A SOCIAL media influencer shared a health update revealing she was rushed to hospital after going BLIND.
Abbi Ratcliffe is a SEN (special education needs) mum influencer, with her son Mason being autistic.
The content creator, who has over 100,000 followers, shares updates with fans on her TikTok account Abbi’s Chaotic Life.
Taking to the online platform, Abbi – who also has daughter Ellie – opened up to her followers about a recent health worry.
She penned: “Hey everyone. “I can now confirm I’ve had a mini stroke (TIA).
“It’s been an absolutely terrifying evening, but thankfully I’m back home and my eyesight has returned to normal.”
Read more on social media
According to the NHS, a transient ischaemic attack (TIA) occurs during a temporary disruption in blood supply to part of the brain.
Resulting symptoms are said to be similar to a stroke, including visual and speech disturbance, as well as numbness in face, legs and arms.
Abbi added: “I’m waiting to speak to the stroke team tomorrow morning.
“I’m going to take some time to rest and process everything that’s happened.
“Thank you for all the love and support. Love, Abbi xxx.”
One person commented: “Bless you. Get well soon xx.”
Another added: “Lots of love coming your way, hope you recover and feel stronger soon.”
A third wrote: “Lots of love coming your way, hope you recover and feel stronger soon.”
A fourth penned: “Lots of love coming your way, hope you recover and feel stronger soon.”
IT’S just over a month since James Bourne’s brother Chris gave him the gift of life – with his kidney.
And in his only interview, musician Chris has revealed the Busted rocker felt the positive effects of the surgery immediately after waking up.
“We were in adjoining rooms that were identical and we both had a clock on the wall at the end of our beds which was driving us both insane as we waited to go into surgery,” Chris says.
“When James went in, he said he had trouble reading the clock.
“But when he came out of the operation and was taken to his room, he could see the clock.
“The whole process of receiving a new kidney isn’t as instant as that.
“But for some things, it’s pretty instantaneous. It’s incredible.”
Updating Busted fans on James’s condition, Chris — who is in a six-week recovery period — adds: “James is doing really well.
“The surgeon was so happy. He said to me, ‘You’ve given your brother a Bentley/Rolls-Royce kidney’.
“Hopefully I’ve got a Bentley left and not a banger.”
It was just over a year ago that James’s life was turned upside down and he was told by doctors he needed to go into hospital for urgent tests.
The news landed just as Busted were one day away from starting their tour with McFly, and James asked Chris to step into the fold.
Chris says: “We didn’t know anything was wrong with James.
“He called and said: ‘Hey mate, you’re up.’
“He said he’d been advised not to tour and to have some tests. It was a shock to everyone.
“I drove to Southend, where James was, and he said: ‘Just learn as many Busted songs as you can.
“When I saw him I could tell that he wasn’t OK.
“I obviously knew a lot but it was trying to learn which riffs and which chords he played on what songs.
“They’d been in full production rehearsals for three weeks when this happened.
“It felt like a Freaky Friday nightmare.”
Chris joined James’ Busted bandmates Matt Willis, Charlie Simpson and tour drummer Eddy Thrower in Leeds the following day, just 24 hours before the first night of the tour in Birmingham.
“Everyone was in disbelief,” Chris says.
The first two shows went without a hitch, with Chris doing James proud.
It was on the third show, at London’s Wembley Arena, that Chris received the devastating news of the extent of James’s ill health.
He says: “Our sister Melissa is a make-up artist and we’d met up at Wembley. She got a phone call and she burst into tears. James was in a really bad way.”
Chris and his siblings, Melissa and Nick, all put themselves forward to be kidney donors — with Chris overhauling his lifestyle on the road to ready himself.
“We all got tested and the results came back and I was the leading contender,” Chris says.
“In the family group chat I put the Lord Of The Rings meme, the one where it’s King Theoden and he says ‘Rohan will answer.’”
During this time, Chris was on tour with Busted and he admits he struggled with taking his brother’s place.
“I was sleeping in suites with his name on, the wardrobes had his clothes in them,” Chris explains.
“There was a part of me that didn’t want to be in the limelight. Like I was basking in my brother’s illness.
“It was a really difficult time.
“I felt so overwhelmed I said I couldn’t sing James’s part. I had to work hard to keep it together.
“During one show, Busted fans had arranged to wear masks of James’s face. It came from a place of love but it overwhelmed me. I had to turn around and try to keep it together.”
The brothers then faced an agonising wait until October 3, when they were cleared for surgery.
“I didn’t sleep the whole night,” Chris recalls.
“In the morning, I didn’t really want to wake my brother up because there’s no point in him being awake while I’m going down.
“As I was leaving, he came out and it was funny.
“We didn’t say anything. We looked at each other and just fist-bumped.”
After Chris’s five-hour surgery, James was taken down to receive his kidney.
Chris adds: “When James came out and I found out that it had all gone well, it was the biggest relief. It was a weight I’d been carrying for a year.”
Chris says the family are now looking forward to spending Christmas together, with the kidney transplant giving them all a sense of hope for the future.
“I’m looking forward to doing normal stuff with James, playing music, hanging out,” Chris explains.
“It’s done.
“It’s gone as well as it could and now we can try and move on.”
ROBBIE WILLIAMS had the world at his feet as he performed in the middle of the crowd at the Melbourne Cup.
The Brit was the headline performer at the annual Australian horse race.
And he delighted the audience with a set featuring Feel, Rock DJ, Angels and Let Me Entertain You.
Robbie was dressed in a striking all-red outfit for the performance, which was watched by almost 100,000 fans at Flemington Racecourse.
Robbie is currently on tour Down Under, ahead of a well-earned break for the first half of 2027.
But then he will kick-off a summer of performances, beginning with a headline set at the Isle Of Wight Festival next June.
By the looks of this, the punters there will have a blast.
QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE are preparing to pop the champagne as their new record, Perfecth, is on course to become their second No1 tomorrow.
And in an exclusive chat, frontman Josh Homme has opened up about the final track on the album, Run Away From The Mob, which features Dave Grohl on drums.
Dave recorded his part way back in 2013, but Josh admitted he didn’t feel ready to finish the song until they started making Perfecth.
“It comes from [sixth album] Like Clockwork,” Josh revealed.
“It didn’t make sense for that record, and I didn’t understand this song. You know, some flowers take a long time to bloom.
“You can’t force open the petals of a flower, and you hope that’s what you have. I also think this is a really good example of everyone in Queens at their best.
“And Dave is so good at doing exactly what needs to be done as a drummer.”
HER last high-profile public appearance was at the World Cup final in July after her dispute with Justin Baldoni.
But there was no wiping the smile off Blake Lively’s face as she returned to the party scene in this navy sequinned dress.
The Gossip Girl star was snapped in New York on Tuesday as she arrived for a jewellery brand launch.
She certainly added some sparkle . . .
JADE THIRLWALL has made history as the first member of a British girl group to have a solo track with no featured artist chart on the Billboard Hot 100.
Her breakthrough single, Angel Of My Dreams, has become a US hit – two years after its release. But that’s not been a surprise for the former Little Mix star, who said she kept being told it was going to have a resurgence.
Jade, whose track was given a boost when Kylie Jenner walked to it at the Victoria’s Secret fashion show last month, said: “I actually do think that enough people thought that enough to speak it into existence. I’d seen a psychic who said the same thing, and an astrologer.”
Jade was in Little Mix for over a decade until they went on hiatus in 2022, but reckons there’s more love for them now than ever – and she hopes they could one day headline Glastonbury.
She told The Pop Pod: “I could see that happening for sure. When the Little Mix medley comes on, people go crazy for it.
“All these places that we didn’t get to go to properly and they’re craving it. There’s a nostalgia people want.”
ANTHONY JOSHUA has given his fans an insight on Snapchat into the music he uses to inspire him before a fight, as he prepares to take on Tyson Fury at Cardiff’s Principality Stadium on December 11.
And I have to admit, our AJ is a nostalgic man.
From So Solid Crew’s Dilemma 2 to Dizzee Rascal’s Creeper Freestyle, AJ is loving the old-school, with some added R&B classics in there, including Jaheim’s Just In Case.
Looking at the sheer size of Tyson though, I’d be much more inclined to have added Iron Maiden’s Run To The Hills.
NOEL GALLAGHER, Lily Allen and Brian Eno were among the stars in the room as U2 returned to the stage in an exclusive concert for the BBC at London’s Tate Modern on Tuesday.
The gig, which airs on BBC Two later this month, saw them perform several of their hits, plus songs from 16th studio album Carnaval De Luz, out November 13.
JOHN LEGEND has confirmed he is performing on the Sunday night of Capital’s Jingle Bell Ball with Barclaycard on December 6.
The Barclaycard pre-sale starts today, where card holders can get ten per cent off tickets, with the general sale starting Friday.
See you there.
RAYE vowed she would not release another studio album until she found her true love, after spending her last release singing about wanting to land a partner.
But fans of the star won’t have to wait for her to complete Tinder before they get some new songs.
The Where Is My Husband! singer has joined the voice cast of Benny Safdie’s film Lizard Music – and will write songs for it.
IT’S Monday lunchtime on London’s Old Bond Street and I’ve been invited to Dolce & Gabbana to hang out with the legend that is Sir Rod Stewart.
As the doors swing open, he walks in with two pairs of trousers under his arm and chirps in his trademark Cockney twang, “They’re too long in the leg”, before adding: “And a bottle of perfume for the lady, please.”
