Health

A COUNTY Championship match between Somerset and Hampshire was postponed due to a bizarre weather ruling on Monday.

Several games in the competition had been rained off elsewhere in the country, but it was the wind which was eventually deemed unplayable in sunny Taunton.

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Rain had passed through the ground overnight and into the morning and prompted a lunch-time pitch inspection of the field, but soon the rain had blown over to sunny skies.

However, it was reportedly another weather phenomena that put the final nail in the coffin of the day’s cricket action, before a single ball was bowled.

High winds in the area had reportedly made removing the covers a hazardous prospect for groundstaff at County Ground.

There is a precedent for such injuries, with groundsman Matt Page of the Western Australian Cricket Association being struck and concussed by one of his own coverings during an Ashes test in Perth in 2017.

The Times reports that umpires Ben Debenham and David Millns made an inspection of the scene as fans waited for play to finally begin.

But they were waiting in vain, with the game later being abandoned, in line with England and Wales Cricket Board health and safety guidelines.

Those in attendance were initially left in the dark as to the reason for the delay, with the eventual decision being announced after tea

The cricket world was evidently unimpressed by the situation, with several fans of the sport slamming the ECB in reply to The Times’ report.

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One fan said: “And they wonder why the County game is not in rude health? This was simply ridiculous.”

Another fan was just as harsh, saying: “This is a complete disgrace. Why is the ECB not in hot water over this ridiculous rule?

Some fans found the funny side of the ridiculous situation, with a third fan adding: “I’m surprised they allow the ball to land in the crowd…”

And a fourth fan sarcastically chimed in: “How are they allowed to play with that very hard ball?”

Like most of Monday’s postponed matches, the contest eventually got underway on Tuesday, with Somerset choosing to start off with bat in hand.

Middlesex and Lancashire however were subject to a further rain delay as they met at Old Trafford Cricket Ground.

Emmerdale airs more drama next week, with Gabby Thomas’ secret finally revealed and Caleb Miligan is hiding something of his own – while there’s health fears for Liam Cavanagh

There’s more big moments ahead on Emmerdale next week in the fallout to the John Sugden drama.

There’s a new mystery for Caleb Miligan that leaves his wife Ruby concerned and wanting answers. The fallout to Gabby Thomas and Vinny Dingle’s wedding is also revealed, as we finally find out Gabby’s secret.

Villain Ray is causing more drama for teens April Windsor and Dylan Wilson, while he’s also involved with Laurel Thomas in a new twist. Liam Cavanagh faces a health scare, and his partner Chas Dingle is concerned when she learns the truth.

Charity Dingle is also struggling with her own drama, as her and Ross Barton spark suspicion. Let’s kick things off with the very vague Caleb mystery.

Caleb is asked a favour, leading to him running a secret errand. Nothing is revealed about who this is linked to or what he does, but the next day Caleb is rumbled when he tries to sneak out.

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Ruby catches her husband and questions where he’s off to, but what will he say and what exactly is he up to? Ruby isn’t the only one confused, with Caleb’s colleague Jai Sharma left in disbelief over his boss’ casual approach to running the Depot.

Jai ends up taking some action, but what will happen here? Elsewhere, Gabby confesses her big secret next week seemingly to her stepmother Laurel.

In a twist, amid Vinny’s own secrets, Gabby is forced to admit that she cheated on Vinny before their wedding. But who did she cheat with, and will Vinny find out?

If Gabby has it her way, she’ll take her secret to the grave – and Laurel is shocked by her refusal to confess. Gabby is hopeful Vinny will officially adopt her son Thomas, but she has no idea Vinny is hiding something of his own.

Viewers know about Vinny being attacked and threatened by thug Mike who stole from him, after he pretended to be in a similar situation to him. Mike preyed on Vinny after speaking online about the latter’s confusion over his sexuality.

Vinny is in turmoil next week as he faces testifying against Mike in court. He knows that if he does this, Gabby may uncover what he’s been hiding from her – so will he reveal all?

Teens April and Dylan get trapped in Ray’s world, as they are both lured into helping him out with his criminal ways. Despite Dylan trying to stay on the right path with a new job and help from Paddy Kirk, Ray has him firmly in his clutches.

April’s also trapped when she realises how much her and Dylan’s debts are, and Ray offers a way for her to help reduce the amount. Soon, April is handed a burner phone and is back dealing for Ray.

But towards the end of the week, Dylan is tricked into thinking that having Ray in his life is a good thing. Just as the pair believe things are looking up for them, April and Dylan seem unaware of just how much everything depends on Ray and what he’s got up his sleeve.

There could be a new romance twist too, as a spoiler reveals that none other than Laurel is “taken” with “charming” Ray. So will the pair get together, and will she unearth his criminal ways?

Also next week, Liam Cavanagh is still avoiding an appointment about his prostate after some health concerns. When an incident at the surgery sees Manpreet Sharma find out what’s going on though, Liam realises he can’t hide from this any longer.

He comes clean to his partner Chas who is devastated to hear that he fears a prostate cancer diagnosis. Finally next week, Charity Dingle’s guilt continues to impact her as she fears she is carrying Ross’ baby.

Charity heads off for a DNA test, but her and Ross’ behaviour leaves Chas suspicious. Charity and Ross face up to a 10-day wait for the DNA test results, but what will they reveal?

Emmerdale airs weeknights at 7:30pm on ITV1 and ITVX, with an hour-long episode on Thursdays. * Follow Mirror Celebs and TV on TikTok , Snapchat , Instagram , Twitter , Facebook , YouTube and Threads .

Channel 4 hit show Gogglebox has been a staple on our screens since 2013 and sees much-loved faces speaking about the week’s biggest TV moments

The Gogglebox cast have become well-known faces ever since the show first kicked off back in 2013. Viewers get ready each week to watch the reactions of their favourite sofa-sitters as they give their opinions on the week’s biggest TV moments.

Some of those that grace our screens each week have been there ever since the show began more than a decade ago. However it hasn’t been smooth sailing for all of the families.

They have been open about ups and downs in their lives over this time and this has included health struggles. Here’s a look at the iconic TV critics’ health worries over the years.

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Tremaine’s cancer diagnosis

Tremaine Plummer who joined Gogglebox in 2016 alongside his brothers celebrated five years cancer-free after suffering from bowel cancer in 2020.

He shared a photo of himself where he was in a hospital bed during his treatment as well as sharing a caption where he admitted he used to hate the picture.

He said: “When I first saw this photo it made me feel sick and weak. I hated this photo for a long time. But now this photo is my medal. This was me 5 years ago. Post surgery for bowel cancer.”

“One of the worst things that could have happened to me has turned into one of the best. Not everything bad that happens to you is the end. Out of some bad s*** comes good s***. The entire experience has been an eye opener and I view life totally different now. Stay strong,” Tremaine added.

Sue’s Bell’s Palsy

Sue Sheehan opened up in 2024 about how she had been diagnosed with Bell’s Palsy. Bell’s Palsy is a condition that causes temporary facial paralysis or weakness and usually affects one side of the face due to inflammation of the facial nerve.

This means that Sue struggled with being able to speak during this time. She joined the programme in 2019 with her husband Steve.

Sue explained: “I mean, I’ve had to relearn to do a couple of things since this Bell’s palsy. One is to speak through the side of my mouth, and the other one is chewing. Chewing takes a long time.”

Pete’s sudden cancer death

Pete McGarry died from bowel cancer in 2021. He was one of the original stars as he joined Gogglebox in 2013 with wife Linda.

At the time, Linda said Pete was told he had six months to live but died just a few days later. Linda told The Sun: “Pete was a lovely man and I was so lucky to have him for 25 years. I said to him, ‘We’ve not only been 25 years, it’s been day and night with each other.’ He was my life.”

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Mary’s near-death experience

Mary Killen and Giles Wood have been on Gogglebox since 2015 and are fan favourites. However, Mary has a near death experience before her TV fame.

Speaking to The Guardian, Mary explained: “The closest I’ve come to death was contracting Legionnaires’ disease in 1999.”

She added: “I caught it from air conditioning in the Bahamas and developed something called Beau’s lines: white ridges across the fingernails which are a sign that your body’s shutting down for death.” She then said she’s never been quite the same since.

