Flight arrivals and departures at Islamabad International Airport will be suspended during specific hours from August 6 to 9 and August 11 to 14 due to Independence Day parade rehearsals, according to a notice to airmen (NOTAM) issued by the Pakistan Civil Aviation Authority.
As per the NOTAM, from 11:00 am to 1:00 pm, the airport will remain closed and all flight operations suspended. Airlines have been instructed not to schedule flights during these hours.
Additionally, from August 11 to 13, operations will also be halted from 8:00 pm to 10:00 pm Pakistan Standard Time.
To many fans, the surprise romance between actor Liam Neeson and former Baywatch star Pamela Anderson is the feel-good story they didn’t know they needed.
Suddenly, the couple (they are dating, according to People) are everywhere, appearing on podcasts and flirting heavily for the cameras. They even appeared on the red carpet together with their respective sons.
So, it’s not surprising that a big move Neeson just made is getting attention.
For years, one of Neeson’s key residences was his New York City apartment.
He called the apartment home with his wife, Natasha Richardson, and their two sons, before Richardson died after a tragic fall on a ski vacation.
According to the New York Post, Neeson sold the Lincoln Square home for $10.3 million, property records filed on Aug. 4 revealed.
It’s not clear why the actor decided to put the home on the market. However, he’s been trying to sell it since 2024. According to the Post, the home’s asking price was originally $12.75 million in early 2024.
The Post reported that the dwelling is 4,524 square feet, has five bedrooms and five bathrooms, and is located “on the 28th floor of the tower at 111 W. 67th St.”
However, Neeson has not used the Manhattan pad as his primary residence.
According to Robb Report, Neeson used the Manhattan penthouse as a secondary home because he has a primary residence, which is a farmhouse, in Millbrook, N.Y.
The real estate listing described the Manhattan penthouse in detail.
“Just one block from Central Park, high above Lincoln Square, this home enjoys epic vistas from an unbeatable location,” the listing for the penthouse, which has now been taken down, said.
“Upon entering, a grand foyer and wide entry gallery provide an ideal space to showcase your finest artwork. The light-flooded, massive, corner Great Room is a true showstopper, with elegant custom millwork and double exposures offering exceptional views of the park,” it read.
For her part, Anderson has renovated her grandparents’ home on Vancouver Island.
Liam Neeson’s love life
Keep reading for everything you ever wanted to know about Liam Neeson’s love life.
Helen Mirren (1980-1985)
Neeson loves to date a co-star. After meeting on the set of Excalibur, he and and Mirren — the Morgana La Fay to his Gawain — were together for four years. Neeson described his first time seeing Mirren (and being floored by her beauty) on an appearance on The Graham Norton Show. Sitting next to him on the couch, Mirren said, “We didn’t [just] date. We lived together.” More recently, in a 2022 interview, Mirren said that she still loves him “deeply.”
Julia Roberts (1987-1988)
Another leading lady wooed, although this was a more short-lived dalliance that immediately followed their movie, Satisfaction, Roberts’s first credited big-screen role. She was 19 at the time; he was 35.
Barbra Streisand (1991-1992)
We don’t know much about this relationship, since it was kept very private. But, as Tefi points out, “Barbra Streisand is the center of the universe on most days,” and that’s also the case when it comes to Neeson’s relationship with Anderson. Now, stay with us here:
“If you’re wondering how all of this relates to each other, the Venn diagram of this episode is also a circle. At the center of all this is Barbra Streisand. Barbra Streisand also dated Jon Peters, who married Pamela Anderson, who is dating Liam Neeson, who dated Barbra Streisand, but ended up marrying Natasha Richardson, who was Lindsay Lohan’s onscreen mom in The Parent Trap. And this is what we love about culture. Liam is 73; Barbara Streisand is 83. Barbra Streisand has a roster.”
Brooke Shields (1992)
These two had sort of a bonkers whirlwind romance — as Shields put it in her memoir, There Was a Little Girl: The Real Story of My Mother and Me: “He wooed me with his brogue, his poetry, and his shitty choice of cheap Pinot Grigio wine.” Three months into dating, he proposed without a ring — which, as Tefi sagely puts it, “gives me an indicator that there was shitty Pinot Grigio wine involved.” After proposing, Shields wrote that Neeson basically ghosted her. But as she told People in 2014, that wasn’t actually the end of their relationship. “He came back after the first time he left me and asked me to marry him again,” she said. “This was before he started to do a play [Anna Christie]. And I said, ‘No, no, no, because knowing you, you’ll probably fall in love with your next leading lady and marry her, so I’m leaving myself out of this.’ And I was dead right.”
