Euro News

Bordeaux, France just surpassed Paris in a new ranking of the world's most beautiful cities, with Europe dominating nine out of the top 10 spots. The rankings are based on buildings that adhere to the 'golden ratio' for balanced and harmonious structures. Venice takes the lead as the most beautiful city, followed by Rome and Barcelona in second and third place respectively. Despite iconic landmarks, Paris lands at 12th place. In fifth place is the only non-European city to make the top 10: New York City.

9 Out of 10 of the World’s Most Beautiful Cities Are in Europe, Says New Ranking

USA Today

For Mia Beam, the gym was routine. Then last November, the former Division I basketball player found herself struggling to take a deep breath.

The 24-year-old Louisville, Kentucky, student first went to the emergency room and was diagnosed with pleurisy, an inflammation of the tissue separating the lungs from the chest wall. Anti-inflammatory medication helped at first, but days later her symptoms got worse.

Sweat soaked her sheets. She was freezing. She could not lie flat because breathing got harder when she did.

"I would have to get in the bath every morning because I was freezing," Beam says over a video call to USA Today. "I couldn't lay flat because I couldn't breathe very well when I was laying flat, so I had to sleep kind of elevated."

Her heart rate also shot up into the 130s and 140s, even while sitting on the couch. Her WHOOP bracelet, a wearable device that tracks vital signs, sleep patterns and exercise performance metrics, showed how hard her body was working without exercise.

Medical providers initially struggled to diagnose her. Bloodwork, a CT scan and an echocardiogram later showed she had pericarditis that progressed to cardiac tamponade, swelling and irritation around the heart that caused fluid to build up and stop normal blood flow.

Doctors drained 871 milliliters of fluid from around her heart in surgery and told her she would have died within 24 to 48 hours.

"Her left lung was collapsed," her mother Jamie Beam says, "her left ventricle was collapsed, and it was seeping into the right part of her heart."

Beam credits her WHOOP bracelet with saving her life.

The device tracks metrics including heart rate, blood oxygen and skin temperature and sends the information to an app on a phone. It also monitors health across categories including sleep.

Another category is "strain," which looks at cardiovascular and muscular load and how exercise, anxiety and other factors affect health. During those two weeks, Beam's heart rate pushed her to a 15-16 out of 21 on the strain scale while at rest. She had previously only seen numbers that high after a workout such as a basketball game.

Beam got the WHOOP as a gift about a year ago. At first, she thought the bracelet might have been glitching when it showed such a high resting strain.

Doctors now monitor Beam closely, and she takes medication so it does not happen again. She said slowing down has been hard.

"I'm trying to be really intentional about play activity and what I'm doing and just listening to my body," she says, "but I'm in a phase of my life that I never thought I'd be in."

She retired from basketball in spring 2025 and said she worried that if she were still playing, she would have pushed herself too hard. She even played through a facial fracture last year.

Beam said she is trying not to focus too much on her WHOOP numbers, even though it is tempting.

"In the beginning I was obsessed with it, and if anything looked wrong, I was freaking out," she says. "But now I'm kind of, like, it's more of a monitoring thing."

John Sullivan, chief marketing officer at WHOOP, said it is important not to treat wearable data as a constant judgment.

"It's important to not look at your data in all cases, all the time as a report card or a referendum on whether you're living successfully or not," says John Sullivan, chief marketing officer at WHOOP, "versus trying to just be growth-oriented and say whatever the data is telling me today, I'll use it to inform decisions about how to bend the curve tomorrow."

Sullivan said the company hears from users weekly that the product led them to conditions they were otherwise unaware of. He said WHOOP built an intake system for people to share their stories and give the company permission to talk about them. He also said he found his own risk for heart disease through the company's advanced lab work.

Medical experts still recommend regular visits with a primary care doctor as the standard way to stay on top of health. But wearable tech devices such as WHOOP, the Oura Ring and Apple Watch can serve as an extra tool.

Since Mia Beam's ordeal, her family has started tracking their health with wearables.

"She's like a medical miracle walking around being so healthy," Jamie Beam says. "We're just so thankful."