Jenny’s painful condition

Jenny Newby and Lee Riley are arguably some of the favourites in Gogglebox history after first appearing in 2014. But it was in 2018 that Jenny spoke about struggling with arthritis.

Before an advert came on by charity Versus Arthritis, Jenny said: “I’ve got arthritis.” She explained: “I get more stressed now because I can’t fasten my coat. I can’t open a tin of beans and I’ve got to ask somebody. And that I think is the worst, when I have got to ask somebody because I feel like I am stupid.”

Jenny shared a press release afterwards when she said: “I’ve suffered with arthritis for a while now. I think something people don’t realise is the impact the condition has on simple everyday life. I really do think we should change that by being able to talk about it openly. It’s really important to me.”

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BOXING champion Ricky Hatton fought bravely not just in the ring but also with his own mental health struggles.

The legendary boxer, 46, previously spoke out about his battles outside the sport after retiring in 2012.

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Ricky was found dead at his home this morning, just months after he announced his return to the ring.

Boxer Ricky, who won 45 of his 48 pro fights during a glittering career, previously spoke about his struggles with depression and how he had fought back from the brink with his mental health and alcohol addiction.

Talking about his struggles, the multi-weight world champ told Radio 4 earlier this year: “I used to go to the pub, come back and sit there in the dark crying hysterically.”

He had also been open about the need for boxers to get more help after hanging up their gloves.

In the past, Ricky had also talked about how his life took a dark turn after losing to Floyd Mayweather Jr. in a 2007 fight in Las Vegas.

He explained how he overcame problems with drink, drugs and depression, and why mental health issues are so prevalent in boxing.

Ricky told BBC Sport: “If a boxer can come out and say they’re struggling and crying every day, it’s going to make a huge difference.

“Having gone through it, I now see it as my job to help those suffering with mental health.”

The boxing legend ballooned up in weight after his retirement as he struggled with alcohol abuse and depression, but got himself back on the straight and narrow three years ago for an exhibition bout with Mexican great Marco Antonio Barrera.

Ricky, nicknamed “the Hitman”, was incredibly popular among boxing fans and enjoyed fame both during his career and after announcing his 2012 retirement.

And he never shied away from his mental health battles, bravely fighting his demons for years after quitting the sport.

Ricky even shared just months ago that he was planning his comeback to boxing, with a fight set for December 2.

Speaking to SunSport earlier this year, he shared how he had been inspired by Oasis’ comeback tour, as well as his weight loss, to bring himself back into the ring.

He said: “It inspired a lot of people, you know, for me to get in shape again at the age I’m at.

“Especially bearing in mind all my problems I’ve had personally with mental health and stuff like that.

“It was nice for so many people to come up to me and go, ‘Oh, I’ve always struggled with my weight and to see you get it off at your age.’

“I’ve always struggled with my mental health and I’ve had my problems.

“And to see where you were a few years ago to what you’re doing now, it’s inspirational.”

Ricky had first retired from the sport in 2011 before announcing a comeback fight in 2012.

However, his ill-fated bout against Vyacheslav Senchenko led to his immediate retirement in November that year.

But inspired by the Gallagher brothers, who also walked him to the ring for his 2008 win over Pauli Malignaggi, Ricky was looking forward to a return to the spotlight, 13 years after his last professional bout.

WASHINGTON — There’s bipartisan support in Congress for extending tax credits that have made health insurance more affordable for millions of people since the COVID-19 pandemic. But the credits are in danger of expiring as Republicans and Democrats clash over how to do it.

Democrats are threatening to vote to shut down the government at the end of the month if Republicans don’t extend the subsidies, which were put in place in 2021 and extended a year later when Democrats controlled Congress and the White House. The tax credits, which are due to expire at the end of the year, go to low- and middle-income people who purchase health insurance through the Affordable Care Act.

Some Republicans who have opposed the healthcare law, known as Obamacare, since it was enacted in 2010 are suddenly open to keeping the tax credits. They acknowledge that many of their constituents could see steep hikes in coverage if the subsidies are allowed to lapse.

But the two sides are far apart. Republicans are divided, with many firmly opposed. GOP leaders in the House and Senate have been open but noncommittal on the extension, and many of those Republicans who say they support it argue that the tax credits should be reworked — potentially opening up a new healthcare debate that could take months to resolve.

Democrats would be unlikely to agree to any changes in the subsidies, increasing the chances of a standoff and mounting uncertainty for health insurers, hospitals, state governments and the people who receive them.

“In just a few weeks, unless Congress acts, millions of Americans will start getting letters in the mail telling them their health insurance costs are about to go through the roof — hundreds of dollars, thousands in some cases,” Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said last week.

Surging enrollment

Enrollment in Affordable Care Act plans has surged to a record 24 million people in large part due to the billions of dollars in subsidies that have lowered costs for many people. The expanded subsidies allowed some lower-income enrollees to access health plans with no premiums and capped the amount higher earners pay for premiums to 8.5% of their income. It also expanded eligibility for middle-class earners.

With expiration just a few months away, some of those people have already gotten notices that their monthly premiums are poised to surge next year. Insurers have sent out notices in nearly every state, with some proposing premium increases of as much as 50%.

Lawmakers are facing pressure to act from some of the country’s biggest industries, including the insurers that cover people on the marketplace and hospital executives who say they’re already going to be squeezed by the Medicaid cuts in President Trump’s massive spending and tax bill enacted this summer.

“There’s broad awareness that there’s a real spike in premiums coming right around the corner, both Republicans and Democrats,” said David Merritt, senior vice president of external affairs at Blue Cross Blue Shield. “It’s certainly lining up for Congress to have an opportunity to head off this problem.”

Companies have said they’ll need to raise premiums without the subsidies because healthier and younger people are more likely to opt out of coverage when it gets more expensive, leaving insurers to cover older and sicker patients.

In Iowa last month, the state’s insurance commissioner weighed increases ranging from 3% to 37% against a stream of angry public comments. One woman who runs a garden center in Cedar Falls said she was considering dropping her health insurance.

“I am already living as frugally as I possibly can while working as hard as I possibly can, putting in as many hours as I am allowed to at my job, never missing a day of work,” the woman, LuAnn, wrote in a public comment published to the commissioner’s website.

Feud over Obamacare

On Capitol Hill, the issue has become entangled in a larger fight over government funding as the threat of a shutdown looms at the end of the month. Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) have said Democrats will not vote to keep the government open unless an extension of the healthcare tax credits is part of the deal. Republicans have said that they want more time to look at the subsidies and potentially scale them back. They will also have to wait for a signal from Trump, who has not yet weighed in.

Jeffries said last week that “we will not support a partisan Republican spending bill that continues to rip away healthcare from the American people.”

Republican leaders are eyeing a potential stopgap bill that would keep the government open for a few weeks, but they are unlikely, for now, to include the extension. GOP leaders in both the House and Senate are also under pressure from some members who worry that premium increases will be a political liability before next year’s midterm elections.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) has said he wants to see a proposal from Democrats on how to extend the subsidies since they are pushing the issue. “Maybe there is something we can do in the middle as a solution,” he said in a Punchbowl News interview Thursday, adding that his members are divided on the issue.

Still, Thune has ruled out quick action, even as he noted that premium notices will go out soon. He has said a short-term spending measure to fund the government for several weeks while Congress finishes its budget bills is not likely to include an extension of the benefits,

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has said that many of his members would oppose an extension, but he has not ruled it out.

In recent days, 15 House Republicans in competitive political districts introduced legislation to extend the tax credits for one year. “While the enhanced premium tax credit created during the pandemic was meant to be temporary, we should not let it expire without a plan in place,” said Rep. Jen Kiggans (R-Va.), who led the effort with Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-N.Y.).

Middle-class and small-business owners, including many in Kiggans’ coastal Virginia district, will be especially vulnerable to big health insurance hikes if the subsidies are not extended.

Several Senate Republicans also said they’d favor an extension. Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri said that if Congress doesn’t act, some premiums will “skyrocket, and not by a little bit. We’re looking at massive increases. People will not be able to afford it.”

