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April 10, 2026

Bait sheds light on British-Pakistani mental health struggles rarely seen on screen

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Jolel Miah, Senior Lecturer, Health Psychology, University of Westminster

Riz Ahmed’s Bait is an exceptional piece of television. Not only for its satirical exploration of the entertainment industry, but for the psychological narrative running underneath it.

At its heart, the Prime Video series is a quietly devastating study of the pressures placed upon British‑Pakistani men. What appears to be an eccentric comedy about a struggling actor auditioning for James Bond soon reveals itself to be a nuanced portrayal of shame, internalised stigma and the early signs of psychosis.

The series follows Shah Latif (Ahmed), whose obsessive pursuit of validation becomes a catalyst for a psychological unravelling. Shah’s downward spiral is shaped by relentless scrutiny and the fear of not belonging. These themes resonate strongly with a growing body of research on psychosis in British‑Pakistani communities.

A 2024 study in The British Journal of Psychiatry found a significantly higher incidence of first‑episode psychosis among British‑Pakistanis, compared with the majority population.

The trailer for Bait.

This offers an important parallel to Bait. Shah’s sense of cultural drift, his distance from grounding community structures and his struggle to inhabit multiple identities all heighten his vulnerability.

The show does not name psychosis explicitly, but Shah experiences intrusive thoughts, escalating paranoia, fragmentation of self and delusions. This reflects real trajectories observed in early intervention services.

Racism and psychosis

One of the most incisive threads in the series is the portrayal of racial microaggressions that Shah absorbs without resistance. These include remarks about his “Britishness”, comments on his appearance, and the persistent insinuation that he exists outside the cultural centre.

Recent research has shown that racial discrimination is one of the strongest predictors of psychosis risk. It increases the likelihood of psychotic symptoms by 77%, with physical racial attacks multiplying the risk five-fold.

Shah’s encounters – ranging from subtle jabs to overt dismissal – operate cumulatively, shaping his internal monologue and eroding his self-esteem. The brilliance of Bait lies in how it embeds these aggressions into the comedic structure, illustrating the subtle normalisation of harm.

The series highlights the importance of family dynamics, a key but under-researched factor in understanding psychosis among South Asian Muslims in the UK. A 2009 study found that families often had to navigate stigma, concerns about privacy and honour, and tensions between medical models of illness and culturally rooted understandings of distress.

Shah’s relationship with his family shifts between warmth, expectation and pressure, reflecting this complexity. Family can act as both a source of support and a cause of psychological strain.

Research examining British-Pakistani Muslim views on mental health has found that cultural stigma, fear of public opinion, and uncertainty around religious explanations can delay people seeking help.

These dynamics are reflected in the silence running through Shah’s world. Mental health struggles are hinted at but never openly discussed, and Shah instinctively hides his distress behind humour and performance. This also reflects how many communities describe mental health in moral or spiritual terms, rather than psychological ones.

I recently explored these issues in a podcast conversation with Zenab Sabahat, a PhD researcher at the University of Bradford. Her research looks at access to, experiences of and outcomes for South Asian Muslim families receiving family interventions for psychosis. This work explores how cultural identity stress, stigma and mismatches between different models of care shape pathways into support.

Sabahat’s work reinforces what Bait illustrates narratively: that psychological distress among British-Pakistanis is closely linked to experiences of migration, racism, cultural belonging and intergenerational tension.

This reality also underpins the work of Our Minds Matter, the UK charity I co-founded to deliver culturally grounded mental health education and support in under-served communities. The organisation’s mission emphasises the need to address mental health through the lenses of culture, faith and community – approaches that mainstream services often overlook.

Early education, reducing stigma and building culturally sensitive support are essential for addressing the inequalities faced by communities like Shah’s.

The Our Minds Matter documentary.

Five years ago, our team produced a community-led documentary exploring psychosis. It highlighted the experiences of South Asian families and the urgent need for culturally coherent support structures. The challenges articulated in the documentary continue to be reflected in both academic research and people’s lived experiences today.

What Bait achieves is not simply representation but illumination. It exposes how psychological vulnerability can be fuelled by cultural dislocation, racialised exclusion, and the impossible expectation to excel while carrying generations of unspoken pressure.

Shah’s experiences – humorous, painful and increasingly fractured – mirror the mental health inequalities faced by British‑Pakistani communities, particularly men navigating contradictory identities and structural disadvantage.

The series invites viewers to see psychosis not as an isolated biomedical event, but as a response to accumulated pressures: family honour, societal scrutiny, cultural misrecognition and stigma that constrains emotional expression.

These pressures interact across biological, psychological and social frameworks, creating conditions in which psychosis risk becomes elevated. The show’s understated portrayal of this trajectory offers a culturally specific, psychologically accurate narrative rarely seen in British television.

In a media landscape where the mental health of British South Asian Muslims is often sensationalised or overlooked, Bait offers an important counternarrative. It shows that the intersections of identity, discrimination and cultural expectation are not abstract ideas but lived experiences that shape psychological wellbeing.

The show’s quiet strength lies in revealing these dynamics without being preachy – inviting audiences and practitioners to better understand how culture, racism and mental health intertwine.

Jolel Miah does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Bait sheds light on British-Pakistani mental health struggles rarely seen on screen – https://theconversation.com/bait-sheds-light-on-british-pakistani-mental-health-struggles-rarely-seen-on-screen-280102

April 10, 2026

What can governments do when petrol prices rocket?

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Christoph Siemroth, Associate Professor (Senior Lecturer) in Economics, University of Essex

The price of oil has changed a lot in the last few weeks. There have been dips as well as peaks, but generally, since the the start of the US-Israeli attacks on Iran at the end of February, the black stuff has been getting more expensive.

As a direct result, petrol and diesel prices in the UK have also rocketed.

Motorists have felt the steep rise on petrol station forecourts, while some fuel sellers have been accused of profiteering and ripping off customers. There have also been calls for the government to intervene to prevent costs from spiralling out of control.

But what can it actually do to bring petrol prices down?

One option might be to impose price caps, setting a legal limit on what motorists can be charged for a litre of fuel. But a major problem with this idea comes down to a lack of supply.

Taking the Strait of Hormuz as a perfect example, if fewer tankers from Kuwait and Qatar are getting through, that means there is less oil available. As stocks runs low, it is impossible for everyone to get the same amount of fuel at the same price as before.

If price caps were introduced (with the supplier taking on the full impact of the discount), the countries and firms with oil to sell would naturally shift their sales to countries willing to pay higher prices. So a price cap would probably lead to empty petrol pumps in the UK.

There have already been shortages in France, where one major fuel provider implemented its own price cap and was subsequently inundated with customers.

In contrast, high fuel prices may persuade households to cut down on consumption, which is helpful when there is less oil available. After all, people don’t switch from travelling by car to public transport (which is often less convenient) unless there is a good reason to do so. High fuel prices are a good reason.