How a Bracelet Helped This Athlete Detect a Dangerous Cardiac Event, and Saved Her Life

"Gary Woodland 2018b" by Peetlesnumber1 is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/)

Gary Woodland had not won on the PGA Tour in nearly seven years. On Sunday in Houston, he changed that.

Woodland won the 2026 Texas Children Houston Open with a 3-under 67 in the final round, finishing at 21-under for the tournament at Memorial Park Golf Course in Houston.

Nicolai Højgaard finished second, four strokes back at 17-under. Johnny Keefer and Min Woo tied for third at 15-under.

When Woodland’s final putt dropped on the 18th hole, the crowd erupted into chants of “Gary, Gary, Gary,” and Woodland became emotional. He hugged his caddie, then embraced his wife, Gabby.

It was a big moment for the 41-year-old, who underwent surgery in September 2023 to remove a lesion on his brain.

Woodland returned to the PGA Tour in 2024, but doctors were not able to clear the entire tumor and advised the 2019 U.S. Open champion to discontinue playing.

Earlier this month, Woodland said he has been playing through post-traumatic stress disorder. He told The Golf Channel that during the Procore Championship last September, he would wear sunglasses and go to the bathroom to cry while continuing to play in the tournament.

Woodland also told The Golf Channel in an interview in early March that he had decided he was not going to “waste energy” trying to hide his PTSD, and that he had received strong support since returning to competition.

“Every week, I come out and everyone is so excited and happy that I'm back. I hear that every week,” Woodland said.

He also said, “(Golf) is what I’m going to do, and no matter how hard it is, I’m going to play.”

Sunday’s win was the fifth of Woodland’s career and his first since the 2019 U.S. Open. That title came 6 years, 9 months and 13 days before this Houston Open victory.

Before this weekend, Woodland had not won a PGA Tour event since that 2019 U.S. Open triumph.

The Houston Open title came 2.5 years after his brain surgery.

Woodland’s other PGA Tour victories came at the 2018 Waste Management Open, the 2013 Reno-Tahoe Open and the 2011 Transitions Championship.

The win also secured Woodland an invitation to the 2026 Masters Tournament. The Masters begins on Thursday, April 9.

 📸credit: "Gary Woodland 2018b" by Peetlesnumber1 is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/)

"Gary Woodland 2018b" by Peetlesnumber1 is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/)

This Pro Golfer Just Won a PGA Tournament 2.5 Years After Brain Surgery

GoodGoodGood

It was a busy week for people trying to make things a little better. Start your week off right with a few stories that might just shift your mood.

Wales is set to become the first part of the United Kingdom to require solar on new buildings when new building regulations take effect in March 2027. The rules do not directly require solar panels, but they do require “a system for renewable energy generation” onsite. Experts believe that will lead to rooftop solar “in virtually every circumstance,” because it is the most functional and affordable option. The regulations also include exceptions for systems that would be impractical or uneconomical, including cases where a setup cannot generate at least 720 kWh a year.

In ocean cleanup, the nonprofit Ocean Cleanup said it has removed 110 million pounds of plastic from the oceans since 2013. The group, founded by Boyan Slat after he noticed more plastic in the water than fish while scuba diving in Greece at age 16, uses U-shaped floating barriers and autonomous drones. The milestone reflects improved technology, better deployment in high-density pollution zones, and stronger data on the rivers responsible for most waste entering the seas.

There was also encouraging news for monarch butterflies. New figures from the World Wildlife Fund showed the area occupied by monarchs in the forests of western Mexico grew to 7.24 acres, up 64 percent from 4.42 acres the previous winter. It is the most extensive coverage since 2018. Scientists said the increase offers hope for a species considered at risk of extinction and shows conservation work has been helping. The report also noted a significant reduction in forest degradation in the butterflies’ winter habitat.

In the United States, cigarette smoking among adults fell below 10 percent in 2024, reaching a record low of 9.9 percent. In 1964, the adult smoking rate was about 42 percent before major public health campaigns began pushing it down. Good Good Good described the long-term drop as one of the biggest public health successes in recent history. A 2025 report from the American Cancer Society estimated that reduced smoking led to nearly four million fewer lung cancer deaths between 1970 and 2022.