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said he thinks Congress should scale back the subsidies for the highest-income people who receive them. “I think we all know that access to healthcare is important and we take it very seriously,” he said.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), whose panel has jurisdiction over the tax credits, said he’s working with his colleagues to find a solution. “There are a lot of ideas being thrown out there,” he said. “I’m trying to find a solution; I’m not telling you what the solution is.”

Others were firmly against it. “It’s costing us billions of dollars,” Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) said.

Open enrollment begins Nov. 1, and people will begin to see “real sticker shock” as Affordable Care Act plan prices are posted next month, Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) said.

“Timing is important,” she said.

Jalonick and Seitz write for the Associated Press. AP writers Lisa Mascaro in Washington and Hannah Fingerhut in Des Moines contributed to this report.

Khas Kunar, Afghanistan – Stoori was pulled out from under the rubble of his house in Kunar province after it was destroyed by the magnitude 6 earthquake which struck on the night of August 31. But the guilt of not being able to save his wife haunts him.

“I barely had enough time to pull out the body of my dead wife and place her on the rubble of our collapsed home before my children and I were evacuated,” the grief-stricken 40-year-old farmer says.

Authorities say about 2,200 people have been killed and more than 5,000 homes destroyed in eastern Afghanistan, most of them in Kunar province, where houses mostly built from wood and mud bricks crumbled in the shocks of the quake.

Stoori, who only gave one name, is now staying with his children in a sprawling evacuation camp 60km (37 miles) from his village – in Khas Kunar.

“My village has become a graveyard. All 40 families lost their homes. The earthquake killed 12 people in my community and left 22 others badly injured,” he says.

Winter is coming

In all, the UN says half a million people have been affected by the quake.

In this camp, which is lined with tents provided by international NGOs, nearly 5,000 people are sheltering, each with stories of loss and pain.

Thankfully, the camp has access to water and sanitation, and there are two small clinics ready to receive injured newcomers, as well as an ambulance which can be dispatched to collect people.

Right now, workers are digging a trench to install another water pipe, which will divert water to areas in need around the camp.

Just a few hundred metres away, what were once United States military warehouses have been transformed into government offices coordinating the emergency response.

The Taliban, which returned to power after US-led forces withdrew in 2021 after 20 years of occupation, has been overwhelmed by the scale of the disaster.

Tens of thousands of people are without any shelter at all just weeks before the onset of winter, and the mountainous terrain makes relief and rescue efforts difficult.

Najibullah Haqqani, Kunar’s provincial director for the Ministry of Information and Culture, says the authorities are working through a three-step emergency plan: Evacuate those at risk, provide shelter, food, and medical care in camps, and, eventually, rebuild homes or find permanent housing.

But the situation is becoming more challenging by the day. “Fortunately, we have received support from the government, local businesses, volunteers and international NGOs. They all came and helped with food and money for the displaced people,” he tells Al Jazeera.

‘The smell of dead animals fills the air’

More than 10 days after the tremor, new arrivals join the camp daily, inside the fortified walls of the former US base on the banks of the Kabul River.

Among them is Nurghal, a 52-year-old farmer from Shalatak village who was able to reunite with the surviving members of his family only on Wednesday morning. “From my large extended family, 52 people were killed and almost 70 were left badly injured,” he says. The devastation is “unimaginable”, he adds.

“The weather is cold in our area, and we don’t sleep outside this time of the year. That is why many people were trapped in their houses when the earthquake hit, and they were killed. Everything is destroyed back home, and all our animals are buried in debris. The smell of dead animals fills the air in my village.”

Life before the quake, he says, was stable. “Before the earthquake, we had everything we wanted: A home, livestock, our crops, and land. Now life is in the hospital and tents.”

Women face particular challenges in the aftermath of this disaster, as Taliban laws prevent them from travelling without male guardians – meaning it is hard for them to either get medical assistance or, in the case of female medical workers, to provide it.

The World Health Organization (WHO) asked Taliban authorities last week to lift travel restrictions for Afghan female aid workers, at least, to allow them to travel to help women in difficulties following the earthquake.

“A very big issue now is the increasing paucity of female staff in these places,” Dr Mukta Sharma, the deputy representative of WHO’s Afghanistan office, told the Reuters news agency.

Furthermore, since women have been banned from higher education by the Taliban, the number of qualified female medical staff is dwindling.

Despite these difficulties, the Taliban leadership says it is committed to ensuring that women will be properly treated, by male health workers if necessary.

Haqqani, Kunar’s provincial director for the Ministry of Information and Culture, tells Al Jazeera: “During the emergency situation, the military and volunteers evacuated and cared for everyone. On the second day, UNICEF set up a medical clinic in Nurghal district and they had female doctors as well. We took as many injured people as the clinic could handle there and they were treating everyone, male and female. In any emergency situation, there is no gender-based discrimination; any doctor available will treat any patients coming in. The priority is life saving.”

At a field hospital which has been set up inside the old US barracks by the displacement camp at Khas Kunar, six male doctors and one female doctor, 16 male nurses and 12 female nurses are tending to the injured. Currently, there are 34 patients here, 24 of whom are women and children – most of them were taken to Gamberi from their remote villages by Taliban military helicopters and then transferred the last 50km (30 miles) to the hospital by car.

The hospital’s director, Dr Shahid, who only gave one name, says male doctors and nurses are permitted to treat women and have been doing so without any issue.

‘A curse from the sky’

From his bed in the field hospital, Azim, a farmer in his mid-40s from Sohail Tangy village, 60km (37 miles) away, is recovering from fractures to his spine and right shoulder.

He fears returning to the devastation at home.

“The earthquake was like a curse from the sky. I don’t want to move back to that hell,” he tells Al Jazeera. “The government should give us land to rebuild our lives. My village has become the centre of destruction. My only request is to give us land somewhere else.”

Azim is still coming to terms with the loss of his loved ones. “Yesterday, my son told me that three of my brothers are dead. Some of my family members are in the Kabul and Jalalabad hospitals. And my wife is in Kabul military hospital,” he says.

Back in the evacuation camp, Stoori says he is holding onto hope, but only just.

“If God blesses us, maybe we can go back to our village before the winter comes,” he says.

“We have nothing left except our trust in God, and we ask the international community and authorities for help.”

A medical expert has revealed there’s one thing you should never consume before boarding a plane. Pharmacist Seema Khatri explained holidaymakers can risk consequences by doing so

When it comes to travelling abroad, people have all sorts of different rituals; however, experts say there are some things you shouldn’t consume when on a plane. According to an expert, there are “hidden dangers” associated with one common practice, as it could lead to serious health concerns.

If you ever think of taking a sleeping pill before a flight, you may want to think again, as pharmacists are warning travellers that it could be one of the worst things you can do at 35,000 feet. Anyone planning to travel soon has been urged against it, as it poses various threats you may be unaware of.

There are various ways you can try and fall asleep on a plane, but avoiding pills to aid the process is always best. Instead, you may want to try this simple hack that claims to help people fall asleep within minutes.

“People imagine that taking a sleeping pill means they’ll wake up refreshed at their destination,” says pharmacist Seema Khatri at Roseway Labs, which has hundreds of followers on Instagram. “But drug-induced sleep is not the same as natural, restorative sleep, and on a plane it can actually leave you groggier and more jet-lagged.”

One of the biggest risks is circulation, as the expert explained: “When you’re sedated you move far less, and that immobility can increase the risk of deep vein thrombosis. Cabins are already dehydrating environments, and sedatives can thicken the blood further, so the two combined aren’t a good mix.”

Cabin pressure also amplifies the effects of sleeping tablets. At altitude, oxygen levels are lower. Sedatives can intensify drowsiness, confusion or even breathing problems because of that, according to Seema.

“So what might feel like a mild dose on the ground can hit much harder once you’re in the air,” she added. While many passengers reach for sleeping pills to try and “beat jet lag”, the opposite is often true.

Seema explained: “If you take at the wrong time, your body clock becomes even more confused. Instead of easing into the new time zone, you land disoriented and wired.

“Older travellers, people with breathing conditions like asthma or sleep apnoea, and anyone with circulation problems should steer well clear of sedatives on planes. Even a small dose can hit them harder at altitude and, in some cases, it can become dangerous rather than just uncomfortable.”