Research suggests that in the UK, a 10% increase in petrol prices can lead to a reduction in demand of up to 5%. So, high prices are a way of adjusting consumption to cope with the lower supply.

Duty calls

In the longer term, households might invest in a way which reduces their dependence on future fossil fuel consumption. Maybe, instead of a big SUV, the next family car will be be smaller or electric.

In the short term, though, demand for petrol and diesel will remain. Not all commuting and travelling can be cancelled or postponed. People need to get to work, children need to go to school.

A more promising policy intervention could be temporary fuel duty discounts – reducing the proportion of fuel costs which ends up in the Treasury. Unlike with price caps, oil exporters’ incentives to sell in the UK are not diminished by reducing fuel duty. So fuel duty cuts wouldn’t cause supply issues.

The issue here is that fuel duty cuts reduce government revenue at a time when it is already seriously stretched. Fuel duty receipts account for almost 2% of UK government income.

Also, the measure is not very targeted. Wealthy households with multiple vehicles would benefit more than a single mother struggling to pay for petrol to get to work.

Making allowances

Another option, favoured by some economists, is based on one-off transfers of money from the state directly to some motorists.

Instead of fuel duty cuts, the government could pay out a fixed sum to those in particular need (much like the winter fuel allowance for heating bills). This could be paid to households under a certain income threshold that own a car.

When a similar transfer scheme for gas was implemented in Germany in 2022 after Russia shut off gas pipelines, firms and households received compensation based on past consumption. Germany was able to reduce its gas consumption by about 20% during that time.

Unlike a fuel duty cut, compensation does not change depending on the amount of fuel bought. So the incentive to cut down on fuel consumption wherever possible remains.

Indeed, households that leave the car at home will profit, as they keep the transfer. This is as it should be: households that use less fuel get rewarded, while those that need it still have some support.

Many economists like this proposal because it keeps prices as an accurate reflection of supply shortages, while providing targeted relief. Neither price caps nor fuel duty cuts achieve this.

Christoph Siemroth previously received funding from the UK Economic and Social Research Council.

– ref. What can governments do when petrol prices rocket? – https://theconversation.com/what-can-governments-do-when-petrol-prices-rocket-280094

April 10, 2026

In The Stranger François Ozon captures the many ambiguities of Albert Camus’s novel

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Debra Kelly, Professor of French and Francophone Studies, Cultural Historian, University of Westminster

Director François Ozon’s new film adaptation of Albert Camus’s novel L’Étranger (The Outsider, 1942) confronts a considerable task: turning a brief, philosophical novel into a cinematic experience.

Though the book is short, it is dense and readers often discover it requires multiple readings. Camus’s spare prose conceals profound questions about morality, society and human existence. Translated into over 75 languages with millions of copies sold, The Outsider has inspired stage, screen, radio and even graphic and manga adaptations. It has long been a set text in schools and universities, often perplexing young readers, just as it did a young Ozon. This film offers an invitation to return and reflect on Camus’ work.

The story follows Meursault (Benjamin Voisin), a French-Algerian office worker living in Algiers. The novel famously opens with the death of his mother, whose funeral he attends with apparent emotional detachment. He begins a relationship with Marie (Rebecca Marder), who formerly worked in the same office and becomes involved with Raymond (Pierre Lottin), a neighbour entangled in a violent dispute.

The trailer for The Stranger.

Meursault’s life changes dramatically when he shoots a young Arab man on a sun-drenched beach. The act leads to his arrest and the second part of the novel focuses on his imprisonment and trial. Throughout, Meursault remains a detached observer of the absurdity of existence and the moral expectations of society.

Ozon’s adaptation closely follows this narrative while expanding certain perspectives giving the film its own vitality and richness.

Camus and the challenges of adaptation

In a recent Curzon audience Q&A, Ozon observed that this is a novel every reader has already visualised and staged in their own mind. The director faced not only the expectations of readers’ imagined versions of the story but also the iconic stature of Camus himself.

Born into a poor French settler family in Algeria, afflicted by tuberculosis, Camus rose to become a journalist, playwright, actor, philosopher, member of the French Resistance, world-famous novelist and Nobel laureate (in 1957). His death at the age of 46 in a fatal car accident little more than two years later, with an unused train ticket to Paris in his pocket, added a mythic aura to his life and work.

Shot compellingly in black and white, Ozon’s film moves fluidly between the opening 1930s archive images of Algiers to the film’s recreated streets and natural landscapes with their play of light and shadow. The heat of the sun, the glare of the sea and the tactile presence of sand are central to the story, while also reflecting Camus’s own love of Algeria’s natural riches.

Camus described the story as both abstract and intensely physical – rooted in flesh and heat. Ozon’s film captures that tension between the intellectual and the sensory.

The title of the novel sets up the ambiguities of interpreting and adapting it. Published as The Outsider in the UK and The Stranger in the US, both titles seemingly settle the possibilities of Meursault’s status.

In French, “étranger” may mean stranger, foreigner or outsider – a multiplicity Ozon preserves in his adaptation. Voisin, incarnating Meursault’s stillness and silences on screen, moves between these roles. Among the French quarter’s neighbours, cafes and small businesses, he is just another man. Algerian passers-by, merely glimpsed here, are the strangers, foreigners, outsiders.

Among the Arab prisoners Meursault is imprisoned with, he is suddenly “the foreigner”. The film traces his inexorable shift from detached observer to condemned outsider. The confrontation with the chaplain, a climactic moment in the novel, is key to Ozon’s own vision. Here, Meursault refuses conventional consolation, embodying the “rebel” of Camus’s later philosophical work.

Reclaiming Camus’s ambiguities

The colonial context of L’Etranger has often been politically contested. Camus’s unfinished autobiographical novel, Le Premier Homme (The First Man, 1994) was found at the scene of his death. It reflects his position on Algeria (and on poverty, class and education), which is more complex than trial by the political convictions of various critics allows.

Camus’s detachment from Algerian nationalist movements, along with his choice not to name Arab characters in his fiction (or to avoid them altogether), drew sustained criticism from the French Left and Algerian nationalists in the 1950s and 60s. His vision of a multicultural Algeria – seen by some as utopian and by others as implicitly racist – was later criticised by postcolonial scholars as well. However, these ambiguities are inseparable from Camus’s literary and moral vision and his lived experience.

Ozon’s adaptation speaks to contemporary audiences by giving form to these ambiguities. By expanding the presence of his lover Marie, Ozon provides subtle insights into Meursault, a man condemned because he doesn’t play the game and refuses to lie, as Camus later described him in a 1955 American edition of the novel. Ozon also gives agency to the murdered man’s sister Djemila (also nameless in the novel). These female performances provide the film’s emotional centre.

