Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Margaret McKinnon, Professor and Homewood Research Chair in Mental Health and Trauma, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioural Neurosciences, McMaster University
Following this tragedy, our communities may feel less safe and we may worry about family and loved ones.
The mental health and well-being of many Canadians will be impacted by this mass victimization event, including students and teachers present during the attack and their families, friends and peers. Supporters, including first responders and victim support providers, may also experience mental-health difficulties in the aftermath of the shooting.
Many survivors of mass shootings will experience symptoms of post-traumatic stress, anxiety and depression following the incident, with symptoms persisting one year or longer in a smaller group of survivors.
Reactions to traumatic events may manifest as emotional, cognitive, interpersonal and physical symptoms.
Emotionally, individuals may become more irritable, experience trauma-related nightmares or struggle with feelings of guilt for not having done more to prevent or mitigate the event.
Cognitive reactions can involve difficulties with concentration, memory or making decisions.
Interpersonally, trauma survivors may find it harder to trust others who were not involved in the incident, or they may notice increased tension and conflict within family relationships.
Physical reactions can include gastrointestinal issues, headaches and difficulty sleeping.
The mental health and well-being of these groups, along with that of all survivors, should be carefully monitored, and early access to mental-health and well-being supports provided.
Community impacts
Communities are also impacted by mass shootings, including via mental distress associated with fear and anxiety and through school and business closures.
These impacts can persist past the immediate aftermath of the incident, pointing to the need for not only individual mental-health supports for survivors and supporters, but also public health interventions that can support the needs of the community.
Following mass victimization events like school shootings, promoting a sense of physical and emotional safety and providing opportunities for social support from family, friends and the community can assist in healing.
This may include providing for physical needs, such as blankets, and nourishing food, as well as promoting community connection through groups and organizations. Metaphorically speaking, it’s important for survivors and their supporters to remember to put their oxygen mask on first to best assist others.
Family support also contributes to recovery. Parents are encouraged to provide warmth and support, spend time and encourage talking to one another, and maintain routines and social connections as much as possible.
Support network resource
For a directory of mental health services across Canada, a mental health self-assessment tool and individual and community mental health tool kits, see The Canadian Emergency Response Psychosocial Support Network (CanEMERG), which can can connect you with mental-health resources from coast to coast to coast.
CanEMERG was developed at McMaster University and is supported by financial contributions from the Public Health Agency of Canada.
Margaret McKinnon receives funding from the Public Health Agency of Canada, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, National Defence, Veterans Affairs Canada, the Canadian Institute of Military and Veteran Health Research, the Worker’s Safety Insurance Board, Homewood Health and Homewood Research Institute, the AllOne Foundation, the FDC Foundation, the True Patriot Love, the Military Casualty Support Foundation, the Cowan Foundation and St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton.
Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Emma G Duerden, Canada Research Chair, Neuroscience & Learning Disorders, Associate Professor, Western University
Alarm clocks, maps, books, flashlights, watches, radios, MP3 players, Palm Pilots, remote controls, cameras, handheld recorders and other devices have all been gradually absorbed into a single one: the smartphone.
This convergence has brought unparalleled convenience into our fast-paced lives. Free internet-based calls and messaging, navigation, documentation, entertainment and even authenticator apps required to access work email have become essential daily functions and tasks.
For most of us, smartphones are no longer optional; they’re constant companions that have restructured how we work, communicate and move through the world.
Yet, as smartphones have become increasingly central to everyday life, a counter-trend has begun to take shape. In an effort to combat the attentional drain of smartphones, teens and young adults are deliberately reintroducing single-purpose technologies into their lives.
No one’s 20s and 30s look the same. You might be saving for a mortgage or just struggling to pay rent. You could be swiping dating apps, or trying to understand childcare. No matter your current challenges, our Quarter Life series has articles to share in the group chat, or just to remind you that you’re not alone.
Several overlapping factors appear to be fuelling this move to digital minimalism. One is digital burnout and choice overload. Smartphones collapse multiple roles into a single interface, making it difficult to disengage from them. Persistent notifications and algorithmically curated feeds intensify this effect.
Rather than abandoning technology altogether, people are increasingly seeking to use it with greater intention. Instead of accumulating thousands of photos and screenshots on their phones, many young adults are purchasing cameras to capture the important moments, people and places in their lives.
Likewise, there’s a resurgence in iPod and MP3 player sales. These devices allow people to listen to music without advertisements, notifications or algorithmic recommendations.
A 2022 Statistics Canada report found just over half of Canadians said they checked their smartphone first thing in the morning, and the last thing before bed. Forty-three per cent said they typically check their smartphone at least every 30 minutes.
Canadian adolescents are among the most digitally dependent, with a smartphone penetration rate of 87 per cent in 2021 and about 88 per cent of those aged 15 to 24 reporting that they check their phones at least once every hour.
By comparison, those in the United States and United Kingdom tend to spend slightly less time on their screens, but still a significant proportion of their waking hours engaged with digital devices.
A new trend or old habit?
The turn toward single-purpose devices may appear to be a reaction to smartphones specifically, but efforts to unplug from technology long predate them.
Research on digital disconnection shows that people are most likely to disengage when they experience persistent time pressure, cognitive overload, blurred work–life boundaries or emotional fatigue from constant exposure to online content.
In that sense, the turn to dumb phones, dedicated cameras or e-readers is less about nostalgia and more about an attempt to use digital tools that help us focus and create, rather than platforms that are designed to constantly capture our attention.
Stepping back from screens
Reducing screen time and social media use can have profound benefits on cognition and well-being. One study found that limiting social media use to around one hour per day reduced symptoms of anxiety, depression and fear of missing out, while improving sleep among young people aged 17 to 25.
Another study blocked internet access on participants’ smartphones for two weeks. A staggering 91 per cent of participants reported improvements in their mental health, life satisfaction and ability to sustain attention, with the effects comparable to reversing 10 years of age-related cognitive decline.