How can I rest when flying?

Instead of pharmaceuticals, supplements that aid sleep may be a better alternative for travellers. There are all sorts of methods that can be sampled after seeking medical guidance.

“We also recommend magnesium glycinate to calm the nervous system, or herbal teas such as chamomile or lemon balm if you just want to relax,” noted Seema. “It’s also important to stay well hydrated, as dehydration can make it harder to rest and can worsen jet lag.”

Simple travel hacks – like wearing an eye mask, noise-cancelling headphones and cutting out caffeine before departure – can also make a big difference. “These options won’t put you into an unnatural sleep cycle, so you arrive fresher and safer,” she added.

Sleeping pills might seem like an easy fix for long-haul travel, but experts stress they could leave you groggy, dehydrated and at higher health risk. Seema explained: “A sleeping pill before take-off may knock you out, but it won’t give your body the restorative rest it really needs.”

There’s no need to struggle with sleep but, if you do, ensure you contact a medical professional for help. Your GP will be able to assist with any sleep concerns you may have.

There are plenty of Gogglebox stars who have lived heartbreaking health battles

Numerous Gogglebox personalities have confronted devastating health challenges over the years.

Since the cherished long-running Channel 4 programme launched over 10 years ago in 2013, it has brought us countless memorable households across the nation.

From Giles Wood and Mary Killen in Wiltshire and the Siddiqui clan in Derby to best pals Jenny Newby and Lee Riley in Hull, the participants consistently delight audiences with their brilliant quips and amusing reactions to the week’s television gems.

Nevertheless, various of the show’s personalities are battling serious health conditions and have candidly shared their ordeals throughout the years. reports the Manchester Evening News.

Sue’s Bell’s Palsy revelation

Last year, Sue Sheehan disclosed that she was battling Bell’s Palsy, which has impacted her ability to communicate. The South London resident – who appeared on the programme in 2019 alongside husband Steve – discussed the condition during a Gogglebox episode.

“I mean, I’ve had to relearn to do a couple of things since this Bell’s palsy,” she explained. Sue continued: “One is to speak through the side of my mouth, and the other one is chewing. Chewing takes a long time.”

Steve responded: “I have offered to chew your food for you, but you declined.” Sue then shot back: “I’m not having that.” Steve added: “I’ve got to say, you haven’t lost the sharp side of your tongue though, have you?” She quipped: “No, it’s sharper than ever actually.”

Tremaine’s cancer fight In 2020

Tremaine Plummer – who became part of Gogglebox in 2016 alongside his brothers – marked five years of being cancer-free following his battle with bowel cancer.

Sharing a hospital bed photograph on Instagram, he penned: “When I first saw this photo it made me feel sick and weak. I hated this photo for a long time. But now this photo is my medal. This was me 5 years ago. Post surgery for bowel cancer.

“One of the worst things that could have happened to me has turned into one of the best. Not everything bad that happens to you is the end. Out of some bad s*** comes good s***. The entire experience has been an eye opener and I view life totally different now. Stay strong.”

Jenny’s ‘awful’ condition

Gogglebox star Jenny Newby became part of the programme in 2014 alongside best pal Lee Riley. Yet in 2018, Jenny disclosed she has been struggling with arthritis.

Prior to viewing an advertisement created by charity Versus Arthritis, Jenny disclosed her condition, stating: “I’ve got arthritis.”

She went on: “I get more stressed now because I can’t fasten my coat. I can’t open a tin of beans and I’ve got to ask somebody. And that I think is the worst, when I have got to ask somebody because I feel like I am stupid.”

In a statement following the advert, Jenny confessed: “I’ve suffered with arthritis for a while now. I think something people don’t realise is the impact the condition has on simple everyday life. I really do think we should change that by being able to talk about it openly. It’s really important to me.”

Pete’s tragic passing

In 2021, Gogglebox star Pete McGarry tragically passed away from bowel cancer at the age of 71. He joined the show alongside his wife Linda in 2013.

Speaking about his death at the time, Linda revealed that Pete was told he had six months to live, but sadly died just days later, as reported by The Sun.

Linda told the publication: “Pete was a lovely man and I was so lucky to have him for 25 years. I said to him, ‘We’ve not only been 25 years, it’s been day and night with each other.’ He was my life.”

Mary’s brush with death

Giles Wood and Mary Killen have been regulars on Gogglebox since 2015. However, years ago, Mary had a near-death experience.

In a chat with The Guardian, Mary disclosed: “The closest I’ve come to death was contracting Legionnaires’ disease in 1999.”

She went into detail about the terrifying experience, saying: “I caught it from air conditioning in the Bahamas and developed something called Beau’s lines: white ridges across the fingernails which are a sign that your body’s shutting down for death.”

Having survived the ordeal, she admitted: “It knocked the stuffing out of me. I’ve never been quite the same since.”

Gogglebox airs every Friday at 9pm on Channel 4.

To Andrew Friedman, something like this was a virtual impossibility.

“If you had said that we would have a six-week stretch where our offense would rank 30th in baseball, I would have said there was a zero percent chance,” the Dodgers president of baseball operations said last month.

“I would have been wrong,” he quickly added.

Over a five-week stretch from July 4 to Aug. 4, the Dodgers inexplicably ranked 30th (out of 30 clubs) in scoring. And though they’ve been slightly better in the five weeks since, questions about their supposed juggernaut lineup still abound.

In the first half of the season, the Dodgers boasted the best offense in the majors, leading the majors in scoring (5.61 runs per game), batting average (.262), OPS (.796) and hitting with runners in scoring position (.300) and went 56-32 over their first 88 games.

Since then, however, everything has flipped.

It started with a July slump that was as stunning as it was unforeseen, with the Dodgers averaging just 3.36 runs in a 25-game stretch commencing with Independence Day. Since then, there have been only marginal improvements, with the Dodgers entering Friday ranked 24th in scoring (4.21 runs per game), 25th in batting average (.237), 18th in OPS (.718) and 22nd in hitting with runners in scoring position (.245) over their last 58 games — a stretch in which they’ve gone 26-32.

“Not scoring runs,” first baseman Freddie Freeman said last week, “it’s just not who we are.”

On the surface, the root causes seemed rather obvious. Much of their lineup was either on the injured list or scuffling in the wake of previous, nagging injuries. Healthy superstars were grinding through flaws with their swings. What little depth they had failed to compensate.

To that end, the team is hopeful it has turned the page.

Shohei Ohtani, after a midseason lull, is back to his MVP-caliber norms. Mookie Betts is back to looking like himself at the end of an otherwise career-worst season. Max Muncy and Tommy Edman have returned from injuries, providing the batting order with much-needed length. Significant playing time is no longer going to the likes of Buddy Kennedy, Alex Freeland, Estuery Ruiz or any of the other anonymous faces that populated the clubhouse during the campaign’s darkest days.

“Our lineup, our team, looks more whole,” manager Dave Roberts said this week. “I think that we’ve all been waiting for our guys to come back to health, and see what we look like as the ballclub that we had all envisioned.”

Still, when asked whether the Dodgers’ second-half slump could just be pinned on personnel issues, Roberts and his players said it wasn’t that simple.

The Dodgers might not have been whole. But they weren’t doing fundamental things — like stressing opposing pitchers, driving up pitch counts, or executing in leverage situations — either.

“We’d lost sight of playing the game the way we’re capable of playing,” Roberts acknowledged.

“For a little while,” Betts added, “we were having just some bad at-bats.”

This is the dynamic the Dodgers have honed in on fixing, hoping to turn their summer-long frustrations into a valuable learning experience as October nears.

In recent days, a renewed and deliberate emphasis has been placed on the importance of competitiveness at the plate. Daily hitters’ meetings have included film sessions reviewing situational at-bats from the previous night. In-game dugout conversations have centered on a more basic message.

“It’s more about your approach, your plan,” Freeman said. “That’s been the focus.”

This week, the team took what it hopes are important first steps, ambushing the Rockies with seven- and nine-run performances in which they advanced baserunners, capitalized on scoring opportunities and built the kind of big innings that been missing over the two months beforehand.

