- Video: Four babies in Gaza crammed into one ICU cot struggle to stay alive CNN
- ‘Critical point’: UN pleads for fuel for Gaza amid Israeli blockade Dawn
- Gaza’s starving men and women chase trucks, face death to feed families Al Jazeera
- “Wombs Under Siege: Gaza’s Pregnant Women Face Starvation and Medical Collapse” وطن. يغرد خارج السرب
- Gaza Humanitarian Response Update | 22 June – 5 July 2025 ReliefWeb
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Video: Four babies in Gaza crammed into one ICU cot struggle to stay alive – CNN
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Big Take: OPEC+ Bets Big on Global Oil Demand
Big Take: OPEC+ Bets Big on Global Oil Demand
OPEC+, a coalition of some of the world’s top oil producers, surprised markets over the weekend with plans to boost production by more than half a million barrels a day. The increase comes at a time when investors are worried about oversupply. So what was behind the decision? Bloomberg’s Joumanna Bercetche breaks it all down with Big Take host David Gura from Vienna, where members of the oil cartel and executives from around the world are gathered for the Ninth OPEC International Seminar.
Jul 09, 2025
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Bitcoin rises to fresh record above $112,000, helped by Nvidia-led tech rally
The logo of the cryptocurrency Bitcoin can be seen on a coin in front of a Bitcoin chart.
Silas Stein | Picture Alliance | Getty Images
Bitcoin hit a fresh record on Wednesday afternoon as an Nvidia-led rally in equities helped push the price of the cryptocurrency higher into the stock market close.
The price of bitcoin was last up 1.9%, trading at $110,947.49, according to Coin Metrics. Just before 4:00 p.m. ET, it hit a high of $112,052.24, surpassing its May 22 record of $111,999.
The flagship cryptocurrency has been trading in a tight range for several weeks despite billions of dollars flowing into bitcoin exchange traded funds. Bitcoin purchases by public companies outpaced ETF inflows in the second quarter. Still, bitcoin is up just 2% in the past month.
Bitcoin climbs above $112,000
On Wednesday, tech stocks rallied as Nvidia became the first company to briefly touch $4 trillion in market capitalization. In the same session, investors appeared to shrug off the latest tariff developments from President Donald Trump. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite notched a record close.
While institutions broadly have embraced bitcoin’s “digital gold” narrative, it is still a risk asset that rises and falls alongside stocks depending on what’s driving investor sentiment. When the market is in risk-on mode and investors buy growth-oriented assets like tech stocks, bitcoin and crypto tend to rally with them.
Investors have been expecting bitcoin to reach new records in the second half of the year as corporate treasuries accelerate their bitcoin buying sprees and Congress gets closer to passing crypto legislation.
“With crypto week on the horizon next week in DC, and a likely flood of positive momentum heading into the dog days of summer, bullish sentiment and thinner trading volumes could see prices gap up to $120,000 or higher by the end of next week,” said Ryan Gorman, chief strategy officer at Uranium Digital, a focused on the uranium market through tokenization. “How far we rally through the summer is anyone’s guess, but open call interest outweighs puts, which normally reveals traders are bullish and expect upward price momentum to continue.”
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300,000-year-old wooden tools found in China reveal early humans’ plant-based diet and cognitive abilities in East Asia
An important cache of 35 wooden tools, dated at an estimated 300,000 years ago, has been unearthed at the Gantangqing site in Yunnan Province, southwest China. This discovery sheds new light on the technological progress and plant subsistence behaviors of early hominins in East Asia. Preserved in oxygen-poor clay sediments on the banks of an ancient lake, the tools are the oldest wooden artifacts ever found in the region and represent a world-class archaeological find.
A wooden tool unearthed during excavations at the site in China. Credit: Bo Li, University of Woolongong The tools, made of pine and other hardwoods, include digging sticks, hooks, and small pointed devices likely employed in the harvesting of underground plants such as tubers, rhizomes, and roots. The majority of them still bear signs of wear, scraping patterns, and even microscopic plant and soil residues. Micro-wear analysis shows that 32 out of 35 exhibit deliberate modification at their tips or edges, implying purposeful design and use.
“This discovery is exceptional because it preserves a moment in time when early humans were using sophisticated wooden tools to harvest underground food resources,” the lead author of the study, Professor Bo Li of the University of Wollongong (UOW), stated in a statement released by the University of Wollongong. “The tools show a level of planning and craftsmanship that challenges the notion that East Asian hominins were technologically conservative.”
