CANBERRA, July 2 (Xinhua) — Offering various nicotine replacements or vapes with behavioral support helps people leaving rehab stay smoke-free, a group where long-term quitting is rare, a new clinical trial has found.
The study, which tracked over 360 adults exiting detox programs, added to growing evidence that, with consistent support and a variety of nicotine replacement options, people in recovery can achieve meaningful progress in quitting smoking, according to a release on Tuesday from Flinders University in South Australia which led the study.
This potentially saves lives and reduces the heavy health burden associated with tobacco use in this vulnerable population, according to the study published in the July issue of the Lancet Public Health.
“People recovering from substance use are more than twice as likely to smoke as the general population — and far more likely to suffer and die from tobacco-related illness,” said the study’s lead author Billie Bonevski, director of the Flinders Health and Medical Research Institute.
Participants were randomly assigned either a 12-week supply of vapes or a combination of nicotine replacement therapy products such as patches, gum, lozenges, inhalators, and mouth sprays. Both groups also received behavioral counseling through Quitline services, the researchers said.
After nine months, 10 percent of participants in both groups remained smoke-free, a notable achievement in a population with high smoking rates and typically low quit success, the study showed.
“This isn’t about one therapy outperforming another — it’s about building a system that gives people the best chance to succeed,” Bonevski said, adding ongoing support and access to multiple quit tools matter more than the type of nicotine therapy, calling for smoking cessation to be fully integrated into addiction treatment. ■
Pakistan Shaheens will return to Darwin for the third successive year to take part in the Top End T20 Series, the Pakistan Cricket Board confirmed today.
This year’s edition of Top End T20 Series will take place in Darwin from 14 to 24 August with Pakistan Shaheens taking on Bangladesh ‘A’ in the opening match of the tournament on 14 August at the TIO Stadium in Darwin.
The event will feature 11 teams with 36 T20 fixtures to be played across five venues including DXC Arena, TIO Stadium, Gardens Oval, Cazaly’s Arena and Freds Pass. More details will be announced by the tournament organisers in due course.
In 2023 edition, Pakistan Shaheens qualified for the final, while in last year’s event, they featured in the first semi-final.
Sumair Ahmed Syed, PCB Chief Operating Officer: “We are pleased to confirm Pakistan Shaheens’ participation in the Top End T20 Series for the third consecutive year. This tournament continues to serve as a platform for our emerging cricketers to gain valuable exposure and experience in competitive conditions. “We are grateful to Northern Territory Cricket for their continued collaboration and for providing a professional and high-quality tournament that contributes significantly to the growth of our emerging talent.”
Gavin Dovey, NT Cricket CEO: “We are once again delighted to welcome our good friends the PCB and BCB to Darwin where it is an honour and privilege to host two genuine giants of the game. “The Top End T20 Series was created as a vehicle to market and promote the Northern Territory as a destination to visit, live, work or study, and I don’t think there is a sport in the Territory that can connect with a bigger audience.”
The debriefing sessions on the Pakistan Super League (PSL) are scheduled to take place on July 2 and 3, local media confirmed.
These sessions will be led by PSL Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Salman Naseer and his team. Franchise owners and other key stakeholders are expected to attend. The discussions will focus on reviewing the conduct and performance of previous PSL editions, while also exploring the league’s future direction.
The PSL recently went through a major structural change after being turned into a separate entity, with Salman Naseer appointed as its first CEO. However, many important positions within the league’s setup are still vacant.
With ten successful seasons completed, franchise valuations are currently being reviewed. A 25% increase in franchise fees is also being considered. All six existing franchises had confirmed their intent to retain ownership as of December last year. However, Multan Sultans’ owner, Ali Tareen — who had previously voiced concerns about the league’s financial model — has remained silent. Multan continues to be the most expensive franchise, paying over PKR 1 billion annually.
Plans to expand the league to eight teams for PSL 11 have stalled, with no progress reported so far. According to sources, the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has not yet opened discussions with the franchises about the proposed expansion or changes in the financial model for new teams.
In addition to these concerns, several major commercial agreements — including those for title sponsorship, broadcasting rights, ground rights, and live streaming — are up for renewal. Currently, the PCB earns around PKR 900 million per year from title sponsorships, while local broadcast rights have brought in approximately PKR 6.3 billion, and international media rights earned $4.6 million.