Natasha Richardson (1993-2009)
This brings us to Richardson, who it’s probably fair to say was the love of Neeson’s life. After they starred in Anna Christie together, as Tefi puts it: “Their significant others are doomed. Sometimes you can just see chemistry.” Richardson was married to producer Bob Fox at the time. Tefi’s take: “She calls the beginning of her relationship with Liam Neeson ‘bad timing.’ That’s what cheaters say, and I’m okay with it. Natasha says that their connection was undeniable, which is [also] what cheaters say.”
They got married in 1994 and were together until Richardson died in a tragic skiing accident in 2009. In 2020, Neeson spoke to Inquirer.net about the loss. “I speak to her every day at her grave, which is about a mile and half down the road,” he said. “I go down there quite often, so I do speak to her as if she’s here.” Last year, he told People that he was done dating, explaining, “I’m past all that” in an interview that took place just before he began work on Naked Gun.
That’s what some drinks companies are promising with beverages formulated specifically to help you chill out.
Lucy and Serena swear by them. They’re good friends who, like many, are juggling careers, the chaos of having small children, trying to stay fit, and everything else in between.
“These drinks aren’t going to get rid of all my worries and anxieties,” Serena says, “but if they give me a little boost – then I’ll take it.”
Lucy finds them really useful too, especially when she’s feeling a bit overwhelmed.
“If I get that low-level panic, then with a drink of Trip or something like it, I can bring it back round.”
But after an advert by one of the industry’s best-known brands was banned for suggesting its drinks helped with stress and anxiety, there have been questions about whether drinks of this kind are quite as effective as they make out.
BBC News has spoken to nutritionists and dietitians who are sceptical the small amounts of supplements the drinks contain could really bring about that sense of zen.
One psychologist has suggested that we might actually “create our own calm” when we set aside time for ourselves with something that feels like a treat.
Steven Oakes
Lucy and Serena say the drinks can make them feel calm if life gets stressful
The “functional beverage” market – that’s drinks with additional health benefits – is booming, with British supermarkets seeing sales jump by 24.5% in the last 12 months, according to one market research firm. Almost 30% of UK households now buy these functional drinks, Worldpanel by Numerator says.
So, what’s actually in them that’s supposed to help you feel more mellow or give your health a boost? Well, that’s where things can get complicated, as each brand takes a different approach.
Along with Trip’s Mindful Blend, other companies like Rheal, Grass&Co, Goodrays and supermarket own-brands, advertise that their drinks contain supplements including:
Lion’s Mane extract – a type of mushroom found in east Asian countries
L-theanine – an amino acid found primarily in green and black tea
Ashwagandha – a herb cultivated in areas of Asia, Africa, and Europe
Magnesium – a mineral the human body needs to function properly
These supplements are all commonly found in many health and wellbeing products and are associated with enhancing mood, boosting energy, supporting cognition, and helping with stress.
But how robust is the evidence for that? It’s tricky because there are many studies of varying credibility each suggesting different levels of efficacy.
Trip’s advert, which suggested its ingredients were stress and anxiety busters, breached the Advertising Standards Agency’s (ASA) code, with the ASA ruling that Trip’s claims their drinks could “prevent, treat or cure disease” were a step too far.
Trip told BBC News the ruling related to “a single page on the website” and it has made the “changes requested”. It says it’s confident it’s ingredients permit the use of the word “calm” which is “widely and lawfully used by many brands”.
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Clockwise from left: Lion’s Mane, Ashwagandha root and powder, magnesium supplement pills, and black tea – a source of L-theanine
Dietitian Reema Patel is concerned the amount of supplement in these drinks may not give consumers the emotional balance, feelings of calm, or stress relief that is advertised across the industry. She highlights a growing body of evidence around the funghi Lion’s Mane, but says there are no conclusive findings about whether it can have any impact – as yet.
“The research is still very much in its infancy,” she says. “In one of the more advanced clinical trials, a small number of participants were given 1800mg – that’s at least four times more than what is in some of these drinks.”
Studies suggest women are more likely to consume these kinds of supplements, but they’re not always front and centre in the research.
The lack of research that includes female participants is partly down to menstrual cycles and fluctuating hormones, making it more “complicated to track”, Ms Patel explains.
But these drinks can make a good alternative to drinking alcohol she says, and she has clients who have made the switch from having a wine or a gin and tonic every night to opening a can of one of these drinks to help them unwind.
“I think you can take a lot of the claims with a pinch of salt, but they are definitely giving people that other option.”
Emily May
Emily May says older clientele at the coffee shop where she works are really into wellness drinks
Dr Sinead Roberts, a performance nutritionist, says supplements can make a difference, but they tend to work for certain groups of people in specific circumstances – such as high-performing athletes who want that extra edge, or people who are deficient in a certain nutrient – not necessarily for the general population.
