Children who hear, “I loved how patiently you kept trying,” often become braver than those who hear only, “You’re so smart.” When effort is celebrated, children become less afraid of getting things wrong. They learn that confidence isn’t about being perfect. It’s about believing they can keep going, even when something feels difficult.
Independent children aren’t born with extraordinary confidence. They build it one small victory at a time: packing their own bag, making their own choices, and solving one more problem without help. Parents don’t need to do less out of neglect. They simply need to step back often enough for children to discover what they’re capable of. Those ordinary moments, repeated day after day, quietly shape adults who trust themselves.
The Oxford Covid vaccine was estimated to have saved six million lives in the first year it was used around the world and hundreds of millions of doses have been taken.
However, the vaccine was also restricted for use in some countries because of rare blood clots which affected up to one in 100,000 people.
It is possible this vaccine carries the same risk, although this is much lower than the threat from the Bundibugyo species of Ebola which kills around a third of those infected.
Pollock said severe side effects are “very rare” and they thought “very deeply” about the implications for trials on healthy people, and that any risk would be communicated to volunteers.
“I want to stress that the Covid AstraZeneca vaccine was given to millions of people safely,” she added.
There are three other vaccines being developed for the Bundibugyo species of Ebola.
These include one from biotechnology company Moderna using their mRNA vaccine technology. The International Aids Vaccine Initiative and Public Health Vaccines, based out of the US, are using the same technique that has been proven to work for another species of Ebola, but is slower to manufacture.
Spain have logged more than 12,000 miles, while Switzerland exceeded 10,000 thanks to what the Swiss Football Association described as “venue hopping” across North America.
Morocco repeatedly returned to their New Jersey base despite fixtures taking them to Boston, Atlanta, Monterrey and Houston before eventually bowing out to France in the quarter-finals.
Belgium’s decision to base themselves in Renton, Washington, kept travel to about 4,000 miles before their exit against Spain.
France’s tally is one of the lowest of any nation at the tournament – with a total below even several teams eliminated after only three group matches.
Long-distance travel is nothing new at the World Cup. Brazil in 2014, Russia in 2018 and even South Africa in 2010 all required teams to cover significant distances.
The first 48-team World Cup, however, has presented a different challenge. With matches staged across three host nations and 16 cities, some teams have spent weeks shuttling back and forth across North America, while others have remained largely within the same region.
England’s route illustrates that contrast better than most. Their journey has already exceeded the total distance of countries at other tournaments.
Following the passing of Qatar’s Father Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani on Sunday, his solidarity with the Palestinian people remains one of the defining legacies of his leadership. He is being remembered not only as a regional statesman, but also as a steadfast ally of the Palestinian people and the only Arab leader to physically break the crippling siege on the Gaza Strip.
In October 2012, Sheikh Hamad visited the embattled Gaza Strip, six years after Israel imposed its crippling international blockade on the territory, following the 2006 Palestinian elections.
Accompanied by his wife, Sheikha Moza bint Nasser, and a high-level delegation, the emir bypassed the political isolation imposed on the enclave by Western powers and regional actors, leading to a massive official and popular reception.
The head of Hamas’s diaspora office, Khaled Meshaal, told Al Jazeera that the visit to the Strip means that “Jerusalem, Gaza and Palestine mourn him.”
“He was the first Arab and Muslim leader to visit Gaza, standing by its side with chivalry and magnanimity, as if officially announcing the breaking of the siege in its darkest circumstances,” Meshaal told Al Jazeera. “He was intelligent, brave and a man of principles.”
Ahmed al-Sheikh, a senior journalist, Arab affairs commentator and former news director at Al Jazeera Arabic Channel, said the Father Emir had ”a special kind of love for Palestine”.
“Has any other leader in the Arab world done that [visit to Gaza], except Hamad bin Khalifa?” al-Sheikh reflected in a recent interview.