If the league expands to eight teams, the number of matches could rise from 34 to 54, potentially boosting revenue by nearly 30%. However, franchise owners say they have not yet received any official communication about such plans.
Akmal unhappy Former cricketer Kamran Akmal on Monday criticised the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) for appointing Azhar Mahmood as the interim head coach of the national Test team, calling the decision illogical and reflective of poor management.
Speaking on the YouTube show, Akmal expressed confusion over the rationale behind Mahmood’s temporary appointment, comparing it to PCB’s earlier controversial move of naming Mickey Arthur as director of cricket while he continued his commitments with county cricket. “I just don’t understand the logic behind this decision,” Akmal said. “It’s exactly like the time PCB made Mickey Arthur director of cricket while allowing him to continue working with a county team. I couldn’t understand it then, and I can’t understand it now.” Akmal held such inconsistent decisions responsible for the ongoing decline in Pakistan cricket, saying these appointments have created long-term problems. “That role [Arthur’s] has continued, and it has brought many issues into Pakistan cricket,” he added. “The same thing is now happening with the interim coaching setup. Before this, it was Aaqib Javed, then Mohammad Hafeez and now Azhar.”
The former wicketkeeper-batter advised PCB to adopt a professional approach and make clear, long-term decisions rather than appeasing everyone. “These decisions reflect a lack of seriousness. When the PCB starts thinking seriously and acting professionally, it won’t have to make such compromises or temporary appointments,” Akmal said.
He also criticised the board for what he termed a ‘please-all’ strategy, saying that Azhar’s appointment appeared to be more about rewarding loyalty than building a robust coaching system. “Everyone has been appeased, and now Azhar has also been rewarded. If you’ve made him head coach, then give him the full time and responsibility. Otherwise, what’s the point?” he concluded.
Chile’s ALMA observatory, which houses some of the world’s most powerful telescopes, has captured its most detailed images to date of the building blocks of the early universe — primarily cold gases, dust and stellar light in 39 galaxies.
“We’ve never achieved so much detail and depth in galaxies from the early universe,” Sergio Martin, head of Scientific Operations at ALMA, told AFP during a presentation of the research at University of Concepcion in Santiago.
Due to its dark skies and clear air, Chile hosts the telescopes of more than 30 countries, including the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) that was used in the findings.
The research was led by Rodrigo Herrera-Camus, director of the Millennium Nucleus of Galaxies (MINGAL) of Chile, who told AFP the new images provide “the opportunity to study how stars are born.”
The survey also found that stars emerged in “giant clumps,” Herrera-Camus said.
By combining ALMA’s findings with images from the James Webb and Hubble telescopes, researchers were able to learn more about how galaxies evolve, interact, and form stars.
The ALMA telescope was developed by the European Southern Observatory, the US National Radio Astronomy Observatory and the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan.
The Japanese Yen attracts some sellers as Trump raised doubts over a US-Japan deal.
A positive risk tone also undermines the safe-haven JPY and lends support to USD/JPY.
The divergent BoJ-Fed expectations favor the JPY bulls and might cap the currency pair.
The Japanese Yen (JPY) remains depressed through the Asian session on Wednesday, which, along with a modest US Dollar (USD) uptick, assists the USD/JPY pair to move away from a nearly one-month low touched the previous day. US President Donald Trump expressed skepticism about reaching a trade deal with Japan and suggested that potential tariffs on Japanese imports would be higher than the 24% rate announced on April 2. This, along with the bullish risk tone, is seen undermining the safe-haven status of the JPY.
Meanwhile, the Bank of Japan’s (BoJ) cautious approach to unwinding its ultra-loose policy forced investors to push back their expectations for early interest rate hikes. Investors, however, seem convinced that the BoJ will stay on the path of monetary policy normalization as inflation has persistently exceeded its target for nearly three years. This, in turn, helps limit losses for the JPY and caps the USD/JPY pair. Traders also seem reluctant to place aggressive directional bets ahead of the US Nonfarm Payrolls (NFP) report on Thursday.
