At least 48 killed while waiting for aid in Gaza, says local hospital
Shifa Hospital in Gaza City said the dead and wounded were among crowds massed at the Zikim Crossing, the main entry point for humanitarian aid to northern Gaza. It was not immediately clear who opened fire and there was no immediate comment from the Israeli military, which controls the crossing.Associated Press footage showed wounded people being ferried away from the scene of the shooting in wooden carts, as well as crowds of people carrying bags of flour.Al-Saraya Field Hospital, where critical cases are stabilised before transfer to main hospitals, said it received more than 100 dead and wounded. Fares Awad, head of the Gaza Health Ministry's emergency service, said some bodies were taken to other hospitals, indicating the toll could rise.Israeli strikes and gunfire had earlier killed at least 46 Palestinians overnight and into Wednesday, most of them among crowds seeking food, health officials said. Another seven Palestinians, including a child, died of malnutrition-related causes, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.The Israeli military did not immediately comment on any of the strikes. It says it only targets militants and blames civilian deaths on Hamas, because the group's militants operate in densely populated areas.ISRAEL HAS EASED ITS BLOCKADE BUT OBSTACLES REMAINUnder heavy international pressure, Israel announced a series of measures over the weekend to facilitate the entry of more international aid to Gaza, but aid workers say much more is needed.The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, or IPC, the leading world authority on hunger crises, has stopped short of declaring famine in Gaza but said Tuesday that the situation has dramatically worsened and warned of "widespread death" without immediate action.COGAT, the Israeli military body that facilitates the entry of aid, said over 220 trucks entered Gaza on Tuesday. That's far below the 500-600 trucks a day that UN agencies say are needed, and which entered during a six-week ceasefire earlier this year.The United Nations is still struggling to deliver the aid that does enter the strip, with most trucks unloaded by crowds in zones controlled by the Israeli military. An alternative aid system run by the Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, or GHF, has also been marred by violence.advertisementMore than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire while seeking aid since May, most near sites run by GHF, according to witnesses, local health officials and the UN human rights office. The Israeli military says it has only fired warning shots at people who approach its forces, and GHF says its armed contractors have only used pepper spray or fired warning shots to prevent deadly crowding.International airdrops of aid have also resumed, but many of the parcels have landed in areas that Palestinians have been told to evacuate while others have plunged into the Mediterranean Sea, forcing people to swim out to retrieve drenched bags of flour.DEATHS FROM MALNUTRITIONA total of 89 children have died of malnutrition since the war began in Gaza. The ministry said that 65 Palestinian adults have also died of malnutrition-related causes across Gaza since late June, when it started counting deaths among adults.Israel denies there is any starvation in Gaza, rejecting accounts to the contrary from witnesses, UN agencies and aid groups, and says the focus on hunger undermines ceasefire efforts.advertisementHamas started the war with its attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, in which militants killed around 1,200 people and abducted 251 others. They still hold 50 hostages, including around 20 believed to be alive. Most of the rest of the hostages were released in ceasefires or other deals.Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed more than 60,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza's Health Ministry. Its count doesn't distinguish between militants and civilians. The ministry operates under the Hamas government. The UN and other international organisations see it as the most reliable source of data on casualties.- EndsMust Watch
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Business Standard
a few seconds ago
- Business Standard
Harvard scientists warn of years-long setback from funding freeze
Harvard University professor Alberto Ascherio's research is literally frozen. Collected from millions of US soldiers over two decades using millions of dollars from taxpayers, the epidemiology and nutrition scientist has blood samples stored in liquid nitrogen freezers within the university's T.H. Chan School of Public Health. The samples are key to his award-winning research, which seeks a cure to multiple sclerosis and other neurodegenerative diseases. But for months, Ascherio has been unable to work with the samples because he lost $7 million in federal research funding, a casualty of Harvard's fight with the Trump administration. It's like we have been creating a state-of-the-art telescope to explore the universe, and now we don't have money to launch it, said Ascherio. We built everything and now we are ready to use it to make a new discovery that could impact millions of people in the world and then, 'Poof. You're being cut off.' Researchers laid off and science shelved The loss of an estimated $2.6 billion in federal funding at Harvard has meant that some of the world's most prominent researchers are laying off young researchers. They are shelving years or even decades of research, into everything from opioid addiction to cancer. And despite Harvard's lawsuits against the administration, and settlement talks between the warring parties, researchers are confronting the fact that some of their work may never resume. The funding cuts are part of a monthslong battle that the Trump administration has waged against some the country's top universities including Columbia, Brown