”Why did he go to Gaza? It’s because he saw that everyone around Gaza is neglecting it”, he added.
The late Emir of Qatar greets people in Gaza City as he arrives for a cornerstone-laying ceremony at a Qatari-funded rehabilitation centre, October 23, 2012 [Hatem Moussa-Pool/Getty Images]
During that landmark visit, Sheikh Hamad announced an increase in Qatar’s reconstruction grant to the enclave from $254m to $400m, laying the foundation for vital housing, infrastructure and healthcare projects that benefited thousands of Palestinians.
Addressing crowds at the Islamic University of Gaza – which awarded him and Sheikha Moza honorary doctorates for their humanitarian efforts – he praised the resilience of the Palestinian people, while criticising the international community’s double standards.
Palestinian leaders and the former Emir arrive at a cornerstone-laying ceremony for a new residential neighbourhood called Hamad in Khan Younis, October 23, 2012 [Mohammed Salem-Pool/Getty Images]
Personal pain and the ‘spearhead’ of liberation
His commitment to the Palestinian cause predated the blockade on Gaza. In 1999, Sheikh Hamad became the first Gulf leader to visit the Palestinian territories since 1967, meeting with the late Palestinian President Yasser Arafat during a critical political impasse.
According to al-Sheikh, the emir viewed the Palestinian struggle through a deeply personal lens. When former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon besieged Arafat’s headquarters in Ramallah, the emir was profoundly pained. He told his aides that when Sharon attacked the Muqata’a, it felt as though he was attacking Qatar itself.
His connection to Palestine was coupled with a regret that he had never visited Jerusalem before its occupation in 1967, According to al-Sheikh, that prompted him to commission an extensive three-hour documentary on the holy city to capture its history and identity.
Rather than relying solely on international intervention, he believed in the agency of the Palestinian people and that they were the essential spearhead of their movement. “You will do the primary action and without this action there can be no liberation,” the emir once told al-Sheikh.
Defying regional consensus
This stance put him frequently at odds with the regional consensus. During Israel’s devastating 2008–2009 war on Gaza, deep divisions emerged among Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) members over how to respond to the crisis.
Sheikh Hamad called for an emergency Arab summit in Doha, proposing a $250m reconstruction fund and a maritime corridor to bypass the blockade. He famously expressed his disappointment on live television about the lack of an Arab quorum for the emergency meeting. “God is sufficient for us and he is the best disposer of affairs.”
Some of Gaza’s most vital infrastructure projects before the outbreak of Israel’s genocidal war in October 2023 were the result of financial pledges made by Sheikh Hamad.
Qatar funded the rehabilitation of vital highways and the flagship Sheikh Hamad City in Khan Younis—a $58m public housing project with 53 modern apartment buildings for thousands of low-income families.
The former Emir with Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh at a ceremony for a Qatari-funded rehabilitation centre in Gaza City, October 23, 2012 [Hatem Moussa-Pool/Getty Images]
Additionally, the Sheikh Hamad Hospital for Rehabilitation and Prosthetics, which officially opened in April 2019, became the territory’s premier facility for amputees and children with hearing impairments.
Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza has systematically erased much of the infrastructure Qatar helped finance during Sheikh Hamad’s leadership. Satellite imagery from May this year confirms that Hamad City and other areas in southern Gaza have been wiped from the map.
The Sheikh Hamad Hospital managed to resume its vital services last December, despite suffering direct attacks, severe shortages and the broader collapse of Gaza’s healthcare system. Operating the only CT scanner in northern Gaza, the hospital has even opened a new branch in the south to cope with a 225 percent increase in amputation cases.
Sheikh Hamad Hospital’s continued operations during the ongoing genocide in Gaza remain a tangible remnant of the late emir’s unprecedented efforts in the besieged enclave. His support for Gaza will remain for generations to come.