Participants spent more time socializing, exercising and spending time in nature, all of which are associated with improved well-being.
Research on forced digital disconnection also offers insight into the immediate effects of removing internet-enabled devices. In Swedish detention centres, for example, inmates are issued basic mobile phones with no internet access. Ethnographic research shows this eliminated compulsive phone checking and made communication slower and more deliberate.
While the context is extreme, it highlights that once devices designed for endless engagement are removed, patterns of attention and behaviour can change almost immediately.
If you’re curious about experimenting with single-purpose devices, a full break from smartphones isn’t necessary. Many people begin by identifying the functions that feel most disruptive, such as social media or constant messaging and relocating others to separate tools.
Simple steps include using an e-reader for reading, a standalone alarm clock to keep phones out of the bedroom or a dedicated music player for commuting.
A more moderate approach includes installing an app that can monitor screen time use, like Brick, or switching smartphone displays to greyscale to mitigate distractions and boost focus by removing colours that grab attention and trigger dopamine loops.
If all the hours spent scrolling were suddenly yours, an entire extra month a year, what would you do with that time? Perhaps it’s time to think about stepping off the feed and reclaiming the moments that are intrinsically meaningful and chosen by you.
Emma G Duerden receives funding from the Canada Research Chairs program.
Rubina Malik 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.
For most young people, learning about social and political issues doesn’t start with a textbook. It starts with a phone.
While debates intensify about whether to impose a social media ban on under-16s in the UK, it’s important to consider how social media can be a route for learning as well as potential harm.
Young people aged 14-15 are at a crucial stage in terms of their developing awareness of and engagement with political issues. Our research with more than 3,000 young people in year ten (ages 14 and 15) in schools across England found that 75% said they learned most about social and political issues online, including on social media.
This is far more than the 47% who (also) said they learned most about this at school. At the same time, though, only 21% said they were comfortable sharing their views on such issues online: 60% don’t share their views online.
Learning about race and faith equality doesn’t just mean learning about anti-racist movements like Black Lives Matter, for example. It also refers to the ways that young people, including those from diasporic and global majority backgrounds, develop their identities and values as citizens of the UK and the world.
Young people in our study described various ways they used online spaces to engage around race and faith issues. These included looking things up on established news sources like the BBC, and using news alerts on their phone. Apps like Instagram and TikTok were useful to some for updates from their extended family abroad, or to get direct information. This could include information from Gaza, for instance, where outside journalists have not been allowed in.
Some were wary of getting information from apps such as TikTok and YouTube, because they were regarded as potentially spreading false information and stereotypes about particular migrant communities, or presenting extremes. This wariness led them to crosscheck what they had seen on social media with news journalism that verifies its sources.
Further analysis of the survey – to be published in our forthcoming book – showed that most were cautious about sharing their views on social issues online. Statistically speaking, girls were also less comfortable than boys, and young people with Black, African and Caribbean backgrounds were less comfortable than their white peers sharing their views online.
But social media could also act as a sounding board for critically reflecting on, and emotionally processing events. For instance, a south-Asian Muslim girl felt that hearing other people’s opinions on an experience of discrimination can allow one to have multiple perspectives on what happened.
Learning from social media
Arguably, the fact that young people are often sceptical about what they see online is a positive outcome of their secondary online and media literacy education. But our research suggests that young people go online because they can’t get the information they need at school. Young people in rural areas, as well as those with Black, African and Caribbean backgrounds, raised particular concerns about school as a place to discuss race and faith issues. Those in lower-income areas also showed lower expectations that such issues would be discussed at school.
Government policy has for many years made it hard for schools to teach about race and faith equality in particular. One reason for this is that exam pressure in years ten and eleven (aged 14-16) leads schools to consign direct teaching about equality issues to years seven to nine.
But more fundamentally, the content of the curriculum, including history, is heavily geared towards a white British and European worldview. Citizenship education has been neglected in favour of traditional academic subjects, and so equality issues are addressed in occasional Personal, Social and Health Education (PSHE) lessons.
Teens are wary of sharing their views on race and faith both online and at school. Rido/Shutterstock
More problematically, schools have had to walk a delicate line when it comes to talking about political issues. In recent years, schools have been warned that teaching white privilege as a fact in schools is unlawful, and that they must ensure they teach topics relating to Israel and Palestine neutrally.
We found education stakeholders including local authority advisers, teacher unions and community organisations are concerned about the lack of support for teachers to engage these and other issues accurately. This concern is something current policymaking, including the curriculum and assessment review, has not meaningfully addressed.
It’s not surprising, then, that only 38% of young people felt comfortable sharing their views at school. While this is a higher proportion than shared their views online, we would expect a much higher result from school if obstacles to sharing views there were removed. Such obstacles include concern about peer judgement, being disciplined, or because they felt they had to sideline their feelings, have a “thick skin” and focus on their studies to – paradoxically – get ready for “the real world”.
We need to carefully consider and balance young people’s rights both to protection and to information in school and online. Our recommendations call for much greater support for schools to negotiate race and faith issues, as taking away under-16s’ access to social media without greater school-based support could be more counterproductive than protective.
Karl Kitching works at University of Birmingham and has received funding from the Leverhulme Trust RPG-2022-063 for this research.
Aslı Kandemir works at the University of Birmingham. She receives funding from Birmingham City Council.
Shajedur Rahman works for the University of Birmingham and Milton Keynes College.
Frame 352 from the Patterson-Gimlin Bigfoot film in 1962.wikipedia
It was the image that launched a cultural icon. In 1967, in the northern Californian woods, a seven foot tall, ape-like creature covered in black fur and walking upright was captured on camera, at one point turning around to look straight down the lens. The image is endlessly copied in popular culture – it’s even become an emoji. But what was it? A hoax? A bear? Or a real-life example of a mysterious species called the Bigfoot?
