You could get lost in Chemena Kamali’s fascinating, dense mood boards for Chloé, which typically stretch across several boards, and for resort 2026 span Hollywood movies, indie films, avant-garde German photography and Karl Lagerfeld-era runway images — all culled from the early ‘80s.
The styles depicted dovetail with Kamali’s instincts and current personal penchant for wearing more pronounced, rounded shoulders, Spencer jackets and cropped leather bombers, pleated trousers and stronger, Guy Bourdin-esque colors.
She’s eased up on the free-flowing garments that are so typically Chloé, sensing the same shift in the fashion mood that compelled Lagerfeld to sketch a coat with an inverted triangle shape that signaled a new era of power dressing.
“Variety,” a 1983 indie film by Bette Gordon that Kamali recently rewatched, similarly exemplifies a shift in the sociology of women in film, when “she becomes the subject and controls the narrative,” the designer related during a preview.
Kamali ruminated on all of that, yielding a more streamlined, structured collection that elaborated on the don’t-mess-with-me shoulders she debuted on the runway for fall 2025, showing different facets of the Chloé girl.
Her blouses and sweaters for resort also incorporate pronounced shoulder padding, while still telegraphing the fluid, feminine spirit of the brand via silky fabrics, polka dots and floral prints.
Like most collections labeled resort or spring and delivered in November, the collection skews wintry in palette and styles, incorporating shearling chubbies, woolen peacoats and puffer styles in squishy plongé leather.
Kamali also eased up on the size and scale of charms dangling from her bags, including a fetching take on the bowling shape and some industrial-strength clogs that fit the retro mood. She conscripted photographer Johnny Dufort for the look book shoot, which mirrors her mood board’s cinematic leanings.
Part of the specific challenge with Maison Margiela, he continues, is just how influential the founder’s thinking became across all of fashion. “I myself am one of those children of the Margiela generation. And I think Martin is more than a designer, he is a school that has changed a lot of people’s thinking… The Japanese were a bit before, but I think in Europe it was Martin who made this change, this thought that garments don’t have to follow a classic structure. It was trying to find a different way of looking at beauty, of looking at construction and looking at fashion at large. And this has been a design ethos for so many designers since, some of them more directly and some of them less so. I have always been someone, I think quite clearly, who has followed that way of thinking.”
Which leads to questions of originality, ownership and identity. Martens laughs again as he recounts the sometimes creatively confronting nature of his deep dive into the Margielian world. “When I arrived here, I asked my stylist to bring out all of Martin’s archive pieces. Because I had always only ever seen them in books. And finally, seeing the real items, I was so disappointed in myself. I was like: ‘My God, I just copied everything before when I was at Y/Project!’”
If Martens’s 13-year output as creative director at that Parisian indie label was unconsciously saturated by Margiela’s influence, there are some who have taken a far more premeditated approach to incorporating his new house’s creative canon. “Margiela has been a source to so many designers and brands, some more literally than others,” he says. “I love this house for its founding DNA, but definitely a lot of that DNA has been fully plundered; literally plundered, this is the best word for it. Reclaiming some of these elements, trying to reclaim them with elegance, and finding my own way to work through them is what I want to do.”
Another factor for Martens to calculate is the enormous contribution to the house from John Galliano, who served as creative director from October 2014 to December 2024. Martens says: “I love everything he has done here… John is a genius in couture. He created his own fantastic world, and the product was very much linked to it. I could never be John; I am not such a good storyteller.” Galliano arrived at Margiela three years after the end of his 13-year stint at Christian Dior, where he had created some of the most opulent and narratively expressive couture shows fashion has ever seen. His unique articulation of that apex house of mainstream French luxury was duly refracted through his work at Maison Margiela.
This, Martens implies, offers him a distinct route forward as he plots his path. He says: “I think in the days of Martin this world was much more niche. The luxury was more about the exclusivity of it through an independent way of thinking. Now, it is also about the craftsmanship and the tailoring: John brought that in and we need to continue building it, because it is part of the development of this house.”
The extent of John le Carré’s meticulous research and attention to detail are among insights into his working methods that will be revealed when the master of spy thrillers’ private archive goes on display for the first time this autumn.
His classic cold war-era espionage novels have sold tens of millions of copies worldwide and inspired acclaimed films and television adaptations.
The Bodleian libraries at the University of Oxford have announced an exhibition starting in October, titled John le Carré: Tradecraft, drawing on thousands of papers in his vast private archive, which it holds.
Le Carré, whose real name was David Cornwell, wanted the archive to be placed with his alma mater, and after his death in 2020 aged 89 it was officially donated to the nation through the acceptance-in-lieu scheme, preventing its loss overseas.
Referring to his greatest fictional character, the self-effacing, quintessentially English spymaster George Smiley, le Carré once said: “Oxford was Smiley’s spiritual home, as it is mine.”