With me looking like a ropey Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman, Rod escorts me upstairs and a beautifully gift-wrapped, £280 perfume bottle is handed to me en-route.
Turning his attention to a £3,800 silver sequinned jacket, Rod laments: “It’s lovely, but it’s far too heavy for the stage.”
Then, he ushers me to a posh sofa to discuss his last hoorah.
The Final Encore will mark Rod’s retirement from touring after six decades on the road.
Two extra dates have been added to the almost sold-out UK run thanks to the phenomenal demand for tickets.
Set lists are still being finalised, but fans can expect a spectacular trip down memory lane, with hits from Rod’s incredible back catalogue of 11 No1 albums — which include 25 Top Ten hits.
“At 81, it’s quite remarkable,” he says of the ticket sales for his farewell tour.
“I can’t jump around like I used to when I was 32. But I think the audience knows that, vocally, I’m better now than I’ve ever been.
“A few of the big voices have gone. Paul McCartney’s has gone a bit. I treat my voice like the crown jewels. Pavarotti said, ‘I’m a prisoner of my voice’, and you are. You wake up, you say, ‘Oh, I’ve got an itch. I’m f***ed. I’ve got to cancel’. I’m totally paranoid about runny noses now. “Now, when I go out, I wear white gloves like Michael Jackson. He did it to stop him catching colds and flu.”
Rod puts his remarkable good health down to a strict exercise regime which sees him training like an athlete — and getting lots of sleep.
“When you’re in your 20s and 30s, you don’t even warm up,” Rod laughs.
“You drink whatever you want, do the drugs, get on the stage.
“In the old days, we used to get p***d as farts with [band] FACES. Now, when I go on, I’m absolutely sober, then I’ll have a rum and Coke after the third song or so.
“Plus, I have an hour’s workout before I go on — stretching, cycling, stationary bike, massaging, warming up the voice, just getting yourself in the zone.
“It is like being an athlete.”
Of his regime at home, Rod adds: “Three times a week, I cycle for a mile, lots of uphill stuff, and I do a load of swimming.
“Frank Sinatra told me about that. He said, ‘If you just do underwater swimming as much as you can, holding your breath till you want to burst, because then your lungs will get bigger. And they’ll get used to you holding your breath and singing’.”
Rod’s pipes, I can attest, are back on top form after a scary incident this summer in Utah.
At an amphitheatre 4,300ft above sea level, Rod needed oxygen after almost fainting on stage.
Keen to reassure his fans he’s now fine, the Maggie May singer explains: “I had a bout of illness, which was bad luck. I’d just had bronchitis at the same time as I was playing above altitude. I was in a right state.
“The geezer who worked for me didn’t tell me. I said, ‘Are we above sea level?’. He said, ‘Nah, of course we’re not’.
“So, I ran out and did three fast songs. All of a sudden, I was like, I couldn’t breathe. I got through the show, but it was painful.
“If I’m performing above altitude, you go out and do a mid-tempo one and a slow one, then do a fast one. Not three off the bounce, jumping about.”
Rod, with his electric blonde hair and bronzed skin, could pass for a man 20 years younger.
A decade after being diagnosed with prostate cancer, he is still all-clear from the disease.
Grinning, he says of his health tests: “My PSA levels are at 0.02. You’ve got to keep an eye on it.”
But cackling, he adds of the old-style check for prostate problems: “Finger up the bum, no harm done. That’s what most men don’t like. The old finger up the bum. But just get on with it.”
Like any good musician, Rod has his vices and cannot resist a drink . . . even if his wife Penny Lancaster warns him off it.
“I wish I could curb my drinking, but I love wine with an evening meal,”
Rod explains. “I’ve got a great chef and I can’t drink water with a good meal.
“Penny says, ‘You must cut back, darling’. I only have a couple of glasses. But then, sometimes, I’ll get on the apple martinis and I can really knock those back.
“I have these conversations with my kids. I stress to them that I can have a drink, you know, because it’s show business, I drink whenever I want. Not that I drink a lot. But, you know, one of my sons goes out and gets all pd on a Sunday night and he’s got to go to school the next morning.”
Laughing, he adds: “I’ve let the cat out of the bag there, haven’t I? There’s only one going to school.”
The Final Encore will kick off its UK leg in Glasgow on April 29 at the OVO Hydro, after Rod turned down a farewell gig at his beloved Celtic Park in the city.
“It would have been just, like, 90 minutes and I’d say goodbye,” he explains. “I thought, ‘If I can have it for three nights, I can really get into it and indulge myself in it’.”
By next summer, Rod’s touring days will be over — but he says that, inspired by artists such as Adele, he is planning smaller, residency-style shows in future.
“I made the album [Swing Fever in 2024] with Jools Holland, which got to No1 and, when I do my last show, that’s what I’m going to do. I’ve talked to Jools.
“I don’t know if he wants to do it with me, because I think he’s afraid of losing his identity. If he doesn’t, I’ll form my own big band. I’d like to do the London Palladium for a few nights, then maybe the Albert Hall.”
Rod’s fans also have a top-secret documentary to look forward to next year, after the star confessed he’s just done a tell-all interview with his old foe, Sir Elton John.
The pair, who are now good pals, traded comedy barbs over the years, with Rod admitting to me he was miles better at football than Elton when they trained together at Watford FC.
“I nearly signed for Brentford,” Rod says proudly. “I only finished playing when I was 68.
“But Elton, I was miles better than him when we trained together. The documentary we’ve done should be out at the beginning of the year. At the end . . . he kissed me on the lips. And we caught it on film.”
Rod added of Elton’s kids Zachary, 15, and Elijah, 13: “His boys are wonderful. I don’t know whether they were putting it on for me, but they came in from school and went, ‘Daddy, Daddy, oh, Mr Stewart, we are so glad to meet you, Mr Stewart’. They are so well spoken.”
Looking back at his six-decade career, Rod knows it won’t be easy to retire from touring.
He says: “Carly Simon found it stressful going on stage. I don’t. I am absolutely raring to go out there. I absolutely love it.”
Stepping back will, however, give Rod more time to focus on Penny and his one other true love — his model train set.
Covering 156 square metres and featuring a 275-metre track that runs through a city landscape, it has kept Rod busy for decades.
“I want to open it to the public and give the money to charity,” he explains.
“I think I’ll be able to get permission. I would like to share it with the world.”
Politics is another keen passion of Rod’s, although he admits he’s more likely to keep his views to himself these days for fear of being misunderstood.
One subject we speak passionately about, however, is the plight of the people of Ukraine — who Rod has publicly supported since Russia invaded in 2022.
“I just hope it’s not too late for Ukraine,” he says.
“They’re going into winter now, and this could be the turning point. It’s scary.
“They’re bombing the fuel and water supplies. Putin is a b*****d.”
Another topic of contention is US president Donald Trump, who Rod has no time for.
“I stand by what I told Kind Charles,” he says.
“I said, ‘Trump’s a pig’. I could tell the King wanted to laugh.”
Rod will, undoubtedly, use his Final Encore shows to urge fans to champion all that’s good in the world — despite still coming to terms with his own global impact.
“I haven’t twisted anybody’s arm or threatened to kill them if they don’t give me money,” he tells me.
“I’ve earned it off my own back.
“I want to thank my public for this. They’ve given me the most glorious, unimaginable lifestyle.
“When I was at school, I never dreamed that when I started singing, it would end up like this.
“Me, performing on stage at 81.
“It’s been the best life and I am so grateful.”
Bengaluru, India — India lifted nearly 500 million out of poverty between 2011 and 2023, with extreme poverty dropping from 27.1 percent to 2.6 percent in the world’s most populous nation during the same period, according to a new report by the World Bank.
The only other parallel in poverty reduction on this scale is China, which lifted more than 800 million people out of extreme poverty — though that was over a period of 40 years.
list of 3 itemsend of list
Yet despite the substantial fall in poverty in India — home to 1.4 billion people — the income and wealth inequality gap has widened significantly since it opened up its economy in the early 1990s.
According to the 2026 World Inequality Report, inequality in India remains among the highest in the world.
We take a look at how India managed to almost eradicate extreme poverty, and at the contrast between that accomplishment and the deep economic inequality that remains in the world’s most populous nation:
Based on an extreme poverty threshold of $3 a day, the World Bank said extreme poverty in India declined from 27.1 percent to 2.6 percent between 2011 and 2023.
Extreme poverty is defined as the minimum amount of money needed to afford basic essentials such as food, water, shelter and clothing.
Estimating poverty metrics based on three official household surveys, the Bank also said that an estimated 496 million people have been lifted out of poverty as the share of India’s population living below the lower middle-income poverty threshold of $4.20 a day fell from 57.7 percent to 16.1 percent.
The authors of the report, led by World Bank’s South Asia poverty economist Ayago Wambile, wrote that poverty in India is “projected to continue declining, albeit more gradually with the poverty rate at the $4.20/day line expected to fall from 14.2 percent in 2026 to 12.1 percent by 2028.”
“This progress was mainly driven by strong consumption growth, rising employment, especially among women, and expanded social transfers, including food subsidies,” they added.
India lifting nearly 500 million out of poverty in 12 years has been lauded as “remarkable progress” by the World Bank. It added that the downward trend represents “one of the fastest poverty declines in the world.”
To determine India’s poverty rates, the World Bank used Household Consumption Expenditure Surveys (HCES) which were conducted by the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO), an Indian government body.
A 2022 report, jointly produced by the World Bank and the Chinese Finance Ministry, said that China had lifted 800 million people out of poverty, but it took 40 years to achieve.
