable footwear.
4. Heel-to-toe walk
How to do: Walk in a straight line, placing one foot directly in front of the other. It improves balance and coordination.
Frequency: 5–10 steps forward, repeat 2–3 rounds, at least 3 times per week.
Precautions: Take the support of a table or wall while walking. Avoid any severe balance problems or dizziness.
5. One-leg stand supported:
How to do: Take the support of a table or wall for support, lift one foot slightly off the ground, and hold for 10-15 seconds. Repeat on the other leg. It improves balance and stability.
Frequency:Repeat 2–3 times per side, at least 3–4 times per week.
Precautions: Avoid if you have an unsteady gait or severe balance issue.
Note to readers: This article is for informational purposes only and not a substitute for professional medical advice. Always seek the advice of your doctor with any questions about a medical condition.
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News / Lifestyle / Health / Doctor reveals 5 physiotherapy exercises for older adults: Chair squats, wall push-ups and more
Anxiety seeps into daily life. It disrupts focus at work, strains relationships, and turns even small tasks into stress triggers. Standard treatments are available, but they do not work for everyone.
Many people cannot tolerate antidepressants in the long term, while others see no real relief. This gap has researchers asking a bold question: can psychedelics like LSD help?
LSD tested for anxiety
A research team at MindMed in New York recently carried out the first modern trial of LSD for generalised anxiety disorder. The goal was to test whether a single dose could reduce symptoms when standard care fails.
LSD is famous for its hallucinogenic effects, but scientists believe it does more. It boosts serotonin, a chemical that influences mood, and may help the brain form new thought patterns that break cycles of fear and worry.
Why current anxiety care fails
Generalized anxiety disorder goes far beyond occasional stress. It causes constant, broad worry about money, relationships, health, and even everyday routines.
Current treatment usually combines therapy with drugs such as SSRIs. These options help some people, but many experience only modest improvement or none at all. Others cannot handle side effects like emotional numbness.
The fact that antidepressants only work while taken daily adds another layer of frustration.
LSD reduces anxiety symptoms
The study included 198 adults diagnosed with severe anxiety. Participants gradually stopped their medications before entering the trial, though those already in therapy continued.
The individuals rated their symptoms – such as worry, tension, and poor focus – on a standard scale. Average scores were 30 out of 56, well above the threshold that defines severe anxiety.
Participants were randomly split into five groups. Four groups received LSD in doses from 25 to 200 micrograms. One group received placebo pills.
The results were striking. Those who took 100 or 200 micrograms felt noticeable relief within a day.
A month later, their anxiety scores had dropped by about 20 points, and nearly half reached remission. In contrast, the lower doses offered no more benefit than the placebo.
The placebo effect
Even the placebo group improved somewhat. Their scores dropped by 14 to 17 points, and one in five achieved remission.
This outcome is common in anxiety studies, where the attention, care, and expectation built into a trial provide comfort.
Still, the higher-dose LSD groups clearly outperformed placebo group, showing that the drug itself delivered an additional benefit.
Side effects and complications
The trial also revealed side effects. Some participants reported nausea or headaches within hours of taking the drug. Hallucinations and changes in visual perception were more common at higher doses.
Many participants guessed correctly whether they had received LSD, making it harder to fully separate the psychological impact of knowing from the direct biological effects.
Yet the size of the improvement left researchers confident that LSD was responsible for more than expectation alone.
LSD for anxiety relief
Independent reviewers described the results as a major step forward. They considered the reductions in anxiety both statistically solid and clinically meaningful.
In plain terms, the drug offered relief big enough to make daily life easier, not just a small change on paper.
The experts emphasized that such outcomes matter most when improvements translate into real-world functioning, allowing people to work, connect socially, and manage daily responsibilities with far less distress and uncertainty.
What lies ahead
The findings convinced regulators as well. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration granted LSD therapy from MindMed a special status that speeds development of drugs with strong potential.
Larger and longer trials are now in progress, designed to track benefits beyond three months and to untangle whether improvements come mainly from brain chemistry or from the psychological weight of the psychedelic experience.
Lasting relief from a single dose
LSD is not ready to become a mainstream treatment. Outside of controlled studies, it can be unpredictable and sometimes risky. But this research adds to the growing evidence that psychedelics may hold medical value that was once dismissed.
For people with anxiety who gain little from standard care, the idea of lasting relief from a single dose represents more than hope – it signals a possible shift in how we think about treatment.