and Northwestern. The administration has taken a particularly aggressive stance against Harvard, freezing funding after the country's oldest university rejected a series of government demands issued by a federal antisemitism task force. The government had demanded sweeping changes at Harvard related to campus protests, academics and admissions - meant to address government accusations that the university had become a hotbed of liberalism and tolerated anti-Jewish harassment. Research jeopardised, even if court case prevails Harvard responded by filing a federal lawsuit, accusing the Trump administration of waging a retaliation campaign against the university. In the lawsuit, it laid out reforms it had taken to address antisemitism but also vowed not to surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights. Make no mistake: Harvard rejects antisemitism and discrimination in all of its forms and is actively making structural reforms to eradicate antisemitism on campus," the university said in its legal complaint. But rather than engage with Harvard regarding those ongoing efforts, the Government announced a sweeping freeze of funding for medical, scientific, technological, and other research that has nothing at all to do with antisemitism. The Trump administration denies the cuts were made in retaliation, saying the grants were under review even before the demands were sent in April. It argues the government has wide discretion to cancel federal contracts for policy reasons. The funding cuts have left Harvard's research community in a state of shock, feeling as if they are being unfairly targeted in a fight has nothing to do with them. Some have been forced to shutter labs or scramble to find non-government funding to replace lost money. In May, Harvard announced that it would put up at least $250 million of its own money to continue research efforts, but university President Alan Garber warned of difficult decisions and sacrifices ahead. Ascherio said the university was able to pull together funding to pay his researchers' salaries until next June. But he's still been left without resources needed to fund critical research tasks, like lab work. Even a year's delay can put his research back five years, he said. Knowledge lost in funding freeze It's really devastating, agreed Rita Hamad, the director of the Social Policies for Health Equity Research Center at Harvard, who had three multiyear grants totaling $10 million canceled by the Trump administration. The grants funded research into the impact of school segregation on heart health, how pandemic-era policies in over 250 counties affected mental health, and the role of neighborhood factors in dementia. At the School of Public Health, where Hamad is based, 190 grants have been terminated, affecting roughly 130 scientists. Just thinking about all the knowledge that's not going to be gained or that is going to be actively lost," Hamad said. She expects significant layoffs on her team if the funding freeze continues for a few more months. "It's all just a mixture of frustration and anger and sadness all the time, every day." John Quackenbush, a professor of computational biology and bioinformatics at the School of Public Health, has spent the past few months enduring cuts on multiple fronts. In April, a multimillion dollar grant was not renewed, jeopardizing a study into the role sex plays in disease. In May, he lost about $1.2 million in federal funding for in the coming year due to the Harvard freeze. Four departmental grants worth $24 million that funded training of doctoral students also were cancelled as part of the fight with the Trump administration, Quackenbush said. I'm in a position where I have to really think about, Can I revive this research?' he said. Can I restart these programs even if Harvard and the Trump administration reached some kind of settlement? If they do reach a settlement, how quickly can the funding be turned back on? Can it be turned back on? The researchers all agreed that the funding cuts have little or nothing to do with the university's fight against antisemitism. Some, however, argue changes at Harvard were long overdue and pressure from the Trump administration was necessary. Bertha Madras, a Harvard psychobiologist who lost funding to create a free, parent-focused training to prevent teen opioid overdose and drug use, said she's happy to see the culling of what she called politically motivated social science studies. White House pressure a good thing? Madras said pressure from the White House has catalysed much-needed reform at the university, where several programs of study have really gone off the wall in terms of being shaped by orthodoxy that is not representative of the country as a whole. But Madras, who served on the President's Commission on Opioids during Trump's first term, said holding scientists' research funding hostage as a bargaining chip doesn't make sense. I don't know if reform would have happened without the president of the United States pointing the bony finger at Harvard," she said. But sacrificing science is problematic, and it's very worrisome because it is one of the major pillars of strength of the country. Quackenbush and other Harvard researchers argue the cuts are part of a larger attack on science by the Trump administration that puts the country's reputation as the global research leader at risk. Support for students and post-doctoral fellows has been slashed, visas for foreign scholars threatened, and new guidelines and funding cuts at the NIH will make it much more difficult to get federal funding in the future, they said. It also will be difficult to replace federal funding with money from the private sector. We're all sort of moving toward this future in which this 80-year partnership between the government and the universities is going to be jeopardized, Quackenbush said. We're going to face real challenges in continuing to lead the world in scientific excellence.