Chile also expanded ocean protection in a major way. President Gabriel Boric signed a decree granting full protection to 360,000 square kilometers of water around the Juan Fernández Archipelago. That brought the total fully protected area in the region to 946,571 square kilometers. Good Good Good said that makes it the third-largest fully protected marine area on Earth and pushes Chile past 50 percent protection of its exclusive economic zone. The move followed a proposal from residents to expand conservation areas around the archipelagos.

Najma Omar, an occupational therapist inspired by her family, created a sensory-friendly hijab after thinking about her younger sister Nasteho, 17, who struggled with wearing one. Among Omar’s 10 siblings, three are autistic and have different sensory and communication needs. Her design, called the SereniHijab, uses lightweight, stretchy fabric and subtle ear padding to reduce overwhelming sounds while staying breathable for daily use.

An 11-year-old girl from Greater Manchester, identified only as Millie, designed color-changing glasses to help people with dyslexia read more comfortably and reduce visual stress. Millie has long dealt with headaches and words moving on the page as she reads. She first imagined the idea when she was eight. It later beat more than 70,000 entries to win a major engineering competition, and she hopes to raise enough money to bring the glasses to market.

Another story centered on a Tennessee woman who saw something upsetting in her own doorbell footage. Brittany Smith had ordered Starbucks through DoorDash and later saw an elderly driver struggling to climb stairs. She tracked him down and gave him a $200 tip in person. The driver, Richard, 78, told her he had been retired but returned to delivery work after his wife’s medication became too expensive. Smith then launched a fundraiser that drew more than 12,000 donations and passed $500,000 in a matter of days.

In Hawaii, where severe flooding has swept homes from foundations, scattered debris across beaches, covered neighborhoods in mud, forced thousands from their homes and knocked out power, neighbors used a tractor to rescue a 98-year-old woman from her flooding house. The rescue was captured in a viral video, with commenters writing, “This is what happens when people move with heart. No waiting, no division, no ego; just love in action.”

The shorter items in the weekly list covered a wide range: 

Greece launched an animal airlift program that carried 45 pets and 101 people from Abu Dhabi. 
A California program helped more than 4,400 people leave homelessness by allowing pets in shelters and offering free veterinary care. 
MIT researchers found that groups of ocean bacteria work together to consume biodegradable plastic. 
In the United Kingdom, Primark released an adaptive clothing line designed by and for disabled people, with magnetic zippers and buttons, easier-to-hold loops, adjustable leg zips and a pouch for stoma bags.

And finally, a seven-year-old boy with cerebral palsy became the first child in the UK to trial a “bionic exoskeleton,” a comeback for the large tortoiseshell butterfly in southern England, and a police detection dog trained to find hidden hard drives used in child abuse investigations.

Monday Mood Boost: Here are the Happiest Stories From Around the World

"Olivia Munn" by Gage Skidmore is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/)

Olivia Munn is used to being in front of a camera, but lately she has been talking about something far more personal.

In April 2023, Munn learned she had Stage 1 breast cancer after taking the Lifetime Risk Assessment test, a free online Q&A that takes minutes and gives a score estimating a person’s lifetime risk of developing breast cancer. Anything above 20 percent is considered high risk. Munn said her score was 37.3 percent.

“No symptoms. And I had a clear mammogram and a clear ultrasound,” Munn told “CBS Sunday Morning.”

After her diagnosis, Munn underwent a double mastectomy, an ovariectomy and a partial hysterectomy. She said her score is now zero.

She did not keep that experience private. Munn posted online about her cancer and began urging women to take the risk assessment test. Since she started sharing her story, the number of women taking the test has increased by 4,000 percent.

“Knowing that it’s really changed so many people’s lives. It’s been the most amazing thing. There’s no way I could have ever predicted it,” she said.

Munn’s life also changed in other ways during that period. She started dating comedian John Mulaney in 2021, and the pair married in 2024. Munn said he stayed by her side throughout her breast cancer treatment.

“There’s no better person in the world to me than my husband. He is, I mean, you’ve met him. He wanted to come to every single doctor’s appointment. He had his little notebook. You know? And he’s got his notebook that he writes all of his ideas for jokes and anything that comes to him through the day,” Munn said.

She said Mulaney used that notebook for more than comedy during her treatment, writing down notes about cancer and hormone therapy. Munn also said his sense of humor helped.