Exhibits seen for the first time will include his copious notes on his characters, as well as sketches in which, like a film director, he visualised those individuals in the margins of his manuscripts.
Pen and ink sketches, titled ‘Oxford Gesichte’ (Oxford Faces). Circa 1953. Illustration: Estate of John le Carré
His annotated manuscripts will show the extent to which he revised his novels repeatedly. In a draft for Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, he described Smiley as “small, podgy and at best middle-aged”, scribbling an insertion: “His legs were short, his gait anything but agile.”
Le Carré worked as a diplomat and a secret agent for MI5 and MI6 before his name was passed to the Russians by the traitor Kim Philby, who inspired the Soviet mole who infiltrated the highest ranks of the Secret Intelligence Service in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.
While le Carré elevated the spy novel to high art, creating a gritty antithesis to Ian Fleming’s glamorous James Bond, the exhibition will primarily portray him as a writer who had worked as a spy – as he saw himself – rather than as a spy who became a writer.
It will show how he gathered information, plotted stories and developed iconic characters such as Smiley and his counterpart Karla, the wily KGB spymaster. The archival papers reveal intricate timelines of plots.
The exhibition’s title plays on the term “tradecraft” that he used to describe the techniques of espionage, but which the curators said “might also be applied to his own skilled craft as a writer and social commentator”.
Private letters to be shown include a handwritten note that reveals his discomfort with public speculation about his spying career before it was actually confirmed. “Why do people want me to have views about spying? If I wrote about love, or cowboys, even sex, people would take it that this was my interest and therefore I made up stories about it,” he wrote.
A portrait of David Cornwall taken by his son. Photograph: Stephen Cornwell
There is also a letter in which the actor Alec Guinness doubted his suitability to play Smiley in the first television adaptation of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy because he was “not really rotund and double-chinned”. Le Carré persuaded him to take on one of his most memorable roles.
The exhibition is co-curated by le Carré’s collaborator and longstanding friend Prof Federico Varese and Dr Jessica Douthwaite, of the Bodleian libraries, with the support of le Carré’s family.
Further reflecting le Carré’s rigorous approach to research, it will explore his close collaboration with intelligence operators, corporate whistleblowers and humanitarians and his dedication to exposing corruption, such as unethical practices in the pharmaceutical industry.
Varese, an Oxford professor of criminology whose books include The Russia Mafia, was among friends to whom le Carré would send early drafts of his novels. “He was very open to suggestions,” Varese said.
Having studied the archive’s contents, he said he had been surprised by the extent of le Carré’s research. “He was like an academic. He would go to the places he would be writing about and do fieldwork like an anthropologist or a sociologist. He would read extensively, interview people in the field, take notes – and then write it up as fiction. He would do it for all the novels, which is quite extraordinary.”
In staging the exhibition, he wants to “pay homage to a person I admire very much”.
John le Carré: Tradecraft opens at the Weston library, Bodleian libraries, on 1 October, running until 6 April 2026. An accompanying book, Tradecraft: Writers on John le Carré, will be released by Bodleian Library Publishing.
You can enjoy this bright stellar group with binoculars or any telescope as it hangs high in the predawn sky.
NGC 7686 is a star cluster in the Andromeda constellation.
It’s visible to the naked eye under dark skies, but binoculars or a telescope enhance viewing.
Astronomers believe it’s not a true cluster, but stars appearing close together.
“NGC 7686 looks like a triangular grouping of stars,” said Michael Bakich.
Climbing to 60° high in the east two hours before sunrise, the constellation Andromeda lies just to the upper right of the easy-to-spot W-shaped constellation Cassiopeia. This morning, let’s enjoy a view of the star cluster NGC 7686 in northwestern Andromeda, about 3° northwest of 4th-magnitude Lambda (λ) Andromedae.
This bright group of stars shines at magnitude 5.6 — visible to the naked eye for those with good low-light vision and clear, light-pollution-free skies. The 15’-diameter cluster is also readily visible through binoculars or any telescope; particularly at low power, Astronomy Associate Editor Michael Bakich notes NGC 7686 looks like a triangular grouping of stars. Larger apertures and higher magnifications will bring out more and fainter stars.
Although typically classified as an open cluster, astronomers have noted that based on the characteristics of its stars, NGC 7686 is more likely a superposition of many stars at different distances creating a visual overdensity, rather than a proper cluster.
Sunrise: 5:39 A.M. Sunset: 8:31 P.M. Moonrise: 7:20 P.M. Moonset: 3:10 A.M. Moon Phase: Waxing gibbous (95%) *Times for sunrise, sunset, moonrise, and moonset are given in local time from 40° N 90° W. The Moon’s illumination is given at 12 P.M. local time from the same location.
For a look ahead at more upcoming sky events, check out our full Sky This Week column.