If you enjoy the taste, “crack on”, Dr Roberts says, but if you want to reduce stress and anxiety you’re probably best saving your £2 or £3 and putting it towards a “therapy session or a massage at the end of the month”.
“A trace of Lion’s Mane or Ashgawanda in a fizzy drink is not going to make any difference,” she adds.
Emily May, 25, first discovered these drinks at Glastonbury a couple of years ago. She’s not overly bothered about trying to reach a state of zen through them – she just likes the taste.
“I’m ADHD,” Emily says, “so I would definitely need a lot more than one of those drinks to calm me down.”
TRIP via ASA
Trip’s banned advert made health claims which are prohibited, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) said
There is a fine line between advertising that a product will give you a feeling of calm and quiet, and claiming these kinds of drinks will help with mental health problems.
Psychologist Natasha Tiwari says mental health and well-being are “increasingly conflated” in the wellness sector, creating a “toxic mix”.
There can be a positive – yet temporary – change in mood and consumers might feel a buzz, she says, not because of the ingredients necessarily, but because “everything around the experience of the product is real”.
“So you’ve bought a drink which, let’s say, is a little bit pricier than the alternatives in the market. Therefore you make a commitment to sit down quietly and enjoy it nicely,” she says. “You look at the branding – which is lovely and calming – you’re processing your environment in the moment, and then actually what you’re experiencing truly is a calm moment in your otherwise busy day. That’s not fake.”
And it’s that little window of peace that Lucy and Serena yearn for – and for a few minutes a fizzy drink in a can gives them that, whether the science really agrees, or not.
BBC News contacted all the brands mentioned in this article. Grass&Co told us it’s their mission “to deliver high-strength natural adaptogen and vitamin-packed blends formulated by experts… which are supported by approved health claims.”
Ali Akbar, now 72, has spent 50 years selling newspapers on the Left Bank
He is France’s last newspaper hawker; maybe the last in Europe.
Ali Akbar has been pounding the pavement of Paris’s Left Bank for more than 50 years, papers under the arm and on his lips the latest headline.
And now he is to be officially recognised for his contribution to French culture. President Emmanuel Macron – who once as a student himself bought newspapers from Mr Akbar – is to decorate him next month with the Order of Merit, one of France’s highest honours.
“When I began here in 1973 there were 35 or 40 of us hawkers in Paris,” he says. “Now I am alone.
“It became too discouraging. Everything is digital now. People just want to consult their telephones.”
These days, on his rounds via the cafés of fashionable Saint-Germain, Mr Akbar can hope to sell around 30 copies of Le Monde. He keeps half the sale price, but gets no refund for returns.
Back before the Internet, he would sell 80 copies within the first hour of the newspaper’s afternoon publication.
“In the old days people would crowd around me looking for the paper. Now I have to chase down clients to try to sell one,” he says.
Reuters
Mr Akbar (right) now sells far fewer papers than he did in the days before the internet
Not that the decline in trade remotely bothers Mr Akbar, who says he keeps going for the sheer joy of the job.
“I am a joyous person. And I am free. With this job, I am completely independent. There is no-one giving me orders. That’s why I do it.”
The sprightly 72-year-old is a familiar and much-loved figure in the neighbourhood. “I first came here in the 1960s and I’ve grown up with Ali. He is like a brother,” says one woman.
“He knows everyone. And he is such fun,” says another.
Ali Akbar was born in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, and made his way to Europe in the late 1960s, arriving first in Amsterdam where he got work on board a cruise liner.
In 1972 the ship docked in the French city of Rouen, and a year later he was in Paris. He got his residency papers in the 1980s.
Reuters
The 72-year-old is well-known and well-loved in the neighbourhood
“Me, I wasn’t a hippy back then, but I knew a lot of hippies,” he says with his characteristic laugh.
“When I was in Afghanistan on my way to Europe I landed up with a group who tried to make me smoke hashish.
“I told them sorry, but I had a mission in life, and it wasn’t to spend the next month sleeping in Kabul!”
In the once intellectual hub of Saint-Germain he got to meet celebrities and writers. Elton John once bought him milky tea at Brasserie Lipp. And selling papers in front of the prestigious Sciences-Po university, he was acquainted with generations of future politicians – like President Macron.
So how has the legendary Left Bank neighbourhood changed since he first held aloft a copy of Le Monde and flogged it à la criée (with a shout)?
“The atmosphere isn’t the same,” he laments. “Back then there were publishers and writers everywhere – and actors and musicians. The place had soul. But now it is just tourist-town.