Japanese Yen bulls remain on the sidelines amid trade jitters; downside potential seems limited
US President Donald Trump had expressed frustration over stalled US-Japan trade negotiations and cast doubt about reaching an agreement with Japan. Moreover, Trump suggested that he could impose a tariff of 30% or 35% on imports from Japan, above the tariff rate of 24% announced on April 2.
Bank of Japan Governor Kazuo Ueda said on Tuesday that although headline inflation has been above 2% for nearly three years, underlying inflation remains below target. Ueda added that any future rate hikes will depend on the overall inflation dynamic, including wage growth and expectations.
Moreover, BoJ’s new board member Kazuyuki Masu said on Tuesday that the central bank should not rush into raising interest rates given various economic risks. However, concerns about mounting inflationary pressure in Japan keep the door open for a BoJ rate hike in 2025, especially if trade risks stabilize.
In contrast, Federal Reserve (Fed) Chair Jerome Powell noted that the US central bank would have eased monetary policy by now if not for Trump’s tariff plan. When asked if July would be too soon for markets to expect a rate cut, Powell answered that he can’t say and that it’s going to depend on the data.
Nevertheless, traders still see a small chance that the next rate reduction by the Fed will come in July and are pricing in over a 75% probability of a rate cut at the September policy meeting. This, in turn, dragged the US Dollar to its lowest level since February 2022 and should cap the USD/JPY pair.
Meanwhile, the US ISM Manufacturing PMI showed on Tuesday that economic activity in the manufacturing sector contracted for the fourth consecutive month, albeit the rate of contraction slowed in June. In fact, the gauge edged up to 49 from 48.5 in May, above market expectations of 48.8.
Separately, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported in the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) that the number of job openings on the last business day of May stood at 7.769 million. This followed 7.395 million openings in April and was above estimates for 7.3 million.
Traders now look forward to the release of the US ADP report on private-sector employment for some impetus later this Wednesday. The focus, however, remains on the closely-watched US monthly employment details – popularly known as the Nonfarm Payrolls (NFP) report on Thursday.
USD/JPY remains vulnerable while below the 144.40 region, or the 200-SMA on H4
From a technical perspective, negative oscillators on 4-hour/daily charts suggest that any subsequent move up towards the 144.00 mark could be seen as a selling opportunity. This, in turn, should cap the USD/JPY pair near the 200-period Simple Moving Average (SMA) on the 4-hour chart, currently pegged near the 144.35 region. Some follow-through buying, leading to a subsequent strength beyond the 144.65 horizontal hurdle, should allow spot prices to reclaim the 145.00 psychological mark.
On the flip side, the 143.40-143.35 area could offer some support ahead of the 143.00 round figure and the overnight swing low, around the 142.70-142.65 region. Failure to defend the said support levels will reaffirm the near-term negative bias and make the USD/JPY pair vulnerable to accelerate the fall toward the May monthly swing low, around the 142.15-142.10 region. The downward trajectory could extend further towards testing sub-141.00 levels in the near term.
Japanese Yen FAQs
The Japanese Yen (JPY) is one of the world’s most traded currencies. Its value is broadly determined by the performance of the Japanese economy, but more specifically by the Bank of Japan’s policy, the differential between Japanese and US bond yields, or risk sentiment among traders, among other factors.
One of the Bank of Japan’s mandates is currency control, so its moves are key for the Yen. The BoJ has directly intervened in currency markets sometimes, generally to lower the value of the Yen, although it refrains from doing it often due to political concerns of its main trading partners. The BoJ ultra-loose monetary policy between 2013 and 2024 caused the Yen to depreciate against its main currency peers due to an increasing policy divergence between the Bank of Japan and other main central banks. More recently, the gradually unwinding of this ultra-loose policy has given some support to the Yen.
Over the last decade, the BoJ’s stance of sticking to ultra-loose monetary policy has led to a widening policy divergence with other central banks, particularly with the US Federal Reserve. This supported a widening of the differential between the 10-year US and Japanese bonds, which favored the US Dollar against the Japanese Yen. The BoJ decision in 2024 to gradually abandon the ultra-loose policy, coupled with interest-rate cuts in other major central banks, is narrowing this differential.