New Offering Delivers a Unique Fusion Architecture That’s Being Leveraged by Industry-Leading AI Pioneers Like Cohere, CoreWeave, and NVIDIA to Deliver Breakthrough Performance Gains and Reduce Infrastructure Requirements For Massive AI Training and Inference Workloads
PARIS and CAMPBELL, Calif., July 8, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — From RAISE SUMMIT 2025: WEKA unveiled NeuralMesh Axon, a breakthrough storage system that leverages an innovative fusion architecture designed to address the fundamental challenges of running exascale AI applications and workloads. NeuralMesh Axon seamlessly fuses with GPU servers and AI factories to streamline deployments, reduce costs, and significantly enhance AI workload responsiveness and performance, transforming underutilized GPU resources into a unified, high-performance infrastructure layer.
WEKA’s NeuralMesh Axon delivers an innovative fusion architecture designed to address the fundamental challenges of running exascale AI applications and workloads.
Building on the company’s recently announced NeuralMesh storage system, the new offering enhances its containerized microservices architecture with powerful embedded functionality, enabling AI pioneers, AI cloud and neocloud service providers to accelerate AI model development at extreme scale, particularly when combined with NVIDIA AI Enterprise software stacks for advanced model training and inference optimization. NeuralMesh Axon also supports real-time reasoning, with significantly improved time-to-first-token and overall token throughput, enabling customers to bring innovations to market faster.
AI Infrastructure Obstacles Compound at Exascale Performance is make-or-break for large language model (LLM) training and inference workloads, especially when running at extreme scale. Organizations that run massive AI workloads on traditional storage architectures, which rely on replication-heavy approaches, waste NVMe capacity, face significant inefficiencies, and struggle with unpredictable performance and resource allocation.
The reason? Traditional architectures weren’t designed to process and store massive volumes of data in real-time. They create latency and bottlenecks in data pipelines and AI workflows that can cripple exascale AI deployments. Underutilized GPU servers and outdated data architectures turn premium hardware into idle capital, resulting in costly downtime for training workloads. Inference workloads struggle with memory-bound barriers, including key-value (KV) caches and hot data, resulting in reduced throughput and increased infrastructure strain. Limited KV cache offload capacity creates data access bottlenecks and complicates resource allocation for incoming prompts, directly impacting operational expenses and time-to-insight. Many organizations are transitioning to NVIDIA accelerated compute servers, paired with NVIDIA AI Enterprise software, to address these challenges. However, without modern storage integration, they still encounter significant limitations in pipeline efficiency and overall GPU utilization.
Built For The World’s Largest and Most Demanding Accelerated Compute Environments To address these challenges, NeuralMesh Axon’s high-performance, resilient storage fabric fuses directly into accelerated compute servers by leveraging local NVMe, spare CPU cores, and its existing network infrastructure. This unified, software-defined compute and storage layer delivers consistent microsecond latency for both local and remote workloads—outpacing traditional local protocols like NFS.
Additionally, when leveraging WEKA’s Augmented Memory Grid capability, it can provide near-memory speeds for KV cache loads at massive scale. Unlike replication-heavy approaches that squander aggregate capacity and collapse under failures, NeuralMesh Axon’s unique erasure coding design tolerates up to four simultaneous node losses, sustains full throughput during rebuilds, and enables predefined resource allocation across the existing NVMe, CPU cores, and networking resources—transforming isolated disks into a memory-like storage pool at exascale and beyond while providing consistent low latency access to all addressable data.
Cloud service providers and AI innovators operating at exascale require infrastructure solutions that can match the exponential growth in model complexity and dataset sizes. NeuralMesh Axon is specifically designed for organizations operating at the forefront of AI innovation that require immediate, extreme-scale performance rather than gradual scaling over time. This includes AI cloud providers and neoclouds building AI services, regional AI factories, major cloud providers developing AI solutions for enterprise customers, and large enterprise organizations deploying the most demanding AI inference and training solutions that must agilely scale and optimize their AI infrastructure investments to support rapid innovation cycles.
Delivering Game-Changing Performance for Accelerated AI Innovation Early adopters, including Cohere, the industry’s leading security-first enterprise AI company, are already seeing transformational results.
Cohere is among WEKA’s first customers to deploy NeuralMesh Axon to power its AI model training and inference workloads. Faced with high innovation costs, data transfer bottlenecks, and underutilized GPUs, Cohere first deployed NeuralMesh Axon in the public cloud to unify its AI stack and streamline operations.
“For AI model builders, speed, GPU optimization, and cost-efficiency are mission-critical. That means using less hardware, generating more tokens, and running more models—without waiting on capacity or migrating data,” said Autumn Moulder, vice president of engineering at Cohere. “Embedding WEKA’s NeuralMesh Axon into our GPU servers enabled us to maximize utilization and accelerate every step of our AI pipelines. The performance gains have been game-changing: Inference deployments that used to take five minutes can occur in 15 seconds, with 10 times faster checkpointing. Our team can now iterate on and bring revolutionary new AI models, like North, to market with unprecedented speed.”