Professor Li’s team used infrared-stimulated luminescence—a technique he helped pioneer—to date potassium feldspar grains, alongside electron spin resonance analysis of a mammal tooth. These methods dated the tools to between 250,000 and 361,000 years ago. The sediments in which the tools were found also contained animal fossils, antler soft hammers, stone tools, and plant remains, suggesting a complex prehistoric ecosystem and a community adept at woodworking.
One of the wooden tools being excavated at the site. Credit: Bo Li, University of Woolongong Unlike European Paleolithic finds such as the hunting spears of Schöningen, Germany, the Gantangqing tools were employed primarily for the gathering of plant foods. This suggests another strategy for living: whereas European hominins hunted large mammals, their East Asian contemporaries were targeting plant-based resources, revealing high behavioral adaptability.
The research, which was published in the journal Science, was a collaborative effort by University of Wollongong scholars, Chinese Academy of Sciences researchers, researchers from the Yunnan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, and several other institutions. The results contradict the usual notions that prehistoric societies in East Asia were behind Africa and Europe in technological development—a belief previously based on discoveries in the region that had largely consisted of simple stone tools.
“The diversity and sophistication of the wooden tools also fill a significant gap in the archaeological record,” said Professor Li. They show that early humans in East Asia had highly developed cognitive skills and a deep knowledge of their environment.
In addition to shedding light on toolmaking, the discovery also provides unique insight into the diets of early humans in the area. While plant residues on the tools were too decomposed to be positively identified, other remains at the site include pine nuts, hazelnuts, kiwi fruit, aquatic tubers, and berries. The presence of such plant food items indicates that these early hominins possessed knowledge of edible flora and undertook strategic foraging trips to the lakeshore with accompanying tools.
Publication: Liu, J.-H., Ruan, Q.-J., Ge, J.-Y., Huang, Y.-J., Zhang, X.-L., Liu, J., … Gao, X. (2025). 300,000-year-old wooden tools from Gantangqing, southwest China. Science (New York, N.Y.), 389(6755), 78–83. doi:10.1126/science.adr8540
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Report: Apple M4, more comfortable strap will headline first major Vision Pro update
Apple hasn’t iterated on its Vision Pro hardware since launching it in early 2024 for $3,499, opting instead to refine the headset with a steady stream of software updates. But Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reports that a new version of the Vision Pro could arrive “as early as this year,” with a replacement for the 3-year-old Apple M2 chip and a more comfortable strap.
Gurman says that the updated Vision Pro would ship with Apple’s M4 processor, which launched in the iPad Pro last year and has since found its way into new MacBook Pros, MacBook Airs, a new iMac, and a redesigned Mac mini.
Our tests in Apple’s other devices (and publicly available benchmark databases like Geekbench’s) show the M4 offering roughly 50 percent better multicore CPU performance and 20 or 25 percent better graphics performance than the M2, respectable increases for a device like the Vision Pro that needs to draw high-resolution images with as little latency as possible. Improvements to the chip’s video encoding and decoding hardware and image signal processor should also provide small-but-noticeable improvements to the headset’s passthrough video feed.
The report also claims that Apple is working on redesigned headbands for the new Vision Pro, to “reduce neck strain and head pain” and make the headset more comfortable to wear for longer periods of time. This update reportedly won’t be making major changes to the design of the device itself, so it would probably still come close to the 1.3–1.4-pound weight of the current M2-powered Vision Pro.
The report doesn’t mention any pricing plans one way or the other. But it’s worth noting that Apple has functionally reduced prices on M4-equipped Macs over the last year and a half, most notably by bumping the minimum amount of RAM from 8GB to 16GB—a cut of a few hundred dollars wouldn’t suddenly change the Vision Pro into a mass-market product, but it would be a step in the right direction.
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New myosin inhibitors can drug the brain without stopping the heart
Credit: Science Source
Cancer cells, like this one, use motor proteins in the myosin family to move, replicate their energy-generating mitochondria, and complete cell division.
A decade ago, when Courtney Miller of Scripps Research in Florida found that blocking a specific protein can interrupt methamphetamine addiction in mice, it was difficult to imagine drugs targeting that protein ever coming to the clinic. But two papers published last week describe her work developing a lead candidate for treating methamphetamine use disorder and provide data to show that a related compound for treating glioblastoma is ready for clinical trials.