Palestinian children wave Qatari flags while waiting for the former Emir to arrive in Gaza City, October 23, 2012 [Hatem Moussa/AP]
The charity said figures from the Baby Bank Alliance showed baby banks in the UK supported more than 400,000 children in 2025.
In the same year, Faces BabyBank handed out 36,400 items of children’s clothing, 54,080 nappies, 536 tubs of formula milk, 298 newborn starter packs and 3,768 books and toys.
It has also given cots, Moses baskets, prams, highchairs, bedding, baby baths and other essentials.
It said it relies on donations and always needs good quality goods or financial donations to purchase essential items when stock is unavailable.
The charity said more parents in work were “still unable to afford essential items because wages are not keeping pace with household costs”.
SpaceX investors have swung from celebration to apparent concern in its first month as a publicly traded company.
When shares in the firm, co-founded and led by Elon Musk, first became available for individuals to buy on the public stock market on 12 June, there was an investor frenzy.
Although the company had decided to price its shares at $135 each, the price immediately shot up to $150 that first day, climbing to $176, before closing at $160.95.
It solidified SpaceX as the largest initial public offering (IPO) of all time.
The following week, its shares went up even further, hitting an intraday high of $225, meaning it had surpassed Amazon and Microsoft in total market value.
“With Elon Musk, any company he touches gets people excited,” Keith Snyder, analyst at investment research firm CFRA, said. “But this was also the first time people felt like they were able to invest in something that was being marketed as an AI play.”
Willy Lee, an investor at Neosteller, which facilitates individual investors putting money into private companies, agreed that the excitement around the IPO was very much around artificial intelligence (AI).
“Everyone saw SpaceX as an AI story,” he said.
SpaceX earlier this year acquired Musk’s AI start-up xAI, recently renamed SpaceXAI, external and best known for the controversial chatbot Grok, and also started leasing data centre capacity to other tech companies.
The US launched a new attack on Iran on Sunday evening, continuing days of strikes between the two countries. Iranian state media reported that the strikes killed one person in southwestern Iran, while four were injured.
Within hours of the fresh US strikes, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said it had struck US military bases in Kuwait, Jordan and Bahrain.
The escalating attacks, which cast doubt over the future of the interim US-Iran agreement signed in June, come amid conflicting claims over whether the Strait of Hormuz is open.
Iran says it has closed the key waterway until further notice, while the US insists it is open.
On Sunday evening, Centcom announced another round of strikes against Iran, which it said started at 17:00 ET (22:00 BST).
Dozens of Iranian military targets, including air-defence systems, coastal radar sites, and missile and drone capabilities were struck, it said later.
US forces were “prepared to ensure that freedom of navigation remains available to commercial shipping despite Iran’s continued unwarranted aggression, harassment, threats, and arbitrary declarations,” Centcom said.
Minutes before the initial Centcom announcement, Iranian state TV reported explosions in Sirik, Qeshm, Bandar Abbas and Jask.
“Following the attack of the American enemy on Monday morning… one person was martyred and four others were injured,” IRNA reported, citing the deputy governor for security and law enforcement in Khuzestan province, Valiollah Hayati.
Oil prices jumped on Monday in Asia. Brent crude was up by 4.3% at $79.26 (£59.22) a barrel, while US-traded oil also rose by 4.3% to $74.50.
Energy prices on global wholesale markets have swung wildly in recent months as traders reacted to developments in the conflict.
Shortly after the US and Israel attacked Iran on 28 February Tehran effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz, through which around 20% of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG) usually passes.
Despite the latest gains, prices are well below the more than $120 a barrel mark Brent reached at the end of April.
The new wave of US strikes on Sunday evening, came after US forces hit 140 Iranian military targets, Centcom said on Saturday evening.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) responded to those strikes with wide-ranging attacks on US bases and allies across the region, marking an escalation in the scale of hostilities.