The film has been analysed and re-ananlysed countless times. Although most people believe it was some sort of hoax, there are some who argue that it’s never been definitively debunked. One group of people, dubbed Bigfooters, are so intrigued that they have taken to the forests of Washington, California, Oregon, Ohio, Florida and beyond to look for evidence of the mythical creature.
But why? That’s what sociologists Jamie Lewis and Andrew Bartlett wanted to uncover. They were itching to understand what prompts this community to spend valuable time and resources looking for a beast that is highly unlikely to even exist. During lockdown, Lewis started interviewing more than 130 Bigfooters (and a few academics) about their views, experiences and practices, culminating in the duo’s recent book Bigfooters and Scientific Inquiry: on the borderlands of legitimate science.
Here, we talk to them about their academic investigation.
What was it about the Bigfoot community that you found so intriguing?
Lewis: It started when I was watching either the Discovery Channel or Animal Planet and a show called Finding Bigfoot was advertised. I was really keen to know why this programme was being scheduled on what certainly at the time was a nominally serious and sober natural history channel. The initial plan was to do an analysis of these television programmes, but we felt that wasn’t enough. It was lockdown and my wife was pregnant and in bed a lot with sickness, so I needed to fill my time.
Bartlett: One of the things that I worked on when Jamie and I shared an office in Cardiff was a sociological study of fringe physicists. These are people mostly outside of academic institutions trying to do science. I was interviewing these people, going to their conferences. And that led relatively smoothly into Bigfoot, but it was Jamie’s interest in Bigfoot that brought me to this field.
The Insights section is committed to high-quality longform journalism. Our editors work with academics from many different backgrounds who are tackling a wide range of societal and scientific challenges.
How big is this community?
Lewis: It’s very hard to put a number on it. There is certainly a divide between what are known as “apers”, who believe that Bigfoot is just a primate unknown to science, and those that are perhaps more derogatorily called “woo-woos”, who believe that Bigfoot is some sort of interdimensional traveller, an alien of sort. We’re talking in the thousands of people. But there are a couple of hundred really serious people of which I probably interviewed at least half.
Many people back them. A YouGov survey conducted as recently as November 2025, suggested that as many as one quarter of Americans believe that Bigfoot either definitely or probably exists.
Were the interviewees suspicious of your intentions?
Lewis: I think there was definitely a worry that they would be caricatured. And I was often asked, “Do I believe in Bigfoot?” I had a standard answer that Andy and I agreed on, which was that mainstream, institutional science says there is absolutely no compelling evidence that Bigfoot exists. We have no reason to dissent with that consensus. But as sociologists what does exist is a community (or communities) of Bigfooting, and that’s what interests us.
Bartlett: One of the things that at least a couple of people reacted to once the book was published was the way we phrased that. On the blurb on the back of the book we say something along the lines of “Bigfoot exists if not as a physical biological creature then certainly as an object around which hundreds of people organise their lives”. A couple of people took that to be some kind of slight against them. It wasn’t.
Do these people have any sort of shared personality traits or other things that connected them?
Lewis: The community is very white, male, rural and blue collar – often ex-military. I think Bigfooting is growing among the female population, but there’s a sense of the kind of ‘masculine hunter in the dark’ persona.
Bartlett: In America, you find a lot more veterans in the general population. But I think there’s also the issue of how they like to present themselves, because when you’re dealing with witness testimony, you’ve got to present yourself as credible. If you can say something like, “I was in the service” or “I was in the armed forces”, then at least you’re not likely to be spooked by a moose.
What surprised you the most about them, did they challenge any stereotypes?
Lewis: Some were very articulate, which did surprise me a little. I guess that’s my own prejudice. I was also very surprised about how open people were; I expected them to not tell me about their encounters. But a fair few of them did. Many of them wanted to be named in the book. I was also surprised about how much empirical data they collect and how much they attempt to try and analyse and make sense of it. And how they were willing to admit that a certain idea was bunk or a hoax. I expected them to be defending bad evidence.
Bartlett: There are extracts of this in our book, people saying “I was fooled by these tracks for ages. I thought they were real and then I found this and that and the other out about it and I revised my opinion.” So that did surprise me too.
If they collect empirical evidence, does that make what they do science?
Bartlett: When you’re working in institutional science you’re working to get grants, you’re working to get good quality publications. You might want your name associated with particular ideas, but you do that through peer-reviewed papers and by working with PhD students who go off to other labs. In Bigfooting, you’ve got self-published books, you’ve got Bigfoot conferences, you’ve got YouTube channels, you’ve got podcasts and things like this, and they’re not necessarily a good way of making and testing knowledge claims. This is an aspect where Bigfooting is quite different to mainstream science.
It was interesting to study the fringe physicists and seeing where the common deviation from science was. And that’s a focus on individualism; the idea that an individual alone can collect and assess evidence in some kind of asocial fashion. The physicists I studied were quite clear that ideas like consensus in science were dangerous, when in reality consensus, continuity and community are the basis of most of science.
What is the most common form of evidence in this community?
Lewis: Witness testimonies. Without those reported testimonies, Bigfooting would not exist. A large part of the work of a Bigfooter is to collect and make sense of these testimonies. They get upset when these testimonies don’t have much weight within institutional science. They’ll make the comparison to court and how testimonies alone can put someone on death row. So they don’t understand why testimonies don’t have much weight in science. Beyond the testimony, footprint evidence is probably the most famous and also the most pervasive sort of trace evidence.
Photograph of an alleged Bigfoot footprint taken in Hoopa, California in September 1962 and featured in a Humboldt Times newspaper article. wikipedia
Bartlett: One of the reasons footprints are so important is that there’s the legacy of the Yeti and footprint evidence which proved to be relatively persuasive, convincing some institutional scientists that there was something in the Himalayas. And then there was the fact that the sort of two major academic champions of Bigfoot were persuaded by the footprint evidence: the late Grover Krantz (around 1970) and Jeffrey Meldrum (in the 1990s).