The target Miller homed in on is a myosin protein. Myosins are tiny motors; they clamp onto the cell’s actin skeleton and pull, generating force that cells use to move cargo, power muscle contractions, and pinch off the divisions between cells during replication. In the brain, nonmuscle myosin II (NMII) is important for forming new synapses.
Credit: C&EN/Shutterstock
Myosin motors work by binding to actin and then bending, which generates force that cells use for various purposes. Myosin filaments in heart, skeletal, and smooth muscle cells are essential for muscle contraction.
While their functions are diverse, myosins are similar in structure. NMII is so much like cardiac myosin, which keeps the heart beating, that researchers believed it to be impossible to target safely. A molecule that can inhibit all myosins, blebbistatin, has a tendency to stop the hearts of mice.
Miller landed a grant in 2015 to develop new, more-selective inhibitors for NMII through a funding mechanism “specifically designed to help academic investigators bridge the gap of bringing new medications to the clinic,” she tells C&EN. She used that money to begin a medicinal chemistry campaign that found more-specific derivatives to replace an inhibitor that could never have been a safe drug (Cell 2025, DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2025.06.006).
The team used what Miller calls a “brute force” medicinal chemistry approach that involved synthesizing about 500 blebbistatin derivatives. After putting these compounds through a battery of tests for solubility, photostability, ability to block various myosins in a test tube, and ability to interrupt cell division, the researchers found molecules that could block nonmuscle myosins without harming heart or skeletal muscles.
Miller cofounded a company, Myosin Therapeutics, in 2020 to develop the results of that screen, including a tool compound for research use and an inhibitor that she hopes to develop to treat methamphetamine use disorder.
Keunjung Heo, a postdoctoral researcher at Boston Children’s Hospital, has already used one of Myosin’s compounds to show that blocking NMII can promote healing following nerve injury in mice. She says it is encouraging that researchers can now target myosin using a compound with better solubility and specificity than blebbistatin. “However, the systemic effects of NMII inhibitors remain largely unknown,” she adds in an email. Learning more about the molecules’ effects on the rest of the body will be key for developing them in the clinic.
Alongside substance use disorder, Myosin’s pipeline also holds an NMII-targeting molecule that is being developed for glioblastoma.
For years, Mayo Clinic physician-scientist Steven Rosenfeld has been trying to convince colleagues that nonmuscle myosins are critical in glioblastoma because tumor cells are more dependent on myosin than are healthy cells. But there’s a hitch: there are two subtypes of NMII, A and B, and removing just one subtype causes cells to upregulate the other so dramatically that the cells grow better than they would without treatment.
Between that double bind and the risk of side effects from blocking heart or skeletal myosins, Rosenfeld has grown accustomed to hearing from other experts that myosin was impossible to block safely. But then a US National Institutes of Health program officer introduced him to Miller, and the two research groups teamed up to test one of the firm’s compounds, MT-125, against glioblastoma in mice (Cell 2025, DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2025.05.019).
The researchers found that MT-125 strikes just the balance of specificity needed to treat glioblastoma and that it modestly increases the lifespan of mice with the cancer. When combined with other approved drugs, the molecule dramatically improved the animals’ survival. According to glioblastoma researcher Jerome Irianto of Florida State University, this second paper is “rich in both mechanistic insight and therapeutic promise.”
The US Food & Drug Administration recently green-lighted the firm to start testing MT-125 in first-in-human trials. Earlier this year, Myosin Therapeutics raised an additional $3 million in seed funding to support this work.
It’s gratifying to finally show some proof that myosin can be inhibited safely and confer some benefit in animal models, Rosenfeld says. “Courtney and I have been working in the wilderness for a long time.” Still, he cautions that any potential benefit to patients may be years away from being realized. “Patients who have this disease are understandably deeply concerned about finding a way to beat it, and I don’t want to raise hope unnecessarily.”
Chemical & Engineering News
ISSN 0009-2347
Copyright © 2025 American Chemical Society
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Sarina Wiegman delivers as Lionesses revive Euro 2025 hopes
Wiegman knows what it means to be under the spotlight, having led England to back-to-back major tournament finals.
When you have set that standard, anything less is a disappointment.
England’s level dropped dramatically against France which increased scrutiny on Wiegman, who suffered her first defeat at a Euros after winning 12 games in a row over the previous two tournaments.
It was also the first time the reigning women’s European champions had lost the first match of their defence at the following finals.
