Blog

  • CrowdStrike to Acquire Pangea to Secure Every Layer of Enterprise AI

    CrowdStrike to Acquire Pangea to Secure Every Layer of Enterprise AI

    With AI prompt-layer protection for secure enterprise AI development and workforce usage, CrowdStrike will deliver the industry’s first complete AI Detection and Response (AIDR)

    AUSTIN, Texas and Fal.Con 2025, Las Vegas – September 16, 2025 – CrowdStrike (NASDAQ: CRWD) today announced it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Pangea, a leader in AI security. This acquisition will extend the Falcon® platform, delivering the industry’s first complete AI Detection and Response (AIDR) – securing data, models, agents, identities, infrastructure, and interactions from enterprise AI development through workforce usage. 

    “AI is rewriting the enterprise attack surface at breakneck speed. Each prompt becomes an entry point for the adversary,” said George Kurtz, CEO and founder of CrowdStrike. “With Pangea, CrowdStrike will secure the entire AI lifecycle, detecting risks, enforcing safeguards, and ensuring compliance, so our customers can confidently build, deploy, and scale AI without risk.”

    CrowdStrike: Delivering Complete AI Detection and Response (AIDR)

    CrowdStrike pioneered Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR), now the industry standard for endpoint protection. With Pangea, CrowdStrike will apply that same groundbreaking model to AI, delivering the industry’s first complete AIDR, unifying visibility, compliance, and enforcement from enterprise AI development through workforce AI usage.

    The Falcon platform already delivers the foundation to secure AI, protecting the environments and models where AI runs, preventing sensitive data from leaving endpoints and cloud workloads, and securing AI agents across the SaaS stack. Pangea will extend this protection to the critical interaction layer – where AI is built and used across the enterprise – delivering complete protection across the AI lifecycle, providing the visibility and control organizations need to keep prompts and AI systems operating securely at scale.

    Pangea: Breakthrough Capabilities 

    With Pangea, CrowdStrike will deliver competitive advantages in securing AI:

    • Complete AI Detection and Response (AIDR): Delivers visibility and control of AI agents and their workflows, unifying detection, response, and compliance across the AI lifecycle, transforming AI security just as EDR transformed endpoint security.

    • Block Prompt Injection Attacks: Offers industry-best protection against direct and indirect prompt injection attacks, model jailbreak attempts, and malicious entities, with up to 99% efficacy at sub-30ms latency.1

    • Stop Risky AI Use: Provides control over the topics and conversations users have with chatbots and generative AI with deep visibility into AI traffic and activity and governance policies to instantly stop risky AI use.

    • Secure AI in Development and Production: Allows developers to build AI applications and agents with security baked in, while security teams can monitor and govern enterprise-built and integrated AI, complementing SaaS agent protection with Falcon Shield.

    • Accelerate Secure Innovation: Ready-to-use safeguards help teams bring AI features to market faster, without sacrificing control.

    CrowdStrike Secures AI Where It Happens

    AI doesn’t live in the network, it lives where models are built in the cloud and datacenter, where adoption happens on endpoints, and where access occurs through human and nonhuman identities. As AI usage expands across the enterprise, adversaries increasingly look for weak points to target. With Pangea as part of the Falcon platform, CrowdStrike will secure AI where it happens, extending its platform leadership to the fastest-growing part of the enterprise attack surface.

    “Pangea was founded to make AI adoption safe and secure, giving enterprises the visibility and guardrails to embrace AI with confidence,” said Oliver Friedrichs, CEO and founder of Pangea. “By joining CrowdStrike, we will be able to deliver this vision on a global scale, unifying AI security with the Falcon platform and creating the industry’s first complete AI Detection and Response platform.”

    About CrowdStrike

    CrowdStrike (NASDAQ: CRWD), a global cybersecurity leader, has redefined modern security with the world’s most advanced cloud-native platform for protecting critical areas of enterprise risk – endpoints and cloud workloads, identity and data.

    Powered by the CrowdStrike Security Cloud and world-class AI, the CrowdStrike Falcon® platform leverages real-time indicators of attack, threat intelligence, evolving adversary tradecraft and enriched telemetry from across the enterprise to deliver hyper-accurate detections, automated protection and remediation, elite threat hunting and prioritized observability of vulnerabilities.

    Purpose-built in the cloud with a single lightweight-agent architecture, the Falcon platform delivers rapid and scalable deployment, superior protection and performance, reduced complexity and immediate time-to-value.

    CrowdStrike: We stop breaches.