Last month, the World Bank also raised its economic growth forecast for India to 7.1 percent.
In a post on Instagram on Sunday, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi lauded the country’s progress in tackling poverty. “A historic fall in poverty. A generational rise in opportunity,” he said.
Last November, the southern state of Kerala, which has been ruled either by the centrist Congress party or a coalition of communist parties since independence, became the first in the country to officially declare itself free from extreme poverty. Kerala has the best education and health statistics of major Indian states.
Santosh Mehrotra, a development economist formerly in India’s planning commission, and currently a visiting professor at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow, noted that India is the only low-middle-income country among G20 nations, which are otherwise upper-middle- or high-income nations.
“The absolute number of the poor in our country is still the highest in the world for sheer size of population. So therefore, if we are going to genuinely reduce the incidence of poverty and more importantly, the absolute number of the poor, then it makes a huge difference globally,” he told Al Jazeera.
Coming from the World Bank, the credibility of the analysis that has concluded India’s success in reducing poverty so majorly is also above question, said Surjit Bhalla, economist an a former executive director at the International Monetary Fund. Any data that comes from the World Bank, he said, is the “gold standard”.
He said the institution carries out a poverty analysis for every country using a per capita consumption level that is normalised globally by invoking purchasing power parity.
There are no easy answers.
But economists point to a series of factors and programmes that might have contributed to India’s success in pulling record numbers of people out of poverty.
Overall, poverty in India has, however, been declining since the country opened its economy in the early 1990s, when the Congress party was in power, setting the stage for more than three decades of fast economic growth. Successive governments have launched, continued or reworked a series of social welfare schemes that economists say have helped combat poverty.
Prime Minister Modi’s predecessor Manmohan Singh, for example, launched an employment scheme that guaranteed rural jobs for a minimum of 100 days per year.
Since coming to power in 2014, Modi has launched several other welfare schemes, including direct cash transfers, free rations and housing, to tackle poverty. While the Modi government has significantly diluted the rural job guarantee scheme that Singh had launched, the current administration now provides free food grains to about 800 million Indians.
Under Modi, the government has also significantly expanded the construction of toilets, especially in rural India, where open defecation has historically been common in many villages. Access to piped drinking water has risen from 17 percent of rural homes in August 2019 to more than 80 percent, according to government statistics.
“The reduced sickness from accessing safe water may have helped families earn more income,” economists Surjit Bhalla and Karan Bhasin wrote in a research paper on India’s poverty alleviation efforts for the Brookings Institution in March 2024.
Before the latest World Bank report, Bhalla — a former executive director at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) — and Bhasin had used Indian consumption data in early 2025 to also conclude that the country was making major gains in ending extreme poverty.
Despite the decline in poverty, Bhalla and Bhasin pointed in their 2025 paper that free food grains supplied by the Indian government to 800 million people only fulfilled their calorific needs. “More balanced food subsidies that are better targeted to the genuine poor will improve nutritional outcomes and would represent a better approach to food insecurity,” they wrote.
It is also unclear whether continuing to provide free food supplies indefinitely to more than half of the country’s population is sustainable for the government — and whether that programme points to deep economic distress mitigated only by state assistance.
Some economists, like Mehrotra, question why the Indian government no longer determines its own poverty level and its own estimates of the numbers of those below it.
Mehrotra said that since 2014 — when Modi came to power — the Indian government has stopped calculating its own poverty levels, instead relying entirely on World Bank estimates.
“We are a strange country in having adopted an international organisation’s poverty line as our own,” he said.
For a country as large, diverse and complex as India, he argued, a standard set by an international agency alone is not enough to capture shifting economic and consumer patterns. “For example, 10 years back everyone didn’t have phones; today even in rural areas people do. So consumption baskets [used to determine price indices and poverty levels] change over time and hence India should have done its own poverty line,” Mehrotra said.
But Bhalla pushed back against criticism of India’s use of World Bank data.
“The methodology that the World Bank uses and the estimates it comes up with are vetted by every country before the final data is published,” he told Al Jazeera. “So in this case India’s poverty analysis has been gone through by Indian scholars and the government of India. So there is no ideological basis for questioning this data.”
Jayati Ghosh, an economist and professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, however said that India’s healthcare and nutrition indices also remained major causes for concern. The country spends just over 1 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) on public healthcare, ranking far behind global peers in per capita health investment and leaving public hospitals chronically underfunded and overburdened. Citizens also end up bearing the brunt of total health expenditures, a financial burden that pushes millions of Indians into poverty or debt every year.
Ghosh pointed out that real wages have stagnated in India. According to the World Bank report, while poverty has declined in India, wage disparities remain. “Median earnings among the top 10 percent of workers were about 13 times those of the bottom 10 percent in 2023,” the report said.
“These are not signs of a dynamic economy with falling poverty,” Ghosh said.
Nitin Kumar Bharti, a lecturer at the University of Western Australia, said that the World Bank’s report is encouraging. But he added that the drop in extreme poverty should not be seen as a mission accomplished, as “233 million people still live below” the $4.20 per day poverty line.
Bharti, who co-authored a study by the World Inequality Lab (WIL) on India’s income and wealth disparities published in 2024, also pointed to uneven growth within the country as a major challenge.
“Even if extreme poverty has declined, the extent of improvement in people’s overall wellbeing remains an important question,” he said.
Bharti said that inequality is growing because gains from economic growth are distributed unevenly, with those at the top capturing a growing share of national income.
According to the 2026 World Inequality Report, India is among the world’s most unequal countries, with the top 10 percent of earners capturing about 58 percent of national income, while the bottom 50 percent receives only 15 percent.
“This is reinforced by longstanding structural inequalities — the historical caste system, unequal ownership of assets, and decades of inadequate attention to primary education have limited opportunities for disadvantaged groups,” he said.
“Insufficient public investment in quality education and healthcare — both important equalisers — means that family resources continue to shape access to skills, good jobs and economic security.”
Growing income inequality and a lack of job opportunities have triggered discontent among India’s youth, who have staged a series of nationwide protests in recent months.
According to government data released earlier this year, youth unemployment in the country stood at 13.8 percent in April 2025 and rose to 15.2 percent in March 2026.
The State of Working India 2026 report, from the Bengaluru-based Azim Premji University, noted that nearly 40 percent of young graduates aged 15–25 and roughly 20 percent of those aged 25–29 are unemployed. Among those who have a diploma or postgraduate degrees, the unemployment rate has climbed to 29.4 percent.
Yes, say economists.
“One reason is that the distribution of growth influences how effectively growth improves ordinary households’ lives. For a given level of average income, a more equal distribution generally leaves fewer people below a poverty line,” Bharti said.
“A second concern is inequality of opportunity. With rising inequality, families differ enormously in their ability to pay for education, healthcare, housing, capital to start a business or searching for a better job,” he added.
“A third concern is the concentration of economic and political influence. Large concentrations of wealth can create opportunities for a small group to shape policies and institutions in their favour.”
Dipa Sinha, a development economist at Azim Premji University, said that in order to tackle poverty and widespread inequality, India would need to prioritise some redistribution of wealth.
“India talks about poverty eradication only. But government policies need to implement a more progressive taxation policy that actually tackles inequality head-on,” she said.
“The second thing I think is very important is that the government should begin investing in universal public services like health and education. This can reduce both poverty and inequality,” she added.
Bharti said that one strong lesson for India is that sustained poverty reduction requires several policies working together.
He said China offers important lessons in economic transformation and rural income growth, pointing to its success in improving agricultural productivity, accelerating industrialisation, facilitating rural-to-urban migration, and investing heavily in both physical and human capital.
“In contrast, India’s current policy focus is more heavily tilted towards physical infrastructure, often addressing the needs of the top 10 percent rather than the bottom 90 percent,” Bharti said.
“Roads, transport, and basic infrastructure matter because they connect people to economic opportunities. But equally important are good government schools and hospitals that enable people to benefit from these opportunities.”
Bharti suggested that India’s government should pursue poverty reduction and broader economic inclusion together.
“Progressive taxation can help finance these investments while ensuring that the costs are distributed according to the ability to pay,” he added.
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WASHINGTON — Barbara Weigand could not have prepared more for retirement. She stayed healthy and saved diligently for years.
This year, though, a shoulder surgery and a bladder cancer diagnosis have really tested her finances. She recently withdrew $4,000 from her retirement account to cover medical expenses associated with her cancer treatment.
“On my monthly income, I would not be able to afford my new medical expenses,” says Weigand, 83, who lives in North Canton, Ohio. She is currently on a Medicare Advantage plan and was searching for new coverage as Medicare’s open enrollment period began in October.
For older adults in the United States, the rising cost of healthcare is hitting where it hurts most — their pocketbooks. With Medicare costs, prescription drug prices and long-term care expenses weighing on household budgets, their concerns could carry significant political weight heading into Tuesday’s elections.
Weigand is part of a reliable voting bloc; 83% of voters over age 50 say they’re extremely motivated to vote in the midterms, according to an AARP poll conducted in early October. Their concerns over managing healthcare costs put the issue of affordability squarely in the spotlight.
Here are some of their biggest healthcare concerns — and how Weigand sees them.
Open enrollment for Medicare plans began in mid-October, and enrollees are facing a slew of changes that will go into effect in 2027.
During the enrollment period, people are considering higher Part D out-of-pocket caps, the end of temporary federal Part D premium subsidies, and new drug price negotiations. Additionally, in some states, insurers put caps on the number of people who can enroll in Advantage plans, pulling out of markets or eliminating plans that people have come to rely on.