Economic Times
28 minutes ago
- Economic Times
Harvard scientists say research could be set back years after funding freeze
AP Harvard University professor Alberto Ascherio opens a liquid nitrogen freezer used to store blood samples used for research at the university's T.H. Chan School of Public Health on Tuesday, Aug. 5, 2025 in Boston. Harvard University professor Alberto Ascherio's research is literally from millions of US soldiers over two decades using millions of dollars from taxpayers, the epidemiology and nutrition scientist has blood samples stored in liquid nitrogen freezers within the university's T.H. Chan School of Public Health. The samples are key to his award-winning research, which seeks a cure to multiple sclerosis and other neurodegenerative diseases. But for months, Ascherio has been unable to work with the samples because he lost $7 million in federal research funding, a casualty of Harvard's fight with the Trump administration. "It's like we have been creating a state-of-the-art telescope to explore the universe, and now we don't have money to launch it," said Ascherio. "We built everything and now we are ready to use it to make a new discovery that could impact millions of people in the world and then, 'Poof. You're being cut off.'" Researchers laid off and science shelved The loss of an estimated $2.6 billion in federal funding at Harvard has meant that some of the world's most prominent researchers are laying off young researchers. They are shelving years or even decades of research, into everything from opioid addiction to despite Harvard's lawsuits against the administration, and settlement talks between the warring parties, researchers are confronting the fact that some of their work may never resume. The funding cuts are part of a monthslong battle that the Trump administration has waged against some the country's top universities including Columbia, Brown and Northwestern. The administration has taken a particularly aggressive stance against Harvard, freezing funding after the country's oldest university rejected a series of government demands issued by a federal antisemitism task force. The government had demanded sweeping changes at Harvard related to campus protests, academics and admissions - meant to address government accusations that the university had become a hotbed of liberalism and tolerated anti-Jewish harassment. Research jeopardised, even if court case prevails Harvard responded by filing a federal lawsuit, accusing the Trump administration of waging a retaliation campaign against the university. In the lawsuit, it laid out reforms it had taken to address antisemitism but also vowed not to "surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights." "Make no mistake: Harvard rejects antisemitism and discrimination in all of its forms and is actively making structural reforms to eradicate antisemitism on campus," the university said in its legal complaint. "But rather than engage with Harvard regarding those ongoing efforts, the Government announced a sweeping freeze of funding for medical, scientific, technological, and other research that has nothing at all to do with antisemitism." The Trump administration denies the cuts were made in retaliation, saying the grants were under review even before the demands were sent in April. It argues the government has wide discretion to cancel federal contracts for policy funding cuts have left Harvard's research community in a state of shock, feeling as if they are being unfairly targeted in a fight has nothing to do with them. Some have been forced to shutter labs or scramble to find non-government funding to replace lost May, Harvard announced that it would put up at least $250 million of its own money to continue research efforts, but university President Alan Garber warned of "difficult decisions and sacrifices" said the university was able to pull together funding to pay his researchers' salaries until next June. But he's still been left without resources needed to fund critical research tasks, like lab work. Even a year's delay can put his research back five years, he said. Knowledge lost in funding