To improve training and help develop North, Cohere’s secure AI agents platform, the company is deploying WEKA’s NeuralMesh Axon on CoreWeave Cloud, creating a robust foundation to support real-time reasoning and deliver exceptional experiences for Cohere’s end customers.
“We’re entering an era where AI advancement transcends raw compute alone—it’s unleashed by intelligent infrastructure design. CoreWeave is redefining what’s possible for AI pioneers by eliminating the complexities that constrain AI at scale,” said Peter Salanki, CTO and co-founder at CoreWeave. “With WEKA’s NeuralMesh Axon seamlessly integrated into CoreWeave’s AI cloud infrastructure, we’re bringing processing power directly to data, achieving microsecond latencies that reduce I/O wait time and deliver more than 30 GB/s read, 12 GB/s write, and 1 million IOPS to an individual GPU server. This breakthrough approach increases GPU utilization and empowers Cohere with the performance foundation they need to shatter inference speed barriers and deliver advanced AI solutions to their customers.”
“AI factories are defining the future of AI infrastructure built on NVIDIA accelerated compute and our ecosystem of NVIDIA Cloud Partners,” said Marc Hamilton, vice president of solutions architecture and engineering at NVIDIA. “By optimizing inference at scale and embedding ultra-low latency NVMe storage close to the GPUs, organizations can unlock more bandwidth and extend the available on-GPU memory for any capacity. Partner solutions like WEKA’s NeuralMesh Axon deployed with CoreWeave provide a critical foundation for accelerated inferencing while enabling next-generation AI services with exceptional performance and cost efficiency.”
The Benefits of Fusing Storage and Compute For AI Innovation NeuralMesh Axon delivers immediate, measurable improvements for AI builders and cloud service providers operating at exascale, including:
Expanded Memory With Accelerated Token Throughput: Provides tight integration with WEKA’s Augmented Memory Grid technology, extending GPU memory by leveraging it as a token warehouse. This has delivered a 20x improvement in time to first token performance across multiple customer deployments, enabling larger context windows and significantly improved token processing efficiency for inference-intensive workloads. Furthermore, NeuralMesh Axon enables customers to dynamically adjust compute and storage resources and seamlessly supports just-in-time training and just-in-time inference.
Huge GPU Acceleration and Efficiency Gains: Customers are achieving dramatic performance and GPU utilization improvements with NeuralMesh Axon, with AI model training workloads exceeding 90%—a three-fold improvement over the industry average. NeuralMesh Axon also reduces the required rack space, power, and cooling requirements in on-premises data centers, helping to lower infrastructure costs and complexity by leveraging existing server resources.
Immediate Scale for Massive AI Workflows: Designed for AI innovators who need immediate extreme scale, rather than to grow over time. NeuralMesh Axon’s containerized microservices architecture and cloud-native design enable organizations to scale storage performance and capacity independently while maintaining consistent performance characteristics across hybrid and multicloud environments.
Enables Teams to Focus on Building AI, Not Infrastructure: Runs seamlessly across hybrid and cloud environments, integrating with existing Kubernetes and container environments to eliminate the need for external storage infrastructure and reduce complexity.
“The infrastructure challenges of exascale AI are unlike anything the industry has faced before. At WEKA, we’re seeing organizations struggle with low GPU utilization during training and GPU overload during inference, while AI costs spiral into millions per model and agent,” said Ajay Singh, chief product officer at WEKA. “That’s why we engineered NeuralMesh Axon, born from our deep focus on optimizing every layer of AI infrastructure from the GPU up. Now, AI-first organizations can achieve the performance and cost efficiency required for competitive AI innovation when running at exascale and beyond.”
Availability NeuralMesh Axon is currently available in limited release for large-scale enterprise AI and neocloud customers, with general availability scheduled for fall 2025. For more information, visit:
About WEKA WEKA is transforming how organizations build, run, and scale AI workflows through NeuralMesh™, its intelligent, adaptive mesh storage system. Unlike traditional data infrastructure, which becomes more fragile as AI environments expand, NeuralMesh becomes faster, stronger, and more efficient as it scales, growing with your AI environment to provide a flexible foundation for enterprise and agentic AI innovation. Trusted by 30% of the Fortune 50 and the world’s leading neoclouds and AI innovators, NeuralMesh maximizes GPU utilization, accelerates time to first token, and lowers the cost of AI innovation. Learn more at www.weka.io, or connect with us on LinkedIn and X.
WEKA and the W logo are registered trademarks of WekaIO, Inc. Other trade names herein may be trademarks of their respective owners.
US President Donald Trump has hosted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for dinner at the White House, where he has declared talks to end the war in Gaza are “going along very well”.