Juliette Cubanski, director of KFF’s program on Medicare policy, told the Associated Press that the open enrollment period offers enrollees “an opportunity to evaluate the coverage they have and see if there might be better options for them in terms of accessing the care that they need, at possibly a lower cost.”
Although Weigand is grateful to have the mental acuity to do the research and the spiritual community that she relies on, she worries about other older people who are struggling to plan for the year ahead. “There are so many changes, and a lot of people my age who don’t know where to start,” she says. “What do they do?”
The Trump administration says it has made a priority of lowering drug prices in its effort to show that it is addressing soaring costs. President Trump has struck multiple most-favored-nation drug deals with pharmaceutical companies and has launched the discount drug website TrumpRx, among other steps.
In September, his administration said all 50 states would join in on a program set to provide most-favored-nation pricing to some drugs within the Medicaid program, bringing the net price of selected drugs down to prices paid in certain other countries.
Still, the cost of prescription drugs prevents some people from filling prescriptions. A KFF survey from March found that about 4 in 10 U.S. adults say they have not taken their medication as prescribed in the last year due to costs.
Weigand is considering rationing her drugs to save money. “I’ve been thinking — if I could just do this every other day rather than every day to make the medicine last longer,” she says. “Isn’t that sad?“
The KFF report says about 1 in 5 people surveyed had cut pills in half or skipped doses of medicine in the prior year because of the cost.
The costs of receiving long-term care — whether from spouses, home-care aides or friends — have risen steeply for retirees.
An AARP report released Wednesday that examines out-of-pocket caregiving expenses finds that family caregivers are spending nearly 60% more supporting a family member or friend than five years ago. They spend an average of $11,508 a year supporting a family member or friend, compared with $7,242 in 2021, according to the report.
Nancy LeaMond, AARP’s executive vice president and chief advocacy officer, said “we’re already hearing from our members about healthcare affordability — its prescription drug costs, caregiver costs, copays, premiums,” she said. “Not only are we trying to help family caregivers with their finances, but also to get them the kind of information they need to help their loved ones.”
These worries are top of mind for older people. About one-third of Americans over 50 provide regular care to an adult relative or friend with a health issue or disability, according to a national poll on healthy aging conducted in September 2025 by the University of Michigan.
The Social Security Administration announced last month that the annual cost-of-living adjustment for older adults and people with disabilities will rise by 3.6% beginning in 2027. That translates to $75 extra per month for the nearly 72 million people who receive monthly Social Security benefits and about 7.3 million beneficiaries who get Supplemental Security Income.
The agency faces an approaching bankruptcy date if a funding shortfall is not addressed by Congress.
The Social Security and Medicare trustees’ report from June states that Social Security’s combined trust funds, which cover old age and disability recipients, will be unable to pay full benefits beginning in 2034. After that, incoming revenue would cover about 83% of scheduled benefits.
With 2034 not far away, the upcoming Congress will be faced with determining how to shore up the program.
Matt Hogan, a partner at the polling firm Impact Research, has this advice to candidates in the closing days of the midterm campaign: “Regardless of party, to make inroads with these voters, Social Security and Medicare should definitely be part of their messaging.”
Hussein writes for the Associated Press.
Senator Chris Murphy, a fierce Trump critic who is not up for re-election in the midterms, is ‘alert’ after a stroke.
Published On 1 Nov 20261 Nov 2026
United States Senator Chris Murphy, a high-ranking Democratic legislator, has suffered a stroke but is “awake and alert”, his senior aide said.
Murphy remained hospitalised on Sunday after seeking medical care for numbness in his arm the day before, his chief-of-staff, Allison Herwitt, said in a statement.
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She said he was “responding well to treatment” at John Hopkins, one of the country’s top hospitals.
“The doctors are encouraged by his progress, he is awake and alert, and we are optimistic he will make a full recovery,” Herwitt said.
Murphy is not up for re-election in Tuesday’s midterms that will decide which party controls Congress, but is considered a potential presidential candidate in 2028.
A 20-year senator from the state of Connecticut, Murphy serves as a top Democrat on two powerful Senate committees: appropriations, which decides how US government funds are allocated, and foreign relations.
Murphy toured the Middle East in October, the first regional trip by a US Democrat since the US-Israel war on Iran began in February.
He has been a fierce critic of US President Donald Trump and the Iran war, pledging that Democrats will withhold funding for the war if they win the Senate on Tuesday.
He accused the US Defense Department of denying him access to a US military base in Qatar during his trip last month and has pledged to investigate Trump and his family for alleged corruption if Democrats win the Senate.
Trump said he was “really surprised” to learn about Murphy’s stroke, adding that “nobody wants to have that”.
Rachel’s husband Mark is devastated(Image: Jam Press/GoFundMe)
READ THE FULL STORY: ‘My gorgeous wife died suddenly in Lanzarote – it’s heartbreaking’
Thousands have protested across Italy against rising living costs and increased military spending, demanding greater investment in healthcare and education. Demonstrations spread to 50 cities, with clashes reported between protesters and police.
Published On 31 Oct 202631 Oct 2026
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Authorities are struggling to find a way to control the outbreak, with no approved treatments or vaccines.
Published On 31 Oct 202631 Oct 2026
The death toll from Ebola in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has surpassed 5,000, government data show, with authorities yet to find a way to control the country’s deadliest outbreak of the virus on record.
The latest death toll was announced on Friday.
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Ebola has infected more than 10,000 people in the DRC since the outbreak was declared in May.
There are no approved treatments or vaccines to combat the rare Bundibugyo strain of the virus, responsible for the ongoing outbreak.
Delayed detection, conflict and strained health services have helped the virus spread more rapidly than in past outbreaks, reaching eight of the DRC’s 26 provinces to date.
The virus has spread to neighbouring countries as well.
Last week, Nigeria became the fourth African country to report an Ebola case, extending the outbreak’s geographic spread to West Africa. East African countries Kenya and Uganda have also reported cases.
This year’s Ebola outbreak is the second-largest ever, behind only the 2014-2016 epidemic that infected more than 28,600 people and killed more than 11,000 people across Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.
Some governments have been restricting travel to affected countries or quarantining travellers who have recently visited or transited through them.
On Friday, Saudi Arabia suspended travel to and entry from Kenya, according to the Saudi Press Agency.
The measures include suspending travel by Saudi citizens to Kenya and a pause on issuing all types of visas to travellers from the country.
The kingdom is also prohibiting entry to travellers arriving from Kenya, including those transiting through third countries who have stayed in Kenya or other Ebola-affected countries within the previous 21 days.
In June, Saudi Arabia suspended travel to and entry from the DRC, Uganda, and South Sudan.
There are about 2,000 safety-net clinics in California that deliver primary care to underserved populations. Proposition 44 would set limits on how these federally qualified health centers spend their money.
Proposition 44 asks voters to require federally funded community health centers to spend at least 90% of their total annual revenue on “program services advancing their charitable purpose.”
If the proposition passes, the state attorney general will be responsible for determining what services fall into that category. If spending on administrative or non-healthcare functions exceeded 10% of total revenue, a clinic would have to pay a penalty equal to the amount it overspent.
Proposition 44 was backed by the Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West, the same union that is pushing Proposition 40, the controversial billionaire tax. The union appears to be the main supporter of the proposal and says the restrictions would prevent excessive spending on executive salaries, fundraisers and other administrative expenses.
There is a diverse array of opponents, including the California Medical Assn., the California Teachers Assn., the Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California, the state Democratic Party and the state Chamber of Commerce. They say the proposition’s vague wording could result in vital services being excluded from the list of program expenses permitted. A study commissioned by the California Primary Care Assn. found that clinics could face up to $1.7 billion in collective penalties in the first year of the measure’s implementation.
What to know about Prop. 44 (L.A. Times)
An analysis of Prop. 44 (California Legislative Analyst’s Office)
More on the measure, spending (CalMatters)
Union involved in Prop. 44 faces questions (L.A. Times)
KATIE Price has issued a heartbreaking update on her seriously ill mum Amy after previously revealing fears she had just days left to live.
The former glamour model, 48, discussed her mother’s condition with sister Sophie during an emotional conversation on their joint podcast, The Katie Price Show.
Katie insisted her mum was still fighting despite her ongoing health struggles, declaring: “But mother is strong.” The sisters also discussed visiting Amy, with Katie revealing she’d picked up a thoughtful present for her.
She said: “They had a bright pink cardigan so I bought it for mum because I know she’ll love it.” Sophie then asked whether Katie was planning to visit their mother in the coming days.
She said: “Are you going up there this week? I’m going up Thursday or Friday this week.” Katie replied: “Well when she goes, you know, what we know is happening, I’ll be there all the time, staying over. So I’ll do that.”
Sophie responded: “Yeah, nice.” The emotional exchange comes after Katie told Lewes Crown Court earlier this month that her mum had only days left.
She said at the time: “My mum’s dying at the moment and I haven’t been able to see her (because) I’ve got a cold… she’s got days.” Katie added: “I did promise my mum I’d see her tomorrow.”
Amy, 74, was diagnosed with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis in 2017, a rare condition that causes irreversible scarring of the lungs. She underwent a lifesaving lung transplant in 2023 after falling into a coma and coming close to death.
Katie previously revealed her mum was in hospital and “very poorly”, and begged her to “find the strength to stay” in an emotional Instagram post.