    Learn more: https://www.crowdstrike.com/

    Follow us: Blog | X | LinkedIn | Facebook | Instagram

    Start a free trial today: https://www.crowdstrike.com/free-trial-guide/

    © 2025 CrowdStrike, Inc. All rights reserved. CrowdStrike and CrowdStrike Falcon are marks owned by CrowdStrike, Inc. and are registered in the United States and other countries. CrowdStrike owns other trademarks and service marks and may use the brands of third parties to identify their products and services.

    Forward-Looking Statements

    This press release contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties, including statements regarding the benefits of the acquisition to CrowdStrike and its customers, CrowdStrike’s plans to integrate Pangea’s technology and operations, and the closing of the acquisition. You should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, as actual outcomes and results may differ materially from those contemplated as a result of risks and uncertainties. There are a number of factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from statements made in this press release, including the satisfaction of conditions to closing the acquisition, CrowdStrike’s ability to integrate Pangea’s technology and operations, and other risks described in the filings CrowdStrike makes with the Securities and Exchange Commission from time to time, including CrowdStrike’s most recently filed Annual Report on Form 10-K, most recently filed Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q, and subsequent filings. All forward-looking statements in this press release are based on information available to CrowdStrike as of the date hereof, and CrowdStrike does not assume any obligation to update any of these forward-looking statements to reflect events that occur or circumstances that exist after the date on which they were made.

    Media Contact

    Jake Schuster

    CrowdStrike Corporate Communications

    press@crowdstrike.com

    1 Performance metrics are based on results from internal benchmark testing on GPU-based edge deployment.


    Continue Reading

  • New images reveal clues about the feeding habits of black holes

    New images reveal clues about the feeding habits of black holes

    The first black hole ever to be captured in a direct image is now revealing its turbulent secrets. Astronomers have witnessed the magnetic field of M87* (“M-eighty-seven star”), a supermassive black hole at the center of the M87 galaxy, completely flip direction between 2017 and 2021. The observations mark the first time scientists have observed such dramatic change in the extreme environment surrounding a black hole. The discovery provides new clues about how these cosmic giants feed and power their enormous jets.

    New images from the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) collaboration have revealed a dynamic environment with changing polarization patterns in the magnetic fields of the supermassive black hole M87*. Magnetic fields appeared to spiral in one direction in 2017 (left), settle down after one year (middle) and reverse direction in 2021 (right).


    Observations from the Event Horizon Telescope collaboration, published today in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics, provide new insight into how matter and energy behave in the extreme environments surrounding black holes. University of Arizona astronomers played a key role in obtaining these results, using data from the Arizona Radio Observatory telescopes: the Submillimeter Telescope on Mt. Graham and the 12-meter Telescope on Kitt Peak, both in Southern Arizona.

    Located about 55 million light-years away from Earth, the M87 galaxy harbors a supermassive black hole containing more than 6 billion times the mass of the sun. Black holes are concentrations of matter so dense that their gravity becomes strong enough that even light cannot escape. The only way to “see” a black hole is by observing its accretion disk, a ring of superheated plasma emitting electromagnetic radiation in wavelengths that can be detected with radio telescopes.

    The EHT, a global network of radio telescopes acting as an Earth-sized observatory, first captured the iconic image of M87’s black hole shadow in 2019. Now, by comparing observations of polarized light patterns surrounding the black hole from 2017, 2018, and 2021, scientists have taken the next step toward uncovering how the magnetic fields near the black hole change over time.

    “Without our persistent observations of M87* year after year, we would not be able to discover this remarkable behavior,” said Boris Georgiev, a postdoctoral fellow at the U of A’s Steward Observatory who contributed to the data processing and interpretation.

    Polarized light differs from ordinary light, in that its waves oscillate in a single plane rather than multiple directions. When scientists observe polarized light from around a black hole, it reveals the structure and strength of magnetic fields in that region – crucial information for understanding how black holes consume matter and launch powerful jets into space. Between 2017 and 2021, the polarization pattern of M87’s black hole flipped direction. In 2017, the magnetic fields appeared to spiral one way. The fields settled by 2018, and in 2021 they reversed, spiraling the opposite direction.

    “What’s remarkable is that while the ring size has remained consistent over the years – confirming the black hole’s shadow predicted by Einstein’s theory – the polarization pattern changes significantly,” said Paul Tiede, an astronomer at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, and a co-investigator of the new study. “This tells us that the magnetized plasma swirling near the event horizon is far from static; it’s dynamic and complex, pushing our theoretical models to the limit.”