In turn, Netanyahu revealed he has nominated Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize, saying:
he is forging peace as we speak, in one country, in one region, after the other.
Despite all the talk of peace, negotiations in Qatar between Israeli and Palestinian delegations have broken up without a breakthrough. The talks are expected to resume later this week.
If an agreement is reached, it will likely be hailed as a crucial opportunity to end nearly two years of humanitarian crisis in Gaza, following the October 7 attacks in which 1,200 Israelis were killed by Hamas-led militants.
However, there is growing scepticism about the durability of any truce. A previous ceasefire agreement reached in January led to the release of dozens of Israeli hostages and hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.
But it collapsed by March, when Israel resumed military operations in Gaza.
This breakdown in trust on both sides, combined with ongoing Israeli military operations and political instability, suggests the new deal may prove to be another temporary pause rather than a lasting resolution.
Details of the deal
The proposed agreement outlines a 60-day ceasefire aimed at de-escalating hostilities in Gaza and creating space for negotiations toward a more lasting resolution.
Hamas would release ten surviving Israeli hostages and return the remains of 18 others. In exchange, Israel is expected to withdraw its military forces to a designated buffer zone along Gaza’s borders with both Israel and Egypt.
The agreement being thrashed out in Doha includes the release of Israeli hostages, held in Gaza for the past 22 months. Anas-Mohammed/Shutterstock
While the specific terms of a prisoner exchange remain under negotiation, the release of Palestinian detainees held in Israeli prisons is a central component of the proposal.
Humanitarian aid is also a key focus of the agreement. Relief would be delivered through international organisations, primarily UN agencies and the Palestinian Red Crescent.
However, the agreement does not specify the future role of the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Fund, which has been distributing food aid since May.
The urgency of humanitarian access is underscored by the scale of destruction in Gaza. According to Gaza’s Health Ministry, Israel’s military campaign has killed more than 57,000 Palestinians. The offensive has triggered a hunger crisis, displaced much of the population internally, and left vast areas of the territory in ruins.
Crucially, the agreement does not represent an end to the war, one of Hamas’s core demands. Instead, it commits both sides to continue negotiations throughout the 60-day period, with the hope of reaching a more durable and comprehensive ceasefire.
Obstacles to a lasting peace
Despite the apparent opportunity to reach a final ceasefire, especially after Israel has inflicted severe damage on Hamas, Netanyahu’s government appears reluctant to fully end the military campaign.
There is scepticism a temporary ceasefire would lead to permanent peace. Anas-Mohammed/Shutterstock
A central reason is political: Netanyahu’s ruling coalition heavily relies on far-right parties that insist on continuing the war. Any serious attempt at a ceasefire could lead to the collapse of his government.
Militarily, Israel has achieved several of its tactical objectives.
It has significantly weakened Hamas and other Palestinian factions and caused widespread devastation across Gaza. This is alongside the mass arrests, home demolitions, and killing of hundreds of Palestinians in the West Bank.
And it has forced Hezbollah in Lebanon to scale back its operations after sustaining major losses.
Perhaps most notably, Israel struck deep into Iran’s military infrastructure, killing dozens of high-ranking commanders and damaging its missile and nuclear capabilities.
Reshaping the map
Yet Netanyahu’s ambitions may go beyond tactical victories. There are signs he is aiming for two broader strategic outcomes.
First, by making Gaza increasingly uninhabitable, his government could push Palestinians to flee. This would effectively pave the way for Israel to annex the territory in the long term – a scenario advocated by many of his far-right allies.
Speaking at the White House, Netanyahu says he is working with the US on finding countries that will take Palestinians from Gaza:
if people want to stay, they can stay, but if they want to leave, they should be able to leave.
Second, prolonging the war allows Netanyahu to delay his ongoing corruption trial and extend his political survival.
True intentions
At the heart of the impasse is the far-right’s vision for total Palestinian defeat, with no concession and no recognition of a future Palestinian state. This ideology has consistently blocked peace efforts for three decades.
Israeli leaders have repeatedly described any potential Palestinian entity as “less than a state” or a “state-minus”, a formulation that falls short of Palestinian aspirations and international legal standards.
Today, even that limited vision appears to be off the table, as Israeli policy moves towards complete rejection of Palestinian statehood.
With Palestinian resistance movements significantly weakened and no immediate threat facing Israel, this moment presents a crucial test of Israel’s intentions.
Is Israel genuinely pursuing peace, or seeking to cement its dominance in the region while permanently denying Palestinians their right to statehood?
Following its military successes and the normalisation of relations with several Arab states under the Abraham Accords, Israeli political discourse has grown increasingly bold.
Some voices in the Israeli establishment are openly advocating for the permanent displacement of Palestinians to neighbouring Arab countries such as Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. This would effectively erase the prospect of a future Palestinian state.