The mum-of-five also admitted she feared losing Amy while filming her Sky documentary Katie Price: Nothing to Hide earlier this year.
Katie recently sparked concern after sharing a cryptic Instagram message revealing she had received “devastating news”.
However, she was quick to reassure followers that the upsetting news was not about Amy, writing: “No it’s not my mum.”
US District Judge Richard Stearns sided with 25 states and the District of Columbia which sued the administration.
Published On 30 Oct 202630 Oct 2026
A federal judge has ruled against enforcing a new rule by the administration of US President Donald Trump that would require chronically ill people on Medicaid, a public health insurance programme for low-income individuals, to prove themselves “medically frail” to qualify for work exemptions.
US District Judge Richard Stearns blocked the rule on Thursday, siding with 25 states and the District of Columbia, which had sued the Trump administration in June over the change, arguing that it unlawfully limits exemptions for people with serious medical conditions.
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The law says the definition of medically frail must include people who are blind or disabled, have substance use disorders or disabling mental disorders, have certain disabilities that significantly impair daily activities, or have serious or complex medical conditions.
But the administration’s rule went further, requiring people in those categories to show that their conditions also “significantly impair” their ability to comply with the law’s work requirements.
The plaintiffs argued that the stricter rule would prevent eligible Americans from accessing the care they need, and that it oversteps the law’s text.
“The states have met their burden of showing irreparable harm for which monetary damages would provide inadequate compensation – they face the burden of costly and intensive alterations to their eligibility verification systems,” Stearns said in his 16-page ruling.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the agency that adopted the rule, declined to comment.
Medicaid is a public health insurance programme for low-income people, funded by state and federal governments.
Starting January 1, 2027, Medicaid expansion enrollees aged 19 to 64 must show that they work or do community service at least 80 hours a month, or are in school at least half the time. There are exceptions for those considered medically frail or in addiction treatment programmes, among others.
Notably, while the ruling will make it easier for some Medicaid recipients with qualifying medical conditions to obtain an exemption from the new work requirements, Stearns’s decision does not strike down the work requirements as unlawful.
Stearns serves in the District of Massachusetts and was appointed by President Bill Clinton.
His ruling upheld two other federal restrictions on how states can verify medical frailty that the states and the District of Columbia had also contested.
SIR Patrick Stewart secretly battled Alzheimer’s and dementia before his death aged 86.
The acting legend, best known for starring in X-Men and Star Trek, sadly passed away at his home in Los Angeles, it was revealed.
The exact timeline of his diagnosis was kept private and his secret health battle has left fans around the world devastated.
His family and spokesperson described his experience with Alzheimer’s Disease and Lewy Body Dementia as a “brief and poignant journey” and a “brief battle” before his passing.
Sir Patrick died at his home in Los Angeles on Wednesday.
He was said to be “in the loving care of his beloved wife Sunny”.
A post on the actor’s Instagram account added: “He has been held in the warm embrace of family and friends, surrounded by live music, prayer, tears, laughter, and the kind of profound emotion that only he could inspire after a lifetime of devotion to us all.
“We will forever cherish the peaceful ease and reflection on his face, an enduring reminder of his invincible grace.
“A son of Mirfield in the West Riding of Yorkshire, he travelled from the Royal Shakespeare Company to an equally acclaimed career spanning six decades on Broadway, the silver screen and television.”
Earlier in his career, Stewart portrayed a retired intelligence agent suffering from early-stage Alzheimer’s in the 1998 independent thriller Safe House.
In his last post on Instagram around six months ago, he appeared to have a raspy voice.
Sir Patrick’s illustrious career on stage and screen spanned over 60 years.
He received numerous accolades including two Olivier Awards and a Grammy Award and was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for services to drama in 2010.
Paying tribute, Marvel Studios posted on X: “Sir Patrick brought Professor Charles Xavier to life with extraordinary grace, intelligence, and humanity, defining the character for generations of fans, from X- Men to Logan to Avengers: Doomsday.
“He was a singular talent, a generous collaborator, and a true gentleman.
“Our hearts go out to his wife Sunny, his children, his friends, and the countless fans around the world whose lives he touched with his art.”
Born in Mirfield, West Riding of Yorkshire, in 1940, his early years were defined by working-class hardship.
A young Patrick secured a grant to attend the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School before joining the prestigious Royal Shakespeare Company in 1966.
For decades, he was a respected but largely unheralded stage actor, mastering the works of the Bard and establishing himself as a formidable theatrical talent in the UK.
Sir Patrick’s career trajectory shifted dramatically in 1987 when he was cast as Captain Jean-Luc Picard in “Star Trek: The Next Generation”.
Initially sceptical about the show’s prospects, Stewart famously admitted he refused to unpack his bags for weeks, fully expecting the American sci-fi venture to fail and send him straight back to the London stage.
Instead, Picard became his defining television role.
He commanded the Starship Enterprise for seven highly successful seasons and four feature films.
Stewart conquered a second massive franchise as the telepathic mutant Professor Charles Xavier in the highly lucrative “X-Men” films.
Despite his immense Hollywood success, Stewart never abandoned his classical roots, frequently returning to the West End and Broadway to star in celebrated productions like “Macbeth” and “Waiting for Godot”.
His monumental contribution to drama was officially recognised in 2010 when he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace.
He was last pictured watching his beloved football club as the team pay tribute to “hero” supporter.
Eli Lilly’s revenue growth is mainly due to its weight-loss and obesity franchise, blockbuster drugs like Mounjaro, Zepbound, and new developments such as the oral GLP-1 drug Foundayo and the pipeline drug Retatrutide, which drives significant investor focus.
Rachel Weston with husband Mark
A British mum who thought she had come down with a nasty cold collapsed and died while on holiday abroad. Rachel Weston, 42, was away with her husband, Mark, 41, and two friends when she started to feel unwell.
The carer, from Bury, Greater Manchester, went to a pharmacy and at first seemed to be getting better. However, her condition then deteriorated, leading the couple to arrange emergency flights back home for the next day.
But Rachel then suddenly collapsed in their hotel room in Puerto del Carmen, Lanzarote. Hotel lifeguards tried to help before paramedics turned up, but tragically she couldn’t be saved.
Local reports say Rachel suffered a cardiac arrest, though an underlying medical cause hasn’t been publicly confirmed. Mark said: “My world was completely turned upside down with the sudden and heartbreaking loss of my gorgeous wife, Rachel, while we were on holiday.
“Rachel and I were together for 11 years and one day – sadly only married for two of those years, but every single day was full of love, laughter and partnership.”
Rachel was a loving stepmum to Mark’s three children, Steven, 22, Charley, 19, and Mikey, 15. Mark described his late wife as “the absolute heart of our home”, adding that she had poured herself into helping him raise the children.
The couple tied the knot on May 11, 2024 after a memorable on-stage proposal at a Bowling for Soup concert. Mark contacted the band’s frontman, Jaret Reddick, before its December 2022 show in Torquay and was invited on stage during Punk Rock 101 to ask Rachel to marry him.
Rachel worked as a carer at Regency Care Home and had devoted her professional life to looking after others. She was also deeply attached to the couple’s two dogs, Maisie and Padmé. Mark said: “Losing her so unexpectedly is a total nightmare.
“Between planning the funeral and keeping life steady for the kids, it’s a massive weight to carry.” Rachel’s funeral is due to take place on November 6. Mark has launched a fundraiser in memory of his “beautiful wife” to help cover the costs.
He has requested that mourners wear something purple, which was Rachel’s favourite colour. To donate to the fundraiser, visit the GoFundMe web page here.
United States Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr has sparked uproar with comments he has made denying Arab contributions to mathematics, science and literature.
In a high-voltage rant on Monday, the US health secretary said, “There’s five hundred million Arabs in the world. And yet they don’t produce science. They don’t win the Nobel Prize. They don’t win the Fields Prize. They don’t win the Wolf Prize. They don’t produce literature.”
RFK Jr, who has been involved in anti-vaccine campaigns and has promoted a debunked theory linking vaccines to autism, made the comments during a US election campaign event in Grand Rapids, Michigan while supporting Republican nominee Mike Rogers, who is up against Arab-American Democrat nominee Abdul El-Sayed, in a tightly contested battle for Michigan’s Senate seat in next week’s midterm elections.
Critics said the comments were racist, Islamophobic and factually inaccurate, pointing to modern and historic Arab innovation in multiple fields.
Here’s how Arabs have made vital contributions to the human understanding of maths, science and literature through the centuries.
The period known as the Islamic Golden Age, from around 750 AD to 1258 AD, produced many key Arab contributions to medicine at a time when Europe was said to be in its Dark Ages. During this time, Arabic was the language of science and scholarship.
1st-4th centuries: The numerals 0-9, which originated in ancient India, were adopted by Arab mathematicians who spread them across the world. They displaced Roman numerals as a more advanced number system in mathematics.
8th century: Arab and Persian mathematicians were studying the ancient Indian concept of zero in mathematics in Baghdad, long before the Europeans. The number zero was crucial to the development of mathematics – but was absent from widely used Roman numerals in Europe.
813-833: The Arab mathematician Muḥammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi – one of those studying the number 0 – is often referred to as the “father of algebra” as he was the first to treat the method as a separate mathematical discipline in his work, Al-Jabr. This method provided the first linear and quadratic equations, still used as a core part of mathematical study today.
965-1040: Ibn al-Haytham, known as the “father of modern optics”, explained the role that light entering the eye plays in human vision. He was born in Basra in Iraq, but spent most of his working life in Cairo attending to noble families.