Lewis: These days you also see camera traps, audio recorders even DNA testing of hairs and those sorts of things. They’re capturing anomalous sounds and often blurry images. Some believe that a Bigfoot communicates through infrasound, although that is certainly disputed within the community. So what you’re getting now is more and more different types of evidence.
How can you know whether an image or a sound really points to Bigfoot?
Bartlett: What they do is go out into the forest and record a sound, for example, and compare it to databases of birds and other animals. And they may find there is nothing that matches it. Is it something that doesn’t sound like a car or a person or a bear or a moose? In which case, there’s the space for Bigfoot. And it’s the same with images to some degree.
Would you say that this interpretation is the biggest weakness or contradiction in their evidence?
Lewis: It allows them to create space for Bigfoot. Because if you can’t match it to something else, what could it be? You have this absence and then from that absence you create a presence. They believe it’s a scientific argument. In fact, it’s kind of interesting how Bigfooters will always enrol other kinds of magical beasts to strengthen the case for Bigfoot. So, one sentence I hear quite a lot is “it ain’t no unicorn”.
Jeffrey Meldrum. wikipedia
What’s the hierarchy in this community? Who’s at the top?
Lewis: A-listers tend to be anyone associated with academia. So Andy’s already mentioned Jeff Meldrum, unfortunately he passed away very recently, but he was their route to contemporary academia. So in any conference, if Jeff Meldrum was speaking, he’d be last. Anyone who’s on TV, such as the Finding Bigfoot and the Expedition Bigfoot presenters would also be in the A-list category. And then you’ve got various different groups just below. For example, the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization, which is probably the most well known group.
What could Bigfooters learn from scientists and vice versa?
Lewis: From reading books and from discussing it with people, there was a sense that Bigfooters are anti-science. We did not find that. What we argue in the book is that they’re not anti-science. In fact, I would say a lot of them are pro-science, but they’re counter establishment. I think academia should be thinking about these people as citizen scientists and what they’re doing as a kind of gateway into understanding your local area.
For example, they found an animal, I think it was a pine marten, on a camera trap that was not supposed to be in the area. So they are collecting lots of data. They are not irrational. It’s different from, for example, ghost hunting, because you don’t have to imagine there’s something entirely new in the world. It’s just an animal that exists out there that hasn’t been found. Implausible, yes. But not impossible. What they do lack, however, is academic discipline; anyone can be a Bigfooter.
Was there a specific encounter you heard about that was particularly compelling?**
Lewis: Did I get caught up in the moment? Sometimes, of course, you do, just as you do in a film. If you’re in the pitch dark night and you’re watching a horror film, you take it away with you for a while until you settle back down. I often went to bed buzzing, thinking I don’t know what I just heard; they were great stories at the end of the day. But I learned to separate the interview from my thoughts on the interview.
If you encountered Bigfoot in the woods, how would you go about convincing others?**
Lewis: A lot of Bigfooters would begin with qualifiers like, “My dad doesn’t believe in Bigfoot,” or “I have questioned myself for years thinking about this incident and what it was.” So, they would set themselves up as a rational, logical individual. That then created a connection between me and them. And of course, I’d probably be doing the same.
Bartlett: If I were to encounter Bigfoot, I would probably draw on all the techniques of proving that I’m a credible, hard-headed, rational person that we see in those witness encounters. I would expect to be disbelieved. And so therefore I would stress I was putting my credibility as an academic on the line here. So I’d deploy all those kinds of rhetorical techniques that are used by Bigfooters, aside from just the description of the encounter.
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The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Source: The Conversation – UK – By Kristin Skare Orgeret, Professor of Journalism and Media Studies, Oslo Metropolitan University
When the billionaire owner of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, bought the Washington Post from the Graham family in 2013, he promised a “golden era to come”. In February 2017, one month into Donald Trump’s first term as US president, the paper adopted the motto: “Democracy Dies in Darkness”, reflecting the perceived threat posed by Trump’s authoritarian leanings and the suggestion that Moscow had interfered in the 2016 election.
That motto was turned against Bezos last week when it was announced that the Post was laying off one-third of its editorial staff, including its sports section and several of its foreign bureaus. The news was greeted with dismay in America’s journalistic circles. Marty Baron, a celebrated former executive editor of the Post, called the layoffs “among the darkest days in the history of one of the world’s greatest news organisations”.
But in the years since Bezos acquired the Post it has become a symbol of a global wave of democratic backsliding in the US which accelerated as the prospect of a second Trump presidency grew through 2024. After an initial period of investing in the Post and hiring more reporters, he has now overseen a long period of decline.
Political concerns began seriously to mount in 2024 when, in the run up to that year’s presidential election, the newspaper broke a 36-year precedent by refusing to endorse a candidate (which most readers, given the paper’s traditionally liberal leanings, had assumed would be Democrat Kamala Harris).
Since Trump has returned to the White House further evidence of this backsliding at the Post includes suppression of a cartoon critical of Trump’s relationship with US tech oligarchs by the Pulitzer Prize winning artist Ann Telnaes and a refocusing of the opinion pages to centre them on “personal liberties and free markets”. The changes have reportedly cost the Post many thousands of subscribers.
The cartoon that led to Ann Telnaes quitting the Washington Post. Facebook
But the malaise in US journalism is a much broader story than just the travails of the Washington Post. There’s a sustained campaign of cultural and structural violence against a profession that is under economic and political strain, yet essential to democracy.
Trump’s hostility toward certain sections of the press is not new. During his first term he used non-journalistic platforms to brand mainstream media outlets “the enemy of the people”. His hostility was directed at both institutional and personal level, launching attacks against individual journalists and their employers (the “failing New York Times”, his clash with CNN’s Jim Acosta, etc).
In his second term this hostility has intensified, its impact often obscured by the rapid pace of news emanating from the White House. We’re seeing press freedom in the US under attack on three distinct fronts: restricted access to information, threats to the safety of journalists and use of legal pressure to discourage dissenting voices.