The film’s careful attention to Algeria, both past and present, meanwhile, reframes The Stranger as a story not just of one man, but of a society. Following the bloody civil war in 1990s Algeria, Camus was “recuperated” by Algerian dissidents against the rise of fundamentalism and reclaimed by new generations of Algerian writers. The final scene of the film honours the murdered “Arab” with the name Moussa, which has been taken from Kamel Daoud’s knowing re-telling, Meursault, Contre-enquête (The Meursault Investigation; 2012).

In doing so, Ozon takes his own place in reclaiming Camus’s moral fable in all its ambiguities. The Stranger retains Camus’s philosophical challenge: to confront the absurdity of existence without surrendering to despair.

This article features references to books that have been included for editorial reasons, and may contain links to bookshop.org. If you click on one of the links and go on to buy something from bookshop.org The Conversation UK may earn a commission.

Debra Kelly does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. In The Stranger François Ozon captures the many ambiguities of Albert Camus’s novel – https://theconversation.com/in-the-stranger-francois-ozon-captures-the-many-ambiguities-of-albert-camuss-novel-279718

April 10, 2026

As a philosopher, I’m convinced that Trump isn’t lying − he’s doing something worse

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Robert B. Talisse, W. Alton Jones Professor of Philosophy, Vanderbilt University

Polls indicate mounting regret and disappointment among Trump supporters. Farknot_Architect, iStock/Getty Images Plus

For much of his political career, dishonesty has been without cost for Donald Trump. He entered into national politics with the birther lie, claiming that Barack Obama was not born in the U.S., and that did not prevent Trump from winning the 2016 GOP nomination.

His persistent false statements about crowd sizes, electoral outcomes and the birthplace of his father barely garner press coverage today.

What’s more, the admission that Trump lies seems to have had little impact. On the campaign trail during the 2024 presidential race, vice-presidential candidate JD Vance acknowledged that Trump’s story that Haitian immigrants were eating pets in Ohio had been “created.” That confession had no discernible effect on Trump’s popularity. In fact, some measures indicate that Trump’s supporters admire his untruthfulness.

More recently, however, things have changed. Data now indicates mounting regret and disappointment among his base.

The administration’s failure to sustain convincing messaging about the Iran war, the Epstein files, the tariffs and inflation have left some supporters feeling duped and abandoned by Trump.

The president’s recent approval numbers are registering this shift.

This might suggest that fact-checking efforts are paying off. But, as a philosopher who studies the cognitive and emotional aspects of citizenship, I think this is incorrect. There is a better explanation for why, at this point, Trump’s followers are reacting negatively to his assertions.

Trump’s false assertion that immigrants were eating dogs did not diminish his popularity.

When falsehoods aren’t lies

Although fact-checking can be successful in establishing the facts among people who have not already made up their minds, it is generally ineffective among true believers. Once someone has formed an opinion, debunking their belief can backfire, driving them to commit even more strongly to their mistake.

To explain the emerging shift among Trump’s base requires looking elsewhere. Specifically, I think it requires abandoning the idea that Trump’s more outlandishly false statements are lies at all.

I realize that this may sound odd.

To explain, let’s begin by noting that it is surprisingly difficult to give an adequate definition of lying. Intuitive characterizations – “A lie is something that isn’t true” – fall short.

For example, lying isn’t merely uttering a falsehood. Honest mistakes and statements made from lapses of memory are not lies. You could say instead that lying is deliberately asserting what one knows to be false.

But that won’t work, either.

President Bill Clinton lied when he claimed that “there is not a sexual relationship,” which, at the moment he said it, was true.

At the very least, the definition of lying must include speaking with the aim of causing one’s audience to adopt a falsehood. But that would make stage actors liars.

We should say instead that lying is a matter of speaking with the intent to deceive. Though difficulties remain, that’s a workable definition.

Betrayal by contempt

In a May 9, 2026, speech to GOP lawmakers, President Donald Trump speaks about the war in Iran as a ‘short-term excursion.’

Given the ease with which many of Trump’s false statements are debunked, I think it’s unlikely that he aims to deceive anyone. No one really believes that Trump has stopped eight wars, defeated inflation, brought gasoline prices below US$2, cut a deal with the CEO of Sharpie or has 100% approval for his military incursion in Iran – all things he has said.

As he is not attempting to deceive, Trump isn’t lying when he makes such claims. Rather, he is doing something else entirely, something arguably more pernicious.

From my perspective as a political philosopher, these and other similar claims indicate he is speaking falsely as a way of demeaning or taunting his detractors. By resolutely asserting unbelievable falsehoods, Trump is expressing contempt. He is deriding the enterprise of journalism, in effect forcing reporters to write stories about his incredible statements, thereby indirectly controlling the news cycle.

It seems to me that his purpose is not to convince anyone, but rather to declare to the press, and perhaps also to his opposition, “You cannot stop me.” For a political movement rooted in the idea that U.S. politics is a swamp in need of draining, Trump’s defiant style has been successful.

But here’s the catch. It appears that Trump’s supporters are now beginning to feel that they, too, are on the receiving end of his contempt.

His recent claims that grocery prices are falling, his tariffs are working, the economy is roaring and the operation in Iran is a “little excursion” that has already been successful are not only obvious falsehoods.

In asserting them, Trump belittles those who must bear the effects of a struggling economy and an ill-conceived war. From this perspective, the shift among his base is not due to their realization that Trump lies. It’s that he has betrayed them.

Robert B. Talisse does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. As a philosopher, I’m convinced that Trump isn’t lying − he’s doing something worse – https://theconversation.com/as-a-philosopher-im-convinced-that-trump-isnt-lying-hes-doing-something-worse-279093

April 10, 2026

In his efforts to remake federal architecture, Trump repudiates the ‘republican ideals’ that have long informed it

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Kevin D. Murphy, Professor and Chair of History of Art, Vanderbilt University

Work crews prepare for the construction of a new ballroom after the demolition of the East Wing of the White House in October 2025. Andrew Leyden/Getty Images

Sand was thrown in the gears of President Donald Trump’s grand White House ballroom plans on March 31, 2026, when U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon ordered a pause on construction.

The president, the judge wrote, was the “steward” of the residence, not its “owner.” In response, the Justice Department filed an emergency motion, asking that construction be allowed to resume due to security risks caused by the project being in a state of limbo.

Presidents of the United States, unlike other world leaders, have not typically sought to impress their own architectural tastes on national monuments.

In this regard, Trump is the exception. His approach to remaking federal architecture has mirrored his approach to university funding and immigration enforcement: move fast, break things.

But Trump’s imposition of his aesthetic preferences doesn’t just threaten to erase chapters in the story of the nation’s federal architecture. It also risks undoing the legacies of presidential wives, influential designers and the egalitarian ideals that many of these buildings embody.