936-1013: Abu al-Qasim al-Zahrawi, called “the father of modern surgery”, was considered the greatest surgeon in the Middle Ages. He wrote a 30-volume encyclopaedia detailing medical practices and designed and illustrated many surgical instruments. Born in Azahara, in Andalusia, he was known as Abulcasis in Europe.
9th century: Fatima al-Fihri founded the University of al-Qarawiyyin in Fez, Morocco. It is often cited as the oldest continually operating university.
1213-1288: Ibn al-Nafis described pulmonary circulation – the process by which blood passes through the lungs – several centuries before Europeans understood it. He wrote more than 110 volumes of work on surgery, ophthalmology and philosophy while working as a chief physician in Egypt.
915-965: Abu al-Tayyib al-Mutanabbi, regarded as the greatest poet in the Arabic language, was Yemeni and grew up immersed in Bedouin Arabic culture. He wrote in classical Arabic and many of his verses became sayings used in everyday Arabic.
1100-1165: Muhammad al-Idrisi was a geographer known for making the Tabula Rogeriana, one of the most accurate and detailed medieval world maps, and a high point of Islamic geography. He was born in Ceuta in Morocco.
In more modern times, RFK Jr’s assertion that Arabs do not win Nobel prizes for science and literature is very far from the truth. Here are some of the highlights:
Peter Medawar won the Nobel Prize for Medicine for work on for work on acquired immune tolerance, which underpins organ transplantation. He was born in Brazil to a Lebanese father.
Michael Atiyah won the Fields Medal, the most prestigious award for mathematics, in 1966. He was born in London to a Lebanese father and Scottish mother. Educated in Egypt, he spent much of his childhood in Cairo and Khartoum.
Egyptian Naguib Mahfouz won the Nobel Prize in Literature for his body of work, including the Cairo Trilogy, which the Swedish Academy said formed “an Arabic narrative art that applies to all mankind”. He is still the only winner of the prize who wrote in Arabic.
Elias James Corey won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for developing retrosynthetic analysis. He is an American of Lebanese descent.
Egyptian Ahmed Zewail won the Wolf Prize for Chemistry. The Wolf Prize is an international award which has been presented to living scientists and artists every year in Israel by the Wolf Foundation since 1978.
Zewail also won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for pioneering femtochemistry, which is the study of chemical reactions on extremely short timescales. He also won the Wolf Prize in Chemistry in 1993.
Egyptian scientist Mohamed ElBaradei shared his Nobel Prize with the International Atomic Energy Agency, which he led.
Omar M Yaghi, born in Jordan to a Palestinian refugee family, won the Wolf Prize in Chemistry in 2018 for work on metal-organic frameworks. He shared the prize with Japan’s Makoto Fujita. The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) condemned his acceptance of the award because the prize is awarded by an Israeli foundation.
Moungi Bawendi won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for the discovery and synthesis of quantum dots. He was born in France to a Tunisian father, but based in the US.
Yaghi also won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for developing metal-organic frameworks. These are crystalline materials with large internal cavities that can capture and store gases, harvest water from air, and trap pollutants. He shared the prize with Susumu Kitagawa from Japan and Richard Robson from Australia.
In a post on X, vaccine scientist Peter Hotez of the Texas Medical Center weighed in on historical Arab scholarship, saying, “It was the Arab scientists of the Middle Ages who kept Aristotle, Hippocrates, Galen alive to hand it down in the Renaissance.”
Broadcaster Mehdi Hasan described RFK Jr’s comments as “racist” and, in a post on X, wrote: “One of the men who won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry last year was a Palestinian-American, Omar Yaghi.”
The Council on American-Islamic Relations called for the US health secretary to be removed. It said: “To stand on a public stage as a sitting US cabinet official and dehumanise half a billion people – and millions of Muslim and Christian Arab Americans – with fabricated, white supremacist talking points is utterly disqualifying for public office. His sweeping erasure of Arab contributions to humanity is not only maliciously false, but it also fans the flames of anti-Arab and anti-Muslim hate at a time when communities are already vulnerable to bigoted attacks from other public officials nationwide.”
JAMES Bourne’s brother has issued a health update after donating his kidney to save the Busted singer’s life.
We told yesterday how Chris, James’ youngest sibling, helped extend his life by donating a kidney.
Following the revelation, Chris has now shared an old snap of him and James to Instagram and wrote in an update: “When you find out that everything’s going to be ok”.
The picture showed the siblings as children, both beaming with their hands in the air.
The brothers underwent the surgery earlier this month and are now in a six-week recovery period.
Chris said of the op: “I was told that the op was going to happen at some point this year, it was all dependent on James’s wellbeing. Suddenly, we were given a date for early October.”
James, who has never spoken openly about the illness he is living with, is also said to be recovering well.
James was due to go out and perform on the Busted vs McFly arena tour in Autumn 2025, until he fell ill.
Not only did Chris volunteer to give an organ, but he also stood in for James in the tour.
Chris, who is younger than James, stepped in to play on the 35-date tour without a minute of rehearsals.
While he waited to find out if his kidney was a match to James, Chris started using music as therapy.
With his Call Your Friends bandmates, he started work on a new track, Selfless, which started out as a poem Chris wrote during the hardest moments of his health journey with James.
They have now released the song as a fundraising track, which is helping mental health charity Mind.
On television, ads for UCLA Health show up behind the Dodgers’ home plate and in the background when Justin Herbert, the Chargers’ quarterback, speaks after a game.
At the Lakers’ training facility, the health system’s logo appears on the court and throughout the building, under a marketing partnership that cost the university tens of millions of dollars.
The ads are part of the public university health system’s strategy to increase the number of Southern Californians using its providers at its fast-growing number of clinics and hospitals.
University officials say its expansion to five hospitals and 300 clinics — up from 150 locations a decade ago — has given more Southern Californians access to its academic medicine.
Lakers championship banners hang from the rafters and trophies are on display in an office overlooking the news conference as Lakers general manager Rob Pelinka, left, speaks while Lakers coach JJ Redick listens at the UCLA Health Training Center in El Segundo.
(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)
Last year, the system’s clinics and hospitals recorded 4.2 million outpatient visits — more than five times the number in 2015.
“As a public institution, we’re trying to make sure that patients within our community have access to care,” said Dr. Robert Cherry, UCLA Health’s chief medical and quality officer. “That’s the primary and overriding concern, because there’s an acute demand for our services.”
Yet healthcare economists point to repeated studies showing that hospital consolidation — where health systems expand, take over competitors and hire more of a region’s physicians — has become a leading driver of escalating health costs and insurance premiums, while doing little to raise the quality of care.
Glenn Melnick, a USC professor of healthcare finance, has documented how hospital consolidation in Northern California caused health costs to escalate. He said the mergers and acquisitions have continued, including with UCLA Health and other hospital systems in Southern California. UCI Health acquired four community hospitals in 2024.
One consequence, Melnick said, is surging insurance premiums for employers, which leave companies with little money for wage increases, while employees end up paying more for their health insurance and out-of-pocket medical costs.
“We’re now, I think, at a breaking point,” he said.
UCLA executives said the aim of the expansion was not to increase revenues the health system receives from commercial insurers. And they say they don’t believe UCLA Health is large enough to influence health costs.
“We actually represent only a small fraction of the inpatient capacity, physicians, clinics and resources available across the large and complex healthcare market in L.A.,” said Johnese Spisso, UCLA Health’s president, in an interview.
Nonetheless, the system’s expansion and its other recent financial decisions have led to protests by some of the university’s own staff and faculty, who point out the new clinics have been added mostly in wealthier neighborhoods, including Malibu and Montecito, where the majority of families have commercial insurance.
None of its clinics are in South or East Los Angeles, where more residents are covered by Medi-Cal, the state program for low-income people.
Cameron Carr during a news conference at the UCLA Health Training Center in El Segundo.
(Arwen Clemans/Los Angeles Times)
University of California system officials say Medi-Cal’s reimbursements are so low that they don’t cover the cost of care at the state’s five UC medical centers. Those losses, they say, must be covered by charges to those with commercial insurance.
Last month, dozens of medical residents and interns protested outside a UC Regents board meeting after UCLA Health failed to renew a Medi-Cal contract that had covered thousands of low-income patients. The doctors waved signs with slogans “Corporate Greed” and “Keep UCLA Health public.”
Dr. David Schriger, UCLA professor emeritus of emergency medicine, said that given the mission of the state’s public university, he questioned why the expansion had not included neighborhoods such as South Central L.A.
“The public should be making these decisions,” Schriger said. “It should not be at the whim of some executives.”
Santiago Munoz, UCLA Health’s chief strategy officer, said officials don’t consider neighborhood income levels when deciding where to open clinics. Instead, he said, the system has been adding clinics along freeways running north and south.
“We’re staying close to the 405 and the 101 because driving to locations in Los Angeles is inevitable, and it’s very difficult to get to Westwood,” he said.
Munoz noted that UCLA had recently leased a 20,000-square-foot space for a clinic in Inglewood, has locations in downtown Los Angeles, and provides physician services at two of L.A. County’s public hospitals.
“We are trying to go to where patients are,” Munoz said.
Nurses at the university’s flagship hospital Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center in Westwood say the expansion has created crowding that has caused what they describe as an ongoing, daily crisis in the emergency room.
Patients coming from the 300 clinics for hip replacements, heart surgeries and other procedures at Ronald Reagan often wait one or two days in the emergency department until beds become available upstairs in the hospital, according to UCLA officials.
