Ariana Grande has spread some festive cheer by donating Christmas presents to children in hospitals across Manchester.
The American pop star has supported Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital since May 2017, when a suicide bomber targeted fans as they left her concert in the city.
Grande previously made donations to neo-natal intensive care units at Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital, North Manchester General Hospital, Wythenshawe Hospital and Saint Mary’s Hospital.
Following her latest donations, the Manchester Foundation Trust Charity posted on X: “Thank you Ariana Grande. We are so grateful to Ariana for thinking of our young patients this Christmas.”
The charity said the gifts were “being distributed to babies, children and teenagers” across Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital, North Manchester General Hospital, Trafford General Hospital and Wythenshawe Hospital.
Grande has spoken openly about struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder following the Manchester Arena attack on 22 May 2017, in which 22 people were killed.
Two NHS hospital trusts in London are using AI technology to see if they can spot type 2 diabetes in patients up to a decade in advance of the condition occuring.
Imperial College and Chelsea and Westminster hospital NHS foundation trusts have started training the AI system – called Aire-DM – that checks patients’ ECG heart traces for subtle early warning signs that are tricky for doctors to otherwise detect.
Clinical trials are planned for 2025 to see if it works as well as is hoped.
Early work suggests the system can spot risk about 70% of the time.
Giving the AI extra details about other background risk factors, such as the patient’s age, sex and whether they already have high blood pressure and or are overweight, can improve the predictive power, says lead researcher Dr Fu Siong Ng.
He told BBC News: “It is already quite good just with the ECG data, but it is even better when you add in those.”
An ECG (electrocardiogram) records and can reveal problems with the electrical activity of the heart, including the rate and rhythm.
Dr Ng says the ECG changes that the system detects are too varied and subtle for even highly skilled doctors to interpret with the naked eye.
“It’s not as simple as saying it’s this or that bit of the ECG. It’s looking at a combination of subtle things.”
As part of the trial up to 1,000 patients at both hospitals will have ECG scans read by the AI system to see if it helps detect and predict disease.
It’s not something that will be offered to routinely yet, although the experts hope it could be rolled out more widely on the NHS. That could take five years or more, says Dr Ng.
The British Heart Foundation, which is funding the work, says detecting people at risk of diabetes could ultimately save lives.
Having uncontrolled type 2 diabetes can lead to heart attacks and strokes, for example.
Maintaing a healthy weight and eating a healthy diet and exercising can help protect against complications.
Professor Bryan Williams, Chief Scientific and Medical Officer at the British Heart Foundation, said: “This exciting research uses powerful artificial intelligence to analyse ECGs, revealing how AI can spot things that cannot usually be observed in routinely collected health data. This kind of insight could be a gamechanger in predicting future risk of developing type 2 diabetes, years before the condition begins.
“Type 2 diabetes is a rapidly growing health challenge that increases the risk of developing heart disease, however with the right support it is possible for people to reduce their risk of developing the condition. We look forward to seeing how this technology could be incorporated into clinical practice.”
Dr Faye Riley from Diabetes UK said: “Type 2 diabetes often goes undiagnosed, sometimes for many years. With 1.2 million people in England alone unaware they’re living with the condition and millions more at high risk of developing it, identifying those at risk early on is crucial.
“AI-powered screening methods offer a promising new way to spot those likely to develop type 2 diabetes years in advance, allowing them to access the right support and prevent serious complications, such as heart failure and sight loss.”
What is type 2 diabetes?
Type 2 diabetes is a common condition where the level of sugar (glucose) in the blood becomes too high.
It happens if the body cannot make enough of, or cannot correctly use, a hormone called insulin, which controls blood sugar.
Some cases are linked to being overweight.
That is because fat can build up in and around the pancreas – the organ that makes insulin.
Type 1 diabetes, meanwhile, is an autoimmune disease.
Ursa Major was seen listing heavily on Monday afternoon before sinking overnight
A Russian cargo ship, Ursa Major, has sunk in the Mediterranean between Spain and Algeria after an explosion in the engine room, Russia’s foreign ministry has confirmed.
It said 14 members of the crew had been rescued and taken to the Spanish port of Cartagena but that two others were missing.
Ursa Major left port in St Petersburg 12 days ago, according to Russian news agency Interfax.
The ship’s owner said it was on its way to Vladivostok in Russia’s Far East carrying two cranes for the port weighing 380 tonnes apiece, although the destination could not be confirmed independently.
Before Ursa Major sank, Spain’s Salvamento Marítimo maritime rescue agency said 14 people were found on a lifeboat and taken safely to Spain and a Russian warship then arrived in the area to take charge of the rescue operation.
Ursa Major was in the same area of the Med as another sanctioned Russian ship, Sparta, when it ran into trouble and the two ships had been spotted heading through the English Channel last week, reportedly under escort.
Earlier this month, Ukrainian military intelligence (HUR) reported that the Sparta was heading to Russia’s naval base on the Syrian coast at Tartous to move military equipment out of Syria after the downfall of Bashar al-Assad.
A Kremlin official said on Monday that Russia was in contact with Syria’s new rulers on the future of its two military facilities. at both diplomatic and military level.
Ursa Major’s owner Oboronlogistika has been heavily involved in transporting cargo to Tartous, although Sparta’s reported destination on Tuesday was Port Said in Egypt.
Marine transport monitoring website LSEG told the BBC that Ursa Major’s automatic ID system (AIS) showed that its destination since 11 December had been Vladivostok, and that its last call at the port of Tartous had been in July.
Rosmorport
Ursa Major was placed under US sanction in 2022
On Monday, the HUR reported that the Sparta had broken down off Portugal, but the problem had been fixed. Ursa Major was also known as Sparta III, so it was not clear which ship it was referring to.
It is not known what caused the explosion on Ursa Major as it passed between Oran in Algeria and the Spanish town of Águilas.
However, video filmed from the tanker Ross Sea between 12:00-13:00GMT on Monday, and verified by the BBC, showed the ship listing badly.
It eventually sank at about 01:20GMT on Tuesday.
Ursa Major was built in 2009 and placed under sanction after Russia’s full-scale invasion in Ukraine in 2022 because of the ship owner’s role in delivering cargo to the Russian military.
Oboronlogistika said the cargo ship, which it described as the flagship of its fleet, was carrying 45-tonne hatch covers for icebreakers, as well as the large cranes for the port in Vladivostok.