“You know, having the humor to go through it and having someone who’s so funny, it really, it just lightens everything,” she said.

Munn is also a mother of two. She and Mulaney have a son, Malcolm, who is 4, and a daughter, Mei Mei, who will be 2 in the fall. She said parenthood sharpened her sense of how suddenly life can shift.

“I say it’s not the Christmases and the birthdays and the New Year’s that we remember. Like, life happens on a Tuesday. Like, it just happens. And you cannot expect it. And so every day, you should just be so present and grateful,” Munn said, reminding parents to enjoy all the “tiny, little moments” with their children.

She added, “And once you are faced with the possibility of death and not being here, it’s, for me, all I wanted were the little moments.”

Munn also said she now sees her life through a different lens. She said she feels lucky, even in hard moments, and does not think of cancer only in terms of what it took from her.

“I’m so lucky that I’m in this chaos, and that I haven’t slept in a few days, and that I’m exhausted. It’s a true privilege to just be alive in the world,” Munn said to CBS News.

Munn is now back at work, filming her role as a devious divorcee in the Apple TV+ series “Your Friends and Neighbors,” which returns for its second season on Friday, April 3, 2026.

"Olivia Munn" by Gage Skidmore is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/)

Olivia Munn’s Cancer Story Is Driving a 4,000% Surge in Women Taking a Simple Test

People

A school newspaper review turned into a trip behind the counter for one 9-year-old Texas girl.

Katherine Peel, a third grader in Texas, wrote a five-star review of her local la Madeleine location for her school newspaper. Her comments later reached la Madeleine CEO John Dillon, who invited Katherine and her family to visit their local café and help shape ideas for a new kids' menu.

“Katherine’s school newspaper operates on a voluntary basis and has a restaurant review section. She took it upon herself to write about la Madeleine, but it wasn’t an assignment,” her father, James Peel, told PEOPLE.

In her review, Katherine praised the bakery and café’s all-day breakfast options as “a crowd-pleaser.”

La Madeleine is headquartered in Dallas and has more than 80 locations across the United States, including in Georgia, Kentucky, Florida, Louisiana, Maryland and Oklahoma.

Dillon told PEOPLE he learned about Katherine’s review after a friend sent him James Peel’s LinkedIn post about it.

“What struck me was how sincere it was. She was not just reacting to the food, she was describing what la Madeleine felt like to her,” Dillon said.

“That stayed with me because la Madeleine has always been about more than the meal. It is about warmth, connection and those small moments people remember. Katherine captured that better than a lot of adults could,” he added.

Dillon said inviting Katherine and her family to the café “felt like the natural next step.”

“It gave us a chance to thank her and make the day special, ... and show her a little of what happens behind the scenes at a place she clearly loves,” Dillon told PEOPLE.

Katherine visited with her sisters and took part in activities with the la Madeleine team as the company continues designing its kids' menu.

“They had so much fun,” James Peel told PEOPLE. “All three girls loved getting hands-on experience, especially making their own fruit tarts with the cream and fresh toppings, as well as getting a behind-the-scenes tour of the café.”

James Peel said Katherine also offered menu ideas during the visit.

“One of Katherine’s ideas was to introduce a stuffed croissant for children,” he said. “Her recommendations also included bringing back the chicken pesto pasta and adding a savory crepe.”

He said the company “went above and beyond to make the experience special for Katherine and our entire family.”

“They had a custom apron ready for her, along with berets for her and her sisters, which they continue to wear at home,” he said. “It meant a lot that the whole family could be part of it, and it turned into a really special bonding moment for the sisters while also celebrating Katherine.”

Dillon told PEOPLE the story meant a lot to the company.

“la Madeleine was founded just over 40 years ago with a simple idea: create a bakery café that feels warm, welcoming and a little different from the rush of everyday life. What makes this story so meaningful is that it is a reminder that hospitality still matters. People remember how a place made them feel,” he said.

He said Katherine’s review stood out because she wrote it on her own.

“The fact that Katherine saw that and wrote about it so honestly on her own meant a great deal to all of us,” Dillon told PEOPLE. “This was a chance to celebrate her creativity, and also a chance to celebrate the role la Madeleine fills for our guests every day.”