Gaudy grandeur

Since his second term began in January 2025, Trump has paved over the storied White House Rose Garden – established by first lady Ellen Wilson in 1913 and redesigned by renowned horticulturalist Bunny Mellon in 1962 – complaining that ladies’ high-heeled shoes sank into the ground. The art deco bathroom off the Lincoln Bedroom now reflects Trump’s penchant for polished marble. And gold-colored decorative elements have been affixed to the simple woodwork throughout the White House, with some of the ornamentation brought from Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s Florida estate.

Most notably, the East Wing, which housed the offices of the first lady and her staff, was flattened in fall 2025 to make way for a grand ballroom projected to cost some US$400 million. The building, if completed as planned, will dwarf the historic White House.

The ballroom also reflects Trump’s taste for grandiosity and opulence – the same aesthetic that’s reflected in the 250-foot “Independence Arch” that Trump has proposed for Washington.

Trump has repeatedly complained that public buildings in Washington lack grandeur. He was even quoted by Golf Magazine in 2017 as having described the White House as a “real dump,” although he later denied it.

Yet many of the structures he has demolished or has sought to revise embody, in their form and decoration, certain republican ideals, such as government by the people, civic virtue and opposition to concentrated power.

Buildings that embody egalitarianism

Trump has added accents to the White House to mimic the imposing homes of British and European monarchs. But the residence’s original “republican simplicity” – a concept attributed to Thomas Jefferson – actually had a purpose: It signaled the egalitarian outlook of the founders.

In 1792, when Jefferson was George Washington’s secretary of state, he anonymously entered the competition to design a new presidential home. His submission, which didn’t end up winning, was inspired by Renaissance architecture like Andrea Palladio’s Villa Rotonda. Completed around 1570 in northern Italy, the Villa Rotonda features symmetrical facades and harmonious proportions that have been equated with Renaissance humanism and rationalism.

Elsewhere, Jefferson advocated for modeling the young nation’s government architecture on the classical tradition, due to its associations with ancient Greek and Roman democracy. This often meant using classical design principles like restraint, order and geometric harmony, and adapting them by either simplifying the elements or using locally available materials instead of the expensive marble and other stones favored by the ancients.

A repudiation of ‘republican simplicity’

In August 2025, Trump signed an executive order, Making Federal Architecture Beautiful Again, directing that this same classical style inform the design of all future federal buildings.

Yet Trump’s own vision for the White House design doesn’t align with this directive. For one, the sheer enormity of the proposed ballroom transgresses the foundational belief in classical restraint.

The columns that support the massive south portico – which in an earlier iteration was reached by a grand staircase that didn’t lead to an entrance – have Corinthian capitals, the most ornate type of decorative top for a column. In contrast, Ionic capitals, which are more restrained, currently grace the columns at the entrance of the White House. One of Trump’s appointees, however, wants to swap these out in favor of Corinthian capitals.

And the temple-style portico on the east façade of the planned ballroom is awkwardly shifted to the far north end, rather than being centered as the classical tradition would dictate.

Glossing over history

This is not to say that classical principles have never run up against contemporary design trends.

In 1888, architect Alfred B. Mullett completed the State, War and Navy Building, now known as the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. Mullet had been inspired by Boston’s Old City Hall, which had been completed in 1865 and was itself inspired by the government architecture of the French Second Empire.

Trump has said that he finds the Eisenhower building’s gray granite façade dreary, and that he’d like to paint it white. Yet the material itself is a crucial element, tying the structure to the “Boston Granite Style.”

If the office building is painted white – in a process that would degrade the granite – a visual key to understanding its architectural and political history would be lost.

Architectural historian Henry-Russell Hitchcock argued how forward-looking the building was for its time, and showed how how it mirrored the first skyscrapers erected in New York City: Richard Morris Hunt’s Tribune Building and the Western Union Building designed by Hunt’s pupil George B. Post.

For these reasons, preservationists have sued Trump to try to prevent these alterations.

Stately, ornate, granite building. — President Donald Trump wants to paint the Eisenhower Executive Office Building white.
Celal Güne/Anadolu via Getty Images

Design that’s bottom up, not top down

I think it’s also important to note that in the original design and construction of many of the buildings Trump disparages, women played outsized roles.

As I note in my 2025 book, “Women Architects at Work: Making American Modernism,” which I co-authored with Mary Anne Hunting, the contributions of women in architecture and design have often been overlooked.

The Trump administration’s projects in and around Washington will only further obscure the women who shaped the federal buildings and landscapes of the capital.

While the Rose Garden reflected the efforts of Bunny Mellon and Jacqueline Kennedy, the East Wing came under the watchful eye of Edith Roosevelt, the wife of President Theodore Roosevelt. Edith worked hand-in-hand with famed classicist architect Charles Follen McKim on its redesign as the primary entrance, in 1902. And had it not been for the public fundraising efforts of Jacqueline Kennedy, the capital may never have had a performing arts venue of national significance, the Kennedy Center for the Arts. In early 2026, the Trump administration announced that the center would close for two years to undergo an estimated US$200 million renovation.

While all buildings are living organisms that are frequently adapted to changing functional requirements, they are also the repositories of national memory.

In 1961, a young Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who, as a U.S. senator from New York, would later go on to advocate for historic preservation, penned “Guiding Principles for Federal Architecture” on behalf of an ad hoc government committee on office space.

“The development of an official style must be avoided,” he wrote. “Design must flow from the architectural profession to the Government, and not vice versa.”

As Judge Leon made clear in his ballroom ruling, no government officials – not even presidents – “own” federal architecture. The American people do. And it’s up to their representatives in Congress to decide whether to destroy or renovate it, bearing in mind that it’s an inextricable part of the country’s history.

This article was written with the collaboration of Mary Anne Hunting, Ph.D., an independent scholar in New York City.

Kevin D. Murphy does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. In his efforts to remake federal architecture, Trump repudiates the ‘republican ideals’ that have long informed it – https://theconversation.com/in-his-efforts-to-remake-federal-architecture-trump-repudiates-the-republican-ideals-that-have-long-informed-it-276565

April 10, 2026

I found a new meteor shower, and it comes from an asteroid getting broken down by the Sun

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Patrick M. Shober, Postdoctoral Fellow in Planetary Sciences, NASA

This composite image shows the Geminid meteors, captured in 2020 using Global Meteor Network software. Aleksandar Merlak

Across the Earth, every night, thousands of automated stargazers are waiting to take pictures of shooting stars. I am one of the scientists who study these meteors.

Most movies and news alerts focus on large asteroids that could destroy the Earth. And your phones notifies you every few months that an object nine washing machines wide is going to just narrowly skim past. However, the small dust and rubble that enter our atmosphere daily tell an equally interesting story.

My planetary science colleagues and I use camera observations of the night sky to better understand dust, car-sized asteroids and debris from comets in our solar system.