Controlling the message
Restrictions began as soon as Trump was inaugurated for his second term in January 2025. Within a month, the Associated Press lost access to the Oval Office and Air Force One (in other words, to direct contact with the president) after refusing to adopt an executive order renaming the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America”.
Accreditation rules soon tightened. In October, the newly minted secretary of war Pete Hegseth announced that henceforth journalists reporting from inside the Pentagon would be allowed to only report official government pronouncements. Many mainstream reporters handed back their Pentagon accreditation in protest. In response, Hegseth announced what he called the “next generation of the Pentagon press corps”, mainly comprising journalist from far-right outlets.
Meanwhile the president’s verbal attacks on journalists have escalated, particularly targeting women and especially women of colour. Incidents such as the “quiet Piggy” remark (directed at Bloomberg journalist Catherine Lucey) exemplify a broader pattern of public humiliation of female journalists. Research suggests that such conduct contributes to the normalisation of hostility toward female journalists, who were already disproportionately quitting journalism.
‘Quiet piggy’: Donald Trump targets a female reporter on Air Force One.
Journalists covering protests also face heightened risks. During the “no kings” demonstrations in October 2025, multiple incidents were reported in which police used force against accredited reporters. In November 2025 the White House escalated the pressure, launching a “Hall of Shame” site naming journalists and outlets it said had misrepresented the administration.
‘Lawfare’
The Trump administration has also brought considerable legal pressure to bear on the news media over the first year of its second term. The US president has filed multiple lawsuits alleging bias on the part of one or another media organisation that had attracted his disfavour.
In July, Paramount reached a US$16 million (£11.69 million) settlement over a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris in 2024 that the president accused of bias. At stake was a US$8.4 billion merger that required approval from the Federal Communications Commission, a public body headed by Trump loyalist Brendan Carr.
The president also has active suits against the Wall Street Journal and the BBC (an episode which led to the resignation of director general, Tim Davie, and its head of news, Deborah Turness). By the middle of 2025, Axios reported that Trump-related media and defamation suits had already matched the annual historical record.
Taken together, these developments reflect a broader pattern of institutional stress affecting US democratic structures. The pressure on these established media organisations has created a situation in which they manage to survive with their independence eroded.
Comparative research consistently demonstrates that journalists are among the first actors targeted in such processes because of their frontline work. Control over information remains central to the success of an authoritarian government.
What, then, should journalists and media organisations do? Standing together matters. We saw that in 2018, when about 350 American newspapers jointly defended press independence against Trump’s “fake news” attacks. This prompted the US Senate to adopt a resolution supporting a free press and declaring that “the press is not the enemy of the people”.
But the danger is that this structural violence against the news media and its attempt to hold power to account becomes normalised. If the Trump administration’s contempt for the fourth estate continues to percolate through to the public at large, a population already struggling to tell truth from lies will be further blindfolded and darkness will fall over American democracy.
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
For a long time, the deal for a wide range of careers has been simple enough. Entry-level workers carried out routine tasks in return for mentorship, skill development and a clear path towards expertise.
The arrangement meant that employers had affordable labour, while employees received training and a clear career path. Both sides benefited.
But now that bargain is breaking down. AI is automating the grunt work – the repetitive, boring but essential tasks that juniors used to do and learn from.
And the consequences are hitting both ends of the workforce. Young workers cannot get a foothold. Older workers are watching the talent pipeline run dry.
For example, one study suggests that between late 2022 and July 2025, entry-level employment in the US in AI-exposed fields like software development and customer service declined by roughly 20%. Employment for older workers in the same sectors grew.
And that pattern makes sense. AI currently excels at administrative tasks – things like data entry or filing. But it struggles with nuance, judgment and plenty of other skills which are hard to codify.
So experience and the accumulation of those skills become a buffer against AI displacement. Yet if entry-level workers never get the chance to build that experience, the buffer never forms.
This matters for organisations too. Researchers using a huge amount of data about work in the US described the way that professional skills develop over time, by likening career paths to the structure of a tree.
General skills (communication, critical thinking, problem solving) form the trunk, and then specialised skills branch out from there.
Their key finding was that wage premiums for specialised skills depend almost entirely on having those strong general foundational skills underneath. Communication and critical thinking capabilities are not optional extras – they are what make advanced skills valuable.
The researchers also found that workers who lack access to foundational skills can become trapped in career paths with limited upward mobility: what they call “skill entrapment”. This structure has become more pronounced over the past two decades, creating what the researchers described as “barriers to upward job mobility”.
But if AI is eliminating the entry-level positions where those foundations were built, who develops the next generation of experts? If AI can do the junior work better than the actual juniors, senior workers may stop delegating altogether.
Researchers call this a “training deficit”. The junior never learns, and the pipeline breaks down.
Uneven disruption
But the disruption will not hit everyone equally. It has been claimed, for example, that women face nearly three times the risk of their jobs being replaced with AI compared to men.
This is because women are generally more likely to be in clerical and administrative roles, which are among the most exposed to AI-driven transformation. And if AI closes off traditional routes into skilled work, the effects are unlikely to be evenly distributed.
So what can be done? Well, just because the old pathway deal between junior and senior human workers is broken, does not mean that a new one cannot be built.
Young workers now need to learn what AI cannot replace in terms of knowledge, judgment and relationships. They need to seek (and be provided with) roles which involve human interaction, rather than just screen-based tasks. And if traditional entry-level jobs are disappearing, they need to look for structured programmes that still offer genuine skill development.
Older workers meanwhile, can learn a lot from younger workers about AI and technology. The idea of mentorship can be flipped, with juniors teaching about new tools, while seniors provide guidance and teaching on nuance and judgment.
And employers need to resist the urge to cut out junior staff. They should keep delegating to those staff – even when AI can do the job more quickly. Entry level roles can be redesigned rather than eliminated. For ultimately, if juniors are not getting trained, there will be no one to hand over to.
Protecting the pipeline of skilled and valuable employees is in everyone’s interest. Yes, some forms of expertise will matter less in the age of AI, which is disorienting for people who may have invested years in developing them.