“We said a few games ago, ‘This needs to be like how we focus for the playoffs,’” Freeman said. “Focus on the little things that help win games.”

The Dodgers, of course, have seen what a broken offense looks like before.

And they know what happens when it doesn’t get rectified before the playoffs.

Late in 2022, as co-hitting coach Aaron Bates recalled this week, the team slipped into bad habits while nursing a massive National League West lead: “It felt like that whole month of September was swing camp, or spring training,” he said, “in the sense of guys working on their swings individually too much, as opposed to playing the game in front of them.”

The results then were costly: A four-game NL Division Series elimination to the San Diego Padres in which the Dodgers repeatedly failed with runners in scoring position.

The next year was more of the same: The team losing its identity while coasting down the stretch, before being swept by the Arizona Diamondbacks in three listless games.

Last season, the Dodgers finally avoided such pitfalls. They batted .278 with runners in scoring position during their postseason run to the World Series. Their tying and go-ahead runs in the Fall Classic clincher came on a pair of productive at-bats in the form of sacrifice flies.

The Dodgers’ Shohei Ohtani has showed his MVP form in recent games, homering twice in last Sunday’s win against the Baltimore Orioles.

(Eric Thayer / For The Los Angeles Times)

But this summer, after a first-half outburst that met every lofty expectation of their $400 million roster, more troubling patterns began to resurface again.

Betts’ slow start devolved into a career-worst slump, bottoming out with a .205 average during July. Freeman began to fade right alongside him, with his .374 season average at the end of May plummeting to .292 less than two months later. Edman and Teoscar Hernández struggled after returning from first-half injuries. Michael Conforto never found his footing while Andy Pages endured an extended sophomore slide.

When coupled with Muncy’s prolonged absence — he missed 48 of 56 games because of a knee injury and oblique strain — the Dodgers suddenly had a lineup of players either grinding to rediscover their swing, or struggling to make up for the firepower they were missing.

And as easy scoring dried up, their inability to work consistent “team at-bats” quickly became magnified.

“It happened incrementally, every day, little by little,” Bates said. “Where it’s like, you’re a little off, you want to see what’s wrong with your swing, and you don’t realize that it snowballs. Before you know it, you’re thinking so much about your swing, you’re off of the situations out there.”

It was a problem, Bates insisted, borne of good intentions. Most of the roster was battling swing flaws. Too much daily energy was spent on players trying to individually get their mechanics right.

It led to mindless swings were wasted on bad pitches. It caused scoring opportunities to carelessly, and repeatedly, go frustatingly by the wayside.

“Guys just got so internal with their mechanics,” Bates said, “they weren’t able to shift their focus once the game starts to just competing in the box.”

Bates started sensing the trend while watching the team from afar, gaining a different perspective during a two-week medical absence in early August to address blood clots in his leg.

In the clubhouse, players began voicing similar observations after particularly puzzling offensive performances in recent weeks.

“I feel like a lot of swings that we took today weren’t really good swings to get on base,” veteran infielder Miguel Rojas said after the Dodgers managed only one hit in six innings against Padres left-hander Nestor Cortes on Aug. 23. “We know we’re more than capable of putting up better at-bats and more hits together to create some traffic.”

“We individually are trying to find ways on our own to make sure that we’re just hitting better than we are,” Ohtani echoed, through an interpreter, after the Dodgers’ one-run performance in a series-opener in Baltimore last weekend. “But I think the side effect of that is, we’re a little too eager, and putting too much pressure on ourselves.”

Thus, this week, the team endeavored to make changes.

In their daily pregame hitters’ meetings, the club has started holding what fellow co-hitting coach Robert Van Scoyoc described to SportsNet LA as “NFL-style” film sessions; in which players were asked to review situational at-bats from the night before, and analyze their ability to execute their plan of attack.

“The game rewards you for having those ‘team at-bats,’” Bates said. “So you just preach to them by holding each other accountable, talking about them after the fact, not shying away from it.”

Freeman added that, in the dugout, players have also made an effort to emphasize that message among themselves.

“Don’t get upset because your swing didn’t feel good,” he said. “Like, if you go 0-for-four but move a runner over four times, that’s a great game for us. It might not be for your stats. But you gotta throw that out the window. That’s what we’ve been trying to clean up.”

The hope is that this renewed focus will naturally help hitters sync-up their swings.

On Monday night, for example, Betts moved a runner to third base with a fly ball in the sixth inning, before coming back to the plate and roping a tie-breaking two-run single with two outs in the eighth.

“He said it in the hitter’s meeting [the next day],” Freeman relayed, “how that little positive thing of moving [a runner] over helped him build confidence going into his next at-bat.”

Little moments like that, the Dodgers hope, will help kick-start their offense as they come up on the playoffs. They might not have been able to envision the struggles of the last two months. But now, between better health and improving at-bat quality, they finally see a way to fix their ailing offense.

“Now, we’re at least having good at-bats, getting a walk, extending innings, finding ways to manufacture runs,” Betts said.

“I do think that presently, the guys are engaged,” Roberts added. “Guys are playing as one right now.”

Retired NBA player and former Harvard-Westlake star Jason Collins is undergoing treatment for a brain tumor, the NBA said Thursday in a statement released on behalf of Collins and his family.

“Jason and his family welcome your support and prayers and kindly ask for privacy as they dedicate their attention to Jason’s health and well-being,” the league said.

A 46-year-old native of Northridge, Jason Collins and twin brother, Jarron, led Harvard-Westlake to state Division III titles in 1996 and 1997, with the former being named the state Division III player of the year both seasons. His 1,500 career rebounds stood as a CIF state record until 2010, when Hemet West Valley’s Joe Burton finished his career with 1,721 rebounds.

Collins made first-team All-Pac-10 during his senior year at Stanford. He was selected 18th overall in the 2001 draft by the Houston Rockets and traded on draft night to the New Jersey Nets.

Averaging 3.6 points and 3.7 rebounds during his 13-year NBA career, Collins also played for the Memphis Grizzlies, Minnesota Timberwolves, Atlanta Hawks, Boston Celtics and Washington Wizards.

He was unsigned in April 2013 when he came out as gay in an open letter published in Sports Illustrated.

Signed by the Brooklyn Nets several months later, Collins became the first active NBA player to have come out as gay when the Nets played the Lakers on Feb. 23, 2014. He retired at the end of that season and has continued working with the league as an NBA Cares ambassador.

Collins and longtime partner Brunson Green were married in May.

WASHINGTON — Members of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s family are calling for him to step down as Health secretary following a contentious congressional hearing this past week, during which the Trump Cabinet official faced bipartisan questioning about his tumultuous leadership of federal health agencies.

Kennedy’s sister, Kerry Kennedy, and his nephew, Joseph P. Kennedy III, issued scathing statements Friday, calling for him to resign as head of the Health and Human Services Department.

The calls from the prominent Democratic family came a day after Kennedy defended his recent efforts to roll back COVID-19 vaccine recommendations and fire high-level officials at the Centers for Disease Control during a three-hour Senate hearing.

“Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is a threat to the health and wellbeing of every American,” Joseph P. Kennedy III said in a post on X. The former congressman added: “None of us will be spared the pain he is inflicting.” His aunt echoed those claims, saying that “medical decisions belong in the hands of trained and licensed professionals, not incompetent and misguided leadership.”

This is not the first time Kennedy has been the subject of his family’s ire. Several of his relatives had objected to his presidential run in the last campaign, while others wrote to senators earlier this year calling for them to reject his nomination to be President Trump’s Health secretary given his anti-vaccine views they considered disqualifying.

Kennedy, a longtime leader in the anti-vaccine movement, has spent the last seven months implementing his once-niche, grassroots movement at the highest level of America’s public health system. The sweeping changes to the agencies tasked with public health policy and scientific research have resulted in thousands of layoffs and the remaking of vaccine guidelines.

The moves — some of which contradict assurances he made during his confirmation hearings — have rattled medical groups and officials in several Democratic-led states, which have responded with their own vaccine advice.

Sept. 5 (UPI) — Massachusetts is the first state to force health insurance companies to cover vaccines recommended by the state’s department of public health.