📸 Credit : James Peel, Brit Baker

9-Year-Old Girl Helps Bakery Create Kids' Menu After 5-Star Review

Science Daily

For millions of people with chronic pain, the volume never really drops. A new preclinical study points to a gene therapy designed to turn down pain signals in the brain without the addiction risks linked to opioid drugs such as morphine.

The findings, published in Nature, come from researchers at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine and School of Nursing, working with collaborators from Carnegie Mellon University and Stanford University. The team said the treatment directly targets pain-processing areas in the brain while avoiding the reward pathways tied to addiction.

“The goal was to reduce pain while lessening or eliminating the risk of addiction and dangerous side effects,” said Gregory Corder, PhD, co-senior author and assistant professor of Psychiatry and Neuroscience at Penn. “By targeting the precise brain circuits that morphine acts on, we believe this is a first step in offering new relief for people whose lives are upended by chronic pain.”

Morphine is widely used for pain relief, but researchers said it carries a high potential for misuse. Over time, patients often develop tolerance, meaning they need increasingly higher doses to get the same relief.

To better understand how morphine works, the researchers studied brain cells involved in tracking pain signals. They then used those findings to build an artificial intelligence-powered system in mice that monitors natural behavior, estimates pain levels, and helps determine how much treatment is needed.

According to the researchers, that system guided the design of a targeted gene therapy meant to reproduce morphine’s pain-relieving effects without triggering addiction. They said the therapy introduces a brain-specific “off switch” for pain. When activated, it reduces pain over a sustained period without interfering with normal sensations or activating reward pathways associated with addiction.

“To our knowledge, this represents the world’s first CNS-targeted gene therapy for pain, and a concrete blueprint for non-addictive, circuit-specific pain medicine,” Corder said.

The study reflects more than six years of work supported by a National Institutes of Health New Innovator Award, which the researchers said allowed the team to investigate how chronic pain develops and persists.

The push for safer pain treatment comes as opioid harm remains widespread. In 2019, drug use was linked to 600,000 deaths, with 80 percent involving opioids. A 2025 Pew survey found that nearly half of Philadelphians knew someone with opioid use disorder, and one-third knew someone who had died from an overdose.

At the same time, chronic pain affects about 50 million Americans, according to the study summary. Researchers described it as a “silent epidemic” that leads to more than $635 million in annual costs, including medical expenses, missed work and reduced earnings.

The team said future studies will be needed to confirm the findings, but the approach is being advanced toward possible clinical trials. The researchers are now collaborating with Michael Platt, PhD, the James S. Riepe University Professor, Professor of Neuroscience, Professor of Psychology, on the next stage of the work.

“The journey from discovery to implementation is long, and this represents a strong first step,” Platt said. “Speaking both as a scientist and as a family member of people affected by chronic pain, the potential to relieve suffering without fueling the opioid crisis is exciting.”

The work was supported by the National Institutes of Health, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the Whitehall Foundation, and the Tito’s Love Research Fund. The researchers also disclosed that some authors are inventors on a provisional patent application through the University of Pennsylvania and Stanford University related to the custom sequences used to develop, and the applications of, synthetic opioid promoters, patent application number 63/383,462, “Human and Murine Oprm1 Promoters and Uses Thereof.”

A New Pain Therapy is Blocking Pain Without Opioids or Addiction Risk

A 109-year-old veteran threw out the first pitch for the Baltimore Orioles on Opening Day.

Arthur Green, a long-time Baltimore resident and veteran of World War II and the Korean War, took the mound at Camden Yards ahead of the Orioles’ 2–1 win over the Minnesota Twins.

Green previously threw a ceremonial first pitch at age 106.

Footage shows Green arriving with his daughter, Myra, stopping to have the ball signed by players before delivering the pitch to applause from the crowd.

 📸credit: Baltimore Orioles via Storyful

109-Year-Old Veteran Throws Ceremonial First Pitch at Orioles Opening Day

It is hard to picture a QR code smaller than a bacterium, but researchers in Vienna have done exactly that, and Guinness has now made it official.

Scientists at TU Wien, working with data storage company Cerabyte, created a QR code measuring just 1.98 square micrometers. The team says it can only be detected with an electron microscope, and Guinness has recorded it as a new record.