Among those targeted by Iran were Qatar, a mediator in ceasefire talks which had not been attacked since April, and the UAE, which had not been attacked since May. The BBC has approached US Central Command (Centcom) for comment on an attack in Jordan.
The renewed fire has put in jeopardy an interim ceasefire agreement signed last month, which aimed to reopen the strait and eventually bring a permanent end to the conflict.
Earlier this week, US President Donald Trump declared the Iranian attacks meant the ceasefire was over, while Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi accused the US of violating the deal.
However, Trump said talks would still continue and mediators were trying to revive the process.
On Sunday, US Central Command insisted the Strait was open, warning the US military was in position to make sure it stayed free-flowing.
I’m looking out at the Calabasas hills from my multi-million-dollar mansion. Two delivery men are wheeling my new sculpture through the hallway, while my product developer swatches a sample from my makeup line on the back of my hand for approval. No, I’m not having a hyper-realistic dream nor have I been reincarnated as a nepo baby: I’m Kylie Jenner, or at least I’m living inside her head, thanks to the first-person content filmed on her new Metaglasses.
The end is, somewhat, nigh. Although smart glasses have been around for a while, nobody but tech bros wanted to wear them. When Google released Glass in the UK in 2015, it pulled the model just seven months later due to backlash over the price (£1,125) and privacy. Over a decade on, Meta is using the 28-year-old member of the Kardashian clan to make their iteration cool – she films her day through her eyes, translates fan mail with the in-built language tool and waves at her elderly pool man (interesting choice) while taking us along for the ride. “They got Marie Antoinette for less,” one commenter remarked of the unignorable excess. But for good or for bad, we can’t look away.
“They want her because of her enormous reach,” says author of Fashion and Celebrity Culture, Pamela Church-Gibson, of the rationale behind Meta’s collaboration with Jenner. “If you look at the top 10 Instagram pages, she’s right there just behind Messi, Renaldo and Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson… If you choose this glamorous female celebrity with that kind of Jessica Rabbit body, all of these different [consumers] are therefore brought to the table for you.” Notably, when Jenner declared she was “sooo over” the social app Snapchat in 2018, the stock price tumbled by $1.3bn (£1bn).
“This is one of the first big enterprises that Kylie has connected herself to in years,” notes MJ Corey, psychotherapist and author of Dekonstructing the Kardashians, who adds that smart glasses are “one of these silly appendages that technocrats have tried to push on us for a while but didn’t know how” – until now. “I feel like I’ve been like the canary in the coal mine saying that when the tech billionaires figure out how to ‘Kardashify’ themselves, they’re going to have an easier time selling and normalising their tools,” she says. “Everyone hated Kim Kardashian for taking selfies, and now they’re the defining feature of Instagram. Kylie is doing that with these Meta glasses.”
Next Jenner-ation: the internet star in her self-styled Meta glasses (Instagram / Meta)
If Corey has been banging her drum on the creep of the Kardashians into tech for a while, ethicists have been pounding theirs about smart specs for even longer. A decade ago, Norwegian University of Science and Technology professor Bjørn Hofmann co-wrote a paper exposing the ethical issues smart glasses create: privacy and surveillance, safety while operating machinery, human dependence on tech for decision making, accountability in the event of a negative outcome, or changes in social interactions as we become more wary of one another due to covert filming, to name a few. Many of these have already begun to materialise, with numerous reports of women being filmed by men who try to hit on them on the street without their consent.
“This does something to the way we communicate, the way we socialise, but also to what kind of information people or companies have about us and how we become products ourselves,” Hofmann says. “There’s been a rather thoughtless implementation of this technology; we should have learned more about this. So, I’m afraid the same lack of reflection exists where, in the future to come, we’ll see similar reactions to what we’ve now had with social media,” he adds of the recent under-16s ban.