In a study published in March 2026, I searched through millions of meteor observations collected by all-sky camera networks based in Canada, Japan, California and Europe and found a small, recently formed cluster. The 282 meteors associated with this cluster tell the story of an asteroid that got a little too close to the Sun.

Meteor formation

When a sand-sized crumb of space rock hits our atmosphere, it heats up almost instantly, vaporizing its surface layer and turning it into an electrically charged gas. The whole fragment starts to glow — this is what we call a meteor. If the object is larger, like a boulder, and brighter, it’s called a bolide or a fireball. On average, these objects hit our atmosphere going over 15 miles per second. For small dust or sand-sized objects, the whole process lasts only a fraction of a second before they completely disappear.

Most of these sand-sized fragments in the solar system originate from comets – cold, icy objects from the outer reaches of the solar system. As comets pass by the Sun, their icy components turn to gas, releasing tons of dust. This is why comets are often called “dirty snowballs” and appear fuzzy in telescopic images.

Asteroids, on the other hand, are leftovers from the early solar system that formed closer to the Sun. They are dry and rocky, and do not have the same ices that give comets their characteristic tails.

What does it mean to be active?

Astronomers call an asteroid or comet “active” when it sheds dust, gas or larger fragments. This activity is caused by some external force on the object in space, like heat from the Sun, a small impact, or when asteroids spin too fast and fly apart.

Understanding and identifying activity helps scientists better understand how these objects change over time.

For comets, sublimation of ices – when solid ice turns directly into gas, skipping the liquid phase – is the primary culprit. However, for asteroids, the reason for activity can vary greatly.

For example, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission, which launched into space to study an asteroid named Bennu, saw activity from its surface, with heat stress and small impacts among the leading explanations.

Other sources for asteroid activity include breakup when an asteroid spins too fast, tidal forces ripping apart asteroids during close encounters with a planet, or gas release.

Researchers most commonly search for activity using telescopes. Astronomers can look for a “tail” or fuzziness around the object. This tail is a clear sign that there is gas and dust around the body. But there is another way to search for activity – meteor showers.

Finding hidden asteroids via meteor showers

The most famous active asteroid is 3200 Phaethon. It is the parent body of the Geminid meteor shower that occurs every year in mid-December. During past close approaches with the Sun, Phaethon released vast amounts of dust and larger fragments. These morsels of Phaethon have spread out along its entire orbit over time, leading to the present Geminid meteor stream.

Each meteor shower we observe occurs when the Earth passes through one of these debris streams. So if astronomers can detect meteor showers, they can also be used to find active objects in space.

At first, debris shed by an asteroid or comet travels closely together. Imagine squeezing a single drop of food dye into a moving stream of water: Initially, the dye stays in a tight, concentrated cloud. But as it flows, the water’s swirling currents pull at the dye, causing it to spread out and fade.

In space, the gravitational tugs from passing planets act like those currents. They pull on the individual meteor fragments in slightly different ways, causing the once-tight stream to gradually drift apart until it completely dilutes into the background dust of our solar system.

The discovery of a rock-comet

In a study published in March 2026 in the Astrophysical Journal, I used millions of observations of meteors to search for recent, unknown activity from asteroids near the Earth. I found one clear cluster of 282 meteors that stood out.

What makes this discovery so exciting is that we are essentially witnessing a hidden asteroid being baked to bits. This newly confirmed meteor stream follows an extreme orbit that plunges almost five times closer to the Sun than Earth does.

Based on how these meteors break apart when they hit our atmosphere, we can tell they are moderately fragile, but tougher than stuff from comets. This finding tells us that intense solar heat is literally cracking the asteroid’s surface, baking out trapped gases and causing it to crumble. This is likely a major source of past Phaethon activity and the main reason the meteorites on Earth are so diverse.

The search for the source

Why does finding a hidden, crumbling asteroid matter? Meteor observations act as a uniquely sensitive probe that lets us study objects that are completely invisible to traditional telescopes.

Beyond solving astronomical mysteries, analyzing this debris helps us understand the physical evolution of asteroids and comets in our solar system. More importantly, it reveals hidden populations of near-Earth asteroids, which is vital information for planetary defense.

The new meteor shower’s parent asteroid remains elusive. However, NASA’s NEO Surveyor mission, launching in 2027, offers a promising solution. This space telescope, dedicated to planetary defense and the discovery of dark, hazardous, Sun-approaching asteroids, will be the ideal tool for searching for the shower’s origin.

Patrick M. Shober receives funding from the NASA Postdoctoral Program.

– ref. I found a new meteor shower, and it comes from an asteroid getting broken down by the Sun – https://theconversation.com/i-found-a-new-meteor-shower-and-it-comes-from-an-asteroid-getting-broken-down-by-the-sun-277557

April 10, 2026

El alto precio ambiental del ‘fracking’ en México

Source: The Conversation – (in Spanish) – By María del Sol Vázquez de Léon, M. en C., Universidad de Guadalajara

La política energética de México en 2026, orientada a expandir la extracción de gas natural como componente central de la soberanía energética, conlleva implicaciones que trascienden lo económico. Desde el ámbito ecológico, esta estrategia interactúa directamente con sistemas terrestres y marinos altamente vulnerables, comprometiendo procesos clave para la resiliencia ambiental.

Uno de los principales impactos es el uso intensivo del agua en regiones áridas y semiáridas del norte del país, donde el estrés hídrico limita la capacidad de los ecosistemas para mantener su funcionalidad biológica. La extracción de gas, particularmente mediante técnicas no convencionales como la fracturación hidráulica o fracking, puede alterar el ciclo hidrológico, afectar la microbiota del suelo y reducir la disponibilidad de agua para especies endémicas adaptadas a condiciones extremas.

Asimismo, el riesgo de contaminación de acuíferos representa una amenaza persistente para la biodiversidad terrestre y acuática. En ambientes marinos como el campo Lakach, un importante yacimiento de gas natural en aguas profundas del golfo de México, las perturbaciones físicas y acústicas asociadas a la extracción pueden impactar comunidades bentónicas caracterizadas por baja resiliencia y lenta recuperación ecológica.

La evidencia científica sugiere que la estrategia actual privilegia la mitigación sobre la prevención, lo que plantea interrogantes sobre su compatibilidad con la sustentabilidad biológica a largo plazo.

Leer más:
Las transformaciones energéticas que exige el siglo XXI

Contracciones de una política energética

Desde hace más de una década, el fracking ha sido una práctica cotidiana por Petróleos Mexicanos (PEMEX), llevada a cabo a través de contratos con empresas petroleras como Halliburton, Schlumberger o Baker Hughes. Según los datos que nuestro grupo consiguió recopilar mediante la solicitud de información pública, al menos 924 pozos han sido perforados mediante esta técnica en los estados de Coahuila (47 pozos), Nuevo León (182 pozos), Puebla (233), Tabasco (13), Tamaulipas (100) y Veracruz (349).