    The cumulative effects of how this polarization changes over time suggests an evolving, turbulent environment where magnetic fields play a vital role in governing how the black hole feeds on matter and spits out energy into space.

    Crucially, the 2021 EHT observations benefitted from enhanced sensitivity provided by two new telescopes joining the globe-spanning network: the U of A’s Arizona Radio Observatory on Kitt Peak southwest of Tucson, and the Northern Extended Millimeter Array in France. This improvement allowed scientists to detect emission from the base of M87’s relativistic jet – a narrow beam of energetic particles blasting from the black hole at nearly the speed of light.

    “Detecting the jet emission this close to the black hole is like finally seeing the engine that powers these cosmic jets,” said Jasmin Washington, a doctoral student at Steward Observatory and one of the paper’s co-authors.

    Amy Lowitz, an EHT scientist at Steward Observatory, added: “It connects what we see at the event horizon – the boundary past which no light can escape the black hole – with the giant jets extending thousands of light-years into space.” 

    “Adding the Kitt Peak 12-meter Radio Telescope is essential in capturing the large-scale structure in the resulting images,” said Dan Marrone, a professor of astronomy at the U of A and Steward Observatory. “These multi-year images deepen our understanding of one of the universe’s most extreme environments and help confirm Einstein’s predictions, while revealing new, unexpected complexities about magnetic fields and jet formation near a supermassive black hole.”

    These findings help address one of astrophysics’ most enduring mysteries: how black holes transform infalling matter into powerful jets that influence entire galaxies. 

    “As infalling gas approaches the black hole at almost the speed of light, it picks up incredible amounts of energy and heats up to billions of degrees,” said Chi-Kwan Chan, astronomer at Steward Observatory. “Some of that gas isn’t swallowed, but launches back into space, which creates the jet emanating from the black hole. How this happens and what causes this to happen is still a mystery. Studies like this one help us better understand these processes, which likely involve extremely strong magnetic fields.” 

    Jets like M87’s play a crucial role in galaxy evolution because they distribute energy across vast scales throughout their host galaxies, directly affecting cosmic processes like star formation. The jet emits radiation across the electromagnetic spectrum – including gamma rays and neutrinos – providing a unique laboratory to study how these cosmic phenomena form and launch.

    The Event Horizon Telescope collaboration continues to expand its observational capabilities to discover more about the evolving, turbulent environment surrounding supermassive black holes. “Pioneering a new frontier in time-domain black hole astrophysics, the EHT is planning an ambitious series of rapid-fire observations across March and April 2026,” said Remo Tilanus, a research professor at Steward and operations manager of the EHT collaboration. “We are excited to be gearing up to capture the first movie of M87*, something that has been on our wish list ever since that first image of a black hole.”

    Continue Reading

  • What’s next for Owen Cooper? After historic Emmys win, he’ll be hitting movie screens next year — alongside Margot Robbie

    What’s next for Owen Cooper? After historic Emmys win, he’ll be hitting movie screens next year — alongside Margot Robbie

    Owen Cooper is an Emmy winner — a historic one at that. The 15-year-old actor, who starred in the Netflix series Adolescence as a young boy who is arrested for a horrific crime, became the youngest ever male winner across all acting categories when he took home the award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie.

    Cooper was a complete unknown when he was cast in Adolescence — the streaming show was his first acting gig ever. In an interview with Variety back in March, when the show first premiered, he said, “I only really wanted to start acting a couple of years ago. It’s not been long. I grew up wanting to be a footballer. I don’t know what it was that made me want to do it, but I just wanted to do it. Then I went to lessons and enjoyed it and eventually got a self-tape request. Everything came from that, really.”

    Now, the question many have for Cooper is … what’s next?

    He’ll team up with another Emmy nominee

    Cooper is next slated to appear in Film Club, an upcoming BBC series that was cowritten by White Lotus Emmy nominee Aimee Lou Wood, who will also star in the show. The romantic comedy series follows a woman, played by Wood, who hosts a “film club” in her garage with her best friend Noa (Nabhaan Rizwan) — whom she is secretly in love with and who is potentially taking a job that will separate them. Cooper plays Wood’s neighbor, Dominic.

    In a March interview with Vogue, he called Wood “probably one of the funniest people I’ve ever met.”