Researchers emphasize the need for ongoing trials to confirm safety, clarify long-term effects, and establish appropriate dosing. Still, the growing evidence points to a future where psychiatry could move beyond conventional medications and embrace once-unthinkable psychedelic-based therapies.
The study is published in the journal JAMA.
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Talking to Bill Nighy about his star turn as a frail and at times broken novelist in & Sons is rather hampered by the British actor not having seen director Pablo Trapero’s father-and-son drama on a screen of any size ahead of its world premiere on Sunday at the Toronto Film Festival.
Nor does the Love Actually star plan a viewing, because Nighy, admitting to crippling bouts of screen fright, has long refused to view any of his performances, alone or alongside audiences. Since his youth, in fact.
“I never watch the films. I go to great lengths to never be exposed to any of it. I am committed to never laying eyes on myself performing,” Nighy revealed to The Hollywood Reporter about halfway through an interview. Nighy was even anxious seeing himself in character with a shaggy mane and an unusually long beard reflected back to his eyes on the & Sons set.
“Occasionally, I would catch sight of myself in a mirror and think, good God, is that me?” he recalled. Nighy’s condition even extends to voice work during a film’s edit, when he re-records dialogue in a studio. “I don’t do it to picture. I do it audio,” he recalls.
The English actor has little concern over how he looks and how he sounds in real life. He just prefers leaving judgment of his performances to audiences.
“It’s the acting I can’t bear. I find it unacceptable. I have difficulty persuading myself I can do my job anyway, without having hard evidence presented to me that I’m correct,” Nighy argues. He was full of praise for the & Sons script co-written by Sarah Polley and adapted from the novel by David Gilbert.
And he recounts being “in safe hands” as Trapero directed him in the role of A.N. Dyer, the aging and star novelist who, having fallen over the years into an abyss of seeming madness, suddenly wants to reconcile with his two eldest and estranged sons, played by Johnny Flynn and George MacKay. Nor has he been in contact with his ex-wife, Isabel, played by Imelda Staunton.
Predictably, their reunion goes horribly wrong, especially when Dyer, in scenes of histrionics and angry outbursts, croaks out to his eldest sons a secret about their half-brother, Andy Jr., played by Noah Jupe. Besides turning his family’s world upside down, everyone around Dyer is left to question whether what he has revealed to them is true or just a mad fantasy.
But explaining Dyer’s motivations in the face of a disintegrating family portrayed in & Sons remains a bit of an uphill climb for Nighy. “It’s difficult to express, because I don’t quite know how the film has been edited,” he says at one point with his trademark deadpan delivery.
He ventures Dyer has long grieved for the wife he lost after what the audience early on assumed was an affair that led to the birth of half-brother Andy. “What he really wants is his wife back. The central fact for him is the grief he feels at losing his wife. Above all else, that’s the thing that pins him to the floor, the things he just can’t recover from,” Nighy says of scenes of distressing intimacy between Dyer and his ex-wife in & Sons.
Dyer, followed by Trapero’s camera, spends virtually all of the film strutting around his home with a feral animal energy, especially in a writers room from which he has barely left in two decades, or written a word on a page.
Nighy says he has known many notable British writers in real life, and adds he understands Dyer’s reclusive nature and his end-of-life regrets, as many real-life writers feel towards the end of their own lives that they had spent too little time with their family or the outside world.
“The thing about being a writer is you go to a room and you stay there and, for the most part, you don’t want to be disturbed. And the priority of your life is what happens in that room,” he explains. “However much you love your children or however much you value your family, the danger is what happens in the room in terms of your work becomes the runaway priority. Although you’re in the house, your children are neglected. So they never have a traditional family atmosphere,” Nighy adds.
All of which helps explain the anguished reunion in & Sons that Dyer has with his eldest sons, Richard and Jamie, and his ex-wife when he attempts to make amends. His goal is to build a support system for Andy, the half-brother, after Dyer has died and despite past family ruptures.
For Nighy’s character, young Andy has become the legacy of a man left broken by illness and age after years of excessive drinking. “He has been rendered irrational by substance abuse. So there is no logic or any rational decisions made. He’s in much more trouble than that,” the actor explains.
Ultimately, & Sons, for all its grim family in-fighting and accusations, is a film about legacy, identity, loss and love. The drama, a Canada-UK co-production, will have a world premiere in Toronto on Sept. 7 at the Royal Alexandra Theatre.