I feel like I’ve been like the canary in the coal mine saying that when the tech billionaires figure out how to ‘Kardashify’ themselves, they’re going to have an easier time selling and normalising their tools
MJ Corey, author of ‘Dekonstructing the Kardashians’
“In my profession, being frustrated is part of the task,” Hofmann admits. “The best we can do as researchers is to provide knowledge because it puts a stronger responsibility on those decision makers. But the challenge here is, who are the decision makers with regard to smart glasses? There is always a mutual influence between policy and tech, and of course, money is power. Technology is quick, ethics is quite slow and regulation is even slower,” he adds.
UK law allows the filming of other people in public spaces without their consent – and uploading that footage online is also legal. That being said, smart glasses have already been used illegally. At the start of this year, one man pleaded guilty to voyeurism after he’d recorded sex with a woman without her explicit consent. He was spared jail and fined £800 and ordered to pay a £320 surcharge.
A still from Jenner’s new campaign for the fashionology accessory (Meta)
Professor of Digital Marketing and Media, Philipp Rauschnabel, who also contributed to a paper on the risks and consequences of smart glasses almost 10 years ago, says the thing that’s shocked him the most about smart glasses is that Meta were the ones who made them mainstream: “Meta’s spending is often framed as a ‘metaverse’ bet, but reports suggested that a large share of Reality Labs’ budget was actually going into augmented-reality hardware – including smart glasses and future AR glasses – rather than only into virtual worlds such as Horizon,” he says. “But everyone focused on that. The next step is what’s called Project Orion, where you’ll be able to place realistic-looking 3D content in the physical world.”
Rauschnabel, who’s a self-declared Metaverse enthusiast, adds: “You can’t over-regulate it. That wouldn’t be good for innovation. It’s more important to educate people how to use it. It’s also, I think, OK to accept a certain level of risk. I mean, every new technology has tonnes of advantages and some disadvantages; it’s just the negative aspects are more tangible than the positive ones,” he claims.
Even if the use of smart glasses isn’t criminal, it could certainly be cataclysmic from a social perspective. “My concern is that it’s going to create an incredibly paranoid and performative society,” says Corey. “I think with the constant sense of surveillance…There’s an argument where it could be a really primitive predator and prey dynamic and that creates such a low-trust society.”
“People who don’t want to be made into content are going to be hypervigilant – and they’d be valid,” she continues. “But that can weaken the psyche, wear down a person and be the conditions that lead to psychosis to those who’re predisposed to it – and plenty of people actually are. It’s really going to erode our wellbeing, disconnecting from our authentic selves and leaning into what will play best on camera.”
Following in her sister’s footsteps? Kim Kardashian taking a selfie at Jeff Bezos’ wedding (AFP/Getty)
Corey posits that the way the Kardashians have used media technologies to scale their billionaire status parallels the history of media itself. “Smart glasses are the natural next step,” she says, noting the first person content is symptomatic of our ever-evolving desire to be closer to our stars: cinema to TV screens to tabloids to reality TV to social media to smart glasses.
“We’ve complained that the Kardashians are everywhere; that’s because they’ve maximised every [media] form that’s available to us as it’s accelerated,” she observes. “If the Kardashians are the original influencers, what have they influenced? People will focus on the aesthetics, but I’m interested in the way that they’ve influenced our eventual acceptance of this technology.
“They sold us the idea that the use of these tools can mean participation in a new kind of economy that can lead to wealth and success – to the American dream,” Corey concludes. “Kylie is now attached to the next big iteration in the new media. These glasses are an incredibly life-changing step that we’re never going to be able to come back from.”
Every relationship faces disagreements and problems, but often they are formed by small everyday habits rather than large dramatic arguments. Most of these habits start innocently and can pass unnoticed for many months or even years. However, in the end, they affect trust, emotional connection, and communication. Partnership experts usually pay a lot of attention to healthy relationships and suggest that it takes good habits to create them. At the same time, knowing bad habits which can harm a relationship might also be very useful for maintaining a healthy partnership. Here are seven habits that might quietly ruin any relationship.