    Cooper in Adolescence. (Netflix/Courtesy of Everett Collection)

    He’s starring in Wuthering Heights

    Cooper’s first big screen role is a major one: He’ll appear as a young Heathcliff in Promising Young Woman and Saltburn director Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights adaptation. He told Variety that the role came after Stephen Graham, his costar on Adolescence, recommended him to his agent, who watched the first episode of Adolescence and pushed him for the Wuthering Heights role.

    Of his costars Jacob Elordi, who plays the older version of Cooper’s character, and Margot Robbie, who portrays Catherine Earnshaw, Cooper told Variety, “Jacob’s lovely. He’s always chatting to everyone. And same as Margot. Margot is lovely as well.”

    Cooper has hinted at what he wants to do next

    Could an action movie be in Cooper’s future? He told Vogue in March that he would “love” to “do stunts” for an upcoming role. “Probably not like Tom Cruise,” Cooper said. “I’m scared enough going on roller-coasters, let alone hanging off the side of a plane. But jumping off the side of a cliff into the water? I could probably do that.”

    He also expressed admiration for the work of Leonardo DiCaprio, Al Pacino and Robert De Niro. And in an April interview with the Hollywood Reporter, he called Jake Gyllenhaal his favorite actor of all time.

    Continue Reading

  • CrowdStrike Unveils Fall Release of Agentic Era Falcon Platform

    CrowdStrike Unveils Fall Release of Agentic Era Falcon Platform

    Revolutionizing the Falcon platform with the industry’s richest AI-ready data layer – the foundation for unifying human and agent-based security 

    AUSTIN, Texas and Fal.Con 2025, Las Vegas – September 16, 2025 – CrowdStrike (NASDAQ: CRWD) today unveiled the Fall release of the CrowdStrike Falcon® platform – the Agentic Security Platform. Built AI-native from day-one and revolutionized for the agentic era, the Falcon platform is the foundation powering the agentic SOC. With this release, CrowdStrike introduces the industry’s richest AI-ready data layer and expands agentic capabilities across the platform – unifying data, intelligence, agents, and governance to secure and operationalize AI securely, intelligently, and at scale.

    “The world is entering an arms race for AI superiority as adversaries weaponize AI to accelerate attacks,” said George Kurtz, CEO and founder of CrowdStrike. “In the AI era, security comes down to three things: the quality of your data, the speed of your response, and the precision of your enforcement.”

    The Falcon Platform – the Foundation of the Agentic SOC 

    AI is the new operating model for the enterprise, and the Falcon platform powers it. With the Agentic Security Platform, CrowdStrike introduces what modern security requires: an AI-ready data layer, mission-ready agents, secure orchestration, and a dynamic AI-powered user experience. Together, this foundation provides the speed, scale, and intelligence modern operations demand – durable today, built for tomorrow, and ready to meet the demands of AI-driven security. 

    These new innovations are the essential pillars that define the Agentic Security Platform:

    Enterprise Graph: The AI-Ready Data Layer

    Data is the lifeblood of AI, and the new Enterprise Graph is the industry’s richest AI-ready data layer and the foundation of the Agentic Security Platform. Enterprise Graph unifies CrowdStrike’s pioneering graph technology with telemetry from across the enterprise to build a living, connected model of the enterprise – with one common query language built for AI. This makes every signal instantly actionable by both agents and analysts. Supercharged by the addition of Onum’s real-time streaming technology and enriched with millions of expert analyst decisions from Falcon® Complete Next-Gen MDR, Enterprise Graph will provide the strongest data foundation for the AI era.

    Charlotte AI AgentWorks: Build and Deploy Agents at Scale

    Charlotte AI AgentWorks is the industry’s first no-code platform giving every team the ability to build, test, deploy, and orchestrate trusted security agents. Using natural language, defenders set the mission, define the data, and control the behavior of their agents, without writing a single line of code. Every agent inherits Falcon’s telemetry, intelligence, and governance, ensuring automation is precise, explainable, and secure. As part of this launch, CrowdStrike also introduced the Agentic Security Workforce – mission-ready agents built on the Falcon platform to deliver machine-speed capabilities that automate repetitive tasks and accelerate outcomes. 

    Operating Center of the Agentic Ecosystem

    Leveraging the popular Model Context Protocol (MCP), the Falcon platform is the operating center of the agentic ecosystem, securely connecting Charlotte AI and any agent – CrowdStrike-delivered, customer-built, and trusted third-party agents – into a single, coordinated defense powered by Enterprise Graph. Falcon-grade governance is enforced via MCP across every connection, ensuring that multi-agent collaboration happens safely and at scale across IT and security environments. 