Pete Hines sat down with dbltap to discuss his career and his former child, Bethesda. The ongoing dismissal of gaming developers at Microsoft came up, and the former Senior Vice President and Head of Publishing of Bethesda had quite a bit to say.
“I’m not working in any of these companies anymore, and so I don’t assume that everything I knew while I was in the industry still holds true today,” Pete expressed.
“At the same time, I’m involved enough to know I saw what I considered to be some short-sighted decision-making several years ago, and it seems to be bearing out the way I said.”
Only seven months after his retirement, Microsoft would go on to close the doors of his former colleagues at Arkane Austin and Tango Gameworks. Pointing the finger toward the current industry boogeyman, he resumed.
“Subscriptions have become the new four-letter word, right? You can’t buy a product anymore,” Pete added.
I’m involved enough to know I saw what I considered to be some short-sighted decision-making several years ago, and it seems to be bearing out the way I said.
Pete Hines
Outside of the fact that you can buy a product, the latest Game Pass release, Hollow Knight: Silksong, reached over 500,000 players on Steam. A platform where you must purchase the game to play it.
Pete continued, “When you talk about a subscription that relies on content, if you don’t figure out how to balance the needs of the service and the people running the service with the people who are providing the content – without which your subscription is worth jack shit – then you have a real problem.”
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The layoffs within Microsoft and Xbox have been perplexing to say the least. Following the troubled release of Redall, Arkane Austin closed its doors indefinitely.
On the other side, Tango Gameworks released the critically acclaimed Hi-Fi Rush. Even success didn’t save them, as their doors were closed until the recent reopening, thanks to KRAFTON.
Tango Gameworks should have been granted tenure given Hi-Fi Rush, but something caused their closure at Microsoft. (Image credit: Bethesda Softworks)
Earlier in the interview, Pete acknowledged the purchase and introduction of studios into the Bethesda fold, which included the likes of Arkane, Tango, ID Software, and MachineGames. He spoke mainly about the integration of teams and how one studio could work with another so readily and openly to collaborate on something greater than themselves.
He noted, “It became useful because if you’re working on guns at Bethesda Game Studios, maybe you should have a conversation with id Software about how they make their guns feel so weighty and powerful.”
What puzzles me about this is how Tango Gameworks fits into that equation. While it’s clear that MachineGames, ID Software, and others shared a bond over first-person shooters and narrative games, Tango wasn’t known for something like collaborative work in that area.
Even Shinji Mikami, the former head of the studio, penned the acquisition deal with Bethesda in 2010 because he felt Bethesda gave them the greatest chance of being independent. To me, Tango Gameworks doesn’t align with Pete Hines’ overall view of the acquired studios at Bethesda.
… if you don’t figure out how to balance the needs of the service and the people running the service with the people who are providing the content, without which your subscription is worth jack shit, then you have a real problem
Pete Hines
Which then begs the question: Was Tango Gameworks’ closure more a result of that lesser collaboration than any success the studio had achieved?
It’s clear that the recent round of closures and layoffs at Xbox is a further result of Microsoft’s overall strategy rather than the gaming developers themselves. With AI being the real four-letter word of the current day, the 9,000 layoffs within Xbox and Microsoft were rumored to have happened to fund $80 billion AI investment.
While that doesn’t completely negate the possibility that those layoffs occurred with Game Pass profits in mind, surely it helps mitigate the idea that that metric wholly drove it.
We haven’t seen the closure of studios like Obsidian, which continue to produce similarly successful games, such as Grounded, Grounded 2, and Avowed. The last of which had a far greater budget than anything Tango Gameworks ever created.
You need to properly acknowledge, compensate, and recognize what it takes to create that content and not just make a game, but make a product. That tension is hurting a lot of people …
Pete Hines
I’m not trying to defend Microsoft; instead, I’m proposing a better understanding of why these layoffs occurred in the first place. AI or not, the closure of these studios will forever put a stain on any joy I have with a Microsoft product for years to come.
Pete would resume, “You need to properly acknowledge, compensate, and recognize what it takes to create that content and not just make a game, but make a product. That tension is hurting a lot of people, including the content creators themselves, because they’re fitting into an ecosystem that is not properly valuing and rewarding what they’re making.”
He’s not wrong in the sense that a tension is building within Microsoft that is affecting people and developers alike. The variant of poison polluting those good people is the only slight disagreement we have.
Atomfall knocks the question of whether a small development studio can succeed in sales even with Game Pass. (Image credit: Future via Michael Hoglund)
There are too many counterarguments to ignore the success that Game Pass has brought to a multitude of smaller development studios, both within and outside of Microsoft. Never does it seem that Game Pass itself is hurting these developers.