The law will require that insurance companies not solely follow recommendations by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which has seen recent changes to its vaccine recommendations by Health and Human Services Department Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Last week, the Food and Drug Administration narrowed the list of people to whom it recommends the COVID-19 vaccine, drawing criticism from the Senate at Thursday’s hearing questioning Kennedy about that and other decisions.

“Massachusetts has the best health care in the world,” Gov. Maura Healey said in a statement Friday. “We won’t let Donald Trump and Robert Kennedy get between patients and their doctors. When the federal government fails to protect public health, Massachusetts will step up. The actions we are announcing today will make sure people can continue to get the vaccines they need and want in Massachusetts.”

On Wednesday, a group of states with Democrat governors — California, Oregon and Washington — announced plans to form a public health alliance to offer “evidence-based immunization guidance,” The Hill reported.

Healey said earlier this week that her state will join other Northeastern states to create a similar coalition to set vaccine policy.

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts and the Massachusetts Association of Health Plans have said they support the action by Healey.

“Today’s action ensures that everyone who should get a vaccine will get one, and their insurance will cover it,” Insurance Commissioner Michael Caljouw said in a statement. “Our collective commitment — state government working with our health insurance companies — is important as we enter the fall season.”

The governor, in the press release, outlined a three-step plan:

The Division of Insurance and Department of Public Health issued a bulletin that requires insurance carriers in Massachusetts to continue to cover vaccines recommended by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health.

The governor has taken steps to ensure that Massachusetts residents who want the COVID vaccine can get it at pharmacies.

Massachusetts is leading efforts to create a public health collaboration with states in New England and across the Northeast committed to safeguarding public health.

DAVINA McCall’s dating show has proven life-changing for one bride after it unlocked a hidden disorder. 

Gorgeous Millie Thompson, 30, has been diagnosed with autism and ADHD after taking part on Stranded on Honeymoon Island having realised her OCD was so intense she considered smuggling in a pair of socks. 

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One of the DJ and model’s quirks was she cannot bear to be barefoot, so she thought about sewing a secret set into her wedding dress. 

The BBC show sees singles marooned on a deserted beach in only their wedding attire. 

Millie told The Sun: “Coming back from the show, I ended up getting tested for ADHD and autism and I found out I have both. 

“I have learnt so much about myself, someone described it as being ‘neuro spicy’ and I love that for me.

“It’s lifechanging really.

“I always knew things like I couldn’t be without a pair of socks, I always have to be wearing a pair, but being on the show made everything clear. 

“This sounds crazy but I was contemplating sewing some socks into the boob bit of my wedding dress, I was like ‘can I smuggle in some socks?!’ but then I was like, no they’ll be disgusting. 

“Now I know that’s why I am how I am. 

“I’ve changed so much from it but in such a good, positive way and everyone has noticed.”

Millie was so conscious of being without her comforts, she had her wedding dress custom made with the experience in mind. 

She included a bodysuit she could wear like a onesie, and a skirt she could detach and use as a mosquito net. 

Millie, from Cheshire, added: “I am such a girly girl, I was combing my hair extensions with a fork. 

“But the experience makes you strip everything back and I thought I’d struggle because I’m so OCD but I actually coped really well.”

Viewers saw her struggle with the show’s dramatic jump into the sea that kicks off their stranded experience. 

“With Love Island there’s other couples and you can escape, but there’s nothing like Stranded for this, you’ve just got each other.”

Millie Thompson

After meeting at the altar, the couples then take a boat out to their deserted beach and then plummet into the sea ahead of a swim to land. 

But poor Millie can’t swim and she had to fit a life vest over her gorgeous wedding dress. 

She said: “That was a massive thing for me because I literally will not get in the water, I can put my feet in but that’s it, so to have to do that was massive.”

But she reckons being out of her comfort zone kickstarted a connection with her groom Jordan in a way that could never happen on Love Island.

While she can’t give away what happens on her journey, Milile added: “You are on a beach with absolutely nothing, you are relying on each other for everything.

“With Love Island there’s other couples and you can escape, but there’s nothing like Stranded for this, you’ve just got each other.”

Stranded on Honeymoon Island continues on BBC One tonight at 9pm, then returns next week on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. 

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The first episodes are already available to stream on BBC iPlayer.

Health experts said Kennedy’s ‘repeated efforts to undermine science and public health’ have left Americans ‘less safe’.

More than 20 health groups and medical associations have called on Robert F Kennedy Jr to step down as the United States’ health secretary, accusing him of putting lives at risk by disregarding decades of lifesaving science and reversing medical progress.

In a joint statement published on Wednesday, the groups – including the Infectious Diseases Society of America, the American Public Health Association, and the American Association of Immunologists – said Kennedy is forcing Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) experts to “turn their back on decades of sound science” to further his agenda.

The groups also accused Kennedy of “repeated efforts to undermine science and public health”, leaving Americans “less safe in a multitude of ways”.

“Our country needs leadership that will promote open, honest dialogue, not disregard decades of lifesaving science, spread misinformation, reverse medical progress and decimate programs that keep us safe,” the statement said.

“We are gravely concerned that American people will needlessly suffer and die as a result of policies that turn away from sound interventions,” it added.

The letter comes after multiple former CDC directors said last week that Kennedy’s decisions are putting Americans’ health at risk, after he fired the agency’s director, Susan Monarez, less than a month after she was sworn in.

White House Deputy Press Secretary Kush Desai said Monarez was not “aligned with” President Donald Trump’s agenda and refused to resign, so the White House terminated her.

Monarez’s lawyers said she had been targeted as she “refused to rubber-stamp unscientific, reckless directives and fire dedicated health experts”.

Her departure coincided with the resignations of at least four other top CDC officials in response to Kennedy’s influence over the agency.

In a social media post on Wednesday, Kennedy said his mission was “to restore the CDC’s focus on infectious disease” and “rebuild trust through transparency and competence”.

Kennedy – who has long been accused of spreading anti-vaccine misinformation – has made sweeping changes to US vaccine policies since being appointed by Trump, causing friction with health officials.

In May, he withdrew federal recommendations for COVID shots for pregnant women and healthy children. In June, he also fired all members of the CDC’s expert vaccine advisory panel and replaced them with hand-picked advisers, including fellow anti-vaccine activists.

In August, he then cancelled nearly $500m in funding for mRNA vaccine research in a move health experts said could make the US much more vulnerable to future outbreaks of respiratory viruses.

Kennedy said the US will shift mRNA funding to other vaccine development technologies that are “safer” and “remain effective”.

The International Vaccine Access Center at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health credits mRNA vaccines with preventing millions of deaths from COVID-19, saying the innovative technology has the potential to treat diseases such as cancer and HIV.

Most recently, on August 20, hundreds of federal health employees wrote to Kennedy imploring him to “stop spreading inaccurate health information” and for him to either resign or be fired.

Signatories accused Kennedy of “sowing public mistrust by questioning the integrity and morality” of the CDC’s workforce, including by calling the public health agency a “cesspool of corruption”.

This is the story of two Republican doctor-senators named Bill.

One of them, as majority leader from 2003 to 2007, helped a self-described “compassionate conservative” Republican president pass a Medicare prescription drug plan and the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), “the largest commitment by any nation to address a single disease in history.”

The other, as a member of the Senate Finance Committee, voted to send Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s nomination as secretary of Health and Human Services to the Senate floor. It was a 14-13 vote, so his was a crucial “aye” that allowed a conspiracy theorist, disinformation spreader and anti-vaxxer to become the top public health official in America. He already has defunded world-changing mRNA vaccine research, imposed major restrictions on access to COVID vaccines amid a surging variant of the virus and triggered a crisis at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“The firewall between science and ideology is completely broken down,” Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, former director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.” He was part of the shocking CDC leadership exodus last week after the Trump administration forced out CDC Director Susan Monarez.

The trajectory from heart and lung transplant surgeon Bill Frist of Tennessee to gastroenterologist Bill Cassidy of Louisiana is emblematic of the dark Republican Party journey on science and health — from the Bush family to the Trump family, from American greatness to self-defeating denialism on everything from vaccines to cancer research.