    New Dynamic User Experience

    The new persona-aware console delivers natural language querying and customization, role-specific workspaces, and instant dashboards that let defenders see, visualize, and act across domains with a single click. This eliminates silos and transforms complexity into clarity, enabling decisions at the speed of AI.

    With the Agentic Security Platform, CrowdStrike delivers the durable foundation human and machine defenders need to stay ahead of adversaries in the AI era. To learn more, read our blog and visit here.

    About CrowdStrike

    CrowdStrike (NASDAQ: CRWD), a global cybersecurity leader, has redefined modern security with the world’s most advanced cloud-native platform for protecting critical areas of enterprise risk – endpoints and cloud workloads, identity and data.

    Powered by the CrowdStrike Security Cloud and world-class AI, the CrowdStrike Falcon® platform leverages real-time indicators of attack, threat intelligence, evolving adversary tradecraft and enriched telemetry from across the enterprise to deliver hyper-accurate detections, automated protection and remediation, elite threat hunting and prioritized observability of vulnerabilities.

    Purpose-built in the cloud with a single lightweight-agent architecture, the Falcon platform delivers rapid and scalable deployment, superior protection and performance, reduced complexity and immediate time-to-value.

    CrowdStrike: We stop breaches.

    Learn more: https://www.crowdstrike.com/

    Follow us: Blog | X | LinkedIn | Facebook | Instagram

    Start a free trial today: https://www.crowdstrike.com/free-trial-guide/

    © 2025 CrowdStrike, Inc. All rights reserved. CrowdStrike and CrowdStrike Falcon are marks owned by CrowdStrike, Inc. and are registered in the United States and other countries. CrowdStrike owns other trademarks and service marks and may use the brands of third parties to identify their products and services.

    Forward-Looking Statements

    This press release includes descriptions of products, features, or functionality which may not currently be generally available. Any such references are provided for informational purposes only. The development, release, and timing of all features or functionality remain at our sole discretion and may change without notice. These statements are subject to risks, uncertainties, and assumptions that may cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied. Customers should make purchasing decisions based only on services and features that are currently generally available. For more information on our existing offerings please talk to your CrowdStrike representative.

    Media Contact

    Jake Schuster

    CrowdStrike Corporate Communications

    press@crowdstrike.com

     


    Continue Reading

  • Warner Bros. Discovery to debut HBO Max in 14 Asia Pacific markets

    Warner Bros. Discovery to debut HBO Max in 14 Asia Pacific markets

    Thomas Fuller | Lightrocket | Getty Images

    Warner Bros. Discovery is set to launch its HBO Max streaming service in 14 new markets across the Asia Pacific on Oct. 15, the media firm said on Tuesday.

    The move follows July’s expansion to places including Albania, Armenia and Georgia, which took the total number of markets where the service is available to over 90.

    The global expansion has strengthened Warner Bros. Discovery’s position in the fiercely competitive international streaming market.

    The company on Tuesday said it will bring popular entertainment brands including HBO, Harry Potter, the DC Universe and Cartoon Network to new markets including Bangladesh, Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Macau, Mongolia, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

    Its streaming unit, which also includes Discovery+, had added 3.4 million subscribers globally in the second quarter.

    The company is planning to split its assets into studio- and streaming-focused Warner Bros and cable-centric Discovery Global by mid-2026.

    Newly merged Paramount Skydance is preparing a bid for Warner Bros. Discovery with backing from Oracle founder Larry Ellison, Reuters reported last week, citing a source familiar with the matter.

    Continue Reading

  • Mary Beth Barone Brings the Bisexual Gemini Energy to Tory Burch

    Mary Beth Barone Brings the Bisexual Gemini Energy to Tory Burch

    Mary Beth Barone is a self-described “girly girl”—and her look for the Tory Burch spring 2026 show was no exception. To sit front row at last night’s runway, Barone and her stylist, Kat Typaldos, opted for a sheer sequined midi dress from the designer’s fall 2025 collection. “They asked if I would want to wear a bra, but one: I don’t have one; two: I really wanted to stay true to how it was styled on the runway; and three: everyone already saw my tits in Overcompensating,” Barone tells Vogue.