The Japanese Yen is often seen as a safe-haven investment. This means that in times of market stress, investors are more likely to put their money in the Japanese currency due to its supposed reliability and stability. Turbulent times are likely to strengthen the Yen’s value against other currencies seen as more risky to invest in.
Some video game players recently criticised the cover art on a new video game for being generated with artificial intelligence (AI). Yet the cover art for Little Droid, which also featured in the game’s launch trailer on YouTube, was not concocted by AI. It was, the developers claim, carefully designed by a human artist.
Surprised by the attacks on “AI slop”, the studio Stamina Zero posted a video showing earlier versions of the artist’s handiwork. But while some accepted this evidence, others remained sceptical.
In addition, several players felt that even if the Little Droid cover art was human made, it nonetheless resembled AI-generated work.
However, some art is deliberately designed to have the futuristic glossy appearance associated with image generators like Midjourney, DALL-E, and Stable Diffusion.
Stamina Zero published a video showing the steps the artist took to create the cover art.
It’s becoming increasingly easy for images, videos or audio made with AI to be deceptively passed off as authentic or human made. The twist in cases like Little Droid is that what is human or “real” may be incorrectly perceived as machine generated – resulting in misplaced backlash.
Such cases highlight the increasing problem of the balance of trust and distrust in the generative AI era. In this new world, both cynicism and gullibility about what we encounter online are potential problems – and can lead to harm.
Wrongful accusations
This issue extends well beyond gaming. There are growing criticisms of AI being used to generate and publish music on platforms like Spotify.
Yet as a result, some indie music artists have been wrongfully accused of generating AI music, resulting in damage to their burgeoning careers as musicians.
In 2023, an Australian photographer was wrongly disqualified from a photo contest due to the erroneous judgement her entry was produced by artificial intelligence.
Writers, including students submitting essays, can also be falsely accused of sneakily using AI. Currently available AI detection tools are far from foolproof – and some argue they may never be entirely reliable.
Recent discussions have drawn attention to common characteristics of AI writing, including the em dash – which, as authors, we often employ ourselves.
Given that text from systems like ChatGPT has characteristic features, writers face a difficult decision: should they continue writing in their own style and risk being accused of using AI, or should they try to write differently?
Read more:
Google’s SynthID is the latest tool for catching AI-made content. What is AI ‘watermarking’ and does it work?
The delicate balance of trust and distrust
Graphic designers, voice actors and many others are rightly worried about AI replacing them. They are also understandably concerned about tech companies using their labour to train AI models without consent, credit or compensation.
There are further ethical concerns that AI-generated images threaten Indigenous inclusion by erasing cultural nuances and challenging Indigenous cultural and intellectual property rights.
At the same time, the cases above illustrate the risks of rejecting authentic human effort and creativity due to a false belief it is AI. This too can be unfair. People wrongly accused of using AI can suffer emotional, financial and reputational harm.
On the one hand, being fooled that AI content is authentic is a problem. Consider deepfakes, bogus videos and false images of politicians or celebrities. AI content purporting to be real can be linked to scams and dangerous misinformation.
On the other hand, mistakenly distrusting authentic content is also a problem. For example, rejecting the authenticity of a video of war crimes or hate speech by politicians – based on the mistaken or deliberate belief that the content was AI generated – can lead to great harm and injustice.
Unfortunately, the growth of dubious content allows unscrupulous individuals to claim that video, audio or images exposing real wrongdoing are fake.
As distrust increases, democracy and social cohesion may begin to fray. Given the potential consequences, we must be wary of excessive scepticism about the origin or provenance of online content.
A path forward
AI is a cultural and social technology. It mediates and shapes our relationships with one another, and has potentially transformational effects on how we learn and share information.
The fact that AI is challenging our trust relationships with companies, content and each other is not surprising. And people are not always to blame when they are fooled by AI-manufactured material. Such outputs are increasingly realistic.
Furthermore, the responsibility to avoid deception should not fall entirely on internet users and the public. Digital platforms, AI developers, tech companies and producers of AI material should be held accountable through regulation and transparency requirements around AI use.
Even so, internet users will still need to adapt. The need to exercise a balanced and fair sense of scepticism toward online material is becoming more urgent.