There are four doctors in the Senate: Cassidy, orthopedic surgeon John Barrasso of Wyoming, obstetrician-gynecologist Roger Marshall of Kansas and ophthalmologist Rand Paul of Kentucky. All are Republicans and all voted in February to confirm Kennedy.

Eleven of the 17 medical doctors in the House are Republicans, and all of them voted for the nearly $1 trillion in Medicaid cuts in the vast tax-and-spending law that Trump signed on July 4. So did the four dentists in the House, all of them Republicans. The American Dental Assn. endorsed three of them. The fourth is Arizona’s Paul Gosar, a top competitor with Kennedy in the medical disinformation space whose siblings have made ads urging voters to reject him.

Frist was the only doctor in the Senate when he served. After leaving the Senate in early 2007, he joined the Bipartisan Policy Center, where he is a senior fellow and co-chair of its Health Project. He has been on the board of directors of the Nature Conservancy since 2015, and was elected to a three-year term as global board chair in 2022.

Frist has sharply criticized the Medicaid cuts passed into law this year, saying they threaten rural hospitals and public health. Last spring, accepting a 2025 Earth Award from Time Magazine, he said climate health is crucial to human health, and he urged a personal approach to raise American awareness. He often describes his environmental and health missions as inseparable. “Planetary health is human health. Let’s lead with science, unity, and urgency,” he posted on X on Earth Day.

Good luck with that, at least in the short term. The same new law that cuts Medicaid also cuts funds for renewable energy projects and incentives, with conservationists predicting more pollution, fewer jobs and higher energy costs as a result. Only three Republican senators bucked the party tide on that bill, and Paul was the only doctor among them. His breaking point was a provision raising the U.S. debt limit to $5 trillion — not Medicaid or clean energy cuts affecting health.

Cassidy, of course, voted for it. And when Monarez found herself in Kennedy’s crosshairs over vaccines, Cassidy privately intervened for her, which backfired. Now, having failed to spare America this nightmare when he could have, the senator is threatening “oversight” by the health committee he chairs and trying to get a Sept. 18 meeting of unqualified Kennedy-appointed vaccine “advisors” postponed.

This is thin gruel, especially from a doctor once committed to public health and science writ large. Cassidy co-founded a clinic that gave free dental and medical care to the working uninsured, his website says, and created a public-private partnership that vaccinated 36,000 children for hepatitis at no cost to their families. During the Biden presidency, he voted for bipartisan gun safety and infrastructure bills and the bipartisan CHIPS and Science Act to bolster the U.S. semiconductor industry. He was also one of five Republicans voting for a small-business COVID relief bill.

Even more notably, in the Senate impeachment trial after the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot, Cassidy voted to convict Trump of “incitement of insurrection.” “Our Constitution and our country is more important than any one person. I voted to convict President Trump because he is guilty,” he said then. The Louisiana Republican Party censured him the same day.

Now running for his third term, Cassidy is already facing primary challengers who don’t have that baggage. They include state Treasurer John Fleming, a former congressman who worked for Trump in the White House, and public service commissioner Eric Skrmetta, who chaired all three of Trump’s presidential campaigns in Louisiana.

Fleming has said Cassidy’s vote to convict Trump failed the people of Louisiana. And that’s the problem with today’s Republican Party. The truth is that since that brave vote, Cassidy has failed all Americans. He has also assured that his legacy will be the wreckage of our once world-class public health and medical research programs.

On the other side, there is the 314 Action group that is recruiting and funding Democratic doctors and other Democratic scientists to run for office. It’s an openly partisan operation, right up to a snarky-ish all-caps X post about its $1-million commitment to California’s fight to neutralize the five new House seats Texas is trying to add. What else can you do when the other major party, even its medical professionals, is leading, aiding and abetting in the GOP war on science?

“If @SenBillCassidy had a spine, a known anti-vax conspiracy theorist wouldn’t be destroying our public health,” the group posted last Wednesday on X. “He had an opportunity to thwart the confirmation of RFK Jr.,” 314 Action president and founder Shaughnessy Naughton told me in a recent interview. “Instead he chose to go down a different path and go against what his life experience and professional training told him was a dangerous nominee to lead our health services. And he did it anyway. … That is shameful.”

In February, before Kennedy was confirmed, the conservative New York Times columnist Bret Stephens rated him “worst nominee in U.S. Cabinet history.” And then Stephens suggested the person he preferred for the job: Bill Frist.

Jill Lawrence is an opinion writer and author of “The Art of the Political Deal: How Congress Beat the Odds and Broke Through Gridlock.” @jilldlawrence.bsky.social

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Florida will work to phase out all childhood vaccine mandates in the state, building on the effort by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis to curb vaccine requirements and other health mandates during the COVID-19 pandemic.

DeSantis also announced on Wednesday the creation of a state-level “Make America Healthy Again” commission modeled after similar initiatives pushed at the federal level by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

On the vaccines, state Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo cast current requirements in schools and elsewhere as an “immoral” intrusion on people’s rights bordering on “slavery,” and hampers parents’ ability to make health decisions for their children.

“People have a right to make their own decisions, informed decisions,” said Ladapo, who has frequently clashed with the medical establishment, at a news conference in Valrico, Florida, in the Tampa area. “They don’t have the right to tell you what to put in your body. Take it away from them.”

The state Health Department, Ladapo said, can scrap its own rules for some vaccine mandates, but others would require action by the Florida Legislature. He did not specify any particular vaccines but repeated several times the effort would end “all of them. Every last one of them.”

Florida would be the first state to eliminate so many vaccine mandates, Ladapo added.

In Florida, vaccine mandates for child day care facilities and public schools include shots for measles, chickenpox, hepatitis B, Diphtheria-tetanus-acellular pertussis (DTaP), polio and other diseases, according to the state Health Department’s website.

Under DeSantis, Florida resisted imposing COVID vaccines on schoolchildren, requiring “passports” for places that draw crowds, school closures and mandates that workers get the shots to keep their jobs.

“I don’t think there’s another state that’s done as much as Florida. We want to stay ahead of the curve,” the governor said.

The state “MAHA” commission would look into such things as allowing informed consent in medical matters, promoting safe and nutritious food, boosting parental rights regarding medical decisions about their children, and eliminating “medical orthodoxy that is not supported by the data,” DeSantis said. The commission will be chaired by Lt. Gov. Jay Collins and Florida first lady Casey DeSantis.

“We’re getting government out of the way, getting government out of your lives,” Collins said.

The commission’s work will help inform a large “medical freedom package” to be introduced in the Legislature next session, which would address the vaccine mandates required by state law and make permanent the recent state COVID decisions relaxing restrictions, DeSantis said.

“There will be a broad package,” the governor said.

Anderson writes for the Associated Press.

California, Oregon and Washington are joining forces to insulate vaccine guidance and other public health recommendations from political interference, a direct response to turmoil at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention under President Trump and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Govs. Gavin Newsom of California, Tina Kotek of Oregon and Bob Ferguson of Washington announced Wednesday the creation of the West Coast Health Alliance, a pact that aims to keep their states’ health policies unified and grounded in scientific expertise. The move comes as the nation’s top public health agency is being reshaped by Kennedy and his vaccine-skeptic allies, with key leadership fired and the agency in turmoil.

“President Trump’s mass firing of CDC doctors and scientists — and his blatant politicization of the agency — is a direct assault on the health and safety of the American people,” the three governors said in a joint statement. “The CDC has become a political tool that increasingly peddles ideology instead of science, ideology that will lead to severe health consequences. California, Oregon, and Washington will not allow the people of our states to be put at risk.”

In June, the three states issued a joint statement condemning Kennedy’s decision to remove all 17 members of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. Among the replacements named by Kennedy are appointees who spread vaccine misinformation and relayed conspiracy theories during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the Associated Press.

Kennedy said the change would improve public trust by ensuring members of the committee didn’t have “any specific pro- or anti-vaccine agenda.”

Kennedy has warned that more turnover could be coming at the agency.

In the announcement for the newly formed West Coast Health Alliance, the states said the focus would be on providing evidence-based recommendations about who should receive immunizations while ensuring the public has access to credible information about the safety and efficacy of vaccines. The alliance will share immunization recommendations, but each state will also pursue independent strategies based on “unique laws, geographies, histories, and peoples.”