Wiegman admitted the scrutiny was “hard” but she focused on the task in hand.
“I always knew ahead of this tournament that it was a very hard group. It can happen but then you need to win the other games,” she said.
“So yes, I was excited, but at the same time I felt a little tense too. I think that’s completely normal as you really want to stay in the tournament and you want to win.
“I just had to focus on my job, review well and think about how we could bring people together.”
Wiegman has often delivered in the big moments and no manager has won more Euros matches than the Dutchwoman (13 – level with Germany’s former manager Tina Theune).
She also boasts the best goals-per-game rate in the competition among managers to take charge of four or more matches, with her sides scoring 40 in 14 games.
Having come under criticism for her decision to start Lauren James in the number 10 role against France – which left England vulnerable defensively – Wiegman made all the right choices against the Netherlands.
James started on the right wing, with Manchester United’s Ella Toone starting in the number 10 role. They scored three of the four goals on the night.
Jess Carter, who struggled against France at left-back, was moved into central defence, swapping with Alex Greenwood, and England kept a clean sheet.
“The priority was that we wanted to skip and exploit space. The Netherlands pushed up so we wanted to go over them. That worked really well,” said Wiegman.
“When you’re in their half of the pitch, you can start playing. We had some nice crosses and we spoke about that too.
“[James] came in good positions but she can also do that in midfield. In midfield today we wanted Ella [Toone] because she can make good runs in behind.”
The plan worked.
Netherlands striker Vivianne Miedema had just eight touches in the first half and the Dutch conceded more than two goals in a single match at a major women’s tournament for the first time.
They also managed just four shots against England – their fewest on record (since 2011) at a major tournament.
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HBO Max Orders ‘Big Bang Theory’ Spin-off ‘Stuart Fails To Save The Universe’
Topline
A new spin-off of “The Big Bang Theory” focused on one of the original series’ recurring characters has been ordered to series by HBO Max, the latest example of a continued push by studios to expand popular franchises and repackage familiar content in hopes of reaching streaming success.
Denise (Lauren Lapkus) and Stuart (Kevin Sussman) in “The Big Bang Theory.”
Key Facts
The new show, called “Stuart Fails To Save The Universe,” will focus on the character of Stuart Bloom, the bumbling owner of the comic book store frequented by the main characters in the original series.
“Stuart Fails To Save The Universe” will be the fourth show in the “Big Bang” universe after two other sitcoms were spawned from the original series to varying levels of success.
“Young Sheldon,” set in the 1970s and following the childhood of the “Big Bang” main character, was immensely popular over its seven-season run and was regularly the most-watched show across streaming and television thanks, in part, to its wide availability—”Young Sheldon” aired on CBS and was also available to stream on Netflix, Max, Paramount+ and other services.
The series stars Kevin Sussman as Bloom and actors Lauren Lapkus, Brian Posehn and John Ross Bowie, all of whom were recurring minor characters in “The Big Bang Theory,” and original series creator Chuck Lorre will executive produce alongside Zak Penn and Bill Prady.
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The Expanded Tv Universes Of Star Wars, Star Trek, Full House And More
“The Big Bang Theory” isn’t the only show whose characters have been rehashed to capture viewers familiar with their themes and characters as an extension of the ”comfort shows” that have proven to be viewership gold for streaming services. Perhaps the most pervasive examples are the seemingly endless reboots and spinoffs are the “Star Trek” and “Star Wars” franchises—Disney has created more than 15 shows in the “Star Wars” universe in the last 11 years and seven new “Star Trek” shows have aired or been announced since 2018. “Fuller House,” which brought back most characters from the 1990s sitcom “Full House,” ran for five seasons and drew strong viewership numbers to Netflix, and “Girl Meets World” from Disney ran for three seasons and starred many of the same actors from the original “Boy Meets World” show. Currently running are “Frasier” on Paramount+, a reboot of the show of the same name that ran from 1993 to 2004; a live-action reboot of “’Avatar: The Last Airbender;” “Queer Eye,” a re-do of an early 2000s reality show called “Queer Eye For The Straight Guy.”Critically acclaimed series “Cobra Kai,” a spin-off of “The Karate Kid” films, ended its six-season run earlier this year and “Roseanne” was brought back for a fan-favorite season in 2018 before racist tweets from its star cancelled its run.