freeze "It's really devastating," agreed Rita Hamad, the director of the Social Policies for Health Equity Research Center at Harvard, who had three multiyear grants totaling $10 million canceled by the Trump administration. The grants funded research into the impact of school segregation on heart health, how pandemic-era policies in over 250 counties affected mental health, and the role of neighborhood factors in the School of Public Health, where Hamad is based, 190 grants have been terminated, affecting roughly 130 scientists."Just thinking about all the knowledge that's not going to be gained or that is going to be actively lost," Hamad said. She expects significant layoffs on her team if the funding freeze continues for a few more months. "It's all just a mixture of frustration and anger and sadness all the time, every day." John Quackenbush, a professor of computational biology and bioinformatics at the School of Public Health, has spent the past few months enduring cuts on multiple April, a multimillion dollar grant was not renewed, jeopardizing a study into the role sex plays in disease. In May, he lost about $1.2 million in federal funding for in the coming year due to the Harvard freeze. Four departmental grants worth $24 million that funded training of doctoral students also were cancelled as part of the fight with the Trump administration, Quackenbush said."I'm in a position where I have to really think about, Can I revive this research?'" he said. "Can I restart these programs even if Harvard and the Trump administration reached some kind of settlement? If they do reach a settlement, how quickly can the funding be turned back on? Can it be turned back on?" The researchers all agreed that the funding cuts have little or nothing to do with the university's fight against antisemitism. Some, however, argue changes at Harvard were long overdue and pressure from the Trump administration was Madras, a Harvard psychobiologist who lost funding to create a free, parent-focused training to prevent teen opioid overdose and drug use, said she's happy to see the culling of what she called "politically motivated social science studies." White House pressure a good thing? Madras said pressure from the White House has catalysed much-needed reform at the university, where several programs of study have "really gone off the wall in terms of being shaped by orthodoxy that is not representative of the country as a whole." But Madras, who served on the President's Commission on Opioids during Trump's first term, said holding scientists' research funding hostage as a bargaining chip doesn't make sense."I don't know if reform would have happened without the president of the United States pointing the bony finger at Harvard," she said. "But sacrificing science is problematic, and it's very worrisome because it is one of the major pillars of strength of the country." Quackenbush and other Harvard researchers argue the cuts are part of a larger attack on science by the Trump administration that puts the country's reputation as the global research leader at risk. Support for students and post-doctoral fellows has been slashed, visas for foreign scholars threatened, and new guidelines and funding cuts at the NIH will make it much more difficult to get federal funding in the future, they said. It also will be difficult to replace federal funding with money from the private sector."We're all sort of moving toward this future in which this 80-year partnership between the government and the universities is going to be jeopardized," Quackenbush said. "We're going to face real challenges in continuing to lead the world in scientific excellence." (Join our ETNRI WhatsApp channel for all the latest updates) Elevate your knowledge and leadership skills at a cost cheaper than your daily tea. As RBI retains GDP forecast, 4 factors that will test the strength of Indian economy Is Shadowfax closing in on its closest rival? Can Coforge's ambition to lead the IT Industry become a reality? 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Mint
14 hours ago
- Mint
NIH Grant Cuts Arent Saving Money. Theyre Wasting It.