“The soul has gone,” he says – but he laughs as he does.
The Diner itself is found stood alone along a winding desert highway, immediately serving up Phasmophobia’s trademark sense of dread and curiosity. Our team have really explored something new for Phasmophobia with this map, and we can see it quickly becoming a favourite among players. The rooms themselves offer contrasting lighting – the front dining area, for example, is appropriately lit whereas the back of house staff areas are rundown, dingy and have in general seen better days while outside, neon lights illuminate the area. One room we are particularly excited about is the Freezer which throws a curveball at players when identifying the ghost. How can you know if a ghost is present somewhere that’s permanently cold?
Another element we’re excited for player’s to experience with Nell’s Diner is our environmental story-telling. As seen by both the scene outside, as well as the recently abandoned Diner itself – where food still sits warm and tables are cluttered with plates and cutlery – something awful has taken place. What exactly has happened is of course up to you as a community to piece together. We’re excited to hear your theories!
1. In patients with a brain abscess, use of antiseizure medications (ASM) was not associated with a statistical difference in the risk of epilepsy at 90, 135 and 180 days after initiation of ASMs.
Evidence Rating Level: 2 (Good)
Epilepsy is a common complication of brain abscesses, yet the literature surrounding the appropriate management of epilepsy in the setting of a brain abscess is limited. Indeed, there have been limited efforts to investigate the effectiveness of ASMs in preventing epilepsy in brain abscess survivors. This retrospective cohort study therefore sought to assess the efficacy of ASMs in reducing epilepsy risk in patients with brain abscesses. 572 adult patients (mean[SD] age, 61.5[16.6] years; 61.6% male) from the United States with a documented acute care visit for brain abscess without prior history of epilepsy were included in the study. These patients were separated into a treatment group defined by having initiation of ASM within 45 days after the index date (n = 478) and no ASMs (n = 94). The primary outcome of the study was a diagnosis of epilepsy or seizures at 15 or greater days after the index date. There was no statistical difference in the incidence of epilepsy at 15 days or greater following the index date, with the marginal risk difference (RD) at 90 days being –0.02% [95% CI, −4.9% to 4.8%], at 135 days being 1.9% [95% CI, −5.0% to 8.5%] and at 180 days being 3.5% [95% CI, –4.4% to 10.8%]. Overall, this study found that the use of ASMs was not associated with a reduced risk of epilepsy.
He sang wistfully of the English town that shaped his life.
“Found my heart and broke it here. Made friends and lost them through the years. And I’ve not seen the roaring fields in so long, I know I’ve grown. But I can’t wait to go home.”
Ed Sheeran grew up in Framlingham in Suffolk and its rolling hills and magnificent castle inspired his hit single, Castle on the Hill. It was the homeplace he pined for.
So when he recently described himself as “culturally Irish,” the singer faced social media criticism on both sides of the Irish Sea.
Sheeran replied that he had two paternal Irish grandparents, an Irish parent, an Irish passport, and a childhood filled with Irish summer holidays. Ireland was the place where his musical taste was formed, he said. “I can be allowed to feel a connection to a place half my family is from.”
Yet he was accused of being Irish “when it suits him” by one poster.
Another wrote on X: “I’ve seen B*Witched live and have watched a couple of Gaelic football games, which I think gives me an even more legitimate claim to be culturally Irish than Ed Sheeran.”
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Ed Sheeran said: ‘I class my culture as Irish. I think that’s what I grew up with’
The mainstream press expressed perplexity at his embrace of an Irish cultural identity “despite being born and raised in England”.
Not everyone agrees.
To Ros Scanlon, programmer for the Irish Cultural Centre in London, it shouldn’t surprise or offend anyone. It reflects her own experience as a second-generation Irish person in the UK.
“He’s owning his Irish heritage, saying he is proud of his cultural background,” says Ros. “That doesn’t mean to say he doesn’t like or love being British, that is part of him too.”
Certainly it is much easier to speak of an Irish identity in Britain now that there is peace in Northern Ireland.
As the Belfast South MP, Claire Hanna, who is now leader of the Social Democratic and Labour Party, told parliament during a St Patrick’s Day debate in 2022: “Many are moving on from the traditional binaries of the past and embracing the ‘or both’ part of the Good Friday agreement, not feeling that they have to decide between being British and Irish if they do not wish to do so.”
Sheeran’s declaration raises this point once again, and prompts the deeper question of what cultural “Irishness” really is today.
Identity versus citizenship
Professor Linda Connolly, director of sociology at Maynooth University in County Kildare, argues that Ed Sheeran’s statement is about an idea of identity that is bigger than where you were born or what you write on a census form.