Dr. Erica Pan, director of the California Department of Public Health and the state health officer, said it’s imperative that California stand with medical professionals.

“The dismantling of public health and dismissal of experienced and respected health leaders and advisors, along with the lack of using science, data, and evidence to improve our nation’s health are placing lives at risk,” Pan said in a statement.

The Israeli military onslaught on Gaza City continues nonstop, resulting in the killing of more than 50 Palestinians, including aid seekers, as it seeks to seize control of the enclave’s biggest urban centre – home to some 1 million people.

At least 105 Palestinians were killed across Gaza on Tuesday as Israeli strikes levelled densely populated areas, particularly al-Sabra neighbourhood, which has been under attack for days. At least 32 of those were killed while seeking aid.

The attacks are intensified as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel is facing a “decisive stage” of the war as it prepares to seize Gaza City despite global condemnation.

“Palestinians are in a cage in Gaza City right now, trying to survive as many air strikes as possible. Wherever they go, the air strikes follow them,” said Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary.

“They are also dying from the food and aid blockade as they are not able to get the basic means of sustenance,” she said, reporting from Deir el-Balah in central Gaza.

Palestinians are struggling to survive the dual threats of targeted attacks and starvation, with at least 13 people dying of starvation in the past 24 hours, bringing the total hunger-related death toll since the war began to 361. Eighty-three of those deaths have been recorded since a global hunger monitor confirmed famine conditions in Gaza on August 22.

Among those killed on Tuesday were at least 21 people, including seven children, who were struck by an Israeli drone while queuing for water in the al-Mawasi area near Khan Younis in southern Gaza.

Images posted online by Palestinian Civil Defence spokesperson Mahmoud Basal showed children’s bodies and water containers stained with blood at the attack site, which Israel had previously declared a so-called “safe zone”.

“They were standing in line to fill up water … when the occupation forces directly targeted them, turning their search for life into a new massacre,” Basal said on Tuesday.

In Gaza City, an Israeli strike on the al-Af family home killed 10 people, mostly women and children, Gaza officials said.

“These crimes expose the criminal fascist nature of the enemy,” Gaza’s Government Media Office said in a statement, accusing Washington of complicity. It called Israel’s actions “war crimes under international law” and urged the UN Security Council to halt the “brutal genocide”.

Two more journalists, Rasmi Salem of al-Manara and Eman al-Zamli, were killed in the latest attacks, bringing the total number of journalists killed since October 7, 2023, to more than 270. The war in Gaza has become the deadliest conflict for media workers ever recorded, press watchdogs say.

Israel starts ground assault in Gaza City

On Tuesday, thousands of Israeli reservists reported for duty as efforts to end the war seemed to be stalling.

Qatar’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Majed al-Ansari said Hamas had accepted a ceasefire proposal, but Israel had yet to respond.

“There has been no Israeli response yet,” he said, adding that negotiations with mediators and the United States had stalled. He warned that Israel’s plan to occupy Gaza “poses a threat to everyone”, including Israeli captives.

But Israel has tightened its siege of Gaza City in recent days, barring even limited humanitarian aid deliveries.

Israeli Army Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir confirmed ground operations were intensifying. “We are going to deepen our operation,” he told reservists as tens of thousands of troops were called up. Israeli media reported that 365 soldiers have refused to report for duty.

Prime Minister Netanyahu, wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes and crimes against humanity, said in a video statement on Tuesday that “we are working to defeat Hamas.”

Yemen’s Houthi movement said its forces launched four drones targeting Israel’s General Staff headquarters near Tel Aviv, Ben Gurion Airport, a power station, and the port of Ashdod, days after Israel killed Yemeni Prime Minister Ahmed al-Rahawi along with top officials in Sanaa.

The group claimed its drones “successfully hit their targets.” It also said a missile and drone attack struck a cargo vessel in the Red Sea for violating a ban on entering Israeli ports.

International ‘indifference’ to Palestine

Meanwhile, the Palestinian Foreign Ministry welcomed Belgium’s decision to recognise the State of Palestine on Tuesday and urged other nations to follow suit, saying it was “in line with international law and UN resolutions” and necessary to halt “genocide, displacement, starvation, and annexation”.

In a separate statement, the ministry accused the international community of “alarming” indifference to Gaza’s economic collapse and Israel’s seizure of Palestinian tax revenues. It called for urgent financial support to “enhance the resilience of citizens and their steadfastness on their homeland’s soil”.

For five years, I dodged every bullet.

I don’t know how I managed to beat COVID-19 for so long, even as family, friends and colleagues got hit with the coronavirus. Although I took precautions from the beginning, with masking and vaccinations, I was also out in public a lot for work and travel.

But my luck has finally run out, and it must have been the air travel that did me in. I returned from a cross-country trip with a razor blade sore throat and a stubborn headache, followed by aches and pains.

The first test was positive.

I figured it had to be wrong, given my super-immunity track record.

The second test was even more positive.

So I’ve been quarantined in a corner of the house, reaching alternately for Tylenol and the thermometer. Everything is a little fuzzy, making it hard to distinguish between the real and the imagined.

For instance, how can it be true that just as I get COVID for the first time, the news is suddenly dominated by COVID-related stories?

It has to be a fever-induced hallucination. There’s no other way to explain why, as COVID surges yet again with another bugger of a strain, the best tool against the virus — vaccine — is under full assault by the leaders of the nation.

They are making it harder, rather than easier, to get medicine recommended by the overwhelming majority of the legitimate, non-crackpot wing of the medical community.

Under the new vaccine policies, prices are up. Permission from doctors is needed. Depending on your age or your home state, you could be out of luck.

Meanwhile, President Trump fired Susan Monarez, the head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, essentially for putting her own professional integrity and commitment to public service above crackpot directives from a cabal of vaccine skeptics.

And following Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s cancellation of $500 million in mRNA vaccine research, Trump is demanding that pharmaceutical companies show proof that vaccines work.

My eyes are red and burning, but can COVID be entirely to blame?

I got a booster before my travels, even though I knew it might not stand up to the new strain of COVID. It’s possible I have a milder case than I might have had without the vaccine. But on that question and many others, as new waves keep coming our way, wouldn’t the smart move be more research rather than less?

Trump downplayed the virus when it first surfaced in 2019 and 2020. Then he blamed it on China. He resisted masking, and lemmings by the thousands got sick and died. Then he got COVID himself. At one point, he recommended that people get the vaccine.

Now he’s putting on the brakes?

My headache is coming back, my eyes are still burning, and unless my Tylenol is laced with LSD, I think I just saw a clip in which Kennedy and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth attempted 50 pull-ups and 100 push-ups in 10 minutes.

I appreciate the health and fitness plug, and because Kennedy and I are the same age — 71 — it’s impressive to see him in the gym.

But there’s something that has to be said about the Kennedy-Hegseth workout tape:

They’re cheating.

Take a look for yourself, and don’t be fooled by the tight T-shirts worn by these two homecoming kings.

Those were not full chin-ups or push-ups.

Not even close.

Cutting corners is the wrong message to send to the nation’s children, or to any age group. And how is anyone going to make it to the gym if they come down with COVID because they couldn’t get vaccinated?

Honestly, the whole thing has to be a fever dream I’m having, because in the middle of the workout, Kennedy said, and I quote, “It was President Trump who inspired us to do this.”

He is many things, President Trump. Fitness role model is not one of them, no matter how many times he blasts out of sand traps on company time.

Getting back to cutting corners, Kennedy said in slashing mRNA research that “we have studied the science,” with a news release link to a 181-page document purportedly supporting his claim that the vaccines “fail to protect effectively.”

That document was roundly eviscerated by hordes of scientists who were aghast at the distortions and misinterpretations by Kennedy.

“It’s either staggering incompetence or willful misrepresentation,” said Jake Scott, an infectious-disease physician and Stanford University professor, writing for the media company STAT. “Kennedy is using evidence that refutes his own position to justify dismantling tools we’ll desperately need when the next pandemic arrives.”

I lost my sense of smell a few days ago, but even I can tell you that stinks.

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