The mismanagement of Microsoft’s portfolio is the leading cause of suspicion and heartbreak within the development studios.
Whether it’s investments that outweigh the GDP of over 100 countries, or the dissatisfaction with something made up last Tuesday, it’s the executives at the top who are driving developers and gamers to distrust anything and everything related to Xbox products. Game Pass included.
Microsoft’s messaging has never been good, and continues to baffle me, along with thousands of others.
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Swiss watchmakers at their annual back-to-school gathering in Geneva were putting a brave face on President Donald Trump’s tariffs threatening their businesses. That may change if their US stockpiles run out.
A surge in exports in July should spare watchmakers — at least in the short-term — from bearing the brunt of the 39 percent levy imposed by the US last month on products from Switzerland, and exhibitors were generally upbeat about Swiss officials’ chances of getting a better deal before their wiggle room runs out.
“This should be solved, or partially solved in the following weeks or months. So let’s keep being positive,” Breitling AG’s Chief Executive Officer Georges Kern said at the opening of the Geneva Watch Days meeting on Wednesday. “Everybody has backup plans and some months of inventory just in case.”
The scale of Trump’s tariff on Switzerland, part of his strategy to revitalize US manufacturing, shocked the government in Bern which had expected a levy similar to the 15 percent negotiated by the European Union. Instead, exporters like Swatch Group AG and Cartier-owner Compagnie Financière Richemont SA suddenly faced the highest rate imposed by the US on any developed economy.
It comes at a difficult time for luxury watchmakers as geopolitical tensions and record gold prices weigh on demand. The US is the biggest or second-biggest market for most Swiss brands, accounting for about 20 percent of watch exports worth 2.6 billion Swiss francs ($3.3 billion) in the first half of 2025, according to the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry.
The response from watchmakers was varied. Grenchen-based Favre Leuba, one of the oldest brands established in 1737, paused plans to enter the US market — part of a strategy to widen its customer base beyond its stronghold in India — as soon as the tariff rate was announced, said Chairman Patrik Paul Hoffmann.
“If the tariffs will stay in place longer than just three to four months, the impact will be rather substantial for the Swiss watch industry,” he said.
Others are pushing ahead. ZRC 1904, known for making the first diving watch with a patented crown protection system that creates a watertight seal and prevents accidental flooding, is continuing with a plan to add retailers which started a few months ago despite the tariffs.
Export Boost
Companies rushing to get stock into the US ahead of the tariffs delivered a shot-in-the-arm to July’s export numbers, which were up 6.9 percent from a year earlier. Excluding the US, though, exports would have dropped 0.9 percent as shipments to markets like Japan and China underscored the industry’s struggles.
Bloomberg Intelligence expects the downward export trend to resume after the US stockpiling in July and early August.
Still, executives in Geneva, where 66 brands had set up shop in hotel rooms, booths and exhibition spaces to display their products, said much depends on what happens with the tariffs.
Swiss trade negotiators are still working on bringing down the levy. “We are hoping to find a better deal. The difference with Europe is quite shocking,” said Delphine Bachmann, Geneva’s state councilor in charge of the canton’s department of economy and labor.
The Swiss delegation met US officials in Washington on Friday for more trade talks. In a post on X, Swiss Vice President Guy Parmelin described the meetings with Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent and Trade Representative Jamieson Greer as “constructive,” but didn’t provide further details.
Meanwhile Watches of Switzerland Group Plc, the top seller of Rolex watches in the UK, also gave the industry cause for optimism in spite of the trade friction. Trading had been “consistently strong” particularly in the US, it said Wednesday in a financial update that triggered a spike in its shares.
“The general mood in Switzerland is that the situation will improve from what it is today,” Chief Executive Officer Brian Duffy told Bloomberg TV.
By Allegra Catelli with assistance by Zoe Schneeweiss and Levin Stamm.
Learn more:
End Times for Swiss Watchmakers?
President Trump’s tariff on Switzerland, landing levies of 39 percent on every watch the country exports to the US, is an existential threat for some Swiss watchmakers.
A bored design engineer turned his MacBook screen hinge into a theremin.
Apparently there’s a sensor inside MacBooks that can tell the exact angle of the screen. Sam Henri Gold, a NYC-based design engineer, decided to use that revelation to make his laptop play the sound of a creaking door as it closed, and to control the pitch of a theremin.
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