But expertise is not necessarily about storing information. It is also about refined judgment being applied to complex situations. And that remains valuable.
Vivek Soundararajan 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.
After days of controversy in which Donald Trump complained about the acts and said he would not attend, and alternative “all-American” entertainment was lined up, Puerto Rican rapper Bad Bunny took to the stage of the much-hyped halftime show of Sunday’s Super Bowl.
Expectations were high, a fact reflected in the unprecedented number of viewers who tuned in. Bad Bunny’s show surpassed 135.4 million views, exceeding Kendrick Lamar’s 133.5 million in 2025 and Michael Jackson’s 133.4 million in 1993.
Media coverage framed the event primarily as a celebration of diversity, fuelling a backlash from Donald Trump supporters and conservative commentators. The criticism targeted Bad Bunny not only for his outspoken opposition to the Trump administration, but also for claims that he was “not an American artist” – ignoring Puerto Rico’s status as a US territory. Bad Bunny’s performance demonstrated how authenticity can be produced through anti-colonial activism.
While authenticity is often regarded as something real, true or genuine, it is defined by a relational quality that can emerge through a person’s behaviour in three ways: through connections to people or place; conformity to, or disruption of, conventions, and consistency between message and action. We look at how Bad Bunny displayed all three at the Super Bowl.
1. Authenticity as connection
This was evident in the presence of sugar cane on stage, a crop that shaped the colonial economies of the Caribbean. Plantations were owned by colonisers and sustained through the violent exploitation of Indigenous people and transatlantic enslaved Africans. By foregrounding sugar cane, the performance exposed the foundations of colonial wealth and reclaimed a symbol of oppression as historical truth rather than romanticised memory.
The presence of Puerto Rican icon Ricky Martin strengthened this sense of connection when he performed Bad Bunny’s Lo Que Le Pasó A Hawaii. Through its lyrics, the song cautions Puerto Ricans against relinquishing their cultural identity amid pressure to assimilate into the influence of the US. Martin’s performance underscored the message, highlighting cultural preservation as an essential form of anti-colonial resistance
Lady Gaga added a powerful layer of symbolism to the performance. Her light blue dress referenced the original 1895 design of the Puerto Rican flag before its shade was darkened to align with the US flag. She adorned it with a red hibiscus, a national emblem of pride and resistance, alongside white flowers. Together, these elements echoed the colours of the Puerto Rican flag. Gaga embodied respect, participation and solidarity rather than segregation or erasure.
2. Authenticity as conformity
Artists often simultaneously conform to and break rules, and Bad Bunny mastered that tension. As a Puerto Rican artist rising within an industry that frequently pressures performers to abandon their roots, he instead created a hybrid cultural space: a Spanish-language Super Bowl halftime show. He operated within the system while disrupting assumptions and expectations that English must dominate and that mainstream icons should fit a narrow cultural mould.
Bad Bunny further disrupted the dominant narrative that reduces “America” to the US, instead acknowledging the full geography of the Americas. After declaring “God bless America”, he proceeded to list countries from the southernmost to the northern regions of the continent.
By naming countries across the Americas, Bad Bunny also inverted the conventional geopolitical hierarchy. The gesture echoed Uruguayan artist Joaquín Torres-García’s famous painting América Invertida (Inverted America) and his assertion that “the south is our north”, challenging the idea that cultural or political legitimacy must flow from the so‑called north, and rejecting the aspiration to emulate it.
3. Authenticity as consistency
Consistency appeared through callbacks to Bad Bunny’s longstanding activism. The lamppost explosion before performing El Apagón directly referenced the 2022 song’s music video, which functions as a documentary critiquing infrastructure neglect and the privatisation of electricity by North American companies. This moment connected entertainment to colonial reality for Puerto Ricans, reinforcing how Bad Bunny refuses to separate his art from the colonial conditions affecting his homeland.
The brief appearance of El Sapo Concho, the unofficial mascot of his latest album, added another layer of symbolic continuity. Nearly driven to extinction through centuries of ecological disruption tied to colonial extraction of resources, the Puerto Rican crested toad has become a visual shorthand for survival against structural harm. Its presence, even for a moment, served as a reminder that colonialism’s impact is environmental as much as cultural, and invoked themes of survival and resistance against imposed systems.
The same idea emerged when Bad Bunny presented a Grammy to a younger version of himself, reinforcing his phrase: “If I’m here, it’s because I always believed in myself.” In a world where people from colonised nations face discrimination, exclusion, oppression and marginalisation, many came to view the culture of their colonisers as a path to transcend those barriers. Thus, Bad Bunny’s gesture reclaimed self-belief as an act of defiance. By centring identity rather than imitation, Bad Bunny asserted that authenticity, not mimicry, is the most powerful form of anti-colonial refusal.
This is America
At the end of the performance, a flashing billboard read: “The only thing more powerful than hate is love.” Bad Bunny held a football inscribed with the words “Together, We Are America”.
This proposed a pan-American ideal anchored in solidarity rather than domination, emphasising collaboration over hierarchy. Hate thrives on isolation, but this act created a unifying vision. Through symbols of collective resilience, Bad Bunny framed authenticity as anti-colonial activism grounded in love, memory and community.
Overall, these visuals were intentional, aligning with years of public statements, music and community engagement. Each element reinforced a consistent narrative of resistance, showing that authenticity is not just performance but the culmination of sustained anti-colonial activism.
By embedding history, symbolism and personal conviction into every moment, Bad Bunny demonstrated that art can be a deliberate vessel for political and cultural action grounded in love, tolerance and inclusion.
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Flavia Cardoso received funding from the Chilean Government (Fondecyt 2016) and the Luksic Foundation in 2022.
Belinda Zakrzewska and Jannsen Santana do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
More than 1,000 properties flooded in London in 2021, resulting in insurance losses of more than £281 million. Record-breaking floods continue to hit the UK.