This suggests that for certain factions within Israel, the end goal is not a negotiated settlement, but a one-sided resolution that reshapes the map and the people of the region on Israel’s terms.
The coming weeks will reveal whether Israel chooses the path of compromise and coexistence, or continues down a road that forecloses the possibility of lasting peace.
Picture this: you’re in the middle of a Zoom marathon or drowning in tied-up emails, your brain begging for five minutes of calm. You open the fridge, pull out a chilled Diet Coke, crack it open, feel the fizz on your tongue – and just like that, you’ve had a “fridge cigarette.”In the midst of Zoom fatigue, endless deadlines, and life in fast-forward, a new ritual has emerged: the “fridge cigarette.” Not a cigarette at all, but that cold crack-and-sip moment when you crack open a Diet Coke straight from the fridge. No smoke, no guilt, just that crisp ritual of pop you didn’t know you needed.TikTok’s Gen Z has turned this fizzy moment into a cultural wink – a mini smoke break with zero nicotine and full aesthetic energy. ‘Tis Gen Z’s latest obsession – a tongue-in-cheek break that’s half nostalgia, half self-care, and fully TikTok-viral. It’s not just fizzy drink culture – it’s a symbolic pause in a fast-paced digital life.
But just the part of omitting nicotine – does it help health-wise at all?Let’s unpack.
What’s a Fridge Cigarette?
The term “fridge cigarette” originated on TikTok, popularized by creator @reallyrachelreno, whose June video comparing cracking open a Diet Coke to lighting a cigarette went viral with near about 4M views. What she captured was a moment: the hiss, the fizz, the pause – and that psychological hit. It’s not about substances; it’s emotional.
On TikTok, fridge-cig posts feature ASMR-worthy fizz, minimalist setups, moody lighting, and captions like “time for a crispy ciggy.” One user described it as “main‑character energy” – a daily starring moment in everyday life. The ritual resonates because it blends irony, self-care, and aesthetic performance in a few crisp seconds.Gen Z reveres this ritual as a purposeful break from digital overload, recasting a smoke break into something healthier.. well, healthier-ish.
Why Diet Coke?
Diet Coke provides the quintessential chill experience: fizzy, caffeinated, calorie-free, and effortlessly cool. Users on TikTok have even playfully mapped Coke variants to cig brands – Diet Coke as Parliaments, Coke Zero as American Spirits, regular Coke as Marlboro Reds, full-fat glass-bottle Coke as a cigar.Interestingly, Coca‑Cola didn’t engineer this trend—it happened organically. Their marketing simply delivered delicious taste, and TikTok reshaped it into a cultural phenomenon.
Health trade‑offs: Less harm, but not harmless
No nicotine? Does that imply no health hazards at all?Well, that’s not true.Acidic erosion: Diet Coke has a pH of around 2.7–3.0, thanks to phosphoric and citric acids – enough to weaken enamel below the critical 4.0 level. Studies show that frequent soda exposure roughens enamel and accelerates erosion – punctual exposure may be manageable, but repeated sipping overwhelms saliva’s restorative ability.Artificial sweeteners: Though sugar-free, Diet Coke relies on aspartame and acesulfame K. WHO now labels aspartame “possibly carcinogenic,” and studies link diet sodas with heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and gut disruption.Dental and chemical concerns: Yes, it’s a vast improvement from tobacco, but Diet Coke isn’t innocent. Experts warn that its acidity can erode enamel and artificial sweeteners like aspartame may be linked to long-term health issues such as stroke, heart disease, and metabolic disruptions.Caffeine and bloating: Caffeine can cause jitters, disrupted sleep, and mild dehydration, while carbonation leads to bloating and digestive discomfort.Most professionals advise treating fridge cigarettes as occasional reminders, not all-day habits. Sip with water, use a straw, and maybe rotate in non-sweet beverages and mindful breaks.
The final sip: A balanced act
Yes – “fridge cigarettes” offer Gen Z a clever, safer stand-in for old-school smoke breaks. But they come with real risks: enamel erosion, enamel weakening, artificial sweetener exposure, and caffeine side effects. It’s one thing to enjoy the fizz and take a moment; it’s another to sip mindlessly all day.So, what’s the bottom line? Enjoy the crack and fizz, but make it intentional. A mindful fridge cigarette – sipped fast, chased with water, spaced out through the day – is a fun ritual. But replace it regularly with water, tea, or gum to safeguard your health. After all, you can pause without damaging your smile – or your wellness.
Donald Trump’s new tariff rates of as much as 40% for 14 countries have drawn muted responses from the hardest hit Asian countries who are hoping to renegotiate them before they come into effect next month.
Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Kazakhstan and Tunisia were handed the lowest tariff rate of 25% while Laos and Myanmar – both facing high rates of poverty – were hit with the highest at 40%.