Pese a que la población ha realizado innumerables manifestaciones en contra de esta práctica debido a los impactos negativos que se generan en el medio ambiente, aún no se cuenta con una prohibición constitucional o legal definitiva. En la actualidad, persisten los marcos legales de la reforma energética del 2013 impulsada por el expresidente Enrique Peña Nieto.

Un ejemplo es la Ley de Hidrocarburos, donde se establecen los lineamientos generales que permitirán la extracción de hidrocarburos como el gas y el aceite de lutitas (gas shale) a través del fracking como una fuente de generación de energía, posibilitando legalmente la explotación de yacimientos no convencionales. A pesar de la apuesta de el gobierno actual por transición energética con el fin de aumentar la capacidad eléctrica con fuentes renovables –bajo el argumento de la autosuficiencia energética–, la administración de la presidenta Claudia Sheinbaum ha abierto todavía más la puerta a la extracción de hidrocarburos, principalmente gas natural y aceite mediante el fracking.

La falta de un sustento legal ha permitido que instituciones como PEMEX, la Comisión Nacional de Hidrocarburos y la Agencia de Seguridad, Energía y Ambiente no puedan frenar esta práctica, que está provocando un gran daño en la salud de los ecosistemas. La Secretaría de Energía (SENER) tiene ubicada seis cuencas con reservas para fracking: Chihuahua, Burro-Picachos, Sabinas, Burgos, Tampico-Misantla y Veracruz.

Los análisis de un estudio realizado en el 2017 confirman que, aunque la explotación de gas favorecería la independencia energética del país, la disponibilidad de agua dulce para algunos estados se vería comprometida. Este trabajo visibiliza una paradoja geohídrica crítica: las mayores reservas recuperables de gas coinciden con las zonas de menor disponibilidad de agua en el norte de México. La explotación de estos recursos mediante fracturación hidráulica genera alta demanda de agua, compitiendo con el uso doméstico, urbano y agrícola en áreas con estrés hídrico severo.

Leer más:
El valor del agua y el tamaño de nuestra ignorancia

Derroche y contaminación en las aguas subterráneas

El fracking demanda aproximadamente diez veces más agua que la perforación convencional, lo que equivale a entre 10 y 14 millones de litros por pozo. Otro rasgo importante es que el agua subterránea está en promedio a una profundidad de 500 metros de profundidad, mientras que la extracción de gas se sitúa a entre 1500 y 2000 metros. Esto puede provocar la filtración de gas metano hacia los acuíferos, contaminando el agua subterránea, la cual posteriormente puede ser extraída y utilizada en pozos de agua potable.

Una vez que la roca es fracturada, el agua residual puede emerger a la superficie con agregados químicos y contaminantes cancerígenos como el tolueno y el xileno, los cuales pueden contaminar fuentes superficiales como ríos y arroyos.

En la actualidad, no existen estudios concluyentes sobre México, solo proyecciones basadas en escenarios. Para ello, se han utilizado datos de los acuíferos Edwards-Trinity, en Texas, como referencia para el consumo de agua y la disponibilidad de este recurso en las cuencas del noreste del país. En este contexto, el estudio del fracking en México debe abordarse desde la perspectiva del principio precautorio, tomando en cuenta las diversas preocupaciones que se han manifestado sobre los impactos de este método de extracción. Hay que recordar que el agua subterránea tiene la misma o más importancia que el gas.

Dicho análisis debe ser, además, multidisciplinario, contando con la participación de especialistas en los ámbitos hidrogeológico, social y legal. El objetivo es proponer estrategias sustentables que minimicen los impactos ambientales y sociales, reduzcan los riesgos y garanticen la disponibilidad del agua subterránea para las generaciones presentes y futuras.

Las personas firmantes no son asalariadas, ni consultoras, ni poseen acciones, ni reciben financiación de ninguna compañía u organización que pueda obtener beneficio de este artículo, y han declarado carecer de vínculos relevantes más allá del cargo académico citado anteriormente.

– ref. El alto precio ambiental del ‘fracking’ en México – https://theconversation.com/el-alto-precio-ambiental-del-fracking-en-mexico-279513

April 10, 2026

Undertone: this creepy sound horror is utterly terrifying

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Laura O’Flanagan, PhD Candidate, School of English, Dublin City University

Undertone is the terrifying feature film debut from Canadian director Ian Tuason, which promises to be the “scariest movie you will ever hear”.

Evy (Nina Kiri) is a podcast host caring for her dying mother (Michèle Duquet) at home. Told only from Evy’s perspective, the film moves from initially creepy to utterly horrifying over a tense, tight 93-minute running time.

Evy’s Undertone podcast explores supernatural phenomena. Her co-host Justin (Adam DiMarco) is in another time zone, so they record online in the middle of the night, Evy’s time. This veers close to the “witching hour”, but as Evy is the podcast’s resident sceptic – the voice of reason opposing Justin’s belief in the paranormal – she is unbothered. Until she’s not.

For this week’s instalment, Evy and Justin react to a series of mysterious recordings involving a couple: Jessa (Keana Lyn Bastidas), who has begun talking in her sleep, and her husband Mike (Jeff Yung), who records her. These clips lend the story a naturally escalating structure, as the material grows increasingly distressing and the sense of dread intensifies.

As elements from the recordings seep into Evy’s world and her sense of reality begins to shift, Kiri proves superb in the role. Alone onscreen aside from her unconscious mother, she balances a raw fragility with intense emotional control. Kiri carries the film almost entirely, with supporting characters reduced to voices in her headphones or on her phone.

Undertone’s domestic setting has an uncanny familiarity to it, with soft furnishings, lamps and religious artwork bathed in cold, often unpredictably flickering light. Compounding the disquiet is the fact that Tuason used his childhood home in Toronto as his filming location, inspired by caring for his own ailing parents.

The result is an uneasy intimacy which blurs the line between personal memory and horror. This, combined with Evy’s mother’s impending death and the harrowing implications of the audio clips, makes the film a disturbing yet consistently absorbing experience.

At times, though, Tuason leans too heavily on religious iconography to generate unease, diluting some of the originality. The film also flirts with shock value using inherently distressing subject matter, rather than fully earning its impact.

Sound as terror

Sound design is Undertone’s real strength. As podcast host Justin says: “Don’t be afraid of the dark, be afraid of the silence.”

The film captures the sound of podcasting with close, warm, immaculately clear voices and achieves an intimate, studio-polished quality. Building the sense of unease, there are authentic-sounding sleep-talking recordings, nursery rhymes played backwards, exaggerated household noises such as taps and whistling kettles, and prolonged silences.