    Speaking of which: the actor, writer, and comedian arrived at the show mere days after Benito Skinner’s comedy was renewed for season two. “I have the privilege of being in the writers’ room as well as an actor on the show, so I really can’t wait to get back into the writing and support Benny’s vision for these characters,” she says. As for her character Grace, who ended last season breaking up with Adam DiMarco’s frat boy, Peter, “I can’t reveal any storylines, but [Benny] might let me keep my natural hair color this time…”

    While Barone keeps busy with Overcompensating, she also has her own stand-up comedy career, where she tends to lean ultra-feminine onstage: sparkly chainmail minis, bright blue eyeshadow, and keyhole dresses among her past looks. “Well, seeing a woman walk on stage to do stand-up can be really confusing for people. I usually try to disorient them even more by also wearing really girly clothes,” she jokes. “Offstage, lately, I tend to go for baggy jeans, a tight little top, and a statement bag. That might sound a little masc. I’m a bisexual Gemini, so I am capable of a lot.”

    Indeed she is! Here, Mary Beth Barone brings Vogue with her to the Tory Burch spring 2026 show.

    Continue Reading

  • Sabrina Carpenter and Justin Bieber to headline

    Sabrina Carpenter and Justin Bieber to headline

    Sabrina Carpenter, Justin Bieber and Karol G have been announced as the headliners of next year’s Coachella festival.

    It will be the first time any of the three artists have topped the bill at the event, which takes place in the Californian desert in front of about 250,000 fans.

    Teddy Swims, Katseye, Central Cee and CMAT are also on the line-up.

    The festival, held at the Empire Polo Club in Indio, has been running since 2002 and takes place over two weekends.

    Sabrina will take to the stage first on the Friday with Bieber and Karol G set to headline the Saturday and Sunday respectively.

    There’s a number of UK artists also on the bill for next year with the likes of Disclosure, Wet Leg, Lambrini Girls, Little Simz and FKA Twigs.

    Tickets are not on sale yet but fans can register for passes.

    Coachella is one of the most high-profile music festivals in the world thanks to its line-up and its reputation for attracting a celebrity audience.

    Last year actor Timothee Chalamet and partner Kylie Jenner were spotted in the crowd, along with Justin Bieber and his wife Hailey.

    The star-studded line-up included Lady Gaga, Charli XCX, Travis Scott, Post Malone and Green Day.

    There were also complaints about a new reservation system for anyone camping at the festival, which was blamed for causing 12-hour tailbacks outside the event.

    The line-up has been met with mixed reaction from fans.

    “I don’t think there has ever been a worse Coachella lineup in the history of the festival,” one wrote on X.

    But others said they were already figuring out ways to bag a ticket.

    One wrote: “I will literally do anything for someone to sponsor my Coachella trip this line-up is so insane to me”.

    Continue Reading

  • ‘My heart breaks for those less fortunate than me’ ~ Nikita was diagnosed after a private brain scan

    ‘My heart breaks for those less fortunate than me’ ~ Nikita was diagnosed after a private brain scan

    Brain tumour dismissed as a migraine

    Nikita Sterling, from Rainham, had two or three migraines a year from the age of 18. But 20 years on they became more frequent and increasingly severe. By October 2024 the pain became so intense that she would sometimes black out. 

    Despite numerous visits to doctors, her concerns were repeatedly attributed to “migraine hangovers” or hormone changes.  

    Nikita said: “Sometimes I was blacking out during the migraines. I was also experiencing intense head pressure multiple times a day which stopped me in my tracks.  

    “I’m a secondary school teacher, and when this happened, I just had to sit and wait for it to pass. These episodes would happen upwards of 20 times a day as the months progressed and range from 30 seconds to 10 minutes.”  

    Nikita, who has two children with her husband Dean, saw her GP many times and was told it was “just a migraine” or a “migraine hangover”. But during a parents’ evening in January, she knew it was more than that.  

    Paying for her own brain scan

    Nikita recalled: “I knew I needed to say something to the parent but the words I needed would not come. The next day I went to the GP again and they suspected a mini stroke. They referred me for a CT scan. I felt I was now being listened to. But then a letter arrived from a consultant I had never met saying no CT scan was needed as – again – I “just had migraines”. I was devastated to be back to square one.”  

    In February this year, Nikita used her husband’s private health care plan to see a neurologist. The first appointment she could get was in May, three months away, but she was just happy to have a date in the diary to speak to someone. 

    However, her symptoms got worse before that appointment took place. After experiencing five of the worst migraines on consecutive days in March, and after pleading for a GP appointment to no avail, her husband, Dean, rushed home from work to take her to hospital.  

    Nikita said: “I was triaged and sent to the out of hours clinic and not A&E. I was in so much pain I didn’t even realise this was the case. Six hours later, I saw a doctor who told me he couldn’t do anything to help me.  