In the capital, 13% of properties have been classed as having a high or medium risk of flooding. Danger-to-life warnings could soon become a reality, especially for people living in east London on low-lying land next to the river Thames.
Boroughs like Tower Hamlets, Newham and Hackney are built on former marshland. These areas would have originally absorbed water naturally, but have been used for urban development. More than 85% of London marshland was lost during the 20th century. London has lost the natural buffer that used to help water drain away. As the sea level rises and storm surges get more prevalent, chances of flooding are greater.
Large-scale infrastructure like the Thames Barrier and tidal flood defences protect London from large-scale river flooding, but they cannot prevent surface water flooding from local storms. As these structures age, maintenance costs rise. Relying solely on them is a risky strategy for the future, especially as storm surges become more intense due to climate change.
East London also faces high levels of deprivation. Many people lack the resources to cope with floods and possible water contamination, often due to being constrained by socioeconomic inequities. High child poverty rates in east London boroughs like Tower Hamlets (47%), Newham (45%) and Hackney (45%) mean that flood preparation is often overlooked.
Aside from strengthening infrastructure and physical barriers, there are natural ways to manage flood risk.
Planting suitable wetland species alongside rivers and roof tops helps delay surface water runoff by up to 90%. Plants absorb water and release it over several hours rather than releasing it immediately like impermeable surfaces such as concrete and tarmac. This slows down the flow of water into the drainage system and reduces the risk of overwhelming the sewers and pollution spills.
In the Netherlands, there are hundreds of green roofs on bus stops. Data shows that each square metre green of roof cover absorbs 20 litres of water, reducing how much water enters the drains. More natural solutions like these can also improve air quality, attract pollinators and provide shade (which prevents the sun from heating up buildings or walkways).
Green roofs on bus stops are now a common sight in some UK cities, including Brighton and Cardiff. Introducing them to east London would be a good first step.
One charity-led initiative, East London Waterworks Park, involves rewilding a former depot. By converting land covered by concrete into swimming ponds, with reedbeds for filtration, this project provides more space to hold floodwater and a place for the local community to socialise and engage with nature.
At the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in London, an area that used to be a depository for building rubble has been transformed into a large-scale sustainable urban drainage system. This involves the creation of open spaces interspersed with natural features like reedbeds, wetlands and swales (marshy channels) that slow down runoff.
This helps slow down the flow of water into rivers, especially during intense rainfall. Studies show that improved water management at the park has saved 4,000 homes from flood risk since it opened in 2014.
London’s population is increasing. This constrains its resources and exacerbates the effects of increased urbanisation. Socioeconomic inequities raise the level of vulnerability of London’s population. Flood risk is a national security threat, not just an environmental issue.
Including nature in urban resilience plans helps reduce risk and empower people. But policymakers need evidence of which solutions are more effective before they’ll act.
Don’t have time to read about climate change as much as you’d like?
Source: The Conversation – UK – By George E. Barreto, Associate Professor in Cell Biology and Immunology, Department of Biological Sciences, University of Limerick
As dementia and other neurodegenerative diseases become more common worldwide, researchers are searching urgently for ways to protect the brain as we age. One area attracting growing attention is hormones, particularly the role of hormone therapy during and after menopause.
This interest is partly driven by the fact that women develop Alzheimer’s disease more often than men, especially after midlife, suggesting that hormonal changes around menopause may influence long-term brain health.
Our research has focused on tibolone, a synthetic form of hormone therapy prescribed to relieve menopausal symptoms such as hot flashes and poor sleep. While it is commonly prescribed to ease menopausal symptoms, our findings suggest tibolone may also offer important protection for the brain.
In laboratory studies, tibolone helped brain cells survive under stressful conditions. These included reduced glucose use (glucose is the brain’s main fuel) and the build-up of saturated fats such as palmitic acid, which is often higher in people with obesity. Both reduced glucose use and excess saturated fat are known risk factors for cognitive decline and neurological diseases.
Tibolone appears to protect brain cells in several ways. It activates protective proteins, reduces inflammation and limits damage from free radicals. Free radicals are unstable molecules produced during normal energy production or when the body is exposed to pollution or cigarette smoke. They behave like tiny sparks inside cells, damaging structures unless neutralised.
This gap likely reflects a combination of genetic, hormonal and social factors. Certain genes, including the APOE ε4 variant, a version of a gene linked to how the brain processes fats and clears harmful proteins, are associated with a higher risk of Alzheimer’s. Other genes on the second X chromosome may also contribute. Differences in reproductive history, number of pregnancies and access to education and healthcare also play a role, because these factors influence lifelong brain health, cardiovascular risk and how early cognitive problems are detected and treated.
However, hormonal changes around menopause appear to be especially important. When menstruation ends, levels of estradiol (the main form of oestrogen) fall sharply, while follicle-stimulating hormone rises. Both changes are linked to cognitive decline and Alzheimer’s disease.
Many women experience the everyday effects of these shifts: forgetfulness, difficulty concentrating, slower thinking, low mood, poor sleep and reduced motivation. Estradiol normally helps brain cells use energy efficiently. When levels drop, the brain uses glucose less effectively, producing a metabolic pattern similar to that seen in early Alzheimer’s.
Estradiol also helps regulate fat distribution and cholesterol. When it declines, women often gain visceral fat around the abdomen. This type of fat releases inflammatory chemicals that can damage blood vessels and the brain. The loss of estradiol’s natural anti-inflammatory effects further increases the risk of metabolic syndrome (a cluster of conditions including high blood pressure and insulin resistance), cognitive decline and dementia.
Can hormone therapy help?
These findings have led researchers to ask whether hormone therapy might offset some of this risk.
Hormone therapy usually combines oestrogen and progesterone and is widely prescribed to relieve hot flashes, insomnia and mood changes. It can also improve mood and reduce depression, which indirectly supports cognitive health.
Until the early 2000s, millions of women used hormone therapy and reported benefits. Then, in 2002, the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) trial reported a higher risk of breast cancer and cardiovascular events in women taking combined hormones. Headlines warning that hormone therapy “increases cancer risk” led many women to stop treatment or avoid it altogether.