“Ed Sheeran is stating quite clearly that culturally he is Irish in Britain, and not just British and Irish in terms of citizenship alone,” she argues. “This applies to many second-generation Irish living in Britain.”
In Northern Ireland, Irishness can mean many things, not least because it is fraught with so much painful history.
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Fergal Keane says: ‘My identity is made of many parts. I am Irish. I am a Londoner. I am also a Cork, Kerry and Waterford person’ (County Cork pictured)
For many unionists, staunch political loyalty to Britain and the Monarchy, sits alongside a deep attachment to the land they have lived on for hundreds of years. Symbols like the Celtic harp and the Shamrock are seen by many as belonging to both traditions.
There are unionists who cheer for an Irish rugby team but would never dream of singing the anthem of the Republic – a new song, Ireland’s Call, was written for the 1995 World Cup.
It is a complex and evolving set of choices, with frequent arguments. Promotion of the Irish language is bitterly opposed by a vocal section of Unionism. For most Catholics their Irish identity was historically something to be defended in a Unionist dominated state.
It was an identity that helped bind them to their co-religionists on the rest of the island, particularly in the fields of Gaelic sport and culture.
But as politics has changed there is less preoccupation with religious background, a greater sense of belonging to an international culture.
And this is without even beginning to speak of an identity that is demonstrably northern Irish with its shared dry humour.
Cultural Irishness: from Sally Rooney to The Beatles
Everyone has their own menu of what being “culturally Irish” means – for me, it’s about humour, about a love of words and music, and a refusal to take ourselves, or anybody else, too seriously.
It can also mean a sense of a particular landscape, either one you loved, or were glad to escape – or for second or third – generation Irish, a landscape of brief immersion on summer holidays from England. That was the world of “the streams, the rolling hills/Where his brown eyes were waiting” evoked by Shane McGowan of the Pogues.
But there are as many definitions of “culturally Irish” as there are Irish people, or people who want to be Irish. It runs a wide spectrum of styles, influences, opinions and genres – from Oasis (born in Manchester to Irish parents), the rappers Kneecap, novelist Sally Rooney, the Irish actress of Nigerian descent Demi Isaac Oviawe, the London-born playwright Martin McDonagh of The Banshees of Inisherin fame.
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Noel and Liam Gallagher were born in Manchester to Irish parents
The core members of The Beatles all had Irish grandparents or great grandparents, prompting John Lennon to tell a concert in Dublin: “We’re all Irish.”
That was in 1963 – some 62 years before Ed Sheeran’s declaration.
There are many voices too from the Irish Protestant tradition in Ulster – the singer Van Morrison and the novelist Jan Carson, who has written about growing up in an evangelical Christian home, and says she now feels “much more ease and comfort with an Irish identity than a British one”.
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Culturally Irish can mean a sense of a particular landscape – like the world of “the streams, the rolling hills/Where his brown eyes were waiting,” evoked by Shane McGowan of the Pogues.
Ed Sheeran is himself a product of blended traditions. His grandfather was a Belfast Protestant who married a Catholic from the Republic of Ireland at a time of sectarian intolerance.
Today, it is undoubtedly easier these days for a big mainstream star like Sheeran to embrace an Irish cultural identity in Britain than it would have been several decades ago.
I think of the powerful song Nothing But the Same Old Story by Paul Brady, about an Irishman in Britain during the 1970s, amid the ongoing IRA campaign: “In their eyes, we’re nothing but a bunch of murderers.”
Cross-fertilisation of cultures
Ros Scanlon credits Irish cultural figures for much of the changed atmosphere, including legendary BBC presenter Terry Wogan and musicians such as U2, Thin Lizzy, Sinead O’Connor, the Pogues “and now Ed Sheeran!”
Yet all of these icons are building on the foundations laid by the unacknowledged millions who came to Britain over many centuries.
The generation of Ed Sheeran’s parents and grandparents were the Irish people who built Britain’s roads and housing estates, the railways above and below ground.
The famous ballad ‘McAlpine’s Fusiliers’ remembers how they “sweated blood and they washed down mud with pints and quarts of beer”. Irish nurses were fundamental to the staffing of the NHS.
In those days, most Irish immigrants found expression of their culture in the ballrooms of places like Kilburn in northwest London, or the Astoria in Manchester, or the Irish pubs which often catered to clientele from a specific county. Bouts of hostility encouraged newcomers to stick together.
But the extraordinary cross-fertilisation of the two cultures goes much further back – how could it not, given the colonial history and the proximity of both islands?
For two millennia there are records of the Irish trading, settling, and inter-marrying in Britain; they shared a common language with western Scotland and the Isle of Man, and a Druidic culture with the rest of Britain.