Trump posted copies of his tariff letters to each of the countries on his social media site and press secretary Karoline Leavitt said more letters would be sent later this week.
Japanese prime minister Shigeru Ishiba said some progress had been made on avoiding higher tariffs of up to 35% that Trump had suggested recently, while South Korea’s industry ministry said it planned to intensify US trade talks by 1 August to “reach a mutually beneficial result”.
South Africa’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa, said the 30% US tariff rate was unjustified given that 77% of US goods entered South Africa with no tariffs.
Here is more on the tariffs and other key US politics news of the day:
Trump delays tariff hikes but sets new rates for some countries
The US president revealed plans to step up his trade wars on Monday but delayed tariff hikes on goods from key economies until next month, amid widespread confusion over his controversial economic strategy.
Trump announced countries including Japan, South Korea and South Africa would face tariffs of up to 40% as part of a fresh wave of levies to kick in on 1 August. No increases will take place on Wednesday, however, after he extended a previous pause.
Read the full story
Netanyahu nominates Trump for Nobel prize at meeting set to focus on Gaza
Benjamin Netanyahu told Donald Trump that he would nominate him for the Nobel peace prize on Monday, as the two leaders met for the first time since the US launched strikes on Iran’s nuclear program as part of a short-lived war between Israel and Iran.
Trump was expected to press Netanyahu to agree to a ceasefire in Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza amid an outcry over the humanitarian cost of an offensive that has led to nearly 60,000 deaths.
Read the full story
Pregnant doctor denied Covid vaccine sues Trump administration
A pregnant physician who was denied a Covid-19 vaccine is suing the Trump administration alongside a group of leading doctors’ associations, charging that the administration sought to “desensitize the public to anti-vaccine and anti-science rhetoric”, according to their attorney.
Read the full story
Deportation protections for people from Honduras and Nicaragua end
The Trump administration has ended temporary protections for people from Honduras and Nicaragua in the latest phase of its effort to expel undocumented people from the US.
The Department of Homeland Security announced it would end temporary protected status for an estimated 72,000 Hondurans and 4,000 Nicaraguans in moves that will come into effect in about 60 days. Citizens of the two Central American nations were accorded the status after Hurricane Mitch in 1998, which left 10,000 dead after it ripped through the region.
Read the full story
Planned Parenthood sues over funding cuts in Trump bill
Planned Parenthood sued the Trump administration on Monday over a provision in Trump’s sweeping domestic policy bill that would strip funding from health centers operated by the reproductive healthcare and abortion provider.
In a complaint filed in Boston federal court, Planned Parenthood said the provision was unconstitutional and its clear purpose was to prevent its nearly 600 health centers from receiving Medicaid reimbursements.
Read the full story
Jeffrey Epstein died by suicide, review confirms
A review of files held by the US government on the financier Jeffrey Epstein has said there is no secret client list to be released, and confirmed his August 2019 death by suicide while in federal custody, both of which contradict conspiracy theories.
Read the full story
Analysis: cruelty is the point at ‘Alligator Alcatraz’
After the cruelty, the mockery. As the first detainees were being hauled into Donald Trump’s controversial migrant jail in the inhospitable wetlands of the Florida Everglades last week, his supporters were indulging in some parallel retail therapy.
“Surrounded by swamps & pythons, it’s a one-way ticket to regret,” the Florida Republican party’s official X account crowed, hawking its new range of Alligator Alcatraz-themed shirts and hats. “Grab our merch to support tough-on-crime borders! Limited supply – get yours before the gators do!”
Landmark research on MCL-1, a critical protein that is an attractive target for cancer drug development, helps explain why some promising cancer treatments are causing serious side effects, and offers a roadmap for designing safer, more targeted therapies.
The WEHI-led discovery, published in Science, has uncovered a critical new role for MCL-1, revealing it not only prevents cell death but also provides cells with the energy they need to function.
The findings reshape our understanding of how cells survive and thrive, with implications for both cancer treatment and developmental biology.
At a glance
Landmark research shows the protein MCL-1, in addition to its well-understood role in preventing cell death, plays a second essential role in helping cells function by supporting energy production.
Drugs targeting MCL-1 have shown great promise as a future cancer treatment, but have been shown to harm healthy tissues, especially in organs with high energy demand like the heart and liver.
The findings published in Science pave the way for safer, more targeted cancer therapies targeting MCL-1.
First author Dr. Kerstin Brinkmann said that while previous research in cell cultures had hinted at the metabolic role of MCL-1 in providing energy to cells, it was unclear whether this mattered in living organisms.
This is the first time MCL-1’s metabolic function has been shown to be critical in a living organism.
It’s a fundamental shift in how we understand what this protein does.
The findings open up a completely new way of thinking about the intersection between programmed cell death and metabolism – something that’s been speculated on for years but never been shown in a living organism until now.”