Other horror films such as Berberian Sound Studio, The Black Phone and Keeper have harnessed the unsettling potential of sound in recent years, exploring the eerie power of disembodied voices.

This is a lineage Undertone joins while carving out a more intimate horror. Tuason’s film also makes narrative use of the podcast hosts’ editing skills to great effect, as they speed up, slow down, reverse and replay the recordings over and over, trying to glean some sense from them. In doing so, sound becomes Undertone’s primary source of terror, placing its audience in the same position as Evy.

Undertone is a confident debut from Tuason, who understands exactly where the film’s power lies. By grounding its horror in voice and sound, the film becomes an experience that feels immediate and inescapable.

In placing us so firmly within Evy’s singular perspective, Undertone crosses the boundary between listener and participant, resulting in a work which fulfils its promise of terror. It is not for the faint of heart.

Laura O’Flanagan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Undertone: this creepy sound horror is utterly terrifying – https://theconversation.com/undertone-this-creepy-sound-horror-is-utterly-terrifying-279915

April 10, 2026

Embryo fossil found in South Africa is world’s oldest proof that mammal ancestors laid eggs

Source: The Conversation – Africa (2) – By Julien Benoit, Associate professor in Vertebrate Palaeontology, University of the Witwatersrand

Artist’s impression of _Lystrosaurus_ embryo. Artist: Sophie Vrard, CC BY

Between 280 and 200 million years ago, a group of animals evolved which would eventually give rise to mammals, including humans: the therapsids. They were first described more than 150 years ago, based on fossils from South Africa. Since then, many more fossils have been discovered.

James Kitching, one of the most talented South African fossil hunters of the 20th century, excavated many thousands of therapsids from the rocks of the Karoo (a semi-arid region of the country’s interior). He also found fossilised dinosaur eggs, but neither he nor any palaeontologist after him ever found therapsid eggs.

They should exist, because some mammals (platypus and echidnas) do lay eggs. But Kitching began to doubt that therapsids laid eggs: perhaps, he thought, they were, like most of their mammalian descendants, already viviparous (giving live birth)?

We are scientists who study extinct animals and the environments they lived in millions of years ago to understand more about the evolution of life. In our new paper we describe, for the first time, the embryo-containing fossilised egg of a 250 million-year-old mammalian ancestor.

It finally shows that therapsids were indeed egg-laying (oviparous). This discovery sheds new light on the reproduction and survival strategy of that group of animals.

Hand holding what looks like a stone egg — The egg about to be synchrotron scanned at the ESRF.
Author provided, CC BY

A 20-year-old mystery

The fossil egg and embryo we described was discovered near Oviston, in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa, by John Nyaphuli, a palaeontologist from Bloemfontein, in 2008. It’s been kept in the National Museum in Bloemfontein. We knew that it belonged to a species that lived 252 million to 250 million years ago called Lystrosaurus, but we didn’t know whether the species was an egg-layer. The adult looked like a pig, with naked skin, a beak like a turtle, and two tusks sticking out and pointing down.

The reason it took 20 years to prove that it had been in an egg is that this fossil preserves no shell. Only a curled-up embryo is visible. If there was a shell, it was likely leathery or had dissolved. Only the most advanced dinosaurs laid hard-shelled eggs.

So how could we find out whether this young creature had once been inside an egg?

The answer to this question lay in the advanced technology of the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility at Grenoble, France. There, we used a powerful X-ray source to image the inside of the bones of the embryo. Under this treatment, the fossil unveiled all its long-kept secrets – most crucially, its stage of development.

3D reconstruction of the embryo based on synchrotron scan performed at the ESRF.
Author supplied, CC BY

We discovered that the lower jaws of its beak were not completely fused. This developmental trait is only found in modern turtles and birds in which jaw bones fuse long before they are born so that their beak is strong enough for the hatchling to catch and crush its food.

This meant that our curled up Lystrosaurus embryo had died in ovo (in an egg), tightly nestled in its soft, leathery eggshell. This was the evidence palaeontologists had been looking for.

Thanks to the synchrotron-assisted examination of its lower jaw, we could finally demonstrate that this embryo was indeed that of an unhatched Lystrosaurus baby.

Famous survivor

What does it unravel about the survival strategy of Lystrosaurus?

Lystrosaurus is a herbivorous (plant-eating) therapsid famous for surviving the “Great Dying”, which was a major mass extinction of species 252 million years ago. During this event, 90% of all living things on Earth died. Life almost ceased to exist, which makes this the second most important event in the history of life on Earth after the origin of life itself.

How Lystrosaurus survived this is still an intriguing mystery, but the egg gives a possible clue. The fossil we describe shows that the animal laid arguably large eggs for its body size. Large eggs are produced by species that feed their embryos with yolk rather than milk. The young develop to an advanced stage in the egg and then they hatch. In contrast, monotremes (the platypus and echidnas), which feed milk to their young, lay small eggs because the baby is fed after hatching. The large size of its egg implies that Lystrosaurus did not feed milk to its young.

More relevant to its survival strategy, this further indicates two things. Firstly, it means that the egg was less prone to desiccation (drying out). The larger the egg, the smaller its surface area (comparatively speaking), so Lystrosaurus eggs would lose less water through their leathery shell than those of other species of that time. Given the dry environment during and in the immediate aftermath of the extinction, this was a significant advantage, especially since hard-shelled eggs would not evolve for another 50 million years, at least.

Secondly, a large egg implies that Lystrosaurus was likely precocial, meaning that the babies likely hatched at an advanced stage of their development. Lystrosaurus hatchlings were big enough to feed by themselves and run away from predators, and would reach maturity faster so they could reproduce early.

Growing up fast, reproducing young and proliferating were the secrets of Lystrosaurus survival.

Our ability to identify the fossil egg adds to our understanding of the origin of mammalian reproductive biology and lactation, and the survival strategy of Lystrosaurus in the most devastating biological crisis. This is significant to better grasp how modern species might cope with the current sixth mass extinction of species.

Julien Benoit receives funding from the DSTI-NRF African Origins Platform and GENUS Centre of Excellence in Palaeosciences.

Vincent Fernandez works for the ESRF synchrotron and was awarded beamtime at the ESRF for this experiment.

Jennifer Botha does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Embryo fossil found in South Africa is world’s oldest proof that mammal ancestors laid eggs – https://theconversation.com/embryo-fossil-found-in-south-africa-is-worlds-oldest-proof-that-mammal-ancestors-laid-eggs-277673

April 10, 2026

After ceasefire, negotiating a lasting deal with Iran would require overcoming regional rivalries and strategic incoherence

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Ioana Emy Matesan, Associate Professor of Government, Wesleyan University

A man walks in the rubble of a damaged Sharif University of Technology in Tehran, Iran, following U.S. and Israeli airstrikes. Shadati/Xinhua via Getty Images

President Donald Trump’s rapid and dramatic turn from threatening to kill “an entire civilization” in Iran on the morning of April 7, 2026, to announcing a two-week ceasefire later that day left many observers with a sense of whiplash.