To accommodate those patients who’ve been admitted but don’t have a room, the hospital has installed dozens of beds in what was once the emergency department’s waiting room and in adjacent spaces. That has forced people waiting for emergency care into a large white tent outside, which was put up during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“How do you do a good exam in a tent? It just doesn’t work,” said Dianne Sposito, a nurse who works in the emergency department. “I feel patients are in grave danger right now. Accidents are bound to happen.”
LeBron James has fun with his daughter, Zhuri, as son, Bronny, looks on during a G League game at UCLA Health Training Center in El Segundo.
(Wally Skalij/Los Angeles Times)
A university spokesperson said the system has “extensive strategies to keep patients safe and decompress our emergency departments.”
At the September Regents committee meeting, Spisso, UCLA Health’s president, told board members that the system needs to add as many as another 400 hospital beds so that newly-admitted patients no longer have to wait.
For months, rumors have circulated that UCLA will soon buy Providence St. John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, which would make the university the only hospital operator in that city. UCLA bought the city’s other hospital in 1995.
UCLA officials declined to say whether they were talking about acquiring the hospital. “We’ve found it’s best not to talk about discussions we may or may not be having unless or until we have something to announce,” Phil Hampton, a university spokesperson, said in a statement.
The California Health Care Foundation found in a 2021 study that hospital markets were reaching “monopoly levels” in many of the state’s counties. The consolidation was increasing prices with “little to no improvement in quality” of care, the report said.
The study also detailed how physicians often change their referral and prescribing patterns after their practices are acquired by hospitals, sometimes requesting imaging or other procedures that are not needed.
Melnick, the USC professor, noted that when UCLA acquires physician practices and “re-designates them as hospital-outpatient departments,” the clinics can begin billing insurers for an additional “hospital facility fee” for routine office visits, imaging and minor procedures.
He added that insurers often consider UCLA as a “must-have” network, allowing it to negotiate higher reimbursement rates. When the insurer folds UCLA’s new hospitals and clinics into their plan, he said, it often agrees to raise rates at the newly-acquired providers to match what UCLA is receiving as an academic system. Patients get the same care, he said, “but there is a new name on the door.”
Munoz said that UCLA Health was adding facility fees to some bills, including for imaging, but not for physician care. “We’re running a fairly lean operation in the community when it comes to physician services and not collecting the facility fees that others are,” he said.
UCLA is not the only hospital system expanding in the L.A. region. For example, Cedars Sinai has also been adding clinics and buying hospitals.
Price data shows that insurers and patients often pay more for care at UCLA Health and Cedars.
Anthem, Southern California’s largest commercial insurer, this year is paying $20,265 to UCLA for a total knee replacement at Ronald Reagan, according to data gathered by Serif Health, a San Francisco firm that collects data from hospitals and insurers. That price is 9% higher than last year and doesn’t include physician fees, the implanted device or anesthesia.
Anthem pays Cedars more than twice as much for a knee replacement, according to Serif’s data, while it pays Providence St. John’s 22% less. Cedars’ current negotiated reimbursement is $42,559 — an increase of almost 17% over last year.
University executives said that because UCLA Health is an academic health system it provides a high volume of complex care that is more costly than care at non-academic hospitals.
UCLA’s expansion strategy has been financially successful, according to the health system’s annual report.
Last year, UCLA Health operating revenues grew by nearly 20% to more than $5 billion. After paying for expenses, its operating income was $793 million, a margin of almost 16%. That compares to the median operating margin of 1.5% for 45 academic medical centers across the country, according to a 2024 study by McKinsey & Company.
UCLA officials said the operating margin was not a good comparative measure because it doesn’t include a $496-million transfer to the university’s medical school to cover other operations including the training of physicians.
“Education, research, and clinical care are all part of our mission and our responsibilities to really train that next generation of healthcare professionals,” Spisso said.
The university is now spending nearly $300 million to renovate a 170,000-square-foot building that sits on nine acres near Los Angeles International Airport. Purchased in 2024, the campus’ many offerings will include a sports medicine institute with physical therapy and advanced imaging, as well as an ambulatory surgery center with 10 operating rooms.
The university also plans to soon open a new 119-bed psychiatric hospital in L.A.’s Mid-Wilshire neighborhood. The facility was once the 204-bed Olympia Medical Center, where most patients were Black, Latino and underinsured. Olympia shut down after the university purchased it in December 2020.
The renovated hospital allows UCLA to relocate and expand the 74-bed Resnick Neuropsychiatric Hospital, which is currently on the fourth floor of Ronald Reagan Medical Center.
“We have patients waiting for mental healthcare so we made a $650-million investment in this new facility,” Spisso said. “We will probably lose around $50 million a year just operating it, but we saw it as one of the most underserved areas.”
UCLA then plans to add 103 beds to Ronald Reagan by renovating its fourth floor, increasing the medical center’s capacity by 23% to ease the overcrowding.
In 2024, the university bought the 260-bed West Hills Hospital and Medical Center in the San Fernando Valley from HCA Healthcare.
Last month, Spisso told the Regents committee that the hospital, now known as UCLA West Valley Medical Center, and its surrounding clinics, were making more money than officials had expected.
Two years after United States voters delivered a stunning rebuke of the country’s Democratic Party by electing Republican President Donald Trump to a second nonconsecutive term, some of the party’s midterm candidates are reassessing stances on a host of hot-button issues.
Whether they have dialled it back on issues like transgender rights or ramped up efforts to oppose Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, Democrats in some of the toughest midterm battleground races are responding to voter concerns – or even breaking outright with party leadership.
Those shifts have resonated with some voters, while others have been alienated as the party tries to find its footing in Trump’s second term and wrestle away control of both houses of Congress from Republicans.
But in the time since Trump defeated former Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024, Democratic divisions have only grown deeper. Establishment and self-described moderates within the party have struggled to hold back a rising tide of progressive populism as voters increasingly demand stronger, bolder policies.
That movement, powered by groups like the Democratic Socialists of America, has forced a reckoning over what it means to be a Democrat in Trump’s second term, leading to significant differences among candidates on policies that often depend on where they are running.
Here’s how – and why – the party has shifted:
The most notable shift among Democrats has, arguably, been on Israel.
Three years after Israel launched its genocidal war in Gaza and killed more than 74,000 Palestinians following Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attacks, polls have suggested that Americans hold increasingly negative views on Israeli military actions.
A Pew Research Center survey conducted earlier this year suggested that 60 percent of US adults had an unfavourable opinion of Israel. That number is significantly higher – 80 percent – among US Democrats.
In response, some longtime Democratic supporters of Israel – including Senator Chris Coons, who is likely to chair the Senate Foreign Relations Committee if Democrats retake control of the Senate next month – have shifted, as voters, especially younger ones, demand greater accountability from the US ally.
The moderate Delaware Democrat told Politico in an interview this month that he wants a “thorough reexamination” of the US-Israeli relationship and is even willing to impose sanctions on Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.
It is a marked change in tone after Harris rejected calls to feature a Palestinian American speaker at the 2024 Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
Earlier this year, 40 Democratic senators voted in support of a motion that disapproved proposed military sales to Israel. Only seven Democratic senators voted with Republicans to block it.
But as a new Congress may include even more progressive voices demanding the US rethink its relationship with Israel, those calls would likely be met with stiff resistance from some in the Democratic leadership, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.
The New York Democrat, who would likely become majority leader if Democrats retake the Senate, has said that the US “commitment to Israel’s security and defense must be ironclad”.
Following years of attacks from Republicans, Democrats in tightly contested US House or Senate races have downplayed – or outright dismissed – support for the transgender community, mostly when it comes to the participation of transgender students in school sports.
In Ohio, Democratic Representative Marcy Kaptur ran an advertisement featuring her saying, “Boys should not play in girls’ sports”. And in North Carolina, Representative Don Davis released a television commercial in which the Democrat says there “should always be a safe and fair space for women and girls in sports”.
Next door in South Carolina, Democratic Senate candidate Annie Andrews, a doctor, said in a newly released advertisement that she opposes “biological men playing in women’s sports”.
Trump’s return to the White House was fuelled, in part, by a now-famous advertisement in the 2024 campaign that highlighted Harris’s support for transgender Americans.
“Kamala is for they/them,” a narrator said in the advertisement, referring to gender neutral pronouns used by some in the transgender and nonbinary community. “President Trump is for you.”
But the reassessment of transgender rights after the commercial’s airing is not taking place in every part of the party.
On Thursday at a “Students vs Billionaires” town hall in Portland, Maine, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez addressed concerns from a transgender college student who told the New York progressive that they felt “abandoned” by Democrats.
“They’re wrong”, Ocasio-Cortez said about some members of her party. “First and foremost, I want to just let you know how shameful and sorry I am that there are people out there that scare so easily after an election”.
The congresswoman added, “The moment you compromise the rights of a trans person in America, you compromise the rights of every citizen.”
During former US President Joe Biden’s term, Democrats encountered near-daily attacks from Republicans on the country’s immigration system.
US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) recorded more than 8 million encounters at the US-Mexico border between 2021 and 2025, fuelling concerns among some voters that the Biden administration had ignored the issue.
In Texas’s closely watched Senate race, candidate James Talarico has positioned himself as a “border security Democrat”, advocating for stronger border enforcement and comprehensive immigration reform.
Third Way, a US-based organisation that pushes for moderate policies, said stances like Talarico’s resonate better with voters because they have taken a proactive, rather than a reactionary approach.