Monks from Ireland helped spread and then restore Christianity during the so-called Dark Ages. Sometimes it worked the other way: Ireland’s patron saint, Saint Patrick, was a Brit.
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Ros Scanlon credits Irish cultural figures for much of the changed atmosphere, including the late Sinead O’Connor
One of the bestselling songwriters of early 19th century Britain was Irishman Thomas Moore. His story typifies the often complex nature of cultural relationships: he was a champion of Irish liberty, but his great song “The Minstrel Boy” – written for rebels fighting Britain – is played by the band of the Irish Guards at the Cenotaph on Remembrance Day.
Nowadays, for second or third generation people, the country of their ancestors has never been more reachable. Cheap airfares have changed the nature of how Irish culture in Britain has evolved, says Caoimhe Nic Dháibhéid, Professor of Irish history at the University of Sheffield.
“The physical distance between Ireland and Britain has diminished in the Ryanair era… It seems to me also that Irish migration to Britain is now more likely to be temporary – people may come for a few years, then go home – whereas previously it was a more permanent departure.”
‘I’m an Irishman, and a Londoner – and much else too’
I should declare an interest. I am Irish. Living in Britain. I was born here while my father was a real-life cultural import, acting in the West End in J.M. Synge’s landmark drama, The Playboy of the Western World, a story from the west of Ireland, which won rave reviews from London audiences.
We went home after the play ended and I was brought up in Ireland. But I returned to work for the BBC. I have spent more than three decades as a correspondent for the BBC, and I have lived outside Ireland for longer than I did in the country.
What does that make me? My identity is made of many parts. I am Irish. I am a Londoner. I am also a Cork, Kerry and Waterford person.
Fergal Keane today, alongside a photo of him as an aspiring young folk singer back in Limerick in the 1980s
The Irish language and music is an essential part of my cultural makeup. But I also cherish how that music is connected to the music of Scotland and North America, and I reckon one of the greatest songs of Irish exile was written by Englishman, Ralph McTell: “And the only time I feel alright is when I’m into drinking/ It sort of eases the pain of it and levels out my thinking… It’s a long way from Clare to here.”
My attachment to South Africa has shaped me in enduring and indelible ways too. Identity is also a story of deep and loving relationships, whether in Ireland, London, the African continent or France, to name but three important ones.
My feelings about identity are also inextricably linked to my experiences as a war reporter. I spent too many years witnessing ethnic cleansing, genocide and crimes against humanity often carried out because of hatred of a different identity.
The great writer, James Joyce, rejected any identity built around “nationality, language, religion” and defiantly vowed to “fly by those nets”.
He was writing about a different, much narrower Ireland of the early 20 century. But the policing of identity – who you are allowed to be – is disturbingly present in many societies, and many guises.
So, if somebody asks me to narrow my identity to a single label, I refuse, because it is mine, not to be explained or justified. And if it shifts tomorrow, that is my business.
‘The old battle of identities is far from finished’
The nature of identity is evolving – in Ireland it is absorbing the influences of other cultures, but also influencing those cultures.
Professor Nic Dháibhéid hopes the prominence of Irish cultural identities in Britain will prompt a greater interest in the history of the conflict in Northern Ireland, particularly among the under-25s who, as she sees it, “will have no memory of the Troubles, and so there is an even greater need to ensure that there is good mutual understanding between the people on our two islands.”
The big British audiences for Kneecap, to take an example, didn’t happen because young people had a sudden awakening about the problems of life in nationalist west Belfast. Kneecap connected with a much wider youth disillusionment: they are rapping in the Irish language but it’s the challenge to the establishment that resonates with some among the young.
Press Association
The Derry Girls phenomenon is real, says Professor Nic Dhábhéid, referencing the show inspired by the screenwriter Lisa McGee’s upbringing in the city
It is important to recognise that the cultural influence can be polarising. Kneecap’s public statements and political stances have divided people.
One member of the band, Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh, has been charged with a terror offence after allegedly displaying a flag in support of proscribed organisation Hezbollah at a London gig.
“The Kneecap phenomenon is real, as is the Derry Girls one,” says Professor Nic Dhábhéid, also referencing the show inspired by the screenwriter Lisa McGee’s upbringing in the city in the 1990s.
Professor Nic Dhábhéid is one of the historians chosen by the UK government to oversee the writing of a “public” history of the Troubles. She cautions that despite the progress made, the old battle of identities is far from finished, citing the tensions caused by Brexit.
“A decade ago, the narrative was one of reconciliation… I’m not convinced that we’re in the reconciliation space right now,” she argues.
Which makes Ed Sheeran’s honest expression of identity all the more moving.