Surprising Fact
Despite a slate of original series, comfort shows like “Gilmore Girls” and “Suits” claimed all 10 spots in Nielsen’s most-watched shows for 2023 and 2024. “The Big Bang Theory” was named 2024’s “most-binged title” in streaming, according to Nielsen.
Key Background
The plot of “Stuart Fails To Save The Universe” will focus on Bloom and his friends’ attempts to restore reality after bringing about a multiverse Armageddon by breaking a device built by original series main characters Sheldon and Leonard. While the original cast members aren’t signed on, the show’s log line promises appearances of “alternate-universe versions of characters we’ve come to know and love from ‘The Big Bang Theory.’”
Crucial Quote
“I wanted to do something radical that would take me out of my comfort zone,” Chuck Lorre said in a statement. “Something the characters on ‘The Big Bang Theory’ would have loved, hated, and argued about.”
What We Don’t Know
When the new show will air. HBO did not announce a premiere date.
Tangent
“The Big Bang Theory” ran for 12 seasons, starting in 2007, and holds a Guinness World Record as the longest-running multi-camera sitcom, surpassing “Cheers.” The show won 10 Emmy Awards, including four Outstanding Lead Actor prizes for Jim Parsons as Sheldon. In March, Max and Warner Bros. Unscripted Television launched “The Official Big Bang Theory Podcast” with author Jessica Radloff, who wrote a book about the series. “The Big Bang Theory” also spawned seven seasons of the massive hit “Young Sheldon” on CBS. Almost 12 million people tuned into the “Young Sheldon” finale live on CBS last June and 6 billion people watched the show across platforms that month, beating out new episodes of “Bridgerton” to become the most popular on television for the month. A spin-off of “Young Sheldon, “Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage,” aired its first season last year and a second is slated to premiere during the 2025-2026 TV season.
Further Reading
‘The Official Big Bang Theory Podcast’ Launches On Max (Forbes)
‘Bridgerton’ Dominates Streaming Ratings In May—But ‘Young Sheldon’ Captures More Viewers Overall (Forbes)
The World’s Highest-Paid TV Actors: Jim Parsons Leads With $27.5 Million (Forbes)
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Adam Levine shares fun fact about wife Behati Prinsloo, ‘All Night’ music video
Adam Levine is sharing a sweet behind-the-scenes moment from Maroon 5’s latest music video, and it involves his wife, Behati Prinsloo, becoming a true fan in the process.
During an appearance on TODAY on July 9, the Maroon 5 frontman opened up about working with Prinsloo on the music video for All Night, one of the songs from the band’s new album Love Is Like.
Levine, 46, revealed that the shoot was a unique experience for them as a couple — and especially amusing to see his wife so fully immersed in his world of music.
“She’s a lot better looking than me,” Levine joked, adding, “I thought, ‘Why not you do this for once?’ And she was really into it. She was super excited.”
The supermodel, 37, appears in the video wearing bold makeup, dancing and lip-syncing to the track, and according to Levine, she practiced quite a bit around the house.
“That’s the most she’s ever listened to my music before,” he said with a laugh, noting how cute it was to watch her get involved.
Their kids were especially thrilled to see their mom star in the video.
Levine also spoke briefly about the process behind the band’s upcoming album.
“It was one of those things where I feel like we’ve written songs every which way and we wanted to get back to what started the band [and] made us successful in the first place,” he said.
With Love Is Like, Maroon 5 is revisiting their roots, and with Prinsloo now joining in the fun, it’s a full-circle moment for the Levine household.
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Measles cases in U.S. hit highest level in over 30 years
LOS ANGELES, July 9 (Xinhua) — The number of measles cases in the United States has hit the highest level in more than 30 years, according to the data released Wednesday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
A total of 1,288 measles cases have been confirmed in the country, with 13 percent of cases hospitalized, so far in 2025, making it the worst year since 1992, when 2,126 cases were confirmed.
The cases were reported across 38 states nationwide, with 753 in Texas alone, according to the CDC.
There have been 27 outbreaks reported in 2025, and 88 percent of confirmed cases are outbreak-associated, said the CDC, adding that 92 percent of these cases are either unvaccinated or have an unknown vaccination status.
The airborne, extremely infectious and potentially severe rash illness was officially eliminated from the United States in 2000, meaning there are no measles spreading within the country and new cases are only found when someone contracts measles abroad and returns to the country, the CDC explains on its website.
Before the measles vaccine was introduced, an estimated 48,000 people were hospitalized and 400 to 500 people died in the United States each year. Enditem
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