This means adopting the right level of trust and distrust in digital environments.
The philosopher Aristotle spoke of practical wisdom. Through experience, education and practice, a practically wise person develops skills to judge well in life. Because they tend to avoid poor judgement, including excessive scepticism and naivete, the practically wise person is better able to flourish and do well by others.
We need to hold tech companies and platforms to account for harm and deception caused by AI. We also need to educate ourselves, our communities, and the next generation to judge well and develop some practical wisdom in a world awash with AI content.
Research shows that small extracellular vesicles shed by donor heart cells and circulating T cells provide a precise readout of heart transplant rejection.
Although routine endomyocardial biopsy remains the gold standard for grading acute cellular rejection (ACR) after heart transplantation, new research published in Transplantation has shown that small extracellular vesicles (sEVs) shed by donor heart cells and circulating T cells provide a precise, minimally invasive readout of rejection.
“T cells are constantly surveilling their environment, looking for infections and other things that are ‘non-self,’” explained study principal investigator Prashanth Vallabhajosyula, MD, MPH, of Yale School of Medicine, in a news release. “They see the transplanted heart as non-self, so they mount an attack.”
Distinct Molecular Shifts Signal Danger
In a longitudinal pilot study, the researchers collected 70 paired blood samples and biopsies from 12 recipients during the first 120 postoperative days. They isolated donor-derived sEVs with anti-human leukocyte antigens (HLA) I beads and probed for cardiac troponin T (cTnT) protein and messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA), while anti-cluster of differentiation 3 beads captured T-cell sEVs enriched for cluster of differentiation 4, cluster of differentiation 8, T-cell receptor proteins, and microRNAs (mRNAs) let-7i, 101b, and 21a.
According to study results, eleven episodes of moderate ACR occurred in six patients (incidence 15.7%). Compared with grade 0/1 biopsies, donor-heart sEV cTnT protein and mRNA fell markedly (P<0.001), whereas T-cell sEV protein and miRNA cargoes rose (all P<0.001). These shifts were detectable as early as day 5 post-transplant; ten of the eleven episodes presented within 38 days, a timeframe in which commercial blood tests typically fail, according to the authors.
Monitoring Treatment Success
By escalating immunosuppression, the researchers reversed both clinical rejection and sEV signatures. Donor-heart cTnT mRNA and miR-21a tracked treatment response with Spearman coefficients of 0.87 and 0.85, respectively.
“Not only can we detect rejection, but our investigation also suggests that we can use our exosome platform to potentially monitor the efficacy of treatment of rejection,” Vallabhajosyula stated. The authors noted that the platform also identified one case of antibody-mediated rejection by analyzing B-cell sEVs, highlighting its versatility.
Toward Safer Transplant Care
“This is the first time that we’ve had a noninvasive method to delineate between the different types of rejection that may occur within the heart,” noted study co-author Sounok Sen, MD, of Yale School of Medicine.
According to the researchers, a larger validation study involving more than 100 patients is underway to refine diagnostic thresholds and assess long-term prognostic value. They noted that, if confirmed, sEV profiling could significantly reduce the need for repeat biopsies, lower procedural complications, and enable clinicians to adjust therapy earlier, ultimately improving outcomes for heart transplant recipients.
ESET Chief Security Evangelist Tony Anscombe reviews some of the report’s standout findings and their implications for organizations in 2025 and beyond
01 Jul 2025
The ESET research team has released the H1 2025 issue of the ESET Threat Report, offering a detailed look at the key trends and developments that defined the cyberthreat landscape from December 2024 through May 2025.
Among other things, the report describes how a novel social engineering technique called ClickFix has taken the threat landscape by storm, with detections of this threat soaring more than five-fold in H1 2025 compared to the second half of 2024. Android adware detections, for their part, jumped by 160%, mainly on the back of new evil twin fraud and the rise of potentially unwanted apps (PUAs). Meanwhile the number of both ransomware attacks and gangs has also been growing, although the total value of payments trended in the opposite direction.
Watch the video with SET Chief Security Evangelist Tony Anscombe to learn more and make sure to check out the report itself, including to learn which categories of threats surged and which trended down – and what it all means for your cybersecurity in 2025 and beyond.
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