Dr. Kerstin Brinkmann, WEHI researcher
Cancer drug target
The research strengthens the potential of MCL-1 as a cancer drug target, which is currently the subject of clinical trials all over the world.
While drug compounds targeting MCL-1 that have been developed to date are considered extremely effective at combating cancer, they have unfortunately also caused significant side effects in early clinical trials, particularly in the heart.
Co-senior researcher Professor Andreas Strasser said the findings could help resolve the safety issues of drugs targeting MCL-1 that have hindered these promising treatments.
“If we can direct MCL-1 inhibitors preferentially to tumour cells and away from the cells of the heart and other healthy tissues, we may be able to selectively kill cancer cells while sparing healthy tissues,” Prof Strasser, a WEHI laboratory head, said.
The study also lays the groundwork for better combination therapies. By understanding the distinct pathways the protein influences, researchers can design smarter dosing strategies and pair MCL-1 inhibitors with other treatments to reduce toxicity.
“This work exemplifies the power of discovery science,” said co-senior researcher Professor Marco Herold, CEO of the Olivia Newton-John Cancer Research Institute (ONJCRI).
“The sophisticated preclinical models we developed allow us to interrogate the precise function of MCL-1, and to address fundamental biological questions that have direct relevance to human disease.”
Protein link to rare, fatal diseases
MCL-1’s role in energy production could help explain fatal metabolic diseases in infants, such as mitochondrial disorders. These rare conditions, often caused by mutations in genes that stop cells from generating enough energy, can be lethal in early life.
The study suggests MCL-1 may play a previously unrecognised role in these diseases, offering a potential new target for future therapies.
Another key outcome of the study is the creation of a system that allows researchers to compare the functions of pro-survival proteins like MCL-1, BCL-XL and BCL-2.
These new tools will help identify which roles are shared and which are unique – knowledge that could inform future drug development across multiple targets.
A collaborative discovery
The project was made possible by WEHI’s collaborative research environment, bringing together experts in cancer biology, metabolism, developmental biology and gene editing.
Co-senior authors Prof Herold (from the ONJCRI), Associate Professor Tim Thomas and Professor Anne Voss played key roles in the study.
“This kind of discovery only happens when you have the right mix of people and expertise,” said Prof Strasser.
“It’s a powerful example of how fundamental science drives future medical breakthroughs.
“This came from a simple biological question – not a drug development project. It shows why we need to support curiosity-driven science. That’s where the big insights come from.”
Source:
Walter and Eliza Hall Institute
Journal reference:
Brinkmann, K., et al. (2025). Relative importance of the anti-apoptotic versus apoptosis-unrelated functions of MCL-1 in vivo. Science. doi.org/10.1126/science.adw1836.
Givaudan has been recognised once again in the CDP Supplier Engagement Assessment Leaderboard, securing another A rating for engaging its supply chain on climate action.
CDP’s annual Supplier Engagement Assessment (SEA) – formerly known as the Supplier Engagement Rating (SER) – evaluates corporate supply chain engagement on climate issues. The Supplier Engagement Assessment Leaderboard celebrates companies who achieve the highest ratings and recognises their crucial role in the transition towards the net-zero sustainable economy.
“Our supply chain accounts for over 90% of our total emissions (scope 3). While some may view this as a daunting challenge, we see it as a significant opportunity for collective action. Collaborating to reduce supply chain emissions is essential for our climate ambitions, and we are proud of the recognition we’ve received for our progress.”
Gilles Andrier, CEO of Givaudan
“As we celebrate this achievement, we must remember that climate action is urgent. Achieving our long-term goals depends on businesses and their supply chains working together to create meaningful impact not just in the distant future, but today and throughout our journey.”
Givaudan continues to deliver concrete progress in its climate journey. For example, in January 2025, Givaudan announced new milestones on its journey towards climate positivity with the validation of its net-zero targets by the Science Based Targets initiative.
For the latest on Givaudan’s climate progress, read our latest Integrated Report.
About Givaudan Givaudan is a global leader in Fragrance & Beauty and Taste & Wellbeing. We celebrate the beauty of human experience by creating for happier, healthier lives with love for nature. Together with our customers we deliver food experiences, craft inspired fragrances and develop beauty and wellbeing solutions that make people look and feel good. In 2024, Givaudan employed over 16,900 people worldwide and achieved CHF 7.4 billion in sales with a free cash flow of 15.6%. With a heritage that stretches back over 250 years, we are committed to driving long-term, purpose-led growth by improving people’s health and happiness and increasing our positive impact on nature. This is Givaudan. Human by nature. Discover more at: www.givaudan.com.
For further information please contact Claudia Pedretti, Head of Investor and Media Relations T +41 52 354 0132 E claudia.pedretti@givaudan.com
Sara Neame, Sustainability Communications E sara.neame@givaudan.com