It was not one of aggressive cultural nationalism: he wasn’t talking about what my identity should be, or yours. It was a statement of what he feels.
I am the father of two children who grew up in Britain. I watch them navigate the challenges and opportunities of different and overlapping identities, encouraging them to follow James Joyce’s advice and fly past any barriers others put in their way.
That, for me, is the way to a future without bitterness.
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US President Donald Trump had been in office scarcely a week when a new Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) app called DeepSeek jolted Silicon Valley.
Overnight, DeepSeek-R1 shot to the top of the Apple charts as the most downloaded free app in the US.
The firm said at the time its new chatbot rivalled ChatGPT. Not only that. They asserted it had cost a mere fraction to develop.
Those claims – and the app’s sudden surge in popularity – wiped $600bn (£446bn) or 17% off the market value of chip giant Nvidia, marking the largest one-day loss for a single stock in the history of the US stock market.
Several other tech stocks with exposure to AI were caught in the downdraft, too.
DeepSeek also cast doubt on American AI dominance. Up until then, China had been seen as having fallen behind the US. Now, it seemed as though China had catapulted to the forefront.
Venture capitalist Marc Andreessen referred to the arrival of DeepSeek-R1 as “AI’s Sputnik moment,” a reference to the Soviet satellite that had kicked off the space race between the US and the USSR more than a half century earlier.
Bloomberg via Getty Images
Shares of Japanese semiconductor-related companies extended a late January drop after the release of Chinese AI model DeepSeek prompted a selloff in US tech stocks
Still relevant
It has now been six months since DeepSeek stunned the world.
Today, China’s breakthrough app has largely dropped out of the headlines. It’s no longer the hot topic at happy hour here in San Francisco. But DeepSeek hasn’t disappeared.
DeepSeek challenged certain key assumptions about AI that had been championed by American executives like Sam Altman, CEO of ChatGPT-maker OpenAI.
“We were on a path where bigger was considered better,” according to Sid Sheth, CEO of AI chip startup d-Matrix.
Perhaps maxing out on data centres, servers, chips, and the electricity to run it all wasn’t the way forward after all.
Despite DeepSeek ostensibly not having access to the most powerful tech available at the time, Sheth told the BBC that it showed that “with smarter engineering, you actually can build a capable model”.
The surge of interest in DeepSeek took hold over a weekend in late January, before corporate IT personnel could move to stop employees from flocking to it.
When organisations caught on the following Monday, many scrambled to ban workers from using the app as worries set in about whether user data was potentially being shared with the People’s Republic of China, where DeepSeek is based.
But while exact numbers aren’t available, plenty of Americans still use DeepSeek today.
Certain Silicon Valley start-ups have opted to stick with DeepSeek in lieu of more expensive AI models from US firms in a bid to cut down on costs.
One investor told me for cash-strapped firms, funds saved by continuing to use DeepSeek are helping to pay for critical needs such as additional headcount.
They are, however, being careful.
In online forums, users explain how to run DeepSeek-R1 on their own devices rather than online using DeepSeek’s servers in China – a workaround they believe can protect their data from being shared surreptitiously.
“It’s a good way to use the model without being concerned about what it’s exfiltrating” to China, said Christopher Caen, CEO of Mill Pond Research.
US-China rivalry
CFOTO/Future Publishing via Getty Images
DeepSeek’s arrival also marked a turning point in the US-China AI rivalry, some experts say.
“China was seen as playing catch-up in large language models until this point, with competitive models but always trailing the best western ones,” policy analyst Wendy Chang of the Mercator Institute for China Studies told the BBC.
A large language model (LLM) is a reasoning system trained to predict the next word in a given sentence or phrase.
DeepSeek changed perceptions when it claimed to have achieved a leading model for a fraction of the computational resources and costs common among its American counterparts.
OpenAI had spent $5bn (£3.7bn) in 2024 alone. By contrast, DeepSeek researchers said they had developed DeepSeek-R1 – which came out on top of OpenAI’s o1 model across multiple benchmarks – for just $5.6m (£4.2m).
“DeepSeek revealed the competitiveness of China’s AI landscape to the world,” Chang said.
American AI developers have managed to capitalize on this shift.
AI-related deals and other announcements trumpeted by the Trump administration and major American tech companies are often framed as critical to staying ahead of China.
Trump’s AI czar David Sacks noted the technology would have “profound ramifications for both the economy and national security” when the administration unveiled its AI Action Plan last month.
“It’s just very important that America continues to be the dominant power in AI,” Sacks said.
DeepSeek has never managed to quell concerns over the security implications of its Chinese origins.
The US government has been assessing the company’s links to Beijing, as first reported by Reuters in June.