The researchers say the result is about far more than shrinking a familiar black-and-white pattern.

Traditional storage technologies such as magnetic drives and electronic systems tend to degrade within a few years, according to the team. They say encoding information into ceramic materials could preserve it for hundreds or even thousands of years.

"The structure we have created here is so fine that it cannot be seen with optical microscopes at all," says Prof. Paul Mayrhofer from TU Wien's Institute of Materials Science and Technology. "But that is not even the truly remarkable part. Structures on the micrometer scale are nothing unusual today, it is even possible to fabricate patterns made of individual atoms. However, that alone does not result in a stable, readable code."

The researchers say that at extremely small scales, atoms can shift positions or fill gaps, which can erase stored data.

"What we have done is something fundamentally different," Mayrhofer explains. "We have created a tiny, but stable and repeatedly readable QR code."

The team says the material made the difference. They used thin ceramic films, the same kind of materials used for coating high-performance cutting tools.

"We conduct research on thin ceramic films, such as those used for coating high-performance cutting tools," explain Erwin Peck and Balint Hajas. "For high-performance tools, it is essential that materials remain stable and durable even under extreme conditions. And that is exactly what makes these materials ideal for data storage as well."

Using focused ion beams, the researchers engraved the QR code into a thin ceramic layer. Each pixel measures 49 nanometers, which the team says is about ten times smaller than the wavelength of visible light. Because of that, the pattern is invisible under normal conditions and cannot be resolved using visible light. When viewed with an electron microscope, the QR code can be clearly and reliably read.

The team says the storage density is also high. More than 2 terabytes of data could fit within the area of a single A4 sheet of paper using this method. Unlike conventional storage systems, they say these ceramic data carriers can remain intact indefinitely and do not need energy to maintain the stored information.

"We live in the information age, yet we store our knowledge in media that are astonishingly short-lived," says Alexander Kirnbauer.

The researchers say magnetic and electronic storage devices often lose data after only a few years, especially without continuous power, cooling and maintenance. By comparison, they point to ancient civilizations that carved knowledge into stone, allowing it to survive for thousands of years.

"With ceramic storage media, we are pursuing a similar approach to that of ancient cultures, whose inscriptions we can still read today," Kirnbauer says. "We write information into stable, inert materials that can withstand the passage of time and remain fully accessible to future generations."

The team also says ceramic-based storage has an energy advantage because it can preserve information without any ongoing energy input, unlike modern data centres that need significant electricity and cooling.

The record-setting QR code and its verification, including electron microscope readout, were carried out jointly by TU Wien and Cerabyte in front of witnesses. The University of Vienna served as an independent verifier. TU Wien provided materials science facilities and high-resolution electron microscopes at its USTEM center.

Guinness has recognised the new QR code as measuring 37 percent the size of the previous record holder.

"The now confirmed world record marks just the beginning of a very promising development," says Alexander Kirnbauer. "We now aim to use other materials, increase writing speeds, and develop scalable manufacturing processes so that ceramic data storage can be used not only in laboratories but also in industrial applications. At the same time, we are investigating how more complex data structures, far beyond simple QR codes, can be written robustly, quickly, and energy-efficiently into ceramic thin films and read out reliably."

The World's Smallest QR Code is Smaller Than Bacteria and Could Store Data for Centuries

Photo by George Dolgikh on Pexels (https://www.pexels.com/photo/rabbit-chocolate-2072158/)

The Guardian

Easter TV is looking a lot less sugary this year.

For the first time in the UK, the usual run of television ads for chocolate eggs and hot cross buns has been cut back by rules banning junk food advertising before 9pm. The regulations came into force at the beginning of the year as part of efforts to tackle rising childhood obesity.

Products high in fat, sugar and salt can no longer appear in TV ads before 9pm. That means the Cadbury Creme Egg, more than 200 million of which are eaten in the “season” from after Christmas until the end of Easter, will not appear in TV ads before 9pm this year.

The advertising industry had already started following the rules from October on a voluntary basis, which meant Christmas was the first period with what the source described as “healthy” TV ads. Research conducted for the Guardian suggests that decision has already hit broadcasters’ revenues.