The WHI memory studies also found that starting hormone therapy at age 65 or older did not protect cognition and was linked to a higher risk of dementia. Later analyses revealed an important nuance: timing matters.
Lower lifetime exposure to oestrogen is linked to faster cognitive decline and greater build-up of Alzheimer’s-related changes in the brain. Women who enter menopause early (before about age 45 to 50) face higher risks of Alzheimer’s and more pronounced memory loss. Surgical menopause, caused by removal of both ovaries, leads to a sudden drop in oestrogen and can trigger noticeable problems with memory and attention, particularly in younger women.
Growing awareness of the link between menopause and brain health is beginning to shape public policy.
In a landmark move, Ireland introduced a programme in June 2025 providing hormone therapy free of charge. Removing cost barriers allows women to start treatment earlier and continue it consistently, conditions that may maximise its benefits.
Elsewhere in Europe, access varies. In England, women who do not qualify for free NHS prescriptions can purchase an annual hormone therapy prepayment certificate for £19.80. Prescriptions are free in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, while France and Spain partially reimburse costs through national insurance.
Given tibolone’s protective profile, reducing financial barriers could improve access and support larger clinical trials to test its effects on brain health.
Hormone therapy is not a guaranteed way to prevent dementia. The strongest protection still comes from a broad approach: managing menopausal symptoms effectively, possibly with hormone therapy, while also controlling blood pressure, cholesterol and diabetes, staying physically active, sleeping well and avoiding smoking.
Women face a higher lifetime risk of Alzheimer’s because of intertwined genetic, hormonal and social factors. Hormone therapy, particularly when started around menopause, may help protect cognitive function as well as relieve symptoms. Alongside a healthy lifestyle, it offers one promising tool for supporting brain health and narrowing the gender gap in dementia risk.
George Barreto receives funding from Research Ireland.
Miguel G. Borda 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.
Source: The Conversation – UK – By Stefan Stern, Visiting Professor of Management Practice, Bayes Business School, City St George’s, University of London
Having survived what looked a lot like a coup attempt, Prime Minister Keir Starmer now needs to decide how to move forward. One of the biggest problems in the immediate term is what to do with his health secretary, Wes Streeting.
Streeting has long been named as a contender to replace Starmer – and has made no secret of his personal ambitions. Like every other cabinet minister, he made a statement in support of Starmer after the Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar publicly called for his resignation. However, Streeting’s has been singled out for its tepid tone.
Now Starmer has a man who openly wants his job in his top team at a moment when he is trying to steady the ship. Might the PM find some inspiration about what to do from the private sector?
There is an old joke in the corporate world which states that when you take over as a new chief executive, your first task is to search the business high and low to find your natural successor – and then destroy them.
That is one (bleak) view of the rat race, or what is sometimes called “tournament theory”, the acknowledgement that within organisations there will always be a battle to get to the top. A more far-sighted approach to succession planning would look different. It would involve making sure that a range of senior people are developing their skills and experience, ready to take on the top job when it becomes vacant, as it inevitably will do some day. Ideally a company’s succession plan should contain a list with more than just one name on it.
In Westminster, however, discussions over the future leadership of the country are rather less dignified and rather more frenzied. Politics and business are different. This is a tournament all right, but the rules are less than clear. And they are subject to sudden change. Leadership in the political world is a far cry from what we call leadership in businesses and organisations.
Starmer, it seems, has survived a perilous moment. Still, as they say in Scotland, his coat is hanging on a shoogly nail.
Starmer looks around his top team, the cabinet, and sees several potential rivals staring back at him. Streeting denies that he is plotting to challenge Starmer, but few in Westminster believe him. A bad result in the byelection in Gorton and Denton this month or a collapse in support for Labour in the May local elections and Scottish parliamentary and Welsh Senedd elections, could prove the trigger for Streeting to act.
How should a leader look on the threat of a close colleague who is also a rival? Few are as generous or imaginative as Abraham Lincoln, who famously brought defeated candidates for the US presidency into his cabinet, as described by the historian Doris Kearns Goodwin in her book “Team of Rivals”.
Tony Blair survived as prime minister for ten years with his closest rival, Gordon Brown, at his side the whole time. Blair used to say, with apparent nonchalance, that it was not an “ignoble ambition” for Brown to want to succeed him. Blair seemed to hope, however, that another candidate might emerge to prevent Brown from getting the top job.
A confident and effective leader need not worry about having capable potential successors in their top team. On the contrary. Leadership is not a solo endeavour. A good leader will want to delegate tasks to talented people and draw on their advice. This is what is sometimes called “distributed leadership”.
Starmer has already revealed his insecurity by making sure that Andy Burnham, the mayor of greater Manchester, could not stand in the Gorton and Denton byelection. And hardened Westminster watchers will tell you that the prime minister could not have afforded to have Burnham back in parliament, preparing his own leadership challenge.
But Starmer could instead have been inspired by the ghost of Abraham Lincoln. Why not welcome Burnham back to Westminster, after winning a byelection that would have slowed his opponents’ momentum (in this case the Greens and Reform)?
And why not salute Streeting for his energy and dash? And Angela Rayner for her talents too while he is about it? Confident leaders want to have the best people around them. For a government that is seen to be struggling it would arguably make sense to put the best players on the pitch, and encourage them to perform. Leadership should not be a selfish ego trip. It is about them, not you.
Starmer has had a “clear the air” chat with Streeting and has, at least, not sacked him, yet. Starmer’s allies concede that the prime minister is not currently in a strong enough position to move against him in any case. Perhaps the cabinet will now pull together and prove they can get along.
Such thoughts will be dismissed as naïve and unrealistic by the inhabitants of London SW1. And, in that context, perhaps they are. But if so it tells you a lot about how far the practice of modern politics has departed from what many would regard as healthy and benign leadership.
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Stefan Stern 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.