A senior US State Department official told the BBC they understood “DeepSeek has willingly provided, and will likely continue to provide, support to China’s military and intelligence operations”.
DeepSeek did not respond to the BBC’s request for comment but the company’s privacy policy states that its servers are located in the People’s Republic of China.
“When you access our services, your Personal Data may be processed and stored in our servers in the People’s Republic of China,” the policy says. “This may be a direct provision of your Personal Data to us or a transfer that we or a third-party make.”
Feature China/Future Publishing via Getty Images
A new approach?
Earlier this week, OpenAI reignited talk about DeepSeek after releasing a pair of AI models.
These were the first free and open versions – meaning they can be downloaded and modified – released by the American AI giant in five years, well before ChatGPT ushered in the consumer AI era.
“You can draw a straight line from DeepSeek to what OpenAI announced this week,” said d-Matrix’s Sheth.
“DeepSeek proved that smaller, more efficient models could still deliver impressive performance—and that changed the industry’s mindset,” Sheth told the BBC. “What we’re seeing now is the next wave of that thinking: a shift toward right-sized models that are faster, cheaper, and ready to deploy at scale.”
But to others, for the major American players in AI, the old approach appears to be alive and well.
Just days after releasing the free models, OpenAI unveiled GPT-5. In the run-up, the company said it significantly ramped up its computing capacity and AI infrastructure.
A slew of announcements about new data centre clusters needed for AI has come as American tech companies have been competing for top-tier AI talent.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has ploughed billions of dollars to fulfil his AI ambitions, and tried to lure staff from rivals with $100m pay packages.
The fortunes of the tech giants seemed more tethered than ever to their commitment to AI spending, as evidenced by the series of blowout results revealed this past tech earnings season.
Meanwhile, shares of Nvidia, which plunged just after DeepSeek’s arrival, have rebounded – touching new highs that have made it the world’s most valuable company in history.
“The initial narrative has proven a bit of a red herring,” said Mill Pond Research’s Caen.
We are back to a future in which AI will ostensibly depend on more data centres, more chips, and more power.
In other words, DeepSeek’s shake-up of the status quo hasn’t lasted.
And what about DeepSeek itself?
“DeepSeek now faces challenges sustaining its momentum,” said Marina Zhang, an associate professor at the University of Technology Sydney.
That’s due in part to operational setbacks but also to intense competition from companies in the US and China, she said.
Zhang notes that the company’s next product, DeepSeek-R2, has reportedly been delayed. One reason? A shortage of high-end chips.
Official Result: Eric McConico defeats Cody Brundage by split decision (29-28, 27-30, 29-28)
Eric McConico and Cody Brundage kicked off Saturday’s action with a gruelling clash between traditional middleweights elevated a weight class as a result of the fight coming together on short notice.
McConico clipped Brundage in the opening seconds of the contest, hurting the Factory X representative, but failed to capitalize, allowing Brundage to wrestle and work back into the frame. The second was a grind, with the more experienced Brundage leaning on his wrestling and McConico landing the better strikes in their sporadic exchanges. In the third, the duo once again spent a great deal of time stapled against the fence, with McConico being the fresher of the two, but Brundage doing well to land sharp, individual shots.
The judges were tasked with determining the victor, and when the scorecards were collected and totalled, it was McConico that came out ahead, registering his first UFC victory in the process.
Shahid Kapoor heads to Spain after making headlines at Lord’s
Shahid Kapoor reportedly jets off to Spain for the final schedule of Vishal Bhardwaj’s upcoming film, Romeo.
The 44-year-old actor, known for his versatile performances, is currently gearing up for the much-anticipated action-thriller.
A source close to the development told Pinkvilla, “Shahid will call it a wrap on Vishal Bhardwaj’s next by August 25. Him along with the entire team is off to Spain for the last leg. The Sajid Nadiadwala-produced film is on track for a December 5 release at the moment.”
It is pertinent to mention that Bhardwaj’s directorial was previously titled Arjun Ustara before being renamed Romeo.
The upcoming project also features Tamannaah Bhatia, Triptii Dimri, Nana Patekar, and Randeep Hooda.
This update comes shortly after Vishal, 60, announced Disha Patani’s cameo in Romeo.
On Wednesday, July 2, the filmmaker shared the announcement on Instagram, accompanied by a monochrome photo of the Ek Villain actress.
Notably, this will mark Patani’s first collaboration with the Jab We Met star.
Kapoor, who was last seen in Deva, is also gearing up for Cocktail 2 and Farzi 2, both slated for release between December 2025 and January 2026.
For the unversed, Romeo is scheduled to hit theatres on December 5, 2025.