    “He implied it was probably related to my menstrual cycle which infuriated me as so many health professionals are quick to put everything down to women’s hormones. He told me to get my eyes tested, go for a blood test, ask my GP for a lumbar puncture and, after all that, ask for an MRI.” 

    Nikita felt ‘hopeless’ but booked the blood test and eye check-up. She was never told her blood test results and the optician said her vision was fine. But the following week she was, once again, crippled with migraines. As she was due to go on a large family holiday, her sister convinced me to book and pay for her own MRI scan. She hoped it would provide reassurance that nothing was seriously wrong.

    Brain scan reveals a tumour

    Nikita had the scan on 2 April. Two hours later, the clinic called and told her to go to straight to A&E. They said they’d send the scans ahead.

     

    Black and white image of an MRI scan

    “A few hours later I was told I had a large mass on my frontal lobe. I was shown the scans and broke down in tears. This was a mix of fear and relief that finally I was going to be listened to.” 

    Nikita was kept in hospital for four days. She had a contrast MRI and a CT scan to see if anything had spread to other parts of her body. Fortunately, it hadn’t. She was prescribed steroids to reduce the swelling, and her scans and doctors’ reports were sent to King’s College Hospital in London.  

    Three days later, a neurosurgeon talked her through what surgery to remove the tumour would involve, and the risks too. such as the potential impact on her speech.  

    The neurosurgeon said the scan looked very vascular, which was more common in cancerous tumours, so Nikita feared the worst. But a long, anxious three weeks later, the tumour was removed and a biopsy showed it was a grade one meningioma.  

    Nikita said: “The wait to find out what it was, was awful. I have two small children and could not stop thinking about them if this tumour turned out to be cancerous. 

    “I am still recovering from the surgery. The fatigue is the worst part as I struggle to just get through a day without falling asleep. It’s also hard to think about the extent to which I was ignored by my GP practice (I have since moved to another) and how if I was listened to, I would not have had to experience the months of agony that I did. But my outlook is positive.  

    How to advocate for yourself if you have a brain tumour

    Nikita’s experience is not uncommon, which is why The Brain Tumour Charity provides information, including tips on what questions to ask your doctor, on our support pages.

    The NHS website also explains where to find support with advocating for your healthcare needs.

    One thing this experience has taught me is to assertively advocate for myself and family when it comes to our health. I am fortunate that I was able to afford to pay for my own MRI and frequently wonder how many other people are experiencing what I had to go through without the option to do the same. My heart breaks for them and for those less fortunate than me who do not get to hear that their tumour is benign.” 

    Nikita

    Climb the Capital

    Dean, Nikita’s husband, is now taking part in the “Climb the Capital” challenge to raise money for The Brain Tumour Charity and help support more people experiencing what may be the worst time in their lives. He works in one of the buildings involved so is training during his lunch breaks.  

    The Brain Tumour Charity works with healthcare professionals to increase their confidence in recognising signs and symptoms of a brain tumour with the aim of speeding up diagnosis to ensure best possible care for all those affected. 

    This follows data from the Charity’s ‘Improving Brain Tumour Care Surveys’ which found that 41% of respondents who sought help from their GP, said they visited their GP three or more times before getting a diagnosis.  

    This experience is mirrored in the most recent NHS National Cancer Patient Experience Survey (NCPES), published in July 2024. It showed that 43% of people who had contacted their GP practice said they spoke to a healthcare professional three or more times before their brain tumour diagnosis. 

    To find out more about brain tumour symptoms, visit Better Safe Than Tumour and see our Brain Tumour Signs and Symptoms page.

    Continue Reading

  • Arab leaders deliver tough talk but not much action on Israel during Qatar summit

    Arab leaders deliver tough talk but not much action on Israel during Qatar summit

    They gathered in Doha – the leaders of the Arab League and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation – to show support for Qatar in the wake of Israel’s strike last week on a meeting of Hamas leaders in the city.

    When the summit ended, they issued a wordy communique condemning Israel and reaffirming solidarity with Qatar. Missing in the communique, however, was any concrete action.

    It was an exercise in futility, underscoring how great wealth has not translated into real power. That despite the huge strides made by countries like Qatar and Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, they are either unable (or unwilling) to do anything to pressure Israel, and its principle backer, the United States, to end the war in Gaza.

    How much has changed.

    Fifty-two years ago, in October 1973, the oil ministers from the countries that made up the Organisation of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC) met in Kuwait while war raged between Israel, Syria and Egypt and the world teetered on the brink of a nuclear showdown between the United States and the Soviet Union.