TV advertising spending by confectionery and snacks brands almost halved year on year between October and February, according to that research. An analysis covering most companies advertising products covered by the government’s “less healthy foods” rules found overall TV ad spending was down at least 15 percent year on year.

Broadcasters and industry bodies have challenged the value of the policy. The chief executive of ITV, Carolyn McCall, and former Channel 4 boss Alex Mahon had previously said the government’s own research showed the number of calories saved would be 1.7 a day, about a third of a Smartie.

“The advertising and marketing of products is one consideration for helping tackle childhood obesity,” said a spokesperson for ISBA, the Incorporated Society of British Advertisers, according to the Guardian. “But successive governments have treated bans or restrictions as a silver bullet … legislating on the basis of headlines, not evidence.”

Health campaigners say the rules still leave plenty of room for food brands to advertise. The food industry secured a concession allowing “brand” advertising to continue, as long as commercials do not show an “identifiable” product that breaks the junk food rules.

Lindt is one example. It has run ads featuring the Master Chocolatier to promote the brand without showing any of the 14 products in the Lindor range.

“The policy is riddled with loopholes which allow industry to continue to advertise branding for unhealthy products like Cadbury’s Dairy Milk Caramel or McDonald’s McFlurries,” said Fran Bernhardt, of the campaign group Sustain. “Aside from a few tweaks to adverts, this Easter will be much like Easters before. Industry will continue more or less as usual.”

Campaigners also argue that food companies are making up for the restrictions by shifting spending into other media. The ban also applies to paid online advertising at any time of day, and media agency sources said outdoor advertising and radio have been among the main beneficiaries.

Billboards and poster sites are only subject to junk food ad bans if they are within 100 metres of places such as schools or leisure centres.

Even though the rules have been in place for less than three months, and the UK advertising watchdog is understood to have received only a small number of complaints that still need to be assessed, debate is already building over another possible tightening of the policy.

The current restrictions use a nutrient profiling model created in the early noughties to decide if a product counts as junk food. A newer model was developed in 2018 but was not introduced.

On Wednesday, the government launched a consultation on adopting that updated model, which it has said it is likely to do. If introduced, a much wider range of products would be classed as too high in fat, salt and sugar and banned from advertising from next year.

The Food and Drink Federation said the updated model, as it stands, would ban advertising for products including 100 percent fruit juices, many cereals including Kellogg’s Bran Flakes, Ambrosia rice pudding pots, the Mr Kipling Delicious and Light range and Doritos. It said PepsiCo, Doritos’ parent company, had spent millions reformulating the product to make it healthier under the existing ad rules.

The ISBA spokesperson said: “What goes into our food is important, but the updated nutrient profiling model threatens to discourage the investment which companies have put into changing what we eat and drink. Swathes more products which have not been considered ‘unhealthy’ will be barred.

“A holistic plan would also think about how we incentivise healthier eating and buying by consumers, promoting food education, and creating a more active population. They are the things that will really move the dial, rather than always taking the easy path of yet more restrictions on advertisers.”

Photo by George Dolgikh on Pexels (https://www.pexels.com/photo/rabbit-chocolate-2072158/)

UK TV Sees First Sugar-Free Easter As Chocolate Ads Move Past 9pm

A group of dads went viral after coming together at a London pub to learn how to braid their daughters’ hair.

An event organised by Mathew Lewis-Carter and Lawrence Price, who run the podcast and social platform The Secret Life of Dads, saw 35 dads learn a variety of hairstyles from the stylists at Braid Maidens.

The footage sparked a viral moment, gaining over 26 million views on Instagram and 9 million on TikTok, and leading to the dads giving a braiding lesson on Good Morning Britain.

The concept began with Braid Maidens, who have hosted braiding classes with a combination of “bubbles/brews/beers/breakfast” since 2022.

“While learning to braid or style hair is the entry point, the purpose runs deeper: creating space for fathers to connect with their daughters, and with each other, in a meaningful way,” The Secret Life of Dads wrote on Instagram. “We’re genuinely grateful to every dad who has shown up, shared their experience and helped shape what this is becoming.”

📸 Credit: @thesecretlifeofdads / Braid Maidens via Storyful

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