(Bloomberg Opinion) -- The Trump administration's waves of massive cuts to funding at the National Institutes of Health are framed as a recasting of research priorities and a way to save taxpayer money. Another way to frame it is an exercise in massive waste. In terminating nearly 750 NIH grants over the past two months, the government dumped years of investment down the drain. The unceremonious end to those projects means we won't know the answers to studies that intended to improve the health of Americans. According to a Bloomberg Opinion analysis(1), Health and Human Services data show that some $373 million had already been spent on the 242 discontinued R01 grants, an NIH award that is considered critical to launching a successful career. Researchers tend to get that chunk of funding — typically a sizable amount that supports their work for 3 to 5 years — after they've done a few years of preliminary work. It's all geared toward asking a big scientific question. Our analysis doesn't include the untold number of NIH grants at Harvard University affected by the administration's $2.2 billion federal funding freeze this week — a punishment for refusing to comply with the government's long list of demands. But even if those funds are eventually restored, the disruption risks derailing studies related to ALS, tuberculosis and many other health conditions. Funding was pulled just as some of these projects were getting off the ground, while others were rounding into their last year of funding — a point where enough data would finally be collected to offer concrete results. Our analysis found that nearly 40% of the canceled R01 grants supported research that had yet to produce findings, meaning all of the agency's prior investments won't benefit the public. Take, for example, the abrupt end to Washington University of St. Louis professor Jeremy Goldbach's five-year grant to test the first evidence-backed intervention intended to help teachers, administrators and social workers support LGBTQ youth. A little over three years in, Goldbach had collected a massive amount of data from 20 schools — thousands of students had participated. But without his last rounds of funding, he won't be able to track the program's efficacy at the last four schools needed for the results to be statistically meaningful. That's more than $2.1 million that NIH already spent on the project down the drain, all because the government pulled the last few hundred thousand. (Goldbach's grant was one of many caught up in a sweep of cuts related to President Trump's gender ideology executive order.) But the loss goes beyond that. Goldbach's project built off years of earlier work. Before getting to the point where a review panel of more than two dozen experts felt the concept was promising enough to merit a large-scale study, the researcher had to design and test it. That work was supported by two earlier awards from NIH and financial help from foundations, which together amounted to nearly $900,000 in investment in the project. Moreover, about 15 people's jobs are on the line between the loss of this funding and around seven other terminated grants for studies that Goldbach is a collaborator on. At the other end of the spectrum, Northwestern University professor Michelle Birkett's $3.8 million grant was ended in the first of its five years. The funding was awarded to understand —and ultimately address — disparities in HIV transmission and substance use among gay men and transgender women. Although only a fraction of that promised money had been spent, Birkett had invested years of work into designing and securing funding for the study and had already recruited a community board across each of the five cities where it was poised to launch. Countless stories of similarly needless waste — research interrupted midstream and sidelined careers— live behind the HHS's long list of canceled funding. That translates into a massive number of health insights the public simply won't know about — yet had already paid to support. So many of those unanswered questions centered on prevention: How can we encourage simple changes that could have a big impact on the physical and mental health of Americans — and ultimately save the health care system money? For example, a cluster of projects devoted to improving uptake of the HPV vaccine, which has stalled in recent years, was among the research that recently lost funding. Not enough adolescents are getting the shots despite a growing body of data showing its ability to prevent deaths from cervical cancer in women and potentially lower the rates of head and neck, anal, penile, vaginal and vulvar cancers. Some of those HPV vaccine studies were well underway but, as with Goldbach's project, had yet to enroll enough volunteers to yield meaningful data on how to convince people to get the shot. Ultimately, that doesn't just waste the taxpayer money already spent on those grants; it could also cost the health care system later, in the form of otherwise preventable cancer cases. Abandoning these projects is far from an exercise in efficiency, as the Trump administration likes to tout. A more accurate word to sum up what's happening with these cuts would be: nonsensical. More From Bloomberg Opinion: Want more Bloomberg Opinion? OPIN GO. Or subscribe to our daily newsletter. (1) Bloomberg Opinion analyzed 748 terminated NIH grants from the HHS TAGGS data as of April 16. We merged in additional information about each grant, including the project start date and the number of associated publications, from the NIH RePORTER database. The length of each study is the time between the project's beginning and the grant termination date, which we visualize for three of the most common award types: R01, U01 and U54 grants. The funding already spent on R01s is calculated from the 'total amount expended' field in the HHS data. This column reflects the personal views of the author and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners. Lisa Jarvis is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering biotech, health care and the pharmaceutical industry. Previously, she was executive editor of Chemical & Engineering News. Carolyn Silverman is a data journalist for Bloomberg Opinion. She previously served as a data scientist for the University of Chicago Crime Lab and Education Lab. More stories like this are available on