“I remember very clearly when Harris came out and spoke at the DNC in 2024; she… said we need order at the border and to have a strong immigration system”, Third Way’s senior political adviser, Lucas Holtz, told Al Jazeera.
“The problem is, after that, the Harris campaign really did not stick with that line in the sand… They stopped taking a stand on these issues, and more voters thought that she was too far to the left.”
“[Talarico] is making the case in a lot of his ads that the Biden administration failed on securing the border… It’s putting Republicans on their back foot in some of these races.”
But among progressives, Trump’s response to the nation’s immigration issue has also prompted a strong swing to the left.
After several high-profile incidents earlier this year – including federal immigration agents in Minneapolis, Minnesota, shooting dead US citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti – calls to abolish, or drastically overhaul, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have gained momentum.
Left-leaning political groups and politicians have united behind a message of “abolish ICE”, which would dismantle the federal agency and end its enforcement authority.
As cost-of-living issues remain paramount for voters, Democrats of all stripes have coalesced behind the need for more government intervention in the country’s healthcare system.
But how exactly the party addresses rising medical costs remains up for debate.
Some progressives, including Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, have championed policies like Medicare for All, which would expand the nation’s federal health insurance programme for seniors so all US citizens would be guaranteed healthcare.
Others running in more conservative states, like Andrews, have called for the return of Affordable Care Act subsidies that lapsed during Trump’s second term, as well as limits on health insurance companies’ profits.
Polling released by the independent health organisation KFF suggested that 66 percent of US adults now support Medicare for All, a 13-point increase from October 2020.
“Everybody’s going to have their own approach to this, but by and large, all Democrats want to move to a universal healthcare system in the best way possible”, Holtz said.
“We’re in agreement that we need to do better than what the Trump administration has done.”
Bayern Munich coach Vincent Kompany collapsed during training on Friday but is said to be ‘stable’ in hospital.
Published On 24 Oct 202624 Oct 2026
Bayern Munich expect coach Vincent Kompany to miss an extended period as he continues his hospital treatment for a virus after collapsing on the training pitch.
Speaking at a news conference on Saturday, a day after the collapse, Bayern Director of Sport Max Eberl confirmed Kompany was still hospitalised in a “stable” condition.
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Kompany’s English assistant coach Aaron Danks will replace the 40-year-old for Sunday’s Bundesliga match at Freiburg.
Eberl told reporters “examinations were continuing” to determine the nature of the former Manchester City and Belgium captain’s condition with a recovery timeframe yet to be determined.
“Vinnie will be given all the time he needs. We’re not starting to put together any timeframes.
“We need to firstly figure out what it is, and then we’ll discuss calmly what the recovery time is to be. We won’t be talking about days but weeks. We need to all be clear on that.”
Taking Saturday’s news conference in Kompany’s absence, Danks said he had spoken with the former centre back briefly on Friday but only to wish him well.
“I explained to him that we wouldn’t be having no football conversations. It was just checking in on his health and making sure he’s OK.
“All the football operations are in our hands, and we’ll work together as a team to keep the club moving forward.”
Bayern’s second team’s game was postponed on Friday after Kompany’s collapse, but Eberl said the club did not consider trying to postpone Sunday’s Bundesliga game.
“I think the greatest joy for Vinnie would be for us to play well tomorrow and, ideally, get a positive result,” Eberl said.
“That would probably be one of the best things we could do to help him recover.”
Danks confirmed Germany captain Joshua Kimmich, who has been on bereavement leave since Tuesday, would also miss Sunday’s game.
Kompany returned to the dugout for Wednesday’s home clash against Arsenal despite missing the pre-match news conference due to the virus.
Speaking after the Arsenal game, Kompany said his body reacted after he tried to push through the illness.
“I caught a pretty nasty virus last week, and of course, I didn’t listen to my body, and then at some point, my body just said, ‘Enough is enough!’”
The defending champions sit on top of the Bundesliga table before Sunday’s game, one point above Freiburg.
Their next Champions League match is on November 3 in Madrid against Atletico.
Taiz, Yemen – It was approaching 10:30am in the dialysis centre of the Republican Hospital in Taiz when a machine began filtering excess fluids, toxins and salts from the blood of Omar Mukhtar Hammoud.
The 16-year-old suffers from kidney failure and is one of 270 patients who regularly receive dialysis at the centre in the government-held city in southwest Yemen. But with essential medical supplies and fuel running critically low under the renewed Houthi siege, doctors fear they may soon be unable to provide the treatment that keeps their patients alive.
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Dr Essam Mahyoub Dahan, the centre’s director, warned that a complete shutdown could happen within days.
“Because of the siege and the shortage of diesel and medical solutions, we have recently been forced to reduce dialysis sessions from four hours to just two and a half,” Dahan told Al Jazeera. “We know this is not adequate, but we have no choice if we are to keep the centre operating for as long as possible before it shuts down completely.”
Dahan said the centre’s remaining stocks of specialised dialysis solutions were also close to running out.
The supplies, which are expensive, are normally provided by the Yemeni Ministry of Health every three months. But the latest delivery which was due earlier this month failed to arrive because of the Houthi siege on Taiz city. It began in the first week of October after Houthi advances in the Taiz countryside.
The city was previously under complete Houthi siege between 2015 and 2016, in the early years of Yemen’s ongoing war.
Across Taiz governorate, where battles are raging between the Saudi-backed Yemeni government forces and Iranian-allied Houthi fighters, the number of patients at risk is far greater.
In an October 12 statement, the governorate’s health office warned that the continued siege and obstruction of essential supplies could endanger the lives of 1,110 patients with kidney failure. They depend on dialysis services in the governorate’s hospitals, which collectively provide about 210 dialysis sessions a day.
International humanitarian and health organisations have issued similar warnings about the impact of the siege on the already fragile healthcare system in Taiz.
On Thursday, Amnesty International called on the Houthis to immediately reopen vital roads into and around the city, warning that the closure of the main road between Taiz and the southern port city of Aden threatened hundreds of thousands of civilians with losing access to food, water and healthcare.
Taiz’s hospitals depend heavily on diesel-powered generators because much of the city’s electricity infrastructure was destroyed during the war that began 11 years ago and has not been restored.
The renewed Houthi siege has severely disrupted the entry of fuel, including the diesel needed to run hospital generators and lifesaving medical equipment.
Dr Shaheed al-Ameri, deputy director-general for technical affairs at the Republican Hospital, said the shortages have had a devastating impact on medical services.
“A very large part of this suffering is because of the shortage of diesel,” he told Al Jazeera. “We have no reserve diesel supplies. Our stocks ran out early in the siege and we are now buying it on the black market almost every day, at prices that have reached five times what they were before the siege.”
Al-Ameri warned that the longer the siege continues, the more prices will rise and the further medical services will deteriorate.
The hospital has already suspended operations in some departments, including essential units, he said.
“If this situation continues much longer, we fear we will reach a complete and comprehensive collapse of healthcare services,” he said.
The shortages are not confined to the Republican Hospital. On October 22, the World Health Organization (WHO) warned that critical shortages of fuel, oxygen, medicines and medical supplies were threatening lifesaving healthcare throughout Taiz governorate, with some hospital services already disrupted.
According to the WHO, 42 health facilities in Taiz city had reported severe shortages of essential supplies. Hospitals and ambulances require at least 156,000 litres of fuel a month to continue functioning.
The organisation also warned that diesel shortages threaten to disrupt oxygen production, water pumping, vaccine refrigeration and sanitation services, increasing the risks of disease outbreaks, particularly among displaced families and other vulnerable groups.
The United Nations has separately warned that the restrictions on supplies are bringing Taiz’s health system close to collapse and urged the Houthis to allow humanitarian assistance and essential goods to enter without obstruction.
In its October 12 statement, Taiz’s health office warned that continued restrictions on fuel deliveries could lead to the shutdown of medical oxygen production plants, further endangering patients.
Taysir al-Samei, the health office’s media officer, said that would dramatically worsen the crisis.
“Many medical departments depend on oxygen, particularly operating theatres, inpatient wards, intensive care units and incubators for premature babies,” al-Samei said.
“Most hospitals have already suspended services in some units because of the shortage of diesel and the lack of necessary medical solutions, as well as shortages of medical staff who are struggling to get to work because of the lack of transport,” he added.
He warned that if conditions continued to deteriorate at the same pace, some hospitals could stop providing services in the coming days.
At the Republican Hospital, al-Ameri said that shortages were also affecting diagnostics and treatment. The availability of laboratory reagents had fallen to just 10 to 15 percent of previous levels, he said, while approximately half of the medicines normally available were now out of stock.
Prices for the remaining medicines had doubled, he said, placing them further out of reach for patients already struggling with Yemen’s worsening economic crisis.
The continued fighting and shelling around Taiz have increased the number of wounded people requiring emergency care – placing additional pressure on facilities already struggling with shortages of surgical supplies, anaesthetics and intravenous fluids.
Abdul Badi Abdulwuhab, 53, is another dialysis patient in the Republican Hospital, struggling to cope with the shorter dialysis sessions.
His voice was filled with desperation.
“Because of these measures, I suffer from weakness and I cannot bear the pain,” Abdul Badi told Al Jazeera. “Two and a half hours is not enough to remove all the fluids and toxins from my body.”
Dr Dahan said that the patient’s condition had deteriorated since his sessions were shortened.
“These measures are not effective for many patients,” Dahan said. “The only solution is to end the siege and return things to the way they were.”