While it is difficult to predict whether the ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran will hold or how events will unfold, the dynamics of the conflict so far reveal multiple vulnerabilities in the short term and numerous detrimental effects on the region in the medium to long term.

Already, the truce has shown signs of strain. Iran and the U.S. almost immediately offered dueling narratives about the agreement, including whether it would cover the war in Lebanon. Iran and Pakistan, the primary mediator, asserted that it would, while the U.S. and Israel, which pledged to honor the U.S. agreement, said it would not. Indeed, a day after the ceasefire came into force, Israel conducted some of its most intense bombing in Lebanon to date.

As an expert in Middle East politics, I believe that the involvement of so many governments and militant groups – in both the negotiation process and in terms of the regional effects of the conflict – make it more difficult to uphold a ceasefire.

Over the past decade, there has been a shift in regional alliances in the Middle East, leading to increasingly assertive foreign policies by many countries and a deepening rivalry between Iran and Saudi Arabia. The current war only fuels these dynamics, incentivizing competition and offering governments and militant groups new opportunities to exert leverage over opponents.

The current reality also underlines the idea that external intervention and privileging war over diplomacy has made conflict resolution ever more difficult in a region with a long history of imperial expansion, great power competition and bitter political divides.

A man stands in a destroyed building as smoke rises around him. — A Lebanese man gathers his belongings from his home, which was destroyed in an Israeli airstrike a day after the ceasefire with Iran went into effect.
AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti

Regional fault lines

One of the more remarkable aspects of the war in Iran that began on Feb. 28 was how quickly it escalated in terms of geographic scope and the actors pulled into it.

The three key countries involved – Israel, the U.S and Iran – are all facing internal political tensions, polarization and legitimacy crises.

Outside countries such as China, Russia and Pakistan have deployed their own strategic interests and diplomatic tools in the conflict in indirectly getting involved.

The conflict has also drawn in a variety of regional governments and other groups, from [Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states] to Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen.

All of that is bound to deepen the fault lines that make regional tensions and sectarian conflict more likely in the long run.

Meanwhile, public opinion in the Arab world shows profound damage to the United States’ reputation in the region and a loss of credibility in the international legal and humanitarian system.

I think these developments are also deeply troubling for the long term.

Events since the war began have been bad enough. The war has led to over 1,200 Iranian civilian deaths, over 3.2 million Iranians temporarily displaced and significant damage to Iranian infrastructure. Thirteen American soldiers have also died in the course of the conflict, as have more than two dozen in Israel and the Gulf states.

That’s to say nothing of the toll in Lebanon, where more than 1,500 people have died and more than 1 million displaced since the beginning of March.

The Houthis and the politics of regional instability

The Houthis in Yemen, one of the conflict participants that remained surprisingly silent at the outbreak of the war, are instructive for understanding the region’s complicated and fractured dynamics.

As a religious rebel movement that follows the Zaydi branch of Shia Islam, the Houthis, who took over Yemen’s capital in 2014, have been the target of sustained military operations by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates since 2015. This has only pushed them closer to Tehran.

Protesters burn flags at a demonstration. — Houthi supporters burn American and Israeli flags during a rally against the war on Iran in Sanaa, Yemen, on April 3, 2026.
AP Photo/Osamah Abdulrahman

Avowed opponents of Israel, the Houthis declared war against the country following the Hamas attacks of Oct. 7, 2023, and Israel’s subsequent war in Gaza.

In 2024, the Houthis attacked maritime shipping in the Red Sea near the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, a key maritime choke point. That prefigured, in a much smaller and less consequential way, Iran’s own actions in blocking the Strait of Hormuz during the current crisis.

That Houthi campaign to block maritime shipping resulted in a U.S.-led international coalition and significant military strikes against the insurgent group, their redesignation as a foreign terrorist organization, and ultimately a ceasefire deal between the U.S. and the Houthi movement in May 2025.

Yet the underlying regional disputes and domestic fractures that the Houthis were part of were never resolved.

Eventually, the Houthis reentered the fight against Israel amid the latest war in Iran, attacking Israel on March 28.

They refrained from attacks in the Red Sea and currently are observing the ceasefire. But entering the war enabled a weakened Houthi movement to signal resolve, military capacity and commitment to its alliance with Iran, just as Yemen continues to face an economic and severe humanitarian crisis. The Houthis now also have added leverage to play the role of spoiler amid ongoing diplomacy.

The costs of diplomacy avoidance

Of course, the Houthis are not the only movement that will perceive the war on Iran as an opportunity to exert regional influence.

Just as the Houthis and their enemies are using regional conflicts to boost their domestic legitimacy and strategic advantages, so too are the more salient participants − Iran, Israel and the U.S. − relitigating their own past conflicts on the battlefield.

Amid all of these current regional trends of crises and contestation, the United States’ own strategic goals have remained remarkably unclear. The Trump administration has vacillated from a focus on regime change to preventing Iran from developing nuclear capabilities.

A man in a suit walks away from a lectern. — President Donald Trump departs a news conference on April 6, the day before threatening to destroy Iran’s civilization − and then agreeing to a ceasefire.
AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson

So far, there are no indications that talks with Iran to extend the ceasefire into a full diplomatic agreement will successfully prevent Iran from pursuing uranium enrichment. Indeed, one of the contested points of the framework for talks with Iran is the apparent acceptance of Iran’s right to nuclear enrichment.

In 2018, Trump abandoned the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or so-called Iran deal. In it, Iran agreed to terms, including limiting uranium enrichment, that would block its path to a nuclear weapon, should it have desired one.

Under the Iran deal, Tehran had also complied with inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency. It was not until much after American withdrawal from the agreement that Iran once again started stockpiling uranium and pursuing enrichment.

In her 2020 book on the tenuous 22-month diplomatic process leading to the Iran deal, aptly titled “Not for the Faint of Heart,” Ambassador Wendy Sherman wrote how complex, challenging and delicate such multiparty negotiations can be.

But the recent war on Iran suggests that the current machine-gun politics approach toward Tehran and the Middle East favored by the U.S. and Israel comes with serious costs and risks.

In the course of a war with unclear targets, vague strategic objectives and high human costs, the region is far less stable than it was when the conflict began. That has made the path to long-term durable peace all the more difficult now that diplomacy is back on the table.

Ioana Emy Matesan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. After ceasefire, negotiating a lasting deal with Iran would require overcoming regional rivalries and strategic incoherence – https://theconversation.com/after-ceasefire-negotiating-a-lasting-deal-with-iran-would-require-overcoming-regional-rivalries-and-strategic-incoherence-280243