    In Kuwait, OAPEC ministers, led by Saudi Arabia, decided to cut oil production and impose export restrictions to the United States and others supporting Israel and its war effort. This was the beginning of the Arab oil embargo that helped push Western economies into recession.

    The war, which began October 6, 1973 with a coordinated attack by Egypt and Syria on Israeli troops occupying the Egyptian Sinai Peninsula and the Syrian Golan Heights, ended after 19 days. OAPEC’s oil weapon played a part in accelerating moves toward a ceasefire.

    Yet today, as Israel intensifies its push into Gaza City, as the death toll in Gaza reaches almost 65,000 ( with the majority of casualties being women and children), as a UN commission determines Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, many of the same countries that in 1973 exacted a high price for US support for Israel, have remained largely passive.

    “Arab governments in the past century have not achieved full sovereignty,” explains Rami Khouri, a veteran analyst at the American University of Beirut. “They depend on foreign states for their wellbeing, protection, or survival.”

    And ironically, even that dependence hasn’t spared them. In 2022, the US designated Qatar as a Major Non-NATO Ally, and Qatar hosts the largest US air base in the Middle East.

    At best, the rulers who met in Doha on Monday act as supplicants, relying on the whims of a unpredictable US president to intercede with Israel’s leader. “We…expect our strategic partners in the United States to use their influence on Israel in to for it to stop this behavior,” Dubai’s state-run Al Bayan newspaper cited Gulf Cooperation Council Secretary General Jasem Mohamed al-Budaiwi as saying. The US “has leverage and influence on Israel, and it’s about time this leverage and influence be used.”

    Yet such hopes seem to be grounded more in unrealistic expectations than reality. In early August, President Trump quipped “it’s up to Israel” what it does in Gaza.

    And so, early Tuesday Israeli forces said they began ground operations in Gaza City. The Doha summit communique didn’t stop them.


    Continue Reading

  • Pakistan’s Famous Peeche Dekho Peeche Meme Kid Ahmed Shah’s Younger Brother Passes Away At 15- Fans Mourn Loss- Viral | Viral

    Pakistan’s Famous Peeche Dekho Peeche Meme Kid Ahmed Shah’s Younger Brother Passes Away At 15- Fans Mourn Loss- Viral | Viral

    Younger brother of Peeche Dekho Peeche meme kid passes away. Image Source: Peer Ahmad Shah/ Instagram

    Fans of the iconic ‘Peeche Dekho Peeche’ meme kid- Peer Ahmed Shah- were left heartbroken after a saddening news took them by shock. Ahmed’s younger brother- Umer Shah- passed away at the age of 15. The heartbreaking announcement was made on Ahmed’s social media handle. The post was quick to go viral, as it left a wave of shock and sorrow among fans. For those not aware, the brothers from Pakistan turned into an internet sensation a few years back, after a rather adorably hilarious video of Ahmed turned into an iconic meme.

    The words- ‘Peeche Dekho Peeche’ – that was a mere instruction asking people to ‘look behind’, went insanely global- all thanks to Ahmed’s adorability. To juggle your memory, a video went viral a few years ago, which showed the little one laughing and asking the cameraperson to look behind him. From his cute smile to amusing accent- the internet was quick to fall for the kid for plenty of reasons. Soon after the meme went viral, the kid and his brother became online sensations, with countless fans on Ahmed’s Instagram handle.

    As per The Siasat Daily, Umer Shah passed away due to a cardiac arrest. However, Times Now could not confirm more details about the little one’s death.

    Coming back to the duo’s stardom, not only were they an internet stars, but they had also appeared on Pakistani TV shows like ‘Jeeto Pakistan’ and ‘Ramadan Programme Shaan-e-Ramadan’.

    Check out the viral post:

    “This is to inform the little shining star of our family, Umer Shah has returned to Allah Almighty. We belong to Allah and to Him we shall return. I request everyone to remember him and our family in your prayers,” the post read.

    The post was shared on Instagram, by the handle ‘Peer Ahmad Shah’. The post was shared yesterday and pulled more than 268K views from people.

    Internet’s reactions:

    “No plsease! How ?? That’s so tragic I wish it’s not true,” a user said. “May ALLAH give sabr to his parent. INNA LILLAHI VE INNA ILEYHI RAJIUN,” commented another. “Passed away? How? Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji’un. He was such a cute kid… may Allah grant peace to your soul shehzaday,” added a third. “Inal lilah hi wa ina ilahi rajioon,” wrote the next.


    Continue Reading